Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/233

 WOOD AND COPPER ENGRAVING: 221 masterpiece, however, was the woodcut of the tri- umphal arch of Maximilian, done by the order of the Emperor. 1 Contemporaneously with the art of wood-cutting, steel engraving reached also a high degree of perfection. The first known specimens point to Upper Germany — probably Bavaria — as the cradle of the art. At all events, it was a German invention, and unquestionably was in vogue in Germany long before it became known in Italy. German goldsmiths were the first who made copper-prints of popular religious pictures for dissemi- nation among the people. The two engravers of repute, Franz von Bocholt and Israel von Meckenen(1503), fall far short in technical skill of two other masters of the art who are known to posterity only by their mono- grams, and whose works, dating from 1451 to 1466, are unrivalled in design and finish. It was on the model of one of these, the Meister E. S., that Martin Schongauer formed himself, and the latter gained as great, if not greater, influence as engraver than as painter. With the exception of Albert Diirer, he ex- celled all others in invention, expressiveness, and noble simplicity of style. His engravings, of which one hundred and sixteen are still known, are spread throughout the world, and have earned him a European reputation. It is stated that even Michael Angelo undertook the laborious task of copying one of them. His ' Temptation of St. Anthony ' was much admired. Among the pupils who got -their art training at Schongauer's studio in Colmar, the most prominent is BartholomUus Zeitbloom, of Ulm, to whom a hundred 1 Thausing, Diirer' s Leben, pp. 370-373.