DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.75271#0304
( 276 K
self on having all the works of all the masters; his collection was
bulky, and cost eighty thousand pounds, and could not at that time
if sifted, be worth so many hundreds. The colle&or of prints may
be cautioned against a superstitious veneration for names; a true
connoisseur leaves the matter out of the question, and examines the
work. With a dabbling little genius, nothing sways like a name, it
carries a wonderful force, covers glaring faults, and creates ima-
ginary beauties; that criticism is certainly just, which examines the
different manners of the various massers with a view to discover
how a good effedmay be produced, but to be curious to find out
the master, and there to rest the judgment, is a kind of connoisseur-
{hip, very paultry and illiberal ; inftead of judging of the master by
the work, it is judging the work by the master: hence it is those
vile prints the Woman in the Cauldron and Mount Parnassus obtain
credit among connoisseurs; if you ask where their beauties consist,
you are informed they are graved by Marc Antonio, and if that
will not satisfy you, they tell you they are after Rafaelle. This
absurd taste raised an honest indignation in Picart, who having
{hewn the world, by his excellent imitations, how ridiculous it is
to pay a veneration to names, tells us, he had compared some of
the gravings of the ancient masters with the pictures, and found
them very bad copies; be speaks of the stiff manner that runs
through them of the hair of children, which resembles pot-hooks,
and of their ignorance in anatomy, and the distribution of light:
what folly is that, that makes the public fashion the criterion of
taste; fashion prevails in every thing, while it is confined to dress, or
the idle ceremonies of a visit, it is of little consequence; but when
it becomes the dictator in arts, the matter is serious, yet so it is, we
seldom permit ourselves to judge of beauty by the rules of art, but
follow the catch-word of fashion; and applaud and censure from the
voice of others : sometimes one master, sometimes another master
has the run. Rembrandt has long been a fashionable master; if the
prints
self on having all the works of all the masters; his collection was
bulky, and cost eighty thousand pounds, and could not at that time
if sifted, be worth so many hundreds. The colle&or of prints may
be cautioned against a superstitious veneration for names; a true
connoisseur leaves the matter out of the question, and examines the
work. With a dabbling little genius, nothing sways like a name, it
carries a wonderful force, covers glaring faults, and creates ima-
ginary beauties; that criticism is certainly just, which examines the
different manners of the various massers with a view to discover
how a good effedmay be produced, but to be curious to find out
the master, and there to rest the judgment, is a kind of connoisseur-
{hip, very paultry and illiberal ; inftead of judging of the master by
the work, it is judging the work by the master: hence it is those
vile prints the Woman in the Cauldron and Mount Parnassus obtain
credit among connoisseurs; if you ask where their beauties consist,
you are informed they are graved by Marc Antonio, and if that
will not satisfy you, they tell you they are after Rafaelle. This
absurd taste raised an honest indignation in Picart, who having
{hewn the world, by his excellent imitations, how ridiculous it is
to pay a veneration to names, tells us, he had compared some of
the gravings of the ancient masters with the pictures, and found
them very bad copies; be speaks of the stiff manner that runs
through them of the hair of children, which resembles pot-hooks,
and of their ignorance in anatomy, and the distribution of light:
what folly is that, that makes the public fashion the criterion of
taste; fashion prevails in every thing, while it is confined to dress, or
the idle ceremonies of a visit, it is of little consequence; but when
it becomes the dictator in arts, the matter is serious, yet so it is, we
seldom permit ourselves to judge of beauty by the rules of art, but
follow the catch-word of fashion; and applaud and censure from the
voice of others : sometimes one master, sometimes another master
has the run. Rembrandt has long been a fashionable master; if the
prints