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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[October, 



(•Lilly correct — the whole is moulded with more than ordinary care. 

 The integuments and the muscles have the soft and relaxed ap])ear- 

 ance belonging to a dead body, but the pecloralis, the dd/oides and the 

 Ixcejjs arc a little too rounded, and appear like muscles developed by 

 manual labour; however the thighs and legs are sufficiently delicate — 

 yet the appearance of the body strike one as too plethoric. The 

 contour of the face, and the high forehead have the usual traditional 

 diaracter, such is employed in pourtraying the Saviour. The coun- 

 tejiance is certainly divine, and its expression seems relaxed into the 

 cold but placid sleep of death. 



The head drooping on the left shoulder gives a lifeless appearance 

 to the body, and materially assists the compositions. The right arm 

 hangs nerveless from the trunk, and the bended fingers on which it 

 rests have the stitRiess of death itself. The graceful sway of the 

 body, and the right leg bent under the left, is well conceived, breaking 

 as it does the uniformity of the lines of the composition. The shelving 

 rock on which the body reclines is calculated to display its form to 

 tlie best possible advantage ; the dark shadows detach the contour 

 from the ground, and a broad light shows the figure off with the greatest 

 effect. I'he drapery on which the body reposes is admirable. 



The drapery also of the figure of the Virgin is disposed with judg- 

 ment, the style is grand, and the execution shows great talent, — the 

 action of the body and limbs is consistent, but the figure has more 

 dignity than grace. The expression of the face is perhaps a little 

 forced for the grave character of sculpture ; it however is significant, 

 alii reminds us of the Niobe. 



In the composition we remark that all the lines are skilfully con- 

 trasted, there is nothing angular or obtuse, each figure forming a 

 pyramidal outline, and the whole group falling within the limits of an 

 equilateral triangle. In short the composition generally considered is 

 both grand and novel, a masterpiece of art, and reflects the greatest 

 honour on its designer. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS IX. 



I must have liberty 

 Withal, as large a charter as the winds, 

 To blow on whom 1 please. 



J. What the Eglintoun mummery may have cost I have not heard, 

 nor do I pretend to guess ; but if newspapers are of unimpeachable 

 veracity 1200/. were expended on the temporary pavilion alone, for 

 the late Dover festival. Well what is that to me? Nothing, still it 

 is a very great deal indeed to m, since such prodigal expenditure for 

 the hurried, feverish festivity of a few hours, contrasts most strikingly 

 with not the economy, but the downright shabbiness and penuriousness 

 oil occasions where even extravagance would be meritorious. If a 

 public edifice that ought to be an ornament and honour to the country is 

 to be erected, it must be pared down, denuded, impoverished in order 

 to make a beggarly saving that would be swallowed up in a single 

 public dinner. Did not the matchless Lawrence collection of drawings 

 absolutely go a beggmg, though offered at little more than half of what 

 Messrs Woodburn are now likely to make by the dispersion of them, 

 not because there are no persons in this country who could afford to 

 make such an acquisition, but because they are destitute of spirit or 

 taste, if not both! Was it our poverty or our apathy that prevented 

 us from being now in possession of the Egina marbles ? If we really 

 caraiot afford to be liberal towards art, at all events we might be con- 

 sistently frugal and parsimonious, — which however is what we are not, 

 but rather totally the reverse, — alternately spend thrifty, and penurious, 

 with no other sort of consistency than that of being egregiously absurd, 

 let us be what we may. For some fete or /cat of tomfoolery — the 

 second term is as applicab'e as the first — tens of thousands are con- 

 sidered a mere bagatelle ; no cost is grudged, no estimate required on 

 such occasions ; but if it is for any thing more lasting, John Bull be- 

 comes wonderfully prudent, begins bargaining and cheapening, and cal- 

 cidates how many odd sixpences he has in his pocket to go towards 

 t\\ejob. 



II. Bargains in art generally turn out like most other bargains to be 

 confoundedly dear in the end. John Bull, however, or those who have 

 the laying out of John's cash, do not think so ; as would plainly appear 

 were any one to write the secret history of some of our buildings ; — 

 Buckingham Palace, to wit, which with most transparent kind of make- 

 believe, it was pretended was to be nothing more than an alteration of 

 Buckinham House. Wliat is the consequence i why all that has be'en 

 expended upon it, — which is something more than a bagatelle, has, as 



far as art is concerned, been utterly flung away. Instead of having 

 any thing to be proud of, we have a good deal to be ashamed of. 

 Theodore Hook says no, but in spite of ten Theodore Hooks, I main- 

 tain yes. Then there was — most blessed past time ! there ivas, Kew 

 Palace : wdiat was expended on that mass of cockneyism in stone and 

 mortar, I know not: — that whatever it was was all thrown away, is what 

 we all know. Then there was Carlton House, of which the only re- 

 deeming part, outside or in was, the portico : all the inside especially 

 was costly paltriness, or if to paltriness there might be here and there 

 an exception, it was only where there was some prettiness ; for every- 

 where there was the stamp of littleness. The Hall was any thing but 

 princely in its taste or style, therefore it was rather a Lilleputhian 

 compliment — quite a minikin one when on entering the hall at Holk- 

 ham, the Prince assured the present Earl of Leicester, that what he 

 beheld quite eclipsed Carlton House. And yet it may fairly be ques- 

 tioned whether the sums expended from time to time in altering, re- 

 furnishing, &c. would not have built and furnished two such palaces 

 as Holkham is. It has been said that George IV. was a liberal patron 

 of the arts ; it is impossible to add that he was an intelligent one also. 

 To say the truth it jjuzzles me to understand how he ever got the re- 

 putation of a patron of art at all, since every one of whom 1 have at 

 times inquired have been puzzled to explain, or even to bring forward a 

 single instance to show that he really was one. Hardly can his proteclion 

 towards such a piece of coxcomb mediocrity as Cosway be cited in proof 

 of it ; — indeed if all stories be true, lie liked Cosway as a mere con- 

 venience. Or hardly can his putting imjilicit confidence in such a 

 person as Nash — but hold .' I must beware of T/ie Hook. 

 — Yet hold again, I cannot forbear hooking on to this section an epi- 

 gram which I have somewhere met with, and must now trust to me- 

 mory for repeating as correctly as I can. 



'Twixt Florence and London the difference is this. 



Nor think that I speak it iu malice : 

 The first has tlie palace that Pitti is call'd, 



The second — the Pitiful palace. 



Theodore likes a joke : so there is one for him. 



III. Festina leute seems to be the motto of the architect of the Bri- 

 tish Museum, at least of his employers, since it is now more than 

 twenty years that that building has been in progress, and it threatens 

 to linger on full another twenty years before it is completed ; whereas 

 within the last ten or twelve, about as many buildings have been begun 

 and completed at Munich, almost any one of which would throw all 

 ours into the shade. In comparison with the apartments of the Gly- 

 ptotheca the sculpture rooms at the British Museum, may be said to 

 be only whitewashed walls. In comparison with the Pinacotheca our 

 National Gallery is a mere cheese-paring affair, — and even the facade 

 little better than a moonshine imitation of Greek architecture, bare 

 and unfinished in all but the columns ; while as to the interior- — why ! 

 the loggie alone of the Munich gallery, with its five and twenty domes 

 and lunettes, presenting a display of fresco painting, about four hundred 

 feet in extent, — though in itself only an accessory portion of the building, 

 causes ours to look nobetter than a set of auctioneers' show-rooms in com- 

 parison. Not to be tedious, but passing over the Kiinigsbau, the Festbau , 

 the arcades and frescos of the Hof-garten, the Ludwigs-kirche, the Public 

 Library, &c. &c. to come to the Allerheiligan Kapelle — an edifice be- 

 gun antl completed within ten years — years, too, during which so many 

 other important buildings were in progress, not to include among them, 

 the Walhalla, or the restorations and embellishments of the Regens- 

 burg Minster, — yet that one is constellation of art. What magnifi- 

 cence ! — above, below, around — no matter where you look or wdiere 

 you tread, the whole is gorgeous, but its gorgeousness is majestic and 

 solemn, — solemn is perhaps too weak a term, for there is a sort of 

 severe and awe inspiring pomp, approaching to sublimity, both in the 

 architectecture and the painting. Perhaps Jits character may be best 



expressed in the words of my friend , who calls it a transfiguration 



of a building. What a blaze of gold is the entire siu'face which serves 

 as a ground to the figures painted in fresco on the domes, the large 

 arches, vaults, and all along the upper part of the walls. Unnatural ! 

 it will be said : true ; and it is precisely this unnaturalness that gives 

 propriety and architectonic fitness to the painting as decoration, just 

 as it is precisely the splendour of the gold ground that imparts not 

 gaiety but dignity and solemn richness to this unparalleled interior. 

 Infinitely more unnatural and contradictory, would any more positive 

 and imitative mode of painting be, however ably it might be executed. 

 This doctrine is, it must be owned, far more suited to the meridian of 

 Munich than of London. It would be very foolish for the lovers of 

 matter-of-fact painting to make a pilgrimage to the capital of Bavaria 

 to behold what has there been done in fresco-painting. It is rumoured 

 that Leo von Klenze, the celebrated Munich architect, — at whom, by 

 the bye, Joseph Gwilt turns up his nose, is commissioned to prepare 



