L’infinita varietà della natura umana. Variety “'The Figures which excite in us the Ideas of Beauty, seem to be those in which there is uniformity amidst.

L’infinita varietà della natura umana

Variety• “'The Figures which excite in us the Ideas of Beauty, seem to be

those in which there is uniformity amidst variety” (Francis Hutcheson, Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, and Design, 1725)

• "Beauty belongs to objects possessed of uniformity, variety and proportion. Each of these qualities pleases in some degree; but all of them united give exquisite satisfaction." (Alexander Gerard, An Essay on Taste, 1759)

• “How great a share variety has in producing beauty may be seen in the ornamental part of nature. (…) All the senses delight in it, and equally are averse to sameness. (…) I mean here, and every where indeed, a composed variety; for variety uncomposed, and without design, is confusion and deformity” (William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, 1753)

Variety and the novel

“It is a pleasing labour of the mind to solve the most difficult problems; allegories and riddles, trifling as they are, afford the mind amusement; and with what delight does it follow the well-connected thread of a play, or novel, which ever increases as the plot thickens, and ends most pleas’d, when that is most distinctly unravell’d?” (“Of Intricacy” in The Analysis of Beauty)

“la pittura cercherà la linea serpentina, la bellezza teorizzata da Hogarth e capace di scardinare l’ordine specchiato e meccanico della simmetria. (…) Quando l’ideale grafico classico – l’uomo – e la correlata ‘svalutazione del paesaggio’ lascerà spazio a ciò che si era eliminato, quando cioè alla natura naturans – l’idealizzazione – si aggiungerà la natura naturata in tutti i suoi aspetti, sia naturalistici (i dirupi, le eruzioni vulcaniche, l’asperità delle Alpi e la voga dei Northern Tours) sia antropomorfi (i personaggi umili ed idiosincratici, si pensi ai characters di Fielding, di Hogarth o di Smollett), allora si compirà il passo dal generale al particolare.” (Yvonne de Bezrucka, Genio e immaginazione nel Settecento inglese)

“(…) to see with our own eyes”

“It is also evident that the painter’s eye may not be a bit better fitted to receive these new impressions, who is in like manner too much captivated with the works of art; for he also is apt to pursue the shadow, and drop the substance. This mistakes happens chiefly to those who go to Rome for the accomplishment of their studies, as they naturally will, without the utmost care, take the infectious turn of the connoisseur, instead of the painter” (“Introduction” to The Analysis of Beauty)

W. Hogarth, Captain Coram, 1740

William Hogarth. David Garrick in Richard III

William HogarthPortrait of David GarrickAnd his Wife,1757

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse, 1789

Gainsborough,Portrait ofMrs Siddons, 1785

“So necessary is this to the understanding of the characters of men”

“Again, there is another sort of knowledge, beyond the power of learning to bestow, and this is to be had by conversation. So necessary is this to the understanding the characters of men, that none are more ignorant of them than those learned pedants whose lives have been entirely consumed in colleges, and among books; for however exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learnt only in the world. (…) Such characters are only the faint copy of a copy, and can have neither the justness nor spirit of an original.” (Tom Jones, Book IX, Ch. I)

“Writing (…) is but a different name for conversation”

(L. Sterne, Tristram Shandy)

HOGARTH’SCONVERSATION PIECES

AND CYCLES

W. Hogarth, A Midnight Modern Conversation

W. Hogarth, The Staymaker

“Of faces”

“It is an observation, that, out of the great number of faces that have been form’d since the creation of the world, no two have been so exactly alike, but the usual and common discernment of the eye would discover a difference between them.” (W. Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty)

“To diversify their operations, is one talent of a good writer”

“Another caution we would give thee, my good Reptile, is, that thou dost not find out too near a resemblance between certain characters here introduced; as, for instance, between the landlady who appears in the seventh book and her in the ninth. Thou art to know, friend, that there are certain characteristics in which most individuals of every profession and occupation agree. To be able to preserve these characteristics, and at the same time to diversify their operations, is one talent of a good writer” Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Book X, Ch. I)

He who should call the ingenious Hogarth a burlesque painter, would, in my opinion, do him very little honour; for sure it is much easier, much less the subject of admiration, to paint a man with a nose, or any other feature, of a preposterous size, or to expose him in some absurd or monstrous attitude, than to express the affections of men on canvas. It hath been thought a vast commendation of a painter to say his figures seem to breathe; but surely it is a much greater and nobler applause, that they appear to think. (Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews, Author’s preface, 1742)

J. Reynolds,Laurence Sterne1760

Joshua Reynolds, Mrs. Abington

Gainsborough, Portrait of Viscountess Folkestone, detail

“The cutis is composed of tender threads, like network, filled with different colour’d juices. (…) These different colour’d juices, together with the different mashes of the network, and the size of its threads in this or that part, causes the variety of complexions” (W. Hogarth, “Of Colouring”, AB)

“the general hue of the performance will be a seeming uniform prime tint, at any little distance, that is a very fair, transparent and pearl-like complexion; but never quite uniform as snow, ivory, marble or wax, like a poet’s mistress, for either of these in living-flesh, would in truth be hideous.” (“Of Colouring”, AB)

Beauty does no longer equal virtue

“The lock (…) serves Hogarth as the contingency that distinguishes the real from Shaftesbury’s ideal, the living woman from a sculpted simulacrum or the perfect geometrical figure.” (Ronald Paulson, Introduction to Hogarth’s AB)

W. Hogarth, Mrs Salter, 1741

“…conversation of character”

“In the last place, the actions should be such as may not only be within the compass of human agency, and which human agents may probably be supposed to do; but they should be likely for the very actors and characters themselves to have performed; for what may be only wonderful and surprizing in one man, may become improbable, or indeed impossible, when related of another. This last requisite is what the dramatic critics call conversation of character; and it requires a very extraordinary degree of judgment, and a most exact knowledge of human nature.” (Tom Jones, Book VIII, Ch. I)

Mr Thwackum and Mr Square

“This gentleman and Mr Thwackum scarce ever met without a disputation; for their tenets were indeed diametrically opposite to each other. Square held human nature to be the perfection of all virtue, and that vice was a deviation from our nature, in the same manner as deformity of body is. Thwackum, on the contrary, maintained that the human mind, since the fall, was nothing but a sink of iniquity, till purified and redeemed by grace. In one point only they agreed, which was, in all their discourses on morality never to mention the word goodness. The favourite phrase of the former, was the natural beauty of virtue; that of the latter, was the divine power of grace. The former measured all actions by the unalterable rule of right, and the eternal fitness of things (…).” (Tom Jones, Book III, Ch. III)

“If thou dost delight in these models of perfection, there are books enow written to gratify thy taste”

“In the next place, we must admonish thee, my worthy friend (…) not to condemn a character as a bad one, because it is not perfectly a good one. If thou dost delight in these models of perfection, there are books enow written to gratify thy taste; (…) nor do I, indeed, conceive the good purposes served by inserting characters of such angelic perfection, or such diabolical depravity, in any work of invention; since, from contemplating either, the mind of man is more likely to be overwhelmed with sorrow and shame than to draw any good uses from such patterns; for in the former instance he may be both concerned and ashamed to see a pattern of excellence in his nature, which he may reasonably despair of ever arriving at (…).” (Tom Jones, Book X, Ch. I)

Henry Fielding, “To John Hayes Esq.”

And see how various men at once will seem/How passions blended on each other fix./How vice with virtues, faults with graces mix; /How passions opposite, as sour to sweet, / Shall in one bosom at one moment meet. / With various luck for victory contend. / And now shall carry, and now lose their end. (…)But as the diff'ring colours blended lie/When Titian variegates his clouded sky;/Where white and black, the yellow and the green,/Unite and undistinguish'd form the scene./So the great artist diff'ring passions joins,/And love with hatred, fear with rage combines.

Tiziano Vecellio , Il ratto d'Europa (1559-62)

The variety of human nature

(Containing references to and passages from Defoe, Fielding, Hogarth, Choderlos de Laclos, Sterne)

From Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, 1606:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety: other women cloyThe appetites they feed: but she makes hungryWhere most she satisfies;

From Milton’s Paradise Lost, 1667

So vary’d he, and of his tortuous Traine Curl’d many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve, To lure her Eye;

“It is strange that nature has afforded us so many lines and shapes to indicate the deficiencies and blemishes of the mind, whilst there are none at all that point out the perfections of it beyond the appearance of common sense and placidity. Deportment, words, and actions, must speak for the good, the wise, the witty, the humane, the generous, the merciful and the brave.” (AB, “Of the face”)

“It is by the natural and unaffected movements of the muscles, caused by the passions of the mind, that ev’ry man’s character would in some measure be written in his face.” (Analysis of Beauty, “Of the face”)

The hypocrite

“Many handsom faces of almost any age, will hide a foolish or wicked mind till they betray themselves by their actions or their words: yet the frequent aukward movements of the muscles of the fool’s face, th’ ever so handsom, is apt in time to leave such traces up and down it, as will distinguish a defect of mind upon examination: but the bad man, if he be a hypocrite, may so manage his muscles, by teaching them to contradict his heart, that little of his mind can be gather’d from his countenance, so that the character of an hypocrite is entirely out of the power of the pencil, without some adjoining circumstances to discover him, as smiling and stabing at the same time.” (BA, “Of the face”)

“(…) and I will say boldly, that both religion and virtue have received more real discredit from hypocrites than the wittiest profligates or infidels could ever cast upon them: nay, farther, as these two, in their purity, are rightly called the bands of civil society, and are indeed the greatest of blessings; so when poisoned and corrupted with fraud, pretence, and affectation, they have become the worst of civil curses, and have enabled men to perpetrate the most cruel mischiefs to their own species. (Tom Jones, Book III, CH. IV)

Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism1761William Hogarthb. Nov. 10, 1697

“Here Allworthy concluded his Sermon, to which Blifil had listened with the profoundest attention, though it cost him some pain to prevent now and then a small discomposure of his muscles. He now praised every period of what he had heard, with the warmth of a young divine, who hath the honour to dine with a bishop the same day in which his lordship hath mounted the pulpit.” (Tom Jones, Book I, Ch. XII)

Maîtrise de soi:self-control or de-textualization of the Self?

"Entrée dans le monde dans le temps où, fille encore, j'étais vouée par état au silence et à l'inaction, j'ai su en profiter pour observer et réfléchir. Tandis qu'on me croyait étourdie ou distraite, écoutant peu à la vérité les discours qu'on s'empressait de me tenir, je recueillais avec soin ceux qu'on cherchait à me cacher.Cette utile curiosité, en servant à m'instruire, m'apprit encore à dissimuler: forcée souvent de cacher les objets de mon attention aux yeux qui m'entouraient, j'essayai de guider les miens à mon gré; j'obtins dès lors de prendre à volonté ce regard distrait que depuis vous avez loué si souvent. Encouragée par ce premier succès, je tâchai de régler de même les divers mouvements de ma figure. Ressentais-je quelque chagrin, je m'étudiais à prendre l'air de la sécurité, même celui de la joie; j'ai porté le zèle jusqu'à me causer des douleurs volontaires, pour chercher pendant ce temps l'expression du plaisir. Je me suis travaillée avec le même soin et plus de peine pour réprimer les symptômes d'une joie inattendue. C'est ainsi que j'ai su prendre sur ma physionomie cette puissance dont je vous ai vu quelquefois si étonné.(Choderlos de Laclos, Le liaisons dangéreuses, Lettre LXXXI)

Personality is a mask you believe in

“I was not averse to a tradesman, but then I would have a tradesman, forsooth, that was something of a gentleman too: that when my husband had a mind to carry me to the court, or to the play, he might become a sword, and look as like a gentleman as another man; and not be one that had the mark of his apron-strings upon his coat, or the mark of his hat upon his periwig; that should look as if he was set on to his sword, when his sword was put on to him, and that carried his trade in his countenance.” (D. Defoe, Moll Flanders)

“Some have considered the larger part of mankind in the light of actors, as personating characters no more their own, and to which in fact they have no better title, than the player hath to be in earnest thought the king or emperor whom he represents. Thus the hypocrite may be said to be a player; and indeed the Greeks called them both by one and the same name.” (Tom Jones, Book VII, Ch. I)

Physiognomy can be deceiveing

“(…) there are pretty frowns and disagreable smiles: the lines that form a pleasing smile about the corners of the mouth have gentle windings (…) but lose their beauty in the full laugh (…), the expression of excessive laughter, oftener than any other, gives a sensible face a silly or disagreable look, as it is apt to form regular plain lines about the mouth, like a parenthesis, which sometimes appears like crying; as, on the contrary, I remember to have seen a beggar who had clouted up his head very artfully, and whose visage was thin and pale enough to excite pity, but his features were otherwise so unfortunately form’d for his purpose, that what he intended for a grin of pain and misery, was rather a joyous laugh” (AB, “Of the face”)

One century later, George Eliot would write on the subject:

“If any had noticed her blush as significant, they had certainly not interpreted it by the secret windings and recesses of her feelings. A blush is no language: only a dubious flag-signal which may mean either of two contradictories” (George Eliot, Daniel Deronda)

Tristram Shandy

“Here are two senses (…) And here are two roads (…) – which shall we take?”

“God only knows who is a hypocrite and who is not”

The artist as anatomist

• [The artist] “must beside a delicate taste and quick apprehension possess an accurate knowledge of the internal fabric” (Hume, Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)

• “In order to my being well understood, let every object under our consideration, be imagined to have its inward contents scoop’d up so nicely, as to have nothing of it left but a thin shell, exactly corresponding both in its inner and outer surface, to the shape of the object itself” (BA, “Introduction”)

• Human faculties “are not fitted to penetrate into the internal Fabrick and real Essences of Bodies” (John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding 4.12.11)

“(…) our minds shine not through the body but are wrapt up here in a dark covering of uncrystalized flesh and blood; so that if we would come to the specifick cha- racters of them, we must go some other way to work.” (Tristram Shandy, vol. I, ch. XXIII)

In Tristram Shandy la teoria fisiognomica può funzionare solo se il narratore:

• assume un atteggiamento sentimentale, registrando emozioni e gesti;

• sposta l’attenzione dalla complessità dell’individuo alla complessità del mondo che lo circonda, in modo che l’enigma della natura umana possa essere rappresentata anche attraverso la presenza inquietante delle cose;

• riesce a creare dei centri di coscienza ingenui in modo da evitare dei fraintendimenti assoluti; solo così, visto che gli uomini non hanno una finestra sul petto, si può leggere il gioco delle passioni sul volto.

We live among riddles and mysteries…

“But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries – the most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides, which the quickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us find ourselves puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny on nature’s works” (TS)

“I have left Trim my bowling-green, cried my uncle Toby – My father smiled – I have left him moreover a pension, continued my uncle Toby – my father looked grave.” (TS, Vol IV, Ch. IV)

W. HogarthAfter

Body language

“Action is a sort of language which perhaps one time or other may come to be taught by a kind of grammar rules.” (AB, “Of action”)

“There are some traits of certain ideas which leave prints of themselves about our eyes and eye-brows: and there is a consciousness of it, somewhere about the heart, which serves but to make the etchings the stronger – we see, spell, and put them together without a dictionary” (TS, Vol. V, Ch. I)

“There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety – where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel set loose together could not express them – they are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce say which party is the infecter. I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it” (A Sentimental Journey, “The gloves”)

“The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet (…). As soon as I sat down, he took his spectacles off (…). Translate this into any civilized language in the world…”

“There is not a secret so aiding in the process of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs, with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words. For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that when I walk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to.” (SJ, “The translation”)

“to shew how few lines are necessary to express the first thoughts, as to different attitudes” (W. Hogarth, AB)

“The two parts of curves next to 71, served for the figures of the old woman and her partner at the farther end of the room. The curve and two straight lines at right angle, gave the hint for the fat man’s sprawling posture. I next resolved to keep a figure within the bounds of a circle, which produced the upper part of the fat woman, between the fat man and the aukward one in the bag wig, for whom I had made a sort of X. The prim lady, his partner, in the riding-habit, by pecking back her elbows, as they call it, from the waste upwards, made a tolerable D, with a straight line under it, to signify the scanty stiffness of her petticoat; and a Z stood for the angular position the body makes with the legs and thighs of the affected fellow in the tye-wig; the upper parts of this plump partner were confin’d to a O …..” (AB, “Of attitude”)

• “My Lord A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, M, N, O, P, Q, and so on, all of a row, mounted upon their several horses; some with large stirrups, getting on in a more grave and sober pace; others on the contrary, tucked up to their chins, with whips across their mouths, scouring and scampering it away like so many little party-coloured devils astride a mortgage, - and as if some of them were resolved to break their necks.” (TS)

   ---- But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description of his attitude ; ---- otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by your imagination, in an uneasy posture, -- stiff, -- perpendicular, -- dividing the weight of his body equally upon both legs ; -- his eye fix'd, as if on duty ; -- his look determined ; -- clinching the sermon in his left hand, like his firelock : -- In a word, you would be apt to paint Trim, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action : -- His attitude was as unlike all this as you can conceive.            

“He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the horizon ; -- which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well, to be the true persuasive angle of incidence; -- in any other angle you may talk and preach ; -- 'tis certain, -- and it is done every day ; -- but with what effect, -- I leave the world to judge !”

“The necessity of this precise angle of 85 degrees and a half to a mathematical exactness, -- does it not shew us, by the way, -- how the arts and sciences mutually befriend each other ?”

He stood, ---- for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one view, with his body sway'd, and somewhat bent forwards, --- his right leg firm under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight, -- the foot of his left leg, the de-fect of which was no disadvantage to his attitude, advanced a little, -- not lateral-ly, nor forwards, but in a line betwixt them ; -- his knee bent, but that not vio-lently, -- but so as to fall within the li-mits of the line of beauty ;

---- And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation -- so wouldst thou : For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet any thing in this world, more concupiscible than widow Wadman.

TO conceive this right, -- call for pen and ink -- here's paper ready to your hand. ---- Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind ---- as like your mistress as you can ---- as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you -- 'tis all one to me ---- please but your own fancy in it. (Vol. 6, Ch XXXVIII)