Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/814

 800 PAINTING their influence throughout Italy ; but their ef- forts only tended to substitute academic tame- ness for what little originality survived the decline of painting, and their style, though fre- quently admirable as illustrated by themselves, did not long survive them. Their greatest mer- it perhaps consisted in the attention they gave to landscape. Of the schools of northern Italy, in addition to those mentioned, the most noted was that of Parma, the great ornament of which was Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio, who in the early part of the 16th century brought the art of chiaroscuro and relief to perfection-. One of his chief characteristics was a winning softness and grace, tending in some instances toward affectation ; and the evil consequences of this tendency are visible in the works of Francesco Mazzuola, called II Parmigiano, other- wise an excellent painter, and after Correggio the best artist of the school. At Milan a flour- ishing school was established by Leonardo da Vinci, who executed there some of his finest works. Among the pupils who came under his influence may be mentioned Marco d'Oggione, who painted the copy of Leonardo's "Last Supper," now in the possession of the British royal academy. About the commencement of the 17th century the Procaccinis founded an eclectic school in Milan. The school of Naples claims an antiquity equal to that of Florence, but no important name occurs until the 17th century, when Giuseppe Ribera, called Lo Spa- gnoletto, and Salvator Rosa, both leading paint- ers of the naturalist^ flourished. The latter was one of the earliest and most vigorous of landscape painters, but even in this class of works reflects the coarse feeling of his school. The last Neapolitan painter of eminence was Luca Giordano, called, from his rapidity of execution, Fa Presto. Although painting in Germany can be traced back to the Carlovin- gian period, little is known of the productions of its artists, the missal illuminators excepted, previous to the 13th century. During the lat- ter half of the 14th, under Meister Wilhelm, or William of Cologne, who, according to a con- temporary chronicler, was " the best painter in all German lands, and painted all sorts of men as if they were alive," the school of Cologne acquired considerable repute. The pictures in Cologne attributed to this master and to his pupil, Meister Stephan, notwithstanding a Gothic hardness peculiar to all mediaeval Ger- man art, are remarkable for richness of color- ing, careful finish, and deep religious sentiment. Contemporary schools flourished in Nuremberg and Swabia. The 16th century witnessed the culmination of German art in the person of Albrecht Durer, the pupil of Michael Wohl- gemuth of Nuremberg, and almost equally dis- tinguished as painter, sculptor, and engraver, though now chiefly known in the last capacity. Another painter who greatly influenced him was Martin Schon, remarkable for the fantas- tic spirit often noticeable in his works. Lucas Cranach about the same time headed the con- temporary school of Saxony, and enjoyed al- most as great a reputation as Durer himself. Other painters of the period were Albrecht Altdorfer, a pupil of Durer, Matthias Griine- wald, Hans Burgkmair, and particularly Hans Holbein the younger, in whom the old mediae- val ecclesiastical spirit is relieved by freer con- ceptions of nature and a purer sense of physical beauty, while the characteristic German style is retained. From 1527 his history belongs to England. Subsequently the Germans became imitators of the Netherlandish and Italian eclec- tic schools, and previous to the 19th century few names of note occur among them. In the first decade of the present century a remark- able revival was commenced by a number of young German painters assembled in Rome, the leading motive of whieh was a protest against the effete academic .generalization un- der which art languished. The result was the formation of a mystical school, which, under the lead of Overbeck, attempted to revive the sentimental, ascetic art of the 14th century; and of another more purely Teutonic, known as the Munich school, whose leaders, Cornelius, Schadow, Veit, Kaulbach, Hess, and Schnorr, have affected monumental works and idealized history with considerable success. By pushing this tendency to somewhat unreasonable limits they incited a realistic reaction under Lessing, Bendemann, and others, who formed a separate school, the chief seat of which is Diisseldorf. It has produced some clever genre painters. Within a few years a more broadly realistic school has been established in Munich under the lead of Karl Piloty, a coarse but vigorous painter. Accounts of these movements and of their instigators will be found among the bio- graphical articles of this work. The Flemish school dates from the commencement of the 15th century, when Hubert and Jan van Eyck established themselves at Bruges, and drew around them pupils from all parts of northern Europe. Dignity and strength, combined with a close imitation of external nature, were the characteristics of their style, as illustrated in the celebrated polyptych painted by them for the church of St. Bavon in Ghent. This work presents also some of the first successful at- tempts at landscape painting. To Hubert van Eyck is due the discovery, not of oil painting, which was practised for two or three centuries before his time, but of a drying varnish, which was at the same time more suitable for mix- ing with pigments than any vehicle previous- ly known. The new method was adopted by northern artists generally in the first half of the 15th century, and about 1450 was carried into Italy by Antonello da Messina, Among the pupils and successors of the Van Eycks were Roger van der Weyde'n, also called Roger of Bruges, Hans Memling or Hemling, perhaps the best painter of the school, and Jan van Mabuse, the first Flemish painter who felt the influence of the Italian renaissance. A con- temporary school flourished at Antwerp, which