Hitherto we have chiefly confined our remarks to Italy and Italian artists; however, in the consideration of them we have nearly summed up our brief history of fresco. If we would look to France for any remarkable works of this kind, we must refer to the epochs in which Italy sent Simon Memmi to decorate the palace of the popes at Avignon, and Rosso and Primaticcio to adorn that of the kings at Fontainebleau. Prior to this, all we meet with are, at the most, a few primitive, not to say barbarous, subjects, painted here and there, in distemper, by unknown artists, on the walls of churches or monasteries. Among these conventional examples it is, however, only just to distinguish some pictures of powerful effect, if not in execution, at least for the ideas they are intended to convey; we would speak of the “Dance of Death,” or “Dance of the Dead,” like that which existed at Paris in the Cemetery of the Innocents, and another still to be seen in the Abbey of Chaise-Dieu, in Auvergne; legends more than
Fig. 244.—“Fraternity of the Cross-bowmen.” (Fresco-Painting of the Fifteenth Century, in the ancient Chapel of St. John and St. Paul, Ghent.)
pictures, and philosophical compositions rather than manifestations of art. Spain, too, has no reason to be proud of her national productions; for, with the exception of the Gothic frescoes still existing in the Cathedral of Toledo, representing the combats between the Moors and the Toledans (pictures specially worthy of the attention of archæologists), the only frescoes of Spanish origin we can mention are the paintings of a few ceilings in the Escurial and in a chapter-room in the Cathedral of Toledo; all the other frescoes must be attributed to Italian artists.
Whenever the northern artists, usually so cold and methodical in their mode of operation, devoted themselves to mural painting, it seems to have been necessary that they should enliven their temperament in the sunny rays of a southern sky; for while in Holland and Belgium we notice but few walls covered with decorative painting, we find a large number of Italian churches and palaces which contain frescoes bearing the signature of Flemish masters.
Fig. 245.—“Death and the Jew.” An episode from the “Dance of Death.” Painted in 1441, in the Cemetery of the Dominicans, Basle. (Facsimile from the Engraving of M. Mérian.)
There was considerable excitement manifested a few years ago at the discovery of the mural paintings in the ancient Chapel of St. John and St. Paul, in Ghent ([Fig. 244]). These works are of the fifteenth century, and although satisfactory enough as regards the design, they derive more importance from the subjects which they represent than from any merit of execution.
In speaking of Germany, we should not omit to mention the ancient “Dance of Death” ([Fig. 245]), at Basle, in the cemetery of the Dominicans, painted in the middle of the fifteenth century; also another “Dance of Death” much more famous, and the façades of several houses, painted at Basle by Holbein. We must also indicate the paintings with which (in 1466) Israel de Meckenheim covered the walls of a chapel of St. Mary of the Capitol, at Cologne; and the frescoes of St. Etienne and St. Augustine, at Vienna. But it does not follow, from this limited enumeration of works, that Germany either created or followed any special school.
