Taste is the discriminating power of selecting good from bad; and this is attainable by enquiry: there is neither instability nor uncertainty in its rules; so long as you have the good sense to place all 'inspiration' out of the question! Nothing is so pernicious as that illusion of the mind.
Grace, in my opinion, consists of lines flowing, more or less, into the ellipsis—free of constraint and affectation. Raphael, for instance, was all grace; Parmegiano degenerated into affectation.
In pictorial economy, the repetition of the same lines, and often of the same forms, assist and support each other; as necessarily as repetition of colours in painting. This extension of the same thing is frequently indispensable, both in preventing the individuality of form, and, when well broken up by opposing lines, adding materially to the seeming negligence and irregularity that carries with it so great a charm. ([Plate 1, fig. 4.])
The luminous spots or lights in a picture, frequently explain the form of its composition.
In this repetition of lines and forms, the ground may be made to run one way, the line of buildings another, the figures another, the horizon another, the forms of the trees a different one, and the shapes of the clouds may describe another: all these may have their repeats; yet will they all seem to form and tend, though apparently all irregularity, to an agreeable arrangement we sometimes see in nature, and an harmonious whole, however intricate, without confusion. The investigation of the means pursued by Salvator Rosa will explain this fascinating system. ([Plate 1, figs. 2] and [7.])
In contemplating the best regulated works of art, either in pictures or prints, by always being careful to ascertain the forms by which their effects are produced, is one of the best means of arriving at this object ourselves. Even a few memoranda of the ground plans, as an architect would say, or the form of the line on which the bases stand, will be found useful in enabling us to do this. ([Plate 1, fig. 3.])
The eye must be all observation, and the mind all reflection; and it can scarcely fail to become influenced by the advantages to be derived from this practice.
It is to the almost thinking sensibility, subtleness, and feeling of the beautifully and wonderfully constructed human hand, that every thing done with it, so far outstrips all mechanical means of imitating it! It is with this solely and alone, that fine Art is, ever was, and ever will be, identified.
'The cleverness and sensibility of the hand,' says a beautiful and masterly writer in the Quarterly Review, 'is quite as essential as inventive genius.' Speaking of our showy and elaborate park-gates at Hyde Park Corner, 'what men call the police station—in the language of the gods, the triumphal arch!' and, comparing it with the bronze net-work and foliage of Verrochio, 'which seems to grow and spring like living vegetation,' he says, 'these are capital Brummagem, and nothing more.' 'Grasped by the man, the tool becomes a part of himself; the hammer is pervaded by the vitality of the hand. But in the work produced by the machinery of the founder there can be nothing of all this life! What does it give you? Correct, stiff patterns, all on the surface. Whatever is reproduced in form or colour by mechanical means, is moulded—in short, is perpetually branded by mediocrity—Brummagem art! And, like the music ground by the barrel-organ, you never hear the soul of the performer—the expression and feeling, qualities, without which, harmony palls upon the ear.'
'Even in engraving, the best judges all declare that, so far from benefiting art, the harm it has done has been incalculable, substituting a general system of plagiarism in place of invention.'