These general considerations prepare the way naturally enough for a review of the history of sculpture in Northern Europe. Hitherto we have considered the progress of the art in Italy and Greece. The sunny human creed of the Southern temperament, at any rate, was able to find full expression in marble and bronze. Can we say as much for the mystical philosophy of such countries as Germany, France, Holland and England?
The influence of the prevailing trend of thought can be clearly traced in several northern arts—in architecture and music, for instance—or, again, in a Rembrandt portrait. Surely this is as typical a product of the northern imagination, with its mysticism and gloom, as a picture by Botticelli or Correggio, with its wealth of fancy and its delight in light and space, is of the southern temperament.
But, turning to the work of the northern sculptors, we cannot say this. The deepest emotions of the northern artist have found more natural expression in the drama, in poetry, music and painting. The reason is not far to seek. All these arts are far more universal in their range. Sculpture depends entirely upon so human a thing as the body of a man or a woman. It is naturally more fitted for the exposition of a creed in which mankind occupies the chief place. Equally naturally, the other arts serve better for the unfolding of a belief which bases everything upon the will of an extra-mundane God, manifesting Himself not in man alone but in the whole of the natural world.
Be that as it may, it is certain that when we turn to the sculpture of the North, we find few traces of the mystical outlook upon life which is implicit in other northern art. By the time the sculptors of the North had acquired the technical skill to express their thought and emotion they apparently found themselves unable to embody their deepest belief in their works. This, no doubt, explains why sculpture has never been a popular art in any Northern country, why it has never occupied the place there which it did in Greece or Rome; why it has always been a stranger art, making its appeal to the few and not to the many.
It must not be imagined that the failure of sculpture to take a strong hold upon the popular imagination of the North has been due to the absence of craftsmen of the first order. Directly the Renaissance in Italy made itself felt in the countries beyond the Alps, a vigorous school of sculpture arose. Nothing could exceed the technical skill and the sincerity of purpose displayed in Peter Vischer’s “[King Arthur],” one of the twenty-eight colossal figures surrounding the tomb of Maximilian at Innsbruck. But seeing that the sculptor died in 1529, and that the best years of his working life practically correspond with the age of Luther’s Reformation, surely something more than earnestness of purpose and profound technical skill might have been shown. The Maximilian memorial certainly proves that the leading German sculptors of the Reformation era had progressed beyond the Gothic decorators whom they succeeded. But why has not the “[King Arthur]” the vital interest of a Durer engraving? Why does it lack the inspiration of a really fine Holbein portrait? Surely it is because the sculptor had never realized the true meaning of the word “humanity.” He lacked that passionate delight in the beauty of the human body which lay at the root of the Hellenic sculptor’s success. The vital element of a vigorous school of sculpture was wanting. Under these circumstances it is not wonderful that even the standard of craftsmanship attained by Peter Vischer was not maintained by the German sculptors who followed him. The conversion of Germany to Protestantism entailed a general discouragement of all art effort. As had been the case in the early history of the Christian Church, the leaders of the religious movement sternly opposed anything that satisfied the æsthetic cravings of mankind.
PETER VISCHER
KING ARTHUR
The Maximilian Tomb, Innsbruck