Whenever the northern artists, usually so cold and methodical in their mode of operation, devoted themselves to mural painting, it seems to have been necessary that they should enliven their temperament in the sunny rays of a southern sky; for while in Holland and Belgium we notice but few walls covered with decorative painting, we find a large number of Italian churches and palaces which contain frescoes bearing the signature of Flemish masters. [Illustration: Fig. 245.--“Death and the Jew.” An episode from the “Dance of Death.” Painted in 1441, in the Cemetery of the Dominicans, Basle. (Facsimile from the Engraving of M. Mérian.)] There was considerable excitement manifested a few years ago at the discovery of the mural paintings in the ancient Chapel of St. John and St. Paul, in Ghent (Fig. 244). These works are of the fifteenth century, and although satisfactory enough as regards the design, they derive more importance from the subjects which they represent than from any merit of execution. In speaking of Germany, we should not omit to mention the ancient “Dance of Death” (Fig. 245), at Basle, in the cemetery of the Dominicans, painted in the middle of the fifteenth century; also another “Dance of Death” much more famous, and the façades of several houses, painted at Basle by Holbein. We must also indicate the paintings with which (in 1466) Israel de Meckenheim covered the walls of a chapel of St. Mary of the Capitol, at Cologne; and the frescoes of St. Etienne and St. Augustine, at Vienna. But it does not follow, from this limited enumeration of works, that Germany either created or followed any special school. [Illustration: Fig. 246.--Fra Angelico, of Fiesole.] PAINTING ON WOOD, CANVAS, ETC. The Rise of Christian Painting.--The Byzantine School.--First Revival in Italy.--Cimabue, Giotto, Fra Angelico.--Florentine School: Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo.--Roman School: Perugino, Raphael.--Venetian School: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese.--Lombard School: Correggio, Parmigianino.--Spanish School.--German and Flemish Schools: Stephan of Cologne, John of Bruges, Lucas van Leyden, Albert Dürer, Lucas van Cranach, Holbein.--Painting in France during the Middle Ages.--Italian Masters in France.--Jean Cousin. After its first weak manifestations in the dark shadows of the Catacombs--the place of refuge to which the earliest believers had to resort to celebrate their holy mysteries--Christian painting made its first attempt to display itself in open day at the time when the new faith found in Constantine the high protection of a crowned disciple. But this art felt an instinctive repugnance to draw its inspirations from works which had been created under the empire of decayed and contemned creeds. In the completely spiritual worship of the true God, it seemed but natural to seek for other types than those which had been consecrated by the fancies of materialistic mythologies.