AND THE NETHERLANDS.
Albrecht early numbers of Plate 36 (figs. 1-5) afford also an opportunity for comparing German with Italian art. On Plate 29 we had the Triumph of Death from the Campo Santo at Pisa—a fresco-painting on a large scale, a rich and varied composition. Here, in small engravings, the same idea meets us under manifold forms. In Albrecht Diirer's Death, and the Devil (fig. r) is seen fearlessly riding in a dark glen a solitary knight, before whom rise up two demons the most fearful which the mind can conceive—the horrible figure of Death on the lame horse, and the bewildering apparition of the devil. The will of the knight is firm, his conscience clear, and God and eternity are his support. Some thought him to be intended for Sickingen; lie was called the Knight of the Reformation. At any rate, he represents for us the intel lectual chivalry of the Reformation period, and shows us also how in Diirer imaginative power rested upon moral seriousness.
Hans Dances of Death (figs. so popular at the time were not otherwise treated by Diirer, but Hans Holbein repeatedly turned to them for his subjects, and became the acknowledged master in that style of composition. The French editor of these engravings remarked that they are like a thing which is at once droll and. painful, inspiring in us a sort of melancholy delight, a joyous terror: the remark is dLs,riptive of our conception of humor. Woltmann has found in them ShakuNpearean cutting irony which Shakespeare directs against all pretence and unreality, his intellectual mastery over all conditions of lift_ his energy in the expression of passion and the delineation of cha racter. We see Death seizing the pope by the collar while the latter is giv ing his foot to kiss to a prince whom he is about to crown (p/. 36,/ig. 2); we think of Leo N. We see Death at the richly-spread banqueting-board, acting as cupbearer and wine-taster to the king (jig. 3). IbVe see him the altar-lights behind the back of a 111111 who while kneel ing before the altar is giving heed only to the song of a lover beside her .0. We see him attacking the soldier on the battle-field and slaying with a bone the warrior before whose sword many have fallen ( 5).
Lucas Cranach of Saxony (1472-1553)—whose real name was Lucas Sunder—is the I Tans Sachs of painters. To him we owe the likenesses of the Wittenberg Reformers, many of whom he painted either in the exercise of their official functions or as simple portraits. As examples we give in//-r (jig. 6) and .1Iclanch1hon (fig. 7).
r .R1111 Rabens. —In the Netherlands the struggle for religious and political liberty reached its close earlier than in Germany. Peter Paul Rubens (1571-1640) mastered in Italy all resources of form and color, while preserving intact the national character and the individuality of his powerful genius. He conquered new domains of art by diverting it from religious to secular subjects, and was the pioneer of genre- and landscape painting. The great conflicts of his age are mirrored in his power of seizing and depicting life at its most intense moments—men in the full heat of passion and action—and the magic of his coloring is an outpour ing upon the canvas of his own joyous and happy nature. In intellectual
loftiness, indeed, and depth of imagination he is inferior only to the great Italians and to his contemporary, Shakespeare.
The fertility of Rubens was marvellous; from the number of his works, which embrace all branches of art, we select a genre-picture (fig. 8) in order to show his skill in painting flowers and fruit. His complete mastery over all effective postures of the human body is displayed in the figures of the naked children that sport with the huge garland of fruit. The Ballle the .•lmasoits (fig. 9) is a masterpiece of historical painting in the secular style. The beautiful heroines dispute the passage of a bridge with warriors of the other sex; the moment chosen for depicting the combat is that in which it is being decided in favor of the latter. These figures, in all attitudes of struggle and falling, show Rubens rivalling Michelangelo as a master of form and action; the drawing of the horses stamps him as an animal-painter of the first rank. With all the wild confusion natural to a battle, the picture follows a symmetrical plan of composition, while there is perfect freedom in the development of all details and in the balancing of individual figures. Rubens was a painter of dramatic action, of life revealing itself in sensuous vigor.
Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), Rubens's greatest pupil, was more lyric in tone. Psychology is his forte ; he paints portraits of clever men of the world, whose characters he lets us divine through their calm, elegant bearing, free from every expression of strong emotion. In his portrait of himself (p1. 36, fig. II) he appears as a youth with an intelli gent and winning countenance. The LamcnIalion over Ike Bad;' Christ (fig. ro) shows in coloring and in the perfect modelling of the nude form a kinship with the Venetian school, but it combines with these beauties the expression of intense feeling which is characteristic of Northern art.
PcIer de known by his Italian name of Pietro Candido —a Flemish painter and sculptor, was horn at Bruges in 1545 and died at Munich in 1628. He went to Florence at an early age, where he became skilful both in oil- and fresco-painting. He was employed by Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574) in his enormous fresco-works, thus acquiring much knowledge in architecture and sculpture, and particularly in the decoration of buildings. His fresco-paintings are especially noteworthy, as they clearly evince a study of the Italian Renaissance. He planned, among other works for the elector Maximilian of Bavaria, the bronze tomb in the Church of Our Lady at Munich. An example of his work in sculpture, in which the costume of the period is reproduced with great care, is illustrated in the statue of Duke Wilhelm (p1. 26, fig. 9).