LITMIR.BIZ

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to him. I soon noticed his cultivated eye for works of art, and especially for their history. He knew the masters as well as the scholars; in cases of doubtful works he was familiar with the grounds of uncertainty, and his conversation was highly interesting to me.

      Perhaps I should have been hurried on to open myself in a more lively manner towards him, had not my resolve to sound my guest made me from the first take a more quiet tone. His judgment in many cases agreed with mine; in many I was forced to admire his sharp and practiced eye. The first thing that struck me was his unmitigated hatred of all Mannerists. I was in pain for some of my favorite pictures, and was curious to discover from what source such a dislike could spring. . . .

      Before we were all assembled I seized an opportunity to lend a helping hand to my poor mannerists against the stranger. I spoke of their beautiful nature, their happy handling, their grace, and added, to keep myself safe: Thus much I say only to claim for them a certain degree of forbearance, though I admit that that high beauty, which is the highest end and aim of Art, is in fact quite a different thing.

      He replied — with a smile that did not altogether please me, inasmuch as it seemed to express a special self-satisfaction and a sort of compassion for me: — Are you then stanch in the old-fashioned principle that Beauty is the last aim of art?

      I answered that I was not aware of any higher. Can you tell me what Beauty is? he exclaimed. Perhaps not, I replied; but I can show it to you. Let us go and see, even by candlelight, a fine cast of Apollo or a beautiful marble bust of Bacchus that I possess, and try if we cannot agree that they are beautiful.

      Before we go upon this quest, said he, it would be necessary for us to examine more closely this word Beauty and its derivation. Beauty (Schönheit) comes from show (Schein); it is an appearance, and not worthy to be the object of art. The perfectly characteristic only deserves to be called beauty; without Character there is no Beauty.

      Surprised by this mode of expression, I replied: Granted, though it be not proved, that beauty must be characteristic; yet from this it only follows that character lies at the root of beauty, but by no means that Beauty and Character are the same. Character holds to the beautiful the same relation that the skeleton does to the living man. No one will deny that the osseous system is the foundation of all highly organized forms. It consolidates and defines the form, but is not the form itself; still less does it bring about that last appearance which, as the veil and integument of an organized whole, we call Beauty.

      I cannot embark in similitudes, said my guest, and from your own words, moreover, it is evident that beauty is something incomprehensible, or the effect of something incomprehensible. What cannot be comprehended is naught; what we cannot make clear by words is nonsense.

      I. — Can you then clearly express in words the effect that a colored body produces on your eyes?

      He. — That is again a metaphor that I will not be drawn into. It is enough that character can be indicated. You find no beauty without it, else it would be empty and insignificant. All the beauty of the Ancients is only Character, and only out of this quality is beauty developed.

      Our Philosopher had arrived meanwhile and was conversing with my nieces, when, hearing us speak earnestly, he stepped forward; and the stranger, stimulated by the accession of a new hearer, proceeded:

      That is just the misfortune when good heads, when people of merit, get hold of such false principles, which have only an appearance of truth, and spread them wider and wider. None appropriate them so willingly as those who know and understand nothing of the subject. Thus has Lessing fastened upon us the principle that the ancients cultivated only the beautiful; thus has Winckelmann put us to sleep with his " noble simplicity and serene greatness "; whereas the art of the ancients appears in all imaginable forms. But these gentlemen tarry by Jupiter and Juno, Genii and Graces, and hide the ignoble forms and skulls of Barbarians, the rough hair, foul beard, gaunt bones, and wrinkled skin of deformed age, the protruding veins and hanging breasts.

      In the name of God, I exclaimed, are there then independent, self-existing works of the best age of Ancient Art that exhibit such frightful objects? Or are they not rather subordinate works, occasional pieces, creations of an art that must demean itself according to outward circumstances, an art on the decline?

      He. — I give you the specification, you can yourself search and judge. But you will not deny that the Laocoon, that Niobe, that Dirce with her stepsons, are self-subsistent works of art. Stand before the Laocoon and contemplate nature in full revolt and desperation. The last choking pang, the desperate struggle, the maddening convulsion, the working of the corroding poison, the vehement fermenting, the stagnating circulation, suffocating pressure, and paralytic death.

      The Philosopher seemed to look at me with astonishment, and I answered: We shudder, we are horrified at the bare description. In sooth, if it be so with the group of Laocoon, what are we to say of the pleasure we find in this as in every other true work of art? But I will not meddle in the question. You must settle it with the authors of the Propylaea, who are of just the opposite mind.

      It must be admitted, said my guest, that all Antiquity speaks for me; for where do horror and death rage more hideously than in the representation of the Niobe?

      I was confounded by this assertion, for only a short time before I had been looking at the copper-plates in Fabroni, which I immediately brought forward and opened. I find no trace in the statues of raging horror and death, but rather the greatest subordination of tragical situation under the highest ideas of dignity, nobleness, beauty, and simplicity. I trace everywhere the artistic purpose to dispose the limbs agreeably and gracefully. The character is expressed only in the most general lines, which run through the work like a sort of ideal skeleton.

      He. — Let us turn to the bas-reliefs, which we shall find at the end of the book.

      We turned to them.

      I. — Of anything horrible, to speak truly, I see no trace here either. Where is this rage of horror and death? I see figures so artfully interwoven, so happily placed against or extended upon each other, that while they remind me of a mournful destiny, they give room at the same time for the most charming imaginations. All that is characteristic is tempered, the violent is elevated, and I might say that Character lies at the foundation; upon it rest simplicity and dignity; the highest aim of art is beauty and its last effect the feeling of pleasure. The agreeable, which may not be immediately united with the characteristic, comes remarkably before our eyes in these sarcophagi. Are not the dead sons and daughters of Niobe here made use of as ornaments? This is the highest luxury of art; she adorns no longer with flowers and fruits, but with the corpses of men, with the greatest misfortune that can befall a father or mother, to see a blooming family all at once snatched away. Yes, the beauteous genius who stands beside the grave, his torch reversed, has stood beside the artist as he invented and perfected, and over his earthly greatness has breathed a heavenly grace.

      My guest looked at me with a smile, and shrugged his shoulders. Alas, — said he, as I concluded, — alas, I see plainly that we can never agree. What a pity that a man of your acquirements, of your sense, will not perceive that these are all empty words; that to a man of understanding Beauty and Ideal must always be a dream which he cannot translate into reality, but finds to be in direct opposition to it. . . .

      I. — Will you allow me also to put in a word?

      The guest (somewhat scornfully.) — With all my heart, and I hope nothing about mere phantoms.

      I. — I have some acquaintance with the poetry of the ancients, but have little knowledge of the plastic arts.

      Guest. — That I regret; for in that case we can hardly come to an understanding.

      I. — And yet the fine arts are nearly related, and the friends of the separate arts should not misunderstand each other.

      Uncle. — Let us hear what you have to say.

      I. — The old tragic writers dealt with the stuff in which they worked in the same way as the plastic artists,

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