Wilhelm von Kaulbach

Cornelius had been commissioned to execute the enormous frescoes in the Glyptothek, and his custom was in the winters, with the aid of Kaulbach and others, to complete the cartoons at Düsseldorf, and in the summers, accompanied by his best pupils, to carry out the designs in colour on the museum walls in Munich.

[1] Kaulbach matured, after the example of the masters of the Middle Ages, the practice of mural or monumental decoration; he once more conjoined painting with architecture, and displayed a creative fertility and readiness of resource scarcely found since the era of Raphael and Michelangelo.

[citation needed] Early in the series of his multitudinous works came the famous Narrenhaus, the appalling memories of a certain madhouse near Düsseldorf; the composition all the more deserves mention for points of contact with Hogarth.

[citation needed] These works, together with occasional figures or passages in complex pictorial dramas, show how dominant and irrepressible were the artists sense of satire and enjoyment of fun; character in its breadth and sharpness is depicted with keenest relish, and at times the sardonic smile bursts into the loudest laugh.

The idea was to congregate around the world's historic dramas the prime agents of civilization; thus here were assembled allegoric figures of Architecture and other arts, of Science and other kingdoms of knowledge, together with lawgivers from the time of Moses, not forgetting Frederick the Great.

The chosen situation for this imposing didactic and theatric display was the Treppenhaus or grand staircase in the Neues Museum, Berlin; the surface was a granulated, absorbent wall, specially prepared; the technical method was that known as "water-glass," or "liquid flint," the infusion of silica securing permanence.

With regard to these examples of the Munich school, it was asserted that Kaulbach had been unfortunate alike in having found Cornelius for a master and King Ludwig for a patron, that he attempted subjects far beyond him, believing that his admiration for them was the same as inspiration; and supplied the lack of real imagination by a compound of intellect and fancy.

The vast canvas, more than 30 ft. long, the Sea Fight at Salamis, painted for the Maximilianeum, Munich, evinces wonted imagination and facility in composition; the handling also retains its largeness and vigour; but in this astounding scenic uproar moderation and the simplicity of nature are thrown to the winds, and the whole atmosphere is hot and feverish.

[3] His fervent Protestantism – which alienated him in the latter part of his life from Cornelius, who was as decided a Catholic – is most strongly expressed in his Don Pedro de Arbuez, the Inquisitor, which, appearing at the time of the ecumenical council (1869-70), produced a great sensation, and gave rise to many controversies.

Shortly hefore his death he was at work upon a large cartoon of The Deluge; and he had finished his St. Michael, the Patron Saint of Germany, in the garb of a heavenly messenger with a radiant air of triumph, and with Napoleon III and his son and several Jesuits cowering at his feet.

Kaulbach's style was eclectic; in the Age of Homer the types and the treatment are derived from Greek marbles and vases; then in the Tower of Babel the severity of the antique gives place to the suavity of the Italian Renaissance; while in the Crusades the composition is let loose into modern Romanticism, and so the manner descends into the midst of the 20th century.