Lectures on Painting, Delivered at the Royal Academy of Arts: With a Letter on the Proposal for a Public Memorial of the Naval Glory of Great Britain

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Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1809 - 269 pages
 

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Page 58 - Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days : But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise...
Page 68 - Historian, have no dominion over the Poet or the Painter. With us, History is made to bend and conform to this great idea of Art. And why? Because these Arts, in their highest province, are not addressed to the gross senses ; but to the desires of the mind, to that spark of divinity which we have within, impatient of being circumscribed and pent up by the world which is about us.
Page 57 - ... with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude.
Page 163 - Lorrain finished more minutely, as becomes a Professor in any particular branch, yet there is such an airiness and facility in the landscapes of Rubens, that a painter would as soon wish to be the author of them, as those of Claude, or any other artist whatever.
Page 63 - Prideaux, even to the dogs and cats of the family. He remained so long absent from home, that some' uneasiness began to arise on his account, but it was dissipated by his returning dressed in a handsome coat, with very long skirts, laced ruffles, and silk stockings. On seeing his mother he ran to her, and taking out of his pocket twenty guineas which he had earned by his pencil, he desired her to keep them : adding, that in future he should maintain himself.
Page 158 - Gallery ; and if to these we add the many towns, churches, and private cabinets where a single picture of Rubens confers eminence, we cannot hesitate to place him in the first rank of illustrious painters.
Page 98 - The verse and sculpture bore an equal part, And Art reflected images to Art. Oh when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
Page 42 - ... great labour ; and yet he, of all men that ever lived, might make the greatest pretensions to the efficacy of native genius and inspiration.
Page 76 - are the people of this country to the sight of portraiture only, that they can scarcely as yet consider painting in any other light ; they will hardly admire a landscape that is not a view of a particular place, nor a history unless composed of likenesses of the persons represented, and are apt to be staggered, confounded, and wholly unprepared to follow such vigorous flights of imagination as would • — a$ mil be felt and applauded with enthusiasm in a more advanced and liberal stage of criticism.
Page 69 - From hence Phidias, Lysippus, and other noble Sculptors, are still held in veneration ; and Apelles, Zeuxis, Protogenes, and other admirable Painters, though their works are perished, are and will be eternally admired ; who all of them drew after the ideas of perfection ; which are the miracles of Nature, the providence of the understanding, the exemplars of the Mind, the light of...

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