he took up etching and wood-engraving because it paid better. And strange—into this bread-and-butter work he put his best.
It is not his painting that made his fame and name, though in that branch of Art he was admired by a Raphael and a Bellini.
Agnes Frey bore him no children; this fact, I think, is worthy of note. Even a cursory glance at Dürer's etchings and woodcuts will reveal the fact that he was fond of children—"kinderlieb," as the Germans say. I do not doubt that he would have given us even more joy and sunshine in his Art had he but called a child his own.
Instead, we have too often the gloomy reflection of death throughout his work. The gambols and frolics of angelic cupids are too often obscured by the symbols of suffering, sin, and death.
Again, we must not allow a logical conclusion to be accepted as an absolute truth.
