,.^ \rv. #» r»V«1 HELEN A. DICKINSON GERMAJNT MASTERS OF ART Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT DURER PORTHAIT OF HiMSELF, 1500 ALTE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH GERMAN MASTERS OF ART BY HELEN A. DICKINSON M.A., PH.D., fiEIDELBERG PORMERLT SPECIAIj LECTURER IN HISTORY OP ART AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY WITH FOUB ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND ONE HUNDRED AND TEN IN MONOTONE NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1914. h Frederick A. Stokes Company All rights reserved including that of translation into foreign languages. D October, 19U ^/1/? DEDICATED TO C. D. FOREWORD The increase of travel in Germany and the frequent pilgrimages that are being made to points of interest to the musician, scholar and pedagogue are contributing to the greater appreciation of the mediaeval flavour and quaint picturesqueness of her smaller towns with their narrow streets and high-gabled timber houses, and to a fuller acquaintance with the rich treasures of her art. Whether the traveller explores the towns and villages nestling among the mountains of Tyrol, seeks out those tucked away in the Black Forest, the Vosges or the Harz Mountains, visits the walled strong- holds of the Swabian plains, wanders along the banks of the Rhine or follows the narrow, picturesque Danube valley to the river's source, he will find everywhere imposing castles that are veritable treasure-houses of art; ancient monasteries with graceful, frescoed cloisters or collections of rare pictures; beautiful or unique churches with fine, old, wooden, carved and painted altar-pieces; princely, ducal or municipal galleries rich in interesting works of art. This mounting interest seems to demand a complete and unified history of the development of German painting. For the con- venience of the student at home and the traveller in Germany the artists are here classified broadly, according to the geographical distribution of their centres of activity, in the three general divisons : 1. School of Cologne: including Hamburg, Cologne, Westphalia and Saxony. 2. School of Swabia: including the Middle Rhine, Upper Rhine, Colmar, German Switzerland, Ulm, Augsburg. 3. School of Nuremberg or Franconia: including Tyrol, Upper Bava- ria, Ratisbon and Nuremberg. vii viii GERMAN MASTERS OF ART These divisions are suggested also by the fact that the art of each is marked, in general, by distinct characteristics. The art of the School of Cologne is, in the main, dreamy and lyric, that of Swabia is a narrative or illustrative art and that of Nuremberg is virile, impassioned and dramatic. I wish to express my sincere thanks especially to Dr. Henry Thode, formerly of Heidelberg University, who first opened my eyes to the beauty and significance of German art; to Count von Bemstorff, Ambassador from Germany to the United States, Col. Theodore Roosevelt and Dr. Lyman Abbott for valuable introductions; to Director Lichtwark and Dr. Borger of the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, for the loan of photographs of pictures in the Kunsthalle and for permission to reproduce illustrations in Dr. Lichtwark's "Master Bertram;" to Dr. Max Friedlander of Berlin and Dr. Braune of Munich for helpful opinions and suggestions, and to those who made it possible for me to see personally all the pic- tures described in this volume. CONTENTS PART I CHAPTEB PAGE I German Art as an Expression of German National Char- acter 3 II Book Illumination 10 III Fresco-painting 19 IV The School of Prague, the Earliest School of Art in Germany . , 35 PART II SCHOOL OF COLOGNE HAMBURG V Master Bertram van Byrde 41 VI Master Francke — Heinrich Funhof — Absalom Stumme — Heinrich Borneman 52 COLOGNE VII The Idealists: Master Wilhelm and Stephan Lochner . 60 VIII The Realists: Masters Dominated by the Art of the Netherlands 69 IX The Portraitists of the XVI Century 77 WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS X Master Conrad Stollen — Master of Liesborn — N. Sueln- MEiGR — Johann Koerbecke — Gert Von Lon — Hein- rich AND Victor DtJNWEGGE — Master of Cappenberg — Heinrich Aldegrever — ^Ludger tom Ring 81 SAXONY XI Lucas Cranach 86 XII Minor Painters 94 ix X CONTENTS PART III SCHOOL OF SWABIA THE MIDDLE RHINE CHAPTER PAGE XIII Three Frankfort Masters: Master of Frankfort (Hans Fyol?) — Master of the House Book (Martin Hess?) — Hans Grimmer 101 XIV Matthaus Grunewald 104 XV The Question of the Identity of Pseudo-Grunewald . . 114 THE UPPER RHINE XVI Lucas Moser, Conrad Witz and Hans Baldung Grun . .117 > XVII Martin Schongauer and the Colmar School 127 GERMAN SWITZERLAND XVIII The Groups of Painters in Basel, Bern and Zurich . . 132 ULM XIX The Story-Tellers of the XV Century 137 SWABIA XX The Artistic Dependancies of Ulm: Nordlingen, Rothen- BURG AND MeMMINGEN 147 AUGSBURG XXI Hans Holbein the Elder 152 XXII Hans Burgkmair 161 XXIII Minor Artists 168 V XXIV Hans Holbein the Younger 174 PART IV SCHOOL OF NUREMBERG XXV The Tyrolese Painters 191 CONTENTS XI UPPER BAVARIA CHAPTEB PAGE XXVI Painters in Munich and Landshut 198 RATISBON XXVII Albkecht Altdorfer 202 XXVIII The Pupils of Altdorfer 211 NUREMBERG XXIX The XIV Century 212 XXX Master Berthold 215 XXXI Master Pfenning 222 XXXII Hans Pleydenwurff 228 XXXIII Michael Wolgemut 232 XXXIV WiLHELM Pleydenwurff 240 XXXV Minor Painters 241 'XXXVI Albrecht DiJRER 248 XXXVII Pupils and Followers of Durer 271 ILLUSTRATIONS DttBEK. Portrait of Himself, 1500 Frontispiece FACING FACE ScHONGAUER. Virgin and Child in a Rose Arbour 4 GhUnewald. The Entombment 5 Pacher. Coronation of the Virgin 6 Bertram. Saints, carved in Wood and painted 7 GRtJNEWALD. The Temptations of St. Anthony 8 Wood-Carving : Figure in the Church in Thann 9 Initial Letter: From the Psalter of Hermann of Thuringia 10 Book Illumination: Evangelist, from Charlemagne's Bible 10 Book Illumination: Monks presenting Bible to Charles the Bald ... 11 Book Illumination: The Battles of King David 12 Book Illumination: Parable of the Great Supper 13 Book Illumination : From Heinrich von Veldegke's " iEneid " 14 Book Illumination: "Superbia," from Herrad's "Pleasure Garden" . . 15 Book Illumination: Minnesingers, from the Manessian Codex (Colour Plate) 16 Fresco : The Last Judgment, St. George's Church, Oberzell 18 Frescoes : Isolde and BragSne meeting Tristan in the Garden, and Figures from the Bathroom, Runkelstein Castle 19 Frescoes: The Vision of Ezekiel, and Decorative Borders, Church in Schwarzrheindorf (Colour Plate) 20 Frescoes: In the Apse of Brunswick Cathedral 24 Painted Wooden Ceiling, St. Michael's Basilica, Hildesheim 25 Fresco : Lords and Ladies dancing, Runkelstein Castle (Colour Plate) . . 28 Altar-piece: "The Golden Altar" 32 Antependium: From St. Nicholas' Church, Soest 33 Theodoric of Prague. Virgin and Child with Saints and Archbishop Oeko of Wlaschim 36 Master Bertram. God warns Adam and Eve not to eat of the Fruit . . 46 Master Bertram. The Angels' Visit 47 Master Bertram. The Nativity 50 Master Francke. Angels supporting the Dead Christ 51 Master Francke. Thomas h Becket fleeing from Assassins 56 Master Francke. The Entombment • 57 Madonna with the Bean Blossom, Saints Barbara and Catherine ... 62 Lochner. Madonna in Rose Arbour 63 xiii xiv ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGES LocHNER. Madonna with the Violet 68 Master of the Holy Kinship. The Holy Kinship 69 Master of Saint Severin. The Virgin with Saints and Donors .... 74 Master of Saint Bartholomew. The St. Thomas Altar 75 Bruyn. Portrait of Burgomaster Johannes van Ryht 78 Master Conrad. Saints Ottilie and Dorothea 82 Master of Liesborn. Angel holding a Chalice 83 Aldegrever. Portrait of a Young Man 84 Cranach. Rest on the Flight into Egypt 88 Cranach. The Crucifixion (with Portraits of Cranach and Luther) ... 89 Cranach. The Judgment of Paris 92 Cranach. Luther, Melanchthon and Frederick the Wise 93 Raphon. Annunciation 96 Master of Frankfort. Virgin and Child with St. Anna 97 GRtJNEWALD. Holy Night 104 GRttNEWALD. Saints Erasmus and Maurice in Conversation 105 GRtJNEWALD. Angels' Concert 110 GRtJNEWALD. The Crucifixion Ill Pseudo-GrUnewald. St. Martha with the Dragon 116 MosER. St. Mary Magdalen Altar 117 WiTZ. Saints Mary Magdalen and Catherine in a Cloister 122 Baldung (GrUn). Holy Night; Flight into Egypt 123 Baldung (GRtJN). Allegorical Figure, Music 124 Schongauer. The Nativity 130 AsPER. Portrait of Zwingli 134 MuLTSCHER. The Resurrection 138 ScHtJHLEiN. High Altar in Tiefenbronn 139 Zeitblom. The Annunciation 140 Zeitblom. Vera Icon 141 Hans, Maler zu Schwaz. Portrait of Ulrich Fugger 142 ScHAFFNER. Anuunciation 143 Herlin. Virgin and Child with Saints and the Artist's Family .... 148 Strigel. Portrait of Emperor Maximilian 149 Holbein the Elder. St. Paul's Basilica, with Scenes from the Life of St. Paul 156 Holbein the Elder. Saint Barbara and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary . 157 Burgkmair. Group of Saints 162 BuRGKMAiR. Virgin and Child • • 163 Ambrosius Holbein. Portrait of Hans Herbst, the Swiss Painter ... 170 Amberger. Portrait of Sebastian Munster, the Cosmographer 171 Holbein. Christ in the Tomb l'J'8 Holbein. Shutters from the Organ in Basel Cathedral 179 nXUSTEATIONS xv FACING PAGES Holbein. Madonna of the Meyer Family 180 Holbein. Erasmus 181 Holbein Portrait of Georg Gisze 1 82 Holbein. Christine of Denmark 183 Pacher. St. Wolfgang's Last Communion 194 Pacheb. St. Wolfgang compelling the Devil to hold his Bible 195 Pollack. St. Peter walking on the Waves 200 Altdorfer. Satyr Family in a Landscape 202 Altdorfer. St. George in a Beech Forest 203 Altdorfer. Rest on the Flight into Egypt 204 Altdorfer. Holy Night 205 Altdorfer. Battle of Arbela 206 Altdorfer. Susannah at the Bath (Detail) 207 Altdorfer. Riches and Poverty 208 Altdorfer. The Crucifixion 209 Master Berthold. Coronation of the Virgin, from the Imhof Altar , . 218 Master Berthold. The Crucifixion, from the Bamberg Altar 219 Master Berthold. Imhof Madonna 220 Franconian Master ABOUT 1430. Virgin in "Wheat Ear" Garments. . 221 Pfenning. The Crucifixion 226 Pfenning. Madonna of Succour 227 Hans Pleydenwurff. Portrait of Canon Sch5nborn 230 Hans Pleydenwurff. The Crucifixion 231 Wolgemut. The Crucifixion 234 Wolgemut. Descent from the Cross 235 Frescoes: In the Council Chamber, City Hall, Goslar 238 WiLHELM Pleydenwurff. St. Vitus in the Lions' Den 239 DtJRER. Portrait Drawing of Himself at the Age of thirteen 250 DttRER. The Nativity 256 Dt^RER. Festival of Rose Garlands 257 DtJRER. Christ on the Cross 258 DtJRER. Adam 259 DUrer. Madonna and Child in a Landscape {Colour Plate) 260 DtJRER. Knight, Death and Devil 262 Dt*RER. Marginal Drawing, Emperor Maximilian's Prayerbook .... 264 DtfRER. Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher 268 DtJRER. Four Apostles 269 SuEss VON KuLMBACH. St. Gcorgc » 274 SuEss VON KuLMBACH. St. Peter Preaching 275 ScHAUFELEiN. St. Jcromc in the Wilderness 278 ZiEGLEB. (Master of Messkirch.) Virgin Adored by Saints 279 PART I GEEMAN MASTERS OF ART CHAPTER I GERMAN ART AS AN EXPRESSION OF GERMAN NATIONAL CHARACTER IN considering the art of any country, it is necessary to examine not only into the conditions under which that art developed and the traditions by which it was governed in its development, but, above all, into the character of the people. For the art of any people is the reflection of the common characteristics of that people; in other words, a revelation of its attitude toward the inner world of feeling and the outer world of phenomena. Hence, when a Japanese painter adopts the types and manner of the schools of Paris, he ceases to be a Japanese artist and becomes a "man without a country." When the German painters of the XVII and XVIII centuries strove to be as Raphael, they ceased to be inspired reve- lators and became more or less clever craftsmen, makers of empty, prettily coloured forms. Certain of the works of Flax- man, Canova and Thorwaldsen do not interest us because they are not vital; that is to say, instinct with the character — the inner life — of the nation out of the fullness of whose heart the artist should speak. It is for this reason chiefly, that, in turning from the study of the art of one country to that of another, a certain mental and emotional adjustment is necessary, just as in passing from conversation in one language to conversation in a different lan- guage. The whole spirit and content of the French language, for instance, is as different from German as the French people are from the Germans. The same readjustment is necessary in turn- ing from the study of Italian art to German art as in passing from the engaging melody and flowing rhythm of Rossini to the clashing dissonances and triumphant harmonies of Wagner. Ger- man art, as the expression of German national character, differs widely from Italian art in its ideals as in its significance. For the 3 4 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART key-note of the Germanic character is emotion, and the ideal of German art is, not beauty, but expression. The strength and the weakness alike in German art are the outcome of this intense emotionalism. Its most significant manifestation is the inner perception, the insight which differentiates between the real and the apparent — between the essence and the phenomenon — which is so greatly the German gift and which reveals itself so marvellously through the course of the development of German philosophic thought from the Mystics to Luther and Kant. What the German appre- hends as real is the inner nature — character and emotion — and this he expresses in art to the disregard of beauty of external form and feature. Hence one of the greatest superficial attrac- tions is lacking, for the most part, in German art. Few Ger- man Virgins, for instance, can vie with the Italian Madonnas in formal beauty. Some of them are homely enough, large-boned and plain-featured, but they breathe such passion of mother-love and devotion! And the Child is no cherub; like as not he is a snub-nosed, flat-faced little chap. Well, what of that? He is not loved for his beauty! Thus is revealed the true essence of genu- ine motherhood; the same instinct which makes the little girl turn from her handsome, life-sized, wax dolls to love with her whole heart the most disreputable-looking rag doll in her whole collec- tion. "Gefilhl ist alles'' (Feeling is everything) said Goethe, giv- ing us in these few words the key to German character, German art and German music. This Germanic perception of the inner life and character of the subject, this penetration below the surface together with the close observation of details which is spoken of in the scientific world as German thoroughness, made the Germans not^ly great portrait painters, and advanced the landscape from the position of back- ground to which it is relegated in Italian art (except Venetian) to share equally with the human element in the picture. The earliest expression of German religious thought. Mystic Philosophy, adopted as practically its basic premise the article that God, the eternal essence of all things, is not only in man, but in all nature as well. Therefore man has vital interest in all that lives and moves, in all Photograph by Ad. Braun et Cie MARTIN SCHONGAUER Virgin and Child in a Rose Abboub ST. martin's church, colmar GERMAN ART 5 that blooms and withers, as one in essence with himself. The "flower in the crannied wall" is akin to God, and to know it is to "know what God and man is. " It follows that the landscape in its various moods can readily be conceived of as reflecting the states of mind of the human beings placed in it by the artist; and since these human ele- ments possess for the German artist intensely emotional states of mind, the landscape is of great value in providing an atmosphere which reveals them. This is a function of landscape which we are accustomed to regard as extremely modern in poetry and art, but in such a picture as the XV century Griinewald "Entombment of Christ," in Colmar, the desolation of the landscape with the trees cut off half-way, showing only the bare trunks, creates an atmos- phere of profound melancholy and stirs our hearts to sympathy with those mourners' tears. A second expression of the German emotional nature in German art is to be noted in the excesses of that art; in the breaking through all bounds of law and restraint into excessive movement and exces- sive detail. We might almost venture to make the assertion that in German art nothing is ever absolutely still. In the illuminated initials of the earliest manuscripts, the plants, stems and leaves twined about the letters curve and flutter; the carved figures on the cathedral portals twist and turn in their endeavour to express the sentiments that animate them; their eyes roll, their features are distorted, their garments are as if blown by the wind. In the colour art, too, there are apt to be hurrying figures, garments f alhng in over- abundant, restless folds. Even inanimate things reflect agitation, as in the Diirer "Madonna with the Pear" in which the gnarled, old tree conveys a sense of movement in the almost human disquiet of its twisted bark. Then too, the highly strung, emotional nature of the Germans, contemplating a certain situation, phenomenon, or landscape sees every detail and cannot bear to disregard any one of them. Hence their pictures are apt to be crowded with figures, each one painted with keenest characterisation of the individual, and at the same time to contain every tree, shrub, flower, and berry, every rabbit, snail and cricket, every stone and bit of moss the painter observes in a landscape or lovingly adds from a full heart. The Italian painters 6 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART eliminated much of this detail as confusing, and painted with great simplicity what we should call "composed'* pictures. This was foreign to the nature of the Germans, who never could attain it, even consciously, and remain German, Melanchthon reported of Diirer that he said that he had "caught glimpses of the original countenance of Nature and learned that simplicity was the highest ornament of art, but he could not attain it." To this excessive movement and detail resulting from the German emotionalism, is due, in large measure, the paucity of works of sculpture in Germany. Sculpture was the supreme medium of the classic world, where all was beauty and perfect proportion without strain of movement or emotion; but for the German world with its new watchword, expression, it was inadequate. It is interesting to see how the artists strove to break bounds by crowding details into relief effects in altars, and to over- come limitations by painting the figures on the altars of carved wood; even as Max Klinger and others at the present time are endeavouring to endow sculpture with painting's prerogatives by using coloured marbles and stones, as in Klinger's Beethoven statue in Leipsic Museum. A third distinctive characteristic of German art as an expression of German character is imagination. It lends the fairy-tale atmos- phere to the mysterious depth of such forests as we find in Altdorfer's Passion scenes; it enables the artist to portray with what we charac- terise as intense reahsm such scenes as those in the Passion of Christ in which the villains doing the horrible deed are imagined and portrayed as incredibly evil and repulsive; it transcends the bounds of what we are accustomed to designate as imagination and passes into pure phantasy. Phantastic forms of impossible birds and ani- mals, figures half human and half animal, enliven the initials of the early missals, while, on the altars, weird shapes render such repre- sentations as the "Temptation of St. Anthony" humorous, and are oftentimes present as well in the most solemn scenes. It is this ungoverned, unrestrained phantasy, together with the Germanic humour, which differentiates the German imaginative world and its creations from the imaginative world of the Greeks and Italians. Indeed the Germanic freedom of humour in art serves of itself to distinguish sharply German art from Italian. The only subject Photograph by Fi\*i»fe**iSfi*toNJ4.Mvt^ rrAftff REo^ Parable of the Gueat Suppeu (Luke XIV) FROM THE "ECHTERNACH" GOSPELS, DUCAL LIBRART, GOTHA BOOK ILLUMINATION 13 with a bird cage of which the door has been jarred open so that the birds are escaping. In a picture of "Christ taken Prisoner" the High Priest's servant, whose ear has been struck off by Peter, is wholly a burlesque figure. The figures of the messenger and the cripples, in the parable of the man who gave a feast to guests from the highways and hedges, are presented with naive realism in the Echternach Bible, Gotha, illuminated under that Archbishop Egbert of Treves (977-993) whose *' Egbert Codex" is typical of the early art of western Germany and a suggestive forerunner of its later art, as the "Vita Codex" in Munich is of the art of eastern Germany. The Canonical Tables, too, offered opportunities for the in- troduction of realistic scenes, such as common men about the day's work. Thus the construction of their architectural framing was frequently held to represent the building of some cathedral, and such a picture presented as that in which the carpenters are busy planing boards or are driving nails with tremendous expen- diture of energy. Very gradually, yet more and more decidedly, did Latin influence decline and Germanic national spirit assert itself. In the next two centuries two important political movements furthered this develop- ment of German intellectual independence. The bitter warfare between the Emperor Henry IV (1055-1106) and Pope Gregory VII, with the ensuing century-long struggle between church and state, served to separate German art from the source of traditions, and to leave it free to follow its natural bent. For while, on the one hand, this struggle upset the peace of many a cloister and interfered in some measure with opportunities for scholarship, it, on the other hand, roused clergy and laity alike to independent consideration of the real basis of Christianity, of the foundation of Christian faith and Christian hope in the life and death of Christ. It was doubtless due in part to this revival of devotional feeling, in part also to the passionate religious enthusiasm of those women who in the XI and XII centuries founded the cult of Mysticism, that the Passion of Christ, which had heretofore not received any greater degree of attention in art than the other incidents of his life, became one of the most frequently recurring themes ; and whereas the earlier 14 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART representations of the crucifixion conveyed nothing of suffering or of exaltation, but presented the Christ hanging upon the cross, or calmly standing before it with wide open eyes, as purely a symbol, they now began to express in some measure the agony of the Sin- bearer and to grow gradually more and more instinct with personal interest in and feeling for the suffering borne. The effect of the struggle between the church and the world was not confined, however, to the awakening of a more universal and individual interest in the Christian story. The world asserted it- self — the German world — and literature and art turned from exclu- sively religious to secular themes. The language, too, most com- monly used henceforth was the language of the people. The Romance of Rudlieb about the middle of the XI century was the last attempt to tell a German story in the Latin language. This movement at once toward secular thought and a new nationahsm was vastly furthered by the Crusades. Those pilgrimages to the Holy Land were not only great religious movements, they were powerful social forces. From the frugal life of their small towns the German "War- riors of the Cross'* passed into the rich, luxurious, colourful life of the Orient. They were stirred by the spirit of adventure and ro- mance; notwithstanding their religious fervour they were more likely to develop on the side of worldliness than of asceticism. Then, too, they came into close touch with the French crusaders, with their higher degree of culture and their already rich national literature, and they were spurred to emulation. They began to re-tell their ancient sagas in verse and in pictures. The middle of the XII cen- tury saw the endeavour to unite old fragments into a great epic in the "Nibelungen Lied," and this, too, in the German Language. But not only did the Germans hear from the French the stories of Charle- magne and his court and of King Arthur and his Table Round, which brought about the translation of the "Song of Roland," and inspired the "Tristan" of Godfrey of Strassburg, the "Parsifal" of Wolfram von Eschenbach; they heard also the skilful and charming songs of the knightly troubadours, and poets like Rudolf von Strubenburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Walther von der Vogelweide adopted the manner and sang their "Minne-songs" in praise of love and the beloved. And since art was, for the most part, concerned with book illustration. Scenes from the Life of ^neas FROM HEINRICH VOX VELDEGKe's iEXEID, ROYAL LIBRARY, BERLIN "Superbia" FROM THE "pleasure GARDEn" BY HERRAD VOX LANDSPERG BOOK ILLUMINATION 15 the effect on art was naturally the same as on Hteratnre. One of the earliest combinations of the religious and the profane in subject, as well as of the old traditions and the new manner in treatment, was the "Pleasure Garden" (Lustgarten, Hortus Deliciarum) compiled in 1167 by the nun Herrad of Landsperg for Abbess Relindis of that cloister. In this "Pleasure Garden" Herrad was commissioned to bring together aU the learning of the period concerning astronomy, geography, philosophy and the other sciences, in conjunction with the Bible — since, to the Church, the sciences were still but handmaids of theology. The illustrations fill more space than the text and, except in the scenes from the Life of Christ, which are faithfully pre- sented in accordance with churchly traditions, show such close ob- servation of all details of hfe in the homes and on the streets, that this "Pleasure Garden" is one of our most important sources of in- formation about the hfe and manners of that period.* To the same period as the "Pleasure Garden" belong two works now in the Royal Library in Berlin, "The Song of the Virgin" (Das Lied von der Maget) with its naturalistic illustrations by Wernher of Tegernsee, which was finished in 1173, and Heinrich von Veldegke's "^neid," in which, as it treats of a purely secular subject, the artist can freely follow his own impulses without restraint from the side of churchly traditions. To a somewhat later period, the first half of the XIII century, belong two works of historic and romantic as well as artistic interest, the Psalterf of the crusader Landgrave of Thuringia, with its elaborately decorated initials and symbolical illustrations, and the more richly illustrated Prayerbook of St. Elizabeth, who came to the Wartburg in 1211, at the age of four years, to be brought up as became the future wife of the Landgrave's son, afterward Ludwig IV. Passing over many similar works of the XIII century which show no markedly different characteristics, we enter the century which was at once the most prolific of all in book illumination and * The original was burnt in the fire that destroyed Strassburg Library in 1870, but a large number of the pictures had been traced off or copied previous to that time, so that we have definite knowledge of them, in spite of the loss of the original. Some of the most satisfactory and access- ible copies are those made by Count Bastard, in the National Library in Paris. t Royal Library, Stuttgart. 16 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART the last in which it occupied any considerable position or was prac- tised to any great extent as an art. The most important work of the first half of the XIV centm-y is the "Chronicle of the Pilgrimage to Rome of the Emperor Henry VII and his Brother Balduin." In seventy-three pictures the story of the pilgrimage is told in great detail and with the vividness of an eye wit- ness. The figures are unskilfully drawn, the horses wooden, the hands altogether impossible in their shapes and positions, but an effort at individualisation is evident, and such a picture as the "Death of the Emperor" is full of expression. The technique is of the sim- plest, the outhnes are drawn in ink, the tinting is done in water- colours. Of great interest and of a higher degree of beauty is the "Pas- sionale" compiled from Prater Colda's "Passionale" and illustrated by Canonicus Benessius for Princess Kunigunde, daughter of King Ottokar of Bohemia and Abbess of St. George's Cloister on the Hrad- schin, Prague. The slender figures are of a refinement which suggests French influence, the drawing is clear and delicate, the pictures possess much poetic charm. The attitudes are reasonable, the ac- tions full of Hfe. The Christ Child is hvely and natural, and such scenes as those of the Crucifixion and Entombment are given with fine feeling. The most profusely illustrated books of the century were the Picture Bibles, known as "Armenbibeln" — or Bibles for the poor and illiterate — which, with the illustrated books of law and his- torical chronicles, permit us to follow closely the development of the various branches of the art of book illumination. But while Bibles, chronicles and law books were the expression of the masses of the people, the upper classes, as we have seen, largely through the influence of their contact with the more scholarly and elegant French warriors in the Crusades, had developed a knightly, courtly, poetical Hterature of Minne-song. Naturally, illustrated collections of these songs were made and we find these knights and poets and the gracious ladies to whom they address their Minne-songs and from whom they receive the laurel, pictured in the twenty-five illustrations in the Weingartner Codex which was compiled about 1280 near Constance, and is now in the Library of the King of Wuert- From the Mnnessian Codex Minnesingers heidelberg universitv library BOOK ILLUMINATION 17 tenberg, and in the one hundred and forty-one illustrations of the Manessian Codex in Heidelberg University Library, compiled about the end of the XIII century. The representations are without depth, yet not without a certain charm. French influence is marked in the — — softer lines, the greater refinement of form and feature, the more graceful disposition of the folds of the garments. The types are at the same time more courtly and more effeminate. The ideal for men and women alike is a small head, rounded forehead, arched nose, small, full-hpped mouth, round and dimpled chin, narrow shoulders and slender hips. It is a type childish, immature, appeahng. The servants are carefully distinguished from their masters by being made small and undersized; so, for instance, the two who are ar- guing almost under the horses' hoofs in the "Herzog Heinrich" in the Manessian Codex. Similar in content, illustrated with pic- tures of battles and of tournaments watched by lovely ladies from the castle walls is the codex in Cassel done by Wilhelm of Oranse in ^—^ 1334 and containing thirty-five finished and twenty-five unfinished illustrations. French influence was especially marked in Prague where Karl X ^ IV, who had been educated at the court of Valois, became King of Bohemia in 1333, founded the first school of painting in Germany and gave considerable impetus to the art of book illumination. The chief work of his reign was the Breviary of the Imperial Chancellor, X Johann of Neumarkt, Bishop of Leitomisch from 1353 to 1364, which is now in the Bohemian Museum, Prague. Among the charac- teristically French touches are the introduction of Gothic features in the architecture, and of the "Dr61eries" so beloved in France — those joyous, satirical or fantastic scenes introduced in miniature behind the curving vines of the ornamental work. Written in the Czech language was the "Manual of Christian ><~ Verities'* (Lehrbuch der Christlichen Wahrheiten), in the Univer- sity Library, Prague, which was illustrated by Thomas Stitny, who died about 1400. The types are more vigorous and poses much more natural and expressive than in the earher works. For Emperor Karl's son and successor, Wenzel, Willehalm of p^ Oranse illustrated, in 1387, the Bible which is now in the Am- bras Collection, Vienna, in which the pictures are, in the main. 18 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART amazingly worldly in character, as are those in Wenzel's six-vol- .^ - ume German Bible in the Imperial Library. King Wenzel was possessed by a great love for a maiden who was an attendant at the baths, and she figures with the King in every possible scene ^ in the pictures in these Bibles. 7^ In Austria, in 1386, Johann of Troppau finished a Bible* for Archduke Albrecht I, in which the men and women are of much beauty and charm. Of still greater interest is the German transla- tion of the "Durandi rationale divinorum officiorum," begun in 1384, illustrated by one Hans Sachs, a master who enjoyed great fame in Vienna as "Painter to the nobly-born Prince Albert of Austria." The figures, often very small, are drawn with great surety; lightly draped, they show careful modelHng, while the heads express in each case distinct individuality. The ornamental work is elaborate and very beautiful; the brush is handled in quite the manner of the easel painter and effects a treatment which is broad yet fine. But with the close of the XIV century, book illumination ceased yj to hold its place as the chief of the arts. Painting ceased to be con- fined to the monasteries and became a worldly vocation, and the energies of the painters were expended on altars and portraits. After the middle of the fifteenth century the invention of print- ing did away with the necessity for the slow copying of books by the monks, and for the elucidation of the text or the beauti- fying of these printed books engravings, etchings, woodcuts and drawings took the place of the painter's illuminations. * Vienna Imperial Library. 1. Isolde and Brag'ane Meeting Tristan in the Garden. 2. Figures from the Bathroom FRESCOES, RUNKELSTEIN CASTLE CHAPTER III FRESCO-PAINTING FROM THE IX TO THE XIV CENTURY F.RALLEL to book illustration the art of fresco-painting developed, though the number and extent of the frescoes remaining to us are comparatively Hmited. We find it recorded that, as early as the IX century, the Em- peror Charlemagne caused the dome of his church. in Aix-la-Chapelle to be decorated with mosaics, bringing in, doubtless, ItaUan artists to do the work. In Carolingian times, too, the cloister church in Fulda was decorated by one of the monks with frescoes on a dark blue ground. Very interesting must have been the frescoes painted in the Castle at Ingleheim in the reign of Louis the Pious. In the chapel were pictured, on the one side, scenes from the Old Testament, on the other, scenes from the Life of Christ, while in the great hall were the deeds of famous pagan and Christian heroes. In this series, also, Charlemagne's descent was traced from Constantine the Great. Unfortunately these have all suffered destruction in the course of the centuries. The earhest frescoes remaining to us date from about the year 1000 and are in St. George's Church in Oberzell on Reichenau Is- land. These represent in eight pictures the miracles of Christ: the Raising of Lazarus, Raising of the Daughter of Jairus, Bringing to Life of the Son of the W^idow of Nain, Healing of a Leper, Driving out of Devils, Healing of the Paralytic, Stilhng of the Storm at Sea, Restoring of Sight to the Blind; then the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment. It is interesting to note that the Christ in these frescoes ^ is the beardless Christ of Early Christian Art, as in the Catacombs; the Apostles and Saints are of the types found in the mosaics, with inexpressive countenances and staring eyes, but they all are in mo- tion and gesticulating. The garments are, in the main, of antique fashion, though occasionally secondary personages appear in the costume of the period. The colours are Hght and without glaze. 19 20 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART In the years between 1151 and 1156 were painted the frescoes in the double church at Schwarzrheindorf near Bonn. The church is a beautiful, small building in Romanesque style (the spire is new) with, on the outside, a gallery on which the student may walk around the chiu-ch and observe the graceful row of small columns with carved capitals in different designs of leaves and animals. Inside, it is divided into two storeys, like the Church of St. Francis at Assisi, which was built a century later in the Gothic manner. The lower church was the common assembling room of all the people for the mass; in its ceiling is an hexagonal opening through which the nuns, who sat in seclusion in the upper church, might see and hear the service. The pictures on the walls and ceihng of the lower church represent scenes from Ezekiel's Vision of the corruption of Jerusalem and the judgments to come upon her for her sins; those in the upper church, the Vision of St. John on Patmos, with the New Jerusalem which was opened before him in that vision. The frescoes are done on blue ground and are, even in their present carefully restored condition, very decorative in Hne and colour. The people all wear the traditional robes and are not individual- ised in any degree, but all look alike, save that some wear beards while the majority do not. Great minuteness of characterisation is, indeed, hardly to be expected at so early a date as a century before Cimabue painted his frescoes in the church at Assisi. The bodies are flat and undetached from the background and are, in many cases, set in the various triangular spaces in poses no human being could possibly assume. Yet the attitudes, gestures and movements are, on the whole, exceedingly expressive. The bearded prophet doubled over in the sleep in which there comes to him the vision of a wheel with a man therein is unmistakably sound asleep; the youthful looking, beardless man making a hole in the wall of the city with a pick conveys by his attitude great eagerness to see what is on the other side, while on that other side, the idolators swinging censers before all sorts of fish and reptile abominations do so with intense fervour of gesture though with ex- pressionless faces. Ezekiel, who has cut off a lock of his hair with his knife, weighed it in the balances, consigned a fourth to the wind, a fourth to the sword and a fourth to the flames, gathers up the re- ■^mi (- */t' W K 2 ^ CQ a 2 a > ? FRESCO-PAINTING 21 mainder in his garment with an expression of most sentimental tenderness. In the arches of the transepts are scenes from the Life of Christ. In the "Driving out the Money-changers from the Temple'* the idea of an inside room is conveyed by a gate or door through which one of the expelled is being urged, bearing his scales in one hand, the other upraised in protest. In the "Transfigm-ation" the disciples are most curiously crumpled up on the ground as if wholly overcome by the revelation. The "Crucifixion" presents Christ, the Virgin and St. John, and, contrary to custom in the mural paintings of the period, which usually content themselves with the small symbolic group of three, introduces Longinus and Stef aton — the man with the vinegar sponge — and also three inactive though interested onlookers. The Crucified is presented according to Byzantine tradition, his body draped, his feet nailed separately to the cross. On the walls of the transept are pictiu*es of Emperors and Kings of the period. The decorative bands of leaves and birds separating the story- telling sections are of great beauty of design and colour. The frescoes in the upper church possess much less character and interest than those in the lower church. In the apse is shown the New Jerusalem, in the midst of which Christ is seated on his throne, which is upheld by the founders of the church, Bishop Arnold and his sister. Around the throne are the martyrs and the symbols of the four Evangelists. In the arch above, Christ is again pictured surrounded by apostles, martyrs and saints. On the left wall of the apse is St. John, physically on Patmos, spiritually at the guarded gate of heaven marked Portarius, gazing at the figure of the Christ which is revealed to him in a burst of flame. Somewhat later, dating from about 1180, are the frescoes in the ceihng of the former Chapter House, now a reformatory, in Brau- weiler near Cologne, illustrating the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews and legends of martyrs and saints; as Mary Magda- lene and the repentant thief who was pardoned on the cross, Daniel and St. Thekla closing the mouth of the lion; Cyprian the Sorcerer and St. Justine quenching the fire; St. JEmihan unhurt by the sharp 22 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART sword; Samson, Peter, Stephen and the others who triumphed through faith. Belonging to the same period are the "Ten Apostles" in the Church of St. Cunibert and the very badly damaged remains of paintings in the crypt of Sta. Maria in Capitol, in Cologne. Considerably in advance of these technically are the XIII century figures of saints with the Emperor Henry II and Bishop Engelbert in the Baptismal Chapel in St. Gereon's Church in Cologne, in which, in spite of their defacement, the forms possess a certain stateliness. The garments hang in full, curiously massed and broken folds, rather like piles of material than like draped robes. The frescoes in the Church of St. Mary in Lyskirchen, Cologne, painted about 1280, have been thoroughly restored. They present scenes from the life of Christ, from the life of St. Nicholas and from the martyrdom of various saints. Most of the forms are typical; some few show an attempt at individualisation, but it is diflBcult to say how much of this is original, how much the contribution of the restorer. V In Cologne Cathedral are frescoes in the choir stalls which date from shortly after 1322. On the Gospel side, which was the Pope's side, are scenes from the legends of St. Peter and St. Sylvester; on the Epistle side, which was the Emperor's side, the "Adoration of the Three Kings." Below these are pointed arcades, in which are, on the one side, bishops, on the other, emperors, in statuesque poses. Above the pointed arches, on a reddish brown background, are introduced drdleries such as we meet with in book illustrations — gay little figures looking out from among vines, with, below them, a sort of frieze of inscriptions with decorative initials. These frescoes are in tempera and are painted almost directly on the stone work. Un- fortunately they are now draped with tapestries and are therefore inaccessible. A little later than these frescoes in Cologne Cathedral, but still in the first half of the XIV century, frescoes were painted in the church in Ramersdorf in the Seven Mountains near Bonn, which have been destroyed, but of which a good idea may be gained from the aquarell copies in the Berlin Print Room. In the chancel were scenes from the Life of Christ; on the arches, God the Father as FRESCO-PAINTING 23 Creator of the world with the four signs of the elements. In the arches of the nave were represented the Coronation of the Virgin, with music-making angels and St. Michael and the Dragon; in the arches of the aisles, St. Elizabeth, St. Catherine and the Last Judg- ment. Christ is presented as judge of the world, on either side are the Virgin and St. John and angels bearing the instruments of his Passion. On his right are the just, on his left the unjust, among whom are many nuns and monks, knights, princes and fine ladies. Abraham receives the souls of the just and Satan the souls of the wicked. The forms are of exaggerated slenderness and very flexible in line, the heads too small in proportion to the bodies, the arms and legs very thin, the faces round, the hair wavy. The folds of the garments are soft and often quite beautiful in draping. The music- making angels are winsome, the innocence and gentleness of the saints are most appealing, but the characterisation of the wicked was quite beyond the artist's powers. In WestphaUa, the oldest frescoes, painted in 1166, are in St. Patroclus* Cathedral in Soest and present Christ, in heroic size, en- throned, surrounded by apostles with the Virgin and St. John. A frieze with half-length pictures of saints divides this scene from a series of emperors enthroned under baldachins. The figures are of great dignity, the garments hang in simple folds. The mural paintings in St. Nicholas' Chapel in Soest date from the beginning of the thirteenth century. They represent Christ, the Twelve Apostles and Saints. To the same period belong the frescoes in the church at Methler near Dortmund, representing Christ enthroned, the Annunciation, Peter and Paul and two other saints. The figures of Christ, Peter and Paul are those with which we are famihar in mosaic art; but in the Annunciation the types are strangely Jewish, the eyes, though round, are not staring, the hair is tossed, the movements are sudden, the folds of the garments restless. To the latter part of the XIII century belongs the now thor- oughly restored picture in the transept of the Cathedral in Miin- ster, which commemorates the subjection of the Frisians to the spiritual power of the Bishop of Miinster in 1270. The fresco has been so restored that nothing of the original remains to 24 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART us but the composition. In the middle is the patron saint of the Cathedral, St. Paul, whom groups of Frisian peasants approach, bearing gifts of eggs, lambs, horses, and other tribute. In Saxony, in the Neuwerkkirche in Goslar, the fresco in the apse was painted about the time the church was built, in 1186; but has been thoroughly restored. It represents the Virgin enthroned, surrounded by seven doves, which represent the seven gifts of the Spirit, and holding on her knee the Christ Child, while St. Peter and St. Paul and two angels kneel in worship before her.* To the same period belongs the "Death of the Virgin" in the en- trance hall of the Wiedenkirche in Weida, and also the "Virgin and Child with Four Apostles," in the Chapel of the Liebfrauenkirche, Halberstadt. The frescoes in the church itself are much later, dat- ing from about 1280. The most imposing mural paintings in Saxony are those in the choir of the Cathedral in Brunswick, which is a veritable Picture- Bible. They have undergone restoration so thoroughly that any very definite estimate of the original types and colouring is not pos- sible. Schnaase records of them in his History that "the figures originally were done in outline lightly filled with colour and possessed none of the hard brilliance restoration has given them." The con- ceptions and composition are, however, most interesting; and though, in the bright daylight of the nave, the pillars and remains of figures restored are garish, in the gloom of the choir the colour effect is one of great beauty. The frescoes on the ceiling represent, on a blue ground, the Genealogical Tree of Christ, springing from its root in Jesse, and growing so as to form a frame for the enthroned Madonna of Byzantine type. In the upper sections of the walls are scenes from the Old Testament: The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, Abel's Murder, Moses in the Burning Bush, The Brazen Serpent, and Moses Receiv- ing the Ten Commandments, which here are written, not on tables, but on a parchment roll. Below these, in horizontal rows, scenes from the legends of the patron saints of the Cathedral, St. John, St. Blasius and St. Thomas of Canterbury, are given in great detail. * The interesting frescoes in the Rathaua in Goslar date from the XVI century and are attrib- uted in ancient chronicles to Michael Wolgemut, in connection with whose works they will be considered. Frescoes in the Apse of Brunswick Cathedral FRESCO-PAINTING 25 The ceiling of the crossing is enclosed, as it were, by a wall, which represents the wall of the Heavenly Jerusalem and in each of the twelve towers of which stands an apostle. Within the en- closed field are pictured the Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, the Marys at the Grave, the Walk to Emmaus, the Supper at Emmaus and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. In the small wedge-shaped spaces outside the city wall are prophets. In the southern transept are represented the martyrdom of St. Blasius and the miracles wrought by his blood which was treasured by seven holy women who, in their turn, suffered martyrdom; the wise and foolish virgins, quite beautiful and appealing figures; the finding of the cross by St. Helena and various acts of her son, the Emperor Constantine. In the vaulting are pictured Christ and the Virgin enthroned, surrounded by angels, prophets and saints. Undoubtedly the painting of so many pictures was not all done at one time but extended over a period from the beginning to the middle of the XIII century. The pictures in the north transept are modern, dating from the time of the restoration of the Cathedral frescoes in the XIX century. There are no church frescoes in the south of Germany equal in importance to those in the Rhineland and Saxony. The most im- portant early Bavarian frescoes are those which have come to the National Museum in Munich from Cloister Rebdorf. They pic- ture scenes from the Hfe of Daniel. In the chapel of the Castle at Forchheim, near Bamberg, are remains of frescoes representing the Annunciation, Adoration of the Magi, and Last Judgment, in which the types pictured are not lacking in beauty and grace. In the crypt of Basel Cathedral are preserved frescoes dating from the middle of the XIV century and representing scenes from the Uves of Christ, the Virgin and St. Margaret. There is no model- ling, no body to the figures nor depth to the space; the flesh tones are very white, the outhnes drawn heavily and washed in thinly with colour. In Austria, the church on the Nonnenberg, Salzburg, pos- sesses frescoes of youthful saints, from the XII century, which. 26 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART like the "Adoration of the Magi" in the Stiftskirche in Lambach, present the types famiHar to us in Early Christian mosaic art. The frescoes in the cloisters of the Cathedral in Brixen, by the Master of the Scorpion, Jacob Sunter and others, belong to the middle of the XV century and will be spoken of in connection with the masters to whom they are attributed. The most beautiful frescoes in the South are those in the chapel in Gurk, Karnten, painted on a former nuns' choir over the entrance wall. The painter has constructed with considerable fineness and elaboration an architectural arcade within which is seated the Vir- gin holding the Child and surrounded by the Virtues, the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, the Prophets and winged Genii. These pictures date from about the middle of the XIII century and betray French in- fluence in the same degree as the book illuminations of the period. The fine oval of the faces, the softness of the ringleted hair, the ten- derness of expression, the delicacy of ornament, together with the light colouring, lend them an unusual degree of charm. In this chapel are, further, scenes from the Old Testament repre- senting the Creation of Eve, the Fall of Man, Jacob's Ladder; from the New Testament, the Three Kings, the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, the Transfiguration and Paradise. A frieze introduces medallions of saints. The remaining spaces are filled with apostles, angels and decorative bands of flowers and leaves. A sort of transition from the fresco to the altar-piece is marked by the painting of the wooden ceilings of the Roman- esque basilicas. Two famous monuments of this kind of painting are preserved in Germany, the ceiling of the church in Zillis and that of St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim. The paintings in Zillis date from the beginning of the XII century. The ceiling is divided into one hundred and fifty-three square sections, which are enclosed by ornamental bands of leaves. The scenes represented in the sections are from the Old and New Testaments. Much nobler and more beautiful are the paintings on the ceil- ing of St. Michael's, Hildesheim, which date from 1186. The middle of the ceiling is divided into eight large sections; the back- ground is blue. The chief subject is the Genealogical Tree of Christ FRESCO-PAINTING 27 growing out of the sleeping Jesse, below whom are Adam and Eve in the act of yielding to temptation and bringing sin into the world. Following upon Jesse, in the large sections, are David and three other kings, the Virgin Mary and, in the eighth and last section, Christ enthroned, bearing a tablet on which is inscribed "Alpha and Omega" — "The First and the Last." Other ancestors of Christ are presented in the small oblong sections which are set around the outside of the main divisions; still others are in the medallions which form a sort of frame to the rest of the ceiling. In the lowest of the small sections are symbolic representations of the four rivers of Paradise and the four cardinal virtues; in the extreme corners of the ceiling are the symbols of the four evangelists. The figures possess much dignity; their movements are given with unexpected natural- ness, their uniform mental attitude is one of great earnestness. Of secular frescoes, the most important are to be found in Rimk- elstein Castle near Botzen, in Tyrol. They were painted in the lat- ter half of the XIV century for Nicholas Vintler, whose coat-of-arms several times appears in them. Upon entering the court of the pic- turesque old castle on an isolated rock in a ravine, sheltered by towering mountains, looking down upon a rushing river, there can be seen, on the rear wall of a balcony along the second storey, several groups of three figures each, consisting of the greatest pagan heroes (Hector, Alexander, Caesar); the greatest Jewish heroes (Joshua, David, Judas Maccabbeus); the greatest Christian kings (Arthur, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon); the noblest knights (Parsifal, Gawain, Iwein); the most devoted pairs of lovers (Wilhelm of Aus- tria and Aglei, Tristan and Isolde, Wilhelm of Orleans and Amelie) ; the most famous wielders of the sword (Theodoric of Bern with Sachs, Sigfrid with Balmung, Ditlib of Steur with Welsung) ; the strongest giants (Asperan, Otnit, Struthan) ; the most powerful women (Hilda, Vodelgart, Frau Rachin). These heroic figures are interesting, despite the fact that they have suffered from the weather and also from restoration. They are all painted above a wainscoting except the giants, who, in order to convey the idea of their enormous size, are made to reach all the way from the floor. Off this balcony opens a room on the walls of which are badly damaged frescoes of scenes from Arthur's Court and the Quest of 28 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART the Holy Grail; off this, the "Women's Room" with the story of Tristan and Isolde told in minutest detail. Very full of force is the figure of Tristan as, in full armour, with plumed helmet, he swings his sword to slay the fallen Marold. Of much beauty and grace is that of Isolde in the moment of finding the exhausted Tristan, after his fight with the dragon; very expressive of the surreptitious, clandes- tine nature of their errand the crouching forms of Isolde and Bra- gane as, going through the garden to meet Tristan, they pass under the very oHve tree in which King Mark and Melot are sitting, by no means concealed from us. We know that it is night, for in the wild and cloudy sky is a new moon. The figures are done in green with white lights and stand out with fine detachment from the background. Indeed the detach- ment is, in some cases, so remarkable, the heads so expressive and the garments so skilfully draped, that it seems probable that these features developed, in some measure, in the restoration of the pic- tures which was undertaken 1506-1508, at the command of the Em- peror Maximilian, by Friedrich Lebenbacher and finished by Martin Reichlich. The Neidhardt Hall gives an interesting picture of the life of the lords and ladies of the XIV century. In one picture the men are hunting; in another a tournament is in progress; a third reveals a group of lords and ladies playing ball in the shade of a grove of con- ventionalised trees; in yet another a stately dance is in progress. The people all wear the costume of the period. The men are slim and elegant in very tight-fitting doublets and hose, with small waist, bell sleeves and exceedingly long and pointed shoes. They wear long mustaches and pointed beards — indeed the whole effect is exagger- atedly gothic. The women are the same height as the men, their gowns are cut straight and long, their waists are small, their shoul- ders sloping. AH have round faces with short chins, high, wide fore- heads and red-gold hair. Though all are full of life and display much interest in the business in hand, no one is sharply characterised ex- cept the stout lady with her hair in two heavy braids, wearing a dark red dress and large hat, who is taken direct from life and is a humor- ous, almost comic figure. The bathroom contains the most valuable remains of the old < < FRESCO-PAINTING 29 paintings. The walls are painted in a tapestry pattern, with a red ground embroidered, as it were, with conventionahsed animals and birds. At the top is a frieze in two sections. The upper section is filled with men and women set in medallions in the attitudes of standing, sitting or kneeling. The lower section represents a hall with round arches out of each of which a person is advancing to the slender painted railing which divides this hall from the pool. All the draped figures are attired in the extreme of fashion. Some are standing quietly, leaning against the raihng; others appear, from their gestures, to be engaged in conversation; one is using the raihng as an athlete would the parallel bars; another is seated on it with careless freedom, his back turned toward us. The people standing in the arches of the west wall have divested themselves of their garments and are ready to step into the bath. A woman has one foot aheady over the raihng, but has paused a moment, her head in her hand, lost in thought. A very sprightly young person, who manifests much pleasure in anticipation of the re- freshing bath, is in the act of swinging over the railing. The south wall is given over to various animals which disport them- selves on the raihng. Even in the nude figures there is no at- tempt at modelling, but the attitudes are so well observed, the situations are presented with such naive humour, and the person- alities are so real that we feel that we know these people and all their httle vanities and foibles, even though they are not detached from the background and have no real bodies. These frescoes form a most interesting commentary on the courtly hfe of the period; they reflect it as does the poetry; in truth they are hardly more than illustrations of the poems with which the knights and their ladies were so familiar. In the city houses, as well as in the castles, the wealthy patri- cians adorned their walls with heroic figures from epic or folk poetry and even, occasionally, with pictures illustrative of that industrial development which was bringing such great wealth to many of the city famihes. There were, for instance, frescoes in a house in Con- stance, of which drawings remain in the Wessenberg collection, which, with scenes from the Old Testament, the Latin classics and the Tristan saga, included a series from daily hfe, setting forth the 30 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART process of weaving from the preparing of the flax to the periodical baths given to the workers. But the amount of fresco-painting in Germany was small in- deed in comparison with Italy and the period of its practice short. The strong external factor which militated against its continuance to any extent through the XIV, XV and XVI centuries is to be found in the development of German architecture. The limitations this imposed will be best understood by a brief comparison with con- ditions in Italy. In Italy, for the telling of secular stories in colour, the princes' palaces offered ample, well-lighted walls and ceilings. In Germany, there were few such great, sunny palaces; instead the houses were in the main built in Gothic style and ceiled with wood, while the hghting of these houses in the colder northern country would have seemed to an Itahan inadequate. There was also less wealth in the hands of private individuals in Germany than belonged to the princes of church and state in Italy. Even when the great Emperor Maximilian wished to set forth his life history in the "Triumphal Procession," "White King," and "Theuerdank," he did it in the cheapest of all mediums, the wood cut, and was oftentimes hard pressed to find money to pay his artists. For the painting of religious pictures the basilica offered to the painter large spaces for mural decoration, and was in Italy suc- ceeded almost directly by Renaissance buildings which did not de- prive him of those spaces. Even those monuments of the Gothic style which were erected in Italy were so modified to conform to ItaKan architectural canons that there was still ample opportunity for the exercise of the painter's art — as in the Gothic Church of St. Francis in Assisi. In Germany, the earliest form of church architecture was, of course, as in the south, the basilica. The new and individual style, the Romanesque, which developed after the year 1000, for a time provided wall space for the exercise of the painter's art. For a relatively short time, however. Grad- ually the character and endeavour of German architecture became vertical; movement upward became the watchword. The height of the nave increased in proportion to that of the aisles, towers were built and the effect of the whole building was lightened in response FRESCO-PAINTING 31 to this movement toward height. Colmnns, pillars and other de- tails became more slender, and solid walls were broken at short intervals by glass windows. These, even in the late Romanesque or "Transitional" cathedrals, as Spires, Worms, Mayence, de- stroyed the wall space which formerly was a field for decoration, leaving only the ceiling and apse to the painter. From this archi- tectural style it was but a short step to the Gothic in which the wall spaces were eliminated, their place being taken by glass windows, and the ceilings became so pointedly arched, so ribbed and veined, that the last space for the monumental fresco-painter was taken from him. The fresco was, we might say, superseded by the glass win- dow; and it is interesting to note that many of the greatest artists, even in the XVI century, furnished designs for these windows. A new field was opened to the painter when the altar-piece — antependium or superfrontal — came into use in the churches about the middle of the XII century. The old custom had been to have on the altar nothing but the cross, the candles and possibly a reliquary. Then a metal altar-piece was introduced, such as the "Golden Altar" now in the Cluny Museum in Paris, which was a gift from the Emperor Henry II to Basel Cathedral. In the XII century, as there was seldom money enough for so costly an altar-piece, a wooden one, on which some sacred or symbolic scene was painted, was set upon the altar. The earliest of these altar- pieces that remains to us is that which was painted about 1180 for St. Walpurgis' Church in Soest, in WestphaHa, and is now in Miinster gallery. It is an oblong tablet in one piece and presents, on a ground which was originally gold but is now gray, Christ enthroned upon a rainbow, his right hand raised in blessing, his left holding a book open on his knee. To the left stands the Virgin with the symbol of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost and St. Walpurgis with a book; to the right are John the Baptist with a lamb and St. Augustine with staff and book. Sixteen small concave medalhons are set in the frame, in which were originally painted sixteen prophets. The standpoint and technique are those of the fresco-painter; indeed so closely related are this antepen- dium and the frescoes in St. Patroclus' Church, Soest, that they are generally attributed to the same master. 32 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Similar in form to this altar-piece in Munster is the Rosenheim Altar in the National Museum, Munich, the work of a Bavarian painter about 1300. The oblong of the panel is broken by an arch over the central section, in which is represented the Coronation of the Virgin by Christ, with, overhead, two angels bearing a crown. On either side are six apostles. The figures are undersized, all in motion and gesticulating. The composition possesses a certain marked rhythm owing to the disposition of the figures, by means of bodily attitudes and gestures, in groups of three, in the same manner as the disciples are grouped in Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper," though, of course, much less perfectly. A step in the formal development of the altar-piece is marked in the antependium which has been brought to Berlin Gallery, from the Wiesenkirche in Soest, for which it was painted between 1200 and 1230. This antependium is definitely divided into three sections. In the central section, which is arched, is the Crucifixion. The figure of the Christ is draped in the Byzantine manner, the feet are nailed with one nail and supported on a short board. To the right of the cross stand the sorrowing women; to the left, a group of men whose faces and gestures express great excitement. Above these, under the arms of the cross are, on the left, Synagoge, with blind- folded eyes, carrying the Tables of the Law; on the right, Ecclesia, whom an angel is leading to the cross that she may catch in her chalice the blood of Christ. Above the cross are mourning angels, pointing with outstretched hands to the Lamb of God. The scenes in the sections of the altar-piece to right and left are set in circles which recede slightly behind the plane of the central section. In the circle on the left section is a representation of Christ before Caiaphas, which is full of animation. Among the accusers are two men wearing the pointed hat which was the distinctively Jewish article of apparel and one man so Roman in type and in garments that the figure might have been copied from a statue of Caesar Au- gustus. In the circle on the right, are pictured the Marys at the Grave, raising their hands in amazement as the angel tells them the wonderful news of the Resurrection. The corner spaces left between the curve of the circle and the frame are filled with prophets and angels. a, 3 « p o a FRESCO-PAINTING 33 In the antependium in Berlin Gallery, painted between 1250 and 1270 by the Master of the Frescoes in St. Nicholas' Church, Soest, a further step is noticeable in the development of the altar- piece. It is not only divided into three sections hke the Wiesen- kirche antependium, but these are separated by columns, which stand out from the picture and seem to support the round arches above them. In the central division is represented the Trinity; in the left- hand section the Virgin; in the right, St. John the Evangelist. From this well-defined division of the altar-piece into fields, it was but a step to the setting on of the side sections by means of hinges so that they could be closed over the central section, which was frequently used as a shrine. Since the wings were attached by means of hinges, there was no reason why the artist should stop at one pair; gradually pair after pair were added so that the extent of the German altar-piece is amazing to any one familiar only with ItaHan and Flemish diptychs and triptychs. But with the adoption of movable wings, it became necessary to hft the altar-piece above the altar, since the wings scraped in opening and closing. A stationary base or predella was therefore added, which, in turn, furnished another field for the painter's art. Sometimes the predella itself was made with a thick wooden base and received painted wings to protect the paintings or wood-carved figures it contained. Thus, gradually, evolved the large German altar-piece with its many wings. As a base stood the predella, with or without wings, and containing pictures, detached figures carved in wood or wooden figures in high relief. The outside of the altar- piece proper was usually treated as merely the case and as such did not call for the outlay of the painter's greatest skill. Some- times it received a group, such as the Annunciation, or Adam and Eve, done in colours or simply in grey on grey; sometimes merely a decoration of vines and leaves. Corresponding to this, the back of the shrine occasionally received a picture also. In some altars a pair of stationary wings formed an extension of the altar case and a sort of balance in width to its thickness. When the doors were opened, there came to view the long expanse of pictures covering the inside of the outer wings and the outside of the next pair. The wings sometimes received one picture each, some- 34 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART times — very commonly in the earlier altars — they were divided into any number of sections, each containing a small picture. When the last pair of wings was opened, as was done on High Days and Holy Days only, there stood disclosed the shrine section, the largest and most beautiful picture of all, the key note of the altar. Fre- quently this picture was not a painting, but was composed, in whole or in part, of painted figures carved in wood, detached or in very high rehef. Thus with the evolution of the altar-piece a new and important field was opened to the painter — and to the wood carver as well — which offered larger and larger opportimity as the altar-piece in- creased in size. CHAPTER IV THE SCHOOL OF TRAGUE, THE EARLIEST SCHOOL OF ART IN GERMANY TOMMASO DA MODENA— NICHOLAS WURMSER— THEODORIC OF PRAGUE— MASTER OF WITTINGAU THE earliest school of painting in Germany was founded in Prague by Karl IV who, as we have seen, upon becoming King of Bohemia in 1333 set about making his capital city a great art centre, gave commissions to book illuminators, erected many build- ings and invited painters to decorate his churches and castles. Im- mediately after his election as Emperor, he began to build the castle of Karlstein in the depths of the forest, high over the river Beraun, as a safe treasure house for the crown jewels. Three chapels were built within the fortress, the Chapels of St. Mary the Virgin, St. Cather- ine and the Holy Cross, and painters were summoned to adorn them with frescoes. Among these there was at least one ItaUan, Tommaso ^>^ da Modena, who is mentioned as working in Prague in 1357. The __ names of two other artists are known; Nicholas Wurmser, from the Rhine country, and Theodoric — or Dietrich — of Prague. Nicholas Wurmser was a sufficiently distinguished painter to receive from the Emperor in 1360 a grant of exemption from taxation on his estate in Morin, a privilege extended in 1367 to his colleague, Theodoric of Prague, in a document which made mention of "the beautiful and impressive paintings with which he had adorned the royal chapel in Karlstein." Tommaso da Modena was probably of the school of Giotto, as >c his work betrays marked Florentine characteristics. His signed altar in Vienna Gallery shows, on a gold background, the Virgin of Giot- tesque type, the drapery extending to cover her hair, holding the partially draped Christ Child and a little dog with which he is playing. In the smaller panels on either side are Saints Wenceslas and Palmatius. In the Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin in Karlstein Castle is a series of scenes from the Apocalypse which have been at- 35 X'. 36 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART tributed by some authorities to this master, by others to the German, Nicholas Wurmser. These frescoes are in a poor state of preserva- tion, but some details, as the angels blowing trumpets, who face directly toward the spectator, show a remarkable command of perspective and foreshortening. The sentiment and the types, as that of the Woman of the Apocalypse, are German rather than Italian, so that the attribution to Nicholas Wurmser would seem the more reasonable. To Theodoric of Prague are attributed the frescoes in the Holy Cross Chapel, which was dedicated in 1365. The tops of the deep window niches are adorned with scenes from the childhood of Christ and the Revelation to St. John. The walls are decorated with one hundred and thirty-three frescoes in two and three rows, one above the other, presenting, in heroic size, half-length figures of apostles, popes, monks, princes and saiints. The picture over the altar con- tains the Crucifixion, the Virgin and St. John, and, as predella, the Resurrection. The figures of the Crucified, St. Augustine and St. Ambrose have been broken out and taken to the Imperial Gallery in Vienna. The types in this chapel are broad-shouldered and strong, with large heads and earnest, even dramatically intense, expressions. That the artist was a close observer of nature is evident in the wrinkled foreheads, the broad, thick noses, the prominent cheek bones, the hands with their sharply marked knuckles, veins and sinews. The Crucifixion is unusually realistic for this period, the Christ presenting an appearance of great physical suffering. The garments are simply draped, in full folds; the colours are quite light. To this same master, Theodoric, is attributed an altar in the Rudolphinum in Prague, which presents the Virgin with the Christ Child, Saints Wenzel and Sigismund, four other Bohemian Saints and the donor. Archbishop 05ko of Wlaschim. The persons in- troduced are not so strongly characterised as those in Karlstein Castle. Necessarily, the attribution of the Karlstein frescoes is in- definite. None of the pictures is signed — except Tommaso's altar- piece in Vienna — and there is no documentary evidence as to what Photograph by Dr. Stoedlner, Berlin THEODORIC OF PRAGUE Virgin and Child with Saints and Archbishop Ocko op Wlaschim imperial gallery, vienna THE SCHOOL OF PRAGUE 37 part of the work was done by any given artist. In general, it may be said that the pictures in the Florentine manner, similar to the Vienna pictm'e, are assigned to Tommaso da Modena; those in which the types and sentiment correspond more nearly with the Schools of the Rhine are attributed to the German, Nicholas Wurmser; while those presenting strong, broad-shouldered, rather Slavonic types in a manner true to life and astonishingly free from the hamperings of art traditions are believed to be the work of the Bohemian, Theodoric. But these three were by no means the only artists attracted to Prague by the liberal commissions of the art-loving Emperor. Many works by painters who are still nameless are scattered through the Bohemian churches. So, in Prague, the hand of a fourth artist is recognised in the Crucifixion in the Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin. A fifth painted the altar given by Reinhart of Prague to the church in Miihlhausen-on-Neckar in 1385, which presents Saints Vitus, Wenzel and Sigismund. Still another painted in the Emmaus Cloister in Prague, which was dedicated in 1372, a series of scenes from the Old and New Testaments, which are markedly Italian in character, showing much of the delicacy and fondness for ornament characteristic of the School of Siena. By a painter whom Henry Thode has named the "Master of Wittingau"* because his altar in the Rudolphinum, Prague, came from the little Bohemian town of Wittingau, are several works of especial interest not only in themselves but because they exercised a direct and unmistakable influence on Master Berthold Landauer, the first of the great painters of Nuremberg. The Wittingau Altar is now in three sections, two of which repre- sent Christ in Gethsemane, and the Resurrection, with, on the back, figures of saints; the third section contains the scene of the Crucifixion. The colouring is warm, the people, especially the women, possess considerable beauty and charm, the scenes and figures are full of life. A most interesting work by this Master of Wittingau is the "Virgin and Child" in the church in Hohenfurt, Bohemia. The Madonna, who is presented standing, in three-quarter length, has an * Henry Thode, "Malerschule von Nurnberg." 38 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART extremely high forehead, above which is set a large, jewelled crown from the back of which is draped a fringed veil. Her fair, wavy hair is worn low so that her ears are almost hidden. The face is broad, the chin short, the mouth beautifully curved, the eyes large, prominent and heavy-lidded. In spite of the narrow, sloping shoulders, her whole personahty expresses calm strength and motherly capability and beneficence. Perhaps the most widely known of the works attributed to this artist is the Pahler Altar, which came to the National Museum, Munich, from Castle Pahl near Weilheim. The central picture represents the Crucifixion; on the wings are St. John the Baptist, St. Barbara, Christ the Man of Sorrows, and the Virgin and Child. In types and treatment this altar resembles that from Wittingau and would seem to be a direct antecedent of Master Berthold's Deichsler Altar in Berlin Gallery. The form and features of the Christ are of extreme refinement; the indications of suffering are restrained. The flesh is done with great softness and is very light, indeed quite pink and white in tone. The colour scheme is simple but harmonious. St. John wears a red robe lined with blue; the Virgin, blue lined with red, with a white head-dress; St. Barbara brown; St. John brownish green, and he carries a red book. The saints are all very tall with a combined dignity and sweetness of bearing which makes them ideal saints, apart, aloof from sinful men in purity and sanctity, yet tender and pitiful in their understanding of human frailty. But brilKant as was this early art period in Prague, it had short continuance on its own soil. Even during the reign of Karl IV*s successor. King Wenzel, it began to decline and after the outbreak of the Hussite wars, which kept Bohemia so long in turmoil, its activity ceased. The School of Prague, indeed, accomplished its greatest work in the impetus it gave to the early development of the greatest of all the schools of art in Germany, the School of Nuremberg. PART II SCHOOL OF COLOGNE CHAPTER V HAMBURG MASTER BERTRAM VAN BYRDE IN the Hanseatic city of Hamburg art developed early and was marked by distinct originality uninfluenced to any extent by the art of any foreign country or of the other German schools. The discovery of the existence of a large body of work by its early masters has been made within the last ten years and has awakened the greatest interest everywhere, and especially in Hamburg itself. Churches, individuals and other galleries have most generously aided in building up what has become a truly notable collection, for the accommodation of which a whole wing of the Kunsthalle has been set apart. Each artist has been given a room to himself, whenever the body of his work at all warrants it, and the rooms have been ar- ranged in chronological order, so that the development of Hamburg art is set forth in sequence from the XIV to the XIX centuries. The most recently discovered artist, Bertram van Byrde, who is also the earliest, was active in the closing years of the XIV and opening years of the XV century. Of his works there are in the Kunst- halle the Harvestehude Altar, which contains four scenes from the Life of the Virgin; the Buxtehude Altar, which presents in great detail, in eighteen scenes, the story of the Virgin's life, from her father Joachim's Sacrifice to her Death and Coronation; and the large Grabow Altar which contains twenty-four painted pictures and eighty figures carved in wood and painted. Besides these, there is a fourth large altar of Master Bertram's in South Kensington Museum, London, which presents, in fifty-seven pictures, scenes from the Life of the Virgin, the Life of St. Mary of Egypt and the Apocalypse. The Grabow altar, so called because it was for many years in the church in Grabow, is of special int^est as it was the first to be identified as the work of Master Bertram and led to further ac- quaintance with the master and to the recognition of other works from his hand. In the year 1900 ancient documents were discovered which 41 42 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART revealed that this altar-piece in Grabow had been the old High Altar in St. Peter's Church, Hamburg, painted by Master Bertram in 1397; that St. Peter's, having erected a new, up-to-date altar in 1722, had, in 1731, when a devastating fire swept the village of Grabow, presented it to the church there. Now on the altar- piece as it stood in Grabow the representations from the Old Testament were found to begin with the Fourth Day of Creation; it must therefore be concluded that the pictures of the first three days had been lost. It was recalled that Lappenberg, in his notes on early art in Hamburg, related that the picture of the Resur- rection in the Jacobikirche which ^Egidius Coignet had painted in Hamburg in 1593, when a fugitive from Antwerp in conse- quence of the religious unrest in the Netherlands, was painted on top of an older picture with gold background, of which there was still discernible, through the Coignet, the sun, the moon and the outlines of a human form. After much searching the Coignet picture, which had been lost sight of for years, was discovered and the measurements were found to be the same as those of the panels of the Grabow altar. As the Coignet picture was of little artistic value, it was decided to clean it off, whereupon there came to light the missing Days of Creation and three other scenes from the Old Testament which were painted below them and filled out the six sections into which the panel was divided. The discovery of this wing incited to a search for a corresponding which must have origi- nally balanced it on the altar-piece. In all probability they had both become loose while the altar was still in St. Peter's Church and this wing had, at Coignet's request, been given to him as a fragment of little value to the church but a fine board for a painter. But since he had obtained one wing, it might naturally be inferred that he had also painted over the other one missing from Bertram's altar. In St. Peter's Church were two more Coignet pictures, the "Last Supper" and the "Descent of the Holy Ghost," which, with other pictures, had been saved from the terrible fire in 1842 by the artists Otto Speckter and the Genslers at the risk of their lives. They were examined and it was discovered that the "Descent of the Holy Ghost" was painted on wood and possessed the same dimensions as Master Bertram's panels. The insignificant Coignet was cleaned off and the BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 43 Grabow altar stood complete with eighteen scenes from the Old Testa- ment, six scenes from the New Testament and eighty carved figures. The Old Testament scenes represent: — the First Five Days of Crea- tion, the Creation of Adam and of Eve, the Warning not to touch the Forbidden Fruit, the Fall, the Discovery, the Expulsion from Eden, Adam and Eve at Work, the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, Abel's Murder, Building the Ark (damaged). Sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Jacob receiving the Blessing. Those from the New Testament include the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Kings, Pres- entation in the Temple, Massacre of the Innocents and Rest on the Flight into Egypt. The central group in the wood carvings represents the Crucified with Mary and John; on the wings are the thirteen apostles (including St. Paul), ten prophets (some few restored), twelve female saints, six male saints, three Magi and, in half length, the five wise and five foolish virgins, the latter with their empty lamps held upside down. On the predella, the Annuncia- tion is the central representation; on either side, seated under Gothic arches and separated from one another by columns, are five saints, including, on the right of the Virgin, Origen, Am- brose, Augustine, Jerome and Gregory; on the left, John the Bap- tist, Denis, Chrysostom, Bernhard and Benedict. All our information about the life and personality of Master Bertram has been gained from his two wills, the one made in 1390, the second in 1410. The master gives as his reason for making the testament of 1390; "I purpose to make a pilgrimage to Rome for my soul's comfort." The will reveals the fact that he had a wife, Greta, and a weak-minded brother. Cord; to these two most of his possessions are bequeathed, though all the Hamburg churches are remembered. In the second will, made in 1410, no mention is made of his wife, who must therefore have died before it was drawn, but a daughter, Geseke or Gesa, is provided for, also that same brother Cord, who had married in the meantime and had a young daughter, Meta. The family name is mentioned for the first time in the refer- ence to his brother, who is called Cord van Byrde. Among the religious foundations not mentioned in the former testament which receive bequests in this will, are the cloisters of Harvestehude and Buxtehude. Bertram must, therefore, have painted the altars for 44 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART these nunneries between 1390 and 1410, after his return from Rome. Harvestehude is mentioned first and is to receive one mark; Bert- ram's altar for this cloister was small. Buxtehude, which had given him a much larger commission, is to receive two marks. Harvestehude is mentioned first and it is probable that its altar was painted first. The carvings in the shrine would lead to the belief that it was conceived directly after the Roman visit. The Virgin is half reclining, supported by cushions on a draped couch, her attitude and the treatment of the drapery recalling sculptured figures of Roman matrons. The manger is in the form of an altar, with the heads of the ox and the ass looking over the top. As the Grabow altar of 1397 is much more advanced in natural- ism than the Harvestehude altar, although painted so many years earlier, it would seem as if the Roman visit had inclined the artist toward the archaic and traditional forms. This influ- ence did not last long, however, for the Buxtehude altar shows an even closer observation of nature than the Grabow altar. Master Bertram is peculiarly interesting because of the freshness of his conceptions, the sincerity of his motives, and the originality with which he strives, apparently without the help or influence of any other art, to solve the various problems which arise in the course of his story telling. He is above all a story teller, who delights in setting forth in minutest detail, affectionately, some- times sentimentally, all the happenings in the lives of his saints. While most of his people are sacred and must, therefore, be presented as remote and detached from worldly interests, their accessories are given with such intimacy as to make us sharers in the Ger- man home Hfe of the period. That Bertram's early training had probably been in miniature painting, or by a master who was an illuminator, is suggested by the pictures of the first five days of creation, which are, so far as I know, represented on no other German altar-piece, though very general sub- jects in book illumination. The "First Day" shows God the Father, as a youthful looking man, with long brown hair and beard, with raised right hand and parted lips, calHng into being a round, green ball — the earth — which floats before Him in space. Above, in the heavens, painted red on red, in a round cluster of conventional- BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 45 ised clouds like a burst of flame, is the countenauce of Christ — "In the beginning was the Word'^ — closely resembling that of God the Father, but with an intensity of expression which is almost startling. From behind him ape-like devils are falhng; one wears a gold crown; some have haK disappeared from view into the earth in whose centre they are to find their hell. The "Second Day" shows God the Father, this time with solid groimd beneath his feet, calling into being the circle of the heavens which frames the head of Christ. In the "Third Day" appear, in conventionalised clouds, the golden sun and silver moon with human faces, and some staxs. The creation of the plant world, in the "Fourth Day," presents the earliest landscape in northern art. The ground is quite thickly sown with flowers and herbs; on a stereotyped, rocky hiU to the left rises a forest. The trees, to be sure, are all out of propor- tion, for although they are on a little hill they are not quite so tall as the human figure of God the Father standing on lower ground beside them. But the hght and shade on the trees, the shining distinctness of the individual leaves in the Hght, the heavy masses of darkness in the shadows and especially the spirally twisted trunk of the tree that stands alone on the edge of the forest and has had to do hard battle with the winds, all show remarkably close observation of nature. In the "Fifth Day" the newly created animals present a scene of much animation. The white rabbit is suckHng her young, the wolf has the lamb by the throat so that the blood is spurting forth, the bear is attacking the horse — a strange Httle hobby horse, who with wide open mouth is squeaUng with pain. Not until the Creation of Man do the angels take any interest in the progress of events; then, as the youthful-looking, beardless, curly-haired Adam emerges from the earth, the angels swing censers in the sky above. The Creation of Eve they greet with the music of stringed instruments. Then follows a most unusual, perhaps unique, picture of God the Father admonishing Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of Knowl- edge. Adam and Eve are standing in the Garden near a large and elaborate Romanesque gateway, to the right of which is a Gothic 46 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART tower just like the one at the Burgthor in Lubeck. This tower is balanced on the opposite side of the composition by the standing figure of God the Father, who from the outside looks over the wall to the left of the gateway. Directly in front of him, but inside the wall, is the tree at which he points with his right hand; his left hand is raised in a gesture of warning, his lips are parted in speech. Adam, now grown a bearded man, points questioningly at the tree, as if he would make quite sure of the instructions; Eve's right hand is lifted, palm outward, in a movement of protest — she would not think of touching that fruit! The figures are still out of proportion to their surroundings, the great gateways and the trees are hardly taller than the people. But the sense of space is remarkable in the impression given of very considerable distance from the foreground to the thresh- old of the gate. The treatment of the light is astonishing for this early date. It falls diagonally across the third of the garden in the foreground, lighting the flower pots, the small tree to the left and the figures of Adam and Eve. The trees near the wall are in the heavy shadow which is also cast over the ground beyond the standing figures. A further detail of lighting is brought out in the shadows inside the little towers and flower pots, — a treat- ment which is to be noted especially in another picture of this altar, the "Building of Noah's Ark," in which the inside of the boat is in deep shadow, as is also the inside of the drinking cup from which a workman is about to refresh himself. Well observed is the light falling through the window near the ground, in the tower, but leaving the left wall in shadow. Master Bertram's types as they are presented in this "Warning" persist with a remarkable degree of faithfulness through all his works. Surprising is the conception of the eternal youthfulness of God the Father. The form under the long, scant mantle is flat and without modelling, the head is large, the face rather expressionless; the lips are always parted in speech. The Virgin has a rather long face, with a high forehead, straight nose, short chin, small mouth, large blue (sometimes brown) eyes, and long, fair hair which hangs, in a fashion peculiar to pictures of the Hamburg School, in sepa- rate strands which yet are not ringlets. Joseph is pictured as an old man of Semitic type, with white hair and beard. The Reproduced from Director Lichtwark' s "Master Bertran BERTRAM VAN BYRDE God the Father Warns Adam and Eve not to Touch the Forbidden Fruit kunsthalle, hamburg Courtesy of the Kunsthalle BERTRAM VAN BYRDE The Angels' Visit kunsthalle, hamburg BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 47 figures, for the most part, are short though not too thick-set; the hands are very large and long, the feet exceedingly square, the heads too large for the bodies. The artist does not always succeed in controlhng the glance of his subjects; in the earlier pictures they seldom look where they might naturally be ex- pected to look. The types are all marked by refinement; they are never common or coarse. Only occasionally do we feel that Master Bertram's people are portrayed direct from life; as the young man in the "Building of Noah's Ark," and, in the Buxtehude altar, the nurse, the lovely young girl who is helping her, and the handsomely dressed young woman who is attendant upon Anna in the "Birth of the Virgin;" the old shepherd in the "Annunciation to the Shepherds;" some of the lawyers in "Christ and the Doctors of the Law;" the fashionable bride and smooth-faced bridegroom in the "Marriage at Cana." In "Jacob and Esau" and the "Blessing of Jacob," in the Grabow altar, the head of Isaac is markedly Semitic in type. His blindness is well realised; he has not just closed his eyes for a moment to open them again at will. That the aged man is also toothless is permitted to be very evident through his parted lips as he bestows his blessing upon his younger son. But none of the figures in the paintings reveal such close observation and faithful recording of life as the carved Mary Magdalen on the inside of the inner wings. The singularly full lower eyelids, the lips curving up- ward at the corners, the short, broad nose and round chin all belonged to a definite person of Bertram's acquaintance, whose portrait he carved in the very hood he saw her wearing daily. In- deed almost all the statuettes are individuahsed to a greater degree than the paintings and such figures as those of Saints Bernhard and Origen are astonishingly hfelike. The human form is presented with more skill than we have, perhaps, any right to expect. In the nude figures of Adam and Eve, the shoulder blades, knees, ribs, muscles and sinews are distinctly indicated and brought out by high fights. The fiesh tone is darker in the body of the man than in that of the woman. The movement in the "Discovery" and the "Expulsion" is unexpectedly good and Eve pointing to the serpent possesses 48 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART in person and movement a very considerable degree of beauty. Few opportunities presented themselves to Master Bertram for the delineation of the nude, outside of these scenes with Adam and Eve. The Christ Child is usually fully robed, though not so in the "Adoration of the Magi," in the Grabow and Buxtehude altars or in the "Circumcision'* in the Buxtehude altar. He is exceedingly small in nearly all representations, being hardly larger than a doll in the Grabow "Presentation." The nude form of St. Mary of Egypt is presented with remarkable skill and rounded detachment from the background in the London altar, in the three scenes picturing her fed by angels, receiving the Sacrament, and lying dead in the forest while two angels swing censers above her and others carry her soul aloft to the music of instruments. In the carved section, the form of Christ on the Cross, though given without regard to anatomical construction, is of much beauty and refinement. The draped figures in the pictures do not wear garments of as varied fashions as do those in the carved section of the altar. The Virgin is given the traditional robes, with a most decorative halo; sometimes she wears a crown, sometimes her mantle is drawn over her head. The heavy strands of her hair are always allowed to fall softly about her face. Joseph wears a distinctive cap and carries a carved pilgrim's staff and pilgrim's flask. In the " Murder of Abel," Cain, the worldling, affects a small waist, bell sleeves and excessively long and pointed shoes. The bride in the "Marriage at Cana" wears an exceedingly modish bonnet. In the extreme of fashion is the young woman offering refreshment to Anna in the Buxtehude "Birth of the Virgin." Her brocaded, tight-fitting gown with bell sleeves, is cut low over the shoulders, on her head she wears a dainty little round cap, held by a strap under the chin in the same manner as an English soldier's. All Master Bertram's altars are painted on a gold ground, though in some cases almost none of it shows, as it is quite filled with archi- tectural or landscape features. But little of it appears in the "Warn- ing" of the Grabow altar, where the great gate usurps almost all the background. In the "Blessing of Jacob" none of it is seen except faint lines through the narrow Gothic windows of the BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 49 baldachin-like room. In the Buxtehude "Birth of the Virgin" the house wall furnishes all but a narrow strip of the back- ground. The interior of the house into which the artist would have us look, is indeed little more than background, for he has not been able to bring the roof over it and the people inside it convincingly. He lets us see the red tiling of the roof and the smoke coming out of the kitchen chimney as if we were above it all, whereas he really wishes us to stand on its threshold and see Anna, on the bed, which is made up on a braided rug, taking the nourishment offered to her by a young woman of extreme elegance; the nurse by the fire about to pour the warm water of her first bath over the new-born Mary; the charming young girl who helps the nurse, holding the towel in readiness; Joseph half visible in the semi-darkness of the kitchen beyond; the seat against the red wall; the cat watching proceedings with waving tail, and many other homely, intimate details of daily life as he knew it. In the "Annunciation" of the Buxtehude altar a panel of gold background is all that is left unoccupied by the room in which the Virgin is kneeling, reading by the Hght from a window in the right wall, while through an opening in the left wall the angel delivers his message. Part of the angel's body and wings are, as it were, sil- houetted against the single strip of gold which is left unfilled. In the Buxtehude "Joachim among the Shepherds" and the "Annunciation to the Shepherds" a third of the background is taken up by a forest landscape in which sheep are grazing, rams butting one another, and a young lamb is feeding, all of which scenes are given with perfect naturalness. The "Annunciation to the Shepherds" possesses unusual interest, as the representation is of extreme rarity except in the background of pictures of the Holy Night A very small patch of gold sky is all that is visible of the gold background in the unique picture of the "Visitation of the Angels" on the Buxtehude altar, which is the only representation of this legend I know in art. The actual background is, on the left, a shady group of trees, on the right, a tiny room of which three sides are given and in which the Virgin sits knitting the seamless vesture which grew with the Child and for which lots were cast at the foot of the cross. Beside her on the seat is a basket in which her yarn is kept. The Christ Child, 50 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART in a straight, scant dress, is lying on the ground beside her. He has tired of playing with his top, which lies there neglected, and is reading in a book. Suddenly, from the left have appeared two sweet, serious, tall angels with peacock-coloured wings, one of them carrying the cross and the nails, the other the spear and the crown of thorns. The Child has tm*ned his head quickly to look back and up at them as they stand behind him, yet has not turned his body or dropped the hand on which his cheek has been resting — a most curious and interesting movement. The whole atmosphere of this rare scene is that of a dream, a vision, though so intimate and tender. Something of the poetic quality is contributed by the cool, shady grove of trees which furnishes the suitable and sympathetic background for the scene. It is remarkable, for this period, to find the landscape playing an important part in so many of Master Bertram's pictures. Unusual, too, and wholly German, is the evident joy with which he introduces animals into his pictures. Besides the animals in the "Fifth Day of Creation" — the earliest picture of animals in northern art — we have already noticed the sheep, the butting rams, the sucking lamb in the "Joachim among the Shepherds" of the Buxtehude altar. In the "Angels and Shepherds" there are, besides the sheep, a shaggy Abyssinian ram in the foreground, a dog stealing food from a bag, a wolf, a fox, and startled birds in the tree-tops. In the "Birth of the Virgin " the cat adds the last touch of domesticity. In the " Nativity," while an angel who has dropped on the thatched roof of the shed swings a censer over the holy pair and another who has shyly pushed the outer door half open is peeping in with one eye and vigorously swinging a second censer, a small pig has joined the company of the ox and ass and goes rooting about the manger, and along the rafters of the stable a cat walks stealthily. That at some later period the cat and the little pig had not been considered fitting in a sacred picture is evident from the fact that they had been painted out and only came to light in the recent cleaning. Master Bertram's colouring is very lovely. He frequently gains lustre and glow for his solid colours by the device of enlivening them with fine dots, points or cross fines of gold. They are har- monised, usually, by being toned to some predominant or central coloiu*, the favourite being grey. Sometimes this grey is given Courtesy of the Kunsthalle BERTRAM VAN BYRDE The Nativity kunsthalle, hamburg Photograph by Joh. Nohring, Lubeck MASTER FRANCKE Angels Supporting the Dead Christ kunsthalle, hamburg BERTRAM VAN BYRDE 51 in the architecture, sometimes in a detail, as in the "Fhght into Egypt," where the grey of the donkey gives the keynote to which the colom-ing of the whole pictm-e is attuned. A comprehensive glance over Master Bertram's work reveals him as a story-teller of much charm, who prefers to picture the gentler, more pleasing aspects of Hfe, to linger with sweet sentiment over the intimate details of family and home, to make known to us kindly men and gracious, tender women, to beautify and enliven his scenes with trees and flowers and animals which all call out his love. He is seldom dramatic, though not utterly without the power to be so, as is shown by his two representations of the Massacre of the Innocents. This dramatic quality he does not, however, introduce in his carved Crucifixion, which is marked by a high, calm serenity. The noble figure of the Christ is not that of an agonizing Man of Sorrows, but is the symbol of "Christ hfted up." So through almost all his pictures peace and beauty and charm breathe like the incense and the music with which his angels fill them. They are not so mystic in spirit and atmosphere as those of the early Cologne masters, although the Grabow altar was evi- dently designed for a patron who held the tenets of the Mystic faith or philosophy, since Origen is one of the saints on the predella — Origen who was an arch-heretic in the eyes of all but Mystics. St. Denis and St. Bernhard, also favourites with the Mystics, are included, while St. Francis is left out. The inscriptions on the scrolls held by the saints — which were discovered only at the time of the recent cleaning — express dogmas of Mystic Philosophy, as St. Denis' "The true God is not demonstrable among the gods." But though the pictures are mystic in intent and content. Master Bertram in- troduces so many details of famihar, every-day life and makes his people so closely akin to us in their actions, interests and emotions that they seem not remote or worshipful but humanly near and dear. CHAPTER VI HAMBURG MASTER FRANCKE— HEINRICH FUNHOF— ABSALOM STUMME— HEINRICH BORNEMAN FROM Master Bertram van Byrde, greatest of the painters of the XIV century in Hamburg, Master Francke may have learned the elementary technique of his art. The indications of his influence are, however, exceedingly slight. Francke differs from him decidedly in types, colouring and sentiment. Indeed there seems to have been no external influence which noticeably affected Master Francke; he is highly individual and seldom reminiscent of any other school or master, though his delicate, nervous, aris- tocratic types with the veining and musculature so carefully marked, reveal the possession of the same ideals as the Italian Crivelli. When, in the early years of the new enthusiasm over Hamburg art, Alfred Lichtwark was making a search for old paintings by Hamburg masters, he found, in the badly lighted choir of St. Peter's Church, a most remarkable picture from the first half of the XV century, which had been overlooked by all previous seekers, probably because they did not dream of finding an old picture in so new a church. This "Man of Sorrows" was found to be one of the pictures that had been saved by the artists Otto Speckter and the Genslers from the fire which destroyed the old St. Peter's Church, and had been restored by them to the new church. The picture presents, against a brocaded background, the thorn-crowned Christ in life size — which is in itself an astonishing and interesting fact, as it is the first representation of a figure in life size known in north- ern art. Light rays, instead of a solid halo, form an aureole about his head. One wounded hand with fingers held far apart and stiffly curving, points to his bleeding side; the other is so held that we may see the palm and the blood which streams from the wound. A white mantle with a lining of cool, dull red falls from his shoulders and is held up by three angels in blue. Across 52 MASTER FRANCKE 53 the lower section of the picture a curtain of glowing red brocade is held by two angels who bear an Easter lily and a flaming sword. The type of Christ is highly individual; the forehead wide and low, the nose straight and fine, the lower part of the face and the chin extremely narrow and pointed, the mouth drooping at the corners, the eyes hardly more than half open and drooping in fines parallel with the lines of the fips, the eyebrows raised high as if in patient endurance. The hair falls just to the shoul- ders in heavy, separate strands which yet are not ringlets — a treatment similar to that to which we are accustomed in Master Bertram's pictures. On a chance visit to Hamburg shortly after the discovery of this picture Friedrich Schfie saw it and at once aflBrmed that in Leipsic there was another "Man of Sorrows" and in Schwerin Museum a series of nine pictures by the same master. The pictures in Schwerin were found, upon investigation, to have gone there from St. John's Church, Hamburg, where they formed part of the altar in the Chapel belonging to the English Trading Company or Englandsfahrer- Gesellschaft. The original altar contained, on the shrine, the Cruci- fixion, of which only the group of sorrowing women remains, and of which there is a copy in Copenhagen Museum. From the inner sides of the inner wings there remain four scenes from the Passion; on the left, "The Scourging" and "Bearing the Cross," leading up, as it were, to "The Crucifixion" on the shrine; on the right, after "The Crucifixion," "The Entombment" and "The Resurrection." When only the outer wings were opened, there were revealed four scenes from the Life of the Virgin, of which only "The Nativity" and "The Adoration of the Kings" are left; and four scenes from the life of the patron saint of the Company, St. Thomas a Becket, of which only "The Flight" and "The Assassination" remain. Arrangements were presently concluded for the transfer of these nine pictures from Schwerin to the aheady notable collection of works by Hamburg Masters in the Kunsthalle. No hope of ever finding the name of the artist was entertained, for the records of the English Trading Company had all been destroyed; but suddenly, in an old manuscript which referred to the said loss of the Company's documents, the fact was noted that the Company had ordered this 54 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART altar in 1424 from the artist Master Francke and had paid for it about one hundred Liibeck marks. Nothing further has been learned about his life or personality. The eleven known pictures acquaint us, however, with his individuality as an artist. Of the two representations of the Man of Sorrows, the one in Leipsic is an early work, the one in Hamburg the latest and most mature work of the master. The figure in each of them is given in three-quarters length and life size, but in the Leipsic picture the body is more slender and shapeless than in the Hamburg picture and the arms are very thin and lacking in modelling, while in the later work they are fully developed, with elbows and forearms clearly defined. The face in the Leipsic picture is more painfully drawn and the corners of the lips and eyes are pulled down almost diagonally; in the one in Hamburg they droop in a manner to appeal to our tenderest sympathy, but not so excessively as to mar the beauty of the face. In both of them the Christ type reveals a delicate organisation, highly strung, nervous and sensitive. While the colouring in both is lovely enough to attract attention, that in the Hamburg picture is of rare beauty and harmony. The fine sense of values shown in the daring which lets the ends of the white mantle lie against the white shoulder of Christ is quite modern. These white tones, with the dull purple red of the background formed by the mantle and the blue of the angels above, give an effect of coolness to the picture, which is by no means, however, a hard or repellent coldness, but is silvery and shimmering. The charm of type, the wonderful softness of the flesh and the har- mony and atmospheric quality of the colouring cannot be put into words; they must be seen and felt. In the pictures from the altar of the English Trading Com- pany there are remaining to us, as we have seen, two idyllic scenes from the Life of the Virgin, three tragic scenes from the Passion and two dramatic scenes from the Life of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The scenes from the Life of the Virgin and from the Life of St. Thomas are painted against a brilliant red background dotted with small gold stars. In "The Nativity," God the Father appears in a light so bright that it blots out the stars all about him. His countenance is one of high dig- MASTER FRANCKE 55 nity, his hair and beard are white and from his mouth rays of Hght proceed which fall upon the infant Christ lying on the earth below. Before the Child kneels the Virgin Mother in a white robe with bands of purple, her long fair hair falling in heavy, wavy strands over her shoulders. This attitude of the Virgin is in itself sufficient to mark the picture as a work of the XV century, since not before that time did the artists conceive of the Mother as worshipping the Child; in earUer pictures of the Nativity, as for instance, in Master Bertram's, the mother holds the Babe in her arms. Beside the Virgin kneel three small, winsome angels with curling hair and long draperies, who hold up a blue curtain as if to screen the holy pair. The halos are of rays of light; hght is radiated also from the body of the Divine Child. To the right, ox and ass are eating from a stall. In the middle distance, on a rocky plateau, is a grove of stunted trees, all out of proportion in size to the other details of the picture; on the hill in the background sheep are grazing and to their shepherds angels are telling the glad tidings. The picture is a graceful idyll, full of peace and tenderness and lyric charm, and gives, in addition, with remarkable success, the impression of a lovely vision seen in a flash of supernatural light which breaks through the darkness of the night. It is an interesting attempt to do with the limited technical means at hand in the XV century what Correggio accomplished two centuries later. In *'The Adoration of the Kings," a black cloud obscures many stars, and from the midst of its darkness the Star of Bethlehem shines forth. On the foot of a bed, which is covered with a red spread and has two dainty white cushions, the Virgin sits very erect and stately. So youthful and girlish is she that involuntarily the onlooker is moved to smile at the dignity and air of remoteness with which she is invested, as he would at the assumptions of a child "pretending.'* The picture is very full of movement; the oldest of the kings and the Christ Child are busy with the treasures, the one with the large ermine collar is pointing to the Star and the young one in the fashionable pleated coat with very long sleeves, who wears a crown on his ringleted hair, is shading his eyes osten- tatiously with his hand in order to look at its brightness. Joseph, too, is occupied; he has opened a great strong box and his right 5Q GERMAN MASTERS OF ART hand is outstretched to take the costly gifts and put them away in this safe place. Most interesting, especially in the scenes from the Passion, are the master's devices for creating the illusion of depth in his pictures, without possessing any knowledge of perspective or having before him as examples anything much more advanced than the flat frescoes and tapestries. In "The Scourging," he has set up in the foreground a fence-like grating which separates the onlooker from the roofed portico in which the villains are tormenting the gentle Christ, who is bound to a column. Outside this fence, on the left, on a throne, on the arms of which are beautifully carved, small lions, Pilate, wearing a curious hat with a sort of visor, and a handsome mantle, sits with his hands outspread upon his knees and watches the scene intently. Gaiaphas, with ringleted hair, one hand resting on the head of one of the carved lions, the other with forefinger extended to touch Pilate's breast, seems to be endeavouring to drive home some argument that will convince the Governor. The impression is given of the space at the left in which are Pilate and Caiaphas; and of con- siderable room where the Scourging is taking place; but that the artist really knows nothing of perspective and has no "point of sight" is betrayed by his showing us the outside of the hall as well as the in- side, including even the tiles of the roof. In the "Bearing the Cross" the effect of depth is gained by the very original device of putting a clear stream or pool of water in the immediate foreground, along the farther side of which the troubled procession wends its way to Calvary. In "The Entombment" the impression of space is conveyed by the rocks, the small bush and the mourning figure in the foreground. A frequent device used by Master Francke in creating the illusion of depth is that of letting persons or things blot out in part the persons or things supposed to be behind them in the picture. So in "The Flight of St. Thomas" the hillock cutting off from view the lower part of the legs of the horse on which the saint is riding, sets the horse back from the foreground of the picture, and thereby conveys an im- pression of its depth. In "The Martyrdom" the one monk cutting off from view about half of the second and all but a small bit of the Photograph by Joh. Nohring, Lubeck MASTER FRANCKE Thoma8 "a Becket Fleeixg From 'Assassins kunsthalle, hamburg Photograph hy Joh. Nohring, Lubeck MASTER FRANCKE The Entombment kunsthalle, hamburg MASTER FRANCKE 57 face of a third conveys the idea of distance and depth within the picture. Master Francke does not, however, succeed in detaching his draped figures entirely from the background; they still remain quite flat. In "The Nativity," the white robes of the Virgin and the curtain held by the angels take the place of that detachment and sculptural roundness in some measure. In ' 'The Scourging, ' ' the curving outward of the body of Christ so that the light is seen between it and the column to which it is bound gives an effect of modelling. This problem of detachment greatly interested the artist, though he did not arrive at a solution of it but only at the use of skiKul expedients. To be sure, he had not yet learned of the new medium of oils which the Van Eycks were just at this time beginning to use in the neighbouring Netherlands; the German master worked only in tempera, mixing his paints, probably, with white of egg. The people in Master Francke's pictures are not individualised to any extent. Here and there, however, a portrait head appears, as, in "The Entombment," that of Mary Cleophas with her hair wound around her head in heavy braids. The kings in "The Adoration," Pilate, Caiaphas and some of the tormentors in "The Scourging" wear the dress of the period. The scenes from the Life of St. Thomas are marked by greater hfelikeness and more detailed characterisation than the more sacred scenes from the Life of Christ. St. Thomas on horseback or struck down by his assassin, kneeling in all his pontifical robes, his jewelled mitre knocked off on the ground beside him, the blood streaming down his face, is a definite individual. His assas- sins are all clearly characterised, the man clad in armour and wearing a helmet, so strongly that it might be a portrait from fife. The emotion in Master Francke's dramatic pictures is nowhere of extreme violence or intensity. The villains are not exaggerated into malevolent demons. In "The FHght of St. Thomas" they do, indeed, mock and scoff with great malignity, but in" The Martyrdom" they are only grim. Even in "The Scourging of Christ" only the one with the rope girdle and strange, rope headdress, who holds Christ by a lock of hair, reveals, in the movement of his body, real joy in his nefarious task. In "Bearing the Cross" the villains are more brutal in their urging of the half-fainting prisoner to his doom. The 58 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART suffering Christ, though frail and emaciated, is not fearfully distorted either in limbs or features. The moiwners observe a hushed decorum in their grief. Their eyes are sometimes red with weeping; in the Cross Bearing the Virgin hides her face in her handkerchief; in the group under the cross she folds her long, fine hands upon her breast; one of the other women presses a cool finger to her hot and swollen eyeballs. In "The Entombment," Mary Magdalen does give way more passionately to her sorrow, pushing back, with a movement of utter despair, the hair which has escaped from its covering and falls about her tear-stained face. Perhaps the most impressive figure in all these Passion scenes and the one which expresses total abandonment to grief, is the wholly draped figure in red, alone, kneeling between the spectator and grave in "The Entombment." It is indeed a touch which amazes us in this early picture, as one we would look for only from the most modern artists — from Bocklin, for instance. The lone, shrouded figure crouching there grips your interest on the first approach to the picture and never ceases to arouse your wonder and to hold your attention and sympathy. But after all, no full appreciation of this painter is possible with- out taking into account his gifts as a born colourist. His colours are now joyous and glowing and blended into perfect harmony, now so close to one another in tone as to reveal a quite modern feeling for values, while his attempts to create an atmosphere, as in the night scene of "The Nativity" and the subdued silvery tones of the "Man of Sorrows," are astonishingly successful for his age. If we consider the two great early painters of Hamburg side by side we find in the XIV century master a joy in plant and animal life which is lacking in Master Francke. Wherever possible, Bertram delights in picturing the forest with all the play of light and shadow among its trees; Francke introduces it in only two pictures, "The Flight of St. Thomas a Becket" and "The Nativity," in which the groves are very similar to those in Master Bertram's pictures and suggest the thought that Francke had been his pupil in landscape painting. The light and shade are much less closely observed, however, and the trees possess no such distinct individu- ality. Animals, too, appear in Master Francke' s scenes only when, as in "The Nativity," they are called for by tradition; they are quite MASTER FRANCKE 59 conventional and reveal none of the loving observation which is so evident in "The Annunciation to the Shepherds," "Joachim among the Shepherds," or "The Nativity," of Master Bertram's Buxtehude altar. On the other hand, in the creation of such an atmospheric effect as the Ught shining in the darkness of the night of "The Nativity," Master Francke is immeasurably in advance of the older painter. He is also able better to control the movements and glances of his figures, and the lines and angles of mouths and noses. Movement he gives with astonishing naturalness in " The Resurrec- tion," in the swift rising of Christ, with fluttering flag and mantle, from the tomb. Extraordinarily rhythmic is the arrangement of the figures behind the grave in "The Entombment," with the sarcophagus placed diagonally, the body of Christ at a still sharper angle and the lines of figures swaying, as it were, in two parallel, diagonal lines of three and three, with Mary Cleophas as the central point. In colouring, too, the later master has the greater gift; Master Francke delights in colour not merely as a means to an end, but for its own sake, for the beauty of it. In the century following Master Francke, there seem to have been no painters of great distinction in Hamburg — so far, at least, as has been discovered — although in 1490 they were suflSciently numerous to organise a Guild. One Heinrich Funhof is men- tioned in the archives as the painter of an altar for St. George's Hospital Church in 1483. Absalom Stumme painted, in 1499, an altar for the City Council, and in the same year his stepson, Heinrich Bomeman, finished, for the Painters' Guild, the altar in the Jacobikirche which presents St. Luke painting the portrait of the Madonna, St. Luke at the Supper at Emmaus, and the Burial of St. Luke. CHAPTER VII COLOGNE THE IDEALISTS Master Wilhelm — Master of the Madonna with the Bean Blossom (Hermann Wynrich?) — Stephan Lochner IN the art of Cologne in the XIV and first half of the XV century before the painters had come under the domination of the art of th e Netherlands, the aesthetic and religious ideals of the Middle Ages find full expression. The Virgin is the central object of interest and the artistic ideal is a type akin to those in the illustrations of the Minne-songs. Tall and slender like the statues in their narrow niches in the Gothic Cathedrals, with sloping shoulders, high fore- head, heavy-lidded, downcast eyes, small nose, finely cut lips, short chin, very long and tapering fingers, the Virgin and the female saints about her, with their air of sweet detachment from the world, are little more than shadowy dream forms, incorporeal abstractions who would inspire a poet to bring to them the homage of reverential devotion. Yet even his spiritual offering would lie all unnoticed by these saints who heed not at all what transpires in this earthly world but are lost in the contemplation of divine love and of a heavenly country. In this utter world-oblivion, this absorption in things of the spirit, they are the direct expression of that mystic philosophy which was preached with such ardour and received with such sympathy in Cologne. In her cloisters and from her pulpits Eckart enunciated the principle of the indwelling of God in man and the oneness in God "of all that lives and moves, that blooms and withers," and taught that God is to be sought in his creation, in a man's own heart, through the sinking of self in contemplation. Johannes Tauler came to Cologne from Strassburg to preach sermons of which the keynote was the renunciation of self, the negation of the personal will in order to become merged into God. As very illustrations of this teaching the Virgin and saints stand in the pictures with downcast eyes veiled by heavy 60 THE IDEALISTS 61 eyelids, absorbed in devout contemplation, dreamy, mystic. It was of such that Tauler's friend Heinrich Suso spoke, when he recommended the faithful to surround themselves with good pictures "that the heart might ever be reminded of the presence of God and be turned toward Him." A number of pictures, as yet unassigned to any master, remain to us from the early years of the XIV century. Of these the triptych in Cologne Gallery with the Crucifixion as central theme, may be considered representative. The types and garments are those of mosaic art, the technique is crude, the scenes are full of agitation, which is expressed not only in the movements and gestures of the people but in the restlessness of the folds of the garments. The one great artist of the XIV century in Cologne whose name has come down to us i.« Master Wilhelm, who is mentioned in the chronicles in 1358, 1368, 1370, 1378, as Master Wilhelm of Cologne, or of Herle, a Httle village near Aix-la-Chapelle. The Limberg chronicler wrote of him: "At this time there was a painter in Cologne whose name was Wilhelm. He was the best painter in all the German lands, and was so esteemed by the masters. He painted everyone of every type as if he were alive." Many controversies have been waged over the works attributed to Master Wilhelm. A picture in Berlin Gallery representing, in thirty-three sections, on a gold ground, scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin, which was formerly ascribed to him, is now catalogued "Cologne Master about 1400." In Cologne Gallery the remains of mural paintings from the Rathaus depicting Emperor Karl IV and four other men, probably judges or heroes, are authentic and are there ascribed to "Master Wilhelm, 1370." Formerly the St. Clara Altar in the Cathedral and the "Madonna with the Bean Blossom" in the Gallery were also attributed to him. Thode and others object to such an attribution, that it is unreasonable to assign such a work as the "Madonna with the Bean Blossom" to so early a date as the middle of the XIV century; that it is so closely related to the work of such a Master of the XV century as Stephan Lochner that it unquestionably belongs to the early part of the XV century and was, in all probability, the work of such a pupil of Master Wilhelm's as his successor in the headship of the school in Cologne, Hermann 62 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Wynrich. This Hermann Wynrich from Wesel, first mentioned in Cologne in 1387, was a pupil of Master Wilhelm's, who, after his master's death, bought his house, married his widow, Frau Jutta, and became head of his school. He was evidently held in high esteem as a painter, for the Guild appointed him five times as its Senator in the City Council, for the last time in 1414, in which year he died. The largest and most important work of the master, whom we shall call by his name, is the St. Clara Altar,* which now forms the High Altar in Cologne Cathedral. The altar is built in Gothic style. On the door of the shrine is represented a priest in the act of elevating the Host; about him are acolytes holding candles and his mitre. On either side are twelve pictures in two rows, one above the other, the lower representing scenes from the youth of Christ, the upper, scenes from his Passion. The scenes from his childhood and youth are idyllic; the people move in an atmosphere of childlike innocence, unconscious of aught save love and tenderness. In the Passion scenes, the artist seeks the world over for villains bad enough to be the tor- mentors of the Holy One. Unequal, with his lyric gifts, to pre- senting the dramatic scenes with the tragic intensity they de- mand, these demoniacal men usually fail to be convincing and even, Hke a child's conception of pirates, in their exaggeration and unreality appeal to our sense of humor. In the Crucifixion the painter does not make any attempt at realism, but presents it in the strictly traditional manner. The outer sides of the outer wings of the altar are later works; they are painted on linen stretched over wood, while the rest of the altar is on wood. A triptych of much beauty, in Cologne Gallery, "The Madonna with the Bean Blossom," ascribed to the same master — whether Her- mann Wynrich or Master Wilhelm — has already been mentioned. On the central section are the Madonna and Child, on the side panels St. Barbara with tower and palm and St. Catherine with sword and wheel. The Virgin is painted in half length, robed in blue and wearing a brown mantle. Over her head she wears a drapery in the same * So called because it was originally in St. Clara's Church, Cologne. STEFAN LOCHNER Madonna in Rose Arbour wallraf-richartz museum, cologne THE IDEALISTS 63 two colours, which, in front, permits much of her reddish-gold hair to be seen. In her left hand she holds a branch of the garden bean plant in flower; on her right arm the Christ Child with ringleted hair and wearing a curious partial drapery. In his left hand he holds a rosary; with his right he caresses his mother's face. The two saints on the wings are full length figures, extremely tall, with exceedingly narrow shoulders; they wear long draperies laid in regular, parallel but graceful folds. Their golden-blond hair hangs to full length, softly waved; delicately wrought crowns rest upon their heads; their hands are exaggeratedly long with tapering fingers. Though the background is gold, the earth on which they are standing is blossoming thickly with countless small flowers. The colours are all light and cheerful, with much gold in the brocaded stuffs of the saints* gowns. But more than by the charm of the lovely and innocent saints in their radiant yet softly coloured robes, the attention is held and the spirit rested and refreshed by the atmosphere of the picture. Over it peace seems to brood visibly, such quietness, such contempla- tive stillness reigns. All the persons portrayed are utterly uncon- scious of themselves and of us, absorbed as they are in their mystical visions. A picture which is, in subject, a twin sister to the "Madonna with the Bean Blossom" is the "Madonna with the Pea Blossom"* in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. It presents a youthful Virgin of considerable charm, with the Child in her arms; each holds a pea blossom. This master of many names has recently received yet another. He has become known as the Master of St. Veronica, from the picture in Munich Pinakothek representing St. Veronica holding the hand- kerchief on which is the thorn-crowned head of the Man of Sorrows; in each of the lower corners of the picture are three small singing angels. As the centre of the art Hfe of Cologne this artist gathered about him a large school of pupils who continued to work into the middle of the XV century. Most famous of them all was Stephan Lochner, * Suspected by some recent investigators of being a counterfeit, painted in the early part of the XIX century. 64 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART the greatest painter Cologne was to know in all her art history. Master Stephan was born in Meersburg, on Lake Constance, but his life as an artist was all spent in Cologne. The first record of his residence there dates from October 27th, 1442, when he and his wife Lisbeth bought a house near the Cathedral. He must have pros- pered, for two years later, in 1444, he sold this house and bought a much larger one. In 1448 he was elected by his Guild Senator to the City Council, an honour which was again conferred upon him in 1451, in which year he died. When Durer was in Cologne in October, 1520, on his way to the Netherlands, he recorded in his diary: — "Item, have given two white pfennig for opening up the picture Master Stephan made in Cologne.'* This picture was the altar which was painted for the Rathaus Chapel, the building of which was finished in 1426; it has been since 1810 in St. Michael's Chapel in the Cathedral. On the outside is the Annunciation. The Virgin, girlish look- ing, her hair falling in heavy, wavy masses over her shoulders, her very full mantle hanging in soft, lightly broken folds, is kneeling at a carved prayer desk on which lies an open book. The impression of the interior of a room is given by a rich, brocaded curtain hung from a rod across the background of the picture. Against it is placed a seat on which are cushions and a vase of lilies. On the other wing, with a similar curtain as background, the angel, who has entered through a door with round arch, which is visible on the right, kneels lightly, his great wings still spread for flight. In his hand he bears a sceptre and a scroll on which is written his message. When the altar is open, the central section shows the Adoration of the Kings; on the wings are the patron saints of Cologne, Ursula and Gereon, with their companions. The Virgin in the Adoration, wearing a crown and sitting upon a throne, holds the Christ Child who, with upraised fingers, blesses the white-bearded king in the gold-brocaded, ermine-trimmed, red velvet mantle, who, kneeling before him, presents the rich gifts he has brought to this infant King of Kings. Behind this venerable, kneeling king with his life-like attitude and expression, is a group of his followers who bear a banner blazoned with the star and crescent. THE IDEALISTS 65 Among them stands out conspicuously a handsome young prince with ringleted hair, wearing a diadem. On the right are the other two kings with their attendants bearing gifts. In the upper air circle little angels with wide-spread wings, two of them peeping over the back of the throne with all the eager interest and curiosity of human children. Indeed angels in German pictures differ from those represented in the art of any other country. Throughout its whole course from Master Bertram and Stephan Lochner to Diirer, we find them the same tiny, eager, winsome beings — except when, for a period, the influence of the Flemish painters was so absolute that the German painters adopted the large, gracefully draped angel universal in the art of the Netherlands. In Italian art we find the sturdy, bacchanalian putti, the graceful, tall angels and, in the Venetian pictures, the small, music-making angels which yet are much larger and more mature than the angels in the German altar-pieces. In such a picture as Raphael's "Madonna of the Baldachin" the angels reading the scroll are not large, it is true; but in their winged nudity, with their worldly-wise air, they are rather little pagan Amors than angels. The characteristically German angels in art are very small, round-faced, alert, fairy- like creatures, dressed in straight, scant little dresses, and with large wings and short, curly hair. They are always so interested, so intent, so busy. They worship with such devoted love, they play with such whole-souledness, they bring apples, flowers or whatever offers, with such eagerness to the Holy Child! In the incessant activity of such tiny creatures there is something ten- derly humorous, while their simplicity and innocence is indescrib- ably touching. On the left wing of the altar, St. Ursula of Cologne, in an ermine- trimmed mantle, wearing a crown and holding in her clasped hands the arrow, which is the syn^bol of her martyrdom, advances slowly and reverently toward the central group. In her train are the Prince her lover, a Pope, a Bishop and many lovely maidens with very full draperies, round, cliildish faces and an ex- pression of innocence and such absorbed devotion that only one of all the company lets her eyes stray toward the spectator. On the right wing, St. Gereon accoutred in full armour, the cross as 66 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART his device on breastplate and banner, is attended by a company of youthful knights. The Virgin in the Adoration wears the conventional garments, but fur-lined; all the others wear the costumes of 1440-1450, made of beautiful materials, richly trimmed, and in glowing colours. The types are stronger physically and more human than those on the St. Clara altar. The shoulders of the women are still very narrow, but the face has a bony frame, the hands are shorter and more capable, the throat is quite muscular. The men are remarkably able-bodied; St. Gereon stands firmly planted on both feet, a splendid type of young manly vigour and determination. The Christ Child is in beauty of form and correctness of drawing the most perfect in the XV century, while the head of the kneeling king might almost find a place in a Leonardo cartoon. Here and there is a figiu-e which was evidently inspired by a real and living person, but the lifelikeness is not strongly insisted upon. The atmosphere remains unworldly; like the little angels looking over the back of the throne, all the participants in this ceremonial occasion are absorbed in the Babe whose little foot the mother holds with such human tenderness, while he so solemnly gives his divine benediction. Here again we note a German sentimental touch. The relations between the Virgin Mother and her divine Son never lose their human element. In the art of Italy and, in large measure, of the Netherlands, the Virgin is usually but the bearer of God Incarnate, whom she presents to the world for its worship and adoration. In German art, the Child is not only Son of God, but Son of Mary and there is in almost all Madonna pictures some touch which reveals the human love between mother and babe, as the Virgin holding his tiny foot in this altar of Master Stephanas or the child caressing the mother's face in the "Madonna with the Bean Blossom." Painted probably at an earlier date than the altar in the Cathe- dral, was the "Madonna with the Violet" in the Archiepiscopal Museum in Cologne, one of the most beautiful of all German pictures. In front of a brocaded curtain stands the Virgin Mother, tall, slight, girlish, yet stately, too, by virtue of her reserve and dignity. Her brilliant red mantle falls from her slender shoulders to hang in unstudied and graceful folds, turned back here and there to reveal the THE IDEALISTS 67 white lining and the blue robe underneath. Her face is finely oval, with straight nose, large eyes and high forehead; the flesh tints are soft and clear. On her head she wears a jewelled diadem; her pale, red-gold hair is caught at the nape of the neck, to fall again loosely in long, heavy, curling strands. In her left hand she holds a violet; on her right arm she bears the Child, in a straight dress of transparent gauze. The flesh is a marvel of softness, the rounding of the small body of unusual beauty. The face is babyish though wholly grave as he raises the fingers of his right hand to bless the small, kneeling nun, in black, fur-lined mantle, with white robe and headdress, who, as the donor of the pictiu'e, is presented in exceedingly small proportions. This was, according to the inscription, Elizabeth of Reichenstein, who afterward, in 1452, became abbess of St. Cecilia's Cloister. On the other side of the brocaded curtain are two elfin angels, the one writing busily, the other apparently Hstening intently to the music made by the three angels who are singing in the golden sky above, where also God the Father and the Dove are visible between the clouds. The impression given by the picture is one of great charm of the sweet, serious people, glowing yet harmonious colours, an all- pervading atmosphere of unworldliness and that mystic apartness which we call holiness. An idyllic scene which recalls to us at once the dreams of the Minnesingers and the visions of the Mystics is presented in this master's "Madonna of the Rose Arbour" in Cologne Gallery. In a bower of climbing vines and blossoming roses and lilies, the crowned Virgin, dreamy and remote, is seated on a veritable carpet of flowers, holding the Babe on her knee. About the holy pair, in semicircle, crowd tiny angels with outspread wings, adoring, bringing gifts and making music on the organ, psaltery, harp and viol. In the upper air two of them hold back a gold-brocaded curtain to reveal God the Father, the Dove and a heaven full of cherubs. The Virgin is robed entirely in blue, dark, intense yet softly luminous; the angels, in pink, red and yellow, are like flowers about her. It is a very small picture, like just a line of perfect poetry, a strain of exquisite melody. The stillness of some of these Ma- 68 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART donna pictures might be too unearthly, their holiness too oppres- sive, were it not relieved by the quick movements of the angels bearing their eager tribute. The beauty of such a picture made itself felt at this period in Northern Italy and the influence of Stephan Lochner and of other early masters of Cologne is very evident in such a work as Stefano da Zevio's "Madonna in the Garden," in Innsbruck, in which the artist takes up the theme, adopts the types and tries to infuse into the picture the sentiment of the German School. More full of action than the Madonna pictures is the "Presenta- tion in the Temple,'* painted for St. Catherine's Church, Cologne, in 1447, but now in Darmstadt Gallery. On a gold background are shown, in the upper air, God the Father and angels who watch the scene in the cathedral, where, before the altar, the High Priest, in brocaded robes, solemn and devout in bearing, holds the Christ Child. Behind him stand other priests, monks and citizens. The Virgin, of the type of the Madonna with the Violet, kneels with eyes cast down, offering the doves. Behind her are attendant maidens, only one of whom ventures to look out at us, all unseeingly. In front of the altar are tiny, alert and interested acolytes carrying candles. A touch of humour, which brings to mind the Mystery Plays of the period, is lent by Joseph, who is conspicuously busy counting out the money from the wallet that hangs at his side. Stephan Lochner's limitations are manifest in such an altar as that painted for St. Lawrence's Church, Cologne, of which the central section, the Last Judgment, is now in Cologne Gallery, while the wings, which show the Martyrdom of the Apostles and six saints, are in the Stadel Institute, Frankfort, and in Munich Pinakothek. In the Last Judgment the Christ enthroned upon the rainbow is much too gentle to be the judge of all the world; the fat monks, the popes and bishops, the kings, the extortioners and other sinners whom the devils seize, do not awaken in us any sense of horror or of pity in the overwhelming calamity which has befallen them, but rather provoke a smile at their sorry plight. But the lines of the Blessed whom angels lead through those great Gothic gates to Paradise, while choirs of angels sing songs of gladness! These move us almost to tears by their childlike, wondering joy as upon their faces shines the light of the new, eternal morning. STEFAN LOCHNER Madonna with the Violet archbishop's palace, cologne CHAPTER Vm COLOGNE THE REALISTS Master of the Life of Mary — Master of the Glorification of the Virgin — Master of St. George's Altar — Master of the Holy Kinship — Master of St. Severin — Master of St. Bartholomew SO great an artist as Stephan Lochner naturally attracted many students to his workshop and inspired many imitators to work in his manner. A pupil whose work so closely resembled his master's that it was for a long time attributed to Lochner him- self, is known as the "Master of the Heisterbach Altar" from the altar brought from the httle Rhineland village of that name and now in sections in Cologne, Munich and other galleries. Another pupil painted the fourteen scenes from the Life of St. Ursula, in Cologne Gallery. But though there were many painters who worked in Stephan Lochner's manner, his influence in Cologne was not enduring, nor was any other great artist raised up to take his place and to carry on the development of painting in Cologne along its own original and characteristic lines. It is indeed questionable if any marked degree of development would have been possible, the limitations were so definite. It is barely thinkable that a great genius might have brought it to its fullest perfection in an art expression which would, possibly, have been similar to that of the English Pre- Raphaelites. No such genius appeared, however, but instead, a powerful influence from without invaded the art of Cologne and ended by dominating it completely. During the second half of the XV century the realistic and technically capable art of the Netherlands rushed like a mighty tidal wave over the lyric, dreamy, mystical art of Cologne and swept it out of being. Cologne painters in the second half of the XV century adopted all the characteristics of the school of the Van Eycks, especially of such masters as Roger van der Weyden, Dirk Bouts and Hans Memling. The types became larger and more robust; the faces 69 70 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART were constructed over a bony frame; the knuckles, joints and muscles were emphasised; the gold background was superseded by landscape; the colours were mixed in oils, which gave more body to the figures and contributed to their detachment from the back- ground and to a gain in the apparent depth of the picture; the light was broad daylight, which brought out every detail, even to the windows of the houses and the leaves of the shrubs in the remote distance. The larger bodies of bone and flesh, the individual types and the deeper colours inevitably wrought a change in the atmosphere of the pictures. These were not visionary saints but human people and the scenes in which they were presented were happenings in real life. Before these new, vital conceptions, expressed with such command of technical resources, the unscientific, unrealistic art of Cologne could not stand. It yielded itself completely, and its painters emulated the Flemish masters so ardently that in the second half of the XV century it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the pictures of the two schools. Yet even in this period the old spirit lingers in the German pictures and there still clings to them an atmosphere of detachment from the world which is foreign to the vig- orously human and worldly types in the works of the masters of the Netherlands. One of the Cologne painters who was influenced in a marked degree by the art of the Netherlands was the Master of the Life of Mary (Meister des Marienlebens), who worked in the years between 1460 and 1480. He has been named from his chief work, an altar in Munich Pinakothek — with a separate panel in the National Gallery, London — which represents in eight scenes the principal moments in the life of the Virgin. The types, garments, headdresses and landscapes all resemble those in Roger van der Wey den's pic- tures; some of the scenes are, indeed, almost like free reproductions of the same scenes in Roger's altar of the "Adoration of the Magi" in the Pinakothek. But though the landscape is worked out in great detail, the Master of the Life of Mary is old-fashioned enough to prefer a gold background or sky. The people are not quite so robust as in Roger's altar-pieces; the faces and forms are, as a rule, less bony, the contours more rounded, the hair softer, and the people THE REALISTS 71 characterised by a contemplative or sentimental quality which marks the master as belonging to Cologne. The Master of the Lyversberg Passion (Meister der Lyvers- bergischen Passion), named after the altar containing eight scenes from the Passion of Christ which came to Cologne Gal- lery from the collection of Jacob Lyversberg, is now generally accepted as identical with the Master of the Life of Mary. As the scenes from the Passion are less sure in execution than those from the Life of the Virgin, they are considered earlier works. A second painter who was dominated by the influence of the art of the Netherlands, was the Master of the Glorification of Mary (Meister der Verherrlichung Maria), who worked between 1460 and 1480, and who is named from his chief work in Cologne Gallery. This altar-piece shows the Virgin enthroned upon clouds which are upheld by angels, holding the Child, to whom she offers an apple by way of diversion. In the clouds above are God the Father, the Dove and angels. On the earth beneath is the Immaculate Lamb, from whose heart blood is gushing into a chalice, as in the Van Eyck's Ghent Altar. Away to the gold background a landscape stretches, with a city, a river and high rocks in front of which stands a sybil, who is pointing out the Virgin to the kneel- ing Emperor Agustus and his train. To the right are Saints John the Baptist, Martin, Gregory and others; to the left, St. Catherine with crown, wheel and sword and, behind her, St. Bridget with her cow, Barbara, Clara, Ursula, CeciHa and Mary Magdalen. The types are strong and muscular, the landscape similar to that in the pictures by the Master of the Life of Mary; the colours are dark, the flesh tones grey with heavy shadows. A contemporary of the Master of the Life of Mary was the painter, who, from his series of nine scenes from the legend of St. George, is known as the Master of St. George's Altar (Meister der Georgslegende). The artist tells his stories in minute detail, but with httle joy in the telling, for his people are very plain, with flat faces, excessively high foreheads and short, square chins, and his colouring is dull, with the flesh tones grey and muddy. A master whose works reveal the influence of Hans Memling is the Master of the Holy Kinship (Meister der Heiligen Sippe), who 72 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART worked on into the XVI century, as he was active in Cologne from 1480 to 1520. The "Holy Kinship" triptych in Cologne Gallery shows, in the central picture, the Virgin and St. Anne seated before a brocaded panel hung in the manner beloved by the painters of the Netherlands. Between them, they hold the Christ Child, who is reaching out to the left toward St. Catherine, to place on her finger the betrothal ring. To the right is St. Barbara, seated beside her tower and reading in an illuminated book; behind her stands her father. On low stools in the foreground are, to the right, Mary Salome with the small James and John playing together at her knee; to the left, Mary Cleophas, nursing at her breast a babe whose attention little Simon Zelotes is trying to attract by offering him an apple. Judas Thaddeus and James the Lesser playing on the ground complete this group. Others of the "Kinship" are of the company. Through the opening between the outer pillars and the tapestry panel look Joachim and Joseph, just as Memling looks in through a window at the Holy Night he has portrayed. The Joseph, indeed, bears a marked resemblance to that same Memling portrait of himself. In the upper air, behind and supporting the baldachin, are angels in long, floating garments, similar to those in al- most all Flemish pictures of the period. In the background a glimpse is given of a rolling landscape intersected by a river; to right and to left we may look into the interior of two rooms and see the Presentation in the Temple and the Death of the Virgin. On the inner side of the left wing are St. Roch afflicted with the plague and St. Nicasius holding the severed top of his head in his mitre, and presenting the donor; in the background is the Nativity. On the right wing are St. Gudule, bearing a lantern and presenting the wife of the donor, and St. Elizabeth giving bread to a beggar; in the background is the Assumption of the Virgin. On the outer side of the wings are, on the right, St. Leodogar, Bishop of Autun, with an awl, St. Achatius with the ten thousand martyrs, and the male members of the donor's family; on the left, St. Cecilia with her organ, St. Genevieve, whose candle a devil is trying to blow out with a bellows, St. Helen with the cross, another saint with book and palm and the female members of the donor's family. THE REALISTS 73 The Virgin and saints so closely resemble Memling's that they might almost have been copied from his Brussels altar. The less sacred persons in the large central group are taken direct from life. Joseph, with his long hair, downcast eyes and meditative expression might be the artist himself; Joachim, with large, well-defined features and keen glance, a patrician of Cologne; St. Catherine's father (?), with the close clipped hair and pointed beard, wearing a velvet coat handsomely trimmed with fur and passementerie, was undoubtedly a professional man or scientist of the day; he recalls many XVI century portraits in Dutch art. The robes worn by all but the Virgin and St. Anne are of extreme elegance, of gold brocaded materials, vel- vets and ermine, and are made in the height of fashion. The artist is particularly fond of red and uses it lavishly. The colours are bright and festive but not blended into harmony. The scene is so crowded with figures that it is disquieting, an effect which is heightened by the patchiness with which the colours are appHed. The gold back- ground has given place in this picture to a blue sky. An artist of distinct individuality, whose works are marked by the presence in a high degree of the sentiment characteristic of the older Cologne painters is the Master of Saint Severin, who worked in Cologne in the years between 1500 and 1515 and who received his name from his paintings of saints in the Church of St. Severin. An air of great ceremony pervades all his pictures, an evident en- deavour to convey the extreme distinction of his personages, which results in a certain stiffness and lack of virihty in his types. His people all bear a curious resemblance to one another, in their broad and prominent cheek bones, arched eyebrows, eyes which seem to curve upward slightly at the outer corners, large noses and short chins. The men are unusually tall and big and in their features reminiscent of the people in Dirk Bout's "Judgment of Kaiser Otto,'* though even more reserved and dignified than they. The large altar in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, shows in the central panel, the Crucifixion, in the foreground of a landscape in which the other scenes of the Passion, from the Triumphal Entry to the Ascension, are depicted in small proportions. The Crucifixion reveals, in the centre, facing the spectator, the Christ, calm and controlled, his eyes closed, his face unmarred by physical suffering, save for the 74 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART blood streaming from the crown of thorns. Placed diagonally, to right and left of the central cross, are the crosses to which the two thieves are tied. All about the central cross throng friends and enemies. The Virgin falls fainting into the arms of John, whose lips are parted in loud outcry; Mary Magdalen kneeling at the foot of the cross, is also crying aloud; the Centurion is proclaiming his new-found faith. The picture impresses us with the restraint and dignity of its tall, stiff people, who seem to feel not so much personal grief as amazement and horror which speaks through their staring eyes and parted lips. In the foreground to right and left kneel rigidly the donors, Konrad von Eynenberg and his wife. On the wings are represented, on the inner sides, the Baptism of Christ and Beheading of John the Baptist, on the outer sides, the Virgin and St. Christopher, St. John the Baptist and St. Agnes, with donors. In the scenes from the legend of St. Ursula, now scattered through Cologne, Bonn, the Louvre and Other galleries, the master has been at great pains to impress us with the eminence of the saint's worldly position. The scenes transpire in very large rooms arid the persons enacting them are so stately and ceremonious that they pre- serve a quite unpractical distance from one another. In the "Angel's Appearance to St. Ursula" the light effect is exceedingly interesting. The great curtained bed is set facing the spectator; the saint has awakened and raises her hands in prayer as the angel in long, white robes, with great wings, gives her his message, emphasizing it point by point on his fingers. From the angel radiates a light which dis- pels the nightly darkness about the bed of the youthful saint. Up a flight of six steps in the rear, in a Gothic room lighted only by a candle, we catch a glimpse of the Queen taking leave of her daughter who is about to set out on the pilgrimage the angel has commanded. Standing before this cycle of St. Ursula pictures, there naturally come to mind the series of the same scenes painted about the same time by two other masters, Hans Memling, of the Netherlands, and Carpaccio, the Italian. Memling presents, in pictures of very small dimensions, several innocent, young Dutch maidens of the bour- geoisie setting forth on their journeyings with much of the stir and bustle inevitably attendant upon such undertakings. The scenes Photograph by Hermann, Cologne MASTER OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW The St. Thomas Altar wallraf-richartz museum, cologne THE REALISTS 75 are intimate and tender. Carpaccio's cycle is a revelation of the refined, quiet elegance of Venetian patrician life of the period. The scenes are stately pageants such as Venice delighted in, with jewelled robes, floating banners, cities hung with oriental rugs and rich bro- cades, cool and lofty interiors. The German master does not pre- sume to the intimacy of Memling; he knows nothing of the gracious elegance in the midst of which Carpaccio's people move; he gives us what impresses him most; the almost overpowering dignity and sanctity of the principal figures, the colossal nature of the under- taking, the heavy shadow of ultimate tragedy which overcasts all the scenes with a supernatural seriousness. A painter who possessed remarkable technical facility and who, to judge from his works, had come into touch with the art of Italy as well as of the Netherlands, was the Master of St. Bartholomew, named from his altar in Munich Pinakothek. The Master of St. Bartholomew's types are finer and more delicately featured than those of any of the other Cologne painters of this period. In the St. Bartholomew altar, which presents seven saints standing, bear- ing their symbols, the forms of St. Bartholomew, St. Agnes and St. Cecilia are modelled with almost sculptural roundness and detach- ment from the background. The garments are beautifully, if some- what consciously, draped; the landscape details are reproduced with careful minuteness; the colouring is glowing and harmonious, though with a certain nervous accentuation of local colours; the finish is hard and brilliant like enamel. A certain nervous tension characterises this master, yet not so much tension, perhaps, as an excessive sensitiveness which creates in and through his people an atmosphere of disquiet. Their glances and poses are marked by a nervous intensity which, subdued, as in the figure of St. Helena in the St. Thomas altar in Cologne Gallery, gives the impression of affectation, and unrestrained, as in the fig- ure of St. Thomas, amounts to a vulgar curiosity to satisfy his doubts about the wounds of Christ which is most repellent. The womanly type in favour with the Master of St. Bartholomew, as in the "Virgin and Child" in Cologne Gallery, for instance, possesses a very broad forehead with remarkable distance between the eyes, which are prominent and downcast, a straight 76 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART and fine nose, a mouth small out of all proportion, and a short chin. The exceeding narrowness of the lower part of the face, with the exaggeratedly small mouth, taken together with the width between the eyes gives an appearance of insincerity, while the expression is so excessively sweet as to be almost simpering. That the painter had come under the influence of Italian art is unmistakable from the introduction, in *'The Crucifixion," in Cologne Gallery, of many nude cherubs flying about the cross, which are of a type that does not appear in the art of either Germany or the Netherlands. The Master of St. Bartholomew was not an original talent but an eclectic who reflected what was going on in the art of the two other countries that were artistically active in his age. Although a younger contemporary of the Master of St. Severin, who worked wholly in the manner of the XV century, much in the Master of St. Bartholomew's work speaks of the XVI century and may be said to mark the transition to later art. CHAPTER IX COLOGNE THE PORTRAITISTS OF THE XVI CENTURY Jan Joost of Calcar — Master of the Death of Mary (Joos van Cleve) — Barthel Bruyn — Anton Woensam — Master Hildegard — Hans von Melem — Jacob Bink NOT only did Cologne painters, as the Master of the Life of Mary, the Master of the Holy Kinship, and others, imitate with great faithfulness the art of the Netherlands, but in the opening years of the XVI century artists from the Netherlands moved to Cologne, where they executed many commissions and founded schools. So to Calcar, near Cologne, came Jan Joost from Haarlem, to paint, in the years between 1505 and 1508, the wings of the High Altar in St. Nicholas* Church. Upon the completion of this work, he returned to Haarlem where he was active until the year of his death, 1529. Another Flemish artist, who worked in Cologne from about 1515 to 1530, has been named, from his principal work, the Master of the Death of Mary (Meister des Todes der Maria), but is probably identical with that Joos van Cleve the Elder, who was born about 1485 and died in Antwerp 1525. The " Death of the Virgin," which is now in Cologne Gallery, was painted in 1515 for the Hackeney family chapel, and about four years later the artist painted a second picture with this same subject and almost a duplicate of the Hackeney picture, for the Church of Santa Maria in Capitol. This is the "Death of the Virgin" which is now in Munich Pinakothek. In the central section is the Virgin, lying in a large, canopied bed; St. John is holding the death candle in her hand. Around the bed are the apostles in great agitation; some are running hither and thither, some are reading (one wearing spectacles!), one is hasten- ing with the oil of anointing. On the wings are the donors with their patron saints in a landscape. The Renaissance details in the architecture, the movement, the draperies, the statuesque figure at the head of the bed, whose 77 78 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART garments float as if caught by a strong wind, all reveal the Italian influence which was by this time making itself felt in a marked degree in the works of other masters in the Netherlands. The perspective is interesting in the glimpse given into a house across the street; the lighting, in the shadowed corner between the win- dows, the light and shade that play on the men who stand in front of a window to the left, and the strange distortion of the features of the man who is blowing the incense to make it burn and whose face is lighted by the flame. The drawing in these pictures is very sharp and definite, the colouring warm and rather heavy, the flesh tones reddish. In the later works of the Master of the Death of Mary Italian influence is yet more evident and as several of his works are to be found in Italian galleries, it is reasonable to infer that he made a sojourn of some length in that country as well as in Germany. Undoubtedly a pupil of the Master of the Death of Mary was the Cologne painter, Bartholommaus de Bruyn, commonly known as Barthel Bruyn, who was especially distinguished as a portrait painter. He was born in Cologne in 1493; in 1519 he was mentioned as one of the most prominent members of the guild of painters; in 1550 and again in 1553 he was elected to the City Council; he died in 1557. Among his early works, dating from about 1515, is an altar in Munich Pinakothek which represents Christ on the Cross, saints and donors. In this, as in his other altar-pieces, the influence of his master is unmistakable. Barthel Bruyn's altars are not particu- larly interesting save for the introduction, now and then, of some persons whose lifelikeness gives promise of his future greatness as a portrait painter. About the same time as the influence of Italy became conspicu- ous in the pictures by the Master of the Death of Mary, it made itself felt also in the work of Barthel Bruyn. In his pictures painted after 1524 the people are larger and more statuesque, their movements stately and swift and accomplished with a large sweep of draperies. Gradually the Roman-Italian influence dominated his work entirely, with the same results as in the case of the Venetian, Sebastian del Piombo; exaggerated emphasis was placed on form, the colouring lost its warmth and beauty. The forms in the master's last period Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl BARTOLOMMALS BRUYN Portrait of Burgomaster Johannes van Rtht kaiser friedrich museum, berlin THE PORTRAITISTS 79 are of heroic size, the poses bold, the treatment broad and super- ficial, the colour cold. Barthel Bruyn is, however, best known as a painter of portraits and in this, his special field, it was only in his very latest work that he became cold and uninteresting. How great he was as a portrait painter is evident from the fact that some of his portraits were long attributed to Holbein. In their execution there is greater breadth and less painfulness of detail than in the portraits by the Master of the Death of Mary, while, at his best, he approaches Holbein in the clearness and harmony of his colours. One of the most beautiful portraits is the half-length picture of the Burgomaster Johannes von Ryht, in Berhn Gallery, which was painted in 1525. The head is given with fine detachment, the thoughtful eyes, the firm mouth, all the expressive features which reveal the whole character of the man are presented with fidelity yet without any smallness, hardness or over-emphasis of details. The materials in the garments with their fur linings are well painted; the colouring is harmonious. Another remarkably fine portrait is that, in Cologne Gallery, of Burgomaster Arnold of Brauweiler, painted in 1535. With Barthel Bruyn worked his two sons, Arnt and Barthel the Younger. In 1543 Hermann von Weinsberg wrote: "Barthel Bruyn is the first painter in the city, and after him his sons." Arnt Bruyn was a member of the City Council from 1565 to 1577 and was succeeded in office by his brother Barthel. It has so far been impossible to assign works definitely to these two artists. A painter who was born in Worms but who set up his studio in Cologne was Anton Woensam, son of a painter Jasper Woensam, who seems to have had considerable fame in his day, as all the honours in the gift of the Painters' Guild were conferred on him. No authen- tic pictures, however, remain to us from his hand. Nor have many of his son Anton's been preserved. One of the most characteristic is the " Christ on the Cross," in Cologne Gallery, which was painted in 1535 for the Carthusian monks. At the foot of the cross kneels Peter Bloemvenna, abbot of the monastery; below, to the left, are his parents and sisters and brothers; to the right, his grandparents, an uncle and three aunts. To the left of the cross stand the Virgin, St. John and St. Peter; to the right, the saints of the Carthusian 80 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART order, Bruno, Hugo of Grenoble and Hugo of Lincoln. The body of Christ is quite muscular and its bony structure prominent. The other figures are slender, their garments of heavy materials. The kneeling and standing people are arranged with considerable monot- ony in regular rows, but the heads of the various members of the abbot's family are strongly individualised; indeed, the kneeling men are evidently done from life, and the portraits are not flattering. The background is a landscape with mountains, cities and a lake; the sky is filled with clouds. A contemporary of Anton Woensam*s in Cologne was Master Hildegard, who, in 1523, painted, quite in the manner of the Flemish artists, an altar for the Catholic Church in Dortmund with scenes from the Life of the Virgin. ' Of Hans von Melem only one authentic work remains — a portrait of himself at thirty-seven years of age, which is in Munich Pinakothek. A Cologne artist who wandered to Nuremberg to study with DUrer, was Jacob Bink, whose fame rests rather on his engravings than on his paintings. During the latter half of his life he was in the service of King Christian III of Denmark and of Duke Albert of Prussia, as architect, sculptor and painter. Of paintings from his hand there remain to us only portraits — as those of King Christian III and his Queen, in Copenhagen, and of Duke Albert and his wife, in Konigsberg. The study of the art of Cologne brings a measure of disappoint- ment. It did not develop in steady progression to culminate in the XVI century in masters of the greatness of Diirer and Holbein. Instead, after the middle of the XV century it fell wholly under the domination of the art of the Netherlands, to which its individuality was subordinated to such a degree that it is with difficulty that the works of Cologne artists can be distinguished from those of painters in the Netherlands. Such an imitative art could possess within itself no vital element that would grow, develop and finally bring forth, in the fulness of its strength, such masterpieces of original creative genius as were the fullest expressions of the art of Augsburg and Nuremberg. In truth, the art of Cologne reached its zenith in the first half of the XV century, in the works of Stephan Lochner. CHAPTER X WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS Master Conrad Stollen — Master of Liesborn — N. Suelnmeigr — Johann Koer- becke — Gert Von Lon — Heinrich and Victor Diinwegge — Master of Cappen- berg — Heinrich Aldegrever — The Tom Ring Family IN Westphalia the wealthy old Hanseatic town of Soest was the earliest centre of art activity, bringing forth in Conrad Stollen a painter who occupies the same position in the art of West- phalia as the Master of the St. Clara Altar in the art of the first half of the XV century in Cologne. Master Conrad is mentioned as priest in Nieder-Wildungen in 1403; his altar in the church there is dated 1404. On the outside of each of the two wings are two saints, on the inside, four scenes from the youth of Christ and five scenes from his Passion. The figures are very slender, with narrow shoulders, weak limbs and poorly modelled hands and feet. The oval of the faces is sharp, the chins are quite long and pointed. These people are not lacking, however, in the charm of dehcacy and refinement or in a certain appeahng quahty of youth and frailty. The colours are quite bright and gay but less agreeably harmonised than in the works of the early Cologne masters; the flesh tones are browner. The crowns and halos are made of gilded plaster of Paris and are apt to stand out so conspicuously as to seem more important than the people who wear them. A later work of Master Conrad's, and his masterpiece, is the altar of St. Nicholas' Chapel, Soest, which is now kept in the Deanery. It presents St. Nicholas enthroned, with four other saints, the donor and his family. The bodies are lacking in constructive framework, the heads too heavy for the slender throats; the foreheads are ex- tremely high, the blond hair hangs in heavy braids. In the church in Warendorf is a Crucifitxion by Master Conrad, dated 1414, in which the body of Christ is beautiful in hne, though evidently not modelled with any knowledge of anatomy. The monstrously ugly tormentors of Christ are astonishingly natural and expressive in their attitudes and movements. 81 82 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART The altar presented by Abbess Segele of Hamme, sometime between 1410 and 1422, to the church in Frondenberg, on which are represented scenes from the Life of the Virgin, suggests contact with the School of Cologne and the influence of the Master of the Madonna with the Bean Blossom, whose types the Mary and Eliza- beth of the Frondenberg altar closely resemble. Westphalian art shows from the beginning a more pronounced realistic tendency than the art of Cologne; its colouring is gayer and less harmonious and it displays always a marked fondness for magnificent robes em- broidered with flowers, and for ornamentation in general. In 1465 Abbot Heinrich von Cleve consecrated in the church at Liesborn, near Mtinster, a High Altar and four chapel altars of which the chronicler wrote: "The altars he consecrated were bril- liant with gold and beautiful colours, so that their artist would, accord- ing to the canons of Pliny, have been accounted by the Greeks a master of the first rank.'' The artist's name we do not yet know, but he is called from these works for the cloister, the Master of Liesborn. These altars were sold and cut in pieces in 1807 when the mon- astery was secularised and Westphalia created a kingdom for Jerome Bonaparte. There remain to us therefore only broken sections; in Miinster an angel from "The Crucifixion," bearing a chaKce, and five angels adoring the Child; in the National Gallery, London, the head of the Crucified and six saints; besides some sections in private col- lections. The faces of the people in the pictures by the Master of Liesborn are squarer in outline than Master Conrad's people; the eyes are large and slightly almond-shaped, the mouth nobly curved, the hair soft and treated with great minuteness. The angels wear white robes and long blue mantles; their wings are many-coloured. All his people seem to combat a slight embarrassment or a retiring modesty which rather adds to their charm than detracts from it. That the master had come into touch with the art of the Netherlands and had learned from it, is manifest from the knowledge of perspective shown in the interior of the room in which are the angels, in "The Nativity," and from the medium used, which, though partly tempera, is also partly oils. Photograph by Dr. Stoedtner, Berlin CONRAD STOLLEN VON SOEST Saints Ottilib and Dorothea westphalian museum, mun8teb Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich MASTER OF LIESBORN Angel Holding a Chalice we8tphalian museum, mun8teb WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS 8S In the decade after the Master of Liesborn the universal move- ment toward reaKsm made itself felt in Westphahan art and domi- nated most disagreeably the work of a painter who signed himself N. Suelnmeigr. In his " Holy Night," in MUnster Gallery, the people are unbeautiful and common-looking though robed in rich brocades; in his other four pictures in the Gallery the martyrdoms of Saints Stephen, Clement, Pantaleone and Lawrence are depicted with coarse and violent reahsm. The altar in the Wiesenkirche in Soest, which presents the Holy Family and scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin, was, in all probability, from the hand of this painter. The figures are large-boned, with unlovely features; the brilliantly coloured garments are laid in many, broken folds; the colours are vigorous and not particularly harmonious. The whole impression given is that of the sacrifice of beauty in a struggle for truth to nature. Another leader in the movement toward excessive faithfulness to nature was Johann Koerbecke, who is mentioned in the archives of Mtinster in the years from 1446 to 1491. Several works from his hand are in the Gallery there and all represent scenes from the Passion, which offer full scope to his drastic realism. Nor is the gloom of the pictures relieved by the colouring, which is dark and heavy even in the flesh tones. A painter who belonged in point of time to the XVI century but in the character of his work to the period of transition from the Master of Liesborn to the realists, was Gert von Lon. In the records of Cloister Willebadessen we read that, in 1505, the nuns commis- sioned him to paint for them a High Altar for which he was to re- ceive forty gold guldens. One wing of this altar is now in Munster Gallery; it contains the Resurrection, Ascension, Descent of the Holy Ghost and Saints. Gert von Lon's chief work is the altar in the Wiesenkirche in Soest which was long attributed to Alde- grever. The shrine contains wood carvings; on the wings are the Holy Night, Adoration of the Kings, St. Anthony and St. Agatha; on the base are half-length figures of the apostles. The scenes are laid in Renaissance rooms; the people, although so sharply charac- terised that they might have been done from life, are, in the main, 84 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART unattractive; their features are unbeautiful, their bodies long and thin and their poses stiff and affected. The distinguishing characteristics of Westphalian art — sturdi- ness of type, a leaning toward realism, fondness for gay colour- ing, for gorgeous robes and for ornamentation with gold thickly and pastily applied — persisted even into the XVI century. In its opening years Dortmund was the centre of artistic ac- tivity. There two brothers, Heinrich and Victor Diinwegge, painted, in 1521, the High Altar for the Dominican Church. On the central section is the Crucifixion, on the inner sides of the wings the Holy Family and Adoration of the Kings; on the outer sides eight saints of the Dominican order, who stand in front of a tapestry, be- hind which, through a late Gothic arcade, we are given a glimpse of a landscape. The composition is crowded and not clealy grouped, the women are in appearance large and dignified, but unmistakably shal- low and insincere; the men are strong almost to roughness; the gar- ments are gaily patterned. Almost all pictures by these prolific paint- ers give an impression of overcrowding, which is heightened by the use of many light colours which are not brought into harmony. A master whose style is so similar to that of the brothers Diin- wegge that some authorities believe him to be identical with one of them, is the Master of Cappenberg, of whom it is known that he worked in the years between 1500 and 1525 and who received his name from the altar, with the Crucifixion as its chief subject, which is in the church at Cappenberg. To Soest, however, that earliest centre of the art life of West- phalia, belonged the best known Westphalian painter of the XVI century, Heinrich Aldegrever. He was born in Paderborn, in 1502, but moved in his youth to Soest where he had become a famous artist before 1530. He died about 1560. Aldegrever was not only a painter but practised the art of the goldsmith and of the engraver as well, developing as an engraver under the very marked influence of Diirer. As a painter his fame rests on his portraits, which are well-modelled, clean and definite in drawing, while his types are patrician, marked by simplicity and dignity of bearing. In Miinster the family Tom Ring was prominent in art in the Photograph by Franz Hanfstaen'jl HEIXRICH ALDEGREVER Portrait of a Youxg Man lichtenstein gallert, vienna WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS 85 XVI century. At its head was Ludger torn Ring the Elder (1497 -1547) who was widely known as a painter and architect. An altar painted by him in 1538 in Miinster Cathedral is not particularly interesting or important. His chief talent was as a portrait apinter. His portraits are rather stiff and set, but dignified, definite in model- hng and clear in colour. He gave the external appearance without any revelation of the nature, character or attainments of his sub- jects; a procedure which created a singular resemblance to one another in all the people he painted, as is the case also in many of the representations by such artists as Sir Peter Lely, Kneller and others who at various times have adopted this same standard in portraiture. Ludger tom Ring had two sons who also were painters. The elder, Hermann, was born in Miinster in 1521, studied with his father, then came under the influence of the ItaHanised School of the Netherlands, especially of Heemskerk. In 1568 he became Master of the Guild in MUnster; he died in 1597. The younger son, Ludger, who was bom in 1522, spent most of his active life in Brunswick, where he died in 1583 or 1584. The flesh tones in his portraits are very light and all his people are invested with a rather wooden appearance of dignity. Nicholas, son of Hermann tom Ring, born 1564 in Miinster, continued the family name and fame into the XVII century, as he was active as late as 1613. His work cannot be said to be in any sense German, but is in everything imitation Italian. CHAPTER XI SAXONY LUCAS CRANACH THE greatest painter in Saxony, Lucas Cranach, was not a Saxon by birth but was born in 1472, at Cronach in Franconia, whence he received his name. Concerning his family name there is still, however, much difference of opinion, some historians insist- ing that it was Miiller, others holding out for Sunder. Of his life be- fore 1504 we know nothing, but he must have gained a wide reputation, for in that year he was appointed Court Painter to the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise and went to live in Wittenberg. Four years later a coat-of-arms — the winged serpent which in his pictures takes the place of the usual monogram signature — was conferred upon him, in acknowledgment, not only of the greatness of his art, but of his services to the Electoral House. The next year, 1509, he was sent as special ambassador to the Netherlands to represent Saxony at the festivities in honour of Charles of Spain, the grandson of the Emperor MaximiHan. In 1513 he bought a handsome house in Wittenberg, having, some time previously, married Barbara Breng- bier, daughter of a patrician of Gotha. He acquired an apothecary shop and later a book store. In 1519 he was elected City Treasurer, in 1537 and again in 1540, Burgomaster. From the beginning he was a warm friend of Luther's and did everything in his power to promote his cause. He was one of the witnesses at Luther's marriage, caricatured his enemies in a series of woodcuts, painted pictures and made drawings for woodcuts which would illustrate and illuminate Luther's teachings. Luther, in turn, was god-father to one of his children and his comforter when his gifted son, Johann Lucas, died suddenly, in 1537, at Bologna, whither he had gone to pursue his art studies. Loyal as he was to Luther, he was just as faithful to the princely house he served. When in 1547 Elector Johann Friedrich suffered defeat and faced imprisonment, Cranach made intercession for him 86 LUCAS CRANACH 87 with Charles V and when this failed of effect, followed the Elector to prison in Augsburg and in Innsbruck, remaining with him until he was set at hberty in 1552. Then, together still, they went to Weimar, where Cranach died in 1553 at the age of eighty-one. He left two daughters and a son, Lucas Cranach the younger. His wife had died twelve years before. Dr. Christopher Scheurl, the famous humanist, "the Oracle of the Republic," in his festival speech delivered in 1508 in the Stiftskirche which Frederick the Wise had founded in Wittenberg, referred to Cranach as one who worked " more rapidly than any other painter and who was never idle, not so much as a single hour, but always had a brush in his hand." And truly this account of his facility and industry must have been literally true, for Cranach has left to us an enormous body of work, comprising pictures with religious and allegorical subjects, portraits and drawings for wood- cuts. It must be remembered, however, that in his later years he had gathered a school about him, and also that he was greatly occu- pied with business, religion and pohtics — matters which must have consumed much time. It is therefore highly probable that the busy artist left many of the commissions to be executed, in the main, by his students and helpers; so that many of the works attributed to the master himself, are but school pictures in his manner. Gradu- ally these are being sifted out and a more just appreciation of the master is becoming possible. In his art Cranach belongs wholly to Saxony and the School of Cologne, and not in any degree to the intensely dramatic school of his native Franconia. While in his landscapes, trees and hght- ing, the influence of Griinewald and Altdorfer is often directly evi- dent, in his types and atmosphere he is closely akin to the earliest Cologne masters. His women, with the high forehead, small mouth, short chin and the softly rounded contour of the face are not dis- similar in type to theirs, and, though more worldly, as befits the XVI century, they possess the same unpractical, dreamy natures. In no other types in art except in the School of Cologne in the XV century is there such utter lack of self -consciousness as in Cranach' s women, whether Christian saints or pagan goddesses, heroines of Old Testament history or of classical mythology. He presents them 88 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART often in a guise which conception and treatment might easily make anatomical or vulgar or even lewd; but they are so wholly unconscious of themselves that they simply provoke the amused, indulgent, half-tender smile which would be called up by the absurd posturings or antics of a winsome child. Sometimes, in his earlier religious works, this self -forgetfuln ess attains the dignity of devotional ab- sorption, as in the "Madonna and Child" in Munich Pinakothek; in his latest works (doubtless largely school pictures) it occasionally amounts to absurdity, in such scenes as Judith nonchalantly holding the severed head of Holofernes, or Lucretia vacantly or lackadaisi- cally stabbing herself. As has been said above, nothing is definitely known of the life and work of Lucas Cranach before he went to Wittenberg in 1504. Scheibler assigns to him as early works an interesting series of pictures in the castle of Aschaffenburg done in a manner so similar to MatthM-us Griinewald's that, in lieu of more authoritative attribu- tion, they have been hitherto attributed vaguely to "Pseudo-Grtine- wald."* There is, however, no conclusive proof of Cranach's author- ship of the works in Aschaffenburg. Cranach's earliest signed picture is the one in Berlin Gallery, dated 1504, which represents the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. The Virgin is seated beside a rocky hill, under the shade of a moss- hung, evergreen tree such as we meet with in the landscapes of Griinewald or Altdorfer. A varied landscape opens up in the back- ground. Behind the Virgin stands Joseph, hat and staff in hand, looking out directly at the spectator with keen glance. Among the flowers that bloom all about them are small and busy angels. One gives the Christ Child fruits and blossoms, one plays with a bird he holds by the wings, two make soft music on their flutes, one sleeps beside a tiny waterfall at which another fills a jar, doubtless in pre- paration for the journey. The scene is very much alive, the atmos- phere inviting and full of tender charm, the colour glowing. For several years after this date, woodcuts are the artist's only traceable works; perhaps the Aschaffenburg pictures occupied him during this period. The woodcuts present St. George, Venus and Amor, St. Mary Magdalen, the Temptation of St. Anthony, 1508, * See Pseudo-Griinewald, page 114. Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl LUCAS CRANACH Rest on the Flight into Egypt kaiser friedrich museum, berlin LUCAS CRANACH The Crucifixion, with Cranach and Luther stadtpfarrkirche, weimar LUCAS CRANACH 89 the Judgment of Paris, 1509, St. Jerome in a landscape, and many other subjects. With 1509 begins again the record of his paintings. A Venus and Amor bearing this date is in the Hermitage Gallery, St. Peters- burg, and is signed with the initials L. C. and the small winged serpent from his ooat-of-arms, with which Cranach was accustomed to sign his works. The modeUing is strong yet dehcate, the colour rich and harmonious. From the years between 1512 and 1518 date a number of Ma- donna pictures, as the "Madonna in an Arbour" and the "Madonna under an Apple Tree," in the Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg, and the "Madonna and Child" with a bunch of grapes, with two angels holding a purple drapery as background, in Munich Pinakothek. One of the most beautiful of all the Madonna pictures is that in St. James' Church in Innsbruck painted about 1517, in which the Virgin is altogether lovely, the Child full of life and very lovable, the colouring glowing yet soft and harmonious. Next in beauty rank, perhaps, the two Madonna pictures in the Darmstadt and Carlsruhe Galleries. In Weimar, the smiling Madonna, painted in 1518, is seated in a landscape of rare beauty. Of less charm is the Virgin and Child in front of a green hanging, in the Stadel Art In- stitute in Frankfort. From 1518 dates the curious picture in Leipsic Gallery, repre- senting a death-bed scene and painted as an Epitaph of the physician Valentine Schmidburg, who died in 1490. The dying man, naked, is propped up in bed; a priest holds crucifix and candle before his eyes, while good and evil spirits struggle for his soul. Beside the bed are the man's wife, kneeling in prayer, his physician holding a flask, a notary writing his last will and testament, and an executor who is examining his coffers and strong-boxes in order to ascertain the extent of the worldly possessions he is leaving behind. Above the good and bad angels who hover over the bed, passes the soul which is being carried aloft to the Trinity; above that again are the Virgin and Child and a small church before which kneels a family of five; around this section are written the words of the epitaph. In 1515 Cranach was invited to join the company of famous artists who were illustrating Emperor Maximihan's Prayerbook. 90 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Eight pages In the section now in Munich were decorated by him with drawings which might almost be said to be animal pictures, from the extent to which animals predominate in the compositions. Cranach, indeed, possessed great fame as a painter of animals. In that lauda- tory speech he delivered in 1508, Dr. Scheurl had spoken of his being able to paint stags "that are so natural that strange hounds bark when they see them." In the Emperor's Prayerbook he drew, in reddish-brown ink, stags, rabbits, monkeys and herons, without any religious significance, save on one page where the Church's chariot is drawn by the beasts which are the symbols of the four evangelists. As has been already noted, Cranach 's pictures fail to reveal any development of his art in his later years. Indeed after 1520 his mannerisms became so pronounced that the numerous pictures painted between 1525 and 1550 all reveal the same characteristics and show such a marked similarity that any detailed consideration would be wearisome and fruitless. Possibly much of the work on these pic- tures was done by pupils, while, in the case of the master himself, doubtless that remarkable facility of which Scheurl spoke in 1508 had increased to such a degree that in these busy years he simply turned out "typical" pictures without any particular expenditure of either thought or time. To the beginning of this period, 1525, belongs the "St. Mary Magdalen" in Cologne Museum, with stags and other animals intro- duced in the landscape. A half-dozen pictures of Adam and Eve painted between 1525 and 1533 also gave the artist opportunity to exercise his gift for painting animals, as he could freely introduce any number of them in the Garden of Eden. Of Biblical figures the favorites, besides Adam and Eve, were Judith, who is conceived as a mild young woman holding the head of Holofernes as she might a fan, Samson and Delilah and Salome. More dignified and serious is the Adulteress before Christ in the picture in Munich Pinakothek, who, in the handsome dress of the period, stands before the Christ, incapable, it is true, of deep peni- tence, yet soberly thoughtful. The Christ type is beautiful and not without nobility and dignity in spite of the ringleted hair, which im- parts a slight air of effeminacy. The Pharisees are characterised to LUCAS CRANACH 91 the point of caricature, especially the man in armour with his cap full of stones, and the huge, monkish-looking man at the left who is adjusting his eyeglasses with a supercilious air and who is so large that he disturbs the proportions of the pictm-e. Another Biblical subject to which Cranach was partial was "Christ blessing Little Children." A beautiful picture with this subject is in Naum- burg, another in the Paulinerkirche, Leipsic, a third in St. Anna's Church, Augsburg. But pleasant and beautiful subjects did not by any means mon- opolise his attention. Christ as the Man of Sorrows he pictured many times, the most dignified and sincere representation being that in the Cathedral in Meissen, which was painted in 1534. A series of three scenes from the Passion is in Berlin Gallery; six others are in the Old Palace. Of special interest among these Passion scenes are those which were directly inspired by Cranach 's contact with Martin Luther and his faith in the new Evangel which set forth the victory of the testament of Christ's blood over the old law. In Weimar Museum is a picture which illustrates the teach- ings of the great reformer. On the left, as symbolic of the old dispensation, are Death and the Devil chasing Adam into hell, while Moses and the prophets look on helplessly; on the right are Christ on the Cross, and John the Baptist explaining to Adam the means of redemption, in which he becomes a sharer through the blood which gushes visibly from Christ's bleeding heart upon his head. Another treatment of this theme which presents it pointedly as an illustration of Luther's teachings, is in the Stadt- pfarrkirche in Weimar. In the centre is Christ on the Cross; in the background, the tents of the Israelites and the symbolic brazen serpent, in the middle distance Moses with the tables of the law and Death and the Devil driving mankind into hell. At the left of the Cross, Christ descends into hell to bind the old dragon and bring mankind again from the dead; at the right stand John the Baptist, the artist Cranach himself, upon whose head blood gushes from the pierced side of Christ, and Martin Luther holding his open Bible and pointing to the words "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." The portrait of the artist at the foot of the cross is life-like, and that of Luther the best we have of him from Cranach 's 92 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART hand. In the Stadtkirche in Wittenberg is yet another "Luther" altar (largely pupils' work, however), which represents in the central picture the Last Supper; on the wings. Confession, with Bugenhagen as Father Confessor, and Baptism with Melanchthon as priest; on the predella, Luther preaching, with, as his theme, the Crucifixion. But the subjects of Cranach's pictures are not all religious; his secular pictures are even more numerous. Favoured among pro- fane themes are the stories of classical mythology, which are, how- ever, by no means interpreted in the classic spirit or presented in the classic manner, but are, rather, representations of nude Arcadian heroes and heroines who, in their childish naivete, are not with- out winsomeness, though some of them are but slightly removed from being travesties of the dignified scenes to which we are accustomed in classical art. The favourite subject, naturally, is Venus, who is presented again and again. The Judgment of Paris also appeals to the artist's imagination. Paris, a rather unimpressive looking, short, young man, very handsomely dressed, or in full armour, gazes in stupefaction at the beauty of the three goddesses, who are indeed childishly winning in their gauze veils and gold chains. Diana, alone or with Apollo, is a subject which encourages the introduction of beautiful landscapes with animals. A very lovely landscape is the setting for a charming picture of a faun family, in Donau- eschingen Gallery. Of all the allegorical pictures the best known is the "Fountain of Youth," in Berlin Gallery, which has unfortunately undergone a thorough restoration. In the middle of a great park is the fountain over which Venus is presiding deity. To it have come all sorts of women, crippled, homely and old, on foot or in the conveyances which are left standing close at hand. Very swiftly they are disrobing and plunging into the wonder-working water, to climb out on the other side young, fresh and beautiful, to robe in the near-by tents and then give themselves up to the pleasures of youth, dancing, feast- ing and loving. It is a fairy tale told with much of the charm of the Wonder- World and yet not without a strongly humorous element. Akin to the master's mythological and allegorical pictures are his hunting scenes, as the "Stag Hunt," of 1529, in the Burg at Prague, Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich LUCAS CRAxNACH The Judgment of Paris grand ducal gallery, carl8ruhe cj o S < P h5 P5 1^ LUCAS CRANACH 93 two Hunting Scenes from 1544 in the Prado, Madrid, and others. The Hunt with Emperor Charles V as guest, in Vienna Gallery, is largely a school picture. Exceedingly numerous, too, are the portraits painted by Cran- ach. As a usual thing, he gives his subjects simply and directly, without profound insight, yet with sincerity and Hfelikeness and with attractive colouring. As might be expected, many of his portraits present princes to whom he was court painter. Especially numerous are those of Frederick the Wise with the broad, short head on the thick, short neck, the stubby beard, low forehead and small eyes. Of Johann I a good portrait is in Weimar Museum, as also one of Johann Friederich as bridegroom, painted in 1526, with a companion picture of his betrothed, Sybil of Cleves. There are also from his hand several portraits of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, in one of which, in Darmstadt Gallery, painted in 1525, the cardinal is rep- resented as St. Jerome in his study surroimded by books and other accessories; in another, in Berlin Gallery, painted two years later, as St. Jerome in a forest landscape surrounded by wild animals and writing on a board supported by the trunk of a tree. Another interesting group of portraits is that one which has as its centre the Apostle of the Reformation. Cranach painted in 1527 the portraits of Luther's parents which are in the Wart- burg; and at various times, several of his wife Katherine Bora, and many of Luther himself. A portrait of the artist by himself, dated 1550, is in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Cranach has been called the Hans Sachs of painting and in the many years of productive activity and the enormous quantity of work turned out, in a certain lack of profundity, a certain super- ficiality of characterisation and in the hasty, "mannered" execution of his work, he does resemble the great Mastersinger. The painter possesses, however, a much higher degree of sesthetic culture, greater depth and finer poetic sense. CHAPTER XII SAXONY MINOR PAINTERS Hans Raphon — Hans Krell — Hans Brosamer — ^Lucas Cranach the Younger — Wolfgang Krodel — Peter Roddelstadt Gothland — Heinrich Konigsweiser — Matthias Krodel THE most original of the minor artists in Saxony was Johannes Rap-Hon, called Hans Raphon, of Einbeck, about whose works much controversy is still being waged. In the Pro- vincial Museum in Hanover are two small, authentic altars from his hand which came there from the cloisters of St. Alexander and St. Mary the Virgin in Einbeck. Each is in the form of a triptych with coloured wood-carvings of the Virgin in the shrine and paintings of saints on the wings. The figures are exceptionally sturdy and ro- bust, the faces round and full, the flesh tones reddish with dark shad- ows. The saints are not invested with distinct personalities, though the artist evidently sought to convey lifelikeness by his care in re- cording such details as the many wrinkles on the faces and hands of the older people. The finish of the pictures is hard and shiny. To this master was formerly attributed an altar-piece in Bruns- wick Gallery representing the Mocking of Christ, Ecce Homo, the Virgin standing on the Half Moon, and three clerical donors, with, on the outside of the wings, a most curious picture of the Annuncia- tion or Immaculate Conception. It is doubtful if this altar-piece is by the painter of the Hanover pictures, though certainly from the same hand as the altar representing the Annunciation, Baptism, Adoration, and Revelation to St. John, which is attributed to Hans Raphon, in Hildesheim Gallery. In the Brunswick altar the picture which is most interesting — though iconographically rather than artistically — is "The Annuncia- tion" which is here presented in connection with the Immaculate Con- ception in a composition which is most rare in altar pictures though more frequent in embroidered altar cloths of the XV century. In 94 MINOR PAINTERS OF SAXONY 95 the Archiepiscopal Museum in Cologne is one of these embroideries, which contains almost the identical representation with that on Hans Raphon's (?) Brunswick altar. In a garden surrounded in part by high walls, in part by a plaited willow fence, the Virgin sits among the flowers — "My Beloved is a garden enclosed." All about her are symbols of the Immaculate Conception: Aaron's Rod that budded, Gideon's Fleece, a pail of golden Manna, the Burning Bush. Within the garden a fountain of living water is playing; on an altar rests the Ark of the Covenant. In one of the great gates of the wall stands Ezekiel to whom had been vouchsafed the vision of the New Jerusalem; in another, David, the royal ancestor of the Virgin. From the left the Angel Gabriel comes hastening, blowing from a large horn the message "Ave gratia plena'' and driving the four dogs. Truth, Peace, Mercy and Justice, fleeing before whom the unicorn — symbol of Jesus Christ — rushes into the lap of the Virgin. In the background is a wide landscape with trees and palms and an expanse of green water on which a boat is sailing. Above the water hangs- the Star of David; over it arches the Rainbow of Promise, and out of it rises, in the form of a full, glorious sun, the Dawn of the New Dispensation. The whole is a curious combination of illustration of the Song of Songs, mystic symbohsm and scholastic allegory and requires the introduction of many fluttering scrolls to make plain its meaning. The types in this, as in the other pictures attributed to this master, are tall, strong and vigorous; the faces are short, with large features, prominent eyes, round chins and muscular throats; the flesh tones are unbeautifuUy reddish. The Virgin has a very high forehead, her hair is parted and hangs in long, heavy waves; the other figures have low, broad foreheads and their red-blond hair, without parting, is laid in light curls. A distinctive characteristic of the painter is the way the light falling on the hair threads it with lines of brightest gold. The garments worn by the people are very full, the preferred colours red, white and green; blue, strangely enough, finds no place in the pictures. The waU and towers in "The Annunciation," like the many buildings introduced in his other pictures, are grey, with tiled roofs of the very same bright red that appears so frequently in the 96 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART garments. The people move with much vigour but less grace; the wide landscapes and the views into the interiors of great halls reveal the artist's mastery of perspective. His pictures are usually dis- quieting from overcrowding with persons and things and from the lack of harmonisation of their bright colours. A later independent Saxon master was Hans Krell, called "The Princes' Painter of Leipsic," who, in the years between 1533 and 1573, was head of a large workshop, in the direction of which he was succeeded by his son, Hans Krell the Younger. The elder Krell made drawings for wood cuts and painted portraits of his princes, as those of Elector August of Saxony and his wife Anna, 1551, in Dresden Gallery, Elector Johann Friedrich and his wife Sybilla, 1534, in Leipsic City Library, and many others, which to-day seem but mediocre. A contemporary of Lucas Cranach's who imitated him very closely was Hans Brosamer, who lived from 1480 to 1550. His "Mother and Child," in Brunswick Gallery, is much like a Cranach picture in types and in dress, even to such accessories as the heavy chain with large links worn by the beautiful mother. The child, who is very large and stout and strong, wears a gauze dress and is most amazingly decked out with a chain of corals to which jewelled pendants are attached and a golden crown curiously plaited and thickly set with pearls. Several portraits by this artist are in various galleries, as that of Wolfgang Eisen, in Carlsruhe, painted in 1523, and that one dated 1538, in Hamburg Gallery, of a young man of twenty-one years, who is characterised by the annotation made on the picture ^^ Forma bonum fragile.'* Hans Brosamer was also active as an engraver, and maker of woodcuts. The other Saxon painters of reputation in the XVI century were, apparently without exception, pupils of Lucas Cranach. His own most gifted son, Johannes Lucas, who died at Bologna in 1537, left, so far as is known, no works from which we might justify the great esteem in which he seems to have been held as an artist. Flechsig has attributed to him — it seems to me with reason and justice — the so- called Pseudo-GrUnewalds in Aschaffenburg Castle. The second son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, who was born in Wittenberg in 1515 and died in Weimar in 1586, succeeded his HANS RAPHOX Annunciation with Symbols of the Immaculate Conception ducal museum, brunswhck Courtesy of the Ehrich Gallery, New York MASTER OF FRANKFORT Virgin and Child with St. Anna MINOR PAINTERS OF SAXONY 97 father in tlie favour of the Elector and in his official positions in the city. His chief work is "The Preaching of St. John," painted in 1549, and now in Brunswick Museum, which in type and composition is very similar to his father's works but is softer in colouring, with pinker flesh tones. The younger Lucas was also a passionate adherent of Luther and painted several pictures in which the great reformer is glorified or his teachings illustrated. So in "The Vineyard of the Lord," painted in 1569 for the Stadtkirche in Wittenberg, the monks and priests are pictured destroying the precious grain, while Luther and his followers are planting the good seed. Religious pictures did not claim his interest wholly, but, like his father, he also painted allegorical and mythological scenes. The "Sleeping Hercules in the Forest teased by the Pygmies," and the "Awakened Hercules chasing off the Pygmies," in Berlin Gallery, are veritable fairy tales, though the types are rather more ordinary and less attractive than those of the elder Lucas. His best work, however, was done as a portrait painter. Among his portraits of his princely patrons the most interesting are those, in Dresden Gallery, presenting the Elector Maurice of Saxony and his wife Agnes, Elector Maurice alone, and Elector August. Of Luther he painted several fine portraits, among them those in Sch- werin Museum, painted in 1546, and the half-length portrait in Weimar Museum. The picture of Melanchthon on his death-bed, in Dresden Gallery, was formerly attributed to him, but is now con- sidered the work of a helper or pupil in his school. Especially fine and beautiful in colour is the portrait of Leonhard Badehorn, the lawyer and Rector of Leipsic University, in Berhn Gallery. From his hand are also the ten portraits of the famous Reformation leaders, done in water colours on a blue ground in the so-called "Stammbuch" in the Royal Library, Berlin, among them Luther, Melanchthon, Spalatin, Justin Jonas, Bugenhagen and Elector Johann Friedrich. A less important pupil of the elder Cranach was Wolfgang Krodel, from whose hand are two signed pictures in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna, "David and Bathsheba" and "Lot with his Daugh- ters," both from the year 1528. From the same year dates a *Xast 98 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Judgment," in Dresden Gallery; from 1555, a "Judith," in Darmstadt. The types are coarser than Cranach's, the colouring paler. Another pupil, Peter Roddelstadt, who, because he came from Gothland was known as Peter Gothland, became court painter at Weimar in the year of his master's death in that city, 1553. In the Stadtkirche in Jena are three of his works: an altar-piece represent- ing Christ stilling the Storm at Sea and the Epitaphs of Professor Stoffel and Erhard Schnepsius. Then followed the pupils of the younger Lucas, who per- petuated the Cranach types and the Cranach traditions even into the XVII century. One of these, Heinrich Konigsweiser, who was study- ing with him in 1552, was a protege of Duke Albrecht of Branden- burg and was probably the "H. K." who painted the "Christ in Gethsemane," in Konigsberg. Another pupil was the portrait painter Matthias Krodel who was in the service of the Electors of Saxony from 1586 to 1591. From his hand is a portrait of an old man, in Dresden Gallery, which is signed M. K. 1591 and, in Brunswick Gallery, with the same signature, and dated 1570, a portrait of a man in a fur cap. But it is quite unnecessary to catalogue all the pupils of Lucas Cranach the Elder and the Younger. Their works speak for them in their conformity to type and marked similarity, and doubtless many of the weaker works in the Cranach manner attributed to Lucas the Elder himself are from the hands of some one or more of his many pupils. PART III SCHOOL OF SWABIA ^ - ' CHAPTER XIII THE MIDDLE RHINE THREE FRANKFORT MASTERS Master of Frankfort (Hans Fyol?) — Master of the House Book (Martin Hess?) — Hans Grimmer IN the beginning the schools of art which grew up in the cities of the Middle Rhine gave no hint that they were to differ mate- rially in their development and outcome from the School of Cologne. They started out with the same themes, the hves of Christ, the Virgin and the saints, but told their stories in a more matter of fact fashion than was possible to the devoted, mystic, early masters in Cologne. After the middle of the XV centm-y they, too, fell for a time so wholly under the dominion of the art of the Nether- lands that even yet, occasionally, a work by an artist of that period is listed uncertainly as "Master from the Middle Rhine or the Netherlands." The earliest works remaining date from the first half of the XV century, and were painted by artists who are, for the most part, still nameless; as the Ortenberg Altar of 1410 and the Seligen- stadt Saints, 1420, in Darmstadt Gallery; the Holy Kinship Altar and the Crucifixion, 1420, in the Municipal Museum, Frankfort. By the second half of the century, the introduction of the landscape background, the attempts at scientific perspective, the use of oils, and even the types portrayed reveal unmistakably the influence of the art of the Netherlands. So marked is this influ- ence in the works of the so-called Master of Frankfort (Meister von Frankfurt) that some historians persist in believing him to be not a German but a Flemish artist. The chief works of this painter, whose pictures are to be seen in many galleries, are in Frankfort; hence his name. They are, in the Municipal Museum, an altar representing, in the central section the Holy Family, on 101 102 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART the wings the Birth and Death of the Virgin, and four saints; in the Stadel Institute, an altar containing the Crucifixion, two don- ors and their patron saints, and, on the outside, a corpse lying upon a bier. The types are not so pleasing as those in the pic- tures of his contemporaries in Cologne who were also imitating Dirk Bouts, Roger van der Weyden and Hans Memling; they are almost always plain-featured, solemn people, who go through life sodden and uninspired. This impression is unrelieved by the col- ouring, which is dark and heavy in spite of the free use of gold brocades and rich, jewelled passementeries in the garments. In the "Madonna and Child with St. Anna," in New York, the people sitting in the lovely landscape possess more buoyancy and respon- siveness than usual and are among his most attractive creations. Some historians have identified the Master of Frankfort with Conrad Fyol, a member of a well known Frankfort family of artists whose head, Sebald Fyol, in 1442 decorated the new council chamber in the Rbmer with frescoes which have since perished. His son Con- rad is listed as a painter in the archives of 1466 to 1498. Other authorities believe that the works of the Master of Frankfort were done at a later date than this and are inclined to identify him with Conrad's son Hans Fyol, who enjoyed considerable reputation in the opening years of the XVI century. A contemporary of the Master of Frankfort in the School of the Middle Rhine derived his name, "The Master of the House Book'* (Meister des Hausbuches),* from his many engravings for the "house book" of Wolfegg Castle. Flechsig believes him to be identical with Nicholas Schriet, who painted the late Gothic altar in the parish Church in Wimpfen. Thode offers the very ingenious and plausible suggestion that he might be that Martin Hess who is mentioned in Diirer's letter to Jacob Heller of Frankfort in 1509. Martin Hess was evidently the best painter in Frankfort at the time, since Diirer wished his patron to obtain his opinion of the artistic and commercial value of the great Heller Altar he had just sent off to him to Frank- fort. What more natural than to conclude that the most important works done at that period in Frankfort should be from the hand of her best-known artist! Moreover, in composition and in the land- * Known also as the "Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet." THE MIDDLE RHINE 103 scapes introduced, the paintings and engravings by the Master of the House Book reveal an acquaintance with the works of Diirer; probably the Frankfort painter had studied with him, or had, at least, visited his workshop in Nuremberg, so that Diirer knew him personally — as Martin Hess? — before he advised Jacob Heller to consult him. The artist's chief works are a series of nine scenes from the Life of the Virgin in Mayence Gallery and an altar in Darmstadt repre- senting the Annunciation, Holy Night, Adoration and Presentation, with saints; works which reveal that, on the whole, the master was, like his contemporaries, following the artists of the Netherlands. His people are very plain, large-featured and unattractive; their garments are simple, the colouring rather bright, the flesh tones pink. In engraving, the Master of the House Book was the first to use the needle instead of the burin and obtained with it many new and beautiful effects. His subjects are varied, including not only sacred scenes but trivial happenings in everyday life. In the XVI century Hans Grimmer, a pupil of Griinewald, worked in Frankfort and Aschaffenburg. He painted both reli- gious pictures and portraits and won from Sandrart high enconiums as "in his time a famous painter who painted many good pictm-es." Few of them remain to us, however, beyond the por- traits in the Stadel Institute, Frankfort, and religious pictures and portraits in private collections. CHAPTER XIV THE MIDDLE RHINE MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD IN all this there was no hint that to the School of the Middle Rhine would be accredited a supreme genius in painting, one of the greatest colourists the world has ever known, Matthaus Griinewald. Unfortunately nothing is known about the course of his life. In all probability he was born in Aschaffenburg, near Frank- fort, about 1468, since in the earliest records he is called Matthes von Oschenburg — Matthew of Aschaffenburg. The chronicler Sand- rart is moved to express his regret at the absence of further details. *'It is a great pity," he writes, "that this man with his works has been forgotten to such a degree that I do not know a living person who can furnish me the smallest writing relating to him or any in- formation by word of mouth. He lived for the most part in Mayence a solitary and melancholy life and was wretchedly unhappy in his marriage." He died in Colmar (?) after 1529. From whom he learned the elementary technique of his art we can have no idea, and indeed it is of no consequence. He stands with no antecedent in art, a great path-finder, a phenomenal genius, possessed of conceptions which he had not inherited or derived from any outside source, to which he gave expression in his art in a man- ner which he had never learned. There is indeed nothing in the history of art with which Griinewald 's visions of colour and light can even be compared. In the works of the other great masters of light, as Correggio, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, light is light; in Griinewald 's pictures it is colour made luminous. Yet in his earliest works he gives no sign of the direction of his genius. Greatness is there unmistakably; but it is not revealed in the colouring so much as in the close observation and realistic, ex- pressive presentation of the people he portrays. Of one of his early works, an altar for the Dominican Church in Frankfort which is now in the Municipal Museum there, the outer wings remain, 104 Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD Holy Night museum, colmar Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD Saints Erasmus and Maurice in Conversation ALTE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH MATTHXUS GRUNEWAUD 105 showing, in grey on grey, St. Lawrence with grill and book and St. Cyriacus beside whom stands a woman in great agony, about whose neck the saint holds a scarf. The bodies of the saints are short, full and muscular and are detached from the background almost as completely as if they were sculptured. Their very full garments are so instinct with life that it seems incredible that they are eter- nally static figures. The panel in Munich Pinakothek which presents St. Maurice the Moor, and St. Erasmus in conversation, was a commission from Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg for the Collegiate Church of St. Maurice and St. Mary Magdalen in Halle, which he built in 1518. The saints are given in heroic size; St. Maurice is in full armour, St. Erasmus wears golden robes and a large, high crown. Both are invested with halos as insignia of their sainthood. Accompanying St. Maurice are four warriors; beside St. Erasmus stands the head of the Chapter, in the delineation of whom Griinewald has given us a masterpiece of portraiture. The rugged old man in a red robe, with the stubby beard on his unshaven chin, and the squinting eyes, is given to the life. He looks sharply, penetratingly out at us; we can almost hear the words that fall from the parted lips. But it was not until the painting of the altar-piece for the Cloister at Isenheim, in the Vosges, that Matthaus Griinewald re- vealed himself in the full power of his genius and gave to the world a work uniquely great. The altar-piece is now in sections in the Museum in Colmar where the student or traveller who will turn aside for its contemplation- will receive undoubtedly the most powerful impression of tremendous forcefulness, imaginative insight and un- limited power of expression that he can receive from any one work of art. But it must be seen to make its full power felt; no words and no reproductions can convey anything of the marvel of its colour and light, of the unearthHness of its phantasy, the intoxicating ecstasy of its joyousness, the heart-gripping power of its tragedy. When the altar-piece is open, it is distinctly an altar-piece for the monastery, containing scenes from the life of its patron saint, St. Anthony. The shrine is filled with wood carving, which is, how- ever, not Griinewald 's work. In the centre sits St. Anthony, who is here, as in the pictures on the wings, really Guido Guersi, who was / 106 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART abbot of the cloister from 1493 to 1515. At his left stands St. Jerome with his lion; at his right St. Augustine, at whose feet kneels a for- mer abbot, Jean d'Orliac. On the predella, are, in half length, the carved figures of Christ and the twelve apostles. All the other scenes on the altar were painted by Griinewald. On either side of the central carved section, is a scene from the life of St. Anthony — to the right, the Temptation, to the left, the Con- versation with St. Paul the Hermit. To the right, in a landscape coldly lighted from a northern sky with many hurrying white clouds, the tall, bare rocks rising sheer in the middle distance crowd into the immediate foreground a scene so wild as to be almost unimaginable. On the ground lies the aged, white-bearded St. Anthony, physically overthrown by the gruesome devils that torment him. Surely only in mad delirium could such monsters appear as that with the head of a hippopotamus on a winged body, that with the body of a giant eagle and human arms, or those horned, fire-scattering devils with flaming eyes and red tongues lolling from their mouths. Beside them Diirer's tempters are innocuous and even Schongauer's are subdued. One pulls his victim's hair; one beats him with a knotty stick; a horrible, poisonous-looking turtle bites the fingers that cling so tightly to staff and rosary; a fearful-looking devil who looks like a man with the bubonic plague, has stolen all his books. And still from out the shadows of the hillside the dread shapes come bear- ing new instruments of torture. The wretched man cries aloud; one fine, nervous hand is lifted to protect his head; but he does not struggle physically, for these are not tormentors of the body but of the inner man. They are but the awful moments all men may know, moments of temptation, remorse, soul searching, soul agony. From them he cannot escape or hide; the devils pull away the covering mantle of the dull blue and red which fall into purple tones in the shadows, and in the middle distance, imps are tearing down his house, of which but the bare rafters still stand; they will not leave him even the shelter and safeguard of an outer appearance of comfort, respectability or propriety. He can only cling to his staff and his rosary and his faith. And lo ! in the sky above, in a great glory of crimson and gold, appears God the Eternal Father still bearing the sceptre. This agony past, St. Anthony has wandered south and the scene MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 107 on the opposite wing shows him with St. Paul the Hermit in a warm, sunny landscape. In the remote background towers a phantastic ridge of high mountain peaks; at its base, in full sunshine, lies a meadow of brightest green through which a httle stream meanders. In the middle distance are hills which almost cut the picture in half, and which make of the foreground a secluded, cool, grotto-like enclos- ure. Beside the hills is a tall palm and a knotted old tree all festooned with drooping moss, from which a raven flies, bearing in its beak bread for the hermit. A deer feeds in the cool shade, unafraid of the two aged men sitting so near it on the rocks. A peaceful, sylvan scene? Far from it. The picture is charged with a tense, nervous quality which makes you feel that this is no quiet, evening conversation, but an occasion of supreme moment. The phantastic mountain peaks, the leafless trees with their arms reaching out in every direc- tion, a certain fitful quality of the lighting, all reflect the dramatic force with which the old hermit, gesticulating impressively, speaks to his guest, who listens with all his powers concentrated. This is no ordinary discussion of unimportant or secondary matters. The aged hermit, who has not spoken for so many of his hundred and twenty years of life that he has become dumb, now, in his last hours, has broken silence to reveal to St. Anthony the secret of the higher life. "Throw off the scholar's mantle and drop the wanderer's staff," he enjoins; "lie down here on the green carpet of the meadow beside the spring, warmed by the dear sun, fed by the raven whose bread to-day feeds us both — become again a child of nature and let your vision grow as clear and strong and serene as this deer's beside us; then you will find peace." "They were his last words," says the legend; "in the morning he had entered into peace eternal." ^/ We close the first pair of wings and there breaks upon our won- dering eyes a glory as if the gates of heaven had been opened and we saw the angels of God ascending and descending. Experiences of earth or visions of heaven, these pictures almost transcend imagina- tion. On the left wing, there stands open before us a Gothic chapel separated from the rest of the church by the red curtain in the foreground. A green curtain in the background, near the left window, would, if drawn, divide the chapel itself in front of the altar. The 108 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART foreground is in heavy shadow but farther away from us, near the windows, the chapel is flooded with Hght. Beside the heavily- fringed red curtain the Virgin, in robes of lustrous blue-green, kneels, reading from a large Bible which, with other books, rests on a strong- box in front of her. We know just what words she is reading, for above her in the wedge-shaped corner beyond the Gothic arch, stands the commanding figure of Isaiah, the prophet who wrote them: "Behold a virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son." Suddenly from the right — and this is the more startling because at variance with the traditional representation — there has appeared a great angel, all in a swirl of flaming yellow and red robes, ruddy curls falling to the nape of his neck, heavy wings spread, the toes of one foot but barely touching the ground — such an angel, with such luxuriance of draperies as we meet again in Melozzo da Forli. The apparition has startled the Virgin who has drawn back with a movement of fear, her hands meeting in prayer. Quickly and impressively, with the same effect of suddenness and intensity which marks the whole picture the angel has raised his right hand, the nervous, curving fingers outstretched in blessing, and is delivering his message. By the window, in a soft, white radiance, appears the Dove. The two scenes on the middle panels belong together and should be regarded as one; they are separated from each other only by some branches of a tree and a curtain drawn part way across the back. To the right is pictured the Holy Night. In a garden enclosed by a ruined brick wall, the Virgin, in soft full robes of red and blue, her red-gold hair unbound and falling in shining waves about her, sits by a tiny cot, surrounded by all the prosaic necessities of the house- hold, and holds the new-born Child. On her arms she holds him — on her hands rather, away from her — that she may look at him. Her vhps are parted in murmuring love and adoration, on her face is a look of rapture which no other painter has dared to portray; an ecstasy that makes the onlooker catch his breath in wonder that such a radiance could shine through mortal flesh and could be recorded. Behind the Virgin, in the garden, blooms a red rose bush; just over the wall is a lake on whose shores rise the towers of a castle; on the hill-tops the shepherds watch their flocks. Were this all, it would be a charming, idyllic scene in the still loveliness of a MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 109 Syrian night. But in new yearning towards the earth, the heavens v/ have opened and from the throne of glory there is poured out a great cascade of hght Hke a waterfall, which shines upon the mists and takes on all the colours of the rainbow in all their infinite gradations of tone. In that cascade of light are countless angels whose bodiless, transparent forms reflect the colours through which in moving, they pass — red, yellow, green, blue and violet — shading from one to another with such subtlety that there seems to be no dividing line. No other artist but Tintoretto has succeeded thus in presenting disembodied spirits. In his "Baptism of Christ" the "clouds of witnesses" along the shore are nothing more substantial than light which has taken shape, as here, in Griinewald, the angels in the sky are but luminous colour which has taken on form without substance. These are not, however, the only angels who make this night y glorious. Almost filling the wing to the left, is a tabernacle all ^ adorned with curving vines, restless, vibrant leaves and gesticulat- ing prophets. And in this tabernacle is assembled the Choir Celestial fining the world with the music of their New Song. In the immedi- ate foreground, outside the tabernacle, kneels a large, beautiful angel with shining yellow hair, who is playing upon a viol. The rainbow-hued light from the opened heavens falls upon her di- aphanous robes changing their rose colour to yellow, the yellow to green, the green to blue, the blue to violet and then to green again, softly and with extreme delicacy of transition. The gar- ments are instinct with life, their folds are rounded because full of air, their materials so gauzy and translucent that it seems only natural that they should reflect all the colours in the supernatu- ral light shed upon them. No more beautiful painting of a ma- terial and of changeable colouring can be imagined than the bit of this angel's robe which has hardly touched the floor, just inside the frame. Barely inside the tabernacle is an angel in brilUant red magically touched with yellow, pink, grey-blue and green; behind it, one all in green feathers which, where the fight falls on them, turn to bronze and which cast such a strong reflection on the angel's face that it becomes almost the same colour as they. Then more red and green angels, growing ever smaller and 110 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART smaller as they stretch away to the sky background where they take on the colour of its own blue touched with yellow light. The assembly of all these crowding, colourful angels is in itself a rhapsody and the surging of the colour waves conveys to one's senses the pas- sionate music they are pouring forth^ In the arch of the tabernacle, to the right, kneels a little figure in robes of green and red and shimmering pink and yellow, her golden hair enveloping her like sunlight. Upon her head is a crown, around it a huge nimbus of golden light, becoming red on the outer edges; her clasped hands are golden-coloured in its light. Her face is so dead white as to be almost indistinguishable and the features are not modelled at all; it is as if they were blotted out by the brightness of the light — a truly observed natural phenomenon which, recorded, creates the impression the painter wishes to give that this is a spiritual, not a physical pres- ence. It is St. Catherine, the visionary Bride of Christ who has come to join this adoring host. The fourth panel contains a not less original and remarkable pre- sentation of the Resurrection. From the narrow open tomb set diagonally in the middle of the picture rises the Christ, borne upward by the divine power which is in him. He does not walk or climb out of the tomb in his human form and body, but ascends from it, facing us, a form of light. Almost his whole body has for a back- ground a nimbus of rainbow-hued light, against which his dead-white arms and hands are silhouetted as he holds them up, palm outward that all may see the wounds. His red robe floats about him in the breeze caused by his movement of ascension; the light of the nimbus turns it to bright yellow on his shoulders. His long, blue mantle streams behind him, even into the empty tomb below, and is touched into various changing colours as it catches the light from above. His very robes have more weight than the body of Christ which so easily maintains itself thus floating in the air. His head and features are not modelled; they are barely indicated, as if almost obhterated by the dazzling brightness of the light. On the ground are the guards, shielding their eyes from the blinding glare, stumbling, reeling, falling head foremost to the ground. Then we close the second pair of wings expecting to find, as is Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD Angels' Concert museum, colmah i^' ■'" Ji» . _ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 :1 ■ W-' mmmmf^' ? 'M 4*' "** "^ \. 1 S|Mg?- m^' 1 ^ \ r ^m\ ffT^ i 'y. i |l t iMi^rS 1^ ^_ '^ 'V ,lj ' ^ fa. >■ ^ l#1 Hi ' £. 'v^j^^ sf ■y ^ ' V ■ V 1 ^ E i ^..:^::mZ^^ ^B 4 Ml^ — k ft* 1 i ^^1 1 ', Q PS O a2 >< ^ o :;< 33 g H H MATTHAUS GRUNEWALD 111 usual on the outside of an altar, some decorative design or some symbolic Biblical figures, probably done, like those on the master's Frankfort altar, without colours, in grey on grey, and we find instead one great tragic picture, the Crucifixion! On the stationary wings to right and left of the central picture are, indeed, two such figures as we might have expected to see in its place — St. Sebastian and St. Anthony standing on vine-wreathed marble pedestals. St. Sebastian, though pierced wth arrows, is not a sufferer but a symbol. His athletic young body was evidently drawn from life; indeed the picture is believed to be a portrait of the artist himself. St. Anthony, with curling white hair and beard, is a virile old man of remarkable beauty, robed in garments of greenish-blue and red, with which the light falling through the small, high window beside him works miracles. But it is hard to be so much as aware of the stationary wings, so utterly is the spectator held captive by the middle picture. On a small, rocky plateau in the foreground the cross is erected and on it, but little above the ground, hangs, or rather towers, the great form of the tortured Christ. No single detail of his suffering is spared us. The muscles are twisted, the limbs distorted, the fingers spread convulsively, the feet deformed by the agony. Every pore of the body has sweat blood. The thorn-crowned head has at last fallen forward on the breast, the eyes are closed, the swollen lips parted in death. And yet, in spite of all the marks of immeasurable anguish, the figure on the cross towers majestic. By a miracle of perception/ joined with creative power, the painter who pictures thus realis- tically the sufferings of this man knew how to remove him far from insignificance, and to convey, over and above them, the im- pression of tremendous, victorious personality, of majesty. No one shall pity, merely; he shall also marvel greatly. Hence it is that the words uttered by John the Baptist, who stands with the Immaculate Lamb to the left of the cross, do not seem incredible: "He must increase." St. John is presented symbolically and according to tradition, but on the right of the cross is a realistic group presented as never before in art, in a manner we are wont to characterise as "modern." The Virgin robed all in white, sinks, wringing her hands, into the arms of the youthful John who, in his 112 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART robes of bright scarlet, his straight, red hair all dishevelled, his face all marred with weeping, cries aloud in his grief as he bends over her. The effect of the white robes against the scarlet is in itself startUng and heightens the emotional pitch of the scene. At their feet, between them and the cross, kneels Mary Magdalen in very full robes of yellowish red, her golden hair like a veil about her. Her body and head are tilted backward as she gazes upward at the Crucified One, her hands are clasping and unclasping, the fingers twisting in her despairing grief; her lips are drawn in bitter moan- ing. Behind the rocky plateau on which is the cross and on which the full light of day is beating, is a stream beyond which the light trembles off ever fainter and more faint into the black darkness over the hills in the background. The Entombment, on the predella, is the natural continuation of this central picture of the Crucifixion and belongs to it so perfectly in design, that the central tree of the Entombment continues as if one with the tree which is the cross. The composition is Griinewald's own and the whole treatment startlingly modem. The long, low, brick-red sarcophagus of which we cannot see all, as it runs over the edge of the frame at the left, extends into the middle of the picture. To the right, overlapping it, is the body of the dead Christ, still distorted, but at peace and made ready for burial. Its apparent size is increased by the extremely youthful slender- ness of John who is trying to support it. Of the Virgin only the sad mouth and the clasped hands are visible, for her heavy white veil almost hides her face. Mary Magdalen is behind the sarcophagus, above which only her head and shoulders are seen — as if she were in a hollow and it on the hillside. Her features are dis- torted with weeping, her eyes red and swollen, her hps parted in wailing outcry. The landscape in which this scene is set is brown and sere; the three trees cut off so that only a third of the trunk is seen and not a branch nor a leaf appears, give an indescrib- able effect of loneliness and desolation. A remarkable sense of colour values is revealed in the juxtaposition of the red of the sarcophagus, the red hair and garments of the saints and the red of the sunset. Reviewing again all the pictures on the Isenheim Altar, the phan- MATTHXUS GRUNEWALD 113 tastic, the visionary or ecstatic and the tragic, we know not whether we are more amazed at the master's gigantic and original conceptions, his marvellous imagination or his mastery of the technical problems involved. In all these he reveals creative genius. His conceptions were not delivered to him by tradition, his visions were of his own seeing. Never before was such a Holy Night, such a Resurrection or Entombment presented. Nor could he ever have seen anything in art to suggest to him the wonderful colour effects in these scenes. He also breaks with the hitherto accepted technique of painting. The careful drawing, the methods of the goldsmith and the engraver are superseded in his work by the methods of the painter who thinks in colour, whose outhnes are given and whose forms are modelled by means of light and shade. All that was small and painfully painstak- ing in German art vanished in his pictures. He let go of himself and his genius and the result was the expression of big, original concep- tions with tremendous impressiveness and with an almost over- powering emotional effect which was heightened by his marvellous colour and light. He let go, however, involuntarily and uncon- sciously; not as do some of the modern "realists," voluntarily and consciously, and with the result that their pictures are chambers of horrors, imaginings of disordered brains or mere records of freakish whims. Griinewald was sincerely taken possession of by mighty conceptions, under whose mastery he let go unconsciously, with his gift of colour brought his visions within our range of sight, and in doing so gave us pictures unique in the history of art. CHAPTER XV THE QUESTION OF THE IDENTITY OF PSEUDO-GRUNEWALD IN the Castle at Aschaffenburg near Frankfort there are fifteen pictures upon which for years an unusual degree of attention and interest has been concentrated and about the authorship of which contention has been rife among historians and critics. These pictures represent the Virgin as Queen of Heaven, the Holy Kinship, the Mass of St. Gregory — two representations — the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus, and ten standing saints given in full length, Maurice, Magdalen, Martin, Erasmus, Ursula, Stephen, Chrysostom, Martha, Mary Magdalen and Lazarus. They were evidently painted for the Cardinal Duke Albrecht of Brandenburg, as his coat-of-arms is in every picture except the two of the Mass of St. Gregory, in which he himself is a participant in the ceremony. When the saints are presented in a landscape it is so "modern" in its atmospheric quality, in the dramatic lights and shadows produced by the many troubled clouds that chase one another with weird effect across the sky, that it was at first believed that no one but Matthaus Griinewald with his marvellous mastery of light could have created these pictures. The types and the bearing of the people are, however, foreign to Griinewald and, though the painter is fond of shimmering silks and lustrous velvets and furs, he does not seek the wonderful colour effects of Griinewald but holds in the main to a cool, bluish tone. So the hypothesis of his authorship was given up and the pictures were ascribed indefinitely to an artist who was probably a pupil of Griinewald who, in many particulars, emulated his master and who, for want of a name, became known as Pseudo-Griinewald. Janitschek and Niedermeyer believe him to be identical with one Simon von Aschaffenburg of whom it is known that he was court painter to Cardinal Albrecht and that he died between 1543 and 1546. Scheibler contends that the types are the types of Lucas Cranach the Elder and that the pictures were 114 IDENTITY OF PSEUDO-GRUNEWALD 115 painted by him in those early years before he went to Wittenberg, of which we possess no record. Some of the pictures attributed to Pseudo-Griinewald, in Aschaffenburg and elsewhere, are dated, however, as the Aschaffenburg Martyrdom of St. Erasmus, 1516, the Saints, in Bamberg Gallery, 1520, the Altar in the Marktkir- che, Halle, 1529. Now before 1516 Lucas Cranach had become an exceedingly busy painter in Wittenberg, and his pictures of that period are not done in the spirit of the Pseudo-Griinewalds. His landscapes and skies possess httle in common with them, the people portrayed by him are smaller, sHghter in build and more simple and naive in their natures. The Pseudo-Griinewald people are large and stately; the women are utterly without the native coquetry which marks almost all Cranach's women except in the very earliest pictures, and possess a capabihty, a largeness of nature and a serenity that would be inconceivable to those of the Cranach type. The theory advanced by Flechsig that possibly that son of Lucas Cranach who was so greatly gifted and so highly esteemed, Johannes Lucas Cranach, who died at Bologna in 1537, was the painter of the Pseudo-Griinewalds, is most interesting and reasonable. It would mean that Johannes Lucas had adopted, in the main, the external features of his father's types, had studied with Grunewald and, with inherited Cranach facility, had acquired much of his command of light; and then by the force of his own greatness had endowed his people — especially the women — with the strength, nobility and steadfast- ness which his father possessed in himself but did not reveal in his pictures. From the same hand as the Aschaffenbiu'g pictures are the two pictures already referred to, the Altar in the Marktkirche in Halle, representing the Annunciation and Saints, the Virgin and Child in a nimbus, with Cardinal Albrecht offering the Child a book, and two Saints with Donor in Bamberg Gallery. Over this small group, representing Saints Walpurga and Wilibald and the Bishop of Eichstatt hovers a nude, winged cherub, wholly in the Cranach manner. St. Walpurga is marked by a calm and deep reverence of spirit and stillness of pose; St. Wilibald, in Bishop's regalia, is as strongly characterised as if he had been painted by Griinewald's own hand; the venerable donor, in his white robes, a small black cap 116 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART on his white hair, is drawn from Hfe but reveals a certain lack of virility and decision of character which, indeed, may have been proper to him, but which, since it marks such other pic- tures of men by this master as the outwardly large and impres- sive St. Lazarus, seems rather to reveal a weakness in the artist who created him. As to who this interesting artist was — the problem of the identity of Pseudo-Griinewald must still remain without conclusive settlement. It is possible that he was Simon von Aschaffenburg; we know nothing of Simon's characteristics and he might have studied with Matthaus Griinewald before Griinewald left his na- tive town. To me it seems impossible that he should have been Lucas Cranach and that these stately, serene women should be the few exceptions to his accepted standard. But it seems more than probable that he was his brilHant elder son Johannes Lucas Cranach, who died in Bologna in 1537, who gave us in these pictures his father's types ennobled and who had been as well a pupil of Griinewald, from whom he had gained a certain degree of insight into the effects of atmospheric conditions, of clouds, Ughts and shadows in a landscape. Photograph by Franz Hanfstaenjgl PSEUDO-GRUNEWALD St, Martha with the Dragon CASTLE, ASCHAFFENBURG Photograph by Fried. Hoejlt, Auysbury LUCAS MOSER 6t. Mary Magdalen Altar CHURCH, TIEFEXBROXN The Supper at the House of Simon; Voyage to Marseilles with Martha, Lazarus and Two Bishops *. ^^^i^* performs a Miracle in the Upper Room while her Companions sleep; Last Communion of St. Mary Magdalen. CHAPTER XVI THE UPPER RHINE LUCAS MOSER— CONRAD WITZ— HANS BALDUNG GRtN TIE early artists of the Upper Rhine and Swabia reveal them- selves, in observation and in realistic presentation of what they observe, remarkably in advance of the School of Cologne. It is true that no works remain to us from the XIV century, so that we cannot judge of the ideals of the first decades; but as early as the first half of the XV century we find the painters treating their subjects in quite a matter of fact fashion, picturing the saints as frankly as ordinary human beings and with a degree of reahsm which surpasses even that of the Van Eycks. Perspective and light seem to have interested the painters of the Upper Rhine country almost from the beginning and they must have made their experiments along these fines at an early date. Otherwise there is no explanation for the creation of such a work as Lucas Moser's Tiefenbronn Altar, in which the attempts at natural and truthful perspective and light are truly remarkable for 1431. This altar, in the little church in the village of Tiefen- bronn, on a high plateau in the picturesque valley of the Wurm, is built in the shape of a Gothic arch and was set up in honour of St. Mary Magdalen. On the shrine, in wood carving, is the Assumption of the saint; on the inner side of the left wing she stands holding the box of ointment; on the opposite wing is her brother, St. Lazarus, wearing his episcopal robes. When the wings are closed, there are presented four scenes from the life of the saint. On the left we see her with Martha, Lazarus and two other bishops in a boat on the sea, bound for Marseilles. She is not strongly individualised, but is of much girlish charm and overflowing with life and energy. She wears a long mantle and a characteristic headdress of the period with a broad wimple. All in the boat are engaged in earnest conversation. St. Mary is talking and gesticulat- ing, St. Lazarus is leaning forward to Hsten. He has taken off his 117 118 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART mitre to let the fresh breeze blow on his tonsured head. He has also drawn off his gloves and holds them in his left hand. The bishop sitting beside Mary Magdalen is a real and definite person, who appears deeply interested in the subject under consideration. Martha and the third bishop are not individualised. The boat is very tiny to hold so many people — so tiny that they seem to extend over both sides of it — but it has been going at a good rate over the small, choppy waves, carried along by the strong breeze which swells the sails of the other boats that dot the sea. Now its sail is dropped, for it is about to make the landing at Marseilles. Most interesting is the attempt to convey the move- ment of the ship and of the water and the light which, shining across the curious little waves, touches their crests with silver. The saints arrive at their destination utterly weary from the journey. The central picture shows us the three bishops and St. Martha overcome by sleep as they sit on a low bench in the red-tiled porch of a house in this foreign city. One bishop is sunk in profound slumber, his head resting upon his hand; a second, who has substituted for his mitre a small velvet cap, is still sitting fairly upright facing us, but his eyes are shut tightly. Lazarus is so completely overpowered by sleep that his head has fallen forward, face downward, in Martha's lap; his mitre has fallen off on the floor. Even Martha cannot help nodding above the prostrate Lazarus. But Mary Magdalen is awake and busy with good deeds. Upstairs, in the second storey of the house with the porch, she may be seen distinctly through the large window, working a miracle of healing upon the man and woman so ill in bed . Skilfully joined to this house, so that the slender pinnacles are part on one wing and part on the other, is a Gothic church in which St. Mary Magdalen, upheld by angels, is receiving the sacrament. Through the many arches in the background other scenes are faintly visible; through the window in the middle distance to the left, a man is looking in upon the scene in the church. In the pointed arch at the top of the altar is set the scene at dinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee. It is a homely family meal in a leafy arbour; the table is rudely constructed and set as it THE UPPER RHINE 119 might be for a simple supper in a German household. The wine is cooHng in a tub of water on the ground; a serving maid is hurrying to the table with two covered plates and a spoon; a dog is sleeping on the ground near his master's end of the table. Simon is dressed quite handsomely in the costume of the period and wears a fur trimmed cap. The serving maid, too, wears such a costume as the artist doubtless saw daily in his own household. Three of the four people at table are conversing familiarly. Only the presence of the weeping Magdalen, who, on her knees in front of the table, reaches underneath it to dry the feet of Christ with one loosened braid of her long, red- gold hair, and the Christ's air of detachment, convey any suggestion that this differs from an ordinary supper. On the predella is pictured the scene of the Heavenly Bridegroom coming in the clouds of heaven, welcomed by the five wise virgins, importuned for mercy by the five foolish virgins on whom he has turned his back. This subject of the wise and foolish virgins is of such frequent recurrence in German art as to attract attention, especially since it appears but rarely in the art of any other country. The parable seems to have represented most clearly to the mediaeval German Christians the personal relationship of Christ and his people and to have called up most vividly before their imaginations, on the one hand, the joy of the moment of Christ's coming to those who were prepared to meet him; on the other, the awfulness of a moment when they might be left in utter darkness outside the bHss of heaven, knocking at an eternally closed door, crying bitterly and hopelessly "Lord, Lord, open unto us!" Over and over again the story is told in painting, wood carving and mystery play. So real were the emotions it called up that — the old chronicles tell us — when it was presented as a mystery play at Eisenach in 1322, the Elector Frederick became so agitated he was seized with an apoplexy which left him dumb and lame until his death. The virgins on Lucas Moser's predella are individuahsed in quite a remarkable degree, and their garments are fashioned according to the prevaiHng mode. We cannot help wondering where the painter of this altar- piece learned how to invest his figures with such a degree of hfe- hkeness as those possess who sit at table in the house of Simon or who sleep on that porch in Marseilles; how to picture movement with 120 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART such naturalness as in the servant waiting at table, and in Mary Magdalen hastening to the bedside of those who lie at the point of death in that upper room; how to give, even though imperfectly, that view into the church interior in the communion scene and that over the wide stretch of shining water in the voyage to Marseilles. It is so early for this otherwise unknown artist to have attempted these things! Notwithstanding the remarkable degree of success he achieved in solving his problems, he seems to have been rather disheartened over the general lack of interest in art, for he has inscribed in ornamental letters of gold on the green framing of the middle wings of the altar a plaint: "Cry aloud, Art, and mourn bitterly for no one now desires you! alas! alas! 1431, Lucas Moser of Weil, Master of this work; pray God for him!" These problems of perspective and light which were so interesting to Lucas Moser were worked out with a degree of success truly astonishing .for the first half of the XV century by an artist who worked on the Upper Rhine but a few years later, Conrad Witz. Though in many particulars, such as the gold background, he still belongs to the old school, his feeling for distance, for light in an inside room and as it is caught and refracted by shimmering materials of glowing colour will bear comparison with that of the later Dutch masters. His types are short and rather thick-set, with such ir- regular features and such lifelikeness of expression and attitude that they seem very real persons. Conrad Witz was born in Constance, lived for a time in Rothweil in Swabia, then moved to Basel where, in 1434, he became a Master of the Guild and in 1435 a citizen of the town. In 1444 he went to Geneva where he spent two years. He died in Basel in 1448. Conrad Witz's delight in the picturing of an inner roon and its lighting is felt in such a picture as his "Annunciation," in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. The scene takes place in no marble-columned hall or cathedral apse, but in such a room as the painter doubtless saw daily in any German burgerlichen house, the walls white- washed, the ceiling timbered. The light strikes into the room sharply from a window in the background. Near the centre, the Virgin, who is given in profile and wears a robe of greenish blue, sits reading. Behind her the door with the great iron latch has THE UPPER RHINE 121 opened to admit the angel robed in red velvet with a white alba, who holds in his left hand a scroll and points upward with his right. He has sunk upon one knee and the Virgin has turned toward him, without, however, looking around at him. The picture is most attractive in the unusualness of the setting and Hghting of the scene, the extreme seriousness of its tone and the charm of the Virgin, with her very full, glowingly coloured robes, her wavy, flaxen hair, large eyes, retrousse nose and the evident alertness of her mind and responsiveness of her whole being. Still more beautiful and alluring in hghting is the panel in Strassburg Gallery which presents St. Catherine and St. Mary Magdalen seated in the foreground of a Gothic cloister. The beautiful, stately St. Catherine is absorbed in reading a large book. Her amazingly full robes of rich, red silk with jewelled trimmings are spread about her in broken folds which are bright and shimmer- ing where the light touches them, dark and lustrous in shadow. Her hair is bound up and she wears a jewelled crown and a halo. Her bearing is dignified and full of distinction. Beside her, to the left, is St. Mary Magdalen in voluminous robes of brightest green silk. Her long, golden hair is unbound and falls in shining waves over her shoulders. She wears a jewelled band instead of a crown. Her right hand, adorned with three rings, rests on her knee; in her left hand is the box of ointment. She is much younger and more girhsh-looking than St. Catherine and is so natural, so lacking in remoteness, that she is altogether lovable. Her features are piquantly irregular; the chin is short and rather pointed, the mouth tender, the forehead wide, the nose retrousse. The green of her dress, faintly reflected, touches with green her cheeks and the tip of her nose. Her large, full eyes are fixed in eager regard on some object above and beyond St. Catherine — perhaps the sky above the cloister court. Behind the two saints stretches the long Gothic corridor. In a small chapel to the left an altar is visible, with candles and a painted altar-piece. The hght falls so that the columns on the right cast Kttle patches and lines of shadow and St. Catherine's wheel is reflected on the pavement beneath it. Away in the back- ground an arch opens on a street in which several people are walking 122 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART and talking; one of them is reflected in a puddle of water in the middle of the road. On the opposite side of the street is an art store with little carved figures in the windows. A still wider vista is opened before us in the master's "Holy Family" in Naples Gallery, which gives a view of the inside of Basel Cathedral, which in the correctness of its perspective and the charm of its light and shade, vies with the later Dutch pictures of interiors. An artist whose conceptions are original and interesting and whose types possess much charm, Conrad Witz's chief attraction, nevertheless, lies in his fresh enthusiasm for the problem of perspective, light and shade and in the remarkable truth and beauty of his attempts at their solution. The interest in light which was so marked a characteristic of the XV century painters of the Upper Rhine persisted into the XVI century and the manner in which it reveals and exalts the sentiment of his pictures is one of the chief elements of the charm of Strassburg's greatest artist, Hans Baldung Griin. Hans Baldung was born in Weyerstein-on-Turm near Strassburg in 1476. His father, Johann Baldung, was a distinguished lawyer, his brother Caspar belonged to the faculty of Freiburg University. In 1507, having completed his period of apprenticeship and his Wanderjahre, he settled in Strassburg, becoming a citizen two years later. In 1511 he received a commission to paint the High Altar for Freiburg Cathedral, and went there to live for the five years he was engaged on it. Then he returned to his home in Strassburg, was elected a member of the City Council and continued to reside there until his death in 1545. The earliest influence noticeable in the development of Hans Baldung' s art is that of Diirer, which is very evident in the two panels painted in 1507 for the Stadtkirche in Halle, one of which, now in Berlin Gallery, represents the Adoration of the Kings, the other in Fraulein Przibram's Collection, Vienna, the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. The type of the Madonna in the Adoration is Diirer's, the drawing and modelling in both pictures are reminiscent of him, the draperies fall, as he would have pictured them, in many broken folds. Among the colours in these, as in the artist's other pictures, a briUiant green is prominent, the constant use of which CONRAD WITZ Saints Mary Magdalen and Catherine in a Cloister gallery, 8tra8sburg Photograph by Geo. RoIm HANS BALDUNG GRUN Holy Night, Flight into Egypt FROM THE high ALTAR, FREIBURG CATHEDRAL THE UPPER RHINE 123 gave him his nickname "Griin" or "Grien;" Diirer, in his diary, calls him " Griinhans." Before he began the work for Freiburg Cathedral he had come under a second powerful influence — the mighty spell of Grunewald's colour and light, which every picture in the great altar reveals in greater or lesser degree. The shrine, which contains the Coronation of the Virgin and the twelve apostles, is the least interesting section of the altar. God the Father and Christ lack nobihty, the pose of the Virgin borders on affectation. The crowds of angels are given in such very white hght that they are without glory. The Dove is a radiance, the halo an aureole of intangible Hght rays as in the Griine- wald pictures. Among the apostles are many figures that are un- questionably portraits. On the wings are the Annunciation, Visitation, Holy Night and FHght into Egypt. The scene of the Annunciation is a trifle theat- rical; the Virgin's attitude seems self-conscious, her amazement, hu- mility and joy are unconvincing. The angel's wings are many col- oured; his green robes are turned almost to white where the strong light falls upon their folds. The Dove is Hght which barely assumes form. In the Visitation the forms are large, full and stately and the Vir- gin is of rare beauty. The Holy Night is a strikmg anticipation of Correggio. From the beautiful Babe a light radiates which illumines the faces of the Virgin and Joseph and touches the near building in which are the cattle. But while the artist's power over Hght in such a picture as this so strongly suggests the influence of Grunewald, the Strassburg painter never for a moment attains the subHme heights of the Isenheim altar. Instead of subHmity a graceful, whimsical fancifulness characterises him and the atmos- phere of his pictures is that of a lovely fairy tale. Thus in the Holy Night, while tiny angels hover about the child, a Httle bird pecks at the flowers and small rabbits nibble greens. The Flight into Egypt, is a charming, poetic idyll. The shaggy donkey, with his precious burden, is going at a good pace down hill. All about bloom flowers; a snail and a bird are right in the path. Joseph, a thick-set, strong peasant, carrying a knapsack and a rosary, is looking back adoringly at the Virgin, who, wearing a soft, 124 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART veil-like headdress and full robes of which the draping recalls Dtlrer, is supporting the Child on her left arm while with the right, which is held in a very unnatural and undoubtedly very tiring position, she guides the donkey with a piece of rope for a bridle. A date palm over their heads is full of little winged angels, one of whom has let himself down by the end of a branch so that he stands on the donkey and can look at the lovely baby Christ. On the back of the shrine is *'The Crucifixion," in which the painter himself, wearing a red cap, has joined the group about the cross. To the right of the central picture are St. John the Baptist and St. Jerome; to the left, St. Lawrence and — a most imposing figure — St. George in full armour wearing a helmet with long, waving, white plumes. On the base are the three male donors, unmistakably portraits from life, adoring the Virgin and Child in a Glory. Besides the High Altar there are in one of the Chapels two wings of a second altar which represent the Baptism of Christ and St. John on Patmos. The river in which the Baptism takes place forms part of a large landscape. God the Father is seen in the sky above, the Dove has alighted on the head of Christ. The scene fails to be impressive, however; it is so commonplace and lacking in elevation that the greatest attraction of the picture lies in the naturalness of the rapidly flowing water of the stream. The *' St. John on Patmos " shows us the saint in a red robe under a tree all festooned with moss as in Grunewald's "St. Anthony and St. Paul." The island is in the foreground, the sea stretches into the background quite to the edge of the picture. In the sky above in a circle of curling clouds, appear the very lovely Virgin and Child. About the end of the Freiburg period, in 1516, the "Martyrdom of St. Dorothea," now in the Rudolphinum, Prague, was painted, in which the scene is set in a winter landscape which is most unusual and fascinating. From the same year dates "The Deluge," in Bamberg Gallery, which, though but a small picture, possesses unusual power by virtue of the dramatic quality with which the light shining upon the falling rain or the mists touches all the air with rainbow hues — an effect which is quite Griinewaldesque. This subject offers, too, an opportunity of which the artist takes full advantage, to paint the nude human form in almost every conceivable attitude. And this is Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg HANS BALDUNG GRUN Allegorical Figure — Music GERMANIC MUSEUM, NUREMBERG THE UPPER RHINE 125 just the beginning; from this time Baldmig Griin's works reveal a new dehght in the presentation of the nude. The type chosen is the full, mature form portrayed by the Venetians and by such a German- ised Venetian as Jacopo de' Barbari. In one of the two pictures in Basel Gallery painted in 1517, which represent Death and the Maiden, he pictures a woman quite of the Titian or Palma Vecchio type, with flowing golden-brown hair, who shudderingly tries to pull up the drapery which has slipped from her body as she shrinks from the kiss of Death who has come up behind her. In the other picture the maiden in transparent gauze robes yields to this weird lover's insistence as if utterly dazed. Three allegories painted some year later, between 1523 and 1529, also present very beautiful studies of the human form. The fact that one of them, "The Two Witches," in the Stadel Institute, Frankfort, was formerly in Rome, helps to confirm the theory of a sojourn made by the artist in Italy. It shows, in a twilight landscape, under a wild sky, two women one of whom is riding a goat and holding aloft a glass in which is a little devil ( ?). A small Amor is pulling her robe from her. The other woman, nude and without symbol, is also pulling at the garments of the one riding the goat. Of the other two allegories, which are in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, the one represents Wisdom, a nude figure bearing a serpent and a mirror; the other. Music, holding a violin and a music book, with, at her feet, a white cat. In these allegorical pictures and the two of Death and the Maiden, Hans Baldung painted the most beautiful nude forms in the German art of the XVI century and approached more nearly than any other northern artist the Venetian ideal of beauty. Inevitably the painter attracted the attention of that distin- guished patron of the arts, Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg. Two of the pictures he painted for him are still in Aschaffenburg Castle. The one, "The Crucifixion," bears in the corner of the picture the Cardinal's coat-of-arms; the other, "The Holy Night," is very similar to the scene on the Freiburg Altar, and is full of poetry and charm. Baldung Griin also won considerable fame as a portrait painter. HisearHer portraits, as those of Elector Christopher of Baden, 1511, and Phihp the Warlike, 1517, are marked by a certain hardness and 126 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART sharpness which later disappeared, giving place to softness of contour and naturalness. His subjects are presented with considerable in- sight and the colouring is, in many cases, of unusual beauty. His *'Head of an Old Man," in Berlin Gallery, was, indeed, long attributed to Diirer. Besides a great number of paintings, the artist has left many beautiful drawings. He was one of the artists chosen by the Emperor Maximilian to illustrate his Prayerbook and began work for it in 1515. Eight drawings from his hand, with such varied subjects as the Crucifixion, the Pieta, children playing with lions and with crocodiles are in the Besangon fragment and are, next to Diirer' s, the most beautiful drawings in the Prayerbook. His sketch book, in Carlsruhe Gallery, is filled with interesting drawings for portraits and landscapes and studies of plants and animals. Hans Baldung Griin is not a great creative artist. He takes from other artists, from Diirer, Griinewald and the Itahans, whatever attracts him, adapts it to his need, makes it his own. Sometimes we feel that he almost belittles the Grtlnewaldesque effects in Hght and colour by the readiness with which he introduces his adaptations of them into scenes which, in their content or in the spirit in which they are conceived, do not call for any such supernatural manifestations. Again, in spite of a certain Httleness, superficiality and occasional self-consciousness, he creates with his light and colour an atmosphere of idyllic peace or of tender intimacy. His pictures are not often powerful, impressive, wonder-stirring, but are rather deHcately fanci- ful. He presents unusually lovely types with tenderness and in soft, warm colours, investing almost all his pictures with the quality of poetic charm. CHAPTER XVII MARTIN SCHONGAUER AND THE COLMAR SCHOOL CASPER ISENMANN— MARTIN SCHONGAUER — LUDWIG SCHONGAUER ALMOST in the Rhineland, the little Alsatian town of Colmar at the foot of the Vosges mountains developed one of the most important schools of painting and engraving in the XV century. It was toward Colmar that Diirer the student turned his steps, toward the workshop of the great Martin Schongauer whose fame and whose influence had spread not only throughout Germany but to Italy as well, where one of the earliest of Michael Angelo's drawings is a free copy of his "Temptation of St. Anthony" and Raphael's "Entombment" is, in composition, almost identical with his engraving of the same subject. The earliest artist on the records of Colmar, and probably the teacher of the great Schongauer, was Caspar Isenmann, to whom as "painter and citizen of Colmar" the painting of a High Altar for its principal church, St. Martin's, was entrusted in 1462. The condi- tions named in the contract were that it "must be painted with the best oils on a gold ground and finished within two years." On the back of this parchment contract is written: "N. B. In the year 1720, the last Thursday of the week of Corpus Christi, after the proces- sion, the iron braces which held this altar at the back became loose, so that this altar fell down and broke." The sections remaining are now in the Museum in Colmar. They consist of seven scenes from the Passion, from the Triumphal Entry to the Resurrection. The three saints on the outer sides, Nicholas, Catherine and Law- rence, are the work of a pupil. Caspar Isenmann's aim in the Colmar altar is realism. The people who take part in his dramatic scenes are undersized and ordinary, with prominent cheek-bones, large noses and wide mouths. The villains are monstrous. In the attempt to express fully the individuaUty of each person he often characterises to the point of caricaturing them; yet with all this characterisation of the heads, the 127 128 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART bodies are poorly drawn, the poses often impossible. Burlesque details are freely introduced. The atmosphere of sanctity is absent from his scenes as the stamp of divinity or even of high nobility is lacking in his Christ. Occasionally, but very rarely, there is a personality which attracts us, not by beauty, but by force of character, as the old man at the head of Christ in the "Taking down from the Cross." Yet in all probability it was in Caspar Isenmann's workshop that Martin Schongauer served his apprenticeship and received his technical training. Martin Schongauer — called also Martin Schon and Hiibsch Martin — belonged to a patrician family of Augsburg, but his father, Caspar Schongauer, became a citizen of Colmar in 1445, after which date Martin was born. As a boy he doubtless learned something of the goldsmith's art from his father; in his engravings are several patterns for smoking jars and other small articles which suggest familiarity with it. Like Dtirer, he turned away from it to painting, in which art he probably served his ap- prenticeship in the workshop of Caspar Isenmann, by whom he was influenced strongly in the direction of realism. An old tradition main- tains that Schongauer then went to the Netherlands and studied with Roger van der Weyden. This is hardly probable, as Roger died in 1464; nevertheless Schongauer was strongly influenced by the art of the Flemish master. Most of his work was done in Colmar, where he gathered about him a large school of painters and engravers. Commissions came to him, too, from neighbouring towns; one such took him to Breisach, where he died in 1491. Of this master's personal appearance we can learn from two portraits, the one painted by himself in 1483, in Siena Pinakothek, and a later copy by Hans Burgkmair, who worked for a time in his atelier, in the Pinakothek in Munich. The Siena portrait shows a fine head, with large, brown eyes, short nose, beautifully cut lips and strong, curving chin. He is dressed in black, with a fur-Uned cloak and black cap. On the back of the Munich portrait is written "Martin Schongauer, called beautiful Martin on account of his art, was born at Colmar, but his parents belonged to an Augsburg family." Wimpheling, writing shortly after the artist's death, says that "his pictures, on account of their artistic worth, were in demand in Italy, THE COLMAR SCHOOL 129 Spain, France, England and other points of the world.'* Un- fortunately, so few of his paintings are left to us that historians and critics cannot form any adequate judgment of his greatness as a painter and are in the habit of dwelling, instead, on his distinction as one of the world's greatest engravers. His best known painting is a work of his youth, the " Madonna in the Rose Arbour," in St. Martin's Church in Colmar, dated 1473. The Virgin, of a type similar to Roger van der Wey den's, is presented rather above life size, seated in an arbour of rose vines, in which perch many little, brightly coloured birds. In her arms she holds the Christ Child who clings about her neck in very natural, human fashion. Her long, full robe, red as the roses blooming all about her, falls in graceful folds. She is mature, strong, capable looking but not superficially beautiful. The forehead is very high, the face broad, with prominent cheek bones, the throat muscular. The eyes, however, are large and tender and the abundant hair hangs in heavy, wavy masses. The hands are very long with tapering fingers. The babe is tall and slender with closely curHng hair. The background is gold, the drawing sharp and definite almost to hardness. An air of pensiveness pervades the picture; mother and child alike seem not to think of the beauty about them or of the joyous presence of the two angels who hold the crown above the Virgin's head, but rather to be sunk in contemplation of the weary burdens the future holds for them. Yet through this pensiveness, the realisation of protective motherhood, with the tender, human touch of the child's close clinging to the mother, makes the dominant impression of the picture that of strength, beneficence and repose. In the Museum in Colmar is a series of paintings from the Passion, from the Last Supper to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, with, on the back, scenes from the Life of the Virgin, painted in oils and with landscape backgrounds. These pictures are so unequal as to make it certain that they were painted by several different artists, though they were probably all done in Schongauer's workshop after his designs, with here and there some bits executed by the master's own hand. The villains recall Caspar Isenmann's, the " Taking down from the Cross" is weak and affected, while the "Triumphal Entry" is natural and dignified and the group of sleeping disciples in the fine 130 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART landscape of the "Christ in Gethsemane" is worthy of Schongauer himself. Like Caspar Isenmann's, Schongauer's greatest interest as both a painter and engraver was in the natural, realistic presentation of things, persons and actions. But this passion for realism was, in his works, controlled by a fine sense of proportion and normality which was lacking in the older master. He did not make the mistake of con- fusing the real with the abnormal. Thus in portraying the tor- mentors of Christ, for example, he usually stopped short of the line at which simple ugliness ends and deformity or degeneracy begins. More and more as his own individuality developed and asserted itself was he governed by this sense of proportion in the creation of his types and the unfolding of his dramas. The people became more refined, the figures less angular and stiff, the personalities less ag- gressive or uncompromising, more gifted with the power of attraction and charm. So in the Colmar altar representing the Annunciation and the Adoration of the Child by the Virgin and St. Anthony, the Virgin, though of the type of the Madonna in the Rose Arbour, is more youthful looking and charming, the angel is beautiful and the grey-bearded St. Anthony possesses fine dignity and distinction. At St. Anthony's feet kneels the donor, with the coat-of-arms of the D' Orliac family, a member of which was abbot of the mon- astery at Isenheim from 1466 to 1490 and is presented in the carved section of the Isenheim altar. The most beautiful of the Schongauer paintings that are left to us is the small "Holy Family" which is in Munich Pinako- thek. In the hilly landscape beside the stable in which the Christ was born the Virgin is seen playing with her babe, to whom she offers a flower culled from among the many that make beautiful the knoll on which she is sitting. She is youthful looking and graceful, with soft contours and warm colouring and wears voluminous robes of bright red. The picture is full of colour and joyousness and charm. In all Schongauer's work the drawing was his main interest, as was natural in an artist whose chief activity was engraving. For, as has been said, Schongauer's art is to be most satisfactorily studied and most fully appreciated in his engravings. These treat an endless Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl MARTIN SCHOXGAUER The Nativity alte pinakothek, munich THE COLMAR SCHOOL 131 variety of subjects, religious, mythological and from every-day life, many of them over and over again, from different viewpoints and with ever a fresh interpretation. As the artist developed, the anatomic construction of the figures in his pictures and plates gradually received less emphasis; they remain strong and muscular but they are more refined and graceful in their strength. Their draperies are very full and hang in excessively broken folds; their movements are purposeful and often dramatic. Schongauer's conceptions are so fresh and power- ful, his motifs so original and well-invented, his execution so skilful that it is small wonder that his influence was so strongly felt in every Ger- man school and in Italy as well. Engravings, too, travel more easily than altar-pieces and no doubt extended the knowledge of his art farther than it could have reached had he confined his activities to painting. Of all the northern engravers before the great master of Nuremberg his gifts and influence were the most widely felt; in volume of work, depth of insight, imaginative and creative power, and truth of presentation, as well as in technical equipment, he stands as the greatest German engraver except Durer. After Martin Schongauer's death the school in Colmar was carried on by his brother Ludwig, who had previously been working in Ulm and Augsburg. Of Ludwig's works nothing authentic remains, but some pictures have been attributed to him on the ground of their resemblance to the works of his brother Martin. CHAPTER XVIII GERMAN SWITZERLAND THE GROUPS OF PAINTERS IN BASEL, BERN AND ZURICH Basel: Hans Herbst — Hans Dyg — Hans Fries — Urs Graf — Jacob Klauser — Hans Hug Kluber — Hans Bock — Tobias Slimmer. Bern: Master with the Carnation — Nicholas Manuel Deutsch. Zurich : Hans Leu — Hans Asper. IN the opening years of the XVI century, Basel, on the border between Germany and Switzerland, attracted many artists by reason of its great publishing houses, which could always furnish them occupation and a means of livelihood in illustrating the new editions of the classics, the translations of the Bible and the writings of the great reformers. Thus when Hans the Younger and Ambrosius Holbein arrived there, they were welcomed into a circle of artists with at least one of whom they became intimate, Hans Herbst or Herbster, whose portrait Ambrosius painted in 1516. It presents a picturesque, intense-looking man, with heavy, dark hair and a full beard. Concerning his life, we know that he was born in Strassburg in 1468, but became a member of the Guild in Basel in 1492. In 1512 he was in Pavia, and doubtless visited other centres of art in Italy on this same journey. He became an ardent follower of Luther, with such intense convictions that he even stopped painting, as did Fra Bartolommeo under the influence of the Savonarola revival in Italy, in order not to encourage the worship of idols. He suffered imprisonment for heresy and under- went many discomforts before he was set at liberty. He died in 1550. So interesting and positive is the personality of this artist that it seems doubly unfortunate that no authentic works from his hand remain; they probably perished in the "picture storming" of the Reformation. A second member of the Basel group of painters was Hans Dyg, who was born in Zurich, but who became a member of the Guild in Basel in 1503. In 1519-1520 he painted, in the City Hall, " The Last 132 GERMAN SWITZERLAND 133 Judgment," which has been restored so often that it is quite impossible to judge of its original character. A third artist, Hans Fries, spent only one year in Basel, 1487- 1488. He was born in Freiburg in Switzerland in 1465, served his apprenticeship in Bern with a Master Heinrich Bechler and, after short sojourns in Basel and Colmar, returned to Freiburg where he lived until his death in 1518. His altar-piece in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, painted in 1501, presents the Virgin and Child with an Abbot, the Stigmatisation of St. Francis, Virgin and St. Anne and Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. The figures are full of life and movement, the colouring deep and strong. Two scenes from the Life of St. John the Baptist, in Basel Kunstsammlung, show the influence of the painter's visit to Colmar: indeed the " St. John writing the Book of Revelations" is practically a copy of the Schongauer engraving of the same subject. A unique personahty in this circle of artists was Urs Graf, who was born in Solothurn between 1485 and 1490, worked for a time in Zurich, then came to Basel, where he married, acquired citizenship, and became a member of the Guild in 1512. In 1515 he joined the Swiss army against Francis I of France. His whole life was filled with adventures, many of which brought him into difliculties with the courts-of-law. He died about 1536. Urs Graf is known to us, not through his paintings, but through his many drawings for wood cuts. His only authentic painting is a small allegorical picture in Basel Kunsthalle, representing the terrors of war. Mars and Bellona, seated on the clouds, are pouring fire upon the world below, where, on one side, a battle is in progress, on the other, captives are being tortured. The drawing of the small figures is done with a sure hand, the characterisation is positive and reaHstic enough. His favourite subject in his drawings, most of which are in Basel Kunsthalle, is the life of the Lanzknecht, a figure bold, dashing and gay to the point of coarseness, whom he presents over and over again with evident delight, standing in various poses, marching with a banner inscribed "All my money lost in play," thieving, caressing a maiden, or as an irresponsible person whose leading strings are held by the devil. Among the drawings are also scenes from the Bible and from the legends of the saints, in 134 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART which the people are given, in the main, the same characteristics as the Lanzknechte and their country lasses. To the second half of the XVI century belonged Jacob Klauser, who was born in Zurich but became a member of the Guild in Basel in 1547. Of interest, mainly, it must be confessed, because of its subject, is his portrait of Boniface Amerbach, in Basel Kunst- sammlung, which was painted in 1557. A native of Basel was Hans Hug Kluber, who was born about 1535, and died in 1578. Three pictures from his hand in the Kunst- sammlung there, the "Birth of Christ" and portraits of Hans Rispach and his wife Barbara, show the influence of Holbein, as do the works of Hans Bock (1545-1623) by whom are the portraits of Melchior Hornlocher and his wife Katherine, and a small picture, " Hercules strangling the Serpent," in Basel Kunstsammlung. An artist who does not properly belong to this circle of artists, but who shows the influence of Holbein in his life-like and very expressive portraits is Tobias Stimmer (1539-1583) of Schaffhausen, who also worked for a time in Strassburg. In Basel Kunst- sammlung are his interesting portraits of Jacob Schwitzer and his wife Elsbeth, painted in 1564. In Bern, too, there was a small but interesting school of painters in the closing years of the XV and the first half of the XVI century. The chief work of the master who, from his use of the flower instead of a monogram, has been named the Master with the Carna- tion, is a series of scenes from the Legends of St. John the Baptist, in Bern Museum and in Buda-Pesth, which present a curious combination of archaic with modern, naturalistic elements. The backgrounds are gold, but the people are given with considerable fidelity to life. The painter seems to have taken delight in picturing the gorgeously robed king, the men, the one blind woman, the elegant dame with the lap dog, who are listening to the preaching of St. John, and especially the quaint little figure of Salome, with the heavy braids of hair bound about her head, dressed as a highly respectable German girl of the middle class and dancing a most modest little dance before an exceedingly sedate king and queen, who are seated at their simple supper, their dog cracking bones on the floor beside them. This naive literalness in all his pictures makes them at •■-i*r^^^w^^^s^fvsF^vf!^y €iia T / !g if ij. m art ij ij imrwy B D\M PATRl/^^ QVyt!\0 PE^ DOGMATA. SAN OTA vSALVTEM -^ Ingrato patri/Ig^svs ab e:nse gado , OBIIT ANo I)NI.M,DXXXI.bCDOB,X Courtesy of the City Library, Zurich HANS ASPER Portrait of Zwixgli city library, zurich GERMAN SWITZERLAND 135 least entertaining. The colours are bright with much gold, which the artist doubtless believed would contribute elegance to his scenes. The greatest master of the Swiss School was Nicholas Manuel Deutsch, who lived in Bern from 1484 to 1530. It is generally- believed that his father was an Italian, Emmanuel da Alemannia, and that the name Deutsch was but a German translation of the Italian family name. That Nicholas Manuel spent his Wanderjahre in Italy, probably in Padua, is suggested by the wealth of Renaissance ornament in such an early work as his altar in Bern Museum repre- senting the Birth of the Virgin and St. Luke Painting the Madonna. His work is very unequal in quality. Thus the small picture of the Beheading of John the Baptist, in Basel Kunstsammlung, is painted with exquisite fineness and care, while those of the Virgin and St. Anne, St. James and St. Roch with plague-stricken petitioners are careless in execution and inharmonious in colour. The artist seems to have taken special pleasure in painting allegorical pictures which, whether designedly or not, are very amusing; as, for example. The "Judgment of Paris," in Basel Kunstsammlung, in which the the hero is a Lanzknecht whose decision the damsels await in a most entertaining variety of costumes and of humours. As a fresco-painter his chief work was the "Dance of Death'* in forty-six pictures painted between 1517 and 1522 for the Dominican Monastery in Bern, copies of which are in the Historical Museum there. They represent the Fall of Adam and the consequent entrance of Death into the world, Death approaching people of every station, and Death preaching. Each group of figures is placed in a sort of arcade, through which a glimpse is also given of a landscape in the background. Nicholas Manuel's drawings are numerous, and form an interest- ing commentary on the life of the time. In his sketchbook, in Basel Kunsthalle, we find subjects from the Bible, the legends of the saints, and the life of the period, all given with much familiarity and with types taken from his own circle of acquaintance. During the last years of his life the artist devoted his time and energy largely to the cause of the Reformation. His portrait of himself in Bern Museum shows a pale, delicate-looking man with tired blue eyes, prominent nose, finely cut lips and a sparse beard. A 136 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART son of Nicholas Manuel Deutsch, Hans Rudolph Manuel (Deutsch) was also an artist. From his hand are many drawings, wood cuts and designs for glass windows, in Basel Kunsthalle. The works of the Zurich painter Hans Leu, who fell in the battle on the Zugerberg in 1531, reveal the influence of Grtinewald in such measure that his "St. Jerome" and "Cephalus mourning over Procris," in Basel Kunstsammlung, were, in the Amerbach catalogue, ascribed to " Griinewald or Leu." In both of these pictures the phantastic lighting is the chief interest. In his "Orpheus charming Animals with his Music," which is dated 1519, the landscape and the lighting also suggest the influence of the master of the Isenheim Altar. Into the second half of the XVI century in Zurich, as late as 1571, worked Hans Asper, who painted the flags and coats-of-arms on the city gates and towers and who held the title of City Painter. His fame to-day rests chiefly on his portraits and especially on those of Zwingli and of Zwingli's daughter, painted in 1549 and now in Zurich Library. That of the great Swiss reformer presents him in three-quarter length, wearing a black robe and cap and holding a Bible open at the words "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The schools of art in German Switzerland were not marked by distinct originality. They developed late and entirely under the influence of other artists and schools, especially of Holbein and the Italians. No Swiss School, therefore, ever attained a position of first importance or influence, except in so far as Basel could lay a certain claim to Hans Holbein, who, however, belonged by birth and training to Augsburg. CHAPTER XIX ULM THE STORY-TELLERS OF THE XV CENTURY Hans Multscher — Hans Schiihlein — Bartolomni9us Zeitblom — Hans Maler zu Schwaz — Martin Schaffner — Master of Sigmaringen. TIE first of Ulm's story-tellers in colour, Hans Multscher, is realistic in a degree surprising for the period in which he worked. In order to make his scenes as vivid as possible he pictures them with the household equipment and costumes belonging to his own day, and, in an obvious effort to compel our attention, exaggerates the expressions and gestures of his people to the point of pantomime. The types he introduces in his pictures are not always attractive and are apt to belong in a decidedly ordinary and often- times vulgar social strata, while their familiar actions are by no means marked by refinement or reserve. The settings are of the simplest, most plebeian kind, there is no beauty in the very elemen- tal landscapes with their gold backgrounds, or the inelegant and un- skilfully rendered materials in the garments and draperies. But there is an attraction in the roominess, the fine feeling for space in most of the pictures and in the colouring, which, though it cannot be called really beautiful or particularly harmonious, has its own charm in a certain silveriness of tone which is possibly due in part to the predominance in the robes of pale blue with white hghts. Hans Multscher was born in 1400 in Reichenhof en near Leutkirk, but became a citizen of Ulm and received a concession exempting his property from taxation in 1427. In 1457 he was in Sterzing in Tyrol where one of his largest and most important works still remains. He died about 1467. Representative of his style and development are the eight scenes from the Life of Christ, in Berlin Gallery, from an altar- piece painted in 1437, and the scenes from the Life of the Virgin on the large Sterzing Altar, painted twenty years later. The Berlin "Annunciation" shows the Child in swaddling clothes 137 138 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART in a basket just within a thatched shed. Behind him are ox and ass; on the inside wall of the shed are books, on the outer wall bread and a pitcher of wine. The Virgin, of Swabian type, is kneeling with both hands raised as if in joyous wonder; beside her is Joseph, a simple, kindly looking peasant, who uses a staff and whose hands are encased in heavy gloves to protect them against the cold of the winter morning. Over a board fence look all the neighbours. They are very plain in appearance and in dress, but their expres- sions reveal great interest in the scene before them, at which one of the young men of the company is pointing, rather unneces- sarily, it would seem. On a hill to the left, in a bit of landscape evidently set in the gold background for that very purpose, rude looking shepherds are hearing the glad news from an angel; three other angels of con- siderable beauty are singing on the roof of the shed. In the Passion scenes the Christ type is rather undersized, with short chin and very round eyes; considerable stress is laid on the bones and muscles, but the forms under the garments reveal little skill in modelling. The tormentors of the Holy One are excessively vulgar and repellent, several of them, indeed, with vacant eyes and wide, leering mouths, even idiotic looking. Especially repulsive are the stunted children, who, in the "Bearing the Cross," throw stones at the Christ. Even his own followers, John and the mourning women, are not marked by any great delicacy or nobility of type; while Pilate's wife and her friend, in the "Christ before Pilate," have nothing of the patrician in their appearance or bearing. Of greater refinement is the Christ type in the "Resurrection," which otherwise is pictured with singular helplessness of perspective and great literalness of interpretation.' Out of the sealed tomb, which is set in curious fashion against the side of a rock in a fenced garden with trees, the Christ is in the act of rising; one leg has not yet been pulled through the stone. A red mantle is about his shoul- ders and his right hand is raised in blessing. On the ground the guards are sleeping; one has half fallen over with his back to us, overcome by weariness; another, open mouthed, leans on his hand at the end of the tomb, and a very natural looking old man with deep wrinkles across the back of his neck — no guard surely, but a simple Photograph by the Berlin Photographic Society HANS MLXTSCHER The Resukhection kaiser friedrich museum, berlin Photograph hy Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg HANS SCHUHLEIN Scenes from the Passion of Christ high altar in the chirch in tiefenbronn ULM 139 countryman! — in citizen's dress, sits on a saddle-bag with his back to us, his hat over his eyes, a veritable note of genre in the picture. A greater degree of refinement marks the pictures in Sterzing. The "Annunciation" presents, in the interior of a plain room with square windows opening out on a grove of trees and a gold sky, an attractive Virgin with flowing hair and long, simply draped robes, to whom the angel, who has entered by the doorway into the adjoining room to the left, on lightly bended knee, appears to hand the scroll on which his greeting is written. The sense of space and the sim- plicity and quietness of the scene are reposeful and beneficent. The " Nativity," in a large wooden stable, introduces the intimate, un- dignified detail of Joseph, who has pulled off his shoes, proceeding to dry and warm his feet while the Virgin kneels before the Babe. The kings in the "Adoration" are utterly unaristocratic in appear- ance and manners; among the apostles in the "Death of the Virgin" are some beautiful types, but they seem less sincere, more affected, than the rude peasants and fishermen with whom they are associated. In the Passion scenes, from the backs of the wings in Sterzing, the hand of a pupil under the influence of the art of the Netherlands is evident; occasionally, however, a quite beautiful figure is intro- duced, as that of the angel who presents the chalice to Christ in the "Garden of Gethsemane." From the shrine of the Sterzing Altar there remain, also, some of the wood-carved figures from Multscher's hand, which in attractiveness of types and in the grace of the draperies, excel his painted pictures. That the artist was indeed almost as active in wood carving as in painting is evident from the "Triumphal Entry" in Cloister Wittenhausen, the "Man of Sorrows" in Schrie- sheim, the "Virgin and Trinity," in Ulm. Several figures of saints and warriors bear witness that he was also a sculptor in stone. In Hans Multscher's workshop studied Hans Schiihlein — or Schlichlein — who was born in Ulm about 1440. A visit to Colmar during his Wander jahre left its mark on his art ever afterward, for, though its spirit always remained Swabian, some of his types and many of his motifs were borrowed from Schongauer. From Colmar he seems to have proceeded to Nuremberg, where he made his impres- 140 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART slons of Schongauer felt in Wolgemut's workshop and was himseK in- fluenced, in turn, by the Nuremberg master. After his return to Ulm he became a member of St. Luke's Guild in 1493 and was appointed, in 1497, chief architect of the Cathedral, a post which he held until 1502. He died in 1505. Schilhlein's most important work is the High Altar painted in 1469 for that little memorial church of the Gemmingen family in the village of Tiefenbronn, in which is also Lucas Moser's interesting St. Mary Magdalen Altar. It is a large and attractive carved Gothic altar, with, in the shrine, in wood carving, the Descent from the Cross, the Pieta and four standing saints, and overhead, the Crucified One with the Virgin and St. John. On the inner sides of the wings, set also under carved Gothic arches, are painted Christ before Pilate, the Cross Bearing, Entombment and Resurrection; on the outer sides, the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity and Adoration. In the four scenes from the Life of the Virgin the types are rather similar to those in Multscher's pictures on the Sterzing Altar; though not particularly elegant or patrician in appearance or dress, they are not coarse. The background of each scene is a landscape, of which the most individual and interesting is that of the Visita- tion, which presents, in a rolling country, a high-gabled, red-roofed, German house, beside the door of which Zachariah awaits the coming of the two women. The colouring is brown in tone and is heavier than Hans Multscher's. In the scenes from the Passion the people are of greater slender- ness and delicacy of build and greater emotional sensitiveness. Here and there such types as the Christ in the Cross Bearing and the woman wearing the white headdress, in the group behind the grave in the Entombment, recall Wolgemut, while the motifs of Christ supporting his knee against a stone and the group of women in the middle distance in the Cross Bearing are taken direct from Schongauer' s engraving of the same subject. The actors in these scenes wear more elegant garments than those in the Life of the Virgin, with a brown and gold brocade as a favourite material. They are restless and nervously tense in their endeavour to convey the reality of the tragedy in which they are sharers, but so unimposing are they physically, so devoid of positive personaUty, that they fail Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg BARTOLOMMAUS ZEITBLOM The Annunciation royal gallery, stuttgart b H 3 o « :s a o m pq H , hH M S a P N z H (fi o o o :< <; ti u § g « o H 1 J OJ s o a h H H P5 a ^ 5 iJ M U 3 2; <: ULM 141 to impress us deeply. They are sincere and unaffected; their emo- tions are real; but they are excitable types who would respond all too readily to any emotional appeal, although by nature incapable of great depth of feeling, of overwhelming passion or of profound grief. Hans Schiihlein's most famous pupil was Bartolommaus Zeit- blom, who was born in Nordlingen about 1450 but who later moved to Ulm, where he married Schiihlein's daughter in 1483 and, about the same time, acquired citizenship. In 1487 he and his wife spent some time in Kirchheim, where he suffered imprisonment for giving food and other aid to the nuns of St. John the Baptist's Cloister. In 1499 his name appears beside his father-in-law's as Senator from the Guild to the Council of Ulm; he died about 1519. Though the latest of the fifteenth century painters in Ulm, Zeitblom was the least affected by those new ideals and developments in art which had their root in the Netherlands, which Multscher had felt in some degree and by which whatever individuality Schtlhlein originally possessed was almost completely dominated. So little, indeed, did he heed them that he seems at times archaic. It is true that the forms of his people are larger than the usual Swabian type, are constructed with due regard to bone and sinew and are quite well modelled. But the backgrounds of his pictures are, for the most part, gold; when the scene is laid in the interior of a room, as in the Legends of St. Valentine, they are of stone with no outlook. His people wear garments so slightly draped that they hang in almost straight folds, exceedingly simple, though most grace- ful. Their faces are rather long and finely oval, with delicate fea- tures; their blonde hair is apt to be worn perfectly straight or with but the faintest wave; their attitudes are remarkably quiet, their expressions calm. Sometimes, as in the Annunciation painted for the church in Heerberg and now in Stuttgart Gallery, the beauty of the Virgin and the angel, the graceful simplicity of their robes, the quiet distinction of their bearing creates an atmosphere of still so- lemnity which envelops the spectator also and communicates to him something of its exaltation. In the " Vera Icon," in Berlin Gallery, from the predella of the altar painted for the Parish Church in Eschach in 1495, the grace and restraint of the sorrowing angels 142 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART and the lovely lines of the drapery call to mind the Italian painter Francia. But when we turn to his more impassioned scenes, as those from the Life of St. Valentine, in Augsburg Gallery, or those from the Life of St. John the Baptist and from the Life and Passion of Christ, on the High Altar of the church in the picturesque little village of Blau- beuren in the Swabian Hills, those characteristics which, in quietly sentimental scenes or in, for example, the standing figures of St. Martha and St. Ursula in Munich Pinakothek, appear to indicate a noble, aristocratic calm, suddenly seem to be nothing more than stijffness and woodenness. In the most animated or tragic scenes his people remain unmoved, almost expressionless; they are utterly powerless to convey the significance of the representation. In the presence of such pictures we cannot but suspect that his stately forms with their remarkable restraint and stillness reveal a certain emptiness of mind and heart and imagination and that his conser- vatism conceals a lack of power. Yet we do not forget that a few of the pictures he has given us are lovely enough to be treasured without question, simply for the pleasure their beauty brings. A pupil of Zeitblom was Hans von Ulm, who removed from there to the rich mining town of Schwaz, near Innsbruck, and who is, therefore, generally spoken of as Hans Maler zu Schwaz. He won such fame as a portrait painter that many commissions came to him from the patrician families of Innsbruck and Vienna. Indeed, before his proper name was discovered he was called, from several portraits of members of the Welzer family, which are now in Vienna Gallery, "The Master of the Welzer Portraits." He won the favour of Ferdinand of Hapsburg, whose portrait he painted, and by whom he was commissioned to copy earlier portraits of the Emperor Maximilian and Maria of Burgundy. He does not seek to reveal the character or personality of a subject, but gives a quite literal record of the external appear- ance. Such a portrait as that of Ulrich Fugger, of the famous Augsburg family of bankers, which was painted in 1525 and which is now in the Alt man Collection, in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, reveals all the artist's peculiarities. Like almost all pictures painted by him, it is a bust portrait, in Courtesy of the Altman Gallery HANS MALER Portrait of Count Ulkich Fugger of Augsburg metropolitan museum of art, new york Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl MARTIN SCHAFFNER Annunciation alte pinakothek, munich ULM 143 which the sitter is seen three-quarters to the left. It presents the banker at thirty-five years of age, against a Hght blue back- ground, and wearing a black coat, white collar open in front and a brown skull-cap. No great amount of attention is bestowed upon the details. A suggestion of the influence of Bernhard Strigel, the painter's fellow-pupil in Zeitblom's workshop, is felt in the picture, especially in the flesh tones, which are light, yel- lowish and waxy. The artist has a peculiar trick of setting the eyes slanting. He paints the hair of head and beard with con- siderable minuteness. The drawing is old-fashioned but assured and marked by a fine sweep of line. In the works of Martin Schaffner, who was born in Ulm about 1480 and who worked there until almost the middle of the sixteenth century, Italian influence is very pronounced. His altar-pieces are of remarkably large dimensions and permit of his presenting his scenes on a much bigger scale than is usual with his contemporaries. To his earliest period belongs the altar in Sigmaringen Gallery repre- senting five scenes from the Life of Christ, in which the plain people with their rather expressionless features are less interesting than the materials in the garments, especially the velvets and furs, which are very beautifully painted. Schaffner's greatest work is the High Altar in Ulm Cathedral, which was painted in 1520. The shrine is filled with wood carving; on the wings are the Holy Kinship and on the outer sides Saints Erhard, John the Baptist, Barbara and Dieppold. To the left are the Virgin and Child with the small St. John, who, in form and in his little gauze drapery, resembles a Donatello yutto; through a window behind the Virgin there looks in upon the group a man with long white hair and a cape of grey fur, who is so individual, even peculiar looking, that he must have been portrayed direct from life. To the right are Alpheus, a rather pompous gentleman, his wife, who is nursing her babe, and three other sturdy children. In the back- ground stretches a wide landscape. Very imposing, doubtless in part because of their unusually large dimensions, are the four wings of the High Altar from Cloister Wettenhausen, near Ulm, which were painted in 1523 and 1524 and are now in Munich Pinakothek. The first scene, the Annunciation, 144 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART takes place in an ornate Renaissance room, in the decoration of which there are still some Gothic details. The Virgin, whose long reddish- brown hair falls about her shoulders, and whose very full draperies are spread in many folds, kneels to receive the large angel who enters through the portico to the left. In the sky overhead, in a conven- tionahsed, coloured cloud, is God the Father, from whom, in a ray of light, proceed the Dove and the Child. Behind a curtain another room opens where a small angel is smoothing the pillows of a great, canopied bed. Nor are the possibilities of perspective yet exhausted. Another room opens in the rear of that one, and to the left, at the door of a house on the opposite side of the street, Elizabeth is seen welcoming Mary, who has come to visit her. In the next scene, the Presentation in the Temple, we look into the interior of a great Renaissance church. On the altar are a shrine and two tall candle sticks; from behind it several priests are advanc- ing bearing other candlesticks; from a balcony overhead two people look down upon the scene which is transpiring in the foreground, where the gorgeously robed High Priest holds the Child, the Virgin makes the offering of the doves, two women kneel on the mosaic floor and others of the company are entering between the marble columns. Through the door we catch a glimpse of a landscape with a stately tree and a castle tower as its most prominent features. The people in these two pictures are all large and dignified with quite regular features and very full robes. Their expression is, however, so lacking in animation that they appear stolid and unresponsive. In the third scene, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, this lack is still more evident. The apostles stand open-mouthed but they are inwardly unmoved; the perspective in the scene and the view into the street along which people are walking were manifestly of as much importance to the artist as the miracle. The reahsation of the grief of these same disciples, in the Death of the Virgin, is also beyond the artist's powers. According to Swabian tradition, the dying Virgin is kneeling, supported by an apostle. All the accessories are given interestingly enough, but genuine, convincing emotion is lacking. The colouring in all these pictures is a warm golden brown in tone and so perfectly are all the ULM 145 local colours blended into this tone that it requires attention to dis- tinguish them. One of the most interesting of the artist's works is a portrait in the sacristy of Ulm Cathedral, dated 1516, which presents, in half length, against a green and gold brocaded background, the burgo- master of the city, Eitel Besserer, an imposing looking man with penetrating blue eyes and a full grey beard, who wears a cap and wide collar of fur. The brocade, the fur, the hair of the beard and the fine texture of the skin are so remarkably rendered, the head is so finely rounded and the expression so keen and lifelike that the portrait is one of rare beauty. An anonymous painter who worked in the opening years of the XVI century has been named from his works in the Gallery of Prince Hohenzollern's Castle in that place, the Master of Sigmaringen. The largest number of pictures from his hand are, however, in the neigh- bouring Donaueschingen, at the source of the Danube. Among them are ten panels which have a curious history. A peasant in the Black Forest became very ill and called Dr. Rehmann from the nearest town, Donaueschingen. The physician was greatly struck by the remarkable bed on which his patient was lying, on every board of which were painted dingy, old, religious scenes or figures of saints. When the peasant recovered, the doctor asked, in lieu of fee, that he might be given the bed. On examination, it was found that it was built of the panels of a large altar by the Master of Sigmaringen, and that there were represented on them various scenes from the Life of the Virgin, and the standing figures of Saints Florian, George, Joachim, Martin, Sebastian, and other saints. Dr. Rehmann caused the various panels to be restored to their original estate and, at his death, bequeathed them to Prince Furstenberg for Donaueschingen Gallery. Like all the works of the Master of Sigmaringen, these reveal in a marked degree the influence of the art of the Netherlands or of a conception of it which the artist derived from the paintings of such a Swabian painter as Friedrich Herlin who was then work- ing in the neighbouring town of Nordlingen. The people are tall and strongly built, with prominent cheek-bones and red cheeks, low foreheads, large, round eyes and heavy hair which, on the 146 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART men, is almost always slightly dishevelled. Their fingers curve pronouncedly and sometimes rather affectedly, their feet are strangely shaped, with thick balls, and straight toes set very close together. The colours are bright and not very happily blended. There is, indeed, little that is pleasing about this master's large, plain people who lack refinement and who possess no attrac- tions except strength, who are seldom represented as active about anything or even as greatly interested in anything in particular, and who are given without any especial beauty of accessories or of colouring. In almost all his pictures the painter retains the archaic gold background and with it, sometimes, as in the Don- aueschingen "Presentation of the little Virgin in the Temple," a naive frankness of faith which invests the picture with a certain charm. CHAPTER XX SWABIA THE ARTISTIC DEPEND ANCIES OF ULM NoRDLiNGEN : Fricdrich Herlin — Sebastian Deig. Rothenburg: Martin Schwarz. Memmingen: Bernhard Strigel. TO Ulm Nordlingen may be said to owe her share in the art Ufe of the German Renaissance, for from Ulm there came to NordHngen the painter Friedrich Herhn. It would appear that he did not come directly, however, but made a stay of some length in Rothenburg, as, in the document conferring citizenship in NordUngen upon him in 1467, he is named " Master Friedrich Herlin of Rothenburg." The earliest notice of the painter, in the records of Ulm, is dated 1449; the latest, in Nordlingen, 1499. His earliest dated work is the High Altar for St. George's Church in Nordlingen, which was begun in 1462. Only the pictures on the back of the shrine, repre- senting scenes from the Passion, are still in the church; the rest of the altar, separated into its several pictures, has been removed to the Municipal Museum, The inner sides of the wings present six scenes from the Childhood of Christ, the outer sides, three scenes from the Legend of St. George, two from the Legend of St. Mary Magdalen, with St. Dorothea, St. Barbara and the family of the donor, Jacob Fuchshart. Tradition has it that Herlin was invited to Nordlingen because "he knew how to paint in the fashion of the artists of the Nether- lands" and, in truth, the most casual glance at this altar will reveal that there was no artist of the second half of the XV century who was more completely dominated by their influence. The work is done with great care; the street, the architectural features, the interiors, the still-Hfe are all given in the perspective and with the minute detail of the school of the Van Eycks. The materials are finely realised; the robes of the saints have the texture and lustre of real 147 148 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART velvets, silks and brocades. The colouring is also that of the Flemish painters, deep and strong, occasionally, to the point of heaviness; the light is the full light of day. The spirit of the scenes is matter of fact; imagination, and even play of fancy are altogether lacking. Very similar in subject and in treatment are the scenes from the Childhood of Christ on the inner sides of the wings of the High Altar in St. Jacob's Church, Rothenburg, which were painted in 1466. The outer sides of the wings have been entirely painted over. Four of the same scenes, the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration and Pre- sentation, are pictured again in the wings of the altar in St. George's Church in Dinkelsbiihl, which was painted about the same time, or in 1467. The next year, 1468, he painted the " Man of Sorrows," now in Nordhngen Museum, which exceeds in realism even the Passion scenes on the back of the High Altar in St. George's. The Christ is commonplace and unimpressive, but the representation possesses a vigour which amounts almost to violence. Herlin seems to have been held in high repute throughout all the country round about Nordlingen and many of the larger parish churches contain works from his hand. Not only did he do impor- tant altar-pieces for Rothenburg and Dinkelsbiihl, but also for the neighbouring village of Bopfingen, where the Nativity and Ador- ation, on the inner sides of the wings of the High Altar in St. Blasius's Church, are among his most attractive works. The types are, as always, those of the painters of the Netherlands, the poses are often artificial, but the drawing is less sharp than in his earlier works, the forms are less angular and muscular, the faces softer in contour and the colours, though still dark, are glowing. The scenes from the Legend of St. Blasius, on the outer sides of the wings, are the work of a pupil and are quite inferior. The artist's masterpiece is the great altar in Nordlingen Museum which was painted in 1488 and represents the Madonna and Child with St. Luke, St. Margaret and donors. The Virgin, who is enthroned against a background of brown, brocaded tap- estry, held by white-robed angels, is of the same type as in Hans Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl BERNHARD STRIGEL Portrait of Emperor Maximilian royal gallery, augsburg SWABIA 149 Memllng's pictures; she wears a long, red robe with lining of green, and on her head a jewelled diadem. The Child is reaching out for the book held by St. Luke, who is recommending for special grace a kneeling donor and his four sons. On the other side St. Margaret performs the same mediatory office for the donor's wife and five daughters, who kneel stiffly in their modish costumes, their fair, reddish hair in heavy braids. The symbols of the saints, in miniature, are placed on the back of the throne; in the back- ground is a city street. A personal interest attaches to this picture, as the donors are doubtless the painter himself and his family, for whom, naturally, St. Luke the painter-apostle would intercede. The wings of the altar contain the Holy Night, and Christ disputing with the Lawyers in the Temple; in these the people are very plain and the colouring is heavy. There was, perhaps, no German artist of the second half of the XV century, when all German artists were influenced in some degree by the art of the Netherlands, who yielded to that influence so ab- solutely as did Friedrich Herlin. But though he adopts Memling's types, he seldom fails to make them plain, ordinary in appearance and mental equipment and unattractive in expression; and though he renders materials with much naturalness he rarely succeeds in call- ing forth our admiration for their beauty, because his colouring is so dark and heavy. A painter who worked in NordHngen as late as 1575 was Sebas- tian Deig (Daig or Teig) who was a pupil of Schaufelein during his residence in NordHngen from 1515 to 1540, but who turned away from his master's ideal of beauty to fall into crude and sometimes vulgar realism. The many pictures from his hand in Nordlingen Museum possess nothing that appeals to the lover of art; the types are plain, the colouring brown and heavy, the interpretation ordinary and un- inspired. His most interesting work is an altar in St. George's Church, Dinkelsbuhl, which sets forth, in small scenes, the Martyrdom of the Saints. In these there are almost n6 suggestions of the revolt- ing realism of his later works. The people are, for the most part, very youthful and their expressions childlike; the costumes are a complete commentary on the fashions of the age. Any attractive- ness these pictures might possess is seriously detracted from, however, by the dulness and lifelessness of their colouring. 150 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Besides the visiting artist Friedrich Herlin, Rothenburg pos- sessed a painter all her own, Martin Schwarz, who is known to have been hving there in 1480. Judging by his types and his manner of presenting his subjects, he received his training in the School of Ulm. Of his few remaining works, the most interesting are the four wings of an altar in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, which present, on the outer sides, the Annunciation, Holy Night, Adoration of the Kings, and Death of the Virgin; on the inner sides, four scenes from the Passion. The stories are told simply and delightfully; the people are refined and very attractive. The Annunciation, for example, shows, against a gold groimd, a very youthful Virgin, seated in an elaborately carved chair, addressed by a graceful angel with ringleted hair. The many details which are introduced, as the chair and book-rest, slippers and flowers, are given with loving exactness. On the other hand, such scenes as the death of the Virgin or those from the Passion are quite beyond the artist's abihty; he does not possess the dramatic power to make them impressive. His gift is for telling cheerful stories about attractive people, with naive faithfulness to detail and unfailing charm of manner. In the neighbouring town of Memmingen, too, art in its devel- opment was influenced by the School of Ulm. The artists there all belonged to one family, the Strigels. The oldest member of it, Johann Strigel, is mentioned in 1433 as "painter, of Memmingen." In 1442 he painted the altar for the church in Zell, representing the Virgin adoring the Christ Child, and Saints. Four panels which were also, probably, at one time in that church were discovered a few years ago in the house of a peasant in the neighbourhood, by an artist who was painting there, and were sold to the National Museum in Munich. On each panel are two saints, tall and slender and very fair, with round, childish faces and blond hair. The female saints wear white veils and very curious, small, round, blue caps; their robes hang in parallel folds and their mantles are draped to fall in set ripples which show the contrasting colour of the lining. The favourite colours are deep, bright blue, red, yellow and white. A son of Johann Strigel was Ivo Strigel, whose chief authentic SWABIA 151 work is an altar in Basel Historical Museum with saints, evangelists and the Archangel Michael, who holds a parchment scroll on which is written "Ivo Strigel, 1512." A Klaus Strigel painted on two wings of an altar in the Lieb- frauenkirche in Munich, the saints Urban and Achatius. The figures are undersized; the colouring is cool Hke Zeitblom's but the garments are less simply and beautifully draped. By far the greatest artist of them all was Bernhard Strigel, who was born in Memmingen about 1461 and died in 1528. About 1480 he went to Ulm to study with Zeitblom; in 1506 he was established in Memmingen and shortly became so famous that he was appointed court painter to the Emperor Maximilian, in whose service he visited Augsburg, Innsbruck and Vienna. A characteristic altar-piece is the one in Berlin Gallery which was painted in 1515 and contains four scenes from the Life of the Virgin — the Birth, Presentation, Visitation, and Death. The people portrayed in these scenes are natural and spontaneous in their attitudes and movements, though seldom endowed with either beauty or distinction. All the legendary happenings are interpreted in terms of everyday life and with considerable detail, so that the pictures are interesting, from the standpoint of the history of cul- ture, as faithful reflections of domestic life in Germany in the latter half of the XV century. But Bernhard Strigel' s fame rests rather on his skill as a por- traitist than as a painter of altar-pieces. As court painter, he natur- ally did several portraits of the Emperor. There are his portraits of Maximihan as a young man, in Vienna, Strassburg and Munich; a portrait in more mature years, in Vienna, where is also a family group consisting of the Emperor, his wife, Maria of Burgundy, his son Philip and his grandsons Ferdinand I, Charles V, and Ludwig II of Hungary. On account of their refined yet broad treatment, and their beautiful, harmonious colouring, some of the best of Strigel's portraits, as that of Count John II of Montfort, in Donaueschingen Gallery, and the group of Conrad Relinger, Patrician of Augsburg, and his eight children, in Munich Pinakothek, were long attributed to Holbein. CHAPTER XXI AUGSBURG HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER THE rich city of Augsburg was not only the most important art centre in Swabia but was, in all Germany, second only to Nuremberg in its artistic fame and influence. Apparently art did not, however, develop so early there as in Cologne or Nuremberg, for no works remain to us from the fourteenth or even from the first half of the fifteenth century. To the second half of the fifteenth century belongs the painted ceiling which was taken from the guild room of the Weaver's House and is now in the National Museum. Munich. It is signed with a jingle: "In fourteen fifty-seven it came, Peter Kaltenhof was the name Of the man who painted the same." The ceiling is divided into narrow sections in which Bible scenes are pictured, with explanatory inscriptions. The figures are small and crowded and the effect of the whole is not particularly deco- rative. It has been twice painted over; in 1538, by Jorg Breu and again, in 1601, by Johann Herzog, but can hardly have been of much artistic worth at any time. The first great master of painting in Augsburg was Hans Holbein the Elder, who was born about 1460 and whose name appears on the list of painters for the last time in 1524. It is probable that he came, first of all, under the influence of Bartholme Zeitblom of Ulm and then of Italian, particularly of Venetian, painters. Whether or not Holbein the Elder ever visited Venice we do not know, but there seems to be no reason why he should not have done so, as Augsburg, with the princely Fugger family at its head, was always in close intercourse with Italy, and a journey to the city which was the goal of all the German artists of the sixteenth century would not seem a very formidable undertaking. Venetian influence on Holbein the Elder's works is to be observed, in the main, in the simplifying of 152 HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 153 the composition of his pictures, and the developing of his natural Swabian gift for colour. The artist's earliest known work is the altar-piece which was painted in 1493 for Weingarten Abbey and which is now in Augsburg Cathedral in four sections which present "Joachim's Sacrifice," with, in the background, "Joachim Among the Shepherds;" the "Birth of the Virgin," with the "Meeting at the Golden Gate;" the "Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple,"' with the "Visita- tion" and the "Presentation of Christ in the Temple," and, in the sky above, the "Coronation of the Virgin by the Father and the Son," symbolised by two quite youthful men, exactly aUke. The details in these pictures are recorded with great faithfulness. The animation of the little dog in the scene in which the shepherds wel- come Joachim, the eagerness of the woman in the very up-to-date costume who is hurriedly testing with her foot the heat of the water in the bath she is preparing for the new-born Virgin Mary, are given as if the painter himself took pleasure in the air of intimacy which their introduction imparts to the scenes. But this familiarity is saved from becoming matter-of-fact or vulgar by the loveliness of the slender, innocent women who move with such unconscious grace, and by the refinement and harmony of the colouring. One of the most beautiful works from the closing years of the century is the "Madonna and Child," dated 1499, which is now in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. It presents the Virgin in a Gothic architectural setting, enthroned and holding in her arms the beautiful Babe, to whom two blue-robed angels are offering flowers. The people are lovely in face and form, and simple, artless and tender in manner. The angels with their rather long, narrow faces and straight hair and their garments falling in such graceful folds are reminiscent of Zeitblom. The colouring is soft and harmonious, though a curious redness of the flesh tones is noticeable in this as in most of the master's early works. After the rebuilding, in 1496, of St. Catherine's Cloister, Augs- burg, the artist received from its nuns a curious and interesting commission. These nuns had, in 1484, received a special dispensa- tion of grace from Pope Innocent VIII, promising that if they would worship in three different parts of their cloister with the 154 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART same passion of meditation and prayer they would expend if they made a pilgrimage to the seven great churches of Rome, they should receive the same indulgence. To make the pilgrimage seem almost real and to arouse in themselves a greater degree of pious enthusiasm, the nuns desired to have painted, in those chosen parts of their cloister, pictures of the principal churches of Rome, together with scenes from the legends of their titular saints. To Holbein was given the commission to paint the first of these basilica pictures, that of "Santa Maria Maggiore." He divided the space within the Gothic arch into three fields, by means of slender wooden columns, so that the appearance of the whole is similar to that of a large triptych. Following still further the plan of an altar-piece, he filled the upper part of the arch with a gilded Gothic tracery Hke a vine with curling leaves, a decoration which, it is true, engrosses too large a place in the pictures and proves distracting. In the apex of the arch, framed by the tracery, is represented the Coronation of the Virgin, a youthful, beautiful woman on whose head a crown is being placed by the Trinity, symbolised, in mediaeval fashion, by three men who look exactly alike. About this group hover angels who fill the air with the music of instru- ments and joyous singing. The middle section contains the main subject, the basihca of Santa Maria Maggiore, which bears no resemblance to the church in Rome, but is a very simple, small chapel. On its bell the artist has signed his name. On the left is the Virgin adoring the Child; on the right the most attractive scene of all, the Martyrdom of St. Dorothea, introduced as a memorial to the donor, Dorothea Rolinger, who, in nun's dress, kneels in the right-hand corner of the picture. In the centre of it, the slender, girlish saint is again pictured with long fair hair falling about her shoulders, wearing a brocaded dress and a mantle of plain stuff, a large crown and a halo, as she kneels with folded hands to receive the sword stroke which the evil-looking executioner behind her is preparing to deal with great force. She has, however, forgotten all about him in her absorption in the small, beautifully formed Christ Child who has suddenly appeared before her, his transparent little mantle of blue, star-spangled gauze all fluttering from his haste, and who offers her a basket of HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 155 flowers. His lips are parted as he says the words written on the scroll he bears — "See, Dorothea, I bring thee roses"; to which the saint responds by asking him to take them for her to Theophilus, who has vowed that if she will send him roses from beyond the grave, he will become a Christian. The little story is simply and charmingly told; the types are very lovely, the garments graceful, the colouring clear and joyous. Slightly disturbing are the many stars with which the blue background is so thickly dotted and the gilded traceries dividing this picture from the one in the arch above. The artist could hardly have finished this work for St. Catherine's Cloister before he began the large series of twelve scenes from the Passion of Christ in Donaueschingen Gallery, which are painted in stone grey, with only the faces and hands, hair and beard and an occasional landscape detail given in colour. And almost simultane- ously with the commission for these scenes came one from the Domi- nican Monks in Frankfort to paint for them a great altar, also with scenes from the Passion. Of these, only " The Last Supper " is still in St. Leonhard*s Church there, the rest, in sections, having been trans- ferred to the Municipal Museum. The picture from the back of the shrine, representing the Genealogical Tree of Christ, gives not only his ancestors, but, among the curving vine stems, against the back- ground of a red brick wall, the saints of the Dominican order. The eleven pictures from the wings and the base represent scenes from the Passion in which the figures are so flat, so badly modelled and, for the most part, so unlovely, that they were, doubtless, almost entirely the work of pupils. The fighting with soft, golden sunlight is, however, most attractive. In the next year the painter undertook a third series of eight scenes from the Passion, together with eight from the Life of the Virgin, for the High Altar of the monastery in Kaisheim, on a com- mission from its abbot, George Kastner. In these pictures, which are in Munich Pinakothek, the happenings are made to seem very real and natural by being interpreted in terms of everyday life. So, in "Christ Taken Prisoner," Gethsemane is a little German garden, enclosed by a characteristic fence of braided withes over which Judas is cfimbing. The people are, for the most part, por- 156 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART trayed from life and here and there is a really fine portrait, as that of the beardless old king with the thin fringe of grey hair, in the "Adoration." The flesh tones are clear and fair, but the colouring in these panels is, on the whole, less harmonious than is usual in the artist's works; much pale blue is used in the garments with bright and dark red and yellow, and all the colours stand out as independent, local and imperfectly blended in the white light that fills the pictures. Undoubtedly, with such large commissions com- ing so thick and fast, Holbein was obliged to leave much of the work on these three cycles to be done by pupils. Work in St. Catherine's Cloister was resumed in 1503, when the artist painted, for Prioress Veronica Welser, a second basilica, St. Paul's. In the arch is the " Crowning with Thorns" which, in the types presented, and the attitude of the seated Christ, is reminiscent of Schongauer's engraving of the subject, although in modelling and expressiveness it falls short of the achievement of the Colmar master. The three main divisions of the picture are crowded with scenes from the Life of Saint Paul. On the right is, in the foreground, the Burial of the Saint; in the background, three other scenes, among them the Lowering of the Saint in a Basket over the Wall of the City. On the left are, in the background, the Conversion of St. Paul, and St. Paul in Prison; in the foreground, the Baptism, in which Holbein himself stands to the right of the font with his two sons, Ambro- sius and Hans the Younger, the latter a lad of about six years. The foreground of the central section is occupied with the scenes repre- senting St. Paul as Prisoner, and the Beheading of St. Paul, so that the chief theme of the picture, the basilica, is relegated to the middle distance. There we see St. Paul in a low box of a pulpit preaching earnestly; a man and a woman sitting on the steps of the altar close beside him drink in every word, while two men standing near him, one of whom leans on his elbow on the altar, listen thoughtfully. But long before we discover the preaching apostle, indeed before we can bring ourselves to note any of the scenes pictured, our gaze is held fascinated by a solitary woman who has secured a chair from somewhere, placed it deliberately right in the middle of the basilica and seated herself, with her back to us and to the gruesome scene of martyrdom, to listen to the sermon. She is dressed after the fashion Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER St. Barbara and St. Elizabeth of Hungary ALTE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 157 of the period, in a low-cut gown which reveals the fine, soft modelling of the throat, and wears an ermine collar and a picturesque white headdress. This figure, so lifelike and so assured in its pose, arro- gating to itself the position of greatest importance in the picture, gives a very human, worldly touch which cannot but provoke a smile at its incongruity and whimsicality. During the three years after the finishing of this picture, from 1505 to 1508, Holbein was engaged on the wings of a large altar-piece for St. Moritz's Church in Augsburg, which have, unfortunately, disappeared; and on scenes from the Life of the Virgin for the Nun- nery in Oberschonefeld, which are now in Augsburg Gallery. In 1508 he painted for the Burgomaster of Augsburg, Ulrich Schwarz, a votive picture which shows, assembled below the enthroned God the Father bearing the sword, with whom Christ and the Virgin intercede, the Burgomaster, his three wives, seventeen sons and fourteen daughters. The divine personages look Hke ordinary human beings and are not of great beauty or dignity, but the kneeling family is a truly remark- able group of portraits. Each individual is given with perfect de- tachment and with well-marked individuality, yet the contours are soft and yielding, with none of the hardness and sharpness which is characteristic of so many of the portraits by the earlier German painters. That the elder Holbein possessed in large measure those gifts of the portrait painter which in his son amounted to genius, is felt in almost all his later pictures, but is most readily and fully appreciated if we look at the series of drawings of the monks of St. Ulrich 's in his sketch book in Basel, which were made about 1510. The modelling is perfect, the outlines yielding and without sharpness, the individual monks so wonderfully characterised that we know what were their tastes and habits of fife. Their over-fed bodies and sensual minds and hearts as here presented, would, in themselves, suggest the need of the Refor- mation which was so soon to voice loud its protests against such as these. We have no record of the artist's activities during the next two years, from 1510 to 1512. In the latter year he was again in Augs- burg and painted an altar for St. Catherine's Cloister representing 158 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART the Crucifixion of St. Peter, the Beheading of St. Catherine, the Virgin and St. Anna, and a scene from the Legends of St. Uhich. In these scenes, which are now in Augsburg Gallery, the master attains to perfect naturalism; the people represented are all definite persons and even the villains are no longer typical caricatures of Jews, but are burly German common soldiers. The full, mature forms of the Virgin and St. Anna are Venetian in type and the deep, rich colouring is also reminis- cent of the school of the Bellini. This development would lead us to infer that those two years of which no records remain were spent in Venice. Very slight, however, are the traces of Italian influence in the "Holy Night,'* in Donaueschingen Gallery, which bears, on the step between the two worshipping angels, the date 1514. The dress and pose of the youthful shepherd on the hill to the left, with the fluttering of the long plaid worn by his older companion are almost the only touches that suggest it. In the foreground the tiny Babe, in an aureole, is lying on a very high bundle of straw; the Virgin kneels in worship; behind her, Joseph, smiling happily on the Babe, holds a candle which he shelters with his hand from the wind; the ox stands placidly by; three angels with curious wings of long, separate feathers in all different colours, kneel in raptur- ous adoration; through a window two men look in upon the scene. Through a doorway in the background we see into another room in which are a woman with a lantern, and an aged man on his knees in prayer. The picture is very lovely and possesses a certain quality of rapture which is owing, in large measure, to the faith and self-forgetful devotion of the actors in the scene, though in part, also, to the glowing colouring. Venetian influence is quite strongly felt in Holbein's master- piece, the St. Sebastian Altar, which was painted for the Salvatorkirche in Augsburg in 1515 and 1516, and which is now in Munich Pinakothek. It represents, on the outside, the Annun- ciation; on the shrine, the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian; on the wings, St. Barbara and St. EHzabeth. The Annunciation is done in grey on grey, with the faces and some accessories lightly touched with colour. The Virgin HANS HOLBEIN THE ELDER 159 kneeling in prayer in a Renaissance room, is pictured as receiv- ing with much dignity, yet with humility, the message of the angel with the round cheeks, the short curly hair and the great, feathered wings which support him so that he seems to float, to hover above her, and does not, ever so lightly, touch the ground. The forms are full and softly modelled; although they are almost without colour, there is no suggestion of the sharp definiteness which makes the forms of some of the other German painters of the period seem like figures carved in wood. The picture on the shrine of the altar is less attractive. The nude form of the mature Saint Sebastian, with the sunken chest and thin limbs, is unbeautiful and weakly modelled. The heads of his execu- tioners and of the bystanders are, however, exceedingly lifelike and expressive. The Saints Barbara and Elizabeth, on the wings, are very lovely. They each stand in a richly ornamented Renaissance doorway, with, in the background, trees and a church. St. Elizabeth is sm*rounded by beggars at once beseeching and adoring. The two figures are statuesque in pose and regal in bearing; their faces bear some resemblance to the rounded type of the beautiful women in the Venetian pictures of the period, yet are entirely individual; their garments, fashioned according to the prevailing mode, fall in large simple folds; the hair-dressing, too, is after the fashion of the day, though both saints wear crowns and are invested with halos. The colouring is of great beauty. The flesh tones have lost the reddish cast they are so frequently given in the painter's earlier works, and have become fresh and natural; the rich, glowing, local colours are blended in harmony, golden in tone and so perfect as to bear comparison with the colour harmonies in the works of Holbein the Younger. The last years of the artist's Hfe seem to have been hard ones, full of financial troubles. We read that he travelled here and there in search of commissions, the course of his wanderings bringing him, among other places, to Isenheim, where was the masterpiece of Matthaiis Griinewald. But of creative work on his own part nothing more is heard. In 1524 his name appears in the lists in Augsburg among the deceased. 160 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Hans Holbein the Elder was not an artist of great depth of penetration but he observed closely, and did not fail to suggest the individual note in every personality. Of course, he exaggerated the hateful to make it convincing; but his feeling for beauty was quick and keen, and his pictures are pervaded with it and possessed of much dignity and charm, except occasionally when everything is sacrificed to the dramatic quality in a scene. His colouring, as we have seen, grew more and more harmonious as his art developed. It is indeed not such a far cry from the father Hans Holbein with his keen obser- vation, skilful characterisation, beautiful types and harmonious colouring, to the son Hans Holbein the Younger. CHAPTER XXII AUGSBURG HANS BURGKMAIR A CONTEMPORARY of the elder Hans Holbein in Augsburg from whose hand no works remain to us, was Toman Burgk- mair, whose son Hans, born in 1473, became one of the best known painters of the sixteenth century. His studies were doubt- less begun in his father's workshop, but he went, while still very young, to Colmar, to the great Schongauer. Souvenirs of his sojourn there are the beautiful portrait of his master in Munich Pinakothek, which was done, however, at a later date, when he had acquired more technical skill, and the portrait in Schleiss- heim Castle, dated 1490, of Gailer of Kaisersperg, who at that time was preaching in the neighbouring Strassburg. This por- trait, done when the painter was only seventeen years old, presents the famous preacher in half length against a blue-green back- ground, wearing a tightly fitting black coat and a high black cap. It is a record of his external appearance merely, is flat and hard and painfully exact, and gives no hint of his profound scholarship or devout enthusiasm. From Colmar, the young artist probably went on to Venice, and spent there the years until 1498, of which no record remains. In 1498 he became a citizen of Augsbm-g, where he married Anna AUerhahn. He died in 1531. Very shortly after his return to his native city he received from the nuns of St. Catherine's Cloister a commission to paint basilica pictures in that series upon which Hans Holbein the Elder and Master L. F. were already engaged. In 1501 he painted St. Peter enthroned in his Church, surrounded by fourteen Saints. In the arch is Christ in Gethsemane. The next year he painted "San Giovanni in Laterano," which presents, besides the basilica in the central picture, six scenes from the Life of St. John, with, in the arch, the Scourging of Christ. In 1504 he completed the series 161 162 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART with the basilica of Santa Croce, in which he introduced, in the arch, the Crucifixion, in the central section, the church, on the sides, the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Virgins. The architec- ture in all three pictures possesses many Italian features; the forms are full and rounded, and in the Passion scenes the suffering is not permitted to be so real as to mar the beauty of face and form. In the earlier picture, the garments are painstakingly dis- posed while in those painted last they hang freely in large graceful folds. The colouring is unpleasantly heavy, even the shadows on the faces being dark brown in tone; gold is lavishly used in crowns, halos and garments with rather garish effect. After finishing the work for the cloister, Burgkmair painted, in 1505, the two panels, now in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, one of which presents St. Christopher carrying the Christ Child, ac- companied by St. Vitus; the other, St. Sebastian, over whose nude body a mantle has been lightly thrown, and the Emperor Constantine who wears, over his black and gold armour, a hand- some green mantle trimmed with ermine. On his head is a jewelled crown, in his hands he bears a sword and sceptre. The two stand in a Renaissance hall across which, behind them, three angels hold, breast-high, a gold-embroidered drapery. The landscape in the background and the late-Italian angel hovering overhead are recent additions. The form of St. Sebastian is refined and beautiful and his attitude one of great alertness; Constantine has nothing of the imperial about him; he is neither imposing in appearance nor commanding in bearing, but gives rather the effect of an Augsburg burgher dressed in gorgeous regaUa. An impression is given here which we frequently receive from Burgkmair's people; they are beautifully modelled, with pli- able lines and rounded contours, but what we might call fundamental construction is lacking in most of them; they seem to be modelled on the outside only and to have no firm, unyielding, inner structure back of their softly rounded curves. Nor is this a merely physical pecuharity; it is a quality which affects them mind and soul, so that, though they be represented as being, believing or feeling a cer- tain thing, we seldom fail to question their genuiness, to suspect that they are just robed and posed for their parts. Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg HANS BURGKMAIR Group of Saints (Detail) royal gallery, augsburg Photograph by Fntd. HoiJU-, Aiajshuiy HANS BURGKM AIR Virgin and Child germanic museum, nuremberg HANS BURGKMAIR 163 Thus in the "Coronation of the Virgin," which was painted in 1507, and is now in Augsburg Gallery, the Christ is so weak and unimpressive in form and attitude that we are not impressed with the joyous solemnity of the occasion, or with the sympa- thetic tenderness of the Divine Son, which the artist seeks to convey through the sentimental expression of the face and the pose of the head, which is crowned with the crown of thorns as well as the kingly crown. Through the windows in the back of the throne we see countless angels. In the background the sky is cloudy and troubled — an effect which the artist has sought simply for its own sake and which is out of place and disquiet- ing. On the wings is a singularly archaic arrangement of saints and prophets, in three rows, one above the other. From 1509 dates one of the artist's most beautiful pictures, the "Madonna in a Landscape," in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. The Virgin, a tall, graceful woman in a red robe with blue mantle lined with green, a white veil over her head, is sitting on a richly decor- ated, high-backed, marble seat, all beautiful with climbing vines and many-coloured flowers and Httle birds. On her lap is an open book; at her knee stands the Holy Child holding a pomegranate. In the background is a hilly landscape with many trees and a castle. This Virgin is one of the most charming of all Burgkmair's conceptions. Lovely in face and form, her beautifully coloured robes falling in natural and graceful folds about her, she sits, devoid of all self- consciousness, happily dreaming. The child is quite naively done from life, and is frankly bow-legged. In the colouring the painter has gotten away from the heavy, brown tone of his earlier works to a rich, deep harmony like that of the early Venetians. A second Madonna picture which possesses much beauty was painted in the following year and is also in the Germanic Museum. The Virgin, wearing the same robes as in the foregoing, is seated in a landscape, in front of a fence of braided withes, over which is thrown a Persian rug, and holds on her knee the Child, to whom she is offering a bunch of grapes plucked from the vine beside them. To the next year, 1511, belongs a third picture in this vein, the " Holy Family," in Berlin Gallery. Here the Virgin, of fuller, rounder 164 GERIViAN MASTERS OF ART face and form, like the Madonnas of Jacopo de' Barbari, is seated in a loggia, and Joseph, a young man of pronounced Italian type with brown, curling hair and beard, is endeavouring to attract the Child's attention with a bunch of grapes. To the left stretches a landscape with a stream and many trees on which the sunlight is shining as it does on the forest in Altdorfer's St. George, and the large tree in the middle distance is encircled by a cloud full of cherubs, a motif which cannot fail to recall the ring of angels in the Ratisbon master's "Birth of the Virgin." By this time the attention of the Emperor Maximilian was attracted to the Augsburg painter, whom, in 1510, he commissioned to work on the illustrations for the Imperial Genealogy. These com- pleted, he went on to make drawings for other artistic undertakings of the Emperor; for that history, in woodcuts, of his life and deeds, which was called the "White King" (Weisskunig) ; for the "Tri- umphal Procession" and the "Austrian Saints." These plates are, for the most part, so crowded with jfigures and with ornamenta- tion that it is quite difficult to find the real theme. The year 1515 found him, with so many other artists, engaged on the illustra- tions for the Emperor's Prayerbook. His part in this work seems to have been small, however, as only the "Triumph of Love," in the Besangon fragment, and possibly the "Hermit's Vision" and "Man riding an Elephant" are from his hand. Meanwhile commissions of an entirely different character occupied him in Augsburg. In 1514, according to Sandrart, "this Burgkmair painted very artistically a corner house in Count Fugger's dwelling, on the Wine Market in Augsburg, and also a house opposite St. Anna's Church, where he painted on the wall with much clever- ness and skill, artisans, distinct individuals, and so perfect in colour that in spite of the fact that they have been exposed to wind, rain and sun and other disturbances of the weather, in so many years, they have hardly lost or faded at all." But the frescoes on the Fugger house have now disappeared from view, while the remains of the groups of peasants, warriors, and merchants on the house opposite St. Anna's Church have been thoroughly restored. A year later, in 1515, he painted frescoes in the Damenhof of the Fugger residence, representing scenes from the life of the Emperor Maximilian simi- HANS BURGKMAIR 165 lar to those in the "Triumphal Procession" and framed with ornamental garlands in the Italian Renaissance manner. To 1518 belongs one of the artist's greatest works, an altar-piece, of which the wings, which present, in full length, the standing figures of Saints Erasmus and Nicholas, are in Schleissheim, while the central section, representing St. John on Patmos, is in Munich Pinakothek. St. John is pictured sitting under a palm tree writing his book. All about him the tropical vegetation is most luxuriant, flowers bloom and fruits ripen, and many small animals and birds enliven the scene. In the background is the sea on whose shore are tall moimtain peaks. Suddenly a brilUant, many-coloured light has burst through the clouds and John, startled, has turned to behold, in the heart of the light, the Virgin, Queen of Heaven. The effect of the supernatural is wonderfully conveyed by the light, handled, as it is, in a way which cannot fail to recall Altdorfer, and which is of much beauty. Yet the representation falls short of being profoundly impressive because the painter fails to lose himself in it. His manifest con- sciousness of the many accessories and of the technical achieve- ments in lighting and atmospheric quality intensifies our conscious- ness in turn, puts us outside the picture, so to speak, so that instead of being absorbed we become critical. Whereupon we find that the sky is soHd rather than vaporous, that the clouds which should be all glory are muddy and streaked here and there with black, and an uneasy uncertainty mounts within us as to whether the scene is wholly ecstatic — a disquiet which is further heightened by the saint's expresssion, which reveals interest, even anxiety, but no rapture. The painter was indeed so greatly concerned, so nervously anxious, over the details of the setting and the technical problem of the Hghting, that they acquired more importance in his estimation than the emotional content of the picture. The next year Burgkmair painted for St. Catherine's Cloister the large altar with the Crucifixion as its subject, which has now been taken from Augsburg to Munich Pinakothek. On the outside are presented St. George and St. Paul. In the central section is the high cross on which hangs the Christ, a slender form, with hands and arms and feet painfully distorted, with the body and face all blood- 166 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART stained but not contorted or unbeautiful to look upon. To the right of the cross stands John, with both hands raised as if in protest and horror at the scene; to the left, the Virgin in the dress of the period, and wearing a white headdress, her hands folded, her features swollen with weeping. Mary Magdalen, in handsome, brocaded robe with plain mantle, is clinging to the foot of the cross. In the middle distance is the city of Jerusalem, in a landscape with snow-capped mountains in the background. Overhead, the sky is intensely blue, with unquiet clouds, one of which, just above the cross, casts its dark shadow over the face of the Christ. On the right wing is the cross of the good thief, beside which stands St. Lazarus, dressed very simply in the fashion of the time, his hands folded as he leans forward and looks up, wondering and adoring. On the left wing the unrepentant thief is seen in profile; at the foot of his cross, disregarding it and facing the spectator, stands St. Martha. Groves of trees almost fill the background in these two pictures. The sky above the cross of the repentant male- factor is filled with light, in which an angel is seen bearing his spirit- ual body heavenward; above the other's cross all is black dark- ness, in which is dimly discernible a devil carrying off his unhappy soul. The atmosphere in all three pictures is calculated to reflect the supreme tragedy being enacted and to impress us with its horror. But again there comes to us that sense of unreality which, for all his technical skill and beauty of types and of colouring, prevents Burgkmair from taking rank among the very greatest painters. These people are not capable of really deep feeling, of passion- ate faith, love or grief; they are merely assuming the poses that ought to express those emotions. They are not theatrical, affected or even excessively self-conscious; they are simply not spontaneous. Thus scenes like this of the Crucifixion do not give the impression of reality, but rather one akin to that gained from a tableau in which those taking part have been trained to assume, with some grace, appropriate attitudes and expressions. A new patron engaged the artist's activities in 1529, when Duke Wilhelm IV commissioned him to paint for his series of HANS BURGKMAIR 167 battle scenes the picture of the Battle of Canna, now in Augsburg Gallery. It is nothing more than a Hteral historical picture, done in a heavy brown tone, without atmosphere or charm. In this year he also painted the double portrait of himself and his wife, which is in Vienna Gallery. Frau Burgkmair, who has strong features and rather thin, wavy hair that falls about her shoulders, is holding a mirror, out of which look two death's heads. Beside her stands the artist, with round, clean-shaven face; his keen glance is directed toward the spectator and, with his outstretched hand, seems to direct attention to the lugubrious inscription above: "Such a form we both have, but a mirror has nothing but this!" Two years later, in 1531, the artist died. Hans Burgkmair, like the other artists of the Swabian School, is pre-eminently a story teller. He is no revealer of men's souls or of the inner springs of their actions. When he tells a simple story or presents a happy scene from the home hfe of the Holy Family, his beautiful types and a gift of colour approaching that of the Venetians make the pictures of rare beauty. But, on the other hand, when he attempts to give us a glimpse of the deepest emotions known to the hearts of men, he fails to be convincing in spite of his command of revelatory and dramatic effects in light- ing; the attitudes of his actors seem studied, their poses acquired, even their physical presences unreal. CHAPTER XXIII AUGSBURG MINOR ARTISTS Sigmund Holbein — Ambrosius Holbein — Gumpold Giltlnger — ^Leo Frass — Hans Burgkmair the Younger — Jorg Breu — Ulrich Apt — ^Leonhard Beck — Christoph Amberger — Christoph Schwartz BESIDES the greatly gifted artists Hans Holbein the Elder and Hans Burgkmair, and the genius, Hans Holbein the Younger, almost all of whose active life as a painter was spent away from his home city, there were in Augsburg in the closing years of the fifteenth, and throughout the sixteenth cen- tury, many painters of lesser talent, whose works claim our interest and consideration. Among them were two other members of the Holbein family, Sigmund, a brother, and Ambrosius a son of the elder Hans. The only picture by Sigmund which has been identified is a very at- tractive "Madonna and Child with Angels," in the Germanic Mus- eum, which is signed "S. Holbain." In composition and spirit it resembles closely the Madonna pictures of Hans Holbein the Elder, while in types and colouring it reveals, in a marked degree, the influence of Zeitblom. The last years of Sigmund Holbein's life were spent in Bern, where he evidently accumulated some wealth, as, upon his death in 1540, he left a considerable legacy to his nephew Hans. His other nephew, Ambrosius, son of Hans the Elder, went to Basel with his brother in 1515, and two years later became a member of the Guild there. The year following he was admitted to citizenship, but must have died young, for after that date nothing more is recorded about him. In Basel Kunstsammlung is his "Christ as Mediator" in which the Christ is copied from the title page of Diirer's large woodcut Passion. Two portraits of boys attributed to him are well drawn and lifelike — are indeed very similar to the works of the younger Hans Holbein from the same period. To Ambrosius is now at- 168 MINOR ARTISTS 169 tributed the portrait of the Swiss painter Hans Herbst, or Herb- ster, painted in 1516, which was formerly ascribed to his younger brother, and also the portrait of his friend the goldsmith Georg Schweiger, and that of "A Young Man," dated 1518, in the Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg. In Basel Kunstsammlung are, further, from his hand, two "Death's Heads" behind a window grat- ing, and several drawings for portraits and for glass windows. A contemporary of the elder Holbein who received important commissions in Augsburg was Gumpold Giltinger. We read that he was engaged from 1481 to 1484 on a great altar for the Frauen- kirche, which has, unfortunately, disappeared. In the Louvre is a signed " Adoration of the Kings," and in Augsburg Gallery a pic- ture with the same subject which is attributed to him, and in which the second king, bearing the um, is identified with Anton Fugger, of the princely Augsburg family. The paintings on the shutters of the smaller organ in St. Anna's Church are also gen- erally accepted as his work. Judging by the few pictures that remain, Giltinger was an artist of little distinction. The scenes are crowded, the expressions of the people vacant or affected, the colours brilliant and inharmonious. A painter who, in 1502, worked at the same time as Holbein on the basilica pictures for St. Catherine's Cloister, signed his pictures with the initials L. F. This was possibly Leo Frass, whose name ap- pears on the city list of painters in 1499; or it may have been that Laux Frelich who, in 1440, was introduced to the Guild by Gumpold Giltinger as one of his pupils. He unites in his picture for St. Catherine's Cloister the two basilicas of San Lorenzo and San Sebastiano. Standing beside them, are their titular saints, St. Lawrence bearing his grill and a palm branch, St. Sebastian holding an arrow. In the central section is pictured the Martyr- dom of St. Stephen; on the sides are four incidents connected with the finding of the cross by St. Helena; on the arch above is the Judas Kiss. The men are large-framed and coarse, the women bony and unattractive; the colouring is dark, and gold is very lavishly used. A son of Hans Burgkmair, Hans the Younger, followed his father's profession but devoted himself for the most part to that 170 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART branch of it which has to do with book illustration. Of his paint- ings, the most important is the " Christ in Hades *' which was done in 1534 for St. Anna's Church in Augsburg, and in which an evident endeavour to imitate the later Venetian painters results in Italian types, distressing movement, unsettled and disquieting colouring. Very similar in style are the Assumption of Christ and the Virgin on the shutters of the larger organ in the same church, which are also attributed to him. His chief work as an illuminator is to be found in the third section of the "Book of Jousts" (Turnierbuch) in the Library of Sigmaringen Castle, on the pages representing the tournaments which were held in the Wine Market in Augsburg on the occasion of the Marriage of Catherine Fugger to Count Wundfort, in 1553. Mentioned in the records from 1501 to 1536 is Jorg Breu (Brew or Prew) from whose hand, however, few works remain. The most interesting, in Berlin Gallery, shows, in a rolling landscape, between two graceful, slender trees, a Madonna, of girlish type, her draperies falling in broad folds similar to those in the pictures by the elder Burgkmair, and a chubby, nude Child who is standing on her knee with one arm around her neck. Overhead, two small angels are flying swiftly toward them, bearing a crown. Beside her sit the youthful saints, Barbara and Catherine, handsomely robed in cos- tumes of the period and wearing crowns. On the ground at their feet are seven winged cherubs, who are singing enthusiastically from scrolls which intimate, moreover, that they are the seven cardinal virtues. The types are refined, the forms, though youth- ful, are full, the faces round, the expressions, though serious and absorbed, are very childlike. The colouring is like the elder Burgkmair' s. Jorg Breu's son, the younger Jorg, became a Master in the Guild in Augsburg in 1534 and died there in 1547. He was one of the painters engaged upon Duke Wilhelm IV's series of battle scenes, in which he painted the Battle of Zama, at the moment of the victory of Scipio Africanus over Hannibal. His most important work is the St. Ursula Altar in Dresden Gallery, which pictures the martyrdom of the saint, with, on the outer sides of the wings, the standing figures of St. Ursula and St. George. Photograph by Hoflinger, Basel AMBROSIUS HOLBEIN Portrait of Hans Herbst, the Swiss Painter oeffentliche kunstsammlung, basel Photograph by the Berlin Photographic Society CHRISTOPH AMBERGER Portrait of Sebastian Munster, the Cosmographeb kaiser friedhich museum, berlin MINOR ARTISTS 171 A painter who developed under the influence of the elder Burg- kmair was Ulrich Apt the Elder, who was a Master in the Guild in Augsburg in 1486 and died there in 1532. His chief work, a trip- tych which was painted in 1517 for the Dominican Church and is now in Augsburg Gallery, presents, on the shrine, the Cruci- fixion, on the wings, in profile, the crosses of the two thieves. Over the cross hangs a cloud out of which come angels with variously coloured robes and wings, bearing chaUces in which to treasure the precious blood. Over the cross of the good thief an angel hovers to bring him strength and comfort, while a hideous devil is seizing the soul of the unrepentant evildoer on the other cross. On the outer sides of the wings is the Annunciation, which is done in grey on grey, except that the hair is reddish and the cheeks are faintly coloured. The types on this altar are round faced, wholesome-looking and pleasing, the draperies soft and graceful. The landscape backgrounds, the trees and vines recall Altdorfer, to whom, indeed, this altar-piece was at- tributed previous to the discovery of the artist's signature A. P. T. on the bridle of one of the donkeys in the central picture. A contemporary of the younger Burgkmair who became a Master in Augsburg in 1503 and who died there in 1542, was Leonhard Beck. He is known chiefly from his drawings for woodcuts for the series planned by Emperor Maximilian, which reveal him as a simple, naive story teller with a fine sense of the decorative. His painting of St. George and the Dragon, in Vienna Gallery, presents a very youthful saint, clad in finely chased, shining armour, with waving plumes in his helmet, and riding a richly caparisoned steed. He has dashed over the ground strewn with the bones of the monster's victims, and has driven his sword into the venomous dragon, which has fallen over on its back, wounded to the death. On a hillock close at hand is the sedate and quite mature-looking princess, in beauti- ful robes, and on another little hillock Her lamb, whose tether she holds. In the middle distance we see the end of the story. Out of a break in the rustic fence the princess is walking de- murely, leading the wounded dragon, while her stately knight brings up the rear of the procession. Beautiful trees and high 172 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART rocks fill the middle distance, except for a wide opening to the left through which a view is given of meadows closed in by mountains in the background. The story is told with the literal- ness and simple faith of a Carpaccio, the many details are done with exquisite care and the whole picture is unusually decora- tive in effect. To the second half of the XVI century belonged Christoph Amberger, who was born about 1500, arrived at the dignity of Master in the Guild in 1530, and died before October 1552. Of his studies nothing is definitely known, but the influence of the later Italian painters is very marked in almost all his works. His masterpiece of religious painting, in the choir of Augsburg Cathedral — signed C. A. and dated 1534 — presents, in the middle section, a Madonna of Venetian type, holding the Child, whom music-making angels adore. In the arch above is the Trinity; on the wings are St. Ulrich and St. Afra, the latter resembling quite closely Raphael's St. Cecilia; on the base are half-length figures of seven saints. The costumes, attitudes and colouring reflect the influence of such an Italian master as Paul Veronese. Amberger's fame as a portrait painter is much greater than as a painter of religious pictures. His figures are firmly modelled and quite imposing; the details are given with care yet with con- siderable breadth; the materials are well rendered; the flesh tones are clear and fair. His people generally give an impression of great lifelikeness, though their eyes are sometimes rather staring. Most beautiful of all his portraits is that of Herr von Rieta in Sigmaringen Castle.* It presents, against a green curtain, a young man in a green, brocaded mantle, with white chemisette, wearing a black hat, and holding in his hand a carnation. On his sword hilt is the inscription — "I was 22 years old and loved joy," and on a pendant is the commentary — "He suffered no lack." The lifelikeness and distinction of the head, with the rich, yet subdued and harmonious colouring, make the portrait one of rare beauty. Three years later the artist's fame as a portrait painter had become so great that he was summoned, in 1532, to paint the * Some critics now attribute this portrait to Hans Baldung Grun. MINOR ARTISTS 173 portrait of the Emperor Charles V, now in Berlin Gallery, which His Imperial Highness valued so greatly that he gave the artist three times the price agreed upon and presented him, besides, with a golden chain. An artist who was strongly influenced by the late Italian painters was Christoph Schwartz, who continued to work almost into the XVII century, or from 1550 to 1597. The types in his religious pictures are rather weak, the colouring heavy, with black shadows. Such portraits as those in the group of members of his own family, in Munich Pinakotek, give an impression of life- likeness, but lack inspiration. CHAPTER XXIV AUGSBURG— BASEL HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER TIE greatest painter of the Swabian School, as also one of the chief glories of German art, was Hans Holbein the Younger, son of that older Hans Holbein who won great fame as a painter in Augsburg. We know him as a small boy from the baptismal scene in the picture of St. Paul's Basilica which his father painted for the nuns of St. Catherine's Cloister, in which he introduced himself and his two young sons, Hans and Ambrosius, as interested witnesses. Hans is a round-faced, meditative lad, with short, rumpled hair, who, standing behind the officiating priest appears to observe everything very closely and to let nothing escape him. Even in this early picture features and expression are very much like the Basel coloured portrait-drawing of the artist in a red cap, which was drawn in 1526. He evidently began early to study with his father, for the "Madonna and Child" in Basel Gallery was painted in 1514. when he was but seventeen years old. It presents the holy pair enthroned in a Renaissance loggia, surrounded by small, hovering angels who fill the air with music or who sadly bear the instruments of the Christ's future sufferings. As might be expected, the drawing is uncertain and hard, but the work is not at all dry; the forms are surprisingly well modelled and the colouring is warm and sunny. To the next year, 1515, belongs the "Cross Bearing," in Carlsruhe Gallery, which is, in general, so similar to his father's various pic- tures of the same subject, that some historians hold it for a joint work of father and son. The picture is so crowded with soldiers, sympathisers and spectators, and so full of movement, that the effect is most disturbing. Here and there the young Holbein's gifts of close observation and of natural and beautiful rendering of materials are revealed in such a figure as that of the centurion who, though his horse is wooden, is so distinguished in bearing 174 HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 175 and so stately in his shining armour that he attracts and holds our attention, or that of the Lanzknecht with the long, tossing plumes in his cap — a type upon which, doubtless, the elder Holbein looked unsympathetically, if not scornfully, as representing a rough and lawless element, while his son, of the younger genera- tion, found them romantic "Robin Hoods," coarse, perhaps, but jolly dare-devils, who wore jaunty and picturesque costumes, whose moods readily expressed themselves in face and gesture, and who, therefore, were grateful subjects for the painter. Then the young artist and his brother Ambrosius set out upon their Wanderjahre, but they seem to have settled down at once in Basel where Hans found immediate employment with the great publisher Froben — or Frobenius — who commissioned him to make the drawings for the illustrations for Erasmus's "Praise of Folly,"* which was then in press. The illustrations are very simple and without any ornamentation whatever, but they are full of life and oftentimes very diverting — especially the travesties of familiar scenes from classical mythology. Commissions to paint came to him too. The first of these, a table top for the Baer family, is done in the same spirit as the illustrations for the "Praise of Folly" and the representations of sporting scenes and various other social diversions reflect ironically the frivolities of the age. On its completion in 1516 he received from Baer's brother-in-law, the Burgomaster Jacob Meyer, a commission to paint the portraits of himself and his second wife, Dorothea Kannegiesser, which are now in the Kunstsammlung in Basel. The face of the Burgomaster reveals energy, deliberation and sound judgment; his wife's is plain but attractive in the kindliness of its expression. The colouring is not yet that of his later portraits, but is like his father's last works, warm brown in tone. In the same year the painter did a sign for a school in Basel which shows, on one side, a schoohoom in which boys and girls are receiving instruction from the schoolmaster and his wife, on the other, two grown lads whom the schoolmaster is teaching to write — two pictures of so obvious meaning as to render really unnecessary the inscription which invites not only children but adults to enter learning's portals. The work is done broadly, on *Myconicus's copy of the "Enconium Moriae" is in Basel Kunstsammlung. 176 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART close inspection it seems even carelessly, but it must be borne in mind that this was a sign to be hung out of doors and not to be examined at close range. The painting of this sign is fre- quently referred to as though it were an indignity that the artist should have had to do such a thing. Undoubtedly he was in pressing need of money; but it must be remembered that the painters of coats-of-arms, emblems and signs were at this time all artists of standing and members of the Painters' Guild. Mere studies from models are the "Adam" and "Eve" in Basel Gallery, which were painted in 1517, before Holbein left for Lucerne, where he was to paint the facade of Jacob Hertenstein's house and a room in the interior. Unfortunately the house has been destroyed, but copies of the paintings which remain in Lucerne Library, and in Basel Kunstsammlung, give us an idea of the subjects and the skilful distribution of the space in which they were presented. On the first storey of the exterior, he painted groups of allegorical figures, on the second a Roman Triumphal Procession of the character of Mantegna's "Triumph of Julius Caesar" in Hampton Court. In the interior, he pictured scenes from the hunt and from other occupations of patrician life. This early opportunity to do work on a large scale was doubtless of great advantage to the artist, in helping him to avoid hardness and painful minuteness and to acquire greater breadth of style. After an absence of two years, we find him again in Basel in 1519, a member of the Guild, and engaged upon the portrait of Boniface Amerbach, the heir of Erasmus and the art con- noisseur whose collection forms the largest and most valuable part of the present Kunstsammlung in Basel. The portrait presents, in profile, a young man with regular features, pene- trating but kindly blue eyes, abundant and rather long hair partly covered by a cap, fine mouth and short, curly beard; beside him is a tree trunk on which hangs a descriptive inscription. The personal appearance and expression are most lifelike, the colouring refined and attractive. But, more than this, the whole picture, with its blue sky and big tree trunk possesses a poetic quality which lifts it above the mere record HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 177 of a physical presence. It is the first intiniatioii of the artist's '^ supreme gift, which was to be revealed more fully in those later portraits in which the pure beauty caught in material things, the texture of the skin, hair and beard, the shimmer or the lustre of lawn, silk and fur, the glow of brass, the transparency of glass and water, the dewiness of a flower, the exquisite depth and luminosity of colours melting into one another in perfect harmony, has the effect on the senses of an intoxicating perfume, a strain of enchanting music. Holbein appears now to have decided to settle definitely in Basel, for the next year, 1520, he became a citizen and mar- ried a wife. Many commissions similar to the one he had filled in Lucerne came to him, of which we can learn now only from the drawings, which show that he created in the space to be filled, remarkable illusions of elaborate and beautiful architectural constructions, in which settings he painted scenes from history and from daily life. Evidently his reputation was already firmly estabhshed, for he was chosen by the City Council to decorate the walls of its Council Chamber with frescoes illustrating the judgments of great judges, tales of whose self-sacrificing devotion to justice have been handed down in history and legend. These frescoes have unfortunately perished. But with all his work on portraits and allegorical and histor- ical subjects, Holbein did not cease to paint pictures with religious subjects. To these early years in Basel belong two series of scenes from the Passion. The first cycle, which is superficially painted, was probably done hastily " for purposes of temporary decoration, as for a church in Passion Week, or to take the place of a Passion Play. "The Last Supper," and "The Scourging," in this series, were each catalogued by Amerbach "one of H. Holbein's earliest works." The eight pictures in the second series were painted in the years 1520 and 1521 and are done in the manner of the "Cross Bearing," of 1515. The "Crucifixion" intro- duces a particularly beautiful figure in the mourning woman, to the left in the foreground, whose bearing in her grief is so nobly restrained. The "Entombment" is uncompromising in its realism; the face of the Christ bears all the traces of his recent agony; 178 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART all beauty is sacrificed to the convincing presentation of suffering. Still more realistic is the "Christ in the Grave," in which the slender, finely modelled body lies rigid on a bier, the muscles still twisted, the wounds swollen, the eyes staring, the mouth open, every feature, every moment of his suffering mercilessly impressed on us. In two of the scenes a new influence is marked, that of Matthaus Griinewald, and as we stand before the snow-capped mountains in the "Bearing the Cross," or are made to realise the supernatural by the mysterious, weird light shed upon Christ and the disciples by the luminous angel hovering over them in the " Garden of Gethsemane," we recall that Holbein the Elder visited Isenheim in those last hard years of his earthly pilgrimage, and are convinced that the younger Hans did not fail to follow in his footsteps and see for himself the great altar there. Again we feel that influence in the " Holy Night " and " Adoration of the Kings," in the University Chapel in Freiburg Cathedral, whither they were brought from Basel after the Reformation. As in Baldung Griin's altar in the same Cathedral, the Child radiates a light which illumines all about him, and angels fill the sky with brightness and colour. Griinewald' s influence on the young painter was not confined to colour and light, however, but makes itself felt- from this time forth in a greater fullness of form and softness of contour, in a forsaking of the fine, careful, "goldsmith's" manner of so many of the German artists, for the method of the painter who thinks in colour and models in light and shade. From this period date the shutters for the organ in Basel Cathedral — now in the Kunstsammlung — on which are painted in brown on brown, so that they are like beautiful statues carved in wood. Emperor Henry H, bearing a model of the Cathedral, Empress Kunigunde in the pose she assumes on so many Gothic portals, the Virgin as a stately, gracious, compassionate Mater Misericordia, St. Pantalus and music-making angels. Meanwhile Erasmus had come to Basel and was living with his publisher Froben. Naturally he became acquainted with the artist, the friend of Froben and illustrator of his "Praise of Folly." ^ m ii -<^*'"^ ; r- 1 ^, - -; k. 1 f ^ '\n h ' s (. / v. r ■ f 1 1 ; i < H^^fti V^l ■ II^K ^'^l^H 1 f-i H^V ^^VlH ^ H^Bk^ '^ iM !■ ( m • w 1 m 1 :! ^^ 5 5 O H Z CO -< s S s p -I ° Q OB z i^; pq « is H a o ^ HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 179 That their intercourse was constant is evident from three portraits Holbein painted in 1523, in which the great scholar, the keen thinker, the ironical critic of men and manners is made to live before our very eyes. The portrait in Longford Castle presents him in front of a green curtain and book shelves; he wears a fur-trimmed coat and a Doctor's cap. In the Louvre portrait we see him, again with a green curtain as background, writing at his desk; the hands are slender and finely veined, a vestige of a smile plays about the thin lips. The Basel portrait, which is painted on paper, is quite similar to the one in the Louvre, but the green curtain is plain while in the Louvre picture it is flowered. A fourth portrait, in Carlsruhe, is a replica of the one in Basel. From 1526 date the two half-length portraits of Dorothea Offenburg of Basel, which are now in the Kunstsammlung there. In the one she appears as Lais Corinthiaca, in a rich costume of the period; in the other, in a very similar robe, as Venus, with, beside her, a little Amour with an arrow. The exquisite rendering of the materials in the garments and the rich colouring lend these pictures a beauty which is not in the subject. In the same year the artist finished his masterpiece of religious painting, the "Madonna of the Meyer Family," now in the Castle in Darmstadt,* for one of his first patrons, Jacob Meyer, who was, how- ever, no longer Burgomaster of Basel, probably for the reason that he belonged to the Roman Catholic minority in the Ref- ormation movement. The picture presents the Virgin, wearing a deep blue robe with a red girdle, her pale green mantle thrown back so that the dignity of the form, the calm restfulness of the pose shall be revealed, standing in a shell-like niche, holding the Babe who leans his head on one little hand against her breast, while he extends the other to bless the kneeling family. The Virgin is of considerable beauty of feature, but her greatest charms are her noble serenity and the gentleness, tenderness and bene- ficence of her expression. To the right, kneel the women of Meyer's family; to the left, Jacob Meyer himself, in a fur- trimmed mantle, stalwart, sincere, earnest and devout; in front of him his son, a graceful youth whose arms are around a small, nude, baby * An excellent old copy is in Dresden Gallery. 180 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART brother, lovely as a little cupid, who seems barely old enough to learn to walk. The picture has none of the stiffness common to votive pictures, but might be a free though exalted rendering of a family at prayer. The harmony of the deep, clear, glowing colours, so perfectly blended in the cool lighting of the closed room, is of marvellous beauty. When he had finished this Madonna picture, Holbein decided upon a visit to England, moved thereto, doubtless, by Erasmus's descriptions of the brilliant life at the court of a king who was an interested and generous patron of arts and letters. He set forth, therefore, armed with a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Petrus Aegidius in Antwerp asking him to introduce the German to Quentin Massys, then the greatest artist in the Netherlands, and one to his particular friend in England, Sir Thomas More, who received the artist as his guest and of whom he painted the first portrait done by him in England. It presents the statesman and scholar, in life size, half length, one hand resting in the other and lightly holding a paper. The face is strong, the gaze of the large, brown eyes direct and honest, the whole attitude of body and mind honour- able and distinguished. A second portrait, and perhaps the best of all those done during this visit to England, is that one of Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, at seventy-one years of age, which still hangs in Lambeth Palace. It presents him in his robes, a white cotta over a scarlet cassock, and about his throat a great fur collar. The face is long and thin, the firm lips are tightly set, the eyes, rather sunken, look thoughtfully into the distance. It is a face that speaks of strength, decision and scholarship, as the attitude reveals dignity and authority. Nor were the Germans in London unmindful of the presence of their great countryman. From 1528 dates the portrait of the astronomer Nicholas Kratzer of Munich, a homely man with a very large nose and small bright eyes, who is characterised as determined and persistent. In this year Holbein returned to Basel, to his family and friends, leaving in England not only these finished pictures but many draw- ings for portraits which are now in Windsor Castle. HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 181 Upon his return to Basel the City Council commissioned him to paint on the remaining wall of the Council Chamber, two scenes from the Old Testament, "Rehoboam Threatening the Elders of Israel" and "Samuel Reproving Saul with the Message from Jeho- vah, 'Obedience is better than Sacrifice."* These frescoes, too, have disappeared but the drawings in Basel Kunstsammlung permit us to know the composition of the pictures. In the former, Rehoboam sits enthroned in a Renaissance hall; behind a balustrade are the Elders toward whom the King leans with clenched fist, uttering his threat with great vigour and passion. In the background the ten tribes are crowning Jeroboam King. It is a finely unified historical picture. The other scene shows Samuel, a mighty prophet form, advancing across a plain to meet Saul, who is approaching with a great army. Unity is lacking in the picture owing to the absence of any central point of compelling interest, and the impressiveness of the figure of Samuel sinks into insignificance beside the army opposed to it in the composition. During this stay in Basel the artist painted the portrait of his wife and two children which is in the Kunstsammlung there. Frau Holbein's features are not beautiful, and the eyelids are strangely reddened as if by weeping, but the strength and repose in her personality are attractive and there is an appealing touch in the motherly tenderness with which she holds her little daughter tightly in her left arm, while her right hand rests on the shoulder of the handsome little son who stands beside her. To this sojourn we also owe the miniature of Melanchthon, in Hanover Museum, and the portraits of Erasmus in Parma and in Basel, which were probably done from former studies, however, as Erasmus was not in Basel at this time, but had gone to Freiburg to escape the agitation of the Reformation, which, in Basel, was assum- ing almost the character of a revolution. Nor was it an atmos- phere in which a painter could work. Men were, in the main, too much occupied with the burning questions of the day to sit for portraits, and religious representations were held in abhorrence as idolatrous. Holbein decided to flee from it to England, where in 1529, his friend Sir Thomas More had succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as Lord High Chancellor. But by the time he reached London, 182 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART in 1532, More had fallen into disfavour and could do nothing for him at court. The artist's coming was welcomed, however, by the German merchants of the Steelyard, who at oiice accorded him an enthusiastic patronage, so that, before the close of the year, he painted portraits of three members of that circle — those of Hans of Ant- werp, the Goldsmith, in Windsor Castle; "A Young Man, aged 29," in Vienna; and Georg Gisze from Danzig, in Berlin Gallery. The Gisze portrait is a masterpiece. It presents the handsome young merchant wearing a black cap which partly covers his thick brown hair, a coat of red silk over a chemisette of fine white lawn, a black cloak and large collar of black fur. He is seated at a table in his counting house and in the act of opening a letter, when, as if addressed, he has paused and raised his eyes to the spec- tator. On the table with the Persian cover are writing materials, a clock and a Venetian glass vase with carnations; on the walls of the room are a brass twine holder, keys, scales, letters, and on a shelf, a large book in leather binding. The vase and flowers, the brasses, the table cover and all the other still-life details are done with exquisite fineness and create such a beautiful colour har- mony in the soft, indoor light, that this corner of the room would make, in itself, a picture of rare loveliness. Yet these details are not given pre-eminence, and their beauties only come to our atten- tion as accessories to the lifelike central figure, so youthful, so soft in contour and fresh in colouring, yet so serious and so dignified in bearing. The next year the artist was called upon to design for the Steelyard merchants a reviewing stand for the festivities on the occasion of the coronation of Anne Boleyn. From the drawing, in the Weigel Collection, Leipsic, we learn that it was conceived as a Triumphal Arch, with a fountain at the top. In the centre, on a mountain, as it were, sits Apollo; at his feet is Calliope and on either side are four muses. The merchants then commissioned him to decorate the walls of their "Gold Hall" with scenes setting forth the "Triumph of Riches" and the "Triumph of Poverty." The sketches, in the Louvre, show that these were allegorical pictures similar in composi- tion to the Roman Triumphal Processions. Photograph by Franz Hanfitaengl HANS HOLBEIN . " Portrait of Georg Gisze kaiser friedrich museum, berlin Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl HANS HOLBEIN Christine, Princess of Denmark and Widow of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan • national gallery, London HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 183 Though the painter was so busy with commissions from the Company, he did not cease painting portraits for individual members of it. To this year belong the portraits of "A Man, Aged 32,'* in Brunswick, "Dirk Tybis," in Vienna, "Dirk Born," in Windsor Castle, with a replica in Munich Pinakothek, and "A Young man," in Berlin Gallery. So many beautiful works could not fail to draw the attention of court circles once more to the artist, and in this same year he painted the portrait of the royal falconer, Robert Cheseman, a rugged, keen looking sportsman, who holds a hooded falcon as if just about to release it; and also, a masterpiece, the so-called "Am- bassadors," in the National Gallery, London. Jean de Dinteville, Ambassador from France and his friend George Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, who was paying him a visit, stand together in a room hung with green damask and paved with inlaid marbles. In the middle of the picture is a table with a Persian cover, on which are various astronomical instruments, a celestial globe, a case of flutes, a lute and an open music book. Our senses are taken captive by the beauty of materials and colour in the accessories, but again these are merely contributory, and the first, as well as the lasting impression, is of the lifelikeness, the dignity, nobihty and reserve of the two young men portrayed. And now the King himself gave the great German the first of those many royal commissions which were to keep him engaged during the remaining years of his life. He was to paint, over the fireplace in Whitehall, a family group consisting of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, the late Henry VII and his Queen, Elizabeth of York. The picture was so seriously injured by fire that only the figures of Henry VII and Henry VIII remain. In this fragment, as in the miniature of Henry VIII in the Earl of Spencer's collec- tion, Holbein gives the despotic, sensual monarch to the life, with- out flattery; yet he does not portray him as q, Ubertine, as did some of the other artists who painted his portrait; he does not fail to make us feel that he is also a King and one who is not unaware of his power or blind to the dignity of his position. About the same time as the family group, Holbein painted the portrait of Jane Seymour, in Vienna, which presents the Queen, 184 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART very simply, in half length, standing. But indeed a feeling of super- fluity would assuredly have resulted had any accessories been in- troduced beside the Queen's gorgeous robes of cloth of silver and purple velvet, trimmed with rich lace, embroidery and jewels, each detail of which is done with such faithfulness and delicacy. In spite of this minuteness, however, there is nothing small or hard about the picture. The Queen, nobly modelled, stands there as in life, looking out upon the world calmly, with clear, frank eyes, her lips set firmly, yet revealing kindliness and a sense of humour; to all appearances, a sane, sweet-natured woman, not wilful or of too positive a personality. As if to convey more fully this im- pression, the colouring is cool, the flesh tones very clear, with grey shadows. After Jane Seymour's death in the next year, the painter went to Brussels at the request of the King to paint the portrait of Christine of Denmark, the sixteen-year-old widow of the Duke of Sforza, in whom Henry VIII saw her possible successor. The portrait, which is now in the National Gallery, presents a tall, slender, young woman in black, with big, innocent eyes and child- like, almost appealing expression. But the King's wooing proved unsuccessful, so Holbein was again dispatched to Flanders, to paint for him the portrait of Anna of Cleves, marriage with whom was so strongly advocated by his Protestant counsellors. The future Queen is pictured wearing a rich, velvet robe of brilliant yet deep red, with much gold trimming and many jewels. She is plain-looking, with a large nose, dull eyes, and an expression of countenance which betrays a degree of narrow-mindedness which comes perilously near stupidity. While on the continent this time, Holbein made use of the opportunity to visit his family in Basel, whereupon the City Council offered him a pension and various other inducements if he would remain there permanently. Henry VIII was equally generous, however, and bestowed upon his painter an annual retainer of thirty pounds sterling. Besides this, there were many profitable commis- sions assured to him at the English court, while, in Basel, condi- tions were still most unfavourable for the artist. Many of the finest works of art had been or were being destroyed by the HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 185 "picture stormers/* whose procedure is described in a letter from Erasmus to Willibald Pirkheimer: "Smiths and carpenters were sent to remove the images from the churches. The roods and the unfortunate saints were cruelly handled. Not a statue was left in church, niche or monastery. The saints on the walls were white- washed. Everything combustible was burnt. What would not burn was broken to pieces. Nothing was spared, however precious and beautiful." So the artist decided in favour of England and retiKned there in time to paint a miniature of Anne of Cleve's suc- cessor, Queen Katherine Howard, before her tragic end. Of her uncle, Thomas Howard, he painted an impressive portrait, which presents an elderly man of masterly carriage, with eagle nose and thin lips tightly set, as if in grim determination. Yet another member of the royal family did Holbein paint — the small son of Jane Seymour, afterwards Edward VI, whose portrait the artist gave to the King for Christmas, 1539, when the boy was little more than a year old. It is a half-length picture of the babe, in life size, wearing a red velvet dress with sleeves of gold brocade, and a red hat with a white ostrich plume, and holding in his right hand a rattle. On the railing behind which he is placed, is a tribute to the King in the Latin inscription which admonishes the boy to "emulate his father; he cannot surpass him in any of the ele- ments of greatness; if he can but equal him, all the noblest wishes for him will be fulfilled." Many of the lords and ladies at the court also sat for portraits, which are now scattered throughout various galleries in England, on the continent and in America. Among them are the portraits of Nicholas Poyns; Sir Richard Southwell, the King's favourite; Sir Nicholas Carew, the Royal Master of the Horse; George of Corn- wall; Lady Elizabeth Vaux; Sir William Butts, the King's physician, and his wife; Dr. John Chambers; Lady Dudley; the three-year-old Charles Brandon and his brother Henry; Lady Surrey; the Duchess of Sutherland; Lady Lester; John Poyns; Sir Charles Eliot; John Godsalve, and many others, among them several that have not yet been identified with any particular individual or given a name. Among the foreigners at court whose portraits Holbein painted were the young Dutchman, Vos van Steenwyck, whose portrait, in 186 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Vienna, is done in the brown tone which marks it as belonging to the artist's early period, and the distinguished Sieur de Morette, whose portrait, painted after 1534, and now in Dresden Gallery, is one of Holbein's most beautiful works. It presents, against a green curtain, a large man, with dark hair and beard lightly touched with grey, dressed in black silk with ptiffings of fine white lawn in the sleeves, and a fur collar; in his left hand he holds his gloves, in his right a dagger which hangs from a chain. The model- ling of head and hands is exquisite, the flesh tones are light and clear, the presence is commanding, the glance compelling. Then, suddenly, in the middle of this his most productive period, Holbein was stricken with the Plague and died in 1543. No study of this artist would be quite complete without some reference to his drawings for woodcuts. We have spoken of his earliest, in Basel, 1515, for Erasmus's "Praise of Folly." In Basel Kunstsammlung are his illustrations for the Kebes-tafel — a picture of all human life — which were drawn in 1521 and used first in Froben's edition of Tertullius. He worked them over during his second stay in Basel, in the years between 1528 and 1532, and they appeared in their new form in Froben's "Curio's Cornucopia," in 1532. They contain many antique, classical and mythological figures, but also many scenes from the daily life of the people, with Lanzknechte and peasants. Ornamented with similar pictures from life are a "Kirmess Alphabet" and a "Children's Alphabet." Of Bible illus- trations there remain ninety-four pictures for the Old Testament and twenty-one for the Book of Revelations. Like all the other artists of the period, he had a share in the Lutheran controversies; his cuts picturing the "Sale of Indulgences" and "Pedlar of Indulgences" satirise the crying abuse of the age; while in a satirical Passion cycle he represents monks and priests as the persecutors of Christ. Perhaps his most interesting drawings for woodcuts are those in the so-called "Dance of Death," a series of forty-five plates done in 1536, which picture Death overtaking people of all ages and of all ranks. Kings and Emperors, Popes and Cardinals, must all follow his sum- mons, as do the ploughman in the field and the little child in the peasant's hut. The life, movement and dramatic power in these small cuts are remarkable, and the atmospheric quality obtained in HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER 187 such a landscape as that in which the old man is ploughing is rare and seductive. Holbein's claim to greatness must, however, be based on his portraits. In these his habit was to seize the salient, fundamental characteristics of the people he painted and to give them di- rectly, though with reserve. Imperfections were not exaggerated, but rather passed over in favor of beauty of form; thus his por- traits, though natural, are all sufficiently idealised, where neces- sary, to make them beautiful works of art and not mere records of physical conformations, peculiarities or defects. The poses of his subjects are always natural and free — that also lay within the artist's gift — and their personalities are revealed to us as at a casual meeting with a real and living person; yet as at a casual meeting, only, in refined society, and not, as occasionally in Diirer's and almost always in Rembrandt's portraits, as if we met them at a moment when, in some spiritual crisis, or under the stress of some overpowering emotion, their very souls are laid bare to our gaze. And these cultivated, reserved people are por- trayed in colours fresh, glowing and blended into wondrous harmony. The flesh tones are like life, the texture and finish of materials are exquisitely given. The atmosphere is always that of well-bred ease; always dignified and serious, it is occasionally elevated to the poetic by the pure, sensuous beauty of the colouring. Unfailingly such harmony reigns as to bring to the heart a sense of peace and benediction and joy in the beautiful. PART IV SCHOOL OF NUREMBERG OR FRANCONIA INCLUDING TYROL CHAPTER XXV THE TYROLESE PAINTERS Salzburg and Vicinity: Rueland Frueauf. Innsbruck: Sebastian Scheel — Paul Dax. Brexen: Master with the Scorpion — Jacob Sunter — Andr6 Haller. Bruneck: Michael Pacher. IN Tyrol small schools of art developed in the latter half of the XV century in Salzburg, Innsbruck, Brixen and Bruneck, each of which can boast at least one interesting artist, while one of them, Bruneck, produced one of the greatest artists of the century, Michael Pacher. In the southeast, near Salzburg, in the village of Grossgmain worked the painter, Rueland Frueauf, who, until recently, was known simply as the Master of Grossgmain, from his altar in the parish church there. The panels remaining in the church represent, on gold backgrounds, the Presentation, Christ disputing with the Lawyers, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the Death of the Virgin. They reveal an original master, an interesting personality. In the Pentecost scene, for example, each of the disciples and apostles has distinct individuality, and, while all are equally interested in the miracle, each receives the wondrous descent in a manner which is expressive of his own personality. Some of the figures and faces possess considerable refinement, others are homely and coarse. The artist delights in the bony structure of the human frame; he models the hands and feet carefully and makes them prominent in his pictures. Swabian influence is evident in the types, the simplicity of the draperies and especially in the directness with which the stories are told. The Death of the Virgin, too, is presented according to Swabian tradition, with the dying Virgin kneeling in prayer supported by a disciple. Four panels by this master, in Vienna Gallery, representing scenes from the Passion, which are signed with the initials R. F. have led to his identification as Rueland Frueauf, of whom it was previously 191 192 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART known that he painted frescoes in the City Hall in Passau, in 1471. A school of but little importance developed in Innsbruck, where the earliest painter of consequence was Sebastian Scheel, several of whose works are in the Ferdinandeum in his native town. The largest and most interesting among them is the altar- piece representing the Holy Kinship, dated 1517. It is set in a frame richly ornamented with arabesques and with half-length figures of the royal ancestors of Christ, in miniature. On the base is the sleeping Jesse, from whom springs the genealogical tree of Christ; in the arch at the top is God the Father with globe and cross, his fingers raised in blessing. The figures in the central section are portraits of real people, dressed in the costumes peculiar to that age and made of the richest brocaded materials. There is a strained intentness about their attitudes which seems hardly natural or wholly sincere. The children are very sturdy in their straight, full dresses, but they, too, seem a trifle self-conscious. The two angels making music in the sky are like those in Italian pictures of the period. In the background is a city, set, like Innsbruck itself, at the foot of a mountain. The impression of the whole picture is one of over-crowding, over-ornamentation and sentimental exaggeration, an impression which is heightened by the intensity of the local colours. A younger contemporary of Sebastian Scheel was Paul Dax, who was a native of Sterzing, but whose life as an artist was spent in Innsbruck, where he died in 1561. As no authentic paintings remain except his portrait of himself in the costume of a Landsknecht, in the Ferdinandeum, he is remembered chiefly as the designer of the windows in the Hofkirche. In Brixen the chief treasury of art is the cloister of the Cathe- dral where walls and ceilings have been frescoed by many [masters, who are still, for the most part, nameless. Unfortunately for all purposes of research, these frescoes have been thoroughly restored. Three of them, representing the Crucifixion, Ecce Homo, and Christ disputing with the Lawyers, were painted between 1435 and 1464 by a master who has been named by Semper "The Master with the Scorpion," as this sign always appears in his pictures. He seems to THE TYROLESE PAINTERS 193 have been more interested in portraying the scene of the Crucifixion than any other, as, besides this one in Brixen, another representa- tion of it from his hand is in the Clerical Seminary in Freising and there are two in the Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck. They are all very similar in character; the people are vulgar, even brutal in type, with large features and staring eyes; the thieves are tied to their crosses in distorted positions. The artist endeavours to give a realistic presentation, but is so crude in his methods that he succeeds only in leaving an impression of unpleasant exaggeration. The works of Jacob Sunter who, in 1470, painted "The En- tombment," and, in 1471, "The Resurrection," in the Cathedral, have been so retouched that it is impossible to form any idea of their original qualities. Two of his pictures, "The Adoration of the Kings" and "The Betrothal of the Virgin" are in the Museum in Vienna. A Brixen master of the XVI century who seems to have worked, for the most part, in Innsbruck was Andre Haller, who painted two altar wings now in the Ferdinandeum, on which are presented St. Erasmus and St. Nicholas, St. Roch and St. Sebastian. The saints, who are given standing, against a curtain stretched across the gold background, are very tall and large in their very full, elaborately draped garments, but fail to be imposing be- cause of over-refined modelling and excessive sentimentality of poses and expressions. To the neighbouring town of Bruneck belongs one of the greatest artists of the second half of the XV century, Michael Pacher, who was born between 1430 and 1440 and died in 1498. In the Pacher family there were three brothers, all artists — Michael, Friedrich and Hans. No known work by Hans Pacher remains. Friedrich's most important work is an altar-piece, repre- senting the Baptism of Christ, which was painted in 1483 for the Hospital Church in Brixen and is now in ^ the Clerical Seminary in Freising. But these two drop into insignificance beside their great brother Michael. The earliest of his works is the "Madonna and Child with St. Barbara, St. Margaret and Angels" in the collection of Fraulein von Vintler, in Bruneck. The Virgin and 194 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART saints are so modelled as to show the importance the artist at- tached to the scientific side of his art, but there is no undue emphasis laid on the bony and muscular structure, nor is it by any means the modelling that strikes us first or impresses us most in the picture. Rather is the impression gained one of a beautiful and stately company in a mood of joyful exaltation — an effect which is heightened by the prevailing flame-red of the garments against the gold background. In the little church in Mitterolang, in the Pusterthal, is the artist's "Holy Night," in which the stable and its manger are pic- tured in just such a valley as the Pusterthal. Weather beaten, kindly shepherds have come from the distant hills to worship the lovely Babe; ox and ass, much larger than they are given by other painters of the time, and astonishingly lifelike in appearance and expression, stand close by the holy pair. As the picture has been retouched, we cannot judge of its original colouring; the flame- red of the von Vintler picture is, however, still favoured in the garments. The scattered wings of a great altar which was painted by the master for Brixen Cathedral, where it was dedicated in 1491, have been collected and set up in Munich Pinakothek. They present four Church Fathers and four scenes from the Life of St. Wolfgang — Preaching, Healing a Sick Man, Compelling the Devil to hold his Bible, and the Last Communion. The scenes from the life of the saint are pictured in varying, appropriate surroundings. Thus the miracle of healing takes place in a large room, with flat ceiling, lighted from the Gothic windows on the right. St. Wolfgang, by his touch, is restoring to health a sick man who, looking up anxiously into his face, is making an effort to rise from his couch. The in- troduction of the nude, as in the body of this man, is rare in Ger- man art of the XV century and again emphasises the artist's in- terest in the study of the human form. In the Last Communion, the saint, wearing his Bishop's robes of rich brocade and his mitre, has fallen on his knees upon the steps of the altar of a simple little Gothic chapel; he is prostrated, his face buried in his hands, in utter weakness of body and humility of soul. Through the upper window an angel has entered and with out- \ Photograph by Fried. Hoe fie, Augsburg MICHAEL PACHER St. Wolfgang's Last Communion alte pinakothek, munich Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg MICHAEL PACKER St. Wolfgang compelling the Devil to hold His Bible altb pinakothek, munich THE TYROLESE PAINTERS 195 stretched wings hovers above the saint, touching him lightly to call attention to the glorious golden pyx he holds in his right hand, treasury of that supreme solace, that heavenly bread which whoso eateth thereof shall never himger more. But more than by the great hovering angel or the shining sacrament our attention is held by the kneeling figure. Such abandonment, such utter prostration of body and mind, such passionate abnegation, almost, one would say — such despair! Directly contrasted with the effect of subdued light in the interior of a room in which these two scenes are presented, is the bright sunshine which falls on the street in which is pictured St. Wolfgang constrain- ing the devil — a fearsome devil, surely, with horns and hoofs and great bat's wings — to hold the Bible for him. Behind the two imposing figures opens the perspective of a city street, across which is a balcony on which three persons are standing, while a man is sitting below in the shade of a building, out of a window of which another man is looking. The Fathers of the Church are presented in heroic size, each with his symbol, seated in Gothic niches which are adorned with elaborate carvings and small statuettes of apostles, each of whom bears the instrument of his martyrdom. Their faces and hands are painted with minute care and are individualised in the highest degree. The artist's conception of them is of great nobility. True Fathers of the Church are these, so large and noble in body, mind and spirit and withal so human, so sympathetic; great souls to whom the Dove of the Holy Ghost, which is hovering over them, can whisper and be understood. Michael Pacher's masterpiece and one of the most beautiful and impressive single altar-pieces of the XV century, is the High Altar in the Church in St. Wolfgang, near Salzburg, for which he received the commission from Abbot Benedict in 1477. The shrine is dated 1479; the whole work was finished in 1481. The altar is set in a beautifully carved Gothic frame. In the shrine, in wood carving, also from Pacher's hand, is the " Coronation of the Virgin. " Very girlish and lovely, her long, wavy hair falling about her shoulders Uke a veil, the crowned Virgin kneels at the feet of Christ, who is blessing her. Graceful, winged angels hold her full, trailing robes, make music, or simply hover around as 196 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART interested spectators. Separated from this central group by finely carved pilasters like pinnacles, are two stately bishops. Between the shrine and the wings stand the youthful, finely modelled, knightly Saints George and Florian. And all these figures are set in niches, or under baldachins carved as finely and delicately as lace work, marvellously beautiful. Besides the carvings there are on the altar-piece sixteen painted pictures on the base and in the arch. The wings beside the shrine contain four scenes from the Life of the Virgin; when they are closed, eight scenes from the Life of Christ are revealed. When the second pair of wings is closed in turn, the outside of the altar shows four scenes from the life of the patron saint of the town and church, St. Wolfgang. On the base is the Adoration of the Kings; above the central pictures, Christ on the Cross, with four saints; above that, God the Father, saints and angels. The influence of Mantegna and his great frescoes in the Ere- mitani Chapel in the not far distant Padua is evident in the model- ling and perspective. Figures and poses like those of St. George and St. Florian at once call to mind the Italian master, as do the presentations of numerous figures as they are seen from beneath in foreshortening. The types are not Italian, however; the Vir- gin and angels in the central carved scene, as in the pictures, are wholly German, and are not idealised, though they are tender, winsome and charming. In the Adoration, angels play in the lofts above, and through the open door at the back a glimpse is given of a street, and, in the distance, of a landscape with hills and valleys against a patterned gold ground. In the scenes from the Passion are some fine Gothic buildings, in which Michael Pacher shows a fondness for the coloured stones so favoured in Italy. The types are all dignified; the tormentors of the Christ, though sinister, are not wholly monsters. The Adul- teress before Christ is one of the most interesting and dramatic scenes. The humble, penitent woman in the beautiful and fashionable robes is given to the life, as are the threatening Pharisees with their evil faces, in such contrast to the gentle Christ. Most beautiful of all are the scenes from the Life of the Vir- THE TYROLESE PAINTERS 197 gin, in which the dignified, gracious people are presented naturally, even intimately, yet always with reverence. In these, as in the other pictures of the altar, one of the most interesting and original points is the landscape setting of the scenes, which is always among the mountains of Pacher's native Tyrol, whose snow-capped peaks are lighted, now by the breaking dawn, now by the roseate sunset. Michael Pacher was an artist of large, dignified, serene concep- tions who had attained to such a mastery of the technique of his art — of composition, modelling, perspective and light — that it had become for him a language not wholly inadequate for their voicing. Original as he was in all his work, he was unique in the landscape setting he chose for his scenes, in the character of which, as in its oftentimes quite fanciful lighting, he was the true forbear of Altdorfer. CHAPTER XXVI UPPER BAVARIA PAINTERS IN MUNICH AND LANDSHUT Munich: Gabriel Mochselkirchner — Ulrich Futerer — Hans Olmdorfer — Jan Pollack — ^Hans MielichT— Hans Schopfer. Landshut : Hans Wertinger. THE early art of Upper Bavaria, especially of Munich and the neighbouring towns, is the crudest in all Germany. The series of scenes from the Passion painted as late as 1480 by Gabriel Mochselkirchner for Tegernsee Cloister — two of which are now in Schleissheim Castle Gallery — are revolting in the coarseness of their types and the brutality of their conceptions. The people are short and stocky, with thick noses, wide mouths and insignifi- cant chins. Their movements are, for the most part, unpleasantly exaggerated. The flesh tones are brown, with startling, white, high lights. There is little colour in the pictures, as most of the people who do not wear dingy brown robes wear white, and even the sky is cloudy and dark. A Crucifixion painted about the same date by Ulrich Futerer, a painter who worked with Mochselkirchner at Tegernsee, reveals the same coarse vigour. In this picture only the flesh is given its natural colour, or rather is tinted reddish brown with white lights; the rest is done in stone-grey colour against a dark background. Much more attractive is the High Altar in the little chapel of the nunnery in Blutenburg near Munich, by Hans Olmdorfer, who was court painter to successive Dukes of Bavaria from 1460 to 1518. The central section contains a representation of the Trinity, in which God the Father, on whose shoulder sits the Dove, holds the dead Christ in his arms so that all may see the marks of his suffer- ing. Angels look out from the sky above and kneel on the ground below. On the right wing is shown the Coronation of the Virgin by the Trinity, represented by three men who look exactly alike; on the left wing is the Baptism of Christ. On the outer sides of the 198 UPPER BAVARIA 199 wings are St. Bartholomew, as founder of the church, and Christ as World-Ruler. On two small separate altars in the church — de- tached wings of the High Altar — are the Annunciation and the Adoration of All Saints. The influence of the artists of the Netherlands is apparent in all the pictures, though the gold background is retained. The types adopted from Dirk Bouts and Hans Memling are coarsened. The noses of men and angels alike are very long with thick ends; their necks, cheeks and foreheads are much wrinkled and creased. The flesh tones are brownish with red shadows. All are very vigorous looking and extremely serious in expression and demeanour. So much gold is used in the background, in the brocaded robes and for crowns and halos that the glitter is rather disturbing. The general effect of the pictures, however, is festive, though it is probable that they would not prove so attractive in any other setting than the quiet of this tiny, white chapel of the nuns. Hans Olmdorfer's portrait of one of his ducal patrons, Sigmund of Bavaria, in Schleissheim Castle Gallery, is coarsely painted, but full of life and expression. The most gifted Munich painter was Jan Pollack, whose work belongs to the period of transition from the XV to the XVI century. His name appears on the records for the first time in 1484; in 1488 he became City Painter; he died in 1519. The High Altar painted by him in 1492 for the Franciscan Church in Munich, and now in the Bavarian National Museum, represents, in the central section, the Crucifixion, with, on the back, the Last Supper; on the left wing, Gethsemane, with, on the back, the Scourging, into which is introduced the portrait of the donor, Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria; on the right wing, Christ taken Prisoner, with, on the back, the Cross Bearing, with the portrait of the Duchess Kunigunde. The scenes are crowded with figures, all of whom appear to be constantly and rather violently in motion. In such a picture as "The Crucifixion" a rather close examination is necessary before the subject can be discovered and the various groups singled out. The people are crowded so closely about the cross that it loses its dominant position and sinks almost to the level of one of the many incidents with which the scene is filled. Attitudes, characteristics and emotions 200 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART of every sort are exaggerated in the presentation; the bodies of the thieves are horribly contorted, the soldiers at the cross are unreasonably brutal, the men quarrelling about their dice-throwing are repellent degenerates. Jan Pollack's most important work is the large altar-piece con- taining twelve scenes from the life of St. Peter, which he painted about the year 1500 for St. Peter's Church in Munich. Five of the wings are still in the church with the shrine, which is filled with wood carvings; one has been lost and six have been set up in the Bavarian National Museum. The canvases are not quite so crowded as in the Franciscan Church altar, but the unprepossessing people are just as energetic and gesticulatory. The problem of perspective seems to have interested the painter greatly aSd he delights in giving us, as in " St. Peter healing One possessed of a Devil," a city square with a view through an arcade into the interior of a great temple; or, in "St. Peter walking on the Waves," the view across the water to distant towns on the opposite shore; or aerial perspective, as in the large body of Simon the Sorcerer floating high in air in the scene in which Saints Peter and Paul bring about his downfall. The col- ours in all the pictures are strong and dark and so inharmonious that they accentuate the general effect of over-crowding and unrest. The foremost Munich painter in the XVI century was Hans Mielich — or Mulich — who was born in 1516, in Munich, and died there in 1573. His first teacher was his father, Wolfgang Mielich, who was a well-known artist and head of a large school, though, unfortunately, none of his pictures have come down to us. That Hans Mielich' s travels as a student took him to Italy, is established by his copy of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment," originally painted to hang in the Frauenkirche in Munich as a memorial to the parents of Oswald von Eyck, but now in the Bavarian National Museum. He seems also to have come in touch with Altdorfer, for his miniatures illus- trating the "Penitential Psalms of Orlando di Lasso" and the "Motets of Cyprian de Rore," in the Royal Library in Munich, reveal a con- stant striving after the Ratisbon master's effects of light and col- our. As a painter, Hans Mielich was active chiefly as a portrait- ist. He presents his subjects naturally enough, though somewhat stiffly, and his colouring is pleasing. Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl JAN POLLACK St. Peter Walking on the Waves bavarian national museum, munich UPPER BAVARIA 201 A contemporary of Mielich, Hans Schopfer, who lived in Munich from 1532 to 1566, was a prolific portrait painter. The people he portrays all bear a singular resemblance to one another; the flesh tones are pink, the eyes large and staring. A son of this artist, Hans Schopfer the Younger, continued to paint portraits in his father's style in Munich as late as 1610. In the neighbouring Bavarian town of Landshut Hans Wertinger, called also Schwabmaler, worked from 1491 to 1533 as court painter, first to George the Rich, then to Ludwig X of Bavaria. Although his many portraits of noble personages of the time are hard in modelling and reveal no depth of insight, they are superficially quite attractive in their faithful recording of externalities, in the effective settings and attitudes of the subjects and in the freshness of the colouring. CHAPTER XXVII RATISBON ALBRECHT ALTDORFER FOR all its political importance and its imposing architectural monuments, Ratisbon could boast of no great artist before the opening years of the XVI century, when Albrecht Alt- dorfer established himself there as painter, engraver and architect and, in 1505, acquired citizenship. That he prospered, we deduce from his purchases of houses and a garden; that he was held in high esteem by his fellow citizens, is evident from his election to the Inner Council of the city. A devoted adherent of Luther, he was one of the fifteen councillors who, in 1533, passed the resolution adopting the Lutheran form of worship for the services in the Ratis- bon churches. He died in 1538. Of his life and studies before 1505 we know little. An Ulrich Altdorfer is mentioned as a painter in Ratisbon in 1478; doubtless he was the father of Albrecht and his first teacher. His wander- ings as a student seem to have taken him to Diirer, for the influence of the Nuremberg master on the development of his art is very marked. That a lasting friendship was established between the two artists would appear from Heller's record that, in the collection of the Nuremberg print-dealer Frauenholz, in 1822, there was a red crayon drawing of an old man by Albrecht Diirer which bore an inscription to the effect that it had been presented by him to Altdorfer at Ratisbon in 1509. Then, having, as it were, formed his style upon Diirer's, ** Little Albrecht," as he is sometimes called to distinguish him from the great Albrecht of Nuremberg, came under the magic charm of Griinewald's colour and light. So far, the history of his development is the same as that of the Strassburg master Hans Baldung Griin. Indeed these two painters suggest each other frequently, in the fulness of their forms, the poetry of their conceptions, in a certain fancifulness and in their 202 Photograph by the Berlin Photographic Society ALBRECHT ALTDORPER Satyr Family in a Landscape kaiser friedrich museum, berlin #•" • #- ' ■i '.» « ' ■ ^-,'.'' .' y' '' ■'.;-' . ' I ^ "^t^ ^"J.J^*^ .'^'• , -; ; ^^*-^.^ r> ' . ,' • ' , y ■"^ ^ -^ ^-.^^v .-V^s^r^ '-•■ . \ K^-V ^-■^ ■> *• C ■' -i^A'^ -. - 'v^ l^^b. ' *' ■'' .'" ■' , .-. '• ■' * ^ ■ " :/:^y'^.-- ■ -^ ,.- ■• '' " ' ~,-i •■%".-.. ^ Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT ALTDORFER St. George in a Beech Forest ALTE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 203 effects in colour and light. Altdorfer is, however, incomparably more positive in his nature and gifts than Baldung, more origi- nal, creative and virile. He is not merely fanciful, but genuinely imaginative and is possessed of a depth of insight and power of realistic representation which enable him at times to reach the heights of tragedy. Altdorfer's earliest dated paintings were done in the year 1507. The "Satyr Family," in Berlin Gallery, painted in that year, presents, against a grove of trees whose leaves the sunlight touches into quivering, shimmering brightness, a seated group of a satyr and a nude woman with full, rounded form, and a chubby babe who is reaching out energetically toward one of the tall flowers that grow all about them. A nude man is wading in a stream that flows through an opening between the trees to the right. Through this clearing can be seen a wide stretch of country with towering rocky peaks in the background. The landscape, which in the "Satyr Family" is barely secondary in interest to the human element, becomes the real theme of the little picture, "St. George and the Dragon," in Munich Pinakothek, painted in 1510. A veritable fairy forest is before us; elusive, en- chanting lights and shadows play among the trees whose leaves are shining bronze-green in the sunlight. St. George in his golden armour, mounted on a white charger, is but an enlivening detail of the landscape. Near this picture in the Pinakothek hangs one of the same size from which the human element has been left out; it is the first picture in German art which is purely a landscape. Old writers tell of other landscapes from this artist's hand, but they have vanished. Many of his backgrounds, however, far from being mere backgrounds are notable landscapes. In the presentation of a landscape he breaks away from the old habit of reproducing it topographically or geologically — if I may use the term — and treats it atmospher- ically, giving us its moods, or rather, letting it reflect and reveal the moods of the people who are pictured in it, or the nature and significance of the scenes for which it is a setting. In this he hints at the coming of those artists who filled a place in painting similar to that occupied in literature by such nature poets as Wordsworth 204 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART and Shelley, with whose joy all nature rejoices, in whose solemn or pensive moods all created things seem to bear "the burden and the weight of all this unintelligible world." From the same year as the "St. George" dates the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," conceived with much charm and tender play of fancy. In the foreground is an elaborate Renaissance fountain, beside which sits the girlish, round-faced Virgin, in a simple costume of the period, holding the beautifully formed, nude Babe so that he can splash with his hands in the water. The aged Joseph, in peas- ant's garb, has brought his hat full of cherries which he now offers to her, his adoring gaze, like hers, fixed on the Child who is playing so happily. About them, as playmates for the Child, are bewitch- ing, sturdy, small cherubs, wearing short dresses and stiff little wings. Their activities are varied: two are sitting on the rim of the fountain, and talking together; one is busy with a long stick; one is making a great effort to scramble out of the water; one is swinging toward the Holy Child, with arms outstretched in loving invitation. The conception and, especially, the cherubs, recall Durer's "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," in his series of woodcuts of the Life of the Virgin. In the background is a ruin, a tower character- istically German in its architecture, a house with high gables, a river on the banks of which are hills covered with trees, and, in the remote distance, mountains over which float fleecy clouds. On the base of the fountain is the inscription: "Albrecht Altdorfer, painter, of Ratisbon, dedicates this gift with devout heart to thee. Holy Virgin, for the welfare of his soul." To this same period belongs the "Adoration of the Kings" in Sigmaringen Castle. Beside the ruins of a castle sits the lovely, youthful Virgin, holding the beautiful Babe, to whom the three kings of the orient, arrayed in robes of the utmost richness, with fur and jewelled trimmings, bring gifts which are not only costly but masterpieces of the goldsmith's art. Behind the little group stretches a long arcade, the arches of which are supported by slender groups of pillars with graceful Renaissance capitals. A ruined wall divides the picture across the middle distance, thus shutting off into the background the retinues of the three kings. Over the whole picturesque ruin vines climb or hang gracefully Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT ALTDORFER Rest on the Flight into Egypt kaiser friedrich museum berlin Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich ALBRECHT ALTDORFER Holy Night imperial gallery, vienna ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 205 pendant. A light haze seems to fill the air and the Star shining through it bathes the scene in soft silvery light. The remarkable lighting in two pictm*es of the Nativity, in Bremen and in Vienna, is of exquisite beauty, and lends a certain effect of unearthliness to the scenes. The one shows the Virgin kneeling in a ruined castle, adoring the Child. Only some stone walls are left standing and some fine old doorways, through one of which the shepherds are entering, carrying a lantern. Overhead are rafters on which tiny angels have alighted. Several of them are proceeding by way of a long ladder to come down to the ground on which lies the Holy Babe. Some, indeed, have reached his side and kneel there in attitudes which are in themselves caresses; one, in his haste, has tumbled through between the rafters and is rolling on the ground; another is hurrying to catch a bundle of straw which one of his little friends is about to toss down from the loft. Two are half way down the ladder, and Joseph, at its foot, is carefully holding his lantern high to light them on their way. One sturdy little one on the third rung from the top has a lantern of his own which he is holding so as to light the one who is just starting out. Between the rafters shines a crescent moon. The fitful light from the lanterns, together with that of the pale moon in a sky that is full of small fleecy clouds, creates an atmosphere in which the supernatural seems the natural and a vision more to be expected than a matter-of- fact reality. In the second "Holy Night," in Vienna Imperial Gallery, dated 1515, the scene is also set in a ruined castle, but the pavement, the doorways, and the landscape that opens up in the background are all white with snow. The Hght of Joseph's lantern falls full on the Babe whom the Virgin and two small, curly-haired cherubs are adoring, while a third perched on the gateway above, makes music on his viol. From the right, women as graceful as BotticelU's nymphs are advancing, bearing gifts; from the background come hurrying cherubs. But the angels that are on the earth make no appreciable difference in the number in the countless host which circles in the sky above, filling it with light, which, shining through the mists of evening, takes on all the colours of the rainbow and casts a glory over the whole scene. 206 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART In yet another Nativity, which forms a panel of the altar painted in 1517, which is in the Collection of the Historical Society, Ratisbon, the scene is pictured in the light of the first rays of dawn, which are spreading rosily above the distant, snow-clad mountains. The "Birth of the Virgin," in Munich Pinakothek, is presented in the subdued light of the interior of a cathedral. In the nave, is set up the great canopied bed, at the foot of which is a [little, wooden cradle. Beside it the nurse is seated, holding the Child. From the foregound Joachim is entering; through the arches to the right several worshippers are to be seen. About the three large columns in the middle of the row which divides the nave from the aisle, a great ring of angels, holding hands as in a game, and looking, in their robes of all colours, like a huge wreath of flowers, are circling joyously, and from the middle of the circle, one large angel is swinging a censer toward the Babe. Of almost startling effectiveness is the sunset over a landscape of rare beauty in the "Recovering the Body of Quirinus," which is in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. Two women and a young man, all three strong, muscular figures, are trying with considerable effort to carry to a wagon which is close at hand, the body of the saint, which they have just taken out of the broad stream into which he was thrown to die for conscience's sake. The banks of the river are wooded and the brilliant, burning red of the setting sun lights up some of the trees of the wood, and streaks the water with burnished copper tones. The effect of the supernatural in " The Crucifixion," in the Ger- manic Museum — a picture which is considered by some critics Altdorf- er's masterpiece — is also achieved by the lighting and colouring. The scene presents, in the centre, the cross of Christ, with, to right and left, those of the two thieves. An executioner, who has already put an end to the sufferings of the two malefactors, is standing on the ladder he has set up against the central cross, watching the death of Christ. To the left of the cross the soldiers are quarrelling over Christ's mantle; to the right are the sorrowing women, a group presented with convincing reahsm and much dramatic power. The background is intensely blue and the same colour predominates in the robes worn by the women at the foot of the cross. Overhead is a Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT ALTDORFER Battle of Arbela alte pinakothek, munich O K Q - pq <3 H ^ 03 ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 207 wild sky, with moving, black clouds from which a rainbow of hope and promise has burst forth. The whole scene is dramatic and in- tense, but over the weirdness of its troubled atmosphere triumphs, in the final analysis, the exaltation of its colour and light. To its lighting and resultant colouring is due also the tremendous impressiveness of that unique battle scene, the "Battle of Arbela," which Altdorfer painted in 1529 for Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria, in the series of famous battles painted for him by various artists. This "Battle of Arbela" so captivated Napoleon that he carried it off to St. Cloud to hang in his bathroom, where he could contem- plate it frequently and at leisure. Since its return to Germany it hangs in Munich Pinakothek. The moment pictured is that of the victory of Alexander the Great over Darius the Persian; but the presentaton is that of a XVI century battle scene and is so crowded with the thousands of warriors who contend on foot and on horse- back, that it requires close examination to find Alexander in pursuit of the fleeing Darius. In the middle distance the tents of the armies are pitched near a town with many high towers; in the background is the sea, with rocky shores. The sky above is filled with tumultuous clouds; on high the pale moon of Persia is waning, while out of the sea is rising in full power and brilliance, the sun of Greece. As it shines on the moving clouds they are transfigured by its light and in turn reflect their glory on the hosts below, filling the whole picture with Griinewaldesque rainbow hues of red, green, yellow, blue and violet. Yet the clouds remain vaporous and the colours below are not solid but give the effect of such reflections as are cast by stained glass windows on the faces of those beneath them. To appreciate to the full the light and colour in Altdorfer's picture it is only necessary to look for a moment at another battle scene from the same series, which was painted for Duke Wilhelm by Altdorfer's pupil, Melchior Feselen, and hangs in the Pinakothek, near the "Battle of Arbela." Feselen has striven to imitate his master's effects, but without his gifts; his rainbow hues create no illusion; they are nothing more than solid, flat streaks of colour laid on the canvas. Altdorfer's interest in his other art of architecture is revealed by his fondness for introducing great halls or palaces into his pic- tures. In the "Susanna at the Bath," in Munich Pinakothek, the 208 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART theme of the picture is almost lost sight of, so dwarfed is it by the enormous Renaissance building which takes up half the canvas. All the exquisite beauty of the picture is concentrated, however, in that garden to the left, in which Susanna's toilet is being made by her tiring- women. Beautiful trees form a cool background for her, and all about her bloom numberless poppies, buttercups, cow- slips, snapdragons, violets, forget-me-nots, blue-bells and, beside the steps to the castle terrace, stately hollyhocks, all done with the lov- ing care of a miniaturist and with a naturalness not to be surpassed even by painters who devote their art exclusively to the painting of flowers. Another imposing monument of architecture is the palace which is given with such careful detail in the picture of * 'Riches and Pov- erty," in Berlin Gallery, which was painted in 1531 as an illustration of the proverb, "The beggar sits on the courtier's train." Down the wide steps which form the approach to the palace, walks a man in gorgeous array, to welcome the two handsomely dressed guests who are advancing through the park. On the long trains of their velvet mantles sits a whole family of "hangers on." The scene is pictured cheerfully, in the full light of mid-day; it is cul- turally interesting, as well, as an illustration of the social life of the period. Altdorfer's fame rests not only on his paintings, however, but on his engravings, woodcuts and drawings as well. In his engrav- ings of classical and mythological scenes he seems to have given the preference to subjects that gave him an opportunity to portray the nude human form. His religious scenes deal mainly with the Passion of Christ, and it is in these that we learn to appreciate his dramatic gifts and his power of interpreting pathos and tragedy. The Crucifixion in this series is unique in conception and setting and powerful in its appeal. The very high cross on which the Christ is lifted up, is erected in a grove of trees, many of which are dead, their bare branches festooned with trailing moss. The body of the Christ is tortured, yet not beyond all beauty; around his head a radiance shines. The crosses of the thieves are absent; about the dying Lord are only his family and friends. Contrary to all precedent, Mary Magdalen, a great tragic figure, is pictured stand- > w ►-• as £ CC « ^ J as 5 « •<: as M ALBRECHT ALTDORFER The Crucifixion {Engraving on Copper) ALBRECHT ALTDORFER 209 ing and leaning against the cross, her bearing eloquent of her weariness and despairing grief. The whole atmosphere, with the troubled sky, the bare trees, the sagging moss, speaks of heart-rending tragedy. The visualisation of the scene is that of the poet in his "Ballad of Trees and the Master": "When death and shame would woo him last. From under the trees they drew him last, Twas on a tree they slew him last. When out of the woods he came." Of his woodcuts the most important are in the large series repre- senting the Fall and Redemption of Man. The various scenes were brought within the comprehension of the artist's contemporaries by being presented in terms of the period in which they were living and working. The architecture, costumes and types were those they saw every day in the streets of Ratisbon. The greater emphasis laid on the structural in the modelhng of the figures, and the presence of such types as the soldier in armour in the Cross Bearing, who might have stepped out of the frescoes in the Eremitani Chapel in Padua, suggest that Altdorfer was, at this time, feeUng the influence of their great master, Andrea Mantegna. So carefully done is the mechanical work on these woodcuts, that it is generally believed that the artist not only made the drawings for them, but himself engraved them. Altdorfer's drawings vie in beauty with the loveliest of his paintings. Naturally, as one of the famous painters of the day and Diirer's friend, he was invited, in 1515, to join the noble com- pany of artists who were engaged in illustrating the Emperor Maxi- milian's Prayerbook, Eight drawings in the Besan^on fragment are from his hand. But more beautiful are the single sheets in Ber- lin Print Room, the Albertina, Vienna, and other collections. He tinted the paper amber, green, brown, dull blue or grey, then, drawing with bold sweep and rapid curve he would, on one page, merely indicate his subjects, while on another he would give them in minutest detail and with wonderful delicacy. Of exquisite beauty is such a drawing as "Pyramus Dead," which is done in black and white on a dull blue ground. The scene is laid in a forest 210 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART of larches, partly in light, partly in shadow. Touched by the slant- ing rays of sunlight are the stone arches of a ruin, all grown over with thick moss out of which small trees are springing. In the gloom of the foreground lies, on the earth, the beautiful young Pyramus, his handsome robes all blood-stained — alone and dead. In such a scene the artist's command of light is almost as telling as in his pic- tures. In the drawing of Gethsemane, the troubled atmosphere of suspense is created by a pale moon almost obscured by moving clouds, and the light cast out into the darkness under the trees, from the lanterns carried by the soldiers who come to take Christ pris- oner. In the fitful, wavering light, the very tree branches seem to shiver and the whole indecision and soul anguish of the scene are reflected with the most delicate sensitiveness. As Cranach has been called the Hans Sachs of German painting Altdorfer might well be named its Hans Christian Andersen. He tells his stories in colour with just such spontaneous enthusiasm, such an air of probability, such fancifulness and fertility of invention, such touches of whimsicality. But while the atmosphere of his pictures is usually that of a world in which the fairies might dwell, it is some- times — as in the Passion scenes — elevated by the light to lay bare before us the world-tragedy, to make real and vivid the suffering, to reveal the supernatural character of the supreme sacrifice, and, above all, to give a glimpse of the glory and the promise at the heart of it. CHAPTER XXVIII RATISBON THE PUPILS OF ALTDORFER Michael Ostendorfer — Wolf Huber — Melchior Feselen A PUPIL of Albrecht Altdorfer, Michael Ostendorfer, became a Master of the Guild in Ratisbon in 1519, and died there in 1559. He copied his master's lighting and colouring as nearly as he could, without putting into his pictures any of the poetry of which they should have been the vehicle. His chief work was the altar painted between 1553 and 1555 for the Parish Church in Ratisbon, and now in the Historical Society's Gallery. The central picture shows the Sending Forth of the Apostles; the wings contain six pictures from the Life of Christ and six setting forth the significance of Baptism. The composition is confused, the characterisations without subtlety, the colouring heavy, the light effects feeble imitations of Altdorfer. In the same Gallery are his two interesting portraits of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria and of "A Young Man," the latter bearing the inscrip- tion, "Who knows what will happen!" A pupil whose style resembled his master's closely was Wolf Huber, to whom Dr. Schmidt attributes the "Beheading of John the Baptist," in theLanna Collection, Prague, which several other authori- ties believe to be an original Altdorfer. Huber's fame rests chiefly on his woodcuts, which he engraved with his own hand. A third pupil, Melchior Feselen, who died in 1538 at Ingolstadt, was one of the painters engaged by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria to paint battle scenes for his collection. The "Siege of Rome by Por- senna," painted in 1529, and the "Siege of Alesias by Caesar," painted in 1533, both of which are in Munich Pinakothek, show very careful work, but the figures are wooden and the whole effect dry and life- less. In his effects of light he tries to imitate Altdorfer' s "Battle of Arbela," but only succeeds in painting across the pictures strips of various colours, which create no illusion of vapours, mists or rainbows, but remain, even to the most responsive imagination, merely streaks of paint. 211 CHAPTER XXIX NUREMBERG THE XIV CENTURY THE art of Nuremberg is in character almost antithetically opposed to the art of Cologne, while the art of Swabia might be said to form a sort of transition from the one to the other. For whereas the art of Cologne is dreamy, contemplative, mystic, the art of Nuremberg is vigorous, energetic, dramatic. The work of the Nuremberg artists is inevitably, therefore, not so externally beautiful and harmonious as the work of the Cologne masters, but it is more virile and powerful. The art of Cologne, with all its beauty, was so frail and lacking in vitality, that when the new ideals and technique of the art of the Netherlands impressed themselves upon Germany, Cologne could not maintain its individuality, or even, for long, its existence. Nuremberg, on the other hand, possessed so much inner life and vital power that its painters simply learned from the Nether- lands how to do things better than had been possible with their limited technical resources; how to give their figures more body, to set them in space, to make them more lifelike and expressive. The new art did not absorb them but only provided them with fuller equipment; in- stead of losing their individuality they were enabled to give it fuller expression. As early as the XIV century the rich and important town of Nuremberg had developed within its borders and attracted from other and smaller towns many artists whose names, after the lapse of centuries, have come down to us as mere names, whose works we see in the churches and museums without being able to attribute them to any one of the painters on the long list. The earliest painter mentioned is Nicholas of Bohemia, who worked in Nuremberg in 1310. The praise of a Master Arnold was sung by the Minnesinger Egon of Wurzburg in his "Castle of Minne" and again by the Mastersinger, Hans Rosenblut, as an artist who 212 THE XIV CENTURY 213 could "paint or carve anything that can fly or swim.** Of the life and work of one Master Otto, the sole record is that he was ex- pelled from Nuremberg for bad behaviour. A Master Berthold is mentioned in 1363, 1378 and 1396. During the latter half of the century several artists were engaged in the decoration of the new City Hall, the building of which was finished in 1340. Sigmund Meisterlin in his "Chronicles of the German Cities" records that "it was beauti- fied with scenes from Valerius Maximus, Plutarch and Aggellio, illus- trative of the wisdom and justice of great councillors and judges, which should serve as an example to all such.*' We find a record of the cleaning of these pictures in 1378, and again in 1423, when a Master Berthold was commissioned to restore and to add to them, and also to paint some scenes on the outside of the building. The oldest altar-piece in Nuremberg is in St. Jacob's Church, but has been painted over so often that nothing of the original remains except the composition. It represents the Annunciation, Coronation of the Virgin, Resurrection, Women at the ,Tomb, twelve Apostles and two Prophets. From about the middle of the century dates the St. Martha Altar, which was taken to the Germanic Museum from one of the Nuremberg churches. The central section of the altar has a most unusual subject, the Death of St. Martha, pictured as it is described by Jacobus a Voragine. The legend relates that "in the night before the death of the saint a very high wind arose and blew out all the candles, whereupon the evil spirits surrounded and so tormented her that in great anguish of spirit she called upon God for help. Then came to her aid her sister Mary bearing a torch with which she relighted the candles. And as they greeted each other, Lo! Christ himself appeared and assured the dying saint that, as she had received him so hospitably on earth, even so would he receive her in Paradise." The picture shows us the saint in bed. At the left, wearing a crown and bearing a box of ointment, Mary is entering, bringing a candle with which she will drive off the evil spirit. From the other side the Redeemer is approaching the bed, uttering the reassuring words. The wings of the altar represent the Raising of Lazarus and Mary Washing the Feet of Christ. The outside is covered with a decora- tive design of vines and birds. The type presented has a high fore- 214 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART head, broad nose, large eyes and short lower face. The colours are strong and dark. In the church of the neighbouring Cistercian cloister of Heilsbronn are several XIV century altars, most of them, unfortunately, restored to such a degree that nothing is to be gained from the consideration of them. Interesting and impressive is, however, the Christ as Man of Sorrows, presented with the donor, a young cleric who holds a scroll on which is the prayer * * Miserere mei deus. ' ' Above the kneeling figure, on the decorated gold background, is a small tablet bearing his name "Apt Friedrich von Herzlach." The records of the monastery show that the term during which he was its abbot extended from 1346 to 1361, during which period, therefore, this picture must have been painted. It presents the Man of Sorrows, wearing a mantle which covers almost his whole body, standing in front of the cross on which are the instruments of his Passion. The head and face show a singular combination of traditional and German features. His body is long and slender out of all proportion; manifestly the artist was helpless in face of the problem of giving its anatomical structure. But in spite of the archaic form and technical weaknesses, the picture makes a pow- erful sentimental appeal. The pose of the figure is eloquent of the physical exhaustion of the sufferer; the eyes look at us with contem- plative yet tender gaze; and the whole bearing is so expressive of humility blended with noble dignity and reserve power, that it con- veys the artist's ideal of the Christ who was "lifted up," a sinless, vicarious sacrifice. To the period of transition from the XIV to the XV century be- long several Epitaphs, or memorial pictures, in various Nuremberg churches. Among them is, in the Lorenzkirche, the Epitaph of Paul Stromer, who, with his wife, died of the plague in 1406. It presents Christ enthroned upon the clouds surrounded by angels who bear the instruments of his Passion, while the Virgin and St. John kneel before him, offering intercession for the Stromer family. The forms are very slender, the drawing hard, the colours strong. An Epitaph in the Germanic Museum which was painted in memory of Clara Holz- schuher, who, according to the inscription, died in 1426, is a very crude and wooden representation of the Madonna with St. Catherine and St. Bernhardin of Siena. CHAPTER XXX NUREMBERG MASTER BERTHOLD IN the first half of the XV century worked an artist who occupied in Nuremberg Art the place filled in Cologne by the Master of the St. Clara Altar and in Hamburg by Master Bertram — Master Berthold Landauer. Concerning the date of the beginning of his artistic activity in Nuremberg some doubt remains, since, as we have already seen, a Master Berthold is mentioned in the chronicles of Nuremberg as early as 1363. Again the name appears in 1406 when a Master Berthold painted coats-of-arms in the City Hall; and again in 1413, 1423, and in the years from 1427 to 1430. In all probability there were two masters of the same name, doubtless father and son, each of whom stood in high repute as an artist. That Berthold the Younger was the foremost artist in the city is attested to by the record that, in 1423, the City Hall was "painted back and front" by Master Berthold, his sons and apprentices. Master Berthold probably learned the rudiments of his art from his father, and later came under the influence of the Bohemian Master of Wittingau. The close relationship between Master Berthold and the Master of Wittingau is manifest at first glance, if we place side by side the Bohemian painter's Hohenfurt Madonna and the Nuremberg artist's Madonna from the Deichsler Altar or the one known as the "Imhof Madonna." The garments, the fringed veil, the arrangement of the hair of the Hohenfurt Madonna might have been the work of the painter of the Madonna of the Deichsler Altar, so similar are they, while the angels in the background closely resemble those in the Imhof Madonna picture. Drawing and colouring are remarkably alike in the two masters and the composition in these two Madonna pictures of Master Berthold is almost identical with that of the Hohenfurt Madonna. A second artist, whose work was doubtless known to the young Master Berthold and whose types are akin to those of the Master 215 216 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART of Wittingau, has been named the Master of the Przibram Family, from his picture of a very intimate scene in the Hfe of the Holy Family, which is in the collection of Fraulein Gabriele Przibram, in Vienna. The scene is really quite secular, and might have been taken from everyday human life in some German family of the artist's acquaintance. Mary and Elisabeth are sitting together on a long bench, busy with familiar, domestic occupations. Elisabeth is winding yarn on a reel. The crowned Virgin, distaff in hand, has interrupted her work a moment to read the Bible. On the floor, at their feet, the children John and Jesus, in their play, have got into a little quarrel over a pan and spoon. Jesus insists on taking it away from John, who turns to his mother to complain, "See mother, what Jesus is doing to me !" The painter's technique is quite crude; though he has attempted the nude in the bodies of the children, they are quite flat and without modelling; and his handling of the perspective is so helpless that the cushions on which the children are sitting are placed up in the air, resting on nothing. But the types are attractive and the humorous little story does not fail to interest by its simplicity and humanness. Very close to genre are two pictures by this master in the Ger- manic Museum, Nuremberg, which represent the Massacre of the Innocents and the Burial of the Virgin Mary. The scene in which vengeance overtakes the blasphemers at the burial procession of the Virgin is, indeed, almost burlesque. Some historians believe that Master Berthold's development was also affected in some degree by Italian influence, and advance the theory that he had visited Italy and had seen the works of Giotto and the Siennese masters before he painted the Imhof Madonna. The evidences of Italian influence are, however, limited to this one picture, and are so very slight, that it seems more probable that any acquaintance he may have had with the Italian types and manner was gained from the Master of Wittingau, through the works of those Italian artists who had come to Prague on the invitation of Emperor Karl IV. The earliest of the works attributed to Berthold is the Deichsler Altar, in Berlin Gallery, which was originally presented to the old Dominican Church in Nuremberg by Berthold Deichsler, who died MASTER BERTHOLD 217 in 1418 or 1419. On a board in the carved middle section of the altar is the donor's name, while his own and his wife's coats-of-arms are introduced in the pictures on the wings, which present the standing figures of the Virgin and Child, St. Peter Martyr, St. John the Baptist and St. Elizabeth. The present background of dark blue dotted with stars was painted in by a later artist. The Virgin, who is slight and girlish, with sloping shoulders, is very lovely in her full robes of brownish-red and green, with a large crown on her wavy, blond hair. In the curve of her left arm she holds the slender, curly-haired Babe; in her right hand is an apple. She is not regarding either the Child or us; her gaze is withdrawn from the things of this world; she is sunk in contemplation. Yet the figure is by no means stamped with the peace of mystical absorption which pervades the Cologne pictures of this period. The attitude of the Virgin is not one of utter relaxation, as is that of the Madonna with the Violet; she holds the apple as if pre- pared to move it at any moment to provide distraction for the Child, who is so full of life that he must claim a great deal of attention. In- stead of the appearance of perpetual, calm dreaming which Stephan Lochner's Madonnas present, Berthold's Virgin looks as if she had lost herself in thought but for a few minutes and might at any instant come back to the everyday cares of her motherhood. The saints possess much charm, and their sincerity and devotion are so evident that even the excessive sentimentality of St. John hardly offends us. The most important work of Master Berthold and the one which was the starting point for all other attributions, is the Imhof Altar in the Imhof Chapel, over the south door in the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg.* The central picture represents the Coronation of the Virgin; on the wings, which have been sawed off and hang on the opposite wall of the gallery, are the apostles Philip, Bartholomew, James the Greater, James the Less, Andrew and Matthew. The picture from the back of the shrine, representing Christ as Man of Sorrows standing in the tomb, supported by the Virgin and St. John, has been taken to the Germanic Museum. The "Coronation of the Virgin" presents Christ and the Virgin seated on a sort of divan too simple in form to be called a throne, * See Thode: Die Malerschule von Numberg im XIV und XV Jahrhundert. (Heinrich Keller, Frankfurt, a/M, 1891.) 218 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART but covered with rich brocade. Christ, in cherry-red robe and mantle, wearing a crown and bearing the sceptre, is placing a crown like his own on the head of the Virgin, who, robed in blue, her fringed veil falling about her shoulders and almost covering her hair, receives it with hands folded in prayer, with humility and consecration. On the right is St. Thaddeus bearing his cross, on the left St. Simon. At the feet of the saints kneel the donors of the altar, a man and three women — Conrad Imhof and his family. It is recorded that Conrad Imhof was twice married* from this picture it would appear that he had had three wives. That one of the women on the right wing was his first wife, Elizabeth Schatz, is manifest from the introduction of the coat-of-arms of her family. The figures are slight, the shoulders narrow and sloping, the upper part of the bodies of the two who are seated, much too long in proportion to the lower part. Though the bodies are still quite flat, the artist has made an effort to model them and has succeeded in sharply accentuating the bony structure of the limbs of the seated figures, even under the garments. The hands are unusually small, with tapering fingers. The faces are rather longer and more pointedly oval than is the ideal of the masters of the same period in Cologne, the forehead is lower, the mouth larger, the chin more strong and de- cided. Characteristic of Master Berthold is the way the men wear their heavy, wavy hair brushed straight back from the forehead, so that it almost covers the ears and hangs to the nape of the neck. The garments are draped in regular, parallel folds, which break at the edges in set ripples. The colouring is deeper and stronger than that in pictures of the School of Cologne. Altogether the impression gained is of rare beauty of type and colouring, with greater vitality and more underlying energy than we find in the art of Cologne. The atmosphere is charged with solemn exaltation; in- ner intensity is veiled only lightly by the apparent tranquility. A third altar by Master Berthold, the so-called Bamberg Altar, in the National Museum, Munich, shows the great pathfinder as a dra- matist. It represents, in the shrine, the "Crucifixion"; on the wings, the "Crowning with Thorns," "Trial before Pilate," "Cross Bearing," and "Descent from the Cross." The predellais a later addition and not the work of Master Berthold. The "Crucifixion" is remarkable, at MASTER BERTHOLD 219 first glance, for its well-balanced composition. In the middle, Christ, long and thin in body, and wearing still his crown of thorns, hangs upon the cross. His suffering is expressed rather in the bleeding feet and strained sinews of the arms than in his beauti- ful, calm face. At the foot kneels Mary Magdalen with flowing hair; to the left, the Virgin sinks fainting, supported by John and one of the sorrowing women; back of the women, a group of three men talk together as they watch the Christ; the Centurion, standing be- tween them and the cross, clasps his hands in worship; beside him stands, gaping, a stupid-looking boy who holds the staff on which is the vinegar-sponge. To the right of the cross is a group of Roman soldiers; one is pointing to the Christ, and all, apparently, are en- gaged in conversation about him. In the right-hand corner men are casting lots for his mantle. In the upper sky, to the left and right of the arms of the cross, are introduced, according to a practice quite common in mediaeval art, the sun and moon with human faces. In several particulars the Bamberg altar marks a decided de- velopment in the master's art. He has endeavoured to model the nude form of Christ, has brought out painstakingly, so far as he was able, the bones and muscles. In the kneeling figure of Mary Mag- dalen, the attempt to realise the body under the flowing robes is bold though not very successful. The thick-set, strongly built man to the right who stands with his back to the spectator is remarkably well detached from the background and is as natural as life in appearance and pose. The refined face of the Centurion is that of a Nuremberg patrician; the stupid-looking boy beside him is very lifelike in face, figure, dress and expression. The dice-throwers are, in appearance and manners, ruffians of the Nuremberg streets. The costumes, except those worn by the sacred personages, are of the varied fashions peculiar to the different classes of society in Nuremberg at that period. The scene is full of life, yet remarkably controlled in movement and restrained in expression. One of the best-known and most charming of Master Berthold's works is the "Imhof Madonna," in the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg. Even at a casual glance, one cannot fail to be struck by the Italian note in the picture. The Madonna is given in half length, her 220 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART mantle and halo borne by four angels with spread wings. She holds the Child in her arms, as if presenting him to the world's gaze. The composition, the types of Mother and Child and the treatment of the draperies all recall the Italian masters. The Virgin's eyes are dark and slightly almond-shaped, the mouth small, the chin short, the brow not so high and face not so long as in the Madonna of the Imhof Altar. The headdress of heavy stuff is in one piece with the mantle, and hangs over her forehead so as to completely cover her hair. At the bottom of the picture kneel, at the left, the donor with eight sons, at the right, his wife with four daughters. The coat-of- arms is that of the Imhof family. Closely related to the "Imhof Madonna" are three pictures in Munich National Museum; the Epitaph of the nun Gerhaus Ferin, a " Virgin and Child," with a female donor presented by St. John the Evangelist, and the "Madonna in the Wheat-ear Garments." This last-named is a very attractive picture with a subject unique. It presents the Virgin kneeling in a Gothic hall, wearing a blue mantle patterned in golden ears of wheat. To the left, in a doorway quite near her, stands a white-robed angel, and, to the right, little angels are peeping in through a second door. It is a charming picture from the girlhood of the Virgin, from that time when, as the legend runs, she and her girl friends embroidered beautiful silken robes, which then, when lots were cast, fell to her. She would pray, con- tinues the legend, all day long in the Temple and the Archangel Gabriel would bring her the bread of heaven to eat. An altar-piece which Thode considers one of the last works of Master Berthold is the Deocarus Altar, in the Lorenzkirche, Nuremberg, and is sacred to the memory of that Deocarus who was the Father-Confessor of Charlemagne and whose bones were pre- sented to the new Lorenzkirche by Emperor Louis the Bavarian, in 1317. About a century later, Andreas Volkamer made provision for a suitable shrine for the reliquaries and for an altar with wood carvings and paintings. The central section of the altar contains, in wood carving, in the upper row, Christ and six of the disciples; in the lower, St. Deocarus and the other six. The paintings on the wings represent, on the right, the Last Supper and the Resur- rection; on the left, scenes from the Legends of St. Deocarus. On Photograph by Ferd. Schmidt, Nuremberg MASTER BERTHOLD Imhop Madonna lorenzkirche, nuremberq Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl Franconian Master about 1430, Possibly MASTER BERTHOLD Virgin in "Wheat-ear" Garments bavarian national museum, munich MASTER BERTHOLD 221 the predella are represented the reclining form of the saint and four scenes from his Ufe: Deocarus praying in front of a forest chapel, the symbol of the founding of his abbey; Deocarus restoring sight to a blind man; the confessional of Charlemagne; the body of Deocarus being borne to Nuremberg and given over to four councillors by Emperor Louis. The compositions are in small proportions, but many of them are quite masterly. This altar reveals also the master's gifts as a wood-carver, for the figures in the middle sec- tion are from his hand and resemble the paintings on the wings as closely as it is possible for carved figures to resemble painted ones. There are the same thick-set men, with rounded foreheads, fine, slightly arched noses, full eyes, wavy hair brushed straight back from the forehead, hands with their knuckles accentuated; the same characteristic draping of the garments; the same poses and expres- sions of countenance. The first great master of Nuremberg does not possess the quiet, dreamy charm of the Cologne master of the "Madonna with the Bean Blossom" or of Stephan Lochner. With all their loveliness, his people are not the type that would be found so wholly sunk in contemplation of Divine Love and the Heavenly Country that this world would never exist for them. Nor are they the type of those in Master Bertram's charming stories, who move to the rhythm of swinging censers or the melody of stringed instruments. Even though they are presented in repose, their lack of relaxation, their intensity of gaze, speak plainly of natures potentially active and aggressive. Master Berthold could never have revealed to us, as did Stephan Lochner, the bliss of souls new born into heaven; but he could portray the dramatic scene of the Crucifixion. Thus in the work of her first painter we begin to realise that the most distinc- tive characteristic of the art of Nuremberg is its dramatic quaUty. CHAPTER XXXI NUREMBERG MASTER PFENNING ONE of the original, creative geniuses in German art, Master Pfenning, was a pupil of Berthold in Nuremberg. As Ber- thold might fitly be called the Giotto of Nuremberg art, to Pfenning might be assigned a place corresponding to Masaccio's in Italian art. While Master Berthold broke away in a measure from the old forms and traditions of churchly art, while he turned to life for many of his types, as the fat man, the Centurion, the Nuremberg lad with the staff and vinegar-sponge, in the Bamberg Altar, he nevertheless clung closely in other respects to conventional types and attitudes. Christ, the Virgin and the saints are all presented in the traditional manner. Their expressions and poses are hieratic, their uniform attitude is one of abstraction, of withdrawal from the world. These are divine beings and saints, and not mere men and women who can understand and mingle with living, human people. But Berthold's great successor departs from the accepted churchly pattern; in his treatment of the oft-represented themes he is under no restraint from the side of the customary or traditional. Master Pfenning observes life; goes direct to nature and endeavours to reproduce men and women as he sees them, with their varying and pronounced individualities. He even conceives the idea of set- ting them in natural environments, and ventures to introduce into his pictures such non-traditional features as domestic animals and still-life accessories. Naturally he does not achieve with perfect success this break with the typical and adoption of the natural and individual as a standard. The doing of it is a conflict, a struggle which is evident to us who look on, and which, in fact, draws us to his pictures with such a full realisation of what is so earnestly attempted and so far from accomplished, that we become sharers in the endeavour and 222 MASTER PFENNING 223 an interest is awakened in us which is almost creative in its character, as if we ourselves were painting the picture and striving to solve the new problems. Master Pfenning's earliest work was probably the Tucher Altar, in the Frauenkirche in Nuremberg, which was painted between 1440 and 1450. It is not a work which has in it much of superficial beauty, for even the charm of the works of the earlier masters is lacking; but it is a work thoroughly Germanic in character and spirit, conscien- tiously true to nature as the artist sees it and is able to reproduce it, and the direct antecedent of the long line of pictures which were to follow in the school of Nuremberg. The background is gold, richly adorned with ceaselessly moving, curling acanthus leaves; the encasements are Gothic arches, finely carved and profusely ornamented. The central picture represents the Crucified One between the Virgin and St. John. The Christ, un- lovely in face and form, hangs upon the cross, still wearing the crown of thorns and with blood streaming from every wound. The Virgin, belonging to no type hitherto met with in art, though wearing the traditional white headdress, holds up hands as if in protest; St. John, thick-set and strong-looking, with square jaw and strenuous expres- sion, is moving his hands as if about to clasp them in prayer. At the foot of the cross, among the plants and flowers, is a death's head. On the left wing of the altar is the Annunciation. The Virgin, an intense-looking woman, but wholly a woman and not a trance- bound mystic or a Queen of Heaven, is interrupted in her reading in a curtained room, by an angel with full, white robes and great, spread wings who kneels before her, the fingers of his right hand raised in blessing, his lips parted in speech. In his left hand he bears a written message with great dangling seals, a naive symbol of his errand to earth. The right wing shows the Resurrection. The Christ, unbeautif ul, a thick-set figure, but with kindly eyes, is arising from the tomb. The guard sitting with his back to us is sound asleep with his head resting on his arms; the one wearing the oriental turban and facing us sleeps in a most amusingly natural fashion, his head on his hand, elbow propped on knee. The third has just awakened and with his hand shades his eyes from the dazzling brightness. His whole 224 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART body expresses the startled amazement with which he shrinks from the sudden apparition. On each of the outer ends of the altars are two saints; on the right St. Augustine and St. Monica, with an angel hovering between and above them in curious foreshortening; on the left, St. Paul and St. Anthony. On the outer sides of the wings are St. Vitus, St. Adjutor and St. Augustine, the latter pictured just at the moment when, hard at work in his study, he looks up to catch, in the sky above, the heavenly vision of the Madonna and Child. Beside him are the tools of his occupation — books, letters, a light, a pair of spectacles and an hour-glass. The external characteristics of this Tucher Altar which most im- press us as original features and innovations in Nuremberg art are the massive strength of the figures, the emphasis laid upon the bony structure of nose, cheek-bones, knuckles and knees, the amplitude of the garments with their heavy folds, the deep colours which help to give the figures body and detachment, the attempts at foreshorten- ing and perspective, as in the guards at the tomb and the angel between Saints Augustine and Monica, and the free introduction of worldly details as in the still-life accessories in "The Vision of St. Augustine." Whether, or not, as Edward von Engerth believes. Master Pfenning lived for a time in Austria, where he was occasionally confused with that Lorenz Pfenning who was architect of St. Stephen's Church in Vienna in 1454, cannot be established. In Vienna Gallery is found, however, one of his most important works, "The Crucifixion," dated 1449.* The composition of the picture is crowded with figures and details of every sort. In the foreground, in the middle of the picture, hangs the Christ on the Cross, a figure strangely weak and lacking in modelling. To right and left are the thieves, tied to their crosses; one of them looks imploringly at the Redeemer, the other turns his head away, grinning malevolently. To the left, the Virgin sinks fainting into the arms of one of the other women; John and a woman mourner turn their heads distractedly toward the cross, in an agony of grief and prayer. On the ground, but a short distance *Some authorities do not accept Thode's attribution of the Vienna "Crucifixion" to the Master of the Tucher Altar. In spite of the signature, they attribute it to one Conrad Laib, on the ground of its resemblance to an altar-piece painted by him in the Cathedral in Gratz. MASTER PFENNING 225 from this group, a very small boy, all unconscious of the tragedy which is being enacted, is playing with a dog; from the right comes another dog, curious about the death's head with the staring eyes which is lying near the foot of the cross. A crowd throngs about the three crosses. Beside that of the good thief stands a man in oriental robes, holding by the hand a chubby Httle boy, pointing upward to the thief and talking with another man who is laughing broadly. Between them and the central cross is a very fat, magisterial-looking personage in a gorgeous mantle, riding a sad-looking mule. A warrior in the full armour of a mediaeval knight, his lowered visor permitting only his eyes to be seen, leans back, a fine statuesque figure, to answer a questioning friend, who has laid his hand on his shoulder to attract attention. Behind him a man is shouting, with wide-open mouth. To the right of the cross a man with sweeping beard is pointing toward the Crucified One and engaging his neighbour in serious discussion about him. Still farther to the right, rather behind the cross of the unrepentant thief, stands a Pharisee, his head resting on his hand, in an attitude of con- templation. Across the right front of the scene rides a beautiful youth in armour, with princely bearing, mounted on a white horse with a heavy body and a very small head. Immediately to the left of the cross and the kneeling Magdalen is the Centurion on horseback, his back to us, his right hand upraised to the Christ. His horse is capari- soned, and around the back of its trappings runs what looks, at first, like a merely decorative design in the border, but on closer examination proves to be the master's signatm-e, motto, and the date of the picture. "D, Pfenning, 1449, As I can." the same motto as Jan van Eyck's — "This work is done just as well as I can do it." And truly it is a marvellously interesting work ! The actors are individualised, the detachment of the figures from the background 226 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART is real, the perspective astonishingly successful, the colouring rich. And such a variety of people and states of mind! Practically every conceivable mental attitude toward the Christ and the great drama of Calvary is recorded in this picture! A third work attributed to Master Pfenning is in the old Cistercian Church in Heilsbronn, and represents the Queen of Heaven holding on her left arm the Christ Child, and in her right hand a sceptre. Two angels are placing the heavy crown on her head; under her full, protective mantle are assembled the monks of the cloister and their abbot Ulrich, who evidently gave the commission for the painting of this picture during his term of office, which ran from 1435 to 1463. The Virgin is a tall figure, narrow-shouldered but stately in her voluminous robes; the face is strongly modelled and reveals the serenity and reserve strength which should appertain to a Madonna of Succour. The Child lean- ing against his mother's breast, looks straight out at us dreamily, forgetting the fluttering bird he holds on a string. In Master Pfenning's last period an interesting, though un- beautiful development takes place in his art. That faithfulness to nature, that quest for reality by which his best works are marked, develops beyond the limitations of art into a rendering of actual detail which is painful, even grotesque and horrible. Thus in an altar-piece in the Lorenzkirche which represents the Man of Sorrows, with Emperor Henry H and Empress Kunigunde, St. Lawrence and a donor, the Christ is pictured as a veritable giant, with over-emphasised muscular development and almost brutal strength. Similar in type is the Christ of a small altar-piece in St. John's Church representing, on the inside, the Crucifixion, Crowning with Thorns, and Scourging; on the outside, six other scenes from the Passion. The insistent features are the muscular contortion which reveals the agony of Christ, and the inhumanly villainous features of his tormentors. The only relieving feature in the revolting realism of these works is a certain warmth and glow of colour. Involuntarily there arises in our minds, in face of these pictures, the question: How were these subjects treated at this period by contemporary artists in the other countries which could boast of Photograph by F. Bruckmann A-G, Munich MASTER PFENNING The Crucifixion imperial gallery, vienna Photograph by C. Dickinson MASTER PFENNING Madonna of Succor church, heilsbronn MASTER PFENNING <1%1 any development of art, Italy and the Netherlands? In Italy, as we have seen, the subject of the Passion of Christ was presented rarely, as it did not really lend itself to representation according to the classical and Italian canons of art. Pfenning's Italian con- temporary, Fra Angelico, did, however, paint the Crucifixion several times, in a manner sentimental, undramatic, unimpassioned, so that in itself, it fails to move us deeply, but stirs our sympathy rather through the appeal made by the tears of the gentle, mourning women and the grieving disciples. In the Netherlands it was a frequent theme. By such a master as Roger van der Weyden we find it treated dramatically but with restraint, and in a spirit of detach- ment on the part of the artist, who views and presents the scene from the standpoint of an outsider. The German artist, on the other hand, is a sufferer in the tragedy. He is passionately par- tisan, and is, moreover, intent upon sharing with others all his in- tensity of feeling, his grief, despair and longing. In his effort to do this he passes beyond the possibilities of expression through his medium; in the fullest reahsation of his ideal, his art ceases to be artistic; he is an illustration of Thoreau's saying, "Too great interest in a work vitiates it." CHAPTER XXXII NUREMBERG HANS PLEYDENWURFF THE art of the Netherlands, which, in the second half of the XV century, had such a benumbing effect on the art of Cologne proved to be, on the one hand, but a beneficial straight- jacket, on the other, an inspiration to the art of Nuremberg. On the side of sentiment, the cooler, calmer temperament and formal self-control of the Flemish artists, who always maintained a certain measure of intellectual detachment from their pictures, was what the Nuremberg painters needed to restrain them from the exaggerations and perver- sions into which they were led by their intense emotional natures and their passionate interest in the subjects they presented. The perfect, almost geometrical balance in the composition of the pictures by the artists of the Netherlands also worked with controlling power upon the Nuremberg artists, leading them away from their unregulated disposal of actors and capricious display of moods into a greater degree of order and restraint. On the technical side, too, the art of the Netherlands was an inspiration to the Nuremberg artists, casting light on much that had hitherto been dark and making attainable much that had hitherto been impossible. Painting in oils, they were enabled to present their figures in rounded form, completely detached from the background, and yet to use lighter and more brilliant colours than Master Pfen- ning, for instance, could have used to get his effects. The figures became less thick-set and more slender, the faces more oval, the materials more gorgeous and stiffer and therefore more angular in their folds, the gold background gave place to landscapes. In short, instead of losing their individuality under the dominant influence of the art of the Netherlands, the Nuremberg artists appropriated and adapted all the points they could gain from it and went on their own way rejoicing in increased facilities and enlarged possibilities. The master of the second half of the XV century in whose school the other artists learned their art was Hans Pleydenwurff. First 228 HANS PLEYDENWURFF 229 mentioned in the chronicles in 1451, his name appears very frequently from that date until 1472, in which year he died, leaving a widow, who, in the next year, married Michael Wolgemut. One of the most important of his works remaining to us is a large Crucifixion, signed indistinctly on the turban of the young man to the right, J. P. — Johannes Pley denwurff — which was painted for the Lorenzkirche, Nuremberg, was taken from there to the Burg, and from there to Bamberg, whence it came, in 1872, to Munich Pinakothek. The picture is interesting not only in itself, but as a connecting link between the old style and the new. The foreground is filled with figures grouped about the cross upon which hangs the shrinking body of the suffering Christ. Mary Magdalen clings to the foot of the cross; to the left is the group of mourners, and behind them a grey- bearded man with clasped hands, with whom a younger man is arguing with much gesticulation, and at whom a simple-looking man stands staring, his back to the cross. To the right are soldiers and common people, among them a man on a white horse, who is given in profile, the elderly Centurion on a fine prancing steed, and an indifferent and smiUng youth in full armour. Behind the cross stretches a wide landscape of hills and trees in which is set the city of Jerusalem; in the middle distance people are seen walking and riding. The whole picture speaks of the influence of such a Flemish master as Roger van der Weyden, in the modelling of the nude, the landscape background, with its minute details all revealed in strong light, and the emotional restraint. But the types with their broad faces and full, red lips parted as if speaking are distinctly Nurem- bergian. Many of the people, indeed, are, of a certainty, pictured direct from life, as the man holding the vinegar-sponge, who, in- cidentally, bears a close resemblance to the man similarly occupied in Master Berthold's Bamberg Altar. The colouring is still of the old school, a heavy brown tone prevailing. Very similar to this in almost every respect is another representa- tion of the Crucifixion by Pley denwurff, in the Germanic Museum, in which Canon Schonborn of Wurzburg appears as donor. This picture of the donor gives, however, no suggestion of the great gifts as a por- trait painter revealed by the artist in his masterly portrait of this same Canon Schonborn, in the Germanic Museum. The grey-haired cleric 230 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART is presented in half length, against a blue background, holding a book. The head is finely modelled, wonderfully soft in contour and amazingly lifelike. The rendering of the texture of the skin and of the fine, rather thin, grey hair, the lines and wrinkles about the eyes and mouth, the keen yet kindly expression, make the man live before us. We are made acquainted with both his outward appearance and his inner nature, through a portrait which is without peer in German art before Durer. Very marked is the influence of Flemish art in Master Pley- denwurfl's Landauer Altar — so called because it bears the coat-of-arms of the Landauer family — which is now in scattered sections, of which the two representing the Betrothal of St. Catherine and the Nativity are in the Germanic Museum, two others, representing the Crucifixion and Resurrection, in Augsburg Gallery, while two pairs of wings have disappeared. In the "Betrothal of St. Catherine" we are shown the inside of a room such as Jan van Eyck would have delighted in. On the table in the centre are a glass, fork and dish; on the wall, a plate- rack filled with shining pewter; below it a cupboard in which is seen a flask half full of water; in the rear of the room is a Gothic cabinet with wash-bowl and towel; through an open door we look into an adjoining bedroom. Out of the windows to the left may be seen, in a flat land- scape, a church tower and a farm house with people. In the imme- diate foreground of the picture, the Virgin, crowned and invested with a large halo, wearing a dress of rich brocade and mantle of plain stuff, holds the standing Christ Child, who is placing the ring on the finger of St. Catherine, who kneels before him in a mantle of hand- some red and gold brocade and a curious, oriental turban of a fashion worn by many of the women in Roger van der Wey den's pictures. The painter's fame travelled far, so that, in 1462, he was in- vited to Breslau to paint a High Altar for St. Elizabeth's Church. Unfortunately this altar is now in scattered sections. The " Descent from the Cross" (which, when I saw it, was in the hands of a picture dealer) presents a high cross set up alone in the fore- ground of the picture. Against it are placed two ladders; on the one at the back Joseph of Arimathea is standing, and leaning over the top of the cross, as he lets down the body of Christ in a winding sheet. On the ladder in front of the cross is a youthful figure, his Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg HANS PLEYDENWURFF Portrait of Canon Schoxborn germanic museum, nuremberg Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl HANS PLEYDENWURFF The Crucifixion alte pinakothek, munich HANS PLEYDENWURFF 231 back to us, his full garments blowing in the wind, who with much energy and solicitude, is receiving the body. At the bottom of the ladder is John, one foot on the lowest rung, one hand touching the foot of Christ caressingly. Beside him a man who is holding the nails, tenderly comforts a grieving woman who is seen in profile. To the left of the cross are the other mourners; on the ground are flowers, bones, a skull, and a pair of shoes that have been dropped by the young man on the ladder. In the background stretches a wide, hilly landscape with houses and low, bushy trees. On the road to the left several men are walking. The form of Christ, though slender, is well constructed and the arms, which have been lifted up by the winding-sheet with which Joseph supports the body, are so finely modelled that the effect is almost sculptural. Remarkable is the impression of limpness the painter has succeeded in giving in these hanging arms and in the whole relaxed body. The features of the face, though somewhat swollen from the recent suffering, are refined, and the whole figure, in its helplessness and utter weariness, is most appealing. In no better way can we form an estimate of the greatness of Pleydenwurff*s picture than by comparing it with Michael Wolgemut's treatment of the same subject on a wing of the Hofer Altar in Munich Pinakothek. How cold the Wolgemut picture is in comparison! How self-consciously posed the figures! How in- sincere the feeling! Even the youth with his back to us going up the ladder — an evident imitation of Pleydenwurff — is posing, not hastening in response to an inner impulse. In comparison with the older artist, Wolgemut' s modelling of the nude is hard and wooden, the people are affected, the whole atmosphere is artificial and insincere. Hans Pleydenwurff was the first to introduce into Nuremberg art the new methods learned from the Flemish painters, and thus to open up the way which should make possible the accomplish- ments of his successors along the lines of modelling and perspec- tive. But more impressive than his achievements in his search for adequate, technical means of expression, are the sincerity and insight which mark him as the greatest of the forerunners of Diirer in Nuremberg. CHAPTER XXXIII NUREMBERG MICHAEL WOLGEMUT THE extraordinary degree of fame which Michael Wolgemut has enjoyed through the centuries is due in no small measure to the fact that Diirer recorded in his diary: "In 1486, on St. Andrew's Day, my father apprenticed me for three years to Michael Wolgemut. During this period God granted me industry so that I learned well, though I had much to suffer from my fellow students.'* So much reflected glory from the great pupil was shed about the teacher, that everything of interest in Nuremberg painting from the second half of the fifteenth century was ascribed to him, and it is only rela- tively recently that such investigators as Seidlitz, Robert Vischer, Thode and Braun have discovered the distinct personalities working in that period and have made more exact attributions. Michael Wolgemut was the son of a painter Valentin Wolge- mut, who worked in Nuremberg between 1461 and 1470 but of whom no known works remain, and his wife Anna, whose name continued on the census list beside her son's until 1480. According to the inscription on Diirer's portrait of his master, in Munich Pinakothek, Michael Wolgemut was born in 1434 and died in 1519 "on St. Andrew's Day, early, before sunrise." The first notice of him in the Chronicles is dated 1473, and is a record of his marriage to Barbara, widow of Hans Pleyden- wurff. In the Pleydenwurff home he set up his workshop and continued to live there until 1493, when he sold the house to Bartholo- mew Eger and bought the house next door, on the corner, which, in turn, he sold to the Egers in 1507. That he had become a famous painter by the year 1478 is evident from the fact that he was then in- vited to Zwickau to paint the High Altar for St. Mary's Church. His next large commission was the altar ordered by the Peringsdorffer family, of Nuremberg, in 1487. In 1491, according to the record in the City Archives, he was engaged to renovate the SchonenBrunnen, a 232 MICHAEL WOLGEMUT 233 commission which he delegated to his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, who received payment for it from the city. In the same year this stepson accepted with Wolgemut a joint commission for the illustra- tion of Hartmann Schedel's "World Chronicle," which appeared in Latin in 1493, and in German in 1494. In 1500 came an invitation from the town of Goslar to decorate with frescoes a room in its City Hall, in appreciation of which service performed, the Town Council conferred upon him, in the following year, honorary citizenship in Goslar. The last of his works of which there is a record is an altar painted for St. John's Church, Schwa- bach, in 1508. After that date there are no further notices of him until that of his death in 1519. His wife Barbara, Hans Pleyden- wurff' s widow, had died in 1496 and he had married again, one Christine, who survived him and Kved in Nuremberg until 1550. Though not the earliest work we possess from his hand, the High Altar in St. Mary's Church in Zwickau is the first one mentioned in the records that have come down to us. Its shrine contains in wood carving the Virgin as Queen of Heaven, standing on the half- moon, and attended by seven female saints. On the outside of the outer wings, on a gold background, are the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Kings, and Holy Family. On the outside of the second pair of wings, against a blue background of air, are four scenes from the Passion, two of which, the Crowning with Thorns and the Cross Bearing, are the work of a pupil; on the predella, in wood-carv- ing, are Christ and the twelve apostles; on the inner sides of the wings are painted figures of saints on a gold ground, in round frames; on the outside, the four evangelists and two angels bearing the Eucharist. On the back of the altar is the Last Judgment, evidently the work of an unskilled pupil, and below it, the Vera Icon, Fall of Manna, and Melchisidec blessing the Bread and Wine. The altar is impressive in size and in the number and variety of subjects treated. The only way to judge of its real rank as a work of art, is to spend much time with it, to learn to know intimately the people represented, to see how they "wear," to judge of the genuine- ness of their natures and the sincerity of the master who created them. And it must be confessed that the comparison of Wolgemut's "Descent from the Cross" with the treatment of the same subject by Hans 234 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Pleydenwurff, has made it impossible to look at Wolgemut's work with quite the same eyes as before. A study of this great altar- piece fails to rid us of the conviction that Michael Wolgemut is more concerned with the outward expression than the inner reality; that, like a skilful stage manager, he knows what his actors ought to seem to feel in order to appeal to us and makes them assume the appropriate poses and expressions. But the emotion itself is lacking and the expression of it is so evidently a pretense that, after a time, it offends us. Technical faciUty Wolgemut certainly possessed, and the power to impress the casual observer at first glance by the size and apparent dignity of his figures, the balance of his compositions, the cleanness of his drawing and the effectiveness of his lighting. Long and close acquaintance with his pictures reveals them, as the work of a clever technician indeed, but as insincere and unconvincing. His women in their sentimental attitudes are incapable of profound emotion; his men, who, at first glance, seem dignified and thought- ful are intellectually limited, small in heart and soul; though their poses express the utmost interest and concern, they are in reality indifferent and even untrustworthy. The great themes the painter presents really make no profound appeal to him; they are but oppor- tunities for the exercise of his technical facility and his theatrical gifts. In the matter of exact reproduction, however, his skill shows to advantage, as in the painting of the landscape about Nuremberg, which forms the background for most of his scenes; in the fineness and beauty of the architectural features in his pictures; the lifelikeness of the portraits of real people introduced, and the rendering of ma- terials in robes and hangings. For colour, too, he had a considerable gift, and one of the chief attractions of the Zwickau Altar is its rich, deep colouring and the interesting treatment of the light. Unmistakably an earlier work than the Zwickau Altar was the Hofer Altar, formerly in Trinity Church, Hof, but now in four sections in Munich Pinakothek, one of which, showing the Resur- rection, bears on the back of the panel the date 1465. The first section represents Gethsemane, with the three disciples sleeping, and, in the background, Judas, a monstrous villain, entering the garden at the head of a company of soldiers. On the back is the Archangel Michael. The second panel shows Christ Crucified. At Photograph by Franz Hanfataengl MICHAEL WOLGEMUT The Crucifixion alte pinakothek, munich Photograph hy Franz Hanfstaengl MICAHEL WOLGEMUT Descent from the Cross alte pinakothek, munich MICHAEI, WOLGEMUT 235 the left of the cross is the group of mourners, at the right stand sev- eral men of evident rank and distinction; the background is an unusu- ally fine landscape. On the back is the Annunciation. On the third panel is pictured the Descent from the Cross, which has been con- sidered already in comparison with Hans Pleydenwurff's treat- ment of the same subject. On the back is the Nativity. The fourth panel shows the Resurrection. The Christ is represented in the act of rising from the tomb, on the cover of which kneels an angel holding the grave clothes. Three guards are beside it, one of whom, suddenly awakened from sleep, is shad- ing his eyes with his hand, as in the Resurrection scene in Pfen- ning's Tucher Altar. In the background, three women are ap- proaching through a gate. On the back of this panel are Saints Bartholomew and James. The colouring in the Hofer Altar is much lighter than in the Zwickau Altar, but they are otherwise very sinxilar. The influence of Hans Pleydenwurff is marked in types, composition and motifs. We have already noted this influence in the "Descent from the Cross." Now it is possible directly to compare the two artists in their treat- ment of a subject, as Pleydenwurff's "Crucifixion" hangs in the same room as Wolgemut's in Munich Pinakothek. Compare figure with figure. How finely observed, how full of life, how plastic in modelling, how sincere in spirit are Pleydenwurff's people, how conventional, how sodden and nerveless, how affected those of Wolgemut! Still another altar which would seem, upon internal evidence, to have been done at an earlier date than that in Zwickau, is in the church in Crailsheim and represents, in the shrine, the Crucifixion; on the wings, scenes from the Passion of Christ and from the Life of John the Baptist. The pictures of Christ and the twelve apostles with saints, on the predella, are not Wolgemut's but the work of some less accomplished painter. This altar leaves us with an impression of greater sincerity than any other of Michael Wolgemut's works. The men, women and children presented in the various scenes are depicted with veracity, their interest seems genuine, their emotion real. To the same period as the Crailsheim Altar — probably between 1474 and 1479 — belongs the large Haller Altar in the little Holy 236 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Cross Chapel in Nuremberg. This altar shows such great variety of workmanship that Vischer and, following him, several other au- thorities consider it the work of three artists besides Wolgemut. The drawing is plainly all Wolgemut' s, the composition and many of the types are characteristic. From his hand exclusively are the pictures on the inside representing the Cross Bearing and the Resurrection; the four on the outer sides of the first wings, repre- senting the Annunciation, Birth of Christ, Adoration of the Magi, and Presentation are partly his work, and are next in worth, while the four scenes from the Life of the Virgin on the outside of the second pair of wings are the work of an unskilled pupil. Thode considers it possible that this is a work of Wolgemut's middle period, not so fine or true as the Crailsheim pictures, but marking the transition from them to the more empty and insincere work of his later period. In this altar, in such a picture as the Cross Bearing, a new influence makes itself felt — that of Martin Schongauer. In all probability this influence did not come to Wolgemut through direct knowledge of the works of the Colmar master, but through Hans Schlihlein, whose own treatment of this same subject in the Tiefen- bronn Altar contains many motifs taken from Schongauer' s engrav- ing. In Wolgemut's Altar the motif of Christ propping his knee against a stone to get better hold of the cross, is taken from Schongauer, and the three warriors to the extreme left of the picture are almost a copy of the group in the middle of his engraving. A fifth great altar from Wolgemut's hand, that in the parish church in Hersbriick, is, unfortunately, not preserved as an entity, but hangs in sections in the chancel of the church. There are four- teen pictures in all; two large ones, the "Birth of Christ" and the " Death of the Virgin," and twelve small ones, eight of which repre- sent scenes from the Passion and four, which are the work of a pupil, picture scenes from the Life of the Virgin. The types in the two large pictures are reminiscent of Schlihlein and are round-faced, gentle and tender. The movement is so excessive that the very folds of the garments are restless and disquieting. A clue to the date of the painting of this altar is given by the fact that the drawings for the window to the right of the choir in St. Jacob's MICHAEL WOLGEMUT ^7 Church, Nuremberg, bear a striking resemblance to it. As this window is dated 1497 it seems probable that the altar was painted about that time. Among the commissions received by Michael Wolgemut were several which, as is quite clear from the testimony of the works themselves, he did not execute with his own hand. We know that he did not paint the Schonbrunnen in Nuremberg, as he was engaged to by the City Council in 1491, for the records prove that his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, received payment for this work. This Wilhelm Pleydenwurff had evidently become an artist of repu- tation, since, as we have seen, he was engaged with Wolgemut to draw the illustrations for Hartmann Schedel's "World Chronicle," and also evidently worked with his stepfather on the illustrations of Koburger's "Treasury" (Schatzbehalter) , which was published in 1491. To him is now attributed the Peringsdorffer Altar in the Germanic Museum, for which Wolgemut received the commission in 1487 and which was, therefore, formerly accepted without question as his work. Much controversy has been waged about the identity of the artist who painted the frescoes in the City Hall in Goslar. It is recorded that, in 1500, Wolgemut received the commission to paint them and that, the next year, in recognition of their beauty and as a token of appreciation, honorary citizenship in Goslar was conferred upon him; but the evidence of the works themselves points unmistakably to a different artist of distinct individuality, who had studied in the school of Wolgemut and who knew well the early works of Dlirer. The council chamber in the City Hall of the picturesque old Harz town is modest and quaint, with flat ceiling and small, deep windows. Four large pictures representing the Nativity, Adoration, Presentation and Ascension fill the middle sections of the ceiling, and are separated from one another by heavy wooden frames; prophets and evangelists occupy the sixteen small remaining sections. The walls are divided by very slender, finely carved, wooden columns into Gothic panels of which the top part is filled with decorative traceries in wood-carving. In the three panels are set, alternately, the figures of thirteen sybils — including the Queen of Sheba — and twelve kings, with Burgomaster Johann Papen; in the window 238 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART niches are the patron saints of Goslar: Judas, Thaddeus and Simon, also the Virgin and St. Anne, St. Matthew and other saints. In the tiny chapel adjoining the council chamber are scenes from the Passion, with the Trinity and the Last Judgment. Of greatest interest are the kings and sybils, who are given in full length, each standing in a sort of loggia, with a low wall as a background, over the top of which we can see the landscape. The kings are strongly characterised and lifelike, quick in movement and tense in bearing. The sybils resemble closely those in the Wolgemut-Pleydenwurff illustrations in Schedel's "Chronicle," and in their garments and attitudes follow closely the descriptions given there. The painter of these frescoes was influenced by Dlirer in his treatment of the draperies, which are full and heavy and hang in broken folds, and also in his landscapes, which are very similar to those in Diirer's early works. His outlines are sharp, his colour- ing is bright but without much depth, and is rather crudely applied. He is a nervous and sentimental artist who represents all his people as keyed up to a high emotional pitch. From his hand are, further, an altar in the Predigerkirche, Erfurt, and an altar in Brunswick Gallery, dated 1506, which has been, by some historians, ascribed to Hans Raphon. It is upon the assumption of the correctness of this ascription that Vischer bases his attribution of these Goslar frescoes to the Saxon master. The last commission filled by Michael Wolgemut was the one already referred to from the City Council of Schwabach, to paint for them an altar "at the price of six hundred guldens," which altar was delivered in 1508 and is still in St. John's Church there. By Veit Stoss are wood carvings which fill the shrine, the inner sides of the first pair of wings and the predella depicting the Corona- tion of the Virgin, Adoration, Resurrection, Pentecost, Death of the Virgin, and the Last Supper. By Wolgemut are the pictures on the predella, which represent the Virgin, Child and St. Anna with John the Baptist, St. Martin and St. Elizabeth and, on the outside, the Entomb- ment. These pictures show in the main the same characteristics as the Zwickau altar, which was painted between twenty -five and thirty Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg WILHELM PLEYDENWURFF St. Vitus in the Lions' Den germanic museum, nuremberg MICHAEL WOLGEMUT 239 years earlier, and their claims to attractiveness are based on the same clean drawing, well-balanced composition and clear, warm colouring. The paintings on the wings of the altar present scenes from the lives of St. John the Baptist and St. Martin. The back of the shrine contains the Madonna and Child, Anna and Joachim. The figm-es are full of life and motion, but it is a purposeless and meaningless stir; there is no real depth of feeling in those tall people with the small heads and quick, restless glances. The types are angular, the nude forms ill-proportioned, the profiles out of drawing, the flesh tones yellowish and dry. On account of the resemblance of the pic- tures on these wings to an altar-piece by Hans Schaufelein in the church in Ober St. Veit, near Vienna, some authorities consider them youthful works of Schaufelein, done when he was spending a part of his Wanderjahre in the Nuremberg master's work- shop. It is not at all to be wondered at that Michael Wolgemut found himself obliged thus to entrust the execution of so many commissions, in part at least, to his pupils. He had inherited by marriage the school of Hans Pleydenwurff ; he had become the unchallenged leader and centre of art life in Nuremberg, attracting about him gifted pupils from all over Germany, who, in turn, increased his fame, until it drew to him from all quarters orders so numerous that it was im- possible to fill them all personally. He therefore compromised by drawing the design for the whole, as for the Holy Cross Chapel altar, or painting with his own hand some section, as the predella of the Schwabach altar, and left the rest to a pupil, or pupils, who worked more or less under his supervision. In his work we find no great advance over that of earlier artists, no marked originality of conception or depth of insight. But he was a clever adapter of striking features in his predecessors and con- temporaries, a skilled technician, a virtuoso who managed to present an appearance of something akin to greatness and easily mistaken for it. His portrait by Diirer reveals him as a man of good practical and business sense; but in the sharp eye, the firmly compressed, thin lips is little of the sentiment, the imagination, or the vision which may not be lacking in a great creative artist. CHAPTER XXXIV NUREMBERG WILHELM PLEYDENWURFF TO Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, son of Hans Pleydenwurff, stepson of Michael Wolgemut, painter of the Schonbrimnen and asso- ciate illustrator of SchedeFs "Chronicle," recent research* ascribes the Peringsdorffer Altar, one of the most interesting works of the XV century. It was given by Sebald PeringsdOrffer about 1488, for the High Altar of St. Augustine's Church, Nuremberg, but it is now in sections in the Germanic Museum and the Lorenz- kirche. The shrine, which contained, in wood-carving, the figures of the Madonna and two saints, has disappeared. On the inner sides of the inner wings are represented St. Luke painting the Madonna, the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, St. Bernhard receiving the Dead Christ, and St. Christopher carrying the Holy Child. On the other wings of the altar are scenes from the legend of St. Vitus, five of which are in the Germanic Museum and two in the Lorenz- kirche. On the outside of the altar are, in pairs. Saints John the Baptist and Nicholas, Catherine and Barbara, Rosalie and Margaret, George and Sebald. On the predella are Saints Cosmos and Damian, Magdalen and Lucia, and, on the back, the Martyrdom of the Nico- median Ten Thousand and of St. Ursula and her Ten Thousand Virgins. Naturally, the most important pictures are those on the inner sides of the wings. In the upper section of one panel the com- position of "St. Luke painting the Virgin" recalls that of Jan van Eyck*s picture with the same subject, yet is very different in spirit from the work of the Flemish Master. The youthful St. Luke, in full, gracefully draped garments, is seated in a room before his easel, painting busily. Through the window a fine view is given of a land- scape with mountains and a fortified town. In an adjoining room, which opens into the one in which the painter works, are the Virgin and Child, nearer to whose high dignity the painter dares not ap- * Thode: Malerschule von Nurnberg. 240 WILHELM PLEYDENWURFF 241 proach. Yet the Virgin is a very gentle young mother and the Child winsome and full of life. Beside them, to the left, a fire is burning in an open fireplace; to the right is a vase of flowers, some of which are strewed on the floor. The poses are all simple and unaf- fected; the atmosphere breathes tenderness. Below this picture, in the lower half of the panel, the "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian " shows the young saint, with ringleted hair, bound to a tree trunk and already sinking into unconsciousness from the arrow wounds. He stands in a flowery meadow which expands in the back- ground into a wide landscape. One villainous-looking wretch is tak- ing aim at him, another is spanning his bow, a third is simply looking on. A haughty potentate on horseback and attended by an oflScial escort directs the proceedings. On the upper section of the second panel, is represented St. Bernhard kneeling at the foot of the cross and receiving the body of the Redeemer in his arms. The saint is sincere and earnest; his whole soul goes out in tender yet intense adoration to his Saviom*, whose sacred body he embraces. In the landscape in the back- ground are mountains, trees, shrubs, and a house which is reflected in a stream. In the lower section, St. Christopher, a large, strong, kindly- looking peasant, strides mightily through the stream, his garments blown by the wind, his eyes fixed in wondering faith on the Child he bears on his shoulder. The scenes from the Life of St. Vitus, which, when the altar was entire, were seen when the wings were closed, follow the coiu*se of the legend as told by Jacobus a Voragine, and represent St. Vitus tempted by fair damsels by the command of his father; St. Vitus in the den of lions into which he had been thrown by order of the Emperor Diocletian; the scourging of St. Vitus; St. Vitus and his adherents tied to crosses, and the punishment of his persecutors by the miracu- lous descent of hail from heaven; St. Vitus healing a man possessed of the devil; St. Vitus and his friends, St. Crescentia and St. Modestus, tortured in boiling oil — these all in the Germanic Museum; St. Vitus and his friends kneeHng on the seashore while an angel receives their souls, and St. Vitus refusing to worship idols, in the Lorenzkirche. The last-named picture is signed with the initials R. F. and is, with 242 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART the other picture from the series in the church and with the "Healing of the Man Possessed of a Devil," and the " Martyrdom in Boiling Oil," the work of a different painter — a pupil or possibly a fellow student. The modelling is wooden, the colouring dry compared with Pleyden- wurff's. In the "Healing of the Man Possessed" there is introduced among the bystanders a youth who looks so much like Durer that it seems quite probable that it is actually a portrait, done by a fellow- pupil in Wolgemut's workshop. The initials R. F. signed to the picture in the Lorenzkirche would lead to the conclusion that this fellow-pupil was Rueland Frueauf the Younger, a deduction which is further supported by the resemblance of several of the people pic- tured on this panel to those in his father's altar in Ratisbon. In the scenes painted by Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, the conceptions are naive and childlike, the representations absolutely literal and given in the spirit of unquestioning faith. In the "Tempting of St. Vitus," the father, with an expression of countenance worldly, cynical, almost leering, tries to place his young son's hand in that of one of the fair damsels with whom he is surrounded. Over his shoulder a large-featured man, looking out at the spectator, is apparently asking how a father can possibly do such a thing; angels to the left, in the background, are visibly concerned and distressed. The "St. Vitus in the Lions' Den" is given with such literalness that it is practically a genre picture. The boyish saint is an appealing figure as he kneels in prayer with angels watching over him; men in an interesting variety of costumes of the period, peep through the cracks in the fence, flattening their noses to see what is happening. The lions, it is true, look more like andirons than like living beasts, but that they are really by nature very blood-thirsty creatures is thor- oughly established by the pile of clean-picked bones in the middle of the den! On the outer sides of the wings the eight saints are presented in pairs, standing on Gothic pedestals which are supported by branching vine stems, which are held up, in their turn, by lions, children, goats or wild men. On the vines many birds have alighted; the ground below is a garden of lilies and small flowers. The women are noble and tender, the men dignified and stately, and, in some cases, so lifelike as to suggest that they are portrait figures; such an one is St. Sebald, WILHELM PLEYDENWURFF 243 who carries a model of his church and who, judging by looks, bear- ing and costume, might have been indeed its real builder, portrayed from life. Wilhelm Pleydenwurff's types in the PeringsdOrffer Altar have longer, narrower faces than Wolgemut's people; their hands, too, are characteristic; they are long with bony fingers with prominent joints, and are held angularly, whereas the hands of Wolgemut's figures have practically no bony construction, but are fat and puffy in the body of the hand, with tapering fingers. The expression worn by almost all Pleydenwurff's people is one of gentleness and confid- ing simplicity. These are yielding, trusting people with credulous, imaginative natures, strong only in faith and in power to suffer for that faith. On the technical side a definite attempt at an effect of chiaroscuro is evident in the treatment of such heads as those in "St. Christopher" and "St. Vitus in the Lion's Den," and at striking lighting in the landscapes, as that in the "St. Bernhard receiving the Body of Christ," and in the shadows on the water in the foreground of "St. Christopher bearing the Christ Child." The colours are warm, rich and filled with light; the trees, shrubs and other details of the landscape are drawn and coloured with minute care. The Peringsdorffer Altar reveals an original, interesting person- ality, very different from any other expressed in Nuremberg art. His limitations are, it is true, as marked as his gifts; passion, intensity and dramatic force are absent from his pictures. But he possesses a feeling for beauty of form and a considerable gift for colour, which, with the quaint literalness of his conceptions, lend his pictures a peculiar attractiveness. CHAPTER XXXV NUREMBERG MINOR PAINTERS Nuremberg : Jacob Eisner — Master of the Sending out of the Apostles — Hans Trautt— Wolf Trautt. Bamberg: Hans Wolf — Wolfgang Katzheimer. BESIDES Hans Pleydenwurff, Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, there were several lesser masters in Nuremberg in the second half of the XV century whose works have come down to us. NeudorfJer in his "Notes on Artists and Craftsmen, 1547," writes of an artist, Jacob Eisner, who, he says, " was an illuminator who was welcomed by all the patrician families of Nuremberg, and who, moreover, played on the lute so well that such great artists in organ playing as Sebastian Imhof, Wilhelm Haller and Lorenz Stai- ber, with their companions, were very fond of him and daily in his company. He painted their portraits, illuminated for them beau- tiful books and made them coats-of-arms. " From Jacob Eisner's hand we have, in Augsburg Gallery, a signed portrait painted in 1471, of a young man, whose name, according to the inscription, was Jorg Ketzler the Elder. Its sharp drawing, fineness of detail and lack of freedom in the larger proportions reveal the fact that the artist was a miniature painter. Thode attributes to him also a small picture in a glass case in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich, which has on one of the wings a portrait of Conrad Imhof, on the other, the coat-of-arms of the family, an allegorical figure, and the inscription "Conrad Imhof, 23 years old, 1486." Ascribed to him are also the miniatures in the so-called "Goose Book" (Das Gansebuch) in the sacristy of the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg. This is a book of the mass, the commission for the compiling and illumin- ating of which was given by Anton Kress in 1513. The two volumes of the book, intended for winter and summer, contain the readings for the Holy Days throughout the year. The marginal illustrations S44 MINOR PAINTERS 245 are fanciful, even whimsical and humorous. The one from which the book was named the "Goose-Book'* decorates the margin of the reading for Ascension Day with geese singing, with the wolf as leader and the fox as an assistant. To a painter named from his work "The Master of the Sending out of the Apostles" is now ascribed a picture in Munich Pinakothek, formerly attributed to Wolgemut, which represents the apostles taking leave of one another to "go into all the world and preach the Gospel." The scene is laid in a landscape, in the foreground of which is a fountain at which John is getting water in a finely shaped pitcher. Peter is drinking from a pilgrim's flask to refresh himself for his journey to Italy. James the Elder is bidding him farewell and pointing in the direction he will take to Judea; Thomas has al- ready started on his long journey to India; Bartholomew and Andrew are embracing each other in farewell; Philip is accompanying James the Less a short distance on his way and is apparently giving him good advice; in the distance we see Matthias, Thaddeus and Matthew, who have started on their several ways to Palestine, Mesopotamia and Persia. The picture shows in a marked degree the influence of Wilhelm Pleydenwurff; such a type as that of St. John may be found in Pley- denwurff's own pictures, while the atmosphere of dreamy sentimen- taUty bears witness to a kindred temperament. A somewhat later artist was the Master of the High Altar in Heilsbronn — another work, which was formerly attributed to Michael Wolgemut. The altar was erected by Frederick IV, Margrave of Brandenburg, and his wife Sophie, in 1502, and represents, in the central section, in wood-carving, the Adoration of the Kings; on the painted wings, the Annunciation, Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, Assumption of the Virgin, Mass of St. Gregory, and Crucifixion; on the back wall of the shrine, the Trinity, with St. Francis of Assisi and a bishop, the Virgin and five saints, St. Gereon and seven warrior saints, St. Ursula with her Virgins and the Pope. It is recorded that a Master from Spires, called Hans of Spires, and probably identical with the painter referred to as Hans Trautt of Spires, worked in Heilsbronn from 1488 to 1495, painting frescoes in the Abbey representing scenes from the legend of St. Bernhard, and a panel for St. Nicholas's Chapel, portraying its 246 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART titular saint. It seems, therefore, quite probable that this Hans Trautt of Spires was the Master of the Heilsbronn Altar. Unfor- tunately only one authentic work remains to give an idea of the character of this artist's work — a coloured drawing of St. Sebastian in the University Library in Erlangen. This drawing was once in the possession of DUrer who wrote on it, "This was done by Hans Trautt at Nornwerckkg. " The colours in the Heilsbronn Altar are light and cheerful, and very similar to those employed in the altar by Wolf Trautt, son of Hans, which is in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich. The flesh tones are very fair and slightly yellowish, the figures are re- strained in movement. The artist is tolerably successful with the perspective and his technique is facile. A son of Hans Trautt, the Wolf Trautt above mentioned, was a pupil of Durer and properly belongs to the XVI century. His chief work is the altar already referred to, in the National Museum in Munich, which is signed with his monogram ■\;S/ and dated 1514 and which reveals the influence of Dlirer and of Hans von Kulmbach. It represents the Holy Family, St. Lawrence, eight male and two female saints and, on the outside of the altar, four saints and the coat-of-arms of the donors. The work is not of any great degree of beauty. The figures are very slender, the heads disproportionately small, but carefully, indeed minutely, modelled; the colours are cheerful. BAMBERG In the neighbouring city of Bamberg worked some masters from the schools of Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff. Such an one was Hans Wolf, who appears in the records from 1508 to 1538, and who painted the eight panels with scenes from the legends of St. Clara, the disciple of St. Francis of Assisi, which are in Bamberg Gallery. In spite of the fact that these pictures are badly damaged, one can still see the careful detail of the landscapes, the clean, definite drawing and strong brown colouring. This Hans Wolf it was who, with another painter, Lucas Benedict, welcomed Durer on his arrival in Bamberg in 1520. MINOR PAINTERS 247 Another Bamberg master frequently named in the chronicles was Wolfgang Katzheimer, mentioned in the years between 1487 and 1508. His first large commission was for the drawings for the Maximilian and Bamberg windows in the choir of St. Sebald's Church, Nuremberg. He designed the three monuments in Bam- berg Cathedral — those of Prince-Bishop George II, Gross-Trocken and Pommersfelden — which were cast in Peter Vischer's workshop. CHAPTER XXXVI NUREMBERG ALBRECHT DtRER THE XVI ceirtury found Nuremberg the chief centre of the intellectual and artistic life of Germany. That cultural wave, the Humanistic Movement, sweeping over Europe, left its impress strongly, so that scholarship, science, travel, literature and art might almost be said to absorb the attention of thoughtful men, and learning and enlightenment to become universal. Ulrich von Hutten in his "Triumph of Dr. Reuchlin" could cry out: "O Cen- tury! Science gains ground, spirits wax strong, barbarism is exorcised; it is a joy to live!" The revival of the classics, the exhuming of masterpieces of art in the land to the south of them, stirred the Germans, not to imita- tion but to fresh and independent thought, to original conceptions and undertakings. The ideals and standards of a former age were not accepted in place of a spontaneous expression of themselves, an alien people in a different age, but technique was improved and more perfect proportion induced by the study of the masterpieces of antique art. The visible and permanent effect in Germany was greater in art than in literature, since painting, engraving and woodcuts, rather than poetry, were the means of expression in Germany in that age. The beauty of the antique, together with the universal spirit of investi- gation, impelled the artists to discover laws and principles of art, and Nuremberg's supremely great artist, Albrecht DUrer, was the first to make minute and comprehensive theoretical observations and to give them to his contemporaries in the form of written instruction. Diirer spared no pains in studying art principles and recording the results of his investigations. Thus, he wrote from Venice, in 1506, to Willibald Pirkheimer, the Nuremberg statesman, humanist and patron of arts and letters, that, before returning to Nuremberg he would visit Bologna, where, he had learned, was a man — ^Luca Pacioli, the friend 248 ALBRECHT DURER 249 of Leonardo da Vinci? — who could teach him much about perspective and human proportions. This information, together with the results of life-long, patient study, he incorporated later in a four- volume work, *' Human Proportions." But the discovery of the masterpieces of antique art, and the formulating of laws and principles did not change or vitally affect the nature and characteristics of German art. Possibly the fact that, in Germany, the Reformation coincided in point of time with the Renaissance was in some measure responsible for this. The endea- vour of the reformers to get beyond symbols to realities, and their impressive and convincing setting forth of the sufferings of Christ as the way of human redemption, doubtless turned the attention of the artists from classical and mythological themes and even, to some extent, from such sacred subjects as are pictorially beautiful, toward the portrayal of the emotional and tragic moments in the life of Christ. Thus, in spite of the advance in formal proportion, modelling, perspective and other technical points, expression of inner, emotional life remained the ideal of Diirer even as it had been of the earliest German painters, and he remained involuntarily true to it, even at the cost, sometimes, of clearness, simplicity, and artistic restraint. This persistent, inherent ideal of German art was never superseded by any other standards or canons; as long as it remained Germany expression was its key-note. Thus in all stages of its development, we find that it has frequently disregarded outward beauty of form in its intentness upon revealing the inner life. From the beginning to DUrer the essential Germanic element in art is the subordination of the representation of the external, the superficial, the phenomenal, to the revelation or expression of the real, the inward, which was also the object of the quest of the German philosophers from the Mystics to Kant and Schopenhauer. From Dtirer's own family chronicle we learn that his father came to Nuremberg from Hungary in 1455, worked there twelve years as goldsmith with Hieronymus Holper, and married, when forty years old, Holper's fifteen year old daughter, Barbara — "a pretty, erect young woman." Of their eighteen children Albrecht was the third. His birth was recorded by his father: "At six o'clock, on St. Prudentius' Day, the Friday of Holy Week (May 21st) 250 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART 1471, my wife bore another son, to whom Anton Koburger was god- father and he named him Albreeht after me. " The boy entered his father's workshop to learn the goldsmith's art; but all his inclination was toward painting. At barely thirteen years of age he made the portrait-drawing of himself which is in the Albertina, Vienna, on which he wrote: "I made this picture of myself by looking in a mirror, in 1484, when I was a child. " It shows a slender boy with delicate features, his hair falling to the nape of his neck, his eyes slightly staring because of looking in the glass so intently, wrapped in a large, loose garment and wearing a cap. With the index finger of his right hand he is pointing — prob- ably at his reflection. The picture is surprising in the feeling for space shown in the placing of the figure, in the realisation of materials in the folds of the garments, in the light and fine yet assured lines of the drawing; it is most appealing in its utter simplicity and in the boy's unconscious revelation of his own dreamy, artist nature. In his fourteenth year, he drew the "Virgin and Child Enthroned," with two tall angels standing beside the throne making music, which is in Berlin Print Room. As might be expected, the figures betray the youth's imperfect knowledge of the structure of the human form. The Virgin's left hand and arm, for instance, are out of drawing; but again we are struck by the feeling for space in the composition of the picture and by the treatment of the masses of material in the garments. The angel at the left possesses distinct individuality; even at this early date, the pose, the treatment of hair and garments are characteristic and may be called "Diireresque." Beyond this, the affectionate tenderness with which the child seeks to gain the attention of his mother, who is lost in thought, and the happy earnestness of the angels, reveal depths of feeling and insight which are amazing in a mere boy. At last his father yielded to his wish and apprenticed him to Michael Wolgemut to learn painting. For three years he worked with him on the technique of his art, years of which he writes — *' God granted me industry so that I learned much, though I had a good deal to bear from my fellow students. " Then, in 1490, he set out on the customary Wanderjahre. Before leaving home, however, he painted the UflSzi portrait of his father, holding a rosary, on which \i 1 fh^if l^r^ '-f^ fJ^stVH. / J \ A r^. \ From a Reproduction by J. L. Schrag, Nuremberg ALBRECHT DURER Portrait of Himself at the Age of Thirteen (Drawing) ALBERTINA, ViENNA ALBRECHT DURER 251 appears for the first time the monogram /qI with which he ever afterward signed his works. Though badly restored, the painting is lifeHke and strong and makes us know the man as Diirer describes him in his diary: "My dear father passed his life in great toil, in difficult and arduous labour, having only what he earned by his handiwork to support his wife and family. His possessions were few and in his life he experienced many tribulations, struggles and reverses of all sorts, but all who knew him had a good word to say of him, for he clung to the conduct of a good and honourable Christian. He brought up his children in the fear of God, that they should be acceptable to God and men; therefore he admonished us daily to love God and act honourably toward all men He was a patient and gentle man, at peace with all men and full of gratitude to God." DUrer's wanderings took him to Strassburg, where he studied for a time, going on from there probably to Augsburg, then to Colmar, where he hoped to learn much from the great Schongauer. When he reached Colmar, however, he found that Martin Schongauer was no more, but had been cut off by death in his very prime. He seems to have remained some time in the workshop with Martin's brother, Ludwig Schongauer, who had assumed the direction of the Colmar school, for as a souvenir of his stay there he brought home with him to Nuremberg a copy of a pencil drawing by Martin, representing the Presentation in the Temple, which is now in the British Museum. In 1494 the painter was again in Nuremberg, betrothed, and, two months later, married. "When I arrived home," he wrote in his diary, "Hans Frey entered into negotiations with my father and gave me his daughter named Agnes and gave me, besides, two hundred gulden, and had the wedding on the Monday before St. Margaret's Day, in the year 1494. " Probably the artist's portrait of himself which is now in the collection of Comte de Pastre, Paris,* had been sent on to the young lady before Diirer' s return to Nuremberg, to plead his cause for him. It presents the artist as an elegant youth, handsomely dressed, holding in his hand a sprig of the plant called Mannestreue (Man's Faithfulness). Underneath is a writing which • A fine old XVI century copy is in Leipsic Gallery. 252 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART seems to refer to the significance of the flower: "My affairs go as above indicated. " He made drawings of his wife at various times, as the one marked "Mein Agnes" in the Albertina, the drawing in silver crayon in Bremen Kunsthalle, the drawing in Berlin, in which she is wearing a Flemish costume, the water-colour sketch of 1500 in the Ambro- siana in Milan, and others. She does not seem to have brought much inspiration or even joyousness into his life, however, for Pirkheimer, who must have known well whereof he spoke, wrote in a letter after Durer's death: "Agnes worried Albrecht into his grave. She was virtuous and pious, but I, for my part, would prefer a light person, who behaved in a friendly way, to such a nagging, suspicious, pious woman. " In these first years after DUrer's return to Nuremberg he and his wife lived in his father's house, and it was not until after his father died in 1509, that he bought the so-called "DUrer House" — now in possession of the City of Nuremberg — where his mother lived with him. The young man, whose time was not yet fully occupied with the execution of commissions, busied himself with making copies of engravings by Mantegna and other famous masters, studies of the nude, of animals and still-life. In this period, as indeed throughout his whole life, he unwearyingly devoted himself to the study of nature. "The one test of an artist's conceptions is nature," he wrote; "there- fore study her industriously; for truly, art sticks fast in nature and he who can get it out, has it. " His first commission was for an altar-piece for the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, which is now in Dresden Gallery and represents the Virgin and Child, St. Anthony and St. Sebastian. The Child, who lies sleeping on a cushion, is plump and rounded in form, the cherubs in the decorative vines behind the two saints are sturdy and very active and gay. The Virgin is kneeling in adoration of her divine Son. St. Anthony, his fine, strong hands clasped over a book, is lost in thought; St. Sebastian bends worshipful glances on the Babe. On the table in front of the saints are various still-life accessories, as a pear, a glass with water and a flower, and an hour- glass. Doubtless this Wittenberg commission came to the artist from the Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, who, at the same ALBRECHT DURER 253 time, sat for the water-colour portrait now in Berlin Gallery, which was probably the first portrait of any one outside his own family painted by Dlirer. From 1497 dates the very unusual portrait, in Augsburg Gallery, of the youthful Margareta Fiirleger, her wonderful golden hair falling about her shoulders, her eyes downcast, her hands folded as if in prayer. Its atmosphere of reverential seriousness makes it seem probable that this portrait was a study for a Madonna picture. In the same year was painted the portrait of his father which is in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland; in the next year the half length portrait of himself which is in the Prado.* It presents him as a young man dressed in the height of fashion, with frank, direct gaze and great nobiUty of expression and bearing. During these years in which he was engaged on his commission from Frederick the Wise and on these portraits, that is, between 1496 and 1498, Dlirer made the series of fifteen large woodcuts of the Apocalypse. The strength, vigour, energy and power, the onward rush, the furious sweep in these scenes is bewildering, almost overwhelming; but not less impressive is their dignity, their refine- ment and their infinite detail. The title page shows the youthful John kneeling before God the Father, who is enthroned upon the arch of heaven, among the clouds, and holds in his right hand the seven stars, in his left the Law, while from his mouth proceeds the sharp, two-edged sword. In front of him are the seven symboHcal candlesticks, each of exquisite and individual beauty of design and workmanship. In the presence of this majesty, the man kneeling there, though possessed of the dignity and worth inseparable from one to whom such an audience would be granted, appears very youthful and immature and very humble. Yet about the Most High God there is no sugges- tion of a brutal, destroying force which takes advantage of supreme power to gratify personal caprice or to wreak vengeance; he is the Judge, stern, just and righteous. From his throne proceeds judg- ment and we follow its execution through picture after picture. The trumpets are blown, the riders come, with bows and arrows, swords and balances, riding onward over men and women, monks * A fine copy is in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 254 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART and friars, emperors and popes. Descending to earth from a sky of clouds filled with weird riders on vengeance-spewing beasts, the great, winged angels swinging their swords " slay and slay and spare not." Such movement, such force irresistible possess nature's whirlwinds, her terrible hurricane blasts! And withal, each scene is given clearly, is conveyed without confusion to the mind of the spectator and is done with as minute care for the details of each individual figure as if it were the real and only subject of the picture. In the year following, 1494, the artist painted the three portraits of members of the Tucher family, Hans and his wife Felicitas, in Weimar Museum, and his sister-in-law, Elsbeth, in Cassel Gallery. The portrait of Oswald Krell, in Munich Pinakothek, which was painted in the same year, possesses, however, much more distinction than these. Though the pose is rather rigid and the outlines of face and features are sharp, the fine bearing, natural expression and the colouring, with the rich black velvet and silk cloak with fur trimming against the red of the curtain and the blue and green of the lovely, sunny landscape with trees and a brook, make the picture one of much beauty. To the next year, 1500, belongs the artist's wonderful portrait of himself, in Munich Pinakothek. He is given in half-length, wear- ing a black, fur- trimmed mantle which he holds together lightly with a right hand so finely modelled that it is not to be wondered at that Camerarius, the Rector of Melanchthon's school in Nuremberg, should have exclaimed," One could not imagine anything more beauti- ful than Diirer's hands!" There is little local colour in the picture, which is held in a warm, brown tone. The head is well poised, the brown hair falls in fine ringlets to his shoulders, the large, calm, all- seeing eyes look straight out at the spectator, the lips are beautifully curved and sensitive. In type and in expression, the face and head are so like his own Christ ideal as to be almost startling. The whole nature of the man is revealed in this portrait; the insight, the vision, the purity, the dignity, the high nobility, and the tenderness and sweetness which made him "the only man with whom the irascible Willibald Pirkheimer never could get angry." In the same year as this portrait of himself, 1500, DUrer painted the altar-piece, now in Munich Pinakothek, which represents the ALBRECHT DURER 255 Mourning over the Dead Christ. It shows the body of Christ, which has just been taken down from the cross, supported by Nicodemus. One of the women holds Christ's hand in both hers, touching the wound in tender pity, her hps parted in loving speech; the Virgin, with folded hands, looks down at the form of her Son; at the head of Christ kneels an older woman, who, with both hands raised high in air, voices loud her grief. At the apex of this pyramidal arrange- ment of the people stands John with clasped hands and far-away look; Mary Magdalen, at his right, in nun-like garments, leans forward to look at the Christ and seems to be about to open the large box of ointment she is carrying; Joseph of Arimathea stands at the feet of Christ holding the end of the winding sheet and looking sorrowfully at his dead Lord. In this picture, DUrer is not so free as in the woodcuts or the portraits, and the influence of Wolgemut is strongly marked. The figure of the Virgin betrays something of the affectation which so often strikes a false note in Wolgemut' s tragic scenes, the characterisation of Nicodemus is very superficial, the attitude of the Magdalen almost theatrical. The colours are strong and are disturbing owing to lack of harmonious blending. The Pieta in the Germanic Museum, dating from the same period, resembles this one closely though there are fewer people in the composition. Both of these pictures were doubtless, in part, the work of helpers or students. More wholly in Diirer's own manner is the Paumgartner Altar, also in Munich Pinakothek, which was painted in 1503. The cen- tral picture shows the Holy Family under the temporary shelter of a wooden roof set up against the wall of a castle ruin. The Virgin and Joseph kneel in adoration of the Child, tiny angels hasten to the service of this new-born King; ox and ass look out through the arches to the right, and through a doorway two shepherds are approaching. Behind them, a view is given of a goodly stretch of landscape. On the wings, the donors of the altar, Stephen, and Lucas Paumgartner, are represented as St. George and St. Eustache. In the Virgin of the central picture the artist presents for the first time the type which is afterwards his characteristic Madonna type. The body is strong, rounded, and not excessively slender, ^5Q GERMAN MASTERS OF ART the head is beautifully posed, the face a softly curving oval, the eyes large, the nose straight and rather short, the chin round, the hair golden, with wavy strands escaping from the veil to fall about her face; the throat is full; the hands long but plump. The portraits of the donors on the wings, though somewhat sharp and hard in drawing, are marked by fine, serious dignity. The "Madonna nursing the Child," in Vienna Gallery, which was done in this same year, in the unusual softness of the treatment of the flesh and the extreme sweetness of expression, speaks of the beginning of the artist's acquaintance with the work of Jacopo de* Barbari, the Venetian painter who, in 1500, set up his studio in Nuremberg. In the next year, 1504, on a commission from Elector Frederick the Wise, Diirer painted the "Adoration of the Kings," which is in the Tribune of the UflSzi Gallery. It presents the Virgin holding the Child, seated beside the scant ruins of a palace. Before them kneels the oldest of the three kings, his gaze bent upon the lovely little Babe, who, with childish glee, plays with his two hands in the box of gold pieces presented to him. Close at hand stand the other two kings; one of them with long, curling hair, clad in beautiful garments and holding a tall gold chalice, bears a marked resemblance to Diirer himself. In the court without are their servants and attendants, one of whom has difficulty in controlling his rearing horse. Outside the outer wall of the court is a landscape with a fortified town built on a steep hill. The Virgin in the "Adoration" is very similar in type to the Madonna in the Paumgartner Altar. She wears the dress of the period and is very natural in bearing. The Child is beautiful in form, soft in modelling and of irresistible, lifelike charm. From this same year, 1504, dates a series of twelve scenes from the Passion, in the Albertina, Vienna, drawn on paper tinted green, and known, therefore, as the "Green Passion." The scenes are much more restrained than those in the Apocalypse or in the woodcut Passion which DUrer had engraved five years earlier; the composi- tion is simpler, the figures are greatly reduced in number. So, for example, in the Piet^ there are but two mourning women, and there are no such outward manifestations of uncontrolled grief as that of the woman who is holding up both hands and crying aloud, in the Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT DURER The Nativity Alte Pinakothek, Munich OS jq tf >5 M H tf 1-^ < W as ■u o Q H OS s H O si M Oh ►3 ^ U Ee< < ft C3 t! o < > fe " .S rfe '5 « •c* s _M s *^ :^ o ^* ■(-> '^ t^ 8 9< 8 o « U ALBRECHT DURER 257 Piet^ in Munich. The whole series unfolds like a great drama, marked by clearness, naturalness and restraint. In this and the following year, Durer was also engaged on a series of woodcuts representing scenes from the Life of the Virgin. The composition in each of these pictures is so clear that the story they tell can- not fail to be understood. The people are all of the artist's ac- quaintance, and are presented with astonishing lifelikeness in the costumes he saw them wearing ordinarily. Yet though the hap- penings are made so natural by being presented as experiences of everyday life, they are by no means permitted to be prosaic. Thus, in the "Flight into Egypt," though Joseph in his carpenter's apron is busily plying his trade, and Mary, in the plain garb of a German Hausfrau, is spinning and keeping one foot on the rocker of the wooden cradle in which lies the Child in swaddling clothes, his busy helpers are sturdy, little, winged cherubs and her companions are tall angels. So for all the scenes there is provided by subtle, suggestive touches, an atmosphere of delicate fancifulness or of poesy. In the latter half of the year 1505, Diirer set out for Venice, doubtless with the expectation of receiving the commission to paint the altar-piece which the Germans were going to erect in their church in that city. On the sixt:h of January, 1506, he wrote to Pirkheimer that he had obtained the commission, and on the twenty-third of Sep- tember, that he had finished the work and that there was " no better Madonna picture in the land, for all the painters praise it. They say that they have never seen a nobler, more beautiful picture, and so forth." The subject of the picture, which is now in the Rudolphinum, Prague, is the Glorification of the Virgin in the Festival of Rose Garlands. In a charming landscape, the Madonna sits enthroned; saints surround her, angels make music at her feet. Graciously she places a crown of roses on the head of the kneeling Emperor Maximilian, while the Christ Child crowns Pope Julius II. Among the guests at this festival are Doge Domenico Grimani, whom St. Dominic crowns, the Patriarch of Venice, and many other well-known men of the age, and, standing a little to the right, Diirer himself. 258 ^ GERMAN MASTERS OF ART holding a tablet inscribed with his signature and the date of the Work. The composition is rhythmical in the arrangement of the lines V of figures; the forms are of great freedom and nobility, the whole most decorative, as well as full of charm. Wholly Venetian is the angel playing the flute at the Madonna's feet. Contempo- rary Italians wrote of the wonderful beauty of the colouring, which has unfortunately been lost by retouching. In Venice the artist also painted, in five days, "Christ among the , Doctors in the Temple," now in the Barberini Palace, Rome. It shows a very beautiful young boy surrounded by cavilling Pharisees. Most interesting is the study of hands in the picture — the fine, delicately formed hands of the Child which are moving in a gesture, and the veined and knotted hands of the old men about him, one of whom is leaning on a book and another turning the pages of an open volume in search of a passage to prove his point. To 1506 and the Venetian period belongs, also, the "Christ on the Cross," in Dresden Gallery, which, though of unusually small dimen- sions, is a truly great and monumental work. The conception is that of Christ "lifted up" for the healing of the nations. Hence, it is not a representation of the scene on Calvary; the crosses of the thieves, the soldiers, the mournir^g women have no place in it. Alone on the hill of Golgotha hangs the thorn-crowned Christ. Face and form are of great beauty, delicacy and refinement. The eyelids are closing over the eyes that look up to heaven, the lips are parted in a last sigh. Yet the beauty of neither face nor form is touched by suffering; rather is the impression conveyed by the light body hanging there without strain, the ends of the loin-cloth fluttering in the breeze, one of exaltation in the fulfilment of high purpose — "I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me!" — an impression which is heightened by the exquisite, glowing colouring and the bright loveliness of the landscape that stretches behind the little group of birch trees. So charmed was the Venetian Senate with the artist's work, that they offered him a pension of two hundred ducats if he would stay in Venice. The Venetian painters, however, did not look with great favour on his presence there, except Giovanni Bellini, of whom >**.": Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT DURER Christ on the Cross gallery, dresden Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT DURER Adam prado, madrid ALBRECHT DURER 259 Diirer had written to Pirkheimer, "He is very old, but still the greatest artist of them all," and again, later, that Bellini had praised him highly before many nobles and had asked him to paint for him a picture for which he would pay well. The story is told that the great Italian asked Diirer one day for one of the brushes with which he painted hair. Diirer immediately produced a handful of ordinary brushes and begged Bellini to take the best or all if he would. "But," objected the Venetian, "I mean the ones with which you draw sev- eral hairs at one stroke. They must be spread out more and the bristles more divided, otherwise, in a long sweep, such regularity of curve and distance could not be preserved." "I use none other than these," replied Diirer, and taking up one of the brushes he drew some very long, wavy tresses such as women wear, in the most regu- lar order and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and after- ward affirmed that no living being could have convinced him by report, of the truth of that which he had seen with his own eyes. With mingled reluctance and proud patriotism Diirer decided to return to Nuremberg. To Pirkheimer he wrote: "How I shall freeze at home, longing for this sunshine! Here I am a gentleman; at home, a parasite." And at a somewhat later date, in a letter to the Council of Nuremberg he reminds them: "Venice offered me an office and two hundred ducats a year; Antwerp three hundred Philipsgulden, freedom from taxation and a well-built house; but I declined all this because of the particular love and affection I bear your honourable Wisdoms and my fatherland, this honourable town, preferring to live under your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather than to be rich and held in honour in other places." The year 1507 found him, therefore, in his own workshop, finish- ing the "Adam" and "Eve" now in the Prado, for which studies had been made in Venice. The forms are finely proportioned, the contours soft, the poses unstudied and expressive. Adam is beautiful as a young Greek god; with strong yet fine features, softly -curling hair, large, eager eyes, parted lips and that air of looking out upon the world for the first time he is less an individual than a symbol; he is youth incarnate. In 1508 Durer was requested by his old patron, the Elector Frederick the Wise, to paint a picture with a subject of which he had 260 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART just made a woodcut — the " Martyrdom of the Theban Ten Thousand,'* which is in Vienna Gallery. The subject was, from its very nature, not one which would inspire a beautiful picture; the composition must of necessity be crowded, the various scenes must appear as so many episodes, the sentiment must be repellent because of the brutal- ity represented. But the work is dorie with extreme conscientious- ness, the characterisation of each individual in that great throng of people is truly remarkable. In the middle of the picture Diirer introduces himself and Pirkheimer as witnesses of the horrors. A year earlier, 1507, Diirer had received a commission from a rich Frankfort merchant, Jacob Heller, to paint an altar representing the Assumption of the Virgin. The picture was not finished until 1509 and several letters concerning it passed between the artist and his patron, who was growing impatient at the delay. Diirer dwelt upon the painstaking manner in which the picture was painted, and repeated again and again the assurance that it was being done, not only with the best materials, the most expensive gold and ultramarine, but with the minutest care and "not as men are wont to paint; so that if you will but keep it clean and not let them sprinkle holy water on it, it will last five hundred years." The scene repre- sented was that of the Virgin borne aloft by angels and crowned by God the Father and Christ. On the earth below were the twelve wondering disciples, gazing up into heaven adoringly, prayerfully. In the middle of the wide landscape stood the artist, his hand rest- ing upon a tablet which bore his signature. Unfortunately the origi- nal of the picture, which had, in the course of time, come into the possession of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, was burned with the castle in Munich in 1674 and we can now know it only from an old copy " in the Historical Museum, Frankfort, and from Diirer's studies for various details, among which the best known is the drawing in Berlin Print Room for the clasped *' Praying Hands" of a disciple. Diirer had written to Jacob Heller when he was weary from painstaking work on this altar that he would henceforth stick to engraving and would "never again attempt a picture with so much labour," yet a year and a half later he finished an even larger altar- piece, the famous "Trinity adored by All Saints," now in Vienna Gallery. The All Saints altar presents, in the upper air, the "' C-c. J' ruin a I!ei:/rodiu:tion in Colour by J. L. Fvhrag. Nuremhei-g ALBRFXHT DURER VnuiiN AND Child in a Lanhscape AIBERTINA, VIENNA ALBRECHT DURER 261 Trinity — God the Father, Christ on the cross, and the Dove — surrounded by angels. At a greater distance are, to right and left, in the curving line of two arcs of a circle, the heroes of the Old and New Testaments, saints and martyrs, representing the Church Triumphant; below them are the Emperor and Pope with the hosts of the faithful, representing the Church Militant. The figures are grouped clearly and without confusion. People are represented of every age, type and disposition, and each indi- vidual is so natural, so carefully characterised that we feel that these are, in reality, portraits. And these hosts all unite, with great sweep of moving line, in honouring, with heartfelt adoration and jubilation, the Three in One, "Lord of all being throned afar." Yet though the spectator may be caught in this upward surge of nations and ages, may feel himself swept on with them by the contagion of their impulse of passionate devotion, it is impossible to realise the wondrous beauty of the picture until one has seen the colouring. Fresh and luminous, surely, as when they were painted, the colours glow like jewels. The lighting is that of early evening, which sheds a soft sunset glow over the water of the bay, on the shore of which is a peaceful town in a hilly land- scape. In the right-hand corner stands the small, solitary figure of the artist who saw this vision, his hand resting on the tablet bearing his signature. Dignified, serious, quiet, he looks out at us with such an expression of reserve force as would seem to say what he had previously written— that "the artist's inner self is full of pictures"; that he could go on eternally creating just such marvellous works. From about 1510 or 1511 dates the rather more superficially painted "Madonna with the Iris," in the Rudolphinum in Prague, and from 1512, the "Madonna with the Pear," in Vienna, a picture of exceeding beauty and charm. The Virgin, in a blue robe, with a transparent veil over her blond hair, from which curling strands escape to fall about the young and lovely face, holds in her arms the sturdy boy who grasps a half pear tightly. In these years from 1510 to 1512 the artist also painted for the Imperial Treasury in Nuremberg, in which were deposited the imperial crown jewels and coronation regalia, the pictures of the 262 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Emperors Charlemagne and Sigismund in heroic size, which are now in the Germanic Museum, and which, unfortunately, have been seriously injured by retouching. They are, however, ex- ceedingly decorative still, and that of Sigismund, particularly, gives an impression of great inner intensity and nervous force. After 1512 Durer's activity as a painter ceased for some time and he devoted himself to making engravings and woodcuts. Draw- ings remain from this period, many of which were evidently designs for pictures that were never painted. Some of these drawings, on tinted paper or washed in with colour, are so careful in workmanship and so beautiful that they should be considered finished pictures. So, for example, the Madonna in Chantilly and a quite similar Madonna in Basel, done in 1509, in which the Virgin and Child are presented in a beautiful Renaissance hall, with birds and fruits and other rich decorative motifs. The Madonna is youth- ful and attractive in type, the Child very lovely. At their feet are tiny angels who make music, and little rabbits and mice who hurry to join this happy company. To the left, in a landscape, is a city built on a hill, which looks very much like Nuremberg. In 1511 Durer published a second edition of his Apocalypse, enlarged his series of woodcuts representing the Life of the Virgin and engraved on wood a series of twelve large-sized pages repre- senting scenes from the Passion and a cycle of thirty-seven small scenes with the same subject. It is a significant commentary on his inexhaustible wealth of ideas that he could make so many series of Passion pictures presenting the same scenes, and offer each time a new conception, a different interpretation. Many single engravings on wood and on copper also date from this year, as, for example, the "Trinity,'* a large woodcut which, instead of presenting the Trinity in the traditional manner, conceives of it as illustrating the text "God so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son" and shows God the Father holding in his arms the body of the dead Christ, over which the Dove is hovering, while mourning angels bear the instruments of his Passion. In 1512 he finished the greater number of the seventeen en- gravings on copper of scenes from the Passion — a volume of noble ALBRECHT DURER Knight, Death and Devil (Engraving) ALBRECHT DtJRER 263 poetry, setting forth with great dignity and dramatic power the chief moments of Christ's suffering for mankind's redemption. In 1513 and 1514 he made the three copper-plate engravings* which stand as the high- water mark of German engraving; "Knight, Death and Devil," "Melancholy," and "St. Jerome in his Study." "Knight, Death and Devil" pictures a solitary horseman, clad in armour, his spear over his shoulder, riding along a narrow mountain- ous road. Out of the darkening shadows of evening come the weird and fearsome forms of the spectre Death, with serpents for his crown and necklace, who will ride beside him, and the horned Devil, who, with gleaming eyes, reaches out a greedy hand to clutch him. The Knight's horse is uneasy, scenting something uncanny; but the Knight himself is unalarmed and unconcerned, apparently even unaware of the dangers that menace him. Erect and confident he rides on, lost in his own high thoughts and noble purposes: "The menace of the years Finds, and shall find me, unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate. How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the Captain of my soul." The second engraving, the so-called "Melancholy," shows a female figure crowned with the laurel wreath of fame and surrounded by all the tools of human knowledge; it is the very embodiment of the power of intellect — of genius. Yet all about are the depressing symbols of the limitations of the human mind; the ladder with its restricted reach, the hour-glass and bell with their message of the shortness of the span of human fife. Over the immeasurable ocean in the background a comet lights the end- less space of heaven and calls to birth a rainbow which voices the final conclusion of Genius, which sitting there with drooping wings, holding the book and compass through which it would learn to measure and to know the Infinite, faces the realisation of finite nothingness in the presence of the All. The third of these great engravings represents St. Jerome as * There were originally, in all probability, four pictures, symbolic of the four temperaments, as Tausing suggests, but the fourth has been lost or has not yet been identified. 264 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART M DtfRER: Marginal Drawing From Emperor Maximilian's Prayerbook an old man, working in the cheerful brightness of his roomy study, bending his energies to his task, seeking to know that he may lead others into the paths of wisdom, enlightenment and truth. In 1514 Durer experienced a great sorrow in the loss of his mother, who died May 17th, after a long and painful illness. A few weeks before her death he drew the large charcoal portrait of her which is in Berlin Print Room. It shows an aged woman, with the thin, tired and furrowed face of one who has known much care, but with an expression of great kindliness. Her son has left the written memorial of her: "It was her constant custom to go to church. She never failed to reprove me when I did wrong. She kept us, my brothers and myself, with great care from all sin and on my coming in or my going out, it was her habit to say * Christ bless thee.' I cannot praise enough her good works, the kind- ness and charity she showed to all, nor can I speak enough of the good fame that was hers." A new field of work had now opened for the artist. In 1512 he received a commission from the Emperor to make for him what was to prove the largest woodcut known, the "Tri- umph of Maximilian." The first part, the "Tri- umphal Arch," an enormous picture engraved on ninety-two blocks and representing scenes from the life of the Emperor, was done in the years between 1512 and 1515; work on the sec- ond part, the "Triumphal Car," was interrupted by the death of the Emperor. The exquisite drawings for it are in the Albertina, Vienna. Of more charm than the gigantic "Triumphal Arch" are the forty-five marginal drawings the artist ALBRECHT DIJRER W5 made for the Emperor's Prayerbook, which show remarkable va- riety in subjects, design and ornamental features. Realistic, dra- matic, phantastic or gracefully decorative, they are all of fascinat- ing beauty and inexhaustible charm. In 1516 Diirer resumed his activity as a painter, with the por- trait of his old master, Michael Wolgemut, which is in Munich Pinakothek, the pictures in tempera of the heads of the Apostles James and Philip with the silvery beards, in the Uffizi, and the dreamy "Madonna and Child'* in Augsburg Gallery. From 1518 dates the Madonna picture in Berlin Gallery which is very similar to the Augsburg picture, but which has lost much of its beauty through retouching. The 'Xucretia stabbing herself," in Munich Pinako- thek is merely a study of the human form, with none of the dramatic quality it would possess had the artist desired to present it as the moment of climax in a tragedy. To 1519 belongs the portrait of the Emperor Maximilian, in Vienna Gallery, which was done after the Emperor's death, from a drawing the artist had made in Augsburg the previous year, which bears the inscription: "This is Emperor Maximilian whose portrait, I, Albrecht Diirer, made in Augsburg in the Pfalz, in a little room, in the year 1518, on Monday after St. John the Baptist." The Emperor wears a purple mantle with sable trim- ming and a black hat under which the hair falls heavy and straight to the nape of his neck. On a broad chain about his neck hangs the Golden Fleece. Dignified, reserved, compre- hending, this portrait summons before us the "Last of the Knights," at once emperor, soldier, courtier, scholar and patron of the arts. In the summer following the death of the Emperor, on July 12th, 1520, Diirer, with his wife and a maid, started on a journey to the Netherlands, of which he has left us a minute account in his diary. He proceeded along the Rhine to Cologne and thence to Antwerp; visited Aix-la-Chapelle, Ghent and Bruges; witnessed the coronation of Charles V at Antwerp and the great festival held in his honour in Cologne; was presented to Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands; was entertained by artists, municipalities and kings, and with youth- ful curiosity and enthusiasm travelled away up to Zealand to see a 266 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART whale that had been stranded on the shore. And everywhere he went he made sketches of people and cities, buildings and animals. Portraits he painted, too; among them the lifelike and distinguished portrait of Barent van Orley, court painter to Duchess Margaret, which is in Dresden Gallery; of ''A Man," in a fur mantle and wearing a broad-brimmed hat, in the Prado, Madrid, and of ^^An Old Man," in the Louvre. Of equal interest with these portraits in oils are his portrait sketches in charcoal, including those of Eras- mus, looking down and smiling slightly, of Paul Topler, Martin Pfinzing and many other famous people of that day. He has much to say, in his diary, of the warmth of the welcome he received from the Flemish artists, Joachim Patinir, the land- scape painter, Barent van Orley, Lucas van Ley den, the engraver, and Gerhard Horebout the illuminator; of the honour shown him by the high dignitaries of the Netherlands and by the visiting monarch. King Christian II of Denmark, who entertained him at dinner and whose portrait he drew in charcoal and also painted in oils "with borrowed colours. " Indeed, everywhere he went, everyone desired to do homage to the great master. But in the midst of travels, festivities and work, Diirer did not lose sight of the happenings in his own country, which was thor- oughly aroused and split into factions by the Lutheran movement. Shortly before leaving for the Netherlands, in 1520, when Luther, having made his appeal to the German nation and burned the Papal Bull, was in great danger, Durer had written to Spalatin, chaplain and private secretary to Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, acknowledging the receipt of one of Luther's works which the Elector had sent him as a gift, and praying him to "beseech his Electoral Grace to take the estimable Dr. Martin Luther under his protection for the sake of Christian truth, for that is of more importance to us than all the power and riches of the world; because all things pass away with time; truth alone endures forever," and adding that if ever he should meet Luther he would "draw a careful portrait of him from life and engrave it on copper for a lasting remembrance. " Now, in 1521, he received in Antwerp the news that, in spite of the Emperor's safe conduct, Luther had been taken prisoner near Eisenach. Everyone believed this would prove a repetition of the ALBRECHT DURER 267 Huss tragedy; that it meant Luther's death. In passionate grief and anxiety, Diirer wrote: "O Lord Jesus Christ, pray for thy peo- ple, redeem us in thy right time. Keep us in the true Christian faith, gather thy widely scattered sheep by the call of the Holy Word, help us to recognise thy voice and not follow the lure of specious, human arguments, that we may not depart from Thee. O God, Thou dost will that before Thou dost exercise judgment, that, as Thy Son, Jesus Christ must die at the hands of the priests, that it shall be even so with his successor Martin Luther, . . . him thou wilt also bring to eternal hfe. . . . But, O God! if Martin Luther is dead who will preserve to us thy Holy Evangel! What all might he not have written for us in the next ten or twenty years! O! all you pious Christians, help me to pray God that he may send us an- other in his stead! O! Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou? See what the unjust tyranny of worldy might and the powers of darkness are accomplishing! Hearken, thou Knight of Christ, ride forth beside the Lord Christ, defend the truth, win the crown of martyrdom. " In the following summer the painter returned to Nuremberg and received at once a commission from the City Council to decorate the Council Chamber with frescoes for which he, how- ever, made only the drawings. The themes were the "Triumphal Car of Emperor MaximiUan,'* of which Diirer made a woodcut in 1522; "Calumny," for which a very careful drawing is in the Albertina; and the "City Musicians." The pictures after these designs are still to be seen in the City Hall; they were possibly painted originally by Diirer' s pupil Georg Pencz, but have been repainted. The chief works that have come down to us from this period are portraits engraved or done in oils. In 1512 was painted the beautiful picture in the Prado, of the Nuremberg patrician, Hans Imhof the Elder, wearing a broad-brimmed hat. The most inter- esting copper-plate portraits are the two of "the great Cardinal" Duke Albrecht of Brandenburg, which were engraved in 1524; of the humanist, Eoban Hesse, 1522; of Willibald Pirkheimer, states- man, scholar and Diirer's lifelong friend, 1524; of Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, 1524; of Erasmus and Melanchthon, 1526. 268 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART In this year, 1526, the artist painted his last portraits in oil. That of Pirkheimer's son-in-law, Johann Kleeberger, in Vienna Gallery, is in medallion form and like an old Roman portrait- bust. That of Jacob Muffel of Nuremberg, in Berlin Gallery, introduces us to an earnest and forceful old man who stood high in the councils of his city. But perhaps the most beautiful of all Diirer's portraits is the one of Hieronymus Holzschuher, in Berlin Gallery. It is a picture showing head and shoulders of a fine-featured old man with fresh colouring and silvery hair and beard, who looks out with such a penetrating glance and such an expression of life, that the whole personality stands revealed to us with almost startling power. The modelling is soft and life- like, the bearing free, the colouring harmonious, the treatment of the grey hair and beard truly wonderful in its effect of naturalness and of picturesque beauty. During his stay in the Netherlands the artist had conceived the idea of making in woodcuts yet another series of scenes from the Passion. This work he now resumed, but it did not reach comple- tion as a whole, and only single engravings and drawings remain to us, in Florence, Frankfort, and the Germanic Museum. In 1526 Diirer was moved to create what proved to be his last great work. Without commission to do the work, out of the fullness of his heart, as a gift, he painted on two panels, the "Four Apostles," and presented the pictures to the council for the City of Nuremberg. In the letter of presentation the artist reveals the nobility of his ideals for his work and his humility as to his own attainments. "Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters," the letter runs, "I have been intending for a long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance; but I have been prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my works, for I felt that with such I could not well stand before your Wisdoms. Now, how- ever, that I have just painted a picture upon which I have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms." On the one panel are represented Peter and John, on the other Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT DURER Portrait of Hierontmus Holzschuher kaiser friedrich museum, berlin Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl ALBRECHT DtlRER Four Apostles alte pinakothek, munich ALBRECHT DURER 269 Mark and Paul. The figures are marvellously human and full of life yet are conceived in monumental, ceremonial style. Peter, sombre a,nd intense, John, dreamy and tender, Paul, commanding, keen and forceful, Mark, emotional and poetic, are well fitted to fulfil the purpose for which, according to the inscription, they were intended — to utter their warnings against falsehood and evil, their admonitions to truth, uprightness, sincerity and Christian love, forever, from the Rathaus walls to the councillors and people of Durer*s city.* The next year, 1527, Diirer published a long essay on the "Art of Fortification." This was his second written work, as he had given out, in 1525, a volume entitled "The Teaching of Measurements with Rule and Compass." He was also preparing for publication a four- volume work, "Human Proportions," upon which he had been engaged almost all his life. Two books only were ready for the press when the artist died suddenly, April 6th, 1528. He had not been in good health since his trip to Zealand, where he had contracted a strange illness which the doctors could not under-, stand. In his pain he had made a drawing of himself in dull red crayon, which is almost like a study for a "Man of Sorrows;" he is pointing to a spot on his side, and on the picture is written, "Here where the yellow spot is, at which my finger points, is the seat of my illness." But no one knew he was more ill than usual and his death came as a shock, deeply felt by men of great minds and hearts all over Europe. "I have lost the best friend I ever had on earth," cried Pirkheimer. Camerarius, in his Latin preface to the posthumous pubhcation of DUrer's work, "Human Proportions," could not find words in which to express his appre- ciation of his scholarship, his artistic genius, his beautiful dispo- sition, his pure, unspotted soul. Melanchthon mourned the loss all Germany must suffer in his passing. Luther wrote to Eoban Hesse, "We may count him fortunate, whom Christ has so illumined, that he is taken away out of these stormy times, which, I foresee, will become yet more stormy, that he who was * Maximilian of Bavaria managed by force and intrigue to obtain these pictures from the Nuremberg Council and they now hang in the Old Pinakothek, Munich. 270 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART worthy to see only the best, should not be obliged to see the worst.'* After the lapse of two centuries we hear the estimate of Diirer's work and art from the lips of another supreme genius of his nation, Goethe: "In truth and nobility and even in beauty and grace, Diirer, if one really knows him with heart and mind, is equalled by only the very greatest Italian masters." CHAPTER XXXVII NUREMBERG PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DtJRER Hans Diirer — Hans Springinklee — Hans Suess von Kulmbach — Hans Leonhar Schaiufelein — Master von Messkirch (Jorg Ziegler) — Georg Pencz — Hans Sebald Beham — Barthel Beham FOR a quarter of a century after Diirer' s death his pupils and followers continued to work more or less in his manner. Of these there were two generations. The older was composed of such painters as Hans von Kulmbach and Hans Leonhard Schaufelein, artists but little younger in years than the master, who were his students and assistants and whose works always gave distinct evi- dence of their association with him, even though they themselves went out into other cities and set up schools of their own. To the younger generation belonged Georg Pencz, Hans Sebald and Bar- thel Beham, who were practically the last of the characteris- tically German artists; indeed their works, before the end, re- vealed the ascendancy of that Italian influence which dominated the art of Germany in the two centuries following. Among the followers of Diirer must also be reckoned his own brother Hans, who was but a faulty imitator of the great Albrecht. Hans Diirer, the youngest member of the family, born in 1490, was but twelve years old when his father died, and his brother seems to have taken almost fatherly care of him. He taught him the rudi- ments of painting and, as he wrote to Pirkheimer, *' wanted to bring him to Venice, but his mother was afraid that the heavens would fall on him.'* So he made arrangements for the boy to continue his studies with Wolgemut until his return from Italy. In 1515 we find him associated with Albrecht in illustrating the Emperor Max- imilian's Prayerbook, for which he made twenty-two marginal draw- ings which carefully reproduce the external characteristics of his brother Albrecht's style but without a trace of his genius. When he tries to draw with soft and yielding outlines, he is inaccurate; when he endeavours to characterise minutely, the work is that of an 271 272 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART amateur who loses sight of the whole in wearisome over-emphasis of detail. The year after his brother's death Hans Diirer went to Cracow, where he remained until 1538 in the service of the King of Poland. To this period belongs the picture in Cracow Museum, signed with the monogram HD and dated 1526, which represents St. Jerome in the forest kneeling before a cross. The landscape, with its dark green trees, yellow Hght falling in dots and patches on the leaves through which the pale blue sky shimmers, is reminiscent of Alt- dorfer. The conception is lacking in inspiration, however, and the execution is craftsmanlike in character. A pupil who was closely associated with Durer in the early days was Hans Springinklee, of whom Neudorjffer records: " Springinklee lived in the house with Albrecht Diirer; he learned his art there, so that he became famous in painting and drawing." Of authentic works only woodcuts remain, however, though Schausing attributes to him also the eight drawings that are signed with a crane in the Munich section of Emperor Maximilian's Prayerbook. Better fortune has attended the works of Hans Suess, called Hans von Kulmbach from the Franconian village in which he was born in 1476. His student years were spent in Nuremberg, at first with the Venetian Jacopo dei Barbari, who in 1500 set up a school there, and later with Diirer. The influence of both masters is felt in his "Adoration of the Kings," in Berlin Gallery, which was painted in 1511. The setting, beside the arches of a ruined castle, is simi- lar to that in Diirer's "Adoration," in the UflBzi, but the composition, while well-balanced, is not so significant. The Virgin and Child are seated quite to the left in the picture and two of the worshipping kings are permitted to come almost directly between them and the spectator, so that, since their position is not elevated, they do not claim the instant attention which is their due, as the centre of interest in the scene. The Virgin is of the full, Venetian type of Jacopo dei Barbari's women; like his are also the light flesh tones with yellow shadows. Behind the holy pair, Joseph is shaking hands with a man in handsome, fur -trimmed robes, evidently the donor. To the right of this group, between the arches, may be seen approaching the third king ; a servant is handing him a golden PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 273 urn. Behind him are the members of his suite arrayed in a great variety of costumes; among them are two attendants who are mounted on heavy horses. In the middle of the group stands a man in simple garb and a small black cap, who manifestly does not belong to the company as either king or servant and who surveys the scene with such absorbed interest, yet with such an air of detachment that he attracts our notice. It is evidently the artist himself who has chosen to be present on this ceremonial occasion and not simply to be content with the monogram H. K. and date 1511, on the pillar to the left. The people in this picture are all attractive and refined, the colouring is pleasing and the shimmer- ing robes and gleaming gold and jewels are rendered with great naturalness and beauty. The atmosphere is heavily charged with sentiment, so heavily, indeed, that we receive the impression that it is injected purposely and consciously and that the languish- ing glances are an outcome of the painter's intellectual judgment rather than the spontaneous expression of the actors' emotions. Two years later the artist painted an altar for Lawrence Tucher, which was set up in St. Sebald's Church in Nuremberg in 1513. It presents, in a landscape, the Virgin and Child, toward whom two angels are flying, bearing a crown. The attitude of the Virgin and the treatment of the beautiful landscape recalls many drawings by Durer which have the same theme. Beside the Madonna stand St. Catherine and St. Barbara; on the wings are other saints and the donor. The types of people are the same as those in Jacopo dei Barbari's pictures and the little angels who make music at the feet of the holy pair are like those in the Venetian Madonna pictures. Very Venetian is also the "St. George," in the Germanic Mu- seum, which is attributed to Hans von Kulmbach. The youth- ful saint is presented standing in a richly ornamented Renaissance arch, clad in shining steel armour on which the light plays enchant- ingly, his gauritleted hands resting on a heavy flagstaff which he supports against his shoulder and from which hangs a red flag. His features are long and fine almost to the point of sharpness, his large eyes are rather staring, his blond hair curls riotously all over his head. With the light playing on the armour, on the heavy halo 274 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART and the curls, and the splash of red flag behind the figure as the only positive note of colour, the effect of the whole is wonderfully decorative. More German are the types presented in the eight scenes from the Lives of St. Peter and St. Paul in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. In the "St. Peter Preaching," for example, though the setting is in a room which is elaborately decorated with garlands, and though the saint himself is almost effeminate in appearance, the muscular men in the audience with their low, square foreheads and irreg- ular features are German in type as are also the women in their characteristic white caps. The latter, to be sure, are seated so that we can see the faces of only three or four of them; of the others nothing is visible but the tops of those white headdresses — an effect which is surprisingly like that gained by some of our very modern painters in pictures with such a subject as "A F^te Day in Brittany." In 1514 the artist went to Cracow, where he preceded Hans Diirer as court painter. The four years spent there were most fruitful, and in its churches there are to be seen thirteen of his pictures. In St. John's Chapel are four large panels which present, from the Life of St. John the Evangelist, the scenes of the Last Supper, the Blessing of the Chalice, the Martyrdom in Boiling Oil and the Revelation on Patmos. In "TheLast Supper" the men are quite Diireresque, and the draperies are handled in the manner of the Nuremberg master. The excitement and anger in the faces and gestures of the disciples when they learn of the treachery of one of their number are well enough rendered but fail to be impressive because they are not spontaneous but are obviously studies in expression. In composition and setting, ''The Blessing of the Chalice" re- sembles a Venetian pageant picture, though it is less elegant and imposing. It shows St. John ascending the steps of the High Priest's throne, watched with amazement by a throng of people as he blesses and renders harmless the poisoned drink that has brought death to the criminals whose bodies are still lying where they fell. Quite lovely is the Vision of the Virgin vouchsafed to the lone scribe on Patmos. Over the saint and the beautiful island with its Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg HANS SUESS VON KULMBACH St. George in Armour germanic museum, nuremberg Photograph by G. Brogi, Florence HANS SUESS VON KULMBACH St. Peter Preaching uffizi gallery, florence PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 275 mountains and its waterfall, is shed, from the opened heavens, a miraculous light that glorifies the whole scene. It is not exalted, it is true, to the height of a sublime vision such as Griinewald saw; Hans von Kulmbach was not great enough in mind or imagination to be able to bear the really opened heavens; but the world catches radiance for a moment in this picture and can rejoice even in the lesser gift. Similar effects in lighting have been sought by the artist, but with less success, in some of the eight pictures from the legends of St. Catherine of Alexandria, which are in the sacristy of St. Mary's Church. An unearthly light is shed upon the kneeling saint when there is vouchsafed to her the Vision of the Queen of Heaven; the snow-clad mountains are bathed in the beauty of the afterglow in the scene of her Burial, while, in her Assumption, the whole sky becomes one great rainbow. But beautiful as are these effects of lighting, they fail to be convincing, because of the superficial nat- ures of the people whom such glory is supposed to attend. It is much more radiance than is really necessary to reflect the shallow emotions and calculated poses of those taking part in the scenes. It does not seem reasonable that the whole glory of the celestial world should be poured out upon people who are so far from rhapsodical, so little ecstatic as these; it is an experience which must, in large measure, create itself in fervor of soul and imagi- native reach; and its effect when it fails to be consorted with such inward cause is merely that of a clever bit of technique. In 1520 the artist left Cracow and returned to Nuremberg where, two years later, he died. Hans Suess von Kulmbach was not greatly gifted with either insight or imagination. His colouring is usually pleasing, and his rendering of materials is of exceptional loveliness. His people are attractive but rather superficial and are not characterised by self- forgetfulness or absorption in great thoughts, noble ideals or imaginative visions. In spite of a misleading appearance of it due to the lighting, they are without the power of spiritual rapture. Hence his pictures are simply pleasing without the power to stimulate or exalt. Closely associated with Diirer personally, was Hans Leonhard 276 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART Schaufelein, a member of a Swabian family, whose father had moved from Nordlingen to Nuremberg in 1476, some fom* years before his son's birth. He probably learned the rudiments of his art from Wolgemut, for when Diirer returned to Nuremberg after his Wander- jahre Schaufelein was sufficiently schooled to enter his workshop as an assistant. In 1512 he went to Augsburg for a time, then in 1515, took up his residence in Nordlingen, where he remained until his death in 1540. One of his first works was the altar in the church in Ober St. Veit, near Vienna, which was painted for Elector Frederick the Wise in 1502 and which was formerly ascribed to Diirer. On the ground of their resemblance to this altar the pictures on the wings of the High Altar in St. John's Church, Schwabach, which for so long were attributed to Michael Wolgemut, are now believed to be Schauf- elein's work. To this early period belong also, doubtless, the seven scenes from the Life of Christ, in Dresden Gallery, which were formerly vaguely assigned to Diirer's School. Characteristic of the artist's Nuremberg period is such a picture as the one in the Germanic Museum representing Christ on the Cross, John the Baptist and King David, with, in the background, Moses receiving the Tables of the Law, which was painted in 1508. The scene is set in a landscape with a cloudy, troubled sky. The forms are slender, well rounded but weakly modelled; the faces of. the women are short with regular and fine features, the men possess considerable dignity and refinement, though they do not appeal to us as particularly virile or strong personalities. A touch of pictur- esqueness is lent to their appearance by their tumbled hair and their curling beards which are always tossed as if blown by the wind. The Christ type is modelled after Diirer's but is so much less noble as to be unimpressive, almost insignificant. The conception of the scene is altogether lacking in bigness of comprehension and in depth of insight. Whenever possible, indeed, the artist passes over the deepest significance of a serious or tragic scene in favour of the simple story, which he tells with true Swabian grace. So in "St. Jerome in the Wilderness," in the Germanic Museum, though he presents in the foreground the saint kneeling before the crucifix, his garments dropped PUPILS ANI> FOLLOWERS OF DURER 277 to his waist and in his right hand the round stone with which he will subdue the flesh, there is in the kneeling figure no suggestion of self negation, self abasement or inner conflict. It is impossible to regard his problems as of tragic seriousness. This is just "a story" like any other folk or fairy tale. We go on at once to read the rest of it. Behind the saint on a tree trunk hangs his Cardinal's hat, on the ground before him are an open book and a death's head; in a grove of trees to the right is the little monastery chapel. Down the road, through the lovely wooded bit of landscape which the high hills in the near background shut off from the rest of the world, comes the lion driving the camels he has captured home to the cloister, which he serves out of gratitude to the saint for healing his hurt paw. His office it was to guard the monks' donkey; but once, overcome by weariness, he fell asleep and a passing caravan of merchants stole the donkey. When he awoke, the lion, in terrific, righteous wrath, hastened after them, frightened them into flight, and then, as we can see, with stern but satisfied air, drove their richly laden camels as just and proper compensation home to his monastery. The story is charmingly told, in a setting of unusual loveliness and with much beauty of colour. It was doubtless upon an invitation from the City Council that the artist removed to NordUngen in 1515, for in the same year he painted the scenes from the story of Judith on the wall of the City Hall there. The mountainous landscape of the picture is divided into sections in each of which a scene is set. In the middle distance are Judith and her maidens; to the left, preparations for battle are in progress; in the foreground are Judith and Holof ernes. The whole landscape is crowded with figures arrayed in the costumes of the period, marching, sleeping, busied about many and various things, and all in considerable confusion, so that it is difficult to distinguish the different scenes and to relate them to one another. Of the colouring we can form no idea, as the picture, which was originally done in tempera has been thoroughly restored in oils. It was after he moved to Nordlingen that Schaufelein painted, in 1521, that most beautiful of all his works, the altar-piece presented by Nicholas Ziegler to St. George's Church there. The picture from the shrine, ' 'Mourning over the Dead Christ," is still in the baptistery 278 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART of the church; the wings, containing the figures of Saints Barbara, EUzabeth, Nicholas and another bishop, have been removed to the Museum. The two female saints are of rare loveliness. They are presented standing on a base of coloured marble, in plain Renaissance niches almost without ornamentation, and are dressed richly yet very simply, in costumes of Schaufelein's day, which are faithfully rendered without any superfluous folds or quirks in their draping. St. Barbara, the softly rounded oval of her face framed by her abun- dant hair, which, falling low over her ears is then bound up under her crown, stands with downcast eyes and an expression of gentle com- passion, holding in her hand a chalice and a white scarf. She is the helper of men in their last need; those who trust in her shall not die without the saving sacrament. St. Elizabeth, slightly more mature, her hair entirely covered by a cap, the frill of which falls softly about her face, is pouring wine from her pitcher into the bowl of a rather elaborately draped beggar who sits at her feet. Her expression is altogether winning in its utter lack of self -consciousness, its responsive sympathy and kindli- ness. There are few figures in any art more graceful and attractive than these; but they are entirely human, secular personages — sweet, serious, philanthropic women, whom one would like to number among one's friends. During the artist's last years he was engaged upon the illustra- tions for a Psalter for Count Carl Wolfgang von Ottingen, which is now in Berlin Print Room. In these he does not follow his text at all closely, but, instead, gives us interesting glimpses of the life of his own day, picturing, with gay freedom and fancifulness, scenes from the hunt, from war, and from the life of the street. Here and there the need for the Reformation movement is brought out by the representations of the immorality, the de- bauchery of the monastic orders. None of Schaufelein's works is more attractive than this Psalter. It reveals him at his best as an artist who, though without real accuracy of drawing presents attractive types, without real depth of emotion or imag- ination infuses charm into his pictures, partly by beauty of his people, but principally by a certain Swabian quality of grace- fulness in his story telHng. Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg HANS LEONHARD SCHAUFELEIN St. Jerome in the Wilderness germanic museum, nuremberg Photograph by Fried. Hoefle, Augsburg MASTER OF MESSKIRCH Virgin Adored by Saints gallery, donaueschingen PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 279 A pupil of Hans Schaufelein whose art reveals an unusual, quaint personality has been named the Master of Messkirch from his altar-piece in the parish church in the village of Messkirch, near Ulm, which was painted between 1520 and 1540. Some authorities have identified him as the Swabian painter Jorg Ziegler. The middle section of the Messkirch altar, which is still in the church, represents the Adoration of the Kings, while three pictures from the wings, in Donaueschingen Gallery, present Saints Mary Magdalen, Martin and John the Baptist, with the donors, the Count and Countess von Zimmern. It is, indeed, in this interesting gallery which Prince Furstenberg maintains in the httle town at the source of the Danube, that we can best make acquaintance with this master, though representative works are to be found in Munich Pinakothek and elsewhere, and an especially charming small altar is in the collection of Prince HohenzoUern in the Castle at Sigmar- ingen, at the other end of this picturesque bit of the Danube valley. What attracts us first to his pictures is the un- usual type of his people, who all bear such a marked "family" resemblance to one another that the works of the master are readily recognised wherever seen. The women are round-faced, like those in Schaufelein's pictures, but much more so; they are less dignified, more childishly pretty; the men wear their hair in smooth, regular curls, while their beards are blown quite to one side. The chins are very short, the mouths small with curving Hps, the noses short and rather broad, the cheeks chubby, the eyeHds full. The figures are usually small of stature and plump; the draperies are exceedingly full. The colouring is very fight, the flesh tones quite pink and white, the hair blond. The painter tells his stories in an old-fashioned way with, here and there, even an archaic touch, as the introduction into the scene of the Crucifixion of the sun and moon with human faces. But his old- fashioned manner has its own charm which, with the fresh youth- fulness of his people and the childishly eager and sentimental atti- tudes they assume, gives his pictures an attraction all their own. To the second generation of Diirer's pupils belonged Georg Pencz and the brothers Hans Sebald and Barthel Beham. They were all about the same age, Pencz and Hans Sebald Beham having 280 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART been born in the same year, 1500, and Barthel Beham in 1502. All three were hot-blooded and enthusiastic young thinkers or visionaries, members of the extreme socialistic faction which had developed among the supporters of the Reformation and which gathered about Thomas Munzer as its leader when he came to Nuremberg in 1524. They were evidently rashly outspoken, for they were summoned before the City Council charged with atheism and socialism and were sentenced to banishment from the city. This banishment did not last long, however, for all three were back in Nuremberg after but a short time. The very next year indeed, 1525, Georg Pencz received permission to settle very near Nuremberg, in Windstein. In 1532 he became painter to the Nuremberg City Council; in 1550 he died in Breslau, in great need. Georg Pencz was chiefly active as an engraver and of his pic- tures few except portraits remain to us. The frescoes in the City Hall in Nuremberg are supposed to have been painted by him after designs by Diirer but they have been so retouched that it is impos- sible to verify the attribution. In the Germanic Museum is his coloured drawing of the Schonbrunnen, which in all repaintings of the famous old fountain serves as a guide to the original colouring. Sandrart, the chronicler, records that he saw a room in Volkamer's Pleasure Garden painted by Pencz "as if the room were not yet built and all the carpenters were at work . . . against a sky with clouds and flying birds, all most natural." Of his altar-pieces only one remains to us, the "Adoration of the Magi," in three sections in Dresden Gallery, which presents, in front of a ruined palace, a scene quite similar to that in Hans von Kulmbach's picture with the same subject. In his later life the painter came under the influence of Michael Angelo's gigantic forms, with the result that his types became huge and his colouring cold, as in the "Caritas Romana" in the Harrach Gallery, Vienna, which was painted in 1546. Yet this influence, which was so injurious to his other works, seems only to have lent to his portraits a more idealised, purified naturalism. That is to say, while the presentation remained lifelike, the painfully minute, oftentimes hard execution of so many of the German portrait painters PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DtJRER 281 gave way to breadth of treatment. The finest of these portraits is, perhaps, that of Jorg Herz, a Nuremberg goldsmith, which was painted in 1545 and is now in Carlsruhe Gallery. It presents, in three-quarter length, a man seated, wearing a beautiful black cloak richly trimmed with fur and holding in his left hand a pair of pincers. The head is almost bald, the beard short, the lips tightly set, the large eyes sharp and keen and the whole expression one of great energy, forcefulness and business acumen. In this, as in all his portraits, Pencz takes great delight in the accessories, and seems to revel in the brightness of mirrors, the transparency of glass, the Hght of a fire, and in reflections and shadows. A portrait drawing from his own hand, in the Albertina, Vienna, introduces us to Georg Pencz's friend and fellow artist, Hans Sebald Beham. It presents him as a vigorous, indeed rough-looking young man, with large features and thick nose and lips, but with such a penetrating glance and so evident a sense of humour as to awaken the suspicion that in this picture of himself he wilfully indulged in exaggeration almost to the point of caricature. Hans Sebald's term of banishment evidently expired before 1528, for his name is to be found in that year on the list of paint- ers in the city; in 1530 he was in Munich; in 1531 back again in Nuremberg and engaged, in company with Nicholas Glockendon, upon the illustrations for Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg's Prayer- book, which is now in Aschaffenburg Castle. Four of the full-page cuts, "Confession," "Penance," "Meditation" and "Communion," bear his monogram H.S.B. They are very clear and well-balanced in composition and the individuals are given with much lifelikeness. The great Cardinal seems to have been strongly attracted by the artist and his work, for in 1534 he induced him to take up his residence near him, in Frankfort-on-Main, where he remained until his death in 1550. Although he was engaged during that period on engravings and drawings for woodcuts, for the most part, he painted for the Cardinal a table top, now in the Louvre, on which he pictured four scenes from the Hfe of King David; his Trium- phant Return after a Victory, the Death of Uriah, Nathan re- proving David and Bathsheba's Bath — ^in which the King is seen 282 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART on a remote balcony while Cardinal Albrecht and his suite occupy the immediate foreground. Hans Sebald's brother Barthel, who had also suffered expul- sion from Nuremberg, returned there in the late twenties, and, in 1530, became court painter to Dukes Louis and Wilhelm of Bavaria. In 1540 he went to Italy, where, judging from his pictures, he had undoubtedly spent some time earlier in his career. In the same year, 1540, he died. One of his most interesting pictures is the "Miracle of the Cross," in Munich Pinakothek, which he painted in 1530 for Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria and which is signed with his full name. The scene is laid in an open square surrounded by Renaissance buildings, like a piazza in Rome. The theme of the picture is the awakening of a woman from the dead, by virtue of the power of the true cross. Men and women, bishops and other distinguished churchly and worldly personages in the varying costumes and headdresses of the period throng the scene. The figures are large and stately; the women have the round faces and short chins characteristic of the feminine ideal of the whole group of painters to which Barthel Beham belonged. The composition, though crowded, is well ordered, the movement very restrained, indeed so restrained that we doubt the sincerity of its emotional quality; such a mir- acle warrants more self-forgetfulness on the part of those dames and dignitaries who are standing or kneeling there so self- consciously. The scene itself, the architectural setting, the shim- mering silks and the joyous colouring cannot fail to call to mind the great Venetian decorator, Paul Veronese. As court painter to the Dukes of Bavaria the younger Beham naturally painted many portraits of members of the reigning family. Fifteen of these in Schleissheim Castle are, for the most part, mere craftsman's work; but an occasional careful and expressive portrait such as that of Duke Philip, 1534, in Schleissheim, or that of Elector Otto, 1535, in Augsburg Gallery, makes comprehensible Sandrart's judgment that "some portraits from his hand yield place to none others in art and delicate beauty." In the works of Diirer and Holbein German art reached its PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS OF DURER 283 zenith, and with their passing it began to decline rapidly. For a bare quarter of a century, as we have seen, the pupils and followers of Diirer continued to work more or less in his manner and to retain the distinctive, external characteristics of German art; but even in their works the signs of change and decay are easy to read. No super- ficial cause, but the spirit of the age was at the root of this decline. The faith of the Middle Ages was a thing of the past. Luther had opened the eyes of the mind to look into those dogmas of the church which had been so long accepted without question; had upset the dictatorship of organised authority over men's thoughts and beliefs; in short, had established the individual instead of the organisation as the norm. It was inevitable that upon this overturning of the accepted and traditional, excesses should follow; that extremists should before long push the new individualism, on the civic side into socialism, on the religious into agnosticism. Three of Diirer's own pupils of the younger generation were banished from Nurem- berg for a time as socialists and atheists. Fanatics and dema- gogues urged the Reformation forward with a zeal and a lamentable extravagance that wrought more harm to Luther and to his cause than did his bitterest enemies. The picture-storming riots, the Anabaptist heresy, the Peasants' War — these were some of the developments, which, in spite of his loyalty to Luther, caused WilHbald Pirkheimer to exclaim, "the new Evangelical knaves make the Popish knaves seem pious by comparison!" Yet these outbreaks were natural enough, indeed almost inevitable. The picture-storming was but a voicing of the protest against dic- tation in matters of belief, that is to say, in favor of intellectual individuaHsm, and the Peasants' War was but the attempt to assert by force the individual's social rights. But the very existence of this individualism which cried so loudly and oftentimes so insanely out of these religious and social happenings meant death to German art. It was not merely that, in some cities, works of art were destroyed by wholesale, although that was discouraging enough to the artists and deterred them from the practice of art in those cities. But it meant that an atmosphere was created in which no great art was possible. It was Richard Wagner who said that it is indispensable to a great art era that a 284 GERMAN MASTERS OF ART whole people shall be taken possession of by a common ideal, a universal emotion. Germany had now become a seething mass of almost as many varieties of faith and ideals as there were individuals. No longer could the artist put heart and soul into the representation of a great religious scene and know that it would call forth a sympathetic response, an answering faith and enthusiasm in all those of his nation who looked upon it. No longer were his pictures spontaneous confessions of his own faith and of the faith of a whole people, as they were in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and in those early years of the Reformation when Luther was arousing men's hearts to a fuller reahsation of man's nearness to the unseen world and a warmer response to God's wondrous love and sacrifice for men. Probably the artist himself had lost his old interest and faith, or at least had adopted a different — a critical — attitude toward it, as had his public; they had all become outsiders and onlookers, critics not creators. Even Holbein had arrived at this detach- ment and saw things from the outside, though, as a truly great spirit, with such sincerity and nobility that no consciousness of it mars the truthfulness and dignity of his work. Yet he early ceased to paint religious pictures and devoted himself to the form of art which alone can flourish abundantly in an individualistic age — portrait painting. By way of supplying this lack of an absorbing universal interest, and of satisfying their own and their nation's new skeptical, critical demands, the painters turned to Italian art, with its clear con- sciousness of its ideals, its formal logic, its assurance of external beauty. They adopted its subjects, historical, mythological and allegorical, its types and its classical canons, and their art settled swiftly into the dry and meaningless craftmanship that turns out pictures according to academic formulse. For two centuries there was, therefore, no German art as such and it is only in our own age that, with the birth of a new national spirit, we have seen the promise of a new, national, German art. INDEX OF PAINTER'S NAMES Aldegrever, Heinrich, 81 Altdorfer, Albrecht, 6, 164, 165, 202-211, 272, Altdorfer, Ulrich, 202 Amberger, Christoph, 172, 173 Apt, Ulrich, 171 Arnold, Master, 212 Asper, Hans, 136 Baldung Grun, Hans, 122-126, 202, 203 Bechler, Heinrich, 133 Beck. Leonhard, 171, 172 Beham, Barthel, 271, 279, 280, 282 Beham, Hans Sebald, 271, 279, 280, 281 Beke,'Joos van der, van Cleve, see Master of the Death of Mary Benedict, Lucas, 246 Benessius, Canonicus, 16 Berthold (Landauer), Master, 37, 38, 215-222, 229 Bertram (van Byrde), Master, 41-53 58. 59, 65, 215, 221. Bink, Jacob, 80 Bock. Hans, 134 Bomeman, Heinrich, 59 Breu (Brew, Prew), Jorg, the Elder, 152, 170 Breu, Jorg the Younger, 170 Brosamer, Hans, 96 Bruyn, Arnt, 79 Bruyn, Barthel, 78, 79 Bruyn, Barthel the Younger, 79 Burgkmair, Hans, 128, 161-168, 170 Burgkmair, Hans the Younger, 169-171 Burgkmair, Toman, 161 Cleve, Joos van, see Master of the Death of Mary Conrad (Stollen) of Soest. Master, 81, 82 Cranach, Johannes Lucas, 86, 96, 115, 116, 136 Cranach, Lucas, 86-93, 114-116, 210 Cranach, Lucas the Younger, 87, 96, 97 Daig, Hans, 132 Daig (Deig, Taig), Sebastian, 149, 150 Dax, Paul, 192 Deutsch, Nicholas Manuel, see Manuel Diinwegge, Heinrich, 84 Diinwegge, Victor, 84 Dtirer, Albrecht, 5-9, 64, 65, 80, 84, 102, 103, 106, 122-124, 126-128, 131, 168, 187, 202, 204, 209, 230-232, 237-239, 242, 246, 248- 276, 280. 282, 283 Darer, Hans, 271, 272, 274 Dyg, Hans, 132, 133 Eisner, Jacob, 244, 245 Feselen, Melchior, 207, 211 Francke, Master, 52-59 Frass, Leo, 169 Frelich, Laux, 169 Fries, Hans, 133 Frueauf, Rueland, 191 Frueauf, Rueland the Younger, 241, 242 Funhof, Heinrich, 59 Futerer, Ulrich, 198 Fyol, Conrad. 102 Fyol, Hans, 102 Fyol, Sebald, 102 Giltinger, Gumpolt, 169 Glockendon, Nicholas, 2S1 Gothland, Peter, see Roddelstadt Graf, Urs, 133, 134 Grimmer, Hans, 103 Griin, Hans Baldung, see Baldung Grunewald, Matthaus, 5, 7, 88, 104-116, 123, 124, 126, 159, 178, 202, 207 Haller, Andr6, 193 Hans, Maler zu Schwaz, 142, 143 Herbst or Herbster, Hans, 132. 169 Herlin, Friedrich, 145. 147-149 Herrad von Landsperg, 15 Herzog, Johann, 152 Hess, Martin, see Master of the House Book Hildegard, Master, 80 Holbein, Ambrosius, 132, 136, 168, 174 Holbein, Hans the Elder, 132, 134, 151-160, 168, 174, 177, 178 Holbein, Hans, 79, 80. 174-187, 282, 284 Holbein, Sigmund, 178 Huber, Wolf, 211 Isenmann, Casper, 127-129 Joos van der Beke van Cleve, see Master of the Death of Mary Joost, Jan, von Calcar, 77 Katzenheimer, Wolfgang, 247 Klauser, Jacob, 134 Kluber, Hans Hug. 134 Konigsweiser, Heinrich, 98 Koerbecke, Johann, 83 Krell, Hans, 96 Krell, Hans the Younger, 96 Krodel, Matthias. 98 Krodel, Wolfgang, 97 Kulmbach, Hans Suess von, 246, 271-275, 280 285 286 INDEX OF PAINTER'S NAMES Landauer, see Berthold Lebenbacher, Friedrich, 28 Leu, Hans, 136 Lochner, Stephan, 63-69, 217, 221 Lon, Gert von, 83 Masselkirchner, see Mochselkirchner Maler zu Schwaz, see Hans Manuel Deutsch, Hans Rudolph, 136 Manuel Deutsch, Nicholas, 135, 136 Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, 102, 103 Master of Cappenberg, 84 Master with the Carnation, 134 Master of the Death of Mary (Jan Joos van der Beke van Cleve), 77-79 Master of Frankfort, 101, 102 Master of the Glorification of the Virgin, 71 Master of Grossgmain, see Frueauf, 191 Master of the Heisterbach Altar, 69 Master of the High Altar, Heilsbronn, see Trautt, Hans Master of the Holy Kinship, 71-73, 77 Master of the House Book, 102, 103 Master L. F. (Leo Frass? Laux Freilich ?), 161 Master of Liesborn, 82, 83 Master of the Life of Mary, 70, 71, 79 Master of the Lyversberg Passion, 71 Master of the Madonna with the Bean Blossom, 61, 82, 221 Master of Messkirch, see Ziegler, Jorg Master of the Pehringsdorffer Altar, see Pley- denwurff, Wilhelm Master of the Przibram "Holy Family," 216 Master of St. Bartholomew, 75, 76 Master of the St. Clara Altar, 81, 215, see also Wynrich Master of the St. George Legends, 71 Master of St. Severin, 73-76 Master of St. Veronica, 63, see Wynrich Master with the Scorpion, 26, 192 Master of the Sending Out of the Apostles, 245 Master of Sigmaringen, 145, 148 Master of Wittingau, 37, 215, 216 Melem, Hans von, 80 Mielich, Hans, see Muelich, 200 Mielich, Wolfgang, 200 Mochselkirchner (Masselkirchner), Gabriel, 198 Moser, Lucas, 117-120, 140 Muelich, Hans, 200 Muller, Lucas, see Cranach Multscher, Hans, 137-140 Nicholas of Bohemia, 212 Olmdorfer, Hans, 198 Ostendorfer, Michael, 211 Otto, Master, 213 Pacher, Friedrich, 193 Pacher, Hans, 193 Pacher, Michael, 193-197 Pencz. Georg, 267, 271, 279-281 Pfenning, Master, 222-228, 235 Pleydenwurflf, Hans, 228-235, 239, 240, 244, 246 Pleydenwurff, Wilhelm, 233, 237, 238, 240-245 Pollack, Jan, 199, 200 Pseudo-Grunewald, 88, 114-116 Raphon, Hans, 94, 95 Reichlich, Martin, 28 Ring, Hermann tom, 85 Ring, Ludger tom, 84, 85 Ring, Ludger tom, the Younger, 85 Ring, Nicholas tom, 85 Roddelstadt, Peter, 98 Sachs, Hans, 18 Schaffner, Martin, 143-145 Schaufelein, Hans Leonhard, 239, 271, 275-279 Scheel, Sebastian, 192 Schongauer, Ludwig, 131, 251 Schongauer, Martin, 106, 127-131, 139, 140 161, 236, 251 Schopfer, Hans, 201 Schopfer, Hans the Younger, 201 Schriet, Nicholas, 102 Schiihlein (Schuchlein), Hans, 139-141, 236 Schwartz, Christoph, 173 Schwarz, Martin, 150 Simon of Aschaflfenburg, 114, 116 Springinklee, Hans, 272 Stimmer, Tobias, 134 Stitny, Thomas, 17 Stollen, see Conrad Strigel, Bernhard, 143; 151 Strigel, Ivo, 151 Strigel, Johann, 150 Strigel, Klaus, 151 Stumme, Absalom, 59 Suelnmeigr, N., 83 Suess von Kulmbach, Hans, 246, 271, 272, 282 Sunder, Lucas, see Cranach Sunter, Jacob, 26, 193 Taig (Teig), Sebastian, see Daig Theodoric of Prague, 35-37 Tom Ring, see Ring Tommaso da Modena, 35-37 Trautt, Hans of Spires, 245, 246 Trautt. Wolf, 246 Troppau, Johann von, 18 Van Byrde, Bertram, 41-53, 58, 59, 65,215, 221 Von Kulmbach, see Kulmbach Wernher von Tegernsee, 15 Wertinger, Hans, 201 Willehalm (Wilhelm) von Oranse, 17 Wilhelm, Master, 61, 62 Witz, Conrad, 120-122 Woensam, Anton, 79 Woensam, Jasper, 79 Wolf, Hans, 246 Wolgemut, Michael, 24, 140, 229, 231-240, 243-246. 250, 255, 265, 276 Wolgemut, Valentin, 232 Wurmser, Nicholas, 35-37 Wynrich, Hermann, 62 Zeitblom, Bartolommaus, 141-143, 152, 168 Ziegler, Jorg, 279 14 DAY USE '^W LIBRARY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED MAIN LIBRARY CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT THIS BOOK IS DUE BEFORE CLOSING TIME J ™ ON I^ST DATE STAMPED BELOW ! I ■ <" -, ^'HCULATION D'^^oT LD62A-30m-7,'78 (B2278l0)94l2-A-32 General Library University of California Berkeley .U9-30*»' U^ C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES C0M7mttt0 390426 ^•t'^^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY