( 85 )
OBSERVATIONS
ON
THE TREATISE UPON BEAUTY
BY
ANTHONY RAPHAEL MENGS.
MENGS composed this Treatise before he
went to Spain, and this was his first litera-
ry production, which was printed in German,
the language in which it was written; and since
Beauty was his savourite object through life, he
continued to meditate upon it always, as we
Ihall see by his following works.
In theory and inbpra&ice no one has ever
known how to discern and to express Beauty
better than Mengs, but in the theory he had
adopted the opinions of the Platonians upon
the origin of that sublime quality, persuaded by
the metaphysics of his friend Winkelman. My
ideas have always been very different from those
of these two friends, and I have thought of ex-
OBSERVATIONS
ON
THE TREATISE UPON BEAUTY
BY
ANTHONY RAPHAEL MENGS.
MENGS composed this Treatise before he
went to Spain, and this was his first litera-
ry production, which was printed in German,
the language in which it was written; and since
Beauty was his savourite object through life, he
continued to meditate upon it always, as we
Ihall see by his following works.
In theory and inbpra&ice no one has ever
known how to discern and to express Beauty
better than Mengs, but in the theory he had
adopted the opinions of the Platonians upon
the origin of that sublime quality, persuaded by
the metaphysics of his friend Winkelman. My
ideas have always been very different from those
of these two friends, and I have thought of ex-