THE MONUMENTAL NEWS. 
J20 
SIMPLE METAL CROSS IN MODEL 
GERMAN CEMETERY. 
Section of Exhibit of Cemetery Art 
in Berlin. 
when thus conceived are such prod- 
ucts deserving of the name of works 
of art, be they simple or elaborate, 
cheap or expensive. Haphazard play 
with meretricious scrawls and orna- 
ments composed of different archi-_ 
tectural units is crude and barbarous 
style. They use allegorical figures 
only sparingly, unless the person for 
whom the work is intended is imbued 
with a sense of their appropriateness. 
The style and size of a tombstone, 
and more especially its height, must 
always be adapted to the conception 
of the entire tomb or burial place, 
and these factors should, moreover, 
be determined by the style of the 
adjoining graves and of all the sur- 
roundings. “Order in itself is beauty,” 
is the motto of the designer of the 
Munich cemeteries, “Batirat” Hans 
Graessel, has had this for his 
guiding principle in the laying out of 
the new Forest Cemetery, in which 
only tombs of similar style are al- 
lowed side by side. All persons select 
the resting place for their dead in 
accordance with the style of the mon- 
ument they wish to erect over their 
graves, be it a horizontal slab, a stone 
of greater or lesser height, a cross or 
a wroHght iron tablet or slab of 
painted wood. It is this regard for 
the beauty of the whole which makes 
the most beautiful cemeteries, even 
those of olden times, so deeply im- 
pressive, such as, for instance, St. 
John’s Cemetery (“Johanneskirch- 
hof”_), in Nuremberg, with its wide, 
silent burial places covered with hori- 
zontal memorial slabs. Such a system 
prevents the individual from indulg- 
ing his vanity at the expense of his 
neighbors. In the Munich cemeteries, 
moreover, the uniform slanting 
mounds, as well as railings around 
individual graves, are prohibited in 
order to allow each grave to become 
a part of the general plan. Large 
burial plots are, however, in some in- 
stances, enclosed by hedges of ever- 
green, as was the custom in times of 
old. 
The artist often tries to conceive 
special shapes for his work, in cases, 
for instance, where it is possible to 
combine in a natural manner a pedes- 
tal or vase for flowering' plants with 
the’ monument proper, or where a 
place can be provided for suspending 
a wreath. Such attempts, however, 
should l)e free from artificiality. 
The works of art exhibited here, 
considered either individually or in 
connection with their surroundings, 
are materially different from the style 
of memorial ornamentation generally 
found in German cemeteries. Visitors 
looked in vain for the obelisks, trun- 
cated columns, crosses and tree 
trunks, the “stone business cards,” 
with which manufacturers and deal- 
ers are flooding the German ceme- 
teries, towns and villages. Those who 
make up their mind to give attention 
to artistic features will soon observe 
the thoughtless conception, the pau- 
city of design, the marks of machine- 
made work which generally character- 
ize these products. Even the material 
most generally used, i. e., polished 
granite, or syenite, the German artists 
believe to be an enemy to artistic 
tone and effect. They maintain that 
the garish, polished surfaces and sharp 
edges, the dreary greyish black tint 
can never harmonize with the foliage 
and the landscape, and that they make 
cold, ostentatious monuments. In his 
first preliminary essay on monumental 
art for cemeteries, Franz Schumacher 
writes of these products that “the ma- 
terial is supposed to take the place of 
heart and sentiment.” The erection 
of polished tombstones is absolutely 
prohibited in the Munich Forest Cem- 
etery. 
Instead of using the costly granite, 
generally imported from Sweden, and 
defraying the still larger expense of 
polishing it, they encourage the use 
of a large variety of durable domes- 
tic rock of different shades and sur- 
faces, such as limestones, German 
marbles, shell limestones, as well as — 
for use in the right places— sandstone 
etc., as shown at this exposition. 
Their moderate price makes it easily 
possible to furnish, within the limits 
of tlie usual cost of these cemetery 
stones, an up-to-date piece of handi- 
craft which may be made a genuine 
personal expression. 
Berlin. ' Peter Jessen. 
SIMPLE ARTISTIC HEADSTONE AND SECTION OF CEMETERY. 
View in German Exposition of Cemetery Art in Berlin. 
