Print collector's quarterly (6.1916)

some of the E subjects into attitudes of relative ease
and freedom, such as occur in S is perfectly natural.
But the reverse process is inconceivable. The tense
expressiveness and power of many of the faces in E is a
quality truly primitive; while the empty and trivial
correctness of most of those in S is the very note of a
feeble imitator trying to amend his original while he
misses its spirit. A later copyist could not possibly
have tightened up the slack, haphazard technique of
the S prints into the archaic, severely precise style of
the E engraver. The detailed points of comparison by
which Dr. Kristeller seeks to support his theory can
all . . . be more naturally interpreted in the opposite
sense.” He then cites as an example the Astrologia,
numbered 39 in the E series by mistake for 29. Dr.
Kristeller sees in this a misreading of the 2 in the S
prints. Mr. Hind points out that “this is the only case
where the S engraver uses this form of 2, elsewhere it
is invariably z” and claims that the copying S engraver
began to copy E’s 39 “and rectified his mistake in the
most expeditious manner, by dropping most of the lower
part of the 3. . . . Both in drawing and technique this
[S] version has more of a Florentine character . . . (the
character or tradition of the . . . fine-manner prints)
than the earlier one; several fresh architectural and
ornamental details in a Florentine style are introduced,
the tense . . . archaic character of E is modified into
greater freedom and truth to nature but with much less
power and impressiveness. The size of figures and heads,
in proportion to the space to be filled, is mostly reduced,
angular action becomes more easy and flowing, but
austere strength of expression in many faces becomes
characterless weakness in S, especially in the feebly

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