The large arched windows of the brick building are shields from the sun that give the impression of a spacious place, separated from the bustle of the city by a thin curtain. But the walls are almost completely covered in paintings, engravings, and miscellaneous reproductions, evidencing the intensity of his religious passion for the natural world. Standing on the marble flagstones, he would paint with his brush the fragments of a cliff face, or of a tree, or of a human being’s head, as if he were trying to reconstruct the scene from every angle.