The first definite name in the annals of the Cologne school is that of Bartolomäus Bruyn (c. 1493–1555), who was a follower of Joos van Cleef but subsequently became completely imbued with the Italian spirit. His portraits, in which he remained more faithful to the tradition of his country, are of greater significance than his religious compositions, and closely resemble those by Joos van Cleef; but the Portrait of a Man with a White Cross on his Breast (No. 2702) is only a school picture of indifferent quality.
ALBRECHT DÜRER
The flourishing school which had its centre at Nuremberg is represented at the Louvre by the master who marks its zenith and who, if his craftsmanship was not always on a level with the perfection of Holbein’s, shares with the Augsburg master the honour of uncontested leadership of all German artists. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was born at Nuremberg, of Hungarian descent. He studied his art under Michael Wohlgemut, a very able Nuremberg painter, who was, however, led by his popularity to factory-like production of pictures that passed under his name, although they were largely executed by inferior pupils. Dürer, who excelled equally as an engraver and as a painter, was, on the other hand, one of the most sincere and personal artists of his time—a profound thinker, a shrewd observer, a student of life in all its phases, an idealist who was ever striving for beautiful expression, even though the realistic tradition of his country did not allow him to attain to the abstract ideal of beauty which had been reached by some of the contemporary Italians. Indeed, Dürer may with justice be called the Leonardo of the North. He studied Venetian art on a visit to Venice in 1505, whither he had been preceded by his fame. He also travelled to the Netherlands in 1520, the year in which he painted the signed and dated Head of an Old Man (No. 2709), his other picture at the Louvre being the not very masterly Head of a Child (No. 2709a).
DÜRER’S FOLLOWERS
Dürer died in 1528 from a disease contracted during his journey to the Netherlands. Among his principal pupils were Georg Pencz (c. 1500–1550), to whom is without sufficient reason attributed the indifferent half figure of St. John the Evangelist (No. 2730); and Hans Sebald Beham (c. 1500–1550), the famous engraver, of whom the Louvre is fortunate to possess the only known painting, a table top divided by golden lances into four compartments, each of which contains a Subject from the Story of David (No. 2701): the Entry of Saul into Jerusalem; David and Bathsheba (in which scene is introduced a portrait of Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, for whom the work was executed); the Siege of Rabbath; and the Prophet Nathan before David (with a portrait of the artist and the initials of his name, “h. s. b.”).
LUCAS CRANACH
This same Archbishop Albrecht, whose features are also known to us from two engravings by Dürer and a painting by Grünewald, was one of the most generous patrons of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553), whose busy workshops at Wittenberg supplied the whole north and east of Germany with portraits, altarpieces, historical and mythological pictures. Lucas Cranach was a follower of Grünewald, the great head of the Colmar school. Apart from his merit as a colourist and an excellent draughtsman, he attracts by the naïve grace of his nude figures and by the complete manner in which he reflects the taste of his time and country. But of the five little pictures that figure in the Louvre Catalogue under his name, not one is from his own hand. Indeed, the Venus in a Landscape (No. 2703) is the only one that may with a degree of safety be attributed to his son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, who carried on the management of the studio some years before his father’s death, and continued to imitate his style until his own death in 1586. The Venus bears the usual Cranach signature of a winged serpent and the date 1520. The same crest, with the date 1532, figures on the portrait of Johann Friedrich III., Elector of Saxony (No. 2704), who is known on one occasion to have given a wholesale order of sixty replicas of the same portrait to the Wittenberg master. It may be imagined that a commission of this nature would not be executed by the head of the studio, but left to his staff of assistants. The Fighting Savages (No. 2702a) and the two Portraits (Nos. 2703a and 2705) are, at the best, studio works.
HANS HOLBEIN
We now come to the second of the two commanding figures in German art, Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), who was born at Augsburg and studied under his father, the elder artist of the same name. When he reached his maturity the Italian influence had already permeated German art, but he was the first Northern master who knew how to benefit by the real spirit of the Renaissance without imitating the letter; the first to develop a noble, dignified style, free from the florid trivialities which so many Northerners took from certain Italian painters. He was above all a marvellous portrait painter who, in his drawings as well as in his paintings, combines the most exquisite delicacy and subtlety with rare strength, the greatest precision of detail with freedom and breadth of handling. Only this phase of his art is represented at the Louvre, which certainly owns one perfect example of Holbein’s portraiture in the Portrait of Erasmus (No. 2715, [Plate XXIV.]).
Holbein had settled in Basle in 1519. He went to England in 1526, with a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More. From one of Erasmus’s letters it would appear that Holbein had portrayed him at least three times before 1524; and the picture now in the Louvre was probably the one that was painted for Sir Thomas More—a better recommendation than any letter of introduction! The profile is drawn with inimitable mastery; and the whole character of the man can be read from the expression of the tight-pressed lips and mobile features, as he sits writing at his desk. Note, also, the marvellous expressiveness of the hands, studies for which are to be found in the collection of drawings at the Louvre.