Some common characteristics of the Pleydenwurf-Wolgemut School soon impress themselves on us as we study their works in the German Museum, or the Churches of St. Lorenz, St. Sebald, St. John, and St. Jakob. The drapery is stiffly drawn but the colouring remarkably clear and brilliant. The modelling of the limbs, not founded on Durer's close studies of the nude, still leaves much to be desired. The female type is at first sight graceful, but on closer acquaintance we find it soulless and unsatisfying. The prominent cheekbones, straight noses, mild expression of almond-shaped eyes, thin lips and lifeless mouths produce an impression very different from that caused by the almost painful intensity of Durer's portraits. As the fifteenth century draws to a close an increasing severity of design and hardness of expression becomes noticeable. It is not altogether fanciful, I think, to attribute this in part to the stern independent spirit of the Reformation and in part to the prevalence of engraving. For Wolgemut, with Wilhelm Pleydenwurf, paid much attention to woodcarving,[42] and aided doubtless by their youthful apprentice, Albert Durer, illustrated the _Schatzbehalter_ (1491) and the _Hartmann-Schedel Chronicle_ (1493), published by Koberger. The influence of this style of work is perhaps traceable in the flatness and severe modelling of the hands, feet, and faces, and in the stiff movement of the figures in Wolgemut's pictures. Wolgemut is seen to best advantage in his single figures of saints, as in his Peringsdörffer masterpiece, from the Augustinerkirche, now in the German Museum, the only painting of importance known to have been produced in his studio during Durer's apprenticeship. But even in his best pieces we see little more than the fine feeling of a skilful workman. We look in vain for inspiration, in vain for imagination, we listen in vain for any echo from that world of Perfect Beauty which Durer and the greatest artists have known in part and striven to express. And yet, somehow, his best works do appeal to us and stir our hearts. What the secret of that appeal may be is a question which will doubtless find various answers. _Quot homines tot sententiæ._ For me it is that Wolgemut speaks in the naïve, straightforward tones of the Middle Ages, and decks the actors of the Sacred Story in the clothes and colours of his own time and his own surroundings. The atmosphere of his pictures is laden with subtle associations. If there was no note of poetry in Wolgemut, still, round the landscapes in his pictures, there hovers a tone like the echo of some old folk-song that has been sung and yet lingers in the air. * * * * * _Albert Durer_ always entertained the highest respect for his master, and in 1516 painted the immortal portrait of him in his eighty-second year, now in Munich.