Items related to The Analysis of Beauty
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI OF PROPORTION If anyone should ask, what it is that constitutes a fine proportioned human figure? how ready and seemingly decisive is the common answer: a just symmetry and harmony of parts with respect to the whole. But as probably this vague answer took its rise from doctrines not belonging to form, or idle schemes built on them, I apprehend it will cease to be thought much to the purpose after a proper inquiry has been made. Preparatory to which, it becomes necessary, in this place, to mention one reason more which may be added to those given in the introductory chapter, for my having persuaded the reader to consider objects scooped out like thin shells; which is, that partly by this conception, he may be the better able to separate and keep asunder the two following general ideas, as we will call them, belonging to form; which are apt to coincide and mix with each other in the mind, and which, for the sake of making each more fully and particularly clear, should be kept apart, and considered singly. First, the general ideas of what has already been discussed in the foregoing chapters, which only comprehends the surface of form, viewing it in no other light than merely as being ornamental or not. Secondly, that general idea, now to be discussed, which we commonly have of form altogether, as arising chiefly from a fitness to some designed purpose or use. Hitherto our main drift has been to establish and illustrate the first idea only, by showing, first the nature of variety, and then its effects on the mind; with the manner how such impressions are made by means of the different feelings given to the eye, from its movements in tracing and coursing over surfaces of all kinds, as described in Chapter V, on Intricacy. The...
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From the Back Cover:
About the Author:
English artist William Hogarth (1697-1764) is most famous for his satirical caricatures and moral paintings, the forerunners of cartoons. In this instructive volume, the august painter and engraver discusses and illustrates the use of serpentine lines in the expression of grace and beauty. Hogarth defines six qualities--fitness, variety, regularity, simplicity, intricacy, and quantity--and dramatizes their effective combination in images that employ S-shaped lines.
Originally published in 1753 with the subtitle, -Written with a View of Fixing the Fluctuating Ideas of Taste, - Hogarth's book addresses the general public, not just artists and connoisseurs. More than 30 striking black-and-white plates trace visual and formal applications of the serpentine line of beauty, portraying subjects as diverse as everyday objects, examples from nature, and classical sculpture and other works by the great masters. A revolutionary approach to art theory by an experienced painter, this historic book offers fascinating insights into ideals of beauty and aesthetics.
Dover (2015) republication of the edition published by Reilly & Lee Co., Chicago, 1908.
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Ronald Paulson is Mayer Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of many books, including a biography of Hogarth, a catalogue of his engravings, and studies of Hogarth in the contexts of eighteenth-century painting, literature, and the British tradition of aesthetics.
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- PublisherTheClassics.us
- Publication date2013
- ISBN 10 1230385576
- ISBN 13 9781230385570
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages38
- Rating
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