50 THE FINE ARTS. 
individual significance, but are intended to act merely as parts of a whole. 
The plastic art had become as it were the handmaid of architecture. As 
with the sculptures of the facades so too with the ornaments of the high 
altars of German churches, especially those of the 15th century. Here too 
the statues of the shrine and the statues of the open and lofty tabernacles 
were merely designed to contribute to the effect of the whole, which lay 
mainly in the architecture. When the age of virtuosoship arrived, and 
men recognised the statues of a master, sculpture retreated more from the 
fronts to the interiors of churches, the better to satisfy the increasing 
tendency to a fond elaboration of details. Still the architectural idea 
remained predominant. We find the gold-embroidered stole and the 
bishop’s crosier adapted to the architectural style; the censers are little 
silver chapels, the pyx is a little golden steeple, and the reliquary a little 
church of gold plate, whatever may be the number of statues introduced. 
If we cast a glance at the style of the figures of the 13th century produced 
by German art, we perceive that the measured severity of the Roman style 
retained as its basis has yielded to a rich subjective heartiness of feeling, 
and that especially in Saxony a school was produced where excellence 
consists less in an adequate study of nature and a skilful representation of 
movements than in a pious adoption and genial use of the means which the 
ancient works of art placed in their hands. The human figures lose their 
cold, rigid character, and assume a graceful demeanor; and the features 
have a soft and amiable expression. The shoulders, however, with the arms 
fitted close to them, are often made too narrow; the hands too appear 
sometimes awry, and the stomach rather too prominent. The drapery is 
arranged in long, waving folds. 
Nicolas of Pisa, born in the beginning of the 12th century, distinguished 
himself both as sculptor and architect, and is regarded, as we mentioned 
above, as the reviver of the plastic art in Italy. It is true that in the 
manner of his composition he did not differ from his predecessors and con- 
temporaries; but in his forms he copied the antique and that so closely, 
that he made use in his works of figures from ancient sarcophagi which he 
found in his native city, and thus reproduced e.g. a Juno or Cleopatra as 
the Virgin Mary, a Plato as Joseph, &c. Although his figures are rather 
short in their proportions, they are incomparably superior in every respect 
to the productions of the immediately preceding period. His chief works 
date about the middle of the 13th century, e.g. the Descent from the Cross 
at San Martino in Lucca, 1240; Zhe Pulpit in the Baptistery of Pisa, 1260 ; 
and that in the cathedral of Siena, 1266. He died in the year 1275. His 
son, Giovanni da Pisa, boldly followed the path struck out by his father; 
but he deviated from it in many respects, since, instead of the placid beatty 
of antiquity, he strove more after expression and character, and fell not 
unfrequently into exaggeration and distortion. One of his best productions 
is a Vergin with the Child Jesus (pl., fig. 18) which was set up in 1298 at 
the southern side door of the Florence cathedral. She is of life size and 
holds in her right hand a flower, the sign of the Maria del Fiore, the 
tutelary patroness of this church, and, in allusion to the arms of Florence, a 
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