Richard Payne Knight
Encyclopedia
Richard Payne Knight was a classical scholar and connoisseur
best known for his theories of picturesque
beauty and for his interest in ancient phallic imagery.
in Herefordshire
, UK
, was the son of Rev. Thomas Knight (1697–1764) and nephew and heir of Richard Knight (1693–1765) of Croft Castle
. They were two of the sons of Richard Knight, a wealthy Ironmaster
of Bringewood Ironworks
. He was educated at home, but toured
Italy and the European continent from 1767 for several years. He was a collector of ancient bronze
s and coin
s, a Member of Parliament from 1780 to 1806, and an author of numerous books and articles on ancient sculpture, coins and other artefacts. As a member of the Society of Dilettanti, Knight was widely considered to be an arbiter of taste. He bequeathed his collection of bronzes, coins, engraved gems, marbles, and drawings to the British Museum
.
He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Wormsley
, and his chest tomb has been designated as a Grade II listed building.
over Judeo-Christian
puritan
ism led to many attacks on him as an infidel and as a scholarly apologist for libertinism. This ensured the persistent distrust of the religious establishment. The central claim of The Worship of Priapus was that an international religious impulse to worship ‘the generative principle’ was articulated through genital imagery, and that this imagery has persisted into the modern age. In some ways the book was the first of many later attempts to argue that Pagan
ideas had persisted within Christian
culture, a view that would eventually crystallise into the neo-Pagan movement over a century later.
Another book of interest to the neo-Pagan movement was Knight's Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology.
An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste, 1805, was, however, Knight’s most influential work in his lifetime. This book sought to explain the experience of ‘taste’ within the mind and to clarify the theorisation of the concept of the picturesque, following from the writings of William Gilpin
and Uvedale Price on the subject. Knight's views on the aesthetics
of the picturesque are also formed in engagement with Edmund Burke
's emphasis on the importance of sensation, which Knight partly rejects in favour of a modified associationism
. The philosophical basis of Knight's theories have implications for his account of the relationship between the ‘beautiful’ and the ‘picturesque’. For Knight, aesthetic concepts cannot be formed directly from optical sensations, because these must be interpreted within the mind before they can be recognised as beautiful. Thus a Classical architecture
Roman temple
is beautiful because of the proportions of its parts, but these proportions can never be perceived directly by the senses, which will simply encounter a mass of confused impressions. ‘Beauty’ is thus a product of internal mental acts. It is therefore proper to speak of moral, mathematical and other non-sensuous forms of beauty, contrary to Burke, Hogarth
and others who claimed such usages were metaphorical. In all cases ‘the particular object [e.g. proportion] is an abstract idea.’
For Knight, colour is experienced directly as pleasurable sensation. A pure blue is not pleasurable because it reminds us of clear skies, as Price supposed, but because of the experience itself. Interpretation of impressions follows chains of association following from this primal sensory experience. However, the pleasures of sense may be ‘modified by habit’, so that the pure stimulus of colour may be experience as pleasurable when ‘under the influence of mind’ which perceives its meaningful use within a painting. Excess of pure colour is painful, like any other sensory excess. Variety and combination of colours is most pleasurable.
Knight makes much of the need to fragment an image into tonal and colouristic ‘masses’, a view has been claimed to anticipate the late work of Turner
, or even Impressionism
. However, it most directly justifies the practices of contemporary painters of picturesque landscapes, such as Girtin, whose stippling effects are comparable to Knight’s account of pleasing colour combinations. Knight commissioned landscape artist, Thomas Hearne to produce several drawings of the grounds of his home, Downton Castle
in Herefordshire
.
Sculpture – typically colourless form – generates in the mind the idea of shape which we must conceptualise, as with ‘proportion’. The literary arts, like sculpture
, deal with thoughts and emotions, though in a more complex form. Knight’s account of these arts therefore falls under the heading of ‘association of ideas’. Here Knight shows the influence of the contemporary cult of sensibility, arguing that these arts engage our sympathies, and in so doing demonstrate the inadequacy of ‘rules and systems’ in both morality and aesthetics. These teach ‘men to work by rule, instead of by feeling and observation.’ Rule-based knowledge of wrong cannot prevent wrongdoing, because it is thought not felt. Therefore, ‘it is impossible that tragedy should exhibit examples of pure and strict morality, without becoming dull and uninteresting.’
Knight’s discussion of ‘the passions’ engages with both Classical and recent theorisations of sentiments. His discussion of the sublime is directed against Burke’s emphasis on feelings of terror and powerlessness. Knight defends Longinus
's original account of sublimity, which he summarises as the ‘energetic exertion of great and commanding power.’ Again he intertwines social and aesthetic reasoning, asserting that the power of a tyrant cannot be sublime if the tyrant inspires fear by mere arbitrary whim, like Nero
. However, it may be sublime if his tyranny, like Napoleon's, derives from the exercise of immense personal capacities. A Nero may be feared, but would also be despised. A Napoleon may be hated, but will nevertheless inspire awe. In art, the mind experiences the sublime as it experiences the exercise of its own powers, or sympathises with the exercises of the powers of others. Fear itself can never engender the sublime.
Knight’s emphasis on the roles of sensation and of emotion were constituative of later Romantic
and Victorian
aesthetic thinking, as was his vexed struggle with the relation between moral feeling and sensuous pleasure. Though some contemporaries condemned the basis of his thought as an aestheticised libertinism, or devotion to physical sensation, they influenced John Ruskin
’s attempts to theorise the Romantic aesthetic of Turner, and to integrate political and pictorial values.
Connoisseur
A connoisseur is a person who has a great deal of knowledge about the fine arts, cuisines, or an expert judge in matters of taste.Modern connoisseurship must be seen along with museums, art galleries and "the cult of originality"...
best known for his theories of picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
beauty and for his interest in ancient phallic imagery.
Biography
He was born at Wormesley Grange, five miles north west of HerefordHereford
Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...
in Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, was the son of Rev. Thomas Knight (1697–1764) and nephew and heir of Richard Knight (1693–1765) of Croft Castle
Croft Castle
Croft Castle is a manor house and associated buildings near the village of Yarpole in Herefordshire, England some to the north-west of Leominster .-11th century origin:...
. They were two of the sons of Richard Knight, a wealthy Ironmaster
Ironmaster
An ironmaster is the manager – and usually owner – of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain....
of Bringewood Ironworks
Bringewood Ironworks
Bringewood Ironworks was a charcoal ironworks in north Herefordshire. It was powered by the river Teme, with a blast furnace, a finery forge and latterly a rolling mill for blackplate ....
. He was educated at home, but toured
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
Italy and the European continent from 1767 for several years. He was a collector of ancient bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
s and coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
s, a Member of Parliament from 1780 to 1806, and an author of numerous books and articles on ancient sculpture, coins and other artefacts. As a member of the Society of Dilettanti, Knight was widely considered to be an arbiter of taste. He bequeathed his collection of bronzes, coins, engraved gems, marbles, and drawings to the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
.
He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Wormsley
St Mary's Church, Wormsley
St Mary's Church, Wormsley, is a redundant Anglican church in Wormsley, some northwest of Hereford, Herefordshire, England . It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.-History:The present church...
, and his chest tomb has been designated as a Grade II listed building.
Books
Notoriously, Knight's first book, The Worship of Priapus, sought to recover the importance of ancient phallic cults. Knight's apparent preference for ancient sacred eroticismEroticism
Eroticism is generally understood to refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love...
over Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
ism led to many attacks on him as an infidel and as a scholarly apologist for libertinism. This ensured the persistent distrust of the religious establishment. The central claim of The Worship of Priapus was that an international religious impulse to worship ‘the generative principle’ was articulated through genital imagery, and that this imagery has persisted into the modern age. In some ways the book was the first of many later attempts to argue that Pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
ideas had persisted within Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
culture, a view that would eventually crystallise into the neo-Pagan movement over a century later.
Another book of interest to the neo-Pagan movement was Knight's Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology.
An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste, 1805, was, however, Knight’s most influential work in his lifetime. This book sought to explain the experience of ‘taste’ within the mind and to clarify the theorisation of the concept of the picturesque, following from the writings of William Gilpin
William Gilpin (clergyman)
The Reverend William Gilpin was an English artist, clergyman, schoolmaster, and author, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque.-Early life:...
and Uvedale Price on the subject. Knight's views on the aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
of the picturesque are also formed in engagement with Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
's emphasis on the importance of sensation, which Knight partly rejects in favour of a modified associationism
Associationism
Associationism in philosophy refers to the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one state with its successor states.The idea is first recorded in Plato and Aristotle, especially with regard to the succession of memories....
. The philosophical basis of Knight's theories have implications for his account of the relationship between the ‘beautiful’ and the ‘picturesque’. For Knight, aesthetic concepts cannot be formed directly from optical sensations, because these must be interpreted within the mind before they can be recognised as beautiful. Thus a Classical architecture
Classical architecture
Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...
Roman temple
Roman temple
Ancient Roman temples are among the most visible archaeological remains of Roman culture, and are a significant source for Roman architecture. Their construction and maintenance was a major part of ancient Roman religion. The main room housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple was...
is beautiful because of the proportions of its parts, but these proportions can never be perceived directly by the senses, which will simply encounter a mass of confused impressions. ‘Beauty’ is thus a product of internal mental acts. It is therefore proper to speak of moral, mathematical and other non-sensuous forms of beauty, contrary to Burke, Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
and others who claimed such usages were metaphorical. In all cases ‘the particular object [e.g. proportion] is an abstract idea.’
Visual arts
For Knight ‘picturesque’ means simply ‘after the manner of painting’, a point which is important to his further discussion of sensation, which in Knight's view is central to the understanding of painting and music which are ‘addressed to the organs of sight and hearing’, while poetry and sculpture appeal ‘entirely to the imagination and passions.’ The latter must be understood in terms of associations of ideas, while the former rely on the ‘irritation’ or friction of sensitive parts of the body. Artists should seek to reproduce primal visual sensations, not the mental interpretative processes which give rise to abstract ideas.For Knight, colour is experienced directly as pleasurable sensation. A pure blue is not pleasurable because it reminds us of clear skies, as Price supposed, but because of the experience itself. Interpretation of impressions follows chains of association following from this primal sensory experience. However, the pleasures of sense may be ‘modified by habit’, so that the pure stimulus of colour may be experience as pleasurable when ‘under the influence of mind’ which perceives its meaningful use within a painting. Excess of pure colour is painful, like any other sensory excess. Variety and combination of colours is most pleasurable.
Knight makes much of the need to fragment an image into tonal and colouristic ‘masses’, a view has been claimed to anticipate the late work of Turner
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
, or even Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
. However, it most directly justifies the practices of contemporary painters of picturesque landscapes, such as Girtin, whose stippling effects are comparable to Knight’s account of pleasing colour combinations. Knight commissioned landscape artist, Thomas Hearne to produce several drawings of the grounds of his home, Downton Castle
Downton Castle
Downton Castle is an 18th-century country house at Downton on the Rock, Herefordshire, England, about five miles west of Ludlow, Shropshire. It is a Grade I listed building....
in Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
.
Sculpture – typically colourless form – generates in the mind the idea of shape which we must conceptualise, as with ‘proportion’. The literary arts, like sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, deal with thoughts and emotions, though in a more complex form. Knight’s account of these arts therefore falls under the heading of ‘association of ideas’. Here Knight shows the influence of the contemporary cult of sensibility, arguing that these arts engage our sympathies, and in so doing demonstrate the inadequacy of ‘rules and systems’ in both morality and aesthetics. These teach ‘men to work by rule, instead of by feeling and observation.’ Rule-based knowledge of wrong cannot prevent wrongdoing, because it is thought not felt. Therefore, ‘it is impossible that tragedy should exhibit examples of pure and strict morality, without becoming dull and uninteresting.’
Knight’s discussion of ‘the passions’ engages with both Classical and recent theorisations of sentiments. His discussion of the sublime is directed against Burke’s emphasis on feelings of terror and powerlessness. Knight defends Longinus
Longinus (literature)
Longinus is the conventional name of the author of the treatise, On the Sublime , a work which focuses on the effect of good writing. Longinus, sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Longinus because his real name is unknown, was a Greek teacher of rhetoric or a literary critic who may have lived in the...
's original account of sublimity, which he summarises as the ‘energetic exertion of great and commanding power.’ Again he intertwines social and aesthetic reasoning, asserting that the power of a tyrant cannot be sublime if the tyrant inspires fear by mere arbitrary whim, like Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
. However, it may be sublime if his tyranny, like Napoleon's, derives from the exercise of immense personal capacities. A Nero may be feared, but would also be despised. A Napoleon may be hated, but will nevertheless inspire awe. In art, the mind experiences the sublime as it experiences the exercise of its own powers, or sympathises with the exercises of the powers of others. Fear itself can never engender the sublime.
Knight’s emphasis on the roles of sensation and of emotion were constituative of later Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
aesthetic thinking, as was his vexed struggle with the relation between moral feeling and sensuous pleasure. Though some contemporaries condemned the basis of his thought as an aestheticised libertinism, or devotion to physical sensation, they influenced John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
’s attempts to theorise the Romantic aesthetic of Turner, and to integrate political and pictorial values.