Picture is the
invention
of heaven, the most
ancient and most akin to Nature.
ancient and most akin to Nature.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
A native, if he be
vicious, deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the commonwealth as
an alien.
_Dejectio Aulic_. --A dejected countenance and mean clothes beget often a
contempt, but it is with the shallowest creatures; courtiers commonly:
look up even with them in a new suit, you get above them straight.
Nothing is more short-lived than pride; it is but while their clothes
last: stay but while these are worn out, you cannot wish the thing more
wretched or dejected.
_Poesis_, _et pictura_. --_Plutarch_. Poetry and picture are arts of a
like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellently said
of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mute poesy.
For they both invent, feign and devise many things, and accommodate all
they invent to the use and service of Nature. Yet of the two, the pen is
more noble than the pencil; for that can speak to the understanding, the
other but to the sense. They both behold pleasure and profit as their
common object; but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest they
should err from their end, and, while they seek to better men's minds,
destroy their manners. They both are born artificers, not made. Nature
is more powerful in them than study.
_De pictura_. --Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth and all
the wisdom of poetry.
Picture is the invention of heaven, the most
ancient and most akin to Nature. It is itself a silent work, and always
of one and the same habit; yet it doth so enter and penetrate the inmost
affection (being done by an excellent artificer) as sometimes it
overcomes the power of speech and oratory. There are divers graces in
it, so are there in the artificers. One excels in care, another in
reason, a third in easiness, a fourth in nature and grace. Some have
diligence and comeliness, but they want majesty. They can express a
human form in all the graces, sweetness, and elegancy, but, they miss the
authority. They can hit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannot express
roughness or gravity. Others aspire to truth so much as they are rather
lovers of likeness than beauty. Zeuxis and Parrhasius are said to be
contemporaries; the first found out the reason of lights and shadows in
picture, the other more subtlely examined the line.
_De stylo_. --_Pliny_. --In picture light is required no less than shadow; so
in style, height as well as humbleness. But beware they be not too
humble, as Pliny pronounced of Regulus's writings. You would think them
written, not on a child, but by a child. Many, out of their own obscene
apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words--as occupy, Nature, and the
like; so the curious industry in some, of having all alike good, hath
come nearer a vice than a virtue.
_De progres.
vicious, deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the commonwealth as
an alien.
_Dejectio Aulic_. --A dejected countenance and mean clothes beget often a
contempt, but it is with the shallowest creatures; courtiers commonly:
look up even with them in a new suit, you get above them straight.
Nothing is more short-lived than pride; it is but while their clothes
last: stay but while these are worn out, you cannot wish the thing more
wretched or dejected.
_Poesis_, _et pictura_. --_Plutarch_. Poetry and picture are arts of a
like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellently said
of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mute poesy.
For they both invent, feign and devise many things, and accommodate all
they invent to the use and service of Nature. Yet of the two, the pen is
more noble than the pencil; for that can speak to the understanding, the
other but to the sense. They both behold pleasure and profit as their
common object; but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest they
should err from their end, and, while they seek to better men's minds,
destroy their manners. They both are born artificers, not made. Nature
is more powerful in them than study.
_De pictura_. --Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth and all
the wisdom of poetry.
Picture is the invention of heaven, the most
ancient and most akin to Nature. It is itself a silent work, and always
of one and the same habit; yet it doth so enter and penetrate the inmost
affection (being done by an excellent artificer) as sometimes it
overcomes the power of speech and oratory. There are divers graces in
it, so are there in the artificers. One excels in care, another in
reason, a third in easiness, a fourth in nature and grace. Some have
diligence and comeliness, but they want majesty. They can express a
human form in all the graces, sweetness, and elegancy, but, they miss the
authority. They can hit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannot express
roughness or gravity. Others aspire to truth so much as they are rather
lovers of likeness than beauty. Zeuxis and Parrhasius are said to be
contemporaries; the first found out the reason of lights and shadows in
picture, the other more subtlely examined the line.
_De stylo_. --_Pliny_. --In picture light is required no less than shadow; so
in style, height as well as humbleness. But beware they be not too
humble, as Pliny pronounced of Regulus's writings. You would think them
written, not on a child, but by a child. Many, out of their own obscene
apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words--as occupy, Nature, and the
like; so the curious industry in some, of having all alike good, hath
come nearer a vice than a virtue.
_De progres.
