352 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



this method over genuine fresco (which consists in the application of 

 colors upon wet mortar) is its indestructibility ; the disadvantage, that 

 it has neither the charm of real fresco nor the depth and brilliancy of 

 oil painting. 



The subjects of the paintings at the New Museum are the Tower of 

 Babel, the Greek World, the Destruction of Jerusalem, the Battle of 

 the Huns, the Entry of the Crusaders into Jerusalem, and the Refor- 

 mation, of which the cartoon, exhibited at Paris in 1867, is now in 

 this country. In these six subjects, representing as many distinct 

 epochs, the painter intended to illustrate the development of civiliza- 

 tion. In the upper part of the Dispersion of the Races, the base of 

 the great Tower of Babel is half obliterated by the effulgence which 

 surrounds the Eternal, who scatters the sons of men over the face of 

 the earth. Below, in the middle distance, Nimrod sits defiantly upon a 

 throne, with priests beside him, and the dead and dying at his feet. 

 The foreground is filled with groups of Aryans, Semites, and Tou- 

 rauians, each starting on their appointed roads. Here are tbe nomads 

 of Arabia, with their flocks and herds ; the idolaters, with their stone 

 gods in whom they trust ; the men of war and the men of peace, 

 mingled together in a perplexed and confusing mass. Like the so- 

 called music of the Future, there is much noise and little melody ; a 

 pervading agitation which wearies us with its monotony. To describe 

 the other compositions woidd necessitate a repetition of the same criti- 

 cisms. In all we find the same want of unity, the same arbitrary 

 connection of things, the same detached and struggling groups ; in 

 all the same proof of laborious research and wonderful intellectual 

 ability. Clever draughtsman, subtle thinker, deep student as he was, 

 Kaulbach was not an artist in the higher sense of the word ; that is, he 

 was not a man in whom aesthetic perceptions were dominant. He neither 

 soared into the region of the ideal, nor stood firmly on the solid gi'ound 

 of the real, but occupied a sort of cold middle ground, which satisfies 

 neither the imagination nor the reason. He was a designer, and, as he 

 has shown us in his admirable illustrations to " Reynard the Fox," a 

 satirist of no common order. As such, he has been compared to 

 Hogarth, of whose works we are told he was a great student, but this 

 we hardly think just to Hogarth, who dealt with the vices and follies 

 of the men and women of his time in sixch a masterly manner. In his 

 illustrations to Reynard Kaulbach masks his meaning, and whips man- 

 kind over the backs of beasts, both great and small. He amuses us, 

 calls forth our api^lause at his subtle rendering of his themes, but he 

 never touches us like Hogarth, for he works with his brain rather than 



