Still we can't be certain how much of all this may be owing to the mere
mannerisms of successive schools of art," urged Mueller, sticking
manfully to his own opinion. "Where will you find a more decided
mannerist than Holbein? And because he was the first portrait-painter of
his day, was he not reproduced with all his faults of literalness and
dryness by a legion of imitators? So with Sir Peter Lely, with Petitot,
with Vandyck, with every great artist who painted kings and queens and
court beauties. Then, again, a certain style of beauty becomes the rage,
and-a skilful painter flatters each fair sitter in turn by bringing up
her features, or her expression, or the color of her hair, as near as
possible to the fashionable standard. And further, there is the dress of
a period to be taken into account. Think of the family likeness that
pervades the flowing wigs of the courts of Louis Quatorze and Charles
the Second--see what powder did a hundred years ago to equalize
mankind."

Flandrin shook his head.

"Ingenious, _mon garcon_" said he; "ingenious, but unsound The cut of a
fair lady's bodice never yet altered the shape of her nose; neither was
it the fashion of their furred surtouts that made Erasmus and Sir Thomas
More as like as twins. What you call the 'mannerism' of Holbein is only
his way of looking at his fellow-creatures. He and Sir Antonio More were
the most faithful of portrait-painters. They didn't know how to flatter.
They painted exactly what they saw--no more, and no less; so that every
head they have left us is a chapter in the history of the Middle Ages.
The race--depend on't--the race was unbeautiful; and not even the
picturesque dress of the period (which, according to your theory, should
have helped to make the wearers of it more attractive) could soften one
jot of their plainness."

"I can't bring myself to believe that we were all so ugly--French,
English, and Germans alike--only a couple of centuries ago,"
said Mueller.

"That is to say, you prefer to believe that Holbein, and Lucas Cranach,
and Sir Antonio More, and all their school, were mannerists. Nonsense,
my dear fellow--nonsense! _It is Nature who is the mannerist_. She loves
to turn out a certain generation after a particular pattern; and when
she is tired of that pattern, she invents another. Her fancies last, on
the average about, a hundred years. Sometimes she changes the type quite
abruptly; sometimes modifies it by gentle, yet always