DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73714#0057
RAPHAEL MENGS. 57
reggio in the art. This is a gross error; because,
although genius can do much, no one who
ressets can be persuaded that that is sufficient,
without great study, to form a painter so sublime
as Correggio *, who, at the age of thirty years,
had formed a new style, and more exquisite than
was ever known besore him. Michael Angelo,
who had so great a genius, did not owe the
whole of the art to his natural abilities ; nor with
these alone could he have found the means to
exceed the limits of that dry and lervile style
which till then reigned in Italy; nor without
great study, and the observations of the an-
cient statues, would be have been, perhaps, more
than equal to a Donatello, and a Ghilberti.
Raphael himself has left in his works the traces
of his studies; and without the lessons of Father
Bartholemy, and the sight of the works of
Michael Angelo, and those of the ancients, we
should not at this time have enjoyed his wonder-
ful paintings. I conclude, therefore, that Cor-
reggio studied the works and the maxims of the
ancients, and of the belt mailers, to arrive to be
that prodigy of a painter which he was.
I have expressed as well as I am able, the mo-
tives by which we have not a faithful and cir-
cumstantial history of the lise os Correggio. I
have said that which I know, adding the con-
jectures which appear to me most probable. I
have described his works with the greatest exaCt-
* Natura fieret laudabile carmen an arte
Quaeutum est. Ego nee studium sine divite vena,
Nee rude quid prosit video ingenium : altcrius sie
Altera poseit opem res, et conjurat amice.
reggio in the art. This is a gross error; because,
although genius can do much, no one who
ressets can be persuaded that that is sufficient,
without great study, to form a painter so sublime
as Correggio *, who, at the age of thirty years,
had formed a new style, and more exquisite than
was ever known besore him. Michael Angelo,
who had so great a genius, did not owe the
whole of the art to his natural abilities ; nor with
these alone could he have found the means to
exceed the limits of that dry and lervile style
which till then reigned in Italy; nor without
great study, and the observations of the an-
cient statues, would be have been, perhaps, more
than equal to a Donatello, and a Ghilberti.
Raphael himself has left in his works the traces
of his studies; and without the lessons of Father
Bartholemy, and the sight of the works of
Michael Angelo, and those of the ancients, we
should not at this time have enjoyed his wonder-
ful paintings. I conclude, therefore, that Cor-
reggio studied the works and the maxims of the
ancients, and of the belt mailers, to arrive to be
that prodigy of a painter which he was.
I have expressed as well as I am able, the mo-
tives by which we have not a faithful and cir-
cumstantial history of the lise os Correggio. I
have said that which I know, adding the con-
jectures which appear to me most probable. I
have described his works with the greatest exaCt-
* Natura fieret laudabile carmen an arte
Quaeutum est. Ego nee studium sine divite vena,
Nee rude quid prosit video ingenium : altcrius sie
Altera poseit opem res, et conjurat amice.