Search -
Benjamin Robert Haydon; Correspondence and Table-Talk, With a Memoir by F.w. Haydon
Benjamin Robert Haydon Correspondence and TableTalk With a Memoir by Fw Haydon Author:Benjamin Robert Haydon General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1876 Original Publisher: Chatto and Windus Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you c... more »an select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: Extract from a Letter to His Excellency M. Olenin. I hope M. Smirnove has informed you of the extreme delight I experienced on receiving your handsome present of casts. They have answered all the expectations you had led me to form of their excellence. The head of the Silenus, for beauty of execution and intense truth of expression, is one of the finest specimens I know of Greek sculpture. It is universally admired, and has made a great noise among those whose judgment I estimate. The swing of the body, the protrusion of the bowels from the action of leaning, the pressure of the muscles of the left arm and shoulder, as well as the hanging over of the pectoral muscles, from the skin being filled out with fat, as well as the delicacy of the hands, has so much the character of a fat man. With respect to the Venus the trunk is singularly beautiful; the legs, feet, and head, I think very inferior; but the trunk is superior certainly to the Venus de Medicis, and, being of a younger age, has a more agreeable character. The lower part of the trunk of the Venus de Medicis has the skin wrinkled .... all proofs of great truth and knowledge of nature in the sculptor. In the Venus which you have done me the honour to send from the Palais de la Tauride, the skin is tight,« less