PARK AND CEMRTE:RY 
358 
rondes and dan- 
ces, their mockery 
of their ecclesias- 
t i c a 1 superiors 
and of their grim 
Host himself, or 
as the pious and 
frequent visits of 
the Mussulmans, 
with their expia- 
tory sacrifices and 
feasts, or even as 
the observances 
of the All Saints’ 
Day of the devout 
Catholics. He is 
no nearer the cre- 
dulity of the Bre- 
ton peasant who 
fears to mourn 
too bitterly over 
the grave of the 
beloved lest his tears should disturb the dead be- 
low than he is to the faith of the true believer who 
constructs his funeral vault large enough for the dead 
to sit up in on the first night of his interment to an- 
swer the searching questions of the two angels who 
visit him, Munkar and Neeker. Therefore the in- 
centive, the inspiration, that the artist or the architect 
finds in this rendering of the last tribute to those gone 
before must proceed on different lines. 
The Germans, who seem to welcome a much greater 
originality, which is frequently even most grotesque and 
uncouth in our eyes, in their contemporary art — paint- 
ing, sculpture, architecture and interior domestic dec- 
oration — than we can bring ourselves to on this side 
of the water, have of late years devoted much atten- 
tion to their funerary monuments. The very import- 
ant national monuments erected recently to some of 
their great men, Bismarck and Wagner among others, 
have brought forth in connection with much that is 
commonplace, designs that frequently reveal a sense of 
style, of solemn dignity, and this quality has also ap- 
peared in much of their stone work for private ceme- 
teries. So simple and severe are the lines of these 
vaults, tombstones and enclosing walls, in fact, that 
they frequently convey the impression of having been 
designed in children’s building blocks. For the im- 
portant Wagner monument in Berlin many designs 
were exhibited ; in most of them the great composer 
was represented as seated, more or less comfortably, in 
a species of heavy arm chair, wearing a modification of 
his modern costume, sometimes before a single low 
arch or a species of arcade, sometimes with an at- 
tendant Muse standing beside him. One of the most 
original models by Sculptor Hermann Hidding, 
represented him as standing by a mounted Valkyrie, 
or Victory, who seemed to be about to lift him before 
her on her heavy long-maned and tailed horse and 
bear him away to Valhalla. Still more vast and im- 
posing were the models and designs for the great Bis- 
marck monument on the Stanbergersee, the same gen- 
eral motif of exceedingly simple and severe lines and 
large moldings being generally preserved. 
A German sculptor, Hermann Obrist, has executed 
some remarkable gravestones, recently exhibited in 
Berlin, in one of which realism is carried so far that 
we see the dead man, very robust and muscular, 
struggling up from the stone, having emerged as 
far as the waist and then falling forward on his face. 
Another example, much less disquieting, is a double 
headstone for two graves side by side, the common 
enclosure being surrounded by a very low parapet of 
dressed stone and the two headpieces, very heavily 
backed and rising at a slope, are crowned by some 
heavy, roughly modelled mouldings, the projection of 
which make niches deep in shadow on the upper parts 
of the slabs. On the plain slab which separates the 
two bearing inscriptions is a projecting bracket which 
contains the earth for a little tuft of ferns or other 
plants, and at the bases of the slabs are two more 
brackets or vases also carrying living greenery which 
throws its delicate shadows on the heavy stone and 
breaks up the severe lines with its own fragile ones. 
A modification of this arrangement of permanent re- 
ceptacles for flowering or other plants on the head- 
stones might give charming results. In another piece 
of executed work by the architect Paul Mobius, the 
head wall for the small enclosure is very heavy and 
imposing and against it the low marble tomb and the 
still lower stone divi- 
sions of the enclosure 
abut. In the center this 
wall rises to almost 
monumental height, 
pierced by two sym- 
metrical upright open- 
ings and relieved by 
simple and very heavy, 
almost rude and bar- 
baric, mouldings. The 
effect, as we have said, 
i s very common i n 
modern German mor- 
tuary work. The dip- 
ping curves of the up- 
per line of this monu- 
ment are leveled b y 
straight lines of iron or 
bronze railing — which 
is not to be commend- 
ed. In another of Ob- 
FROM DEUTSCHES STEINBILOHAUER-JOURNAL. 
A GERMAN MONUMENT OP 'WAR- 
SAW’ SANDSTONE WITH IN- 
SCRIPTION TABLET OF BLACK 
MARBLE. 
'•i 
A FRENCH MILITARY MON- 
UMENT. 
