art. reynolds and the political theory of painting

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Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Political Theory of PaintingAuthor(s): John BarrellSource: Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1986), pp. 36-41Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1360415.

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Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Political Theoryof Painting.

JOHN BARRELLI firstread Reynolds s Discoursesroperly Imean,withmy sleevesrolledup and a pen inmyhand abouttenyears go. I was thenvery wareof approaching hemfrom he outside,orevery-thing hat d read about them ncouragedme tobelieve hat heywere o be understood s a contri-bution to a closed discourse, the theory ofpainting,n which had no expertise; o thattounderstand hemproperly hemainequipmentwouldneedwouldbe a familiarityith hehistoryand the terms fthatdiscourse.The task onfron-ting the reader of Reynolds s addresses to theAcademy, t seemed,was to learn to gauge thedegreeoftheir riginalityythedegreeto whichthey departed from the theories of previouswritersn painting. stilldon t havemuchquarrelwith hatbelief;butwhat was suspiciousofthen,and now feelwillingto argue against,was thatthosedepartures ouldbe accountedfor s if heyweredetermined y,and ofprimary ignificanceto, the theory f painting onsidered s a closeddiscourse.The questionsthathad led me to readand annotate Reynolds s addresses to theAcademyweren tprimarily uestionsthatcouldbe set in theframeprovidedbythe studyofthetheoryof paintingalone. They were questionsabout,toputit oosely, herelations etween hehistory fthinkingbout culture nd thehistoryof thinking bout social and political organis-ation. was concernedwith hefunctionscribedto thearts nwhatwas comingto be seen as thedistinctivelyommercial ociety fmid- nd late-eighteenth-centuryritain;a societywhichwasthen requentlyeingdescribed s one which ookits social structures rom the structure f themarket, nd a society,therefore,ne of whosemain organisingprincipleswas the divisionoflabour. I was interestedn whether t had beenimagined hatpainting oulddo anythingo arrestthe process, remarkedupon by numerouscom-mentators,of the privatisationof society, aprocessbywhichthedivisionof abour,and theincreasingmphasisonprivate irtues ndprivateinterests, ere hought obe co-operatingomakethe dea ofthepublic, nd thegrounds fpoliticalaffiliation,vermore nvisible. was concerned,nparticular,o seewhetherhetheoryfpaintingnthe second half of the eighteenth enturyhadanything o say about the social and politicalfunctions f paintingfora middle class whoseeconomicpowerhad grown ut of all proportionto its directlypolitical power; and to discover

wherethe theory fpainting toodin relation owhat had cometo believewasa crucial eorderingin the relativeauthority f discourses, as theauthorityf the discourseofcivic humanismwaschallenged, in the 1 50s and after, by thediscourse fpolitical conomy, nd by thereacti-vation, ywritersuch as Blackstone,JohnsonndBurke, f thediscourseofthe customary,n usti-ficationnd subsequentlyndefence fthe ncientregime.Reynolds saddresses to theAcademyseemedtome tosaya gooddeal aboutall these ssues;andthoughwhat theysaid could not be discussedexceptnrelation ohowthey eparted romarlieressays in the theory fpainting, hat relation nitself ouldnot lluminate he nswershiswritingswere givingto the issues which concerned me;indeed,it could help to do so, only fwe couldunderstandhow earlier theoriesofpaintinghadimplied or represented political function orpainting, nd so how Reynolds saddresses haddepartedfrom hewritings f his predecessors,notsimply n questionsof howpaintings houldbe made and howthey hould be understood, utalso on questionsabouthowpolitical ocietywasconstituted nd organisedand how it could bemaintained.n thispaper want o offer hebarestand most informal ketchof some of the depar-tures the Discourses ake from the theories, nparticular, f some ofReynolds sBritishprede-cessors, nd toattempt o showthat hesedepar-turesare implicatednot ust in questionsaboutwhatpaintings hould be like,butwhat,withinpolitical ociety, hey houlddo. ll be concernedlargelywith he arguments f theearly ddressesto the Academy;for n the seventh nd eighthaddresses,and fitfullyhereafter,t seemstomethatReynolds s deas on thepoliticalfunctionfpainting change considerably,and that fromconceiving fthatfunction ithin heterms fthediscourse of civic humanism,he begins, as anumber fhisfriends ere lso beginning,oshifthis allegiance towards discoursewhichplacesgreatermphasis n thevalue of ustomaryeliefs- as, to speakgenerally, e becameaware,as hislast writings make unequivocally clear,that thediscourseof civic humanismwas beingappropriatedby spokesmenfora more radicalaccountofpolitical ociety hanhewaswilling oendorse. t is this hift, hich willnotbe able todiscuss here, that seems to me to do most toaccount for the notorious inconsistencyof

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Reynolds s addresses to the Academy.I ll beginwith brief istorical reamble. n theearlydecades oftheeighteenth enturynBritain,the most influentialattempts to provide thepractice of painting with a theorywere thosewhich doptedthe terms fvalue of the discoursewe nowdescribe s civichumanism. he republicof the fine arts was understood o be structuredlike a political republic. The most dignifiedfunction o whichpaintingcould aspirewas thepromotion of the public virtues, the virtuesrequiredby the members fa governing lass: inparticular,independence of udgement, notiontied to economic independence, integrity noffice , nd, most important,a passion forthecommonweal , virtue lose to, but not denticalwith, imple patriotism.2 he genresofpaintingwere ranked according to their tendency topromote hepublicvirtues; nd as only he iberal,the free citizens of a political republic couldexhibitthosevirtues, he highestgenre, historypainting,was addressedtothem.And taddressedthem rhetorically,s an orator addresses anaudience of citizens who are his equals, andattempts o persuadethemto act in the nterestsof the public. I d better xplain now that ll beusing masculine pronounsthroughouthispaper- a centurywhich conceivedofmembership fthepublic nterms fcitizenshipithin herepublicsof tasteand letters ould not considerwomen asmembers f thepublic: an essentialqualificationfor itizenship, ccordingto Plato and Aristotle,and so according to the tradition f republicanthoughtn general,was a degreeofrationalityowhichwomen, t was almostuniversally elieved,could notaspire.This theory, enunciated by Shaftesbury,Turnbull, and, less wholeheartedly ut no lessinfluentially,yJonathan ichardson3, as not somuch directly hallenged as attenuated n themiddle decades of the century, y writers esspersuadedthanShaftesburyf the mportance fthedistinction etweenpublicand private irtue.This attenuation ould be understood,within hetermsof thediscourseofcivichumanism,n itspurest,severestform,only as evidence of thecorruptionof the state and the dissolutionofpublic spirit, or twas related othebelief hat na complex,modern, ommercial ociety, societydividedbythe divisionof abour and unitedonlyin the pursuit f wealth, he opportunitiesor heexerciseof thepublic virtueswere much dimin-ished, compared to what they had been in, forexample, herepublics fGreece;and the mport-ance of theprivate irtues, nd even ofwhat civichumanistwriters houghof as privatevices, wasmuch increased. The development of thisemphasison private irtuewas a complexprocess;it can be understood, ut onlypartly,n relation othe disproportion f personal to politicalfreedomamong those in the middle station of life, and

again, but only partly, n relation to the notionthat in a societywhere economic activitywasbeingwithdrawnrom he phere fthemoral, hetask of virtue was to offer omfort,n privatecharitable ransactions, o thosedamaged in theaccidents ausedbythe mpersonal unctioningfthe market.But in fact,mid-century riters npainting such as AlexanderGerard nd DanielWebb preserve he anguageofthediscourseofcivichumanism lmost intact: we find the samerepudiations of luxury,of selfishness, f thosewhofailto approachpainting s a liberal rt.Butthe function fpaintinghas becomecrucially if-ferent:t has becomea social,rather hana polit-ical function; t is now required to promotenotpublic, but social virtues,whetherprivateorpublic.With the foundation,however,of the RoyalAcademy, it became necessary to insist morefirmly n the claim thatpaintinghad a definitepublic function; orthe Academywas a publicinstitution, t least insofar s its patronwas theking; nd thoughGeorge II could occasionally, tseems,extendhispatronage o individual rtists,not s a King, ut s a privateGentleman ,twas wellunderstood that his task, as patron of theAcademy,was topromote he arts nhis capacityas thehead of a great .. nation .The Academywas thus an ornament to the greatness ofBritain; ts institution as in the highestdegreeinteresting, ot only to Artists, ut to the wholeNation . The President of the Academy waschosenfor hisknown ublicspirit ; theBODY ofARTISTS was a public body, tsmemberswerepublic men . As such, theyhad a dutyto theircountry:o prove theirpatriotism , nd to ustifytheAcademy s highlyworthy f heprotection fa patriot-king,f dignified obility, nd of wisepeople .4If theAcademywas to be represented,nd itsexistenceustified, s a publicbody, hat ould bedone only by reiteratinghe claim thatpaintingwas an art whose functionwas to promote thepublic nterest,nd that laimcould be madeonlybyreasserting,nthe anguageofcivichumanism,thatpainting ould create or confirmhe publicspirit n a nation.But thevery actorswhichhadled to the attenuation f thatclaim in the mid-centurymade it impossiblesimply o reaffirmtnow,without ualification rwithout ny attemptto take account of how modern Britaindifferedfrom ericleanAthensorrenaissanceFlorenceorfrom he deal polity maginedbyShaftesbury.twas therefore ecessary o consider how publicspiritmightmanifesttself therwise hanby ctsofpublicvirtue; nd toask how, na nationwhere,as numerous writers,Reynolds among them,observed, hedivisionof abour had so occludedthe perspectives of its members that none oralmostnone of themcould grasp the idea ofthepublic ,the rtofpainting ouldbe used torestore

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that dea to them. t s in the ight f theseconsid-erations hat now wantto consider omeofthepositions akenbyReynoldsn his early ddresses.Crucialto my rguments the claim that,whileremainingoa largeextentwithin he orbit fthecivichumanist ccountofthe functionfpaintingofferedy Shaftesbury,eynolds bandonssomeof hemost mportantomponents f he ccount.He no longerwrites s ifpainting an or shouldattempt o persuadeus to act, or towishto act,virtuously he questions the notions repre-sentedbyboththoseverbs,persuade and act . Ifpainting,for Reynolds, seeks to persuade orconvinceus of anything,t seeks to convinceus,not as rhetoric oes, ofthemoral mperative operform certainkindof action,but, as philo-sophydoes, ofthetruth fa generalproposition.In short, nstead of a rhetoricalesthetic,whichsituates hefunctionfpaintingwithin civicvitaactiva,he offers s a philosophicalesthetic,whichsituates twithin vita ontemplativa,ut still civiclife.Painting s primarilyoncerned o enable usto thinkn a certainway;thismay ndeed,as heputs t, conclude nvirtue , utpainting anteachus to act virtuously nly in an indirectway;directly,t teaches us a way of conceivingf ourrelations oother eople. It is this hift oa philo-sophicalfrom rhetoricalesthetic though oaphilosophicalaestheticwhich explicitly epudi-ates itsneo-platonic rogenitors that s at thecentre fthemaindoctrines nd positionstakenup by the earlyaddresses: forexample on thedoctrine f central orm ; n therepresentationfcharacter; ntherelation fformndfable;onthequestionofwhether ainting hould attempt odeceivetheeye;on thehierarchyfgenres; n theproblemof ambiguity; nd on what constitutesoriginalityn painting.Whether hesepositionsdo ordonotcoincidewith ositions akenby omeor otherofhis predecessors,whatdistinguishesthemnReynolds swritingss thegeneral ontextinwhich hey ccur, context iven yhis concernfor hefunction fpainting n a societyn which,as heputs t n his eleventh ddresswherehesumsup theaims ofthecivichumanist heory e hasalreadybegunto abandon,commerce nd luxury,trade and its consequential riches , are beingpursuednotas a meansto an end,butas ends inthemselves.Letmeoffern account,within hiscontext, fthe shift rom rhetorical o a philosophical es-thetic.One of the doctrinesconstitutive f thediscoursewe describeas civic humanism s thedisintegratingffectorpolitical ociety fsingu-larity r individuality f character,whenthis isdisplayednot simplyn theprivate paces of ife,but in the public, the political sphere -thishorror f singularity, have timeto say only npassing, s at thecentre fReynolds sdefinitionforiginalityn thegreatstyle,whichhe conceivesnot n terms f the differencesetween ne artist

and another, ut s a matter fhowclose a painterapproachesto theoriginalsf his art,the forms fobjectsas representedn general nature.Withinthediscourse fcivichumanism, ingularitys theresult f failure n thepartof hecitizen o makehis character onformwith,be uniform ith, hetruenature fman,which s to be a politicalbeing,to be a citizen, apable ofpublicvirtue, f subor-dinating isprivate nterestso the nterestsf hepublicofwhichhe s a member. ingularitys thusthe resultofallowingour individual nterests oocclude our perception fthe public nterest:webecomedifferentrom ach other, s we pursuedifferentoals, theshort-termoals proposedtous byour private, conomic nterests,nd as weconsiderourselvesas in competitionwitheachother o achievethosegoals.It is fromsingularity, hus conceived, thatpainting,and particularly he doctrineof thecentralform, an rescue us; and it can do so byproposing, n the first lace, that differencesfindividual ppearancecan be used as a metaphorfor ifferencesf ndividual nterest.We are all ofus recognisable o eachother,Reynolds rgues,byindividualdistinguishingmarks. n the ordinaryintercourse f vulgar ife ,everydayife, t is ofcourse thoroughly onvenientthat we are thusdistinguishable,nd forthat reasonwe come toprivilegedifferencever likeness n our percep-tions ofotherpeople. The inconvenience fthis,however,s that tweakensourperception fwhatit s thatwehave ncommon, uruniversal umannature; utthat enseof universal umannaturecanbe restored o us bypaintingswhich xhibit ous thecentralforms, fthings, nd especiallyofother eople.The central orm,s I m surethere sno needtoremark,s thegeneral dea of n object,producedbyreferringtto theclass ofwhich t s amember; processwhich nvolvesthe elisionofmarks fdifferencen order oconcentraten thegeneral characteristicswhich define it as amember fthat class.As far s things, otpeople,are concerned, herepresentationfthe centralform s the repres-entationof a thingas dematerialised, hornofwhatever onstitutest as a particular bject; t sthis dematerialisationwhich distinguishesthegreatfrom he ornamental tyle, he luxuriousstyle,forthe latterrepresents hings s objectsavailable for possession and consumption,asobjectswhichaddress themselves o our privateinterestsnd appetites; nd anystylewhich eekstodeceiveus,to makeus believe nthematerialityofwhatit represents,will have the same effect.The greatstyle,however,n representingbjectsas de-materialised, s ideas, does not simplyrescueus from ingularitynd private nterest;tmakes us awareof what s common o all ofus inour perception f things.For if we all recognisethecentral orm, he general haracter, f n idealobject,then althoughwe are dividedfrom ach

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otherby thepressureof divisive material nter-ests ,wecan be made awareofhowwe areuniformwith achother t the evel ofournon-sensual, urintellectualnatures.More importantly,owever,he central orm fthehumanbodyeffaces he distinctions etweenone person and another, nd represents hem nterms fthegeneric lass, mankind, o which heybelong. tmakes us aware,once again,ofwhatweeach have ncommonwith thermembers f thatclass; when we examine the central form f thehuman body as exhibited n a painting,we aremade aware of the generalnaturewhichunitesusat the evel of the deal, ofthe ntellect; n recog-nising the central formwe recognise our ownparticipation n the class of mankind, nd theparticipation fotherswithin t; we are offerednidea of ourselves, you and me, as sharing acommonhumanitynd therefores having nter-ests in common;we are made aware, n short, fthe ground of political association. Paintingteaches us this by means of the philosophicalaesthetic bywhich the great style addresses us,which bligesus torecognise hecentral orm hatdefines our humanity y performing complexprocessofabstraction. he result f thatprocess,whenwe do performt, s toobligeus torecognisethat our minds must all share the same con-struction,nd to recognisethe similarity f ournaturesndiscovering he similarityfourbodies,and in concentratingn this,rather hanon thedistinctionsmongus. The bodies we perceivebythevulgarperception feverydayife are indivi-dual,areprivate odies; thebodiesrepresentedous by the centralform are public bodies, andenable us tograspthefact hatwe aremembers fthebodyof thepublic.Thus a philosophical es-theticwill be one whichprivileges he formspainting xhibitsover thefable t illustrates, orthe fable of a historypainting s primarily fimportance n that it invites to emulate, ac-cording, or xample,to Shaftesbury,he ctionstexhibits.Reynolds pays less attention, erhaps,thananyof his predecessors, ontemporaries,rimmediate uccessorsto thequestion of the fableof a painting. For him, what places historypainting tthetopofthehierarchyfgenres s notthe virtues it illustrates and proposes for ouremulation, ut thefact hathistory ainting boveall othergenres s free to represent he humanbody n the terms f an abstract deal, and there-fore to address the spectator in his uniformidentitys a citizen, nd not nhis individual, isprivate dentity.The difficulty f such a notion of historypainting s that, n its search for mages of uni-formity,t must, unless qualified, nevitably ndin monotony. The ideal painting, producedaccording o this theory, ould seem to be a rep-resentation fthreemale graces,thecentral ormof he male bodydepicted,perhaps, rom variety

ofangles,butnotapparently ngaged n theper-formance f omespecific ocial transaction,uchas would distract ur attention rom, r modify,theideal abstractforms f thebody.In his lateraddresses, particularly the eighth, Reynoldsconfrontshisproblem,but he could, I believe,tackle tdirectly nlywhenhiswriting asmovingoutside the orbit of civic humanist theoriesofpainting, owards he discourseof thecustomary,with tstendency o privilege heaccidentaloverthe ubstantial,n themind s wellas innature.nhisearlier ddresses,the problem fmonotonousuniformitys approached, or is, rather,tacitlyacknowledged,by Reynolds s uneasiness in hisdiscussion of the representation f character .Character tillmeans,at thisstage n thehistoryoftheories fpainting, rimarilyhysicalharacter:grace,agility, trength,nd so on, thoughtheseare often presumed to be the physiologicalmarkers fpsychological haracter.The anxiety bout singularity,hen,whichwasunderstoodby the discourse of civic humanismfundamentallyneconomic erms, lso helpsus tounderstand Reynolds s uneasiness about therepresentation f character; an uneasiness thatwas tobe remarked pon byWilliamBlake. Awarethat paintingwithout clear fablewas an ambig-uouspainting hisanxiety boutambiguitywillconsider na moment Reynoldswas also awarethata paintingwhich tells a storymust differen-tiate thebodies engaged n that story n terms fphysical haracter.He proposes, ccordingly, hatwecan considermankind s divided ntoa variety

ofsuchcharacters, rincipally, hoserepresentedbytheclassicalsculptures fApollo,Hercules ndtheGladiator,but also differentiatedy age andso on. Each of these classes of character, heproposes,has its own centralform.The dangeroffered o his theory, owever, y thisproposal,was evident to many of his successors for tseems that here anbe no limit etto thenumberofclasses of characterwe can specify r invent,until the society represented n painting maybecome atomisedexactly s is the societywhichthepainting eeks toaddress nd tounify.hus thefact hat history aintingmusthave a fable, ndso must represent varietyof distinguishablecharacters,willrescue t frommonotony nlybyendangeringheawareness ofuniformityt seeksto mpress ponus; theone true entral orm,hatofmankind n general,will always be different-iated,and itspoliticalfunction ompromised, ythefablespainters llustrate. he only olution othisproblemseems to be at once to permit herepresentation fcharacter, nd yetto insistthatthespectatorsmustcontinually e attemptingorefer-the ifferentlasses of centralform o thetrue entral orm,he set of all sets, n sucha wayas may seem to require that the spectatorsbepresumed lready o possess theknowledgewhichpainting s imagined s imparting o them.

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Wecan put this roblem notherwaybyfocusingon the question of the dangers of ambiguouspaintings.We expect istory aintings o illustratefables, o thatonewithout fable, f that s not acontradiction n terms, far from directingourattention o the central orms t represents, ouldinstead direct it to that lack, that absence; apaintingwith fable,on theotherhand, risks, swehaveseen,directing ur attentionothevarietyof human figures ecessary o get thestory old.Equally, our attentionmay be dividedwhen thecentralform f the humanbody s placed in thecontext of objects representedwith a deceptiverealism.Now the notion hatpaintings hould notbe ambiguous has a long history, specially intheories of paintinggrounded on a rhetoricalaesthetic,for if paintingsare to move us, toinflameus, theymust permitno gap between arepresentation nd its recognition,while westruggleounderstandwhat t s thatwe arebeingmoved to feel and emulate. For Reynolds,however, he problem f pictures hat, n one wayor another,divide the attention, s ratherdif-ferent; or withinthe termsof the discourse ofcivichumanism, nysuch division s conceivedofas a division fthepersonality etween tspublicand itsprivate oncerns; t s a division, herefore,within he pectator, etweenhis uniformdentityas citizen, nd the private dentity hich,definedas it s interms fprivatenterest,t s hisduty oefface.The representation f characterencour-ages a concern with singularitywhich cannoteasily be recuperated nto a concern for uni-formity,ust as the representationf thematerialencourages divisivepreoccupationwith nterestand appetite.The problems ncident oReynolds sphilosop-hical aesthetic should not howeverdistractusfromhe chievement ftheearly ddressesto theAcademy, which I would describe like this:hitherto,hediscourseofcivic humanism still,in the 1 60s, the dominant discourse for thediscussion of political values - was tied, inrelation o the theory fpainting, o the notionthatpaintingaddressed its spectatorsprimarilybymeansofa rhetorical esthetic. t proposedapublic function orpaintingbywhich t was toteach thepublicvirtues a doctrinewhichhadthe effect, nd the effect ertainlyntendedbyShaftesburynd Turnbull,of limitingts publicfunctiono theeducationof thegoverninglass.What Reynolds achieved was to finda publicfunction orpaintingbywhich t could teach thegrounds of social and political affiliation owhoeverwas supposedto be capable ofthe ntel-lectual abour ofabstraction that is, therefore,to everyone ther han women, hildren, nd thevulgar. Like the writers n paintingof themid-century ho had speculatedon themoralfunctionoftheart,he had producedwhatwe maydescribeas a bourgeois esthetic;but, unlike hem,hehad

not imagined that such an aestheticmust limitpainting o a largelyprivate ocial function,heinculcation f he tender , rwhat hediscourse fcivichumanism escribed s the privatevirtues.The philosophical esthetic f theearly ddresseswas one which nvited he disenfranchisedmalemembers fthepoliteclasses or, toput tmoreaccurately, ll those male members f thepoliteclasses whocould notaspire to politicalofficeto conceive ofthemselves s citizens, n the firstplace of therepublic ftaste,butpotentially lsoofthe politicalrepublic, fthe qualifications orcitizenship herewere tobe defined s the abilityto grasptheidea of a public,thatmeeting-placewhere all whowere capable ofpublic spirit, ndthe subordination f privateto public interest,could meet as equals. It was for this reason, Isuggest, that the most importantwritersonpaintingwho followedReynolds Barry,Blakeand Fuseli - paid so little ttention o the ateraddresses, nd theattemptmade in them, s wellas (thoughhis mmediate uccessorsprobably idnot know his) nhis ate,unpublishedwritings,oinvent customaryesthetic,nd away fdefendingthe dea ofa national choolofpainting: or hesewere ttempts,s thepreface othe ronic iscoursemakesperfectlylear,torepresenthe mmediatepolitical functionsof art and criticism s thedefence f theancienregime.The concernof hissuccessors was entirelywiththeattempthe hadmade to define,within heterms f thediscourseof civic humanism, bourgeoisand (within tslimits)an egalitariantheory f painting; t wasthis heory hey etout to criticise nd todevelop,for t had foundexpressionwithin discoursewhich, sJohnson nd Burke s wellas Reynoldscame torecognise,was beingappropriated o theserviceofbourgeoisphilosophicalradicalism.

Notes1. Trhis aper s a brief ummary fthe rgument eveloped ntheintroductionnd first hapter fmy ook The olitical heoryf aintingf om eynoldsoHazlitt:The ody f he ublic, ecently ublishedbyYaleUniversity ress. Those seeking amplification f my reading ofReynolds re thereforeeferredothisbook,where heywill lso finddetailed citationsand referenceswhichI have not attempted oinclude here,for o do so would have made the notes several timeslonger than the text. discuss Reynolds s use of the discourse ofcustom n the first hapterof thatbook, and also in SirJoshuaReynolds nd the Englishness f EnglishArt ,forthcomingnNationandNarration,d. Homi Bhabha, Methuen,London, 1987.2. I have chosen this list of the public virtues fromJamesThomson, Liberty1735-6), in The CompleteoeticalWorks fJamesThomson,d. J. Logie Robertson,London, 1908: pt.5, lines 121-3,93-4.3. Richardson nd Shaftesbury eedno ntroduction ere, houghI should say that have based my ccountofShaftesbury sheoryfpaintingnot on his general speculationson aesthetics, ut on hiswritings, pecifically, bout painting: A Notion of the Historical

Draughtor TablatureofTheJudgmentfHercules ,first dded tothe (haracteristicksn the second editionof 1713;and his MS. workPlastics (in Second haracters,r TheLanguagefForms,d. Benjamin

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Rand,Cambridge 1914). For George Turnbull, ee especiallyhis ATreatisenAncientainting,ondon 1740.4. Anthony asquin (JohnWilliams),Memoirsf he oyal cademi-cians: eingn ttempto mprovehe ationalaste,ondon 1796, 9n,89; SirJoshuaReynolds, iscoursesnArt, d. RobertR. Wark, nd.edn., New

HavenandLondon1975,13,11;JamesNorthcote, he ife fSirJo.shuaReynolds,econd edn.,London 1819,1: 173;John laxman,LecturesnSculpturefirst ublished1829),London 1865, 17;JohnGalt,The ife,Studies,nd WorksfBenjamin est, sq.,Londonahd Edinburgh 820,2:80.

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