"This school may be thus summed up," said Durtal. "It is the triumph of padding and puffing, the apotheosis of fatness and sheen, and this has nothing to do with Christian art in the true sense of the word.
"If we want to understand the whole personal character of German religious painting, we must study other schools than this, the only one ever spoken of, and always with praise. We must turn to the less familiar schools of Franconia and Swabia; there we find the very opposite. As art it is savage and rough, but it lives—it weeps, nay it cries aloud, but it prays. We must look at the works of these unkempt geniuses, such as Grünewald, whose Christs, rebellious and wrathful, grind their teeth; or Zeitblom, whose 'Veronica's veil,' in the Berlin Museum, is unpleasant, no doubt; the angels have black leather crosses on their breasts, and the Saviour's head is terrible, horrible; still there is such energy in the work, such decision, such crudity, that the very sincerity of its ugliness is impressive.
"Certainly," Durtal went on, "even setting apart such daring painters as Grünewald, I prefer many an unknown artist whose work is strange rather than beautiful, but at any rate mystical, to the honey and lard of Cologne; for instance, an anonymous painter who is to be found in the Grand Duke's collection at Gotha, as the author of one of those curious Mass-scenes which in the Middle Ages
were called the 'Mass of Saint Gregory,' wherefore, we know not."
Durtal turned over his note-book and read through the description he had recorded of this work, which he remembered as an instance of a sort of pious brutality.
The picture was set out on a gold background. A little above the altar, but scarcely higher, a wooden sarcophagus, a sort of square bath, was seen, with a board over it from end to end. On this plank-bridge sat the Christ, His legs hidden in this tomb, holding a cross. His face was haggard and hollow, He was crowned with green thorns, and His emaciated body was spotted all over by the ends of the scourges as if the wounds were flea-bites. Over Him, in the air, floated the instruments of the Passion: the nails, the sponge, a hammer and a spear; to the left, on a very small scale, were the busts of Jesus and of Judas, near a pedestal on which lay three rows of pieces of silver.
In front of this altar, adoring this truly hideous Saviour painted in accordance with the prophetic descriptions of Isaiah and David, were Pope Gregory on his knees, his hands clasped, a grave Cardinal, whose hands were hidden under his robe, and a rough-looking Bishop, standing, in a dark green cloak embroidered with gold; he held a cross.
It was enigmatical and it was sinister, but those austere and commanding faces were alive. There was a stamp of faith, indomitable and resolute, in those countenances. It was harsh to the palate, the roughest wine of mysticism; but at least it was not the mawkish syrup of the early Cologne painters.
"Ah! that mystical breath by which the soul of the artist becomes incorporate in the colour on a canvas, in the lines of carved stone, in written words, and speaks to the souls of those who can understand! How few have had it!" thought Durtal, closing his notes of travel. In Germany it may be seen in the very bunglers among painters; in Italy, setting aside Angelico, whose works reveal his saintly spirit and are the coloured image of his secret soul, and his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, the last of the Mediæval painters; if we also except his precursors: Cimabue, the survivors of the rigid Byzantines, Giotto—who thawed those fixed and puzzling figures, Orcagna,
Simone di Martino, Taddeo Gaddi—all the very early painters—how much dexterous trickery do we find among the great painters, mimicking the religious note, and producing a deceptive imitation by sheer sham.