37 
OF 
ORNAMENT S, &c. 
The English language does not admit of a distinction between those 
Ornaments which comprehend utility, and those which are merely orna- 
mental, or rather Enrichments; thus Columns may be called Architectural 
Ornaments, but the sculptured Foliage of the Capitals are Decorations 
and Enrichments. In the progress of Sculpture we may trace it as an 
imitative art ; from its origin in the rude mis-shapen blocks of granite in 
Egypt, to its perfection in the Works of Greece, which are selected or 
combined forms of beauty, ideal forms, surpassing those of nature. 
We may afterwards trace its decline in the laboured exactness of imita- 
tion, as in Chinese figures, where individual nature is so closely copied, 
that even colour and motion are added to complete the resemblance. 
Much has been said of late concerning the Study of Nature in all 
Works of Art ; but if the most exact imitations of Nature were the cri- 
terion of perfection, the man who paints a Panorama, or even a scene at 
the theatres, would rank higher than Claude or Poussin. In that early 
stage of Painting in England, when the Exhibitions were first opened, 
they were crowded with portraits in coloured wax, artificial flowers and 
fruits, and boards painted to deceive and surprise, by the exactness of 
their resemblance; but they never excited admiration like the Marble 
of Wilton, the Wood carved by Gibbon, or the animated Canvass of 
Reynolds. Mr. Burke observes, that ‘ it is the duty of a true Artist to 
put a generous deception on the spectators ;’ but in too close an imita- 
tion of nature, he commits an absolute fraud, and becomes ridiculous, by 
the attempt to perform impossibilities. If it is the mark of a low ima- 
gination to aim at the Vastness of Nature, an endeavour to copy the 
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