_The Triumph of Religion_[11] I have known for more than a quarter of a century, and have heard much of its profundity, spiritualism, and symbolism. But no critic will assign to the picture the first rank among works of creative reason and imagination; the comparison has inevitably been instituted with Raphael's _Disputa_, in the Vatican, to which it is confessedly inferior. Historically, it finds a place sufficiently honourable by the side of Francia and Pinturicchio. Its avowed merits are considerable; its very scale and the vastness of the labour give importance; the canvas extends to a breadth and height of about fifteen feet. The composition, if not bold or masterly, is careful and thoughtful, the drawing scholastic; the heads are wrought as biographic studies, the draperies cast into balanced harmonies. The execution is steady, without show or fling; the colour, as always, is the reverse of alluring: Venetian splendours are eschewed in favour of pigments thin, dull, and crude. Yet the technique has usual soundness; the materials stand firm and unchanged. The picture has the advantage of a commanding position in the handsome new gallery in Frankfort, and, notwithstanding its defects and shortcomings, must be accounted as among the most memorable achievements of the century. Overbeck made _The Triumph of Religion_ a propaganda of his pictorial faith, and wrote his explanatory text for the special benefit of young painters. The document concludes with the following emphatic and affectionate appeal: "And now, my dear young friend and brother artist, so ardently striving to excel in the Fine Arts, I have placed a picture before you in which you may wander as in a garden. Here you see all the great masters: behold how the future lies spread before you, like the bright distance in this picture, so that you may be encouraged thereby in your noble task. Strive to approach the great masters with all the powers of your mind, but know that you can only reach their eminence by steadily keeping in view the goal which I have endeavoured in this painting to place before you. Several of the artists here assembled may serve as warnings to you: the Venetians went astray as soon as they made colouring the principal object of attraction, and so by degrees they sank in sensuality. The effeminate Correggio proceeded in this career at a more rapid rate, until he had cast aside every restraint of modesty and morality, and gave himself up to unbridled voluptuousness.[12] Michael Angelo set up the antique as an object of idolatry, and Raphael was tempted to taste the forbidden fruit, and so the sin of apostasy in the fine arts became manifest. In after times, indeed, various attempts have been made to elevate the arts; but as no remedy was applied to the source of the evil, the result proved on the whole unsuccessful. This is also the reason why none of the celebrated masters of late times have been introduced into our painting.[13] In conclusion, you may