Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/592

Rh 56(5 SCULPTURE [<;KKMAX, SPANISH. Inns- bruck. and of the evident delight which they took in their work. Dragons, grotesques, and little figures of boys, mixed with graceful scroll foliage, crowd every possible part of the canopy and its shafts, designed in the most free and un- conventional way and executed with an utter disregard of the time and labour which were lavished on them. Other existing works by Peter Vischer and his sons are the Entombment relief, signed "P. V. 1522," in the Aegidien- kirche, the monument of Cardinal Albert (1525) in the church at Aschaffenburg; and the fine tomb of Frederick the Wise (1527) in the castle chapel at Wittenberg. Next to Nuremberg, the chief centres of bronze sculpture were Augsburg and Ltibeck. Innsbruck possesses one of the finest series of bronze statues of the first half of the 16th century, namely twenty-eight colossal figures round the tomb of the emperor Maximilian, which stands in the centre of the nave, representing a suc- cession of heroes and ancestors of the em- peror. The first of the statues which was completed cost 3000 florins, and so Maxi- milian invited the help of Peter Visch- er, whose skill was greater and whose work less expensive than that of the local craftsmen. Most of them, however, were executed by sculptors of whom little is now known. They differ much in style, though all are of great techni- cal merit. The finest (see fig. 14) is an ideal statue of King Arthur of Britain, in plate armour of the 14th or early 15th century, very remarkable for the nobility of the face and pose. That of Theodoric is also a very fine con- ception. Some of the portrait figures of the Hapsburgs are almost ludicrously realistic, and are disfigured by the ugly German armour of the time. In the latter part of the 16th century the influence of lixteenth h Q i a t er Italian Renaissance becomes very apparent, and onwards. man y elaborate works in bronze were produced, especi- 'ally at Augsburg, where Hubert Gerhard cast the fine "Augustus fountain" in 1593, and Adrian de Vries made the "Hercules fountain "in 1599; both were influenced by the style of Giovanni di Bologna, as shown in his magnificent fountain at Bologna. In the following century Andreas Schluter of Hamburg (b. about 1662) produced smaller bronze reliefs and acces- sories of great merit. His colossal statue of Frederick HI. on the bridge at Berlin is less successful. On the whole the 17th and 18th centuries in Germany, as in England, were periods of great decadence in the plastic art; little of merit was produced, except some portrait figures. In the second half of the 18th century there was a strong revival in sculpture, especially in the classic style ; and since then Germany has produced an immense quantity of large and pretentious sculpture, mostly dull in design and second-rate in execution. Johann Gottfried of Berlin (1764-1850) finished a number of portrait figures, FIG. 14. Bronze statue of King Arthur at Innsbruck. From some of which are ably modelled, as did also Friedrich Tieck (1776-1851) and Christian Rauch (1777-1857) ; the works of Rauch are, however, mostly weak and sentimental in style, as, for example, his recumbent statue of Queen Louisa at Charlottenburg (1813) and his statues of Generals Billow and Scharnhorst at Berlin. Friedrich Drake was the ablest of Rauch's pupils, but he lived at a very unhappy period for the sculptor's art. His chief work is perhaps the colossal bronze equestrian statue of King William of Prussia at Cologne. Albert Wolff was a sculptor of more ability ; he executed the equestrian por- trait of King Ernest Augustus at Hanover, and a Horse- man attacked by a Lion now in the Berlin Museum. Augustus Kiss (1802-1865) produced the companion group to this, the celebrated Amazon and Panther in bronze, as well as the fine group of St George and the Dragon in a courtyard of the royal palace at Berlin. The St George and his horse are of bronze ; the dragon is formed of gilt plates of hammered iron. Kiss worked only in metal. The bad taste of the first half of the present century is strongly shown by many of the works of Theodore Kalide, whose Bacchanal sprawling on a Panther's Back is a marvel of awkwardness of pose and absence of any feeling for beauty. Rietschel was perhaps the best German sculp- tor of this period, and produced work superior to that of his contemporaries, such as Haagen, Wichmann, Fischer, and Hiedel. Some revival of a better style is shown in some sculpture, especially reliefs, by Hahnel, whose chief works are at Dresden. Schwanthaler (1802-1848), who was largely patronized by King Louis of Bavaria, studied at Rome and was at first a feeble imitator of antique classic art, but later in life he developed a more romantic and pseudo-mediaeval style. By him are a large number of reliefs and statues in the Glyptothek at Munich and in the Walhalla, also the colossal but feeble bronze statue of Bavaria, in point of size one of the most ambitious works of modern times. 1 Since the beginning of the second half of the century the sculpture of Germany has made visible progress, and several living artists have produced works of merit and originality, far superior to the feeble imita- tions of classic art which for nearly a century destroyed all possible vigour and individuality in the plastic pro- ductions of most European countries. 2 Spain. In the early mediaeval period the sculpture of northern Spain was much influenced by contemporary art in France. From the 12th to the 14th century manyTwelf French architects and sculptors visited and worked in to fot Spain. The cathedral of Santiago de Compostella pos- tee t] sesses one of the grandest existing specimens in the world of late 1 2th-century architectonic sculpture ; this, though the work of a native artist, Mastei Mateo, 3 is thoroughly French in style; as recorded by an inscription on the front, it waa completed in 1188. The whole of the western portal with its three doorways is covered with statues and reliefs, all richly decorated with colour, part of which still remains. Round the central arch are figures of the twenty-four elders, and in the tympanum a very noble relief of Christ in Majesty between Saints and Angels. As at Chartres, the jamb-shafts of the doorways are decorated with standing statues of saints, St James the elder, the patron of the church, being attached to the 1 In size, but not in merit, this enormous statue has recently been surpassed by the figure of America made in Paris and now (1886) being erected as a beacon at the entrance to the harbour of New York City. 2 On German sculpture see Foerster, Denkmale deutscher Baukunst, Leipsic, 1855 ; Wanderer, A dam Kraft and his School, Nuremberg, 1868 ; Rabe, Das Grabmal des J. von Brandenburg. . . von P. Vischer, Berlin, 1843 ; Reindel, Vischer's Shrine of St Sebaldus, Nuremberg, 1855 ; Liibke, Hist, of Sculpt., Eng. trans., London, 1872. 3 A kneeling portrait-statue of Mateo is introduced at the back of the central pier. This figure is now much revered by the Spanish peasants, and the head is partly worn away with kisses.