DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73712#0295
RAPHAEL MENGS.
203
one admires in other Grecian statues; such as
in the Apollo, the Gladiator, the Venus, and
in the Ganymede. I conjecture that the
aforesaid statues of Niobe were anterior to
Alexander the Great, because they have not
beautiful drapery, and because one discovers
that their authors thought only of avoiding the
dryness os the first style, and the heaviness of
the second.
In the time of Alexander, or a little after,
they arrived to the highest perfection in the art,
by giving more motion to their contours, and
by talcing srom the done that rudeness occa-
sioned by uniform lines and angles. In a
word, the able sculptors began to study the sselh.
It was then that sculpture ceased to be an im-
perfect art, and became united to the true imi-
tation of Nature.
I take it upon me to say that sculpture owes
this last effort to painting, because before
the. progress which it made in the School
of Pamphilus it was not arrived to true
perfection. Then appeared Apelles his disciple,
who fixed the attention and taste of his age, by
abolishing minutiae and dryness. He said of
other painters, that each was excellent in some
part, but that grace was properly his, and that
he knew how much he had to give to compleat
a work. He did not say this to ihow that he was
fond of negligence but to ihow that he knew
how to omit things which ought to be omitted;
and that is other painters posseised some parts of
perfection, he potfesfed the union of the whole.
203
one admires in other Grecian statues; such as
in the Apollo, the Gladiator, the Venus, and
in the Ganymede. I conjecture that the
aforesaid statues of Niobe were anterior to
Alexander the Great, because they have not
beautiful drapery, and because one discovers
that their authors thought only of avoiding the
dryness os the first style, and the heaviness of
the second.
In the time of Alexander, or a little after,
they arrived to the highest perfection in the art,
by giving more motion to their contours, and
by talcing srom the done that rudeness occa-
sioned by uniform lines and angles. In a
word, the able sculptors began to study the sselh.
It was then that sculpture ceased to be an im-
perfect art, and became united to the true imi-
tation of Nature.
I take it upon me to say that sculpture owes
this last effort to painting, because before
the. progress which it made in the School
of Pamphilus it was not arrived to true
perfection. Then appeared Apelles his disciple,
who fixed the attention and taste of his age, by
abolishing minutiae and dryness. He said of
other painters, that each was excellent in some
part, but that grace was properly his, and that
he knew how much he had to give to compleat
a work. He did not say this to ihow that he was
fond of negligence but to ihow that he knew
how to omit things which ought to be omitted;
and that is other painters posseised some parts of
perfection, he potfesfed the union of the whole.