ARTS, fine. The Fine Arts may be pro perly defined those, which, blending ele gant ornament with utility, convey in tellectual pleasure to the mind, through the medium of the fancy or imagination. they are termed elegant or fine arts, not in opposition to those which are necessary or useful, but to distinguish them from such as are necessary or useful only.
The arts generally distinguished by the appellation tine are, Poetry, Music, Paint ing, Sculpture, and Engraving, with their several branches. To these we may not improperly add Dancing, and also Archi tecture; for the latter, although in its origin it was merely appropriated to pur poses of utility, has certainly, by its va rious proportions, modes, and embellish ments, become highly ornamental, and impressive to the imagination.
It is perhaps scarcely within the scope of a work of this kind, intended for the promulgation of the best established doc trines on the various branches of human knowledge, rather than as a receptacle for novel and dubious conjecture, to dis cuss how far the general sense, in which a term is understood, includes its full and entire meaning ; otherwise it might not be impossible to shew that many branch es of art or science, besides the above mentioned, have an inseparable connec tion with the fine arts ; and that, of con sequence, their influence at least, if not their dominion, is much more widely ex tended than is commonly supposed. If between poetry and painting there really subsist that close affinity which has been so generally allowed, if they are daughters of the same parent, if their ob ject be the same, the mode by which they accomplish that object alone different, if painting is mute poesy, and the poem a speaking picture, may we not reasonably conclude that there exists some great rule, some primary principle, common to both ;. and hope, by tracing the conduct of the one art, to throw some additional light on the other ? Perhaps the result of an investigation upon the nature and boundaries of the art of poetry would, by analogy, at once bring us to this conclu sion, that it is impossible to define the precise limits of the fine arts in general, or what is alone their object.
Although metre or versification be ne cessary to constitute what is strictly call ed poesy, still it is by all admitted and felt, that it is the last qualification of a great poet ; and hence a noble author, (Lord Lansdown) observes, that " Versi fication is in poetry what colouring is in painting, a beautiful ornament." " But,"
he adds, "if the proportions are just, the posture true, the figure bold, and the resemblance according to nature, though the colours happen to be rough, or care lessly laid on, yet the picture shall lose nothing of its esteem. But if skill in versification be the least, what are then the greater qualities which constitute the poet ? The question is easily answered those qualities, which, in a greater or less degree, are requisite to the forma tion of an elegant speaker or writer, on almost any subject, whether in prose or verse, with the exception of those of pro found or abstruse science. And indeed the different species of prose writers have, from time to time, made muca en croachments on what is perhaps more peculiarly the province of poetry ; and the poets have, as it were in revenge, adopted so many of those subjects which belong more properly to prose ; that the chief difference now remaining between the two parties seems to, be, that the lat ter express their thoughts through the medium of metre or rhy me, and the for mer without that ornament. Who will deny the title of poet to the authors of Telemachus and the Death of Abel I And who will deny, that some of those trea tises which have employed the ingenuity of poets, under the title of didactic poems, would better have attained the object of instruction and conviction to the reader, had they been written in the energetic prose of a Bacon, a Swift, or a Johnson ? That a similitude between poetry and painting, as before mentioned, really sub sists, there can be little doubt ; no,r would it be difficult to point out instances of productions in each of these arts, as well as of music, so resembling in character, as to seem, as it were, different emanations from one spirit, and alike calculated to excite kindred sensations in the breast of the hearer or spectator. But, however close the comparison might have been at the period when that comparison was first made, when each art was, in fact, applied to effect similar purposes, though through different means, it is certain that, since the objects of their pursuit have become more varied and extended, the propriety of the comparison between them has pro portionably diminished.