The Fine Arts.
Schwanthaler's Bavaria, and the Theresienwiese at Munich.—On the western side of Munich several streets converge in a plain which is the arena of the great popular festival that takes place every October. Around this plain, which is called the Theresienwiese, as well as around the whole district in which the city is placed, the land rises some thirty or forty feet. Near the spot where the green waters of the Iser break through this ridge, King Louis founded the Hall of Fame, which is to transmit to posterity the busts of renowned natives of the country. This edifice is in Doric style, and with its two wings forms a court-yard, opening toward the city. In the center of this court is placed upon a granite pedestal, thirty feet high, a colossal statue of bronze, fifty-four feet high, representing Bavaria, to which we have several times referred in The International—our European correspondence enabling us to anticipate in regard to subjects of literature and art generally even the best-informed foreign journals.
The Hall of Fame will not be completed for some years, but the statue is finished, and was first exposed to view on the 9th of October. The execution of this statue was committed by King Louis to Schwanthaler, who began by making a model of thirteen feet in height. In order to carry out the work a wooden house was erected at the royal foundry, and a skeleton was built by masons, carpenters, and smiths, to sustain the earth used in the mould for the full-sized model. This was begun in 1838, and ere long the figure stood erect. The subsequent work on the model occupied two years. The result was greatly praised by the critics, who wondered at the skill which had been able to give beauty as well as dignity to a statue of so large dimensions. It holds up a crown of oak-leaves in the left hand, while the right, resting upon the hip, grasps an unsheathed sword twined with laurel, beneath which rests a lion. The breast is covered with a lion's skin which falls as low as the hips; under it is a simple but admirably managed robe extending to the feet. The hair is wreathed with oak-leaves, and is disposed in rich masses about the forehead and temples, giving spirit to the face and dignity to the form. Such was the model, and such is the now finished statue. But the subsequent steps in its completion are worthy of a particular description.
The model was in gypsum, and the first thing done was to take a mould from it in earth peculiarly prepared for the reception of the melted metal. The first piece, the head, was cast September 11th, 1844. It weighs one hundred and twenty hundred-weight, and is five or six feet in diameter: the remainder was cast at five separate times. When the head was brought successful out of the mould, King Louis and many of the magnates of Germany were present. The occasion was in fact a festival, which Müller, the inspector of the royal bronze foundry and probably the first living master of the art of casting in bronze, rendered still more brilliant by illuminations and garlands of flowers. Vocal music also was not wanting, as the artists of Munich were present in force, and their singing is noted throughout Germany. Since last July workmen have been constantly engaged in transporting the pieces of bronze weighing from 200 to 300 cwt. to the place where the statue was to be erected. For this purpose a wagon of peculiar construction was used, with from sixteen to twenty horses to draw it. On the 7th of August the last piece, the head, was conveyed; it was attended by a festal procession. The space within the head is so great that some twenty-eight men can stand together in it. The body, the main portions of which were made in five castings, weighs from 1300 to 1500 cwt., and has a diameter of twelve feet; the left arm, which is extended to hold the wreaths, from 125 to 130 cwt.; its diameter is five feet, and the diameter of its index finger six inches. The nail of the great toe can hardly be covered with both a man's hands. A door in the pedestal leads to a cast-iron winding stairway which ascends to the head, within which benches have been arranged for the comfort of visitors, several of whom can sit there together with ease. The light enters through openings arranged in the hair, whence also the eye can enjoy the view of the city and the surrounding country with the magical Alps in the background. The entire mass of bronze, weighing about 2600 cwt., was obtained from Turkish cannon lost in the sea at Navarino and recovered by Greek divers. The value of the bronze is about sixty thousand dollars. The sitting lion has a height of near thirty feet. It was cast in three pieces, and completes the composition in the most felicitous manner.
The statue having been completed, the final removing of the scaffolding around it and its full exposure to the public took place on the 9th of October. This was a day of great festivity at Munich and its vicinity. A platform had been erected directly in front of the statue for the accommodation of King Maximilian and his suite. The festivities began with an enormous procession of carriages, led by bands of music and bearing the representatives of the different industrial and agricultural trades, with symbols of their respective occupations. As they passed before the King's platform each carriage stopped, saluted his majesty, and received a few kindly words in reply. The procession was closed by the artists of Munich. The carriages took their station in a half circle around the platform. Soon after, accompanied by the thunder of cannon, the board walls surrounding the scaffold were gradually lowered to the ground. The admiration of the statue (which by the way is exactly fifty-four feet high), was universal and enthusiastic. All beholders were delighted with the harmony of its parts and the loveliness of its expression notwithstanding its colossal size. The ceremonies of the day were closed with speeches and music; the painter Tischlein made a speech lauding King Louis as the creator of a new era for German art. A very numerous chorus sung several festive hymns composed for the occasion, after which the multitude dispersed.
The Dominican Monastery of San Marco at Florence has for centuries been regarded with special interest by the lovers of art for the share it has had in the history of their favorite pursuit. Nor has its part been of less importance in the sphere of politics. The wanderer through its halls is reminded not only of Fra Angelico da Fièsole and Fra Bartolommeo, to whose artistic genius the monastery is indebted for the treasures which adorn its halls, refectory, corridors, and cells, but of Cosimo de Medici, Lorenzo his great descendant, of Savonarola, and the long series of contests here waged against temporal and spiritual tyranny. The works of Giotto and Domenico Ghirlandajo are likewise to be found in the monastery, and there also miniature pictures of the most flourishing period of art may be seen ornamenting the books of the choir. Every historian who has written upon Florence has taken care not to omit San Marco and its inhabitants.
We are glad to announce that a society of artists at Florence has undertaken to give as wide a publicity as possible to the noblest productions of art in this monastery. A former work by the same men is a good indication of what may now be expected from them. Some years since they published copies of the most important pictures from the collection of the Florentine Academy of Art. They gave sixty prints with explanations. Among engravings from galleries this was one of the best, containing in moderate compass a history of Tuscan art from Cimabue to Andrea del Sarto. The new work, which has long been in preparation but has been delayed by unfavorable circumstances, will now be carried through the press without delay. Its title is, San Marco Convento dei Padri Predicatori in Firenze illustrato e inciso principalmente nei dipinti del B. Giovanni Angelico. Antonio Parfetti, the successor of Morghen and Garavaglia as professor of the art of engraving on copper at the Florentine Academy, has the artistic supervision of the enterprise. Father Vincenzo Marchese, to whom the public are indebted for the work well known to all students, on the artists of the Dominican order, is to furnish a history of the monastery, a biography of Fra Angelico, together with explanations of the engravings. Everything is thus in the most capable hands. The execution of the copperplates leaves nothing to be desired. The draughtsmen and engravers having had the best preparatory practice in the above-mentioned series from the Academy, have fully entered into the spirit of the originals; both outlines and shading are said by the best critics to combine the greatest delicacy with exactness, and to reproduce the expression of feeling which is the difficulty in these Florentine works, with tact and truth. As yet they have finished only the smaller frescoes which adorn almost every cell; but they will soon have ready the larger ones, which will show how this painter, whose sphere was mainly the pious emotions of the soul, was also master of the most thrilling effects. The same is proved by the powerful picture of the Crucifixion in the chapter hall, with its heads so full of expression, a selection from which has just been published by G.B. Nocchi, who some years since issued the well-known collection of drawings from the Life of Jesus in the Academy. The impression of the frescoes on Chinese paper has been done with the greatest care. Forty plates and forty printed folio sheets will complete the work, which is to be put at a moderate price. These illustrations of San Marco will be universally welcomed with delight by the admirers of the beautiful, for there the painter who most purely represented Christian art passed the greater part of his life, leaving behind him an incomparable mass of the most characteristic and charming creations.
Mr. William W. Story, who some time since abandoned a lucrative profession to devote himself to art, has recently returned from Rome, where he had been practicing sculpture during the past three years. Mr. Story, we understand, has brought home with him to Boston several models of classical subjects, the fruits of his labors abroad, which are spoken of in the highest terms by those who have had the privilege of inspecting them. Mr. Story is the only son of the late Justice Story of Massachusetts. Before going abroad he had distinguished himself by some of his attempts at sculpture, one of which was a bust of his father, which he executed in marble. A copy of this work has been purchased or ordered by some of his father's admirers in London, to be placed in one of the Inns of Court. Mr. Story also made himself known by a volume of miscellaneous poems, published in 1845. It is his intention, we learn, to return to Italy in the spring.
Les Beautes de la France is the title of a splendid new work now publishing at Paris. It consists of a collection of engravings on steel, representing the principal cities, cathedrals, public monuments, chateaux, and picturesque landscapes of France. Each engraving is accompanied by four pages of text, giving the complete history of the edifice or locality represented. What is curious about it is that the engravings are made in London, for what reason we are not informed.
The first exhibition of paintings, such as is now given annually by our academies, was at Paris in the year 1699. In September of that year, at the suggestion of Mansart, the first was held in the Louvre. It consisted of two hundred and fifty-three paintings, twenty-four pieces of sculpture, and twenty-nine engravings. The second and last during the reign of Louis XIV. was opened in 1704. That was composed of five hundred and twenty specimens. During the reign of Louis XV., from 1737, there were held twenty-four expositions. That of 1767 was remarkable for the presence of several of the marine pieces of Claude Joseph Vernet. During the reign of Louis XVI., from 1775 to 1791 there were nine expositions. The Horatii, one of the master pieces of David, figured in that of 1785. His first pieces had appeared in that of 1782. The former Republic, too, upon stated occasions "exposed the works of the artists forming the general commune of the arts." It was in these that David acquired his celebrity as a painter which alone saved his head from the revolutionary axe. The Paris exhibition will this year commence on the fifteenth of December.
The largest specimen of Enamel Painting probably in the world, has recently been completed by Klöber and Martens at Berlin. It is four and a half feet high, and eight feet broad, and it is intended for the castle church at Wittenberg. The subject is Christ on the Cross, and at his feet, on the right, stands Luther holding an open bible and looking up to the Savior; and, on the left, Melancthon, the faithful cooperator of the great reformer. The tombs of both are in this church, and it is known that to those who, after the capture of the town, desired to destroy these tombs, the emperor, Charles V., answered, "I war against the living, not against the dead!" It was to the portal of this church that Luther affixed the famous protest against indulgences which occasioned the first movement of the Reformation. The king has caused two doors to be cast in bronze, with this protest inscribed on them, so that it will now be seen there in imperishable characters.
The original portrait of Sir Francis Drake wearing the jewel around his neck which Queen Elizabeth gave him, is now in London for the purpose of being copied for the United Service Club. Sir T.T.F.E. Drake, to whom it belongs, carried to London at the same time, for the inspection of the curious in such matters, the original jewel, which, beyond the interest of its associations with Elizabeth and Drake, is valuable as a work of art. On the outer case is a carving by Valerio Belli, called Valerio Vincentino, of a black man kneeling to a white. This is not mentioned by Walpole in his account of Vincentino. Within is a capital and well-preserved miniature of Queen Elizabeth, by Isaac Oliver, set round with diamonds and pearls.
The Family of Vernet—the "astonishing family of Vernet"—is thus referred to by a Paris correspondent of the Courier and Enquirer:
"History, probably, does not show another instance of so remarkable a descent from father to son, through four generations, of the possession, in an eminent degree, of a special and rare talent. Claude Joseph was born in 1714, and was the son of a distinguished painter of his day, Antoine Vernet. He excelled all his contemporaries in sea pieces. His son, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, was, after David, one of the first painters of the empire, excelling especially in battle scenes. His Rivoli, Marengo, Austerlitz, Wagram, and his twenty-eight plates illustrative of the campaign of Bonaparte in Italy, have secured a very high reputation for A.C.H. Vernet. The greatest living French painter—perhaps it may be truly said, the greatest painter of the day—is Horace Vernet, son of the last named. He was born in 1789 in the Louvre. He, like his father, excels in battle scenes and is remarkable for the vivacity and boldness of his conceptions. He is now covering the walls of the historic gallery at Versailles with canvas, which will cause him to descend to posterity as the greatest of his family. None of your readers who have visited Versailles, but have stood before and admired till the picture seemed almost reality, his living representations of recent military events in Africa. His last admirable picture of Louis Napoleon on horseback will, it is stated, be one of the greatest attractions of the approaching exposition."
M. Leutze is expected home from Germany in the spring. He left Philadelphia, the last time, nearly ten years ago. He will accompany his great picture of "Washington crossing the Delaware." Powers's statue of Calhoun, with the left arm broken off by the incompetent persons who at various times were engaged in attempting to recover it, upon being removed from the sea under which it had lain nearly three months was found as fresh in tone as when it came from the chisel of the sculptor. It has been placed in the temple prepared for it in Charleston. Mr. Ranney has completed a large picture representing Marion and his Men crossing the Pedee.
Kaulbach, according to a letter from Berlin in the November Art Journal, was to leave that city about the middle of October, in order to resume for the winter his duties as Director of the Academy of Munich. The sum which he will receive for his six great frescoes and the ornamental frieze, will be 80,000 thalers (12,000l. sterling) and this is secured to him, as the contract was made before the existence of a constitutional budget.
Homer's Odyssey furnishes the subjects for a series of frescoes now being executed in one of the royal palaces at Munich. Six halls are devoted to the work; four of them are already finished, sixteen cantos of the poem being illustrated on their walls. The designs are by Schwanthaler, and executed by Hiltensperger. Between the different frescoes are small landscapes representing natural scenes from the same poem.
If we credit all the accounts of pictures by the old masters, we must believe that they produced as many works as with ordinary energy they could have printed had they lived till 1850. The Journal de Lot et Garonne states that in the church of the Mas-d'Agenais, Count Eugène de Lonley has discovered, in the sacristy, concealed beneath dust and spiders' webs, the 'Dying Christ,' painted by Rubens in 1631. The head of Christ is said to be remarkable for the large style in which it is painted, for drawing, color, and vigorous expression.
A picture painted on wood, and purchased in 1848 at a public sale in London, where it was sold as the portrait of an Abbess by Le Brozino, has been examined by the Academy of St. Luke at Rome, to whose judgment it was submitted by the purchaser, and unanimously recognized as the work of Michael Angelo, and as representing the illustrious Marchesa de Pescara, Victoria Colonna.
The National Academy of Design has resolved, that the entire body of artists in this city should be invited to assemble for social intercourse, in the saloons of the Academy, on the first Wednesday evening of every month, commencing in December, and continuing until the season of the annual exhibition.
The French President has presented to the Museum of the Louvre David's celebrated painting of Napoleon Bonaparte crossing the Alps. This work was for many years at Bordentown, New Jersey, in possession of Joseph Bonaparte.
The Art Journal for November contains an engraving on steel of the marble bust by Mr. Dunham of Jenny Lind. This bust, we believe, was recently sold in New York, by Mr. Putnam, for four hundred dollars.
Herman's series of pictures called Illustrations of German History, which gained great praise in Southern Germany some two years since, are now being engraved on steel at Munich, and will soon be published.