Welcome, to you, young man, who have been born with a keen eye for form and proportion, with the facility to practise in all forms. If then there awakes gradually in you the joy of life, and you come to feel the rapture which men know after work, fear and hope, — the spirited cries of the laborer in the vineyard when the bounty of the harvest swells his vats, the lively dance of the reaper when he has hung his idle sickle high on the beam, — when all the powerful nerves of desire and suffering live again more manfully in your brush, and you have striven and suffered enough and have enjoyed enough, and are filled with earthly beauty, and worthy to rest in the arms of the goddess, worthy to feel on her bosom what gave new birth to the deified Hercules — then receive him, heavenly beauty, thou mediator between gods and men, and let him, more than Prometheus, carry down the rapture of the gods to the earth. 1
1 " What I had thought and imagined with respect to that style of architecture, I wrote in a connected form. The first point on which I insisted was that it should be called German, and not Gothic; that it should be considered not foreign, but native. The second point was that it could not be compared with the architecture of the Greeks and Romans, because it sprang from quite another principle. If these, living under a more favorable sky, allowed their roof to rest upon columns, a wall, broken through, arose of its own accord. We, however, who must always protect ourselves against the weather, and everywhere surround ourselves with walls, have to revere the genius who discovered the means of endowing massive walls with variety, of apparently breaking them through, and of thus occupying the eye in a worthy and pleasing manner on a broad surface. If I had been pleased to write down these views (the value of which I will not deny) clearly and distinctly, in an intelligible style, the paper On German Architecture would then, when I published it, have produced more effect, and would sooner have drawn the attention of the native friends of art. But, misled by the example of Herder and Hamann, I obscured these very simple thoughts and observations by a dusty cloud of words and phrases, and, both for myself and others, darkened the light which had arisen within me. However, the paper was well received, and reprinted in Herder's work on German Manner and Art." — Goethe, Autobiography (1812). The "dear abbe" to whom Goethe is replying in this essay is the Abbé Laugier, author of the Essai sur l' Architecture (1753).
INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPYLAEA
(1798)
There is no more striking sign of the decay of art than when we find its separate provinces mixed up together.
The arts themselves, as well as their subordinate forms, are closely related to each other, and have a certain tendency to unite, and even lose themselves in each other; but herein lies the duty, the merit, the dignity of the true artist, that he knows how to separate that department in which he labors from the others, and, so far as may be, isolates it.
It has been noticed that all plastic art tends towards painting, all poetry to the drama; and this may furnish the text for some important observations hereafter.
The genuine, law-giving artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless, following a blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The former leads to the highest pinnacle of art, the latter to its lowest step.
This is no less true of the separate arts than of art in general. The sculptor must think and feel differently from the painter, and must go to work differently to execute a work in relief from what he would do with a round and complete piece of statuary. When the work in low relief came to be brought out more and more, and by degrees parts and figures were brought out from the ground, at last buildings and landscapes admitted, and thus a work produced, half picture half puppet-show, true art was on the decline; and it is to be deplored that excellent artists have in more recent times taken this direction.
Whenever we enunciate hereafter such maxims as we esteem true, we shall feel a real desire, since these maxims are drawn from works of art, to have them practically tested by artists. How seldom does one man agree with another concerning a theoretic principle; the practical and immediately useful is far more quickly adopted. How often do we see artists at a loss in the choice of a subject, in the general composition, according to their rules of art, in the arrangement of details; the painter doubtful about the choice of his colors! Then is the time to make trial of a principle; then will it be easier to decide the question, — Do we by its aid come nearer to the great models, and all that we love and prize, or does it forsake us in the empirical confusion of an experiment not thoroughly thought out?
If such maxims should prove useful in forwarding the culture of artists, in guiding them among difficulties, they will also aid the understanding, true estimation, and criticism of ancient and modern works, and, vice versa, will again be discovered in the examination of these works. This is all the more necessary, since, in spite of the universally acknowledged excellence of the antique, individuals as well as whole nations have in modern times often misconceived those very things wherein the highest excellence of those works lies.
An exact scrutiny of these will be the best means of securing us against this evil. Let us now take, as an example, the usual course of proceeding of the amateur in plastic art, in order to make it evident how necessary a thorough criticism of ancient as well as modern works is, if we would profit by it.
No person of a fine natural perception, however uncultivated, can see even an imperfect, incorrect cast of a fine ancient work without being greatly impressed by it; for such a representation still gives the idea, the simplicity and greatness of the form, in a word, the general notion at least, such as a man of imperfect sight would see at a distance.
We may often observe how a strong inclination towards art is awakened through such an imperfect reproduction. But the effect is analogous to the object that caused it, and such beginners in art are rather impressed with a blind and indefinite feeling than with the true worth and significance of the object itself. It is such as these who are the authors of the theory that a too curious critical examination destroys our pleasure, and who decry and resist the investigation of details.
But when by degrees their experience and knowledge become wider, and a sharper cast in place of the imperfect one, or an original instead of a cast comes under their observation, their satisfaction increases with their insight, and continually advances when at last the originals themselves, the perfect originals, become known to them.
We are not deterred by the labyrinth of thorough examination, when the details are of equal perfection with the whole work. Nay, we learn that we are able to appreciate the perfect, just so far as we are in a condition to discern the defective: to distinguish the restored from the original parts, the copy from the model, to contemplate in the smallest fragments the scattered excellence of the whole, is a satisfaction that belongs only to the perfect connoisseur; and there is a wide difference between the contemplation of an imperfect whole with groping sense, and the seeing and seizing, with clear eye, of a perfect one.
He who devotes himself to any department of knowledge should aim at the highest. Insight and Practice follow widely different paths, for in the practical each one soon becomes aware that only a certain measure of power is meted to him. But a far greater number of men are capable of knowledge, of insight; we may even say that every man is so who can deny himself, subordinate himself to objects, and does not strive with a rigid and narrow individuality to bring in himself and his poor onesidedness amid the highest works of nature and art.
To speak suitably, and with real advantage to one's self and others, of works of art, can properly be done only in their presence. All depends on the sight of the object. On this it depends whether the word by which we hope to elucidate the work has produced the clearest impression or none at all. Hence it so often happens that the author who writes concerning works of art deals only in generalities, whereby indeed the mind and imagination are awakened; but of all his readers, he only will derive satisfaction who, book in hand, examines the work itself.
On this account,