Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/203

SCULPTURE AND PAINTING 191 still young apprentices ; often, too, going without food or drink.' In his masterpiece, the shrine of St. Sebald, in the church of that name in Nuremberg, Vischer represented himself at the base with a full beard, clad in the garb of a metal-caster, with apron, cap, and hammer. On this work Vischer was employed from the year 1508-1519, assisted by his five sons. At the base was engraved the sentence : ' Erected to the glory of God Almighty and the honour of the prince of heaven, St. Sebald, by the alms of pious souls.' It weighed one hundred and fifty-seven tons twenty-nine pounds ; and in clearness of execution, sublimity of conception, and richness of fancy it was equalled by perhaps only one work of its kind in that century — Ghiberti's great bronze gate in Florence. This fine piece of sculpture admits of many different interpretations, but the leading intention of the master seems to have been to repre- sent the honour which the world paid to the Saviour. Deriving all good from Him, creatures glorified Him and returned to Him — Nature with all her produce, heathendom with its heroic deeds and its natural virtues, the Old Testament with its prophets, and the New with the Apostles and saints. The infant Christ, enthroned at the summit, holding the earth in His hand, typifies the beginning and the end of all creation. The statues of the Apostles are unsurpassed in expres- siveness and masterly execution, though several of them certainly do not exhibit the solemn repose and serenity of the older plastic art ; the unrestful attitudes of the figures strike one as an expression of the stirring religious life of the period. Among the other extant works of Vischer, the most