MINOR WORKS 
movement of the female form are beautiful in them- 
selves, but the neck of the figure is too thick and 
the body excessively short. When, ten or fifteen 
years later (1525), the craftsman with a deepened 
sense of the mystery and sorrow of the world 
returned to this theme, he read a new meaning 
into that favourite motto of his, “ Think on life 
not death,” and he also remedied in great part the 
faults of his earlier effort. The figure, indeed, 
remains still too short in comparison with its 
breadth, but it is far slimmer than the other ; the 
work is much more delicate, the lines less accen- 
tuated. The artist is now a wiser, sadder, more 
spiritual man. With his feeling and his knowledge 
of the world, his power also and his freedom have 
increased and his mastery of modelling. The 
influence of his brother’s journey to Rome and 
of the lessons he had brought home with him, is 
evident everywhere, and not least in the striving 
after simplicity which has induced him to leave 
the base plain and not richly ornamented as was 
the former one. 
The theme itself can indeed hardly be called a 
development but rather the counterpart of the 
other. It is the answer of the spiritual side of 
man to the earthly promptings of his nature. 
Think not on this life nor on this death—but on 
the other life. In obedience to this point of view 
the skull has been placed in a more prominent 
position. Itis no longer trampled on in the ecstasy 
of earthly enjoyment but recognized rather, and 
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