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Article: Incredible Lines of Credit.('From Schongauer to Holbein: Master Drawings From Basel and Berlin' at National Gallery of Art)
- Article from:
- Insight on the News
- Article date:
- December 6, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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What makes these 500-year-old German and Swiss drawings unusual? The artists concentrated on the beauty and quality of the line they put so emphatically on the page.
Imagine you are an artist working in Germany or Switzerland around 1500. The old order of the Catholic Church and Holy Roman Empire is breaking up. Humanism has spread north from Renaissance Italy and is fast preempting established religion -- images of Hercules are joining those of the Virgin Mary. Columbus has discovered America. Johann Gutenberg has invented movable type. Free enterprise is replacing feudalism.
Art, too, was changing, both in approach and subject matter, as evidenced by ...