DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73713#0055
RAPHAEL MENGS.
51
that remain, what ought to have been thqse
which we have lost.
One sees also lo much science, and master-
ship in the works done by slaves and LIBERTI
who were those employed in these arts at Rome,
that although they wanted the esteem and honors
which had exalted them so much in Greece,
yet nevertheless one observes in these works,
even to the total decay of the art, the excellency
of their school, which is always deficient in the
moderns, and which will render always more es-
timable the reliques of the ancients.
Returning sinally to the collection of the sta-
tues of Niobe, I have the boldness to tell your
excellency that I believe it a copy of others
much better of some of the Grecians; but each
of an artist of unequal merit. I suppose besides
that having been reltored in the low times of
the art, and in part done anew, from this arises
the great inequality of the work, and of its parts.
By what I can conjecture concerning the
harshness, which you have observed in the eye-
brow andhair,it does not appear to me that it comes
from the style of the matter, but is rather done
expressly to lignify the black hair and to give
with it a greater expression of seriousness and
sadness to the figure; because if it were style,
one should sind it also in the mouth, and in the
other parts which are susceptible of angles; and
thttt which has been the intention of the artists
is deduced clearly from the heads of Jove which
remain in all the ancient monuments. All have
the eye-brow expressive, and delineated with
51
that remain, what ought to have been thqse
which we have lost.
One sees also lo much science, and master-
ship in the works done by slaves and LIBERTI
who were those employed in these arts at Rome,
that although they wanted the esteem and honors
which had exalted them so much in Greece,
yet nevertheless one observes in these works,
even to the total decay of the art, the excellency
of their school, which is always deficient in the
moderns, and which will render always more es-
timable the reliques of the ancients.
Returning sinally to the collection of the sta-
tues of Niobe, I have the boldness to tell your
excellency that I believe it a copy of others
much better of some of the Grecians; but each
of an artist of unequal merit. I suppose besides
that having been reltored in the low times of
the art, and in part done anew, from this arises
the great inequality of the work, and of its parts.
By what I can conjecture concerning the
harshness, which you have observed in the eye-
brow andhair,it does not appear to me that it comes
from the style of the matter, but is rather done
expressly to lignify the black hair and to give
with it a greater expression of seriousness and
sadness to the figure; because if it were style,
one should sind it also in the mouth, and in the
other parts which are susceptible of angles; and
thttt which has been the intention of the artists
is deduced clearly from the heads of Jove which
remain in all the ancient monuments. All have
the eye-brow expressive, and delineated with