Page:A History of Wood-Engraving.djvu/82

80 These designs, of which the few that can be given afford only a slight idea, so various are they in beauty and feeling, have been attributed to many illustrious masters, Giovanni Bellini and Raphael among others; but perhaps the conjecture which assigns them to Benedetto Montagna is the most probable. They show what remarkable artistic taste there was even in the inferior masters of Italy. "They are," says Professor Sydney Colvin, "without their like in the history of wood-cutting; they breathe the spirit of that delightful moment when the utmost of imaginative naïveté is combined with all that is needed of artistic accomplishment, and in their simplicity are in the best instances of a noble composition, a masculine firmness, a delicate vigor and graceful tenderness in the midst of luxurious or even