The second representation of it is in one of the heads in the hexagonal pulpit--in the nave, and in which the preacher was holding forth as before mentioned. Some say that these heads represent one and the same person; but I was told that they were designated for those of the master and apprentice: the former being the apprentice, and the latter the master.
The preceding may suffice for a description of this cathedral; in which, as I before observed, there is a palpable want of simplicity and of breadth of construction. The eye wanders over a large mass of building, without being able to rest upon any thing either striking from its magnificence, or delighting by its beauty and elaborate detail. The pillars which divide the nave from the side aisles, are however excluded from this censure. There is one thing--and a most lamentable instance of depraved taste it undoubtedly is--which I must not omit mentioning. It relates to the representation of our Saviour. Whether as a painting, or as a piece of sculpture, this sacred figure is generally made most repulsive--even, in the cathedral. It is meagre in form, wretched in physiognomical expression, and marked by disgusting appearances of blood about the forehead and throat. In the church of St. Mary, supposed to be the oldest in Vienna, as you enter the south door, to the left, there is a whole length standing figure of Christ--placed in an obscure niche--of which the part, immediately under the chin, is covered with red paint, in disgusting imitation of blood: as if the throat had been recently cut,--and patches of paint, to represent drops of blood, are also seen upon the feet!
In regard to other churches, that of St. Mary, supposed to be, in part, as old as the XIIIth century, has one very great curiosity, decidedly worthy of notice. It is a group on the outside, as you enter a door in a passage or court--through which the whole population of Vienna should seem to pass in the course of the day. This group, or subject, represents our Saviour's Agony in the garden of Gethsemane: the favourite subject of representation throughout Austria. In the foreground, the figure of Christ, kneeling, is sufficiently conspicuous. Sometimes a handkerchief is placed between the hands, and sometimes not. His disciples are asleep by the side of him. In the middle ground, the soldiers, headed by Judas Iscariot, are leaping over the fence, and entering the garden to seize him: in the back ground, they are leading him away to Caiphas, and buffeting him in the route. These latter groups are necessarily diminutive. The whole is cut in stone--I should think about three centuries ago--and painted after the life. As the people are constantly passing along, you observe, every now and then, some devout citizen dropping upon his knee, and repeating a hurried prayer before the figure of Christ.
The Church of the Augustins is near at hand; and the contents of that church are, to my taste and feelings, more precious than any of which Vienna may boast. I allude to the famous monument erected to the memory of the wife of the present venerable DUKE ALBERT OF SAXE TESCHEN. It is considered to be the chef d'oeuvre of CANOVA; and with justice. The church of the Augustins laying directly in my way to the Imperial Library, I think I may safely say that I used, two mornings out of three, to enter it--on purpose to renew my acquaintance with the monument in question. My admiration increased upon every such renewal. Take it, all in all, I can conceive nothing in art to go beyond it. It is alone worth a pilgrimage to Vienna: nor will I from henceforth pine about what has perished from the hand of Phidias or Praxiteles--it is sufficient that this monument remains ... from the chisel of CANOVA.
I will describe it briefly, and criticise it with the same freedom which I used towards the Madonna of the same sculptor, in the collection of the Marquis de Sommariva at Paris.[142] At the time of my viewing it, a little after ten o'clock, the organ was generally playing--and a very fine chant was usually being performed: rather soft, tender, and impressive-- than loud and overwhelming. I own that, by a thousand associations of ideas, (which it were difficult to describe) this coincidence helped to give a more solemn effect to the object before me. You enter a door, immediately opposite to it--and no man of taste can view it, unexpectedly, for the first time, without standing still ... the very moment it meets his eyes! This monument, which is raised about four feet above the pavement, and is encircled by small iron palisades--at a distance just sufficient to afford every opportunity of looking correctly at each part of it--consists of several figures, in procession, which are about to enter an opened door, at the base of a pyramid of gray marble. Over the door is a medallion, in profile, of the deceased... supported by an angel. To the right of the door is a huge lion couchant, asleep. You look into the entrance ... and see nothing ... but darkness: neither boundary nor termination being visible. To the right, a young man--resting his arm upon the lion's mane, is looking upwards, with an intensity of sorrowful expression. This figure is naked; and represents the protecting genius of the afflicted husband. To the left of the door, is the moving procession. One tall majestic female figure, with dishevelled hair, and a fillet of gold round her brow, is walking with a slow, measured step, embracing the urn which contains the ashes of the deceased. Her head is bending down, as if her tears were mingling with the contents of the urn. The drapery of this figure is most elaborate and profuse, and decorated with wreaths of flowers. Two children--symbolical, I suppose, of innocence and purity--walk by her side ... looking upwards, and scattering flowers. In the rear, appear three figures, which are intended to represent the charitable character of the deceased. Of these, two are eminently conspicuous ... namely, an old man leaning upon the arm of a young woman ... illustrative of the bounty and benevolence of the Duchess:- -and intended to represent her liberality and kind-heartedness, equally in the protection of the old and feeble, as in that of the orphan and helpless young. The figures are united, as it were, by a youthful female, with a wreath of flowers; with which, indeed the ground is somewhat profusely strewn: so as, to an eye uninitiated in ancient costume, to give the subject rather a festive character. The whole is of the size of life.[143]
Such is the mere dry descriptive detail of this master-piece of the art of CANOVA. I now come to a more close and critical survey of it; and will first observe upon what appear to me to be the (perhaps venial) defects of this magnificent monument. In the first place, I could have wished the medallion of the duchess and the supporting angel--elsewhere. It is a common-place, and indeed, here, an irrelevant ornament. The deceased has passed into eternity. The apparently interminable excavation into which the figures are about to move, helps to impress your mind with this idea. The duchess is to be thought of ... or seen, in the mind's eye... as an inhabitant of another world ... and therefore not to be brought to your recollection by a common-place representation of her countenance in profile--as an inhabitant of earth. Besides, the chief female figure or mourner, about to enter the vault, is carrying her ashes in an urn: and I own it appears to me to be a little incongruous--or, at least, a little defective in that pure classical taste which the sculptor unquestionably possesses,--to put, what may be considered visible and invisible--or tangible and intangible--representations of the same person before you at the same time. If a representation of the figure of the duchess be necessary, it should not be in the form of a medallion. The pyramidal back-ground would doubtless have had a grander effect without it.
The lion is also, to me, an objectionable subject. If allegory be necessary, it should be pure, and not mixed. If a human figure, at one end of the group, be considered a fit representation of benevolence ... the notion or idea meant to be conveyed by a lion, at the other end, should not be conveyed by the introduction of an animal. Nor is it at all obvious--supposing an animal to be necessary--to understand why a lion, who may be considered as placed there to guard the entrance of the pyramid, should be represented asleep? If he be sympathising with the general sorrow, he should not be sleeping; for acute affliction rarely allows of slumber. If his mere object be to guard the entrance, by sleeping he shews himself to be unworthy of trust. In a word, allegory, always bad in itself, should not be mixed; and we naturally ask what business lions and human beings have together? Or, we suppose that the females in view have well strung nerves to walk thus leisurely with a huge lion--even sleeping-- in front of them!
The human figures are indeed delightful to contemplate. Perfect in form, in attitude, and expression, they proclaim the powers of a consummate master. A fastidious observer might indeed object to the bold, muscular strength of the old man--as exhibited in his legs and arms--and as indicative of the maturity, rather than of the approaching extinction, of life ... but what sculptor, in the representation of such subjects, can resist the temptation of displaying the biceps and gastrocnemian muscles? The countenances are all exquisite: all full of nature and taste... with as little introduction, as may be, of Grecian art. To my feelings, the figure of the young man--to the right of the lion--is the most exquisitely perfect. His countenance is indeed heavenly; and there is a play and harmony in the position and demarcation of his limbs, infinitely beyond any thing which I can presume to put in competition with it. In every point of view, in which I regarded this figure, it gained upon my admiration; and on leaving the church, for the last time, I said within myself--"if I have not seen the Belvedere Apollo, I have again and again viewed the monument to the memory of the Duchess Albert of Saxe-Teschen, by CANOVA... and I am satisfied to return to England in consequence."
From churches we will walk together to CONVENTS. Here are only two about which I deem it necessary to give you any description; and these are, the Convent of the Capuchins, near the new Market Place, and that of the Franciscans, near the street in which I lodge. The former is tenanted by long-bearded monks. On knocking at the outer gate, the door was opened by an apparently middle-aged man, upon whose long silvery, and broad-spreading beard, the light seemed to dart down with a surprisingly, picturesque effect. Behind him was a dark cloister; or at least, a cloister very partially illumined--along which two younger monks were pacing in full costume. The person who opened the outward door proved to be the porter. He might, from personal respectability, and amplitude of beard, have been the President. On my servant's telling him our object was to view the IMPERIAL TOMBS, which are placed in a vault in this monastery, he disappeared; and we were addressed by a younger person, with a beard upon a comparatively diminutive scale, and with the top of his hair very curiously cut in a circular form. He professed his readiness to accompany us immediately into the receptacle of departed imperial grandeur. He spoke Latin with myself, and his vernacular tongue with the valet. I was soon satisfied with the sepulchral spectacle. As a whole, it has a poor and even disagreeable effect: if you except one or two tombs, such as those of Francis I. Emperor of the Romans, and Maria Theresa--which latter is the most elaborately ornamented of the whole: but it wants both space and light to be seen effectually, and is moreover I submit, in too florid a style of decoration. Like the generality of them, it is composed of bronze. The tombs of the earlier Emperors of Germany lie in a long and gloomy narrow recess--where little light penetrates, and where there is little space for an accurate examination. I should call them rather coffin-shells than monuments. When I noticed the tomb of the Emperor Joseph II. to my guide, he seemed hardly to vouchsafe a glance at it ... adding, "yes, he is well known every where!" They rather consider him (from the wholesale manner in which the monasteries and convents were converted by him to civil purposes) as a sort of softened-down Henry VIII. Upon the whole, the living interested me more than the dead ... in this gloomy retirement ... notwithstanding these vaults are said to contain very little short of fourscore tombs of departed Emperors and Monarchs.
The MONASTERY OF THE FRANCISCANS is really an object worth visiting ... if it be only to convince you of the comfort and happiness of ... not being a Franciscan monk. I went thither several times, and sauntered in the cloisters of the quadrangle. An intelligent middle-aged woman--a sort of housekeeper of the establishment--who conversed with me pretty fluently in the French language, afforded me all the information which I was desirous of possessing. She said she had nothing to do with the kitchen, or dormitories of the monks. They cooked their own meat, and made their own beds. You see these monks constantly walking about the streets, and even entering the hotels. They live chiefly upon alms. They are usually bare-headed, and bare-footed--with the exception of sandals. Their dress is a thick brown cloak, with a cowl hanging behind in a peaked point: the whole made of the coarsest materials. They have no beards--and yet, altogether, they have a very squalid and dirty appearance. It was towards eight o'clock, when I walked for the first time, in the cloisters; and there viewed, amongst other mural decorations, an oil painting--in which several of their order are represented as undergoing martyrdom--by hanging, and severing their limbs. It was a horrid sight ... and yet the living was not very attractive.