In Munich, Cornelius became the director of a world-renowned academy, a centre of art, a friend of the king, esteemed and visited by all classes. But in Berlin he was a mere private individual, without position, thought little of, without occasion for the proper display of his artistic powers, working quietly in his studio. To use his own expression, he was "a solitary sparrow on the house-top." But this trial was necessary for the spiritual welfare and true greatness of the master. On the 12th of April, of the year 1841, Cornelius, with wife and children, had left Munich, where a farewell dinner was given him. In Dresden, he was honored by a torchlight procession of artists. On April 23d, he reached Berlin. All received him with honor and applause. He visited the celebrated men of the city, Humboldt, Grimm, Rauch, and Schinkel, who received him into their circle. Testimonials of esteem from abroad reached him. The Queen of Portugal wrote to request him to send artists to Portugal to introduce fresco-painting; and Lord Monson requested him to ornament his castle with frescoes. Cornelius travelled to England, but the sudden death of the lord and an ophthalmia of the artist necessitated his return to Berlin.
Now days of gloom began to dawn for him. The aristocratic society of the city did not suit him. He preferred his Bavarian beer to the insipid tea of the Berlin aristocracy. He could not flatter the affected connoisseurs of art. He was too independent to be a toady. "He does not approach us!" was the complaint, and men began to criticise himself and his works harshly.
Cornelius had executed a painting in oil for Count Raczynski in 1843. It was placed on exhibition. It represented the liberation of the souls in limbo by the Saviour. Though the coloring is heavy and disagreeable, still the grouping of the patriarchs and their countenances are highly characteristic and almost unsurpassable. But the cry was immediately raised by the whole crowd of art critics, "How can we call these bodiless, unnatural forms artistic, or those heavy colors painting?" They treated the artist with contempt and looked on him as a fallen man. A celebrated portrait-painter of Berlin gave expression to this sentiment: "If I found in the street a picture executed by Cornelius, I would not pick it up!" This opinion became general in Berlin. This was fortunate for the salvation of the master and for his art. He withdrew from the world, and became more recollected and devoted more exclusively to his art.
For some time he made little show. However, the king gave him an order for a work in which he had an opportunity of displaying his powers of imagination. It was the design of a shield which William IV. wished to present to the young Prince of Wales as a godfather's gift. Cornelius finished it in six weeks. It was a round shield, in the middle of which Christ is represented on the cross; in the corners appear the four evangelists, and over them the four cardinal virtues; in the four arms of the cross, baptism and the Last Supper, and their figures in the Old Testament, the gushing of the water from the rock, and the rain of manna. Round about the shield were carved the busts of the twelve apostles. On its rim were depicted scenes from the passion and triumph of Christ, from the entry into Jerusalem to the apostolic mission. In order to show the connection of the ancient church with the present, one of the apostles is represented as landing with the distinguished guests from Prussia in order to administer baptism to the prince. This little work breathes the spirit of the artist; it is genial, severe, expressive, full of style; often quaint and singular, by the induction of modern personages, Queen Victoria, Wellington, and Humboldt.
King Frederick William IV. determined, at this time, to erect a church which should vie with that of St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London. Stüler made the plan. Cornelius was to ornament the walls with frescoes. He undertook this task in 1843. He felt again all his powers revive. Exultingly he wrote to the academy of Münster, which had given the great artist the diploma of a doctor in philosophy in recognition of his ability: "A great, holy field, campo santo, has been opened to me, through the favor of Providence and the grace of my illustrious king and sovereign, in order to execute upon it what God has put in my soul. May he enlighten my spirit and penetrate my heart with his love; open my eyes to the glory of his works, fill me with piety and truth, and guide every motion of my hand!"
In order to have the requisite quiet and leisure for this gigantic work, Cornelius made a second trip to Rome, that paradise of painters and head of Catholicity. From the spring of the year 1843 to May, 1844, and again from March, 1845 to 1846, he dwelt in the Eternal City.
After his return from Rome, he labored incessantly at Berlin to finish his great undertaking. In January, 1845, the first sketch was ended; in 1846, the glorious, unequalled cartoon of the horsemen in the apocalypse, which was exhibited in Rome, Berlin, Ghent, and Vienna, and at the feet of which the whole school of Belgian artists laid a laurel crown. The government also gave him a house on the royal square, in which to prosecute his undertaking. He finished the whole series of decorations in twenty-five years. He worked with inexpressible pleasure and joy, although none of those pictures really came to its destined place. He labored without desire of fame. He painted as the bird sings on the boughs. As none of his great works or frescoes were exposed publicly at Berlin, he remained almost unknown to the people; but he found his sole delight in the love of his art, and in application to its expression.
In the year 1833, he lost his first wife. He married again, in Rome, a lady named Gertrude, distinguished for beauty and virtue. She died in 1859. His daughter Marie also died at the same time, who had been espoused to the Marquis Marcelli. Thus he drank of a bitter chalice! When he went to Rome for the last time, on the 14th of April, 1861, although aged, he made a third' marriage in espousing Theresa of Urbino, whom he had met and admired in the house of his daughter! This wife attended the last years of his life, and stood by his death-bed.
The residence of Cornelius in Berlin had made him more and more attached to the Catholic Church. He wrote in 1851 to a friend in Munich: "The invisible church is the only one to be found among German Protestants. I have tried to find a church among them here, but so far my search has been in vain. In Rome, I am always a half-heretic, but here I am more Catholic everyday." When he made his last voyage to Rome, he passed through Munich on his return, and paid a visit to his friend Schlotthauer, to whom he spoke thus: "Friend, I am now entirely of your way of thinking in religious matters. Berlin has made me entirely Catholic. Only now do I prize Catholicism sufficiently. If the King of Bavaria were here, I would seek him and say to him openly: 'Your majesty, Bavaria is still a Catholic country, and this is the cause of its strength and greatness. Try to keep it so. This is the best policy.'" To his friend Ringseis he made a similar statement, adding that he had travelled to Munich on purpose to inform them of his thorough conversion.
In another instance, also, the fervor of Cornelius's faith and charity displayed itself. He presented the committee who were engaged in erecting a Catholic hospital with a painting of St. Elizabeth surprised by her husband in the act of nursing a sick pauper in her own bed. The picture was sold, after having been lithographed, and realized a large sum for the intended purpose.