ABSTRACT
25 If Painting and Sculpture delight us like other works of ingenuity, merely from the difficulties they surmount; like an ‘egg in a bottle,’ a tree made out of stone, or a face made of pigment ; and the pleasure we receive, is our wonder at the achievement ; then, to such as so believe, this treatise is not written. But if, as the writer conceives, works of Fine Art delight us by the interest the objects they depict excite in the beholder, just as those objects in nature would excite his interest ; if by any association of ideas in the one case, by the same in the other, without reference to the representations being other than the objects they represent :—then, to such as so believe, the following upon ‘Subject’ is addressed. Whilst, at the same time, it is not disallowed that a subsequent pleasure may and does result, upon reflecting that the objects contemplated were the work of human ingenuity.
