SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES(DUTCH PAINTING)

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES: These were unrelieved centuries of decline in German painting. After Dürer, Holbein, and Cranach had passed there came about a senseless imitation of Italy, combined with an equally senseless imitation of detail in nature that produced nothing worthy of the name of original or genuine art. It is not probable that the Reformation had any more to do with this than with the decline in Italy. It was a period of barrenness in both countries. The Italian imitators in Germany were chiefly Rottenhammer(1564-1623),2 Pieces paintings, and Elzheimer (1574?-1620). After them came the representative of the other extreme inDenner (1685-1749), who thought to be great in portraiture by the minute imitation of hair, freckles, and three-days'-old beard—a petty and unworthy realism which excited some curiosity but never held rank as art. Mengs (1728-1779) sought for the sublime through eclecticism, but never reached it. His work, though academic and correct, is lacking in spirit and originality.Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807) succeeded in pleasing her inartistic age with the simply pretty, while Carstens (1754-1798) was a conscientious if mistaken student of the great Italians—a man of some severity in form and of academic inclinations. oil paintings for sale

NINETEENTH CENTURY: In the first part of this century there started in Germany a so-called "revival of art" led by Overbeck(1789-1869), Cornelius (1783-1867), Veit (1793-1877), andSchadow (1789-1862), but like many another revival of art it did not amount to much. The attempt to "revive" the past is usually a failure. The forms are caught, but the spirit is lost. The nineteenth-century attempt in Germany was brought about by the study of monumental painting in Italy, and the taking up of the religious spirit in a pre-Raphaelite manner. Something also of German romanticism was its inspiration. Overbeck remained in Rome, but the others, after some time in Italy,oil painting reproductions, returned to Germany, diffused their teaching, and really formed a new epoch in German painting. A modern art began with ambitions and subjects entirely disproportionate to its skill. The monumental, the ideal, the classic, the exalted, were spread over enormous spaces, but there was no reason for such work in the contemporary German life, and nothing to warrant its appearance save that its better had appeared in Italy during the Renaissance. Cornelius after his return became the head of the MUNICH SCHOOL and painted pictures of the heroes of the  where to buy oil paintings

MUNICH SCHOOL and painted pictures of the heroes of the classic and the Christian world upon a large scale. Nothing but their size and good intention ever brought them into notice, for their form and coloring were both commonplace. Schnorr (1794-1872) followed in the same style with the Niebelungen Lied, Charlemagne, and Barbarossa for subjects. Kaulbach (1805-1874) was a pupil of Cornelius, and had some ability but little taste, and not enough originality to produce great art.Piloty (1826-1886) was more realistic, more of a painter and ranks as one of the best of the early Munich masters. After him Munich art became genre-like in subject, with greater attention given to truthful representation in light, color, texture. To-day there are a large number of painters in the school who are remarkable for realistic detail.  oil paintings on canvas for sale