It is well known that Goethe was a great poet, playwright, and novelist. He was also a great writer on art. His passion for antiquities, prints, and drawings led him to amass an enormous, first-rate collection that included, upon the poet’s death, 2,153 drawings. His “Italian Journey” is also well known. But when it came to art, Goethe, the German neoclassicist, admired French neoclassicism as much if not more than he did the art of the Italians.

Although he never made it to Paris, Goethe read the criticism of Diderot and acquainted himself with French art through prints and drawings. Watteau, Claude, Poussin, and David were among his favorites, as was Delacroix, whose initial illustrations for “Faust” inspired Goethe to remark, “Herr Delacroix is a great talent, which came upon the right subject in ‘Faust.’ The French criticize his savage extravagance, but he is in his element here. … I am looking forward with special pleasure to his pictures of the Witches’ Kitchen and the scenes on the Brocken.”

A number of drawings from Goethe’s collection (now the Goethe-National museum) are currently on display in “From Callot to Greuze: French Drawings from Weimar,” an uneven show of drawings from two museums, which just opened at the Frick Collection. Many of the rest of the drawings in the exhibition (those from the Schlossmuseum) were purchased with Goethe’s advice.

In 1776 Goethe was appointed privy councilor to Grand Duke Carl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. The post, which the poet occupied until his death, allowed him to influence his friend the duke considerably. Goethe, with his great eye and thorough knowledge of art history and mythical and biblical themes, encouraged the crown to establish an extensive collection of drawings and prints. Exhibited in the prince’s residence, these could be used by art students as models and examples for academic training. Because Goethe loved the works by French artists, and because their drawings were tremendously undervalued, a number of 17th- and 18th-century French drawings entered the collection, which today numbers about 30,000 drawings.

“From Callot to Greuze,” an exhibition of a little more than 70 French drawings, most of which are 17th- and 18th-century and have never been shown outside of Weimar, includes landscapes, portraits, biblical and mythical scenes, figure, animal, architectural, and botanical studies. It has no works by David (Goethe was unable to obtain any) or by Delacroix; but it does have works by Claude Lorrain, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Charles Lebrun, Francois Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Charles-Louis Clerisseau, Jacques Callot, and Anne-Louis Girodet (a student of David).

The exhibition opens with Callot’s “Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of the Isle of Re” (1628-31), a preparatory drawing, in black chalk and brown wash, for an engraving. The drawing, in dark, lyrical sweeps and jabs and delicate washes, depicts Richelieu and Louis XIII, both on horseback, discussing battle plans. In the middle ground and distance sun drenched figures and horses, tents and supplies, flutter faintly, as if a mirage. Another Callot, “The Standing Virgin Mary, Seen Face on, Hands Clasped” (c. 1631), a lone, pyramidal figure, is also gorgeous. The Virgin’s small pious head, looking upward, as if perched on a mountaintop, feels miles away from her large feet and praying hands.

The majority of works in the show are exceptional and accomplished. You will find sturdy heads by Philibert-Benoit de la Rue, Nicolas-Bernard Lepicie, Jacques Dumont, Greuze, and Pierre-Alexandre Wille; figure studies by Michel Dorigny, Nicolas de Plattemontagne, and Jean-Francois de Troy; landscapes by Benigne Gagneraux, Pierre-Louis De la Rive, and Jean-Jacques de Boissieu; botanical and zoological studies by Pancrace Bessa, Jean-Baptiste Huet, Nicolas Huet, and Pauline Knip. A handful of Bouchers, although they are overplayed, stop short of being saccharine.

Hubert- F. B. Gravelot’s “The Battle Between Joan of Arc and Jean Chandos; Studies of Heads of Horses and Dogs” (c. 1759-62), a mixed-media linear study for Voltaire’s “Maid of Orleans (La Pucelle),” ranges from heavily worked to loose and airy. A framed drawing of Chandos leaning over the body of the Maid of Orleans, the vignette is anchored in the margin by various studies of heads of horses, donkeys, and dogs.

The best drawings in the exhibition are those by Claude and Watteau. By comparison, many of the other works retain a whiff of the academy. Watteau’s “Two Dancers, a Man and a Woman, Both Turned to the Left” (c. 1717), a red, black, and white chalk drawing of a woman (a study for his painting “Venetian Pleasures”) and a man, makes the figures in the show’s Boucher drawings feel too precious, swooning, or grossly overwrought. The white dress in the Watteau glistens and rustles with lightning-quick strokes that rush her, perfectly poised, across the page. Zigzagging lines animate the figures’ arms, giving them anxiousness and musicality, opening them up.

Claude’s “Study of Trees” (1630s), in pen and brown ink and brown wash, though dense, is breezy and alive. Each dangling leaf and twisted branch dances. In his “Shepherd Playing the Flute, with Herd, in Front of a Coastal Town” (1660s), in black chalk, pen, and black and brown inks, the sway of the trees, the melancholy mist of the coast, and a full range of light, from cool darkness to warm glow, is felt in the milky creams and blacks of the dreamy pastoral.

In the same artist’s “The Reconciliation of Cephalus and Procris in the Presence of Diana” (c. 1645), in brush and brown ink, brown and gray wash, heightened with white gouache, the luminous figures sway toward one another in the center of a forest. It seems as if a bubble of light is lodged within the drawing. Their faces are childlike, and the wispy trees, as if they were spectators, look almost giddy. But a sorrowful shadow seems to surround them, as if foretelling their tragic end.

“The Reconciliation of Cephalus and Procris in the Presence of Diana” is one of the drawings in the show that belonged to Goethe. Looking at the exhibition’s drawings by Claude, who, like Goethe, is at once classical and romantic, it is easy to see why the one poet was drawn to the other. In his “Conversations,” Eckermann writes about his introduction to Claude Lorrain.

“While we are waiting for our soup,” Goethe had said to him, on April 10, 1829,”I will provide you with refreshment for your eyes.” Goethe then placed before Eckermann a volume containing landscapes by Claude. “Here you see, for once, a complete man who thought and felt beautifully,” Goethe said, “and in whose mind lay a world such as you will not easily find out of doors. The pictures have the highest truth, but no trace of actuality. Claude Lorrain knew the real world by heart, down to the minutest details, and used it only as a means to express the world of his beautiful soul.”

Until August 7 (1 E. 70th Street, 212-288-0700).