[Illustration: FIG. 53.--LUCAS VAN LEYDEN. Adam and Eve driven from Paradise.] Considered only from the point of view of execution, the pieces engraved by Lucas van Leyden are far from possessing the same largeness of design and modelling, and the same simplicity of handling, which the works of Marc Antonio exhibit, and, in a word, have none of that masterly ease in the rendering of form which characterises the Italian engraver. Nor do they exhibit the determination to pursue the truth even in minute details, and to sternly insist on the portrayal of such truth when recognised, which distinguishes the work of Albert Dürer. They are to be specially praised for delicacy of handling, and for the skilful application of the processes of engraving to the picturesque representation of reality. Thus, instead of surrounding with an invariably firm outline objects or bodies at a distance from one another, instead of treating alike the contour of a figure in the foreground, and that of a tree, or group of trees, in the background, Lucas van Leyden altered his work to suit the degree of relative clearness or uncertainty presented in nature by the forms of objects at different distances from the eye. An unbroken line is his method for giving the required boldness to such contours as, from the place they occupy, must be strongly defined and dominate the rest. When, on the contrary, he wishes to reproduce the half-veiled lines of a distant landscape, and to imitate that tremulous and floating aspect assumed by an object in proportion to its remoteness and the amount of intervening atmosphere, he changes his touch; and, instead of bounding by a single continuous line the object reproduced, employs a series of small broken lines, superimposed in a horizontal or oblique direction; and thus, instead of a dry definition of outline, he renders with deliberate hesitation that floating quality which is to be observed in nature. [Illustration: FIG. 54.--LUCAS VAN LEYDEN. The Visitation.]