Part 14

The first definite name in the annals of the Cologne school is that of Bartolomäus Bruyn (_c._ 1493-1555), who was a follower of Joos van Cleef but subsequently became completely imbued with the Italian spirit. His portraits, in which he remained more faithful to the tradition of his country, are of greater significance than his religious compositions, and closely resemble those by Joos van Cleef; but the _Portrait of a Man with a White Cross on his Breast_ (No. 2702) is only a school picture of indifferent quality.

ALBRECHT DÜRER

The flourishing school which had its centre at Nuremberg is represented at the Louvre by the master who marks its zenith and who, if his craftsmanship was not always on a level with the perfection of Holbein’s, shares with the Augsburg master the honour of uncontested leadership of all German artists. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was born at Nuremberg, of Hungarian descent. He studied his art under Michael Wohlgemut, a very able Nuremberg painter, who was, however, led by his popularity to factory-like production of pictures that passed under his name, although they were largely executed by inferior pupils. Dürer, who excelled equally as an engraver and as a painter, was, on the other hand, one of the most sincere and personal artists of his time—a profound thinker, a shrewd observer, a student of life in all its phases, an idealist who was ever striving for beautiful expression, even though the realistic tradition of his country did not allow him to attain to the abstract ideal of beauty which had been reached by some of the contemporary Italians. Indeed, Dürer may with justice be called the Leonardo of the North. He studied Venetian art on a visit to Venice in 1505, whither he had been preceded by his fame. He also travelled to the Netherlands in 1520, the year in which he painted the signed and dated _Head of an Old Man_ (No. 2709), his other picture at the Louvre being the not very masterly _Head of a Child_ (No. 2709A).

DÜRER’S FOLLOWERS

Dürer died in 1528 from a disease contracted during his journey to the Netherlands. Among his principal pupils were Georg Pencz (_c._ 1500-1550), to whom is without sufficient reason attributed the indifferent half figure of _St. John the Evangelist_ (No. 2730); and Hans Sebald Beham (_c._ 1500-1550), the famous engraver, of whom the Louvre is fortunate to possess the only known painting, a table top divided by golden lances into four compartments, each of which contains a _Subject from the Story of David_ (No. 2701): the _Entry of Saul into Jerusalem; David and Bathsheba_ (in which scene is introduced a portrait of Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, for whom the work was executed); the _Siege of Rabbath_; and the _Prophet Nathan before David_ (with a portrait of the artist and the initials of his name, “H. S. B.”).

LUCAS CRANACH

This same Archbishop Albrecht, whose features are also known to us from two engravings by Dürer and a painting by Grünewald, was one of the most generous patrons of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), whose busy workshops at Wittenberg supplied the whole north and east of Germany with portraits, altarpieces, historical and mythological pictures. Lucas Cranach was a follower of Grünewald, the great head of the Colmar school. Apart from his merit as a colourist and an excellent draughtsman, he attracts by the naïve grace of his nude figures and by the complete manner in which he reflects the taste of his time and country. But of the five little pictures that figure in the Louvre Catalogue under his name, not one is from his own hand. Indeed, the _Venus in a Landscape_ (No. 2703) is the only one that may with a degree of safety be attributed to his son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, who carried on the management of the studio some years before his father’s death, and continued to imitate his style until his own death in 1586. The _Venus_ bears the usual Cranach signature of a winged serpent and the date 1520. The same crest, with the date 1532, figures on the portrait of _Johann Friedrich III., Elector of Saxony_ (No. 2704), who is known on one occasion to have given a wholesale order of sixty replicas of the same portrait to the Wittenberg master. It may be imagined that a commission of this nature would not be executed by the head of the studio, but left to his staff of assistants. The _Fighting Savages_ (No. 2702A) and the two _Portraits_ (Nos. 2703A and 2705) are, at the best, studio works.

HANS HOLBEIN

We now come to the second of the two commanding figures in German art, Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), who was born at Augsburg and studied under his father, the elder artist of the same name. When he reached his maturity the Italian influence had already permeated German art, but he was the first Northern master who knew how to benefit by the real spirit of the Renaissance without imitating the letter; the first to develop a noble, dignified style, free from the florid trivialities which so many Northerners took from certain Italian painters. He was above all a marvellous portrait painter who, in his drawings as well as in his paintings, combines the most exquisite delicacy and subtlety with rare strength, the greatest precision of detail with freedom and breadth of handling. Only this phase of his art is represented at the Louvre, which certainly owns one perfect example of Holbein’s portraiture in the _Portrait of Erasmus_ (No. 2715, Plate XXIV.).

Holbein had settled in Basle in 1519. He went to England in 1526, with a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More. From one of Erasmus’s letters it would appear that Holbein had portrayed him at least three times before 1524; and the picture now in the Louvre was probably the one that was painted for Sir Thomas More—a better recommendation than any letter of introduction! The profile is drawn with inimitable mastery; and the whole character of the man can be read from the expression of the tight-pressed lips and mobile features, as he sits writing at his desk. Note, also, the marvellous expressiveness of the hands, studies for which are to be found in the collection of drawings at the Louvre.

In view of the personal relations which link together Holbein, Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More, it would be pleasant if we could accept the so-called _Portrait of Thomas More, Great Chancellor of England_ (No. 2717), as authentic. It does not, however, represent Holbein’s first English patron, nor does it appear to be from the master’s own brush.

THE KRATZER PORTRAIT

Holbein’s first sojourn in England extended from 1526 to 1528, in which year he returned to Basle. It must have been shortly before his departure that he painted the _Portrait of Nicolas Kratzer, Astronomer to King Henry VIII._ (No. 2713); it is an unquestionably authentic work, although it has been so extensively repainted that little is now left of the original, save the general disposition of the design and the instruments placed on the table and hung on the wall, which are executed with all the loving care that Holbein was wont to bestow upon such accessories. Still, even in its present condition, the portrait is a thoroughly convincing likeness of “a man who is brimful of wit, jest, and humorous fancies”—as Kratzer is referred to by one of his contemporaries. A sheet of paper on the left of the table appears to be inscribed:—

_Imago ad vivam effigiem expressa Nicolai Kratzeri monacensis qui bavarus erat Quadragessimum annum tempore illo complebat. 1528._

Although decidedly superior to another version of the same picture at Lambeth Palace, the _Portrait of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury_ (No. 2714), which bears the inscription,

ANNO. Dm. MDXXVII. ETATIS. SVE, LXX.,

cannot without hesitation be accepted as an original work. It lacks, at any rate, the _finesse_ of the beautiful drawing at Windsor Castle, upon which it is evidently based.

To the same year belongs the _Portrait of Sir Richard Southwell_ (No. 2719), to whose treacherous accusation was due the execution of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. But this picture, again, is only a replica, by an inferior hand, of the magnificent portrait in the Uffizi Gallery (No. 765). An inscription in the background, at both sides of the head, reads:

on the left: X.^O IVLII. ANNO. and on the right: ETATIS SVÆ H. VIII. XXVIII. ANNO XXXIII.

It would thus appear that the picture was painted in 1537, the twenty-eighth year of Henry VIII.’s reign. The _Portrait of a Man holding a Carnation and a Rosary_ (No. 2720) is a picture of poor quality and has no connection whatever with Holbein.

PORTRAIT OF ANNE OF CLEVES

Of far greater importance and undisputed authenticity is the _Portrait of Anne of Cleves, Fourth Wife of Henry VIII._ (No. 2718). No credence is to be attached to the legend invented by Bishop Burnet more than a century after that ill-treated lady’s death, according to which Holbein’s flattering portrait was instrumental in “bluff King Hal’s” choice of his fourth spouse and responsible for the king’s disappointment at setting eyes upon Anne. The picture, which was painted in 1539, seven years after Holbein’s definite return to England and to the service of Henry VIII., has not only that air of inevitable truthfulness which distinguishes all Holbein’s portraiture, but tallies to a remarkable degree with the descriptions sent to Henry VIII. by his agents. Whilst not exactly unpleasant to behold, the features are those of a spiritless, dull woman—an impression which is intensified by the absence of life and character in the hands, which Holbein invariably studied as closely as the face. The painting of the richly embroidered and jewelled costume, the stately symmetry of the design, and the beautiful scheme of colour are really the chief attractions of this picture.

The _Adoration of the Magi_ (No. 2711A), which was at one time attributed to the elder, and subsequently to the younger, Holbein, is now rightly given to the latter’s contemporary and compatriot Gumpold Giltlinger, an Augsburg painter of no particular distinction.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Before the end of the sixteenth century German art had entered upon a period of complete decadence. The only painter who claims attention, not so much for the undeniable merit of his very highly finished landscapes, but for the fact that he exercised a certain influence upon Rembrandt, is the Frankfort painter, Adam Elsheimer (1578-1621?), who worked at Rome, and who is represented at the Louvre by _The Flight into Egypt_ (No. 2710) and _The Good Samaritan_ (No. 2711).

For the rest, the German painters of his period and of the whole of the seventeenth century retained scarcely a trace of national character, and were completely under the sway of the foreign, and particularly of the Italian, schools. Thus, Johann Rottenhammer (1564-1623), the painter of _The Death of Adonis_ (No. 2732) and _Diana and Calisto_ (No. 2733), was successively dominated by Jan Brueghel and by Tintoretto. The flower painter, Abraham Mignon (1640-1679), though born at Frankfort, was a pupil of David de Heem and a Dutchman in his art. His pictures at the Louvre (Nos. 2724-2729) are distributed between the German and the Dutch sections. Philipp Peter Roos, better known as Rosa da Tivoli (1665?-1705), who painted the _Wolf devouring a Sheep_ (No. 2731), lived in Rome and adopted the style of the country of his domicile. _The Bear Hunt_ (No. 2734) is the work of Carl Ruthart, another unimportant Italianising German of the second half of the seventeenth century.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The work of the Hamburg painter, Baltasar Denner (1685-1749), has no claim to be considered as a manifestation of art: it is merely a display of mechanical skill in the microscopic rendering of the little lines and pores and stubbly hair on the skin of old people’s faces. He lived for seven years in London, where he painted in 1724 the signed _Portrait of an Old Woman_ (No. 2706), which was bought in 1852 for £756. Another characteristic example of his misapplied skill is the portrait (No. 2707) in the La Caze Room.

Christian Wilhelm Dietrich (1712-1774) and Heinrich Wilhelm Schweickhardt (1746-1787) are too insignificant to deserve serious consideration. The same remark applies to Christian Seybold (1703?-1768), who became Court Painter to the Empress Maria Theresa; and to Johann Ernest Heinsius, who was active as a portrait painter in France during the reign of Louis XVI. All that is to be noted in their pictures at the Louvre is the total absence of all artistic merit.

Of somewhat greater importance, though by no means of the first rank, are the two last German artists who claim our attention: Raphael Mengs (1728-1779) and Angelica Kaufmann, (1741-1807), who is catalogued among the painters of the German school, although she was Swiss by birth, Italian by education, and English by domicile. Her sex was no bar to her becoming one of the Foundation members of the English Royal Academy, and she is generally counted among the English painters. The portrait group of _The Baroness von Krüdner and her Daughter_ (No. 2722) is a poor example of her art, which invariably sought to please by conventional prettiness.

Raphael Mengs, the painter of the portrait of _Marie Amelia Christina of Saxony, Wife of Charles III. of Spain_, was born at Aussig in Bohemia, studied whilst still a boy in Italy, and became Court Painter to Charles III., who invited him to Madrid in 1761. Mengs was an exceedingly accomplished technician and draughtsman, who modelled himself on Raphael and the Italian eclectics, but was wholly lacking in originality and inspiration. He tried his hand in every branch of his art, and was most successful in portraiture, although even his portraits are lacking in penetration of character. He, however, excelled as a copyist, and died in Rome in 1779.

THE SPANISH SCHOOL

Though numerically by no means imposing, the Spanish pictures at the Louvre form an exceedingly interesting section of the great French national collection, comprising, as they do, characteristic examples of the art of practically all the most prominent figures in the evolution of Spanish painting. Compared with the schools of Italy and Flanders, that of Spain was tardy in its development and very much dependent upon foreign influences. The activity of Flemish and Italian masters in Spain—we need only mention Starnina, Dello Delli, Rubens, Luca Giordano—and the visits of several eminent Spanish masters to Italy, could not fail to leave their clear mark on the art of the Peninsula, the renaissance of which was almost entirely due to the stimulus received from abroad. The short visit of Jan van Eyck to Portugal in 1429 also had a profound influence on the art of the Peninsula. But the local conditions, the strict rule of the Church and the tyranny of the Inquisition, the stiff ceremonial of the Court,—the only rival of the Church in the patronage of the arts,—and especially the sombre, passionate character of the Spanish race,—all helped to transform the imported styles into an art of definite national stamp, an art that is marked by sombreness, asceticism, dramatic intensity, and deep religious feeling. Throughout it is dominated by realistic tendencies and rude strength rather than by the striving for grace and beauty and rhythm which characterise Italian art.

LUIS DE DALMAU

The Louvre is fortunate in possessing an authentic and extremely important, though badly restored, altarpiece by Ludovico Luis de Dalmau, the first Spanish painter whose personality emerges definitely from the obscurity of the Gothic period in Spain. Dalmau was a Catalan who flourished about the middle of the fifteenth century, and who, although not a direct pupil of the Van Eycks, shows such close affinity with their style that certain modern critics are inclined to ascribe to him, with insufficient reason, certain pictures, like the _Fountain of Living Water_ at the Prado, by the heads and founders of the Bruges school. In spite of the different types and the increased angularity of the drapery folds in Dalmau’s _Enthronement of St. Isidore_ (No. 1703A), this Eyckian influence is clearly traceable in the Louvre picture, which shows the Virgin enthroned under a Gothic canopy wearing a crown of typically Spanish form, and handing the pallium to the saintly Bishop of Seville, who kneels on the left. Further back on the same side are four angels with the episcopal insignia. The group is balanced on the right by St. Anthony the Hermit in the foreground, and SS. Catherine, Margaret, Agatha, Odilia, and Apollonia grouped around the throne. The picture was originally in a church at Valladolid, and was bought for the Louvre at the Bourgeois sale at Cologne in 1904 for £3025.

LUIS MORALES

We need not here pay attention to the few unimportant pictures by unknown early Spanish masters in the collection, and may pass on to Luis Morales, called “El Divino” (“The Divine”) (1509-1586), who was born at Badajoz, and worked at Toledo, when the whole Spanish school was already addicted to the Italian mannerisms introduced by Berreguete and other native artists trained in Rome. Morales, however, remained faithful to the tradition of his own country, and was essentially a painter of those religious subjects which enabled him to follow the national bent for the sombre and tragic—the sufferings of Christ and of the Virgin, and similar themes. The _Christ carrying the Cross_ (No. 1707) is a typical instance of the tragic intensity of his conception. All the suffering of the Saviour is expressed in His drawn features and His heavy, swollen eyelids. The picture is not dated, but was evidently painted before 1564, in which year the master was called to the Escorial and, while in the service of Philip II., to a great extent lost his individual style in the imitation of the Italians, that was probably forced upon him by the taste of his patrons.

EL GRECO

We now come to one of the most interesting figures in the history of Spanish painting—Dominico Theotocopuli, better known as “El Greco” (1548-1614), from the country of his birth. Born in Crete about 1548, El Greco entered at a very early age the studio of Titian in Venice. This at least we know from a letter written by Clovio from Rome in 1570, without which, if we were to judge from the master’s early style, we should be forced to the conclusion that he acquired his art from Tintoretto, and more particularly from Jacopo da Ponte, to whom several of his earliest works in private collections were formerly, and in some cases are still, ascribed. He went to Rome in 1570, and after five or six years took up his abode at Toledo, his first dated picture in that city, the scene of his chief activity, bearing the date 1577. Between that year and his death in 1614, his extant works illustrate the gradual evolution of his art, the change of his Italian into a typically Spanish manner, the rapid acquisition of a very personal style, and the straining of that personal style to extreme mannerism. The notes and flashes of rare, cold, almost acid, but always harmonious, colour lend a peculiar distinction to El Greco’s work. His predilection for long, narrow faces and slender, emaciated bodies led him in his declining years to extravagant exaggeration; the ecstatic passionate action and gesture of his figures reveal contortion and frenzy. As a portrait painter El Greco is second only to Velazquez in the school of his adopted country. His biographer, Señor Cossío, has called him “a painter of souls,” because he had that intense power of penetration which perceives and retains at a glance the sum total of a person’s traits of character.

El Greco’s conception of portraiture enters largely into his pictures at the Louvre, from which we must exclude as an imitation by an inferior hand the _St. Francis and a Novice_ (No. 1729A). It is certainly an important feature in the large _Christ on the Cross, with Two Donors_, one of the comparatively recent acquisitions, which still hangs on a screen in Gallery XV. This great altarpiece has little of the master’s fierce passion and lightning flashes of colour. The expression of the two Donors, Diego and Antonio Covarrubias, who are seen to the waist at the foot of the Cross, does not go beyond normal pious devotion; and the Saviour seems rather to stand with spread arms than to hang on the Cross with all the weight of His characteristically elongated body. A leaden grey dominates the whole colour scheme. The composition is singularly empty and simple for a master who seemed to have a perfect horror of empty spaces. The picture, which is fully signed, must have been painted soon after El Greco’s arrival at Toledo (and not, as Sñr. Cossío thinks, between 1590 and 1600), since one of the Donors, the priest Diego Covarrubias, died in 1577.

Comparison of the two Donors’ faces with their portraits by the same master in the Toledo Library can leave no doubt as to their identity. The _Christ on the Cross_ was offered by the deputy Isaac Pereire of Prades (Pyrenées-Orientales) to the local parish church, but was refused and hung in the Palais de Justice at Prades, whence it was removed to the Mairie in 1904, and finally sold to the Louvre in 1908 for £1000. The picture measures 8 ft. 8 in. by 5 ft. 8 in.

The _St. Louis of France and a Page_ (No. 1729B), which was formerly wrongly catalogued as _King Ferdinand the Catholic_, is a more typical example of El Greco’s management of colour. The boldly painted armour is identical with that of the St. Martin on horseback, at Toledo. The probable date of the picture, which was bought in 1904 at the high price of £2800, is between 1594 and 1600.

By El Greco’s favourite pupil and assistant, Luis Tristan (1586-1640), is the realistic half-figure of _St. Francis of Assisi_ (No. 1730). A more scientific classification of the works by the Toledo painters has reversed Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell’s judgment that Tristan had all the virtues and none of the faults of his master. He was in reality a mediocre imitator of El Greco, without a spark of his master’s genius and without any of his distinction.

THE SCHOOL OF SEVILLE

The naturalistic tendencies inherent in the national Spanish genius, which even in the period of Italian mannerism were not to be entirely denied, bore full fruit at Seville, where Francisco Herrera “the Old” (1576-1656) was the first entirely to reject the tyranny of the Italian manner, and with it to a certain extent the tyranny of Church patronage. He was a man of fiery character, with whom the technique of his art became a veritable passion. It was left to a painter of a later century and of another race to proclaim that it does not matter _what_ you paint, but _how_ you paint; but Herrera’s work at times almost suggests that he was guided by similar principles, although an instinctive sense of pictorial fitness saved him from the consequences to which their unrestricted application might easily lead.