Let us cross the square and take a look at the Museum, admiring, as we pass, an immense porphyry vase standing on cubes of the same material, in front of the steps which lead up to the portico.  This portico is painted in fresco by various hands, under the direction of the celebrated Peter Cornelius.  The paintings form a broad frieze, folding itself back at each end upon the side wall of the portico, and interrupted in the middle to give access to the Museum.  The portion on the left contains a whole poem of mythologic cosmogony, treated with that philosophy and that erudition which the Germans carry into compositions of this kind; the right, purely anthropologie, represents the birth, development, and evolution of humanity.

If I were to describe in detail these two immense frescoes, you would certainly be charmed with the ingenious invention, the profound knowledge, and the excellent judgment of the artist.  The mysteries of the early creation are penetrated, and everything is faultlessly scientific.  Also, if I should show you them in the form of those fine German engravings, the lines heightened by delicate shadows, the execution as accurate as that of Albrecht Duerer, the tone light and harmonious, you would admire the ordering of the composition, balanced with so much art, the groups skilfully united one to another, the ingenious episodes, the wise selection of the attributes, the significance of each separate thing; you might even find grandeur of style, an air of magisterial dignity, fine effects of drapery, proud attitudes, well-marked types, muscular audacities a la Michel Angelo, and a certain Germanic savagery of fine flavor.  You would be struck with this free handling of great subjects, this vast conceptive power, this carrying out of an idea, which French painters so often lack; and you would think of Cornelius almost as highly as the Germans do.  But in the presence of the work itself, the impression is completely different.

I am well aware that fresco-painting, even in the hands of the Italian masters, skilful as they were in the technical details of their art, has not the charm of oil.  The eye must become habituated to this rude, lustreless coloring, before we can discern its beauties.  Many people who never say so—­for nothing is more rare than the courage to avow a feeling or an opinion—­find the frescoes of the Vatican and the Sistine frightful; but the great names of Michel Angelo and Raphael impose silence upon them; they murmur vague formulas of enthusiasm, and go off to rhapsodize—­this time with sincerity—­over some Magdalen of Guido, or some Madonna of Carlo Dolce.  I make large allowance, therefore, for this unattractive aspect which belongs to fresco-painting; but in this case, the execution is by far too repulsive.  The mind may be content, but the eye suffers.  Painting, which is altogether a plastic art, can express its ideal only through forms and colors.  To think is not enough; something must be done....