Chapter XIII: Book III: Roman School (11)

Before I finish this portion of my work, I would willingly pay a tribute to the numerous living professors, who have been, or who are now resident in Rome; but it would be difficult to notice them all, and to omit any might seem invidious. We may be allowed, however, to observe that the improvement which has taken place in the art of late years, has had its origin in Rome. That city at no period wholly lost its good taste, and even in the decline of the art was not without connoisseurs and artists of the first merit. Possessing in itself the best sources of taste in so many specimens of Grecian sculpture, and so many works of Raffaello, it is there always easy to judge how near the artists approach to, and how far they recede from, their great prototypes of art. This criterion too is more certain in the present age, when it is the custom to pay less respect to prejudices and more to reason; so that there can be no abuse of this useful principle. The works too of Winckelmann and Mengs have contributed to improve the general taste; and if we cannot approve every thing we there find, they still possess matter highly valuable, and are excellent guides of genius and talent. This object has also been promoted by the discovery of the ancient pictures in Herculaneum, the Baths of Titus, and of the Villa Adriana, and the exquisite vases of Nola, and similar remains of antiquity. These have attracted every eye to the antique; Mengs and Winckelmann have admirably illustrated the history of ancient sculpture, and the art of painting may be more advantageously studied from the valuable engravings which have been published, than from any book. From these extraordinary advantages the fine arts have extended their influence to circles where they were before unknown, and have received a new tone from emulation as well as interest. The custom of exhibiting the productions of art to a public who can justly appreciate them, and distinguish the good from the bad; the rewards assigned to the most meritorious, of whatever nation, accompanied by the productions of literary men, and public rejoicings in the Campidoglio; the splendour of the sacred edifices peculiar to the metropolis of the Christian world, which, while the art contributes to its decoration, extends its protection in return to the professors of that art; the lucrative commissions from abroad, and in the city itself, from the munificence and unbounded liberality of Pius VI. and that of many private individuals;[96] the circumstance of foreign sovereigns frequently seeking in this emporium for masters, or directors for their academies; all these causes maintain both the artists and their schools in perpetual motion, and in a generous emulation, and by degrees we may hope to see the art restored to its true principles, the imitation of nature and the example of the great masters. There is not a branch, not only of painting, but even of the arts depending on it, as miniature, mosaic, enamel,[97] and the weaving of tapestry, that is not followed there in a laudable manner. Whoever desires to be further informed of the present state of the Roman School, and of the foreign artists resident in Rome, should peruse the four volumes entitled, _Memorie per le belle arti_, published from the year 1785, and continued to the year 1788, a periodical work deserving a place in every library of the fine arts, and which was, I regret to add, prematurely discontinued.

[Footnote 85: With regard to drapery, Winckelmann conjectures, (Storia delle Arti del Disegno, tom. i. p. 450,) that the erroneous opinion that the ancients did not drape their figures well, and were surpassed in that department by the moderns, was at that time common among the artists. This opinion still subsists among some sculptors, who disapprove particularly of the ancient custom of moistening the drapery, in order to adapt it the better to the form of the figure. The ancients, they say, ought to be esteemed, not idolized. To carry nature to the highest degree of perfection, was always allowable, but not so to degrade her by mannerism.]

[Footnote 86: He was the pupil of Niccolas Poussin, and from him acquired his taste for drawing after the antique. He employed this talent in copying the finest bassirilievi, and the noblest remains of ancient Rome. These were engraved by him, and circulated through Europe. He also copied a great number of ancient pictures from the _Sotterranei_, which passed into private hands unpublished. Pascoli mentions many more of his works in engraving, the pursuit of which branch of the art led him gradually to forsake painting. Of his pictures we find one in the church of Porto, and a very few more of his own designing. He devoted himself to the copying the pictures of the best masters, and carried his imitation even to the counterfeiting the effects of time on the colours; and he copied some pictures of Poussin with such dexterity, that it was with difficulty the painter himself could distinguish them.]

[Footnote 87: In the _Risposta alle Riflessioni Critiche di Mons. Argens_.]

[Footnote 88: This artist had painted one of the two laterals of the chapel, asserting that there was no artist living capable of painting a companion to it. Benefial painted one very superior, and represented in it an executioner with his eyes fixed on and deriding the picture of Muratori.]

[Footnote 89: See _Memorie per le Belle Arti_, tom. ii. p. 135, where Sig. Giangherardo de' Rossi gives an account of this artist, derived principally from information furnished by Sig. Cav. Puccini, who has been occasionally mentioned with approbation in the first volume of this work.]

[Footnote 90: Francesco Appiani, of Ancona, a scholar of Magatta, and not long since deceased, did not find a place in my former edition, but is fully entitled to one in this. He studied a considerable time in Rome, whilst Benefial, Trevisani, Conca, and Mancini, flourished there; and through the friendship of these masters (particularly of the latter), was enabled to form an agreeable style, of which he there left a specimen at S. Sisto Vecchio. It is the death of S. Domenico, painted in fresco, by order of Benedict XIII. who remunerated him with a gold medal. He went afterwards to Perugia, where he was presented with the freedom of the city, and continued his labours there with unabated ardour, until ninety years of age, an instance of vigour unexampled, except in the case of Titian. Perugia abounds with his paintings of all kinds, and his best works are to be found in the churches of S. Pietro de' Cassinensi, S. Thomas, and Monte Corona. He also decorated the church of S. Francis, and the vault of the cathedral, where he rivalled the freedom of style and composition of Carloni. Both he himself, and one of his pictures, placed in a church of Masaccio, are eulogised in the Antich. Picene (tom. xx. p. 159). He painted many pictures also for England.]

[Footnote 91: For a more particular catalogue of these works, see the _Memorie delle belle arti_, 1788, in which year they were republished in Rome, with the remarks of the Sig. Avvocato Fea, in one vol. 4to. and 2 vols. 8vo. The most celebrated treatise of Mengs is the _Riflessioni sopra i tre gran pittori, Raffaello, Tiziano, e Coreggio, e sopra gli antichi_. On the life and style of Coreggio he wrote a separate paper, which was afterwards the subject of a controversy; for as, at the close of the year 1781, appeared the _Notizie storiche del Coreggio_ of Ratti, accompanied by a letter from Mengs, dated Madrid, 1774, in which he entreats Ratti to collect and publish them, Ratti was by several writers accused of plagiarism, and of having endeavoured, by a change of style and the addition of some trifling matter, to appropriate to himself what in reality belonged to Mengs. Not long afterwards there appeared an anonymous Defence of Ratti, without date or place, for which I refer to the next note.]

[Footnote 92: In the _Difesa del Ratti_, accused _de repetundis_, this very obvious contradiction is adduced as a proof that the _Memorie_ were really composed by that author. It is there asserted that he wrote them in a clear and simple style, and then communicated them to Mengs, on whose death they were found among his writings, and published as his. Some other things are indeed said, that do not favour the cause of Ratti; as that when he was in Parma he consulted Mengs on what he should say of the works of Coreggio in that city, and as he could not see those in Dresden, he had from him a minute account of them; and also that Mengs was accustomed to add remarks to the MS. on which his friends consulted him. If, therefore, it be conceded that Mengs had such a share in this MS. (which would appear to have been drawn up by the scholar under the direction of the master, as to opinions on art, and as to a catalogue of the best pictures, accompanied too with remarks,) who does not perceive that the best part of that work, and the great attraction of its matter and style, is due to Mengs?]

[Footnote 93: This picture is one of the most finished compositions since the restoration of art. Each muse is there represented with her peculiar attribute, as derived from antiquity; and the artist is deservedly eulogized by the Sig. Ab. Visconti, in the celebrated _Museo Pio Clementino_, tom. i. p. 57.]

[Footnote 94: This eminent man was not without his enemies and calumniators, excited by his criticisms on the great masters, and still more by his animadversions on artists of inferior fame, and some recently deceased. Cumberland wrote against him with manifest prejudice; and the anonymous author of the _Difesa del Cav. Ratti_, the work of Ratti himself, or for which at least he furnished the materials, speaks of him in a contemptuous manner. He particularly questions his literary character and his discernment, and ascribes to his confidential friend, Winckelmann, the merit of his remarks. In point of art he estimates Mengs as an excellent, but by no means an unrivalled painter. Descending to particulars, he publishes not a few criticisms, which he received either in MS. or from the mouths of different professors, and adds others of his own. Of these the experienced must form their own judgment. With regard to his colouring, indeed, with which his rival Batoni found great fault, the most inexperienced person may perceive that it is not faultless, as the flesh tints are already altered by time, at least in some of his works. Lastly, in the _Difesa_ are some personal remarks regarding Mengs, which, if Ratti, from respect to his late deceased friend, thought it right to omit them in his life of him, printed in 1779, might with still greater propriety have been spared in this subsequent work.]

[Footnote 95: See the _Elogio di Pompeo Batoni_, page 66, where the illustrious author, who, to his other accomplishments, adds that of painting, expatiates at length, and in the style of a professor, on this wonderful talent of Batoni.]

[Footnote 96: The decoration of the Villa Pinciana, in which the prince Borghesi has given encouragement to so many eminent artists, is an undertaking that deserves to be immortalized in the history of art.]

[Footnote 97: I refer to what I have written on the art of enamel, in the school of Ferrara, in which city the art may be said to have been revived by the Sig. Ab. Requeno. It was also greatly improved in the school of Rome, where in 1788 an entire cabinet was painted in enamel for the empress of Russia, as was publicly noticed in the _Giornale di Roma_, of the month of June. Il Sig. Consigl. Gio. Renfestein, had the commission of the work, which was executed from the designs of Hunterberger, by the Sigg. Gio. and Vincenzio Angeloni. They were both assisted in their task by the Sig. Ab. Garcia della Huerta, who greatly facilitated the inventions of Requeno, as well by his experience as by his work, intitled _Commentarj della pittura encaustica del pennello_, published in Madrid, a very learned work, and which obtained for the author from Charles IV. an annuity for life.]