Dissertation on the Painthigs of the middle Age. 175 



tone given by tlie manners of men, were I'ne only guides 

 which artists had : if architecture and occasionally sculp- 

 ture, which was then tributary to it, preset^^ed under the 

 superintendence of priests and monks some of their es- 

 sential qualities, painting also, which was more generally 

 attainable, was almost enlirfly abandoned to the taste ot 

 those who attached themselves to it as a study. The 

 painters of the North were no longer in contact with the 

 ancient pupils of Rome and Constantinople ; atid not- 

 withstanding the ingenuity of some figures in certain ma- 

 nuscripts, it can never be said that in these countries the 

 art was upon the same level as in Italy. Some time after- 

 wards the influence of the styles of some men very justly 

 celebrated elsewhere, such as Albert Durer and Van Eckc, 

 did nothing but degrade even the bad taste which prevailed; 

 and it was after tlieir time in particular, and after the pre- 

 tended imitations of the Florentine school, that artists every 

 where produced on glass, in altar- pieces, and in books, those 

 works equally ridiculous as disgusting, and which are still 

 to be met with daily : it is pjobable, therefore, that if in, 

 these countries there arc occasionally paintings of some 

 value, they have been the productions of foreigners in- 

 vited there either by the princes and churchmen, or by 

 some rich individuals. We may therefore repeat that, in 

 the North, the style of almost all the paintings of the six- 

 teenth century, notwithstanding certain qualities which 

 sometimes render them valuable, is truly barbarous; and 

 that this is the sole and ^rue c^se of that disgust which 

 has been erroneously referred to causes originating in for- 

 mer ages, which were supposed to have been still more 

 barbarous. 



It will be no loneer astonishing that it has been falsely 

 supposed that painting took its rise in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, since, in fact, we generally find in the countries of tho'- 

 North styles which may be referred to the sera of the new 

 schools, and since the churches, monasteries, and public 

 buildings, were every where emblazoned with the mixed 

 tastes of so many new painters; tastes which were even 

 combined with that of Michael Angelo, the aspect of which 

 gives to the public the false idea of works executed more 

 than a hundred years before. This school was the aera of 

 those attitudes and of those harsh and angular postures, 

 the aera of the barbarous superfluity of hack grounds and ac- 

 cessaries, perpetuated perhaps by the slight degradation o.f 

 the colours of glass; and afterwards c^me ihe a^ra of those 

 pantomimic and acadcuiical contorsions which were said 



to 



