HANS THE FOUNDER
down, although he is pointing the arrow upwards.
It was a distinct improvement when Hans made
the Far-darter’s gaze to follow the direction of the
arrow's flight. Amongst other minor alterations
he has represented the God, probably out of con-
sideration for the material in which he was work-
ing, with short hair in place of the locks streaming
in the wind found in Barbari’s design. The ob-
vious fault of the piece—a fault which proves en-
tirely ruinous to its success as a work of art—is
that upon the slim, attenuated Italian figure, ex-
cessively coarse and heavy hands and feet have
been grafted. And the arms are grossly ex-
aggerated in length. The playing children and
sporting dolphins on the base of the fountain are
but crude adaptations of the stock-in-trade with
which the labours of Peter and Hermann had
supplied the paternal foundry.
The tale of the works of Hans Vischer is told,
and so far as we can judge there is no reason to
claim for him a higher position than that of a
craftsman who conscientiously transmitted into
bronze the designs and inspirations of others.
The fall of the House of Vischer was, in fact, very
close at hand. It may be dated in its final real-
ization soon after the year 1549, for it was then
that Hans Vischer determined to leave his native
town and to settle in Eichstidt. And this is the
last we hear of him in the Nuremberg records.
The Council of Nuremberg, we are told, did indeed
endeavour, through the mediation of the Guild of
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