PAINTING. V27 
Of Diirer’s pupils but few approached his perfection: the most talented 
was Albert Altdorfer, a Swiss, born in 1488, whom many call the Rem- 
brandt of the Niirnberg school. One of his finest pictures is the Battle of 
Alexander in the Pinakothek in Munich. Next to him should be men- 
tioned Heinz of Kulmbach, Hans Schauflin, who in some points almost 
reached his master; Heinrich Aldegrewer, and the two Behams, who, 
however, are better known as engravers on wood and copper. Georg Pentz 
left Diirer’s school for that of Raphael. 
The Saxon School was founded by Lucas Kranach, who, born in Franco- 
nia and formed in the Frankish school, transplanted the Nurnberg style of 
painting to Saxony. He enjoyed the greatest consideration next to Direr 
among the artists of that time. Portraits were his forte, and his smooth 
handling, which at the same time is entirely free from a licked or labored 
appearance, is peculiar to him. In his conceptions he has much in common 
with Durer; though in him naiveté and good humor are more predominant. 
His works are very numerous; we will mention only the altar-piece in the 
cathedral at Meissen, a picture in the chapel of St. George in the same place, 
and the altar-pieces in Schneeberg and in Our Lady’s church in Halle; the 
two last are considered his finest pictures. Among his many pupils none 
but his son, Lucas Kranach junior, attained to any celebrity. His chief 
work is in the town-church in Wittenberg. : 
The new German School dates from the end of the preceding and the 
beginning of the current century, when the new flight taken by the national 
mind of Germany soon manifested itself in the arts of design. The charac- 
teristic features of this period are the choice of important subjects, signifi- 
cance of conception, and peculiarity of treatment. The choice of subjects 
was confined almost wholly to classical antiquity, the biblical history, and 
the Divine Comedy of Dante. But there the mode of treatment usual in the 
academies would not suffice, nor was any particular charm to be acquired 
through the usual means of art; accordingly they depended mainly for 
success on the conception of the subject and the drawing. The beginnings 
of this school, however, are to be sought not in Germany but in Rome, 
whither, from the middle of the 16th century, all men of artistic talent 
repaired, to perfect themselves in the knowledge and practice of art. The 
principal artists of this class were Carstens, Schick, Wachter, Koch, and 
Dietrich. This last was born in Weimar and painted at an early age in 
Dresden; but his pictures of that period were destroyed in the Seven Years’ 
War. He went'to Italy in 1742, and studied the great masters in Venice 
and Rome. His taste, however, led him to the imitation of Poelenburg, 
Waterloo, and Rembrandt; and in fact he imitated these masters with such 
chameleon-like success, that his pictures in the manner of one or the other 
of them may easily be mistaken for works of the master himself. His fame 
had spread so on his return, that he received commissions even from France 
and England. There is found in the Paris Museum an Adoration of the 
Magi by Dietrich (pl. 18, fig. 12), the composition and execution of which 
rival the works of the first masters. Besides a number of pictures in the 
spirit and taste of Rembrandt, we have more than 200 very fine engravings 
511 
