He starts with a
principle clearly defined and everything harmonizes with it.
Have the historians and critics of the Greek philosophy discovered that
which I vainly sought in its initiators,--_a law of aesthetics?_ This is
a question to be answered.
Winkelmann, in his "History of Art," says: "The fine arts, in their rise
and decadence, may be likened unto great rivers which, at the point of
fullest greatness, break up into innumerable tiny streams and are lost
in the sands." Still following this imagery, he compares "Egyptian art
to a fine tree whose growth is stopped by a sting; Etruscan art to a
torrent; Greek art to a limpid stream."
Now, the law of life of trees, streams or torrents, is not identical
with that which governs the unity of a human life.
Like Aristotle, Winkelmann states clearly the principle that man is the
measure of all things, but he does not follow up the consequences; he
reaches no scientific demonstration upon any point. Far from
establishing the existence of a law of aesthetics among the Greeks, he
simply remarks upon the extreme simplicity of their beginnings, and
shows by what gropings they came from Hermes to the most perfect works
of Phidias and Praxiteles.
Mengs states that "the first designs were of forms approaching human
semblance;" and that the sciences and philosophy must of necessity have
preceded the Beautiful in the arts. He thinks that the Greeks
established the proportions of their figures by imitation of beautiful
nature.
Pages:
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195