ess in expression;" and at a later period of his
life,--"the sharp cutting style, which strikes us so disagreeably in his
early works, is much softened: the colouring is also warm and powerful."
He was certainly the best of the Nuernberg painters until his pupil
eclipsed him. Dr. Waagen considers the picture in the south aisle of the
Frauenkirche as one of the best works now possessed by his native city;
it represents St. Gregory celebrating mass amid many other saints; but
the men of Nuernberg seem most to value those in the Moritzkapelle, and
which he painted in 1487 for the high altar of the Schusterkirche, at
the expense of the family of Peringsdorfer. They represent various
saints life-size, and are drawn with much vigour, and coloured with
considerable power; the outlines are strongly marked in black, and they
exhibit his full merits. We select the figure of St. Margaret as an
example of his style; the somewhat constrained and angular attitude of
the right arm carries the mind back to the missal paintings of the
previous century; the small, pinched, and confused folds of the drapery,
belong to the German school almost entirely; and to it may be traced
Duerer's errors in this particular portion of art. In the figure we have
selected from his works for comparison, we see the same peculiar,
"crinkled," minute folds, completely destructive of dignity or breadth,
and untrue to nature: but we see also a grandeur of general conception,
and the bold leading lines of the composition unbroken by such minutiae,
which are secondary to the main idea. It represents St. Anne (the mother
of the Virgin) clasping her hands in anguish at the refusal of the high
priest to accept the offering of herself and husband in the temple at
Jerusalem, and occurs in the first of Duerer's series of woodcuts
illustrating the life of the Virgin.

[Illustration: Fig. 232.--St. Margaret, after Wohlgemuth.]

[Illustration: Fig. 233.--St. Anne, after Duerer.]

This striking peculiarity of treatment adopted by the early German
artists in their draperies, was once explained to us by an old native
artist, who assured us that it was entirely caused by the models for
study which they universally employed. These were small lay figures,
over which draperies were cast formed in _wet paper_, disposed according
to the artist's fancy, and allowed to dry and set in the rigid form we
see in their pictures. We have nowhere met with this key to the mode of
study a