Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 1 of 3)Spooner, Shearjashub
History
Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 1 of 3)
Spooner, Shearjashub
Art -- Anecdotes; Artists -- Anecdotes
sculptured representation of the Dacian war, can scarcely be conceived.
THE DEATH OF APOLLODORUS.
Apollodorus fell a victim to the envy of Adrian, the successor of
Trajan, who himself dabbled in architecture, as well as the other arts.
According to Pliny, he ridiculed the proportions of the temple of Rome
and Venus, which had been built from Adrian’s designs, saying that “if
the goddesses who were placed in it should be disposed to stand up, they
would be in danger of breaking their heads against the roof, or if they
should wish to go out, they could not,” which so incensed the Emperor,
that he banished the architect, and had him put to death. Another
account is, that as Trajan was conversing about some of the buildings,
Adrian, who was present, made some remarks, on which the architect said,
“Go and paint pumpkins, for you know nothing about these matters,” an
affront which Adrian never forgot, and avenged by the death of the
architect when he became Emperor. What a return to the architect of
Trajan’s Column!
HOGARTH.
The talents of this eccentric genius were preëminent in burlesque and
satire. He therefore chiefly devoted himself to delineate the calamities
and crimes of private life, and the vices and follies of the age. He
portrayed vice as leading to disgrace and misery, while he represented
virtue as conducting to happiness and honor. His series of the “Harlot’s
Progress,” the “Rake’s Progress,” “Marriage à la Mode,” gained him great
reputation; and the prints which he engraved and published from them,
although rude specimens of the art, met with an enormous sale, greatly
to his own emolument. Lord Orford characterizes him as a painter of
comedy. “If catching the manners and follies of the age, ‘living as they
rise’; if general satire on vices and ridicules, familiarized by strokes
of nature, and heightened by wit, and the whole animated by just and
proper expressions of the persons, be comedy, Hogarth composed comedy as
much as Moliere.” Others have better characterized him as a great moral
preacher. Alderman Boydell was accustomed to say that every merchant,
shopkeeper, mechanic, and others who had youth in their employment,
ought to have some of Hogarth’s prints framed and hung up for their
admonition.
HOGARTH’S APPRENTICESHIP.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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