Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/467

In Swabia. 437 the powers of evil, and that of Flanders, with its stern repudiation of all not actually manifest to the senses. (a) The Swabian School. The first great German master in whom we see the working of this double spirit — alike conservative and reformative — was Martin Schongauer (ab. 1450 — 1488), of Colmar, commonly called Martin Schon, who began life as an engraver, and did not devote himself to painting until after a visit to Flanders, where he is supposed to have studied under Rogier van der Weyden. He adopted something of his master's realistic manner, whilst retaining the feeling for spiritual beauty characteristic of his German predecessors, Meister Wilhelm, Meister Stephan, and the Master of the Ly versberg Passion — combined, however, with a weird delight in physical distortion which is always painful and sometimes positively revolting. As an instance of this, we may cite his print of S. Anthony tormented by Demons, in the British Museum. Anything more grotesque and fantastic than the horrible forms wreaking their spite upon the unhappy saint it would be difficult to conceive ; yet the whole is redeemed from caricature by the nobility of the martyr's head, which admirably expresses calm superiority to bodily torture, and almost absolute mastery of mind over matter. The British Museum contains many other fine engravings from the same hand, of which we must name Christ bearing His Gross, and the Foolish Virgins. Schongauer' s paintings are extremely rare ; an altar-piece of a Madonna and the Infant Saviour, in the church of S. Martin at Colmar, is the chief, and is remark- able for purity of colouring and delicacy of finish. A small work, the Death of the Virgin, in the National Gallery, is