History of mediæval art . ascendency. Such illustrations were naturally of veryunequal merit. For example, the pen-drawings in black and redfrom Zwiefalten, on the Suabian Alp, now in the Library of Stutt-gart, whether slightly colored (Cod. 56-58) or untinted (Cod. 415),are full of life, although plainly the work of untrained hands. Stillmore spirited are the drawings in the Liet von der Maget, by 422 PAINTING OF THE ROMANIC EPOCH. Werinher of Tegernsee {Fig. 260), and in the Eneidt of Heinrichvon Veldecgk, both of which are in the Library of Berlin. The ac-tion is especially forcible in the
History of mediæval art . ascendency. Such illustrations were naturally of veryunequal merit. For example, the pen-drawings in black and redfrom Zwiefalten, on the Suabian Alp, now in the Library of Stutt-gart, whether slightly colored (Cod. 56-58) or untinted (Cod. 415),are full of life, although plainly the work of untrained hands. Stillmore spirited are the drawings in the Liet von der Maget, by 422 PAINTING OF THE ROMANIC EPOCH. Werinher of Tegernsee {Fig. 260), and in the Eneidt of Heinrichvon Veldecgk, both of which are in the Library of Berlin. The ac-tion is especially forcible in the representations of profane subjects,and although the gestures, drawn directly from nature, are some-times exaggerated and contorted, they are not the less striking ineffect or the less comprehensible. That the execution was also lia-ble to become hasty and careless is made evident by the numerousmanuscripts of the productive monk Conrad of Scheyern, in UpperBavaria, which are now in the library of Munich. He worked, how-. Fig. 260.—The Mothers of Bethlehem. From Werinhers Liet von der Maget. ever, in the first half of the thirteenth century, and consequently atthe close of the period under consideration, by which time betterspecimens of art were circulated from convent to convent. It mayhave been in view of these that he added a few words in conclusion,excusing his carelessness by saying that he had been overburdenedwith work and underpaid. In a similar manner another illumina-tor of this period, Hildebertus, in a codex now in the metropolitanchapter-house at Prague, expresses his discontent by an illustrationat the end of the book, in which he represents himself as annoyedby a mouse which is stealing his food. The curse which he invokes ITALY. 423 upon the animal is not without humor, and is an early instance ofthe drolleries which came so much in vogue in the Gothic epoch. The conditions of painting in Italy were decidedly differentfrom those in Germany. In the latter coun
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