As illustrative of his most characteristic productions, we give an out line of his Birth of Light (fig. 3), where he depicts the creative force of the Divine Spirit sweeping with Night through chaotic space; the genius of Light, born of these two, uplifts his torch joyously. This drawing suggests Michelangelo without being imitated from him. Another of his compositions (fig. 2) represents a scene from the ninth book of Homer's Iliad. Achilles sits wrathful in his tent, receiving Ulysses, Ajax, and Nestor, the three ambassadors of Agamemnon. Carstens remained at Rome until his death, in spite of the royal orders to return to Berlin, con scious, doubtless, that to abandon the paintings of Raphael and Michel angelo would be to deprive himself of his sources of inspiration. Like Mengs, his abilities were only of a secondary order, for he drew force and inspiration from the study of the works of others rather than from the study of nature and from the depths of his own consciousness. Such art serves to maintain the arts alive, but neither advances them nor adds aught to the art-ideas of the world. Michelangelo said, " He who walks behind
another will never pass by him." It remained for a later age to resume in Germainy the direct study of nature as the source of all true and higher art. It is not the subject, but the amount of nature or original thought it contains, that entitles an art-work to be considered great. Every school of great art has obeyed this fundamental principle.
Go/Mei/Schick, born at Stuttgart in 1779 and died in 1812, was a painter of genius, and his works evince careful thought and finish in execution. Ile studied first under David, then at Rome, where lie came under Carstens' influence. Schick's portraits and historical pictures are alike excellent. His Apollo among Mc Slupherds(pm jig. 5) is an allegory showing the awakening of the human intelligence by means of poetry and music; intense sympathy, emotion, and joy are reflected in the faces of the listen ers, and the two lovers begin to understand the harmony of souls.