Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/580

VHI. Painting in Germany in the Nineteenth •Century. We have seen that, soon after the death of Albrecht Diirer, painting in Germany rapidly declined ; the artists who immediately succeeded him endeavoured to combine national with Italian peculiarities, without attaining any definite or satisfactory result. The eighteenth century was marked by a tendency to copy French rather than Italian work; but one artist, Asmus Carstens, attempted to check the rage for lifeless imitation, and to inaugurate a nobler style by the study of nature and of antique models. It was not until within quite recent days that a practical attempt was made to revive the greatness of the German School, although complete theories of art were thought out and enunciated by some of the intel- lectual and enthusiastic members of the Romantic School of literature. Lessing, Goethe, Schiller and Richter all contributed more or less to define the abstract principles of painting ; and the revival of the present century, instead of being characterized, as we should have expected, by freedom and independence of style, is marked by patient submission to abstract laws. Everywhere the student of German painting is met by proofs of high and noble endeavour and steadfast faithfulness to a preconceived and complete theory of art. The old wild symbolism and mysticism is kept in check ; and the grand scheme of a complete national school, which originated in the enthu- siasm of Overbeck, Schadow and Cornelius at the be- ginning of the present century, is rapidly finding its fulfilment.