LITMIR.BIZ

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thousand branches, millions of twigs, and leaves like the sand of the sea, proclaims everywhere the glory of God, Its Master.

      When I went for the first time to the Minster, my head was full of the common cant of " good taste." From hearsay, I was an admirer of the harmony of mass, the purity of form, and was a sworn enemy to the confused arbitrariness of Gothic adornment. Under the term, " Gothic," like the article in a dictionary, I piled all the misconceptions which had ever come into my head, of the indefinite, the unregulated, the unnatural, the patched-up, the strung-together, the superfluous, in art. No wiser than a people which calls the whole foreign world, " barbarous," everything was Gothic to me that did not fit into my system, from the turned wooden dolls and pictures of gay colors, with which the bourgeois nobility decorate their houses, to the dignified relics of the older German architecture, my opinion of which, because of some bizarre scrollwork, had been that of everybody, — " Quite buried in ornamentation! "; consequently I had an aversion to seeing it, such as I would have before a malformed bristling monster.

      With what unexpected emotions did the sight surprise me when I actually saw it! An impression of grandeur and unity filled my soul, which, because it consisted of a thousand harmonizing details, I could taste and enjoy, but by no means understand and explain. They say it is thus with the rapture of heaven. How often I returned to enjoy this heavenly-earthly rapture, to embrace the stupendous genius of our older brothers in their works. How often I returned to view from every side, at every distance, in every light of the day, its dignity and splendor. Hard it is for the mind of man when his brother's work is so elevated that he can only bow down and pray. How often has the evening twilight refreshed with its friendly calm my eyes wearied by too much gazing; it made countless details melt together into a complete whole and mass, and now, simple and grand, it stood before my eyes, and, full of rapture, my power unfolded itself both to enjoy and to understand it at once. There was revealed to me in soft intimations the genius of the great builder. "Why are you astonished?" He whispered to me. "All these masses were necessary, and do you not see them in all the older churches of my city? Only I have given harmonious proportion to their arbitrary vastnesses. See how, over the principal entrance which commands two smaller ones on either side, the wide circle of the window opens which corresponds to the nave of the church and was formerly merely a hole to let the light in; see how the bell-tower demands the smaller windows! All this was necessary, and I designed it with beauty. But what of these dark and lofty apertures here at the side which seem to stand so empty and meaningless? In their bold slender forms I have hidden the mysterious strength which was to raise both of those towers high in the air, of which alas only one stands there sadly, without the crown of five towers which I had planned for it, so that to it and its royal brother the country about would do homage." And so he parted from me, and I fell into a sympathetic mood of melancholy, until the birds of morning, which dwelt in its thousand orifices, greeted the sun joyously and waked me out of my slumber. How freshly it shone in the morning rays, how joyfully I stretched my arms towards it, surveying its vast harmonious masses, animated by countless delicate details of structure! as in the works of eternal Nature, every form, down to the smallest fibril, alive, and everything contributing to the purpose of the whole 1 How lightly the monstrous, solidly grounded building soared into the air! how free and delicate everything about it, and yet solid for eternity! To your teaching, noble genius, I owe thanks that I did not faint and sink before your heights and depths, but that into my soul flowed a drop of that calm rapture of the mighty soul which could look on this creation, and like God say, — " It is good! "

      And now I ought not to be angry, revered Erwin, when the German critic and scholar, taking the cue from envious neighbors, and misjudging the superiority of your work, belittles it by the little understood term, " Gothic "; since he ought rather to give thanks that he can proclaim loudly that this is German architecture, — our architecture, — whereas the Italians cannot boast of any distinctively native style, much less the French. And if you are not willing to admit to yourself this superiority, at least show us then that the Goths have already built in this style, — in which effort you may encounter some difficulties. And finally, if you cannot demonstrate that there was a Homer already before Homer, then we will gladly allow the story of small attempts, successful and unsuccessful, and come reverently back to the, work of the master who first drew the scattered elements together into one living whole. And you, my dear brother in the spirit, in your search for truth and beauty, close your ears to the loud talk about the plastic arts, — come, enjoy, survey. Beware of desecrating the name of your noblest artist, and hasten here that you may enjoy and see his glorious work. If it makes an unfavorable impression or none, then farewell, hitch up, and take the road straight for Paris.

      But you I would accompany, dear youth, who stand there, your soul moved, and yet unable to harmonize the contradictions which conflict in your mind, now feeling the irresistible power of the great whole, now calling me a dreamer for seeing beauty where you see only violence and roughness. Do not let a misunderstanding part us, do not let the feeble teaching of the modern standards of beauty spoil you for vigorous though rough strength, so that finally your sickly sensibility is able to endure only meaningless insipidities. They would have you believe that the fine arts originated in the tendency which they impute to us to beautify the things about us. That is not true! For in the sense in which it could be true, it is the bourgeois and the artisans who use the words and not the philosopher.

      Art has a long period of growth before it is beautiful, certainly sincere and great art has, and it is often sincerer and greater then than when it -becomes beautiful. For in man there is a creative disposition, which comes into activity as soon as his existence is assured. As soon as he has nothing to worry about or to fear, this semi-divinity in him, working effectively in his spiritual peace and assurance, grasps materials into which to breathe its own spirit. Thus the savage depicts, with strange lines and forms, ghastly figures, lurid colors, his weapons and his body. And even if these pictures consist of the most arbitrary and incongruous forms and lines, they will, without any intended proportion or balance, yet have a sort of harmony; for a unity of feeling created out of them a characteristic whole.

      Now this characteristic art is the only genuine art. If only it comes fresh from the inner soul, expressing the original, unique sensibilities, untroubled, indeed unconscious of any external element, it may spring from rough savagery or from cultivated sensitiveness, yet it will always be complete and alive. This you can see among nations and individual men in countless degrees. The more the soul rises to the feeling for relations, which alone are beautiful and from eternity, whose master-chords one can demonstrate, whose mysteries one can only feel, in which alone the life of the divine genius seeks expression in enraptured melodies; the more this beauty pervades the soul of a genius so that it seems to have originated with him, so that nothing else satisfies him, so that he can bring nothing else out of himself, the more fortunate is the artist, the more splendid is he, and the more reverently do we stand there and worship God's anointed.

      From the level to which Erwin has mounted no one will drag him down. Here stands his work; gaze at it and appreciate the deepest feelings for truth and beauty and proportion, working out of a strong, sturdy, rough German soul, out of the narrow, somber, priest-haunted " medium aevum."

      And our own " aevum "? It has neglected its genius, driven forth its sons to collect strange excrescences for their corruption. The agile Frenchman, who in unscrupulous fashion collects where he will, has at least an ingenuity in working together his booty into a sort of unity; he builds his wonderful church of the Magdalene out of Greek columns and German arches and vaults. From one of our architects, who was requested to design a portal for an old German church, I have seen a model of perfect, stately antique column-work.

      How hateful our varnished doll-painters are to me I cannot express. By their theatrical positions, their false tints, and gaily-colored costumes, they have captured the eyes of women. But, manly Albrecht Dürer, whom these novices laugh at, your woodcut figures are more welcome to me.

      And you yourselves, excellent men, to whom it was given to enjoy the highest beauty, and now come down to announce your bliss, you do prejudice to genius. It will soar and progress on no alien wings, even though they were the wings of the morning. Its own original powers are those which unfold in the dreams of childhood, which grow during the life of youth, until strong and supple like the mountain-lion he starts out after

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