Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/229

WOOD AND COPPER ENGRAVING 217 of True Riches of Eternity '), as well as those for Hart- mann Schedel's 'Book of Chronicles' (1493), show marks of distinct progress. 1 Still more important are the works of Hans Burgkmair, of Augsburg, who made the designs for more than seven hundred woodcuts. By order of Maximilian, and in conjunction with Albert Dtirer and others, this same artist made the drawing for the celebrated ' Triumphal Procession of the Em- peror,' as well as twenty designs for the illustration of the ' Weisskunig ' and the ' Theuerdank.' The most celebrated artists of the day, such as Diirer, Holbein, Hans SchaufFelin, and Lucas Cranach, allowed their paintings and drawings, even their large compositions, to be reproduced and multiplied by the engraver's art. Some of them even worked at the art themselves. Thousands of impressions were struck off, and found a ready sale at fairs and church festivals throughout Europe. Religious subjects and secular, satirical and humorous, were all represented. Political, ecclesiastical, and social questions were all handled in turn. In these productions, which were meant for the masses and destined to be bought by them, a certain amount of catering to popular tastes is to be observed in the treatment ; and this is true even of many of Diirer's works, although he soared above the level of the masses, and assumed in his purchasers a higher grade of thought and culture. Wood engraving reached its greatest perfection through the exertions of Dtirer. The fifteen illustra- tions of the Apocalypse, which were his earliest wood- cuts, and those with which he made his debut before 1 See Thausing, Diirer's Leben, pp. 49-52. For engravings of that period, see Hase, pp. 28-35.