Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/131



"It is difficult to discover any settled rules of propriety in the different modes of dress, as all ages and nations have fluctuated with regard to their notions and fashions in this matter. The Greek statues of the Laocoön, Apollo, Meleager, Hercules; the Fighting and Dying Gladiator, and the Venus de Medicis, though altogether without drapery, yet surely there is nothing in them offensive to modesty, nothing immoral: on the contrary, looking on these figures, the mind of the spectator is taken up with the surprising beauty or sublimity of the personage, his great strength, vigorous and manly character; or those pains and agonies that so feelingly discover themselves throughout the whole work. It is not in showing or concealing the form that modesty or the want of it depends; that rises entirely from the choice and intentions of the artist himself. The Greeks and other great designers came into this practice (of representing the figure undraped) in order to show in its full extent the idea of character they meant to establish. If it was beauty, they show it to you in all the limbs; if strength, the same; and the agonies of the Laocoön are as discernible in his foot as in his face. This pure and naked nature speaks a universal language, which is understood and valued in all times and countries, where the Grecian dress, language, and manners are neither regarded or known. It is worth observing also that many of the fair sex do sometimes be