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While now we were busying ourselves with these as much as was allowed, Winckelmann's lofty life of art in Italy was pointed out, and we took his first writings in hand with devotion; for Oeser had a passionate reverence for him, which he was able easily to instil into us.
We therefore hope to merit gratitude if, instead of waiting for a later opportunity and promising a future achievement, we freely offer, in Winckelmann's own refreshing manner, only that which is already prepared, even though it be not complete, in order that it may after its own fashion exert a timely influence in the great world of life and culture.
The consciousness of his own superiority and dignity, combined with a genuine appreciation of others, the expression of friendship, cordiality, playfulness and pleasantry, which characterize the letters to his Swiss friends, make this collection extremely interesting and lovable as well as exceedingly instructive, although Winckelmann's letters cannot on the whole be termed instructive.
In the highest moment of happiness, as well as in the deepest of sacrifice, even of destruction, we are always conscious of an indestructible well-being. This pagan point of view pervades Winckelmann's deeds and writings, and is expressed especially in his early letters, where he is still wearing himself out in the conflict with more modern religious opinions.
Doubtless Winckelmann's perfection is a narrow perfection: his feverish nursing of the one motive of his life is a contrast to Goethe's various energy. But what affected Goethe, what instructed him and ministered to his culture, was the integrity, the truth to its type, of the given force. The development of his force was the single interest of Winckelmann, unembarrassed by anything else in him.
REFERENCES. Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Muller's Remains of Ancient Art; A. J. Guattani, Antiq. de la Grande Grece; Mazois, Antiq. de Pomp.; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De Quincey. These are some of the innumerable authorities on Architecture among the ancients.
Winckelmann's sojourn in Rome fell for the most part under the government of Benedict XIV. Lambertini, a gay and easy-going man, who preferred letting others rule to ruling, himself; and so the different positions which Winckelmann filled may have come to him rather through the favor of his exalted friends than through the appreciation of his services by the Pope.
He is masculine and absolutely free from the neurasthenic morbidezza of his fellow-countryman Zuloaga. He is not a thinker. He is the painter of bright mornings and brisk salt breezes. He is half Greek. There is Winckelmann's Heiterkeit, blitheness, in his groups of romping children, in their unashamed bare skins and naïve attitudes. Boys on Valencian beaches evidently believe in Adamic undress.
He suggested Rome as the fitting stage for Winckelmann's attainments, and held out the hope of a place in the papal library. Cardinal Passionei, charmed with Winckelmann's beautiful Greek writing, was ready to play the part of Maecenas, on condition that the necessary change should be made. Winckelmann accepted the bribe, and visited the nuncio at Dresden.
Oeser himself was quite elated if he only thought of it, and the news of Winckelmann's death fell down into the midst of us like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. I still remember the place where I first heard it: it was in the court of the Pleissenburg, not far from the little gate through which one used to go up to Oeser's residence.
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