The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-11-28

who absorbed both the early and the
golden renaissance of Italy, teInpering
with its grace and beauty the realism
and dramatic restlessnesS of Germany.
his career began as the first wave of
the renaissance penetrated his native
land. and as the fervcr OF Protestant
reform was lending a new though tenn
porary vigOr to religious art. Holbein
was as great an exponent of the Sec
ond as Of the first Of these national
movements.
The imperial city of Augsburg. where
Hans Holbein was born in 1897. was the
principal center of the early renais-
sance in Germany. 1t had long pos
sessed a famous school of painting.
HoiDein'S father, uncle and brothe
were all painters, and he grew up in
his fathers workshop, practicing paint
ing from his earliest boyhood. He re-
manned in Augsburg until 1915, and the
city still preserves a number of his
boyish works. which testify to great
precocity. In 1872 he painted some fine
panels for the convent of ST Gather
inc; in 1915 the motive picture of the
Schwartz family, and in 1916 the great
triptych of the "Martyrdom of St.
Sebastian" where the figure of ST
Elizabeth is one of the most beautiful
hitherto produced by German art. Nu-
merous sketches for portraits remain
at Augsburg, showing how early the
boy tended toward his great speciality
and how soon he acquired surety of
touch and characterization.
In 1916, at the age of IS, he went to
Switzerland. settling at Basil as an in
dependent painter He remained there
ten years. and during this time at
tanned to the full maturity of his tall
enfs. He then executed religious pic
lures for the churches-a branch which
he afterward entirely abandoned. The
Virgin and Child" at Solothurn. in
1922. with its broad, heavy figures. was
followed by that world-renowned pic
ture, the Madonna of the BurSomas-
ter Meyer Family of which the orig
inal is in Darmstadt and the better
known early copy in Dresden. 1t is a
marvellous example of high finish and
splendid coloring, and affects one like
peals of grand organ.
In his early series of passion pictures
Holbein treated a poignant theme often
attempted by German artists and one
in which they loved to revel in theat-
rical and hideous realism. Rolbein
succeeded in tempering this with some
Of the Italian grace and repose. The
Catholic churches OF Switzerland, so
soon to be desecrated. were decorated
at this time with a number of his re-
ligious paintings. lie entered also the
field of classical allegory in a series of
frescoes in the hall of the town coun-
Gill;
STILL even from the beginning Of his
life in Basel he put the most of his
heart into his portraits. Those of ia
cob Meier and his wife G5i6) are soft
and harmonious, with transparent
brown coloring, inaugurating a style
that eliminates in the superb head OF
his friend, Bonifacius Amerbach. which
has more pure beauty than any of the
portraits of his later English period
During the last years of his Basel life
052S-2e) Holbein devoted himself al
most exclusively to drawings for wood
cuts. of which over 800 are known. be-
side some twenty alphabets. They IL
Illustrated both Old and New Testament
and miscellaneous writings. The series
of the Dance of Death" carried his
reputation everywhere. Holbein may
have been reduced 20 this work by the
slight patronage given him by the city,
which finally drove him to England
At the same time he always showed q
marked love for the decorative and
minor arts. well illustrated by the
collections of his drawings
II is evident that Leonardo da Vinci
and the Milanese school influenced Hol- |
bein in Basel; he was even more
strongly swayed by the great Paduan /
Manfegna. whose eagravings formed /
his drawing. and whose dramatic DOW |
of perspective in architecture appealed I
to him so foreibly that entire figures
and groups are appropriated in Hol- I
bein's larger compositions. beginning /
with his passion pictures (BaseD of 1919 i
and ending in his Triumph of Riches" /
and Triumph of Poverty in London. I
The inherent German realism often 1
continued, however. TO pierce through i
in this Basel period in ways often ex-
aCqerated. theatrical or reDliisive Such /
were the heads of mustachioed Adam 4
and an Eve. plain studies from un- /
graceful models; such was the single I
figure of the dead Christ so startlingly /
corpse-like in its unsparing realism: |
such were many tragic and comic de- /
tails in h.s- passion plays and other /
series. Holbein shaved then a very
strong element of comedy and satire.
which he vented especially in his small |
drawings for Illustrations. y
1t is seldom that 50 little is known of