DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0217
THE LEVCHTENBERG GALLERY.
201
painted, and finished with a care worthy of a Flemish paint-
ing. It is a lovely work of art.
The two pictures, however, before which I paused longest
in the first room were a Winter Landscape by Heinrich
Biirkel, and a Tyrolean Village Scene by Peter Hess.
Imagine a picturesque village church and church-yard,
with its crosses and graves rising up in the centre of the
picture ; the churchyard is somewhat raised above the road
which winds round it to the left. The church is built of
warm, ruddy stone, mottled with many a weather-stain;
the quaint old building, with its varied lines of roofs and
low spire and dormer windows, rises sharply against the
clear, pale, opal sky of a bright winter’s morning. A cruci-
fix also standing upon the brow of the hilly graveyard to
the left of the church, relieves itself clearly against the
light. To the left of the church, and more in the fore-
ground, is a group of trees, their delicate brown and ruddy
branches flaked and feathered with snow and rime. Be-
hind these trees is an old-fashioned house partly concealed
by them : this is the house of the priest, who is seen ad-
vancing from its gate in his violet and white robes, pre-
ceded by a boy in white and scarlet. Peasants pause bare-
headed in the snowy road as they pass •, other peasants are
going upwards to the church through the crisp snow. These
figures are the key-note to the whole picture; their clear
violets, reds, and olive-greens, in delicate gradations of
opal tints, spreading themselves throughout the picture,
giving warmth to that snow, and frost, and gush of winter
sunshine. You follow these people in imagination into
the frosty church; you hear the bell tolling through the
frosty air; the voices of the choir burst forth clear and
piercing; and the frozen breath rises from many an old
devout peasant’s bps, and from the lips of the old priest
himself,—
“ Like pious incense from a censor old.”
201
painted, and finished with a care worthy of a Flemish paint-
ing. It is a lovely work of art.
The two pictures, however, before which I paused longest
in the first room were a Winter Landscape by Heinrich
Biirkel, and a Tyrolean Village Scene by Peter Hess.
Imagine a picturesque village church and church-yard,
with its crosses and graves rising up in the centre of the
picture ; the churchyard is somewhat raised above the road
which winds round it to the left. The church is built of
warm, ruddy stone, mottled with many a weather-stain;
the quaint old building, with its varied lines of roofs and
low spire and dormer windows, rises sharply against the
clear, pale, opal sky of a bright winter’s morning. A cruci-
fix also standing upon the brow of the hilly graveyard to
the left of the church, relieves itself clearly against the
light. To the left of the church, and more in the fore-
ground, is a group of trees, their delicate brown and ruddy
branches flaked and feathered with snow and rime. Be-
hind these trees is an old-fashioned house partly concealed
by them : this is the house of the priest, who is seen ad-
vancing from its gate in his violet and white robes, pre-
ceded by a boy in white and scarlet. Peasants pause bare-
headed in the snowy road as they pass •, other peasants are
going upwards to the church through the crisp snow. These
figures are the key-note to the whole picture; their clear
violets, reds, and olive-greens, in delicate gradations of
opal tints, spreading themselves throughout the picture,
giving warmth to that snow, and frost, and gush of winter
sunshine. You follow these people in imagination into
the frosty church; you hear the bell tolling through the
frosty air; the voices of the choir burst forth clear and
piercing; and the frozen breath rises from many an old
devout peasant’s bps, and from the lips of the old priest
himself,—
“ Like pious incense from a censor old.”