At my entrance among these divine things, (says Haydon,) for the first
time with Wilkie, 1808, in Park-lane, the first thing I saw was the
wrist of the right hand and arm of one of the Fates, leaning on the
thigh; it is the Fate on the right side of the other, which, mutilated
and destroyed as it was, proved that the great sculptor had kept the
shape of the radius and ulna, as always seen in fine nature, male and
female.
I felt at once, before I turned my eyes, that _there_ was the nature and
ideal beauty joined, which I had gone about the art longing for, but
never finding! I saw at once I was amongst productions such as I had
never before witnessed in the art; and that the great author merited the
enthusiasm of antiquity, of Socrates, of Plato, of Aristotle, of
Juvenal, of Cicero, of Valerius Maximus, and of Plutarch and Martial.
If such were my convictions on seeing this dilapidated but immortal
wrist, what do you think they were on turning round to the Theseus, the
horse’s head, and the fighting metope, the frieze, and the Jupiter’s
breast?
Oh, may I retain such sensations beyond the grave! I foresaw at once a
mighty revolution in the art of the world for ever! I saw that union of
nature and ideal perfected in high art, and before this period
pronounced by the ablest critics as _impossible_! I thanked God with all
my heart, with all my soul, and with all my being, that I was ready to
comprehend them from dissection. I bowed to the Immortal Spirit, which
still hovered near them. I predicted at once their vast effect on the
art of the world, and was smiled at for my boyish enthusiasm!
What I asserted in their future influence and enormous superiority,
Canova, eight years after, confirmed. On my introduction by Hamilton,
(author of _Egyptiaca_,) I asked Canova what he thought of them? and he
instantly replied, with a glistening Italian fire, “Ils renverseront le
systême des autres antiques.” Mr. Hamilton replied, “I have always said
so, but who believed me? and what was the result of the principles I
laid down? Why, many a squeeze of the hand to support me under my
infirmities, and many a smile in my face in mercy at my delusion. ‘You
are a _young_ man,’ was often said; ‘and your enthusiasm is _all very
proper_.’ ”
“After seeing them myself,” says Haydon, “I took Fuseli to see them;
and, being a man of quick sensibility, he was taken entirely by
surprise. Never shall I forget his uncompromising enthusiasm; he strode
about, thundering out--‘The Greeks were gods!--the Greeks were gods!’
When he got home he wanted to modify his enthusiasm; but I always
reminded him of his first impressions, and never let him escape.”