The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq.: Composed from Materials Furnished by HimselfGalt, John
General
The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West, Esq.: Composed from Materials Furnished by Himself
Galt, John
West, Benjamin, 1738-1820
"Thus, however, the opening was made to the important expression of
character. And the lesson suggested by the philosopher alluded to, is not
confined to the Greeks alone. I wish, young gentlemen, to leave it in all
its force upon your minds. For if the figures you design, whether singly
or in groups, have not their actions correspondent to what their minds
appear to be pursuing, they will suit any other subject as well as that in
which they are placed. This remark is the more worthy of attention, as it
does not apply to any of the figures of the Grecian masters whom I have
mentioned. The figure by Phidias on Monte Cavallo at Rome, the Apollo, the
Laocoon, the Venus, the Hercules, and the fighting gladiator, are all
perfect on the just principles I have mentioned. There is no room for
amendment; their propriety is unquestionable; their truth eternal. And so
in the works of modern art, we see the same truth and perfection in the
Capella Sestina by Michael Angelo, in the Supper by Leonardo da Vinci at
Milan, in the Cartoons by Raphael, the St. Peter Martyr by Titian, and the
Note by Correggio.
"Having mentioned the figure on Monte Cavallo, representing, as you all
know, a young man curbing a horse, I cannot help stopping to remark, that
if any work of sculpture ever demonstrated more strongly the value of
uniting philosophic science with that of art, for the production of
character, it is that work by Phidias. Never did the power of art express
more evidently than is done in the head of the young man, that every
feature is moved by an internal mental power, and corresponds in the most
perfect truth with what we see to be the labouring passion. When we view
it in front we are astonished that the mouth does not speak. No observer
ever thinks that the head is a block of stone. But the whole group is
masterly on the most refined principles of science. It was intended to be
seen at an elevated point, as well as at a distant one. All its forms,
therefore, are grand without the minutiae of parts; its effects are
striking and momentary; and in every circumstance considered, it is
plainly the work of consummate genius and science united.
"Was it possible that in an age which gave a Phidias to the Greeks,
there should not have been a Pericles to reward, by his patronage, merit
so exalted?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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