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A Re-Evaluation Of The Aesthetics Of Jean-Baptiste Dubos And Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, John Grayson Nichols

Honors Theses

Horace did remark "ut pictura poesis," as in painting so

poetry. But the rest of the pronouncement, rarely quoted, - "one

work seizes your fancy if you stand close to it, another if you

stand at a distance" - refers to how the arts can been viewed

from similar angles, not that the arts are essentially created

with the same purposes. Yet, misreadings of that quotation

began a history of debate over the qualities of painting and

poetry. In particular the eighteenth century became a

battleground over the ut pictura poesis formula. To the modern

reader, this controversy may seem …