142 
PETER VON CORNELIUS. 
[Nature and Art, May 1, 1867. 
Villa Bartoldi, and had to thank the Prussian 
.Consul-General, whose residence that villa was, 
and the Prussian Ambassador, Niebuhr, for patron- 
age and influence kindly exerted. The Crown 
Prince of Bavaria was able to bestow upon the 
rising painter a more substantial reward than any 
he had before received. This royal German, being 
greatly impressed with the promise Cornelius 
showed, proposed to carry him off to Munich to 
decorate the favourite city, — the greatest and most 
costly “ Ludwig’s Lust.” At first Cornelius hesi- 
tated — he doubted, perhaps, whether he had been 
long enough in Pome ; — but evidently this was 
such an opportunity as might not occur again. It 
was well to take it while it offered, and Cornelius 
decided to do so. He had looked with no exclusive 
eye upon classic art ; but he knew that Italy was 
the best school for him, — the school in which lessons 
varied and valuable might best be learned. For 
there, in Italy, on ground that is dear to both, the 
lover of the mediseval meets the lover of the an- 
tique : the heroic painter may there learn tender- 
ness ; the religious painter, strength. Cornelius 
had, on the whole, profited by the time he had 
spent in Rome ; and he was full loth to leave it. 
It may be, however, that he left it just at the right 
moment. Had he stayed longer, he might have lost 
that German character which some of his best works 
— his best of all indeed — now possess. Looking at 
the gigantic attempts to reproduce the form and 
presence of the antique, made when Cornelius went 
to Munich, immediately after his residence in Rome, 
one is inclined to think that he did not return to 
Germany too soon. 
In the Bavarian capital there was much to be 
done. The decoration of two large halls in the 
Glyptothek was confided to Cornelius. One of 
them is styled the Hall of the Heroes ; the othei', 
the Hall of the Gods. The compositions placed by 
the painter in both are intensely classical, using 
the word rather Avith reference to form and letter 
than to the spirit, and not exactly in the sense in 
which one Avould say that the compositions of 
Ingres are classical. The German painter Avas 
more successful when he took Michael Angelo for 
his model, and did for the Ludwig’s Kirche at 
Munich what had been done for the Sistine Chapel. 
“ God the Creator” and “Christ the Judge” — two 
great compositions in this Munich Church — are 
works which Avill do very much to perpetuate the 
painter’s fame. They are two, and by far the most 
important, of a great series illustrating the Chris- 
tian creed. “Christ the Judge” is perhaps the 
noblest of his efforts. Never Avas he more ambi- 
tious than in planning this Avork ; and if, when Ave 
have admired the correctness of the drawing, and 
the dramatic expression of the whole, we stop to 
notice the crudeness of its colour, our respect for 
the painter should not be lessened. His attain- 
ment was high ; but his attempt Avas higher. And 
this is right. For in all art, 
“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what’s a Heaven for ?” 
Fifteen or twenty years were occupied upon the 
decoration of Munich. Besides the frescoes in the 
Glyptothek, and the great compositions in the 
Church of Ludwig, there Avas executed by Cor- 
nelius, in the Pinakotliek, a great work illustrative 
of the history of art. When all these things Avere 
done, the artist took some leisure, and visited 
Paris and London. Another great opportunity 
Avas soon to fall into his hands ; and that was a 
commission from the King of Prussia to compose a 
“ Christian Picture Cycle ” for the decoration of 
the Campo Santo or Royal Mausoleum, destined to 
form one of the Avings of the neAv cathedral. “ The 
Four Riders of the Apocalypse” — one of the de- 
signs executed for this place of burial — is one of 
the most characteristic of Cornelius’s works ; per- 
haps the most powerful of all. It is not beautiful; 
it is not attractive ; it would never be popular 
Avith the admirers of conventional sentiment, bor- 
rowed graces, and namby-pamby mediocrity. But 
it is strikingly original. It is a thoroughly Ger- 
man work. The weird poAverof the North is in it. 
In painting it, Cornelius went back to the early 
traditions ; and the spirit of his own race nerved 
him for the task. There is something of a savage 
strength about it ; but instead of its being the work 
of an untutored mind, the brain that conceived it, 
and the hand that wrought it, had learned lessons 
enough from the masters of old days, and were but 
noAv drawing forth from the sources Avhich had 
always been within the artist himself. 
We have briefly spoken of the chief Avorks of 
Cornelius. Only the barest record of his life is it 
uoav possible to give. He died at a ripe old age, 
when he had gained the love of many, and the 
respect of all. Members of his school are scattered 
over Europe ; some of them famous already. Even 
in England his influence is not unfelt. Through- 
out his career Cornelius Avas a prophet Avho was by 
no means without honour in his oavii country. 
Bavaria and Prussia loaded him Avith rewards ; 
and, so long ago as 1838, he had the satisfaction to 
knoAv, by his election as a Foreign Member of the 
Institute of France, that he was duly esteemed in 
that land from whose verdict on art questions there 
is, in these days, no appeal. 
