OUTSIDE of Germany, the replantation of Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg has been limited, for he lived at the height of the German Renaissance, and his work was contemporary with that of Duerer, Cranach, Gruenewald, and Altdorfer, men whose artistic merits have been perhaps disproportionately praised in comparison with such a genius as Burgkmair. Last year was the four hundredth anniversary of the artist's death and exhibitions of his works at Augsburg and Munich have increased the general interest in him and the appreciation of his significance for German art. Burgkmair was born in 1473, the son of an artist; he studied at Colmar in Alsace, under Martin Schongauer, one of the greatest painters and engravers of the dying Gothic age; and he made several journeys to Italy. In him, even earlier than in Duerer, the realization of the new spirit of the Renaissance makes its appearance; but the transition from late-Gothic ornamentation and style to a warmer, more Joyfully human manner, is attained by Burgkmair without the loss of his specifically Northern, Romantic tendencies.

It is as a master of drawing and the woodcut that Burgkmair is most highly esteemed. Without the peculiar intensity, the "problematic nature" of Duerer, he still possesses fertility of imagination, charm, and a technical ability that give him indisputably a rank second to Duerer in this field, in which so many German artist's have been outstanding. The newly invented art of printing called for illustrators who would help to make of each book a genuine work of art; and it is here that Burgkmair is most distinguished. His wealth of imagination shows itself nowhere more convincingly than in the long and brilliantly achieved series of illustrations for the chivalric romances of the Emperor Maximilian, "Theuerdank" and "Der Weisskunig".

Professor Burkhard's book, the fifteenth volume in the series "Meister der Graphik", is devoted to Burgkmair's woodcuts. The 96 illustrations have been chosen to trace the development of the artist from his early manner, still largely bound by tradition, to the complete independence and command of style shown in such works as the portraits of Jacob Fugger and Pope Julius II, and in the several series of woodcuts commissioned by the Emperer. A chronological catalogue, and a concordance supplying references to previous important works on Burgkmair, give the book especial value for students of this period; while the textual introduction, an appraisal of Burgkmair's importance, both as painter and as wood-engraver, makes the volume equally attractive for those whose interest in German art is not primarily scholarly.