And first, let us get, as quickly as may be, at the exact meaning with
which the advocates of "High Art" use that somewhat obscure and
figurative term.
I do not know that the principles in question are anywhere more
distinctly expressed than in two papers in the _Idler_, written by Sir
Joshua Reynolds, of course under the immediate sanction of Johnson;
and which may thus be considered as the utterance of the views then
held upon the subject by the artists of chief skill, and critics of
most sense, arranged in a form so brief and clear as to admit of their
being brought before the public for a morning's entertainment. I
cannot, therefore, it seems to me, do better than quote these two
letters, or at least the important parts of them, examining the exact
meaning of each passage as it occurs. There are, in all, in the
_Idler_ three letters on painting, Nos. 76, 79, and 82; of these,
the first is directed only against the impertinences of pretended
connoisseurs, and is as notable for its faithfulness as for its wit in
the description of the several modes of criticism in an artificial and
ignorant state of society: it is only, therefore, in the two last
papers that we find the expression of the doctrines which it is our
business to examine.
No. 79 (Saturday, October 20, 1759) begins, after a short preamble,
with the following passage:--
"Amongst the Painters, and the writers on Painting, there is one maxim
universally admitted and continually inculcated.
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