Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/485

In Germany. 455 we may add that the art of glass-painting was carried to the greatest perfection in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by the Germans and Flemings, and that they maintained their superiority in this respect over the other Continental states until the close of the seventeenth century. The seventeenth century was marked by a few feeble unsuccessful attempts to imitate the great Italian masters of the Renaissance ; and it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Germany was to some extent recovering from the effects of the Thirty Years' War, that any artists arose of sufficient individuality to merit special notice, and to aid in the transition to bet- ter things. Of these we may name as among the more remarkable : Johann Rottenhammer (1564 — 1623), who strove to emulate Tintoretto : a Pan and Syrinx by him is in the National Gallery; Adam Elshaimer (1574 — 1620), famous for his landscapes, many of which are in private galleries in England : Joachim van Sandrart (1606 — 1688), who painted allegoric and historic pieces, but is more famous as the author of the ' Teutsche Academie,' a history of German art : Balthasar Denner (1685 — 1747), a success- ful portrait painter, famed for the minute finish of his works ; of which examples may be seen at Hampton Court : Anton Raphael Mengs (1728—1779), one of the first to attempt to revive the rigid correctness of classical painting, who failed, however, to catch the spirit of antique art : Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (1712—1774), who worked chiefly at Dresden, and was, perhaps, the most successful copyist that ever lived. Italian, French, German, Flemish, Dutch — all styles came equally familiar