DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61012#0266
2 3 2 THE FO UR TEE NTH DISCO URSE.
not unreasonably suspect that a portion of the great fame
of some of their late artists has been owing to the general
readiness and disposition of mankind to acquiesce in their
original prepossessions in favour of the productions of the
Roman School.
On this ground, however unsafe, I will venture to pro-
phesy, that two of the last distinguished painters of that
country, I mean Pompeio Battoni and Raffaelle Mengs,
however great their names may at present sound in our
ears, will very soon fall into the rank of Imperiale,
Sebastian Concha, Placido Constanza, Masaccio, and the
rest of their immediate predecessors; whose names, though
equally renowned in their lifetime, are now fallen into what
is little short of total oblivion. I do not say that those
painters were not superior to the artist I allude to, and
whose loss we lament, in a certain routine of practice,
which, to the eyes of common observers, has the air of a
learned composition, and bears a sort of superficial resem-
blance to the manner of the great men who went before
them. I know this perfectly well; but I know likewise,
that a man looking for real and lasting reputation must
unlearn much of the commonplace method so observable in
the works of the artists whom I have named. For my own
part, I confess, I take more interest in and am more capti-
vated with the powerful impression of nature which Gains-
borough exhibited in his portraits and in his landscapes,
and the interesting simplicity and elegance of his little
ordinary beggar-children, than with any of the works of
that School, since the time of Andrea Sacchi, or perhaps we
may say Carlo Maratti; two painters who may truly be
said to be Ultimi Romanorum.
I am well aware how much I lay myself open to the
censure and ridicule of the academical professors of other
not unreasonably suspect that a portion of the great fame
of some of their late artists has been owing to the general
readiness and disposition of mankind to acquiesce in their
original prepossessions in favour of the productions of the
Roman School.
On this ground, however unsafe, I will venture to pro-
phesy, that two of the last distinguished painters of that
country, I mean Pompeio Battoni and Raffaelle Mengs,
however great their names may at present sound in our
ears, will very soon fall into the rank of Imperiale,
Sebastian Concha, Placido Constanza, Masaccio, and the
rest of their immediate predecessors; whose names, though
equally renowned in their lifetime, are now fallen into what
is little short of total oblivion. I do not say that those
painters were not superior to the artist I allude to, and
whose loss we lament, in a certain routine of practice,
which, to the eyes of common observers, has the air of a
learned composition, and bears a sort of superficial resem-
blance to the manner of the great men who went before
them. I know this perfectly well; but I know likewise,
that a man looking for real and lasting reputation must
unlearn much of the commonplace method so observable in
the works of the artists whom I have named. For my own
part, I confess, I take more interest in and am more capti-
vated with the powerful impression of nature which Gains-
borough exhibited in his portraits and in his landscapes,
and the interesting simplicity and elegance of his little
ordinary beggar-children, than with any of the works of
that School, since the time of Andrea Sacchi, or perhaps we
may say Carlo Maratti; two painters who may truly be
said to be Ultimi Romanorum.
I am well aware how much I lay myself open to the
censure and ridicule of the academical professors of other