Berlin Palace Museum

“ The crowning excellence of all the Royal Art Collections is their singular method and completeness. The Old Museum, especially, in its arrangement and illustration of the history of painting in all schools, is without a peer, and it is particularly rich in the early Italian masters. The National Gallery in London has been compared in arrangement with the Berlin Museum, but our observation showed nowhere else in Europe so great facility for systematic study of art as here. ”

“ Hedwig, with its dome in imitation of the Pantheon, its Latin cross and window arches beaming in pale yellow, made a fine background for the only unilluminated building, the palace of the Emperor. From the Opera House, the Arsenal, and the University, crowns and elaborate designs were burning, yet unconsumed. Most elaborately decorated of all Berlin buildings was the Academy of Arts and Sciences, opposite the Imperial Palace, with colossal warriors in bronze keeping guard at its portals, and the Angel of Peace laying a laurel wreath on the altar of Fatherland as its decorative centre-piece. ”

“ So clearly has the Museum come to be understood at Berlin as a kind of art-history branch of a university, that a portion of the funds devoted to it is annually spent upon the publication of a periodical universally recognized as the leading magazine in the [110] world devoted to the history of art. By means of it, students in all countries are informed from year to year of the new acquisitions and discoveries made by the staff of the Museum, or by the leading authors and students of the subject, of all nationalities. ”

“ Hyde Park, St. James, the Parliament buildings, and Westminster Abbey far finer on a sunny morning; but the third city in Europe has no need to be ashamed of its royal buildings and the scene before them, in the season when the Court is in Berlin, and the slant rays of an early afternoon sun light up the gay throng of soldiers in uniform, State carriages, pedestrians, and vehicles which surge to and fro without crowding the vast spaces.
The Lustgarten is fine; but of the buildings around it, the Old Museum alone meets [182] the eye with architectural satisfaction. ”

“ The marble bust is in the Berlin Museum. A copy in bronze is on the staircase of the Royal Theatre, Berlin.]
325. Leo von Klenze. Architect.
[Born at Hildesheim, in Hanover, 1784. Still living.]
The architect, in Munich, of “The Glyptothek,” and the constructor of many works, Royal and otherwise, in the same city. Also the designer of the plans for the “Walhalla.” Author of some literary productions bearing upon his art. In 1844, accompanied Ludwig I. to Greece to examine the plans already made for the improvement of Athens, and to suggest original designs. ”

“ The present-day Germans do take themselves so seriously and from many points of view with good reason, too.
I don’t know where in Europe, outside of Paris, if even there, you will see a better-kept city. It is so clean and spruce and fresh that it is a joy to walk there—anywhere. Mile after mile of straight, imposing streets greet your gaze. Berlin needs a great Pantheon, an avenue such as Unter den Linden lined with official palaces (not shops) , and unquestionably a magnificent museum of art—I mean a better building. ”

“ One of the worst examples of this fault is in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. As we have saidelsewhere, the museum is so situated that it can never grow. Under the circumstances one would expect every available inch of space to be used for exhibition purposes, but, alas, two enormous staircases, one at either end of the building, absorb much useful exhibition space. Had the architect been willing to do without the huge structure in the front of the building he would have gained a large amount of space. ”

“ They began to build the King's castle, and its architect, Schluter, ornamented it with so many garlands, that its walls could not be seen beneath them.
Berlin had then the beginnings of a great city; it wanted only life and people. A theatre, library, and museum were hurriedly built, and filled as they could with what they could. In the meantime they did not spend their gold in manufacturing porcelain; they purchased soldiers instead, paying their weight in gold for them. ”

“ To crown all, the schools and University at Berlin were magnificently supplemented in the great Museum, a vast collection, where one might study the rise and progress of civilisation in every race of past ages that has had a history, the present condition of perhaps every people, civilised or wild, under the sun. ”

“ The New Museum, connected by a colonnade with the Old, is not, like it, remarkable for architectural beauty; but its vast collections, especially in marble, already need and [106] are to have a new building. The masterpieces of ancient sculpture gathered at Munich, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Naples, and elsewhere, are here reproduced in casts, making up a collection said to be, in its way, unrivalled in the world. The collection of originals in Renaissance sculpture is also extensive and valuable. ”

“ More than three thousand persons moved gayly through these royal saloons, odorous with the perfume of flowers, glittering with wax- lights, the glimmer of diamonds, and rich gold and silver embroideries—nothing was to be seen but ravishing toilets and happy faces. All the beauty, youth, rank, fame, and worth of Berlin were assembled at the palace; and behind these lovely ladies and glittering cavaliers, the wondering, gaping crowd, of common men, moved slowly onward, dumb with amazement and delight. The king had commanded that no well-dressed person should be denied entrance to the castle. ”

“ Play with shadows by adults might be dwelt upon. With us it is hardly more than trivial amusement for an idle company, but among other peoples it becomes much more important, as witness the highly interesting silhouettes hanging in the Berlin Museum. ”

“ The gallery as a whole has been happily arranged, and there are few great painters of whom it does not contain one or more examples. The Kunst-gewerbe museum, at the corner of the Königgrätzer-strasse and Albrecht-strasse, contains valuable specimens of applied art.
Theatres.—In nothing has the importance of Berlin become more conspicuous than in theatrical affairs. ”

“ Miles of business thoroughfares showed glittering and artistic arrangements in the shop windows; nearly every one having its picture, bust, or statue of the Emperor,—some with most elaborate and expensive designs. Between ten and eleven A.M. the deputations from the Universities passed through Unter den Linden, making a daylight parade but little inferior to that of the evening before. The dense throng immediately closed in after the procession, but by great efforts the mounted police cleared a passage for the State carriages to the palace of the Emperor. ”

“ Both are surrounded by excellent accessories in marble and fresco, and it is a place where one gladly lingers long. The great avenue leading from the palace to the mausoleum has ivy-mantled trunks of giant trees for sentinels, and greensward and forest on either hand make a quiet which beseems one of the loveliest of resting-places for the dead. It was here that King William came to pray, beside the tomb of the mother who had suffered so much at the hands of the First Napoleon, on the eve of going out to the war with Napoleon III. ”

“ It is at some little distance from the hotel, and the walk led us through the best part of Berlin. The building itself is beautiful; the grand circular hall by which you reach the statue-gallery, and which again you look down upon from the open gallery that leads to the pictures, surpasses in elegance and space anything I have ever seen, except in the Vatican. At once we rushed among the pictures—our only inducement, except curiosity to see a renowned capital city, to visit Berlin. The gallery is admirably arranged in schools, and the pictures have an excellent light on them ”

“ The old Museum at Berlin was more imposing with its eighteen columns in a single line than the British Museum with its forty-four in different lines projecting at the centre and the ends; and with a colonnade the whole width of Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery might not have been unworthy of its site. At the Imperial Institute there is a tower in the middle and a tower near each end. The towers would be commendable, if they stood out alone; but the main building detracts from their effect of height, and they detract from its effect of breadth: and this is waste. ”

“ At a short distance from this line are the new town-hall, the mint, the imperial bank and the royal theatre. Berlin differs from all other great capitals in this respect that with the exception of the royal palace, which dates from the 16th century, all its public buildings are modern. ”

“ Petersburg, and Madrid still retain their original characteristics as collections made by persons of taste and discrimination. "The Berlin Gallery," says this writer, "is neither a storehouse nor a collection. It [109] stands on a footing of its own. The studious and organizing Prussian mind soon handed over the management of all its collections to a body of specialists, trained to study the objects in their keeping and to arrange them not so much for the delight as for the information of a studious public. ”

“ The third building in the group which holds the chief art treasures of Berlin is the National Gallery, its pictures partaking, as such a collection should, strongly of the German spirit as shown in modern German art. ”

“ Berlin has been termed a city built for effect, all that is exceedingly beautiful being concentrated in one focus. The palaces, museum, arsenal, opera-houses, some of the finest churches, and other magnificent buildings, are quite contiguous. The street on which they stand is at least two hundred feet wide, with four rows of linden trees running the entire length of it. ”

“ SOME GERMAN ART AND ARTISTS.
If it is true, as Emerson affirmed, that “It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being,” that “they come to serve his natural wants, never to please his fancy,” then Berlin offers in her new National Gallery a fine illustration of this theory. In 1841 King Frederick William IV engaged the architect Stüler to draw a plan of a building, after the style of a Corinthian temple, which should inclose a fine room, serviceable as a lecture hall for the University, an exhibition hall for pictures, or a public audience room. ”

“ The Emperor's idea, as he said himself, was to "make the Museums speak," to which a Berlin critic replied, "You can't dramatize a museum." The ballet, for it was that as well as a pantomime, engrossed the Emperor's time and attention for several weeks. He spent hours with the great authority on Assyriology, Professor Friedrich Delitzsch, going over reliefs and plans taken from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum or borrowed from museums in Paris, London, and Vienna, decided on the costumes and designed the war-chariots to be used in the ballet. ”

“ The ancient town-houses of North Germany most truly express the spirit of the old Hanse League; and the Rath-haus of Berlin, while keeping the spirit, adds the grand proportions and embellishments characteristic of the modern city. The interior apartments, including the Festival Hall, the Town Council-Room, and the Magistrates' Chamber, are elaborately adorned with historical frescos and statues, and the grand staircase has a finely vaulted ceiling and windows of stained glass filled with Prussian heraldry. A visit to this edifice by daylight gives one the fine view from the clock-tower ”

“ It may be added that there are plenty of things exhibited in this museum which the Germans themselves might study to advantage, for it must be understood that the other hygienic conditions pertaining to Berlin are by no means all on a par with the high modern standard of the sewerage system. In the matter of ventilation, for example, one may find admirable models in the museum, showing just how the dwelling and shop and school-room should make provision for a proper supply of pure air for their occupants. ”

“ Since we believe that it is impossible to defend on technical, political or moral grounds the decision to ship to this country two hundred internationally known and extremely valuable pictures belonging indisputably, by prewar gift or purchase, to German institutions, notably the Kaiser Friedrich Museum of Berlin, we propose to memorialize the President in a resolution to be signed by a group of like-minded people interested in or associated with the arts. ”

“ The walls of the building are of brick left in its natural colour. The lower and upper frame-work, the window-sashes, and the portals, are all of marble. The palace is partly surrounded by a gallery supported on marble columns. The stairs are of fine white marble, and many of the apartments are laid with this mineral. The interior is not nearly so luxurious as the other palaces.
This was the last of the sights I saw in Potsdam or the environs of Berlin; for I continued my journey to Vienna on the following day. ”

“ I doubt that any museum in the world, whether the Metropolitan in New York, the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, or the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow, could present such a catalogue as this; in fact, should they pool their treasures, the result would certainly fall short of the art collection that Germany amassed for itself, at the expense of the other nations of Europe. Never in history has a collection so great been amassed with so little scruple. ”