Germany from the Earliest Period, vol 4 | Page 2

the times. While these painters belonged to the
higher orders of society, of which their works give evidence, numerous
others studied the lower classes with still greater success. Besides Van
der Meulen and Rugendas, the painters of battle-pieces, Wouvermann
chiefly excelled in the delineation of horses and groups of horsemen,
and Teniers, Ostade, and Jan Steen became famous for the surpassing
truth of their peasants and domestic scenes. To this low but
happily-treated school also belonged the cattle-pieces of Berchem and
Paul de Potter, whose "Bull and Cows" were, in a certain respect, as
much the ideal of the Dutch as the Madonna had formerly been that of
the Italians or the Venus di Medici that of the ancients.
Landscape-painting alone gave evidence of a higher style. Nature,
whenever undesecrated by the vulgarity of man, is ever sublimely
simple. The Dutch, as may be seen in the productions of Breughel,
called, from his dress, "Velvet Breughel," and in those of Elzheimer,
termed, from his attention to minutiae, the Denner of landscape-
painting, were at first too careful and minute; but Paul Brill, A.D. 1626,
was inspired with finer conceptions and formed the link between
preceding artists and the magnificent Claude Lorraine (so called from
the place of his birth, his real name being Claude Gelee), who resided
for a long time at Munich, and who first attempted to idealize nature as
the Italian artists had formerly idealized man. Everdingen and Ruysdael,
on the contrary, studied nature in her simple northern garb, and the
sombre pines of the former, the cheerful woods of the latter, will ever
be attractive, like pictures of a much-loved home, to the German.
Bakhuysen's sea-pieces and storms are faithful representations of the
Baltic. In the commencement of last century, landscape-painting also

degenerated and became mere ornamental flower-painting, of which the
Dutch were so passionately fond that they honored and paid the most
skilful artists in this style like princes. The dull prosaic existence of the
merchant called for relief. Huysum was the mosrt celebrated of the
flower-painters, with Rachel Ruysch, William von Arless, and others of
lesser note. Fruit and kitchen pieces were also greatly admired.
Hondekotter was celebrated as a painter of birds.
Painting was, in this manner, confined to a slavish imitation of nature,
for whose lowest objects a predilection was evinced until the middle of
the eighteenth century, when a style, half Italian, half antique, was
introduced into Germany by the operas, by travellers, and more
particularly by the galleries founded by the princes, and was still
further promoted by the learned researches of connoisseurs, more
especially by those of Winckelmann. Mengs, the Raphael of Germany,
Oeser, Tischbein, the landscape-painters Seekatz, Hackert, Reinhardt,
Koch, etc., formed the transition to the modern style. Frey,
Chodowiecki, etc., gained great celebrity as engravers.
Architecture flourished during the Middle Ages, painting at the time of
the Reformation, and music in modern times. The same spirit that
spoke to the eye in the eternal stone now breathed in transient melody
to the ear. The science of music, transported by Dutch artists into Italy,
had been there assiduously cultivated; the Italians had speedily
surpassed their masters, and had occupied themselves with the creation
of a peculiar church-music and of the profane opera, while the
Netherlands and the whole of Germany were convulsed by bloody
religious wars. After the peace of Westphalia, the national music of
Germany, with the exception of the choral music in the Protestant
churches, was almost silent, and Italian operas were introduced at all
the courts, where Italian chapel-masters, singers, and performers were
patronized in imitation of Louis XIV., who pursued a similar system in
France. German talent was reduced to imitate the Italian masters, and,
in 1628, Sagittarius produced at Dresden the first German opera in
imitation of the Italian, and Keyser published no fewer than one
hundred and sixteen.
The German musicians were, nevertheless, earlier than the German
poets, animated with a desire to extirpate the foreign and degenerate
mode fostered by the vanity of the German princes, and to give free

scope to their original and native talent. This regeneration was effected
by the despised and simple organists of the Protestant churches. In
1717, Schroeder, a native of Hohenstein in Saxony, invented the
pianoforte and improved the organ. Sebastian Bach, in his colossal
fugues, like to a pillared dome dissolved in melody,[3] raised music by
his compositions to a height unattained by any of his successors. He
was one of the most extraordinary geniuses that ever appeared on earth.
Handel, whose glorious melodies entranced the senses, produced the
grand oratorio of the "Messiah," which is still performed in both
Protestant and Catholic cathedrals; and Graun, with whom Frederick
the Great played the flute, brought private singing into vogue by his
musical compositions. Gluck was the