DEATH AND THE PEDDLER. BY HOLBEIN.

Basle Museum; and there can be no doubt that he might have rivaled even Raphael in historical painting had he devoted his attention to that branch of art. He was the one German master, not excepting even Dürer, who freed himself entirely from the insipid conventionalism in the treatment of the human form which had so long prevailed, and his portraits have an individuality of character and clearness of coloring superior to anything of the kind ever produced in Germany. His Last Supper, in the Basle Gallery, the so-called Meyer Madonna, in the Darmstadt Gallery, of which a replica exists in the Dresden Gallery, and the series of wood-cuts known as the Dance of Deathskillful reproductions of which may be seen. in almost every public library-are among his best known and most spirited compositions. The last-named is a noble work, full of humor and poetry, and has been chosen by Mr. Ruskin as a specimen of the true use of the grotesque in art.

As is well known, Holbein spent a great portion of his life in England, where the royal and private collections contain many authentic works from his hand. Of these we must name, as among the most remarkable, a portrait of Erasmus, and the so-called Ambassadors, both in the gallery of Longford Castle; a series of eighteen portraits

of Members of the Barber-Surgeons' Guild, in the Barber-Surgeons' Hall, London; a portrait of Lady Vaux at Hampton Court; that of a Young Man, wearing a black dress and cap, at Windsor Castle; and last, but not least, the portrait of the Duchess of Milan, painted by command of Henry VIII., and now the property of the Duke of Norfolk. In 1881 this picture was on loan in the National Gallery. The master's style may also be studied in the fine collection of drawings and engravings in the British Museum and the magnificent collection of portrait studies in red chalk at Windsor Castle.

Holbein's symbolic scenes are especially remarkable for their keen irony, and their bitter satire on the follies of his age; they express a sad and mournful realization of the power of evil, with a steadfast faith in the final triumph of good which redeems them from coarseness, and stamps them with the religious significance wanting to the works of the

BY HOLBEIN. DRESDEN GALLERY.

inferior men who copied his manner without catching his spirit.

We must here name as artists of the Swabian School in the sixteenth century, Sigismund Holbein (ab. 14651540), uncle of the master noticed above, to whom is ascribed a Portrait of a Lady, in the National Gallery; Christoph Amberger (ab. 1490-1563); Nicolaus Manuel, called Deutsch (ab. 1484-1530); Martin Schaffner (fl. ab. 1499-1535); and, above all, Hans Burckmair (1473-1531), a master of considerable genius and varied power, whose best works are in the Augsburg Gallery, but whose peculiar characteristics may be studied in an Adoration of the Shepherds in the Royal collection, Wind

ish masters, combined with an intensity of expression and a delight in the weird and fantastic even greater than in the productions of Swabian painters.

The master in whom all these peculiarities were most strikingly manifested was Michael Wolgemut (1434-1519), who did much to aid the development of German Painting, and was the immediate predecessor of Albrecht Dürer. His best works are at Nuremberg; but the Liverpool Institution contains two fine compositions from his hand-Pilate washing his Hands, and the Descent from the Cross. His

pictures all have considerable force and transparency of coloring, but are wanting in harmony of composition and general equality of tone.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was the father of German Painting, and has been proudly called by his countrymen the "prince of artists." A native of Nuremberg, of Hungarian descent, he was intended by his father, a goldsmith, to follow his profession. But his love of drawing prevailed, and in 1486 he was apprenticed to Wolgemut. The years 14901494 were spent in travel: how and where, we have

Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne, Bruges and Ghent; refusing in Antwerp, as he had previously done in Venice, an offer to stay in that city, he returned home in the following year; he died in Nuremberg in 1528.

Dürer was, without doubt, a master-spirit, and had he met with the same recognition in his native land which he would have received had he been born in Italy, he would probably have taken rank with the men we have named as the greatest painters of any age; but, while gaining yet another finished master, we might perhaps have lost a teacher of spiritual truth whose works are, in their way, unique. Albrecht Dürer was among the first to bring the laws of science to bear upon art, and to demonstrate the practical value of perspective. He was a man of rare energy, versatility and power of work; he excelled alike in Painting, Engraving, Sculpture and Wood-carving; and in the latter part of his life published works on perspective, fortification and other abstruse subjects. The chief characteristics of his painting are forcible drawing, breadth of coloring, individuality of character, vitality of expression and highness of finish-combined, unfortunately, with a certain harshness of outline, an occasional stiffness in the treatment of drapery, and a want of feeling for physical grace and beauty. His works bear the impress of his own earnest yet mystic spirit, and are moreover a fitting expression of the complex German character, with its practical steadfastness of purpose, its restless intellectual cravings, never-satisfied aspirations after spiritual truth, and vivid force of imagination. Ever haunted by solemn questions relating to Death and the Life to come, Dürer feared not to look the most awful possibilities full in the face; and in his works we may-if we will throw ourselves into the experience of their author-trace the gradual winning of certainty out of doubt-the gradual solving of the problem of the meaning of existence. Unable to free himself entirely from the fantastic element, apparently inherent in the very nature of German art, Dürer touched it with his own refinement; his quaint, unearthly figures are never vulgar-his most terrible forms are never coarse.

Albrecht Dürer's earliest known portrait is that of his father, bearing date 1497, in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland at Sion House. Similar pictures are in the Uffizi, Florence, the Pinakothek, Munich, and the Städel, Frankfort. Passavant con

siders the last-named to be the original; Mrs. Heaton is in favor of that of Sion House. To the first part of his career belong also a masterly series of wood-cuts illustrative of the Apocalypse (the first edition of which appeared in 1498), in which great power of conception and force of design are displayed, the fantastic element being kept in due subjection; the Portrait of Himself (1498), and an Adoration of the Kings (1504), both in the Uffizi, Florence; and an extremely fine portrait of an unknown man in the Duke of Rutland's collection at Belvoir Castle.

Although Dürer visited Italy and spent some time in Venice, he apparently lost nothing of his own individuality of style. His famous Virgin with the Rose-garlands, now in the abbey of Strahow, near Prague, was painted at this time for the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, at Venice, and is distinguished for all the master's peculiar excellences. It is, unfortunately, much injured; the musuem of Lyons possesses a fine copy.

To the year 1507 belongs a very excellent Portrait of a Young Man in the Belvedere, Vienna, and the single figures of Adam and Eve, now in the Madrid Gallery.

From the few years succeeding his visit to Venice date many of Dürer's finest works, such as the two series of woodcuts known as the Little Passion (1511), and the Great Passion (published first in book shape in 1511), the former consisting of scenes from the ministry of our Lord, and the latter of scenes from the actual Passion, Death, and Burial of the Redeemer,-in all of which the central figure is majestic and dignified, and the solemn subjects are treated with genuine reverence and poetic feeling. Even more famous are the Adoration of the Trinity (1511),-now in the Belvedere, Vienna, considered Dürer's finest painting-and the well known engraving of the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), and Melencolia (1514); the former of which, remarkable as it is considered for masterly drawing and powerful conception, is yet more valuable as an earnest of victory won and a great problem solved. It is an expression of the artist's conviction of the final triumph of humanity over Death, the Devil and all evil suggestions. Equally expressive of the subtle conflict in this world between joy and sorrow, good and evil, is the awful print of Melencolia, in which we see the great Genius of the toil and knowledge of the world, wearing a laurel wreath upon her brow and with the instruments of

science strewn around her, gazing with intense and melancholy foreboding into the dim future; but, above the comet of evil omen and the winged bat bearing a scroll inscribed "Melencolia," rises the rainbow of Hope, and the light of future joy is beginning to gleam in the tearful eyes of the winged spirit; while the little child beside her, with his tablet and pencil, ready to carry on the work she may not finish, is a symbol of the ever-new vitality of the human race. In S. Jerome in his study, produced about the same time as Melencolia, the answer to the great question is more assured and definite; the saint has acquired so thorough a mastery over the spirit-world that nothing can ruffle his holy serenity.

Of Dürer's large oil paintings we must name the apostles Philip and James (1516), in the Uffizi, Florence; the portrait of the Emperor Maximilian I. (1519), in the Belvedere, Vienna; the half-length figures of SS. Joseph and Joachim and SS. Simeon and Lazarus, in the Pinakothek, Munich, the interior wings of an altar-piece produced in 1523, after a visit to the Netherlands, which sensibly affected the great master's style; and two companion pictures one of the Apostles John and Peter, the other of Mark and Paul-also in the Munich Gallery, remarkable works, full of dignity and individuality of character, supposed to represent the four temperaments; the melancholy being embodied in the face and figure of S. John, the phlegmatic in that of S. Peter, the sanguine in that of S. Mark, and the choleric in that of S. Paul.

England, we believe, contains but two paintings by Albrecht Dürer-the Portrait of Himself, already noticed; and a bust portrait of a Senator, in the National Gallery.

Of Dürer's later portraits the most remarkable are those engraved on copper of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg, the Elector Frederick, Pirkheimer, Melancthon, Erasmus, and other celebrated men of his day; and two portraits in oil-one in the Belvedere, Vienna, of a certain Johann Kleberger; one in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg, of Hieronymus Holzchuher. Other important engravings by him are the copper Passion (1507-1513); the Great Horse (1505); the Little Horse (1505); S. Eustachius, frequently called S. Hubert; and S. Anthony (1519); and of his wood-cuts the series of the Life of the Virgin (1511); of the Triumphal Arch of

Maximilian (1512-1515), and the Triumphal Car of Maximilian (1523).

Among the most important of the disciples of Dürer were Hans Burckmair (1473-1531), who painted historic subjects and portraits, and is famous for a wonderful series of wood-cuts called the Triumph of Maximilian; and Hans Fuss, called from his birth-place Hans von Kulmbach, is styled by Kugler "one of the most pleasing of Albrecht Dürer's scholars." He was working in that painter's studio as late as 1518. He died at Nuremberg about 1522. His master-piece is, a Madonna and Child adored by Saints, in the church of St. Sebald, at Nuremberg.

Hans Leonhardt Schäufelin (1490-1540) was Albrecht Dürer's favorite pupil, and many of his works have been attributed to his master. A St. Bridget in the chapel of St. Maurice, at Nuremberg, is one of the most remarkable of his very unequal works.

Dürer exercised a powerful influence throughout the whole of Europe, and had many followers and imitators, to whom the general name of the "Little Masters" has been given, on account of the smallness of their works. They were, however, rather engravers than painters, and on that account we shall content ourselves with merely enumerating the principal: Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-1558); Barthel Beham (1502 ab. 1540); Hans Sebald Beham (15001550); Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538), one of the greatest of Dürer's pupils, and a very successful colorist; his master-piece is the Victory of Alexander over Darius, in the Munich Gallery; George Penez (ab. 1500-1550), a man of considerable original genius and feeling for beauty; and Jakob Bink (ab. 1500-1568-69).

Among those followers of Dürer who were only engravers were Hans Brosamer, Virgilius Solis, Jost Amman, and Theodor de Bry.

Contemporary with Dürer, we find a great master arising in Saxony, imbued with the same earnestness and the same love of the fantastic and grotesque. We allude to Lucas Cranach (1472-1553), a native of Kronach in Franconia, whose style in its general characteristics resembles that of Matthius Grünewald, mentioned above, with whom he studied for some time. He was court-painter to three Electors successively, and spent a most prosperous life.

Cranach was inferior to Dürer in drawing, in imaginative force and feeling, for truth of expression; but his large sacred pictures åre remarkable for dig. nity and grace, while some of his minor works are full of pleasant humor. Of the former, the Woman taken in Adultery, in the Pinakothek at Munich, and the altar-piece at Weimar, representing the Crucifixion-in which fine portraits of Luther and of the artist himself are introduced-may be cited as good examples; and the Fountain of Youth, in the Berlin Museum, as an instance of the latter. Cranach's chief strength was, however, in portraiture, and in subjects suitable for purely realistic treatment. The National Gallery contains a very fine Portrait of a Young Girl, from his hand, and portraits of the celeb

rities of his day are plentiful in the various Continental collections.

Lucas Cranach, the younger (1515-1586), followed successfully in his father's footsteps, and painted many pictures which have doubtless passed as the work of his father. The Cranachs left no disciples; the School of Saxony began with the father and ended with the son.

After Cranach, Dürer and Holbein had passed away, Painting rapidly declined in Germany, as in Italy; but, before we speak of the artists of the next two centuries, we may add that the art of glasspainting was carried to the greatest perfection in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by the Germans and Flemings, and that they maintained their superiority in this respect over the other Continental States until the close of the seventeenth century.