that his admiration for them was the same as inspiration”; and supplied the lack of real imagination by “a compound of intellect and fancy.”
Nevertheless in such compositions as the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Battle of the Huns Kaulbach shows creative imagination. As a dramatic poet he tells the story, depicts character, seizes on action and situation, and thus as it were takes the spectator by storm. The manner may be occasionally noisy and ranting, but the effect after its kind is tremendous. The cartoon, which, as usual in modern German art, is superior to the ultimate picture, was executed in the artist’s prime at the age of thirty. At this period, as here seen, the knowledge was little short of absolute; subtle is the sense of beauty; playful, delicate, firm the touch; the whole treatment artistic.
Ten or more years were devoted to what the Germans term a “cyclus”—a series of pictures depicting the Tower of Babel, the Age of Homer, the Destruction of Jerusalem, the Battle of the Huns, the Crusades and the Reformation. These major tableaux, severally 30 ft. long, and each comprising over one hundred figures above life-size, are surrounded by minor compositions making more than twenty in all. The idea is to congregate around the world’s historic dramas the prime agents of civilization; thus here are assembled allegoric figures of Architecture and other arts, of Science and other kingdoms of knowledge, together with lawgivers from the time of Moses, not forgetting Frederick the Great. The chosen situation for this imposing didactic and theatric display is the Treppenhaus or grand staircase in the new museum, Berlin; the surface is a granulated, absorbent wall, specially prepared; the technical method is that known as “water-glass,” or “liquid flint,” the infusion of silica securing permanence. The same medium was adopted in the later wall-pictures in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster.
The painter’s last period brings no new departure; his ultimate works stand conspicuous by exaggerations of early characteristics. The series of designs illustrative of Goethe, which had an immense success, were melodramatic and pandered to popular taste. The vast canvas, more than 30 ft. long, the Sea Fight at Salamis, painted for the Maximilianeum, Munich, evinces wonted imagination and facility in composition; the handling also retains its largeness and vigour; but in this astounding scenic uproar moderation and the simplicity of nature are thrown to the winds, and the whole atmosphere is hot and feverish.
Kaulbach’s was a beauty-loving art. He is not supreme as a colourist; he belongs in fact to a school that holds colour in subordination; but he laid, in common with the great masters, the sure foundation of his art in form and composition. Indeed, the science of composition has seldom if ever been so clearly understood or worked out with equal complexity and exactitude; the constituent lines, the relation of the parts to the whole, are brought into absolute agreement; in modern Germany painting and music have trodden parallel paths, and Kaulbach is musical in the melody and harmony of his compositions. His narrative too is lucid, and moves as a stately march or royal triumph; the sequence of the figures is unbroken; the arrangement of the groups accords with even literary form; the picture falls into incident, episode, dialogue, action, plot, as a drama. The style is eclectic; in the Age of Homer the types and the treatment are derived from Greek marbles and vases; then in the Tower of Babel the severity of the antique gives place to the suavity of the Italian renaissance; while in the Crusades the composition is let loose into modern romanticism, and so the manner descends into the midst of the 19th century. And yet this scholastically compounded art is so nicely adjusted and smoothly blended that it casts off all incongruity and becomes homogeneous as the issue of one mind. But a fickle public craved for change; and so the great master in later years waned in favour, and had to witness, not without inquietude, the rise of an opposing party of naturalism and realism. (J. B. A.)
KAUNITZ-RIETBURG, WENZEL ANTON, Prince von (1711–1794),
Austrian chancellor and diplomatist, was born at Vienna
on the 2nd of February 1711. His father, Max Ulrich, was the
third count of Kaunitz, and married an heiress, Maria Ernestine
Franziska von Rietburg. The family was ancient, and was
believed to have been of Slavonic origin in Moravia. Wenzel
Anton, being a second son, was designed for the church, but on
the death of his elder brother he was trained for the law and for
diplomacy, at Vienna, Leipzig and Leiden, and by travel. His
family had served the Habsburgs with some distinction, and
Kaunitz had no difficulty in obtaining employment. In 1735
he was a Reichshofrath. When the Emperor Charles VI. died
in 1740, he is said to have hesitated before deciding to support
Maria Theresa. If so, his hesitation did not last long, and left
no trace on his loyalty. From 1742 to 1744 he was minister at
Turin, and in the latter year was sent as minister with the Archduke
Charles of Lorraine, the governor of Belgium. He was
therefore an eye-witness of the campaigns in which Marshal Saxe
overran Belgium. At this time he was extremely discouraged,
and sought for his recall. But he had earned the approval of
Maria Theresa, who sent him as representative of Austria to the
peace congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. His tenacity and
dexterity established his reputation as a diplomatist. He confirmed
his hold on the regard and confidence of the empress by
the line he took after the conclusion of the peace. In 1749 Maria
Theresa appealed to all her counsellors for advice as to the policy
Austria ought to pursue in view of the changed conditions produced
by the rise of Prussia. The great majority of them,
including her husband Francis I., were of opinion that the old
alliance with the sea Powers, England and Holland, should be
maintained. Kaunitz, either because he was really persuaded
that the old policy must be given up, or because he saw that the
dominating idea in the mind of Maria Theresa was the recovery
of Silesia, gave it as his opinion that Frederick was now the
“most wicked and dangerous enemy of Austria,” that it was
hopeless to expect the support of Protestant nations against
him, and that the only way of recovering Silesia was by an
alliance with Russia and France. The empress eagerly accepted
views which were already her own, and entrusted the adviser
with the execution of his own plans. An ambassador to France
from 1750 to 1752, and after 1753 as “house, court and state
chancellor,” Kaunitz laboured successfully to bring about the
alliance which led to the Seven Years’ War. It was considered
a great feat of diplomacy, and established Kaunitz as the recognized
master of the art. His triumph was won in spite of personal
defects and absurdities which would have ruined most
men. Kaunitz had manias rarely found in company with
absolute sanity. He would not hear of death, nor approach a
sick man. He refused to visit his dying master Joseph II. for
two whole years. He would not breathe fresh air. On the
warmest summer day he kept a handkerchief over his mouth
when out of doors, and his only exercise was riding under glass,
which he did every morning for exactly the same number of
minutes. He relaxed from his work in the company of a small
dependent society of sycophants and buffoons. He was consumed
by a solemn, garrulous and pedantic vanity. When in
1770 he met Frederick the Great at Mährisch-Neustadt, he came
with a summary of political principles, which he called a catechism,
in his pocket, and assured the king that he must be allowed
to speak without interruption. When Frederick, whose interest
it was to humour him, promised to listen quietly, Kaunitz rolled
his mind out for two hours, and went away with the firm conviction
that he had at last enlightened the inferior intellect of
the king of Prussia as to what politics really were. Within a
very short time Frederick had completely deceived and outmanœuvred
him. With all his pomposity and conceit, Kaunitz
was astute, he was laborious and orderly; when his advice was
not taken he would carry out the wishes of his masters, while no
defeat ever damped his pertinacity.
To tell his history from 1750 till his retirement in 1792 would be to tell part of the internal history of Austria, and all the international politics of eastern and central Europe. His governing principle was to forward the interests of “the august house of Austria,” a phrase sometimes repeated at every few lines of his despatches. In internal affairs he in 1758 recommended, and helped to promote, a simplification of the confused and subdivided Austrian administration. But his main concern was always with diplomacy and foreign policy. Here he strove with untiring energy, and no small measure of success, to extend the Austrian dominions. After the Seven Years’ War he endeavoured to avoid great risks, and sought to secure his ends by
