ital was of greater significance, not only to Thorvaldsen but
to Trippel and Carstens, than is usually realized. It was
of greater importance to Thorvaldsen than to the others;
whereas Carstens--not to mention Trippel--had been
affected by all kinds of powerful influences from Germany
before he went to Rome, Thorvaldsen was more exclusively
the product of Copenhagen and Rome. He went straight
to ancient Italy by way of Gibraltar, thereby escaping Ger-
man rococo, North Italian Renaissance, and all the other
conflicting impressions which he would have received if he
had travelled overland. He arrived in Rome in time to
find Carstens still living; and in Zoëga he became acquainted
with a disciple of Winckelmann; from the former he ex-
tracted the quintessence of understanding of the antique,
and from the latter of knowledge of the antique, without
himself drawing a line or reading a book. He moreover
had the advantage of finding the situation, from the point of
view of the history of art, arranged and prepared for his
coming. The struggle against the old style, the rococo, had
ended in victory for the new classicism, antique in spirit, in
so far as it had gained a foothold in all countries and in all
fields of art. Yet it was plainly evident that the dreams of
that generation of a rebirth of Greek art had not yet been
realized in the works of Mengs or Battoni, of Angelica
Kaufmann or David, of Carstens or Flaxman. It was for
the most part a dream devoid of color, a dream of a world
in marble, and it seemed vain to expect its fulfilment of
painters such as these--or of artists who drew in outline, like
the two last-named. Only a sculptor could yield the period
what it longed for. It was a sculptor, the great Canova,
who satisfied the period until a greater still, Thorvaldsen,
came with his creations of a purer clay. One of the impuri-
ties in Canova's classicism was the over-refined, saccharine
form, a morbidezza recalling Bernini; another unclassical
element was the lingering Southern sensuality; a third was
his propensity for the languishing and sentimental; a fourth,
the Italian virtuosity of his touch. From all these Thorvald-
sen kept himself free. As the latest to follow the dream-

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