Third orchestral rehearsal! — The impression of the work upon me beyond all words. — Numerous visits; in the evening Lenbach and Makart, taking leave (they are departing for Egypt), and Semper — the latter very weary and aged, yet wonderfully vivid when we came to speak of Michelangelo, who, he said, had evoked “forms out of Nirvana”; from the dissection of the dead (antiquity) he had created a new world — living figures that yet did not belong to life! He is, Semper said, far greater than Phidias.[1]
[1]Greek. Phidias (5th century BC), Attic sculptor, directed the work on the Acropolis.
Revised English translation by Jo Cousins.