640 FRANCKE— MEDI.EVAL GERMAN SCULPTURE [Ap.il 25, 



ecclesiastic from the same church, are a striking refutation of what 

 since Jacob Burckhardt's " Kultur der Renaissance in ItaHen " has 

 come to be a popular axiom, the assumption, namely, that modern 

 individualism had its origin in the era of the rinasclmento ; they 

 show conclusively that Burckhardt's phrase of " the discovery of the 

 individual " by the great Italians of the quatro-cento is misleading, 

 that, in other words, the Middle Ages themselves contain the germs' 

 of modern individualism. There is nothing in the art of the Renais- 

 sance which surpasses these Naumburg statues in fulness, distinct- 

 ness, and vigor of individual life. Every one of these figures is a 

 type by itself, a fully rounded personality. The two pairs of princely 

 husband and wife, one of the men full of power and determination, 

 the other of youthfully sanguine appearance, one of the women 

 broadly smiling, the other, with a gesture full of reserved dignity, 

 drawing her garment to her face ; the canoness standing erect, but 

 with slightly inclined head, thoughtfully gazing down upon a book 

 which she supports with one hand while the other turns over its 

 leaves ; the princess drawing her mantle about her ; the young eccle- 

 siastic with his carefully arranged hair flowing from his tonsure, 

 holding the missal in front of him ; the various knights, one looking 

 out from behind his shield, another supporting his left on the shield 

 and shouldering the sword with his right hand, a third resting both 

 shield and sword in front of him on the ground, while with his right 

 hand he gathers his mantle about his neck, others in still different 

 postures and moods, — there is not a figure among them which did 

 not represent a particular individual at a particular moment, and 

 which did not, without losing itself in capricious imitation of acci- 

 dental trifles, reproduce life as it is. It is impossible in the face 

 of such works of sculpture as these not to feel that they proceeded 

 from artists deeply versed in the study of human character, fully 

 alive to the problems of human conduct, keenly sensitive to im- 

 pressions of any sort — in other words, fully developed, highly or- 

 ganized, complicated individuals. One feels that here are seen the 

 mature artistic fruits of the great Hohenstaufen epoch — an epoch 

 rent by tremendous conflicts in church and state, and convulsed by 

 the throes of a new intellectual and spiritual birth. 



Almost contemporary with these statues, though probably some- 



