Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, Vol. 2 (of 3): With Tales and Miscellanies Now First CollectedJameson, Mrs. (Anna)
History
Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, Vol. 2 (of 3): With Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Germany -- Description and travel
On the whole, however, it may truly be said that the luxuriant and
appropriate decorations of this gallery, the variety of colour and
ornament lavished on it, agreeably prepare the eye and the imagination
for that glorious feast of beauty within, to which we are immediately
introduced: and thus the overture to the Zauberflöte, (which we heard
last night,) with its rich involved harmonies, its brilliant and
exciting movements, attuned the ear and the fancy to enjoy the grand,
thrilling, bewitching, love-breathing melodies of the opera which
followed.
I omitted to mention that there are also on the upper floor of the
Pinakothek two rooms, each about forty feet square; one called the
_Reserve-Saal_, is intended for the reception of those pictures which
are temporarily removed from their places, new acquisitions, &c.
The other room is fitted up with every convenience for students and
copyists.
The whole of this immense edifice is warmed throughout by heated air;
the stoves being detached from the body of the building, and so managed
as to preclude the possibility of danger from fire.
It does not appear to be yet decided whether the floors will be of the
Venetian stucco, or of parquet.
Such, then, is the general plan of the Pinakothek, the national gallery
of Bavaria. I make no comment, except that I felt and recognised in
every part the presence of a directing mind, and the absence of all
narrow views, all truckling to the interests, or tastes, or prejudices,
or convenience, of any particular class of persons. It is very possible
that when finished it will be found by scientific critics not absolutely
_perfect_, which, as we know, all human works are at least intended and
expected to be; but it is equally clear that an honest anxiety for the
glory of art, and the benefit of the public--not the caprices of the
king, nor the individual vanity of the architect--has been the moving
principle throughout.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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