Now it must be remembered that these seventeen rooms form the domestic apartments of the royal family; and magnificent as they are, a certain elegance, cheerfulness, and propriety have been more consulted than parade and grandeur: but on the ground-floor there is a suite of state apartments, prepared for the reception of strangers, &c., on great and festive occasions; and these excited my admiration more than all the rest together.
The paintings are entirely executed in fresco, on a grand scale, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, certainly one of the greatest living artists of Europe: and these four rooms will form, when completed, the very triumph of the romantic school of painting. It is not alone the invention displayed in the composition, nor the largeness, boldness, and freedom of the drawing, nor the vigour and splendour of the colouring; it is the enthusiastic sympathy of the painter with his subject; the genuine spirit of the old heroic, or rather Teutonic ages of Germany, breathed through and over his singular creations, which so peculiarly distinguish them. They are the very antipodes of all our notions of the classical—they take us back to the days of Gothic romance, and legendary lore—to the "fiery Franks and furious Huns"—to the heroes, in short, of the Nibelungen Lied, from which all the subjects are taken.
To enable the merely English reader to feel, or at least understand, the interest attached to this grand series of paintings, without which it is impossible to do justice to the artist, it is necessary to give a slight sketch of the poem which he has thus magnificently illustrated.[ 7]
"This national epic, as it is justly termed by M. Von der Hagen, has lately attracted a most unprecedented degree of attention in Germany. It now actually forms a part of the philological courses in many of their universities, and it has been hailed with almost as much veneration as the Homeric songs. Some allowance must be made for German enthusiasm, but it cannot be denied that the Nibelungen Lied, though a little too bloody and dolorous, possesses extraordinary merits." The hero and heroine of this poem are Siegfried, (son of Siegmund, king of Netherland, and of Sighelind his queen,) and Chrimhilde, princess of Burgundy. Siegfried, or Sifrit, the Sigurd of the Scandinavian Sagas, is the favourite hero of the northern parts of Germany. His spear, "a mighty pine beam," was preserved with veneration at Worms; and there, in the church of St. Cecilia, he is supposed to have been buried. The German romances do not represent him as being of gigantic proportions, but they all agree that he became invulnerable by bathing in the blood of a dragon, which guarded the treasures of the Nibelungen, and which he overcame and killed; but it happened that as he bathed, a leaf fell and rested between his shoulders, and consequently, that one little spot, about a hand's breadth, still remained susceptible of injury. Siegfried also possesses the wondrous tarn-cap, which had the power of rendering the wearer invisible.
This formidable champion, after winning the love and the hand of the fair princess Chrimhilde, and performing a thousand valiant deeds, is treacherously murdered by the three brothers of Chrimhilde, Gunther, king of Burgundy, Ghiseler, Gernot, and their uncle Hagen, instigated by queen Brunhilde, the wife of Gunther. Chrimhilde meditates for years the project of a deep and deadly revenge on the murderers of her husband. This vengeance is in fact the subject of the Nibelungen Lied, as the wrath of Achilles is the subject of the Iliad.
The poem opens thus beautifully with a kind of argument of the whole eventful story.
"In ancient song and story marvels high are told
Of knights of bold emprize and adventures mani-fold;
Of joy and merry feasting, of lamenting, woe, and fear;