unconscious beauty and innocence[368]. The artistic perfection of these great masters is a culminating point of art such as could only be mastered by one nation in the course of historical development. (_c_) _Thirdly_, in so far as the question is that of German painting we may affiliate that which is entirely German with that of Flemish or Dutch painters. The general distinction between the above schools and that of the Italians, consists in this, that neither the Germans nor the painters of the Netherlands were willing as a creation of their own to attain to the free ideal forms and modes of expression characteristic of Italian art, or were able to progress to that spiritually transfigured type of beauty which is essentially the result of such. What they did elaborate, however, was, in one aspect of it, the expression of depth of emotion and the austere seclusion of the individual soul, and, from another point of view, they attach to this intensity of faith the separate definition of individual character in the broader significance of it, that is to say, one which does not merely disclose the fact of its close interest with the claims of faith and salvation, but also shows how the individuals represented are affected by the concerns of the world, how they are buffeted by the cares of life, and in this severe ordeal have gained worldly wisdom, fidelity, consistency, straightforwardness, the constancy of chivalry and the sterling character of good citizens. Agreeably to this more restricted and depressed vision of the detail of life we find here, and it is particularly conspicuous in the German school, from the beginning, in deliberate contrast with the purer forms and characters of the Italians, rather the expression of a formal obstinacy of stubborn natures, which either oppose themselves to God with energetic defiance and brutal wilfulness, or are forced to impose restraint on themselves in order that they may, with sore travail, wrest themselves from their limitations and uncouthness, and fight their way to the reconciliation of religion; consequently the deep wounds which they inflict on their spiritual life inevitably contribute to the visible expression of their piety. In illustrating this more closely I will merely draw attention to certain prominent features, which are important indications of the contrast between the older Flemish school and the upper German and more recent Dutch masters of the seventeenth century.