Anton Raphael Mengs

1728 - 1779 • German • Painter • Neoclassicist

"By the ideal I mean that which one sees only with the imagination, and not with the eyes; thus an ideal in painting depends upon selection of the most beautiful things in nature purified of every imperfection." - Anton Raphael Mengs

After a period as court painter in Dresden, Mengs, who had studied in Rome, settled there in 1751. A representative of the anti-BAROQUE, he was a proponent of NEOCLASSICAL purity, clarity, and nobility upheld by his mentor, WINCKELMANN. He distinguished between copying the ANTIQUE and imitating it, arguing in favor of the latter because it required consideration while the former was mere plagiarism. Both he and Winckelmann were confounded by the important finds at HERCULANEUM and POMPEII, in 1738 and 1748 respectively, which seemed to them pale imitations of the best of the antique. As a ruse, Mengs painted Jupiter and Ganymede ( 1758-59 ), one of Winckelmann's favorite subjects, in imitation of Herculaneum, and Winckelmann was, indeed, deceived by it. Mengs was the tutor of the American painter WEST.