My very dear Friend and Master,—At last I am able to write to you. In the hurry and bustle of travelling, and even in the short sojourns that I have made here and there, it has been impossible for me to sit quietly down and compose a letter. Even to my parents I have written this morning for the first time since I left Vienna. But you will readily believe that during this time I have often travelled in thought to Frankfurt in loving remembrance of you, my dear Friend.
Strange things have happened to me since I saw you. I had not even reached Berlin when I was informed by a "jebildeten" (cultivated) Prussian that Graefe, on whose account exclusively I was travelling to the "geistreichen" (clever) capital, had gone away for an indefinite period; imagine my dismay! Luckily on my arrival I found an old friend who was acquainted with the family of Geheimerath von Graefe, and who found out through them that Graefe must arrive at the Golden Lamb (Leopoldostadt) in Vienna on such and such a day. I met him, and had a consultation at which he examined my eyes with the ophthalmoscope, and told me to be of good cheer, my trouble was certainly obstinate but in no way dangerous, and I might hope for a complete cure. He prescribed me a course for Rome, which consists principally of local blood-letting and wearing spectacles, and will be very tedious; but I will gladly conform to anything in order to get my eyes back again. One thing is certain, since I have been in Italy they have been quite markedly better, which I attribute for the most part to the diminution of my hypochondria. Yes, since I have been in Italy I have become a new man; I breathe, my breast throbs higher; heavy clouds have rolled away from me; the sun shines again on my path, and my heart is once more full of youth and love of life; if only you were also here, dear Friend!
But I must tell you something about my German travels, and I will begin with Berlin. There is certainly something special about that town. At the first glance it is somewhat imposing, and the prodigious quantity of new buildings, which evidently aim at architecture, gives (one may hold one's own opinion as to the taste of the buildings) the appearance of great artistic activity and of a widespread taste for art; but I have since found reason to regard this apparent love of art as something feigned or forced. One gets quite sick of education in Berlin; would you believe that now every girl has to pass an examination as governess?[29] Kaulbach understands the Berliners well; in Raeginski's house a study of a Roman piper hangs in great honour, which he has purchased from the great master on account of a doggerel verse which is written on it in large letters, and runs thus:—
"Upon my travels in Italy,
This little boy I found, but he,
Although my brush may his form repeat,
Remains to my sorrow incomplete."[30]
—W. Kaulbach.
Divine! eh? I knew a counterpart in the Belgian art-world. When I visited Gallait in Brussels some years ago, before the door stood a ragged, most picturesque Hungarian rat-catcher, who asked me if an artist did not live there. Recently I saw my Slav again, with a violin under his arm, in a window, very finely lithographed, I believe even an "artistes contemporains"; in the corner was "Louis Gallait pinx"; underneath, "Art et Liberté"! Thus do pictures originate!
In Berlin everything is valued extrinsically. One sees that most strikingly in the new Museum. When it is finished, it will be, in proportion to the means of the town in which it stands, the most splendid that I know; moreover, it cannot be denied (unsuitable as a three-quarters Greek building may be on the banks of the Spree) that much in the architecture is even very beautiful. But what is the good of it all? With the exception of some Egyptian antiquities, in all these lavishly gilded and painted rooms there are only plaster casts! Yes, and, I must not forget it, the great tea-service of Kaulbach. A wretched thing, made, moreover, with superfluous productiveness; simple allegory carried out without any fine sense of form, with utter denial of all individuality, and painted—well, of that one would rather say nothing; and yet "Kaulbach has the Hellenic art," &c. &c., and all the rest that is in the papers. One would like to exclaim with Cassius: "Has it come to this, ye gods!"
Unfortunately I cannot praise the Cornelian things in the old Museum much either. I must confess they displeased me greatly; when I consider them from a distance in their connection with the building, I find them disproportioned; in a long, very simple colonnade, built on a large scale, I require of a fresco painting that it shall show in form and colour large, quiet, plastic masses; instead of that I see here a gay, unquiet, confused fricassée of thought and allegory that makes one dizzy; ideas in such profusion that nothing remains with the spectator; he goes away without having received anything; nor is the mental impression plastic. If, however, one goes nearer to see the execution, again one finds nothing pleasing—a constrained, unlovely drawing—positions that could only be attained by complete breaking on the wheel—a general appearance as if the figures had no bones, but muscles made of brick instead. The colour is not much better than Kaulbach's. The end-piece on the right, an allegorical representation of the death of man (or something of the kind), gives the most ordinary and at the same time most awkward sudden impression that I have yet seen. Cornelius may look at the Vatican in Rome and see if he can find anything like it there. Altogether the once certainly great artist seems to have somewhat deteriorated; the Cartoons at the Campo Santo are not by a long way so good as the design (which I find charming in parts); they are here and there, which greatly surprised me, disgracefully out of drawing; and then the theatrical attitudes, conventional clothes, &c. &c. In the Museum itself there are few pictures of the first rank, but so much the more beautiful are those by masters of the second rank. What a Lippi! what a Basaiti! what a Cos Rosetti! I was entranced; that is art, character, form, colour, all in beautiful harmony. The "Daughter of Titian" does not deserve its celebrity; it is weak and dull.
But my paper is exhausted, as are also my eyes; I will therefore defer the rest to another letter, and only mention that in Vienna Kuppelwiesser, Führich, and Roesner received me like a son of the house, and all sent hearty greetings to you. Do write to me very soon, dear Friend, and keep in kind remembrance your grateful, devoted pupil,
Fred Leighton.
My address is, Poste Restante, Rome.