The true test of all the arts, is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to prod… - Joshua Reynolds

It must be remembered that painting is not the mere gratification of sight.

Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting, must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have.

As the natural dignity of the subject(of a portrait)is less, the more the ornamental helps are necessary to its embellishments.