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Title: Dürer - Artist-Biographies
Author: Sweetser, M. F.
Language: English
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_ARTIST-BIOGRAPHIES._
DÜRER.
BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, OSGOOD, AND COMPANY.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
1879.
COPYRIGHT.
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.
1877.
FRANKLIN PRESS:
RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY,
BOSTON.
ARTIST-BIOGRAPHIES.
PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT.
The growth of a popular interest in art and its history has been very
rapid during the last decade of American life, and is still in
progress. This interest is especially directed towards the lives of
artists themselves; and a general demand exists for a uniform series
of biographies of those most eminent, which shall possess the
qualities of reliability, compactness, and cheapness.
To answer this demand the present series has been projected. The
publishers have intrusted its preparation to Mr. M. F. Sweetser, whose
qualities of thoroughness in research and fidelity in statement have
been proved in other fields of authorship. It is believed that by the
omission of much critical and discursive matter commonly found in art
biographies, an account of an artist's life may be presented, which is
at once truthful and attractive, within the limits prescribed for
these volumes.
The series will be published at the rate of one or two volumes each
month, at 50 cents each volume, and will contain the lives of the most
famous artists of mediæval and modern times. It will include the lives
of many of the following:--
Raphael, Claude, Van Dyck,
Michael Angelo, Poussin, Gainsborough,
Leonardo da Vinci, Delacroix, Reynolds,
Titian, Delaroche, Wilkie,
Tintoretto, Greuze, Lawrence,
Paul Veronese, Dürer, Landseer,
Guido, Rubens, Turner,
Murillo, Rembrandt, West,
Velasquez, Holbein, Copley,
Salvator Rosa, Teniers, Allston.
PREFACE.
This little volume presents an account of the life of one of the
noblest and most versatile artists of Germany, with a passing glance
at the activities of Northern Europe at the era of the Reformation.
The weird and wonderful paintings of Dürer are herein concisely
described, as well as the most famous and characteristic of his
engravings and carvings; and his quaint literary works are enumerated.
It has also been thought advisable to devote considerable space to
details about Nuremberg, the scene of the artist's greatest labors;
and to reproduce numerous extracts from his fascinating Venetian
letters and Lowland journals.
The modern theory as to Dürer's wife and his home has been accepted
in this work, after a long and careful examination of the arguments
on both sides. It is pleasant thus to be able to aid in the
rehabilitation of the much-slandered Agnes, and to have an oppressive
cloud of sorrow removed from the memory of the great painter.
The chief authorities used in the preparation of this new memoir are
the recent works of Dr. Thausing and Mr. W. B. Scott, with the series
of articles now current in "The Portfolio," written by Professor
Colvin. Mrs. Heaton's biography has also been studied with care; and
other details have been gathered from modern works of travel and
art-criticism, as well as from "The Art Journal," "La Gazette des
Beaux Arts," and other periodicals of a similar character.
M. F. SWEETSER.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
1471-1494. PAGE
The Activities of Nuremberg.--The Dürer Family.--Early Years of
Albert.--His Studies with Wohlgemuth.--The _Wander-Jahre_ 7
CHAPTER II.
1494-1505.
Dürer marries Agnes Frey.--Her Character.--Early Engravings.
--Portraits.--"The Apocalypse."--Death of Dürer's Father.
--Drawings 28
CHAPTER III.
1505-1509.
The Journey to Venice.--Bellini's Friendship.--Letters to
Pirkheimer.--"The Feast of Rose Garlands."--Bologna.--"Adam and
Eve."--"The Coronation of the Virgin" 47
CHAPTER IV.
1509-1514.
Dürer's House.--His Poetry.--Sculptures.--The Great and Little
Passions.--Life of the Virgin.--Plagiarists.--Works for the Emperor
Maximilian 63
CHAPTER V.
1514-1520.
St. Jerome.--The Melencolia.--Death of Dürer's Mother.--Raphael.
--Etchings.--Maximilian's Arch.--Visit to Augsburg 81
CHAPTER VI.
1520-1522.
Dürer's Tour in the Netherlands.--His Journal.--Cologne.--Feasts
at Antwerp and Brussels.--Procession of Notre Dame.--The
Confirmatia.--Zealand Journey.--Ghent.--Martin Luther 94
CHAPTER VII.
1522-1526.
Nuremberg's Reformation.--The Little Masters.--Glass-Painting.
--Architecture.--Letter to the City Council.--"Art of Mensuration."
--Portraits.--Melanchthon 118
CHAPTER VIII.
1526-1528.
"The Four Apostles."--Dürer's Later Literary Works.--Four Books of
Proportion.--Last Sickness and Death.--Agnes Dürer.--Dürer described
by a Friend 131
ALBERT DÜRER.
CHAPTER I.
The Activities of Nuremberg.--The Dürer Family.--Early Years of
Albert.--His Studies with Wohlgemuth.--The _Wander-Jahre._
The free imperial city of Nuremberg, in the heart of Franconia, was
one of the chief centres of the active life of the Middle Ages, and
shared with Augsburg the great trans-continental traffic between
Venice and the Levant and Northern Europe. Its municipal liberties
were jealously guarded by venerable guilds and by eminent magistrates
drawn from the families of the merchant-princes, forming a government
somewhat similar to the Venetian Council. The profits of a commercial
prosperity second only to that of the Italian ports had greatly
enriched the thrifty burghers, aided by the busy manufacturing
establishments which made the city "the Birmingham of the Middle
Ages." Public and private munificence exerted itself in the erection
and adornment of new and splendid buildings; and the preparation of
works of art and utility was stimulated on all sides. It was the era
of the discovery of America, the revival of classic learning, and the
growth of free thought in matters pertaining to religion. So far had
the inventions of the artisans contributed to the comfort of the
people, that Pope Pius II. said that "A Nuremberg citizen is better
lodged than the King of Scots;" and so widely were they exported to
foreign realms, that the proud proverb arose that
"Nuremberg's hand
Goes through every land."
Nuremberg still stands, a vast mediæval relic, in the midst of
the whirl and activity of modern Germany, rich and thriving, but
almost unchanged in its antique beauty. The narrow streets in which
Dürer walked are flanked, as then, by quaint gable-roofed houses,
timber-fronted, with mullioned windows and arching portals. In the
faded and venerable palaces of the fifteenth century live the
descendants of the old patrician families, cherishing the memories and
archives of the past; and the stately Gothic churches are still rich
in religious architecture, and in angular old Byzantine pictures and
delicate German carvings. On the hill the castle rears its ponderous
ramparts, which have stood for immemorial ages; and the high towers
along the city walls have not yet bowed their brave crests to the
spirit of the century of boulevards and railroads.
With two essentials of civilization, paper and printing-presses,
Nuremberg supplied herself at an early day. The first paper-mill in
Germany was established here in 1390; and its workmen were obliged to
take an oath never to make paper for themselves, nor to reveal the
process of manufacture. They went out on a strike when the mill was
enlarged, but the authorities imprisoned them until they became docile
once more. Koberger's printing-house contained twenty-four presses,
and employed over a hundred men, printing not only Bibles and
breviaries, but also chronicles, homilies, poems, and scientific
works. As the Aldine Press attracted many authors and scholars to
Venice, so Koberger's teeming press led several German literati to
settle at Nuremberg. For the four first years of Dürer's life, the
wonderful mathematician and astronomer Regiomontanus dwelt here, and
had no less than twenty-one books printed by Koberger. His numerous
inventions and instruments awakened the deepest interest in the
Nuremberg craftsmen, and stimulated a fruitful spirit of inquiry for
many years.
The clockmakers of Nuremberg were famous for their ingenious
productions. Watches were invented here in the year 1500, and were
long known as "Nuremberg eggs." The modern composition of brass was
formed by Erasmus Ebner; wire-drawing machinery also was a Nuremberg
device; the air-gun was invented by Hobsinger; the clarionet, by
Denner; and the church-organs made here were the best in Germany.
There were also many expert metal-workers and braziers; and fifty
master-goldsmiths dwelt in the town, making elegant and highly
artistic works, images, seals, and medals, which were famous
throughout Europe. The most exquisite flowers and insects, and other
delicate objects, were reproduced in filagree silver; and the first
maiolica works in Northern Europe were also founded here.
Isolated, like the ducal cities of Italy, from the desolating wars of
the great powers of Europe, and like them also growing rapidly in
wealth and cultivation, Nuremberg afforded a secure refuge for Art and
its children. In Dürer's day the great churches of St. Sebald, St.
Lawrence, and Our Lady were finished; Peter Vischer executed the
exquisite and unrivalled bronze Shrine of St. Sebald; and Adam Kraft
completed the fairy-like Sacrament-house, sixty feet high, and
"delicate as a tree covered with hoar-frost." Intimate with these two
renowned artificers was Lindenast, "the red smith," who worked
skilfully in beaten copper; and their studies were conducted in
company with Vischer's five sons, who, with their wives and children,
all dwelt happily at their father's house. Vischer lived till a year
after Dürer's death, but there is no intimation that the two artists
ever met. Another eminent craftsman was the unruly Veit Stoss, the
marvellous wood-carver, many of whose works remain to this day; and
there was also Hans Beheim, the sculptor, "an honorable, pious, and
God-fearing man;" and Bullman, who "was very learned in astronomy,
and was the first to set the Theoria Planetarum in motion by
clockwork;" and he who made the great alarm-bell, which was inscribed,
"I am called the mass and the fire bell: Hans Glockengeiser cast me: I
sound to God's service and honor." What shall we say also of Hartmann,
Dürer's pupil, who invented the measuring-rod; Schoner, the maker of
terrestrial globes; Donner, who improved screw machinery; and all the
skilful gun-makers, joiners, carpet-workers, and silk-embroiderers?
There was also the burgher Martin Behaim, the inventor of the
terrestrial globe, who anticipated Columbus by sailing Eastward across
the Pacific Ocean, passing through the Straits of Magellan and
discovering Brazil, as early as 1485.
In Germany, as in Italy, the studio of the artist, full of pure and
lofty ideals, had hardly yet evolved itself from the workshop of the
picture-manufacturer. Nuremberg's chief artists at this time were
Michael Wohlgemuth, Dürer's master; Lucas Kornelisz, also called
Ludwig Krug, who, though a most skilful engraver, was sometimes forced
to adopt the profession of a cook in order to support himself; and
Matthias Zagel, who was expert in both painting and engraving. Still
another was the Venetian Jacopo de' Barbari, or Jacob Walch, "the
master of the Caduceus," a dexterous engraver and designer, whom Dürer
alludes to in his Venetian and Netherland writings. The art of
engraving had been invented early in the fifteenth century, and was
developing rapidly and richly toward perfection. The day of versatile
artists had arrived, when men combined the fine and industrial arts in
one life, and devoted themselves to making masterpieces in each
department. The northern nations, unaided by classic models and
traditions, were developing a new and indigenous æsthetic life, slow
of growth, but bound to succeed in the long run.
The literary society of Dürer's epoch at Nuremberg was grouped in the
_Sodalitas Literaria Rhenana_, under the learned Conrad Celtes, who
published a book of Latin comedies, pure in Latinity and lax in
morals, which he mischievously attributed to the Abbess Roswitha.
Pirkheimer and the monk Chelidonius also belonged to this sodality.
Other contemporary literati of the city were Cochläus, Luther's
satirical opponent; the Hebraist Osiander; Venatorius, who united the
discordant professions of poetry and mathematics; the Provost
Pfinzing, for whose poem of _Tewrdannkh_, Dürer's pupil Schäuffelein
made 118 illustrations; Baumgärtner, Melanchthon's friend; Veit
Dietrich, the reformer; and Joachim Camerarius, the Latinist. But the
most illustrious of Nuremberg's authors at that time was the
cobbler-poet, Hans Sachs, a radical in politics and religion, who
scourged the priests and the capitalists of his day in songs and
satires which were sung and recited by the workmen of all Germany. He
himself tells us that he wrote 4,200 master-songs, 208 comedies and
tragedies, 73 devotional and love songs, and 1,007 fables, tales, and
miscellaneous poems; and others say that his songs helped the
Reformation as much as Luther's preaching.
Thus the activities of mechanics, art, and literature pressed forward
with equal fervor in the quaint old Franconian city, while Albert
Dürer's life was passing on. "Abroad and far off still mightier things
were doing; Copernicus was writing in his observatory, Vasco di Gama
was on the Southern Seas."
"I, Albrecht Dürer the younger, have sought out from among my father's
papers these particulars of him, where he came from, and how he lived
and died holily. God rest his soul! Amen." In this manner the pious
artist begins an interesting family history, in which it is stated
that the Dürers were originally from the romantic little Hungarian
hamlet of Eytas, where they were engaged in herding cattle and horses.
Anthony Dürer removed to the neighboring town of Jula, where he
learned the goldsmith's art, which he taught to his son Albrecht, or
Albert, while his other sons were devoted to mechanical employments
and the priesthood. Albert was not content to stay in sequestered
Jula, and, wandering over Germany and the Low Countries, at last came
to Nuremberg, where he settled in 1455, in the service of the
goldsmith Hieronymus Haller. This worthy Haller and his wife Kunigund,
the daughter of Oellinger of Weissenberg, at that time had an infant
daughter; and as she grew up Albert endeared himself to her to such
purpose that, in 1467, when Barbara had become "a fair and handy
maiden of fifteen," he married her, being forty years old himself.
During the next twenty-four years she bore him eighteen children,
seven daughters and eleven sons, of whose births, names, and
godparents the father made careful descriptions. Three only, Albert,
Andreas, and Hans, arrived at years of maturity. It may well be
believed that the poor master-goldsmith was forced to work hard and
struggle incessantly to support such a great family; and his portrait
shows that the hand-to-mouth existence of so many years had told
heavily and left its imprint on his weary and careworn face. Yet he
had certain sources of peace and gentleness in his life, and never
sank into moroseness or selfishness. Let us quote the tender and
reverent words of his son: "My father's life was passed in great
struggles and in continuous hard work. With my dear mother bearing so
many children, he never could become rich, as he had nothing but what
his hands brought him. He had thus many troubles, trials, and adverse
circumstances. But yet from every one who knew him he received praise,
because he led an honorable Christian life, and was patient, giving
all men consideration, and thanking God. He indulged himself in few
pleasures, spoke little, shunned society, and was in truth a
God-fearing man. My dear father took great pains with his children,
bringing them up to the honor of God. He made us know what was
agreeable to others as well as to our Maker, so that we might become
good neighbors; and every day he talked to us of these things, the
love of God and the conduct of life."
Albert Dürer was the third child of Albert the Elder and Barbara
Hallerin, and was born on the morning of the 21st of May, 1471. The
house in which the Dürers then lived was a part of the great pile of
buildings owned and in part occupied by the wealthy Pirkheimer family,
and was called the _Pirkheimer Hinterhaus_. It fronted on the Winkler
Strasse of Nuremberg, and was an ambitious home for a craftsman like
Albert. The presence of Antonius Koberger, the famous book-printer, as
godfather to the new-born child, shows also that the Dürers occupied
an honorable position in the city.
The Pirkheimers were then prominent among the patrician families of
Southern Germany, renowned for antiquity, enormously wealthy through
successful commerce, and honored by important offices in the State.
The infant Willibald Pirkheimer was of about the same age as the young
Albert Dürer; and the two became close companions in all their
childish sports, despite the difference in the rank of their families.
When the goldsmith's family moved to another house, at the foot of the
castle-hill, five years later, the warm intimacy between the children
continued unchanged.
The instruction of Albert in the rudiments of learning was begun at an
early age, probably in the parochial school of St. Sebald, and was
conducted after the singular manner of the schools of that day, when
printed books were too costly to be intrusted to children. He lived
comfortably in his father's house, and daily received the wise
admonitions and moral teachings of the elder Albert. His friendship
for Willibald enabled him to learn certain elements of the higher
studies into which the young patrician was led by his tutors; and his
visits to the Pirkheimer mansion opened views of higher culture and
more refined modes of life.
Albert was enamoured with art from his earliest years, and spent many
of his leisure hours in making sketches and rude drawings, which he
gave to his schoolmates and friends. The Imhoff Collection had a
drawing of three heads, done in his eleventh year; the Posonyi
Collection claimed to possess a Madonna of his fifteenth year; and the
British Museum has a chalk-drawing of a woman holding a bird in her
hand, whose first owner wrote on it, "This was drawn for me by Albert
Dürer before he became a painter." The most interesting of these early
works is in the Albertina at Vienna, and bears the inscription: "This
I have drawn from myself from the looking-glass, in the year 1484,
when I was still a child.--ALBERT DÜRER." It shows a handsome and
pensive boy-face, oval in shape, with large and tender eyes, filled
with solemnity and vague melancholy; long hair cut straight across the
forehead, and falling over the shoulders; and full and pouting lips.
It is faulty in design, but shows a considerable knowledge of drawing,
and a strong faculty for portraiture. The certain sadness of
expression tells that the schoolboy had already become acquainted with
grief, probably from the straitened circumstances of his family, and
the melancholy deaths of so many brothers and sisters. The great
mystery of sorrow was full early thrown across the path of the solemn
artist. This portrait was always retained by Dürer as a memorial of
his childhood.
He says of his father, "For me, I think, he had a particular
affection; and, as he saw me diligent in learning, he sent me to
school. When I had learned to write and read, he took me home again,
with the intention of teaching me the goldsmith's work. In this I
began to do tolerably well." He was taken into the goldsmith's
workshop in his thirteenth year, and remained there two years,
receiving instruction which was not without value in his future life,
in showing him the elements of the arts of modelling and design. The
accuracy and delicacy of his later plastic works show how well he
apprehended these ideas, and how far he acquired sureness of
expression. The elder Albert was a skilful master-workman, highly
esteemed in his profession, and had received several important
commissions. It is said that the young apprentice executed under his
care a beautiful piece of silver-work representing the Seven Agonies
of Christ.
"But my love was towards painting, much more than towards the
goldsmith's craft. When at last I told my father of my inclination, he
was not well pleased, thinking of the time I had been under him as
lost if I turned painter. But he left me to have my will; and in the
year 1486, on St. Andrew's Day, he settled me apprentice with Michael
Wohlgemuth, to serve him for three years. In that time God gave me
diligence to learn well, in spite of the pains I had to suffer from
the other young men." Thus Dürer describes his change in life, and the
embarkation on his true vocation, as well as the reluctance of the
elder Albert to allow his noble and beloved boy to pass out from his
desolated household into other scenes, and away from his
companionship.
Wohlgemuth was one of the early religious painters who stood at the
transition-point between the school of Cologne and that of the Van
Eycks, or between the old pietistic traditions of Byzantine art
and the new ideas of the art of the Northern Reformation. The
conventionalisms of the Rhenish and Franconian paintings were being
exchanged for a fresher originality and a truer realism; and the
pictures of this time curiously blended the old and the new.
Wohlgemuth seems to have considered art as a money-getting trade
rather than a high vocation, and his workroom was more a shop than a
studio. He turned out countless Madonnas and other religious subjects
for churches and chance purchasers, and also painted chests and carved
and colored images of the saints, many of which were executed by his
apprentices. A few of his works, however, were done with great care
and delicacy, and show a worthy degree of sweetness and simplicity.
Evidently the young pupil gained little besides a technical knowledge
of painting from this master,--the mechanical processes, the modes of
mixing and applying colors, the chemistry of pigments, and a certain
facility in using them. It was well that the influences about him were
not powerful enough to warp his pure and original genius into servile
imitations of decadent methods. His hands were taught dexterity; and
his mind was left to pursue its own lofty course, and use them as its
skilful allies in the new conquests of art.
Wood-engraving was also carried on in Wohlgemuth's studio, and it is
probable that Dürer here learned the rudiments of this branch of art,
which he afterwards carried to so high a perfection. Some writers
maintain that his earliest works in this line were done for the famous
"Nuremberg Chronicle," which was published in 1493 by Wohlgemuth and
Pleydenwurf.
The three years which were spent in Wohlgemuth's studio were probably
devoted to apprentice-work on compositions designed by the master, who
was then about fifty years old, and at the summit of his fame. But few
of Dürer's drawings now existing date from this epoch, one of which
represents a group of horsemen, and another the three Swiss leaders,
Fürst, Melchthal, and Staufacher. The beautiful portrait of Dürer's
father, which is now at Florence, was executed by the young artist in
1490, probably to carry with him as a souvenir of home. Mündler says,
"For beauty and delicacy of modelling, this portrait has scarcely been
surpassed afterwards by the master, perhaps not equalled."
It was claimed by certain old biographers that the eminent Martin
Schongauer of Colmar was Dürer's first master; but this is now
contested, although it is evident that his pictures had a powerful
effect on the youth. Schongauer was the greatest artist and engraver
that Germany had as yet produced, and exerted a profound influence on
the art of the Rhineland. He renewed the fantastic conceits and
grotesque vagaries which the Papal artists of Cologne had suppressed
as heathenish, and prepared the way for, or perhaps even suggested,
the weird elements of Dürer's conceptions. At the same time he passed
back of his Netherland art-education, and studied a mystic benignity
and dreamy spirituality suggestive of the Umbrian painters, with whose
chief, the great Perugino, Martin was acquainted. Herein Dürer's works
were in strong contrast with Schongauer's, and showed the new spirit
that was stirring in the world.
Next to Schongauer, the great Italian artist Mantegna exercised the
strongest influence upon Dürer, who studied his bold and austere
engravings with earnest admiration, showing his traits in many
subsequent works. Probably he met the famous Mantuan painter during
the _Wander-jahre_, in Italy; and at the close of his Venetian journey
he was about to pay a visit of homage to him, when he heard of his
death.
During his three years of study we have seen that the delicate and
sensitive youth suffered much from the reckless rudeness and jeering
insults of his companions, rough hand-workers who doubtless failed to
understand the poignancy of the torments which they inflicted on the
sad-eyed son of genius. But his home was near at hand, and the tender
care of his parents, always beloved. How often he must have wandered
through the familiar streets of Nuremberg, with his dreamy artist-face
and flowing hair, and studied the Gothic palaces, the fountains
adorned with statuary, and the rich treasures of art in the great
churches! Beyond the tall-towered town, danger lurked on every road;
but inside the gray walls was peace and safety, and no free lances nor
marauding men-at-arms could check the aspiring flight of the youth's
bright imagination.
"And when the three years were out, my father sent me away. I remained
abroad four years, when he recalled me; and, as I had left just after
Easter in 1490, I returned home in 1494 just after Whitsuntide." Thus
Albert describes the close of his _Lehr-jahre_, or labor-years, and
the entrance upon his _Wander-jahre_, or travel-years. According to a
German custom, still prevalent in a modified degree, the youth was
obliged to travel for a long period, and study and practise his trade
or profession in other cities, before settling for life as a
master-workman. Unfortunately all that Dürer records as to these
eventful four years is given in the sentences above; and we can only
theorize as to the places which he visited, and his studies of the
older art-treasures of Europe. Some authors believe that a part of the
_Wander-jahre_ was spent in Italy, and Dr. Thausing, Dürer's latest
and best biographer, clearly proves this theory by a close study of
his notes and sketches. Others claim with equal positiveness, and less
capability of proof, that they were devoted to the Low Countries. It
is certain that he abode at Colmar in 1492, where he was honorably
received by Gaspar, Paul, and Louis, the three brothers of Martin
Schongauer. The great Martin had died some years before; but many of
his best paintings were preserved at Colmar, and were carefully
studied by Dürer. At a later day he wandered through the Rhineland to
Basle, and spent his last year at Strasbourg. His portraits of his
master and mistress in the latter city were dated in 1494, and
pertained to the Imhoff Collection.
His portrait painted by himself in 1493 was procured at Rome by the
Hofrath Beireis, and described by Goethe. It shows a bright and
vigorous face, full of youthful earnestness and joy, rich, harmonious,
and finely executed, though thinly colored. He is attired in a
blue-gray cloak with yellow strings, an embroidered shirt whose
sleeves are bound with peach-colored ribbons, and a purple cap; and
holds a piece of the blue flower called _Manns-treue_, or Man's-faith.
CHAPTER II.
Dürer marries Agnes Frey.--Her Character.--Early Engravings.
--Portraits.--"The Apocalypse."--Death of Dürer's Father.--Drawings.
"And when my _Wander-jahre_ was over, Hans Frey treated with my
father, and gave me his daughter, by name the _Jungfrau_ Agnes, with a
dowry of 200 guldens. Our wedding was held on the Monday before St.
Margaret's Day (in July), in the year 1494." This dry statement of the
most important event of the artist's life illustrates the ancient
German custom of betrothal, where the bond of wedlock was considered
as a matter-of-fact copartnership, with inalienable rights and duties,
devoid of sentiment or romance. Since the relatives of the contracting
parties were closely affected by such transactions, they usually
managed the negotiations themselves; and the young people, thus thrown
by their parents at each other's heads, were expected to, and usually
did, accept the situation with submissiveness and prudent obedience.
In this case it appears that the first overtures came from the family
of the lady; and perhaps the order for Albert to return from his
wanderings was issued for this reason. Hans Frey was a burgher with
large possessions in Nuremberg and the adjacent country; and his
daughter was a very beautiful maiden. Her future husband does not
appear to have seen her until the betrothal was made.
Most of Dürer's biographers have dwelt at great length on the malign
influence which Agnes exercised upon his life, representing her as a
jealous virago, imbittering the existence of the noble artist. But Dr.
Thausing, in his new and exhaustive history of Dürer's life,
vindicates the lady from this evil charge; and his position is
carefully reviewed and sustained by Eugéne Müntz. He points out the
fact that the long story of Agnes's uncongeniality rests solely on
Pirkheimer's letter, and then shows that that ponderous burgher had
reasons for personal hostility to her. The unbroken silence which
Dürer preserves as to home-troubles, throughout his numerous letters
and journals, is held as proof against the charges; and none of his
intimate friends and contemporaries (save Pirkheimer) allude to his
domestic trials, though they wrote so much about him. The accusation
of avarice on her part is combated by several facts, among which is
the cardinal one of her self-sacrificing generosity to the Dürer
family after her husband's death, and the remarkable record of her
transferring to the endowment of the Protestant University of
Wittenberg the thousand florins which Albert had placed in the hands
of the Rath for her support. Pirkheimer's acrimonious letter (see p.
142) gives her credit at least for virtue and piety; and perhaps we
may regard her aversion to the doughty writer as a point in her favor.
It is a singular and unexplained fact, that although Dürer was
accustomed to sketch every one about him, yet no portrait of his wife
is certainly known to exist, though several of his sketches are so
called, without any foundation or proof. What adds to the strangeness
of this omission is the fact that all accounts represent Agnes Dürer
as a very handsome woman.
Probably the newly married couple dwelt at the house of the elder
Dürer during the first years of their union. In 1494 Albert was
admitted to the guild of painters, submitting a pen-drawing of
Orpheus and the Bacchantes as his test of ability; and at about the
same time he drew the "Bacchanal" and "The Battle of the Tritons,"
which are now at Vienna. Herein he showed the contemporary classical
tendency of art, which he so soon outgrew. About this same time he
designed a frontispiece for the Latin poem which Dr. Ulsen had written
about the pestilence which was devastating Nuremberg, showing a
ghastly and repulsive man covered with plague-boils. The portrait of
Dürer's father, in oil-colors, which is now at Frankfort, was also
executed during this year.
Dürer's first copper-plate engraving dates from 1497, and represents
four naked women, under a globe bearing the initials of "_O Gott
Hilf_," or "O God, help," while human bones strew the floor, and a
flaming devil appears in the background. During the next three years
the master made twenty copper-plate engravings. The composition of
"St. Jerome's Penance" shows the noble old ascetic kneeling alone in
a rocky wilderness, beating his naked breast with a stone, and gazing
at a crucifix, while the symbolical lion lies beside him. "The Penance
of St. John Chrysostom" depicts the long-bearded saint expiating
his guilt in seducing and slaying the princess by crawling about
on all-fours like a beast. She is seen at the mouth of a rocky
cave, nursing her child. "The Prodigal Son" is another tender and
exquisitely finished copper-plate engraving, in which the yearning and
prayerful Prodigal, bearing the face of Dürer, is kneeling on bare
knees by the trough at which a drove of swine are feeding. In the
background is a group of substantial German farm-buildings, with
unconcerned domestic animals and fowls. "The Rape of Amymone" shows a
gloomy Triton carrying off a very ugly woman from the midst of her
bathing Danaide sisters. "The Dream" portrays an obese German soundly
sleeping by a great stove, with a foolish-faced naked Venus and a
winged Cupid standing by his side, and a little demon blowing in his
ear. "The Love Offer" is made by an ugly old man to a pretty maiden,
whose waist is encircled by his arm, while her hand is greedily
outstretched to receive the money which he offers. Another early
engraving on copper shows a wild and naked man holding an unspeakably
ugly woman, who is endeavoring to tear herself from his arms. Still
others delineate Justice sitting on a lion, "The Little Fortune"
standing naked on a globe, and the monstrous hog of Franconia.
It was chiefly through his engravings that Dürer became and remains
known to the world; and by the same mode of expression he boldly
showed forth the doubts and despairs, yearnings and conflicts, not
only of his own pure and sorrowful soul, but also of Europe, quivering
in the throes of the Reformation.
The artists of Italy, when the age of faith was ended, turned to the
empty splendors and symmetries of paganism; but their German brothers
faced the new problems more sternly, and strove for the life of the
future. Under Dürer's hard and homely German scenes, there seem to be
double meanings and unfathomable fancies, usually alluding to sorrow,
sin, and death, and showing forth the vanity of all things earthly. In
sharp contrast with these profound allegories are the humorous
grotesqueness and luxuriant fancifulness which appear in others of the
artist's engravings, fantastic, uncouth, and quaint. He frequently
yielded to the temptation to introduce strange animals and unearthly
monsters into his pictures, even those of the most sacred subjects;
and his so-called "Virgin with the Animals" is surrounded by scores of
birds, insects, and quadrupeds of various kinds.
It is interesting to hear of the rarity of the early impressions of
Dürer's engravings, and the avidity with which they are sought and the
keenness with which they are analyzed by collectors. In many cases the
copies of these engravings are as good as the originals, and can be
distinguished only by the most trifling peculiarities. The water-marks
of the paper on which they are printed form a certain indication of
their period. Before his Venetian journey Dürer used paper bearing the
water-mark of the bull's head; and, after his return from the
Netherlands, paper bearing a little pitcher; while the middle period
had several peculiar symbols. A fine impression of the copper-plate
engraving of "St. Jerome" recently brought over $500; and the Passion
in Copper sold in 1864 for $300.
"The Portfolio" for 1877 contains a long series of articles by Prof.
Sidney Colvin on "Albert Dürer: His Teachers, his Rivals, and his
Scholars," treating exhaustively of his relations as an engraver to
other contemporary masters,--Schongauer, Israhel van Meckenen,
Mantegna, Boldini and the Florentines, Jacopo de' Barbari (Jacob
Walch), Marc Antonio, Lucas van Leyden, and certain other excellent
but nameless artists.
Vasari says, "The power and boldness of Albert increasing with time,
and as he perceived his works to obtain increasing estimation, he now
executed engravings on copper, which amazed all who beheld them."
Three centuries later Von Schlegel wrote, "When I turn to look at the
numberless sketches and copper-plate designs of the present day, Dürer
appears to me like the originator of a new and noble system of
thought, burning with the zeal of a first pure inspiration, and eager
to diffuse his deeply conceived and probably true and great ideas."
In 1497 Dürer painted the excellent portrait of his father, which the
Rath of Nuremberg presented to Charles I. of England, and which is now
at Sion House, the seat of the Earl of Northumberland. It shows a man
aged yet strong, with grave and anxious eyes, compressed lips, and an
earnest expression. Another similar portrait of the same date is in
the Munich Pinakothek. He also executed two portraits of the pretty
patrician damsel, Catherine Fürleger; one as a loose-haired Magdalen
(which is now in London), and the other as a German lady (now at
Frankfort).
In 1498 Dürer painted a handsome portrait of himself, with curly hair
and beard, and a rich holiday costume. His expression is that of a man
who appreciates and delights in his own value, and is thoroughly
self-complacent. This picture was presented by Nuremberg to King
Charles I. of England; and, in the dispersion of his gallery during
the Commonwealth, it was bought by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. It is
now in the Uffizi Gallery, though Mündler calls this Florentine
picture a copy of a nobler original which is in the Madrid Gallery.
During this year Dürer published his first great series of woodcuts,
representing the Apocalypse of St. John, in fifteen pictures full of
terrible impressiveness and the naturalistic quaintness of early
German faith. The boldness of the youth who thus took for his theme
the marvellous mysteries of Patmos was warranted in the grand
weirdness and perennial fascination of the resulting compositions.
This series of rich and skilful engravings marked a new era in the
history of wood-engraving, and the entrance of a noble artistic spirit
into a realm which had previously been occupied by rude monkish cuts
of saints and miracles. Jackson calls these representations of the
Apocalypse "much superior to all wood-engravings that had previously
appeared, both in design and execution." The series was brought out
simultaneously in German and Latin editions, and was published by the
author himself. It met with a great success, and was soon duplicated
in new pirated editions.
It has of late years become a contested point as to whether Dürer
really engraved his woodcuts with his own hands, or whether he only
drew the designs on the wood, and left their mechanical execution to
practical workmen. It is only within the present century that a theory
to the latter effect has been advanced and supported by powerful
arguments and first-class authorities. The German scholars Bartsch and
Von Eye, and the historians of engraving Jackson and Chatto, concur in
denying Dürer's use of the graver. But there is a strong and
well-supported belief that many of the engravings attributed to him
were actually done by his hand, and that during the earlier part of
his career he was largely engaged in this way. The exquisite
wood-carvings which are undoubtedly his work show that he was not
devoid of the manual dexterity needful for these plates; and it is
also certain that the mediæval artists did not hold themselves above
mechanical labors, since even Raphael and Titian were among the
_peintres-graveurs_. Dürer's efforts greatly elevated the art of
wood-engraving in Germany, and this improvement was directly conducive
to its growth in popularity. A large number of skilful engravers were
developed by the new demand; and in his later years Dürer doubtless
found enough expert assistants, and was enabled to devote his time to
more noble achievements. He used the art to multiply and disseminate
his rich ideas, which thus found a more ready expression than
that of painting. Heller attributes one hundred and seventy-four
wood-engravings to him; and many more, of varying claims to
authenticity, are enumerated by other writers. Twenty-six were made
before 1506. The finest and the only perfect collection of Dürer's
woodcuts is owned by Herr Cornill d'Orville of Frankfort-on-the-Main.
In 1500 Dürer painted the noble portrait of himself which is now at
Munich, and is the favorite of all lovers of the great artist. It
shows a high and intellectual forehead, and tender and loving eyes,
with long curling hair which falls far down on his shoulders. In many
respects it bears the closest resemblance to the traditional pictures
of Christ, with its sad and solemn beauty, and large sympathetic eyes,
and has the same effeminate full lips and streaming ringlets.
During the next five years Dürer was in some measure compensated for
the trials of his home by the cheerful companionship of his old friend
Pirkheimer, who had recently returned from service with the Emperor's
army in the Tyrolese wars. At his hospitable mansion the artist met
many eminent scholars, reformers, and literati, and broadened his
knowledge of the world, while receiving worthy homage for his genius
and his personal accomplishments. Baumgärtner, Volkamer, Harsdorfer,
and other patricians of the city, were his near friends; and the
Augustine Prior, Eucharius Karl, and the brilliant Lazarus Spengler,
the Secretary of Nuremberg, were also intimate with both Dürer and
Pirkheimer. During the next twenty years the harassed artist often
sought refuge among these gatherings of choice spirits, when weary of
his continuous labors of ambition.
Dürer pathetically narrates the death of his venerable father, in
words as vivid as one of his pictures, and full of quaint tenderness:
"Soon he clearly saw death before him, and with great patience waited
to go, recommending my mother to me, and a godly life to all of us. He
received the sacraments, and died a true Christian, on the eve of St.
Matthew (Sept. 21), at midnight, in 1502.... The old nurse helped him
to rise, and put the close cap upon his head again, which had become
wet by the heavy sweat. He wanted something to drink; and she gave him
Rhine wine, of which he tasted some, and then wished to lie down
again. He thanked her for her aid, but no sooner lay back upon his
pillows than his last agony began. Then the old woman trimmed the
lamp, and set herself to read aloud St. Bernard's dying song; but she
only reached the third verse, and behold his soul had gone. God be
good to him! Amen. Then the little maid, when she saw that he was
dying, ran quickly up to my chamber, and waked me. I went down fast,
but he was gone; and I grieved much that I had not been found worthy
to be beside him at his end."
At this time Albert took home his brother Hans, who was then twelve
years old, to learn the art of painting in his studio; and his other
young brother, Andreas, the goldsmith's apprentice, now set forth upon
his _Wander-jahre_. Within two years his mother, the widowed Barbara,
had exhausted her scanty means; and she also was taken into Dürer's
home, and lovingly cared for by her son.
In 1503 Dürer's frail constitution yielded to an attack of illness. A
drawing of Christ crowned with thorns, now in the British Museum,
bears his inscription: "I drew this face in my sickness, 1503." In the
same year he executed a copper-plate engraving of a skull emblazoned
on an escutcheon, which is crowned by a winged helmet, and supported
by a weird woman, over whose shoulder a satyr's face is peering. A
contemporary copper-plate shows the Virgin nursing the Infant Jesus.
The painting of this same subject, bearing the date of 1503, is now in
the Vienna Belvedere, portraying an unlovely German mother and a very
earthly baby.
The celebrated "Green Passion" was executed in 1504, and is a series
of twelve drawings on green paper, illustrating the sufferings of
Christ. Some critics prefer this set, for delicacy and power, to
either of the three engraved Passions. The theory is advanced that
these exquisite drawings were made for the Emperor, or some other
magnate, who wished to possess a unique copy. The Green Passion is now
in the Vienna Albertina, the great collection of drawings made by the
Archduke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen, which includes 160 of Dürer's
sketches, designs, travel-notes, studies of costume and architecture,
&c.
Over 600 authentic sketches and drawings by Dürer are now preserved in
Europe, and are of great interest as showing the freedom and firmness
of the great master's first conceptions, and the gradual evolution of
his ultimate ideas. They are drawn on papers of various colors and
different preparations, with pen, pencil, crayon, charcoal, silver
point, tempera, or water-colors. Some are highly finished, and
others are only rapid jottings or bare outlines. The richest of the
ancient collections was that of Hans Imhoff of Nuremberg, who
married Pirkheimer's daughter Felicitas, and in due time added his
father-in-law's Dürer-drawings to his own collection. His son
Willibald further enriched the family art-treasures by many of
the master's drawings which he bought from Andreas Dürer, and by
inheriting the pictures of Barbara Pirkheimer. He solemnly enjoined
in his will that this great collection should never be alienated, but
should descend through the Imhoff family as an honored possession. His
widow, however, speedily offered to sell the entire series to the
Emperor Rudolph, and it was soon broken up and dispersed. The Earl of
Arundel secured a great number of Dürer's drawings here, and carried
them to England. In 1637 Arundel bought a large folio containing
nearly 200 of these sketches, which was bequeathed to the British
Museum in 1753 by Sir Hans Sloane. The museum has now one of the best
existing collections of these works, some of which are of rare
interest and value, especially the highly finished water-colors and
pen-drawings.
The interesting sketch-books used by Dürer on his journeys to Venice
and to the Netherlands remained forgotten in the archives of a noble
Nuremberg family until within less than a century, when the family
became extinct, and its property was dispersed. They were then
acquired by the venerable antiquary Baron von Derschau, who sold them
to Nagler and Heller. Nagler's share was afterwards acquired by the
Berlin Museum; and Heller's was bequeathed to the library of Bamberg.
In 1504 Pirkheimer's wife Crescentia died in childbirth, after only
two years of married life. Her husband bore witness that she had never
caused him any trouble, except by her death; and engaged Dürer to make
a picture of her death-bed. This work was beautifully executed in
water-colors, and depicts the expiring woman on a great bedstead,
surrounded by many persons, among whom are Pirkheimer and his sister
Charitas, the Abbess, with the Augustinian Prior.
The exquisite copper-plate engraving of "The Nativity" dates from this
year, and shows the Virgin adoring the new-born Jesus, in the shelter
of a humble German house among massive ancient ruins, while Joseph is
drawing water from the well, and an old shepherd approaches the Child
on his knees. The "Adam and Eve" was also done on copper this year,
with the parents of all mankind, surrounded by animals, and standing
near the tree of knowledge, from which the serpent is delivering the
fatal apple to Eve.
In the same year Dürer painted a carefully wrought "Adoration of
the Kings," for the Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony. It was
afterwards presented by Christian II. to the Emperor Rudolph, and is
now in the Uffizi, at Florence, which contains more pictures by
Dürer than any other gallery outside of Germany. Here also is the
controverted picture of "Calvary," dated 1505, displaying on one small
canvas all the scenes of the Passion, with an astonishing number of
figures finished in miniature.
"The Satyr's Family" is an engraving on copper, showing the
goat-footed father cheerily playing on a pipe, to the evident
amusement of his human wife and child. "The Great Horse" and "The
Little Horse" are similar productions of this period, in which the
commentators vainly strive to find some recondite meaning. Sixteen
engravings on copper were made between 1500 and 1506.
Dürer has been called "The Chaucer of Painting," by reason of the
marvellous quaintness of his conceptions; and Ruskin speaks of him as
"intense in trifles, gloomily minute." His details, minute as they
were, received the most careful study, and were all thought out before
the pictures were begun, so that he neither erased nor altered his
lines, nor made preliminary sketches. He was essentially a thinker who
drew, rather than a drawer who thought.
CHAPTER III.
The Journey to Venice.--Bellini's Friendship.--Letters to
Pirkheimer.--"The Feast of Rose Garlands."--Bologna.--"Adam and
Eve."--"The Coronation of the Virgin."
Late in 1505 Dürer made a journey to Venice, probably with a view to
recover his health, enlarge his circle of friends and patrons, and
study the famous Venetian paintings. He was worn down by continuous
hard work, and weary of the dull uneventfulness of his life, and
hailed an opportunity to rest in sunny Italy. He borrowed money from
Pirkheimer for his journey, and left a small sum for family expenses
during his absence. Between Nuremberg and her rich Southern rival
there was a large commerce, with a weekly post; and many German
merchants and artists were then residing in Venice. Dürer rode down on
horseback; and suffered an attack of illness at Stein, near Laibach,
where he rewarded the artist who had nursed him by painting a picture
on the wall of his house. On arriving at Venice, the master was
cordially received, and highly honored by the chief artists and
literati of the city. The heads of Venetian art at that time were
Giovanni Bellini and Carpaccio, both of whom were advanced in years;
and Giorgione and Titian, who were not mentioned by our traveller,
though they were both at work for the Fondaco de' Tedeschi at the same
time as himself.
During his residence in Venice he wrote nine long letters to "the
honorable and wise Herr Willibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of Nuremberg,"
which were walled up in the Imhoff mansion during the Thirty Years'
War, and discovered at a later age. Much of these letters is taken up
with details about Pirkheimer's commissions for precious stones and
books, or with badinage about the burgher's private life, with
frequent allusions to the support of the Dürers at home. Of greater
interest are the accounts of the writer's successes in art, and the
friends whom he met in Venetian society. The letters were embellished
with rude caricatures and grotesques, matching the broad humor of the
jovial allusions in the text. Either Pirkheimer was a man of most
riotous life, or Dürer was a bold and pertinacious jester, unwearying
in mock-earnest reproofs. These letters were sealed with the Dürer
crest, composed of a pair of open doors above three steps on a shield,
which was a punning allusion to the name Dürer, or Thürer, _Thür_
being the German word for _door_. In the second letter he says,--
"I wish you were in Venice. There are many fine fellows among
the painters, who get more and more friendly with me; it
holds one's heart up. Well-brought-up folks, good
lute-players, skilled pipers, and many noble and excellent
people, are in the company, all wishing me very well, and
being very friendly. On the other hand, here are the falsest,
most lying, thievish villains in the whole world, appearing
to the unwary the pleasantest possible fellows. I laugh to
myself when they try it with me: the fact is, they know their
rascality is public, though one says nothing. I have many
good friends among the Italians, who warn me not to eat or
drink with their painters; for many of them are my enemies,
and copy my picture in the church, and others of mine
wherever they meet with them; and yet, notwithstanding this,
they abuse my works, and say that they are not according to
ancient art, and therefore not good. But Gian Bellini has
praised me highly before several gentlemen, and he wishes to
have something of my painting. He came himself, and asked me
to do something for him, saying that he would pay me well for
it; and all the people here tell me what a good man he is, so
that I also am greatly inclined to him."
These sentences show the artist's pleasure at the kindly way in which
the Italians received him, and also reveal the danger in which he
stood of being poisoned by jealous rivals. Another ambiguous sentence
has given rise to the belief that Dürer had visited Venice eleven
years previously, during his _Wander-jahre_.
Camerarius says that Bellini was so amazed and delighted at the
exquisite fineness of Dürer's painting, especially of hair, that he
begged him to give him the brush with which he had done such delicate
work. The Nuremberger offered him any or all of his brushes, but
Bellini asked again for the one with which he had painted the hair;
upon which Dürer took one of his common brushes, and painted a long
tress of woman's hair. Bellini reported that he would not have
believed such marvellous work possible, if he had not seen it himself.
The third letter describes the adventures of the inexpert artist in
securing certain sapphires, amethysts, and emeralds for his "dear Herr
Pirkheimer," and complains that the money earned by painting was all
swallowed up by living expenses. The jealous Venetian painters had
also forced him, by process of law, to pay money to their art-schools.
His brother Hans was now sixteen years old, and had become a source of
responsibility, for Dürer adds: "With regard to my brother, tell my
mother to speak to Wohlgemuth, and see whether he wants him, or will
give him work till I return, or to others, so that he may help
himself. I would willingly have brought him with me to Venice, which
would have been useful to him and to me, and also on account of his
learning the language; but my mother was afraid that the heavens would
fall upon him and upon me too. I pray you, have an eye to him
yourself: he is lost with the women-folk. Speak to the boy as you
well know how to do, and bid him behave well and learn diligently
until I return, and not be a burden to the mother; for I cannot do
every thing, although I will do my best."
In the fourth letter he speaks of having traded his pictures for
jewels, and sends greetings to his friend Baumgärtner, saying also:
"Know that by the grace of God I am well, and that I am working
diligently.... I wish that it suited you to be here. I know you would
find the time pass quickly, for there are many agreeable people here,
very good amateurs; and I have sometimes such a press of strangers to
visit me, that I am obliged to hide myself; and all the gentlemen wish
me well, but very few of the painters."
The fifth letter opens with a long complimentary flourish in a
barbarous mixture of Italian and Spanish, and then chaffs Pirkheimer
unmercifully for his increasing intrigues. It also thanks Pirkheimer
for trying to placate Agnes Frey, who is evidently much disappointed
because her husband lingers so long at Venice. The Prior Eucharius is
besought to pray that Dürer might be delivered from the new and
terrible "French disease," then fatally prevalent in Italy. Mention is
made of Andreas, the goldsmith, Dürer's brother, meeting him at
Venice, and borrowing money to relieve his distress.
The next letter starts off with quaint mock-deference, and alludes to
the splendid Venetian soldiery, and their contempt of the Emperor.
Farther on are unintelligible allusions, and passages too vulgar for
translation. He says that the Doge and Patriarch had visited his
studio to inspect the new picture, and that he had effectually
silenced the artists who claimed that he was only good at engraving,
and could not use colors. Soon afterwards he writes about the
completion of his great painting of the Rose Garlands; and says,
"There is no better picture of the Virgin Mary in the land, because
all the artists praise it, as well as the nobility. They say they have
never seen a more sublime, a more charming painting." He adds that he
had declined orders to the amount of over 2,000 ducats, in order to
return home, and was then engaged in finishing a few portraits.
The last letter congratulates Pirkheimer on his political successes,
but expresses a fear lest "so great a man will never go about the
streets again talking with the poor painter Dürer,--with a poltroon
of a painter." In response to Pirkheimer's threat of making love to
his wife if he remained away longer, he said that if such was done, he
might keep Agnes until her death. He also tells how he had been
attending a dancing-school, but could not learn the art, and retired
in disgust after two lessons.
The picture which Dürer painted for the Fondaco de' Tedeschi was until
recently supposed to be a "St. Bartholomew;" but it is now believed
that it was the renowned "Feast of Rose Garlands," which is now at the
Bohemian Monastery of Strahow. He worked hard on this picture for
seven months, and was proud of its beauty and popularity. The Emperor
Rudolph II. bought it from the church in which it was set up, and had
it carried on men's shoulders all the way from Venice to Prague, to
avoid the dangers attending other modes of conveyance. When Joseph II.
sold his pictures, in 1782, this one was bought by the Abbey of
Strahow, and remained buried in oblivion for three-quarters of a
century. The picture shows the Virgin sitting under a canopy and a
star-strewn crown held by flying cherubs, with the graceful Child in
her lap. She is placing a crown of roses on the head of the Emperor
Maximilian, while Jesus places another on the head of the Pope; and
a monk on one side is similarly honored by St. Dominic, the founder
of the Feast of the Rose Garlands. A multitude of kneeling men and
women on either side are being crowned with roses by merry little
child-angels, flying through the air; while on the extreme right,
Dürer and Pirkheimer are seen standing by a tree.
Pirkheimer and Agnes had both been urging the master to return; but he
seemed reluctant to exchange the radiance of Italy for the quietness
of his home-circle, and mournfully exclaims, "Oh, how I shall freeze
after this sunshine! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite!"
A brilliant career was open before him at Venice, whose Government
offered him a pension of 200 ducats; but his sense of duty compelled
him to return to Germany, though in bitterness of spirit. Before
turning Northward he rode to Bologna, "because some one there will
teach me the secret art of perspective" (Francesco Francia); and met
Christopher Scheurl, who greatly admired him. A year later Raphael
also came to Bologna, and saw some works left there by Dürer, from
which arose an intimate correspondence and exchanges of pictures
between the artists. The master had been invited to visit the
venerable Mantegna, at Mantua; but that Nestor of North-Italian art
died before the plan was carried out. Dürer afterwards told Camerarius
that this death "caused him more grief than any mischance that had
befallen him during his life."
Art-critics agree in rejoicing that Dürer conquered the temptations
which were held out to him from the gorgeous Italian city, and
returned to his plain life in the cold North. He escaped the danger of
sacrificing his individualism to the glowing and sensuous Venetian
school of art, and preserved the quaintness and vigor of his own
Gothic inspirations for the joy of future ages.
The marine backgrounds in many of Dürer's later pictures are referred
by Ruskin to the artist's pleasant memories of Venice, "where he
received the rarest of all rewards granted to a good workman; and, for
once in his life, was understood." Other and wilder landscapes in his
woodcuts were reminiscences of the pastoral regions of the Franconian
Switzerland.
The personal history of Dürer between 1507 and 1520 was barren of
details, but evidently full of earnest work, as existing pictures bear
witness. It was the golden period of his art-life, abounding in
productiveness. His workshop was the seat of the chief art-school in
Nuremberg, and contained many excellent young painters and engravers,
to whom the master delivered his wise axioms and earnest thoughts in
rich profusion.
During this period, also, he probably executed certain of his best
works in carving, which are hereinafter described. Dr. Thausing
denies that Dürer used the chisel of the sculptor to any extent, and
refuses to accept the genuineness of the carvings which the earlier
biographers have attributed to him. Scott is of the opinion that in
most cases these rich and delicate works were executed by other
persons, either from his drawings or under his inspection.
On his return from Venice, Dürer painted life-sized nude figures of
Adam and Eve, representing them with the fatal apple in their hands,
at the moment of the Fall. They are well designed in outline, but
possess a certain anatomical hardness, lacking in grace and mobility.
They were greatly admired by the Nurembergers, in whose Rath-haus
they were placed; but were at length presented to the Emperor Rudolph
II. He replaced them with copies, which Napoleon, in 1796, supposed to
be Dürer's original works, and removed to Paris. He afterwards
presented them to the town of Mayence, where they are still exhibited
as Dürer's. The true originals passed into Spain, where they were
first redeemed from oblivion by Passavant, about the year 1853. A copy
of the Adam and Eve, which was executed in Dürer's studio and under
his care, is now at the Pitti Palace.
In the spring of 1507 Dürer met at the house of his brother-in-law
Jacob Frey, the rich Frankfort merchant Jacob Heller, who commissioned
him to paint an altar-piece. He was delayed by a prolonged attack of
fever in the summer, and by the closing works on the Elector's
picture.
Between 1507 and 1514 (inclusive) Dürer made forty-eight engravings
and etchings, and over a hundred woodcuts, bespeaking an iron
diligence and a remarkable power of application. The rapid sale of
these works in frequent new editions gave a large income to their
author, and placed him in a comfortable position among the burghers
of Nuremberg. The religious excitement then prevailing throughout
Europe, on the eve of the Reformation, increased the demand for his
engravings of the Virgin, the saints, and the great Passion series.
In 1508 Dürer finished the painting of "The Martyrdom of the Ten
Thousand Christians," to which he professed to have given all his time
for a year. It was ordered by Frederick of Saxony, the patron of Lucas
Cranach, who had seen the master's woodcut of the same subject, and
desired it reproduced in an oil-painting. It is a painful and
unpleasant scene, full of brutality and horror; and the picture is
devoid of unity, though conspicuous for clear and brilliant coloring.
Dürer and Pirkheimer stand in the middle of the foreground.
On the completion of this work the master wrote to Heller, "No one
shall persuade me to work according to what I am paid." He then began
Heller's altar-piece, under unnecessary exhortation "to paint his
picture well," and made a great number of careful studies for the new
composition. When fairly under way, he demanded 200 florins for his
work instead of the 130 florins of the contract-price, which drew an
angry answer from the frugal merchant, with accusations of dishonesty.
The artist rejoined sharply, dwelling upon the great cost of the
colors and the length of the task, yet offering to carry out his
contract in order to save his good faith. Throughout the next year
Heller stimulated the painter to hasten his work, until Dürer became
angry, and threw up the commission. He was soon induced to resume it,
and completed the picture in the summer of 1509, upon which the
delighted merchant paid him gladly, and sent handsome presents to his
wife and brother. Dürer wrote to Heller, "It will last fresh and clean
for five hundred years, for it is not done as ordinary paintings
are.... But no one shall ever again persuade me to undertake a
painting with so much work in it. Herr Jorg Tauss offered himself to
pay me 400 florins for a Virgin in a landscape, but I declined
positively, for I should become a beggar by this means. Henceforward I
will stick to my engraving; and, if I had done so before, I should be
richer by a thousand florins than I am to-day."
The picture which caused so much argument and toil was "The Coronation
of the Virgin," which was set up over the bronze monument of the
Heller family in the Dominican Church at Frankfort. Its exquisite
delicacy of execution attracted great crowds to the church, and
quickly enriched the monastery. Singularly enough, the most famous
part of the picture was the sole of the foot of one of the kneeling
Apostles, which was esteemed such a marvellous work that great sums
were offered to have it cut out of the canvas. The Emperor Rudolph II.
offered the immense amount of 10,000 florins for the painting, in
vain; but in 1613 it passed into the possession of Maximilian of
Bavaria, and was destroyed in the burning of the palace at Munich,
sixty years later. So the renowned picture, which Dürer said gave him
"more joy and satisfaction than any other he ever undertook," passed
away, leaving no engraving or other memorial, save a copy by Paul
Juvenal. This excellent reproduction is now at Nuremberg, and is
provided with the original wings, beautifully painted by Dürer,
showing on one the portrait of Jacob Heller and the death of St.
James, and on the other Heller's wife, and the martyrdom of St.
Catherine.
In 1501 the burgher Schiltkrot and the pious copper-smith Matthäus
Landäuer founded the House of the Twelve Brothers, an alms-house for
poor old men of Nuremberg; and eight years later, Landäuer ordered
Dürer to paint an altar-piece of "The Adoration of the Trinity," for
its chapel. Much of the master's time for the next two years was
devoted to this great work.
CHAPTER IV.
Dürer's House.--His Poetry.--Sculptures.--The Great and Little
Passions.--Life of the Virgin.--Plagiarists.--Works for the Emperor
Maximilian.
Some time after his marriage with Agnes Frey, Dürer moved into the new
house near the Thiergärtner Gate, which had perhaps been bought with
the dowry of his bride. Here he labored until his death, and executed
his most famous works. It is a spacious house, with a lower story of
stone, wide portals, a paved interior court, and pleasant upper rooms
between thick half-timber walls, whose mullioned windows look out on
lines of quaint Gothic buildings and towers, and on the broad paved
square at the foot of the Zisselgasse (now Albrecht-Dürer-Strasse).
Just across the square was the so-called "Pilate's House," whose
owner, Martin Koetzel, had made two pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and
brought back measurements of the Dolorous Way. The artist's house is
now carefully preserved as public property, and contains the gallery
of the Dürer Art-Union. In 1828, on the third centennial of his death,
the people erected a bronze statue of the master, designed by Rauch,
on the square before the house.
In 1509-10 Dürer derived pleasure and furnished much amusement to his
friends from verse-making, in which he suffered a worse failure even
than Raphael had done. It seems that Pirkheimer ridiculed a long-drawn
couplet which he had made, upon which the master composed a neat bit
of proverbial philosophy, of which the following is a translation:--
"Strive earnestly with all thy might,
That God should give thee Wisdom's light;
He doth his wisdom truly prove,
Whom neither death nor riches move;
And he shall also be called wise,
Who joy and sorrow both defies;
He who bears both honor and shame,
He well deserves the wise man's name;
Who knows himself, and evil shuns,
In Wisdom's path he surely runs;
Who 'gainst his foe doth vengeance cherish,
In hell-flame cloth his wisdom perish;
Who strives against the Devil's might,
The Lord will help him in the fight;
Who keeps his heart forever pure,
He of Wisdom's crown is sure;
And who loves God with all his heart,
Chooses the wise and better part."
But Pirkheimer was not more pleased with this; and the witty Secretary
Spengler sent Dürer a satirical poem, applying the moral of the fable
of the shoemaker who criticised a picture by Apelles. He answered this
in a song of sixty lines, closing with,--
"Therefore I will still make rhymes,
Though my friend may laugh at times:
So the Painter with hairy beard
Says to the Writer who mocked and jeered."
"1510, this have I made on Good and Bad Friends." Thus the master
prefaces a platitudinous poem of thirty lines; which was soon followed
by "The Teacher," of sixty lines. Later in the year he wrote the long
Passion-Song, which was appended to the print of _Christus am Kreuz_.
It is composed of eight sections, of ten lines each, and is full
of quaint mediæval tenderness and reverence, and the intense
prayerfulness of the old German faith. The sections are named Matins,
the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours, Vespers, Compline, and Let
Us Pray, the latter of which is redolent with earnest devotion:--
"O Almighty Lord and God,
Who the martyr's press hast trod;
Jesus, the only God, the Son,
Who all this to Thyself hast done,
Keep it before us to-day and to-morrow,
Give us continual rue and sorrow;
Wash me clean, and make me well,
I pray Thee, like a soul from hell.
Lord, Thou hast overcome: look down;
Let us at last to share the crown."
The marvellous high-relief of "The Birth of St. John the Baptist"
as executed in 1510, and shows Dürer's remarkable powers as a
sculptor. It is cut in a block of cream-colored lithographic stone,
7-1/2 × 5-1/2 inches in size, and is full of rich and minute pictorial
details. Elizabeth is rising in bed, aided by two attendants; and the
old nurse brings the infant to Zacharias, who writes its name on a
tablet, while two men are entering at the doorway. The room is
furnished with the usual utensils and properties of a German bedroom.
This wonderful and well-preserved work of art was bought in the
Netherlands about eighty years ago, for $2,500, and is now in the
British Museum. The companion-piece, "St. John the Baptist Preaching
in the Wilderness," is now in the Brunswick Museum, and is carved with
a similar rich effect. This museum also contains a carving in wood,
representing the "Ecce Homo."
Space would fail to tell of the many beautiful little pieces of
sculpture which Dürer executed in ivory, boxwood, and stone, or of the
numerous excellently designed medals ascribed to him. Chief among
these was the exquisite "Birth of Christ," and the altar of agate,
formerly at Vienna; Adam and Eve, in wood, at Gotha; reliefs of the
Birth and the Agony of Christ, in ivory; the Four Evangelists, in
boxwood, lately at Baireuth; several carvings on ivory, of religious
scenes, at Munich; a woman with padlocked mouth, sitting in the
stocks, cut in soapstone; a delicate relief of the Flight into Egypt;
busts of the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy; and the Love-Fountain, now
at Dresden, with figures of six persons drinking the water.
The famous painting of "The Adoration of the Trinity" was finished in
1511, and represents God the Father holding up His crucified Son for
the worship of an immense congregation of saints, while overhead is
the mystic Dove, surrounded by a circle of winged cherubs' heads. The
kneeling multitude includes princes, prelates, warriors, burghers, and
peasants, equally accepting the Athanasian dogma. On the left is a
great group of female saints, led by the sweet and stately Virgin
Mary; and on the right are the kneeling prophets and apostles, Moses
with the tables of the Law, and David with his harp. On the broad
terrestrial landscape, far below, Dürer stands alone, by a tall tablet
bearing the Latin inscription of his name and the date of the picture.
The whole scene is full of light and splendor, delicate beauty of
angels, and exquisite minuteness of finish. A century later the Rath
of Nuremberg removed this picture from the sepulchral chapel of its
founder, and presented it to the Emperor Rudolph II. It is now one of
the gems of the Vienna Belvedere.
About this time the master's brother Andreas, the goldsmith, returned
to Nuremberg after his long wanderings, and eased the evident anxiety
of his family by settling respectably in life. Hans was still in his
brother's studio, where he learned his art so well that he afterwards
became court-painter to the King of Poland.
In 1511 Dürer published a third edition of the engravings of the
Apocalypse, with a warning to piratical engravers that the Emperor had
forbidden the sale of copies or impressions other than those of the
author, within the Empire, under heavy penalties to transgressors. To
the same year belong three of the master's greatest works in engraving
on wood.
"The Great Passion" contains twelve folio woodcuts, unequal in
their execution, and probably made by different workmen of varying
abilities. The vignette is an "Ecce Homo;" and the other subjects are,
the Last Supper, Christ at Gethsemane, His Betrayal, the Scourging,
the Mockery, Christ Bearing the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Descent
into Hell, the Maries Mourning over Christ's Body, the Entombment,
and the Resurrection. These powerful delineations of the Agony of Our
Lord are characterized by rare originality of conception, pathos,
and grandeur. They were furnished with Latin verses by the monk
Chelidonius, and bore the imperial warning against imitation. Four
large editions were printed from these cuts, and numerous copies,
especially in Italy, where the Emperor's edict was inoperative.
"The Little Passion" was a term applied by Dürer himself to
distinguish his series of thirty-seven designs from the larger
pictures of "The Great Passion." It is the best-known of the master's
engravings; and has been published in two editions at Nuremberg, a
third at Venice in 1612, and a fourth at London in 1844. The blocks
are now in the British Museum, and show plainly that they were not
engraved by Dürer. This great pictorial scene of the fall and
redemption of man begins with the sin of Adam and Eve, and their
expulsion from Eden, and follows with thirty-three compositions from
the life and passion of Christ, ending with the Descent of the Holy
Ghost and the Last Judgment. Its title was _Figuræ Passionis Domini
Nostri Jesu Christi_; and it was furnished with a set of the Latin
verses of Chelidonius.
The third of Dürer's great works in wood-engraving was "The Life
of the Virgin," with explanatory Latin verses by the Benedictine
Chelidonius. This was published in 1511, and contains twenty pictures,
full of realistic plainness and domestic homeliness, yet displaying
marvellous skill and power of invention. To the same year belong the
master's engravings of the Trinity, St. Christopher, St. Gregory's
Mass, St. Jerome, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, the Holy Family
with the Guitar, Herodias and the Head of John the Baptist, and the
Adoration of the Magi; and the copper-plates of the Crucifixion and
the Virgin with the Pear.
Dürer was much afflicted by the boldness of many imitators, who
plagiarized his engravings without stint, and flooded the market with
pictures from his designs. His rights were protected but poorly by the
edicts of the Emperor and the city of Nuremberg; and a swarm of
parasitical copyists reproduced every fresh design as soon as it was
published. Marc Antonio Raimondi, the great Italian engraver who
worked so many years with Raphael, was the most dangerous of these
plagiarists, and reproduced "The Little Passion" and "The Life of the
Virgin" in a most exquisite manner, close after their publication.
Vasari says, "It happened that at this time certain Flemings came to
Venice with a great many prints, engraved both in wood and copper by
Albert Dürer, which being seen by Marc Antonio in the Square of St.
Mark, he was so much astonished by their style of execution, and the
skill displayed by Albert, that he laid out on those prints almost all
the money he had brought with him from Bologna, and amongst other
things purchased 'The Passion of Jesus Christ,' engraved on thirty-six
wooden blocks.... Marc Antonio therefore, having considered how much
honor as well as advantage might be acquired by one who should devote
himself to that art in Italy, resolved to attend to it with the
greatest diligence, and immediately began to copy these engravings of
Albert, studying their mode of hatching, and every thing else in the
prints he had purchased, which from their novelty as well as beauty,
were in such repute that every one desired to possess them."
It appears that Marc Antonio was afterwards enjoined from using
Dürer's monogram on his copies of the Nuremberger's engravings, either
by imperial diplomatic representations to the Italian courts, or else
as the result of a visit which some claim that Dürer made to Italy for
that purpose. Many of the copies of Marc Antonio were rather idealized
adaptations than exact reproductions of the German's designs, but were
furnished with the forged monogram A. D., and sold for Dürer's works.
Sixty-nine of our artist's engravings were copied by the skilful
Italian, profoundly influencing Southern art by the manual dexterity
of the North. This wholesale piracy was carried on between 1505 and
1511, and before Marc Antonio passed under Raphael's overmastering
influence.
In later years the Rath of Nuremberg warned the booksellers of
the city against selling false copies of Dürer's engravings, and
sent letters to the authorities of Augsburg, Leipsic, Frankfort,
Strasbourg, and Antwerp, asking them to put a stop to such sales
within their jurisdictions. His works have been copied by more than
three hundred artists, the best of whom were Solis, Rota, the Hopfers,
Wierx, Vischer, Schön, and Kraus.
In 1512 Dürer made most of the plates for "The Passion in Copper," a
series of sixteen engravings on copper, which was begun in 1507 and
finished in 1513. These plates show the terrible scenes of the last
griefs of the Saviour, surrounded with uncouth German men and women,
buildings and landscapes, yet permeated with mysterious reverence and
solemn simplicity. The series was never published in book form, with
descriptive text, but the engravings were put forth singly as soon as
completed. The prints of "Christ Bound" and "St. Jerome" were
published this same year.
In 1512 Dürer was first employed by the Emperor Maximilian, who
was not only a patron of the arts but also an artist himself, and
munificently employed the best painters of Germany, though his
treasury was usually but poorly filled. Science and literature also
occupied much of his attention; and, while his realm was engaged in
perpetual wars, he kept up a careful correspondence on profound themes
with many of the foremost thinkers of his day. The records of his
intercourse with Dürer are most meagre, though during the seven years
of their connection they must have had many interviews, especially
while the imperial portrait was being made.
Melanchthon tells a pretty story, which he heard from Dürer himself.
One day the artist was finishing a sketch for the Emperor, who,
while waiting, attempted to make a drawing himself with one of
the charcoal-crayons; but the charcoal kept breaking away, and he
complained that he could accomplish nothing with it. Dürer then took
it from his hand, saying, "This is my sceptre, your Majesty;" and
afterwards taught the sovereign how to use it.
The story which is told of so many geniuses who have risen from low
estate is applied also to this one: The Emperor once declared to a
noble who had proudly declined to perform some trivial service for the
artist, "Out of seven ploughboys I can, if I please, make seven lords,
but out of seven lords I cannot make one Dürer."
Tradition states that the Emperor ennobled Dürer, and gave him a
coat-of-arms. Possibly this was the crest used in his later years,
consisting of three shields on a blue field, above which is a closed
helmet supporting the armless bust and head of a winged negro!
The idea of the immense woodcut of the Triumphal Arch of Maximilian
was conceived after 1512, either by the Emperor or by the
poet-laureate Stabius; and Dürer was chosen to put it into execution.
The history of the deeds of Maximilian, with his ancestry and family
alliances, was to be displayed in the form of a pictorial triumphal
arch, "after the manner of those erected in honor of the Roman
emperors." The master demanded payment in advance, and received an
order from the Emperor to the Rath of Nuremberg to hold "his and the
Empire's true and faithful Albert Dürer exempt from all the town taxes
and rates, in consideration of our esteem for his skill in art." But
he surrendered this immunity, in deference to the wishes of the Rath;
and Maximilian granted him an annual pension of 100 florins ($200),
which was paid, however, somewhat reluctantly.
"The Knight, Death, and the Devil," is the most celebrated of Dürer's
engravings, and dates from 1513. It shows a panoplied knight riding
through a rocky defile, with white-bearded Death advancing alongside
and holding up an hour-glass, and the loathsome Satan pursuing
hard after and clutching at the undismayed knight. The numerous
commentators on this picture variously interpret its meaning, some
saying that the knight is an evil-doer, intent on wicked purposes,
whom Death warns to repentance, while Satan rushes to seize him;
others, and the most, that he is the Christian man, fearless among the
menaces of Death and Hell, and steadily advancing in spite of the
horrible apparitions. Others claim that the Knight represents Franz
von Sickingen, a turbulent hero of the Reformation; or Philip Ring,
the Nuremberg herald, who was confronted by the Devil on one of his
night-rides; or Dürer himself, beset by temptations and fears; or
Stephen Baumgärtner, the master's friend, whose portrait bears a
resemblance to the knight's face. Still another interpretation is
given in the romance of "Sintram and his Companions," which was
suggested by this engraving, as we are told by its author, La Motte
Fouqué.
Kugler says: "I believe I do not exaggerate when I particularize this
print as the most important work which the fantastic spirit of German
art has ever produced." It was made in Dürer's blooming time, and the
plate is a wonderful specimen of delicate and exquisite execution. It
has frequently been copied, in many forms.
"The Little Crucifixion" is one of the most exquisitely finished of
Dürer's engravings on copper, and is a small round picture, about one
inch in diameter, which was made for an ornament on the pommel of the
Emperor's sword. It contains seven figures, full of clearness and
individuality, and engraved with marvellous skill. There are,
fortunately, several very beautiful copies of this print. Other
copper-plates of 1513 were "The Judgment of Paris," and the small
round "St. Jerome."
The famous Baumgärtner altar-piece was painted for the patrician
family of that name, as a votive picture, in thanksgiving for the safe
return of its knightly members from the Swiss campaigns. Nuremberg
unwillingly surrendered it to Maximilian of Bavaria, and it is now in
the Munich Pinakothek. It consists of a central picture of "The
Nativity," of no special merit, with two wings, the first of which
shows Stephen Baumgärtner, a meagre-faced and resolute knight, in the
character of St. George, while the other portrays the plain-mannered
and practical Lucas Baumgärtner, in the garb of St. Eustachius. These
excellent portrait-figures are clad in armor, and stand by the sides
of their horses.
The "Vision of St. Eustachius" was executed on copper-plate, and is
one of Dürer's most delicate and beautiful works. It shows the
huntsman Eustachius as a strong and earnest German mystic, kneeling
before the miraculous crucifix set in the stag's forehead, which has
appeared to convict him of his sins, and to stimulate in him that
faith by which he led a new life of prayer and praise, and won a
martyr's crown. His solemn-faced horse seems to realize that a miracle
is taking place; and in the foreground are five delicately drawn
hounds. On the steep hill in the rear a noble and picturesque mediæval
castle rears its battlemented towers above long lines of cliffs.
Tradition says that the face of Eustachius is a portrait of the
Emperor Maximilian. When the Emperor Rudolph secured the original
plate of the engraving, he had it richly gilded.
"The Great Fortune," or "The Nemesis," is a copper-plate showing a
repulsively ugly naked woman, with wings, holding a rich chalice and
a bridle, while on the earth below is a beautiful mountain village
between two confluent rivers. Sandrart says that this is the Hungarian
village of Eytas, where Dürer's father was born; but there is
no proof of this theory. "The Coat-of-Arms with the Cock" is a
fine copper-plate, with some obscure allegorical significance,
representing, perhaps, Vigilance by the cock which stands on a closed
helmet, and Faith by the rampant lion on the shield below.
CHAPTER V.
St. Jerome.--The Melencolia.--Death of Dürer's Mother.--Raphael.
--Etchings.--Maximilian's Arch.--Visit to Augsburg.
The copper-plate engraving of "St. Jerome in his Chamber" was executed
in 1514, and is one of Dürer's three greatest works, a marvel of
brilliancy and beauty, full of accurate detail and minute perfection.
The saint has a grand and venerable head, firmly outlined against a
white halo, and is sitting in a cheerful monastic room, lighted by the
sun streaming through two large arched windows, while he writes at his
desk, translating the Scriptures. In the foreground the lion of St.
Jerome is drowsing, alongside a fat watch-dog; a huge pumpkin hangs
from one of the oaken beams overhead; and patristic tomes and
convenient German utensils are scattered about the room.
"The Virgin on the Crescent Moon" was a copper-plate executed also in
1514, showing the graceful and charming Mary, treated with an idealism
which almost suggests Raphael. This is one of the best of the
seventeen Mary-pictures (_Marien-bilder_) which Dürer executed in
copper. Other copper-plates of 1514 represented Sts. Paul and Thomas,
the Bagpipe-Player, and a Dancing Rustic and his Wife.
"The Melencolia" is the most weirdly fascinating of Dürer's works, and
the most mysterious and variously interpreted. It represents a woman,
goddess, or devil, fully clad, and bearing keys and a purse at her
girdle, her head wreathed with spleenwort, and great wings springing
from her shoulders; the while she gazes intently, and with unutterable
melancholy, into a magic crystal globe before her. On one side a
drowsy Cupid is trying to write, near a ladder which rises from unseen
depths to unimagined heights; and on the wall are the balanced scales,
the astrological table of figures, the hour-glass running low, and the
silent bell. The floor is strewn with scientific and necromantic
instruments, and a great cube of strange form lies beyond. The
prevailing gloom of the picture is but dimly lighted by a lurid and
solitary comet, whose rays shimmer along an expanse of black ocean,
and are reflected from a firm-arched rainbow above. Across the
alternately black and blazing sky flies a horrible bat-winged
creature, bearing a scroll inscribed with the word MELENCOLIA, before
the blank negations symbolized by the disastrous portent of the comet
and the joyous sign of the rainbow.
Under the guise of this mystic black-browed woman the artist probably
typifies the profound sorrow of the human soul, checked by Divine
limitations from attaining a full knowledge of the secrets of nature
or the wisdom of heaven. The discarded implements of natural and
occult science are alike useless; and nought remains but gloomy
introspection and a consciousness of insufficiency.
Dürer describes his mother's death with mournful tenderness and
touching simplicity, saying: "Now you must know that in the year 1513,
on a Tuesday in Cross-week, my poor unhappy mother, whom I had taken
under my charge two years after my father's death, because she was
then quite poor, and who had lived with me for nine years, was taken
deathly sick on one morning early, so that we had to break open her
room; for we knew not, as she could not get up, what to do. So we bore
her down into a room, and she had the sacraments in both kinds
administered to her, for every one thought that she was going to die,
for she had been failing in health ever since my father's death. And
her custom was to go often to church; and she always punished me when
I did not act rightly, and she always took great care to keep me and
my brothers from sin; and, whether I went in or out, her constant word
was, 'In the name of Christ;' and with great diligence she constantly
gave us holy exhortations, and had great care over our souls. And her
good works, and the loving compassion that she showed to every one, I
can never sufficiently set forth to her praise. This my good mother
bore and brought up eighteen children; she has often had the
pestilence and many other dangerous and remarkable illnesses; has
suffered great poverty, scoffing, disparagement, spiteful words,
fears, and great reverses: yet she has never been revengeful. A year
after the day on which she was first taken ill ... my pious mother
departed in a Christian manner, with all sacraments, absolved by
Papal power from pain and sin. She gave me her blessing, and desired
for me God's peace, and that I should keep myself from evil. And she
desired also St. John's blessing, which she had, and she said she was
not afraid to come before God. But she died hard; and I perceived that
she saw something terrible, for she kept hold of the holy water, and
did not speak for a long time. I saw also how Death came, and gave her
two great blows on the heart; and how she shut her eyes and mouth, and
departed in great sorrow. I prayed for her, and had such great grief
for her that I can never express. God be gracious to her! Her greatest
joy was always to speak of God, and to do all to his honor and glory.
And she was sixty-three years old when she died, and I buried her
honorably according to my means. God the Lord grant that I also make a
blessed end, and that God with his heavenly hosts, and my father,
mother, and friend, be present at my end, and that the Almighty God
grant us eternal life! Amen. And in her death she looked still more
lovely than she was in her life."
In 1514 the prince of Italian painters and the noblest of German
artists exchanged pleasant civilities by correspondence, accompanied
by specimens of their labors. Dürer sent to Raphael his own portrait,
which was afterwards inherited and dearly prized by Giulio Romano.
Raphael returned several of his own studies and drawings, one of
which, showing two naked men drawn in red crayon, is now preserved in
the Albertina at Vienna. It still bears Dürer's inscription: "Raphael
of Urbino, who is so highly esteemed by the Pope, has drawn this study
from the nude, and has sent it to Albert Dürer at Nuremberg, in order
to show him his hand."
The invention of the art of etching has been generally attributed to
Dürer, though it now seems that he merely improved and perfected the
process. There are but few etchings in existence which can certainly
be ascribed to him; and the chief of these, an "Ecce Homo" and "Christ
in the Garden," date from 1515. The iron plate of the latter was found
two centuries later, in a blacksmith's shop, where it was about to be
made into horse-shoes. A third etching represents a frightfully
homely woman being carried off by a man on a unicorn, a wild and
incomprehensible composition, calculated to awaken an uncomfortable
impression in the beholder. Some of the etchings were on iron, and
others on pewter; but none were on copper, which was afterwards
universally used. The corrosive nitrous acid acted inefficiently on
the metals which he employed, and so his etchings fall short of
excellence.
In 1514 Jorg Vierling uttered disgraceful libels and threats against
Dürer, and finally attacked him in the street. He was imprisoned by
the authorities; but the kind-hearted artist interceded for him, and
he was released, after being bound over to keep the peace.
In the same year Dürer wrote to Herr Kress to see if the laureate
Stabius had done any thing about his delayed pension; saying also,
"But if Herr Stabius has done nothing in my matter, or my desire was
too difficult for him to attain, then I pray of you to be my favorable
lord to his Majesty.... Point out to his Majesty that I have served
his Majesty for three years, that I have suffered loss myself from
doing so, and that if I had not used my utmost diligence his
ornamental work would never have been finished in such a manner;
therefore I pray his Majesty to reward me with the 100 guilders." In
September an imperial decree was issued, giving Dürer his promised
pension of $200 a year out of the tax due from Nuremberg to the
Emperor. This annuity was paid to the artist until his death, with one
short intermission.
Dürer executed for the Emperor a series of most fantastic and
grotesque pen-drawings, on the borders of his prayer-book, now in the
Munich town-library. Alongside the solemn sentences of the breviary
are whimsical monkeys and pigs, Indians and men-at-arms, satyrs and
foxes, screeching devils and saints, hens and prophets, martyrs and
German crones, mingled in a weird wonderland, and not inappropriate
according to mediæval ideas of taste. "The Great Column" is another
quaint and inexplicable engraving, which Dürer did for the Emperor in
1517, and is composed of four blocks 5-1/3 feet high. It shows two
naked angels holding a large turnip, from which springs a tall column
with two horrible female monsters at the base, and a horned satyr at
the top, holding long garlands.
The marvellous "Triumphal Arch of Maximilian" is composed of
ninety-two blocks, forming an immense woodcut ten and a half feet high
and nine feet wide. It shows three great towers, under which are the
three gates of Praise, Nobility, and Honor and Power, with the six
chained harpies of temptation, and two vigilant Archdukes in armor,
and figures holding garlands and crowns. The great genealogical tree
rises above the figures that represent France, Sycambria, and Troy,
and bears portrait-like half-figures of the twenty-six Christian
princes from whom Maximilian claimed descent, with pictures of himself
and his family. There are also twenty-four minutely delicate cuts,
showing the most remarkable events in the Emperor's life, accompanied
with rugged explanatory rhymes by the poet-laureate. Dr. von Eye says
that "the extent and difficulty of the task appear to have called
forth the powers of the artist to their highest exercise. In no work
of Dürer's do we find more beautiful drawing than there is here. Each
single piece might be taken out and prized as an independent work of
art."
The master drew these very elaborate and intricate designs between
1512 and 1515; and the enormous work of engraving them was devolved
upon Hieronymus Rösch of Nuremberg. During its progress the Emperor
frequently visited Rösch's house in the Fraüengässlein; and it became
a town saying, that "The Emperor still drives often to Petticoat
Lane." On one of his visits, a number of the artist's pet cats ran
into his presence; whence, it is said, arose the proverb, "A cat may
look at a King."
In 1516 Dürer painted a fine portrait of Wohlgemuth, now at Munich,
showing a wrinkled old face lit up by bright eyes, and inscribed,
"This portrait has Albert Dürer painted after his master Michael
Wohlgemuth, in the year 1516, when he was 82 years old; and he lived
until the year 1519, when he died, on St. Andrew's Day, early, before
the sun had risen." About the same period he designed and partly
executed the Pietà, which is now in the St. Maurice Gallery at
Nuremberg; and carved a Virgin and Child standing on the crescent
moon, similar to the one which he had engraved three years before.
In 1518 Dürer also painted the scene of the death-bed of the Empress
Mary of Burgundy, under the title of "The Death of the Virgin," and
on the order of Von Zlatko, the Bishop of Vienna. The Emperor
Maximilian, Philip of Spain, Bishop Zlatko, and other notables, were
shown around the couch. This large and important work was in the sale
of the Fries collection in 1822, but cannot now be found, although
there is a rumor that it is on the altar of a rural church near St.
Wolfgang's Lake, in Upper Austria.
In 1518 Dürer visited Augsburg, during the session of the Diet of the
Empire, and not only sold many of his engravings, but made a number of
new sketches and portraits. His most important work on this journey
was a portrait of the Emperor, who gave an order on the town of
Nuremberg to pay 200 guldens "to the Emperor's and the Empire's dear
and faithful Albert Dürer." On this picture the master inscribed,
"This is the Emperor Maximilian, whom I, Albert Dürer, drew at
Augsburg, in his little room high up in the imperial residence, in the
year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist." About the same
time the master painted the unpleasant picture of "The Suicide of
Lucretia," now at Munich, showing an ill-formed nude woman of life
size, said to have been copied from Agnes Frey. The portrait of the
witty and learned Lazarus Spengler dates from the same year.
When Maximilian died, the Rath of Nuremberg refused to continue the
pension which he had granted to Dürer, though the artist addressed its
members as "Provident, Honorable, Wise, Gracious, and Dear Lords," and
enumerated his services to the dead Emperor. He also vainly demanded
the payment of the imperial order for 200 florins, "to be paid to him
as if to Maximilian himself, out of the town taxes due to the Emperor
on St. Martin's Day," though he offered to leave his house in pledge,
so that the town might lose nothing if the new Emperor refused to
acknowledge the validity of the claim.
At the time of the death of Maximilian the great woodcut of "The
Triumphal Arch" was unfinished, and the blocks remained in the hands
of the engraver. Dürer and Rösch published a large round cut
containing twenty-one of the historical scenes, as a memorial of the
late sovereign, and this singular production speedily went through
four editions. A few trial-impressions of the whole Arch had been
struck off before the Emperor's death, two of which are now at
Copenhagen, one in the British Museum, and one at Stockholm. In 1559
the first edition of the entire Arch was printed at Vienna, at the
request of the Archduke Ferdinand, and another edition was issued by
Bartsch in 1799.
In 1519 Dürer published an excellent wood-engraving of the late
Emperor Maximilian, with inscriptions recording his titles and the
date of his death. It showed a pleasant face, full of strength and
character. Among the painted portraits of Maximilian which are
attributed to the master, the best is in the Vienna Belvedere; and
another was in the late Northwick Collection, in England. A beautiful
portrait in water-colors is in the library of the Erlangen University.
In 1519 Dürer also prepared an exquisitely finished copper-plate
engraving of "St. Anthony," showing the meditative hermit before a
background of a quaint mediæval city, very like Nuremberg, abounding
in irregular gable-roofs and tall castle-towers. Several admirable
copies of this work have been made.
CHAPTER VI.
Dürer's Tour in the Netherlands.--His Journal.--Cologne.--Feasts at
Antwerp and Brussels.--Procession of Notre Dame.--The _Confirmatia_.
--Zealand Journey.--Ghent.--Martin Luther.
Dürer's famous tour to the Netherlands began in the summer of 1520,
and continued until late in 1521. His main object appears to have been
to secure from Charles V. a confirmation of the pension which the
Emperor Maximilian had granted him, since the Rath of Nuremberg had
refused to deliver any further sums until he could obtain such a
ratification. Possibly he also hoped to obtain the position of
court-painter, to which Titian was afterwards appointed. Several
biographers say that Dürer made the journey in order to get a respite
from his wife's tirades; but this is unlikely, since he took her and
her maid Susanna with him. The Archduchess Margaret, daughter of the
late Emperor Maximilian and aunt of Charles V., was at Brussels,
acting as Regent of the Netherlands; and Dürer made strong but
ineffectual attempts to secure her good graces.
Dürer's journal of his tour is a combination of cash account,
itinerary, memoranda, and notebook, and would fill about fifty of
these pages. It is usually barren of reflections, opinions, or
prolonged descriptions; and is but a terse and business-like record of
facts and expenses, rich only in its revelations of mediæval Flemish
hospitality and municipal customs, and certain personal habits of the
writer. The greatest impression seems to have been made upon the
traveller by the enormous wealth of the Low Countries, and the
adjective "costly" continually recurs. The new-found treasures of
America were then pouring a stream of gold into the Flemish cities,
and manufactures and commerce were in full prosperity. The devastating
storm of Alva's Spanish infantry had not yet swept over the doomed but
heroic Netherlands; and her great cities basked in peace, prosperity,
and wealth.
"On the Thursday after Whitsuntide, I, Albert Dürer, at my own cost
and responsibility, set out with my wife from Nuremberg for the
Netherlands.... I went on to Bamberg, where I gave the Bishop a
picture of the Virgin, 'The Life of the Virgin,' an Apocalypse,
and other engravings of the value of a florin. He invited me to
dinner, and gave me an exemption from customs, and three letters of
recommendation." He hired a carriage to take him to Frankfort for
eight florins of gold, and received a parting stirrup-cup from Meister
Benedict, and the painter Hans Wolfgang Katzheimer. He gives the names
of the forty-three villages through which he passed along the route by
Würzburg and Carlstadt to Frankfort, with his expenditures for food
and for gifts to servants; and tells how the Bishop's letter freed him
from paying tolls. At Frankfort he was cheaply entertained by Jacob
Heller, for whom he had painted "The Coronation of the Virgin." From
thence he descended by boat to Mayence, where he received many gifts
and attentions. In the river-passages hence to Cologne, he was forced
to haul in shore and arrange his tolls at Ehrenfels, Bacharach, Caub,
St. Goar, and Boppart. At Cologne he was entertained by his cousin
Nicholas Dürer, who had learned the goldsmith's trade in the shop of
Albert's father, and was now settled in business. The master made
presents to him and his wife. The Barefooted Monks gave Dürer a feast
at their monastery; and Jerome Fugger presented him with wine. The
journey was soon resumed; and the master passed through fourteen
villages, and at last reached Antwerp, where he was feasted by the
factor of the illustrious Fugger family. Jobst Planckfelt was Dürer's
host while he remained in the city, and showed him the Burgomaster's
Palace and other sights of Antwerp, besides introducing him to Quentin
Matsys and other eminent Flemish artists.
"On St. Oswald's Day, the painters invited me to their hall, with my
wife and maid; and every thing there was of silver and other costly
ornamentation, and extremely costly viands. There were also all their
wives there; and when I was conducted to the table all the people
stood up on each side, as if I had been a great lord. There were
amongst them also many persons of distinction, who all bowed low,
and in the most humble manner testified their pleasure at seeing me,
and they said they would do all in their power to give me pleasure.
And, as I sat at table, there came in the messenger of the Rath of
Antwerp, who presented me with four tankards of wine in the name of
the Magistrates; and he said that they desired to honor me with this,
and that I should have their good-will.... And for a long time we were
very merry together until quite late in the night; then they
accompanied us home with torches in the most honorable manner, and
they begged us to accept their good-will, and said they would do
whatever I desired that might be of assistance to me. Then I thanked
them, and went to bed."
He next speaks of making portraits of his friend the Portuguese
consul, his host Planckfelt, and the musician Felix Hungersberg;
and keeps account of his sales of paintings and engravings, on the
same pages which record his junketings with various notable men. He
dined with one of the Imhoffs and with Meister Joachim Patenir, the
landscape-painter, with whom he had certain professional transactions.
He soon became intimately acquainted with the three Genoese brothers,
Tomasin, Vincent, and Gerhartus Florianus, with whom he dined many
times, and for whom he drew several portraits. He also met the great
scholar and half-way reformer, Erasmus, who gave him several pleasing
presents.
"Our Lady's Church at Antwerp is so immensely big, that many masses
may be sung in it at one time without interfering with each other; and
it has altars and rich foundations, and the best musicians that it is
possible to have. The church has many devout services, and stone work,
and particularly a beautiful tower. And I have also been to the rich
Abbey of St. Michael, which has the costly stone seat in its choir.
And at Antwerp they spare no cost about such things, for there is
money enough there."
He made portraits of Nicholas Kratzer, then professor of astronomy at
Oxford University; Hans Plaffroth; and Tomasin's daughter; and gave
several score of his engravings to the Portuguese consul and to his
compatriot Ruderigo, who had sent a large quantity of sweetmeats to
the artist, and a green parrot to his wife.
Something of diplomatic tact is shown in Dürer's making presents to
Meister Gillgen, the Emperor's door-keeper, and to Meister Conrad, the
sculptor of the Archduchess Margaret. He seems to have been preparing
to seek an invitation to court.
In September Dürer and Tomasin journeyed to Mechlin, where they
invited Meister Conrad and one of his artist-friends to a supper. The
next day they passed through Vilvorde, and came to Brussels. Here the
master was introduced to a new and splendid society and a city rich
in works of art. He speaks of dining with "My Lord of Brussels," the
Imperial Councillor Bannisius, and the ambassadors of Nuremberg; and
Bernard van Orley, formerly a pupil of Raphael and now court-painter
to the Regent Margaret, invited him to a feast at which he met the
Regent's treasurer, the royal court-master, and the town-treasurer of
Brussels. He also visited the Margrave of Anspach and Baireuth, with a
letter of introduction from the Bishop of Bamberg; and drew portraits
of Meister Conrad, Bernard van Orley, and several others. The Regent
Margaret received him "with especial kindness," and promised to use
her influence for his advancement at the imperial court. He presented
copies of the Passion to her and her treasurer, and many other
engravings to other eminent persons in the city.
"And I have seen King Charles's house at Brussels, with its fountains,
labyrinth, and park. It gave me the greatest pleasure; and a more
delightful thing, and more like a Paradise, I have never before
seen.... At Brussels there is a very big and costly Town-hall, built
of hewn stone, with a splendid transparent tower. I have seen in the
Golden Hall the four painted matters which the great Meister Rudier
[Roger van der Weyden] has done.... I have also been into the
Nassau-house, which is built in such a costly style and so beautifully
ornamented. And I saw the two beautiful large rooms and all the costly
things in the house everywhere, and also the great bed in which fifty
men might lie; and I have also seen the big stone which fell in a
thunderstorm in the field close to the Count of Nassau. This house is
very high, and there is a fine view from it, and it is much to be
admired; and I do not think in all Germany there is any thing like
it.... Also I have seen the thing which has been brought to the King
from the new Golden Land [Mexico], a sun of gold a fathom broad, and a
silver moon just as big. Likewise two rooms full of armor; likewise
all kinds of arms, harness, and wonderful missiles, very strange
clothing, bed-gear and all kinds of the most wonderful things for
man's use, that are as beautiful to behold as they are wonderful.
These things are all so costly, that they have been valued at 100,000
gulden. And I have never in all the days of my life seen any thing
that has so much rejoiced my heart as these things. For I have seen
among them wonderfully artistic things, and I have wondered at the
subtle _Ingenia_ of men in foreign lands."
While at Brussels Dürer was the guest of Conrad the sculptor, and
Ebner the Nuremberg ambassador. He returned at length to Antwerp,
where his Portuguese friends sent him several maiolica bowls and some
Calcutta feathers, and his host gave also certain Indian and Turkish
curiosities. The jovial dinners with Planckfelt and Tomasin were again
begun, and were supplemented by feasts with the Von Rogendorffs and
Fugger's agent. The master gave away hundreds of his engravings here,
either to his friends or to influential courtiers; and all these
details he faithfully records. He seems to have been an indefatigable
investigator and collector of curiosities, imported trinkets, and
china. With childlike delight he narrates the brilliant spectacles
around him.
"I have seen, on the Sunday after the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady,
the great procession from Our Lady's Church at Antwerp, when the whole
town was assembled, artisans and people of rank, every one dressed in
the most costly manner according to its station. Every class and every
guild had its badge by which it might be recognized; large and costly
tapers were also borne by some of them. There were also long silver
trumpets of the old Frankish fashion. There were also many German
pipers and drummers, who piped and drummed their loudest. Also
I saw in the street, marching in a line in regular order, with
certain distances between, the goldsmiths, painters, stonemasons,
embroiderers, sculptors, joiners, carpenters, sailors, fishmongers,
... and all kinds of artisans who are useful in producing the
necessaries of life. In the same way there were the shopkeepers and
merchants and their clerks. After these came the marksmen with
firelocks, bows, and cross-bows, some on horseback and some on foot.
After that came the City Guards; and at last a mighty and beautiful
throng of different nations and religious orders, superbly costumed,
and each distinguished from the other, very piously. I remarked in
this procession a troop of widows who lived by their labor. They all
had white linen cloths covering their heads, and reaching down to
their feet, very seemly to behold. Behind them I saw many brave
persons, and the canons of Our Lady's Church, with all the clergy
and bursars, where twenty persons bore Our Lady with the Lord Jesus
ornamented in the most costly manner to the glory of the Lord God. In
this procession there were many very pleasant things, and it was very
richly arranged. There were brought along many wagons, with moving
ships, and other things. Then followed the Prophets, all in order; the
New Testament, showing the Salutation of the Angel, the three Holy
Kings on their camels, and other rare wonders very beautifully
arranged.... At the last came a great dragon led by St. Margaret and
her maidens, who were very pretty; also St. George, with his squire, a
very handsome Courlander. Also a great many boys and girls, dressed in
the most costly and ornamental manner, according to the fashion of
different countries, rode in this troop, and represented so many
saints. This procession from beginning to end was more than two hours
passing by our house; and there were so many things that I could never
write them all down even in a book, and so I leave it alone."
Raphael died during this year, and Dürer made strenuous efforts to
secure some of his drawings or other remains. He met Tommaso Vincidore
of Bologna, a pupil of the great master, and gave him an entire set of
his best engravings for an antique gold ring, and another set to be
sent to Rome in exchange for some of Raphael's sketches. He also gave
a complete set of his engravings to the Regent Margaret, and made for
her two careful drawings on parchment. Vincidore painted his portrait,
to be sent to Rome; and it was engraved by Adrian Stock, showing his
glorious eyes and long flowing hair, together with a short dense beard
overshadowed by a massive moustache, curled back at the points.
Later in the autumn Dürer journeyed to Aix-la-Chapelle, where he
attended the splendid ceremonies of the coronation of the Emperor
Charles V. At Aix he saw the famous columns brought from Rome by
Charlemagne, the arm of Kaiser Henry, the chemise and girdle of the
Virgin Mary, and other relics. His wife was back at Antwerp; and so
the reckless artist chronicles his outlays for drinking, gaming, and
other reprehensible expenses. After being entertained for three weeks
at the Nuremberg embassy, Dürer went to Cologne, where he remained a
fortnight, distributing his engravings with generous hand, visiting
the churches and their pictures, and buying all manner of odd things.
Early in November, by the aid of the Nuremberg ambassadors, he
obtained from the Emperor his _Confirmatia_, "with great trouble and
labor." This coveted document, which formed one of the main objects
of his journey to the North, confirmed him in the pension which
Maximilian had granted him, and made him painter to the Emperor.
From Cologne he returned with all speed down the river to Antwerp,
being entertained at Bois-le-Duc, "a pretty town, which has an
extraordinarily beautiful church," by the painter Arnold de Ber and
the goldsmiths, "who showed me very much honor." On arriving at
Antwerp, he resumes his accounts of the sales and gifts of his
engravings, and the enumeration of his domestic expenses. Soon
afterward he heard of a monstrous whale being thrown up on the
Zealand coast, and posted off in December to see it, taking a vessel
from Bergen-op-Zoom, of whose well-built houses and great markets he
speaks. "We sailed before sunset by a village, and saw only the points
of the roofs projecting out of the water; and we sailed for the island
of Wohlfärtig [Walcheren], and for the little town of Sunge in another
adjacent island. There were seven islands; and Ernig, where I passed
the night, is the largest. From thence we went to Middleburg, where I
saw in the abbey the great picture that Johann de Abus [Mabuse] had
done. The drawing is not so good as the painting. After that we came
to Fahr, where ships from all lands unload: it is a fine town. But at
Armuyden a great danger befell me; for just as we were going to land,
and our ropes were thrown out, there came a large ship alongside of
us, and I was about to land, but there was such a press that I let
every one land before me, so that nobody but I, Georg Kotzler, two old
women, and the skipper with one small boy, were left in the ship. And
when I and the above-named persons were on board, and could not get on
shore, then the heavy cable broke, and a strong wind came on, which
drove our ship powerfully before it. Then we all cried loudly for
help, but no one ventured to give it; and the wind beat us out again
to sea.... Then there was great anxiety and fear; for the wind was
very great, and not more than six persons on board. But I spoke to the
skipper, and told him to take heart, and put his trust in God, and
consider what there was to be done. Then he said he thought, if we
could manage to hoist the little sail, he would try whether we could
not get on. So with great difficulty, and working all together, we got
it half way up, and sailed on again; and when those on the land saw
this, and how we were able to help ourselves, they came and gave us
assistance, so that we got safely to land. Middleburg is a good town,
and has a very beautiful Town-house with a costly tower. And there are
also many things there of old art. There is an exceedingly costly and
beautiful seat in the abbey, and a costly stone aisle, and a pretty
parish church. And in other respects also the town is very rich in
subjects for sketches. Zealand is pretty and marvellous to see, on
account of the water, which is higher than the land."
The tide had carried off the stranded whale; and so Dürer returned
to Antwerp, staying a few days at Bergen. Soon afterwards he gave
Von Rafensburg three books of fine engravings in return for five
snail-shells, nine medals, four arrows, two pieces of white coral,
two dried fish, and a scale of a large fish. Improvident collector
of curiosities! how did the matronly Agnes endure such tradings?
Many dinners with the Genoese Tomasin are then recorded, and fresh
collations with new friends, in the hearty and hospitable spirit of
the easy-living Netherlanders. He repaid the quaint presents of his
admirers with many copies of his engravings, and occasionally made
some money in the practice of his profession.
"On Shrove Tuesday early the goldsmiths invited me and my wife to
dinner. There were many distinguished people assembled, and we had an
extremely costly meal, and they did me exceeding much honor; and in
the evening the senior magistrate of the town invited me, and gave me
a costly meal, and showed me much honor. And there came in many
strange masks." He then records his exchanges of engravings for such
singular returns as satin, candied citron, ivory salt-cellars from
Calcutta, sea-shells, monk's electuary, sweetmeats in profusion,
porcelains, an ivory pipe, coral, boxing-gloves, a shield, lace,
fishes' fins, sandal-wood, &c. The Portuguese ambassador invited him
to a rich Carnival feast, where there were "many very costly masks;"
and the learned Petrus Ægidius entertained him and Erasmus of
Rotterdam together. He climbed up the cathedral tower, and "saw over
the whole town from it, which was very agreeable." Many of the
curiosities which he had acquired were sent as presents to Pirkheimer,
the Imhoffs, the Holzschuhers, and other noble friends in Nuremberg.
Arion, the ex-Pensionary of Antwerp, gave him a feast, and presented
him with Patenir's painting of "Lot and his Daughters."
Soon after Easter, Dürer made another pleasant tour in the
Netherlands, attended by the painter Jan Plos, passing by "the rich
Abbey of Pol," and "the great long village of Kahlb," to "the splendid
and beautiful town" of Bruges. Plos and the goldsmith Marx each gave
him costly feasts, and showed him the Emperor's palace, the Archery
Court, and many paintings by Roger van der Weyden, Hubert and Jan van
Eyck, and Hugo van der Goes, together with an alabaster Madonna by
Michael Angelo. "We came at last to the Painters' Chapel, where there
are many good things. After that they prepared a banquet for me. And
from thence I went with them to their guild, where many honorable
folk, goldsmiths, painters, and merchants, were assembled; and they
made me sup with them, and did me great honor. And the Rath gave me
twelve measures of wine; and the whole assembly, more than sixty
persons, accompanied me home with torches.
"And when I arrived at Ghent, the chief of the painters met me, and
he brought with him all the principal painters of the town; and they
showed me great honor, and received me in very splendid style, and
they assured me of their good-will and service; and I supped that
evening with them. On Wednesday early they took me to St. John's
Tower, from which I saw over all the great and wonderful town.
After that I saw Johann's picture [Van Eyck's 'Adoration of the
Spotless Lamb']. It is a very rich and grandly conceived painting;
and particularly Eve, the Virgin Mary, and God the Father, are
excellent.... Ghent is a beautiful and wonderful town, and four great
waters flow through it. And I have besides seen many other very
strange things at Ghent, and the painters with their chief have never
left me; and I have eaten morning and night with them, and they have
paid for every thing, and have been very friendly with me."
The master soon returned to Antwerp, in distress. "In the third
week after Easter a hot fever attacked me, with great faintness,
discomfort, and headache. And when I was in Zealand, some time back, a
wonderful illness came upon me, which I had never heard of any one
having before; and this illness I have still." This low fever never
quite left him, and was the cause of many doctor's bills thereafter.
Soon afterward he made a portrait of the landscape-painter Joachim
Patenir; and "on the Sunday before Cross-week, Meister Joachim invited
me to his wedding, and they all showed me much respect; and I saw two
very pretty plays there, particularly the first, which was very pious
and clerical."
Dürer seems to have had strong Protestant sympathies, though it is
claimed that he died in the faith of Rome. His journal in 1521
contains the following significant sentences about Martin Luther: "He
was a man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, and a follower of the true
Christian faith.... He has suffered much for Christ's truth, and
because he has rebuked the unchristian Papacy which strives against
the freedom of Christ with its heavy burdens of human laws; and for
this we are robbed of the price of our blood and sweat, that it may be
expended shamefully by idle, lascivious people, whilst thirsty and
sick men perish of hunger.... Lord Jesus Christ, call together again
the sheep of thy fold, of whom part are still to be found amongst the
Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who through the burdens and
avarice of the Papacy have been separated from us. Never were any
people so horribly burdened with ordinances as us poor people by the
Romish See; we who, redeemed by thy blood, ought to be free
Christians.
"O God, is Luther dead? Who will henceforth explain to us so clearly
the holy Gospel? O all pious Christian men, bewail with me this
God-inspired man, and pray to God to send us another enlightened
teacher! O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where dost thou remain? Behold how
the unjust tyranny of this world's might and the powers of darkness
prevail! Hear, thou knight of Christ; ride forth in the name of the
Lord, defend the truth, attain the martyr's crown; thou art already an
old manikin, and I have heard thee say that thou gavest thyself only
two years longer in which thou wilt still be fit for work. Employ
these well, then, in the cause of the Gospel and the true Christian
faith."
More junketings, gamings, collecting of outlandish things, visits to
religious and civic pageants, new sketches and paintings, doctor's
bills and monk's fees, minutely recorded. "Meister Gerhard, the
illuminator, has a daughter of eighteen years, called Susanna; and she
has illuminated a plate, a Saviour, for which I gave a florin. It is a
great wonder that a woman should do so well!... I have again and again
done sketches and many other things in the service of different
persons, and for the most part of my work I have received nothing at
all."
After Corpus Christi Day, Dürer sent off several bales of his
acquisitions to Nuremberg, by the wagoner Cunz Mez. He and his wife
then went to Mechlin; "and the painters and sculptors entertained me
at my inn, and showed me great honor; and I went to Popenreuther's
house, the cannon-founder, and found many wonderful things there. I
have also seen the Lady Margaret [the Archduchess and Regent], and
carried the portrait of the Emperor, which I intended to present to
her; but she took such a displeasure therein, I brought it away with
me again. And on the Friday she showed me all her beautiful things,
and amongst them I saw forty small pictures in oil, pure and good: I
have never seen finer miniatures. And then I saw other good things of
Johann's [Van Eyck] and Jacob Walch's. I begged my Lady to give me
Meister Jacob's little book, but she said she had promised it to her
painter."
Dürer seems to have been treated with scant courtesy by the
Archduchess, and soon returned to Antwerp. Here he was entertained
by the eminent Lucas van Leyden, for whom he made a portrait, and
received one of himself in return. The stately Nuremberger and the
diminutive artist of Leyden were much astonished at each other's
personal appearance, but had a warm mutual respect and esteem. Dürer
next struck up a warm friendship with certain of the Augustine monks,
and dined often at their cloister. In addition to the _bric-à-brac_
which he still continued to collect, he now began to buy precious
stones, in which he was badly swindled by a Frenchman, and dolefully
wrote, "I am a fool at a bargain."
He was now about to return home, and naturally found it necessary,
after having bought such a museum of oddities and curiosities, to
borrow enough money to take him to Nuremberg. His friend Alexander
Imhoff lent him 100 gold florins, receiving Dürer's note in return. In
some bitterness of spirit he wrote: "In all my transactions in the
Netherlands, with people both of high and low degree, and in all my
doings, expenses, sales, and other trafficking, I have always had the
disadvantage; and particularly the Lady Margaret, for all I have given
her and done for her, has given me nothing in return."
On the eve of Dürer's departure, the King of Denmark, Christian II.,
came to Antwerp, and not only had the master draw his portrait, but
also invited him to a dinner. He then went to Brussels, on business
for his new royal patron, and was present at the pompous reception and
banquet with which the Emperor and the Archduchess Margaret received
the Danish King. Soon afterwards the King invited Dürer to the feast
which he gave to the Emperor and Archduchess; and then had his
portrait painted in oil-colors, paying thirty florins for it. After a
sojourn of eight days in Brussels, the master and his wife went south
to Cologne, spending four long days on the road; and soon afterwards
prolonged their journey to Nuremberg.
The municipality of Antwerp had offered him a house and a liberal
pension, to remain in that city; but he declined these, being content
with his prospects and his noble friends in Franconia.
CHAPTER VII.
Nuremberg's Reformation.--The Little Masters.--Glass-Painting.
--Architecture.--Letter to the City Council.--"Art of Mensuration."
--Portraits.--Melanchthon.
What a commotion must Dürer's return have caused in Nuremberg, with
his commission as court-painter, and his bales and crates of rarities
from America and India and all Europe! The presents which he had
brought for so many of his friends must have given the liveliest
delight, and afforded amusement for months to the Sodalitas Literaria
and the Rath-Elders.
In the mean time the purifying storm of the Reformation was sweeping
over Germany, and the people were in times of great doubt and
perplexity. Nuremberg was the first of the free cities of the Empire
to pronounce herself Protestant, though the change was effected with
so much order and moderation that no iconoclastic fury was allowed to
dilapidate its churches and convents. Pirkheimer and Spengler were
excommunicated by the Pope, though their calm conservatism had
curbed the fanatical fury of the puritans, and saved the Catholic
art-treasures of the Franconian capital.
It is a significant fact that Dürer, during the last six years of his
life, made no more Madonnas, and but one Holy Family. The era of
Mariolatry had passed, so far as Nuremberg was concerned. Yet, during
the year of his return from the Netherlands, he made two engravings of
St. Christopher bearing the Holy Child safely above the floods and
through the storms, as if to indicate that Christianity would be
carried through all its disasters by an unfailing strength.
During the remaining six years of his life Dürer's art-works were
limited to a few portraits and engravings, and the great pictures of
the Four Apostles. Much of his time was devoted to the publication of
the fruits of his long experience, in several literary treatises, most
of which are now lost. His broken health would not allow of continuous
work, as the inroads of insidious disease slowly wasted his strength
and ate away his vitality.
The Little Masters were a group of artists who were formed in
the studio or under the influence of Dürer, shining as a bright
constellation of genius in the twilight of German art. Among these
were the Bavarian Altdorfer, who combined in his brilliant paintings
and engravings both fantasy and romanticism; the Westphalian
Aldegrever, a laborious painter and a prolific engraver; Barthel
Beham, who afterwards studied with and counterfeited the works of
Marc Antonio in Italy; Hans Sebald Beham, who illustrated lewd
fables and prayer books with equal skill and relish, and was finally
driven from Nuremberg; Jacob Binck of Cologne, a neat and accurate
draughtsman, who removed to Rome, and engraved Raphael's works under
the supervision of Marc Antonio; George Pensz, who also studied under
the great Italian engraver, and executed 126 fine prints, besides
several paintings. Other assistants and pupils of Dürer, of whom
little but their names are now remembered, were Hans Brosamer of Fulda,
and Hans Springinklee. Hans von Culmbach was a careful follower, who
surpassed his master in love of nature and her warm and harmonious
colors. The Tucher altar-piece in St. Sebald's Church was his
master-picture. Contemporary with the Nuremberg painter, Matthew
Grunewald was doing excellent work at Aschaffenburg, in northern
Franconia. Among the German artists of his time, he was surpassed
only by Dürer and Holbein.
The Diet of the Empire was held at Nuremberg in 1522, and the
Rath-haus was repainted and decorated for its sessions. Dürer was paid
100 florins for his share in this work, although it is not known what
it was. The best of the paintings were executed by his pupil, George
Pensz, and it is probable that the master furnished some of the
designs.
Although our artist held a pension from the Emperor as his
court-painter, his services seem to have never been called into
requisition. Charles spent but little time at Nuremberg, and while yet
in his youth had no care for seeing himself portrayed on canvas. It
was after the master's death that the Emperor first met Titian, and
retained him as court-painter.
In 1522 Dürer published at his own cost the first edition of the
Triumphal Car of Kaiser Maximilian, a woodcut whose labored and
ponderous allegorical idea was conceived by Pirkheimer, designed
in detail by Dürer, and engraved by Rösch on eight blocks, forming
a picture 7-1/2 feet long by 1-1/2 feet high. The Emperor is shown
seated in a chariot, surrounded by female figures representing the
abstract virtues, while the leaders of the twelve horses, and even
the wheels and reins, have magniloquent Latin names. Maximilian was
greatly interested in this work, but died before its completion. The
first edition was accompanied by explanatory German text, and the
second by Latin descriptions.
The large woodcut of Ulrich Varnbühler, whom Dürer calls his "single
friend," is one of the master's best works, and was printed over with
three blocks, to produce a chiaroscuro. A little later, he made two
copper-plates of the Cardinal Archbishop Albert of Magdeburg and
Mayence.
In 1523, while under the influence of the art-schools of the Lower
Rhine, the master painted the pictures of Sts. Joachim and Joseph and
St. Simeon and Bishop Lazarus, small figures on a gold ground.
Dürer's Family Relation records that, "My dear mother-in-law took ill
on Sunday, Aug. 18, 1521; and on Sept. 29, at nine of the night, she
died piously. And in 1523, on the Feast of the Presentation, early in
the morning, died my father-in-law, Hans Frey. He had been ill for six
years, and had his share of troubles in his time." They were buried in
St. John's Cemetery, in the same lot where the remains of their
illustrious son-in-law were afterwards laid.
It is said that Dürer largely occupied himself with glass-painting,
during the earlier part of his career; and he probably designed much
for the workers in stained glass then in Upper Germany and the Low
Countries. Lacroix says that he produced twenty windows for the Temple
Church at Paris; and Holt attributes to him the church-windows at
Fairford, near Cirencester.
As an architect Albert executed but few works, and only a slight
record remains to our day. He made two plans for the Archduchess
Margaret, and another for the house of her physician. Heideloff has
proved that the gallery of the Gessert house at Nuremberg was built by
Dürer, in a strange combination of geometric and Renaissance forms.
Pirkheimer's portrait was engraved in 1524, showing a gross and heavy
face, obese to the last degree, and verifying in its physiognomy the
probability that the playful innuendoes in Dürer's Venetian letters
were well grounded. It is not easy to see how such a spirit, learned
in all the sciences of the age, and in close communion with Erasmus,
Melanchthon, and Ulrich von Hutten, could have worn such a drooping
mask of flesh. In the same year, Dürer published an engraved portrait
of Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the supporter of Luther and
the political leader of the Reformation. The head is admirably drawn
and full of character, with firmness plainly indicated by strongly
compressed lips.
The following letter to the Council of Nuremberg was written in the
year 1524:--
"Provident, Honorable, Wise, and Most Favorable Lords,--By my
works and with the help of God, I have acquired 1,000 florins
of the Rhine, and I would now willingly lay them by for my
support. Although I know that it is not the custom with your
Wisdoms to pay high interest, and that you have refused to
give one florin in twenty; yet I am moved by my necessity, by
the particularly favorable regard which your Wisdoms have
ever shown towards me, and also by the following causes, to
beg this thing of your Honors. Your Wisdoms know that I have
always been obedient, willing, and diligent in all things
done for your Wisdoms, and for the common State, and for
other persons of the Rath, and that the State has always had
my help, art, and work, whenever they were needed, and that
without payment rather than for money; for I can write with
truth, that, during the thirty years that I have had a house
in this town, I have not had 500 guldens' worth of work from
it, and what I have had has been poor and mean, and I have
not gained the fifth part for it that it was worth; but all
that I have earned, which God knows has only been by hard
toil, has been from princes, lords, and other foreign
persons. Also I have expended all my earnings from foreigners
in this town. Also your Honors doubtless know that, on
account of the many works I had done for him, the late
Emperor Maximilian, of praiseworthy memory, out of his own
imperial liberality granted me an exemption from the rates
and taxes of this town, which, however, I voluntarily gave
up, when I was spoken to about it by the Elders of the Rath,
in order to show honor to my Lords, and to maintain their
favor and uphold their customs and justice.
"Nineteen years ago the Doge of Venice wrote to me, offering
me 200 ducats a year if I would live in that city. More
lately the Rath of Antwerp, while I remained in the Low
Countries, also made me an offer, 300 florins of Philippe a
year, and a fair mansion to live in. In both places all that
I did for the Government would have been paid over and above
the pension. All of which, out of my love for my honorable
and wise Lords, for this town, and for my Fatherland, I
refused, and chose rather to live simply, near your Wisdoms,
than to be rich and great in any other place. It is therefore
my dutiful request to your Lordships, that you will take all
these things into your favorable consideration, and accept
these thousand florins (which I could easily lay out with
other worthy people both here and elsewhere, but which I
would rather know were in the hands of your Wisdoms), and
grant me a yearly interest upon them of fifty florins, so
that I and my wife, who are daily growing old, weak, and
incapable, may have a moderate provision against want. And I
will ever do my utmost to deserve your noble Wisdoms' favor
and approbation, as heretofore."
This touching letter shows the poverty of Dürer's savings, and his
sad feeling that he had lived as a prophet without honor in his own
country. It produced the desired effect, and brought him five per cent
on his little capital, though after his death the Council hastened to
reduce it to four per cent.
Dürer's wide study and remarkable versatility, rivalling that of
Leonardo da Vinci, found further expression in literary work.
Camerarius states that he wrote a hundred and fifty different
treatises, showing a marked proficiency in several of the sciences.
His first work was entitled "Instruction in the Art of Mensuration,"
&c., and was published in 1525 for the use of young painters. It is
composed of four books, treating of the practical use of geometrical
instruments, and the drawing of volutes, Roman letters, and winding
stairs; and is illustrated by numerous woodcuts. The fourth book
elucidates the idea of perspective, and contains pictures of an
instrument devised by the author, "which will be found particularly
useful to persons who are not sure of drawing correctly." This was not
the only invention of Dürer's; for there still exists a small model of
a gun-carriage in wood and iron, made by him, and exhibiting certain
improvements which he had designed and advocated. "The Art of
Mensuration" was a successful book, and passed through one Latin and
three German editions.
The finest of Dürer's works in portraiture was executed in 1526, and
represents the grand old Jerome Holzschuher, one of the chief rulers
of the city, with all the strength and keenness of his heroic nature
lighting up the canvas. Enormous sums have been offered for this work;
but it is still faithfully preserved in Nuremberg, and retains its
original rich and vivid coloring. Another fine portrait, "like an
antique bust," now in the Vienna Belvedere, shows Johann Kleeberger,
the generous and charitable man who was known abroad as "the good
German." Still another portrait of this year was that of the
Burgomaster Jacob Müffel, a well-modelled and carefully executed
likeness of one of the master's best friends. Two very famous
engravings of this date portray Erasmus of Rotterdam and Philip
Melanchthon. Erasmus is represented as a venerable scholar, sitting
at a desk, with a pen in his hand and a soft cap on his head; and
the engraving is remarkable for its admirable execution and strong
character. Still, the old philosopher was not pleased with it, and
sent to Sir Thomas More his portrait by Holbein, which, he said, "is
much more like me than the one by the famous Albert Dürer." When
Erasmus first saw the picture he said, "Oh! if I still resemble that
Erasmus, I may look out for getting married," as if it gave him too
young an appearance.
In 1526 the wise and noble-hearted Melanchthon came to Nuremberg
to establish a Protestant Latin school, and formed a close intimacy
with the master, whose tender and dreamy spirit was so like his own.
During their constant intercourse, the artist became strengthened and
comforted in the mild and pure doctrines of the true reformation, and
was quietly yet strongly influenced to abandon even the forms of
Catholicism which still remained. Dürer published a fine engraving of
this friend of his last years on earth, showing delicately-chiselled
features, with large and tender eyes and a lofty forehead.
Melanchthon wrote that in one of his frequent conversations with
Dürer, the artist explained the great change which his methods had
undergone, saying, "In his youth he was fond of a florid style and
great combination of colors, and that in looking at his own work he
was always delighted to find this diversity of coloring in any of his
pictures; but afterwards in his mature years he began to look more
entirely to nature, and tried to see her in her simplest form. Then he
found that this simplicity was the true perfection of art; and, not
attaining this, he did not care for his works as formerly, but often
sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought of his incapacity."
CHAPTER VIII.
"The Four Apostles."--Dürer's Later Literary Works.--Four Books of
Proportion.--Last Sickness and Death.--Agnes Dürer.--Dürer described
by a Friend.
Schlegel says that "Albert Dürer may be called the Shakespeare of
Painting;" and it is doubtless true that he filled out the narrow
capabilities of early German art with a full measure of deep and
earnest thought and powerful originality. The equal homage which was
offered to him at Venice and Antwerp, the two art-antipodes, shows how
highly he was regarded in his own day. His earlier works were executed
in the crude and angular methods of Wohlgemuth and his contemporaries;
and most of the pictures now attributed to him, often incorrectly, are
of this character. But in his later works he swung clear of these
trammelling archaisms, and produced brilliant and memorable
compositions.
"The Four Apostles," now in the Munich Pinakothek, were Dürer's last
and noblest works, and fairly justify Pirkheimer's assurance, that if
he had lived longer the master would have done "many more wonderful,
strange, and artistic things." They are full of grand thought and
clear insight, free from exaggeration or conventionalism, perfect in
execution and harmonious simplicity, and so distinct in individuality
that it has been generally believed that the Four Temperaments are
here impersonated. On one panel are Sts. John and Peter, in life-size,
the former deeply meditating, with the Scriptures in his hand, and the
latter bending forward and earnestly reading the Holy Book. The other
panel shows the stately St. Paul, robed in white, standing before the
ardent and impassioned St. Mark. Kugler calls these panels "the first
complete work of art produced by Protestantism;" and the truth and
simplicity of the paintings prefigured the return of a pure and
incorrupt faith.
Late in 1526, Dürer sent these pictures to the Rath of Nuremberg, with
the following letter: "Provident, Honorable, Wise, Dear Lords,--I have
been for some time past minded to present your Wisdoms with something
of my unworthy painting as a remembrance; but I have been obliged to
give this up on account of the defects of my poor work, for I knew
that I should not have been well able to maintain the same before your
Wisdoms. During this past time, however, I have painted a picture,
and bestowed more diligence upon it than upon any other painting;
therefore I esteem no one worthier than your Wisdoms to keep it as
a remembrance; on which account I present the same to you herewith,
begging you with humble diligence to accept my little present
graciously and favorably, and to be and remain my favorable and dear
Lords, as I have always hitherto found you. This, with the utmost
humility, I will sedulously endeavor to merit from your Wisdoms."
The Rath eagerly accepted this noble gift, and hung the two panels in
the Rath-haus, sending also a handsome present of money to Dürer and
his wife. A century afterwards Maximilian of Bavaria saw and coveted
the pictures, and used bribery and threats alike to secure them. In
1627 he accomplished his purpose; and the Rath, fearful of his wrath
and dreading his power, sent the panels to Munich.
The woodcut portrait of Dürer, dated 1527, shows the worn face of a
man of fifty-six years, whose life has been stormy and sometimes
unhappy. It is much less beautiful than the earlier pictures, for his
long flowing hair and beard have both been cut short, perhaps on
account of sickness, or in deference to the new puritan ideas. The
face is delicate and melancholy, and seems to rest under the shadow of
approaching death, which is to be met with a calm and simple faith.
His second book, entitled "Some Instruction in the Fortification of
Cities, Castles, and Towns," appeared in 1527, and was dedicated to
Ferdinand I., and adorned with several woodcuts. In this the artist
showed the same familiarity with the principles of defensive works
as his great contemporaries Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo
had done. Much attention is paid to the proper sheltering of heavy
artillery from hostile shot; and the plans of the towers and bastions
about Nuremberg, which were built after Dürer's death, were suggested
in this work. A large contemporary woodcut by the master shows the
siege of a city, with cannon playing from the bastions, and the
garrison making a sortie against the enemy.
The celebrated "Four Books of Human Proportion" was Dürer's greatest
literary work, and was completed about this time, having been begun
in 1523. Its preparation was suggested by Pirkheimer, to whom it was
dedicated, and who published it after the author's death, with a long
Latin elegy on him. Great labor was bestowed on this work, and many of
the original sketches and notes are still preserved. The first and
second books show the correct proportions of the human body and its
members, according to scale, dividing the body into seven parts, each
of which has the same measurement as the head, and then considering
it in eighths. The proportions of children are also treated of; and
the dogma is formulated, that the woman should be one-eighteenth
shorter than the man. The third book is devoted to transposing or
changing these proportions, and contains examples of distorted and
unsymmetrical figures; and the fourth book treats of foreshortening,
and shows the human body in motion. In his preface he says: "Let no
one think that I am presumptuous enough to imagine that I have written
a wonderful book, or seek to raise myself above others. This be far
from me! for I know well that but small and mediocre understanding
and art can be found in the following work."
The high appreciation in which this book was held appears from the
fact that it passed through several German editions, besides three
Latin, two Italian, two French, Portuguese, Dutch, and English
editions. Most of the original MS. is now in the British Museum.
Among Dürer's other works were treatises on Civic Architecture, Music,
the Art of Fencing, Landscape-Painting, Colors, Painting, and the
Proportions of the Horse.
But the year 1527 was nearly barren of new art-works; for the master's
hand was losing its power, and his busy brain had grown weary. His
constitution was slowly yielding before the fatal advances of a
wasting disease, possibly the low fever which he had contracted in
Zealand, or it may have been an affection of the lungs. In the latter
days he made a memorandum: "Regarding the belongings I have amassed by
my own handiwork, I have not had a great chance to become rich, and
have had plenty of losses; having lent without being repaid, and my
work-people have not reckoned with me; also my agent at Rome died,
after using up my property. Half of this loss was thirteen years ago,
and I have blamed myself for losses contracted at Venice. Still we
have good house-furnishing, clothing, costly things as earthenware
[maiolica], professional fittings-up, bed-furnishings, chests, and
cabinets; and my stock of colors is worth 100 guldens."
The last design of the master was a drawing on gray paper, showing
Christ on the Cross. When this was all completed except the face of
the Divine sufferer, the artist was summoned by Death, and ascended to
behold in glory the features which he had so often portrayed under the
thorns.
A violent attack of his chronic disease prostrated him so far that he
was unable to rally; and after a brief illness he passed gently away,
on the 6th of April, 1528. It was the anniversary of the day on which
Raphael died, eight years before. His friends were startled and
grief-stricken at his sudden death, which came so unexpectedly that
even Pirkheimer was absent from the city. It was long supposed that he
died of the plague, on the evidence of a portrait-drawing of himself,
showing him pointing to a discolored plague-spot on his side, and
inscribed, "Where my fingers point, there I suffer." It was said that
this sketch was for the information of his doctor, who dared not visit
the pestilence-stricken sick-chamber. But this hypothesis is no longer
considered tenable.
The remains of the master were buried in the lot of his father-in-law,
Hans Frey, at the Cemetery of St. John, beyond the walls; and his
monument bore Pirkheimer's simple epitaph: "ME. AL. DU. QUICQUID
ALBERTI DURERI MORTALE FUIT, SUB HOC CONDITUR TUMULO. EMIGRAVIT VIII
IDUS APRILIS, MDXXVIII. A.D."
On Easter Sunday, 1828, the third centenary of his death, a great
procession of artists and scholars from all parts of Germany moved in
solemn state from Nuremberg to the grave of Dürer, where they sang
hymns.
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadowlands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg the
ancient stands.
Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of
art and song,
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that
round them throng.
Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors rough
and bold
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries
old;
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their
uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through
every clime.
In the courtyard of the castle, bound with many an iron
band,
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's
hand;
On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.
Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of
Art,
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the
common mart;
And above cathedral doorways, saints and bishops carved in
stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.
In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy
dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age
their trust:
In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture
rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted
air.
Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent
heart,
Lived and labored Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art;
Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.
_Emigravit_ is the inscription on the tombstone where he
lies:
Dead he is not, but departed, for the artist never dies.
LONGFELLOW.
Pirkheimer wrote to Ulrich, "Although I have been often tried by the
death of those who were dear to me, I think I have never until now
experienced such sorrow as the loss of our dearest and best Dürer has
caused me. And truly not without cause; for, of all men who were not
bound to me by ties of blood, I loved and esteemed him the most, on
account of his countless merits and rare integrity. As I know, my dear
Ulrich, that you share my sorrow, I do not hesitate to allow it free
course in your presence, so that we may consecrate together a just
tribute of tears to our dear friend. He has gone from us, our Albert!
Let us weep, my dear Ulrich, over the inexorable fate, the miserable
lot of man, and the unfeeling cruelty of death. A noble man is
snatched away, whilst so many others, worthless and incapable men,
enjoy unclouded happiness, and have their years prolonged beyond the
ordinary term of man's life."
Pirkheimer died two years after Dürer's death, and was buried near
him. During his last days, and therefore so long after his friend's
decease that the first violence of his emotions had fully subsided,
and his mind had become calm, he wrote to Herr Tschertte of Vienna,
and gave the following arraignment of the widow Dürer: "Truly I lost
in Albert the best friend I ever had in the world, and nothing grieves
me so much as to think that he died such an unhappy death; for after
the providence of God I can ascribe it to no one but his wife, who so
gnawed at his heart, and worried him to such a degree, that he
departed from this world sooner than he would otherwise have done. He
was dried up like a bundle of straw, and never dared to be in good
spirits, or to go out into society. For this bad woman was always
anxious, although really she had no cause to be; and she urged him on
day and night, and forced him to hard work only for this,--that he
might earn money, and leave it to her when he died. For she always
feared ruin, as she does still, notwithstanding that Albert has left
her property worth about six thousand gulden. But nothing ever
satisfied her; and in short she alone was the cause of his death.
I have often myself expostulated with her about her suspicious,
blameworthy conduct, and have warned her, and told her beforehand
what the end of it would be; but I have never met with any thing but
ingratitude. For whoever was a friend of her husband's, and wished him
well, to him she was an enemy; which troubled Albert to the highest
degree, and brought him at last to his grave. I have not seen her
since his death: she will have nothing to do with me, although I have
been helpful to her in many things; but one cannot trust her. She is
always suspicious of anybody who contradicts her, or does not take her
part in all things, and is immediately an enemy. Therefore I would
much rather she should keep away from me. She and her sister are not
loose characters, but, as I do not doubt, honorable, pious, and very
God-fearing women; but one would rather have to do with a light
woman who behaved in a friendly manner, than with such a nagging,
suspicious, scolding, pious woman, with whom a man can have no peace
day or night. We must, however, leave the matter to God, who will be
gracious and merciful to our good Albert, for he lived a pious and
upright man, and died in a very Christian and blessed manner;
therefore we need not fear his salvation. God grant us grace, that
we may happily follow him when our time comes!"
It is said that Raphael, after studying Dürer's engravings, exclaimed,
"Of a truth this man would have surpassed us all if he had had the
masterpieces of art constantly before his eyes as we have." Even so at
the present day is it seen, that if Dürer had studied classic art, and
imbibed its principles, he might have added a rare beauty to the weird
ugliness and solemnity of his designs, and substituted the sweet
Graces for the grim Walkyrie. Yet in that case the world would have
lost the fascinations of the sad and profound Nuremberg pictures, with
their terrific realism and fantastic richness.
Italy did not disdain to borrow the ideas of the transalpine artist;
and even Raphael took the design of his famous picture of "The
Entombment" (_Lo Spasimo_) from Dürer's picture in "The Great
Passion." Titian borrowed from his "Life of the Virgin" the figure of
an old woman, which he introduced in his "Presentation in the Temple."
The Florentine Pontormo copied a whole landscape from one of Dürer's
paintings; and Andrea del Sarto received many direct suggestions from
his works.
"It is very surprising in regard to that man, that in a
rude and barbarous age he was the first of the Germans who
not only arrived at an exact imitation of nature, but has
likewise left no second; being so absolute a master of it in
all its parts,--in etching, engraving, statuary,
architecture, optics, symmetry, and the rest,--that he had
no equal except Michael Angelo Buonarotti, his contemporary
and rival; and he left behind him such works as were too
much for the life of one man."--JOHN ANDREAS.
In the preface to his Latin translation of "The Four Books of Human
Proportion," the Rector Camerarius says: "Nature gave our Albert a
form remarkable for proportion and height, and well suited to the
beautiful spirit which it held therein; so that in his case she was
not unmindful of the harmony which Hippocrates loves to dwell upon,
whereby she assigns a grotesque body to the grotesquely-spirited ape,
while she enshrines the noble soul in a befitting temple. He had a
graceful hand, brilliant eyes, a nose well-formed, such as the Greeks
call [Greek: Tetragônon], the neck a little long, chest full, stomach
flat, hips well-knit, and legs straight. As to his fingers, you would
have said that you never saw any thing more graceful. Such, moreover,
was the charm of his language, that listeners were always sorry when
he had finished speaking.
"He did not devote himself to the study of literature, though he was
in a great measure master of what it conveys, especially of natural
science and mathematics. He was well acquainted with the principal
facts of these sciences, and could apply them as well as set them
forth in words: witness his treatises on geometry, in which there is
nothing to be desired that I can find, at least so far as he has
undertaken to treat the subject.... But Nature had especially designed
him for painting, which study he embraced with all his might, and was
never tired of considering the works and methods of celebrated
painters, and learning from them all that commended itself to him....
If he had a fault it was this: that he worked with too untiring
industry, and practised a degree of severity towards himself that he
often carried beyond bounds."
A LIST OF
ALBERT DÜRER'S CHIEF PAINTINGS
NOW IN EXISTENCE, WITH THE DATES OF THEIR EXECUTION, AND THEIR
PRESENT LOCATIONS.
_The interrogation-mark is annexed to the titles of certain paintings
which two or more critics regard as of doubtful authenticity._
GERMANY.
NUREMBERG.--_Germanic Museum,_--Emperor Maximilian; Burgomaster
Holzschuher, 1526. _St. Maurice Gallery,_--Pietà; Ecce Homo.
_Rath-Haus_,--Emperor Sigismund(?); Charlemagne(?).
MUNICH PINAKOTHEK.--Baumgärtner Altar-piece, 1513; Suicide of
Lucretia, 1518; Albert Dürer, 1500; Oswald Krell, 1499; Michael
Wohlgemuth, 1516; Albert Dürer the Elder, 1497; the Nativity; Sts.
Paul and Mark, 1526; Sts. Peter and John, 1526; a Knight in Armor(?);
Sts. Joachim and Joseph, 1523; St. Simeon and Bishop Lazarus, 1523;
Death of the Virgin; a Young Man, 1500; Pietà(?); Mater Dolorosa.
DRESDEN MUSEUM.--Christ Bearing the Cross; the Crucifixion; a Hare;
Lucas van Leyden; Madonna and Saints (?).
COLOGNE.--_Museum,_--Drummer and Piper; Madonna (?). _Church of Sta.
Maria im Capitol,_--Death of the Virgin.
FRANKFORT.--_Municipal Gallery,_--Two portraits. _Städel
Institute,_--Catherine Fürleger; Albert Dürer the Elder.
CASSEL.--_Friedrich Museum,_--The Passion. _Bellevue,_--Erasmus of
Rotterdam.
POMMERSFELDEN.--Jacob Müffel.
LUSTSCHENA (Baron Speck).--A Young Lady.
ASCHAFFENBURG.--Albert Dürer.
AUGSBURG.--Two Masques. Several others in the Castle of Stolzenfels.
AUSTRIA.
VIENNA.--_Belvedere,_--Emperor Maximilian, 1519; Martyrdom of the Ten
Thousand Christians, 1508; Madonna, 1506; Adoration of the Magi, 1504;
Madonna, 1503; Adoration of the Holy Trinity, 1511; Madonna; Young
Man, 1507; Johann Kleeberger, 1526; and others not definitely
authenticated. _The Albertina,_--Emperor Maximilian, Green Passion,
and 160 drawings. _Czernin Palace,_--Portrait. The old Ambraser,
Lichtenstein, and Von Lamberg collections included four portraits and
two religious pictures. _St. Wolfgang's Church,_ Upper Austria,--Death
of the Virgin.
PESTH.--Christ on the Cross.
PRAGUE.--_Strahow Abbey,_--The Feast of Rose Garlands.
NORTHERN EUROPE.
ST. PETERSBURG.--_Hermitage Palace,_--Christ Led to Calvary; Christ
Bearing the Cross; the Elector of Saxony.
_Hague Museum._--Two portraits.
_Beloeil_ (Prince de Ligne),--Two pictures.
_Basle Museum_ (Switzerland).--Two pictures.
_Coire Cathedral,_--Christ Bearing the Cross.
ITALY.
FLORENCE.--_Uffizi Gallery,_--Adoration of the Magi, 1504; Madonna,
1526; Dürer's Father, 1490; Apostle Philip, 1516; St. James the Great,
1516; Albert Dürer, 1498; Ecce Homo (?); Nativity (?); Pietà (?).
_Pitti Palace,_--Adam and Eve (replica).
ROME.--_Barberini Palace,_--Christ among the Doctors, 1506. _Borghese
Palace,_--Louis VI. of Bavaria; Pirkheimer, 1505; and five pictures of
dubious authenticity. _Corsini Palace,_--A Hare; Cardinal Albert of
Brandenburg. _Doria Palace,_--St. Eustace (?); Ecce Homo (?).
_Sciarra-Colonna Palace,_--Death of the Virgin.
MILAN.--_Casa Trivulzi,_--Ecce Homo, 1514. _Ambrosiana,_--Coronation
of the Virgin, 1510. _Bergamo Academy,_--Christ Bearing the Cross.
_Brescia Gallery,_--Drawings.
VENICE.--_Manfrini Palace,_--Adoration of the Shepherds; Holy Family.
NAPLES.--_Santangelo,_--Garland-Bearer, 1508. _Museum,_--Nativity,
1512. _Villafranca Palace,_--Christ on the Cross.
SPAIN.
MADRID.--_Museum,_--Albert Dürer, 1498; Dürer's Father; Adam and Eve.
_Marquis of Salamanca,_--Altar-piece, a Passion scene.
FRANCE.
_Besançon Museum._--Christ on the Cross. _Lyons,_--Madonna and Child
Giving Roses to Maximilian (?).
GREAT BRITAIN.
_National Gallery,_--A Senator, 1514. _Stafford House,_ Death of
the Virgin. _Hampton-Court Palace,_--Young Man, 1506; St. Jerome (?).
_Buckingham Palace,_--Virgin and Child. _Rev. J. F. Russell,
--Crucifixion; Christ's Farewell to Mary (?). _Thirlestaine
House,_--Maximilian. _Kensington Palace,_--Young Man. _New Battle
House,_--Madonna and Angels. _Belvoir Castle,_--Portrait. _Sion
House,_--Dürer's Father. _Mr. Wynn Ellis, London,_--Catherine
Fürleger; Virgin and Child. _FitzWilliam Museum, Cambridge,_
--Annunciation (?). _Windsor Castle,_--Pirkheimer. _Bath House,_--Man
in Armor. _Howard Castle,_--Vulcan; Adam and Eve; Abraham and Isaac.
_The latest of the lists of Dürer's paintings, compiled by Mr. W. B.
Scott in 1870, enumerates the following collections, long since
dispersed, with the dates when they were cataloged: 11 pictures at
Aix, in 1822; 2 at Anspach, 1816; 5 at Augsburg, 1822; 10 at Bamberg,
1821; 2 at Banz, 1814; 4 at Berlin, 1822; 3 at Blankenberg, 1817; 3 at
Bologna, 1730; 3 at Breslau, 1741; 6 at Brussels, 1811. Many of these
cannot now be located, the collections having been broken up._
A LIST OF
DÜRER'S WOOD ENGRAVINGS.
_Bible Subjects._--Cain Killing Abel; Samson Slaying the Lion;
Adoration of the Magi, 1511; the Last Supper, 1523; the Mount of
Olives; Pilate Showing Christ to the Jews; the Sudarium; Ecce
Homo; the Crucifixion, 1510; the Crucifixion, 1516; Calvary; the
Crucifixion; Christ on the Cross, with Angels; the Trinity, 1511; the
Holy Family, 1511; the Holy Family with a Guitar, 1511; the Holy
Family, 1526; the Holy Family in a Chamber; the Virgin with the
Swaddled Child; the Virgin Crowned by Angels, 1518; the Holy Family
with Three Rabbits.
_Saints._--St. Arnolf, Bishop; St. Christopher, 1511; St. Christopher
with the Birds; St. Christopher, 1525; St. Colman of Scotland, 1513;
St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata; St. George; the Mass of St.
Gregory, 1511; St. Jerome in a Chamber, 1511; St. Jerome in the
Grotto, 1512; the Little St. Jerome; the Beheading of St. John the
Baptist; the Head of St. John brought to Herod, 1511; St. Sebald; the
Penitent; Elias and the Raven; Sts. John and Jerome; Sts. Nicholas,
Udalricus, and Erasmus; Sts. Stephen, Gregory, and Lawrence; the Eight
Austrian Saints; the Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Christians; the
Beheading of St. Catherine; St. Mary Magdalen.
_Portraits._--The Emperor Maximilian, 1519; the Emperor; Ulrich
Varnbühler, 1522; Albert Dürer, 1527.
_Heraldic Subjects._--The Beham Arms; the Dürer Arms, 1523; the
Ebner-Furer Arms, 1516; the Kressen Arms; the Shield of Nuremberg; the
Shield with three Lions' Heads; the Shield with a Wild Man and two
Dogs; the Scheurl-Zuiglin Arms; the Stabius Arms; the Staiber Arms.
_Miscellaneous Subjects._--The Judgment of Paris; Hercules; the Rider;
the Bath; the Embrace; the Learner, 1510; Death and the Soldier, 1510;
the Besieged City, 1527; the Rhinoceros, 1515; the Triumphal Chariot
of Maximilian, 1522; the Great Column, 1517; a Man Sketching; two Men
Sketching a Lute; a Man Sketching a Woman; a Man Sketching an Urn;
Hemispherium Australe; Imagines Coeli Septentrionalis; Imagines
Coeli Meridionalis; the Pirkheimer Title-border; six Ornamental
designs; two title-borders.
_The Great Passion_ (12 cuts; 1510).--Ecce Homo; the Last Supper; the
Agony in the Garden; the Seizing of Christ; the Flagellation; the
Mocking; Bearing the Cross; the Crucifixion; Christ in Hades; the
Wailing Maries; the Entombment; the Resurrection.
_The Little Passion_ (37 cuts; 1511).--Ecce Homo; Adam and Eve; the
Expulsion from Eden; the Annunciation; the Nativity; the Entry into
Jerusalem; the Cleansing of the Temple; Christ's Farewell to His
Mother; the Last Supper; the Washing of the Feet; the Agony in the
Garden; the Kiss of Judas; Christ before Annas; Caiaphas Rends his
Clothes; the Mocking; Christ and Pilate; Christ before Herod; the
Scourging; the Crowning with Thorns; Christ Shown to the Jews; Pilate
Washing his Hands; Bearing the Cross; the Veronica; Nailing Christ to
the Cross; the Crucifixion; Descent into Hell; the Descent from the
Cross; the Weeping Maries; the Entombment; the Resurrection; Christ in
Glory Appearing to His Mother; Appearing to Mary Magdalen; at Emmaus;
the Unbelief of St. Thomas; the Ascension; the Descent of the Holy
Ghost; the Last Judgment.
_The Life of the Virgin_ (20 designs; 1511).--The Virgin and Child;
Joachim's Offering Rejected; the Angel Appears to Joachim; Joachim
Meeting Anna; the Birth of Mary; the Virgin's Presentation at the
Temple; the Betrothal of Mary and Joseph; the Annunciation; the
Visitation of St. Elizabeth; the Nativity; the Circumcision; the
Purification of Mary; the Flight into Egypt; the Repose in Egypt;
Christ Teaching in the Temple; Christ's Farewell to His Mother; the
Death of the Virgin; the Assumption; the Virgin and Child with seven
Saints.
_The Apocalypse of St. John_ (16 designs; 1498).--The Virgin and Child
Appearing to St. John; His Attempted Martyrdom; the Seven Golden
Candlesticks and the Seven Stars; the Throne of God with the
Four-and-twenty Elders and the Beasts; the Descent of the Four Horses;
the Martyrs Clothed in White and the Stars Falling; the Four Angels
Holding the Winds, and the Sealing of the Elect; the Seven Angel
Trumpeters and the Glorified Host of Saints; the Four Angels Slaying
the Third Part of Men; John is Made to Eat the Book; the Woman Clothed
with the Sun, and the Seven-headed Dragon; Michael and his Angels
Fighting the Great Dragon; the Worship of the Seven-headed Dragon; the
Lamb in Zion; the Woman of Babylon Sitting on the Beast; the Binding
of Satan for a Thousand Years.
There are 261 other wood-engravings described in the catalogue
attached to Scott's "Life of Dürer," and ranked as "doubtful." Many of
these are held to be authentic by one or more of the three critical
authorities on Dürer's works,--Heller, Bartsch, and Passavant. Other
connoisseurs, however, ascribe them to different engravers of the
early German schools, mostly to pupils and colleagues of Dürer.
ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER.
_Bible-Subjects._--Adam and Eve, 1504; the Nativity, 1504; the Passion
on copper (16 designs), 1508-13; Crucifixion, 1508, 1511; Little
Crucifixion, 1513; Christ Showing His Five Wounds; Angel with the
Sudarium, 1516; two Angels with the Sudarium, 1513; the Prodigal Son,
1500; the Virgin and Anna; Mary on the Crescent Moon, no date; Mary on
the Crescent Moon, 1514; Mary with a Crown of Stars, 1508; Mary with
the Starry Crown and Sceptre, 1516; Mary Crowned by an Angel, 1520;
Mary Crowned by two Angels, 1518; the Nursing Mary, 1503; the Nursing
Mary, 1519; Mary with the Swaddled Child, 1520; Mary under a Tree,
1513; Mary by the Well, 1514; Mary with the Pear, 1511; Mary with the
Monkey, no date; the Holy Family with the Butterfly, early work.
_Saints._--St. Philip; St. Bartholomew, 1523; St. Thomas, 1514; St.
Simon, 1514; St. Paul, 1514; St. Anthony, 1519; St. Christopher, 1521;
St. Christopher, second design; St. John Chrysostom; St. Eustace, no
date; St. George; Equestrian St. George, 1508; St. Jerome, 1514; St.
Jerome Praying; the same, smaller, 1513; St. Sebastian; St. Sebastian
Bound to a Pillar.
_Miscellaneous._--The Judgment of Paris, 1513; Apollo and Diana; the
Rape of Amymone; Jealousy; the Satyr's Family, 1505; Justice; the
Little Fortune; the Great Fortune; Melencolia, 1514; the Dream; the
Four Naked Women, 1497; the Witch; Three Cupids; Gentleman and Lady
Walking; the Love Offer; the Wild Man Seizing a Woman, early work; the
Bagpiper, 1514; the Dancing Rustics, 1514; the Peasant and his Wife;
Peasant Going to Market; Three Peasants; the Cook and the Housekeeper;
the Turk and his Wife; the Standard-bearer; the Six Soldiers; the
Little Courier; the Equestrian Lady; the Great White Horse, 1505; the
Small White Horse, 1505; the Knight, Death, and the Devil, 1513; the
Monster Pig; the Coat-of-arms with the Cock, 1514; the Coat-of-arms
and Death's Head, 1503.
_Portraits._--The Cardinal-Archbishop Albert of Mayence, 1519, 1522;
larger portrait of the same; Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony,
1524; Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1526; Philip Melanchthon, 1526; Willibald
Pirkheimer, 1524.
_Etchings._--Christ with Bound Hands, 1512; Ecce Homo, 1515; Christ on the
Mount of Olives, 1515; the Holy Family; St. Jerome; Pluto and
Proserpine; the Bath; the Cannon.
INDEX.
_Adam and Eve,_ 45, 57.
_Adoration of the Kings,_ 45.
_Adoration of the Trinity,_ 62, 68.
Aix-la-Chapelle, 105.
Aldegrever, 120.
Altdorfer, 120.
Antwerp, 97, 106, 117, 126.
-- Cathedral, 99, 110.
Architectural Works, 123.
Art of Mensuration, 127.
Augsburg, 91.
Bamberg, 44, 96.
Basle, 26.
Baumgärtner, 14, 39, 52, 77, 78.
Behaim, Martin, 12.
Beham, 120.
Beheim, Hans, 11.
Bellini, Giovanni, 48, 50.
Bergen-op-Zoom, 107, 109.
Bernard van Orley, 100.
Binck, 120.
_Birth of St. John,_ 66.
Bois-le-Duc, 106.
Bruges, 110.
Brussels, 100.
Bullman, 12.
_Calvary,_ 45.
Camerarius, 14, 145.
Carvings, 57, 66.
Celtes, Conrad, 13.
Chelidonius, 13, 70, 71.
Coat-of-Arms, 49, 75.
Colmar, 23, 26.
Cologne, 96, 106, 117.
Colvin, Sidney, 34.
Confirmatia, The, 106.
_Coronation of the Virgin,_ 61.
Danger at Sea, 107.
Death of Parents, 40, 83.
_Death of the Virgin,_ 90.
Delayed Pensions, 87, 92.
Denmark's King, 116.
Drawings, 42.
Dürer, Albert, the Elder, 15, 20, 23, 40.
-- Agnes, 28, 52, 54, 142.
-- Andreas, 16, 41, 53, 68.
-- Anthony, 15.
-- Barbara, 15, 41, 83.
-- Hans, 41, 51, 69.
-- Nicholas, 96.
Dürer's House, 63.
-- Marriage, 28.
-- Poetry, 64.
-- Portraits, 27, 36, 39, 105, 134.
Early Drawings, 19.
Engravings, 31, 60.
Erasmus, 99, 110, 114, 129.
Etchings, 86.
Eytas, 15, 79.
Fever, The, 112.
Flemish Feasts, 97, 109, 111.
Flemish Wealth, 95.
Fortifications, Treatise on, 134.
_Four Apostles, The,_ 131.
Francia, 55.
Frey Family, 29, 123.
Ghent, 111.
Glass-Painting, 123.
_Great Column, The,_ 88.
_Great Passion, The,_ 69.
_Green Passion, The,_ 42.
Grunewald, 121.
Haller Family, 15.
Heller, Jacob, 58, 59, 96.
_Holzschuher,_ 128.
Human Proportions, 135.
Imhoff Collection, The, 43.
Inventions, 128.
Karl, Eucharius, 39, 52.
_Knight, Death, etc.,_ 76.
Koberger, 9, 17.
Kornelisz, 12.
Kraft, 11.
Landäuer, 62.
Letters to the Rath, 124, 132.
_Life of the Virgin,_ 71.
Lindenast, 11.
Literary Work, 127.
_Little Crucifixion, The,_ 78.
Little Masters, 120.
_Little Passion, The,_ 70.
Mantegna, 24, 56.
Marc Antonio, 71.
Margaret, Archduchess, 94, 100, 105, 115.
Martin Luther, 113.
_Martyrdom, The,_ 59.
Maximilian, Emperor, 74, 76, 89, 91, 93, 122.
Mechlin, 100, 115.
Melanchthon, 75, 129.
_Melencolia, The,_ 82.
Middleburg, 107, 108.
Netherland Journey, 94.
Nuremberg, 7, 118, 139.
_Passion, The Great,_ 69.
-- _The Green,_ 42.
-- _The Little,_ 70.
-- _Song,_ 65.
-- _in Copper,_ 74.
Patenir, 98, 112.
Pensz, George, 120, 121.
Perugino, 24.
Piratical Engravers, 69, 71.
Pirkheimer, 17, 30, 39, 43, 44, 48, 64, 110, 119, 124, 135, 137, 141.
Prayer-Book, Max's, 88.
Procession, The, 103.
Raphael, 56, 85, 105, 144.
Regiomontanus, 10.
_Rose-Garlands, Feast of,_ 53, 54.
Ruskin Quoted, 46, 56.
Sachs, Hans, 14.
_St. Anthony,_ 93.
_St. Eustachius,_ 79.
_St. Jerome,_ 81.
Schongauer, 23.
Silver-Work, 20.
Sketch-Books, 44.
Spengler, 39, 65, 92, 119.
Stein, 47.
Stoss, Veit, 11.
Strasbourg, 26.
Teacher, The (Poem), 65.
Tomasin, 98, 100, 109.
_Triumphal Arch,_ 75, 88, 92.
_Triumphal Car,_ 121.
Van Leyden, Lucas, 115.
Vasari Quoted, 72.
Venetian Journey, 47.
Venice, 47, 56, 126.
Vincidore, 105.
Vischer, Peter, 11.
Von Culmbach, 120.
Walch, Jacob, 13, 115.
Wander-jahre, The, 25, 50.
Water-Marks, 34.
Wohlgemuth, 12, 21, 51, 90.
Woodcuts, 37.
Zealand, Journey to, 107.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise
every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
intent.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Dürer - Artist-Biographies" ***
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