Category: Art

Reflections on the painting and sculpture of the Greeks

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.

Chapters

9. Part 9

Here I think it incumbent upon me to clear up what I have said concerning the contradictions in the character of the Athenians, as represented by Parrhasius. This you think an e...

10. Part 10

To this consciousness of inferiority we owe the scarcity of modern supposititious gems and coins. Any man of taste may, upon comparison, distinguish even the best modern coin fr...

8. Part 8

There is another Victoria with butterfly’s wings[228], fastened on a trophy. This, they say, is the symbol of a hero, who, like Epaminondas, died in the very act of conquering....

7. Part 7

A good eye must be allowed to be a better judge, in matters of this kind, than all the ambiguous decisions of authors: and to fix the character of Jordans, I might content mysel...

5. Part 5

Though faithful to history, the painter was nevertheless a poet: in order to represent some circumstances, he filled even the furniture with sentiments. The Sphinxes by the Prin...

2. Part 2

They were discovered in the year 1706 at Portici near Naples, in a ruinous vault, on occasion of digging the foundations of a villa, for the Prince d’Elbeuf, and immediately, wi...

4. Part 4

Felix, supposed to have lived after Dioscorides, though preserving the same attitude, has endeavoured to make its violence more natural, by opposing to him the figure of Ulysses...

3. Part 3

But even this is an evident instance of the meanness of the artists: for the science of beautiful Proportions, of Contour, and Expression, could not be the exclusive privilege o...

1. Part 1

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 a...

6. Part 6

It was my design to explain myself more particularly, concerning the negligences of the Greeks, had I been allowed time. The Greeks, as their criticism on the partridge of Proto...

11. Part 11

[147] Theophrast. Hist. Pl. L. IX. c. 16. p. 1131. l. 7. ed. Amst. 1644. fol. Galen de Antidot. I. fol. 63. B. I. 28. Idem de Theriac. ad Pison. fol. 85. A. I. 20.