t's Agony in the Garden_. This impressive composition represents
the Saviour kneeling; the head is bowed in anguish, the hands are raised
in ecstasy; below, the three disciples lie asleep, and in the glory of
the upper sky amid rolling clouds appears as a vision the angel bearing
the cross. I paid a visit to Hamburg in order to judge of a work of
which I could find but slight mention. Its characteristics are just what
might have been anticipated. The drawing is studious, the expression
intense, the execution feeble; in short, the technique becomes wholly
subordinate to the intention. The conception has Giottesque simplicity:
the shade of night brings solemnity, and the longer I stood before the
canvas the more I became impressed with the quietude and fervour of the
scene.[8]

We find an epitome of Overbeck's mind and art in a lovely composition,
_Lo Sposalizio_. Count Raczynski had as far back as 1819 given a general
commission, and at first was proposed as a subject the _Sibyl_, for
which the drawing in sepia, dated 1821, now hangs in the Count's Gallery
in Berlin. The figure, pensive and poetic, resembles a mediaeval Saint
rather than a Sibyl. The painter afterwards found a more congenial theme
in _The Marriage of the Virgin_. The treatment is wholly traditional,
the style austerely pre-Raphaelite; the only expletive in the way of an
idea comes with attendant angels, lyres in hand. The work was not
delivered till 1836, in the meanwhile the first fire had died out, and
nature was thrust into the distance. The technique had not improved, the
material clothing becomes subject to the mental conception, thus are
eschewed _chic_ of touch and surface texture. The colour is
indescribable: it pertains neither to earth nor to heaven, and yet it
has more of dull clay than of iridescent light. What a misfortune that
the gem-like lustre of the early Italians escaped this modern disciple!
A thoroughly characteristic letter accompanied the picture. Overbeck
having shut himself out from the world, seeks for his creations a like
seclusion. He writes to Raczynski: "As you are wishing to send my
picture to the public exhibition in Berlin, I cannot refrain from
expressing my anxiety. Paintings of this kind appear to me not fitted to
be seen by the motley multitude usually gathered together in
exhibitions. The general public are almost sure to measure wrongly works
like this, for as the eye is attracted to outward means and is engaged
on