Treatise on the Knowledge Necessary to Amateurs in Pictures, Tr. and Abridged by R. White - Softcover

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVIII. OF THE UTILITY OF PRIVATE COLLECTIONS, AND HOW TO FORM THEM WELL. If it be true that amongst the numerous passions to which human nature is subject, there are many which seize upon us only to drag us into evil, it is no less true that there are others which contribute to our happiness, and augment our felicity. Among the latter there is none that affords an enjoyment so continual and enduring, or that may be so easily communicated to others, as the taste for pictures. None is less exposed to end in hopeless ennui, none offers so clearly to the possessor the prospect of increasing his wealth in augmenting his pleasure, provided only that he act under the guidance of prudence and knowledge. This may, at first sight, appear paradoxical, but it will become plain from what follows. Everybody knows how much the taste for pictures is on the increase, and that the price of good pictures is enhanced from year to year, and even from day to day. The prices given at public sales in every country are evidence of this, especially those in Holland and the Low Countries. Gerard Hoet has given a collection of these in three large volumes, from which it appears that, since 1684, up to the present time, prices have continued to increase progressively, so that a picture which was worth but ten florins then, is now worth as many hundreds. It is true, however, that this increase, continual and progressive as it is, applies only to pictures of real merit, and which are in conformity with the rules of the art and with nature; while those, of which the beauty is false and factitious, their merit consisting only in a kind of dazzle, and those which have acquired a reputation founded on caprice, or the credulity of the ignorant and the manoeuvres of dealers, have not ...