at each other, while a shepherd carries off the nymph for whom they are
contending. This was most admirable for its grotesque power and spirit,
and, moreover, extremely well coloured. Another in the same style
represented a satyr sitting on a wine-skin, out of which he drinks; two
arch-looking nymphs are stealing on him from behind, and one of them
pierces the wine-skin with her hunting-spear.
There was a portrait of himself, but I would not laud it--in fact, he
has not done himself justice. Only a colossal bust, in the same style,
and wrought with the same feeling as Dannecker's bust of Schiller, could
convey to posterity an adequate idea of the head and countenance of
Retzsch. I complimented him on the effect which his Hamlet had produced
in England; he told me, that it had been his wish to illustrate the
Midsummer Night's Dream, or the Tempest, rather than Macbeth: the former
he will still undertake, and, in truth, if any one succeeds in embodying
a just idea of a Miranda, a Caliban, a Titania, and the poetical
burlesque of the Athenian clowns, it will be Retzsch, whose genius
embraces at once the grotesque, the comic, the wild, the wonderful, the
fanciful, the elegant!
A few days afterwards we accepted Retzsch's invitation to visit him at
his _campagna_--for whether it were farm-house, villa, or vineyard, or
all together, I could not well decide. The drive was delicious. The
road wound along the banks of the magnificent Elbe, the gently-swelling
hills, all laid out in vineyards, rising on our right; and though it was
in November, the air was soft as summer. Retzsch, who had perceived our
approach from his window, came out to meet us--took me under his arm as
if we had been friends of twenty years standing, and leading me into his
picturesque _domicile_, introduced me to his wife--as pretty a piece of
domestic poetry as one shall see in a summer's day. She was the daughter
of a vine-dresser, whom Retzsch fell in love with while she was yet
almost a child, and educated for his wife--at least so runs the tale. At
the first glance I detected the original of that countenance which, more
or less idealized, runs through all his representations of female youth
and beauty: here was the model, both in feature and expression; she
smiled upon us a most cordial welcome, regaled us with delicious coffee
and cakes prepared by herself, then taking up her knitting sat down
beside us; and while I turned over admiringly the beautiful designs
with which her husband had decorated her album, the looks of veneration
and love with which she regarded him, and the expression of kindly,
delighted sympathy with which she smiled upon me, I shall not easily
forget. As for the album itself, queens might have envied her such
homage: and what would not a dilettante collector have given for such
a possession!
I remember two or three of these designs which must serve to give
an idea of the rest:--1st. The good Genius descending to bless his
wife.--2nd. The birthday of his wife--a lovely female infant is asleep
under a vine, which is wreathed round the tree of life; the spirits
of the four elements are bringing votive gifts with which they endow
her.--3rd. The Enigma of Human Life.--The Genius of Humanity is
reclining on the back of a gigantic sphinx, of which the features are
averted, and partly veiled by a cloud; he holds a rose half-withered in
his hand, and looks up with a divine expression towards two butterflies
which have escaped from the chrysalis state, and are sporting above his
head; at his feet are a dead bird and reptile--emblematical of sin and
death.--4th. The genius of art, represented as a young Apollo, turns,
with a melancholy, abstracted air, the handle of a barrel-organ, while
Vulgarity, Ignorance, and Folly, listen with approbation; meantime his
lyre and his palette lie neglected at his feet, together with an empty
purse and wallet: the mixture of pathos, poetry, and satire, in this
little drawing, can hardly be described in words.--5th. Hope, represented
by a lovely group of playful children, who are peeping under a hat for
a butterfly, which they fancy they have caught, but which has escaped,
and is hovering above their reach.--6th. Temptation presented to youth
and innocence by an evil spirit, while a good genius warns them to
beware.--In this drawing, the figures of the boy and girl, but more
particularly of the latter, appeared to me of the most consummate and
touching beauty.--7th. His wife walking on a windy day: a number of
little sylphs are agitating her drapery, lifting the tresses of her
hair, playing with her sash; while another party have flown off with
her hat, and are bearing it away in triumph.
After spending three or four hours delightfully, we drove home in
silence by the gleaming, murmuring river, and beneath the light of the
silent stars. On a subsequent visit, Retzsch showed me many more of
these delicious _phantasie_, or fancies, as he termed them,--or more
truly, little pieces of moral and lyrical poetry, thrown into palpable
form, speaking in the universal language of the eye to the universal
heart of man. I remember, in particular, one of striking and even of
appalling interest. The Genius of Humanity and the Spirit of Evil are
playing at chess for the souls of men: the Genius of Humanity has lost
to his infernal adversary some of his principal pieces,--love, humility,
innocence, and lastly, peace of mind;--but he still retains faith,
truth, and fortitude; and is sitting in a contemplative attitude,
considering his next move; his adversary, who opposes him with pride,
avarice, irreligion, luxury, and a host of evil passions, looks at him
with a _Mephistophiles'_ expression, anticipating his devilish triumph.
The pawns on the one side are prayers--on the other, doubts. A little
behind stands the Angel of conscience as arbitrator. In this most
exquisite allegory, so beautifully, so clearly conveyed to the heart,
there lurked a deeper moral than in many a sermon.
There was another beautiful little allegory of Love in the character of
a Picklock, opening, or trying to open, a variety of albums, lettered,
the "Human Heart, No. 1; Human Heart, No. 2;" while Philosophy lights
him with her lanthorn. There were besides many other designs of equal
poetry, beauty, and moral interest--I think, a whole portfolio full of
them.
I endeavoured to persuade Retzsch that he could not do better than
publish some of these exquisite _Fancies_, and when I left him he
entertained the idea of doing so at some future period. To adopt his own
language, the Genius of Art could not present to the Genius of Humanity
a more delightful and a more profitable gift.[39]
* * * * *
The following list of German painters comprehends those _only_ whose
works I had an opportunity of considering, and who appeared to me to
possess decided merit. I might easily have extended this catalogue to
thrice its length, had I included all those whose names were given to me
as being distinguished and celebrated among their own countrymen. From
Munich alone I brought a list of two hundred artists, and from other
parts of Germany nearly as many more. But in confining myself to those
whose productions I _saw_, I adhere to a principle which, after all,
seems to be the best--viz. never to speak but of what we _know_; and then
only of the individual impression: it is necessary to know so many things
before we can give, with confidence, an opinion about any one thing!
While the literary intercourse between England and Germany increases
every day, and a mutual esteem and understanding is the natural
consequence of this approximation of mind, there is a singular and
mutual ignorance in all matters appertaining to art, and consequently,
a good deal of injustice and prejudice on both sides. The Germans were
amazed and incredulous, when I informed them that in England there are
many admirers of art, to whom the very names of Schnorr, Overbeck,
Rauch, Peter Hess, Wach, Wagenbauer, and even their great Cornelius, are
unknown; and I met with very clever, well-informed Germans, who had, by
some chance, _heard_ of Sir Thomas Lawrence, and knew _something_ of
Wilkie, Turner, and Martin, from the engravings after their works; who
thought Sir Joshua Reynolds and his engraver Reynolds one and the same
person; and of Callcott, Landseer, Etty, and Hilton, and others of our
shining lights, they knew nothing at all. I must say, however, that they
have generally a more just idea of English art than we have of German
art, and their veneration for Flaxman, like their veneration for
Shakspeare, is a sort of enthusiasm all over Germany. Those who have
contemplated the actual state of art, and compared the prevalent tastes
and feelings in both countries, will allow that much advantage would
result from a better mutual understanding. We English accuse the German
artists of mannerism, of a formal, hard, and elaborate execution,--a
pedantic style of composition and sundry other sins. The Germans accuse
us, in return, of excessive coarseness and carelessness, a loose sketchy
style of execution, and a general inattention to truth of character.[40]
"You English have no school of art," was often said to me; I could have
replied--if it had not been a solecism in grammar--"You Germans have
_too much_ school." The "esprit de secte," which in Germany has broken
up their poetry, literature, and philosophy into schisms and schools,
descends unhappily to art, and every professor, to use the Highland
expression, has _his tail_.
At the same time, we cannot deny to the Germans the merit of great
earnestness of feeling, and that characteristic integrity of purpose
which they throw into every thing they undertake or perform. Art with
them, is oftener held in honour, and pursued truly for its own sake,
than among us: too many of our English artists consider their lofty
and noble vocation, simply as the means to an end, be that end fame or
gain. Generally speaking, too, the German artists are men of superior
cultivation, so that when the creative inspiration falls upon them, the
material on which to work is already stored up: "nothing can come of
nothing," and the sun-beams descend in vain on the richest soil, where
the seed has not been sown.
It is certain that we have not in England any historical painters who
have given evidence of their genius on so grand a scale as some of the
historical painters of Germany have recently done. _We_ know that it
is not the genius, but the opportunity which has been wanting, but we
cannot ask foreigners to admit this,--they can only judge from results,
and they must either suppose us to be without eminent men in the higher
walks of art,--or they must wonder, with their magnificent ideas of
the incalculable wealth of our nobles, the prodigal expenditure of our
rulers, and the grandeur of our public institutions, that painting has
not oftener been summoned in aid of her eldest sister architecture.
On the other hand, their school of portraiture and landscape is decidedly
inferior to ours. Not only have they no landscape painters who can compare
with Callcott and Turner, but they do not appear to have _imagined_ the
kind of excellence achieved by these wonderful artists. I should say,
generally, that their most beautiful landscapes want atmosphere. I used
to feel while looking at them as if I were in the exhausted receiver of
an air-pump. Of their portraits I have already spoken; the eye which has
rested in delight upon one of Wilkie's or Phillips's fine manly portraits,
(not to mention Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, and Lawrence,) cannot
easily be reconciled to the hard, frittered manner of some of the most
admired of the German painters; it is a difference of taste, which
I will not call natural but national;--the remains of the old gothic
school which, as the study of Italian art becomes more diffused, will
be modified or pass away.
* * * * *
HISTORY.
Peter Cornelius, born at Dusseldorf in 1778, was for a considerable time
the director (president) of the academy there, and is now the director
of the academy of art at Munich: much of his time, however, is spent
in Italy. The Germans esteem him their best historical painter. He has
invention, expression, and power, but appears to me rather deficient in
the feeling of beauty and tenderness. His grand works are the fresco
painting in the Glyptothek at Munich, already described.
Friedrich Overbeck, born at Lubeck in 1789: he excels in scriptural
subjects, which he treats with infinite grandeur and simplicity of
feeling.
Wilhelm Wach, born at Berlin in 1787: first painter to the king of
Prussia and professor in the academy of Berlin: esteemed one of the
best painters and most accomplished men in Germany. Not having visited
Berlin, where his finest works exist, I have as yet seen but one picture
by this painter--the head of an angel, at the palace of Peterstein,
sublimely conceived, and most admirably painted. In the style of colour,
in the singular combination of grand feeling and delicate execution,
this picture reminded me of Leonardo da Vinci.
Professor Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, born at Leipsig in 1794. His
frescos from the Nibelungen Lied in the new palace at Munich have been
already mentioned at length.
Professor Heinrich Hesse: the frescos in the Royal Chapel at Munich,
already described.
Wilhelm Tischbein, born at Heyna in 1751. He is director of the academy
at Naples, and highly celebrated. He must not be confounded with his
uncle, a mediocre artist, who was the court painter of Hesse Cassel, and
whose pictures swarm in all the palaces there.
Philip Veit, of Frankfort--fresco painter.
Joseph Schlotthauer, professor of historical and fresco painting at
Munich. (I believe this artist is dead. He held a high rank.)
Clement Zimmermann, now employed in the Pinakothek, and in the new
palace at Munich, where he takes a high rank as painter, and is not less
distinguished by his general information, and his frank and amiable
character.
Moritz Retzsch of Dresden.
Professor Vogel, of Dresden, principal painter to the king of Saxony.
He paints in fresco and history, but excels in portraits.
Stieler, of Munich, court painter to the king of Bavaria, esteemed one
of the best portrait painters in Germany.
Goetzenberger, fresco painter. He is employed in painting the University
Hall at Bonn.
Eduard Bendeman, of Berlin. I saw at the exhibition of the Kunstverein
at Dusseldorf, a fine picture by this painter--"The Hebrews in Exile."
"By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept."
The colouring I thought rather hard, but the conception and drawing were
in a grand style.
Wilhelm Schadow, director of the academy at Dusseldorf.
Hetzsch of Stuttgardt.
The brothers Riepenhausen, of Goettingen, resident at Rome. They are
celebrated for their designs of the pictures of Polygnotus, as described
by Pausanius.
Koehler. He exhibited at the Kunstverein at Dusseldorf a picture of
"Rebecca at the well," very well executed.
Ernst Foerster, of Altenburg, employed in the palace at Munich. This
clever young painter married the daughter of Jean Paul Richter.
Gassen, of Goblentz; Hiltensberger, of Suabia; Hermann, of Dresden;
Foltz, of Bingen; Kaulbach, of Munich; Eugene Neureuther, of Munich;
Wilhelm Roeckel, of Schleissheim; Von Schwind, of Vienna; Wilhelm
Lindenschmidt, of Mayence. All these painters are at present in the
service of the king of Bavaria.
Julius Huebner; Hildebrand; Lessing; Sohn; history and portraits;--these
four painters are the most distinguished scholars of the Dusseldorf
school.
SMALL SUBJECTS AND CONVERSATION PIECES.
Peter Hess, of Munich, one of the most eminent painters in Germany.
In his choice of subjects he reminded me sometimes of Eastlake, and
sometimes of Wilkie, and his style is rather in Wilkie's first manner.
His pictures are full of spirit, truth, and character.
Dominique Quaglio, of Munich. Interiors, &c. He also ranks very high:
he reminds me of Fraser.
Major-General von Heydeck, of Munich, an amateur painter of merited
celebrity. In the collection of M. de Klenze, and in the Leuchtenberg
Gallery, there are some small battle pieces, scenes in Greece and Spain,
and other subjects by Von Heydeck, very admirably painted.
F. Mueller, of Cassel. At the exhibition at Dusseldorf I saw a picture
by this artist, "A rustic bridal procession in the Campagna," painted
with a freedom and lightness of pencil not common among the German
artists.
Plueddeman, of Colberg.
T. B. Sonderland, of Dusseldorf. Fairs and merrymakings.
H. Rustige. The same subjects. Both are good artists.
H. Kretzschmar, of Pomerania. His picture of "Little Red Ridinghood,"
(Rothkaeppchen,) at the Kunstverein, at Dusseldorf, had great merit.
Adolf Scroette. Rustic scenes in the Dutch manner.
LANDSCAPE.
Dahl, a Norwegian settled at Dresden, esteemed one of the best landscape
painters in Germany. There is a very fine sea-piece by this artist in
the possession of the Countess von Seebach at Dresden, with, however,
all the characteristic _peculiarities_ of the German school.
T. D. Passavant, of Frankfort.
Friedrich, of Dresden, one of the most _poetical_ of the German
landscape painters. He is rather a mannerist in colour, like Turner,
but in the opposite excess: his genius revels in gloom, as that of
Turner revels in light.
Professor von Dillis, of Munich.
Max Wagenbauer, of Munich. He is called most deservedly, the German
Paul Potter.
Jacob Dorner, of Munich. A charming painter; perhaps a little too minute
in his finishing.
Catel, of Dusseldorf. Scenes on the Mediterranean. This painter resides
chiefly in Italy; but in the collection of M. de Klenze I saw some
admirable specimens of his works.
Biermann, of Berlin, is a fine landscape painter.
Preyer, certainly the most exquisite of modern flower painters.
I believe he is from Dusseldorf.
Rothman, of Heidelberg. I saw some pictures and sketches by this young
painter, full of genius and feeling.
Fries, of Munich, a young painter of great promise. He put an end to his
own life, while I was at Munich, in a fit of delirium, caused by fever,
and was very generally lamented.
Wilhelm Schirmer, of Juliers, an exceedingly fine landscape painter.
Audeas Achenbach, of Dusseldorf: he has also great merit.
* * * * *
There are several female artists in Germany, of more or less celebrity.
The Baroness von Freyberg (born Electrina Stuntz) holds the first rank
in original talent. She resides near Munich, but no longer paints
professionally.
The Countess Julie von Egloffstein has also the rare gift of original
and creative genius.
Luise Seidler, of Weimar; Madlle. de Winkel and Madame de Loqueyssie, of
Dresden, are distinguished in their art. The two latter are exquisite
copyists.
In architecture, Leo von Klenze and Professor Girtner, of Munich; and
Heideloff of Nuremberg, are deservedly celebrated in Germany.
The most distinguished sculptors in Germany are Christian Rauch, and
Christian Friedrich Tieck, of Berlin; Johan Heinrich von Dannecker,
of Stuttgardt; Schwanthaler, Eberhardt, Bandel, Kirchmayer, Mayer, all
of Munich; Reitschel of Dresden; and Imhoff, of Cologne. Those of their
works which I had an opportunity of seeing have been mentioned in the
course of these sketches.
[Illustration]
HARDWICKE.
Who that has exulted over the heroic reign of our gorgeous Elizabeth,
or wept over the fate of Mary Stuart, but will remember the name of the
only woman whose high and haughty spirit out-faced the lion port of one
queen, and whose audacity trampled over the sorrows of the other--
"Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride!"
But this is anticipation. If it be so laudable, according to the
excellent, oft quoted advice of the giant Moulineau, to _begin at the
beginning_,[41] what must it be to improve upon the precept? for so,
in relating the fallen and fading glories of Hardwicke, do I intend
to exceed even "mon ami le Belier," in historic accuracy, and take
up our tale at a period ere Hardwicke itself--the Hardwicke that now
stands--had a beginning.
There lived, then, in the days of queen Bess, a woman well worthy to
be her majesty's namesake,--Elizabeth Hardwicke, more commonly called,
in her own country, Bess of Hardwicke, and distinguished in the page
of history as the _old_ Countess of Shrewsbury. She resembled Queen
Elizabeth in all her best and worst qualities, and, putting royalty
out of the scale, would certainly have been more than a match for that
sharp-witted virago, in subtlety of intellect, and intrepidity of temper
and manner.
She was the only daughter of John Hardwicke, of Hardwicke,[42] and being
early left an orphan and an heiress, was married ere she was fourteen
to a certain Master Robert Barley, who was about her own age. Death
dissolved this premature union within a few months, but her husband's
large estates had been settled on her and her heirs; and at the age of
fifteen, dame Elizabeth was a blooming widow, amply dowered with fair
and fertile lands, and free to bestow her hand again where she listed.
Suitors abounded, of course: but Elizabeth, it should seem, was hard to
please. She was beautiful, if the annals of her family say true,--she
had wit, and spirit, and, above all, an infinite love of independence.
After taking the management of her property into her own hands, she for
some time reigned and revelled (with all decorum be it understood) in
what might be truly termed, a state of single blessedness; but at length,
tired of being lord and lady too--"master o'er her vassals," if not
exactly "queen o'er herself"--she thought fit, having reached the
discreet age of four-and-twenty, to bestow her hand on Sir William
Cavendish. He was a man of substance and power, already enriched by vast
grants of abbey lands in the time of Henry VIII.,[43] all which, by the
marriage contract, were settled on the lady. After this marriage, they
passed some years in retirement, having the wisdom to keep clear of the
political storms and factions which intervened between the death of
Henry VIII. and the accession of Mary, and yet the sense to profit by
them. While Cavendish, taking advantage of those troublous times, went
on adding manor after manor to his vast possessions, dame Elizabeth
was busy providing heirs to inherit them; she became the mother of six
hopeful children, who were destined eventually to found two illustrious
dukedoms, and mingle blood with the oldest nobility of England--nay,
with royalty itself. "Moreover," says the family chronicle, "the said
dame Elizabeth persuaded her husband, out of the great love he had for
her, to sell his estates in the south and purchase lands in her native
county of Derby, wherewith to endow her and her children, and at her
farther persuasion he began to build the noble seat of Chatsworth, but
left it to her to complete, he dying about the year 1559."
Apparently this second experiment in matrimony pleased the lady of
Hardwicke better than the first, for she was not long a widow. We are
not in this case informed how long--her biographer having discreetly
left it to our imagination; and the Peerages, though not in general
famed for discretion on such points, have in this case affected the same
delicate uncertainty. However this may be, she gave her hand, after no
long courtship, to Sir William St. Loo, captain of Elizabeth's guard,
and then chief butler of England--a man equally distinguished for his
fine person and large possessions, but otherwise not superfluously
gifted by nature. So well did the lady manage _him_, that with equal
hardihood and rapacity, she contrived to have all his "fair lordships in
Gloucestershire and elsewhere" settled on herself and her children, to
the manifest injury of St. Loo's own brothers, and his daughters by a
former union: and he dying not long after without any issue by her, she
made good her title to his vast estates, added them to her own, and they
became the inheritance of the Cavendishes.