The History of Modern Painting, Volume 1 (of 4): Revised edition continued by the author to the end of the XIX centuryMuther, Richard
History
The History of Modern Painting, Volume 1 (of 4): Revised edition continued by the author to the end of the XIX century
Muther, Richard
Painting -- History
The more he wished to produce shadow, water-colour, or even
oil, the more tedious and pale and vague did he become. And even in his
drawing he shares with Carstens the desolate generalisation of form, the
eternal euphony which so soon becomes wearisome and monotonous. To
beauty of line everything is offered up. The blank characterlessness of
the faces is even more noticeable with him than with Carstens, who had,
after all, in his youth drawn excellent portraits in crayons, and on
this account was able to give even to his Greeks more individual traits
and a certain variety of expression. With Genelli the heads are treated
as no more than parts of the body, and as they gave no opportunity for
flowing lines, they have not even the same graciousness as the limbs.
His women fared worst, for whilst he could be his own model for his men,
he created the _ewig Weibliche_ out of his inner consciousness. In men
and women the eyes, in particular, are merely animal.
[Illustration: GENELLI. ODYSSEUS AND THE SIRENS.]
Carstens' influence on German art has been then entirely a negative one.
It was not on such a foundation that a German art could arise. He
prepared no ground for his successors on which they could build further;
but through his abandonment of the whole capital which, since Stephen
Lochner, had been handed down at compound interest from one generation
of painters to another, he rather cut away the ground from under their
feet. "For very easily can art go astray, but it is a difficult and
lengthy process for her to recover herself."
The art which was born in that humble studio in Rome to the sickly,
neurotic man, the "famous draughtsman," needed later, in order to become
technically healthy again, an impulse replete with life from abroad.
[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._
BONAVENTURA GENELLI.]
CHAPTER IV
THE CLASSICAL REACTION IN FRANCE
In France also modern art began with a stream of antiquarianism which
flowed from the same archæological source. De Brosses published a
history of the Roman Republic, and wrote on Herculaneum. Leroy produced
his _Ruines des plus anciens monuments de la Grèce_ in 1758. Shortly
afterwards the _Recueils d'Antiquité_ of Caylus and Hamilton were
published. The former undertook his great journeys, and presented the
Academy of Inscriptions with a succession of archæological treatises. He
is perhaps the first since Batteux and Coypel who again makes of the
modern painter a positive demand for a quiet beauty of lines after the
"_manière simple et noble du bel antique_." The architects begin to take
counsel of Vitruvius, and to work after some model borrowed from the
antique. Soufflot rebuilt the Pantheon, and produced the Temple of
Pæstum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account