Saturday, December 30, 2023
MATTERS OF ORNAMENT - OR FURNISHING APARTMENTS - A THOUGHT
"The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it. As this principle is observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a liberal art or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one man it makes the highest pretensions, as it is addressed to the noblest faculties, In those of another it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament, and the painter has but the humble province of furnishing our apartments with elegance."
- Sir Joshua Reynolds, "Seven Discourses on Art" (1771)
Perhaps that's one way of looking at it, Sir Joshua, but, I like to think that even in matters of ornament, or the "humble province of furnishing our apartments with elegance", the craftsman, the mechanical tradesman (or woman), introduces us to, reminds us of, what may be an opening to those things "addressed to the noblest faculties".
Labels: art, discussion, donovan baldwin, Sir Joshua Reynolds
