STUDY X. 



13 



uniting in it all the harmonies, and from the (till 

 greater difficulty of effecting a complete combina- 

 tion of thofe which are of a different nature. For 

 example, the Painter may fucceed tolerably in 

 imitating the colours of the face, and the Sculptor 

 in expreffing it's forms. But were an attempt 

 made to unite the harmony of colours and of 

 forms in a fingle buft, fuch a production will be 

 very inferior to a mere picture, or to a mere piece 

 of fculpture, becaufe it will combine particular 

 diffonances of colours and of forms, befides their 

 general diflbnance, which is (till more marked. If 



bleiïing from Heaven to the Nations of the South, becaufe it 

 abforbs the reflexes of the burning Sun under which they live. 

 But the men of thofe Nations do not the lefs, on that account, 

 confider white women as more beautiful than the black, for the 

 fame reafon that they think the day more beautiful than the 

 night, becaufe the harmonies of colours and of lights render 

 themfelves perceptible in the complexion of the whites, whereas 

 they almoft entirely difappear in that of the blacks, who can 

 pretend to no competition with the others, in point of beauty, 

 except as to form and ftature. 



The proportions of the human figure, having been taken, as 

 we have juft feen, from the moft beautiful forms of Nature, are 

 become, in their t jm, models of beauty for Man. If we attend 

 to this, we fhall find, that the forms which pleafe us moft in 

 works of art, as thofe of antique vafes, and the relations of height 

 and breadth in monuments, have been taken from the human 

 figure. It is well known that the Ionic column, with it's capital 

 and it's flutings, was imitated after the fhape, the head-drefs, 

 and the drapery of the Grecian young women. 



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