May 16, 1761

John Opie (May 16, 1761 to April 9,1807) was a British painter of historical and literary dramas. He was popular, in fact a member of the Royal Academy, though with historical paintings out of fashion, he is forgotten now. He also lectured on art and what interests us here is his discussion of the use of inappropriate details in painting. His view is that the artist in his rendering must make everything focus on one main goal.

'... [H]owever allowable, and even necessary, the use of poetical licence may be to a painter, he is not therefore to imagine himself warranted in the indulgence of every kind of liberty that caprice or ignorance may suggest. Experience will soon teach him, that though he is not confined to mere fact and the exact shape of his model, nor brought upon oath to declare" the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," he is yet only freed from the letter, to bind him - more closely to the spirit of his subject, and if he does not show precisely how it happened, he has the harder task assigned him of showing how it might and should have happened, to make the greatest possible impression on the spectator. His imperfections will not be excused, like those of the naturalist and historian, by laying the blame on the original ; the unities of time, place, and action must be strictly observed, and, above all, a perfect harmony and consistency of parts and style can never be dispensed with; for, however they may be mixed in nature, in art the grave will not suit with the gay, nor the ludicrous with the terrible ; the heroic and the sacred must never be associated with the mean and the trivial, nor will the authority and masterly execution of a Paul Veronese reconcile us to the ostentatious displays of such puerile incidents as a cat clawing the meat, or a dog... gnawing a bone, in the foreground of a picture of the Last Supper.'

Opie's comments were found in a collection of essays on art that Ralph Wornum edited: Lectures on painting (1848.) I'm not sure really that Opie is wrong about this. Whatever our views of the ultimate may be, there are rules for propriety, regarding that upon which we place a great emphasis