[Illustration:  THE “BEVERLY MINSTRELS”]

The general excellence of sculpture in Germany is said to be lower than that of France; in fact, such mediaeval German sculpture as is specially fine is based upon French work.  Still, while this statement holds good in a general way, there are marked departures, and examples of extremely interesting and often original sculpture in Germany, although until the work of such great masters as Albrecht Duerer, Adam Kraft, and Viet Stoss, the wood carver, who are much later, there is not as prolific a display of the sculptor’s genius as in France.

The figures on the Choir screen at Hildesheim are rather heavy, and decidedly Romanesque; but the whole effect is most delightful.  Some of the heads have almost Gothic beauty.  The screen is of about 1186, and the figures are made of stucco; but it is exceptionally good stucco, very different in character from the later work, which Browning has designated as “stucco twiddlings everywhere.”

Much good German sculpture may be seen in Nueremberg.  The Schoener Brunnen, the beautiful fountain, is a delight, in spite of the fact that one is not looking at the original, which was relegated to the museum for safe keeping long ago.  The carving, too, on the Frauenkirche, and St. Sebald’s, and on St. Lorenz, is as fine as anything one will find in Germany.  Another exception stands out in the memory.  Nothing is more exquisite than the Bride’s Door, at St. Sebald’s, in Nueremberg; the figures of the Wise and Foolish Virgins who guard the entrance could hardly be surpassed in the realm of realistic sculpture, retaining at the same time a just proportion of monumental feeling.  They are bewitching and dainty, full of grace not often seen in German work of that period.

The figures on the outside of Bamberg Cathedral are also as fine as anything in France, and there are some striking examples at Naumburg, but often the figures in German work lack lightness and length, which are such charming elements in the French Gothic sculptures.

At Strasburg the Cathedral is generally conceded to be the most interesting and ornate of the thirteenth century work in Germany, although, as has been indicated, French influence is largely responsible.  A very small deposit of this influence escaped into the Netherlands, and St. Gudule in Brussels shows some good carving in Gothic style.

A gruesome statue on St. Sebald’s in Nueremberg represents the puritanical idea of “the world,” by exhibiting a good-looking young woman, whose back is that of a corpse; the shroud is open, and the half decomposed body is displayed, with snakes and toads depredating upon it.

Among the early Renaissance artists in Nueremberg, was Hans Decker, who was named in the Burgher Lists of 1449.  He may have had influence upon the youth of Adam Kraft, whose great pyx in St. Lorenz’s is known to everyone who has visited Germany.