In Germany, as elsewhere, the arts were first trained to the service and for the embellishments of religion ; and partook of the taste of those barbarous ages we have already endeavocred to describe, in which architecture had made considerable advances, but painting so very lit tle. We find the same gold ground in the ancient Ger man pictures, the same constraint and defective propor tions, where the figures are so awkwardly crowded on et.ch other, and seem so unaccommodating This con tinued as long as painting remained exclusively in the hands of the monks, and was never employed for any other purpose than the constant repetition of the same sacred subjects, and after the same manner of representation ; but the application to profane subjects which took place in the thirteenth century, immediately effected an im provement simultaneous with that which took place in Italy. The towns of Cologne and Prague seem to have produced the earliest masters whose names are known, and at the same time to have introduced a species of painting which has retained its primitive form unaltered since that time, namely, the painting of playing cards. This art, though it can pretend to very little merit in it self. was, however, a most important step in the progress of science and literature in general ; in so far as it began that train of discovery, which reached by the progress of impro‘ements through wooden stamps to wooden en graving, and that on copper, to the substitution of types for stamps, to metal lor wood, and ultimately to the es tablishment of printing itself.
The manufactory of playing cards took place in Ger many about the ve .r : SOO, thong the discovery is attri buted to the Italians by Breitkopf in his Origin of Playing Cards They afford a familiar specimen of the taste of that period. However barbarous ihe execution of these portraits. they sufficiently answered the purpose, and as i effectually as if they had been more skilfully executed, so that there was no inducement to attempt any impaove inent in that branch ; but in the other purposes to which wooden engraving was adapted. a very rapid advance took place, and that to an extent which greatly influenced the progress of the arts in Germany cuts for various purposes and the construction of highly ornamented let ters. came to be the chief employment of artists ; either in the execution of these engravings, or in preparing compositions, both historical and fanciful, for the en gravers to copy. The art was carried to great perfection, and engaged the attention of the first artists in Germany, as appears from the multitude of very curious and labo rious performances on wood by Albert Durer. In his hands this art seems to have reached its highest state of perfection, and to have soon afterwards yielded to the more delicate process of copper engraving for larger works ; although the greater convenience, and more am ple management of the wooden stamp, occasioned the em ployment of that mode to be long persevered in as an ac companiment to books, even after the invention of copper engraving. These early specimens of German art are
much sought after, both as interesting documents of his tory, and curious in respect to the composition and pecu liar taste in the arts then prevalent, as they are chiefly the works of the painters themselves. For in Germany these two arts seem in their infancy to have been insepa rable. Every painter exercised, at the same time, the profession of engraving ; by means of which he generally extended his fame greatly more than by painting, and ac cordingly our acquaintance with these early artists is chiefly from their wooden cuts While the knowledge of art, which had so recently re vived in various parts of Europe, began to advance with rapid strides towards perfection in Italy, its progress in Germany was owing to the political circumstances of the country, and perhaps materially to the less vivacious dis position of the people themselves, comparatively slow. They continued to plod on with their laboriously minute and stiff representations of nature, without selection, grace, or elegance, but with a scrupulous adherence to truth ; each hair of the beard was detailed as if seen through a magnifying medium, and yet retaining its ordi nary size. Their works exhibit painful finishing, and attempts at richness of effect by the aid of gold and silver. There was no chiaro scuro, or aerial perspective at all, or breadth of light and shade ; and, in short, little merit be yond a minute and servile adherence to truth. The an cient German artists sought no attainment beyond being true to nature. They had an ideal excellence in view, which' was that of sincerity and innocence ; so that their pictures bore a character of primitive simplicity, analo gous to the moral rectitude of the people themselves. A sort of modest and bashful humility is conspicuous in their female portraits, and that of candour, upright ho nesty, and independence, in the countenances of their men.
Almost all the More ancient specimens of painting found in Germany, are on wood, chiefly oak ; they were first prepared either with a coating of white paint, or canvas glued down upon it under the white coating The colours were mixed with the whites of eggs and lime-waler ; but, previous to being used, the subject was traced with a point on the ground, and generally gilt over these tracings, which notwithstanding remained sufficiently apparent to guide the painter. The colours were put on very thin, and with great delicacy ; and they had the art to give them wonderful durability, as the freshness of the colours to this day testify. This uncommon brilliancy has often occasioned these early water-colour performances to be taken for oil paintings. It is probable that they secured every distinct coat of colour by one of transparent varnish. Of paintings on canvas alone there are no specimens be yond the period of Van Eyck, who revolutionized the whole art by his discovery of the use of oil, towards the close of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth cen tury.