DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73713#0033
RAPHAEL MENGS
29
beauty does not admit of extremes; and thus
we see it practiced in the said Antinous of the
Vatican and in the Meleager which cer-
tainly have not the character that Wattelet
gives to his heroes. I say the same of the Fauns.
That cited by you and the Cupid of the same
age, are two beautiful youths, nor are their forms
that of Fauns. But if you ressect upon the
beautiful Faun of Borghese with the young
Bacchus in his arms, you will not find there
any thing silly; as also in that at Florence which
sounds the symbals, except the head and the arm
which are modern. In Rome there are many
Fauns elegant forms, and they are not Apollo's as
you say, but they might be compared to the
Bacchus's, except in the physiognomy and pos-
ture: besides that, one ought to make a distinc-
tion between fauns and fylvans.
I am persuaded that if Mr. Wattelet had
come to Rome before he published his books,
he would have explained with elegance of style
the ideas which so many beautiful productions
of the art by the Grecians imprint upon the
minds of every man of fine genius and sensible
heart; nor would he have employed himself in
adorning ideas taken from the studies of the
professors of Paris; and yet I believe that being
a man of talent, (as he is) if he had been at
Rome he would perhaps have had the fate of
being influenced by the Antiquomania like
many other great French artists his prede-
cessors, who contributed so much to the glory of
his age of Lewis 14th.
29
beauty does not admit of extremes; and thus
we see it practiced in the said Antinous of the
Vatican and in the Meleager which cer-
tainly have not the character that Wattelet
gives to his heroes. I say the same of the Fauns.
That cited by you and the Cupid of the same
age, are two beautiful youths, nor are their forms
that of Fauns. But if you ressect upon the
beautiful Faun of Borghese with the young
Bacchus in his arms, you will not find there
any thing silly; as also in that at Florence which
sounds the symbals, except the head and the arm
which are modern. In Rome there are many
Fauns elegant forms, and they are not Apollo's as
you say, but they might be compared to the
Bacchus's, except in the physiognomy and pos-
ture: besides that, one ought to make a distinc-
tion between fauns and fylvans.
I am persuaded that if Mr. Wattelet had
come to Rome before he published his books,
he would have explained with elegance of style
the ideas which so many beautiful productions
of the art by the Grecians imprint upon the
minds of every man of fine genius and sensible
heart; nor would he have employed himself in
adorning ideas taken from the studies of the
professors of Paris; and yet I believe that being
a man of talent, (as he is) if he had been at
Rome he would perhaps have had the fate of
being influenced by the Antiquomania like
many other great French artists his prede-
cessors, who contributed so much to the glory of
his age of Lewis 14th.