DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0158
142
AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
CHAPTER XII.
SOMETHING ABOUT MUNICH DECORATION, —PUBLIC AND
DOMESTIC.
October 20.—E. has been writing to me about these
new “ Tile-cottages,” of which you are talking so much
in England. I imagine the effect of these tile-walls might
be something like the marble stuccoing much in vogue
here. The impression when you stand for the first time in
the Glyptothek and Hof-Kapelle, is that the walls are built
of the most splendid marbles. It is only when you reflect
upon the enormous expense of such works that your reason
convinces you that the walls are not marble, but stucco.
The idea of stucco, I grant, is unpleasant—all my Ruskin
prejudices revolted at the idea of this “ hypocrisy,” when
we made this discovery •, but I have reasoned with myself
after this fasliion : is it not better, in one sense more
beautiful, for a state possessed of but small pecuniary
resources, to have expended its money upon the art, the
the creative spirit, than upon the material ? And if the
idea conveyed to the soul be noble and true, what matter
whether the wall be of precious stones or of plaster ! The
regret is that these materials are so perishable; and this
painful thought presses constantly upon me,—in a couple of
hundred years or so, where will be these creations ? But
this art, the creative soul, although fading away, will doubt-
less have done its work in the world by kindling the fire of
love and of aspiration in fresh labourers who wiR carry on
the work here begun with undying energy.
In speaking of the Hof-Kapelle, I have already referred
AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
CHAPTER XII.
SOMETHING ABOUT MUNICH DECORATION, —PUBLIC AND
DOMESTIC.
October 20.—E. has been writing to me about these
new “ Tile-cottages,” of which you are talking so much
in England. I imagine the effect of these tile-walls might
be something like the marble stuccoing much in vogue
here. The impression when you stand for the first time in
the Glyptothek and Hof-Kapelle, is that the walls are built
of the most splendid marbles. It is only when you reflect
upon the enormous expense of such works that your reason
convinces you that the walls are not marble, but stucco.
The idea of stucco, I grant, is unpleasant—all my Ruskin
prejudices revolted at the idea of this “ hypocrisy,” when
we made this discovery •, but I have reasoned with myself
after this fasliion : is it not better, in one sense more
beautiful, for a state possessed of but small pecuniary
resources, to have expended its money upon the art, the
the creative spirit, than upon the material ? And if the
idea conveyed to the soul be noble and true, what matter
whether the wall be of precious stones or of plaster ! The
regret is that these materials are so perishable; and this
painful thought presses constantly upon me,—in a couple of
hundred years or so, where will be these creations ? But
this art, the creative soul, although fading away, will doubt-
less have done its work in the world by kindling the fire of
love and of aspiration in fresh labourers who wiR carry on
the work here begun with undying energy.
In speaking of the Hof-Kapelle, I have already referred