Holbein (Illustrated)

Hans Holbein the younger is perhaps the most outstanding figure in the history of German art. In the eyes of some he may yield place to his great contemporary Albert Dürer, but it is impossible [12] to deny that for all his indisputable genius Dürer stood for a time that was passing, and Holbein for one that was to come. The younger man touched art at every point, nowhere without mastery; and whether we consider him as a draughtsman, a decorator, a painter of frescoes, a portrait painter, an architect, a modeller, a designer of jewellery, a book illustrator, or a miniaturist, we find ourselves face to face with such an extraordinary measure of achievement, that the claim to remembrance and admiration could be sustained if his art gift had been single instead of universal.

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