The painters, in a similar manner, by their works, seem to be no less divided upon the subject than the authors. The French, except such as have imitated the antique, or the Italian school, seem to have studiously avoided the serpentine line in all their pictures, especially Anthony Coypel, historical painter, and Hyacinthe Rigaud, principal portrait painter to Louis XIV. Rubens, whose manner of designing was quite original, made use of a large flowing line as a principle, which runs through all his works, and gives a noble spirit to them; but he did not seem to be acquainted with what we call the precise line; which from now on we will be very particular about, and which gives the delicacy we see in the best Italian masters; rather he charged his contours in general with too bold and S-like swellings. Raphael, from a straight and stiff manner, suddenly changed his taste of lines at the sight of Michelangelo’s works and antique statues; and he was so fond of the serpentine line that he carried it into a ridiculous excess, particularly in his draperies. However, his great observance of nature ensured that he did not continue this mistake for very long. Peter de Cortone formed a fine manner in his draperies of this line. We see this principle best understood in some pictures of Correggio, particularly his Juno and Ixion, yet the proportions of his figures are sometimes such as might be corrected by a common sign painter. Whilst Albert Dürer, who drew mathematically, never so much as deviated into grace, which he must sometimes have done in copying from life, if he had not been fettered with his own impracticable rules of proportion. But that which may have puzzled this matter most may be that Anthony van Dyck, one of the best portrait painters in most respects ever known, plainly appears not to have had a thought of this kind. For there seems not to be the least grace in his pictures more than what life chanced to bring before him. There is a print of the Duchess of Wharton engraved by Van Gunft, from a true picture by him, which is thoroughly diverted of every elegance. Now, had he known this line as a principle, he could no more have drawn all the parts of this picture so contrary to it, than Mr Addison could have written a whole spectator in false grammar; unless it were done on purpose. However, on account of his other great excellencies, painters chose to stile this want of grace in his attitudes, simplicity, etc., and they often, very justly, merit that epithet.
Guido di Pietro, known as Fra Angelico, Saint Peter Preaching in the Presence of Saint Mark, c. 1433. Tempera on panel, 39 × 56 cm. Museo di San Marco, Florence.
Nor were the painters of these times less uncertain and contradictory to each other, than the masters already mentioned, whatever they may pretend to the contrary. Of this I felt certain, and therefore, in the year 1745, published a frontispiece to my engraved works, in which I drew a serpentine line laying on a painter’s palette, with these words under it, the line of beauty. The bait soon took; and no Egyptian hieroglyphic was ever amused over more than they were after this time, painters and sculptors came to me to know the meaning of it, equally puzzled about it as other people, until it came to have some explanation. At that time, and no sooner, some found it to be an old acquaintance of theirs, though the account they could give of its properties was as very near to satisfactory as that which a day-labourer who constantly uses the lever, could give of that machine as a mechanical power. Others, such as common face-painters and copiers of pictures, denied that there could be such a rule either in art or nature, and asserted it was all fluff and madness; but no wonder that these gentlemen should not be ready in comprehending a thing they have little or no business with. For though the picture-copier may sometimes to a common eye seem to vie with the original he copies, the artist himself requires no more ability, genius, or knowledge of nature than a journeyman-weaver at the goblins, who in working after a piece of painting, bit by bit, scarcely knows what he is about, whether he is weaving a man or a horse, yet at last almost insensibly turns out of his loom a fine piece of tapestry, representing, perhaps, one of Alexander’s battles painted by Le Brun.
As the above-mentioned print thus involved me in frequent disputes by explaining the qualities of the line, I was extremely glad to find it (which I had conceived as only part of a system in my mind) so well supported by the above precept of Michelangelo, which was first pointed out to me by Dr Kennedy, learned antiquarian and connoisseur from whom I afterwards purchased the translation, from which I have taken several passages for my purpose. Let us now endeavour to discover what light antiquity throws upon the subject in question.
Egypt first, later followed by Greece, manifested their great skill in arts and sciences through their works, and among the rest, painting and sculpture, all of which are thought to have been issued from their great schools of philosophy. Pythagoras, Socrates, and Aristotle seem to have pointed out the right road in nature for the study of the painters and sculptors of those times (which they, in all probability, afterwards followed the nicer paths that their particular professions required them to pursue) as may be reasonably collected from the answers given by Socrates to Aristotole his disciple, and Parrhasius the painter, concerning fitness, the first fundamental law in nature with regard to beauty. I am in some measure saved the trouble of collecting a historical account of these arts among the ancients, by accidentally meeting with a preface to a tract called the Beau Ideal: this treatise was written by Lambert Hermanson Ten Kate, in French, and translated into English by James Christopher Leblon, who in that preface says, speaking of the author:
His superior knowledge, that I am now publishing, is the product of the analogy of the ancient Greeks or the true key for finding all harmonious proportions in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, etc. brought home to Greece by Pythagoras. After this great philosopher travelled into Phoenicia, Egypt, and Chaldea, where he conversed with the learned, he returned to Greece around Anno Mundi 3484, before 52 °CE, and brought with him many excellent discoveries and improvements for the good of his countrymen, among which the analogy was one of the most considerable and useful.
After him, the Grecians, with the help of this analogy, began (and not before) to surpass other nations in sciences and arts; for whereas before this time they represented their Divinities in plain human figures, the Grecians now began to enter into the Beau Ideal; and Pamphilus, (who flourished in AM 3641, before 363 CE, who taught that no man could excel in painting without mathematics) the scholar of Pausias and master of Apelles, was the first who artfully applied the said analogy to the art of painting; at about the same time as the sculptors, the architects, etc. began to apply it to their several arts, without which science the Grecians remained as ignorant as their forefathers. They carried on their improvements in drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, etc. until they became the wonders of the world; especially after the Asians and Egyptians (who were formerly the teachers of the Grecians) had, in process of time and by the havoc of war, lost all the excellency in the sciences and arts. Due to this, all other nations were afterwards obliged to the Grecians without being able to so much as imitate them.
For when the Romans conquered Greece and Asia, and brought the best paintings and the finest artists to Rome, we don’t find they discovered the great key of knowledge, the analogy I speak of now; but their best performances were conducted by Grecian artists, who it seems cared not to communicate their secret of the analogy because they either intended to be necessary in Rome by keeping the secret amongst themselves, or else the Romans, who principally affected universal dominion, were not curious enough to search after the secret, not knowing its importance, nor understanding that, without it, they could never attain the excellency of the Grecians. Nevertheless, it must be known that the Romans used well the proportions, which the Grecians long before had reduced to certain fixed rules according to their ancient analogy; and the Romans were able to successfully use the proportions without comprehending the analogy itself.
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, Sistine Madonna, 1512–1513. Oil on canvas, 269.5 × 201 cm. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.
Diego Velázquez, The Toilet of Venus or The Rokeby Venus, c. 1647–1651. Oil on canvas, 122.5 × 177 cm. The National Gallery, London.
Diego Velázquez, Prince Baltasar Carlos on Horseback, c. 1635. Oil on canvas, 211.5 × 177 cm. Museo