Marine Painters—Willem van de Velde Elder and Younger, Backhuisen, Vlieger, together with the flower and fruit painters like Huysum, Hondecoeter, Weenix, have all been prolific workers, and almost every European gallery, especially those at London, Amsterdam, and in Germany, have examples of their works; Van der Werff and Philip van Dyck are seen at their best at Dresden.
The best works of the modern men are in private collections, many in the United States, some examples of them in the Amsterdam and Hague Museums. Also some examples of the old Dutch masters in New York Hist. Society Library, Yale School of Fine Arts, Met. Mus. New York, Boston Mus., and Chicago Institute.
CHAPTER XVIII.
GERMAN PAINTING.
Books Recommended: Colvin, A. Durer, his Teachers, his Rivals, and his Scholars; Eye, Leben und Werke Albrecht Durers; Förster, Peter von Cornelius; Förster, Geschichte der Deutschen Kunst; Keane, Early Teutonic, Italian, and French Painters; Kügler, Handbook to German and Netherland Schools, trans. by Crowe; Merlo, Die Meister der altkolnischer Malerschule; Moore, Albert Durer; Pecht, Deutsche Kunstler des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts; Reber, Geschichte der neueren Deutschen Kunst; Riegel, Deutsche Kunststudien; Rosenberg, Die Berliner Malerschule; Rosenberg, Sebald und Barthel Beham; Rumohr, Hans Holbein der Jungere; Sandrart, Teutsche Akademie der Edlen Bau, Bild-und Malerey-Kunste; Schuchardt, Lucas Cranach's Leben; Thausig, Albert Durer, His Life and Works; Waagen, Kunstwerke und Kunstler in Deutschland; E. aus'm Weerth, Wandmalereien des Mittelalters in den Rheinlanden; Wessely, Adolph Menzel; Woltmann, Holbein and his Time; Woltmann, Geschichte der Deutschen Kunst im Elsass; Wurtzbach, Martin Schongauer.
EARLY GERMAN PAINTING: The Teutonic lands, like almost all of the countries of Europe, received their first art impulse from Christianity through Italy. The centre of the faith was at Rome, and from there the influence in art spread west and north, and in each land it was modified by local peculiarities of type and temperament. In Germany, even in the early days, though Christianity was the theme of early illuminations, miniatures, and the like, and though there was a traditional form reaching back to Italy and Byzantium, yet under it was the Teutonic type—the material, awkward, rather coarse Germanic point of view. The wish to realize native surroundings was apparent from the beginning.
It is probable that the earliest painting in Germany took the form of illuminations. At what date it first appeared is unknown. In wall-painting a poor quality of work was executed in the churches as early as the ninth century, and probably earlier. The oldest now extant are those at Oberzell, dating back to the last part of the tenth century. Better examples are seen in the Lower Church of Schwarzrheindorf, of the twelfth century, and still better in the choir and transept of the Brunswick cathedral, ascribed to the early thirteenth century.