It must not be imagined that the failure of sculpture to take a strong hold upon the popular imagination of the North has been due to the absence of craftsmen of the first order. Directly the Renaissance in Italy made itself felt in the countries beyond the Alps, a vigorous school of sculpture arose. Nothing could exceed the technical skill and the sincerity of purpose displayed in Peter Vischer’s “King Arthur,” one of the twenty-eight colossal figures surrounding the tomb of Maximilian at Innsbruck. But seeing that the sculptor died in 1529, and that the best years of his working life practically correspond with the age of Luther’s Reformation, surely something more than earnestness of purpose and profound technical skill might have been shown. The Maximilian memorial certainly proves that the leading German sculptors of the Reformation era had progressed beyond the Gothic decorators whom they succeeded. But why has not the “King Arthur” the vital interest of a Durer engraving? Why does it lack the inspiration of a really fine Holbein portrait? Surely it is because the sculptor had never realized the true meaning of the word “humanity.” He lacked that passionate delight in the beauty of the human body which lay at the root of the Hellenic sculptor’s success. The vital element of a vigorous school of sculpture was wanting. Under these circumstances it is not wonderful that even the standard of craftsmanship attained by Peter Vischer was not maintained by the German sculptors who followed him. The conversion of Germany to Protestantism entailed a general discouragement of all art effort. As had been the case in the early history of the Christian Church, the leaders of the religious movement sternly opposed anything that satisfied the æsthetic cravings of mankind. [Illustration: PETER VISCHER KING ARTHUR The Maximilian Tomb, Innsbruck] THE AGE OF FRANCIS I. Fortunately this sternly anti-humanistic creed was not adopted throughout Northern Europe. In particular, it failed to find acceptance among the Frenchmen who made their country the first power in Western Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As in Germany, the growth of an independent school of sculpture in France dated from the early years of the sixteenth century when the influence of the Italian Renaissance began to spread beyond the peninsula. The French equivalent of Peter Vischer was Michel Colombe. Colombe was the _tailleur d’images_ to three kings of France, Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII. His best known work is the tomb of Francis II., Duke of Brittany, at Nantes. But it is rather as the founder of the school of sculpture at Tours that Colombe claims our attention.