Note 65 — Chapter IV

The last paragraph in his preface, p. 10, begins as follows:—

"That perspective is an essential requisite to a good painter, is attested by all our most eminent artists, and confirmed by almost every author who has wrote upon painting. Nay, the very term 'painting' implies perspective; for to draw a good picture is to draw the representation of nature as it appears to the eye; and to draw the perspective representation of any object, is to draw the representation of that object as it appears to the eye. Therefore the terms 'painting' and 'perspective' seem to be synonymous, though I know there is a critical difference between the words. I would not be understood to mean that a person is always to follow the rigid rules of perspective, for there are some cases in which it may be necessary to deviate from them; but then he must do it with modesty, and for some good reason, as we have shown in the course of this work. Nor would I be thought to desire the artist to make use of scale or compasses upon all occasions, and to draw out every line and point to a mathematical exactness, as the design of this work is quite the reverse: it is to teach the general rules of perspective, and to enforce the practice of it by easy and almost self-evident principles; to assist the judgment and to direct the hand, and not to perplex either by unnecessary lines or dry theorems."

The publication of this drew forth Mr. Highmore, who, in the preface of a pamphlet with the following title, now become very scarce, gave his decided opposition to the system:—

"A Critical Examination of those two Paintings on the ceiling of Whitehall, in which Architecture is introduced, so far as relates to the Perspective, together with the discussion of a question which has been the subject of debate among painters. Written many years since, but now first published, by J. Highmore. Printed for Nourse, 1754."

The question Mr. Highmore professes to discuss is by himself stated as follows, viz.:—

"Whether a range of columns, standing on a line parallel to the picture, ought to be painted according to the strict rules of perspective; that is, whether those columns, in proportion as they recede from the centre of the picture, should be drawn broader than that directly opposite to the eye, as the rules require; or whether (because they really in nature appear less, in proportion as they are more distant) they ought not to be made less, or at most, equal to each other in the picture?...

"Mr. Kirby says, p. 70 of his first part: 'Since the fallacies of vision are so many and great, etc., it seems reasonable not to comply with the strict rules of mathematical perspective, in some particular cases (as in this before us), but to draw the representations of objects as they appear to the eye,' etc. But I would ask, How? By guess, or by some rule? And if by any, by what rule are they to be drawn contrary to, or different from, the strict mathematical perspective rules?"

In reply to these and many other strictures contained in the preface, Hogarth wrote some remarks to Mr. Kirby, in which he asks, "Whether an oval or egg can be the true representation of a sphere or ball? or whether buildings should be drawn by any such rule as would make them appear tumbling down, and be allowed to be truly represented, because the designer of them is able to show how a spectator may, in half an hour's time, be placed at such a point as would make them all appear upright? as by a like trick or contrivance the oval may be foreshortened so as to appear a circle."

He further asks, "Would a carpenter allow fourteen inches to be the true representation of a foot-rule, since in no situation whatever can the eye possibly see it so?"

Again: "Did ever any history-painter widen or distort his figures as they are removed from the centre of his picture? Or would he draw a file of musqueteers in that manner, when the last man in the rank would be broader than high? Why would he then serve a poor column or pedestal thus, when, poor dumb things, they cannot help themselves? And are all objects exempt from the rules of perspective except buildings? Did Highmore ever so much as dream of an intervening plane when he had been drawing a family piece with four or five people in a row, so as to distort the bodies and forms of those who had the misfortune to be placed nearest to the side of the frame? And what satisfaction would it be to his customers to tell them they were only disposed by the true rules of perspective, and might be seen in their proper shape again if they would give themselves the trouble of looking through a pin hole at a certain distance, which, by learning perspective, they might be able to find in half an hour's time; or, to save themselves that trouble, they might get a painter to lug them about till their eye was brought to the proper point. He then observes, that he would not have the intervening plane wholly rejected, but that it should be laid aside when it begins to do mischief, or is of no use; for it is no doubt as necessary to painters of architecture as scaffolding is to builders; but, like the latter, is always to be taken away when the work comes to be finished; and every defect that either may have occasioned must be corrected by the eye, which is capable to judge of the most complicated objects, perspectively true, where the dry mathematics of the art are left far behind as incapable of lending the least assistance.

"These things our mathematicians are strangers to,—therefore, in my opinion, have rated them too high. Dr. Swift thought mere Philos a ridiculous sort of people, as appears by a song of his on two very remarkable ones—Whiston and Ditton. I forget it particularly, but it was about the longitude being mist on by Whiston, and not better hit on by Ditton: sing Whiston, etc. etc. Ditton has wrote a good book on speculative perspective."

Hogarth then alludes to Highmore's critique on Rubens' ceiling at Whitehall, and asks, "What is it but what almost every child knows, even without the knowledge of perspective? viz. that parallel lines always meet in a point, and that he has with penetration discovered. Oh, wonderful discovery! that Rubens, unskilfully, has kept them parallel in his column, to embellish which he has tacked two fibs: one, that the error was owing to the drawing them as they would appear to the eye; the other, that the historical figures are truly in perspective; whereas King James, the principal, has a head widened or distorted, though it goes off from the eye almost as much as he would have the side columns, which are the subjects of controversy."