poetry treats of moral philosophy, painting has to do with natural philosophy. If poetry describes the working of the mind, painting considers the working of the mind as reflected in the movements [of the body]. If poetry can terrify people by fictions of hell, painting can do as much by placing the same things before the eye. Suppose the poet is set against the painter to represent beauty, terror or a base, ugly monstrous thing, whatever the forms he may in his way produce, the painter will satisfy the more.
