Aphoristic Writings, Notebook, and Letters to a Friend, by Otto ...

That Goethe had a high opinion of Schiller naturally proves nothing, because he
also had a very high opinion of Wieland, Byron and several painters of his time, and
there wasn’t much to them either.
Hercules is Doric. Doric and Ionic must be sharply separated in Hellenism. They
are related to each other as poverty to wealth, as simplicity to opulence.
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The most pious work of art that I know is the “Farnese Hercules” (in the Naples
Museum). It is more pious than the Hercules saga itself, with an endlessly captivating
impression. The “Farnese Bull” appears beside it as an expression of talent.
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That people can speak of Raphaelesque trash next to Michelangelo, I understand;
they will probably always do this, because Raphael is to be understood completely
without genius, and Michelangelo only through it. The one makes every consideration
for the beholder, the other, none whatsoever. Raphael becomes totally impotent when
he seeks to portray God, Christ or philosophy. He aids himself by dispensing with the
essence from the outset; people then declare that work original and praise it as a
counterclaim to Michelangelo. Raphael never dared to allow a subject to be shown
entirely from the back, least of all God himself (which Michelangelo has done in the
Second Fresco of the Sistine).
In order to know who Michelangelo, and what Raphael is, one can compare a
painting of lesser significance by the former, the “Deluge”, with one of the most
outstanding of the latter, “Fire in the Borgo”. These are very well suited in
homologous content and because, in Michelangelo, no depictions of the masses are
otherwise present.
Raphael paints a group here, another there, piece by piece, each occupied with
something different; the unity is totally lost. Michelangelo immediately grasps the
essence of the matter: he paints the deluge, the event itself in its most elemental force,
and thence gives himself to all else, all retroaction upon the people, who precisely
here must exclude any individuation.
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