——Earth-bornAnd sky-engendered—son of mysteries!
——Earth-bornAnd sky-engendered—son of mysteries!
was not he a poet? He reminds me often of the Prince Sorcerer, nurtured "in the cave of Domdaniel, under the roots of the sea."36Such an enchanted "den of darkness" was his mill and its skylight to him; and there, magician-like, he brooded over half-seen forms, and his imagination framed strange spells out of elemental light and shade. Thence he brought his unearthly shadows; his dreamy splendours; his supernatural gleams; his gems flashing and sparkling with internal light; his lustrous glooms; his wreaths of flaming and embossed gold; his wicked wizard-like heads—turbaned, wrinkled, seared, dusky; pale with forbidden studies—solemn with thoughtful pain—keen with the hunger of avarice—and furrowed with an eternity of years! I have seen pictures of his in which the shadowy background is absolutely peopled with life. At first all seems palpable darkness, apparent vacancy; but figure after figure emerges—another and another; they glide intoview, they take shape and colour, as if they grew out of the canvass even while we gaze; we rub our eyes, and wonder whether it be the painter's work or our own fancy!
Of all the great painters Rembrandt is perhaps least understood; the admiration bestowed on him, the enormous prices given for his pictures, is in general a fashion—a mere matter of convention—like the price of a diamond. To feel Rembrandt truly, it is not enough to be an artist or an amateur picture-fancier—one should be something of a poet too.
There are nineteen of his pictures here; of these "Jesus teaching the doctors in the temple," though a small picture, impressed me with awe,—the portraits of the painter Flinck and his wife, with wonder. All are ill-hung, with their backs against the light—for them the worst possible situation.
Van Dyck is here in all his glory: there are thirty-nine of his pictures. The celebrated full-length, "the burgomaster's wife in black," so often engraved, does not equal, in its inexpressible,unobtrusive elegance, the "Lady Wharton," at Devonshire House.37Then we have Wallenstein with his ample kingly brow; fierce Tilly; the head of Snyders; the lovely head of the painter's wife, Maria Ruthven,—sweet-looking, delicate, golden-haired, and holding the theorbo, (she excelled in music, I believe,) and virgins, holy families, and other scriptural subjects. His famous picture of Susanna does not strike me much.
The four apostles of Albert Durer—wonderful! In expression, in calm religious majesty, in suavity of pencilling, and the grand, pure style of the heads and drapery, quite like Raffaelle. I compared, yesterday, the three portraits—that of Raffaelle, by himself; (the famous head once in the Altaviti palace, and engraved by Morghen;) Albert Durer, by himself; and Giorgione, by himself. Raffaelle is the least handsome, and rather disappointed me; the eyes, in particular, rather project, and have an expression which is not pleasing; the mouth and the brow are full of power and passion. Albert Durer is beautiful,like the old heads of our Saviour; and the predominant expression is calm, dignified, intellectual, with a tinge of melancholy. This picture was painted at the age of twenty-eight: he was then suffering from that bitter domestic curse, a shrewish, avaricious wife, who finally broke his heart. Giorgione is not handsome, but it is a sublime head, with such a large intellectual development, such a profound expression of sentiment! Giorgione died of a faithless mistress, as Albert Durer died of a scolding wife.38
By Paris Bordone, of Trevigi, there is a head of a Venetian lady, in a dress of crimson velvet, with dark splendid eyes which tell a whole history. By Murillo, there are eight pictures—not one in his most elevated style, but all perfect miracles of painting and of nature. There are thirty-three pictures of Vander Werff, a number sufficient to make one's blood run cold. One, a Magdalene, is of the size of life; the only large picture by this elegant, elaborate, soulless painter I ever saw: he is to me detestable.
By Joseph Vernet there are two delicious landscapes, a morning and an evening. I cannot farther particularize; but there are specimens of almost every known painter; those, however, of Titian, Correggio, Julio Romano, and Nicolo Poussin, are very few and not of a very high class, while those of the early German painters, and the Dutch, and the Flemish schools, are first-rate.
There is one English picture—Wilkie's "Opening of the Will:" it is very much admired here,and looked upon as a sort of curiosity. I wish the artists of the two countries were better known to each other: both would benefit by such an intercourse.
At the palace of Schleissheim39there are nearly two thousand pictures: of these some hundreds are positivelybad; some hundreds are curious and valuable, as illustrating the history and progress of art; some few are really and intrinsically admirable.
But the grand attraction here is the far-famed Boisserée Gallery, which is arranged at Schleissheim, until the Pinakothek is ready for its reception. This is the collection about which so many volumes have been written, and which has excited such a general enthusiasm throughout Germany. This enthusiasm, as a fashion, a mania, is beginning to subside, but the impress it has left upon art, andthe tone it has given to the pursuit, the feeling of art, will not so soon pass away. The gallery derives its name from two brothers, Sulpitz and Melchior Boisserée,40who, with a friend (Bertram) were employed for many years in collecting from various convents, and old churches, and obscure collections of family relics, the productions of the early painters of Germany, from William of Cologne, called by the Germans "Meister Wilhelm," down to Albert Durer and Holbein.
The productions of the Greek or Byzantine painters found their way into Germany, as into Italy, in the thirteenth century, and Wilhelm of Cologne appeared to have been the Cimabue of the north—the founder of that school of painting called theByzantine-Niederrheinische, or Flemish school, and the precursor of Rubens, as Cimabue was the precursor of Michael Angelo.
Out of this stiff, and rude, and barbarous style of art, arose and spread the Alt-Deutsche, or Gothic school of painting, which produced successively,Van Eyck, (1370,) Hemling, Wohlgemuth,41Martin Schoen, Mabuse, Johan Schoreel, Lucas Kranach, Kulmbach, Albert Altorffer, Hans Asper, Johan von Mechlem, Behem, Albert Durer, and the two Holbeins. I mention here only those artists whose pictures fixed my attention; there are many others, and many pictures by unknown authors. Albert Durer was born exactly one hundred years after Van Eyck.
The Boisserée gallery contains about three hundred and fifty pictures; but I did not count them; and no official catalogue has yet been published. The subjects are generally sacred; the figures are heads of saints, and scenes from Scripture. A few are portraits; and there are a few, but very few, subjects from profane history. The painters whose works I at once distinguished from all others, were Van Eyck, Johan Schoreel, Hemling, and Lucas Kranach. I can truly say that the two pictures of Van Eyck, representing St. Luke painting the portrait of the Virgin, and the offering of the threekings; and that of Johan Schoreel, representing the death of the Virgin Mary, perfectly amazed me. I remember also several wondrous heads by Lucas Kranach; one by Behem, called, I know not why, "Helena:" and a picture of Christ and the little children, differing from all the rest in style, with something of the Italian grace of drawing, and suavity of colour. The artist, Sedlar, had studied in Lombardy, probably under Correggio; (one of the children certainly might call Correggio father.) The date on this extraordinary production is 1530. Of the painter I know nothing. The general and striking faults, or rather deficiencies of the old German school of art, are easily enumerated. The most flagrant violations of taste and costume,42bad drawing of the figureand extremities, faulty perspective; stiff, hard meagre composition, negligence or ignorance of all effect of chiaro-scuro. But what, then, is the secret of the interest which these old painters inspire, of the enthusiasm they excite, even in these cultivated days? It arises from a perception of themindthey brought to bear upon their subjects, the simplicity and integrity of feeling with which they worked, and the elaborate marvellous beauty of the execution of parts. I could give no idea in words of the intense nature and expression in some of the heads, of the grand feeling united to the most finished delicacy in the conception and painting ofcountenance, of the dazzling splendour of colouring in the draperies, and the richness of fancy in the ornaments and accessories.
But Idofear that the just admiration excited by this kind of excellence, and a great deal of national enthusiasm, has misled the modern German artists to a false, at least an exaggerated estimate, and an injudicious imitation, of their favourite models. It has produced or encouraged thatgeneral hardness of manner, that tendency to violent colour, and high glazy finish, which interfere too often with the beauty, and feeling, and effect of their compositions, at least in the eyes of those who are accustomed to the free broad style of English art.43
Thursday Evening.—At the theatre. Schiller's "Braut von Messina." This was the first time I had ever seen the tragic choruses brought on the stage, in the genuine style of the Greek drama;and the deep sonorous voice and measured recitation (I could almost sayrecitative) of Eslair, who was at the head of the chorus of Don Manuel—the emphatic lines being repeated or echoed by his followers—as well as the peculiar style of the whole representation, impressed me with a kind ofsolemn terror. It was wholly different from any thing I had ever witnessed, and was rather like a poem declaimed on the stage, than what we are accustomed to call a play. I was fortunate in seeing Madame Schröder in Donna Isabella, for she does not often perform, and it is one of the finest parts of this grand actress. Don Manuel and Don Cæsar were played by Forst and Schunke—both were young, very well looking, and good actors. Beatrice was played by Madll. Shöller. The costumes were beautiful, and all the arrangements of the stage contrived with the most poetical effect. One scene in the first act, where Donna Isabella stands between her two sons, a hand on the shoulder of each, beseeching them to be reconciled; while they remain silent, turning from each other with folded arms, and dark averted faces;—the chorusses drawn up on each side, all dressed alike, all precisely in the same attitude, leaning on their shields, with lowering looks fixed on the group in the centre, was admirably managed; and, from the effect that it produced, made me feel that uniformity may be oneelement of the sublime. Afterwards, a very lively soirée.
Friday.—The Hofgarten at Munich is a square, planted with trees, and gravelled, and serving as a public promenade. On one side is the royal palace; opposite to it, the picture gallery; on the east, the king's riding house, and on the west, a long arcade, open towards the garden which connects the palace and the picture gallery; under this arcade are shops, cafés, restaurateurs, &c. as in thePalais Royalat Paris.
But what distinguishes this arcade from all others, is the peculiar style of decoration. It is painted in fresco by the young artists who studied under Cornelius. There is, first, a series of sixteen compartments, about eleven feet in length, containing subjects from the history of Bavaria. They are all by various artists, and of course of different degrees of merit, generally better in the composition than the painting, but some have great vigour and animation in both respects.
For instance, Otho von Wittelsbach receivingfrom the emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, the investiture of the dukedom of Bavaria in 1180, painted by Zimmermann.
The marriage of Otho the Illustrious, to Agnes, Countess Palatine of the Rhine, in 1225, painted by my friend, Wilhelm Röckel, of Schleissheim, to whom I am indebted for many polite attentions.
The engagement between Louis the Severe, of Bavaria, and the fierce fiery Ottocar, king of Bohemia, upon the bridge at Mühldorf, in 1258, painted by Stürmer of Berlin. This is very animated and terrific. I think the artist had Rubens' defeat of the Amazons full in his mind.
The victory of the emperor, Louis of Bavaria, over Frederic of Austria, his competitor for the empire in 1322, painted by Hermann of Dresden.
The storming of Godesberg, when the unfortunate Archbishop Gerard, and Agnes of Mansfield had taken refuge there in 1583,44painted by Gassen of Coblentz.
Maximilian I. in 1623, invested with the forfeit electorate of the Palatine Frederic V.45painted by Eberle of Dusseldorf.
Maximilian Joseph I. father of the present king, bestowing on his people a new constitution and representative government in 1818, painted by Monten of Dusseldorf.
These have dwelt on my memory. Over all the pictures, the name of the subject and the date are inscribed in large gold letters, so that those who walk may read. The costumes and manners of each epoch have been attended to with the most scrupulous accuracy; and I see every day groups of soldiers, and of the common people, with their children, standing before these paintings, spelling the titles, and discussing the various subjects represented. The further end of the arcade is painted with a series of Italian scenes, selected by the king after his return from Italy, and executed by Rottmann of Heidelberg, a young landscape-painter of great merit, as De Klenze assures me, and he is a judge ofgenius. Under each pictureis a distich, composed by the king himself. These are in distemper, I believe: freely, but rather hastily executed, and cold and ineffective in colour, perhaps the fault of the vehicle. The ceilings and pillars are also gaily painted with arabesques, and other ornaments; and at the upper end there is a grand seated figure, looking magnificent and contemplative, and calling herselfBavaria. This is well painted by Kaulbach.
I walk through these arcades once or twice every day, as I have several friends lodged over them; and can seldom arrive at the end without pausing two or three times.
I learn that the king's passion for building, and the forced encouragement given to the enlargement and decoration of his capital, has been carried to an excess, and, like all extremes, has proved mischievous, at least for the time. He has rendered it too much a fashion among his subjects, who are suffering from rash speculations of this kind. Many beautiful edifices in the Ludwig's Strasse, and the neighbourhood of the Maximilian's Platz, and the Karoline's Platz, remainuntenanted. A suite of beautiful unfurnished apartments, and even a pretty house in the finest part of Munich may be had for a trifle. Some of these new houses are enormous. Madame M. told me that she has her whole establishment on one floor, but then she has twenty-three rooms.
Though the country round Munich is flat and ugly, a few hours' journey brings us into the very midst of the Tyrolian Alps. In June or July all the people fly to the mountains, and baths, and lakes in South Bavaria, and rusticate among the most glorious scenery in the world. "Come to us," said my friend, Luise K——; "come to us in the summer months,and we will play at Arcadia."
And truly, when I listened to her description of her mountain life, and all its tranquil, primitive pleasures, and all the beauty and grandeur which lie beyond that giant-barrier which lifts itself against the evening sky, and when I looked into those clear affectionate eyes—"dieser Blick voll Treu und Gute," and beheld the expression of a settled happiness, the light of a heart at peace with itself and all the world, reflected on thecountenances of her children—a recollection of the unquiet destiny which drives me in an opposite direction came over me—
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am boundUpon a wheel of fire, which mine own tearsDo scald like molten lead.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am boundUpon a wheel of fire, which mine own tearsDo scald like molten lead.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, which mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
(a medusa mask)
LONDON:IBOTSON & PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
To Page 179, Vol.i.
Therese Huber, who died in 1829, was a woman every way remarkable, in her domestic history, in her position, her writings, and her character. She was employed by Cotta to edit his famous "Morgenblatt," in her time the most esteemed and the most influential of the literary periodicals of Germany, and which she conducted for many years with extraordinary energy and success; she wrote also several romances, published under her husband's name, and long attributed to him even by her most intimate friends. Therese Huber is distinguished by a profound knowledge of her own sex, and by her just and admirable views of our destination andsituation in society. Some of her private letters have been published, since her death, with those of Caroline Woltmann, in the "Deutsche Briefe," and they place in yet stronger light the fine original powers of this gifted woman.
VOL. I.
1 (return)In Goethe's Iphigenia.
2 (return)Over another iron door was writt,
Be not too bold.Fairy Queen, Book iii. Canto XI.
Be not too bold.Fairy Queen, Book iii. Canto XI.
3 (return)See Wordsworth's Poems.
4 (return)Two celebrated antique gems which adorn the relics of the Three Kings.
5 (return)It is nearly twice the size of the famous and well known Medusa Rondinelli, now in the Glyptothek at Munich.
6 (return)Professor Wallraff died on the 18th of March, 1824.
7 (return)Amongst others, Jean Paul, in the "Heidelberger Jahrbücher der Literatur," 1815.
8 (return)Since the above passage was written, Mrs. Austin has favoured me with the following note: "Goëthe admired, but did not like, still less esteem, Madame de Staël. He begins a sentence about her thus—'As she had no idea what duty meant,' &c.
"However, after relating a scene which took place at Weimar, he adds, 'Whatever we may say or think of her, her visit was certainly followed by very important results. Her work upon Germany, which owed its rise to social conversations, is to be regarded as a mighty engine which at once made a wide breach in that Chinese wall of antiquated prejudices, which divided us from France; so that the people across the Rhine, and afterwards those across the channel, at length came to a nearer knowledge of us; whence we may look to obtain a living influence over the distant west. Let us, therefore, bless that conflict of national peculiarities which annoyed us at the time, and seemed by no means profitable.'"—Tag- und Jahres Hefte, vol. 31, last edit.
To thatWOMANwho had sufficient strength of mind to break through a "Chinese wall of antiquated prejudices," surely something may be forgiven.
9 (return)Johanna Schopenhauer, well known in Germany for her romances and her works on art. Her little book, "Johan van Eyk und seine Nachfolger," has become the manual of those who study the old German schools of painting.
10 (return)Or Gebhard, for so the name is spelt in the German histories.
11 (return)For the story of Archbishop Gebhard and Agnes de Mansfeld, see Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War, and Coxe's History of the House of Austria.
12 (return)The gardens and plantations round the castle are a favourite promenade of the citizens of Heidelberg, and there are in summer bands of music, &c.
13 (return)When Gustavus Adolphus took Mayence, during the same war, he presented the whole of the valuable library to his chancellor, Oxenstiern; the chancellor sent it to Sweden, intending to bestow it on one of the colleges; but the vessel in which it was embarked foundered in the Baltic sea, and the whole went to the bottom.
14 (return)M. Passavant is a landscape-painter of Frankfort, an intelligent, accomplished man, and one of the few German artists who had a tolerably correct idea of the state of art in England. He is the author of "Kunstreise durch England und Belgium."
15 (return)She was cotemporary with Cleopatra, (B. C. 33,) and was particularly celebrated for her busts in ivory. The Romans raised a statue to her honour, which was in the Guistiniani collection.—V. Pliny.
16 (return)Lucas Kranach (1472) was one of the most celebrated of the old German painters; from a principle of gratitude and attachment, he shared the imprisonment of the elector John Frederic, during five years.
17 (return)In September, 1833.
18 (return)His own expression.
19 (return)Dannecker has been ennobled; his proper titles run thus—Johan Heinrich von Dannecker, Hofrath, (court counsellor,) knight of the orders of the Wurtemburg crown, and of Wladimir, and professor of sculpture at Stuttgardt.
20 (return)Rauch is knight of the Red Eagle, and member of the senate.
21 (return)Christian Rauch was born in 1777, and Christian Frederic Tieck in 1776.
22 (return)Formerly Madame Jageman, the principal actress of the theatre at Weimar. Her talents were developed under the auspices of Goethe and Schiller. She was the original Thekla of the Wallenstein, and the original Princess Leonora of the Tasso. In these two characters she has never yet been equalled. The quietness, amounting to passiveness, in theexternaldelineation of the Princess in Tasso, affords so littlematerialfor the stage, that Madame Wolff, then the first actress, preferred the character of Leonora Sanvitale, and Madame Jageman was supposed to derogate in accepting that of the Princess. Such is the consummate, but evanescent delicacy of the conception, that Goethe never expected to see it developed on the stage; and at the rehearsal he threw himself back in his chair, and shut his eyes, that the image which lived in his imagination might not be profaned by any tasteless exaggeration of action or expression. He soon opened them, however, and before the rehearsal was finished, started off the chair, and nearly embraced the actress. She looked and felt the part as only a woman of exceeding taste and delicacy would have done; the very tone of her mind, and the character of her beauty, fitted her to represent the fair, gentle, fragile, but dignified Leonora.
23 (return)Lessing.
24 (return)Characteristics of Goethe, vol. i. p. 29.
25 (return)I believe it was in allusion to this distinction, and her own noble birth, that her father-in-law used to call her playfully, "die kleine Ahnfrau," (the little ancestress.)
26 (return)M. Besle, otherwise the Comte de Stendhal, and, I believe, he has half a dozen otheraliases.
27 (return)Alfred Tennyson.
28 (return)"Thro' Erin's isle, to sport awhile," &c.
29 (return)In the German maps, Zweibrücken; the capital of those provinces of the kingdom of Bavaria, which lie on the left bank of the Rhine.
30 (return)The entire grouping of these figures is from the design of Mr. Robert Cockerell, one of the original discoverers, who in ascertaining their relative position has been guided in some measure by the situation in which their fragments were found strewed in front of the temple, and overwhelmed with masses of the frieze and pediment; but has been much more indebted to his own artist-like feeling, and architectural skill. He is of opinion that the western pediment contained several other figures besides the ten which have been restored.
31 (return)The character of the Emperor Rodolph would be one of the most interesting speculations in philosophical history. He was evidently a fine artist, degraded into a bad sovereign—a man whose constructive and imaginative genius was misplaced upon a throne. The melancholy, and incipient madness which hovered over him, was possibly the result of the natural faculties suppressed or perverted.
32 (return)The celebrated traveller, natural philosopher, and botanist. He has the direction of most of the scientific institutions at Munich.
33 (return)I remember Madame Devrient, in describing the effect which music had upon herself, pressing her hand upon her bosom, and saying, with simple but profound feeling, "Ah! cela use la vie!"
34 (return)"A l'exposition de Paris (1822) on a vu un millier de tableaux représentant des sujets de l'Ecritoire Sainte, peints par des peintres qui n'y croient pas du tout: admirés et jugés par des gens qui n'y croient pas beaucoup, et enfin payés par des gens qui, apparemment, n'y croient pas, non plus.
"L'on cherche après cela le pourquoi de la décadence de l'art!"
35 (return)Of this celebrated picture, Sir Joshua Reynolds says, that it is miscalled, and certainly doesnotcontain the portraits of the Earl and Countess of Arundel. Perhaps he is mistaken. It appears that the Earl of Arundel, of James the First's time, (the collector of the Arundelian marbles,) with his Countess, sat to Rubens in 1620, and that "Robin the Dwarf" was introduced into this picture, which was not painted in England, but at Brussels. Rubens was at this time at the height of his reputation, and when requested to paint the portrait of the Countess of Arundel, he replied, "Although I have refused to execute the portraits of many princes and noblemen, especially of his lordship's rank yet from the Earl I am bound to receive the honour he does me in commanding my services, regarding him as I do, in the light of an evangelist to the world of art, and the great supporter of our profession."—(See Tierney's History and Antiquities of the Castle and Town of Arundel.)
36 (return)In Southey's Thalaba.
37 (return)Now removed with the other Vandykes to Chatsworth.
38 (return)See a curious letter of Pirkheimer on the death of Albert Durer, quoted in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 21. "In Albert I have truly lost one of the best friends I had in the whole world, and nothing grieves me deeper than that he should have died so painful a death, which, under God's providence, I can ascribe to nobody but his huswife, who gnawed into his very heart, and so tormented him that he departed hence the sooner; for he was dried up to a faggot, and might nowhere seek him a jovial humour or go to his friends." (After much more, reflecting on this intolerable woman, he concludes with edifyingnaïveté;) "She and her sister are not queans; they are, I doubt not, in the number of honest, devout, and altogether God-fearing women, but a man might better have a quean who was otherwise kindly, than such a gnawing, suspicious, quarrelsome,goodwoman, with whom he can have no peace or quiet neither by day nor by night."
39 (return)Schleissheim is a country palace of the king of Bavaria, about six miles from Munich; it has originally been a beautiful building, but is not now inhabited, and looks forlorn and dilapidated. The pictures are distributed, without any attempt at arrangement, through forty-five rooms.
40 (return)Natives, I believe, of Cologne.
41 (return)Albert Durer was the scholar of Wohlgemuth.
42 (return)I particularly recollect a picture, containing many hundred figures, all painted with the elaborate finish of a miniature, and representing the victory of Alexander over Darius. All the Persians are dressed like Turks, while Alexander and his host are armed to the teeth, in the full costume of chivalry, with heraldic banners, displaying the different devices of the old Germanic nobles, the cross, the black eagle, &c. &c.
43 (return)The observations of Mr. Phillips, (Lectures on the History and Principles of Painting,) on Giotto, and the earliest Italian school, apply in a great measure to the early German painters, and I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of quoting them.—"As it appears to me, that painting at the present time, is swerving among us from the true point of interest, tending to ornament, to the loss of truth and sentiment, I think I cannot do better than endeavour to restrain the encroachment of so insidious a foe, to prevent, if possible, our advance in so erroneous and fatal a course, by showing how strong is the influence of art where truth and simplicity prevail; and that, where no ornament is to be found—nay, where imperfections are numerous; where drawing is frequently defective, perspective violated, colouring employed without science, and chiaro-scuro rarely, if ever thought of. The natural question then is, what can excite so much interest in pictures, where so much is wanting to render them perfect? I answer, that which leads to the forgetfulness of the want of those interesting and desirable qualities in the pictures of Giotto, is the excitation caused by their fulness of feeling—well-directed, ardent, concentrated feeling! by which his mind was engaged in comprehending the points most worthy of display in the subject he undertook to represent, and led to the clearness and intelligence with which he has selected them; add to this the simplicity and ability with which he has displayed that feeling." * * * "This is the first true step in the natural system of the art, or of the application of it, and this was Giotto's more especially. The rest is useful, as it assists the influence of this, theindispensable. This, to continue the figure, taken from the stage, (in a previous part of the Lecture,) is as Garrick acting Macbeth or Lear in a tie-wig and a general's uniform of his day; the passion and the character reaching men's hearts, notwithstanding the absurd costume. If the art be found thus strong to attract the mind, to excite feeling and thought, and to engage the heart, by the mere force of unadorned truth in the important points, and without the aid of the valuable auxiliaries I have above alluded to, is it not manifest that in its basis it is correct? and that the utmost force of historical painting is to be sought by continual emendation of this system, maintaining the spirit of its simplicity, supplying its wants, calling in the aid of those auxiliaries within reasonable bounds, not permitting them to usurp the throne of taste and attraction, but rather requiring them to assist in humbler guise to maintain and strengthen the legitimate authority of feeling.
After reading these beautiful passages, written by a man who unites the acute discriminative judgment of a practical artist with the finest feeling of the ultimate object and aim of high poetical art, I felt almost tempted to expunge my own superficial and imperfect notes, (above written,) and should have done so, but for the hope that my deficiencies will induce some one more competent in taste and knowledge to take up the subject of the early German painters. It is certain that the modern historical painters of Germany are working on the principle here laid down by Mr. Phillips, particularly Overbeck and Wach, which they have derived from a study of their national school of art; but other enthusiasts should remember that the redeeming excellence of this school was feeling, and that feeling can never be a matter of mere imitation. I cannot understand why the omissions of ignorance should be confounded with the achievements of native genius, by those for whom "knowledge has unlocked her ample stores," and to whom the recovery of those "rich spoils of time," the antique marbles, must have revealed the wide difference between "the simplicity of elegance" and "the simplicity of indigence."
44 (return)See p.56.
45 (return)See p.66.