me. He had spoiled while he cultivated me; and his presence was
necessary, if the pains he had thought good to spend upon me were in any
degree to bring forth fruit for society. He knew how to engage me in all
kinds of pretty and agreeable things, in whatever was just appropriate,
and to bring out my social talents. But as I had gained no self-
dependence in such things, so when I was alone again I immediately
relapsed into my confused and crabbed disposition, which always
increased, the more discontented I was with those about me, since I
fancied that they were not contented with me. With the most arbitrary
caprice, I took offence at what I might have considered an advantage;
thus alienated many with whom I had hitherto been on a tolerable
footing; and on account of the many disagreeable consequences which I
had drawn on myself and others, whether by doing or leaving undone, by
doing too much or too little, was obliged to hear the remark from my
well-wishers, that I lacked experience. The same thing was told me by
every person of sound sense who saw my productions, especially when
these referred to the external world. I observed this as well as I
could, but found in it little that was edifying, and was still forced to
add enough of my own to make it only tolerable. I had often pressed my
friend Behrisch, too, that he would make plain to me what was meant by
experience? But, because he was full of nonsense, he put me off with
fair words from one day to another, and at last, after great
preparations, disclosed to me, that true experience was properly when
one experiences how an experienced man must experience in experiencing
his experience. Now, when we scolded him outrageously, and called him to
account for this, he assured us that a great mystery lay hidden behind
these words, which we could not comprehend until we had experienced
...and so on without end,--for it cost him nothing to talk on in that
way by the quarter of an hour,--since the experience would always become
more experienced and at last come to true experience. When we were about
to despair at such fooleries, he protested that he had learned this way
of making himself intelligible and impressive from the latest and
greatest authors, who had made us observe how one can rest a restful
rest, and how silence, in being silent, can constantly become more
silent.
By chance an officer, who came among us on furlough, was praised in good
company as a remarkable, sound-minded, and experienced man, who had
fought through the Seven Years' War, and had gained universal
confidence. It was not difficult for me to approach him, and we often
went walking with each other. The idea of experience had almost become
fixed in my brain, and the craving to make it clear to me passionate.
Being of a frank disposition, I disclosed to him the uneasiness in which
I found myself. He smiled, and was kind enough to tell me, as an answer
to my question, something of his own life, and generally of the world
immediately about us; from which, indeed, little better was to be
gathered than that experience convinces us that our best thoughts,
wishes, and designs are unattainable, and that he who fosters such
vagaries, and advances them with eagerness, is especially held to be an
inexperienced man.
Yet, as he was a gallant, good fellow, he assured me that he had himself
not quite given up these vagaries, and felt himself tolerably well off
with the little faith, love, and hope which remained. He then felt
obliged to tell me a great deal about war, about the sort of life in the
field, about skirmishes and battles, especially so far as he had taken
part in them; when these vast events, by being considered in relation to
a single individual, gained a very marvellous aspect. I then led him on
to an open narration of the late situation of the court, which seemed to
me quite like a tale. I heard of the bodily strength of Augustus the
Second, of his many children and his vast expenses, then of his
successor's love of art and of making collections; of Count Brühl and
his boundless love of magnificence, which in detail appeared almost
absurd, of his numerous banquets and gorgeous amusements, which were all
cut off by Frederick's invasion of Saxony. The royal castles now lay in
ruins, Brühl's splendors were annihilated, and, of the whole, a glorious
land, much injured, alone remained.
When he saw me astonished at that mad enjoyment of fortune, and then
grieved by the calamity that followed, and informed me that one expects
from an experienced man exactly this, that he shall be astonished at
neither the one nor the other, nor take too lively an interest in them,
I felt a great desire still to remain a while in the same inexperience
as hitherto; in which desire he strengthened me, and very urgently
entreated me, for the present at least, always to cling to agreeable
experiences, and to try to avoid those that were disagreeable as much as
possible, if they should intrude themselves upon me. But once, when the
discussion was again about experience in general, and I related to him
those ludicrous phrases of my friend Behrisch, he shook his head,
smiling, and said, "There, one sees how it is with words which are only
once uttered! These sound so comical, nay, so silly, that it would seem
almost impossible to put a rational meaning into them; and yet, perhaps,
the attempt might be made."
And, when I pressed him, he replied in his intelligent, cheerful manner,
"If you will allow me, while commenting on and completing your friend's
observations, to go on after his fashion, I think he meant to say, that
experience is nothing else than that one experiences what one does not
wish to experience; which is what it amounts to for the most part, at
least in this world."
EIGHTH BOOK.
Another man, although infinitely different from Behrisch in every
respect, might yet be compared with him in a certain sense: I mean
Oeser, who was also one of those men who dream away their lives in a
comfortable state of being busy. His friends themselves secretly
acknowledged, that, with very fine natural powers, he had not spent his
younger years in sufficient activity; for which reason he never went so
far as to practise his art with perfect technicality. Yet a certain
diligence appeared to be reserved for his old age; and, during the many
years which I knew him, he never lacked invention or laboriousness. From
the very first moment he had attracted me very much: even his residence,
strange and portentous, was highly charming to me. In the old castle
Pleissenburg, at the right-hand corner, one ascended a repaired,
cheerful, winding staircase. The saloons of the Academy of Design, of
which he was director, were found to the left, and were light and roomy;
but he himself could only be reached through a narrow, dark passage, at
the end of which one first sought the entrance into his apartments,
having just passed between the whole suite of them and an extensive
granary. The first apartment was adorned with pictures from the later
Italian school, by masters whose grace he used highly to commend. As I,
with some noblemen, had taken private lessons of him, we were permitted
to draw here; and we often penetrated into his adjoining private
cabinet, which contained at the same time his few books, collections of
art and natural curiosities, and whatever else might have most
interested him. Every thing was arranged with taste, simply, and in such
a manner that the little space held a great deal. The furniture,
presses, and portfolios were elegant, without affection or superfluity.
Thus also the first thing which he recommended to us, and to which he
always recurred, was simplicity in every thing that art and manual labor
united are called upon to produce. Being a sworn foe to the scroll-and-
shell style, and of the whole taste for quaintness, he showed us in
copper-plates and drawings old patterns of the sort contrasted with
better decorations and simpler forms of furniture, as well as with other
appurtenances of a room; and, because every thing about him corresponded
with these maxims, his words and instructions made a good and lasting
impression on us. Besides this, he had an opportunity to let us see his
opinions in practice; since he stood in good consideration, both with
private and with official persons, and was asked for advice when there
were new buildings and alterations. He seemed in general to be more fond
of preparing things on occasion, for a certain end and use, than of
undertaking and completing such as exist for themselves and require a
greater perfection; he was therefore always ready and at hand when the
publishers needed larger and smaller copper-plates for any work: thus
the vignettes to Winckelmann's first writings were etched by him. But he
often made only very sketchy drawings, to which Geyser knew very well
how to adapt himself. His figures had throughout something general, not
to say ideal. His women were pleasing and agreeable, his children
/naive/ enough; only he could not succeed with the men, who, in his
spirited but always cloudy, and at the same time foreshortening, manner,
had for the most part the look of Lazzaroni. Since he designed his
composition less with regard to form than to light, shade, and masses,
the general effect was good; as indeed all that he did and produced was
attended by a peculiar grace. As he at the same time neither could nor
would control a deep-rooted propensity to the significant and the
allegorical--to that which excites a secondary thought, so his works
always furnished something to reflect upon, and were complete through a
conception, even where they could not be so from art and execution. This
bias, which is always dangerous, frequently led him to the very bounds
of good taste, if not beyond them. He often sought to attain his views
by the oddest notions and by whimsical jests; nay, his best works always
have a touch of humor. If the public were not always satisfied with such
things, he revenged himself by a new and even stranger drollery. Thus he
afterwards exhibited, in the ante-room of the great concert-hall, an
ideal female figure, in his own style, who was raising a pair of
snuffers to a taper; and he was extraordinarily delighted when he was
able to cause a dispute on the question, whether this singular muse
meant to snuff the light or to extinguish it? when he roguishly allowed
all sorts of bantering by-thoughts to peep forth.
But the building of the new theatre, in my time, made the greatest
noise; in which his curtain, when it was still quite new, had certainly
an uncommonly charming effect. Oeser had taken the Muses out of the
clouds, upon which they usually hover on such occasions, and set them
upon the earth. The statues of Sophocles and Aristophanes, around whom
all the modern dramatic writers were assembled, adorned a vestibule to
the Temple of Fame. Here, too, the goddesses of the arts were likewise
present; and all was dignified and beautiful. But now comes the oddity!
Through the open centre was seen the portal of the distant temple: and a
man in a light jerkin was passing between the two above-mentioned
groups, and, without troubling himself about them, directly up to the
temple; he was seen from behind, and was not particularly distinguished.
Now, this man was to represent Shakespeare, who without predecessors or
followers, without concerning himself about models, went to meet
immortality in his own way. This work was executed on the great floor
over the new theatre. "We often assembled round him there, and in that
place I read aloud to him the proof-sheets of "Musarion." As to myself,
I by no means advanced in the practice of the art. His instructions
worked upon our mind and our taste; but his own drawing was too
undefined to guide me, who had only glimmered along by the objects of
art and of nature, to a severe and decided practice. Of the faces and
bodies he gave us rather the aspect than the forms, rather the postures
than the proportions. He gave us the conceptions of the figures, and
desired that we should impress them vividly upon our minds. That might
have been beautifully and properly done, if he had not had mere
beginners before him. If, on this account, a pre-eminent talent for
instruction may be well denied him, it must, on the other hand, be
acknowledged that he was very discreet and politic, and that a happy
adroitness of mind qualified him very peculiarly for a teacher in a
higher sense. The deficiencies under which each one labored he clearly
saw; but he disdained to reprove them directly, and rather hinted his
praise and censure indirectly and very laconically. One was now
compelled to think over the matter, and soon came to a far deeper
insight. Tims, for instance, I had very carefully executed, after a
pattern, a nosegay on blue paper, with white and black crayon, and
partly with the stump, partly by hatching it up, had tried to give
effect to the little picture. After I had been long laboring in this
way, he once came behind me, and said, "More paper!" upon which he
immediately withdrew. My neighbor and I puzzled our heads as to what
this could mean; for my bouquet, on a large half-sheet, had plenty of
space around it. After we had reflected a long while, we thought, at
last, that we had hit his meaning, when we remarked, that, by working
together the black and the white, I had quite covered up the blue
ground, had destroyed the middle tint, and, in fact, with great
industry, had produced a disagreeable drawing. As to the rest, he did
not fail to instruct us in perspective, and in light and shade,
sufficiently indeed, but always so that we had to exert and torment
ourselves to find the application of the principles communicated.
Probably his view with regard to us who did not intend to become
artists, was only to form the judgment and taste, and to make us
acquainted with the requisites of a work of art, without precisely
requiring that we should produce one. Since, moreover, patient industry
was not my talent, for nothing gave me pleasure except what came to me
at once, so by degrees I became discouraged, if not lazy; and, as
knowledge is more comfortable than doing, I was quite content to follow
wherever he chose, after his own fashion, to lead us.
At this time the "Lives of the Painters," by D'Argenville, was
translated into German: I obtained it quite fresh, and studied it
assiduously enough. This seemed to please Oeser; and he procured us an
opportunity of seeing many a portfolio out of the great Leipzig
collections, and thus introduced us to the history of the art. But even
these exercises produced in me an effect different from that which he
probably had in mind. The manifold subjects which I saw treated by
artists awakened the poetic talent in me: and, as one easily makes an
engraving for a poem; so did I now make poems to the engravings and
drawings, by contriving to present to myself the personages introduced
in them, in their previous and subsequent condition, and sometimes to
compose a little song which might have suited them; and thus accustomed
myself to consider the arts in connection with each other. Even the
mistakes which I made, so that my poems were often descriptive, were
useful to me in the sequel, when I came to more reflection, by making me
attentive to the differences between the arts. Of such little things
many were in the collection which Behrisch had arranged, but there is
nothing left of them now.
The atmosphere of art and taste in which Oeser lived, and into which one
was drawn, provided one visited him frequently, was the more and more
worthy and delightful, because he was fond of remembering departed or
absent persons, with whom he had been, or still continued to be, on good
terms; for, if he had once given any one his esteem, he remained
unalterable in his conduct towards him, and always showed himself
equally friendly.
After we had heard Caylus pre-eminently extolled among the French, he
made us also acquainted with Germans of activity in this department.
Thus we learned that Professor Christ, as an amateur, a collector, a
connoisseur, a fellow-laborer, had done good service for art, and had
applied his learning to its true improvement. Heinecken, on the
contrary, could not be honorably mentioned, partly because he devoted
himself too assiduously to the ever-childish beginnings of German art;
which Oeser little valued, partly because he had once treated
Winckelmann shabbily, which could never be forgiven him. Our attention,
however, was strongly drawn to the labors of Lippert, since our
instructor knew how to set forth his merits sufficiently. "For," he
said, "although single statues and larger groups of sculpture remain the
foundation and the summit of all knowledge of art, yet, either as
originals or as casts, they are seldom to be seen; on the contrary, by
Lippert, a little world of gems is made known, in which the more
comprehensible merit of the ancients, their happy invention, judicious
composition, tasteful treatment, are made more striking and
intelligible, while, from the great number of them, comparison is much
more possible." While now we were busying ourselves with these as much
as was allowed, Winckelmann's lofty life of art in Italy was pointed
out, and we took his first writings in hand with devotion; for Oeser had
a passionate reverence for him, which he was able easily to instil into
us. The problematical part of those little treatises, which are,
besides, confused even from their irony, and from their referring to
opinions and events altogether peculiar, we were, indeed, unable to
decipher; but as Oeser had great influence over us, and incessantly gave
them out to us as the gospel of the beautiful, and still more of the
tasteful and the pleasing, we found out the general sense, and fancied,
that, with such interpretations, we should go on the more securely, as
we regarded it no small happiness to draw from the same fountain from
which Winckelmann had allayed his earliest thirst.
No greater good fortune can befall a city, than when several educated
men, like-minded in what is good and right, live together in it. Leipzig
had this advantage, and enjoyed it the more peacefully, as so many
differences of judgment had not yet manifested themselves. Huber, a
print collector and well-experienced connoisseur, had furthermore the
gratefully acknowledged merit of having determined to make the worth of
German literature known to the French; Kreuchauf, an amateur with a
practised eye, who, as the friend of the whole society of art, might
regard all collections as his own; Winkler, who much loved to share with
others the intelligent delight he cherished for his treasures; many more
who were added to the list,--all lived and labored with one feeling;
and, often as I was permitted to be present when they examined works of
art, I do not remember that a dispute ever arose. The school from which
the artist had proceeded, the time in which he lived, the peculiar
talent which nature had bestowed on him, and the degree of excellence to
which he had brought it in his performances, were always fairly
considered. There was no predilection for spiritual or temporal
subjects, for landscape or for city views, for animate or inanimate: the
question was always about the accordance with art.
Now, although from their situation, mode of thought, abilities, and
opportunities, these amateurs and collectors inclined more to the Dutch
school, yet, while the eye was practised on the endless merits of the
north-western artist, a look of reverential longing was always turned
towards the south-east.
And so the university, where I neglected the ends of both my family and
myself, was to ground me in that in which I afterwards found the
greatest satisfaction of my life: the impression of those localities,
too, in which I received such important incitements, has always remained
to me most dear and precious. The old Pleissenburg; the rooms of the
Academy; but, above all, the abode of Oeser; and no less the collections
of Winkler and Richter,--I have always vividly present before me.
But a young man, who, while older persons are conversing with each other
on subjects already familiar to them, is instructed only incidentally,
and for whom the most difficult part of the business--that of rightly
arranging all--yet remains, must find himself in a very painful
situation. I therefore, as well as others, looked about with longing for
some new light, which was indeed to come to us from a man to whom we
owed so much already.
The mind can be highly delighted in two ways,--by perception and
conception. But the former demands a worthy object, which is not always
at hand, and a proportionate culture, which one does not immediately
attain. Conception, on the other hand, requires only susceptibility: it
brings its subject-matter with it, and is itself the instrument of
culture. Hence that beam of light was most welcome to us which that most
excellent thinker brought down to us through dark clouds. One must be a
young man to render present to one's self the effect which Lessing's
"Laocoön" produced upon us, by transporting us out of the region of
scanty perceptions into the open fields of thought. The /ut pictura
poesis/, so long misunderstood, was at once laid aside: the
difference between plastic and speaking art [Footnote: Bildende und
Redende Kunst." The expression "speaking art" is used to produce a
corresponding antithesis, though "/belles-lettres/ would be the
ordinary rendering.--TRANS.] was made clear; the summits of the two now
appeared sundered, however near their bases might border on each other.
The plastic artist was to keep himself within the bounds of the
beautiful, if the artist of language, who cannot dispense with the
significant in any kind, is permitted to ramble abroad beyond them. The
former labors for the outer sense, which is satisfied only by the
beautiful; the latter for the imagination, which may even reconcile
itself to the ugly. All the consequences of this splendid thought were
illumined to us as by a lightning-flash: all the criticism which had
hitherto guided and judged was thrown away like a worn-out coat. We
considered ourselves freed from all evil, and fancied we might venture
to look down with some compassion upon the otherwise so splendid
sixteenth century, when, in German sculptures and poems, they knew how
to represent life only under the form of a fool hung with bells, death
under the misformed shape of a rattling skeleton, and the necessary and
accidental evils of the world under the image of the caricatured Devil.
What enchanted us most was the beauty of that thought, that the ancients
had recognized death as the brother of sleep, and had represented them
similar, even to confusion, as becomes Menaechmi. Here we could first do
high honor to the triumph of the beautiful, and banish the ugly of every
kind into the low sphere of the ridiculous within the realm of art,
since it could not be utterly driven out of the world.
The splendor of such leading and fundamental conceptions appears only to
the mind upon which they exercise their infinite activity,--appears only
to the age in which, after being longed for, they come forth at the
right moment. Then do those at whose disposal such nourishment is placed
fondly occupy whole periods of their lives with it, and rejoice in a
superabundant growth; while men are not wanting, meanwhile, who resist
such an effect on the spot, nor others who afterwards haggle and cavil
at its high meaning.