to Dresden in 1796 a devotion, a kind of
sentimental Mariolatry, to the celebrated Madonnas of Raphael and Holbein
in the Dresden gallery; and from their explorations in Nuernberg, that
_Perle des Mittelalters_, an enthusiasm for Albrecht Duerer. This found
expression in Wackenroder's "Herzensergiessungen eines Kunstliebenden
Klosterbruders"; and in Tieck's novel, "Sternbald's Wanderungen," in
which he accompanies a pupil of Duerer to Rome. Wackenroder, like Tieck's
other friend, Novalis, was of a consumptive, emotional, and somewhat
womanish constitution of mind and body, and died young. Tieck edited his
remains, including letters on old German art. The standard editions of
their joint writings are illustrated by engravings after Duerer, one of
which in particular, the celebrated "Knight, Death, and the Devil,"
symbolizes the mysterious terrors of Tieck's own tales, and of German
romance in general. The knight is in complete armour, and is riding
through a forest. On a hilltop in the distance are the turrets of a
castle; a lean hound follows the knight; on the ground between his
horse's hoofs sprawls a lizard-like reptile; a figure on horseback
approaches from the right, with the face half obliterated or eaten away
to the semblance of a skull, and snakes encircling the temples. Behind
comes on a demon or goblin shape, with a tall curving horn, which is
"neither man nor woman, neither beast nor human," but one of those
grotesque and obscene monsters which the mediaeval imagination sculptured
upon the cathedrals. This famous copperplate prompted Fouque's romance,
"Sintram and his Companions." He had received a copy of it for a
birthday gift, and brooded for years over its mysterious significance;
which finally shaped itself in his imagination into an allegory of the
soul's conflict with the powers of darkness. His whole narrative leads
up to the description of Duerer's picture, which occupies the
twenty-seventh and climacteric chapter. The school of young German
Pre-Raphaelite art students, associated at Rome in 1810 under the
leadership of Overbeck and Cornelius, was considerably influenced by
Wackenroder's "Herzensergiessungen."

Music, too, and particularly church music, was affected by the new taste.
The ancient music of the "Dies Irae" and other Latin hymns was revived;
and it would not be far wrong to say that the romantic school sowed the
seed of Wagner's great music-dramas, profoundly Teutonic and roma