Oberammergau : Scenes from the Passion Play. In 24 Plates.
By M. C. S. D. (Maclean, Haymarket.)—These coloured groups, taken from the Ammergau Passion Play, and from that part of it which touches the story of the Passion alone,—all the illustrative types from the Old- Testament history being excluded,—are done with great spirit, and some of them show a very high artistic sense of the effects of grouping and of solitude. The single crucifix, for instance, is exceedingly fine,—though not, so far as we can remember, a study of anything in the Passion Play ; and so are the groups in whichPilate comes out upon the balcony to address the Jews, and of these last, as well as of almost all the others, we may say from our own knowledge, that they are exact resemblances of the real groups. The only fault we find is that the individual figures have no real likeness to the originals. Mayr, for instance (who per- sonated Christ) is in no respect specially like the individual figure which represents him in these groups, nor has 31. C. S. D. tried to make the individual figures like the originals, except in costume, in any case.
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