170 Hints on Landscape Gardening 



Schinkel's name is renowned, it is true, and 

 becomes more so every day, yet to the general 

 public only his architectural achievements are 

 known, far less the extraordinary universality of 

 his genius, that native artistic force, which in 

 every branch of art is entirely at home, and 

 which can animate the rigid stone to make the 

 grandest architectural monuments, can in sculp- 

 ture find the most manifold subjects for its exer- 

 cise, and can conjure on canvas with ready hand 

 the most impressive pictures. 



I feel impelled to say a few words concerning 

 one of the most marvelous compositions in the 

 latter art, pictures which in my opinion have 

 not since the time of Raphael perhaps been 

 vouchsafed to genius. And although my remarks 

 are really foreign to the matter of this book 

 (which is less ambitious in its aim), yet perhaps 

 they may not be quite unprofitable or quite un- 

 welcome to many. 



I am speaking of those grandiose and profound 

 poems, destined for the wall of the museum in 

 Berlin, which have aroused the greatest attention 

 and enthusiasm of all artists in our country, and 

 whose completion for some unknown reason is 

 still postponed. Yet we may with confidence 

 hope that the magnificence of our King, to 

 whom native art already owes so much, since he 

 has provided for his people something to look at 

 for centuries to come, will not withhold forever 

 from the most intellectual section such a rich 

 mine of instruction and pleasure. A few pious 



