Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, Vol. 2 (of 3): With Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected — John Shaqi
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
And there--O sweet and sacred be the name!
Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gave
Her youth to Heaven; her heart beneath a claim
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.
LORD BYRON.
"I always avoid emblematical and allegorical figures, wherever it is
possible, for they are cold and arbitrary, and do not speak to the
heart!" said M. de Klenze, perceiving how much I was charmed with the
idea of thus personifying the womanly virtues.
The paintings round the room are from the poems of Klopstock, and
executed by Wilhelm Kaulbach, an excellent artist. Only the frieze is
finished. It consists of a series of twelve compartments: three on each
side of the room, and divided from each other by two boys of colossal
size, grouped as Caryatides, and in very high relief. These compartments
represent the various scenes of the Herman-Schlacht; the sacrifices of
the Druids; the adieus of the women; the departure of the warriors;
the fight with Varus; the victory; the return of Herman to his wife
Thusnelda, &c.
Herman, or, as the Roman historians call him, Arminius, was a chieftain
of the Cheruscans, a tribe of northern Germany. After serving in Illyria,
and there learning the Roman arts of warfare, he came back to his native
country, and fought successfully for its independence. He defeated,
beside a defile near Detmold, in Westphalia, the Roman legions under
the command of Varus, with a slaughter so mortifying, that the proconsul
is said to have killed himself, and Augustus to have received the
news of the catastrophe with indecorous expressions of grief. It is
this defeat of Varus which forms the theme of one of Klopstock's
chorus-dramas, entitled, "The Battle of Herman." The dialogue is concise
and picturesque; the characters various, consistent, and energetic; a
lofty colossal frame of being belongs to them all, as in the paintings
of Caravaggio. To Herman, the disinterested zealot of patriotism and
independence, a preference of importance is wisely given; yet, perhaps,
his wife Thusnelda acts more strongly on the sympathy by the enthusiastic
veneration and affection she displays for her hero-consort.[6]
V. Saloon, or drawing-room. The paintings from Wieland, by Eugene
Neureuther, (already known in England by his beautiful arabesque
illustrations of Goethe's ballads.) The frieze only of this room, which
is from the Oberon, is in progress.
VI. The queen's bedroom. The paintings from Goethe, and chiefly by
Kaulbach. The ceiling is exquisite, representing in compartments various
scenes from Goethe's principal lyrics; the Herman and Dorothea; Pausias
and Glycera, &c., intermixed with the most rich and elegant ornaments in
relief.
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