Page:Studies in the history of the renaissance (IA studiesinhistor01pategoog).djvu/180

158 intense but as complete a life as possible. But often the higher life is only possible at all on condition of a selection of that in which one's motive is native and strong; and this selection involves the renunciation of a crown reserved for others. Which is better; to lay open a new sense, to initiate a new organ for the human spirit, or to cultivate many types of perfection up to a point which leaves us still beyond the range of their transforming power? Savonarola is one type of success; Winckelmann is another; criticism can reject neither, because each is true to itself. Winckelmann himself explains the motive of his life when he says, 'It will be my highest reward if posterity acknowledges that I have written worthily.'

For a time he remained at Dresden. There his first book appeared, 'Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works of Art in Painting and Sculpture.' Full of obscurities as it was, obscurities which baffled but did not offend Goethe when he first turned to art-criticism, its purpose was direct, an appeal from the artificial classicism of the day to the study of the antique. The book was well received, and a pension was supplied through the king's confessor. In September, 1755, he started for Rome, in the company of a young Jesuit. He was introduced to Raphael Mengs, a