Letteratura anglo–americana 2013-14
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| Letteratura anglo–americana 2013-14 |
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bellezza = qualità dell’oggetto
bellezza =prodotto del gusto
Herbert of Cherbury, De veritate, XVII secolo
Il senso del bello non deriva da un giudizio razionale: è un istinto naturale e universale, una sorta di common sense che tutti possiedono, la capacità di percepire l’armonia, la simmetria, la proporzione. Il principio del gusto è innato. Non si può spiegare: è una sorta di “je ne sais quoi” che solo a uno stadio successivo l’uomo colto può spiegare razionalmente, articolare in un giudizio estetico.
Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690
Non esistono idee innate, quindi non può esistere un innato senso del bello; il gusto è un’opinione individuale che deriva dalla percezione fisica dell’oggetto.
Shaftesbury, Characteristics, 1711
La bellezza si identifica con l’armonia e la simmetria universali. Il piacere che deriva dalla percezione dell’opera d’arte è dovuto alla consonanza tra l’armonia della mente umana, l’armonia interna dell’opera d’arte e l’armonia del cosmo.
Francis Hutcheson, Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, and Design, 1725Oltre ai cinque sensi “esteriori”, gli uomini possiedono dei sensi “interiori”: il senso dell’onore, il senso comune, il senso del ridicolo e, soprattutto, il senso morale. Tra tutti i sensi, interni ed esterni, il primato spetta al senso morale.
Francis Hutcheson , An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 1725
The figures which excite in us the ideas of beauty seem to be those in which there is uniformity amidst variety. There are many conceptions of objects which are agreeable upon other accounts, such as grandeur, novely, sanctity… But what we call beautiful in objects, to speak in the mathematical style, seems to be in compound ratio of uniformity and variety ...”
Alexander Gerard, An Essay on Taste, 1759
EXTERNAL SENSES
Smell
Taste
Hearing
Sight
Touch
INNER SENSES
The sense of the sublime
The sense of beauty
The sense of harmony
The sense of virtue
L’estetica di Hogarth si fonda sulle seguenti idee:
Occorre rendere la bellezza o il principio che la sottende intelligibile.Solo l’artista, in particolare il pittore, può capire le questioni che riguardano la bellezza nell’arte.
Etica ed estetica sono due cose distinte.
Gli artisti degli ultimi due secoli si accontentavano delle imitazioni. Occorre, invece, osservare direttamente la natura.
“it is easy to conceive, how one brought up from Infancy in a coal Pit, may find such pleasure and amusement there, as to disrelish day light, and open air; and being Ignorant of the beauty above ground, grow uneasy, and disatisfied, till he descends again into his Gloomy cavern; so I have known the brilliant beauties of nature, disregarded, for even the imperfections of art, occationed by running into too great attention to, and imbibing false oppinions, in favour of pictures, and statues, and thus by losing sight of nature” (Text Footnote 1 to The Analysis of Beauty)
La varietà è il principio più alto, ma per essa si intende sempre una varietà composta. Altrimenti la varietà si trasforma in caos.
Delle linee
La linea retta è innaturale, non si trova mai in natura. Alcuni artisti, come Dührer, hanno esagerato nell’uso della linea retta.
La linea ondeggiante può essere alla base della grazia. Però, portata all’esasperazione, può essere percepita come deformità.
Rubens, Leda e il cigno, 1599
La linea della bellezza è la soluzione al problema di “fissare le fluttuanti idee che riguardano il gusto.” Essa è il modo più semplice per spiegare che cosa è la bellezza. La linea della bellezza si trova in natura.
William Hogarth, Columbus breaking the egg 1752
W. Hogarth, The Four Times of the Day, Noon, 1738
VARIETY
• “How great a share variety has in producing beauty may be seen in the ornamental part of nature. (…) All the senses delight in it, and equally are averse to sameness. (…) I mean here, and every where indeed, a composed variety; for variety uncomposed, and without design, is confusion and deformity” (William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, 1753)
“(…) to see with our own eyes”
“It is also evident that the painter’s eye may not be a bit better fitted to receive these new impressions, who is in like manner too much captivated with the works of art; for he also is apt to pursue the shadow, and drop the substance. This mistakes happens chiefly to those who go to Rome for the accomplishment of their studies, as they naturally will, without the utmost care, take the infectious turn of the connoisseur, instead of the painter” (“Introduction” to The Analysis of Beauty)
Charles I, Van Dyck
Charles I, Van Dyck
James I
“It is by the natural and unaffected movements of the muscles, caused by the passions of the mind, that ev’ry man’s character would in some measure be written in his face.” (Analysis of Beauty, “Of the face”)
Joshua Reynolds, Mrs. Abington
The hypocrite
“Many handsom faces of almost any age, will hide a foolish or wicked mind till they betray themselves by their actions or their words: yet the frequent aukward movements of the muscles of the fool’s face, th’ ever so handsom, is apt in time to leave such traces up and down it, as will distinguish a defect of mind upon examination: but the bad man, if he be a hypocrite, may so manage his muscles, by teaching them to contradict his heart, that little of his mind can be gather’d from his countenance, so that the character of an hypocrite is entirely out of the power of the pencil, without some adjoining circumstances to discover him, as smiling and stabing at the same time.” (“Of the face”)
“God only knows who is a hypocrite and who is not” TS
“(…) our minds shine not through the body but are wrapt up here in a dark covering of uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that if we would come to the specifick characters of them, we must go some other way to work.” (Tristram Shandy, vol. I, ch. XXIII)
“But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries – the most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which the quickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny on nature’s works” (TS)
“I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby – My father smiled – I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle Toby – my father looked grave.” (TS, Vol IV, Ch. IV)
“There are some traits of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves about our eyes and eye-brows: and there is a consciousness of it, somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make the etchings the stronger – we see, spell, and put them together without a dictionary” (TS, Vol. V, Ch. I)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_%C3%A0-la-mode_(Hogarth)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rake's_Progress
Hogarth, Southwark Fair or The Humours of a Fair, 1733
William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress (Plate4)
Gin Lane by William Hogarth, 1751
“The two parts of curves next to 71, served for the figures of the old woman and her partner at the farther end of the room. The curve and two straight lines at right angle, gave the hint for the fat man’s sprawling posture. I next resolved to keep a figure within the bounds of a circle, which produced the upper part of the fat woman, between the fat man and the aukward one in the bag wig, for whom I had made a sort of X. The prim lady, his partner, in the riding-habit, by pecking back her elbows, as they call it, from the waste upwards, made a tolerable D, with a straight line under it, to signify the scanty stiffness of her petticoat; and a Z stood for the angular position the body makes with the legs and thighs of the affected fellow in the tye-wig; the upper parts of this plump partner were confin’d to a O …..” (AB, “Of attitude”)
• “My Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all of a row, mounted upon their several horses; some with large stirrups, getting on in a more grave and sober pace; others on the contrary, tucked up to their chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and scampering it away like so many little party-coloured devils astride a mortgage, - and as if some of them were resolved to break their necks.” (TS, vol 1, ch 9)
---- But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description of his attitude ; ---- otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by your imagination, in an uneasy posture, -- stiff, -- perpendicular, -- dividing the weight of his body equally upon both legs ; -- his eye fix'd, as if on duty ; -- his look determined ; -- clinching the sermon in his left hand, like his firelock : -- In a word, you would be apt to paint Trim, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action : -- His attitude was as unlike all this as you can conceive.
“He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the horizon ; -- which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well, to be the true persuasive angle of incidence; -- in any other angle you may talk and preach ; -- 'tis certain, -- and it is done every day ; -- but with what effect, -- I leave the world to judge !”
“The necessity of this precise angle of 85 degrees and a half to a mathematical exactness, -- does it not shew us, by the way, -- how the arts and sciences mutually befriend each other ?” (TS, vol 2, ch XVII)
He stood, ---- for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view, with his body sway'd, and somewhat bent forwards, --- his right leg firm under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight, -- the foot of his left leg, the defect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, advanced a little, -- not lateral- ly, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt them ; -- his knee bent, but that not vio- lently, -- but so as to fall within the limits of the line of beauty ; (TS, vol 2, ch XVII)
---- And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation -- so wouldst thou : For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet any thing in this world, more concupiscible than widow Wadman.
TO conceive this right, -- call for pen and ink -- here's paper ready to your hand. ---- Sit down, Sir, paint her to
your own mind ---- as like your mistress as you can ---- as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you -- 'tis all
one to me ---- please but your own fancy in it. (Vol. 6, Ch XXXVIII)
DISPOSITIVI OTTICI NEL '700
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