Art in Theory. Группа авторов

these new colonies; for those they make use of there, are not natives of the place; for those [i.e. the native ‘indians’ as distinct from the imported African slaves] we live within perfect amity, without daring to command them; but on the contrary, caress them with all the brotherly and friendly affection in the world; trading with them for their fish, venison, buffaloes, skins, and little rarities; … for little parakeets, great parrots, macaws, and a thousand other birds and beasts of wonderful and surprising forms, shapes, and colours. For skins of prodigious snakes, of which there are some threescore yards in length; as is the skin of one that may be seen at His Majesty’s Antiquaries, where are also some rare [butter‐]flies, of amazing forms and colours, presented to them by myself, some as big as my fist, some less; and all of various excellencies, such as art cannot imitate. Then we trade for feathers, which they order into all shapes, make themselves little short habits of them, and glorious wreaths for their heads, necks, arms and legs, whose tinctures are inconceivable. I had a set of these presented to me, and I gave them to the King’s Theatre, and it was the dress of the Indian Queen,¹ infinitely admired by persons of quality, and were inimitable. Besides these, a thousand little knacks, and rarities in Nature, and some of art; as their baskets, weapons, aprons, etc. We dealt with them with beads of all colours, knives, axes, pins and needles; which they used only as tools to drill holes with in their ears, noses and lips, where they hang a great many little things; as long beads, bits of tin, brass, or silver, beat thin; and any shining trinket. The beads they weave into aprons about a quarter of an ell long, and of the same breadth; working them very prettily in flowers of several colours of beads; which apron they wear just before them, as Adam and Eve did the fig leaves; the men wearing a long strip of linen, which they deal with us for. They thread these beads also on long cotton threads, and make girdles to tie their aprons to, which come twenty times, or more, about the waist; and then cross, like a shoulder‐belt, both ways, and round their necks, arms and legs. This adornment, with their long black hair, and the face painted in little specks or flowers here and there, makes them a wonderful figure to behold. Some of the beauties which indeed are finely shaped, as almost all are, and who have pretty features, are very charming and novel; for they have all that is called beauty, except the colour, which is a reddish yellow; or after a new oiling, which they often use to themselves, they are of the colour of a new brick, but smooth, soft and sleek. They are extreme modest and bashful, very shy, and nice of being touched. And though they are all thus naked, if one lives for ever among them, there is not to be seen an indecent action, or glance; and being continually used to see one another so unadorned, so like our first parents before the Fall, it seems as if they had no wishes; there being nothing to heighten curiosity, but all you can see, you see at once, and every moment see; and where there is no novelty, there can be no curiosity. […] And these people represented to me an absolute idea of the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin; and ’tis most evident and plain, that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive and virtuous mistress. ’Tis she alone, if she were permitted, that better instructs the world than all the inventions of man; religion would here but destroy that tranquillity they possess by ignorance, and laws would but teach them to know offence, of which now they have no notion. […] They have a native justice, which knows no fraud; and they understand no vice, or cunning, but when they are taught by the white men.

      1The Indian Queen was a play co‐authored by Dryden, first performed in London in 1664.

IC14 Charles Perrault (1628–1703) from Parallel of the Ancients and Moderns

      Perrault’s text is concerned with the important seventeenth‐century debate on the relative eminence of the Ancients and the Moderns, in science, art and philosophy. Because of its centrality to seventeenth‐century art theory, an extensive selection can be found in Art in Theory 1648–1815 IA7 (pp. 53–62). However, a short passage also bears upon the concerns of the present anthology. Almost in passing it gives early articulation to a view of the art of China (and, by implication, anywhere else outside the orbit of the academic tradition) which became the European default position for at least the next two hundred years. Perrault’s protagonist in his staged debate believes that art has progressed. The sixteenth‐century High Renaissance art of Raphael and Titian sets the standard. He acknowledges that ‘some years before’, a skilful art had existed. Because of his emphasis on observed detail, it is probable that he is referring to Northern Renaissance masters such as Van Eyck in the late fifteenth century. His clinching point is that the Chinese too have such an art. But whereas European art has progressed, Chinese art has not. It lacks the wider attributes of the academic canon, particularly shading (‘chiaroscuro’) and perspective, to give the illusion of three‐dimensions on a flat surface and a coherent unified composition building to a visual climax. At a stroke, the position is established that other arts are not merely different from but deficient with respect to post‐Renaissance Western art. The passage comes from the ‘Second Dialogue on the Three Visual Arts’ of Perrault’s Parallel of the Ancients and Moderns, published in 1688. It can be found in Art in Theory 1648–1815, IA7, p. 57. The text was translated for Art in Theory by Chris Miller.

      Some years before Raphael and Titian, there were paintings made – they still survive – the principal beauty of which lies in the fineness of line; you can count every hair in the beard and on the head of each figure. Though Chinese art is very ancient, they have remained at this stage. They will, perhaps, soon learn to draw properly, to place their figures in noble attitudes, and attain exact expressions of all the passions. But it will be a long time before they attain a perfect understanding of chiaroscuro, the degradation of light, the secrets of perspective and the judicious organization of a large composition.

IC15 William Temple (1628–99) On the distinctiveness of Chinese gardens

      Sir William Temple was an English diplomat of Irish descent who played an important role in the passing of the English throne to William of Orange after the Glorious Revolution. He subsequently retired from public life and lived quietly on his country estate enjoying his garden. Temple’s essay ‘Upon the Gardens of Epicurus, or of Gardening in the Year 1685’ is a thesis about the requirements for a human life well‐lived. Going beyond the passing needs of business and commerce, he sees fulfilment as something to be gained through contemplation and pleasure: pleasure of both the senses and the imagination, to be found in the experience of beautiful buildings, paintings, sculptures, tapestries and gardens. Temple traces the garden through antiquity, and indeed back to the Garden of Eden, but acknowledges that the idea of a garden as a kind of living symbol of Paradise originates in ancient Persia. He also offers suggestions for what makes a good garden in his own day, but adds that there can be exceptions to these rules, the principal one of which is to be found in China. The informality and apparent lack of order in a Chinese garden points to something different from what was then the norm in Europe. Interestingly, for Temple, this alternative aesthetic can also be found in other examples of Eastern material culture – he mentions Indian textiles, and Chinese painted decoration on both screens and porcelain. By his own admission, Temple had not seen Chinese gardens as such; he relied on the accounts of others, which goes some way towards explaining his invocation of ‘sharawadgi’ as a concept designating the paradoxical mixture of harmony and irregularity in Chinese gardens, as distinct from the geometry favoured in contemporary European garden design. The etymology of the term is uncertain; it may have Japanese rather than Chinese roots, and may have come to Temple via conversations with Dutch East India merchants during his time in the Netherlands. Be that as it may, the term entered the English language to refer to informality and irregularity in design. The present extracts are taken from the second essay in Temple’s Miscellanea: The Second Part. In Four Essays, 2nd edn, London, 1690, pp. 95–7, 119–20, 126–9, and 131–2.

      If we believe the Scripture, we must allow that God Almighty esteemed the life of man in a Garden the happiest He could give him, or else He would not have placed Adam in that of Eden; that it was the state of innocence and pleasure; and that the life of husbandry and cities, came in after the Fall, with guilt and with labour.

Where Paradise was, has much been debated, and little agreed; but what sort of place