Bardwell 1756
Thomas Bardwell, The Practice of Painting and Perspective Made Easy: In which is contained The Art of Painting in Oil, with the Method of Colouring, London [Thomas Bardwell – Andrew Millar – Robert and James Dodsley] 1756.
Thomas Bardwell (1704–1767) was an English portraitist and copyist. He is the author of a successful painter’s manual published in 1756. At the end of the second part of this book, which deals with perspective, he argues against Joseph Highmore’s treatise on Rubens’s paintings on the ceiling of the Banqueting House in London.
THE
PRINCIPLES of PERSPECTIVE
. . .
pp. 62–64
The Volutes in the Capitals of Columns, and the Twist in Stair-cases, are Objects of this Nature, and very probably were taken from this Antique. It has also a great Resemblance to Mr. Hogarth’s precise Serpentine Line; and therefore, without doubt, has some Grace, though the Twist is a little quicker. It is an Object of well-varied Contents, whose Proportions gradually lessen to its Extremities; and its Dimensions are governed by Fitness, Variety, Uniformity, Simplicity, Intricacy, and Quantity. What a Pity it is, this venerable Object of Antiquity should not be represented by the strictest Rules of Perspective! I confess this would afford Matter of Triumph to any learned Critic, that is happy enough to succeed in the Attempt.
In pursuance of our present Inquiry, suppose, according to a certain chimerical new System, the Object under our Consideration be imagined to have all its inward Contents nicely scooped out, and the Eye at once to view the Whole from within, and mark the opposite corresponding Parts, and take Care to acquire a perfect Idea of the Distances and Bearings of their several material Points and Lines in the Surfaces: Or, for the more easy Description of the Projection, suppose we were to gauge the Contents with Wires, in order to assist and guide us to a readier Conception of all the intervening Parts; I leave it to the Critics to judge of what Use these Expedients are, towards raising in the Imagination a true and perfect Idea of the Antique in Question.
The Pamphlet intituled A critical Examination of the Paintings on the Ceiling of the Banqueting-house at White-hall, shews that that celebrated Ceiling has nine separate Points of sight: And that no Painting can appear perfectly true, unless seen from the Point intended by the Painter: And though a Picture may be perfectly true from one certain Point of View, it cannot from any other. Therefore the Author has taken great Care, to shew the Necessity of regarding a Picture, as intended by the Painter.
The Picture he says, being always considered as a transparent Surface or Medium, through which the Visual Rays are supposed to pass; if the Spectator changes his Situation, those Rays (in Nature) will intersect that Surface in different Points; and therefore (in the Picture) being determined to such certain Points, the Station of the Spectator becomes necessarily fixed and unalterable, and the Picture must appear false seen otherwise.
Suppose we fee, through a Window or transparent Plane, a real Cube, placed directly opposite, tho’ somewhat below, the Eye. In this Situation we shall fee only two Faces, one in Front, and the other at Top; and if we move to the Right or Left, we must see one of the other Faces. This is his Proposition; which is certainly true.
In order to understand the Principles of Perspective, we are obliged to consider the Picture as a transparent Plane, thro’ which the visual Rays pass to the Spectator’s Eye. But when the Design is really a Picture, whose Representation is fixed upon some opaque Body, as a Board, Wall, or painted Cloth, that cannot be transparent, but a flat smooth Surface; and the Object represented is a Cube that shews only two Faces, one in Front, and the other at Top; tho’ we move to the Right or Left from the Point of Sight, we shall never fee more by changing the Place; neither is it reasonable to believe we should : For if we find the same Appearance, tho’ moved from the Point intended by the Painter, the Case is not altered; which shews there is no Necessity of having the Eye of the Spectator exactly in that identical Point .
If the Spectator’s Eye must coincide with the Point of Sight, the Distance should be considered accordingly; and it will then be a very difficult Matter to come at the proper Point of View to fee the Picture; and the more so, as its Horizon, when hung up, is seldom so low as the Eye.
I own the Sight of the Pamphlet excited my Curiosity to examine the Ceiling; and I find the Centre of the Whole to be the only Point of Sight requisite in all that noble Design. For, from the Middle of the Room, I saw the Intention of that great Painter, and was convinced of it from the Order of the Whole, and by the natural Position of the Figures, which appeared all finely foreshortened, and looked like such living Objects viewed from the middle of the Room below, which was, in my Opinion, the principal Point of View that Rubens intended for the whole Ceiling.
I am also of Opinion, that all Ceilings, except those of Galleries or long Rooms, should have but one Point of Sight; and, that there are some Subjects, which I believe require no Point of Sight, as living Objects represented in the Clouds, which have no Architecture, nor any terrestrial Appearance; which is the Case with most of the Work in this Ceiling. And if there is no Point of Sight required in the Work of the Picture, then I think there is none in regard to its being truly seen; because the Eye cannot coincide with the Point that never was made or intended.
It was not material to take Notice of the most dry and lifeless Part of the Performance; I expected Mr. Highmore would have given us some ingenious Remarks on the Foreshortenings of the Figures, and of the Excellence of the Colouring, which I presume would have been more agreeable to his Readers, than telling them, that Rubens was a little deficient in an Art which was never understood, as he might have said, till this Century. But it is reasonable to believe, if his Leisure had permitted him to examine the Whole, he would have found much to commend, and very little to censure.
As it may be expected, that I should say something of the Perspective of Shadows, I shall only observe, that the Geometrical or Perspective Knowledge of Shadows is of very little Consequence to a Painter; it is easily understood, when we have learned that of the Objects. But in my Opinion Painters may spare themselves the Trouble of learning the lineal Perspective of Shadows, because their Business is to shun every thing of that Nature in a Picture. All the Limits and Shapes of Shadows should vanish; every Part that is hard and edgy cuts and offends the Eye.
Having now given my Readers the best Insight in my Power to the Practice of Painting and Perspective, I hope they will excuse the Size of this Treatise, which it has been my Study, from its first Projection, to confine to as narrow Limits as possible, being from Experience convinced, that an Art (if properly) cannot be too concisely described: Therefore I am sorry I could not, from the Nature of the Subjects, reduce it to a shorter or lesser Work.
FINIS.