Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/190

176 coloured figures on a golden ground, all in mosaic-work; some of them very good, others but poor, according to the masters who furnished the cartoons.

Circumstances here have strangely impressed on my mind how everything depends on the first invention, and that this constitutes the right standard, the true genius; since with little square pieces of glass (and here not in the soberest manner) it is possible to imitate the good as well as the bad. The art which furnished to the ancients their pavements, and to the Christians the vaulted veilings of their churches, fritters itself away in our days on snuff-box lids and bracelet-clasps. The present times are worse even than one thinks.

, Oct. 8, 1786.

In the Farsetti Palace, there is a valuable collection of casts from the best antiques. I pass over all such as I had seen before at Mannheim or elsewhere, and mention only new acquaintances,–a Cleopatra in intense repose, with the asp coiled round her arm, and sinking into the sleep of death; a Niobe shrouding with her robe her youngest daughter from the arrows of Apollo; some gladiators; a winged genius resting in his flight; some philosophers, both in sitting and standing postures.

They are works from which, for thousands of years to come, the world may receive delight and instruction, without ever being able to equal with their thanks the merits of the artists.

Many speaking busts transported me to the old, glorious times. Only I felt, alas! how backward I am in these studies. However, I will go on with them: at least, I know the way. Palladio has opened the road for me to this and every other art and life. That sounds, probably, somewhat strange, and yet not so paradoxical as when Jacob Böhme says, that, by seeing a pewter platter by a ray from Jupiter, he was