"But painting, when we have allowed for the pleasure of imitation, can only affect simply by the images it presents; and even in painting a judicious obscurity in some things contributes to the effect of the picture; because the images in painting are exactly similar to those in nature, and in nature dark confused uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the grander passions than those have which are more clear and determinate...hardly any thing can strike the mind with its greatness which does not make some sort of approach toward infinity; which nothing can do while we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, are one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea."
A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, by Edmund Burke, 1757
