Davenport's Supplement to " The Amateurs Perspective." 283 



tourists, male and female ; and their published travels contain an im- 

 mensely greater display of sketches and descriptive plates than here- 

 tofore ; and their private portfolios, of elegant drawings. The utility 

 of this practice is not ill appreciated in society; and the pleasure it 

 affords to the tourist and to the reader is very generally acknow- 

 ledged. It is therefore somewhat surprising that the study of Per- 

 spective should prevail so little. Is it the fault of the books, the 

 teachers, or the scholars ? Is it the fear of the undertaking, or want 

 of perception of its value, that indisposes amateurs to undertake 

 this study ? It must be acknowledged that some of our first mas- 

 ters have been careless of Perspective up to a certain degree ; but 

 the neglect appears in general in the subordinate parts only of their 

 pictures : still their inattention, even in this degree, has left an ex- 

 ample, which, being on the indolent side, is too readily followed by 

 artists of inferior talent ; and it deceives the eye and habituates it 

 to incorrect representation. 



Notwithstanding, however, this unperceived morbid habit, good 

 Perspective is always pleasing. The untutored eye catches the ef- 

 fect, and perceives unexpectedly the resemblance to nature. Who 

 is not delighted by the magic of the Dioramas ? But (without more 

 than mentioning those specimens of the art) who does not feel 

 pleased with a true representation of even the simplest scene, where 

 the surface of a road-side pond appears level and flat, — where the 

 street in a country town appears to open to the spectator as though 

 he could trot along the hard ground where the boy's hoop seems ba- 

 lanced as it runs en the pavement? While, on the other hand, how- 

 ever finely a picture may be coloured, or however beautifully pen- 

 cilled a drawing, how lost is the effect when the artist has not taken 

 the pains to consider where his horizontal line is, or has not known 

 to what points his vanishing lines should tend ! The spectator feels 

 at once, though he may not know why, that the figures appear not to 

 stand on the ground; — that the two sides, whether of a cathedral or 

 of a cottage, look like one long face ; — that the water slopes ; — or 

 that even a round tub appears bigger on one side than the other. 



Perspective is the first requisite — the sine qua non of picture. 

 Picture is the representation of space and bulk on superficies. It con- 

 sists in form, light and shade, and colour ; but form comes first, — 

 Drawing. Now the form of one and the same object varies infi- 

 nitely, in the infinite variety of positions in which it is viewed; and 

 the representation of that form, according to that position, is Per- 

 spective ; which, therefore, is the first essential of picture. 



The work to which the publication before us is called a Supple- 

 ment, was noticed in the Phil. Mag. and Annals, N. S. vol. v. p. 127, 

 with extracts from the Preface, giving an idea of its nature and de- 

 sign, together with its table of contents. A main part of the pro- 

 fessed intention of the work appears to be to encourage the study 

 of Perspective, by showing, — that previous knowledge of geometry is 

 not necessary to convince amateurs that the study requires no more 

 knowledge or talent than is necessary to one who studies a map, 

 tracing positions by the lines of longitude and latitude; and that not 



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