(_β_) A further aspect we shall do well to consider is the transition from the more tranquil, reverential piety to the representation of martyrdoms, and, in general, what is not beautiful in reality. It is more particularly the North German masters who excel in scenes borrowed from the Passion in which they emphasize the savagery of the soldiery, the evil aspects of the mocking, the fierceness of the hate against Christ during the course of His sufferings, with particular insistence on features of ugliness and distortion, and which are intended to denote external forms correspondent with the depravity of spirit. The tranquil and beautiful activity of an unassuming personal piety is thrown into the background, and the movements which are inseparable from the situations above mentioned unfold us hideous distortions, expressions of ferocity, and all the unbridled exhibition of passions. Where we have the contending tumult and the uncouthness of characters presented with such detail, it is not surprising that such pictures are defective in the ideal harmony of their composition no less than their colour, so that, more especially where a taste for old German paintings first crops up, critics when thus confronted with what is, as a rule, an inferior class of technical accomplishment, fall into many mistakes when determining the date of their production. Thus it has been maintained that they are previous to the more consummate pictures of the Van Eyck period, although, for the most part, they hail from a more recent time. However, the Upper German masters were not exclusively occupied with works of this type, but have likewise treated a variety of religious subjects, and, indeed--Albrecht Dürer, with others, exemplifies this--even in scenes from Christ's Passion, have understood how effectively to grapple with the extremes of pure savagery, and even when treating such themes to preserve an ideal nobility and an external independence[369] and freedom.