DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.75271#0048
^^ra
( 38 )
painters could represent gods, heroes, angels, and other superior
beings, with airs, and actions more than humane; but to give
satyrs, and other inferior creatures a dignity equal to men, would
be unpardonable.
In order to assist, and improve the invention, a painter ought to
converse with, and observe all sorts of people, chiessy the best, and
to read the best books, and no other: he should observe the dif-
ferent and various effeds of mens passions, and those of other
animals, and in sliort, all nature, and make sketches of what he
observes to help his memory.
So should he do of what he sees in the works of great masters,
whether painters, or sculptors, which he cannot always see, and
have recourse to.
Nor need any man be ashamed to be sometimes a plagiary, it is
what the greatest painters, and poets have allowed themselves in.
Rafaelle has borrowed many figures, and groupes of figures from
the antique; and Milton has even translated many times from
Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Tasso, and put them as his own; Virgil
himself has copied. And indeed it is hard, that a man having had
a good thought, should have a patent for it for ever. The painter
that can take a hint, or insert a figure, or groupes of figures from
another man, and mix these with his own, so as to make a good
composition, will thereby establish such a reputation to himself, as
to be above fearing to suffer by the share those to whom he is
beholden will have in it.
Rafaelle, and Giulio Romano are especially excellent for inven-
tion: amongst their other works, those of the former, at Hampton-
court, and in the Vatican; and of the latter, the palace of T. near
Mantua, are sufficient proofs of it. There are prints of almost all
these; and Bellori has described those in the Vatican, as Felibien
has that stupendious work of Giulio, which in the last wars in Italy,
has been almost destroyed.
Of
( 38 )
painters could represent gods, heroes, angels, and other superior
beings, with airs, and actions more than humane; but to give
satyrs, and other inferior creatures a dignity equal to men, would
be unpardonable.
In order to assist, and improve the invention, a painter ought to
converse with, and observe all sorts of people, chiessy the best, and
to read the best books, and no other: he should observe the dif-
ferent and various effeds of mens passions, and those of other
animals, and in sliort, all nature, and make sketches of what he
observes to help his memory.
So should he do of what he sees in the works of great masters,
whether painters, or sculptors, which he cannot always see, and
have recourse to.
Nor need any man be ashamed to be sometimes a plagiary, it is
what the greatest painters, and poets have allowed themselves in.
Rafaelle has borrowed many figures, and groupes of figures from
the antique; and Milton has even translated many times from
Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Tasso, and put them as his own; Virgil
himself has copied. And indeed it is hard, that a man having had
a good thought, should have a patent for it for ever. The painter
that can take a hint, or insert a figure, or groupes of figures from
another man, and mix these with his own, so as to make a good
composition, will thereby establish such a reputation to himself, as
to be above fearing to suffer by the share those to whom he is
beholden will have in it.
Rafaelle, and Giulio Romano are especially excellent for inven-
tion: amongst their other works, those of the former, at Hampton-
court, and in the Vatican; and of the latter, the palace of T. near
Mantua, are sufficient proofs of it. There are prints of almost all
these; and Bellori has described those in the Vatican, as Felibien
has that stupendious work of Giulio, which in the last wars in Italy,
has been almost destroyed.
Of