250 Present State of the 



M. Fiorillo's Introdaclion to the History of the new French 

 school. He asserts ''that the modern artists take David 

 for their model, and exaggerate his defects without possess- 

 ing his laleuts." He finds, however, that the present is su- 

 perior to the old French school, and he continues in this 

 manner : '• The greatest part of the works of the modern 

 school resemble coloured statues or has reliefs; the contour? 

 of the figures are sharp and edgy, the expression speakmg; 

 but the composition is empty, cold, and dry : in short, the 

 coloiiriug is hard, as if thcv did not choose any thing in 

 nature except a local colour, and as if they only sought to 

 relieve the etlect by forced shades which fall into the dark. 

 The modern French artists think that they have surpassed 

 the simplicity of the Greeks in their works ; but they con- 

 found simplicitv witli emptiness, and laboured composition 

 with the great pains they take to become flat and insipid. 

 As they are not possessed of a pure and classical sentiment, 

 they remain at the entrance of the temple of Taste, without 

 finding the fundamental principle of it ; and it would seem 

 that the genius of the times removes them from what is 

 called the ideal of the art, &c." These are the bad French 

 artists of whom M. Fiorillo speaks, because he has not suc- 

 ceeded in drawing a picture of the good ones ; for he has 

 never seen the works of the latter, and he judges by those 

 of the former. He afterwards says, '• that the antique ought 

 to be studied ; that Raphael and Michael Angeio studied it; 

 but that they endeavoured, surrounded as they were with 

 noble, grand, and spwitual forms, to idealize, as it were, the 

 forms of nature." The author is therefore ignorant that the 

 good French painters study Nature much, and that she never 

 was more studied by any school : as a painter, he ought to 

 know that people sometimes see with different eves. 

 . M. Fiorillo says that the picture of Saint Koch curing 

 those infected w;lh the plague, laid the foundation of the 

 celebrity of David : he might have added to- this, what has 

 been said of the Horatii, that this picture alone would have 

 been sufficient to secure immortality to him. I do not 

 like to speak of any thing unless I have seen it, because 

 in that case it is my own judgment, at least, that I pro- 

 nounce : 



