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Both the two last writers have made many excellent observations on the piece, although we must allow with Herder, that Winkelmann was correct in affirming that the Philoctetes of Sophocles, like Laocoon in the celebrated group, suffers with the suppressed agony of an heroic soul never altogether overcome by his pain.
And it was not till the middle of the eighteenth century that the genius of Winkelmann brought into fruitful contact the study of ancient works of art, and that of the manners and notions of antiquity, showing the influence of a civilisation which cultivated bodily beauty as an almost divine quality, and making us see behind that beautiful nation of marble the generations of living athletes, among whom the sculptor had found his critics and his models.
We are yet in want of a work in which the entire poetic, artistic, scientific, and social culture of the Greeks should be painted as one grand and harmonious whole, as a true work of nature, prevaded by the most wondrous symmetry and proportion of the parts, and traced through its connected development in the same spirit which Winkelmann has executed in the part which he attempted.
For back in March Frau von Wolzogen had written him that she and her daughter would be accompanied on their northward journey by a certain Herr Winkelmann, a friend of the family. Schiller at once divined the approach of a rival and wrote in great agitation that he would go to Berlin if Winkelmann came.
Essence of Tragedy and Comedy Earnestness and Sport How far it is possible to become acquainted with the Ancients without knowing Original Languages Winkelmann. The importance of our subject is, I think, fully proved. Let us now enter upon a brief consideration of the two kinds into which all dramatic poetry is divided, the tragic and comic, and examine the meaning and import of each.
This view, the prevalence of which has been referred by Frederic Schlegel to the influence of Winkelmann over his countrymen, is on some subjects peculiar to German writers. It has been frequently applied by them, with the happiest result, as a corrective to the partiality of the moral and historical views, which, exclusively pursued, must often lead into the grossest errours.
This can be effected even while portraying the most violent bodily or mental anguish, if only the artist finds means so to temper the expression by some trait of manly resistance, calm grandeur, or inherent sweetness, that, with all the most moving truth, the lineaments of beauty shall yet be undefaced. The observation of Winkelmann on this subject is inimitable.
On all occasions he lays on, even to overloading, those merely corporeal charms which Winkelmann calls a "flattery of the gross external senses;" whatever is exciting, striking in a word, all that produces a vivid effect, though without true worth for the mind and the feelings. He labours for effect to a degree which cannot be allowed even to the dramatic poet.
When we ground our judgment of modern painters merely on their greater or less resemblance to the ancients, we must necessarily be unjust towards them, as Winkelmann undoubtedly has in the case of Raphael. As the poets for the most part had their share of scholarship, it gave rise to a curious struggle between their natural inclination and their imaginary duty.
Not only all intelligent artists, but all men of any degree of taste, bow with enthusiastic adoration before the masterly productions of ancient sculpture. The best guide to conduct us to this sanctuary of the beautiful, with deep and thoughtful contemplation, is the History of Art by our immortal Winkelmann.
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