Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected Volume II Part 1

Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected.

by Anna Jameson.

VOL 2.

SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE, AND CHARACTER.

MUNICH (CONTINUED).

_Tuesday._--M. de Klenze called this morning and conducted me over the whole of the new palace. The design, when completed, will form a vast quadrangle. It was begun about seven years ago; and as only a certain sum is set apart every year for the works, it will probably be seven years more before the portion now in progress, which is the south side of the quadrangle, can be completed.

The exterior of the building is plain, but has an air of grandeur even from its simplicity and uniformity. It reminds me of Sir Philip Sydney's beautiful description--"A house built of fair and strong stone; not affecting so much any extraordinary kind of fineness, as an honourable representing of a firm stateliness; all more lasting than beautiful, but that the consideration of the exceeding lastingness made the eye believe it was exceeding beautiful."

When a selfish despot designs a palace, it is for himself he builds.

He thinks first of his own personal tastes and peculiar habits, and the arrangements are contrived to suit his exclusive propensities. Thus, for Nero's overwhelming pride, no s.p.a.ce, no height, could suffice; so he built his "golden house" upon a scale which obliged its next possessor to pull it to pieces, as only fit to lodge a colossus. George the Fourth had a predilection for low ceilings, so all the future inhabitants of the Pimlico palace must endure suffocation; and as his majesty did not live on good terms with his wife, no accommodation was prepared for a future queen of England.

The commands which the king of Bavaria gave De Klenze were in a different spirit. "Build me a palace, in which nothing within or without shall be of transient fas.h.i.+on or interest; a palace for my posterity, and my people, as well as myself; of which the decorations shall be durable as well as splendid, and shall appear one or two centuries hence as pleasing to the eye and taste as they do now." "Upon this principle,"

said De Klenze, looking round, "I designed what you now see."

On the first floor are the apartments of the king and queen, all facing the south: a parallel range of apartments behind contains accommodation for the attendants, ladies of honour, chamberlains, &c.; a grand staircase on the east leads to the apartments of the king, another on the west to those of the queen; the two suites of apartments uniting in the centre, where the private and sleeping rooms communicate with each other. All the chambers allotted to the king's use are painted with subjects from the Greek poets, and those of the queen from the German poets.

We began with the king's apartments. The approach to the staircase I did not quite understand, for it appears small and narrow; but this part of the building is evidently incomplete.

The staircase is beautiful, but simple, consisting of a flight of wide broad steps of the native marble; there is no gilding; the ornaments on the ceiling represent the different arts and manufactures carried on in Bavaria. Over the door which opens into the apartments is the king's motto in gold letters, GERECHT und BEHARRLICH--Just and Firm. Two Caryatides support the entrance: on one side the statue of Astrea, and on the other the Greek Victory without wings--the first expressing justice, the last firmness or constancy. These figures are colossal, and modelled by Schwanthaler in a grand and severe style of art.

I. The first antechamber is decorated with great simplicity. On the cornice round the top is represented the history of Orpheus and the expedition of the Argonauts, from Linus, the earliest Greek poet. The figures are in outline, shaded in brown, but without relief or colour, exactly like those on the Etruscan vases. The walls are stuccoed in imitation of marble.

II. The second antechamber is less simple in its decoration. The frieze round the top is broader, (about three feet,) and represents the Theogony, the wars of the t.i.tans, &c. from Hesiod. The figures are in outline, and tinted, but without relief, in the manner of some of the ancient Greek paintings on vases, tombs, &c. The effect is very cla.s.sical, and very singular. Schwanthaler, by whom these decorations were designed, has displayed all the learning of a profound and accomplished scholar, as well as the skill of an artist. In general feeling and style they reminded me of Flaxman's outlines to aeschylus.

The walls of this room are also stuccoed in imitation of marble, with compartments, in which are represented, in the same style, other subjects from the "Weeks and Days," and the "Birth of Pandora." The ornaments are in the oldest Greek style.

III. A saloon, or reception room, for those who are to be presented to the king. On this room, which is in a manner public, the utmost luxury of decoration is to be expended; but it is yet unfinished. The subjects are from Homer. In compartments on the ceiling are represented the G.o.ds of Greece; the gorgeous ornaments with which they are intermixed being all in the Greek style. Round the frieze, at the top of the room, the subjects are taken from the four Homeric hymns. The walls will be painted from the Iliad and Odyssey, in compartments, mingled with the richest arabesques. The effect of that part of the room which is finished is indescribably splendid; but I cannot pause to dwell upon minutiae.

IV. The throne-room. The decorations of this room combine, in an extraordinary degree, the utmost splendour and the utmost elegance. The whole is adorned with bas-reliefs in white stucco, raised upon a ground of dead gold. The compositions are from Pindar. Round the frieze are the games of Greece, the chariot and foot-race, the horse-race, the wrestlers, the cestus, &c. Immediately over the throne, Pindar, singing to his lyre, before the judges of the Olympic games. On each side a comic and a tragic poet receiving a prize. The exceeding lightness and grace, the various fancy, the purity of style, the vigour of life and movement displayed here, all prove that Schwanthaler has drank deep of cla.s.sical inspiration, and that he has not looked upon the frieze of the Parthenon in vain. The subjects on the walls are various groups from the same poet; over the throne is the king's motto, and on each side, Alcides and Achilles; the history of Jason and Medea, Castor and Pollux, Deucalion and Pyrrha, &c. occupy compartments, differing in form and size. The decoration of this magnificent room appeared to me a _little_ too much broken up into parts--and yet, on the whole, it is most beautiful; the Graces as well as the Muses presided over the whole of these "fancies, chaste and n.o.ble;" and there is excellent taste in the choice of the poet, and the subjects selected, as harmonizing with the destination of the room: all are expressive of power, of triumph, of moral or physical greatness.[1] The walls are of dead gold, from the floor to the ceiling, and the gilding of this room alone cost 72,000 florins.

V. A saloon, or antechamber. The ceiling and walls admirably painted, from the tragedies of aeschylus.

VI. The king's study, or cabinet de travail. The subjects from Sophocles, equally cla.s.sical in taste, and rich in colour and effect. In the arch at one end of this room are seven compartments, in which are inscribed in gold letters, the sayings of the seven Greek sages.

Schwanthaler furnished the outlines of the compositions from aeschylus and Sophocles, which are executed in colours by Wilhelm Rockel of Schleissheim.

VII. The king's dressing-room. The subjects from Aristophanes, painted by Hiltensberger of Suabia, certainly one of the best painters here.

There is exquisite fantastic grace and spirit in these designs.

"It was fit," said de Klenze, "that the first objects which his majesty looked upon on rising from his bed should be gay and mirth-inspiring."

VIII. The king's bedroom. The subjects from Theocritus, by different painters, but princ.i.p.ally Professor Heinrich Hess and Bruchmann. This room pleased me least.

No description could give an adequate idea of the endless variety, and graceful and luxuriant ornament harmonizing with the various subjects, and the purpose of each room, and lavished on the walls and ceilings, even to infinitude. The general style is very properly borrowed from the Greek decorations at Herculaneum and Pompeii; not servilely copied, but varied with an exhaustless prodigality of fancy and invention, and applied with exquisite taste. The combination of the gayest, brightest colours has been studied with care, their proportion and approximation calculated on scientific principles; so that the result, instead of being gaudy and perplexing to the eye, is an effect the most captivating, brilliant, and harmonious that can be conceived.

The material used is the _encaustic_ painting, which has been revived by M. de Klenze. He spent four months at Naples a.n.a.lysing the colours used in the encaustic paintings at Herculaneum and Pompeii, and by innumerable experiments reducing the process to safe practice. Professor Zimmermann explained to me the other day, as I stood beside him while he worked, the general principle, and the advantages of this style.

It is much more rapid than oil painting; it is also much less expensive, requiring both cheaper materials and in smaller quant.i.ty. It dries more quickly: the surface is not so glazy and unequal, requiring no particular light to be seen to advantage. The colours are wonderfully bright: it is capable of as high a finish, and it is quite as durable as oils. Both mineral and vegetable colours can be used.

Now to return. The king's bedchamber opens into the queen's apartments, but to take these in order we must begin at the beginning. The staircase, which is still unfinished, will be in a much richer style of architecture than that on the king's side: it is sustained with beautiful columns of native marble.

I. Antechamber; painted from the history and poems of Walther von der Vogelweide, by Ga.s.sen of Coblentz, a young painter of distinguished merit.

Walther "of the bird-meadow," for that is the literal signification of his name, was one of the most celebrated of the early Suabian Minnesingers,[2] and appears to have lived from 1190 to 1240. He led a wandering life, and was at different times in the service of several princes of Germany. He figured at the famous "strife of poets," at the castle of Wartsburg, which took place in 1207, in presence of Hermann, landgrave of Thuringia and the landgravine Sophia: this is one of the most celebrated incidents in the history of German poetry. He also accompanied Leopold VII. to the Holy Land. His songs are warlike, patriotic, moral, and religious. "Of love he has always the highest conception, as of a principle of action, a virtue, a religious affection; and in his estimation of female excellence, he is below none of his contemporaries."[3]

In the centre of the ceiling is represented the poetical contest at Wartsburg, and Walther is reciting his verses in presence of his rivals and the a.s.sembled judges. At the upper end of the room Walther is exhibited exactly as he describes himself in one of his princ.i.p.al poems, seated on a high rock in a melancholy att.i.tude, leaning on his elbow, and contemplating the troubles of his desolate country; in the opposite arch, the old poet is represented as feeding the little birds which are fluttering round him--in allusion to his will, which directed that the birds should be fed yearly upon his tomb. Another compartment represents Walther showing to his Geliebte (his mistress) the reflection of her own lovely face in his polished s.h.i.+eld. There are other subjects which I cannot recall. The figures in all these groups are the size of life.

II. The next room is painted from the poems of Wolfram of Eschenbach, another, and one of the most fertile of the old Minnesingers; he also was present at the contest at Wartsburg, "and wandered from castle to castle like a true courteous knight, dividing his time between feats of arms and minstrelsy." He versified, in the German tongue, the romance of the "Saint-Greal," making it an original production, and the central point, if the expression may be allowed, of an innumerable variety of adventures, which he has combined, like Ariosto, in artful perplexity, in the poems of Percival and t.i.turel.[4] These adventures furnish the subjects of the paintings on the ceiling and walls, which are executed by Hermann of Dresden, one of the most distinguished of the pupils of Cornelius.

The ornaments in these two rooms, which are exceedingly rich and appropriate, are in the old gothic style, and reminded me of the illuminations in the ancient MSS.

III. A saloon (salon de service) appropriated to the ladies in waiting: painted from the ballads of Burger, by Foltz of Bingen. The ceiling of this room is perfectly exquisite--it is formed entirely of small rosettes, (about a foot in diameter,) varying in form, and combining every hue of the rainbow--the delicacy and harmony of the entire effect is quite indescribable. The rest of the decorations are not finished, but the choice of the poet and the subjects, considering the destination of the room, delighted me. The fate of "Lenora," and that of the "Curate's Daughter," will be edifying subjects of contemplation for the maids of honour.

IV. The throne-room. Magnificent in the general effect; elegant and appropriate in the design.

On the ceiling, which is richly ornamented, are four medallions, exhibiting, under the effigies of four admirable women, the four _feminine_ cardinal virtues. Constancy is represented by Maria Theresa; maternal love, by Cornelia; charity, by St. Elizabeth, (the Margravine of Thuringia;[5]) and filial tenderness, by Julia Pia Alpinula.

And there--O sweet and sacred be the name!

Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gave Her youth to Heaven; her heart beneath a claim Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.

LORD BYRON.

"I always avoid emblematical and allegorical figures, wherever it is possible, for they are cold and arbitrary, and do not speak to the heart!" said M. de Klenze, perceiving how much I was charmed with the idea of thus personifying the womanly virtues.

The paintings round the room are from the poems of Klopstock, and executed by Wilhelm Kaulbach, an excellent artist. Only the frieze is finished. It consists of a series of twelve compartments: three on each side of the room, and divided from each other by two boys of colossal size, grouped as Caryatides, and in very high relief. These compartments represent the various scenes of the Herman-Schlacht; the sacrifices of the Druids; the adieus of the women; the departure of the warriors; the fight with Varus; the victory; the return of Herman to his wife Thusnelda, &c.

Herman, or, as the Roman historians call him, Arminius, was a chieftain of the Cheruscans, a tribe of northern Germany. After serving in Illyria, and there learning the Roman arts of warfare, he came back to his native country, and fought successfully for its independence. He defeated, beside a defile near Detmold, in Westphalia, the Roman legions under the command of Varus, with a slaughter so mortifying, that the proconsul is said to have killed himself, and Augustus to have received the news of the catastrophe with indecorous expressions of grief. It is this defeat of Varus which forms the theme of one of Klopstock's chorus-dramas, ent.i.tled, "The Battle of Herman." The dialogue is concise and picturesque; the characters various, consistent, and energetic; a lofty colossal frame of being belongs to them all, as in the paintings of Caravaggio. To Herman, the disinterested zealot of patriotism and independence, a preference of importance is wisely given; yet, perhaps, his wife Thusnelda acts more strongly on the sympathy by the enthusiastic veneration and affection she displays for her hero-consort.[6]

V. Saloon, or drawing-room. The paintings from Wieland, by Eugene Neureuther, (already known in England by his beautiful arabesque ill.u.s.trations of Goethe's ballads.) The frieze only of this room, which is from the Oberon, is in progress.

VI. The queen's bedroom. The paintings from Goethe, and chiefly by Kaulbach. The ceiling is exquisite, representing in compartments various scenes from Goethe's princ.i.p.al lyrics; the Herman and Dorothea; Pausias and Glycera, &c., intermixed with the most rich and elegant ornaments in relief.

VII. The queen's study, or private sitting-room. A small but very beautiful room, with paintings from Schiller, princ.i.p.ally by Lindenschmidt of Mayence. On the ceiling are groups from the Wallenstein; the Maid of Orleans; the Bride of Corinth; Wilhelm Tell; and on the walls, in compartments, mingled with the most elegant ornaments, scenes from the Fridolin, the Toggenburg, the Dragon of Rhodes, and other of his lyrics.

VIII. The queen's library. As the walls will be covered with book-cases, all the splendour of decoration is lavished on the ceiling, which is inexpressibly rich and elegant. The paintings are from the works of Ludwig Tieck--from the Octavia.n.u.s, the Genoneva, Fortunatus, the Puss in Boots, &c., and executed by Von Schwind.

The dining-room is magnificently painted with subjects from Anacreon, intermixed with ornaments and baccha.n.a.lian symbols, all in the richest colouring. In the compartments on the ceiling, the figures are the size of life--in those round the walls, half-life size. Nothing can exceed the luxuriant fancy, the gaiety, the cla.s.sical elegance, and amenity of some of these groups. They are all by Professor Zimmermann.

One of these paintings, a group representing, I think, Anacreon with the Graces, (it is at the east end of the room,) is usually pointed out as an example of the perfection to which the encaustic painting has been carried: in fact, it would be difficult to exceed it in the mingled harmony, purity, and brilliance of the colouring.

M. Zimmermann told me, that when he submitted the cartoons for these paintings to the king's approbation, his majesty desired a slight alteration to be made in a group representing a nymph embraced by a baccha.n.a.l; not as being in itself faulty, but "a cause de ses enfans,"

his eldest daughters being accustomed to dine with himself and the queen.