Flemish _ateliers_, which were kept up by the severe rules of the guilds, exercised a salutary influence upon the Burgundian craftsmen. This is more especially true of the great workshops of Antwerp and of Brussels, and perhaps also of those of Southern Germany. Burgundian influences reacted in their turn upon the artists of the Ile-de-France, notably in Paris (that brilliant centre of all artistic activities in the fourteenth century), and stirred them to emulation. The union of these various elements brought about the revival of the fine tradition of the thirteenth century, and towards the close of the fifteenth century paved the way for a French Renascence, which heralded that more famous movement of the sixteenth, the credit of which is usually given to the Italians, who, however, such was the infatuation of the times, contributed rather to the debasement than to the regeneration of French national art. [Illustration: 111A. IVORY PLAQUE (HEIGHT 6-11/16 IN.) COVER OF AN EVANGELIUM. FOURTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF THE ILE-DE-FRANCE (SOISSONS)] [Illustration: 112. HEAD IN SILVER GILT REPOUSSÉ. HALF-LIFE SIZE. THIRTEENTH CENTURY. ATELIERS OF THE GOLDSMITH'S GUILD OF PARIS] [Illustration: 113. GROUP CARVED IN WOOD (HEIGHT 10-1/4 IN.) FIFTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF ANTWERP] The remarkable sculptures that owe their origin to the _ateliers_ of Antwerp are distinguished by one of the quarterings of the civic arms, a severed hand burnt in with a red-hot iron. Those of Brussels are branded in like fashion. The images of wood, ivory, and _vermeil_, that we figure as illustrating the art of the image-carvers from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, show that the old tradition was still cherished in this community. Their artists were so far swayed by iconographic convention that a certain hieratic sentiment is perceptible in their works; but this is never allowed to outweigh fitness of action and expression, and their masterpieces are so instinct with taste and delicacy, composed with so much skill and executed with such freedom, that they are the admiration of modern artists.[37] [37] The statuettes, diptychs, etc., in wood, ivory, and _vermeil_, or silver-gilt, figured from No. 107 to No. 115, belong to the author. [Illustration: 114. WOODEN STATUETTE, PAINTED AND GILDED (HEIGHT 19-11/16 IN.) FIFTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF BRUSSELS] [Illustration: 115. WOODEN STATUETTE, PAINTED AND GILDED (HEIGHT 19-11/16 IN.) SIXTEENTH CENTURY. SCHOOL OF MUNICH] These essentially French qualities they owe, primarily, of course, to the genius of their creators, but in a scarcely inferior degree to the fostering care of the _maîtrises_, institutions which only require a certain modification by the progressive leaven of today, to become models for the imitation of all whose function it is to develop national art. CHAPTER XII PAINTING