"The leading ideas must be fixed on the spot: if left to the memory, they soon evaporate."
— Gilpin, William (1724-1804)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for R. Blamire
Date
1792
Metaphor
"The leading ideas must be fixed on the spot: if left to the memory, they soon evaporate."
Metaphor in Context
The virtue of these hasty, black-lead sketches consists in catching readily the characteristic features of a scene. Light and shade are not attended to. It is enough if you express general shapes; and the relations, which the several intersections of a country bear to each other. A few lines drawn on the spot, will do this. "Half a word, says Mr. Gray, fixed on, or near the spot, is worth all our recollected ideas. When we trust to the picture, that objects draw of themselves on the mind, we deceive ourselves. Without accurate, and particular observation, it is but ill-drawn at first: the outlines are soon blurred: the colours, every day grow fainter; and at last, when we would produce it to any body, we are obliged to supply it's defects with a few strokes of our own imagination."*— What Mr. Gray says, relates chiefly to verbal description: but in lineal description it is equally true. The leading ideas must be fixed on the spot: if left to the memory, they soon evaporate.
* Letter to Mr. Palgrave, p. 272, 4to.
(pp. 64-5)
* Letter to Mr. Palgrave, p. 272, 4to.
(pp. 64-5)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in ECCO-TCP
Citation
Three Essays: on Picturesque Beauty; on Picturesque Travel; and on Sketching Landscape: to Which Is Added a Poem, on Landscape Painting. (London: Printed for R. Blamire, 1792). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
09/25/2013
