sight as high as the eye of the spectator. Begin that subject with large figures; and as you go up, lessen the objects, as well the figures, as buildings, varying the plans according to the effect of perspective; but never varying the point of sight: and so complete the series of subjects, till you come to a certain height, where terrestrial objects can be seen no more, except the tops of trees, or clouds and birds; or if you introduce figures, they must be aerial, such as angels, or saints in glory, or the like, if they suit the purpose of your history. If not, do not undertake this kind of painting, for your work will be faulty, and justly reprehensible[1].
Chap. CXXIV.—Why Objects in Painting can never detach, as natural Objects do.
Painters often despair of being able to imitate Nature, from observing, that their pictures have not the same relief, nor the same life, as natural objects have in a looking-glass, though they both appear upon a plain surface. They say, they have colours which surpass in brightness the quality of the lights,
- ↑ The author does not mean here to say, that one historical picture cannot be hung over another. It certainly may, because, in viewing each, the spectator is at liberty (especially if they are subjects independent of each other) to shift his place so as to stand at the true point of sight for viewing every one of them; but in covering a wall with a succession of subjects from the same history, the author considers the whole as, in fact, but one picture, divided into compartments, and to be seen at one view, and which cannot therefore admit more than one point of sight. In the former case, the pictures are in fact so many distinct subjects unconnected with each other.
