THE CRAFT OF THE VISCHERS 
is eloquent to us of the passing from the conven- 
tions and the extravagances of late Gothic to a 
complete acceptance and delight in neo-paganism. 
And it was natural that, in the spirit of intense 
enthusiasm for Italian art which was upon them, 
these German craftsmen should reproduce what 
they had learnt from a Jacopo de’ Barbari, a 
Sansovino or a Donatello. They did, indeed, 
plagiarize when they wished with a splendid readi- 
ness and a fervour unashamed. They copied in a 
spirit of sincerest flattery an angel making music, 
or a symbol of an Evangelist from Donatello: an 
Apostle or a dolphin from an Italian building ; a 
pose, a hand or the fold of a mantle from Leon- 
ardo da Vinci. The list could be expanded. But 
it would not prove that the Vischers were mere 
servile copyists. They could do more than imitate. 
They could apply the lessons they had learnt from 
their careful study of the Italian Masters, and 
apply them with successful originality. It is in 
the energy which lives in the King Arthur, in the 
simple yet vigorous composition and execution of 
bas-reliefs, such as the Healing of the blind man 
on St." Sebald’s tomb, or the Tucher Memorial, 
with their wholly admirable treatment of lines and 
planes; it is in the tender and spiritual feeling 
infused into the greatest of their. bronze portraits 
that the unanswerable vindication lies of an imita- 
tion proved not too slavish and of a study that 
has not deadened but inspired. 
It may indeed be the case that the lessons which 
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