western influences. They inclined to
the graceful swaying figure, following more the sculpture of the time
than the Cologne type.

FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES: German art, if begun in the
fourteenth century, hardly showed any depth or breadth until the
fifteenth century, and no real individual strength until the sixteenth
century. It lagged behind the other countries of Europe and produced
the cramped archaic altar-piece. Then when printing was invented the
painter-engraver came into existence. He was a man who painted panels,
but found his largest audience through the circulation of engravings.
The two kinds of arts being produced by the one man led to much
detailed line work with the brush. Engraving is an influence to be
borne in mind in examining the painting of this period.

[Illustration: FIG. 89.--DUeRER. PRAYING VIRGIN. AUGSBURG.]

FRANCONIAN SCHOOL: Nuremberg was the centre of this school, and its
most famous early master was Wolgemut (1434-1519), though Plydenwurff
is the first-named painter. After the latter's death Wolgemut married
his widow and became the head of the school. His paintings were
chiefly altar-pieces, in which the figures were rather lank and
narrow-shouldered, with sharp outlines, indicative perhaps of the
influence of wood-engraving, in which he was much interested. There
was, however, in his work an advance in characterization, nobility of
expression, and quiet dignity, and it was his good fortune to be the
master of one of the most thoroughly original painters of all the
German schools--Albrecht Duerer (1471-1528).

With Duerer and Holbein German art reached its apogee in the first half
of the sixteenth century, yet their work was not different in spirit
from that of their predecessors. Painting simply developed and became
forceful and expressive technically without abandoning its early
character. There is in Duerer a naive awkwardness of figure, some
angularity of line, strain of pose, and in composition oftentimes
huddling and overloading of the scene with details. There is not that
largeness which seemed native to his Italian contemporaries. He was
hampered by that German exactness, which found its best expression in
engraving, and which, though unsuited to painting, nevertheless crept
into it. Within these limitations Duerer produced the typical art of
Germany in the Renaissance time--an art more attractive for the charm
and beauty of its parts than for its unity, or its gen