Anecdotes of Painting in England: With Some Account of the Principal Artists; and Incidental Notes on Other Arts; Collected by the Late Mr. George Vertue, Volume 4

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Printed at the Shakspeare Press, by W. Nicol, for John Major, 1827

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Page 152 - Hogarth !*' Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art. Were but you and I acquainted, Every Monster should be painted : You should try your graving tools On this odious group of Fools; Draw the beasts as I describe them...
Page 246 - Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene; and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view.
Page 126 - His place is between the Italians, whom we may consider as epic poets and tragedians, and the Flemish painters, who are as writers of farce and editors of burlesque nature. They are the Tom Browns of the mob. Hogarth resembles Butler, but his subjects are more universal, and amidst all his pleasantry he observes the true end of comedy, reformation ; there is always a moral to his pictures. Sometimes he rose to tragedy, not in the catastrophe of kings and heroes...
Page 246 - With mazy error under pendent shades Ran Nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art In beds and curious knots, but nature boon Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain, Both where the morning sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierced shade Imbrown'd the noontide bowers. Thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view...
Page 258 - No 173, he banished verdant sculpture, and did not even revert to the square precision of the foregoing age. He enlarged his plans, disdained to make every division tally to its opposite, and though he still adhered much to strait walks with high clipped hedges, they were only his great lines; the rest he diversified by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, though still within surrounding hedges.
Page 65 - ... produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of the present age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's treatise.
Page 244 - ... judged that the mistaken and fantastic ornaments he had seen in gardens, were unworthy of the almighty hand that planted the delights of paradise.
Page 229 - The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious.
Page 267 - Though an avenue crossing a park or separating a lawn, and intercepting views from the seat to which it leads, are capital faults, yet a great avenue cut through woods, perhaps before entering a park, has a noble air, and Like footmen running before coaches To tell the inn what Lord approaches, announces the habitation of some man of distinction.
Page 253 - Planting, and say a Boy, that can tell an Hundred, may plant Walks of Trees in straight Lines, and overagainst one another, and to what Length and Extent he pleases. But their greatest Reach of Imagination is employed in contriving Figures, where the Beauty shall be great, and strike the Eye, but without any Order or Disposition of Parts, that shall be commonly or easily observ'd.

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