THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WORKS OF THE VISCHERS

THE position of the Vischers in the hierarchy of the artists not very difficult to appreciate, and it has perhaps been sufficiently indicated in the course of our enumeration of their works. They—for in forming an estimate of their work, we need not, nor cannot, separate father and sons—were great craftsmen, interpreting the teachings of other and greater artists of other lands, but yet assuredly not without an individuality and original power of their own. The view once advanced by Heideloff cannot be for a moment entertained, the view, that is, that they were mere workers in bronze who reproduced in that material the ideas and drawings of others. The evidence of our eyes, which enable us to trace the development of their style, would be enough to refute that opinion, even if we were without the documentary evidence which shows that father and sons alike were patient and painstaking draughtsmen as well as craftsmen all their lives.

In the history of German art, then, their work represents, as we have remarked above, the transition from Gothic to the Renaissance style. It 131is eloquent to us of the passing from the conventions 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 readiness 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 Leonardo 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 succ............