Unlike that of Dürer, the one other really great German painter, Holbein’s art bears no traces of mediævalism, either in form, in method, or in thought. He was in every way a child of the Renaissance, and so was essentially modern, as we understand the term to-day. For this reason the forms in which he expresses himself require no explanation or preliminary training for their full comprehension, but are immediately intelligible to us. The great Franconian, Albert Dürer, was steeped in the spirit of mediævalism, a dreamer of dreams, full of philosophical theories and spiritual speculation, and his work fired with a passion which Holbein’s lacked; whereas the great Swabian was before all things a serene painter, lacking strong artistic passions. He loved Nature simply and for herself, and had the keenest vision for her manifold beauties down to the minutest details, and was filled with the delight of life and joy of the world around him, without troubling himself greatly about theological questions. That he was at heart on the side of the Reformation is shown in many of his woodcut illustrations, but his share in the controversy is marked by none of the violence which characterized the eager partisans on either side.
Sir Frederic Leighton, speaking of these two painters in his address to the Royal Academy students in 1893, notes the most striking differences between them in a few admirable sentences. He says of Holbein: “As a draughtsman he displayed a flow, a fulness of form, and an almost classic restraint which are wanting in the work of Dürer, and are, indeed, not found elsewhere in German art. As a colourist he had a keen sense of the values of tone relations, a sense in which Dürer again was lacking; not so Teutonic in every way as the Nuremberg master, he formed a link between the Italian and German races. A less powerful personality than Dürer, he was a far superior painter. Proud may that country be indeed that counts two names so great in art.”
It is an almost impossible task to sum up in a short paragraph the leading characteristics of Holbein’s art. In his great decorative wall-paintings he rivalled many of the best Italian painters of the Renaissance. In the depth of expression in his portraits, and his power of rendering character and grasping the hidden thoughts of his sitter, he is worthy of a place by Leonardo da Vinci. In his religious paintings he reached at least once, in The Meyer Madonna, the level upon which Raphael stood, and had his surroundings been different he would have attained signal success as a painter of sacred compositions. He attempted no great subtleties of chiaroscuro, nor sought to rival his Italian contemporaries in the magnificence of their colour; but his colour is always most harmonious, and both in design and style he was great.
In his most important designs for metal-workers he is equal to Benvenuto, that most inspired and artistic of swashbucklers, and with more restraint in the handling of his theme, but no less invention. With the exception of Dürer, no artist of the cinquecento produced such admirable designs for woodcuts and book illustrations. In his preliminary drawings for his portraits the insight, the ease of draughtsmanship, the force united with the greatest delicacy, and the freedom from all traces of mannerism, unite to make them—as seen at Windsor, Basle, Berlin, and elsewhere—one of the most complete and valuable series of documents of the history of the first half of the sixteenth century we possess to-day. Possibly the greatest side of his genius is to be found in his penetrative power into the very souls of his sitters, and the revelation of true character which was the consequence of it. This keen insight, aided by a manipulative skill of a very rare quality, combined to make him one of the great masters of the world. Ruskin’s judgment of him, when comparing him with Sir Joshua Reynolds, may be fitly quoted in conclusion. He says: “The work of Holbein is true and thorough, accomplished in the highest, as the most literal, sense, with a calm entireness of unaffected resolution which sacrifices nothing, forgets nothing, and fears nothing. Holbein is complete; what he sees, he sees with his whole soul; what he paints, he paints with his whole might.”
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS
AMONG the many splendid portraits which Holbein painted it is difficult to make a selection for the purpose of illustration. The Meyer Madonna has been included as his finest religious painting and his most celebrated work. Although the Portrait of the Duchess of Milan and The Ambassadors are now in the National Gallery, and so are accessible to all, they have been reproduced, because the first is in many ways the best portrait, and certainly the most fascinating Holbein ever accomplished, while the second is the most important work of the master now remaining in England. The other portraits reproduced in this book are all in their way masterpieces of portraiture, and the Noli Me Tangere, at Hampton Court, is of interest as the only sacred picture by him which is now in this country.
The Meyer Madonna in the old schloss of Darmstadt, belonging to the Grand Duke of Hesse, is one of the great sacred pictures of the world. It represents the Burgomaster of Basle, Jacob Meyer, and his family kneeling in adoration at the feet of the Virgin Mary, who stands in an architectural niche of red marble and gray stone, with a shell-shaped canopy over her head. Her dress is blue, but the darkening of the varnish has given it a greenish hue, with a bright red girdle and a large mantle, which is spread out protectingly over the donors. She is placed upon no isolated throne, but stands among the Meyer family, as though to protect them from evil. The Divine Child in her arms leans back with His head against her breast, while His left hand is stretched out over the suppliants as though in benediction. On one side Meyer kneels, his hands clasped in prayer, gazing fervently upwards, while his young son is occupied in supporting a little naked child who stands in the front. On the other side kneel the women-folk, with the daughter, Anna, nearest the spectator, her golden head-dress elaborately embroidered with pearls. Next to her is her mother, Meyer’s second wife, Dorothea Kannegiesser, and nearest the Virgin a third woman, who may be either his first wife, Magdalen Bär, or Magdalen’s daughter by a previous marriage. All are kneeling on a richly coloured Turkish carpet. The figures are about three-quarters the size of life. The colour of the whole is rich, subdued, and very fine.
The Dresden Gallery possesses a very fine copy of this picture, with certain alterations, which, until the two pictures were exhibited side by side in 1871, was considered by most critics to be the original work. It is now acknowledged to be only a skilful copy, probably done about one hundred years later, when Meyer’s descendants sold the picture to an Amsterdam dealer about 1626. Certain alterations have been made by the copyist in the hope of improving the picture. In the original the head of the Virgin comes too near to the top of the niche, and this has been remedied, and he has tried to improve and beautify Mary’s somewhat thick-set figure, resulting in a lack of natural force and a weak idealization which Holbein himself would have scorned. The happy-looking Child of the Darmstadt picture has been copied so badly and with so unhappy an expression that it has been thought to represent a sick child, and it is probably owing to this that a number of fanciful interpretations have been given of the hidden meaning of the picture. Both in colour and in effect the copy in no way equals the original, which is in all ways a picture of noble simplicity, splendid colour, and striking veracity of portraiture. The Darmstadt picture was painted about 1526. Meyer was a banker and money-changer, and during the struggles of the Reformation remained a staunch Catholic, and no doubt ordered this altar-piece as an outward sign of the faith that was in him.
For reasons already mentioned a number of suggestions, more or less improbable, have been made as to the inner meaning of the painting. It has been suggested that it is a votive picture to commemorate the recovery of a sick child. This idea is carried still further by others, who say that the infant in the Madonna’s arms is the soul of a dead child, while a third interpretation is that it