342 



FINE ARTS. 



UNDER the name of Fine or Polite Arts, have 

 been generally comprehended, painting, sculpture, 

 architecture, poetry, and music: but in the com- 

 mon acceptation of words, the term fine arts is usu- 

 ally confined to the three first; and the professors 

 of them are called, by way of eminence, artists. 



It would exceed the limits to which we are con- 

 fined in this work, to descant on the value and im- 

 portance of the fine arts ; and it is the less neces- 

 sary, as this subject is beginning to be generally 

 understood, since drawing has become a necessary 

 branch of education. 



To treat fully and professionally on the fine arts, 

 would require a separate and extended work. What 

 is here proposed, is to consider that part which 

 enters into our system of usual school education. 



Drawing strictly means the delineation of the 

 contours or outlines of objects: and in this sense the 

 term is used by painters, who distinguish betweeli 

 drawing and colouring : but the meaning of the 

 word drawing is not sufficiently restricted, since, in 

 common language, it has been applied to all such 

 paintings as are executed with water colours on 

 paper; the title of paintings having been rather 

 given to those executed with oil colours on canvass. 



Since this difference of the materials only afforded 

 a very bad ground of distinction on which to found 

 two species, the term paintings in water colours has 

 very properly been lately introduced. 



