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Cornugaya Directory 06
Page 03
At Augsburg there was still another school, which came into prominence
in the sixteenth century with Burkmair and the Holbeins. It was only a
part of the Swabian school, a concentration of artistic force about
Augsburg, which, toward the close of the fifteenth century, had come
into competition with Nuremberg, and rather outranked it in splendor.
It was at Augsburg that the Renaissance art in Germany showed in more
restful composition, less angularity, better modelling and painting,
and more sense of the _ensemble_ of a picture. Hans Burkmair
(1473-1531) was the founder of the school, a pupil of Schoengauer,
later influenced by Duerer, and finally showing the influence of
Italian art. He was not, like Duerer, a religious painter, though doing
religious subjects. He was more concerned with worldly appearance, of
which he had a large knowledge, as may be seen from his illustrations
for engraving. As a painter he was a rather fine colorist, indulging
in the fantastic of architecture but with good taste, crude in
drawing but forceful, and at times giving excellent effects of motion.
He was rounder, fuller, calmer in composition than Duerer, but never so
strong an artist.
With Duerer and Holbein German art reached its apogee in the first half
of the sixteenth century, yet their work was not different in spirit
from that of their predecessors. Painting simply developed and became
forceful and expressive technically without abandoning its early
character. There is in Duerer a naive awkwardness of figure, some
angularity of line, strain of pose, and in composition oftentimes
huddling and overloading of the scene with details. There is not that
largeness which seemed native to his Italian contemporaries. He was
hampered by that German exactness, which found its best expression in
engraving, and which, though unsuited to painting, nevertheless crept
into it. Within these limitations Duerer produced the typical art of
Germany in the Renaissance time--an art more attractive for the charm
and beauty of its parts than for its unity, or its general impression.
Duerer was a travelled man, visited Italy and the Netherlands, and,
though he always remained a German in art, yet he picked up some
Italian methods from Bellini and Mantegna that are faintly apparent in
some of his works. In subject he was almost exclusively religious,
painting the altar-piece with infinite care upon wooden panel, canvas,
or parchment. He never worked in fresco, preferring oil and tempera.
In drawing he was often harsh and faulty, in draperies cramped at
times, and then, again, as in the Apostle panels at Munich, very
broad, and effective. Many of his pictures show a hard, dry brush, and
a few, again, are so free and mellow that they look as though done by
another hand. He was usually minute in detail, especially in such
features as hair, cloth, flesh. His portraits were uneven and not his
best productions. He was too close a scrutinizer of the part and not
enough of an observer of the whole for good portraiture. Indeed, that
is the criticism to be made upon all his work. He was an exquisite
realist of certain features, but not always of the _ensemble_.
Nevertheless he holds first rank in the German art of the Renaissance,
not only on account of his technical ability, but also because of his
imagination, sincerity, and striking originality.
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