Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-02-21

THE SPIRITUAL AND IDEAL-THE |
NATURAL AND REAL.
The Dusseldorf school has been
divided between two contending factions
the one spiritual and ideal. the other
and realistic. OF the former,
the lovely church, worthy of pilgrim
age, at Remagen, On the Rhine, is the |
brightest manifestation. Upon the walls
of this chapel, Deger, Ittenbaeh, Carl |
and Andreas Muller, all distinguished |
members of the Dusseldorf. Academy, |
have given ardent expression to their
pictorial, not to say religious, faith.
This impressive interior of highly |
wrought polyehrome naturally suggests |
comparison with Giotto's Arena Chapel, !
Padua Such modern German revivals, |
indeed, have much of the character and !
spirit of early Christian art The forms
are studiously lovely the heads lofty
and ideal in type the draperies academic
in symmetry the colers refined and
pure; the execution delicately soft.
Certainty these lovely, though some
what feeble and conventional, wall-pie-
lures are not afflicted with the hardness,
opacity and crudity which often make
German frescoes in the Houses Of Par
lament, Westminster, the mural pic
lures at Remagen, in common with wall
paintings in Germany generally, remain
just as fresh as when first painted
In direct antagonism with the spirit
ual phase of the Dusseldorf school, as
manifested at Remagen, is the natural
ism and realism Of which Karl Friedrich
Lessing may be taken as the express
exponent. This manly painter is best
judged by the series of pictures from
the Reformation Of Huss, two whereof
are familiar 10 Rhine tourists tarrying
at Frankfort An interesting narrative
might be written of Lessing's career
and Protestant creed, if he has Que. 1t
is generally supposed that the painter,
as the champion of liberty and of
nature, led a kind of Protestant revolt
in the academy Of Dusseldorf against
servility to tradition, On the other
hand, We are assured that the defiant
Hgss pictures were not hurled as
painted pamphlets against the Church.
Less.ng. it seems to be admitted, holds
to no one faith sufficiently firmly to side
as partisan in any polemic strife. In
Christianity, he loves what is simple in
life, free in thought, manly in action.
In his art he does not trouble himself
with legends Of saints or manifestations
of the supernatural he believes that
the highest function of art is to set forth
noble humanity to depict the great
men, G,inds, and deeds in history; he is
content to plant a firm foot in time and
place, and he surrenders willingly to
others the reals of Imagination. The
Dusseldorf school has pro6ted by the
doctrines of Lessing. On the easel Of
/ Tidemapd maY now be seen an alrar.
I piece for Protestant Church in Norway
+" The Baptism of Christ "a large work
which, by its individuality, realism, and
vigor. must be regarded as direct re-
acton to the "spirltualism that long
reigned in dusseldorf.
/ GERMAN FREsooEs-tNTELLECTUAL LIFE
Professor Bendemann, now director o
the academy, takes middle course be
tween 'spiritualists" and realists.
He has Just executed vast cartoon, al
episode in the destruction Of Jerusalem
also saries of wall-paintings after
newly invented Oil-process. Other sign
of the times still more marked tell tina
a reaction has set in-that in Dusseldorf
as in Germany and the world at large
: art has forsaken idealism for individual
ism. 1t may be to some people eoR
ISOLATION TO learn that the ffeseoes a
Remagen, Munich, apd Spires, wherein
the so-called spiritual school of Ger
many has expended its fervOr, are no
likely soon to fade away. German fres
Goes, we repeat, have stood we'll unlik
failures perpetrated in England, the
are not discolored or faded they d
not, as the mural pictures at West
minister, blister, break into eruptiOns
and finally fall as dirt dust from tn
walls. On the contrary, with some feV
unimportant exceptions, chiefly Of work
, unprotected from the weather, frescoe
, in Germany after trial of more thal
twenty years remain sound and intact q
, if painted but yesterday. 1t will re
main a special honor to Dusseldorf tina
+ she has naturalized in Northern Europ
this ancient Italian mode of mura
| decoration.
Intellectual life in Dusseldorf seem
neither lower nor higher than at othe
centers where painters or sculptOrs con
, gregate Experience show that, whe
> an artist has worked hard during tn
morning, he surrenders the rest of tn
t day to play. We hear, however, q
certain literary and artistic associations
/ of pen and pencil clubs, wherein, as
| England pictorial, poetic, and plai
, prose products are criticised and dn
t eussed to the mutual edi6catiOn {
artists, authors, and hearers. 1t is sai'
moreover that aesthetics of the true tran
seepdentsl sort find entrance into sele,
: art eoteries, that speculative thougl
becomes crystalized into visible an
Y tangible form, aud SO in the end the ar
4 in Dusseldorf may be supposed to Tefie'
e even the abnormal phases of II
= national mind, Perhaps at any rate
may be conceded that pictures produce
$ within the last fifty years indicate thi
: the Dusseldorf school has been brougl
into contact with some of the best inte
!. leets of the age.