| Notes: [AESTHETICS]. THOMSON, William (Author, 1726-1798), DAKINS, William Whitfield (Editor, 1767-1850). "An Enquiry into the Elementary Principles of Beauty, in the Works of Nature and Art. To Which is Prefixed, an Introductory Discourse on Taste." London: Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church Yard, 1798 [i.e. 1799]. Memoir and plates dated 1799, title dated 1798. First and only edition. 4to (11 ½ x 8 ½ inches). 38 oz. [x]2 *-**3 A4 a4 b2 B-Z4 AA-DD4 EE3 FF 12 Plates. 137 ff. [2] [i]-xv* [ii]-xx [1]-214 [26]. 274 pp. First twenty-seven leaves hand-foliated in contemporary ink manuscript 1-4 9-32. Contemporary brown paper-covered boards expertly rebacked using kozo tissue by Princeton conservator Martyna Gryko, with red morocco titling-piece lettered gilt [ELEMENTARY | PRINCIPLES | OF | BEAUTY ] on spine with six bands. Set in grey card four-flap enclosure with paper titling-label on spine. Sumptuous modern Spanish hand-marbled maroon and green endpapers. Uncut bottom and fore-edge. Wove paper with [1794] watermarks. Letterpress type.Title, Memoir of the Author by Dakins, Preface, Table of Contents, Introductory Discourse on Taste Chapters I-XVI, A Theoretic and Practical Elucidation of the Beautiful Chapters I-XI, Errata, List of Plates, 12 of 13 engraved plates, lacking Plate 12. A wonderfully peculiar treatise on aesthetics with twelve gorgeous plates, in contemporary boards superior to other recently available copies."An extremely instructive late eighteenth-century text." [Patey]The Irish William Thomson, sometimes called "Blarney Thomson," died with this text hot off the press. London's Monthly Magazine posthumously eulogized him soon after as "one of the few learned painters this country had to boast of, and, we believe, he was the oldest portrait painter in London." The Reverend William Whitfield Dakins, the Precentor of Westminster Abbey and Chaplain-General to the Forces, felt called to write a biographical sketch and praise of Thomson to preface this book after his death but before publication. Dakins's so-called "Memoir of the Author" is joined by Thomson's own "Introductory Discourse on Taste," in which "the various faculties are discussed seriatim (perception, memory, imagination, taste, judgment), with a view to determine in what the faculty of taste consists, whether it can be developed, and whether it is a universal faculty inherent in all, or only in a few." [Knight] In Thomson's main text, "The Elementary Principles of the Beautiful," Thomson finds the six elementary principles of Beauty to be: (1) the beauty of proportion or fitness, (2) the beauty of shape, (3) the beauty of lines, (4) the beauty of colors, (5) the beauty of variety, and (6) the beauty of smoothness. Beauty, Thomson elaborates, is the result of “six different accidents or elementary principles, each of which is a distinct beauty in itself, and consequently communicates a peculiar Beauty to every object to which it is joined. All beings, inanimate as well as animate, have one or more of these six beauties, and each of these elementary principles which is added after the first (which none are or can be without) increases its beauty by the addition of such elements. It follows that the creature or object which possesses all the elementary principles is most or perfectly beautiful; while the creature or object which possesses only one element is least beautiful; and if there be any creature or object which possesses more it must be ugly, deformed, or monstrous." [Thomson, p.101] It is decidedly an eccentric book, redolent of its time, with 12 charming engraved illustrations that are oddly naive for a trained artist writing a manual on aesthetics. The subjects in these plates range from an elephant and a "swine," to an obelisk and the ideal Egyptian male form, to the tulip and the rose. To today's learned aesthete's eye, some of these plates, especially those of animals, are reminiscent of the work of recent American outsider artists, making Thomson's final work somehow even more endearing. Across copies one notes a variable order to the book's sections. And some copies have 2 duplicative errata leaves, others not. In 1972, Garland Publishing of New York produced a facsimile modeled after the NYU copy, which even misorders the plates. OCLC finds the print first edition in only 7 libraries, plus the British Library and Sir John Soane's Museum's copies. John K. King Rare Books in Detroit had a copy listed for $4,200 last year, which is no longer online. In the auction record, one finds Bookmans showing a copy selling for $1,750 in 1988, roughly $4,650 in today's inflation-adjusted dollars. The plates are somewhat foxed, one plate with a small hole, another with a small ink stain. There is light toning throughout, and some Japanese tissue reinforcements can be seen. Overall, it is in remarkable condition, text clean, binding tight, with expert repairs made by a Princeton University conservator. Very Good Plus. REFERENCES: De Bolla, The Discourse of the Sublime, p.48. Devine, "William Thomson" in Dictionary of Irish Biography. ESTC N51001. Foster, "Bibliography of Beauty Theories," in Notes and Queries, Vol.8, No.196, p.244. Irving, Ancients and Moderns, p.72. Hussey, ‘A Century of Irish Portrait Painters 1750–1850," Dublin Historical Record, Vol.18, No.4, (1963), pp.101–21. Knight, The Philosophy of the Beautiful, pp.192-3. Kovach, Philosophy of Beauty, p.164. London Review, 1800-1805, Vol.3, No.17, pp.412-14. Millin, Magazin Encyclopedique, Tome 1 (1800), p.93. Monthly Magazine, Vol.8, No.53 (1800), p.990. OCLC 9304698. Patey, Probability and Literary Form, p.318. Sher, The Enlightenment and the Book 347. Sir John Soane's Museum 3450. Sotheby's Duke of York catalog (1827) 5192. |