The Monthly Repository for 1833, Vol. 7 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Monthly Repository for 1833, Vol. 7 Much has been written, and more said, of the lamentable condi tion to which the arts of the elder time are reduced in these degenerate days; and more especially that of painting. Where,' cry the believers in the superior excellency of all ancient things, where now shall we discover an Apelles, a Zeuxis, a Parrhasius '5' Let not these good people alarm themselves; there are abun dance of such geniuses in embryo, requiring only a sufficient motiie to call them forth. It is true that we do not exactly know what 'the real excellence of the above-named painters may have been, but we Will take it for granted that it was very high, since specimens of the sister art of sculpture have descended to us, which have hitherto been unmatched by any modern artists. Yet still, I will abide by my position, that ifit be ssible to fur nish the same, or greater motives for excellence, t an the ancient artists possessed to stimulate them to exertion, a more than cor responding talent wrll be aroused not perhaps to excel - perfec tion cannot be excelled - but to rival anything and everything that the world has yet beheld in painting, sculpture, or archi tecture, and to superadd to them many other branches of art, of which the ancient world was ignorant. Hearts are still pregnant with celestial fire' as they have ever been; but as the fire lies dormant in the żint till it rs stricken, so does the fire of the spirit await the accident which is needful to urge it intoia blaze. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.