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REFLECTIONS ON THE PAINTING AND SCULPTURE OF THE _GREEKS_.
REFLECTIONS ON THE PAINTING and SCULPTURE OF THE GREEKS: WITH INSTRUCTIONS for the CONNOISSEUR, AND An ESSAY on GRACE in Works of Art.
Translated from The _German_ Original of the Abbé WINKELMANN, Librarian of the VATICAN, F. R. S. &c. &c.
LONDON: Printed for the TRANSLATOR, and Sold by A. MILLAR, in the Strand, 1765.
With becoming gratitude for your Lordship’s condescension in granting such a noble Asylum to a Stranger, I humbly presume to shelter this Translation under your Lordship’s Patronage.
If I have been able to do justice to my Author, your Lordship’s accurate Jugment, and fine Taste, will naturally protect his Work: But I must rely wholly on your known Candour and Goodness for the pardon of many imperfections in the language.
Most obliged, most obedient, and most humble Servant,
ON THE IMITATION OF THE PAINTING and SCULPTURE of the GREEKS.
To the Greek climate we owe the production of TASTE, and from thence it spread at length over all the politer world. Every invention, communicated by foreigners to that nation, was but the feed of what it became afterwards, changing both its nature and size in a country, chosen, as _Plato_[1] says, by Minerva, to be inhabited by the Greeks, as productive of every kind of genius.
But this TASTE was not only original among the Greeks, but seemed also quite peculiar to their country: it seldom went abroad without loss; and was long ere it imparted its kind influences to more distant climes. It was, doubtless, a stranger to the northern zones, when Painting and Sculpture, those offsprings of Greece, were despised there to such a degree, that the most valuable pieces of _Corregio_ served only for blinds to the windows of the royal stables at Stockholm.
There is but one way for the moderns to become great, and perhaps unequalled; I mean, by imitating the antients. And what we are told of _Homer_, that whoever understands him well, admires him, we find no less true in matters concerning the antient, especially the Greek arts. But then we must be as familiar with them as with a friend, to find Laocoon as inimitable as _Homer_. By such intimacy our judgment will be that of _Nicomachus_: _Take these eyes_, replied he to some paltry critick, censuring the Helen of Zeuxis, _Take my eyes, and she will appear a goddess_.