Scan 338
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 262. See the scan on archive.org.
1have been content with it. To arrive at anything approaching to a satisfactory solution, we must endeavour to trace the history of this model. Jacob Stainer was born in the Tyrol, and passed there his early years, and probably received his first instructions from one of the old Tyrolean Lute and Viol-makers, at a period when they raised their model, and introduced into the German school the scooping round the sides of the backs and bellies, the inelegant sound-hole, the harsh outline, and uncouth scroll. As experience ripened his understanding, he may have felt that these characteristics of the German school were not such as could be moulded with advantage by an artist, whatever his talent might be, and resolved to do his best to unlearn much that he had acquired. In order to do so with any chance of success, but one course was open to him—that of studying the works of the Italian masters. It has been stated that he went to Italy when very young. With this view I do not concur. In all cases where there is an absence of direct evidence, opinions can only be formed from particular analogies bearing on the case under consideration. Now in the case of Stainer we have nothing to guide us but his variations of style, and dates of time and place. What is the result of a careful investigation of every particle of evidence that we can glean? The style is ever German, although the great maker is head and shoulders above all his countrymen who followed his art. I am thus forced to believe that had so ex-
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