German masters of art

Foreword

The increase of travel in Germany and the frequent pilgrimages that are being made to points of interest to the musician, scholar and pedagogue are contributing to the greater appreciation of the mediaeval flavour and quaint picturesqueness of her smaller towns with their narrow streets and high-gabled timber houses, and to a fuller acquaintance with the rich treasures of her art. Whether the traveller explores the towns and villages nestling among the mountains of Tyrol, seeks out those tucked away in the Black Forest, the Vosges or the Harz Mountains, visits the walled strongholds of the Swabian plains, wanders along the banks of the Rhine or follows the narrow, picturesque Danube valley to the river's source, he will find everywhere imposing castles that are veritable treasure-houses of art; ancient monasteries with graceful, frescoed cloisters or collections of rare pictures; beautiful or unique churches with fine, old, wooden, carved and painted altar-pieces; princely, ducal or municipal galleries rich in interesting works of art.

This mounting interest seems to demand a complete and unified history of the development of German painting. For the convenience of the student at home and the traveller in Germany the artists are here classified broadly, according to the geographical distribution of their centres of activity, in the three general divisons :

1. School of Cologne: including Hamburg, Cologne,

Westphalia and Saxony.

2. School of Swabia: including the Middle Rhine,

Upper Rhine, Colmar, German Switzerland, Ulm, Augsburg.

3. School of Nuremberg

or Franconia: including Tyrol, Upper Bava-

ria, Ratisbon and Nuremberg.

viii GERMAN MASTERS OF ART

These divisions are suggested also by the fact that the art of each is marked, in general, by distinct characteristics. The art of the School of Cologne is, in the main, dreamy and lyric, that of Swabia is a narrative or illustrative art and that of Nuremberg is virile, impassioned and dramatic.

I wish to express my sincere thanks especially to Dr. Henry Thode, formerly of Heidelberg University, who first opened my eyes to the beauty and significance of German art; to Count von Bernstorff, Ambassador from Germany to the United States, Col. Theodore Roosevelt and Dr. Lyman Abbott for valuable introductions; to Director Lichtwark and Dr. Borger of the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, for the loan of photographs of pictures in the Kunsthalle and for permission to reproduce illustrations in Dr. Lichtwark's "Master Bertram;" to Dr. Max Friedlander of Berlin and Dr. Braune of Munich for helpful opinions and suggestions, and to those who made it possible for me to see personally all the pictures described in this volume.

CONTEXTS

Part I Chapter Page

I German Art as an Expression of German National Character 3

II Book Illumination 10

III Fresco-painting 19

IV The School of Prague, the Earliest School of Art in

Germany 35

Part II School Of Cologne Hamburg

V Master Bertram van Byrde 41

VI Master Francke — Heinrich Funhof — Absalom Stumme —

Heinrich Borneman 52

COLOGNE

VII The Idealists: Master Wilhelm and Stephan Lochner . 60 VIII The Realists: Masters Dominated by the Art of the

Netherlands 69

IX The Portraitists of the XVI Century 77

WESTPHALIAN PAINTERS

X Master Conrad Stollen — Master of Liesborn — N. Suelnmeigr — Johann Koerbecke — Gert Von Lon — Heinrich and Victor DCnwegge — Master of Cappenberg — Heinrich Aldegrever — Ludger tom Ring 81

SAXONY

XI Lucas Cranach 86

XII Minor Painters 94

ix

Part III School Of Swabia The Middle Rhine Chapter Page

XIII Three Frankfort Masters : Master of Frankfort (Hans

Fyol?) — Master of the House Book (Martin Hess?) — Hans Grimmer 101

XIV Matthaus Grunewald 104

XV The Question of the Identity of Pseudo-Grunewald . . 114

XVI Lucas Moser, Conrad Witz and Hans Baldung Grun . .117 XVII Martin Schongauer and the Colmar School 127

GERMAN SWITZERLAND XVIII The Groups of Painters in Basel, Bern and Zurich . . 132

ULM

XIX The Story-Tellers of the XV Century 137

SWABIA XX The Artistic Dependancies of Ulm: Nordlingen, Rothen-

BURG AND MEMMINGEN 147

AUGSBURG

XXI Hans Holbein the Elder 152

XXII Hans Burgkmair 161

XXIII Minor Artists 168

XXIV Hans Holbein the Younger 174

PART IV SCHOOL OF NUREMBERG XXV The Tyrolese Painters 191

CONTENTS

XI

UPPER BAVARIA

CHAPTER PAGE

XXVI Painters in Munich and Landshut 198

RATISBOX

XXVII Albrecht Altdorfer 202

XXVIII The Pupils of Altdorfer 211

XXIX The XIV Century 212

XXX Master Berthold 215

XXXI Master Pfenning 222

XXXII Hans Pleydenwurff 228

XXXIII Michael Wolgemut 232

XXXIV Wilhelm Pleydenwurff 240

XXXV Minor Painters 241

XXXVI Albrecht Durer 248

XXXVII Pupils and Followers of Durer 271

ILLUSTRATIONS

DCrer. Portrait of Himself, 1500 Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Schongauer. Virgin and Child in a Rose Arbour 4

GrPnewald. The Entombment 5

Pacher. Coronation of the Virgin 6

Bertram. Saints, carved in Wood and painted 7

Grunewald. The Temptations of St. Anthony 8

Wood-Carving: Figure in the Church in Thann 9

Initial Letter : From the Psalter of Hermann of Thuringia 10'

Book Illumination: Evangelist, from Charlemagne's Bible 10

Book Illumination: Monks presenting Bible to Charles the Bald . . . ll/

Book Illumination: The Battles of King David 12

Book Illumination: Parable of the Great Supper 13

Book Illumination: From Heinrich von Veldegke's "iEneid" 14'

Book Illumination: "Superbia," from Herrad's "Pleasure Garden" . . 15 Book Illumination: Minnesingers, from the Manessian Codex (Colour

Plate) 16

Fresco: The Last Judgment, St. George's Church, Oberzell 18'

Frescoes: Isolde and Brag&ne meeting Tristan in the Garden, and Figures

from the Bathroom, Runkelstein Castle 19

Frescoes: The Vision of Ezekiel, and Decorative Borders, Church in

Schwarzrheindorf (Colour Plate) 20 '

Frescoes: In the Apse of Brunswick Cathedral 24'

Painted Wooden Ceiling, St. Michael's Basilica, Hildesheim 25^

Fresco: Lords and Ladies dancing, Runkelstein Castle (Colour Plate) . . 28'

Altar-piece: "The Golden Altar" 82'

Antependium: From St. Nicholas' Church, Soest 33"

Theodoric of Prague. Virgin and Child with Saints and Archbishop

Ocko of Wlaschim 36"

Master Bertram. God warns Adam and Eve not to eat of the Fruit . . 46"

Master Bertram. The Angels' Visit 47""

Master Bertram. The Nativity 50"

Master Francke. Angels supporting the Dead Christ 51'

Master Francke. Thomas a Becket fleeing from Assassins 56"

Master Francke. The Entombment 57-

Madonna with the Bean Blossom, Saints Barbara and Catherine ... 62

Lochner. Madonna in Rose Arbour 63 "

xiii xiv ILLUSTRATIONS

Lochner. Madonna with the Violet 68

Master of the Holt Kinship. The Holy Kinship 69

Master of Saint Severin. The Virgin with Saints and Donors .... 74

Master of Saint Bartholomew. The St. Thomas Altar 75 •'

Bruyn. Portrait of Burgomaster Johannes van Ryht 78 y

Master Conrad. Saints Ottilie and Dorothea 82'

Master of Liesborn. Angel holding a Chalice 83 ■

Aldegrever. Portrait of a Young Man 84 '

Cranach. Rest on the Flight into Egypt 88'

Cranach. The Crucifixion (with Portraits of Cranach and Luther) ... 89'

Cranach. The Judgment of Paris 92"

Cranach. Luther, Melanchthon and Frederick the Wise 93'

Raphon. Annunciation 96

Master of Frankfort. Virgin and Child with St. Anna 97'

GrtJnewald. Holy Night 104

GrUnewald. Saints Erasmus and Maurice in Conversation 105-

GrUnewald. Angels' Concert 110

GrUnewald. The Crucifixion * Ill -

Pseudo-Grunewald. St. Martha with the Dragon 116

Moser. St. Mary Magdalen Altar 117"

Witz. Saints Mary Magdalen and Catherine in a Cloister 122

Baldung (GrUn). Holy Night; Flight into Egypt 123

Baldung (GrtJn). Allegorical Figure, Music 124

Schongauer. The Nativity 130'

Asper. Portrait of Zwingli 134

Multscher. The Resurrection 138'

SchUhlein. High Altar in Tiefenbronn 139'

Zeitblom. The Annunciation 140

Zeitblom. Vera Icon 141

Hans, Maler zu Schwaz. Portrait of Ulrich Fugger 142'

Schaffner. Annunciation 143

Herlin. Virgin and Child with Saints and the Artist's Family .... 148

Strigel. Portrait of Emperor Maximilian 149

Holbein the Elder. St. Paul's Basilica, with Scenes from the Life of

St. Paul 156

Holbein the Elder. Saint Barbara and Saint Elizabeth of Hungary . 157'

Burgkmair. Group of Saints 162

Burgkmair. Virgin and Child 163

Ambrosius Holbein. Portrait of Hans Herbst, the Swiss Painter . . . 170

Amberger. Portrait of Sebastian Munster, the Cosmographer 171

Holbein. Christ in the Tomb 178

Holbein. Shutters from the Organ in Basel Cathedral 179

ILLUSTRATIONS xv

FACING PAGE

Holbein'. Madonna of the Meyer Family 180

Holbein. Erasmus 181

Holbein Portrait of Georg Gisze 1 82

Holbein. Christine of Denmark 183

Pacher. St. Wolfgang's Last Communion 194

Pacher. St. Wolfgang compelling the Devil to hold his Bible 195

Pollack. St. Peter walking on the Waves 200

Altdorfer. Satyr Family in a Landscape 202

Altdorfer. St. George in a Beech Forest 203

Altdorfer. Rest on the Flight into Egypt 204

Altdorfer. Holy Night 205

Altdorfer. Battle of Arbela 206

Altdorfer. Susannah at the Bath (Detail) 207

Altdorfer. Riches and Poverty 208

Altdorfer. The Crucifixion 209

M-vster Berthold. Coronation of the Virgin, from the Imhof Altar . . 218

Master Berthold. The Crucifixion, from the Bamberg Altar 219

Master Berthold. Imhof Madonna 220

Fraxconian Master .about 1430. Virgin in "Wheat Ear" Garments. . 221

Pfenning. The Crucifixion 226'

Pfenning. Madonna of Succour 227

Hans Pleydenwurff. Portrait of Canon Schonborn 230

Hans Pleydenwurff. The Crucifixion 231

Wolgemut. The Crucifixion 234

Wolgemut. Descent from the Cross 235

Frescoes: In the Council Chamber, City Hall, Goslar 238

Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. St. Vitus in the Lions' Den 239

Durer. Portrait Drawing of Himself at the Age of thirteen 250

Durer. The Nativity 256

DtfRER. Festival of Rose Garlands 257

Durer. Christ on the Cross 258

Durer. Adam 259

Durer. Madonna and Child in a Landscape (Colour Plate) 260 v

Durer. Knight, Death and Devil 262'

Durer. Marginal Drawing, Emperor Maximilian's Prayerbook .... 264'

Durer. Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher 268

Durer. Four Apostles 269

Suess von Kulmbach. St. George 274

Suess von Kulmbach. St. Peter Preaching 275

Schaufelein. St. Jerome in the Wilderness 278

Ziegler. (Master of Messkirch.) Virgin Adored by Saints 279

Chapter I German Art As An Expression Of German

NATIONAL CHARACTER

IN considering the art of any country, it is necessary to examine not only into the conditions under which that art developed and

the traditions by which it was governed in its development, but, above all, into the character of the people. For the art of any people is the reflection of the common characteristics of that people; in other words, a revelation of its attitude toward the inner world of feeling and the outer world of phenomena. Hence, when a Japanese painter adopts the types and manner of the schools of Paris, he ceases to be a Japanese artist and becomes a "man without a country." When the German painters of the XVII and XVIII centuries strove to be as Raphael, they ceased to be inspired revelators and became more or less clever craftsmen, makers of empty, prettily coloured forms. Certain of the works of Flaxman, Canova and Thorwaldsen do not interest us because they are not vital; that is to say, instinct with the character — the inner life — of the nation out of the fullness of whose heart the artist should speak.

It is for this reason chiefly, that, in turning from the study of the art of one country to that of another, a certain mental and emotional adjustment is necessary, just as in passing from conversation in one language to conversation in a different language. The whole spirit and content of the French language, for instance, is as different from German as the French people are from the Germans. The same readjustment is necessary in turning from the study of Italian art to German art as in passing from the engaging melody and flowing rhythm of Rossini to the clashing dissonances and triumphant harmonies of Wagner. German art, as the expression of German national character, differs widely from Italian art in its ideals as in its significance. For the key-note of the Germanic character is emotion, and the ideal of German art is, not beauty, but expression. The strength and the weakness alike in German art are the outcome of this intense emotionalism.

Its most significant manifestation is the inner perception, the insight which differentiates between the real and the apparent— between the essence and the phenomenon — which is so greatly the German gift and which reveals itself so marvellously through the course of the development of German philosophic thought from the Mystics to Luther and Kant. What the German apprehends as real is the inner nature— character and emotion— and this he expresses in art to the disregard of beauty of external form and feature. Hence one of the greatest superficial attractions is lacking, for the most part, in German art. Few German Virgins, for instance, can vie with the Italian Madonnas in formal beauty. Some of them are homely enough, large-boned and plain-featured, but they breathe such passion of mother-love and devotion! And the Child is no cherub; like as not he is a snub-nosed, flat-faced little chap. Well, what of that? He is not loved for his beauty! Thus is revealed the true essence of genuine motherhood; the same instinct which makes the little girl turn from her handsome, life-sized, wax dolls to love with her whole heart the most disreputable-looking rag doll in her whole collection. "Gefuhl ist alles" (Feeling is everything) said Goethe, giving us in these few words the key to German character, German art and German music.

This Germanic perception of the inner life and character of the subject, this penetration below the surface, together with the close observation of details which is spoken of in the scientific world as German thoroughness, made the Germans notably great portrait painters, and advanced the landscape from the position of background to which it is relegated in Italian art (except Venetian) to share equally with the human element in the picture. The earliest expression of German religious thought, Mystic Philosophy, adopted as practically its basic premise the article that God, the eternal essence of all things, is not only in man, but in all nature as well. Therefore man has vital interest in all that fives and moves, in all

Photograph by Ad. Bravn el Cie

MARTIN SCHONGAUER

Virgin and Child in a Rose Arbour

st. martin's church, colmar

GERMAN ART 5

that blooms and withers, as one in essence with himself. The "flower in the crannied wall" is akin to God, and to know it is to "know what God and man is. " It follows that the landscape in its various moods can readily be conceived of as reflecting the states of mind of the human beings placed in it by the artist; and since these human elements possess for the German artist intensely emotional states of mind, the landscape is of great value in providing an atmosphere which reveals them. This is a function of landscape which we are accustomed to regard as extremely modern in poetry and art, but in such a picture as the XV century Grunewald "Entombment of Christ," in Colmar, the desolation of the landscape with the trees cut off half-way, showing only the bare trunks, creates an atmosphere of profound melancholy and stirs our hearts to sympathy with those mourners' tears.

A second expression of the German emotional nature in German art is to be noted in the excesses of that art; in the breaking through all bounds of law and restraint into excessive movement and excessive detail. We might almost venture to make the assertion that in German art nothing is ever absolutely still. In the illuminated initials of the earliest manuscripts, the plants, stems and leaves twined about the letters curve and flutter; the carved figures on the cathedral portals twist and turn in their endeavour to express the sentiments that animate them; their eyes roll, their features are distorted, their garments are as if blown by the wind. In the colour art, too, there are apt to be hurrying figures, garments f ailing in overabundant, restless folds. Even inanimate things reflect agitation, as in the Durer "Madonna with the Pear" in which the gnarled, old tree conveys a sense of movement in the almost human disquiet of its twisted bark.

Then too, the highly strung, emotional nature of the Germans, contemplating a certain situation, phenomenon, or landscape sees every detail and cannot bear to disregard any one of them. Hence their pictures are apt to be crowded with figures, each one painted with keenest characterisation of the individual, and at the same time to contain every tree, shrub, flower, and berry, every rabbit, snail and cricket, every stone and bit of moss the painter observes in a landscape or lovingly adds from a full heart. The Italian painters eliminated much of this detail as confusing, and painted with great simplicity what we should call "composed" pictures. This was foreign to the nature of the Germans, who never could attain it, even consciously, and remain German. Melanchthon reported of Diirer that he said that he had "caught glimpses of the original countenance of Nature and learned that simplicity was the highest ornament of art, but he could not attain it." To this excessive movement and detail resulting from the German emotionalism, is due, in large measure, the paucity of works of sculpture in Germany. Sculpture was the supreme medium of the classic world, where all was beauty and perfect proportion without strain of movement or emotion; but for the German world with its new watchword, expression, it was inadequate. It is interesting to see how the artists strove to break bounds by crowding details into relief effects in altars, and to overcome limitations by painting the figures on the altars of carved wood; even as Max Klinger and others at the present time are endeavouring to endow sculpture with painting's prerogatives by using coloured marbles and stones, as in Klinger's Beethoven statue in Leipsic Museum.

A third distinctive characteristic of German art as an expression of German character is imagination. It lends the fairy-tale atmosphere to the mysterious depth of such forests as we find in Altdorfer's Passion scenes; it enables the artist to portray with what we characterise as intense realism such scenes as those in the Passion of Christ in which the villains doing the horrible deed are imagined and portrayed as incredibly evil and repulsive; it transcends the bounds of what we are accustomed to designate as imagination and passes into pure phantasy. Phantastic forms of impossible birds and animals, figures half human and half animal, enliven the initials of the early missals, while, on the altars, weird shapes render such representations as the "Temptation of St. Anthony" humorous, and are oftentimes present as well in the most solemn scenes. It is this ungoverned, unrestrained phantasy, together with the Germanic humour, which differentiates the German imaginative world and its creations from the imaginative world of the Greeks and Italians. Indeed the Germanic freedom of humour in art serves of itself to distinguish sharply German art from Italian. The only subject

Photograph by Fried. Hocflc, Augsburg

MICHAEL PACHER

Coronation of the Virgin (Wood-earring)

CHURCH IN' ST. WOLFGANG, NEAR SALZBURG

GERMAN ART 7

which the Italians seem to have felt at liberty to treat humorously is the Putti, those bacchanalian, singing and dancing children of frieze, pulpit and picture. And it is a significant fact that the first to introduce this spark of humour was Donatello, the sculptor of the "Crucifixion" on the pulpit in San Lorenzo, the greatest tragic artist of them all except Michael Angelo. On looking deeper, we find this to be natural enough, for humour is only the reverse side of tragedy. The sense of the tragic is based upon a deep, passionate insight into the inner meaning of life, its problems, its goal and the struggles toward that goal. In art it has found its fullest expression in the representation of the perfect God- Man, the Ideal, and his tragic relations to the Actual in his life and his death. Humour is, on the other hand, the gay and deliberate play with the external phenomena of life, manifesting itself mainly in exaggeration of their characteristics. This humour in all its various moods is present in large measure in German art, from the tenderest portrayal, as in Diirer's "Adoration," of the little girl's irreverent rabbit, with cocked ears and mischievous eye, who will not say his prayers, to the wildest phantasy of a Grunewald's "St. Anthony's Temptations in the Wilderness." Its reverse side, the tragic, is present also to an extent unparalleled in the art expression of any other people. If you will let your memory traverse the whole field of Italian art, you will find that the subjects which come most readily to mind are the "Madonna and Child" in countless representations; the "Holy Conversation;" the "Flight into Egypt" and other similar subjects, which are beautiful in themselves. On the other hand, recall the galleries of German pictures and you will find that the subjects treated most frequently are those connected with the Passion of Christ. In paintings, drawings, woodcuts, etchings, engravings, lithographs, we find numberless representations of every scene of the Passion from the "Christ in Gethsemane" to the "Entombment." The conscientious student who visits the smaller churches in Nuremberg, and those in the towns within a radius of some thirty miles thereabouts, will be utterly amazed, and depressed in spirit as well, by the great altars, each with four or six wings, which he finds everywhere, depicting the sufferings of Christ.

Diirer alone told the story of the Passion in cycle after cycle, as the large woodcut Passion in 12 sheets, the small woodcut Passion in 37 sheets, the copper-plate Passion in 17 sheets, the so-called "Green Passion" (on green paper), besides single engravings, woodcuts, drawings and paintings.

To recapitulate: German art as an expression of German national character is essentially a great emotional art. Its characteristics, therefore, are insight — deep penetration into the inner life or significance of the subject, with resultant vivid characterisation but with relatively scant regard to external beauty; excessive movement and excessive detail, observable alike in its architecture, sculpture and painting; humour to the degree of the phantastic; and tragedy, manifesting itself to even the superficial student in the manifold representations of the Passion of Christ.

We have seen that the strength and the weakness alike of German art lies in its inevitable voicing of German character. Even this brief consideration cannot fail to reveal to us the fact that whenever German painting falls short of satisfying us wholly it is not due to absence of genius or inspiration on the part of the artists, nor to lack of artistic sense on the part of the German people, but to the inadequacy of the medium. Colour art was, after all, but the voice of Germany's childhood, when she was striving to express herself and had not found the way. All that intense emotional nature and that insight into the real which is the mystic sense, which manifested themselves in the restless movement, the crowding detail, the humour, the phantasy, the deep sense of the tragic which must go hand in hand with penetration into life's meaning, all that which German sculpture, architecture and painting strove, yea, agonised, to express, found voice at last in that art which is the full expression of German national character, the Germanic Art of Music. Nevertheless there does remain to us a large body of work by German painters which has been, until recently, too little known and appreciated; work of surprising beauty and of deep interest and significance.

A study of the development of German painting reveals that its history is marked off into the following quite distinct periods:

The Temptations of St. Anthony museum, colmar

Figure Carved in iVood in the Church in Thaxx, near Sthassburg

GERMAN ART 9

The XIY century; the first half of the XV century; the second half of the XV century; the XVI century.

In the XIV century the painters adhered to the traditions of earlier Church art. On their altar-pieces they presented the types and employed the technique of the book illuminators and frescopainters. Their people were, in a large measure, typical, ideal in outward form and bearing; they lived and moved, for the most part, as types and symbols and were only rarely characterised as individuals.

In the XV century the artists began gradually to treat the men and women in their pictures as individuals. They endeavoured to give them modelled bodies of flesh and blood, to set them in space — that is to say, to gain perspective in their pictures — and to bring out the peculiarities of feature or expression which would mark them as distinct personalities.

In the second half of the XV century much technical aid as well as encouragement toward realism was afforded by the art of the Netherlands. The German painters made pilgrimages to the studios of the Van Eycks or their pupils to learn the wonderful new technique of painting in oils, which lent such sculptural roundness to the figures, and the secret of perspective, which gave such depth to the landscape which superseded the gold background.

In the XVI century, with the mastery of these problems, the literal realism of the fifteenth gave place, in the works of the greatest masters, to a new idealism evolved from the study of nature. While using actual persons and things in nature as their models, artists like Diirer realised that the presentation, for instance, of such freaks of nature as the villainous monsters which appear so frequently in the "Passion" pictures of the XV century, is not true realism, since these enormities are not natural, but abnormal, and they made the actors in their pictured dramas more representative. The difference in this respect between the realism of the XV and that of the XVI centuries is the difference between modern so-called "realism" — or a realistic Caliban — and the realism of Shakespeare's typical characters. In short, the art of the XVT century was idealised and typical, or universal, and at the same time true to fife, human and individual.

Initial letter, from the Psalter of Hermann of Thuringia

Chapter II From The IX To The XIV Century

UCH art as there was in Germany before the age of Charlemagne expended itself on decoration, in which the band motif, adopted from antique art, became Germanised by being imbued with greater movement and by the introduction into its curves of plants, birds and animals.

In the decoration of weapons, of buckles and similar personal ornaments, in initial letters in such manuscripts as the Orosius of the VIII century, these motifs are used and combined with originality and expressiveness. Fresh impetus was given to art as well as to learning when Charlemagne and his successors introduced into Germany the religion and something of the culture of the Roman world. Scholars began to write books; Bibles, Psalters, Prayer-books were copied or compiled and illustrated in the cloisters. The human form began to take its place as a subject for representation in art. Types and composition alike were, however, within the limitations of a very helpless technique, imitations of Early Christian or Byzantine Art. But the people are characterised by an emotional intensity which expresses itself in the movements of their bodies and of their garments and in their animated gestures. Thus, for example, in Charlemagne's Bible, in Vienna, the Evangelist, a Byzantine type, is seated on a Byzantine throne; the hair is long, the beard more pointed than we are accustomed to in antique art, the eyes abnormally large, the nose straight with wide nostrils, the mouth small with rather thick lower lip. The upper part of the body is much too long in proportion to the lower half; the hands which hold pen and book are long, with fingers sharply curving back from the first joint; the feet are bare, the toes

Evangelist, From Charlemagne's Bible bibliothkqre natioxale, paris

Monks Presenting to Emperor Charles the Bald an Illuminated Bible bibliotheque nationale, paris curled inward. The drapery of the garment is laid in folds, not, however, the formal, quiet folds of classic art, but folds that curve and twist in every direction, instinct with independent life and motion. The trees and reeds which form the background also wave as if tossed by the wind.

In the Paris "Gospel" the illustrations show, in the main, the same characteristics. The Emperor Lothair is presented seated upon his throne, the right hand resting on his scepter, the left extended, forefinger raised. But, though seated, he seems to be momentarily about to rise suddenly and the two soldiers in attendance behind the throne regard him with great intensity, the expression of their bodies one of instant readiness to wait upon his every movement.

In Charles the Bald's Bible in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, which is the finest example of Carolingian miniature painting, the dedication picture shows the Abbot and all the monks of the monastery in which the Bible was copied and illuminated, in excited attendance upon the ceremony of its presentation to the enthroned Emperor, their eager gaze and uplifted hands expressing great admiration for the handsome volume.

The Bible illustrations are, however, not all so schematic, so defined by precedent. Occasionally a subject offers opportunity for naive naturalness and spontaneity of treatment. Thus the Battles of King David are pictured with life and vigour. The army really marches, the men on horseback are grim and determined warriors, the horses really go. The drawing is childish, the horses are red, violet, or any colour the artist thinks would look well in his picture, but the figures live and move. In all the work of this period the drawing is untutored and unsteady, the colours applied locally without any attempt at colour harmony. Gold is much loved and lavishly used, in decoration, as a fining for the garments and in the writing itself, as in the so-called "Codex Aureus," examples of which may be seen in Treves, St. Gallen, and Munich. The technical process was simple enough; the outline was drawn, then filled in with colour, after which fight and shade were added with little discrimination and no mercy; the bridge of the nose, the eyelids and knuckles receiving sharp, white dabs or lines of white, while the recessions were "shadowed" with dark green. The folds of the garments were drawn with heavy black lines. The surface received a very high finish, whether from the lustrous character of the crayons used or from the application of a varnish, has not yet been discovered. There was also another process of painting, which consisted in simply washing over a pencil drawing with thin water-colours without any indication of fight and shade.