The Old Masters and Their Pictures

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Mr Ruskin says of Holbein, as a painter, that he was complete in intellect; what he saw he saw with his whole soul, and what he painted he painted with his whole might. In deep and reverential feeling Holbein was far behind his countryman Albert Duerer, but Holbein was far more fully furnished than Duerer (unless indeed as Albrecht Duerer showed himself in that last picture of 'the Apostles') in the means of his art; he was a better draughtsman in the maturity of his powers, and a far better colourist. For Hans Holbein was not more famous for the living truthfulness of his likenesses ('a man very excellent in making physiognomies'), than for the 'inimitable bloom' that he imparted to his pictures, which 'he touched, till not a touch became discernible.' Yet beneath this bloom, along with his truthfulness, there was a dryness and hardness in Holbein's treatment of his subjects, and he is far below Titian, Rubens, and even Rembrandt as a portrait painter. Holbein was in the habit of painting his larger portraits on a peculiar green, and his miniatures on a blue background. He drew his portrait sketches with black and red chalk on a paper tinted flesh-colour. It is said, that with the exception, of Philip Wouwermann, no painter has been so unfortunate in having the works of other painters attributed to him as Hans Holbein has been, and 'that three out of every four pictures ascribed to him are misnamed.'[37] The 'Meier, or Meyer Madonna,' is otherwise called 'the Meier Family adoring the infant Christ in the arms of the Virgin.' The subject is understood to prove that it must have been painted in Holbein's youth,


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