"Sing—we will drink nothing but Lipari wine."—Rehearsal.
[65] The last paragraph in his preface, p. 10, begins as follows:—
"That perspective is an essential requisite to a good painter, is attested by all our most eminent artists, and confirmed by almost every author who has wrote upon painting. Nay, the very term 'painting' implies perspective; for to draw a good picture is to draw the representation of nature as it appears to the eye; and to draw the perspective representation of any object, is to draw the representation of that object as it appears to the eye. Therefore the terms 'painting' and 'perspective' seem to be synonymous, though I know there is a critical difference between the words. I would not be understood to mean that a person is always to follow the rigid rules of perspective, for there are some cases in which it may be necessary to deviate from them; but then he must do it with modesty, and for some good reason, as we have shown in the course of this work. Nor would I be thought to desire the artist to make use of scale or compasses upon all occasions, and to draw out every line and point to a mathematical exactness, as the design of this work is quite the reverse: it is to teach the general rules of perspective, and to enforce the practice of it by easy and almost self-evident principles; to assist the judgment and to direct the hand, and not to perplex either by unnecessary lines or dry theorems."
The publication of this drew forth Mr. Highmore, who, in the preface of a pamphlet with the following title, now become very scarce, gave his decided opposition to the system:—
"A Critical Examination of those two Paintings on the ceiling of Whitehall, in which Architecture is introduced, so far as relates to the Perspective, together with the discussion of a question which has been the subject of debate among painters. Written many years since, but now first published, by J. Highmore. Printed for Nourse, 1754."
The question Mr. Highmore professes to discuss is by himself stated as follows, viz.:—
"Whether a range of columns, standing on a line parallel to the picture, ought to be painted according to the strict rules of perspective; that is, whether those columns, in proportion as they recede from the centre of the picture, should be drawn broader than that directly opposite to the eye, as the rules require; or whether (because they really in nature appear less, in proportion as they are more distant) they ought not to be made less, or at most, equal to each other in the picture?...
"Mr. Kirby says, p. 70 of his first part: 'Since the fallacies of vision are so many and great, etc., it seems reasonable not to comply with the strict rules of mathematical perspective, in some particular cases (as in this before us), but to draw the representations of objects as they appear to the eye,' etc. But I would ask, How? By guess, or by some rule? And if by any, by what rule are they to be drawn contrary to, or different from, the strict mathematical perspective rules?"
In reply to these and many other strictures contained in the preface, Hogarth wrote some remarks to Mr. Kirby, in which he asks, "Whether an oval or egg can be the true representation of a sphere or ball? or whether buildings should be drawn by any such rule as would make them appear tumbling down, and be allowed to be truly represented, because the designer of them is able to show how a spectator may, in half an hour's time, be placed at such a point as would make them all appear upright? as by a like trick or contrivance the oval may be foreshortened so as to appear a circle."