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diff --git a/41734-0.txt b/41734-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7343c8c --- /dev/null +++ b/41734-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1141 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41734 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 41734-h.htm or 41734-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41734/41734-h/41734-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41734/41734-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://archive.org/details/drerbyherberte00fursiala + + + + + +Masterpieces in Colour + +Edited By + +T. Leman Hare + +DÜRER + +1471-1528 + + * * * * * + +"MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR" SERIES + + + ARTIST. AUTHOR. + + VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. + REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. + ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. + GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. + BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. + ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. + BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. + FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. + REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. + LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. + RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. + HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. + TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. + CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. + GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. + TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + LUINI. JAMES MASON. + FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. + VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. + LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. + RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD. + HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. + VIGÉE LE BRUN. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. + FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + MEMLINC. W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE. + CONSTABLE. C. LEWIS HIND. + RAEBURN. JAMES L. CAW. + JOHN S. SARGENT. T. MARTIN WOOD. + LAWRENCE. S. L. BENSUSAN. + DÜRER. H. E. A. FURST. + HOGARTH. C. LEWIS HIND. + + _Others in Preparation._ + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration: PLATE I.--PORTRAIT OF HIERONYMUS HOLZSCHUER. Frontispiece + +(From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum. Painted in 1526) + +Holzschuer was one of Dürer's Nuremberg friends--a patrician, and +Councillor of the City. Dürer's portraits are remarkable for their +strength in characterisation.] + + +DÜRER + +by + +HERBERT E. A. FURST + +Illustrated with Eight Reproductions in Colour + + + + + + + +[Illustration: IN SEMPITERNUM.] + +London: T. C. & E. C. Jack +New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Plate + + I. Portrait of Hyeronymus Holzschuer + Frontispiece + From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum + + Page + II. Portrait of a Woman 14 + From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum + + III. Portrait of the Artist 24 + From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich + + IV. Portrait of the Painter's Father 34 + From the Oil-painting in the National Gallery + + V. Portrait of Oswalt Krel 40 + From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich + + VI. The Madonna with the Siskin 50 + From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum + + VII. SS. John and Peter 60 + From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich + + VIII. SS. Paul and Mark 70 + From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich + + + + +[Illustration] + + +This is a wonderful world! And not the least wonderful thing is our +ignorance of it. + +I would chat with you, reader, for a while; would discuss Dürer, whom I +have known and loved for many a year, and whom I want to make beloved by +you also. Here I sit, pen in hand, and would begin. + +Begin--where? + +With the Beginnings? + +The Beginnings? Where do things begin; when and why? + +So our ignorance, like a many-headed monster, raises its fearsome heads +and would bar the way. + +By most subtle links are all things connected--cause and effect we call +them; and if we but raise one or the other, fine ears will hear the +clinking--and the monster rises. + +There are so many things we shall never know, cries the poet of the +unsaid, Maeterlinck. + +Let us venture forth then and grope with clumsy fingers amongst the +treasures stored; let us be content to pick up a jewel here and there, +resting our minds in awe and admiration on its beauty, though we may not +readily understand its use and meaning. Foolish men read books and +dusty documents, catch a few dull words from the phrasing of long +thoughts, and will tell you, these are facts! + +Wise men read books--the books of Nature and the books of men--and say, +facts are well enough, but oh for the right understanding! + +For between sunrise and sunset, between the dusk of evening and the dusk +of dawn, things happen that will never happen again; and the world of +to-day is ever a world of yesterdays and to-morrows. + +Reader, I lift my torch, and by its dim light I bid you follow me. + +For it is a long journey we have to make through the night of the past. +Many an encumbrance of four and a half centuries we shall have to lay +aside ere we reach the treasure-house of Dürer's Art. + +From the steps of Kaiser Wilhelm II.'s throne we must hasten through the +ages to Kaiser Maximilian's city, Nuremberg--to the days when Wilhelm's +ancestors were but Margraves of Brandenburg, scarcely much more than the +Burggraves of Nuremberg they had originally been. + +From the days of the Maxim gun and the Lee-Metford to the days of the +howitzer and the blunderbuss. When York was farther away from London +than New York is to-day. + +When the receipt of a written letter was fact but few could boast of; +and a secret _billet-doux_ might cause the sender to be flung in gaol. +When the morning's milk was unaccompanied by the morning news; for the +printer's press was in its infancy. + +When the stranding of a whale was an event of European interest, and the +form of a rhinoceros the subject of wild conjecture and childish +imagination. + +When this patient earth of ours was to our ancestors merely a vast +pancake toasted daily by a circling sun. + +[Illustration: PLATE II.--PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN + +(From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum) + +This beautiful portrait represents, artistically, the zenith of Dürer's +art. It shows Venetian influence so strongly, and is painted with so +much serenity of manner, that one is almost inclined to doubt its +ascription.] + +When the woods were full of hobgoblins, and scaly Beelzebubs were busily +engaged in pitching the souls of the damned down a yawning hell-mouth, +and the angels of the Lord in crimson and brocade carried the blessed +heavenward. In those days scholars filled their books with a curious +jumble of theology, philosophy, and old women's talk. Dr. Faustus +practised black magic, and the besom-steeds carried witches from the +Brocken far and wide into all lands. + +Then no one ventured far from home unaccompanied, and the merchants were +bold adventurers, and Kings of Scotland might envy Nuremberg +burgesses--so Æneas Sylvius said. + +And that a touch of humour be not lacking, I bid you remember that my +lady dipped her dainty fingers into the stew, and, after, threw the bare +bones to the dogs below the table; and I also bid you remember that +satins and fine linen oft clothed an unwashed body. + +Cruel plagues, smallpox, and all manner of disease and malformations +inflicted a far greater number than nowadays, and the sad ignorance of +doctors brewed horrid draughts amongst the skulls, skeletons, stuffed +birds, and crocodiles of their fearsome-looking "surgeries." + +In short, it was a "poetic" age; when all the world was full of +mysteries and possibilities, and the sanest and most level-headed were +outrageously fantastic. + +There are people who will tell you that the world is very much the same +to-day as it was yesterday, and that, after all, human nature is human +nature in all ages all the world over. But, beyond the fact that we all +are born and we all must die, there is little in common between you and +me--between us of to-day and those of yesterday--and we resemble each +other most nearly in things that do not matter. + +Frankly, therefore, Albrecht Dürer, who was born on May 21, 1471, is a +human being from another world, and unless you realise that too, I doubt +you can understand him, much less admire him. + +For his Art is not beautiful. + +Germans have never been able to create anything beautiful in Art: their +sense of beauty soars into Song. + +But even whilst I am writing these words it occurs to me that they are +no longer true, for the German of to-day is no longer the German of +yesterday, "standing peaceful on his scientific watch-tower; and to the +raging, struggling multitude here and elsewhere solemnly, from hour to +hour, with preparatory blast of cow-horn emit his 'Höret ihr Herren und +lasst's euch sagen' ..." as Carlyle pictures him; he is most certainly +not like the Lutheran German with a child's heart and a boy's rash +courage. + +Frankly I say you cannot admire Dürer if you be honestly ignorant or +ignorantly honest. + +We of to-day are too level-headed; our brains cannot encompass the world +that crowded Dürer's dreams. + +For the German's brain was always crowded; he had not that nice sense of +space and emptiness that makes Italian Art so pleasant to look upon, and +which the Japanese employ with astonishing subtlety. You remember +Wagner's words in Goethe's "Faust"-- + + "Zwar weiss ich viel; doch möcht ich Alles wissen." + + (I know a lot, yet wish that I knew All.) + +It is not only his eagerness to show you all he knows, but also his +ravenous desire to know all that is to be known. Hence we speak of +German thoroughness, at once his boast and his modesty. + +Here again I have to pull up. Generalisations are so easy, appear so +justified, and are more often than not misleading. + +Dürer was not a pure-blooded Teuton; his father came from Eytas in +Hungary.[1] + + [1] Eytas translated into German is Thür (Door), and a + man from Thür a Thürer or Dürer. + +That German music owes a debt of gratitude to Hungary is acknowledged. +Does Dürer owe his greatness to the strain of foreign blood? + +Possibly; but it does not matter. He was a man, and a profound man, +therefore akin to all the world, as Dante and Michelangelo, as +Shakespeare and Millet. Born into German circumstances he appears in +German habit--that is all. + +His father Albrecht was a goldsmith, and Albrecht the son having shown +himself worthy of a better education than his numerous brothers, was, +after finishing school, apprenticed to and would have remained a +goldsmith, had his artistic nature not drawn him to Art; at least so his +biographer, _i.e._ the painter himself, tells us. It was not the artist +alone who longed for freer play, for freer expression of his faculties. +It was to a great extent, I feel sure, the thinker. + +Dürer took himself tremendously seriously; were it not for some letters +that he has left us, and some episodes in his graphic art, one might be +led to imagine that Dürer knew not laughter, scarcely even a smile. He +consequently thought it of importance to acquaint the world with all the +details of his life and work, recording even the moods which prompted +him to do this or that. In Dürer the desire to live was entirely +absorbed in the desire to think. He was not a man of action, and the +records of his life are filled by accounts of what he saw, what he +thought, and what others thought of him; coupled with frequent +complaints of jealousies and lack of appreciation. Dürer was deep but +narrow, and in that again he reflects the religious spirit of +Protestantism, not the wider culture of Humanism. His ego looms large in +his consciousness, and it is the salvation of the soul rather than the +expansion of the mind which concerns him; but withal he is like +Luther--a _Man_. + +His idea then of Art was, that it "should be employed," as he himself +explained, "in the service of the Church to set forth the sufferings of +Christ and such like subjects, and it should also be employed to +preserve the features of men after their death." A narrow interpretation +of a world-embracing realm. + +The scope of this little volume will not admit of a detailed account of +Dürer's life. + +We may not linger on the years of his apprenticeship with Michael +Wolgemut, where he suffered much from his fellow-'prentices. We must +not accompany him on his wanderjahre, these being the three years of +peregrination which always followed the years of apprenticeship. + +Neither may we record details, as of his marriage with Agnes Frey--"mein +Agnes," upon his return home in 1494. "His Agnes" was apparently a good +housewife and a shrewd business woman, to whom he afterwards largely +entrusted the sale of his prints. + +He had a great struggle for a living. And here an amusing analogy occurs +to me. Painting does not pay, he complains at one time, and therefore he +devotes himself to "black and white." + +Was it ever thus? Would that some of our own struggling artists +remembered Dürer, and even when they find themselves compelled to do +something to keep the pot aboiling, at any rate do their best. + +[Illustration: PLATE III.--PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST + +(From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich) + +This picture bears the date 1500 and a Latin inscription, "I, Albert +Dürer, of Nuremberg, painted my own portrait here in the proper colours, +at the age of twenty-eight." + +According to Thausing, this picture had a curious fate. The panel on +which it was painted was sawn in two by an engraver to whom it was lent, +and who affixed the back to his own poor copy of the picture--thus using +the seal of the Nuremberg magistrates, which was placed upon it, to +authenticate his copy as a genuine work of the master.] + +We have it on Dürer's own authority that he took up etching and +wood-engraving because it paid better. And strange--into this +bread-and-butter work he put his best. + +It is not his painting that made his fame and name, though in that +branch of Art he was admired by a Raphael and a Bellini. + +Agnes Frey bore him no children; this fact, I think, is worthy of note. +Even a cursory glance at Dürer's etchings and woodcuts will reveal the +fact that he was fond of children--"kinderlieb," as the Germans say. I +do not doubt that he would have given us even more joy and sunshine in +his Art had he but called a child his own. + +Instead, we have too often the gloomy reflection of death throughout his +work. The gambols and frolics of angelic cupids are too often obscured +by the symbols of suffering, sin, and death. + +Again, we must not allow a logical conclusion to be accepted as an +absolute truth. + +Dürer was certainly more familiar with death and suffering than we are. + +Unless the grey lady and the dark angel visit our own homes, most of +us--of my readers, at any rate--have to seek deliberately the faces of +sorrow in the slums and the grimaces of death in the Coroner's Court. +But in Dürer's days death lurked beyond the city walls; the sight of the +slain or swinging victims of knightly valour, and peasant's revenge, +blanched the cheeks of many maidens, and queer plagues and pestilences +mowed the most upright to the ground. The Dance of Death was a favourite +subject with the old painters, not because their disposition was morbid, +but because the times were more out of joint than they are now. + +All these points have to be realised before one can hope to understand +Dürer even faintly. Again, when we examine more closely the apparently +quaint and fantastic form his mode of visualising takes, we must make +allowances for the habits and customs and costumes of the times--as +indeed one has to, in the case of all old masters, and for which reason +I humbly submit that the study of old masters properly belongs to the +few, not the many. A great deal of erroneous opinions are held simply +because it is difficult to disentangle the individual from the typical. + +Dürer, whose wanderjahre had taken him to Strasburg and Bâle and Venice, +returned home again apparently uninfluenced. + +Critics from Raphael's age down to the last few years have lamented this +fact; have thought that "knowledge of classic antiquity" might have made +a better artist of him. + +Now, Dürer was not an artist in its wider sense; he was a craftsman +certainly, but above all a thinker. Dürer uses his eyes for the +purposes of thought; he could close them without disturbing the pageants +of his vision. But whereas we have no hint that his dreams were of +beauty, we have every indication that they were literal transcriptions +of literary thoughts. When he came to put these materialisations into +the form of pictures or prints, the craftsman side, the practical side +of his nature, resolved them into scientific problems, with the +remarkable result that these visions are hung on purely materialistic +facts. From our modern point of view Dürer was decidedly lacking in +artistic imagination, which even such men as Goya and Blake, or "si +parva licet comparere magnis" John Martin and Gustave Doré, and the +delightful Arthur Rackham of our own times possess. + +His importance was his craftsmanship, whilst the subject-matter of his +pictures--the portraits excepted--and particularly of his prints, are +merely of historic interest--"von kulturhistorischer Bedeutung," the +German would say. + +In 1506 and 1507 he visited Venice, as already stated, gracefully +received by the nobles and Giovanni Bellini, but disliked by the other +painters. + +He returned home apparently uninfluenced by the great Venetians, Titian, +remember, amongst them. Gentile Bellini and Vittore Carpaccio were then +the only painters at Venice who saw the realistic side of Nature; but +they were prosaic, whilst our Dürer imbued a wooden bench or a tree +trunk with a personal and human interest. Those of my readers who can +afford the time to linger on this aspect of Dürer's activity should +compare Carpaccio's rendering of St. Jerome in his study with Dürer's +engraving of the same subject. + +Dürer the craftsman referred in everything he painted or engraved to +Nature. But of course it was Nature as he and his times saw it; neither +Hals, Rembrandt, neither Ribera, Velazquez, neither Chardin nor +Constable, neither Monet nor Whistler had as yet begun to ascend the +rungs of progress towards truthful--that is, "optical sight." + +Dürer's reference to Nature means an intricate study of theoretical +considerations, coupled with the desire to record everything he knew +about the things he wished to reproduce. + +His was an analytical mind, and every piece of work he produced is a +careful dovetailing of isolated facts. Consequently his pictures must +not be looked _at_, but looked _into_--must be _read_. + +Again an obvious truth may here mislead us. The analytical juxtaposition +of facts was a characteristic of the age. Dürer's Art was a step +forward; he--like Raphael, like Titian--dovetailed, where earlier men +scarcely joined. Dürer has as yet not the power that even the next +generation began to acquire--he never suggests anything; he works +everything out, down to the minutest details. There are no slight +sketches of his but such as suggest great travail of sight, encumbranced +by an over-thoughtful mind. + +To understand Dürer you require time; each print of the "Passions," "The +Life of Mary," the "Apokalypse," should be read like a page printed in +smallest type, with thought and some eye-strain. That of course goes +very much against the grain of our own age; we demand large type and +short stories. + +The study of his work entails considerable self-sacrifice. Your own +likes and dislikes you have to suppress, and try to see with eyes +that belong to an age long since gone. Do not despise the less +self-sacrificing, who refuse the study of old Art; and distrust +profoundly those others who laud it beyond measure. The green tree is +the tree to water; the dead tree--be its black branches and sere leaves +never so picturesque--is beyond the need of your attentions. + +The Scylla and Charybdis of æsthetic reformers is praise of the old, and +poor appraising of the new. + +[Illustration: PLATE IV.--PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER'S FATHER + +(From the Oil-painting in the National Gallery. Painted in 1497) + +An interesting picture, which has unfortunately suffered by retouching. +It is the only portrait by Dürer the nation possesses. Other works of +his may be seen at South Kensington and at Hampton Court.] + +Now the old Italians thought Dürer a most admirable artist, blamed what +they called the defects of his Art on the ungainliness of his models, +and felt convinced that he might have easily been the first among the +Italians had he lived there, instead of the first among the "Flemings." +They were of course wrong, for it is the individual reflex-action of +Dürer's brain which caused his Art to be what it is; in Italy it would +still have been an individual reflex-action, and Dürer had been in +Venice without the desired effect. Dürer might, however, himself seem to +confirm the Italians' opinion: he strayed into the barren fields of +theoretical speculations--barren because some of his best work was done +before he had elaborated his system, barren because speculation saps the +strength of natural perception. Dürer sought a "Canon of Beauty," and +the history of Art has proved over and over again that beauty canonised +is damned. + +One more remark: his contemporaries and critics praised the +extraordinary technical skill with which he could draw straight lines +without the aid of a ruler, or the astounding legerdemain with which he +reproduced every single hair in a curl--the "Paganini" worship which +runs through all the ages; which in itself is fruitless; touches the +fiddle-strings at best or cerebral cords, not heart-strings. + +Out of all the foregoing, out of all the mortal and mouldering coverings +we have now to shell the real, the immortal Dürer--the Dürer whose mind +was longing for truth, whose soul was longing for harmony, and who out +of his longings fashioned his Art, as all great men have done and will +do until the last. + +On the title-page of the "Small Passion" is a woodcut--the "Man of +Sorrows." + +There, reader, you have, in my opinion, the greatness of Dürer; he never +surpassed it. It is the consciousness of man's impotence; it is the +saddest sight mortal eyes can behold--that of a man who has lost faith +in himself. + +If Dürer were here now I am sure he would lay his hand upon my shoulder, +and, his deep true eyes searching mine, his soft and human lips would +say:-- + +You are right, my friend; this is my best, for it is the spirit of my +age that spoke in me then. + +In front of the Pantheon at Paris is a statue called The Thinker. +A seated man, unconscious of his bodily strength, for all his +consciousness is in the iron grip of thought. He looks not up, not +down--he looks before him; and methinks, reader, I can hear an unborn +voice proclaim: + +This too was once the Spirit of an Age. Two milestones on the path of +human progress; an idle fancy if you will--no more. + +Of the Man of Sorrows then we spoke: It is a small thing, but done +exceeding well, for in the simplicity of form it embraces a world of +meaning; and whilst you cannot spare one iota from the words of the +Passion, on account of this picture, yet all the words of Christ's +suffering seem alive in this plain print. Could there be a better +frontispiece? + +In judging, not enjoying, a work of art, one should first make sure that +one understands the methods of the artist; one should next endeavour to +discover his evident purpose or aim, or "motif," and forming one's +judgment, ask: Has the artist succeeded in welding aim and result into +one organic whole? + +Neither the "motif" nor its form are in themselves of value, but the +harmony of both--hence we may place Dürer's "Man of Sorrows" by the side +of Michelangelo's "Moses," as of equal importance, of equal greatness. +This "Man of Sorrows" we must praise as immortal Art, and the reason is +evident; Dürer, who designed it during an illness, had himself suffered +and knew sorrow--_felt_ what he visualised. + +[Illustration: PLATE V.--PORTRAIT OF OSWALT KREL + +(From the Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Painted in 1499) + +A striking portrait; somewhat cramped in expression, but full of +interest. The trees in the background stamp it at once as a work of +German origin. Dürer's attempt to portray more than the flesh is +particularly noticeable here, because not quite successful.] + +If we compare another woodcut, viz. the one from "Die heimliche +Offenbarung Johannis," illustrating Revelations i. 12-17, we will have +to draw a different conclusion. Let us listen to the passage Dürer set +himself to illustrate: + + 12. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being + turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; + + 13. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the + Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and + girt about the paps with a golden girdle. + + 14. His head and hairs white like wool, as white as snow; and + his eyes as a flame of fire; + + 15. And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a + furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. + + 16. And he had in his right hand many stars: and out of his + mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance + was as the sun shineth in his strength. + + 17. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. + +Assuming that a passage such as this _can_ be illustrated, and that +without the use of colour, is his a good illustration? Does it reproduce +the spirit and meaning of St. John, or only the words? Look at the +two-edged sword glued to the mouth, look at the eyes "as a flame of +fire"; can you admit more than that it pretends to be a literal +translation? But it is not even literal; verse 17 says distinctly, "And +when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead." But St. John is here +represented as one praying. Then what is the inference? That Dürer was +unimaginative in the higher sense of the word; that he, like the Spirit +of the Reformation, sought salvation in the WORD. Throughout Dürer's Art +we feel that it was constrained, hampered by his inordinate love of +literal truthfulness; not one of his works ever rises even to the level +of Raphael's "Madonna della Seggiola." Like German philosophy, his works +are so carefully elaborated in detail that the glorious whole is lost in +more or less warring details. His Art suffers from insubordination--all +facts are co-ordinated. He himself knew it, and towards the end of this +life hated its complexity, caused by the desire to represent in one +picture the successive development of the spoken or written word; a +desire which even in our days has not completely disappeared. + +Dürer therefore appeals to us of to-day more through such conceptions as +the wings of the Paumgaertner altar-piece, or the four Temperaments (St. +Peter, St. John, St. Mark, and St. Paul), than through the crowded +centre panels of his altar-pieces; and the strong appeal of his +engravings, such as the "Knight of the Reformation" (1513) or the +"Melancholia" (1514), is mainly owing to the predominant big note of the +principal figures, whilst in the beautiful St. Jerome ("Hieronymus im +Gehäus") it is the effect of sunshine and its concomitant feeling of +well-being--_Gemüthlichkeit_, to use an untranslatable German +word--which makes us linger and dwell with growing delight on every +detail of this wonderful print. + +In spite of appearances to the contrary, Dürer was, as I have said, +unimaginative. He needed the written word or another's idea as a +guide; he never dreamt of an Art that could be beautiful without a +"mission"--he never "created." Try to realise for a moment that +throughout his work--in accordance with the conception of his age--he +mixes purely modern dress with biblical and classical representation, as +if our Leightons, Tademas, Poynters, were to introduce crinolines, +bustles, or "empire" gowns amongst Venuses and Apollos. In the pathetic +"Deposition from the Cross" the Magdalen is just a "modern" Nuremberg +damsel, and the Virgin's headwrap is slung as the northern housewife +wore it, and not like an Oriental woman's; Joseph of Arimathea and +Nicodemus are clad as Nuremberg burghers, and only in the figure of John +does he make concession to the traditional "classic" garment. Such an +anachronistic medley could only appear logical so long as the religious +spirit and the convictions of the majority were at one. I dare scarcely +hint at, much less describe, the feelings that would be stirred in you +if a modern painter represented the Crucifixion with Nicodemus and the +man from Arimathea in frock-coats, Mary and the Magdalen in "walking +costume," and a company of Horse-guards in attendance. The abyss of over +four centuries divides us from Dürer; my suggestion sounds blasphemous +almost, yet it is a thought based on fact and worthy of most careful +note. + +Owing to a convention--then active, now defunct--Dürer grasped the hands +of all the living, bade them stop and think. Not one of those who beheld +his work could pass by without feeling a call of sympathy and +understanding. "Everyman" Dürer!--that is his grandeur. To this the +artists added their appreciation; what he did was not only _truly_ done, +but on the testimony of all his brothers in Art _well_ done. So with +graver, pen, and brush he gave his world the outlines of Belief. In his +pictures the illiterate saw, as by revelation, that which they could not +read, and the literate, the literati--Erasmus, Pirkheimer, Melanchthon +amongst the most prominent--saw the excellence of the manner of his +revelations. + +I cannot think of any better way of explaining the effect of Dürer's Art +as an illustrator upon his time, than to beg you to imagine the delight +a short-sighted man experiences when he is given his first pair of +spectacles. Everything remains where it is; he has not lost his sense of +orientation, but on a sudden he sees everything more clearly, more +defined, more in detail: and where he previously had only recognised +vague effects he begins to see their causes. Such was the effect of +Dürer's Art: features, arms, hands, bodies, legs, feet, draperies, +accessories, tree-trunks and foliage, vistas, radiance and light, not +suggested but present, truly realised. When I say Dürer was not +imaginative I mean to convey that imagination was characteristic of the +age, not of him alone, but the materialisation, the realisation of +fancy, that is his strength. + +All these considerations can find, unfortunately, no room for discussion +in these pages, for it were tedious to refer the reader to examples +which are not illustrated. + +We must perforce accept the limitations of our programme, and devote our +attention to his paintings--far the least significant part of his +activity. + +Dürer was the great master of line--he thinks in line. This line is +firstly the outline or contour in its everyday meaning; secondly, it is +the massed army of lines that go to make shadow; thirdly, it is line in +its psychical aspect, as denoting direction, aim, tendency, such as we +have it in the print of the "Melancholia." No one before him had ever +performed such wonderful feats with "line," not even Mantegna with his +vigorous but repellent parallels. + +This line was the greatest obstacle to his becoming a successful +painter. For his line was not the great sweep, not the graceful flow, +not the spontaneous dash, not the slight touch, but the heavy, +determined, reasoned move, as of a master-hand in a game of chess. + +To him, consequently, the world and his Art were problems, not joys. + +Consider one of his early works--the portrait of his father, the honest, +God-fearing, struggling goldsmith. The colour of this work is +monotonous, a sort of gold-russet. It might almost be a monochrome, for +the interest is centred in the wrinkles and lines of care and old age +with which Father Time had furrowed the skin of the old man, and which +Dürer has imitated with the determination of a ploughshare cleaving the +glebe. + +[Illustration: PLATE VI.--THE MADONNA WITH THE SISKIN + +(From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum. Painted about 1506) + +Although this picture shows that it was painted under Venetian +influence, it betrays the unrest of Dürer's mind, which makes nearly all +his work pleasanter to look _into_ than to look _at_. Dürer's works +generally should be _read_]. + +When we come to his subject pictures, we will have to notice at once +that they have been constructed, not felt. It has been remarked that +Dürer did for northern Art, or at least attempted, what Leonardo did for +Italian Art, viz., converted empirical Art into a theoretical science. +Whether such conversion was not in reality a perversion, is a question +that cannot be discussed here. We have, at any rate, in Dürer a curious +example of an artist referring to Nature in order to discard it; the +idealist become realist in order to further his idealism. Most of his +pictures contain statements of pictorial facts which are in themselves +most true, but taken in conjunction with the whole picture quite untrue. +Dürer lacked the courage to trust his sense of sight, his optic organ: +beauty with him is a thing which must be thought out, not seen. Dürer +had come into direct contact with Italian Art, had felt himself a +gentleman in Venice, and only a "parasite" in Nuremberg. From Italy he +imported a conception of beauty which really was quite foreign to him. +Italy sowed dissension in his mind, for he was ever after bent on +finding a formula of beauty, which he could have dispensed with had he +remained the simple painter as we know him in his early self-portrait of +1493. There can be no doubt that Dürer was principally looking towards +Italy for approval, as indeed he had little reason to cherish the +opinions of the painters in his own country, who were so greatly his +inferiors both in mind as in their Art. + +Much has been made of the fact that painting was a "free" Art, not a +"Guild" in Nuremberg. Now carpentering was also a "free" Art at +Nuremberg, and painting was not "free" in Italy, so the glory of freedom +is somewhat discounted; but whatever Art was, Dürer, at any rate, was +not an artist in Raphael's, Bellini's, or Titian's sense. He was +pre-eminently a thinker, a moralist, a scientist, a searcher after +absolute truth, seeking expression in Art. Once this is realised his +pictures make wonderfully good reading. + +The "Deposition," for example, is full of interest. The dead Christ, +whose still open lips have not long since uttered "Into Thy hands, O +Lord," is being gently laid on the ground, His poor pierced feet rigid, +the muscles of His legs stiff as in a cramp. The Magdalen holds the +right hand of the beloved body, and the stricken mother of Christ is +represented in a manner almost worthy of the classic Niobe. Wonderfully +expressive, too, are all the hands in this picture. Dürer found +never-ending interest in the expressiveness of the hand. But if we were +to seek in his colour any beauty other than intensity, we should be +disappointed, as we should for the matter of that in any picture +painted before the advent of Titian. + +Again that monster Ignorance stirs. For as I speak of colour, as I +dogmatise on Titian, I am aware that colour may mean so many different +things, and any one who wished to contradict me would be justified in +doing so, not because I am wrong and he is right, but because of my +difficulty in explaining colour, and his natural wish to aim at my +vulnerable spot. Because I am well-nigh daily breaking bread with +painters who unconsciously reveal the workings of their mind to me, I +know that all the glibly used technical terms of their Art are as fixed +as the colour of a chameleon. Different temperaments take on different +hues. There is colour in Van Eyck and Crivelli, in Bellini and +Botticelli, but deliberate colour harmonies, though arbitrary in choice, +belong to Titian. + +Dürer is no colourist, because, as we have already said, painting was +the problem, not the joy of expression--in that he is Mantegna's equal, +and Beato Angelico's inferior. + +Thus looking on the "Madonna mit dem Zeisig" at Berlin, we may realise +its beauty with difficulty. For whatever it may have been to his +contemporaries, to us it means little, by the side of the splendid +Madonnas from Italy, or even compared with his own engraved work. + +This "Madonna with the Siskin" is a typical Dürer. In midst of the +attempted Italian repose and "beauty" of the principal figures, we have +the vacillating, oscillating profusion of Gothic detail. The fair hair +of the Madonna drawn tightly round the head reappears in a gothic mass +of crimped curls spread over her right shoulder. On her left hangs a +piece of ribbon knotted and twisted. The cushion on which the infant +Saviour sits is slashed, laced, and tassled. The Infant holds a prosaic +"schnuller" or baby-soother in His right hand, whilst the siskin is +perched on the top of His raised forearm. Of the wreath-bearing angels, +one displays an almost bald head, and the background is full of unrest. +Even the little label bearing the artist's name, by which old masters +were wont to mark their pictures, and which in Bellini's case, for +instance, appears plain and flatly fixed, bends up, like the little +films of gelatine, which by their movements are thought to betray the +holder's temperament. + +One of the tests of great Art is its appearance of inevitableness: in +that the artist vies with the creator: + + "The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, + Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit + Shall lure it back to cancel half a line." + +There are a good many "lines" in the "Siskin" Madonna which bear +cancelling: not one in the Madonna of the title-page of the +"Marieenleben," which for that reason is a work of greater Art. + +The fact is, that whilst his engraved and black and white work reaches +at times monumental height, great in _saecula saeculorum_, there are too +few of his painted pictures that have the power to arrest the attention +of the student of Art, who must not be confounded with the student of +Art-history. + +As a painter he is essentially a primitive; as a graver he overshadows +all ages. + +Thus we see his great pictures one after the other: his Paumgaertner +altar-piece, his "Deposition"--both in Munich; "The Adoration of the +Magi" in the Uffizi; the much damaged but probably justly famed +"Rosenkranz fest" in Prague, with his own portrait and that of his +friend Pirckheimer in the background, and Emperor Max and Pope Julius +II. in the foreground; the Dresden altar-piece, or the "Crucifixion," +with the soft body of the crucified Christ and the weirdly fluttering +loin-cloth; the strangely grotesque "Christ as a Boy in the Temple" in +the Barberini Palace; the "Adam and Eve"; the "Martyrdom of the 10,000 +Christians"--thus, I say, we see them one after the other pass before +us, and are almost unmoved. + +[Illustration: PLATE VII.--SS. JOHN AND PETER + +(From an Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Finished in 1526) + +This, with the "SS. Paul and Mark," originally formed one picture, and +was painted for the Council of his beloved city, Nuremberg, as a gift, +two years before his death. Dürer had inscribed lengthy quotations from +the Bible below the picture; these quotations, proving the militant +fervour of his Protestant faith, were subsequently removed on that +account. Dürer's works were always more than works of _Art_.] + +True, the Paumgaertner altar-piece has stirred us on account of the +wing-pictures, but there is good reason for that, and we will revert to +this reason later. The "Adoration of the Magi" seems reminiscent of +Venetian influence. Not until we reach the year 1511 do we encounter a +work that must arrest the attention of even the most indolent: it is the +"Adoration of the Holy Trinity," or the All Saints altar-piece, painted +for Matthew Landauer, whom we recognise, having seen Dürer's drawing of +his features, in the man with the long nose on the left of the +picture. This picture is without a doubt the finest, the greatest altar +picture ever painted by any German. It is not by any means a large +picture, measuring only 4 ft. 3 in. × 3 ft. 10-3/4 in., but it is so +large in conception that it might well have been designed to cover a +whole wall. Dürer has here surpassed himself; he has for once conceived +with the exuberance of a Michelangelo, for it is more serious than a +Raphael, it is less poetic than a Fra Angelico: but personally I state +my conviction, that if ever all the Saints shall unite in adoration of +the Trinity, this is the true and only possibility, this is instinct +with verisimilitude, this might be taken for "documentary evidence." +This communion of saints was beholden by man. If ever a man was a +believer irrespective of Church, Creed, or sect--Dürer was he. I confess +to a sense of awe in beholding this work, akin to Fra Angelico in its +sincerity, akin to Michelangelo in its grandeur, and German wholly in +the naturalness of its mystery. With more than photographic sharpness +and minuteness of detail does Dürer materialise the vision: God-Father, +an aged King--a Charlemagne; God-Son, the willing sufferer; the Holy +Ghost, the dove of Sancgrael; the Heavenly Hosts above; the Saints +beside and below--Saints that have lived and suffered, and are now +assembled in praise--for the crowd is a living, praying, praising, and +jubilant crowd. + +Well might the creator of this masterpiece portray himself, and proudly +state on the tablet he is holding: + + Albertus Dürer Noricus faciebat. + +This picture is not a vision--it is the statement of a dogmatic truth; +as such it is painted with all the subtlety of doctrinal reasoning; not +a romantic vision, nor a human truth, such as we find in Rembrandt's +religious works. It is a ceremonial picture, only the ceremony is full, +not empty; full of conviction, reverence, and faith! Such pictures are +rare amongst Italians--in spite of all their sense of beauty; more +frequent amongst the trans-alpine peoples, but never built in so much +harmony. Unfortunately it has suffered, and is no longer in its pristine +condition; it were fruitless therefore to discuss the merits of its +colour. + +Mindful of my intention only to pick up a jewel here and there, I will +not weary the reader with the enumeration of his altar-pieces, +Nativities, Entombments, Piétàs and Madonnas. I can do this with an easy +mind, because in my opinion (and you, reader, have contracted by +purchase to accept my guidance) his religious paintings are of +historical rather than Art interest. + +The "Adams and Eves" of the Uffizi and the Prado cannot rouse my +enthusiasm either. In these pictures Dürer makes an attempt to create +something akin to Dr. Zamenhof's Esperanto; a universal standard for the +language of Art in the one case, of Life in the other: and in either +case this language, laboriously and admirably constructed but lacking in +vitality, leaves the heart untouched. Dürer's attempts to paint a +classical subject, such as Hercules slaying the Stymphalian birds, are +unsatisfying. I cannot see any beauty of conception in a timid and +illogical mixture of realism and phantasy--it is not whole-hearted +enough. Even Rembrandt's ridiculous "Rape of Ganymede" has reason and +Art on his side. Imagination was not Dürer's "forte"; it is therefore +with all the greater pleasure that we turn to his portraits. + +Portraits are always more satisfactory than subject pictures, a fact +which is particularly noticeable to-day. There are scores of painters +whose portrait-painting is considerably more impressive than their +subject-painting--not because portrait-painting is less difficult, but +because it is more difficult to detect the weaknesses of painting in a +portrait. + +From the early Goethe-praised self portrait of 1493 down to the +wonderful portraits of 1526 there are but few that are not rare works of +Art, and of the few quite a goodly proportion may not be genuine at all. + +Dürer's ego loomed large in his consciousness, and therefore, unlike +Rembrandt (who also painted his own likeness time and again, though only +for practice), Dürer was really proud of his person--as to be sure he +had reason to be. + +The portrait of 1493 shows us the young Dürer, who was in all +probability betrothed to his "Agnes"; he is holding the emblem of +Fidelity--Man's Troth as it is called in German--which on Goethe's +authority I may explain is "Eryngo," or _anglice_ Sea-holly, in his +hand. + +Five years later this same Dürer, having probably returned from Venice, +appears in splendid array, a true gentleman, gloved, and his naturally +wavy hair crisply crimped, clad in a most fantastic costume. + +As his greatest portrait the Munich one, dated 1500, has always been +acclaimed. His features here bear a striking resemblance to the +traditional face of Christ, and no doubt the resemblance was +intentional. The nose, characterised in other pictures by the strongly +raised bridge, loses this disfigurement in its frontal aspect. There is +an almost uncanny expression of life in his eyes; dark ages of Byzantine +belief and Art spring to the mind, and compel the spectator into an +attitude of reverence not wholly due to the merits of the painting. + +The comparison with Holbein's work naturally obtrudes itself, when +Dürer's portraits are the subject of discussion. + +In the Wallace collection is a most delightful little miniature portrait +of Holbein, by his own hand. Compare the two heads. What a difference! +Holbein the craftsman _par excellence_; the man to whom drawing came as +easily as seeing comes to us. With shrewd, cold, weighing eyes he sizes +himself up in the mirror. He, too, is a man of knowledge; he does his +work faithfully and exceedingly well, but leaves it there. He never +moralises, draws no conclusions, infers nothing, states merely +facts--and if the truth must be said, is the greater craftsman. + +Dürer's mind was deeper; one might say the springs of his talent welling +upwards had to break through strata of cross-lying thought, reaching his +hand after much tribulation, and teaching it to set down all he knew. + +So the Paumgaertner portraits, at one time supposed to represent Ulrich +von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen--the Reformation knights--show a +marvellous grasp of character, wholly astonishing in the unconventional +attitude, whilst the portrait of his aged master, Michael Wohlgemut, +overstates in its anxiety not to understate. + +His portrait of Kaiser Maximilian, quiet, dignified, is yet somewhat +small in conception. + +Two years later, however, he painted a portrait now in the Prado, +representing presumably the Nuremberg patrician, Hans Imhof the Elder. + +Purely technically considered this picture appears to be immeasurably +above his own portrait of 1500, and above any other excepting the +marvellous works of 1526. Whoever this Hans Imhof was, Dürer has laid +bare his very soul. These later portraits show that Dürer stood on +the threshold of the modern world. + +[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--SS. PAUL AND MARK + +(From an Oil-painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Finished in 1526) + +See Note preceding Plate VII.] + +Hieronymus Holzschuer is another of Dürer's strikingly successful +efforts to portray both form and mind, and although the colour of the +man's face is of a conventional pink, yet the pale blue background, the +white hair, the pink flesh, and the glaring eyes stamp themselves +indelibly on the mind of the beholder, much to the detriment of the +other picture in the Berlin Gallery, Jacob Muffel. Jacob Muffel, +contrary to Jerome Holzschuer, looks a miser, a hypocrite, and the more +unpleasant, as he does not by any means look a fool. But Dürer's +craftsmanship here exceeds that of the Holzschuer portrait, whom we love +for the sake of his display of white hair and flaming eyes. The enigma +to me is how a man who had painted the three last portraits mentioned, +could have fallen to the level of the "Madonna with the Apple" of the +same year. + +The finest portrait under his name is the "Portrait of a Woman" at +Berlin. This indeed is a brilliant piece of portraiture, absolutely +modern in feeling, exceeding Holbein; and unless my eyes, which have not +rested upon its surface for over ten years, deceive me, it is quite +unlike any portrait painted by him before--the nearest perhaps being the +man's portrait at Munich of 1507. The picture is supposed to show +Venetian influence, and might therefore belong to this epoch; but, to my +thinking, documentary evidence alone could make this picture in its not +Dürer-like mode of seeing an undoubted work from his hand. + +Space forbids further enumeration, further discussion of his work. As to +details of his biography the reader will find in almost every library +some reliable records of his life, and several inexpensive books have +also appeared of recent years. + +Dürer's life was in reality uneventful. He died suddenly on April 6, +1528, in Nuremberg, having in all probability laid the foundations of +his illness on his celebrated journey into Flanders in 1520-21, where he +was fêted everywhere, and right royally received both by the civic +authorities and his own brothers of the palette. + +His stay at Venice as a young man, and this last-mentioned journey, were +the greatest adventures of his body. His mind was ever adventurous, +seeking new problems, overcoming new difficulties. It is so tempting to +liken him to his own "Jerome in his Study," yet St. Jerome's life was +the very antithesis of our Dürer. In Dürer there was nothing of the +"Faust-Natur," as the Germans are fond of expressing an ill-balanced, +all-probing mind. Dürer's moral equilibrium was upheld by his deep and +sincere religious convictions. He is firmly convinced that God has no +more to say to humanity than the Bible records. Dürer's difficulties +end where Faust's began. + +The last years of Dürer's life were spent in composing books on the +theory and practice of Art. + +To write an adequate "Life of Dürer" then is impossible in so small a +compass. And if anything I said were wise, it were surely the fact that +I wanted you, reader, in the very beginning to expect no more than a dim +light on the treasure store of Dürer's Thought and Dürer's Art. + +But however dim the light, I hope it has been a true light. + +And here my conscience smites me! All along I may have appeared +querulous, seeking to divulge Dürer's limitations rather than his +excellences. + +Perhaps! There are so many misconceptions about Dürer. He was a +deep-thinking man; he was like the churches of the North--narrow, steep, +dimly religious within, full of traceries, lacework, gargoyles, and +grotesques without. + +I have read that it used to be said in Italy: All the cities of Germany +were blind, with the exception of Nuremberg, which was one-eyed. True! +True also of Dürer and German Art. + +In 1526, two years before his death, Dürer presented a panel to his +native city, now cut in two, robbed of its Protestant inscription, and +hanging in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. Dürer's last great work! + +It is as though he felt that the divine service of his life was drawing +to its close. His life and Art I have likened to a Gothic Cathedral; his +last works were as the closed wings of a gigantic altar-piece, before +which he leaves posterity gazing overawed. + +The life-size figures of this great work represent the four Apostles: +St. John in flaming red, with St. Peter, St. Mark in white, with St. +Paul. + +Dürer's greatest work: here for once his mind and his hand were at one. + +Menacing, colossal in conception these figures rise, simple with the +simplicity Dürer aimed for, and at last attained; Byzantine in their +awe-inspiring grandeur. But instead of the splendour of Byzantine gold +he places his figures upon a jet-black ground, as if he wished to instil +the knowledge that there is no light except that which the four Apostles +reflect. He had said as much indeed himself years ago. These four +figures, "painted with greater care than any other," are his artistic +last will and testament. In the letter, by which he humbly begs +acceptance of these pictures from the Council, he quotes the words of +the four Apostles, which his pictures illustrate, viz:-- + +St. Peter, in his second epistle in the second chapter. + +St. John, in the first epistle in the fourth chapter. + +St. Paul, in the second epistle to Timothy in the third chapter. + +St. Mark, in his Gospel in the twelfth chapter. + +Read them and behold: The Book and the sword! The religion of love in +Saracenic fierceness. The menacing guardians of the Word. + +Dürer with finality excludes the faithless from all hope. It is this +finality, this absolute faith in the Word, this firm conviction of the +finiteness of all things, which characterise the whole of his Art. The +spirit which brooks no uncertainty and suffers no metaphor, glues a +veritable sword to the lips of the "Son of man." + +This finality is the cause of Dürer's isolation. He has no followers in +the world of creative _Art_. Close the doors of Dürer's cathedral and +the world rolls on, rolls by unheeding. + +After Dürer and Luther had gone--Luther, on whose behalf Dürer uttered +so touching a prayer--Germany, the holy empire, fell upon evil times. +After the death of Maximilian the fields of the cloth of gold and the +fields of golden harvest were turned into rude jousting places of ruder +rabble. The hand of time was set back for centuries. + +We have a shrewd suspicion that Carlyle's German, with his cowhorn +blasts, did not tell the universe "what o'clock it really is." We have a +shrewd suspicion that in the beginning of last century the clocks in +Germany had only just begun ticking after centuries of rest. + +I am straying, reader. + +What was it that Dürer had inscribed on the Apostle Panels? + + "All worldly rulers in these times of danger should beware that + they receive not false Teaching for the Word of God. For God + will have nothing added to His Word nor yet taken away. Hear, + therefore, these four excellent men, Peter, John, Paul, and + Mark, their warning." + +The narrow outlook of his time speaks here! + +For words which bear addition or suffer subtraction, can never be the +words of God. + +God's words are worlds. Our words are stammerings, scarcely articulate. + +Reader! look you, my torch burns dimly; let us back unto the day. + + + The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., London and Derby + The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41734 *** |