SIXTEENTH CENTURY. The years of the fifteenth and the -first half of the six teenth century saw wool-engraving attain its highest development in Germany, where the motive for its practice. the need for popular re ligious instruction, was most intense. Albrecht Diirer, the greatest master of ancient woodcut, transformed the art. By the skillful introduc tion of light and dark he replaced the old out lines with some of the effect of color, putting an e»0 to the need of tinting, while his narrative power and the grandeur of his design excelled anything hitherto done. According to the best re search lie did not himself use the knife: but he was intimately associated with a number of highly trained engravers, whose work he minute ly directed, chief among whom was Hierony minis And ea'. His Apocalypse (149S). Life of the Virgin (1504-05), Greater Passion (1510-11), and Lesser Passion (1509-10) were all epoch making in the art. An important factor in the development of wood-engraving was the commissions given by the Emperor _Maxi milian: the Triumphal _itch, nearly ten feet in height and breadth, composed of 93 plates by Diirer and his pupils: the 7'riumphal Procession and Weisskunig. by flans Burekmair of Augsburg; and the Adrentures of Sir Theirerrlank by Bans Sehibiflielciii. Second only to 1)direr as a designer for woodcuts, Holbein reveals his mastery of woodcut in the celebrated Dance of Death, and to some extent in his Itible, hoth published at Lyons (153S1, though designed earlier. He had the good fortune to have as an engraver Bons Iffitzelburger, whose work represents the highest possible (-fleets with the knife. The third gm-eat representative Ger man designer for woodcut. Lucas Cranaeh (1472 1553). though inferior to the others in design, is important as the chief ehampion of time Refor mation. The "Little Masters," who followed Diirer. were so called because of the small size of
their designs. Among the hest were Albrecht Altdorfer (1488.1538) of Ratisbon, Pans Sebald Behan', and Heinrich Aldegre•er; of especial importance was Bans {tabbing at Strassburg. During the latter half of the sixteenth century wood-engraving declined in Germany, partly ow ing to the competition of line engraving, which caused disastrous changes in the art. It was lost in the general decay of the arts resulting upon the Thirty Years' War.
Outside of Germany there was important ae tivity in the Netherlands, where Lucas van Ley den did especially good work, in rivalry with Dtirer. The chief artists in the later sixteenth century were Ilendrik Goltzius and Christopher Sichem, and in the seventeenth Christopher Jegher did some excellent work after Mittens. In France the chief masters of the sixteenth cen tury were Jean Cousin, whose ascribed designs are in the true spirit of the Renaissance, and Bernard Salomon (c.1550), the leading designer of Lyons. In the seventeenth and eighteenth cen turies the most important engravers belonged to the families Lesueur and Papillon. .lean Mi chel Papillon is an example of the careful mi nuteness of technique that characterized the de clining art. He was the first to use the tougher boxwood in place of apple and pear, and wrote the first important Treatise on Engraving (MC). In Italy great masters of the Renais sance occasionally drew for LAoodents; as Titian, whose designs were engraved by Bohlrini and others at Venice, and Leonardo. who illustrated Paceioli's 11e Proporlionc Dirina (1509). Butt the art never became thoroughly acclimated. nor was there the same need for popular instruction by this means.