He was a designer of
wood-engravings and goldsmiths work and of architectural decoration,
besides being a painter. In those days of change in South Germany,
artists had to be willing to turn their hands to any kind of work they
could get to do. North of the Alps, where the Reformation was upsetting
old habits, an artist's life was far from being easy. Reformers made
bonfires of sacred pictures and sculptured wooden altar-pieces. Indeed
the Reformation was a cruel blow to artists, for it took away Church
patronage and made them dependent for employment upon merchants and
princes. Except at courts or in great mercantile towns they fared
extremely ill. Altar-pieces were rarely wanted, and there were no more
legends of saints to be painted upon the walls of churches.
The demand for portraiture, on the other hand, was increasing, whilst
the growth of printing created a new field for design in the preparation
of woodcuts for the illustration of books. Thus it came to pass that
the printer Froben, at Basle, was one of the young Holbein's chief
patrons. We find him designing a wonderful series of illustrations
of _The Dance of Death_, as well as drawing another set to illustrate
_The Praise of Folly_, written by Erasmus, who was then living in Basle
and frequenting the house of Froben.
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