Full of obscurities as it was, obscurities which baffled but
did not offend Goethe when he first turned to art-criticism, its purpose
was direct--an appeal from the artificial classicism of the day to the
study of the antique. The book was well received, and a pension supplied
through the king's confessor. In September 1755 he started for Rome, in
the company of a young Jesuit. He was introduced to Raphael Mengs, a
painter then of note, and found a home near him, in the artists' quarter,
in a place where he could "overlook, far and wide, the eternal city." At
first he was perplexed with the sense of being a stranger on what was to
him, spiritually, native soil. "Unhappily," he cries in French, often
selected by him as the vehicle of strong feeling, "I am one of those whom
the Greeks call opsimatheis.--I have come into the world and into Italy
too late." More than thirty years afterwards, Goethe also, after many
aspirations and severe preparation of mind, visited Italy. In early
manhood, just as he too was FINDING Greek art, the rumour of that high
artist's life of Winckelmann in Italy had strongly moved him.
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