This is the way things wag: the artist’s whim serves the rich man’s wilfulness: the topographer gapes, and our dilettanti, called philosophers, lathe out of protoplastic fables rules and history of the fine arts down to now, and true men are murdered by the evil Genius in the forecourt of the mysteries.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Of German Architecture, 1772

Harsh words for those of Goethe’s period who would value Antique/Classical over Gothic architecture.

Goethe on the rampage by escdotdot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International