In the history of German art, then, their work represents, as we have remarked above, the transition from Gothic to the Renaissance style. It is eloquent to us of the passing from the conventions and the extravagances of late Gothic to a complete acceptance and delight in neo-paganism. And it was natural that, in the spirit of intense enthusiasm for Italian art which was upon them, these German craftsmen should reproduce what they had learnt from a Jacopo de’ Barbari, a Sansovino or a Donatello. They did, indeed, plagiarize when they wished with a splendid readiness and a fervour unashamed. They copied in a spirit of sincerest flattery an angel making music, or a symbol of an Evangelist from Donatello; an Apostle or a dolphin from an Italian building; a pose, a hand or the fold of a mantle from Leonardo da Vinci. The list could be expanded. But it would not prove that the Vischers were mere servile copyists. They could do more than imitate. They could apply the lessons they had learnt from their careful study of the Italian Masters, and apply them with successful originality. It is in the energy which lives in the King Arthur, in the simple yet vigorous composition and execution of bas-reliefs, such as the Healing of the blind man on St. Sebald’s tomb, or the Tucher Memorial, with their wholly admirable treatment of lines and planes; it is in the tender and spiritual feeling infused into the greatest of their bronze portraits that the unanswerable vindication lies of an imitation proved not too slavish and of a study that has not deadened but inspired.