DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48955#0223
I
Ch. XXIV. ARCHITECTURE. 217
natural circumstance. In the statues of Versailles
the artist has displayed his vicious tasse without the
least color or disguise. A lifeless statue of an ani-
mal pouring out water, may be endured without
much disgust: but here the lions and wolves are
put in violent a&ion, each has seized its prey , a
deer or lamb, in ail to devour; and yet, as by
hocus-pocus , the whole is converted into a differ-
ent scene: the lion, sorgetting his prey, pours out
water plentisully; and the deer,, sorgetting its
danger, performs the same work: a represenration
no less absurd than that in the opera , where Alex-
ander the Great, after mounting the wall of a
»town besieged, turns his back to the enemy, and
entertains his army with a song
In gardening , every lively exhibition of what is
beautiful in nature has a sine effect: on the other
hand, distant and saint imitations are displeasmg
to every one of taste. The cutting evergreens in
the lhape of animals, is very ancient; as appears
from the epistles of Pliny, who seems to be a
■s Ulloa, a Spanish writer, deserring, the city of Lima,
says , that the great square is finely ornamented, u In the
ki centre is a fountain , equally remarkable sor its grandeur
and capacity. Raised above the sountain is a bronze-
<1 statue os Fame, and foursmall basons on the angles. Th?
n water issues from the trumpet of the statue , and srom the
cc mouths of eight lionssurrounding it, which (in his opinion}
u greatly heighten the beauty of the whole*
Ch. XXIV. ARCHITECTURE. 217
natural circumstance. In the statues of Versailles
the artist has displayed his vicious tasse without the
least color or disguise. A lifeless statue of an ani-
mal pouring out water, may be endured without
much disgust: but here the lions and wolves are
put in violent a&ion, each has seized its prey , a
deer or lamb, in ail to devour; and yet, as by
hocus-pocus , the whole is converted into a differ-
ent scene: the lion, sorgetting his prey, pours out
water plentisully; and the deer,, sorgetting its
danger, performs the same work: a represenration
no less absurd than that in the opera , where Alex-
ander the Great, after mounting the wall of a
»town besieged, turns his back to the enemy, and
entertains his army with a song
In gardening , every lively exhibition of what is
beautiful in nature has a sine effect: on the other
hand, distant and saint imitations are displeasmg
to every one of taste. The cutting evergreens in
the lhape of animals, is very ancient; as appears
from the epistles of Pliny, who seems to be a
■s Ulloa, a Spanish writer, deserring, the city of Lima,
says , that the great square is finely ornamented, u In the
ki centre is a fountain , equally remarkable sor its grandeur
and capacity. Raised above the sountain is a bronze-
<1 statue os Fame, and foursmall basons on the angles. Th?
n water issues from the trumpet of the statue , and srom the
cc mouths of eight lionssurrounding it, which (in his opinion}
u greatly heighten the beauty of the whole*