Part 13

But this cult of Italy and of the pious, or seemingly pious Italian painters, is only the stepping-stone by which the "Friar" passes to the worship of his own particular idol, Albert Dürer. With his enthusiasm for this apostle of German art is combined enthusiasm for ancient Nuremberg. When Tieck and Wackenroder travelled together through Germany in 1793, Nuremberg was their chief place of pilgrimage. The oftener they saw the town, the more affection, nay devotion, did they conceive for it. "The art life of Germany revealed itself to them there in all its fulness. That of which they had hitherto only divined the possibility, had here long been a living reality. How rich in monuments of all the arts was this town, with its churches of St. Sebald and St. Lorenz, its works by Albert Dürer, Vischer, and Krafft! Artistic feeling and ardent industry had here elevated handicraft to the rank of art. Every house was a monument of the past; every well, every bench, bore witness to the citizens of the quiet, simple, thoughtful life of their forefathers. No whitewash had as yet reduced the houses to uniformity. There they stood in all their stateliness, each with its carven imagery, borrowed from poem and legend. Ottnit, Siegenot, Dietrich, and other old heroes, were to be seen above the doors, guarding and protecting the home. Over the old imperial city, with its marvels and its oddities, hung a fragrance which in other places had long ago been blown away by the winds of political change and enlightenment."[1] Nuremberg is, in very deed, a splendid old town, but it is easy to understand the special attraction there must have been for two budding Romanticists in its medievalism, its old Catholic churches, its old houses with the Nibelungen heroes above the doors. Their enthusiasm over the treasures of beautiful Nuremberg is, truth to say, far more natural than the long blindness of the eighteenth century to them. As to Lessing the word "Gothic" had simply meant "barbaric," so to Winckelmann the German Renaissance had been a closed book. Now the splendours of Nuremberg were gazed on by eager eyes. In a species of æsthetic intoxication the friends wandered round the churches and the churchyards; they stood by the graves of Albert Dürer and Hans Sachs; a vanished world rose before their eyes, and the life of ancient Nuremberg became to them the romance of art. The chapter in the _Herzensergüsse_ entitled _In Memory of Albert Dürer_ is the first-fruits of these sentiments, and at the same time an expression of the warm patriotic feeling of the young author. "In the days when Albert was wielding the brush, the German still played a distinctly characteristic and notable part on the stage of the world; and Dürer's pictures faithfully reproduce the serious, straightforward, strong German character, its spirit as well as its outward lineaments. In our days this vigorous German character has vanished, in art as well as in life.... The German art of those days was a pious youth, who had received a homely upbringing in a small town, amongst his relations--it has now become the conventional man of the world, who has lost the stamp of the small town, and along with it his originality."

Yet this patriotic feeling in art is not Wackenroder's fundamental feeling; it is based upon a more comprehensive one. The little book inveighs throughout against all intolerance in art. Freedom from every compulsory rule, a freedom based upon deep and genuine love of beauty, is proclaimed in language which betrays the mimosa-like sensitiveness of this prophet of the new gospel of art. "He," says Wackenroder, "whose more sensitive nerves are keenly alive to the mysterious attraction which lies hidden in art, will often be deeply moved by what leaves another callous. He has the good fortune to have more frequent opportunities than other men for healthy mental excitement and activity."

Such excitement and activity were, as we have seen, most easily and most naturally called forth by the musical treatment of poetry and by music itself--much less naturally by clearly defined corporeal forms of art.

If our supposition that Wackenroder's theory of art finds its true and highest development in the distinctively musical type of poetry be correct, it is easy to foretell what will be the result of Tieck's determination to write (with the assistance of his friend's posthumous papers) a tale embodying the "Friar's" longings and theories. The letters written by the German painter in Rome to his friend in Nuremberg became the germ of the new art-romance, _The Wanderings of Franz Sternbald, a Story of Olden Germany_. The book takes its name from its hero, a painter of the days of Albert Dürer. The delineation of character is vague and weak; the action is swamped in dialogue; events play as freely and fantastically as in dreams (and of dreams we have any number) with the feeble talking figures who do duty for heroes and heroines; and even the sequence of these events is constantly interrupted by the insertion of songs improvised to order, which may be best described by quoting a saying of Sternbald's friend, Florestan, namely, that it ought to be possible to construct in words and verse a whole conversation consisting of nothing but sound. When the thread of event is most attenuated and the silk of the verse most thinly spun, music proper is called in. The primitive strains of horn or pipe are so frequently introduced that the author himself in a later work, _Zerbino_, jests at this superfluity of horn music.

In one of Caroline Schlegel's letters we find Goethe's apt criticism of the book. He said that it ought by rights to have been called _Musical Wanderings_; that there was everything imaginable in it except a painter; that if it were intended for an art-romance, art should have received quite different and more comprehensive treatment; that there was no real substance in the book, and that its artistic tendency was an erroneous one; that there were beautiful sunsets in it, but that they were repeated too often. Much severer, however, and more penetrating is Caroline's own criticism. She writes: "As to Part First, I shall only say that I am still in doubt whether Tieck did not intend to represent Sternbald's devotion to art as something regrettable, a mistaken, fruitless devotion, like Wilhelm Meister's. If this be the case, then there is another fault, namely, the want of _human_ interest in the story. Part Second throws no light on the matter. In it there is the same vagueness, the same want of power. One is always hoping for something decisive, always expecting Franz to make notable progress in one direction or another; but he never does. Once more we read of beautiful sunrises, the charms of spring, the alternation of day and night, the light of sun, moon, and stars, the singing of birds. It is all very charming, but there is a want of substance in it, and a certain paltriness both in Sternbald's moods and emotions and in the delineation of them. There are almost too many poems, and they have as little connection with each other as have the loosely strung together events and anecdotes, in many of which latter, moreover, one detects all sorts of imitation."

But if there be no action in this book, what does it contain? Reflections--in the first instance upon art, in the second upon nature.

First we have endless meditations and quantities of aphorisms on art and poetry, interspersed with feeble lyric poems, which are hardly distinguishable one from the other. Only one among the number, a longish poem on Arion, is at all remarkable. It indicates the spirit of the book. The three leaders of Romanticism, A. W. Schlegel, Tieck, and Novalis, all sang the praises of Arion, and somewhat later he was hymned in Danish by P. L. Möller. It was natural that the hearts of the Romanticists should be stirred by the legend of the poet-subduer of nature, who roused the enthusiasm of the very monsters of the sea, rode upon dolphins, was invulnerable, invincible, of immortal fame. He was their symbol, their hero. All their poetry is, in a certain sense, an attempt to expound the legend of Arion; and what else are all the echoes and imitations of their works, the books which glorify poets, artists, actors, troubadours, heroic and irresistible tenors? The figure of Narcissus would be the fitting frontispiece for all these innumerable volumes.

As a matter of fact the main ingredients of _Sternbald_ are trite refutations of the trite objection to art, that it is useless, trivial reasons for art being national ("since we are not Italians, and an Italian can never feel as a German does"), and hymns in praise of Albert Dürer. It is their admiration for Dürer that first brings the two lovers together, just as Werther and Lotte were first united by their common enthusiasm for Klopstock. The same ideas found expression in Danish in Sibbern's _Gabrielis_ and Oehlenschläger's _Correggio_. Parts of the plot of _Correggio_ are anticipated; we have, for instance, the artist painting his own wife as the Madonna, and his grief at having to part with his work. A long word-symphony in honour of Strasburg Cathedral is followed by bitter thrusts at the "uncouth masses of stone in Milan and Pisa, and that disjointed building, the Cathedral of Lucca." Then we have admiration and praise of Till Eulenspiegel and Hans Wurst (these gentlemen being supposed to represent fancy and irony), and great enthusiasm for Dürer's stag with the cross between its antlers, and for the "simple-hearted, pious, and touching" manner in which the knight in front of it bends his knees. The picture in question is undoubtedly a beautiful, simple-minded production, but we cannot help smiling at the serious attempt made to prove that of all the ways in which the legs of a kneeling man can be bent, this is by far the most Christian.

Again and again the idea recurs that all true art must be allegorical, that is to say, marrowless and bloodless. Most of the poems are allegories. The principal one is the long allegory of Phantasus, wretched verse without one spark of imagination:

"Der launige Phantasus, Ein wunderlicher Alter, Folgt stets seiner närrischen Laune. Sie haben ihn jetzt festgebunden, Dass er nur seine Possen lässt, Vernunft im Denken nicht stört, Den armen Menschen nicht irrt," &c., &c.[2]

Reminiscences of this satire upon the attacks made on imagination by the prosaic are to be found here and there in Andersen's _Fairy Tales_. The poem, which is recited in the moonlight, indicates as an ideal subject for the painter a pilgrim in the moonlight, the emblem of humanity: "For what are we but wandering, erring pilgrims? Can aught but the light from above illumine our path?" There are distinct traces of this same tendency in our own poet, Hauch, with his perpetual pointing "upwards" and his partiality for pilgrims and hermits.

But in Romanticism at this stage, in spite of all its bloodless spirituality, sensuality still wells up strong and unrestrained. Franz Sternbald, the trained artist, maintains the superiority of Titian and Correggio to all other painters. Of Correggio, whom he especially favours, he says: "Who would dare to vie with him, at least in the representation of voluptuous love? To no other human spirit has there been granted such a revelation of the glories of the realm of the senses."

This standpoint was, as every one knows, soon relinquished, consistency leading to the adoption of another. The brothers Sulpice and Melchior Boisserée of Cologne were in Paris in 1802, when Friedrich Schlegel was studying there, and they had private lectures from him. The old German pictures in the Louvre reminded the young men of old paintings in their native town, which the prevailing academic taste had consigned to oblivion. In consequence of Napoleon's systematic pillage of pictures, there was a good collection of German ones in Paris, which made the study of them an easy matter.

The best idea of what the German medieval artists had produced was to be obtained from the quantities of paintings and wood and stone carving which came into the market after the suppression of monasteries and charitable foundations. At that time men had lost all appreciation for monuments of art; with the utmost indifference they saw churches turned into quarries, and the most precious artistic treasures dispersed to the four winds. Masterpieces were sold for a trifle, and the purchasers of the supposed old rubbish were actually pitied. Altar-pieces were made into window-shutters, dovecots, tables, and roofing; the caretakers in the monasteries often used old paintings on wood as fuel, for as a rule even the best were unrecognisable, from taper-smoke, dust, and dirt.[3]

After Friedrich Schlegel, in his periodical, Europa, had drawn attention to the wealth of old German paintings, the brothers Boisserée began to collect the scattered treasures, travelling up and down the Rhine and throughout the Netherlands to track out the long-despised works. By 1805 a collection of Flemish and German masters had been made, which exercised great influence on the history of art.

The revival of enthusiasm for early German art led to predilection for the pre-Raphaelite Italian painters. All honour to the pre-Raphaelites! From Fiesole and Giotto to Masaccio, Botticelli, Ghirlandajo, Luca Signorelli, Perugino, and Pinturicchio, all Europe pays them the homage that is their due. But Friedrich Schlegel, in his article in _Europa_ on Raphael, exalts the pre-Raphaelite at the expense of the succeeding period. He says: "With this newer school, typified by such names as Raphael, Correggio, Giulio Romano, and Michael Angelo, begins the decay of art." And this is considered to be so patent a fact that Schlegel does not think it necessary to offer any justification of his assertion; nay, two pages later he actually confesses that he has not seen any of Michael Angelo's works. Here we have the perfection of Romantic insolence. This paragon of an art critic, who, in order the better to exalt the old monkish pictures, dates the decay of art from Raphael, Correggio, Titian, and Michael Angelo, admits without the slightest feeling of shame that he has not seen so much as one of the works of the greatest of these men. Despising such a paltry thing as knowledge, he judges him with his inner consciousness.

But it is unnecessary to anticipate; for in _Sternbald_ itself monkish piety, with all its languishing fanaticism, has already come to life again in an unctuousness without parallel. This it was which so irritated Goethe. The idea that piety lies at the foundation of all true art, a theory which was speedily adopted by the whole school of neo-German "Nazarenic" painters, he constantly jeered at. An expression he often used in speaking of the "Nazarenes" was, that they Sternbaldised (_sternbaldisierten_).

The essay on Winckelmann which Goethe published about this time was a direct attack upon the Romanticists. In it he writes: "This description of the antique mind, with its concentration upon this world and its blessings, leads directly to the reflection that such advantages are only compatible with a pagan spirit. That self-confidence, that living and acting in the present, that simple reverence for the gods as ancestors and admiration for them as if they were works of art, that resignation to an inevitable fate, and that belief in a future of highly prized posthumous fame, all these things together constitute such an indivisible whole, unite in such a manner to form the human existence designed by nature herself, that those pagans show themselves alike robust and sane in the supreme moment of enjoyment and in the dread moment of self-sacrifice or annihilation. This pagan spirit is apparent in all Winckelmann's actions and writings.... And we must keep this frame of mind of his, this remoteness from, nay, this actual antipathy to the Christian standpoint, in view when we judge his so-called change of religion. Winckelmann felt that, in order to be a Roman in Rome, in order really to live the life of the place, it was necessary that he should become a member of the Catholic Church, subscribe to its beliefs, and conform to its usages.... The decision came all the more easily to him in that, born pagan as he was, Protestant baptism had not availed to make a Christian of him.... There is no doubt that a certain opprobrium, which it seems impossible to avoid, attaches to every man who changes his religion. This shows us that what men set most store by is steadfastness; and they value it the more because, themselves divided into parties, they have their own peace and security always in view. Where destiny rather than choice has placed us, there we are to remain.... So much for a very serious side of the question; there is a much lighter and more cheerful one. Certain positions taken up by others, of which we do not approve, certain of their moral offences, have a peculiar attraction for our imagination.... People whom we should otherwise think of as merely notable, or amiable, now seem to us very mysterious, and it cannot be denied that Winckelmann's change of religion has added greatly to the _romance_ of his life and character."

We can fancy how such an utterance enraged the Romanticists, who at that time were all on the point of going over to Catholicism. Thenceforward there was no more worship of Goethe. Tieck was in Rome, and the report spread that he was about to embrace the Catholic faith, to which his wife and daughter had become converts. Friedrich Schlegel was preparing to take the final step. He was lecturing at Cologne, but making application for a regular appointment in every likely quarter--Cologne, Paris, Würzburg, Munich, &c. "Given really tempting conditions," he wrote in June 1804, "I should have gone even to Moscow or Dorpat. But," he adds, "my preference was for the Rhine district." Was this because it was a Catholic district? Not at all. "The salmon here is unequalled, so are the crayfish, not to speak of the wine." It was Metternich's pecuniary offer which finally induced him to take the decisive step and join the Church of Rome. He was furious at the essay on Winckelmann, though he expressed unbounded contempt for it. What is most amusing of all, however, is to see how this little work fell like a bomb among the genuine political reactionaries in Vienna. Gentz was already approaching the stage which he had reached when he wrote to Rahel (in 1814) that he had become terribly old and bad (unendlich alt und schlecht), describing his condition thus: "I must give you an idea of the form which my cynicism and egotism have taken. As soon as I can throw down my pen, all my thoughts and time are given to the arrangement of my rooms; I am constantly planning how to procure more money for furniture, perfumes, and every refinement of so-called luxury. My appetite, alas! is gone. Breakfast is the only meal I take any interest in."

In 1805 Gentz writes to his worthy friend, Adam Müller: "What struck me most in your letter was your criticism of Goethe's two latest productions. I know them both, but should never have dared to write as you do; though I will not deny that my opinion of them is the same as yours, only still less favourable. The notes on _Rameau_ are simply prosy and commonplace. To write such twaddle nowadays about Voltaire and D'Alembert is really inexcusable in a Goethe. The essays on Winckelmann are atheistic. I should never have credited Goethe with such a bitter and perfidious hatred of Christianity, though I have long suspected him of culpability in this matter. What indecent, cynical, faun-like joy he seems to have felt on making the grand discovery that it was really because Winckelmann was a "born pagan" that the different forms of the Christian religion were a matter of such indifference to him! No! even Goethe will not easily rise again in my estimation after these two books!"[4]

Goethe's essay, we observe, had gone straight to the mark; the Romanticists felt as if they had received a slap in the face, when he declared himself hostile to their theory of art.

We must now dwell a little on the conception of nature which corresponds to this conception of art. In _Sternbald_, as both Goethe and Caroline indicate, the reader's interest is distracted from the characters and the action by descriptions of scenery.

We have seen that it was Rousseau who rediscovered the feeling for nature. As Sainte-Beuve says somewhere, playing upon Rousseau's own words about the swallow which had built its nest under the eaves of his first home: "He was the swallow that foretold the coming of summer in literature." The same feeling for nature, as has also been shown, reappears in _Werther_. The transformation which it now underwent was this: Rousseau's point of view had been _emotional_, that of the Romanticists was _fantastic_. Hence their return to legends and fairy tales, to the elves and kobolds of popular superstition. Goethe had said:

"Natur hat weder Kern noch Schale, Alles ist sie mit einem Male."[5]

The Romanticists were determined to have to do only with the kernel, with the mysterious inmost substance, which they attempted to extricate, after having themselves inserted it. The mystic mind mirrored itself in nature and saw in it nothing but mysteries. Tieck, as every one knows, coined the word _Waldeinsamkeit_ (his friends maintained that it ought to be _Waldeseinsamkeit_). Romanticism shouted with quavering voice into the Waldeinsamkeit (forest solitude), and echo returned quavering answers.

Alexander von Humboldt has pointed out how the ancients really only saw beauty in nature when she was smiling, friendly, and _useful_ to man. With the Romanticists it is the reverse. To them nature is unbeautiful in proportion as she is useful, and most beautiful in her wildness, or when she awakens a feeling of vague fear. They rejoice in the darkness of night and of deep ravines, in the utter loneliness which produces a shudder of terror; and Tieck's full moon shines as unchangeably over the landscape as though it were a theatrical one of oiled paper with a lamp behind it. I call it Tieck's moon, because it is incontestably Tieck who is the originator of the Romantic moonlit landscape. Nor is it difficult to understand how it should be he, rather than any other of the young writers, who originates such expressions as "forest solitude," "magic moonlit nights," &c., &c. Tieck was born in Berlin, perhaps of all large towns the one whose surroundings possess the fewest natural attractions. Those sandy heaths of Brandenburg, with their tall, spare firs standing stiffly in rows like Prussian soldiers, form as meagre a landscape as one could well find. Whilst Rousseau, living amidst scenery of paradisaic beauty (the neighbourhood of Geneva and Mont Blanc), was strongly, directly impressed by nature, Tieck, in his unlovely surroundings, was seized by the city-dweller's morbid longing for wood and mountain; and this longing gave birth to a fantastic conception of nature. The cold daylight glare of Berlin, and its modern, North German rationalism awoke longings for the primeval forests and an inclination towards primitive poetry.