Painting gives us the material, sculpture the abstract, ethical aspect of the man. In the bust, whatever is common-place, familiar, and actual, is thrown out or kept down: in a picture it is not only retained, but, in most cases, it is necessarily obtrusive. Goethe, in a blue coat and metal buttons, and a white neckcloth, would not recall the author of the "Iphigenia;" still less does that wrinkled, decrepit-looking face, in the gallery at Hardwicke, portray Boyle, the philosopher.
Dannecker told me that he first modelled the head of Schiller the exact size of life, and conscientiously rendered each, even the slightest, individual trait; yet this head appeared to every one smaller than nature, and to himself almost _mesquin_.[18] He was in despair. He repeated the bust in a colossal size; and the development of the intellectual organization, on a larger scale, immediately gave what was wanting:--it appeared to the eye or to the mind's eye as only the size of life. He showed me a beautiful basso-relievo of the Muse of Tragedy, listening with an inspired look to the revelations of the Muse of History. This admirable little group struck me the more, because long ago I had clothed nearly the same idea in imperfect words.
I took leave of Dannecker with emotion: I shall never see him again! But he is one of those who cannot die; to use his own expression--"Quand on a fait _comme cela_, on reste sur la terre." When Canova, then a melancholy invalid, paid him a visit, he was so struck by the child-like simplicity, the pure unworldly nature, the genuine goodness, and lively happy temperament of the German sculptor, that he gave him the surname of _il Beato_; and if the epithet _blessed_ can, with propriety, be bestowed on any mortal, it is on him whose long life has been one of labour and of love; who has left behind him lasting memorials of his genius; who has never profaned the talents which God has given him to any unworthy purpose:--but in the midst of all the beautiful and exciting influences of poetry and art, has kept from youth to age a soul serene, a conscience and a life pure in the sight of God and man. Such was our own Flaxman--such is Dannecker!
Who are now the principal sculptors in Germany?