COMPARISON OF ITALIAN AND GERMAN PAINTING.
On Plate 35, executed by a celebrated engraver on copper (H. Merz), the reader is enabled to note the distinctive peculiarities of German and Italian art of the time of the Renaissance by comparing some works of that period by famous masters of each nation. That the comparison might be made to advantage, special care has been given in this Plate to the rendering of the light-and-shade effects of the originals.
In Italy, by the custom of painting in fresco on the walls of churches and palaces, a style was developed which laid stress chiefly upon symmetry in the arrangement of the composition, upon grandeur of form, and upon the harmony of broad, sweeping lines; all of which tendencies were fostered by the study of ancient art. North of the Alps such a style was im possible: Gothic architecture left no wide wall-spaces for decoration.
The only opportunities it afforded to the painter were in the windows, here brilliant and harmonious coloring was the most essential requisite, and in the altar-pieces of the churches, which demanded a minute care fulntss of exLcution because they were to be viewed close at hand. These conditions led to the invention of oil-painting, which was here admirably employed.
There exists a natural harmony between these external conditions and the disposition and intellectual endowment of each nation. The German artist, forcible in his characterization, is content simply to reproduce what he sees; to him beauty is an incident, not an aim: for the poverty of his subject or conception he compensates by abundance of vigor and originality and by scrupulous fidelity to nature. The Italian is dominated by the love of beauty; lie feels the charm of a well-balanced whole and the necessity of subordinating to it all that is unusual or peculiar. Symmetry, uniform nobility of form, grace of action, harmony of coloring, are the ends which he pursues, often at the expense of indi viduality and accuracy. German art is essentially realistic, Italian art ideal, in character.
Raphael: Hol6ciu.—]Iolbein's Meyer Family and Madonna 35, 2), the original of which is at Darmstadt, is the most famous German creation of the kind; a like rank among Italian pictures may be assigned to Raphael's Madonna di San Sislo (Ac. I), now at Dresden. Each is a splendid realization of the ideal which hovered before the mental eve of the painter. Raphael's work seems transferred with magic ease and
directness from his mind to the canvas in grand, free strokes; the whole is overpowering in effect, at once delighting and inspiring the beholder. Holbein has reproduced every detail with thorough study of nature and careful diligence. Mary's crown, the head-dress of the kneeling girl, gold, jewels, and pearls, arc all admirably executed; the design of the linen embroidery and the pattern of the woollen carpet are worked out with the greatest precision. But in the thoroughly artistic treatment these accessories, though prominent, are not obtrusive, since in real life, when we fix our attention on the dress rather than the person, on the details rattler than the whole object, the former will remain duly subordi nated to the latter.
Raphael is the greater poet; lie starts with an ideal conception. Pope Sixtus is the type of the man who after much thought and mental conflict turns in humble yearning to the fount of grace; Barbara, of the maiden who is blessed with the favor of the Lord and whose soul is filled with holiness; the boy-angels represent the pure, childlike mind in its complete surrender to goodness and truth. All this is the free creation of the artist's fancy, and is carried out in beautiful perfection; Mary with the child Jesus rises before us like the splendid open flower of a plant whose twin-buds are the angel-heads below and its leaves the saints on either side.
Ilolbein started with a portrait; be wished to paint the family of the burgomaster of Basle, Meyer zuin Hasen. Sixtus is replaced by the father, the angels by the children of the household; instead of Barbara, we have two women in the cumbrous Sunday costume of the country and period. This scene from real life receives in the artist's conception all the significance of which it is capable. He disposes the members of the family in two well-balanced groups, and places between them a Mary modelled from some noble German woman whose type Holbein has preserved and exalted into an ideal of blond Teutonic womanhood. The infant is small enough to be held easily on the mother's arm; the attitude of both is a faithful copy of reality and a sweet and touching expression of the relation between mother and child: the little head rests on the mother's bosom, and she lays her cheek caressingly against it.