Hans Holbein the younger is perhaps the most outstanding figure in the
history of German art. In the eyes of some he may yield place to his
great contemporary Albert Dürer, but it is impossible to deny that for
all his indisputable genius Dürer stood for a time that was passing,
and Holbein for one that was to come. The younger man touched art at
every point, nowhere without mastery; and whether we consider him as a
draughtsman, a decorator, a painter of frescoes, a portrait painter, an
architect, a modeller, a designer of jewellery, a book illustrator, or a
miniaturist, we find ourselves face to face with such an extraordinary
measure of achievement, that the claim to remembrance and admiration
could be sustained if his art gift had been single instead of universal.