The next great German was Hans Holbein the younger. He had advantages over Durer, for he was born when the feeling for nature was strong, and thus started with a clear mind, and arrived at achievements never yet surpassed. Hans Holbein stands out as a master for all time. His portraits are wonderful. He, again, threw all his energy into the study of nature, and his works are chiefly representative of the life of his own times, portraits of merchants and fellow-citizens. There is the full-length portrait of a gentleman in the National Gallery, whose name has not come down to us; yet is the interest less great for that? The dead Christ at Basle too is wonderful, as every one (with good observation, be it always said) who has seen a naked dead body, will affirm, but the anatomy of the skeleton in Holbein’s “Dance of Death” would make a first year’s medical student laugh. It must have been drawn from the imagination.
Much of Holbein’s best work was done in London, and is at present in England, and we cannot leave this part of the subject without begging our readers to take every opportunity of seeing the work of this wonderful master, opportunities which, alas! will be rare enough, who was a naturalistic painter of the first quality. |Swiss art.| Turning to Switzerland, we find no name worth mentioning; and here we would ask those who trace the effects of sublime mountain scenery on the character of men, why there has been no Swiss art worth mentioning? Of course the explanation is simple—because art has nothing whatever to do with sublime scenery. The best art has always been done with the simplest material.
In Spain and Portugal at this time was being felt the influence of the naturalism of the Van Eycks. In France the Fontainebleau School was struggling towards nature, but no genius arose. |Da Vinci.| But in Italy there arose a giant, Leonardo Da Vinci. Never has there been such an instance of the combination of scientific knowledge and artistic capacity in one man. In the Louvre is his best work, the portrait of Monna Lisa, a master-piece, but in our opinion a master-piece eclipsed by other master-pieces. Of this great man we are told that “he constantly had recourse to the direct lessons of nature, saying that such teaching at second hand made the artist, not the child, but the grandchild of nature!” Again we read that “Leonardo was wholly in love with nature, and to know her through science and to mirror her by art were the aims and end of his life.” |M. Angelo.| Michael Angelo is the next great name we come to. Woltmann and Woermann[Woermann] say that “the mightiest artist soul that has lived and worked throughout Christian ages is Michael Angelo Buonarroti.” Now this is a literary dogma to which we are totally opposed, and so we are to all the pedantic criticism which follows, about “strong and lofty subjectivity,” “purified ideal,” and what not. It is such writing as this that misleads people. Let Michael Angelo be compared with the standard—nature—by any student of nature, and Michael Angelo will fall immediately. Woltmann and Woermann tell us, “he studied man alone, and for his own sake,” the structure being to him everything. This is what we always felt to be the fault of Michael Angelo, i.e. that he was rather an anatomist, and often a lover of pathological specimens, than an artist, although he was a great sculptor. The action of the muscles in his figures may not go beyond the verge of the possible when taken separately, and as one would test them with an electric current, but we do insist that when taken as a harmonious whole, the spasmodic action of some muscles as expressed by him would have prevented the exaggerated actions of others by antagonizing their effect. Michael Angelo’s work has always given us the feeling that he had a model, on which, with an electric current, he tested the action of each muscle separately, and then modelled each one separately whilst the circuit was joined; in fact that his works are amateur scientific studies and not works of art; and herein is his weakness, he passes the bounds of nature. Woltmann and Woermann say first of all he does go beyond the bounds of nature, and that therein lies his greatness, and then they flatly contradict themselves, and say an anatomist has informed them that he does not go beyond the bounds of nature, and they quote this as a merit. Our opinion, also that of a student of anatomy, is that he goes beyond the bounds of nature, and exaggerates nature, and so spoils his work completely. He is far below the Greeks. His influence, too, has been hurtful, for he has kept all but very independent and powerful intellects within his traditions.
Raphael and Correggio.
Raphael[[5]] and Correggio we will quickly dismiss, though we are fully aware of the £70,000 reputation of the one, and the literary reputation of the other. Raphael does not appeal to us, with his sickly sentimentality, his puerile composition, his poor technique, and his lack of observation of nature. Many of the figures in his pictures, standing some feet behind the foremost, are taller and larger than those in front. We feel sure he had no independence of mind. He was a religious youth, with no great power of thought, and time will give him his true place. But as a taxpayer we must enter a mild protest against the ineptitude of authorities who pay such heavy prices for pictures such as the Raphael referred to. There was a small picture of a head—the head of a doctor—by an unknown hand, hanging near the Raphael, which, as a work of art, is infinitely its superior, but it was done by an unknown hand. (These pictures have since been re-hung.) For that £70,000 what a splendid collection of good work by men of the present day could have been purchased, a collection every single picture of which might easily be superior to all the Raphaels in the world as works of art!
[5]. M. Charcot has recently shown that Raphael’s demoniacs are all false and untrue.
Del Sarto.
To the same period belongs Andrea del Sarto, a naturalistic painter of great power. He had more feeling for nature than most of the men of his time, and his breadth of treatment and truthfulness of colouring are admirable. Of course he painted religious pictures, but from the naturalistic point of view they are wonderful. The student must study the portrait in the National Gallery painted by him.