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. By HENRY FUSSELI, A.M. [Illustration] LONDON: Printed for the TRANSLATOR, and Sold by A. MILLAR, in the Strand, 1765. TO The Lord SCARSDALE. MY LORD, 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. I am, with the most profound respect, MY LORD, Your LORDSHIP’S Most obliged, most obedient, and most humble Servant, Henry Fusseli. LONDON, 10 April, 1765. [Illustration: GRAIIS INGENIUM &c.] ON THE IMITATION OF THE PAINTING and SCULPTURE of the GREEKS. I. NATURE. 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.