ON RULES.
Rules are not principles: Polite learning is only a more specious ignorance: it may do something to make a connoisseur, but will never make a practical painter; while a little knowledge of principles will go farther to make a connoisseur!
A foreign philosopher says, 'A thinking man is a depraved animal.' Both rules and principles are the healthy results of thought, notwithstanding.—Condensation and simplification—shorter methods, and conclusive deductions, are among the results obtained from them.
'There are rules for the conduct of the artist, which are fixed and invariable. The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and casualty, if those who are to judge of their excellencies had no settled principles by which they are to regulate their decisions, and their merits or defects were to be determined by unguided fancy;' which, in the end, would deprive art of its existence.
Reynolds says, 'Whatever is done well is done by some certain rule, otherwise it could not be repeated.'
Rules, pursued beyond their intention, become the fetters of the mind: among architects for instance—whose very profession should be a matter of light and shade—I have never known, nor heard of one in my life, who ever obtained even the veriest mediocrity in painting, however otherwise talented. This can only be attributable to their adherence to the rigidity of their rules in their details, beyond their general intention.
Much should oftentimes be conceded to the suggestions of strong inclination in an ingenious and intelligent mind, whose impulses are irresistible, and which any peculiar method would only clog and fetter, by thwarting its particular turn—which, after all succeeds best its own way; and arrives at the same end by its own impulses. Rules apply more properly to such as are not invested with these powers: or, with the same incentives, have not the strength.