Common Observation And A Plain Understanding Is

Though Colour May Appear At First A Part Of Painting Merely Mechanical, Yet It Still Has Its Rules, And Those Grounded Upon That Presiding Principle Which Regulates Both The Great And The Little In The Study Of A Painter.

Perhaps Blue, Red, And Yellow Strike The Mind More Forcibly From There Not Being Any Great Union Between Them, As Martial Music, Which Is Intended To Rouse The Nobler Passions.

From A Slight, Undetermined Drawing, Where The Ideas Of The Composition And Character Are Just Touched Upon, The Imagination Supplies More Than The Painter Himself, Probably, Could Produce. And We Accordingly Often Find That The Finished Work Disappoints The Expectation That Was Raised From The Sketch.

In Portraits, The Grace And, We May Add, The Likeness Consists More In Taking The General Air Than In Observing The Exact Similitude Of Every Feature.

Genius Is Supposed To Be A Power Of Producing Excellences Which Are Put Of The Reach Of The Rules Of Art: A Power Which No Precepts Can Teach, And Which No Industry Can Acquire.