History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 04Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 04
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
We have engravings of this Picture; which are of clumsy poor quality,
and misrepresent it much: an excellent Copy in oil, what might be called
almost a fac-simile and the perfection of a Copy, is now (1854) in Lord
Ashburton's Collection here in England. In the Berlin Galleries,--which
are made up, like other Galleries, of goat-footed Pan, Europa's Bull,
Romulus's She-Wolf, and the correggiosity of Correggio; and contain, for
instance, no Portrait of Frederick the Great; no Likenesses at all, or
next to none at all, of the noble series of Human Realities, or of
any part of them, who have sprung not from the idle brains of dreaming
Dilettanti, but from the Head of God Almighty, to make this poor
authentic Earth a little memorable for us, and to do a little work that
may be eternal there:--in those expensive Halls of "High Art" at Berlin,
there were, to my experience, few Pictures more agreeable than this of
Pesne's. Welcome, like one tiny islet of Reality amid the shoreless sea
of Phantasms, to the reflective mind, seriously loving and seeking
what is worthy and memorable, seriously hating and avoiding what is the
reverse, and intent not to play the dilettante in this world.
The same Pesne, an excellent Artist, has painted Friedrich as
Prince-Royal: a beautiful young man with MOIST-looking enthusiastic eyes
of extraordinary brilliancy, smooth oval face; considerably resembling
his Mother. After which period, authentic Pictures of Friedrich are
sought for to little purpose. For it seems he never sat to any
Painter, in his reigning days; and the Prussian Chodowiecki, [Pronounce
KODOV-YETSKI;--and endeavor to make some acquaintance with this
"Prussian Hogarth," who has real worth and originality.] Saxon Graff,
English Cunningham had to pick up his physiognomy from the distance,
intermittently, as they could. Nor is Rauch's grand equestrian Sculpture
a thing to be believed, or perhaps pretending much to be so. The
commonly received Portrait of Friedrich, which all German limners can
draw at once,--the cocked-hat, big eyes and alert air, reminding you of
some uncommonly brisk Invalid Drill-sergeant or Greenwich Pensioner, as
much as of a Royal Hero,--is nothing but a general extract and average
of all the faces of Friedrich, such as has been tacitly agreed upon;
and is definable as a received pictorial-myth, by no means as a fact, or
credible resemblance of life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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