in the vestibule of the
Glyptothek, in token of his recent death, who gave the impulse for all
this, though some of the best buildings and streets in the city
have been completed by his successors. The new city is laid out on a
magnificent scale of distances, with wide streets, fine, open squares,
plenty of room for gardens, both public and private; and the art
buildings and art monuments are well distributed; in fact, many a
stately building stands in such isolation that it seems to ask
every passer what it was put there for. Then, again, some of the new
adornments lack fitness of location or purpose. At the end of the broad,
monotonous Ludwig Strasse, and yet not at the end, for the road runs
straight on into the flat country between rows of slender trees, stands
the Siegesthor, or Gate of Victory, an imitation of the Constantine
arch at Rome. It is surmounted by a splendid group in bronze, by
Schwanthaler, Bavaria in her war-chariot, drawn by four lions; and it is
in itself, both in its proportions and its numerous sculptural figures
and bas-reliefs, a fine recognition of the valor "of the Bavarian army,"
to whom it is erected. Yet it is so dwarfed by its situation, that it
seems to have been placed in the middle of the street as an obstruction.
A walk runs on each side of it. The Propylaeum, another magnificent
gateway, thrown across the handsome Brienner Strasse, beyond the
Glyptothek, is an imitation of that on the Acropolis at Athens. It has
fine Doric columns on the outside, and Ionic within, and the pediment
groups are bas-reliefs, by Schwanthaler, representing scenes in modern
Greek history. The passageways for carriages are through the side
arches; and thus the "sidewalk" runs into the center of the street, and
foot-passers must twice cross the carriage-drive in going through the
gate. Such things as these give one the feeling that art has been forced
beyond use in Munich; and it is increased when one wanders through
the new churches, palaces, galleries, and finds frescoes so prodigally
crowded out of the way, and only occasionally opened rooms so overloaded
with them, and not always of the best, as to sacrifice all effect, and
leave one with the sense that some demon of unrest has driven painters
and sculptors and plasterers, night and day, to adorn the city at a
stroke; at least, to cover it with paint and bedeck it with marbles, and
to do it at once, leaving nothing for the sweet growth and blossoming of
ti