MEISSONIER. 283 MEISTERSINGER. tain of artilli'iy in the Xntional Guard. He ■was with Xaiiok'on at Solfeiino in 1S.")I), and during tlic siege of Paris in 1S70 lie was lieuten- ant-colonel of infantry in the National Guard. He was ma<le chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 184<> and grand olKcer in 1878: a member of the Institute of France in 1801, and president in 1876 and 18!)1. He died in Paris, January 31, 1891. His subjects are historical, military, and scenes frmii everyday life. Many of his [jictures are on small canvases and studies of one or two figures. His characters are almost entirely men; in very few of his pictures do women or children appear. He is the chief of a school of genre painters, among the most prominent of whom are his son, Jean Charles (1848 — ), and Detaille (q.v. ). Evepi- detail in his pictures is as faith- fully and carefully studied and portrayed as if it were of sole importance. His coloring is fresh and realistic, and his power over the cflccts of light and shade masterly. He excels in his drawing of the horse, in his portrayal of action, and in his power to depict the subtlest shades of expression on the faces of his characters. Of his military pictures, one of the most famous is "Friedland, 1807" (1875), a large painting in the Jletropolitan Museum. New York. Other- famous military pictures are: "Cavalry Charge" (1807) ; "Napoleon III. at Solferino" (1804), in the Luxembourg: "The Retreat from Moscow;" "Napoleon Overlooking a Battle:" "Napoleon and His Staff in 1814" (1804). The Catherine Loril- lard Wolfe collection. Metropolitan Museum, New York, contains three pictures by Meissonier, and the Vanderbilt collection in New Y'ork has seven. In the Luxembourg Museum are also the "Stand- ard Bearer" (ISO-i) ; "Musketeer" (1802) ; and a portrait of Alexander Dumas the younger. Among his best-known genre pictures are: "La Rixe" (18.5.5) ; "Ballplayers at Antibes:" "Amateurs of Painting" (184.3): "The Laugher;" "The Halt" (1860): "The Chess Plavers" (1836): "Throw- ing Dice" (1836) : "Mass Reading" (1840) ; "The Voyage" and "The Farrier" (1801). For his biography, consult: Claretie (Paris. 1884) ; Lar- roumet ('ib., 1803) : Greard (ib., 1897) ; and For- mentin. (ib., 1001). MEISTERSINGER, mis'ter-stog-er. The name given to those artistic poets, usually not of noble birth, who. as the immediate follow- ers of the minnesinger, cultivated artistic poetry in contradistinction from the folk song. The word meister (derived, like English 'master,' from Latin viritjister) means a poet who has studied, as all la>mien did, in church schools. Accordingly the meistersingers were distinguished from the common minstrels. They also formed a guild or caste. The meistersingers were wont to trace their origin back to 'the twelve old masters.' Various legends arose, explanatory of their origin. One Spangenberg even thought Moses was a meistersinger. David, also, was looked upon as a patron in who.se time hun- dreds of meisters were supposed to have taught 4000 scholars, and Solomon also was reckoned in. Furthermore, the minnesingers were reck- oned as members of their caste, but, as a matter of fact, they were different in many ways. Individual meistersingers out of modesty called themselves 'lovers of art' I Liehhahrr der Kunst). and the whole body of them named themselves the 'honorable' or 'praiseworthy so- VOL. XIH,— 19. cietv.' We may suppose that associations existed as early as 1200. Heinriih von Meissen, Called Frauenlob, may have had a school of song at JIainz. We cannot be sure of a regular .school till 14.50 in Augsburg. But the meistergcsang had nourished in the fourteenth century at JIainz, Strassburg, Colmar, and Frankfort : in the fifteenth, at Nuremberg; later still it flour- ished in Breslau, Giirlitz, and Danzig. In 149'2 Strassburg had the first school founded by writ- ten statutes, and Nuremberg had what became, thanks to Richard Wagner, best known to this generation. The last school died out at Mcm- mingen in 1844. Each school had for the head mastersinger a chair called der Kiinste Htuhl (chair of the arts), or, as in Nuremberg, the llcistcrxtuhl (master's chair). In England this was called 'the bard's seat.' Later the singer seems simply to have stood in the midst of his hearers. To enter the guild a candidate had to pass an examination before four markers, usually in a church. He must devise some new arrangement or a new melody ( Weise ) without infringing any rule. One of the markers determined whether the theme was right, another whether the versifica- tion was right, and the others looked to rhyme and melody. One need hardly add that, in a school wliose whole attention was given to tech- nicalities, the possible mistakes were limited by set rules. The success of a mastersong hung upon its conformity with these rules. Indeed, the very essence became a formula or a series of formulas. The Tabiilattir or tablature. a term borrowed from music, and not found among the earliest documents, signified a bit of music writ- ten not with notes, but with letters or figures, designed to initiate the student into vocal or instrumental music. This code had to be mas- tered by whoever wished to be a meistersinger. In order to teach scholars more easily the con- tent of the code, it was drawn up in short poems. In fine, it was a book of rules, the text-book of the meistergcsang. The school had inside and outside members, called by divers names. There were patrons, servants, and masters or companions, as well as learners or apprentices ; often there was a di- rector. Meetings were held on festivals, chiefly on Sunday after service and in the church. Very often the singers met at an inn. Prizes were awarded, and those who sang ill were fined. The prize was sometimes money, sometimes a crown, as at Nuremberg in the time of Hans Sachs. Flowers had also an important part in these competitions. Often in the older days one singer would liang up a wreath as a challenge and as a reward for victory. Finally may be mentioned the fact that the meistersinger often wore a costume which was not seldom motley and which was often sumptuous. The TahnUitiir dealt with three matters: (1) The kinds of poems and the parts of a meistergc- sang; (2) permissible rhymes ; (3) the mistakes, which are the main business, and have to do (a) with errors of delivery, of melody, of struc- ture and of opinion; (b) chiefly, however, with errors of rhyme or mangling of words or caco- phony. The various songs were divided into three strophes, and each strophe was divided into two Stollen and a discant or Ahgesang. Plate gives a long list of the various features of
