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The Painter as Critic: Hazlitt's Theory of Abstraction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Abstract
Hazlitt's early interest in painting and philosophy profoundly influenced his subsequent work as a literary critic. His view of abstraction as a process of individuation rather than generalization, developed between 1805 and 1812, was an improvement on the nominalist and conceptualist theories of the eighteenth century and anticipated the findings of modern philosophy. In its development, Hazlitt was clearly influenced by his training as a painter and his general conclusions find support in the writings of contemporary and nearcontemporary painters and art critics. His theory has important esthetic implications and provides a philosophical and psychological rationale for the new critical movement toward particularity in the evolution of which painting was a major influence. Since it was within this tradition that Hazlitt worked, it also determined the nature of his response to literature and the manner of its expression in his criticism. The influence of painting on his critical terminology suggests caution in accepting the view that music replaced painting as the dominant analogy in the literary criticism of the early nineteenth century.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1970
References
Note 1 in page 1072 Wallace Stevens, “The Relations between Poetry and Painting,” The Necessary Angel (London, 1960), p. 160. All references to Hazlitt are to The Complete Works, ed. P. P. Howe (London, 1930–34).
Note 2 in page 1072 The Diary of B. R. Haydon, ed. W. B. Pope (Cambridge, Mass., 1960–63), ii, 65.
Note 3 in page 1072 The Mirror and the Lamp (New York, 1953), p. 50. Abrams is supported in this view by J. H. Hagstrum, The Sister Arts (Chicago, 1958), p. 151.
Note 4 in page 1072 Lessing was, of course, known to the painters in England. Fuseli in 1801 specifically refers to Laoko'on in drawing this distinction, and six years later, Opie drew exactly the same distinction in precisely the same terms, Lectures on Painting by the Royal Academicians, ed. R. N. Wornum (London, 1848), pp. 407, 273.
Note 5 in page 1073 This issue is considered in more general terms in my article, “Ut Picture Poesis: The Nineteenth-Century Aftermath,” JAAC, 27 (1969), 155–64.
Note 6 in page 1073 Kathleen Coburn mistakenly assimilates Hazlitt's theory to the conceptualism of Locke in her notes to Coleridge, The Philosophical Lectures, ed. K. Coburn (London, 1949), p. 414. While it is true that there is agreement between Locke and Hazlitt as to the existence of abstract ideas, the difference between their views as to what constitutes the abstract rules out any meaningful agreement. Like Coleridge, Hazlitt also maintained that a compound image was an absurdity. See n. 7.
Note 7 in page 1073 Hazlitt's view that it is not “possible ever to arrive at a demonstration of generals or abstractions by beginning in Mr. Locke's method with particular ones” (ii, 191) is the only reply necessary to Coburn's misinterpretation of Hazlitt's theory. He is here denying the possiblity of compounding abstract ideas from individual ideas. A curious anticipation of his denial that generalization is a sign of intellectual maturity is to be found in Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (Edinburgh, 1783), i, 141–42, who also stresses the importance of individuation.
Note 8 in page 1074 Hazlitt's view of abstraction as a process from generalization to individuation is the theory favoured by most modern philosophers and psychologists. See L. Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books (Oxford, 19S8), pp. 17–19; G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London, 1949), pp. 307–08; H. H. Price, Thinking and Experience (London, 1953); D. O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior (New York, 1949), pp. 104 ff; R. Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception (London, 1956), pp. 27–31.
Note 9 in page 1074 The affinity of Hazlitt's theory of perception with the modern sense-datum theory is highlighted by H. H. Price's remark that “the world as a painter sees it . . . does have to be described in a terminology of visual sense-data or something like it,” Perception (London, 1954), p. vii.
Note 10 in page 1075 J. B. Dubos, Reflexions critiques sur la poësie et sur la peinture (Paris, 1719), i, 210, 222.
Note 11 in page 1075 The Works of John Ruskin, ed. E. T. Cook and A. D. 0. Wedderburn (London, 1902–12), vi, 75–76. See Hazlitt's view that “people in general see objects only to distinguish them in practice and by name—to know that a hat is black, that a chair is not a table” (xvii, 223).
Note 11 in page 1075 C. R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, ed. J. Mayne (London, 1951), p. 273.
Note 13 in page 1075 E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion (London, 1960), p. 86. See also his Meditations on a Hobby Horse (London, 1963), p. 2. Similar views are to be found in C. Bell, Art (London, 1914), p. 77, and R. Fry, French, Flemish and British Art (London, 1951), pp. 101–02.
Note 14 in page 1075 Art and Visual Perception, p. 30.
Note 15 in page 1075 Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and their Writers, ed. E. J. Morley (London, 1938), i, 28.
Note 16 in page 1076 A. Alison, Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste (Edinburgh, 1790), pp. 29 ft.; T. Twining, “On Poetry Considered as an Imitative Art,” in Eighteenth-Century Critical Essays, ed. S. Elledge (Ithaca, N. Y., 1961), ii, 984–1004.
Note 17 in page 1077 R. Hurd, Q. Horatii Flacci Ars Poelica (London, 1749), ii, 133–34.
Note 18 in page 1077 [W. Duff], An Essay on Original Genius (London, 1767), pp. 158–59.
Note 19 in page 1077 J. Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (London, 1756–82), ii, 230.
Note 20 in page 1077 Warton, i, 321–22.
Note 21 in page 1077 H. Home, Lord Karnes, Elements of Criticism (Edinburgh, 1785), II, 352; Hurd, Ars Poelica (London, 1776), i, 59; W. Whiter, A Specimen of a Commentary on Shakespeare (London, 1794), reprinted in part in Eighteenth-Century Critical Essays, ed. Elledge, ii, 1066. Thomas Warton attributed this quality in Chaucer to his familiarity with tapestries, The History of English Poetry (London, 1774–81), ii, 215. Whiter extends this to cover the writers of the sixteenth century as well.
Note 22 in page 1077 H. Blair, Lectures, ii, 371–72; G. Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (London, 1776), ii, 166; J. Beattie, Essays on Poetry and Music (Edinburgh, 1776), p. 97; A. Smith, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, ed. J. M. Lothian (London, 1963), pp. 67–68.
Note 23 in page 1077 T. Warton, Observations on the Faery Queen (London, 1754), ii, 263; Hurd, Ars Poelica, ii, v: J. Warton, Pope, ii, 75; M. Morgann, An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff (London, 1777), reprinted in Eighteenth-Century Essays on Shakespeare, ed. D. N. Smith (Oxford, 1963), p. 211.
Note 24 in page 1077 P. Stockdale, Lectures on the Truly Eminent English Poets (London, 1807), i, 107–08.
Note 25 in page 1077 W. Richardson, Essays on Some of Shakespeare's Dramatic Characters (London, 1797), p. 81.
Note 26 in page 1077 Richardson, p. 15.
Note 27 in page 1078 A. C. Quatremère de Quincy, An Essay on the Nature, the End, and the Means of Imitation in the Fine Arts, trans. J. Kent (London, 1837), pp. 99–100.
Note 28 in page 1078 P. Hoare, The Artist, No. 14 (1809), p. 289.
Note 29 in page 1079 Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 56.
Note 30 in page 1079 Biographia Literaria, ed. J. Shawcross (London, 1907), ii, 187. For Coleridge's note see ii, 33 n.
Note 31 in page 1079 Coleridge, Collected Letters, ed. E. L. Griggs (Oxford, 1956), IV, 759; Miscellaneous Criticism, ed. T. M. Raysor (London, 1936), p. 208. See his criticism of Opie, Lebrun, and Cipriani, Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 208; Biographia, ii, 187; The Notebooks, ed. K. Coburn (London, 1957), ii, 2828.
Note 32 in page 1079 I have attempted to show how this might be done in two articles, “Hazlitt and Bentham,” JHI, 30 (1969), 369–84, and “Coleridge and Kant: Poetic Imagination and Practical Reason,” British Journal of Aesthetics, 8 (1968), 335–46.
Note 33 in page 1080 Schlegel's distinction between ancient and modern art as picturesque is paraphrased at length and with approval by Hazlitt (xvi, 63–64). He was also to use it for his own distinction between ancient and modern drama (vi, 347). Coleridge frequently refers to the distinction, but insists that the term “picturesque” involved a “balance, counteraction, inter-modifications, and final harmony of differents” (Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 190).
Note 34 in page 1080 Hazlitt quotes from Barry's criticism of Raphael to illustrate his own view that characteristic traits do not detract from ideal nature. Both are essential (xviii, 79–80). For Barry's own rejection of Reynolds' theory of generality, see An Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstructions to the Acquisition of the Arts in England (London, 1775), pp. 134–35. Ruskin likewise insisted on the need for both “law” and “individuality,” but emphasized the individual more because “more difficult of attainment” (Works, xv, 116). For Ruskin's emphasis on the individual in his criticism of Reynolds, see Works, v, 23–33. Fry adopted a similar position in relation to Reynolds, Discourses on Art, ed. R. Fry (London, 1905), pp. xiii-xviii. For Hazlitt the ideal “consists neither in giving nor avoiding [details] but in something quite different from both” (xviii, 70).
Note 35 in page 1080 Hazlitt is supported by Constable in this, Memoirs, pp. 305–06. Reynolds' criticism occurs in Discourses on Art, ed. R. R. Wark (San Marino, Calif., 1959), p. 195.
Note 36 in page 1081 The Sister Arts, p. 143.