Salomon Reinach Quotes (1858-1932)

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“To speak of an Aryan race of three thousand years ago is to put forward a gratuitous hypothesis; but to speak of it as if it still existed today is quite simply absurd.”

“Reinach challenged the very concept of an Aryan race—“To speak of an Aryan race … is to put forward a gratuitous hypothesis; to speak of it as though it still existed today is quite simply to talk nonsense” (1892: 90).”

“In the first half of the nineteenth century, the greatest of English artists was Turner (C.E.1775-1851), a painter in love with light to the point of ecstasy, a Claudio Lorrain romantic, feverish and sometimes theatrical, [...]. (p. 322)”

“Salomom Reinach, Apollo , 2nd Italian edition on the third French one, Italian Institute of Arts Graphics Publisher, Bergamo, C.E.1906.”

“The life of Raffaello Santi (or Sanzio) forms a complete contrast to that of Leonardo. If he, who lived for a long time, produced little, Raphael, who died at the age of 37, instead left an immense work, which has come down to us, almost in its entirety. (p. 192)”

“The head of the Belvedere Apollo presents characters that connect to the school of Scopa. The god has shot an arrow and his gaze is frowning; but he is both passionate and restless. The gods, in Hellenistic art, no longer know Olympian serenity; even if victorious and omnipotent, they are afflicted by some cures. (p. 70)”

“While the outcry raised by the audacious polemic of Bartolini spread throughout Italy, as he dared to slap the pseudo-classicists to the point of introducing a hunchback as a model into the school; Romanticism arose against classical painting, initially confined to a few aspects, then overwhelming everything: in themes, in attitudes, in colour. (p. 340)”

“[...] the dominant school [of the romantic tendency] was that of the Nazarenes, based in Rome and which aimed in particular at imitating the Italian C.E.15th century. [...]; they painted as badly as Ingres, they drew much less well and they differed from him in their love of large symbolic compositions which are tedious and require comment. (pp. 320-321)”

“The saw in Raphael an apostate from the Ideal and an apostle of savoir faire; they took Botticelli and Mantegna as examples. But they were not vulgar "smugglers". The salient character of their school is intellectualism, the disdain of art for art's sake; they want to narrate and teach, move the soul of the crowds, descend among the people and convert them to beauty. (pp. 322-323)”

“[Commenting on the Apollo of the Belvedere] Apollo's body offers an absolute contrast to those of the gods and giants of the Pergamon frieze. There the muscles are all indicated, as if the artist took pleasure in giving them special prominence; here, however, the skeleton is covered with flesh, and on the flesh you can see the epidermis and you can see more elegance than strength. (p. 70)”

“[...] Meissonier treated anecdotal subjects of the 18th century with prodigious mastery as a miniaturist and a science of form, superior even to that of the Dutch. But the most beautiful of his little paintings pales next to a Pieter de Hoock or a Vermeer, because Meissonier draws too much, colors more than he paints and never knows how to envelop the form in a luminous and caressing atmosphere. (pp. 309-310)”

“Bertel Thorvaldsen: No one was a more fanatical supporter of the theories of Mengs, Winckelmann and David than he wasAnton Raphael Mengs (C.E.1728–1779); Johann Joachim Winckelmann (C.E.1717–1768); Jacques-Louis David (C.E.1748–1825).. Indeed, it seemed dangerous and useless to him to seek the laws and principles of art in reality, when they had already materialized in Greek statuary, from which it was best to derive them. (pp. 338-339)”

“Antonio Canova is the deity of Italian art in the first twenty years of the C.E.19th century. He was hailed "prince of sculpture and art reformer in Italy". And whatever the judgment that today's artists make of him, it remains and will always remain that he greatly advantaged himself over his predecessors in style and execution. His monuments to Pope Rezzonico (Clement XIII) and Pope Ganganelli (Clement XIV) made such an impression as to mark a new artistic era. (p. 335)”

“Claudio Lorrain He is the undisputed master of that false and conventional genre called the Italian landscape, in which the great scenery of nature, expertly manipulated, serves as the backdrop to a historical or mythological composition. The temples, trees and of Claudio Lorrain have very little of reality; his characters have even less; but what saves his paintings, what gives them legitimate admiration, is the poetic feeling of space, sky, water, light. (p. 279)”

“In other Italian cities [like in Florence] different ideals were not followed, and classicism reigned everywhere without envy, cold and composed even in architecture, when a cry of war. Lorenzo Bartolini had launched it. Having grown up indomitable amidst misfortunes and hostilities, he had strengthened his spirit for the fight, which he sustained until he broke down the doors of the Academy and installed himself as arbiter of official teaching in Florence. (pp. 339-340)”

“[...] the famous painting by Guido Reni, L'Aurora, in the Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome (C.E.1609), although somewhat strident in color and too easy to draw, it is one of the great works of decorative painting. Guido Reni also created some types of Christ, the Virgin and the Magdalene, who can be accused of a certain sentimental affectation; but it is certain that their prodigious success shows them to be responsive - and this is no small merit - to the religious ideal of the time. (p. 247)”

“Will the art of the future be above all realist? I don't believe it. One of the beautiful discoveries of the 19th century, photography, made reality more familiar. Which artist, even if he were a Van Eyck, would want to fight with the sensitized plate today? We ask of art what photography, even polychrome, cannot give us: the suggestive beauty of shapes and movements, the radiance, the intensity, or the mystery of colour, in a word, the equivalent, in the field of art, to what poetry is in that of literature. (p. 330)”

“The graceful art of the C.E.18th century never exerted its influence except on small holiday buildings and interiors. The origin of the rococo style is probably to be found in the carving work which was transferred from the furniture to the apartments. No more pillars, nor colonnades, nor architraves; but garlands, festoons, shells, a profusion of sinuous lines, wrapped and intertwined, so that it seems that every ornament wants to be a surprise. With this, an exquisite sense of proportion and prodigious execution. (p. 138)”

“A very widespread kind of snobbery consists in speaking ill of Greek art after Phidias, as of Italian art after Raphael. The least flaw of those who delight in this is that they understand nothing of the evolution of art. If Greek art had stopped at the pediments of the Parthenon, it would have remained just as incomplete as that of Assyria and Egypt, because all its incomparable greatness would not have been embraced as is done now by admiring it, at the same time, in the products of his childhood, his adolescence and his mature age. (p. 70)”

“[...] the art of Lysippus presents itself as a Doric reaction against Attic art, which played an increasing role in sentiment and could seem soft and sensual. Lysippus modified the Canon of Polycletus, i.e. the classical tradition of the C.E.5th century, with a more pronounced tendency towards elegance, giving the body almost eight times the length of the head (instead of seven), making the joints and muscles stand out at the expense of their fleshy envelope. His heads express neither meditation nor passion, they are limited to being nervous and refined. (p. 60)”

“[On the Pre-Raphaelites] Although several of them preceded, since C.E.1848, the French school on the path of plenarianismPainting en plein air, that is, practiced outdoors and not in the confines of the artist's studio. and divisionism, they are not impressionists; they have a horror of sloppy and hasty execution; their workmanship, meticulous and pedantic, superimposes, without trying to harmonize them, intense and raw colors.
This arid and fictitious art, however placed at the service of a very high ideal, must have ended up tiring. (p. 323)”