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), and Elzheimer (1574?-1620). After them came the
representative of the other extreme in Denner (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.

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), and Schadow (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,
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 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 commonp