Germany from the Earliest Period, vol 4 | Page 2

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 first composer who introduced the depth and pathos of more solemn music into the opera. He gained a complete triumph at Paris over Piccini, the celebrated Italian musician, in his contest respecting the comparative excellencies of the German