Alfred Peltzer wrote this work with the intention of demonstrating the inner affinity of German visual art from the thirteenth century, starting from the Gothic period to its culmination in the Renaissance bloom of the early sixteenth century, with German mysticism, a philosophical direction and worldview that spread from the same time until its related manifestation in the Reformation, and to illustrate the influence of the latter on artistic creation. This is a reprint of the original edition from 1899.