Note 35 — SHAKSPERE GALLERY
Reading edition
In his Academy discourses. Bohn ed., vol. I, page 460 ff. Reynolds points out that those who praise the "invention" of Timanthes in the Agamemnon picture hav not been painters but literary men. They use it as an illustration of their own art. He says, "I fear that we have but very scanty means of exciting those powers over the imagination which make so very considerable and refined a part of poetry. (Cf. Boydell's preface.) It is a doubt with me if we should even make the attempt. The chief, if not the only occasion which the painter has for this artifice, is when the subject is improper to be more fully represented, either for the sake of decency, or to avoid what would be disagreeable to be seen; and this is not to raise or increase the passions, which is the reason given for this practice, but on the contrary to diminish their effect.... We cannot ... recommend an undeterminate manner or vague ideas of any kind, in a complete or finished picture. This notion, therefore, of leaving anything to the imagination opposes a very fixed and indispensible rule in our art,—that everything shall be carefully and distinctly expresst, as if the painter knew, with correctness and precision, the exact form and character of whatever is introduced into the picture. This ... must not be sacrificed ... for uncertain and doubtful beauty which, not naturally belonging to our art, will probably be sought for without success." After praising the artifis of Timanthes, Reynolds goes on to say, "Suppose this method of leaving the expression of grief to the imagination, to be ... the invention of the painter and that it deserves all the praise that has been given to it, it is still a trick that will serve only once; whoever does it a second time, will not only want novelty, but will be justly suspected of using artifice to evade difficulties. If difficulties overcome make a great part of the merit of Art, difficulties evaded can deserve but little commendation." Among the names of those who discuss the "trick" Lessing's is, of course, wanting. Gilray's satirical plate on Boydell should be compared for this and other points. Copy in N. Y. Public Library.