He was the greatest of the Renaissance artists. In criticizing him, I have said all that can be said, from this particular standpoint, of his predecessors and contemporaries. His power lies in the forcibleness, the exhilaration, the exuberance and the wealth with which he brings forward his type. It lies in his absolute contempt of seductive prettiness, his sometimes terrible strength, his vehemence and his energy, and above all in his magnificent conceptions and the types with which he illustrates them. Compared with the art from which it had sprung, his art was stupendous. And where he is weak, compared with a higher--and by no means a modern --concept of art, he suffers from the virtues of his position as a fighter and as an innovator. In valuing him, as I said in my first lecture, it all depends whence you come. If you hail from Europe of the nineteenth and twentieth century, you can but go on your knees before him. If you hail from Memphis of the year 4000 B.C., you can but criticize and feel ill at ease before his work. I have not yet said anything concerning the relation of the Renaissance artists to Greece, simply because, taking in view the circumstances of their development, the relation seems fairly obvious. In discussing the art of Greece itself, however, the matter will probably appear quite clear to you. How much of the transfiguration in late Renaissance art is actually due to Greek influence, or to the Dionysian spirit of the age, it is difficult to determine. In my opinion, the latter influence was more potent, and to the Greek influence I should be more prepared to ascribe the spur which originally led to the adoption of a thoroughly Pagan type. [29] Kraus, in his _Geschichte der christlichen Kunst_, Vol. II, denies that the revival of the antique was predominant in the Renaissance, and argues that individualism and nature study were the prominent notes. Venturi, the Italian art-historian, declares that the antique began to be paramount only in the sixteenth century, and that with it the decadence began. While Eugène Müntz, in his monumental work, _L'Histoire de l'Art pendant la Renaissance_, Vol. I, p. 42, speaking of the two movements of the period, says: "Deux voies s'ouvraient aux novateurs, ou le naturalisme à outrance, un naturalisme qui, n'étant plus soutenu par les hautes aspirations du moyen âge, risquait fort de sombrer dans la vulgarité (l'exemple de Paolo Ucello, d'Andrea del Castagna, de Pollajuolo l'a bien prouvé) ou bien la nature contrôlée, purifiée, ennoblie par l'étude des modèles anciens." The latter was the later movement. See also Woltmann and Woermann, _History of Painting_, Vol. II, Introduction. [30] Muther, in his _History of Painting_, Vol. I, p. 87, actually declares that Jan van Eyck and Pisanello in their dainty manner remained Gothic.