DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0360
334
OLD WORLD MASTERS
Chester School of the Tenth Century stood very high before the ad-
vent of the Normans in 1066.
Our own country to-day can show many examples of this splendid
work in private collections. After William Caxton set up his print-
ing-press at Westminster in 1471, there was little more need for the
laboriously written manuscripts with their exquisite miniature-paint-
ing and illumination.
Oliver Cromwell’s Roundhead bandits and other Puritans with
their wholesale demolishing and slashing of all art and everything
beautiful together with the Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed
all the paintings that could have told us just what had been accom-
plished in England at the time when Fra Angelico, Fra Lippo Lippi,
and Botticelli were creating masterpieces in Italy and when Roger van
der Weyden and Memling were painting gloriously in the great realm
of the Dukes of Burgundy. Such works as the Romaunt de la Rose
and other Anglo-Norman manuscripts give us a hint of what Painting
in England must have been; for, of course, English, or Anglo-Norman
Painting, in Plantagenet days must have been—as in other countries—-
an enlarged version of the brightly colored miniatures touched up
with gold-leaf in the manuscripts.
Henry VIII seems to have been the first English King who -was a
patron of art in the modern sense. But there was no English artist
of power to be patronized. The German Hans Holbein (see page 240)
was made Court-Painter. Holbein painted all the great personages
in Tudor England and his influence lasted long after his death. Min-
iature-portraits were also popular. The greatest artist in this line
was Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619), a native of Exeter, trained as a
goldsmith, a follower of Holbein, and appointed goldsmith, carver,
and portrait-painter to Queen Elizabeth (whose portrait he painted
many times). Later he was portrait-painter to James I. It was Hil-
liard, too, who engraved the Great Seal of England in 1587. Hilliard’s
pupil, Isaac Oliver (1556-1617?), also a pupil of Federigo Zuccaro,
was unsurpassed as a miniature-painter and taught his son Peter
(1601-1660), who was famous for his drawings and water-colors as
well as for his miniatures. Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), achieved a
OLD WORLD MASTERS
Chester School of the Tenth Century stood very high before the ad-
vent of the Normans in 1066.
Our own country to-day can show many examples of this splendid
work in private collections. After William Caxton set up his print-
ing-press at Westminster in 1471, there was little more need for the
laboriously written manuscripts with their exquisite miniature-paint-
ing and illumination.
Oliver Cromwell’s Roundhead bandits and other Puritans with
their wholesale demolishing and slashing of all art and everything
beautiful together with the Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed
all the paintings that could have told us just what had been accom-
plished in England at the time when Fra Angelico, Fra Lippo Lippi,
and Botticelli were creating masterpieces in Italy and when Roger van
der Weyden and Memling were painting gloriously in the great realm
of the Dukes of Burgundy. Such works as the Romaunt de la Rose
and other Anglo-Norman manuscripts give us a hint of what Painting
in England must have been; for, of course, English, or Anglo-Norman
Painting, in Plantagenet days must have been—as in other countries—-
an enlarged version of the brightly colored miniatures touched up
with gold-leaf in the manuscripts.
Henry VIII seems to have been the first English King who -was a
patron of art in the modern sense. But there was no English artist
of power to be patronized. The German Hans Holbein (see page 240)
was made Court-Painter. Holbein painted all the great personages
in Tudor England and his influence lasted long after his death. Min-
iature-portraits were also popular. The greatest artist in this line
was Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619), a native of Exeter, trained as a
goldsmith, a follower of Holbein, and appointed goldsmith, carver,
and portrait-painter to Queen Elizabeth (whose portrait he painted
many times). Later he was portrait-painter to James I. It was Hil-
liard, too, who engraved the Great Seal of England in 1587. Hilliard’s
pupil, Isaac Oliver (1556-1617?), also a pupil of Federigo Zuccaro,
was unsurpassed as a miniature-painter and taught his son Peter
(1601-1660), who was famous for his drawings and water-colors as
well as for his miniatures. Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), achieved a