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Enough that a worldly splendour and vivacity had come into artistic life and Andrea was an impressionable young man in the midst of it. It does not seem to have affected the power and dexterity of his hand, but it made him a religious court-painter instead of a religious painter.
Here is Holbein's famous picture of him; a picture that represents a man so gross, so sensual, so disgusting in appearance, that one recognizes its truth, and wonders that the court-painter did not lose his head for such a libellous sincerity.
But now, by the new arrangement, by more convenient room, and still more by the acquaintance of a skilful artist, our love of art was again quickened and animated. This artist was Seekatz, a pupil of Brinkmann, court-painter at Darmstadt, whose talent and character will be more minutely unfolded in the sequel. In this way the remaining rooms were finished, according to their several purposes.
For his portrait of the Queen sent to Philip of Spain, he was rewarded with one hundred pounds, a gold chain, and a salary of one hundred pounds a quarter as court-painter to their Majesties. There is some obscurity about the appointments of painters to the king during the reign of George the Second. Jervas was succeeded by Kent, who died in 1748. Shackleton succeeded Kent.
Many of the principal galleries of Europe have Dürer's paintings, though they are not as numerous as his engravings, and, indeed, his fame rests more upon the latter than the former, and very large sums are paid by collectors for good impressions of his more important plates. Dürer had several followers. He established a school of painting in Saxony, and was appointed court-painter.
While there Apelles became the friend of the young Alexander, and when the latter came to the throne he made Apelles his court-painter, and is said to have issued an edict forbidding all other artists from painting his portrait. Later on Apelles removed to Ephesus.
Charles was in the habit of passing much time with Vandyck, and the studio of the court-painter became one of the most fashionable resorts in London for the courtiers and other distinguished people. Vandyck kept up a fine establishment, and lived luxuriously.
After several months Dürer received the confirmation of his pension and also the appointment of court-painter. This last office was of very little account to him. The emperor spent little time at Nuremburg, and it was not until he was older that he was seized with the passion of having his portrait painted, and then Dürer had died, and Titian was painter to the court.
But that work had not been spontaneous; it was a commission of the monarch who, at the same time that he was paying foreigners lavishly for their studies in the nude, wished to have a similar canvas by his court-painter. Religious oppression had obscured art for centuries. Human beauty terrified the great artists, who painted with a cross on their breasts and a rosary on their sword-hilts.
Ramsay trebled it; but the pupil was wont to confess afterwards that he looked back with a sort of horror at his labours in connexion with the royal portraits. The court-painter never recovered his lost health. He wrote from Italy to many of his friends the first men of the day, both in France and England. Then came the home-sickness, which so often precedes dissolution.
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