Identifier: frencharchitects00dilk (find matches)
Title: French architects and sculptors of the XVIIIth century
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Dilke, Emilia Francis Strong, Lady, 1840-1904
Subjects: Architects Sculpture, French Sculptors
Publisher: London, G. Bell and sons
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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he most lively portrait of thisaccomplished, vain, domineering, and unscrupulous amateur. Thegravest faults, he says, with which one could reproach theComte de Caylus, were that he was vindictive to excess, and thathe never forgave anyone who had, even unintentionally, crossedhis will. Moreover, he was exceedingly prejudiced ; when oncehe had taken up the talent of an artist, he ceased to see merit inothers, everything had to be done after the style of the favourite,and all that differed from it appeared to him, for that sole reason,bad; and, if some artist became the rival of the one he patronized,he became his enemy : fortunately for these, adds Cochin, onne nuit pas touttes les fois quon voudrait. For the sake of the early friendship of de Caylus with Watteau,one is anxious to find some grounds for apology in face of theseaccusations, and there is an obvious explanation of his attitude 1 C. L., 15 Sept., 1765. 1 Correspondance inedite avec le pere Pacciaudi. Nisard. Paris, 1877. 66
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which is not altogether to his discredit. De Caylus had eagerly Edmeidentified himself with the reaction which had set in early in the Bouchar-century, and which was animated by painful respect for much mis-interpreted classic authority. At his celebrated School of Archi-tecture (1739) Blondel was urging the strict application of the precepts laid down by the Greeks and Romans, and the influenceof his teaching extended itself to a not inconsiderable group ofartists and amateurs. Of these de Caylus was the most convinced ; il se consacra tout entier a letude de lantiquite et a celle des artspratiques par les anciens, 1 and, if he provoked enmity as Mar-montel and others aver, by his intolerant and pretentious dogma-tism, we may remember that such an attitude is natural in thosewhose interest in the arts is rather intellectual than intuitive. Hecould understand no excellence that was not according to his pre-scriptions, but his credit and his interest alike demanded a con-siderable meas

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