by ⁹ the old masters, of which I have now seen the most

important; but which I have had difficulty in understanding, until

I arrived in Paris. In Berlin there was a lot of the

newly excavated Assyrian art, it was magnificently beautiful,

I assure You, but it would require too much effusion to write about it. There

were also several pictures by Böklin. "Spring" was a lovely picture

a lush green meadow with butter-yellow flowers by a quiet stream

along whose banks tall trees grew with broad trunks and

budding branches, the colour of the trunks produced such an intense feeling of spring.

In the background one could see a marble villa surrounded by dark

green cypresses, which stood so black and lush against the cloud-

spattered spring sky, yes Böklin can paint a spring sky. By the stream

a couple sits, and a man, old and grey-haired, walks

towards the horizon along the stream, he represents winter and the sea lies below. "Pieta".

Maria mourning over the dead body of Christ. To look at that picture is like standing

by the shore, and an ice cold wave washes over one’s limbs

from the bottom upwards, colours that would prompt ~~Werenskjold~~ to

~~wrinkle his nose~~ ^{more reverence for him!} Christ’s body is the epitome of pestilential cold death in colour, a

green shade that is appallingly similar to venom, the corpse is laid out on a mar-

ble slab of bluish semi-transparent veined marble,

a garland of flowers in violets and greens is arranged around the

slab, a sky so blue-green and heavy with storm, like a stormy night in

grey and rain, and then Maria lying over the corpse shrouded in a cape, of

such an intense blue, that one freezes when looking at it. "The Isle of Life". A river

on whose black-green surface, white swans swim, a centaur

wades through the river carrying a woman on his back over to

the island of the redeemed. Dark green grass with the shadows of dense trees, under

which a man and woman rest in the grass, dancing women

and a cleft in the rock with a peculiar grotto, down from the dark

opening a brook runs: many more were there to see

his work. Then I arrived at Dresden, there were only two of his [works] there.

"The whims of the sea", a large picture. An enormous thunderous ocean, where

the light slips blue-green through the great mass of

water. In the foreground a grinning sun-blistered triton

captures a nymph who is swimming in the trough of the

wave. Above in the lighter smaller waves two

merry dolphins <maidens> are playing "tag", and {...}

on the crest of a wave a black

whinnying seahorse or more precisely a centaur,

rides like a colossus, which in its diabolical glistening grey

hideousness makes a magnificent impression

of the mighty force that seeps forth

through the towering cold mass of water.

He is diabolical and good-natured at

the same time, he represents the mighty force. The entire

picture is of course a magnificent symbolic representation

of the sea <in> its various forms. The under-

tow, {...} light waves {...}, and the <thun-

dering> mighty mass. Pan can wait

for another time. Then I arrived

Text at the bottom of the page "upside down":

You must truly pardon me

~~but~~ ^for sending You my

draft, but since I am

very ill [I] can-

not re-

write

now

Brev

Transkripsjon:

Side