Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1828 edition. Excerpt: ... The Plates hereto annexed were originally intended to illustrate the first part of a Practical Essay on Painting, which I have long had in contemplation to publish; but have delayed, from year to year, from its interruption to my professional engagements, from doubts respecting its utility, and a love of ease which, after the day's employment, suggests a more natural recreation than the investigation of an abstruse study: I now publish the plates with a few loose hints thrown together, in the hope of their being useful. Should they be thought of advantage to the younger students of painting, in directing their minds to a regular mode of investigating the intricacies of the art, I shall follow them with others illustrative, in the first instance, of light and shade, and, ultimately, of the arrangement of colour. On the contrary, should the work not be considered a desideratum, by publishing only a first part, I escape a heavy responsibility and expense--a tax to which I do not wish that either my vanity or my love for the fine arts should subject me. March 25, 1822. PRACTICAL HINTS ON COMPOSITION IN PAINTING. COMPOSITION. Composition is the art of arranging figures or objects, so as to adapt them to any particular subject. In composition four requisites are necessary; --that the story be well told; that it possess a good general form; that it be so arranged as to be capable of receiving a proper effect of light and shade; and that it be susceptible of an agreeable disposition in colour. The form of a composition is best suggested by the subject or design, as the fitness of the adaptation ought to appear to emanate from the circumstances themselves: hence the variety of compositions. The point of time being fixed upon, the action, ..
