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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
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+Title: Albert Durer
+
+Author: T. Sturge Moore
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9837]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 23, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALBERT DURER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steve Schulze and PG Distributed Proofreaders.
+Page images generously provided by the CWRU Preservation
+Department Digital Library.
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+[Transcriber's note: The printing errors of the original have been
+retained in this etext.]
+
+
+
+ALBERT DUeRER
+
+BY
+
+T. STURGE MOORE
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+When the late Mr. Arthur Strong asked me to undertake the present
+volume, I pointed out to him that, to fulfil the advertised programme of
+the Series he was editing, was more than could be hoped from my
+attainments. He replied, that in the case of Duerer a book, fulfilling
+that programme, was not called for, and that what he wished me to
+attempt, was an appreciation of this great artist in relation to general
+ideas. I had hoped to benefit very largely by my editor's advice and
+supervision, but this his illness and death prevented. His great gifts
+and brilliant accomplishments, already darkened and distressed by
+disease, were all too soon to be utterly quenched; and I can but here
+express, not only my sense of personal loss in the hopes which his
+friendly welcome and generous intercourse had created and which have
+been so cruelly dashed by the event, but also that of the void which his
+disappearance has left in the too thin ranks of those who, filled with
+reverence and enthusiasm for the great traditions of the past, seem
+nevertheless eager and capable of grappling with the unwieldy present.
+Let and restricted had been the recognition of his maturing worth, and
+now we must do without both him and the impetus of his so nearly
+assured success.
+
+The present volume, then, is not the result of new research; nor is it
+an abstract resuming historical and critical discoveries on its subject
+up to date. Of this latter there are several already before the British
+public; the former, as I said, it was not for me to attempt. Nor do I
+feel my book to be altogether even what it was intended to be; but am
+conscious that too much space has been given to the enumeration of
+Duerer's principal works and the events of his life without either being
+made exhaustive. Still, I hope that even these parts may be found
+profitable by those who are not already familiar with the subjects with
+which they deal. To those for whom these subjects are well known, I
+should like to point out that Parts I. and IV. and very much of Part
+III. embody my chief intention; that chapter 1 of Part I. finds a
+further illustration in division iii. of chapter 4, Part II.; and that
+division vi., chapter 1, Part II., should be taken as prefatory to
+chapter 1, Part IV.
+
+Should exception be taken to the works chosen as illustrations, I would
+explain that the means of reproduction, the degree of reduction
+necessitated by the size of the page, and other outside considerations,
+have severely limited my choice. It is entirely owing to the extreme
+kindness of the Duerer Society--more especially of its courteous and
+enthusiastic secretaries, Mr. Campbell Dodgson and Mr. Peartree--that
+four copper-plates have so greatly enhanced the adequacy of the volume
+in this respect.
+
+I have gratefully to acknowledge Sir Martin Conway's kindness in
+permitting me to quote so liberally from his "Literary Remains of
+Albrecht Duerer," by far the best book on this great artist known to me.
+Mr. Charles Eaton's translation of Thausing's "Life of Duerer," the
+"Portfolios of the Duerer Society," and Dr. Lippmanb "Drawings of
+Albrecht Duerer," are the only other works on my subject to which I feel
+bound to acknowledge my indebtedness. Lastly, I must express deep
+gratitude to my learned friend, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, for having so
+generously consented, by reading the proofs, to mitigate my defect in
+scholarship.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PREFACE
+
+PART I
+
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE
+COMPREHENSION OF DUeRER'S LIFE AND ART
+
+  I. THE IDEA OF PROPORTION
+  II THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
+
+PART II
+
+DUeRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES
+IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+  I. DUeRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION
+  II. THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED
+  III. DUeRER AT VENICE
+  IV. HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
+  V. DUeRER, LUTHER, AND THE HUMANISTS
+  VI. DUeRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS
+  VII. DUeRER'S LAST YEARS
+
+PART III
+
+DUeRER AS A CREATOR
+
+  I. DUeRER'S PICTURES
+  II. DUeRER'S PORTRAITS
+  III. DUeRER'S DRAWINGS
+  IV. DUeRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS
+  V. DUeRER'S WOODCUTS
+  VI. DUeRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES
+
+PART IV
+
+DUeRER'S IDEAS
+
+  I. THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE
+  II. THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY
+  III. THE LAST TRADITION
+  IV. BEAUTY
+  V. NATURE
+  VI. THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST
+  VII. TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
+  VIII. IN CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Apollo and Diana, Metal Engraving
+Water-colour drawing of a Hare
+Pilate Washing his Hands. Metal Engraving
+Agnes Frey
+"Mein Angnes"
+Wilibald Pirkheimer
+Hans Burgkmair
+Adoration of the Trinity
+St. Christopher
+Assumption of the Magdalen
+Duerer's Mother
+Maximilian
+Frederick the Wise
+Silver-point Portrait
+Erasmus
+Drawing of a Lion
+Lucas van der Leyden
+Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate. Metal Engraving
+St. George and St. Eustache
+Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Saints
+Road to Calvary
+Portrait of Duerer
+Portrait of Duerer
+Albert Duerer the Elder
+Gswolt Krel
+Portrait at Hampton Court
+Portrait of a Lady
+Michel Wolgemuth
+Hans Imhof
+"Jakob Muffel"
+Study of a Hound
+Memento Mei
+Silver-point Portrait
+Portrait in Black Chalk
+Cherub for a Crucifixion
+Apollo and Diana
+An Old Castle
+Melancholia
+Detail from "The Agony in the Garden"
+Angel with Sudarium
+The Small Horse
+The Great Fortune, or Nemesis
+Silver-point Drawing
+St. Michael and the Dragon
+Detail from "The Meeting at the Golden Gate"
+Detail from "The Nativity"
+Duerer's Armorial Bearings
+Christ haled before Annas
+The Last Supper
+Saint Antony, Metal Engraving
+"In the Eighteenth Year"
+"Una Vilana Wendisch"
+Charcoal Drawing
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE COMPREHENSION OF DUeRER'S LIFE
+AND ART
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE IDEA OF PROPORTION
+
+
+I
+
+Ich hab vernomen wie der siben weysen aus kriechenland ainer gelert hab
+das dymass in allen dingen sitlichen und naturlichen das pest sey.
+
+DUeRER, British Museum MS., vol. iv., 82a.
+
+I have heard how one of the Seven Sages of Greece taught that measure is
+in all things, physical and moral, best.
+
+La souveraine habilete consiste a bien connaitre le prix des choses. LA
+ROCHEFOUCAULD, III. 252.
+
+Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the value of
+things.
+
+The attempt that the last quarter century has witnessed, to introduce
+the methods of science into the criticism of works of art, has tended,
+it seems to me, to put the question of their value into the background.
+The easily scandalous inquiries, "Who?" "When?" "Where?" have assumed an
+impertinent predominance. When I hear people very decidedly asserting
+that such a picture was painted by such an one, not generally supposed
+to be the author, at such a time, &c. &c., I often feel uneasy in the
+same way as one does on being addressed in a loud voice in a church or a
+picture gallery, where other persons are absorbed in an acknowledged and
+respected contemplation or study. I feel inclined to blush and whisper,
+for fear of being supposed to know the speaker too well. It is an
+awkward moment with me, for I am in fact very good friends with many
+such persons. "Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the
+value of things"--not their commercial value only, though that is
+sovereign skill on the Exchange, but their value for those whose chief
+riches are within them. The value of works of art is an intimate
+experience, and cannot be estimated by the methods of exact science as
+the weight of a planet can. There are and have been forgeries that are
+more beautiful, therefore more valuable, than genuine specimens of the
+class of work which they figure as. I feel that the specialist, with his
+special measure and point of view, often endangers the fair name and
+good repute of the real estimate; and that nothing but the dominion and
+diffusion of general ideas can defend us against the specialist and keep
+the specialist from being carried away by bad habits resulting from his
+devotion to a single inquiry.
+
+There was one general idea, of the greatest importance in determining
+the true value of things, which preoccupied Duerer's mind and haunted his
+imagination: the idea of proportion. I propose therefore to attempt to
+make clear to myself and my readers what the idea of proportion really
+implies, and of what service a sense for proportion really is; secondly,
+to determine the special use of the term in relation to the appreciation
+of works of art; thirdly, in relation to their internal
+structure;--before proceeding to the special studies of Duerer as a man
+and an artist.
+
+
+II
+
+I conceive the human reason to be the antagonist of all known forces
+other than itself, and that therefore its most essential character is
+the hope and desire to control and transform the universe; or, failing
+that, to annihilate, if not the universe, at least itself and the
+consciousness of a monster fact which it entirely condemns. In this
+conception I believe myself to be at one with those by whom men have
+been most influenced, and who, with or without confidence in the support
+of unknown powers, have set themselves deliberately against the face of
+things to die or conquer. This being so, and man individually weak, it
+has been the avowed object of great characters--carrying with them the
+instinctive consent of nations--to establish current values for all
+things, according as their imagination could turn them to account as
+effective aids of reason: that is, as they could be made to advance her
+apparent empire over other elemental forces, such as motion, physical
+life, &c. This evaluation, in so far as it is constant, results in what
+we call civilisation, and is the only bond of society. With difficulty
+is the value of new acquisitions recognised even in the realm of
+science, until the imagination can place them in such a light as shall
+make them appear to advance reason's ends, which accounts for the
+reluctance that has been shown to accept many scientific results. Reason
+demands that the world she would create shall be a fact, and declares
+that the world she would transform is the real world, but until the
+imagination can find a function for it in reason's ideal realm, every
+piece of knowledge remains useless, or even an obstacle in the way of
+our intended advance. This applies to individuals just as truly as it
+does to mankind. And since man's reason is a natural phenomenon and does
+apparently belong to the class of elemental forces, this warfare against
+the apparent fact, and the fortitude and hope which its whole-hearted
+prosecution begets, appear as a natural law to the intelligence and as a
+command and promise to the reason.
+
+The alternative between the will to cease and the will to serve reason,
+with which I start out, may not seem necessary to all. "Forgive their
+sin--and if not, blot me I pray thee out of thy book," was Moses'
+prayer; and to me it seems that only by lethargy can any soul escape
+from facing this alternative. The human mind in so far as it is active
+always postulates, "Let that which I desire come to pass, or let me
+cease!" Nor is there any diversity possible as to what really is
+desirable: Man desires the full and harmonious development of his
+faculties. As to how this end may most probably be attained, there is
+diversity enough to represent every possible blend of ignorance with
+knowledge, of lethargy with energy, of cowardice with courage.
+
+"So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men, whether considered in
+their persons or their states, that they will grasp at all, and can form
+no scheme of perfect happiness with less."[1] So writes the most
+powerful of English prose-writers. And this hope and desire, which is
+reason, once thrown down, the most powerful among poets has brought from
+human lips this estimate of life--
+
+  "It is a tale
+Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
+Signifying nothing."
+
+No one knows whether reason's object will or can be attained; but for
+the present each man finds confidence and encouragement in so far as he
+is able to imagine all things working together for the good of those who
+desire good--in short, for "reasonable beings."[2] The more he knows,
+the greater labour it is for him to imagine this; but the more he
+concentrates his faculties on doing good and creating good things, the
+more his imagination glows and shines and discovers to him new
+possibilities of success: the better he is able to find--
+
+  "Sermons in stones and good in everything;"
+    "And make a moral of the devil himself."
+
+But how is it that reason can accept an imagination that makes what in a
+cold light she considers her enemy, appear her friend? All things
+impress the mind with two contradictory notions--their actual condition
+and their perfection. Even the worst of its kind impresses on us an idea
+of what the best would be, or we could not know it for the worst.
+Reason, then, seizes on this aspect of things which suggests their
+perfection, and awards them her attention in proportion as such aspect
+makes their perfection seem near, or as it may further her in
+transforming the most pressing of other evils. All life tends to affirm
+its own character; and the essential characteristic of man is reason,
+which labours to perfect all things that he judges to be good, and to
+transform all evil. Ultimate results are out of sight for all human
+faculties except the early-waking eyes of long-chastened hope; but
+reason loves this visionary mood, though she prefer that it be sung, and
+find that less lyrical speech brings on it something of ridicule; for
+such a rendering betrays, as a rule, faint desire or small power to
+serve her in those who use it.
+
+The sense of proportion, then, is that fineness of susceptibility by
+which we appreciate in a given object, person, force, or mood,
+serviceableness in regard to reason's work; in other words, by which we
+estimate the capacity to transform the Universe in such a way that men
+may ultimately be enabled to give their hearty consent to its existence,
+which at present no man rationally can.
+
+
+III
+
+Now, art appeals to fine susceptibilities; for, as I have explained
+elsewhere,[3] the value of works of art depends on their having come as
+"real and intimate experiences to a large number of gifted men"--men who
+have some kinship to that "finely touched and gifted man, the [Greek
+_heuphnaes_] of the Greeks," to use the phrase of our greatest modern
+critic. And in so far as we are able to judge between works successfully
+making such an appeal, we must be governed by this sense of proportion,
+which measures how things stand in regard to reason; that is, not merely
+intellect, not merely emotion, but the alliance of both by means of the
+imagination in aid of man's most central demand--the demand for
+nobler life.
+
+Perhaps I ought to point out before proceeding, that this position is
+not that of the writers on art most in view at the present day. It is
+the negation of the so-called scientific criticism, and also of the
+personal theory that reduces art to an expression of, and an appeal to,
+individual temperaments; it is the assertion of the sovereignty of the
+aesthetic conscience on exactly the same grounds as sovereignty is
+claimed for the moral conscience. AEsthetics deals with the morality of
+appeals addressed to the senses. That is, it estimates the success of
+such appeals in regard to the promotion of fuller and more harmonious
+life. Flaubert wrote:
+
+"Le genie n'est pas rare maintenant, mais ce que personne n'a plus et ce
+qu'il faut tacher d'avoir, c'est la conscience."
+
+("Genius is not rare nowadays, but conscience is what nobody has and
+what one should strive after.")
+
+To-day I am thinking of a painter. Painting is an art addressed
+primarily to the eye, and not to the intelligence, not to the
+imagination, save as these may be reached through the eye--that most
+delicate organ of infinite susceptibility, which teaches us the meaning
+of the word light--a word so often uttered with stress of ecstasy, of
+longing, of despair, and of every other shade of emotion, that the sound
+of it must soon be almost as powerful with the young heart, almost as
+immediate in its effect, as the break of day itself, gladdening the eyes
+and glorifying the earth. And how often is this joy received through the
+eye entrusted back to it for expression? For the eye can speak with
+varieties, delicacies, and subtle shades of motion far beyond the
+attainment of any other organ. "This art of painting is made for the
+eyes, for sight is the noblest sense of man,"[4] says Duerer; and again:
+
+"It is ordained that never shall any man be able, out of his own
+thoughts, to make a beautiful figure, unless, by much study, he hath
+well stored his mind. That then is no longer to be called his own; it is
+art acquired and learnt, which soweth, waxeth, and beareth fruit after
+its kind. Thence the gathered secret treasure of the heart is manifested
+openly in the work, and the new creature which a man createth in his
+heart, appeareth in the form of a thing."[5]
+
+Yes, indeed, the function of art is far from being confined to telling
+us what we see, whatever some may pretend, or however naturally any
+small nature may desire to continue, teach, or regulate great ones. All
+so-called scientific methods of creating or criticising works of art are
+inadequate, because the only truly scientific statements that can be
+made about these inquiries are that nothing is certain--that no method
+ensures success, and that no really important quality can be defined;
+for what man can say why one cloud is more beautiful than another in the
+same sky, any more than he can explain why, of two men equally absorbed
+in doing their duty, one impresses him as being more holy than the
+other? The degrees essential to both kinds of judgment escape all
+definition; only the imagination can at times bring them home to us,
+only the refined taste or chastened conscience, as the case may be,
+witnesses with our spirit that its judgment is just, and bids us
+recognise a master in him who delivers it. As the expression on a face
+speaks to a delicate sense, often communicating more, other, and better
+than can be seen, so the proportion, harmony, rhythm of a painting may
+beget moods and joys that require the full resources of a well-stored
+mind and disciplined character in order that they may be fully
+relished--in brief, demand that maturity of reason which is the mark of
+victorious man.
+
+Such being my conception, it will easily be perceived how anxious I must
+be to truly discern and express the relation between such objects as
+works of art by common consent so highly honoured, and at the same time
+so active in their effect upon the most exquisitely endowed of mankind.
+Especially since to-day caprice, humour and temperament are, by the
+majority of writers on art, acclaimed for the radical characteristic of
+the human creative faculty, instead of its perversion and disease; and
+it is thought that to be whimsical, moody, or self-indulgent best fits a
+man both to create and appraise works of art, whereas to become so
+really is the only way in which a man capable of such high tasks can
+with certainty ruin and degrade his faculties. Precious, surpassingly
+precious indeed, must every manifestation of such faculty before its
+final extinction remain, since the race produces comparatively few
+endowed after this kind.
+
+Perhaps a sufficient illustration of this prevalent fallacy may be drawn
+from Mr. Whistler's "Ten O'Clock," where he speaks of art:
+
+"A whimsical goddess, and a capricious, her strong sense of joy
+tolerates no dulness, and, live we never so spotlessly, still may she
+turn her back upon us."
+
+"As from time immemorial, she has done upon the Swiss in their
+mountains."
+
+Here is no proof of caprice, save on the witty writer's part; for men
+who fast are not saved from bad temper, nor have the kindly necessarily
+discreet tongues. The Swiss may be brave and honest, and yet dull.
+Virtue is her own reward, and art her own. Virtue rewards the saint, art
+the artist; but men are rewarded for attention to morality by some
+measure of joy in virtue, for attention to beauty by some measure of joy
+in works of art. Between the artist and the Philistine is no great gulf
+fixed, in the sense that the witty "master of the butterfly" pretends to
+assume, but an infinite and gentle decline of persons representing every
+possible blend of the virtues and faults of these two types. Again, an
+artist is miscalled "master of art." "Where he is, there she appears,"
+is airy impudence. "Where she wills to be, there she chooses a man to
+serve her," would not only have been more gallant but more reasonable;
+for that "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
+thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is
+every one that is born of the spirit," and that "many are called, few
+chosen," are sayings as true of the influence which kindleth art as of
+that which quickeneth to holiness. Art is not dignified by being called
+whimsical--or capricious. What can a man explain? The intention, behind
+the wind, behind the spirit, behind the creative instinct, is dark. But
+man is true to his own most essential character when, if he cannot
+refrain from prating of such mysteries, he qualifies them as hope would
+have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks of the
+unknown, in whose hands his destiny so largely rests, slightingly, as of
+a woman whom he has seduced because he despised her--calling her
+capricious because she answered to his caprice, whimsical, because she
+was as flighty as his error. It is not art's function to reward virtue.
+But, caprices and whimseys being ascribed to a goddess, it will be
+natural to expect them in her worshipper; and Mr. Whistler revealed the
+limitations of his genius by whimseys and caprice. Though it was in
+their relations to the world that this goddess and her devotee claimed
+freedoms so far from perfect, yet this, their avowed characteristic
+abroad, I think in some degree disturbed their domestic relations,
+Though others have underlined the absurdity of this theory by applying
+themselves to it with more faith and less sense, I have chosen to quote
+from the "Ten O'Clock," because I admire it and accept most of the ideas
+about art advanced therein. The artist who wrote it was able, in Duerer's
+phrase, "to prove" what he wrote "with his hand." Most of those who have
+elaborated what was an occasional unsoundness of his doctrine into
+ridiculous religions are as unable to create as they are to think; there
+is no need to record names which it is wisdom to forget. But it may be
+well to point out that Mr. Whistler does not succeed in glorifying great
+artists when he declares that beauty "to them was as much a matter of
+certainty and triumph as is to the astronomer the verification of the
+result, foreseen with the light granted to him alone." No, he only sets
+up a false analogy; for the true parallel to the artist is the saint,
+not the astronomer; both are convinced, neither understands. Art is no
+more the reward of intelligence than of virtue. She permits no caprice
+in her own realm. Loyalty is the only virtue she insists on, loyalty in
+regard to her servant's experience of beauty; he may be immoral in every
+other way and she not desert him; but let him turn Balaam and declare
+beauty absent where he feels its presence--though in doing this he hopes
+to advance virtue or knowledge, she needs no better than an ass to
+rebuke him. Nothing effects more for anarchy than these notions that art
+derives from individual caprice, or defends virtue, or demonstrates
+knowledge; for they are all based on those flattering hopes of the
+unsuccessful, that chance, rules both in life and art, or that it is
+possible to serve two masters.
+
+Doctrines often repeated gain easy credence; and, since art demands
+leisure in order to be at all enjoyed, ideas about it, in so fatiguing a
+life as ours has become, take men off their guard, when their habitual
+caution is laid to sleep, and, by an over-easiness, they are inclined to
+spoil both their sense of distinction and their children. Yes, they
+consent to theatres that degrade them, because they distract and amuse;
+and read journals that are smart and diverting at the expense of dignity
+and truth--in the same way as they smile at the child whom reason bids
+them reprove, and with the like tragic result; for they become incapable
+of enjoying works of art, as the child is incapacitated for the best of
+social intercourse. To prophesy smooth things to people in this
+condition, and flatter their dulness, is to be no true friend; and so
+the modern art-critic and journalist is often the insidious enemy of the
+civilisation he contents.
+
+Nothing strikes the foreigner coming to England more than our lack of
+general ideas. Our art criticism is no exception; it, like our
+literature and politics, is happy-go-lucky and delights in the pot-shot.
+We often hear this attributed admiringly to "the sporting instinct." "If
+God, in his own time, granteth me to write something further about
+matters connected with painting, I will do so, in hope that this art may
+not rest upon use and wont alone, but that in time it may be taught on
+true and orderly principles, and may be understood to the praise of God
+and the use and pleasure of all lovers of art."[6]
+
+Our art is still worse off than our trade or our politics, for it does
+not even rest upon use and wont, but is wholly in the air. Yet the
+typical modern aesthete has learnt where to take cover, for, though
+destitute of defence, he has not entirely lost the instinct for
+self-preservation; and, when he finds the eye of reason upon him, he
+immediately flies to the diversity of opinions. But Duerer follows him
+even there with the perfect good faith of a man in earnest.
+
+"Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty, and
+they seek after it in many different ways, although ugliness is thereby
+rather attained. Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know
+not certainly what the ultimate measure of true beauty is, and cannot
+describe it aright. But glad should I be to render such help as I can,
+to the end that the gross deformities of our work might be and remain
+pruned away and avoided, unless indeed any one prefers to bestow great
+labour upon the production of deformities. We are brought back,
+therefore, to the aforesaid judgment of men, which considereth one
+figure beautiful at one time and another at another....
+
+"Because now we cannot altogether attain unto perfection, shall we
+therefore wholly cease from learning? By no means. Let us not take unto
+ourselves thoughts fit for cattle. For evil and good lie before men,
+wherefore it behoveth the rational man to choose the good."[7]
+
+A man may see, if he will but watch, who is more finely touched and
+gifted than himself. In all the various fields of human endeavour, on
+such men he should try to form himself; for only thus can he enlarge his
+nature, correct his opinions. Something he can learn from this man,
+something from that, and it is rational to learn and be taught. Are we
+to be cattle or gods? "Is it not written in your law, I said, 'Ye are
+gods?'" Reason demands that each man form himself on the pattern of a
+god, and God is an empty name if reason be not the will of God. Then he
+whom reason hath brought up may properly be called a son of God, a son
+of man, a child of light. But it is easier to bob to such phrases than
+to understand them. However, their mechanical repetition does not
+prevent their having meant something once, does not prevent their
+meaning being their true value. It is time we understood our art, just
+as it is time we understood our religion. Docility, as I have pointed
+out elsewhere, is one of the marks of genius. Duerer's spirit is the
+spirit of the great artist who will learn even from "dull men of little
+judgment."
+
+"Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel.
+Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts, let him take it from
+one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with
+his hand. Howbeit any one may give thee counsel; and when thou hast done
+a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men
+of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule
+they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the
+good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayst thus better
+thy work."[8]
+
+Those who are thoroughly versed in art are the great artists; we have
+guides then, and we have a way--the path they have trodden--and we have
+company, the gifted and docile men of to-day whom we see to be improving
+themselves; and, in so far as we are reasonable, a sense of proportion
+is ours, which we may improve; and it will help us to catch up better
+and yet better company until we enjoy the intimacy of the noblest, and
+know as we are known. Then: "May we not consider it a sign of sanity
+when we regard the human spirit as ... a poet, and art as a half written
+poem? Shall we not have a sorry disappointment if its conclusion is
+merely novel, and not the fulfilment and vindication of those great
+things gone before?"[9] For my own part, those appear to me the grandest
+characters who, on finding that there is no other purchase for effort
+but only hope, and that they can never cease from hope but by ceasing to
+live, clear their minds of all idle acquiescence in what could never be
+hoped, and concentrate their energies on conquering whatever in their
+own nature, and in the world about them, militates against their most
+essential character--reason, which seeks always to give a higher
+value to life.
+
+
+IV
+
+When we speak of the sense of proportion displayed in the design of a
+building, many will think that the word is used in quite a different
+sense, and one totally unrelated to those which I have been discussing.
+But no; life and art are parallel and correspond throughout; ethics are
+the Esthetics of life, religion the art of living. Taste and conscience
+only differ in their provinces, not in their procedure. Both are based
+on instinctive preferences; the canon of either is merely so many of
+those preferences as, by their constant recurrence to individuals gifted
+with the power of drawing others after them, are widely accepted.
+
+The preference of serenity to melancholy, of light to darkness, are
+among the most firmly established in the canon, that is all. The sense
+of proportion within a design is employed to stimulate and delight the
+eye. Ordinary people may fear there is some abstruse science about this.
+Not at all; it is as simple as relishing milk and honey, and its
+development an exact parallel to the training of the palate to
+distinguish the flavours of teas, coffees and wines. "Taste and see" is
+the whole business. There are many people who have no hesitation in
+picking out what to their eye is the wainscot panel with the richest
+grain: they see it at once. So with etchings; if people would only
+forget that they are works of art, forget all the false or
+ill-understood standards which they have been led to suppose applicable,
+and look at them as they might at agate stones; or choose out the
+richest in effect: the most suitable for a gay room, or a hall, or a
+library, as though they were patterned stuffs for curtains; they would
+come a thousand times nearer a right appreciation of Duerer's success
+than by making a pot-shot to lasso the masterpiece with the tangle of
+literary rubbish which is known as art criticism.
+
+The harmonies and contrasts of juxtaposed colours or textures are
+affected by quantity, and a sense of proportion decides what quantities
+best produce this effect and what that. The correctness or amount of
+information to be conveyed in the delineation of some object, in
+relation to the mood which the artist has chosen shall dominate his
+work, is determined by his sense of proportion. He may distort an object
+to any extent or leave it as vague as the shadow on a wall in diffused
+light, or he may make it precise and particular as ever Jan Van Eyck
+did; so only that its distortion or elaboration is so proportioned to
+the other objects and intentions of his work as to promote its success
+in the eyes of the beholder.
+
+There are no fallacies greater than the prevalent ones conveyed by the
+expressions "out of drawing" or "untrue to nature." There is no such
+thing as correct drawing or an outside standard of truth for works
+of art.
+
+"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved." "Chaque
+oeuvre a faire a sa poetique en soi, qu'il faut trouver," said Flaubert.
+Truth in a work of art is sincerity. That a man says what he really
+means--shows us what he really thinks to be beautiful--is all that
+reason bids us ask for. No science or painstaking can make up for his
+not doing this. No lack of skill or observation can entirely frustrate
+his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly
+sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the
+inexpressible is never felt. Stammering becomes more eloquent than
+oratory, a child's impulsiveness wiser than circumlocutory experience.
+When a single intention absorbs the whole nature, communication is
+direct and immediate, and makes impotence itself a means of
+effectiveness. So the naiveties of early art put to shame the
+purposeless parade of prodigious skill. Wherever there is communication
+there is art; but there are evil communications and there is vicious
+art, though, perhaps, great sincerity is incompatible with either. For
+an artist to be deterred by other people's demands means that he is not
+artist enough; it is what his reason teaches him to demand of himself
+that matters, though, doubtless, the good desire the approval of
+kindred natures.
+
+A work of art addresses the eye by means of chosen proportions; it may
+present any number of facts as exactly as may be, but if it offend the
+eye it is a mere misapplication of industry, or the illustration of a
+scientific treatise out of place; and those that choose ribbons well are
+better artists than the man that made it. Or again it may overflow with
+poetical thought and suggestion, or have the stuff to make a first-rate
+story in it; but, if it offend the eye, it is merely a misapplication of
+imagination, invention or learning, and the girl who puts a charming
+nosegay together is a better artist than he who painted it. On the other
+hand, though it have no more significance than a glass of wine and a
+loaf of bread, if the eye is rejoiced by gazing on the paint that
+expresses them, it is a work of art and a fine achievement. Still, it
+may be as fanciful as a fairy-tale, or as loaded with import as the
+Crucifixion; and, if it stimulates the eye to take delight in its
+surfaces over and above mere curiosity, it is a work of art, and great
+in proportion as the significance of what it conveys is brought home to
+us by the very quality of the stimulus that is created in return for our
+gaze. For painting is the result of a power to speak beautifully with
+paint, as poetry is of a power to express beautifully by means of words
+either simple things or those which demand the effort of a welltrained
+mind in order to be received and comprehended. The mistake made by
+impressionists, luminarists, and other modern artists, is that a true
+statement of how things appear to them will suffice; it will not, unless
+things appear beautiful to them, and they render them beautifully. It
+will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different
+thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading;
+whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is
+always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is
+inspiring--is a work of art and "a joy for ever." For reason demands
+that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, and give such pleasure as best
+consists with the universe becoming what reason demands that it shall
+become. This demand of reason is perfectly arbitrary? Yes, but it is
+also inevitable, necessitated by the nature of the human character. It
+is equally arbitrary and equally inevitable that man must, where science
+is called for, in the long run prefer a true statement to a lie. From
+art reason demands beautiful objects, from science true statements: such
+is human nature; for the possession of this reason that judges and
+condemns the universe, and demands and attempts to create something
+better, is that which differentiates human life from all other known
+forces--is that by which men may be more than conquerors, may make peace
+with the universe; for
+
+  "A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
+   For then both parties nobly are subdued
+   And neither party loser."
+
+Of such a nature is the only peace that the soul can make with the
+body--that man can make with nature--that habit can make with
+instinct--that art can make with impulse. In order to establish such a
+peace the imagination must train reason to see a friend in her enemy,
+the physical order. For, as Reynolds says of the complete artist:
+
+"He will pick up from dunghills, what, by a nice chemistry, passing
+through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold, and under the
+rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even
+sublime inventions."[10]
+
+It is not too much to say that the nature both of the artist and of the
+dunghills is "subdued" by such a process, and yet neither is a "loser."
+Goethe profoundly remarked that the highest development of the soul was
+reached through worship first of that which was above, then of that
+which was beneath it. This great critic also said, "Only with difficulty
+do we spell out from that which nature presents to us, the _DESIRED_
+word, the congenial. Men find what the artist brings intelligible and to
+their taste, stimulating and alluring, genial and friendly, spiritually
+nourishing, formative and elevating. Thus the artist, grateful to the
+nature that made him, weaves a second nature--but a conscious, a fuller,
+a more perfectly human nature."
+
+[Illustration: Water-colour drawing of a Hare]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Swift, "Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome."]
+
+[Footnote 2: It may be urged that diversities of opinion exist as to
+what good is. The convenience of the words "good" and "evil" corresponds
+to a need created by a common experience in the same way as the
+convenience of the words "light" and "darkness" does. A child might
+consider that a diamond generated light in the same way as a candle
+does. He would be mistaken, but this would not affect the correctness of
+his application of the word "light" to his experience; if he confused
+light with darkness he must immediately become unintelligible. Good and
+light are perceived and named--no one can say more of them; the effects
+of both may be described with more or less accuracy. To say that light
+is a mode of motion does not define it; we ask at once, What mode? And
+the only answer is, that which produces the effect of light. A man born
+blind, though he knew what was meant by motion, could never deduce from
+this knowledge a conception of light.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The Monthly Review, October 1902, "Rodin."]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 177.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ibid. p. 247.]
+
+[Footnote 6: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 252.]
+
+[Footnote 7: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," pp, 244 and 245.]
+
+[Footnote 8: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 180.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The Monthly Review, April 1901, "In Defence of Reynolds."]
+
+[Footnote 10: Sixth Discourse.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
+
+
+I
+
+There are some artists of whom one would naturally write in a lyrical
+strain, with praise of the flesh, and those things which add to its
+beauty, freshness, and mystery--fair scenes of mountain, woodland, or
+sea-shore; blue sky, white cloud and sunlight, or the deep and starry
+night; youth and health, strength and fertility, frankness and freedom.
+And, in such a strain, one would insist that the fondness and
+intoxication which these things quicken was natural, wise, and lovely.
+But, quite as naturally, when one has to speak of Duerer, the mind
+becomes filled with the exhilaration and the staidness that the desire
+to know and the desire to act rightly beget; with the dignity of
+conscious comprehension, the serenity of accomplished duty with all the
+strenuousness and ardour of which the soul is capable; with science
+and religion.
+
+It is natural to refer often to the towering eminence of these virtues
+in Michael Angelo; both he and Duerer were not only great artists, and
+active and powerful minds, but men imbued with, and conservative of,
+piety. And it seems to me, if we are to appreciate and sympathise deeply
+with such men, we must try to understand the religion they believed in;
+to estimate, not only what its value was supposed to be in those days,
+but what value it still has for us. Surely what they prized so highly
+must have had real and lasting worth? Surely it can only be the relation
+of that value to common speech and common thought which has changed, not
+its relation to man's most essential nature? Therefore I will first try
+to arrive at a general notion of the real worth of their ideas,--that
+is, the worth that is equally great from their point of view and ours.
+
+The whole of that period, the period of the so belauded Renascence, had
+within it (or so it seems to me) an incurable insufficiency, which
+troubles the affections of those who praise or condemn it; so that they
+show themselves more passionate than those who praise or condemn the art
+and life of ancient Greece. This insufficiency I believe to have been
+due to the fact that Christian ideas were more firmly rooted in, than
+they were understood by, the society of those days. And to-day I think
+the same cause continues to propagate a like insufficiency, a like lack
+of correspondence between effort and aim. Certain ideas found in the
+reported sayings of Jesus have so fastened upon the European intellect
+that they seem well-nigh inseparable from it. We are told that the
+effort of the Greek, of Aristotle, was to "submit to the empire of
+fact." The effort of the Jew was very similar; for the prophets, what
+happened was the will of God, what will happen is what God intends. Now
+it is noteworthy that Aristotle did not wish to submit to ignorance,
+though it and the causes which produce it and preserve it in human minds
+are among the most horrible and tremendous of facts; and it is the
+imperishable glory of the prophets, that, whatever the priest the king,
+the Sadducee or Pharisee might do, _they_ could not rest in or abide the
+idea that God's will was ever evil; no inconsistency was too glaring to
+check their indignation at Eastern fatalism which quietly supposed that
+as things went wrong it was their nature to do so;--vanity, vanity, all
+is vanity!--or that if men did wrong and prospered, it was God's doing,
+and showed that they had pleased Him with sacrifices and performances.
+
+
+II
+
+'Wherever poetry, imagination, or art had been busy, there had appeared,
+both in Judea and Greece, some degree of rebellion against the empire of
+fact.. When Jesus said: "The kingdom of heaven is within you," he
+recognised that the human reason was the antagonist of all other known
+forces, and he declared war on the god of this world and prophesied the
+downfall of--the empire of the apparent fact;--not with fume and fret,
+not with rant and rage, as poets and seers had done, but mildly
+affirming that with the soul what is best is strongest, has in the long
+run most influence; that there is one fact in the essential nature of
+man which, antagonist to the influence of all other facts, wields an
+influence destined to conquer or absorb all other influences. He said:
+"My Father which is in heaven, the master influence within me, has
+declared that I shall never find rest to my soul until I prefer His
+kingdom, the conception of my heart, to the kingdoms of earth and the
+glory of the earth." 'We have seen that Duerer describes the miracle; the
+work of art, thus:
+
+"The secret treasure which a man conceived in his heart shall appear as
+a thing" (see page 10).
+
+And we know that he prized this, the master thing, the conception of the
+heart, above everything else.
+
+Much learning is not evil to a man, though some be stiffly set against
+it, saying that art puffeth up. Were that so, then were none prouder
+than God who hath formed all arts, but that cannot be, for God is
+perfect in goodness. The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the
+better doth he become, and so much the more love doth he win for the
+arts and for things exalted.
+
+The learning Duerer chiefly intends is not book-learning or critical
+lore, but knowledge how to make, by which man becomes a creator in
+imitation of God; for this is of necessity the most perfect knowledge,
+rivalling the sureness of intuition and instinct.
+
+
+III
+
+"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
+Every one knows how anxious great artists become for the preservation of
+their works, how highly they value permanence in the materials employed,
+and immunity from the more obvious chances of destruction in the
+positions they are to occupy. Michael Angelo is said to have painted
+cracks on the Sistina ceiling to force the architect to strengthen the
+roof. When Jesus made the assertion that his teaching would outlast the
+influence of the visible world of nature and the societies of men--the
+kingdoms of earth and the glory of the earth--he did no more than every
+victorious soul strives to effect, and to feel assured that it has in
+some large degree effected; the difference between him and them is one
+of degree. It may be objected that different hearts harbour and cherish
+contradictory conceptions. Doubtless; but does the desire to win the
+co-operation and approval of other men consist with the higher
+developments of human faculties? Is it, perhaps, essential to them? If
+so, in so far as every man increases in vitality and the employment of
+his powers, he will be forced to reverence and desire the solidarity of
+the race, and consequently to relinquish or neglect whatever in his own
+ideal militates against such solidarity. And this will be the case
+whether he judge such eccentric elements to be nobler or less noble than
+the qualities which are fostered in him by the co-operation of his
+fellows. Jesus, at any rate, affirmed that the law of the kingdom within
+a man's soul was: "Love thy neighbour as thyself"; and that obedience to
+it would work in every man like leaven, which is lost sight of in the
+lump of dough, and seems to add nothing to it, yet transforms the whole
+in raising up the loaf; or as the corn of wheat which is buried in the
+glebe like a dead body, yet brings forth the blade, and nourishes a
+new life.
+
+So he that should follow Jesus by obeying the laws of the kingdom, by
+loving God (the begetter or fountainhead of a man's most essential
+conception of what is right and good) and his neighbour, was assured by
+his mild and gracious Master that he would inherit, by way of a return
+for the sacrifices which such obedience would entail, a new and better
+life. (Follow me, I laid down my life in order that I might take it
+again. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his
+life _for_ my _sake_--as I did, in imitation of me--shall find it.) For
+in order to make this very difficult obedience possible, it was to be
+turned into a labour of love done for the Master's sake. As Goethe said:
+
+  "Against the superiority of another, there is no remedy
+  but love."
+
+Is it not true that the superiority of another man humiliates, crushes
+and degrades us in our own eyes, if we envy it or hate it instead of
+loving it? while by loving it we make it in a sense ours, and can
+rejoice in it. So Jesus affirmed that he had made the superiority of the
+ideal his; so that he was in it, and it was in him, so that men who
+could no longer fix their attention on it in their own souls might love
+it in him. He was their master-conception, their true ideal, acting
+before them, captivating the attention of their senses and emotions.
+This is what a man of our times, possessed of rare receptivity and great
+range of comprehension, considered to be the pith of Jesus' teaching.
+Matthew Arnold gave much time and labour to trying to persuade men that
+this was what the religion they professed, or which was professed around
+them, most essentially meant. And he reminded us that the adequacy of
+such ideas for governing man's life depended not on the authority of a
+book or writings by eye-witnesses with or without intelligence, but on
+whether they were true in experience. He quoted Goethe's test for every
+idea about life, "But is it true, is it true for me, now?" "Taste and
+see," as the prophets put it; or as Jesus said, "Follow me." For an
+ideal must be followed, as a man woos a woman; the pursuit may have to
+be dropped, in order to be more surely recovered; an ideal must be
+humoured, not seized at once as a man seizes command over a machine.
+This _secret of success was_ was only to be won by the development of a
+temper, a spirit of docility. To love it in an example was the best,
+perhaps the only way of gaining possession of it.
+
+
+IV
+
+As we are placed, what hope can we have but to learn? and what is there
+from which we might not learn? An artist is taught by the materials he
+uses more essentially than by the objects he contemplates; for these
+teach him "how," and perfect him in creating, those only teach him
+"what," and suggest forms to be created. But for men in general the
+"what" is more important than the "how"; and only very powerful art can
+exhilarate and refine them by means of subjects which they dislike
+or avoid.
+
+Every seer of beauty is not a creator of beautiful things; and in art
+the "how" is so much more essential than the "what," that artists create
+unworthy or degrading objects beautifully, so that we admire their art
+as much as we loathe its employment; in nature, too, such objects are
+met with, created by the god of this world. A good man, too, may create
+in a repulsive manner objects whose every association is ennobling or
+elevating.
+
+"The kingdom of heaven is within you," but hell is also within.
+
+  "Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
+  In one self place; for where we are is hell
+  And where hell is, must we for ever be:
+  And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
+  And every creature shall be purified,
+  All places shall be hell that are not heaven,"
+
+as Marlowe makes his Mephistophilis say: and the best art is the most
+perfect expression of that which is within, of heaven or of hell.
+Goethe said:
+
+"In the Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was simple and positive, we
+encounter expressions of approval more often than of disapproval. With
+the Romans, on the other hand, the contrary holds good; and the more
+corrupted poetry and rhetoric become, the more will censure grow and
+praise diminish."
+
+I have sometimes thought that the difference between classic and more or
+less decadent art lies in the fact that by the one things are
+appreciated for what they most essentially are--a young man, a swift
+horse, a chaste wife, &c.--by the other for some more or less peculiar
+or accidental relation that they hold to the creator. Such writers
+lament that the young are not old, the old not young, prostitutes not
+pure, that maidens are cold and modest or matrons portly. They complain
+of having suffered from things being cross, or they take malicious
+pleasure in pointing that crossness out; whereas classical art always
+rebounds from the perception that things are evil to the assertion of
+what ought to be or shall be. It triumphs over the Prince of Darkness,
+and covers a multitude of sins, as dew or hoar frost cover and make
+beautiful a dunghill. Dunghills exist; but he who makes of Macbeth's or
+Clytemnestra's crimes an elevating or exhilarating spectacle triumphs
+over the god of this world, as Jesus did when he made the most
+ignominious death the symbol, of his victory and glory. Little wonder
+that Albert Duerer, and Michael Angelo found such deep satisfaction in
+Him as the object of their worship--his method of docility was
+next-of-kin to that of their art. Respect and solicitude create the
+soul, and these two pre-eminently docile passions preside over the
+soul's creation, whether it be a society, a life, or a thing of beauty.
+
+
+V
+
+  Here, when art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
+  Lived and laboured Albrecht Duerer, the Evangelist of Art.
+
+These jingling lines would scarcely merit consideration but that they
+express a common notion which has its part of truth as well as of error.
+Let us examine the first assertion (that art has been religion.)
+Baudelaire, in his _Curiosites Esthetiques_ says: _La premiere affaire
+d'un artiste est de substituer l'homme a la nature et de protester
+contre elle_. ("The first thing for an artist is to substitute man for
+nature and to protest against her.") The beginners and the smatterers
+are always "students of nature," and suppose that to be so will suffice;
+but when the understanding and imagination gain width and elasticity,
+life is more and more understood as a long struggle to overcome or
+humanise nature by that which most essentially distinguishes man from
+other animals and inanimate nature. Religion should be the drill and
+exercise of the human faculties to fit them and maintain them in
+readiness for this struggle; the work of art should be the assertion of
+victory. A life worthy of remembrance is a work of art, a life worthy of
+universal remembrance is a masterpiece: only the materials employed
+differentiate it from any other work of art. The life of Jesus is
+considered as such a masterpiece. Thus we can say that if art has never
+been religion, religion has always been and ever will be an art.
+
+Now let us examine the second assertion that Duerer was an evangelist.
+What kind of character do we mean to praise when we say a man is an
+evangelist? Two only of the four evangelists can be said to reveal any
+ascertainable personality, and only St. John is sufficiently outlined to
+stand as a type; but I do not think we mean to imply a resemblance to
+St. John. The bringer of good news, the evangelist par excellence, was
+Jesus. He it was who made it evident that the sons of men have power to
+forgive sins. Victory over evil possible--this was the good news. No
+doubt every sincere Christian is supposed to be a more or less
+successful imitator of Jesus; and as such, Duerer may rightly be called
+an evangelist. But more than this is I think, implied in the use of the
+word; an evangelist is, for us above all a bringer of good news in
+something of the same manner as Jesus brought it, by living among
+sinners for those sinners' sake, among paupers for those paupers' sake;
+to see a man sweet, radiant, and victorious under these circumstances,
+is to see an evangelist. Goethe's final claim is that, "after all, there
+are honest people up and down the world who have got light from my
+books; and whoever reads them, and gives himself the trouble to
+understand me, will acknowledge that he has acquired thence a certain
+inward freedom"; and for this reason I have been tempted to call him the
+evangelist of the modern world. But it is best to use the word as I
+believe it is most correctly employed, and not to yield to the
+temptation (for tempting it is) to call men like Duerer and Goethe
+evangelists. They are teachers who charm as well as inform us, as Jesus
+was; but they are not evangelists in the sense that he was, for they did
+not deal directly with human life where it is forced most against its
+distinctive desire for increase in nobility, or is most obviously
+degraded by having betrayed it.'[11]
+
+
+VI
+
+I have often heard it objected that Jesus is too feminine an ideal, too
+much based on renunciation and the effort to make the best of failure.
+No doubt that as women are, by the necessity of their function, more
+liable to the ship-wreck of their hopes, the bankruptcy of their powers,
+they have been drawn to cling to this hope of salvation in greater
+numbers, and with more fervour; so that the most general idea of Jesus
+may be a feminine one. It does not follow that this is the most correct
+or the best: every object, every person will appear differently to
+different natures. And it still remains true that there have been a
+great many men of very various types who have drawn strength and beauty
+from the contemplation and reverence of Jesus. That this ideal is too
+much based on making the best of failure is an objection that makes very
+little impression on me, for I think I perceive that failure is one of
+the most constant and widespread conditions of the universe, and even
+more certainly of human life.
+
+
+VII
+
+It remains now to see in what degree these ideas were felt or made
+themselves felt through the Romanism and Lutheranism of the Renascence
+period. Perhaps we English shall best recognise the presence of these
+ideas, the working of this leaven--this docility, the necessary midwife
+of 'genius, who transforms the difficult tasks which the human reason
+sets herself into labours of love--in an Englishman; so my first example
+shall be taken from Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet.
+
+It was then that my acquaintance with him began, he being then thirty, I
+two or three months his junior. He had no theological degree, but the
+whole University, doctors and all, went to hear him. Henry VII took note
+of him, and made him Dean of St. Paul's. His first step was to restore
+discipline in the Chapter, which had all gone to wreck. He preached
+every saint's day to great crowds. He cut down household expenses, and
+abolished suppers and evening parties. At dinner a boy reads a chapter
+from Scripture; Colet takes a passage from it and discourses to the
+universal delight. Conversation is his chief pleasure, and he will keep
+it up till midnight if he finds a companion. Me he has often taken with
+him on his walks, and talks all the time of Christ. He hates coarse
+language, furniture, dress, food, books, all clean and tidy, but
+scrupulously plain; and he wears grey woollen when priests generally go
+in purple. With the large fortune which he inherited from his father, he
+founded and endowed a school at St. Paul's entirely at his own cost--
+masters, houses, salaries, everything.
+
+He is a man of genuine piety. He was not born with it. He was naturally
+hot, impetuous and resentful--indolent, fond of pleasure and of women's
+society--disposed to make a joke of everything. He told me that he had
+fought against his faults with study, fasting and prayer, and thus his
+whole life was in fact unpolluted with the world's defilements. His
+money he gave all to pious uses, worked incessantly, talked always on
+serious subjects, to conquer his disposition to levity; not but what you
+could see traces of the old Adam when wit was flying at feast or
+festival. He avoided large parties for this reason. He dined on a single
+dish, with a draught or two of light ale. He liked good wine, but
+abstained on principle. I never knew a man of sunnier nature. No one
+ever more enjoyed cultivated society; but here, too, he denied himself,
+and was always thinking of the life to come.
+
+His opinions were peculiar, and he was reserved in expressing them for
+fear of exciting suspicion. He knew how unfairly men judge each other,
+how credulous they are of evil, how much easier it is for a lying tongue
+to stain a reputation than for a friend to clear it. But among his
+friends he spoke his mind freely.
+
+He admitted privately that many things were generally taught which he
+did not believe, but he would not create a scandal by blurting out his
+objections. No book could be so heretical but he would read it, and read
+it carefully. He learnt more from such books than he learnt from
+dogmatism and interested orthodoxy.[12]
+
+Some may wonder what Colet could have found to say about Christ which
+could not only interest but delight the young and witty Erasmus; and may
+judge that at any rate to-day such a subject is sufficiently fly-blown.
+The proper reflection to make is, "A rose by any other name would smell
+as sweet."
+
+Whether we say Christ or Perfection does not matter, it is what we mean
+which is either enthralling or dull, fresh or fusty; "there's nothing
+in a name."
+
+"When Colet speaks I might be listening to Plato," says Erasmus in
+another place, at a time when he was still younger and had just come
+from what had been a gay and perhaps in some measure a dissolute life in
+Paris: not that it is possible to imagine Erasmus as at any time
+committing great excesses, or deeply sinning against the sense of
+proportion and measure.
+
+Success is the only criterion, as in art, so in religion: the man that
+plucks out his eye and casts it from him, and remains the dull, greedy,
+distressful soul he was before, is a damned fool; but the man who does
+the same and becomes such that his younger friends report of him, "I
+never knew a sunnier nature," is an artist in life, a great artist in
+the sense that Christ is supposed to have been a great master; one who
+draws men to him, as bees are drawn to flowers. Colet drew the young
+Henry the Eighth as well as Erasmus. "The King said: 'Let every man
+choose his own doctor. Dean Colet shall be mine!'" Though no doubt
+charlatans have often fascinated young scholars and monarchs, yet it is
+peculiarly impossible to think of Colet as a charlatan.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Next let us take a sonnet and a sentence from Michael Angelo:
+
+  Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
+  And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;
+  For if of our affections none finds grace
+  In sight of heaven, then, wherefore hath God made
+  The world which we inhabit? Better plea
+  Love cannot have than that in loving thee
+  Glory to that eternal peace is paid,
+  Who such divinity to thee imparts,
+  As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
+  His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
+  With beauty, which is varying every hour;
+  But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power
+  Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
+  That breathes on earth the air of paradise.[13]
+
+It is very remarkable how strongly the conviction of permanence, and the
+preference for the inward conception over external beauty are expressed
+in this fine sonnet; and also that the reason given for accepting the
+discipline of love is that experience shows how it "hallows and makes
+pure all gentle hearts." In such a love poem--the object of which might
+very well have been Jesus--I seem to find more of the spirit of his
+religion, whereby he binds his disciples to the Father that ruled within
+him, till they too feel the bond of parentage as deeply as himself and
+become sons with him of his Father;--more of that binding power of Jesus
+is for me expressed in this fine sonnet than in Luther's Catechism. The
+religion that enables a great artist to write of love in this strain, is
+the religion of docility, of the meek and lowly heart. For Michael
+Angelo was not a man by nature of a meek and lowly heart, any more than
+Colet was a man naturally saintly or than Luther was a man naturally
+refined. But because Michael Angelo thus prefers the kingdom of heaven
+to external beauty, one must not suppose that he, its arch high-priest,
+despised it. Nobody had a more profound respect for the thing of beauty,
+whether it was the creation of God or man. He said:
+
+"Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavour to
+create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives for
+perfection, strives for something that is God-like."
+
+Now we can perceive how the same spirit worked in a great artist, not at
+Nuremberg or London, but at Rome, the centre of the world, where a
+Borgia could be Pope.
+
+
+IX
+
+Erasmus, the typical humanist, the man who loved humanity so much that
+he felt that his love for it might tempt him to fight against God,
+travelled from the one world to the other; passed from the society of
+cardinals and princes to the seclusion of burgher homes in London, or to
+chat with Duerer at Antwerp. He belonged perhaps to neither world at
+heart; but how greatly his love and veneration of the one exceeded his
+admiration and sense of the practical utility of the other, a comparison
+of his sketch of Colet with such a note as this from his New Testament
+makes abundantly plain:
+
+"I saw with my own eyes Pope Julius II. at Bologna, and afterwards at
+Rome, marching at the head of a triumphal procession as if he were
+Pompey or Caesar. St. Peter subdued the world with faith, not with arms
+or soldiers or military engines. St. Peter's successors would win as
+many victories as St. Peter won if they had Peter's spirit."
+
+But we must not forget that the book in which these notes appeared was
+published with the approval of a Pope, and that he and others sought its
+author for advice as to how to cope best with their more hot-headed
+enemy Martin Luther. We must also remember that we are told that Colet
+"was not very hard on priests and monks who only sinned with women. He
+did not make light of impurity, but thought it less criminal than spite
+and malice and envy and vanity and ignorance. The loose sort were at
+least made human and modest by their very faults, and he regarded
+avarice and arrogance as blacker sins in a priest than a hundred
+concubines." This spirit was not that of the Reformation which came to
+stop, yet it existed and was widespread at that time; it was I think the
+spirit which either formed or sustained most of the great artists. At
+any rate it both formed and sustained Albert Duerer. Yet the true nature
+of these ideas, derived from Jesus, could not be understood even by
+Colet, even by Erasmus. For them it was tradition which gave value and
+assured truth to Christ's ideas, not the truth of those ideas which gave
+value to the traditions and legends concerning him. The value of those
+ideas was felt, sometimes nearer, sometimes further off; it was loved
+and admired; their lives were apprehended by it, and spent in
+illustrating and studying it, as were also those of Albert Duerer and
+Michael Angelo. To understand the life and work of such men, we must
+form some conception of the true nature and value of those ideas, as I
+have striven to do in this chapter. Otherwise we shall merely admire and
+love them, as they admired and loved Jesus; and it has now become a
+point of honour with educated men not only to love and admire, but to
+make the effort to understand. Even they desired to do this. And I think
+we may rejoice that the present time gives us some advantage over those
+days, at least in this respect.
+
+
+X
+
+And lastly, in order to bring us back to our main subject, let us quote
+from a stray leaf of a lost MS. Book of Duerer's, which contains the
+description of his father's death.
+
+    ... desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap
+    on his head had suddenly become wet with drops of sweat. Then
+    he asked to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfell wine. He
+    took a very little of it, and then desired to get into bed
+    again and thanked her. And when he had got into bed he fell
+    at once into his last agony. The old wife quickly kindled the
+    candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard's verses, and
+    ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to
+    him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly
+    to my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was
+    gone. I saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not
+    been worthy to be with him at his end.
+
+    And thus in the night before S. Matthew's eve my father
+    passed away, in the year above mentioned (Sept. 20, 1502)
+    --the merciful God help me also to a happy end--and he left
+    my mother an afflicted widow behind him. He was ever wont to
+    praise her highly to me, saying what a good wife she was,
+    wherefore I intend never to forsake her. I pray you for God's
+    sake, all ye my friends, when you read of the death of my
+    father, to remember his soul with an "Our Father" and an "Ave
+    Maria"; and also for your own sake, that we may so serve God
+    as to attain a happy life and the blessing of a good end. For
+    it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill
+    from this world, for God is full of compassion. Through which
+    may He grant us, after this pitiful life, the joy of
+    everlasting salvation--in the name of the Father, the Son,
+    and the Holy Ghost, at the beginning and at the end, one
+    Eternal Governor. Amen.
+
+The last sentences of this may seem to share in the character of the
+vain repetitions of words with which professed believers are only too
+apt to weary and disgust others. They are in any case commonplaces: the
+image has taken the place of the object; the Father in heaven is not
+considered so much as the paternal governor of the inner life as the
+ruler of a future life and of this world. The use of such phrases is as
+much idolatry as the worship of statue and picture, or as little, if the
+words are repeated, as I think in this case they were, out of a feeling
+of awe and reverence for preceding mental impressions and experiences,
+and not because their repetition in itself was counted for
+righteousness. Their use, if this was so, is no more to be found fault
+with than the contemplation of pictures or statues of holy personages in
+order to help the mind to attend to their ensample, or the reading of a
+poem, to fill the mind with ennobling emotions. Idolatry is natural and
+right in children and other simple souls among primitive peoples or
+elsewhere. It is a stage in mental development. Lovers pass through the
+idolatrous stage of their passion just as children cut their teeth. It
+is a pity to see individuals or nations remain childish in this respect
+just as much as in any other, or to see them return to it in their
+decrepitude. But a temper, a spirit, an influence cannot easily be
+apprehended apart from examples and images; and perhaps the clearest
+reason is only the exercise of an infinitely elastic idolatry, which
+with sprightly efficiency finds and worships good in everything, just as
+the devout, in Duerer's youth, found sermons in stones, carved stones
+representing saint, bishop, or Virgin. And Duerer all his life long
+continued to produce pictures and engravings which were intended to
+preach such sermons.
+
+Goethe admirably remarks:
+
+"_Superstition_ is the poetry of life; the poet therefore suffers no
+harm from being _superstitious_." (Aberglaube.)
+
+Superstition and idolatry are an expenditure of emotion of a kind and
+degree which the true facts would not warrant; poetry when least
+superstitious is a like exercise of the emotions in order to raise and
+enhance them; superstition when most poetical unconsciously effects the
+same thing.
+
+This glimpse he gives of the way in which death visited his home, and
+how the visitation impressed him, is coloured and glows with that temper
+of docility which made Colet school himself so severely, and was the
+source of Michael Angelo's so fervent outpourings. And all through the
+accounts which remain of his life, we may trace the same spirit ever
+anew setting him to school, and renewing his resolution to learn both
+from his feelings and from his senses.
+
+
+XI
+
+As I took a sentence from Michael Angelo, I will now take a sentence
+from Duerer, one showing strongly that evangelical strain so
+characteristic of him, born of his intuitive sense for human solidarity.
+After an argument, which will be found on page 306, he concludes: "It is
+right, therefore, for one man to teach another. He that doeth so
+joyfully, upon him shall much be bestowed by God."[14] These last words,
+like the last phrases of my former quotation from him, may stand perhaps
+in the way of some, as nowadays they may easily sound glib or
+irreverent. But are we less convinced that only tasks done joyfully, as
+labours of love, deserve the reward of fuller and finer powers, and
+obtain it? When Duerer thought of God, he did not only think of a
+mythological personage resembling an old king; he thought of a mind, an
+intention, "for God is perfect in goodness." Words so easily come to
+obscure what they were meant to reveal; and if we think how the notion
+of perfect goodness rules and sways such a man's mind, we shall not
+wonder that he did not stumble at the omnipotency which revolts us,
+cowed as we are by the presence of evil. The old gentleman dressed like
+a king;--this was not the part of his ideas about God which occupied
+Duerer's mind. He accepted it, but did not think about it: it filled what
+would otherwise have been a blank in his mind and in the minds of those
+about him. But he was constantly anxious about what he ought to do and
+study in order to fulfil the best in himself, and about what ought to be
+done by his town, his nation, and the civilisation that then was, in
+order to turn man's nature and the world to an account answerable to the
+beauty of their fairer aspects. God was the will that commanded that
+"consummation devoutly to be wished." Obedience to His law revealed in
+the Bible was the means by which this command could be carried out; and
+to a man turning from the Church as it then existed to the newly
+translated Bible texts, the commands of God as declared in those texts
+seemed of necessity reason itself compared with the commands of the
+Popes; were, in fact, infinitely more reasonable, infinitely more akin
+to a good man's mind and will. Luther's revolt is for us now
+characterised by those elements in it which proved inadequate--were
+irrational; but then these were insignificant in comparison with the
+light which his downright honesty shed on the monstrous and amazingly
+irrational Church. This huge closed society of bigots and worldlings
+which arrogated to itself all powers human and divine, and used them
+according to the lusts and intemperance of an Alexander Borgia, a Julius
+II., and a Leo X., was that farce perception of which made Rabelais
+shake the world with laughter, and which roused such consuming
+indignation in Luther and Calvin that they created the gloomy
+puritanical asylums in which millions of Germans, English, and Americans
+were shut up for two hundred years, as Matthew Arnold puts it. But Duerer
+was not so immured: even Luther at heart neither was himself, nor
+desired that others should be, prevented from enjoying the free use of
+their intellectual powers. It was because he was less perspicacious than
+Erasmus that he did not see that this was what he was inevitably doing
+in his wrath and in his haste.
+
+
+XII
+
+Erasmus was, perhaps, the man in Europe who at that time displayed most
+docility; the man whom neither sickness, the desire for wealth and
+honour, the hope to conquer, the lust to engage in disputes, nor the
+adverse chances that held him half his life in debt and necessitous
+straits, and kept him all his life long a vagrant, constantly upon the
+road--the man in whom none of these things could weaken a marvellous
+assiduity to learn and help others to learn. He it was who had most
+kinship with Duerer among the artists then alive; for Duerer is very
+eminent among them for this temper of docility. It is interesting to see
+how he once turned to Erasmus in a devout meditation, written in the
+journal he kept during his journey to the Netherlands. His voice comes
+to us from an atmosphere charged with the electric influence of the
+greatest Reformer, Martin Luther, who had just disappeared, no man knew
+why or whither; though all men suspected foul play. In his daily life,
+by sweetness of manner, by gentle dignity and modesty, Duerer showed his
+religion, the admiration and love that bound his life, in a way that at
+all times and in all places commands applause. The burning indignation
+of the following passage may in times of spiritual peace or somnolence
+appear over-wrought and uncouth. We must remember that all that Duerer
+loved had been bound by his religion to the teaching and inspiration of
+Jesus, and had become inseparable from it. All that he loved--learning,
+clear and orderly thought, honesty, freedom to express the worship of
+his heart without its being turned to a mockery by cynical monk, priest,
+or prelate;--these things directly, and indirectly art itself, seemed to
+him threatened by the corruption of the Papal power. We must remember
+this; for we shall naturally feel, as Erasmus did, that the path of
+martyrdom was really a short cut, which a wider view of the surrounding
+country would have shown him to be likely to prove the longest way in
+the end. Indeed the world is not altogether yet arrived where he thought
+Erasmus could bring it in less than two years. And Luther himself
+returned to the scene and was active, without any such result, a dozen
+years and more.
+
+Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou a little old
+man, and myself have heard thee say that thou givest thyself but two
+years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to accomplish somewhat. Lay
+out the same well for the good of the Gospel, and of the true Christian
+faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ says, shall the Gates of
+Hell in no wise prevail against thee. And if here below thou wert to be
+like thy master Christ, and sufferest infamy at the hands of the liars
+of this time, and didst die a little sooner, then wouldst thou the
+sooner pass from death unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou
+drinkest of the cup which He drank of, _with Him shalt thou reign and
+judge with justice those who_ HAVE _dealt unrighteously_. Oh! Erasmus!
+cleave to this, that God Himself may be thy praise, even as it is
+written of David. For thou mayest, yea, verily thou mayest overthrow
+Goliath. Because God stands by the Holy Christian Church, even as He
+alone upholds the Roman Church, according to His godly will. May He help
+us to everlasting salvation, who is God the Father, the Son, and Holy
+Ghost, one eternal God! Amen!!
+
+"With Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice those that have dealt
+unrighteously." This will seem to many a mere cry for revenge; and so
+perhaps it was. Still it may have been, as it seems to me to have been,
+uttered rather in the spirit of Moses' "Forgive their sin--and if not,
+blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book"; or the "Heaven and earth shall
+pass away, but my words shall not pass away" of Jesus. If the necessity
+for victory was uppermost, the opportunity for revenge may scarcely have
+been present to Duerer's mind.
+
+It is now more generally recognised than in Luther's day that however
+sweet vengeance may be, it is not admirable, either in God or man.
+
+The total impression produced by Duerer's life and work must help each to
+decide for himself which sense he considers most likely. The truth, as
+in most questions of history, remains for ever in the balance, and
+cannot be ascertained.
+
+
+XIII
+
+I have called docility the necessary midwife of Genius, for so it is;
+and religion is a discipline that constrains us to learn. The religion
+of Jesus constrains us to learn the most difficult things, binds us to
+the most arduous tasks that the mind of man sets itself, as a lover is
+bound by his affection to accomplish difficult feats for his mistress'
+sake. Such tasks as Michael Angelo and Duerer set themselves require that
+the lover's eagerness and zest shall not be exhausted; and to keep them
+fresh and abundant, in spite of cross circumstances, a discipline of the
+mind and will is required. This is what they found in the worship of
+Jesus. The influence of this religious hopefulness and self-discipline
+on the creative power prevents its being exhausted, perverted, or
+embittered; and in order that it may effect this perfectly, that
+influence must be abundant not only within the artist, as it was in
+Michael Angelo and Duerer, but in the world about them.
+
+This, then, is the value of religious influence to creative art: and
+though we to-day necessarily regard the personages, localities, and
+events of the creed as coming under the category of "things that are
+not," we may still as fervently hope and expect that the things of that
+category may "bring to nought the things that are," including the
+superstitious reverence for the creed and its unprovable statements; for
+has not the victory in human things often been with the things that were
+not, but which were thus ardently desired and expected? To inquire which
+of those things are best calculated to advance and nourish creative
+power, and in what manner, should engage the artist's attention far more
+than it has of late years. For what he loves, what he hopes, and what he
+expects would seem, if we study past examples, to exercise as important
+an influence on a man's creative power as his knowledge of, and respect
+for, the materials and instruments which he controls do upon his
+executive capacity.
+
+The universe in which man finds himself may be evil, but not everything
+it contains is so: then it must for ever remain our only wisdom to
+labour to transform those parts which we judge to be evil into likeness
+or conformity to those we judge to be good: and surely he who neglects
+the forces of hope and adoration in that effort, neglects the better
+half of his practical strength? The central proposition of Christianity,
+that this end can only be attained by contemplation and imitation of an
+example, is, we shall in another place (pp. [305-312]) find, maintained
+as true in regard to art by Duerer, and by Reynolds, our greatest writer
+on aesthetics. These great artists, so dissimilar in the outward aspects
+of their creations, agree in considering that the only way of
+advancement open to the aspirant is the attempt to form himself on the
+example of others, by imitating them not slavishly or mechanically, but
+in the same spirit in which they imitated their forerunners: even as the
+Christian is bound to seek union with Christ in the same spirit or way
+in which Jesus had achieved union with his Father--that is, by laying
+down life to take it again, in meekness and lowliness of heart. Docility
+is the sovran help to perfection for Duerer and Reynolds, and more or
+less explicitly for all other great artists who have treated of these
+questions.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 11: Of course all that may have been meant by the phrase "the
+Evangelist of Art" is that Duerer illustrated the narrative of the
+Passion; but by this he is not distinguished from many others, and the
+phrase is suggestive of far more.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Froude's "Life of Erasmus," Lecture vi.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Wordsworth's Translation,]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 176.]
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+DUeRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DUeRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH AND EDUCATION
+
+
+I
+
+Who was Duerer? He has told us himself very simply, and more fully than
+men of his type generally do; for he was not, like Montaigne, one whose
+chief study was himself. Yet, though he has done this, it is not easy
+for us to fully understand him. It is perhaps impossible to place
+oneself in the centre of that horizon which was of necessity his and
+belonged to his day, a vast circle from which men could no more escape
+than we from ours; this cage of iron ignorance in which every human soul
+is trapped, and to widen and enlarge which every heroic soul lives and
+dies. This cage appeared to his eyes very different from what it does to
+ours; yet it has always been a cage, and is only lost sight of at times
+when the light from within seems to flow forth, and with its radiant
+sapphire heaven of buoyancy and desire to veil the eternal bars. It is
+well to remind ourselves that ignorance was the most momentous, the most
+cruel condition of his life, as of our own; and that the effort to
+relieve himself of its pressure, either by the pursuit of knowledge, or
+by giving spur and bridle to the imagination that it might course round
+him dragging the great woof of illusion, and tent him in the ethereal
+dream of the soul's desire, was the constant effort and resource of
+his days.
+
+
+II
+
+At the age of fifty-three he took the pen and commenced:
+
+In the year 1524, I, Albrecht Duerer the younger, have put together from
+my father's papers the facts as to whence he was, how he came hither,
+lived here, and drew to a happy end. God be gracious to him and
+us! Amen.
+
+Like his relatives, Albrecht Duerer the elder was born in the kingdom of
+Hungary, in a little village named Eytas, situated not far from a little
+town called Gyula, eight miles below Grosswardein; and his kindred made
+their living from horses and cattle. My father's father was called Anton
+Duerer; he came as a lad to a goldsmith in the said little town and
+learnt the craft under him. He afterwards married a girl named
+Elizabeth, who bare him a daughter, Katharina, and three sons. The first
+son he named Albrecht; he was my dear father. He too became a goldsmith,
+a pure and skilful man. The second son he called Ladislaus; he was a
+saddler. His son is my cousin Niklas Duerer, called Niklas the Hungarian,
+who is settled at Koeln. He also is a goldsmith, and learnt the craft
+here in Nuernberg with my father. The third son he called John. Him he
+set to study, and he afterwards became a parson at Grosswardein, and
+continued there thirty years.
+
+So Albrecht Duerer, my dear father, came to Germany. He had been a long
+time with the great artists in the Netherlands. At last he came hither
+to Nuernberg in the year, as reckoned from the birth of Christ, 1455, on
+S. Elogius' day (June 25). And on the same day Philip Pirkheimer had his
+marriage feast at the Veste, and there was a great dance under the big
+lime tree. For a long time after that my dear father, Albrecht Duerer,
+served my grandfather, old Hieronymus Holper, till the year reckoned
+1467 after the birth of Christ. My grandfather then gave him his
+daughter, a pretty upright girl, fifteen years old, named Barbara; and
+he was wedded to her eight days before S. Vitus (June 8). It may also be
+mentioned that my grandmother, my mother's mother, was the daughter of
+Oellinger of Weissenburg, and her name was Kunigunde.
+
+And my dear father had by his marriage with my dear mother the following
+children born--which I set down here word for word as he wrote it in
+his book:
+
+Here follow eighteen items, only one of which, the third, is of
+interest.
+
+3. Item, in the year 1471 after the birth of Christ, in the sixth hour
+of the day, on S. Prudentia's day, a Tuesday in Rogation Week (May 21),
+my wife bare me my second son. His godfather was Anton Koburger, and he
+named him Albrecht after me, &c. &c.
+
+All these, my brothers and sisters, my dear father's children, are now
+dead, some in their childhood, others as they were growing up; only we
+three brothers still live, so long as God will, namely: I, Albrecht, and
+my brother Andreas and my brother Hans, the third of the name, my
+father's children.
+
+This Albrecht Duerer the elder passed his life in great toil and stern
+hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his
+hand for himself, his wife and his children, so that he had little
+enough. He underwent moreover manifold afflictions, trials, and
+adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived
+an honourable, Christian life, was a man of patient spirit, mild and
+peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had
+little need of company and worldly pleasures; he was also of few words,
+and was a God-fearing man.
+
+
+III
+
+We shall, I think, often do well, when considering the superb
+ostentation of Duerer's workmanship, with its superabundance of curve and
+flourish, its delight in its own ease and grace, to think of those young
+men among his ancestors who made their living from horses on the
+wind-swept plains of Hungary. The perfect control which it is the
+delight of lads brought up and developing under such conditions to
+obtain over the galloping steed, is similar to the control which it
+gratified Duerer to perfect over the dashing stroke of pen or brush,
+which, however swift and impulsive, is yet brought round and performs to
+a nicety a predetermined evolution. And the way he puts a little
+portrait of himself, finely dressed, into his most important pictures,
+may also carry our thoughts away to the banks of the Danube where it
+winds and straggles over the steppes, to picture some young
+horse-breeder, whose costume and harness are his only wealth; who rides
+out in the morning as the cock-bustard that, having preened himself,
+paces before the hen birds on the plains that he can scour when his
+wings, which are slow in the air, join with his strong legs to make
+nothing of grassy leagues on leagues. And first, this life with its free
+sweeping horizon, and the swallow-like curves of its gallops for the
+sake of galloping, or those which the long lashes of its whips trace in
+deploying, and which remind us of the lithe tendrils in which terminate
+Duerer's ornamental flourishes; this life in which the eye is trained to
+watch the lasso, as with well-calculated address it swirls out and drops
+over the frighted head of an unbroken colt;--this life is first pent up
+in a little goldsmith's shop, in a country even to-day famous for the
+beauty and originality of its peasant jewelry: and here it is trained to
+follow and answer the desire of the bright dark eyes of girls in
+love;--in love, where love and the beauty that inspires it are the gifts
+of nature most guarded and most honoured, from which are expected the
+utmost that is conceived of delicacy in delight by a virile and healthy
+race. "A pure and skilful man." Patient already has this life become,
+for a jeweller can scarcely be made of impatient stuff; patient even
+before the admixture of German blood when Albert the elder married his
+Barbara Holper. The two eldest sons were made jewellers; but the third,
+John, is set to study and becomes a parson, as if already learning and
+piety stood next in the estimation of this life after thrift, skill and
+the creation of ornament. And Germany boasts of this life beyond that of
+any of her sons; but her blood was probably of small importance to the
+efficiency that it attained to in the great Albert Duerer. The German
+name of Duerer or Thuerer, a door, is quite as likely to be the
+translation, correct or otherwise, of some Hungarian name, as it is an
+indication that the family had originally emigrated from Germany. In any
+case, a large admixture by intermarriage of Slavonic blood would
+correspond to the unique distinction among Germans, attained in the
+dignity, sweetness and fineness which signalised Duerer. Of course, in
+such matters no sane man looks for proof; but neither will he reject a
+probable suggestion which may help us to understand the nature of an
+exceptional man.
+
+
+IV
+
+Duerer continues to speak of his childhood:
+
+And my father took special pleasure in me, because he saw that I was
+diligent to learn. So he sent me to school, and when I had learnt to
+read and write he took me away from it, and taught me the goldsmith's
+craft. But when I could work neatly, my liking drew me rather to
+painting than to goldsmith's work, so I laid it before my father; but he
+was not well pleased, regretting the time lost while I had been learning
+to be a goldsmith. Still he let it be as I wished, and in 1486 (reckoned
+from the birth of Christ) on S. Andrew's day (November 30) my father
+bound me apprentice to Michael Wolgemut, to serve him three years long.
+During that time God gave me diligence, so that I learnt well, but I had
+much to suffer from his lads.
+
+When I had finished my learning my father sent me off, and I stayed away
+four years till he called me back again. As I had gone forth in the year
+1490 after Easter (Easter Sunday was April 11), so now I came back again
+in 1494 as it is reckoned after Whitsuntide (Whit Sunday was May 18).
+
+Erasmus tells us that German disorders were "partly due to the natural
+fierceness of the race, partly to the division into so many separate
+States, and partly to the tendency of the people to serve as
+mercenaries." That there were many swaggerers and bullies about, we
+learn from Duerer's prints. In every crowd these gentlemen in leathern
+tights, with other ostentatious additions to their costume, besides
+poniards and daggers to emphasise the brutal male, strut straddle-legged
+and self-assured; and of course raw lads and loutish prentices yielded
+them the sincerest flattery. We can well understand that the model boy,
+to whom "God had given diligence," with his long hair lovely as a
+girl's, and his consciousness of being nearly always in the right, had
+much to suffer from his fellow prentices. Besides, very likely, he
+already consorted with Willibald Pirkheimer and his friends, who were
+the aristocrats of the town. And though he may have been meek and
+gentle, there must have appeared in everything he did and was an
+assertion of superiority, all the more galling for its being difficult
+to define and as ready to blush as the innocent truth herself.
+
+
+V
+
+It is much argued as to where Duerer went when his father "sent him off."
+We have the direct statement of a contemporary, Christopher Scheurl,
+that he visited Colmar and Basle; and what is well nigh as good, for a
+visit to Venice. For Scheurl wrote in 1508: _Qui quum nuper in Italiam
+rediset, tum a Venetis, tum a Bononiensibus artificibus, me saepe
+interprete cansalutatus est alter Apelles._
+
+"When he lately _returned_ to Italy, he was often greeted as a second
+Apelles, by the craftsmen both of Venice and Bologna (I acting as their
+interpreter)."
+
+Before we accept any of these statements it is well to remember how
+easily quite intimate friends make mistakes as to where one has been and
+when; even about journeys that in one's own mind either have been or
+should have been turning-points in one's life. For they will attribute
+to the past experiences which were never ours, or forget those which we
+consider most unforgettable. No one who has paid attention to these
+facts will consider that historians prove so much or so well as they
+often fancy themselves to do. In the present case what is really
+remarkable is, that none of these sojournings of the young artist in
+foreign art centres seem to have produced such a change in his art as
+can now be traced with assurance. At Colmar he saw the masterpieces and
+the brothers of the "admirable Martin," as he always calls Schongauer.
+At Basle there is still preserved a cut wood-block representing St.
+Jerome, on the back of which is an authentic signature; there is besides
+a series of uncut wood-blocks, the designs on which it is easy to
+imagine to have been produced by the travelling journeyman that Duerer
+then seemed to the printers and painters of the towns he passed through.
+By those processes by which anything can be made of anything, much has
+been done to give substantiality to the implied first visit to Venice.
+There are drawings which were probably made there, representing ladies
+resembling those in pictures by Carpaccio as to their garments, the
+dressing of their hair, and the type of their faces. Of course it is not
+impossible that such a lady or ladies may have visited Nuremberg, or
+been seen by the young wanderer at Basle or elsewhere. And the
+resemblance between a certain drawing in the Albertina and one of the
+carved lions in red marble now on the Piazzetta de' Leoni does not count
+for much, when we consider that there is nothing in the workmanship of
+these heads to suggest that they were done after sculptured
+originals;--the manes, &c., being represented by an easy penman's
+convention, as they might have been whether the models were living or
+merely imagined. Nor is there any good reason for dating the drawings of
+sites in the Tyrol, supposed to have been sketched on the road, rather
+this year than another. Lastly, the famous sentence in a letter written
+from Venice during Duerer's authenticated visit there, in 1506, may be
+construed in more than one sense. The passage is generally rather
+curtailed when quoted.
+
+He (Giovanni Bellini) is very old, but is still the best painter of them
+all. The thing that pleased me so well eleven years ago, pleases me now
+no more; if I had not seen it for myself, I should never have believed
+any one who told me. You must know, too, that there are many better
+painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo de' Barbari) is abroad; yet
+Anton Kolb would swear an oath that no better painter than Jacob lives.
+
+If "the thing that pleased so well eleven years before" was a picture or
+pictures by Master Jacob or by Andrea Mantegna, as is usually supposed,
+the phrase, "If I had not seen it for myself I should never have
+believed any one who told me" is extremely strange. It is not usual to
+expect to change one's opinion of a work of art by hearsay, or to
+imagine others, when they have not done so, predicting with assurance
+that we shall change a decided opinion upon the merits of a work of art;
+yet one of these two suppositions seems certainly to be implied. I do
+not say that it is impossible to conceive of either, only that such
+cursory reference to such conceptions is extremely strange. Again, if
+work by Jacopo de' Barbari is referred to, it might very well have been
+seen elsewhere than at Venice eleven years ago; and indeed the last
+sentence in the passage might be taken to imply as much. To me at least
+the truth appears to be that these hints, which we may well have
+misunderstood, point to something which the imagination is only too
+delighted to entertain. It is a charming dream--the young Duerer, just of
+age, trudging from town to town, designing wood-blocks for a printer
+here, questioning the brothers of the "admirable Martin" there, or again
+painting a sign in yet another place, such as Holbein painted for the
+schoolmaster at Basle; and at last arriving in Venice--Venice untouched
+as yet by the conflicting ideals that were even then being brought to
+birth anew: Mediaeval Venice, such as we see her in the pictures of
+Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. One painting of real importance in the
+work of Duerer remains to us from this period: the greatest of modern
+critics has described it and its effect on him in a way which would make
+any second attempt impertinent.
+
+I consider as invaluable Albrecht Duerer's portrait of himself painted in
+1493, when he was in his twenty-second year. It is a bust half
+life-size, showing the two hands and the forearms. Crimson cap with
+short narrow strings, the throat bare to below the collar bone, an
+embroidered shirt, the folds of the sleeves tied underneath with
+peach-coloured ribbons, and a blue-grey, fur-edged cloak with yellow
+laces, compose a dainty dress befitting a well-bred youth. In his hand
+he significantly carries a blue _eryngo_, called in German "Mannstreu."
+He has a serious, youthful face, the mouth and chin covered with an
+incipient beard. The whole splendidly drawn, the composition simple,
+grand and harmonious; the execution perfect and in every way worthy of
+Duerer, though the colour is very thin, and has cracked in some places.
+
+Such is the figure which we may imagine making its way among the crowd
+in Gentile Bellini's Procession of the "True Cross" before St. Mark's,
+with eyes all wonder and lips often consciously imprisoning the German
+tongue, which cannot make itself understood. How comes he so finely
+dressed, the son of the modest Nuremberg goldsmith? Has he won the
+friendship of some rich burgher prince at Augsburg, or Strasburg, or
+Basle? Has he been enabled to travel in his suite as far as Venice? Or
+has he earned a large sum for painting some lord's or lady's portrait,
+which, if it were not lost, would now stand as the worthy compeer of
+this splendid portrait of the "true man" far from home; true to that
+home only, or true to Agnes Frey?--for some suppose the sprig of eryngo
+to signify that he was already betrothed to her. Or perhaps he has
+joined Willibald Pirkheimer at Basle or elsewhere, and they two,
+crossing the Alps together, have become friends for life? Will they part
+here ere long, the young burgher prince to proceed to the Universities
+of Padua and Mantua, the future great painter to trudge back over the
+Alps, getting a lift now and again in waggon or carriage or on pillion?
+Let the man of pretentious science say it is bootless to ask such
+questions; those who ask them know that it is delightful; know that it
+is the true way to make the past live for them; guess that would
+historians more generally ask them, their books would be less often
+dry as dust.
+
+
+VI
+
+It may be that to this period belongs the meeting with Jacopo de'
+Barbari to which a passage in his MS. books (now in the British Museum)
+refers: and that already he began to be exercised on the subject of a
+canon of proportions for the human figure. In the chapter which I devote
+to his studies on this subject it will be seen how the determination to
+work the problem out by experiment, since Jacopo refused to reveal, and
+Vitruvius only hinted at the secret, led to his discovering something of
+far more value than it is probable that either could have given him. And
+yet the belief that there was a hidden secret probably hindered him from
+fully realising the importance of his discovery, or reaping such benefit
+from it as he otherwise might have done. How often has not the belief
+that those of old time knew what is ignored to-day, prevented men from
+taking full advantage of the conquests over ignorance that they have
+made themselves! Because what they know is not so much as they suppose
+might be or has been known, they fail to recognise the most that has yet
+been known--the best foundation for a new building that has yet been
+discovered--and search for what they possess, and fail to rival those
+whose superiority over themselves is a delusion of their own hearts. So
+early Duerer may have begun this life-long labour which, though not
+wholly vain, was never really crowned to the degree it merited: while
+others living in more fertile lands reaped what they had not sown, he
+could only plough and scatter seed. As Raphael is supposed to have said,
+all that was lacking to him was knowledge of the antique.
+
+Perhaps many will blame me for writing, unlearned, as I am; in my
+opinion they are not wrong; they speak truly. For I myself had rather
+hear and read a learned man and one famous in this art than write of it
+myself, being unlearned. Howbeit I can find none such who hath written
+aught about how to form a canon of human proportions, save one man,
+Jacopo (de' Barbari) by name, born at Venice and a charming painter. He
+showed me the figures of a man and woman, which he had drawn according
+to a canon of proportions; and now I would rather be shown what he meant
+(_i.e._, upon what principles the proportions were constructed) than
+behold a new kingdom. If I had it (his canon), I would put it into print
+in his honour, for the use of all men. Then, however, I was still young
+and had not heard of such things before. Howbeit I was very fond of art,
+so I set myself to discover how such a canon might be wrought out. For
+this aforesaid Jacopo, as I clearly saw, would not explain to me the
+principles upon which he went. Accordingly I set to work on my own idea
+and read Vitruvius, who writes somewhat about the human figure. Thus it
+was from, or out of, these two men aforesaid that I took my start, and
+thence, from day to day, have I followed up my search according to my
+own notions.
+
+
+VII
+
+When I returned home, Hans Prey treated with my father and gave me his
+daughter, Mistress Agnes by name, and with her he gave me two hundred
+florins, and we were wedded; it was on Monday before Margaret's (July 7)
+in the year 1494.
+
+The general acceptance of the gouty and irascible Pirkheimer's
+defamation of Frau Duerer as a miser and a shrew called forth a display
+of ingenuity on the part of Professor Thausing to prove the contrary.
+And I must confess that if he has not quite done that, he seems to me to
+have very thoroughly discredited Pirkheimer's ungallant abuse. Sir
+Martin Conway bids us notice that Duerer speaks of his "dear father" and
+his "dear mother" and even of his "dear father-in-law," but that he
+never couples that adjective with his wife's name. It is very dangerous
+to draw conclusions from such a fact, which may be merely an accident:
+or may, if it represents a habit of Duerer's, bear precisely the opposite
+significance. For some men are proud to drop such outward marks of
+affection, in cases where they know that every day proves to every
+witness that they are not needed. He also considers that her portraits
+show her, when young, to have been "empty-headed," when older, a "frigid
+shrew." For my own part, if the portrait at Bremen (see opposite)
+represents "mein Angnes," as its resemblance to the sketch at Vienna
+(see illus.) convinces me it does, I cannot accept either of these
+conclusions arrived at by the redoubtable science of physiognomy. The
+Bremen portrait shows us a refined, almost an eccentric type of beauty;
+one can easily believe it to have been possessed by a person of
+difficult character, but one certainly who must have had compensating
+good qualities. The "mein Angnes" on the sketch may well be set against
+the absent "dears" in the other mentions her husband made of her,
+especially when we consider that he couples this adjective with the
+Emperor's name, "my dear Prince Max." Of her relations to him nothing is
+known except what Pirkheimer wrote in his rage, when he was writing
+things which are demonstrably false. We know, however, that she was
+capable, pious, and thrifty; and on several occasions, in the
+Netherlands, shared in the honours done to her husband. It is natural to
+suppose that as they were childless, there may have existed a moral
+equivalent to this infertility; but also, with a man such as we know
+Duerer to have been, and a woman in every case not bad, have we not
+reason to expect that this moral barrenness which may have afflicted
+their union was in some large measure conquered by mutual effort and
+discipline, and bore from time to time those rarer flowers whose beauty
+and sweetness repay the conscious culture of the soul? It seems
+difficult to imagine that a man who succeeded in charming so many
+different acquaintances, and in remaining life-long friends with the
+testy and inconsiderate Pirkheimer, should have altogether failed to
+create a relation kindly and even beautiful with his Agnes, whose
+portrait we surely have at her best in the drawing at Bremen.
+Considerations as to the general position of married women in those days
+need not prevent us of our natural desire to think as well as possible
+of Duerer and his circumstances. We know that for a great many men the
+wife was not simply counted among their goods and chattels, or regarded
+as a kind of superior servant. We are able to take a peep at many a
+fireside of those days, where the relations that obtained, however
+different in certain outward characters, might well shame the greater
+number of the respectable even in the present year of grace. We know
+what Luther was in these respects; and have rather more than less reason
+to expect from the refined and gracious Duerer the creation of a worthy
+and kindly home. Why should we expect him to have been less successful
+than his parents in these respects?
+
+[Illustration: AGNES FREY. DUeRER'S WIFE (?)--Silver-point drawing
+heightened with white on a dun paper. Kunsthalle, Bremen]
+
+[Illustration: "MEIN ANGNES"--Pen sketch of the artist's wife, in the
+Albertina at Vienna]
+
+
+VIII
+
+Some time after the marriage it happened that my father was so ill with
+dysentery that no one could stop it. And when he saw death before his
+eyes he gave himself willingly to it, with great patience, and he
+commended my mother to me, and exhorted me to live in a manner pleasing
+to God. He received the Holy Sacraments and passed away Christianly (as
+I have described at length in another book) in the year 1502, after
+midnight, before S. Matthew's eve (September 20). God be gracious and
+merciful to him.
+
+The only leaf of the "other book" referred to that has survived is that
+which I have already quoted at length.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+
+I
+
+Now let us consider what the world was like in which this virile,
+accurate and persevering spirit had grown up. Over and over again, the
+story of the New Birth has been told; how it began in France, and met an
+untimely fate at the hands of English invaders, then took refuge in
+Italy, where it grew to be the wonder of the world; and how the
+corruption of the ruling classes and of the Church, with the indignation
+and rebellion that this gave rise to, combined to frustrate the promise
+of earlier days.
+
+When the Roman Empire gradually became an anarchy of hostile fragments,
+every large monastery, every small town, girded itself with walls and
+tended to become the germ of a new civilisation. Popes, kings, and great
+lords, haunted by reminiscence of the vanished empire, made spasmodic
+attempts to subject such centres to their rule and tax them for their
+maintenance. In the first times, the Church--the See of Rome--made by
+far the most successful attempt to get its supremacy acknowledged, and
+had therefore fewer occasions to resort to violence. It was more
+respected and more respectable than the other powers which claimed to
+rule and tax these immured and isolated communities dotted over Europe;
+but as time went on, the Church became less and less beneficent, more
+and more tyrannical. Meanwhile kings and emperors, having learned wisdom
+by experience, found themselves in a position to take advantage of the
+growing bad odour of the Church; and by favouring the civil communities
+and creating a stable hierarchy among the class of lords and barons from
+which they had emerged, were at last able to face the Church, with its
+_proteges,_ the religious communities, on an equal footing.
+
+The religious communities, owing to the vow of celibacy, had become more
+and more stagnant, while the civil communities increased in power to
+adapt themselves to the age. All that was virile and creative combined
+in the towns; all that was inadequate, sterile, useless, coagulated in
+the monasteries, which thus became cesspools, and ultimately took on the
+character of festering sores by which the civil bodies which had at
+first been purged into them were endangered. Luther tells us how there
+was a Bishop of Wuerzburg who used to say when he saw a rogue, "'To the
+cloister with you. Thou art useless to God or man.' He meant that in the
+cloister were only hogs and gluttons, who did nothing but eat and drink
+and sleep, and were of no more profit than as many rats." And the
+loathing that another of these sties created in the young Erasmus, and
+the difficulty he had to escape from the clutches of its inmates--never
+feeling safe till the Pope had intervened--show us that by their wealth
+and by the engine of their malice, the confessional (which they had
+usurped from the regular clergy), they were as formidable as they were
+useless. It became necessary that this antiquated system of social
+drainage should be superseded.
+
+In England and Germany it was swept away. In centres like Nuremberg, the
+desire for reformation and the horror of false doctrine were grounded in
+practical experience of intolerable inconveniences, not in a clear
+understanding of the questions at issue. Intellectually, the leaders of
+the Reformation had no better foundation than those they opposed: for
+them, as for their opponents, the question was not to be solved by an
+appeal to evident truths and experience, but to historical documents and
+traditions, supposed, to be infallible. For a clear intelligence, there
+is nothing to choose between the infallibility of oecumenical councils
+or of Popes, and that of the Bible. Both have been in their time the
+expression of very worthy and very human sentiments; both are incapable
+of rational demonstration.
+
+
+II
+
+Scattered over Europe, wherever the free intelligence was waking and had
+rubbed her eyes, were men who desired that nuisances should be removed
+and reforms operated without schism or violence. To these Erasmus spoke.
+His policy was tentative, and did not proceed, like that of other
+parties, by declaring that a perfect solution was to hand. Luther's
+action divided these honest, upright souls, and would-be children of
+light, into three unequal camps.
+
+As a rule the downright, headstrong, and impatient became reformers. The
+respectful, cautious and long-suffering, such as More, Warham, and
+Adrian IV., clung to the Roman establishment, were martyred for it or
+broke their hearts over it. Erasmus and a handful of others remained
+true to a tentative policy, and, compared with their contemporaries,
+were meek and lowly in heart--became children of light. To them we now
+look back wistfully, and wish that they might have been, if not as
+numerous as the Churchmen and Beformers, at least a sufficient body to
+have made their influence an effective force, with the advantage of more
+light and more patience that was really theirs. But, alas! they only
+counted as the first dissolvent which set free more corrosive and
+detrimental acids. The exhilaration of action and battle was for others;
+for them the sad conviction that neither side deserved to be trusted
+with a victory. Yet, beyond the world whose chief interest was the
+Reformation, we may be sure that such men as Charles V., Michael Angelo,
+Rabelais, Montaigne, and all those whom they may be taken to represent,
+were in essential agreement with Erasmus. Luther and Machiavelli alone
+rejected the Papacy as such: the latter's more stringent intellectual
+development led him also to discard every ideal motive or agent of
+reform for violent means. He was ready even to regard the passions of
+men like Caesar Borgia, tyrants in the fullest sense of the word, as the
+engines by which civilisation, learning, art, and manners, might be
+maintained. Whereas Luther appealed to the passions of common honest
+men, the middle classes in fact. It is easy to let either Luther or
+Machiavelli steal away our entire sympathy. On the one hand, no
+compromise, not even the slightest, seems possible with criminal
+ruffians such as a Julius II. and an Alexander Borgia; on the other
+hand, the power swollen by the tide of minor corruption, which such men
+ruled by might, did come into the hands of a Leo X., an Adrian IV.; and
+though that power was obviously tainted through and through, it might
+have been mastered and wielded in the cause of reform. Erasmus hoped for
+this. Even Julius II. protected him from the superiors of his convent.
+Even Julius II. patronised Michael Angelo and Raphael and everything
+that had a definite character in the way of creative power or
+scholarship; and could appreciate at least the respect which what he
+patronised commanded. He could appreciate the respect commanded by the
+austerity and virtue of those who rebelled against him and denounced his
+cynical abuse of all his powers, whether natural or official. He liked
+to think he had enemies worth beating. Such a ruler is a sore temptation
+to a keen intellect. "Everything great is formative," and this Pope was
+colossal--a colossal bully and robber if you like--but the good he did
+by his patronage was real good, was practical. Michael Angelo and
+Raphael could work as splendidly as they desired. Erasmus was helped and
+encouraged. Timid honesty is often petty, does nothing, criticises and
+finds fault with artists and with learning, runs after them like Sancho
+Panza after Don Quixote, is helpless and ridiculous and horribly in the
+way. Leo X. was intelligent and well-meaning; wisdom herself might hope
+from such a man. Be the throne he is sitting on as monstrous and corrupt
+a contrivance as it may, yet it is there, it does give him authority; he
+is on it and dominates the world. It is easy to say, "But the period of
+the Renascence closed, its glory died away." Suppose Luther had been as
+subtle as he was whole-hearted, and had added to his force of character
+a delicacy and charm like that of St. Francis; or suppose that Erasmus
+instead of his schoolfellow Adrian IV. had become Pope; what a different
+tale there might have been to tell! Who will presume to point out the
+necessity by which these things were thus and not otherwise? "Regrets
+for what 'might have been' are proverbially idle," cries the historian
+from whom I have chiefly quoted. I do not recollect the proverb, unless
+he refers to "It is no use crying over spilt milk;" but in any case such
+regrets are far from being necessarily idle. "What might have been" is
+even generally "what ought to have been;" and no study has been or is
+likely to be so pregnant for us as the study of the contrast between
+"what was" and "what ought to have been," though such studies are
+inevitably mingled with regrets. We have every reason to regret that the
+Reformation was so hasty and ill-considered, and that the Papacy was as
+purblind as it was arrogant. The plant of the Roman Church machinery,
+which it had taken centuries to lay down, came into the hands of men who
+grossly ignored its function and the conditions of its working. They
+used its power partly for the benefit of the human race, by patronising
+art and scholarship; but chiefly in self-indulgence. If honest
+intelligence had been given control, a man so partially equipped for his
+task would not have been goaded into action; but only force, moral or
+physical, can act at a disadvantage; light and reason must have the
+advantage of dominant position to effect anything immediate. If they are
+not on the throne, all they can do is to sow seed, and bewail the
+present while looking forward to a better future. Now, most educated men
+are for tolerance, and see as Erasmus saw. We see that Savonarola and
+Luther were not so right as they thought themselves to be; we see that
+what they condemned as arrogancy and corruption is partly excusable--is
+in some measure a condition of efficiency in worldly spheres where one
+has to employ men already bad. True, the great princes and cardinals of
+those days not only connived at corruption and ruled by it, but often
+even professed it. Still in every epoch, under all circumstances, the
+majority of those who have governed men have more or less cynically
+employed means that will not bear the light of day. While these
+magnificoes of the Renascence do stand alone, or almost alone, by the
+ample generosity of their conception of the objects that power should be
+exerted in furtherance of; their outlook on life was more commensurate
+with the variety and competence of human nature than perhaps that of any
+ruling class has been before or since. As Shakespeare is the amplest of
+poets, so were theirs the most fruitful of courts. From the great
+Medicis to our own Elizabeth they all partake of a certain grandiose
+vitality and variety of intention.
+
+
+III
+
+Greatness demands self-assertion; self-assertion is a great virtue even
+in a Julius II. There is a vast deal of humbug in the use we make of the
+word humility. We talk about Christ's humility, but whose self-assertion
+has ever been more unmitigated? "I am the Way, the Truth, and the
+Light." "Learn of Me that I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls." No doubt it is the quality of the self asserted that
+justifies in our eyes the assertion; humility then is not opposed to
+self-assertion. When Michael Angelo shows that he thinks himself the
+greatest artist in the world, he is not necessarily lacking in humility;
+nor is Luther, asserting the authority of his conscience against the
+Pope and Emperor; nor Duerer, saying to us in those little finely-dressed
+portraits with which he signs his pictures, "I am that I am--namely, one
+of the handsomest of men and the greatest artist north of the Alps." Or
+when Erasmus lets us see that he thinks himself the most learned man
+living,--if he is the most learned, so much the better that he should
+know this also as well as the rest. The artist and the scholar were
+bound to feel gratitude for the corrupt but splendid Church and courts,
+which gave them so much both in the way of maintenance and opportunity.
+It may be asked, has all the honesty and the not always evident purity
+of Protestantism done so much for the world as those dissolute Popes and
+Princes? And the artist, judging with a hasty bias perhaps, is likely to
+answer no.
+
+
+IV
+
+For us nowadays the pith of history seems no more to be the lives of
+monarchs, or the fighting of battles, or even the deliberations of
+councils; these things we have more and more come to regard merely as
+tools and engines for the creation of societies, homes, and friends. And
+so, though religion and religious machinery dominated the life of those
+days, it is not in theological disputes, neither is it in oecumenical
+councils and Popes, nor in sermons, reformers, and synods, that we find
+the essence of the soul's life. Rather to us, the pictures, the statues,
+the books, the furniture, the wardrobes, the letters, and the scandals
+that have been left behind, speak to us of those days; for these we
+value them. And we are right, the value of the Renaissance lies in these
+things, I say "the scandals" of those days; for a part of what comes
+under that head was perhaps the manifestation of a morality based on a
+wider experience; though its association with obvious vices and its
+opposition to the old and stale ideals gave it an illegitimate
+character; while the re-establishment of the more part of those ideals
+has perpetuated its reproach. There can be no intellectual charity if
+the machinery and special sentences of current morality are supposed to
+be final or truly adequate. Their tentative and inadequate character,
+which every free intelligence recognises, is what endorses the wisdom of
+Jesus', saying, "Judge not that ye be not judged." Ordinary honest and
+good citizens do not realise how much that is in every way superior to
+the gifts of any single one of themselves is yearly sacrificed and
+tortured for their preservation as a class. On what agonies of creative
+and original minds is the safety of their homes based? These respectable
+Molochs who devour both the poor and the exceptionally gifted, and are
+so little better for their meal, were during the Renascence for a time
+gainsaid and abashed; yet even then their engines, the traditional
+secular and ecclesiastic policies, were a foreign encumbrance with which
+the human spirit was loaded, and which helped to prevent it from reaping
+the full result of its mighty upheaval.
+
+To see things as they are, and above all to value them for what is most
+essential in them with regard to the development of our own
+characters;--that is, I take it, consciously or unconsciously, the main
+effort of the modern spirit. On the world, the flesh, and the devil, we
+have put new values; and it was the first assertion of these new values
+which caused the Renascence. Fine manners, fine clothes, and varied
+social interchange make the world admirable in our eyes, not at all a
+bogey to frighten us. Health, frankness, and abundant exercise make the
+flesh a pure delight in our eyes; lastly, this new-born spirit has made
+"a moral of the devil himself," and so for us he has lost his terror.
+
+Rabelais was right when he laughed the old outworn values down, and
+declared that women were in the first place female, men in the first
+place male; that the written word should be a self-expression, a
+sincerity, not a task or a catalogue or a penance, but, like laughter
+and speech, essentially human, making all men brothers, doing away with
+artificial barriers and distinctions, making the scholar shake in time
+with the toper, and doubling the divine up with the losel; bidding even
+the lady hold her sides in company with the harlot. Eating and drinking
+were seen to be good in themselves; the eye and the nose and the palate
+were not only to be respected but courted; free love was better than
+married enmity. No rite, no church, no god, could annihilate these facts
+or restrain their influence any more than the sea could be tamed. Duerer
+was touched with this spirit; we see it in his fine clothes, in his
+collector's rapacity, above all in his letters to his friend
+Pirkheimer--a man more typical of that Rabelaisian age than Duerer and
+Michael Angelo, who were both of them not only modern men but men
+conservative of the best that had been--men in travail for the future,
+absorbed by the responsibility of those who create.
+
+Pirkheimer, one year Duerer's senior, was a gross fat man early in life,
+enjoying the clinking of goblets, the music of fork and knife, and the
+effrontery of obscene jests. A vain man, a soldier and a scholar,
+pedantic, irritable, but in earnest; a complimenter of Emperors, a
+leader of the reform party, a partisan of Luther's, the friend and
+correspondent of Erasmus, the elective brother of Duerer. The man was
+typical; his fellows were in all lands. Duerer was surprised to find how
+many of them there were at Venice--men who would delight Pirkheimer and
+delight in him. "My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you I don't know how it happens! ... men of sense and
+knowledge, good lute players and pipers, judges of painting, men of much
+noble sentiment and honest virtue; and they show me much honour and
+friendship." Something of all this was doubtless in Duerer too; but in
+him it was refined and harmonised by the sense and serious concern, not
+only for the things of to-day, but for those of to-morrow and yesterday;
+the sense of solidarity, the passion for permanent effect, eternal
+excellence. These things, in men like Pirkheimer, still more in Erasmus,
+and even in Rabelais and Montaigne, are not absent; but they are less
+stringent, less religious, than they are in a Duerer or a Michael Angelo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DUeRER AT VENICE
+
+
+I
+
+There are several reasons which may possibly have led Duerer to visit
+Venice in 1505. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German
+Merchants at Venice, had been burned down the winter before, and they
+were in haste to complete a new one. Duerer may have received assurance
+that the commission to paint the altar-piece for the new chapel would be
+his did he desire it. At any rate he seems to have set to work on such a
+picture almost as soon as he arrived there. It is strange to think that
+Giorgione and Titian probably began to paint the frescoes on the facade
+while he was still at work in the chapel, or soon after he left. The
+plague broke out in Nuremberg before he came away; but this is not
+likely to have been his principal motive for leaving home, as many
+richer men, such as his friend Pirkheimer, from whom he borrowed money
+for the journey, stayed where they were. Nor do Duerer's letters reveal
+any alarm for his friend's, his mother's, his wife's, or his brother's
+safety. He took with him six small pictures, and probably a great number
+of prints, for Venice was a first-rate market.
+
+
+II
+
+The letters which follow are like a glimpse of a distant scene in a
+_camera obscura_, and, like life itself, they are full of repetitions
+and over-insistence on what is insignificant or of temporary interest.
+To-day they call for our patience and forbearance, and it will depend
+upon our imaginative activity in what degree they repay them; even as it
+depends upon our power of affectionate assimilation in what degree and
+kind every common day adds to our real possessions.
+
+I have made my citations as ample as possible, so as to give the reader
+a just idea of their character while making them centre as far as
+possible round points of special interest.
+
+_To the honourable, wise Master Wilibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of Nuerberg,
+my kind Master_. VENICE, _January 6, 1506._
+
+I wish you and yours many good, happy New Years. My willing service,
+first of all, to you dear Master Pirkheimer! Know that I am in good
+health; I pray God far better things than that for you. As to those
+pearls and precious stones which you gave me commission to buy, you must
+know that I can find nothing good or even worth its price. Everything is
+snapped up by the Germans who hang about the Riva. They always want to
+get four times the value for anything, for they are the falsest knaves
+alive. No one need look for an honest service from any of them. Some
+good fellows have warned me to beware of them, they cheat man and beast.
+You can buy better things at a lower price at Frankfurt than at Venice.
+
+[Illustration: Wilibald Pirkheimer--Charcoal Drawing, Dumesnil
+Collection, Paris _Face p._ 80]
+
+About the books which I was to order for you, the Imhofs have already
+seen after them; but if there is anything else you want, let me know and
+I will attend to it for you with all zeal. Would to God I could do you a
+right good service! gladly would I accomplish it, seeing, as I do, how
+much you do for me. And I pray you be patient with my debt, for indeed I
+think much oftener of it than you do. When God helps me home I will
+honourably repay you with many thanks; for I have a panel to paint for
+the Germans for which they are to pay me a hundred and ten Rhenish
+florins--it will not cost me as much as five. I shall have scraped it and
+laid on the ground and made it ready within eight days; then I shall at
+once begin to paint and, if God will, it shall be in its place above the
+altar a month after Easter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VENICE, _February 17_, 1506.
+
+How I wish you were here at Venice! There are so many nice men among the
+Italians who seek my company more and more every day--which is very
+pleasing to one--men of sense and knowledge, good lute-players and
+pipers, judges of painting, men of much noble sentiment and 'honest
+virtue, and they show me much honour and friendship. On the other hand
+there are also amongst them some of the most false, lying, thievish
+rascals; I should never have believed that such were living in the
+world. If one did not know them, one would think them the nicest men the
+earth could show. For my own part I cannot help laughing at them
+whenever they talk to me. They know that their knavery is no secret but
+they don't mind.
+
+Amongst the Italians I have many good friends who warn me not to eat and
+drink with their painters. Many of them are my enemies and they copy my
+work in the churches and wherever they can find it; and then they revile
+it and say that the style is not _antique_ and so not good. But Giovanni
+Bellini has highly praised me before many nobles. He wanted to have
+something of mine, and himself came to me and asked me to paint him
+something and he would pay well for it. And all men tell me what an
+upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very
+old, but is still the best painter of them all. And that which so well
+pleased me eleven years ago pleases me no longer, if I had not seen it
+for myself I should not have believed any one who told me. You must know
+too that there are many better painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo
+de' Barbari) is abroad (_wider darvsen Meister J._), yet Anton Kolb
+would swear an oath that no better painter lives than Jacob. Others
+sneer at him, saying if he were good he would stay here, and so forth.
+
+I have only to-day begun to sketch in my picture, for my hands were so
+scabby (_grindig_) that I could do no work with them, but I have got
+them cured.
+
+Now be lenient with me and don't get in a passion so easily, but be
+gentle like me. I don't know why you will not learn from me. My friend!
+I should like to know if any one of your loves is dead--that one close
+by the water for instance, or the one called [Illustration] or
+[Illustration] or a [Illustration] so that you might supply her place by
+another. ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+VENICE, February 28, 1506.
+
+I wish you had occasion to come here, I know you would not find time
+hang on your hands, for there are so many nice men in this country,
+right good artists. I have such a throng of Italians about me that at
+times I have to shut myself up. The nobles all wish me well, but few of
+the painters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VENICE, _April_ 2, 1506.
+
+The painters here, let me tell you, are very unfriendly to me. They have
+summoned me three times before the magistrates, and I have had to pay
+four florins to their school. You must also know that I might have
+gained a great deal of money if I had not undertaken to paint the German
+picture. There is much work in it and I cannot get it quite finished
+before Whitsuntide. Yet they only pay me eighty-five ducats for it. Now
+you know how much it costs to live, and then I have bought some things
+and sent some money away, so that I have not much before me now. But
+don't misunderstand me, I am firmly purposed not to go away hence till
+God enables me to repay you with thanks and to have a hundred florins
+over besides. I should easily earn this if I had not got the German
+picture to paint, for all men except the painters wish me well.
+
+Tell my mother to speak to Wolgemut about my brother, and to ask him
+whether he can make use of him and give him work till I come, or whether
+he can put him with some one else. I should gladly have brought him with
+me to Venice, and that would have been useful both to me and him, and he
+would have learnt the language, but my mother was afraid that the sky
+would fall on him. Pray keep an eye on him yourself, the women are no
+use for that. Tell the lad, as you so well can, to be studious and
+honest till I come, and not to be a trouble to his mother; if I cannot
+arrange everything I will at all events do all that I can. Alone I
+certainly should not starve, but to support many is too hard for me, for
+no one throws his gold away.
+
+Now I commend myself to you. Tell my mother to be ready to sell at the
+Crown-fair (_Heiligthumsfest_). I am arranging for my wife to have come
+home by then; I have written to her too about everything. I will not
+take any steps about buying the diamond ornament till I get your
+next letter.
+
+I don't think I shall be able to come home before next autumn, when what
+I earned for the picture, which was to have been ready by Whitsuntide,
+will be quite used up in living expenses, purchases, and payments; what,
+however, I gain afterwards I hope to save. If you see fit don't speak of
+this further, and I will keep putting off my leaving from day to day and
+writing as though I was just coming. I am indeed very uncertain what to
+do next. Write to me again soon.
+
+Given on Thursday before Palm Sunday in the year 1506. ALBRECHT DUeRER,
+Your Servant.
+
+VENICE, _August_ 18, 1506.
+
+_To the first, greatest man in the world. Your servant and slave
+Albrecht Duerer sends salutation to his Magnificent master Wilibald_
+Pirkheimer. _My truth! I hear gladly and with great satisfaction of your
+health and great honours. I wonder how it is possible for a man like you
+to stand against_ so many _wisest princes,_ swaggerers _and soldiers; it
+must be by some special grace of God. When I read your letter about this
+terrible grimace, it gave me a great fright and I thought it was a most
+important thing,_[15] but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's
+men,[16] you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it
+is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want
+to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to
+please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow
+as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so many loves that merely
+to pay each one a visit you would take a month or more before you got
+through the list.
+
+For one thing I return you my thanks, namely, for explaining my position
+in the best way to my wife; but I know that there is no lack of wisdom
+in you. If only you had my meekness you would have all virtues. Thank
+you also for all the good you have done me, if only you would not bother
+me about the rings! If they don't please you, break their heads off and
+pitch them out on to the dunghill as Peter Weisweber says. What do you
+mean by setting me to such dirty work? _I_ have become a _gentleman_
+at Venice.
+
+I have also heard that you can make lovely rhymes; you would be a find
+for our fiddlers here; they fiddle so beautifully that they can't help
+weeping over it themselves. Would God our Rechenmeister girl could hear
+them, she would cry too. At your bidding I will again lay aside my anger
+and bear myself even more bravely than usual.
+
+Now let me commend myself to you; give my willing service to our Prior
+for me; tell him to pray God for me that I may be protected, and
+especially from the French sickness; I know of nothing that I now dread
+more than that, for well nigh every one has got it. Many men are quite
+eaten up and die of it.
+
+VENICE, _September_ 8, 1506.
+
+Most learned, approved, wise, knower of many languages, sharp to detect
+all encountered lies and quick to recognise plain truth! Honourable
+much-regarded Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer. Your humble servant Albrecht
+Duerer wishes you all hail, great and worthy honour _in the devil's name,_
+so much for the twaddle of which you are so fond. I wager that for
+this[17] you would think me too an orator of a hundred parts. A chamber
+must have more than four corners which is to contain the gods of memory.
+I am not going to cram my head full of them; that I leave to you; for I
+believe that however many chambers there might be in the head, you would
+have something in each of them. The Margrave would not grant an audience
+long enough!--a hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred
+words, that takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs
+which I have not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the
+whole at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old
+driveller.
+
+I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot find any
+broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However I still look about
+every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.
+
+I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you his
+service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his Son, the nicest lad
+I ever saw.
+
+I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh, if only you were here!
+how you would like these fine Italian soldiers! How often I think of
+you! Would to God that you and Kunz Kamerer could see them! They have
+great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only touch a man with them
+he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey! I can do it well, I'll be an
+Italian soldier. The Venetians as well as the Pope and the King of
+France are collecting many men; what will come of it I don't know, but
+people ridicule our King very much.
+
+Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me. I don't wonder at his
+having taken a wife. Give my greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our
+fair friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister girl, and thank that
+head-chamber of yours alone for remembering her greeting; tell her she's
+a nasty one.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I sent you olive-wood from Venice to Augsburg, where I directed it to be
+left, a full ten hundredweight. She says she would not wait for it;
+_whence the stink_.
+
+My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it,
+it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned much praise
+but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could easily
+have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in order that
+I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the painters who used
+to say that I was good at engraving but, as to painting. I did not know
+how to handle my colours. Now every one says that better colouring they
+have never seen.
+
+My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes me that
+there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out even at
+this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting you
+pretend not to be more than twenty-five years old--oh, yes! double that
+and I'll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you; I don't know how it happens!
+
+The Doge and the Patriarch have also seen my picture. Herewith let me
+commend myself to you as your servant. I must really go to sleep as it
+is striking the seventh hour of the night, and I have already written to
+the Prior of the Augustines, to my father-in-law, to Mistress Dietrich,
+and to my wife, and they are all downright whole sheets full. So I have
+had to hurry over this letter, read it according to the sense. You would
+doubtless do better if you were writing to a lot of Princes. Many good
+nights and days too. Given at Venice on our Lady's day in September.
+
+You need not lend my wife and mother anything; they have got money
+enough,
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+VENICE, _September 23_, 1506.
+
+Your letter telling me of the praise that you get to overflowing from
+Princes and nobles gave me great delight. You must be altogether altered
+to have become so gentle; I shall hardly know you when I meet you again.
+
+You must know that my picture is finished as well as another
+_Quadro_[18] the like of which I have never painted before. And as you
+are so pleased with yourself, let me tell you that there is no better
+Madonna picture in the land than mine; for all the painters praise it,
+as the nobles do you. They say that they have never seen a nobler,
+more charming painting, and so forth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But in order to come home as soon as possible, I have, since my picture
+was finished, refused work that would have yielded me more than 2000
+ducats. This all men know who live about me here.
+
+Bernhard Holzbeck has told me great things of you, though I think he
+does so because you have become his brother-in-law. But nothing makes me
+more angry than when any one says that you are good-looking; if that
+were so I should become really ugly. That could make me mad. I have
+found a grey hair on myself, it is the result of so much excitement. And
+I fear that while I play such pranks with myself there are still bad
+days before me, &c.
+
+My French mantle, my doublet, and my brown coat send you a hearty
+greeting, I should be glad to see what great thing your head-piece can
+produce that you hold yourself so high.
+
+VENICE, _about October_ 13, 1506.
+
+Knowing that you are aware of my devotion to your service there is no
+need for me to write to you about it; but so much the more necessary is
+it for me to tell you of the great pleasure it gives me to hear of the
+high honour and fame which your manly wisdom and learned skill have
+brought you. This is the more to be wondered at, for seldom or never in
+a young body can the like be found. It comes to you, however, as to me,
+by a special grace of God. How pleased we both are when we fancy
+ourselves worth somewhat--I with my painting, and you with your wisdom.
+When any one praises us, we hold up our heads and believe him. Yet
+perhaps he is only some false flatterer who is scorning us all the time.
+So don't credit any one who praises you, for you've no notion how
+utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing
+before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly--behaving exactly as if
+you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing as you do. It did
+not escape me that, when you wrote your last letter, you were quite full
+of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an old fellow
+like you pretending to be so good-looking. Flirting pleases you in the
+same way that a shaggy old dog likes a game with a kitten. If you were
+only as fine and gentle a man as I, I could understand it. If I become
+burgomaster I will serve you with the Luginsland.[19] as you do to pious
+Zamesser and me. I will have you for once shut up there with the ladies
+Rechenmeister, Rosentaler, Gaertner, Schutz, and Poer, and many others
+whom for shortness I will not name; they must deal with you.
+
+People enquire more after me than you, for you yourself write that both
+girls and honourable wives ask after me--that is a sign of my virtue.
+When, however, God helps me home I don't know how I shall any longer
+stand you with your great wisdom; but for your virtue and good temper I
+am glad, and your dogs will be the better for it, for you will no longer
+strike them lame. Now however that you are thought so much of at home,
+you won't dare to talk to a poor painter in the street any more; to be
+seen with the painter varlet would be a great disgrace for you.
+
+O, dear Herr Pirkheimer, just now while I was writing to you, the alarm
+of fire was raised and six houses over by Pietro Venier are burnt, and a
+woollen cloth of mine, for which only yesterday I paid eight ducats, is
+burnt, so I too am in trouble. There is much excitement here about
+the fire.
+
+As to your summons to me to come home soon, I shall come as soon as ever
+I can, but I must first gain money for my expenses. I have paid away
+about 100 ducats for colours and other things. I have ordered you two
+carpets for which I shall pay to-morrow, but I could not get them cheap.
+I will pack them in with my linen.
+
+And as to your threat that, unless I come home soon, you will make love
+to my wife, don't attempt it--a ponderous fellow like you would be the
+death of her.
+
+I must tell you that I set to work to learn dancing and went twice to
+the school, for which I had to pay the master a ducat. No one could get
+me to go there again. To learn dancing I should have had to pay away all
+that I have earned, and at the end I should have known nothing about it.
+
+[Illustration: HANS BURGKMAIR--Black chalk drawing on yellowish prepared
+ground. The lights and background in watercolor may possibly have been
+added later At Oxford]
+
+In reply to your question when I shall come home, I tell you, so that my
+lords may also make their arrangements, that I shall have finished here
+in ten days; after that I should like to ride to Bologna to learn the
+secrets of the art of perspective, which a man is willing to teach me. I
+should stay there eight or ten days and then return to Venice. After
+that I shall come with the next messenger. How I shall freeze after this
+sun! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite.
+
+
+III
+
+Sir Martin Conway writes:
+
+He (Duerer) enjoyed Venice; he liked the Italians; he was oppressed with
+orders for work; the climate suited him, and the warm sun was a pleasant
+contrast to the snows and frost of a Franconian winter. But Duerer's
+German heart was true; its truth was the secret of his success.... The
+syren voice of Italy charmed to their destruction most Germans who
+listened to it. Brought face to face with the Italian Ideal of Grace,
+they one after another abandoned for it the Ideal of Strength peculiarly
+their own.
+
+We do not resort to these arguments to approve Holbein or Van Dyck for
+their long residence in England. I am not sure how much false sentiment
+inspired Thausing when he first praised Duerer in this strain; but I must
+confess I suspect it was no little. I incline to think that the best
+country for an artist is not always the one he was born in, but often
+that one where his art finds the best conditions to foster it. We do not
+honour Duerer by supposing that he would have been among that majority of
+Dutch and German artists who, weaker than Roger van der Weyden and
+Burgkmair, returned from Italy injured and enfeebled; even if he had
+passed the greater portion of his life with her syren voice in his ears.
+
+Duerer could not bring himself to undergo for art's sake what Michael
+Angelo endured; years of exile from a beloved native city, and, still
+worse, years of exile from the most congenial spiritual atmosphere.
+Nevertheless, we must remember that the difference of language would
+have made life in Venice for Duerer a much more complete exile than life
+in Verona was for Dante, or life in Rome for Michael Angelo. So he did
+not share the patronage and generous recognition which gave Titian such
+a splendid opportunity. He ceased for a time at least to be a gentleman
+to become a hanger-on, a parasite once more. At Antwerp he once more was
+met by the same generosity and recognition only to refuse again to
+accept it as a gift for life and return to his beloved Nuremberg, where
+it is true his position continually improved, though it never equalled
+what had been offered at Venice and Antwerp.
+
+
+IV
+
+The tone of some of the pleasantries in these letters may rather
+astonish good people who, having accepted the fact that Duerer was a
+religious man, have at once given him the tone and address of a meeting
+of churchwardens, if they have not conjured up a vision of him in a
+frock coat. "Things are what they are," said Bishop Butler, and so are
+women; boys will be boys. The distinctive functions of the two sexes
+were in those days kept more in view if not more in mind than is the
+case to-day. The fashions in dress and in deportment were particularly
+frank upon this point, especially for the young. One may allow as much
+as is desired for the corruption of manners produced by the civil and
+religious mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, and friars. There will
+always remain a certain truth and propriety, a certain grace and charm
+in those costumes and that deportment, as also in the freedom of jest
+which characterises even the most modest of Shakespeare's heroines; and
+under the influence of their spell we shall feel that all has not been
+gain in the change that has gradually been operated. No doubt virtue is
+a victory over nature, and chastity a refinement; but among conquerors
+some are easy and good-natured, others tactless, awkward, insulting; and
+among the chaste some are fearless and enjoy the freedom which courage
+and clear conscience give, others timid and suffer the oppression of
+their fears. Even among sinners some make the best of weaknesses and
+redeem them a great deal more than half, while others magnify smaller
+faults by lack of self-possession till they are an insupportable
+nuisance. We may well admit that from the successes of those days, those
+who succeed to our delight to-day may glean additional attractions.
+
+
+V
+
+We know that Duerer stopped on at Venice into the year 1507, by a note
+which he made in a copy of Euclid, now in the library at Wolfenbuettel.
+"This book have I bought at Venice for a ducat in the year 1507.
+Albrecht Duerer"; and by another stray note we learn the state of his
+worldly affairs on his return.
+
+The following is my property, which I have with difficulty acquired by
+the labour of my hand, for I have had no opportunity of great gain. I
+have moreover suffered much loss by lending what was not repaid me, and
+by apprentices who never paid their fees, and one died at Rome whereby I
+lost my wares.
+
+In the thirteenth year of my wedlock (Le., 1507-8) I have paid great
+debts with what I earned at Venice. I possess fairly good household
+furniture, good clothes, chests, some good pewter vessels, good
+materials for my work, bedding and cupboards, and good colours worth 100
+florins Rhenish.
+
+The wares that Duerer lost in Rome were doubtless chiefly woodcuts and
+engravings which his prentice had taken to sell during his
+_wanderjahre_, as Duerer himself during his own had very likely sold
+prints for Wolgemut. One of the reasons which had taken him to Venice
+may have been to summon Marc Antonio before the Signoria, for having
+copied not only his engravings, but the monogram with which he signed
+them; in any case he obtained a decree defending him against such
+artistic forgery. Duerer's most steady resource seems to have been the
+sale of prints; it is these that his wife had sold in his absence, and
+in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands there is constant mention
+of such sales. Nuremberg was very much behind Antwerp or Venice in the
+price paid for works of art; and the possibilities of such a market as
+Rome had very likely tempted Duerer to trust his prentice with an unusual
+quantity of prints. His worldly affairs were neither brilliant nor
+secure; yet we shall find him tempted on receiving an important
+commission to spend so much in time and material as to make it
+impossible for him to realise a profit. We are accustomed to think that
+these trials were spared to artists in the past by the munificence of
+patrons: but apart from the fact that patrons often paid only with
+promises or by granting credit, at Nuremberg there were few magnificent
+patrons, and its burghers were in no way so generous or so extravagant
+as those of Venice or Antwerp. In fact, Duerer's position was very
+similar to that of the modern artist, who finds little and insufficient
+patronage, and can make more if he is lucky by the reproduction of his
+creations for the great public. But Duerer still had one advantage over
+his fellow-sufferers of to-day--that of being his own publisher.
+Doubtless portraits were as popular then as nowadays; but if the public
+taste had not been prostituted by a seductive commercialism to the
+degree that at present obtains, on the other hand, at Nuremberg at
+least, the fashion seems to have been very little developed; and most of
+Duerer's important portraits seem to have been the result of his sojourns
+away from home.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 15: Thus far the original is in bad Italian.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The retainers of Konz Schott, a neighbouring baron, at one
+time a conspicuous enemy of Nuernberg.]
+
+[Footnote 17: These words are in Italian in the original.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Prof. Thausing suggests that this "other _Quadro_" is the
+"Christ among the Doctors" in the Barberini Gallery at Rome--a picture
+containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The
+inscription states it to have been _opus quinque dierum_. At Brunswick
+there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are
+likewise in existence. In Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna of 1508 in the
+Borghese Gallery at Rome, the head of St. Onuphrius is taken from the
+model who sat for the front Pharisee on the left in Duerer's picture.]
+
+[Footnote 19: A Nuernberg prison.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DUeRER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
+
+
+I
+
+Duerer had hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise
+Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant
+_Adoration of the Magi_ in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of
+Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron,
+as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and
+criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly
+generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of
+Duerer's relations with his clients; they show him appealing always to
+the judgment of artists against the ignorant buyer, and giving more than
+he bargained to give, though thereby he eats up his legitimate profits;
+lastly, they show him vowing never again to enter upon work so
+unprofitable, but to give all his time to the creation of engravings and
+woodcuts. The first is written to Michael Behaim, who died in 1511, and
+had commissioned him to make a design for a woodcut of his coat of arms.
+
+DEAR MASTER MICHAEL BEHAIM,--I send you back the coat of arms again.
+Pray let it stay as it is. No one could improve it for you, for I made
+it artistically and with care. Those who see it and understand such
+matters will tell you so. If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up
+backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+[Illustration: Photograph J. Lowy--THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY,
+1511--From the painting at Vienna]
+
+The other letters concern the lost _Coronation of the Virgin_, the
+centre panel of an altar-piece of which the wings are still at
+Frankfurt, of which town Jacob Heller, who commissioned it, was a
+burgher. They were to be studio work, and are supposed to be chiefly due
+to Duerer's brother Hans. There is, however, one picture extant which
+gives an idea of the execution of the missing centre panel, the _Holy
+Trinity and All Saints_ at Vienna; which, in spite of his vow never to
+do such work again, was commenced shortly after the _Coronation_, and
+for a Nuremberg patron. How much he was paid for it is not known; but it
+cannot have been a really adequate sum, as towards the end of his life
+he writes to the Nuremberg Council, "I have not received from people in
+this town work worth five hundred florins, truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum, and not the fifth part of that has been profit." The
+preceding picture, referred to in the first letters, is the _Martyrdom
+of the Ten Thousand by Sapor II_. All three pictures were signed, like
+the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ by little finely-dressed portraits of
+the painter.
+
+NUeRNBERG, _August_ 28, 1507.
+
+I did not want to receive any money in advance on it till I began to
+paint it, which, if God will, shall be the next thing after the Prince's
+work;[20] for I prefer not to begin too many things at once and then I
+do not become wearied. The Prince too will not be kept waiting, as he
+would be if I were to paint his and your pictures at the same time, as I
+had intended. At all events have confidence in me, for, so far as God
+permits, I will yet according to my power make something that not many
+men can equal.
+
+Now many good nights to you. Given at Nuernberg on Augustine's day, 1507.
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NUeRNBERG, March 19, _1508_.
+
+Dear Herr Jacob Heller. In a fortnight I shall be ready with Duke
+Friedrich's work; after that I shall begin yours, and, as my custom is,
+I will not paint any other picture till it is finished. I will be sure
+carefully to paint the middle panel with my own hand; apart from that,
+the outer sides of the wings are already sketched in--they will be in
+stone colour; I have also had the ground laid. So much for news.
+
+I wish you could see my gracious Lord's picture; I think it would please
+you. I have worked at it straight on for a year and gained very little
+by it; for I only get 280 Rhenish gulden for it, and I have spent all
+that in the time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NUeRNBERG, _August 24, 1508_.
+
+Now I commend myself to you. I want you also to know that in all my days
+I have never begun any work that pleased me better than this picture of
+yours which I am painting. Till I finish it I will not do any other
+work; I am only sorry that the winter will so soon come upon me. The
+days grow so short that one cannot do much.
+
+I have still one thing to ask you; it is about the _MADONNA_[21] that
+you saw at my house; if you know of any one near you who wants a picture
+pray offer it to him. If a proper frame was put to it, it would be a
+beautiful picture, and you know that it is nicely done. I will let you
+have it cheap. I would not take less than fifty florins to paint one
+like it. As it stands finished in the house it might be damaged for me,
+so I would give you full power to sell it for me cheap for thirty
+florins--indeed, rather than that it should not be sold I would even let
+it go for twenty-five florins. I have certainly lost much food over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nuernberg, _November_ 4, 1508.
+
+I am justly surprised at what you say in it about my last letter: seeing
+that you can accuse me of not holding to my promises to you. From such a
+slander each and everyone exempts me, for I bear myself, I trust, so as
+to take my stand amongst other straightforward men. Besides I know well
+what I have written and promised to you, and you know that in my
+cousin's house I refused to promise you to make a good thing, because I
+cannot. But to this I did pledge myself, that I would make something for
+you that not many men can. Now I have given such exceeding pains to your
+picture, that I was led to send you the aforesaid letter. I know that
+when the picture is finished all artists will be well pleased with it.
+It will not be valued at less than 300 florins. I would not paint
+another like it for three times the price agreed, for I neglect myself
+for it, suffer loss, and earn anything but thanks from you.
+
+You further reproach me with having promised you that I would paint your
+picture with the greatest possible care that ever I could. That I
+certainly never said, or if I did I was out of my senses, for in my
+whole lifetime I should scarcely finish it. With such extraordinary care
+I can hardly finish a face in half a year; now your picture contains
+fully 100 faces, not reckoning the drapery and landscape and other
+things in it. Besides, who ever heard of making such a work for an
+altar-piece? no one could see it. But I think it was thus that I wrote
+to you--that I would paint the picture with great or more than ordinary
+pains because of the time which you waited for me.
+
+You need not look about for a purchaser for my Madonna, for the Bishop
+of Breslau has given me seventy-two florins for it, so I have sold it
+well. I commend myself to you. Given at Nuernberg in the year 1508, on
+the Sunday after All Saints' Day.
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NUeRNBERG, _March_ 21, 1509.
+
+I only care for praise from those who are competent to judge; and if
+Martin Hess praises it to you, that may give you the more confidence.
+You might also inquire from some of your friends who have seen it; they
+will tell you how it is done. And if you do not like the picture when
+you see it, I will keep it myself, for I have been begged to sell it and
+make you another. But be that far from me! I will right honourably hold
+with you to that which I have promised, taking you, as I do, for an
+upright man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NUeRNBERG, _July_ 10, 1509.
+
+As you go on to say that if you had not bargained with me for the
+picture you would never do so now, and that I may keep it--I return you
+this answer: to retain your friendship, if I had to suffer loss by the
+picture, I would have done so, but now since you regret the whole
+business and provoke me to keep the picture I will do so, and that
+gladly, for I know how to get 100 florins more for it than you would
+have given me. In future I would not take 400 florins to paint another
+such as this.
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+NUeRNBERG, _July_ 24, 1509. DEAR HERR HELLER, I have read the letter
+which you addressed to me. You write that you did not mean to decline
+taking the picture from me. To that I can only say that I don't
+understand what you do mean. When you write that if you had not ordered
+the picture you would not make the bargain again, and that I may keep it
+as long as I like and so on--I can only think that you have repented of
+the whole business, so I gave you my answer in my last letter.
+
+But, at Hans Imhof's persuasion, and having regard to the fact that you
+ordered the picture of me, and also because I should prefer it to find a
+place at Frankfurt rather than anywhere else, I have consented to send
+it to you for 100 florins less than it might well have brought me.
+
+I am reckoning that I shall thus render you a pleasing service;
+otherwise I know well how I could draw far greater pecuniary advantage
+from it, but your friendship is dearer to me than any such trifling sum
+of money. I trust however that you would not wish me to suffer loss over
+it when you are better off than I. Make therefore your own arrangements
+and commands. Given at Nuernberg on Wine-Tuesday before James'.
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+NUeRNBERG, _August 26_, 1509. First my willing service to you, dear Herr
+Jacob Heller. In accordance with your last letter I am sending the
+picture well packed and seen to in all needful points. I have handed it
+over to Hans Imhof and he has paid me another 100 florins. Yet believe
+me, on my honour, I am still out of pocket over it besides losing the
+time which I have bestowed upon it. Here in Nuernberg they were ready to
+give 300 florins for it, which extra 100 florins would have done very
+nicely for me had I not preferred to please and serve you by sending you
+the picture. For I value the keeping of your friendship at more than 100
+florins. I would also rather have this painting at Frankfurt than
+anywhere else in all Germany.
+
+If you think that I have behaved unfairly in not leaving the payment to
+your own free-will, you must bear in mind that this would not have
+happened if you had not written by Hans Imhof that I might keep the
+picture as long as I liked. I should otherwise gladly have left it to
+you even if thereby I had suffered a greater loss still. My impression
+of you is that, supposing I had promised to make you something for about
+ten florins and it cost me twenty, you yourself would not wish me to
+lose by it. So pray be content with the fact that I took 100 florins
+less from you than I might have got for the picture--for I tell you that
+they wanted to take it from me, so to speak, by force.
+
+I have painted it with great care, as you will see, using none but the
+best colours I could get. It is painted with good ultramarine under, and
+over, and over that again, some five or six times; and then after it was
+finished I painted it again twice over so that it may last a long time.
+If it is kept clean I know it will remain bright and fresh 500 years,
+for it is not done as men are wont to paint. So have it kept clean and
+don't let it be touched or sprinkled with holy water. I feel sure it
+will not be criticised, or only for the purpose of annoying me; and I
+answer for it it will please you well. No one shall ever compel me to
+paint a picture again with so much labour. Herr Georg Tausy himself
+besought me to paint him a Madonna in a landscape with the same care and
+of the same size as this picture, and he would give me 400 florins for
+it. That I flatly refused to do, for it would have made a beggar of me.
+Of ordinary pictures I will in a year paint a pile which no one would
+believe it possible for one man to do in the time. But very careful
+nicety does not pay. So henceforth I shall stick to my engraving, and
+had I done so before I should to-day have been a richer man by
+1000 florins.
+
+I may tell you also that, at my own expense, I have had for the middle
+panel a new frame made which has cost me more than six florins. The old
+one I have broken off, for the joiner had made it roughly; but I have
+not had the other fastened on, for you wished it not to be. It would be
+a very good thing to have the rims screwed on so that the picture may
+not be shaken.
+
+If anyone wants to see it, let it hang forward two or three finger
+breadths, for then the light is good to see it by. And when I come over
+to you, say in one, two, or three years' time, if the picture is
+properly dry, it must be taken down and I will varnish it over anew with
+some excellent varnish, which no one else can make; it will then last
+100 years longer than it would before. But don't let anybody else
+varnish it, for all other varnishes are yellow, and the picture would be
+ruined for you. And if a thing, on which I have spent more than a year's
+work, were ruined it would be grief to me. When you have it set up be
+present yourself to see that it gets no harm. Deal carefully with it,
+for you will hear from your own and from foreign painters how it
+is done.
+
+Give my greeting to your painter Martin Hess. My wife asks you for a
+_Trinkgeld_, but that is as you please, I screw you no higher, &c. And
+now I hold myself commended to you. Read by the sense, for I write in
+haste. Given at Nuernberg on Sunday after Bartholomew's, 1509.
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+NUeRNBERG, _October 12_, 1509.
+
+DEAR HERR JACOB HELLER, I am glad to hear that my picture pleases you,
+so that my labour has not been bestowed in vain. I am also happy that
+you are content about the payment--and that rightly, for I could have
+got 100 florins more for it than you have given me. But I preferred to
+let you have it, hoping, as I do, thereby to retain you as my friend
+down in your parts.
+
+My wife thanks you very much for the present you have made her; she will
+wear it in your honour. My young brother also thanks you for the two
+florins _Trinkgeld_ you sent him. And now I too thank you myself for all
+the honour &c. In reply to your question how the picture should be
+adorned I send you a slight design of what I should do if it were mine,
+but you must do what you like. Now, many happy times to you. Given on
+Friday before Gall's, 1509. ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+Duerer must have commenced the All Saints picture almost immediately
+after having finished Heller's _Coronation of the Virgin_. Perhaps he
+had practically accepted the commission from Matthsus Landauer before he
+wrote to Heller that he would never again undertake a picture with so
+much work and labour in it, for he afterwards was as good as his word.
+This new work was for the chapel of an almshouse founded by Landauer and
+Erasmus Schiltkrot for twelve old men citizens of Nuremberg. The
+original frame designed by Duerer is now in the Germanic Museum, though a
+copy has replaced the picture. After the completion of the _Trinity and
+All Saints_, Duerer apparently carried out his threat and gave up
+painting for a dozen years, devoting his energies more especially to a
+magnificent series of engravings on copper. He also completed his series
+of wood engravings and published them with text, and produced a number
+of single cuts, many of them among his very best, like the _Assumption
+of the Magdalen_, and the _St. Christopher_, here reproduced.
+
+[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER Woodcut, B. 103]
+
+[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MAGDALEN Woodcut, B. 121]
+
+
+II
+
+In 1514 his mother died. He has recounted her death twice over, as he
+did that of his father already cited; for the single surviving leaf of
+the "other book" happens to contain this also. In the briefer
+chronicle he says:
+
+Two years after my Father's death (i.e., 1504) I took my Mother into my
+house, for she had nothing more to live upon. So she dwelt with me till
+the year 1513, as they reckon it; when, early one Tuesday morning, she
+was taken suddenly and deadly ill, and thus she lay a whole year long.
+And a whole year after the day she was first taken ill, she received the
+holy sacraments and christianly passed away two hours before
+nightfall--it was on a Tuesday, the 17th day of May in the year 1514. I
+said the prayers for her myself. God Almighty be gracious to her.
+
+The account in the "other book" is more circumstantial:
+
+Now you must know that, in the year 1513, on a Tuesday before Rogation
+week, my poor afflicted Mother, whom two years after my Father's death,
+as she was quite poor, I took into my house, and after she had lived
+nine years with me, was one morning suddenly taken so deadly ill that we
+broke into her chamber; otherwise, as she could not open, we had not
+been able to come to her. So we carried her into a room downstairs and
+she received both sacraments, for every one thought she would die,
+because ever since my Father's death she had never been in good health.
+
+Her most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always
+upbraided me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great
+anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went out or in
+her saying was always, "Go in the name of Christ." She constantly gave
+us holy admonitions with deep earnestness and she always had great
+thought for our souls' health. I cannot enough praise her good works and
+the compassion she showed to all, as well as her high character.
+
+This my pious Mother bare and brought up eighteen children; she often
+had the plague and many other severe and strange illnesses, and she
+suffered great poverty, scorn, contempt, mocking words, terrors, and
+great adversities. Yet she bore no malice.
+
+In 1514 (as they reckon it), on a Tuesday--it was the 17th day of
+May--two hours before nightfall and more than a year after the
+above-mentioned day in which she was taken ill, my Mother, Barbara
+Duerer, christianly passed away, with all the sacraments, absolved by
+papal power from pain and sin. But she first--gave me her blessing and
+wished me the peace of God, exhorting me very beautifully to keep myself
+from sin. She asked also to drink S. John's blessing, which she
+then did.
+
+She feared Death much, but she said that to come before God she feared
+not. Also she died hard, and I marked that she saw something dreadful,
+for she asked for the holy-water, although, for a long time, she had not
+spoken. Immediately afterwards her eyes closed over. I saw also how
+Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and how she closed mouth
+and eyes and departed with pain. I repeated to her the prayers. I felt
+so grieved for her that I cannot express it. God be merciful to her.
+
+To speak of God was ever her greatest delight, and gladly she beheld the
+honour of God. She was in her sixty-third year when she died and I have
+buried her honourably according to my means.
+
+[Illustration: "1514, on Oculi Sunday (March 19). This is Albrecht
+Duerer's mother; she was 63 years of age." After her death he added in
+ink, "And departed this life in the year 1514 on Tuesday Holy Cross Day
+(May 16) at two o'clock in the night" Charcoal-drawing. Royal Print
+Room, Berlin]
+
+God, the Lord, grant me that I too may attain a happy end, and that God
+with his heavenly host, my Father, Mother, relations, and friends may
+come to my death. And may God Almighty give unto us eternal life. Amen.
+
+And in her death she looked much sweeter than when she was still alive.
+
+
+III
+
+Such was the home life of this great artist; and from homes presenting
+variations on this type proceeded probably all the giants of the
+Renaissance, whose work we think so surpasses in effort, in scope, and
+in efficiency, all that has been achieved since. This Christianity was
+unreformed; it existed side by side with dissolute monasteries and
+worldly cynical prelates, surrounded by sordid hucksters and brutal
+soldiery. Turn to Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet, and we see that it
+existed in London, among the burghers, even in the household of a Lord
+Mayor. We are almost forced on the reflection that nothing that has
+succeeded to it has produced men equal to those who sprang immediately
+out of it.
+
+However much and however justly the assurance of Christian assertion in
+the realm of theory may be condemned, the success of the Christian life,
+wherever it has approached a conscientious realisation, stands out among
+the multitudinous forms of its corruption; and those who catch sight of
+it are almost bound to exclaim in the spirit of Shakespeare's:
+
+  "How far that little candle throws his beams!
+   So shines a good deed in a naughty world."
+
+I have heard a Royal Academician remark how even the poorest copies and
+reproductions of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture retain something of
+the charm and dignity of the original: whereas the quality of modern
+work is quickly lost in a reduction or even in a cast. I believe this
+may be best explained by the fact that the chief research of the Greek
+artist was to establish a beautiful proportion between the parts and the
+whole; and that fidelity to nature, dexterity of execution, the
+symbolism of the given subject, and even the finish of the surfaces,
+were always when necessary sacrificed to this. Whereas in modern work,
+even when the proportions of the whole are considered, which is rarely
+the case, they are almost without exception treated as secondary to one
+or more of these other qualities. Is it not possible that Jesus in his
+life laid down a proportion, similar to that of Greek masterpieces for
+the body, between the efforts and intentions which create the soul and
+pour forth its influence?--a proportion which, when it has been once
+thoroughly apprehended, may be subtly varied to suit new circumstances,
+and produce a similar harmony in spheres of activity with which Jesus
+himself had not even a distant connection? We often find that the rudest
+copies from copies of his actual life are like the biscuit china Venus
+of Milo sold by the Italian pedlar, which still dimly reflects the main
+beauties of the marble in the Louvre.
+
+
+IV
+
+In 1512 Kaiser Maximilian came to Nuremberg, and soon afterward Duerer
+began working for him. The employment he found for the greatest artist
+north of the Alps was sufficiently ludicrous; and perhaps Duerer showed
+that he felt this, by treating the major portion as studio work; though,
+no doubt, the impatience of his imperial patron in a measure
+necessitated the employment of many aids.
+
+It is difficult to do justice to the fine qualities of Maximilian.
+Perhaps he was not really so eccentric as he seems. The oddity of his
+doings and sayings may be perhaps more properly attributed to his having
+been a thorough German. The genial men of that nation, even to-day and
+since it has come more into line in point of culture with France and
+England, are apt to have a something ludicrous or fantastic clinging to
+them; even Goethe did not wholly escape. Maximilian was strong in body
+and in mind, and brimming over with life and interest. We are told that
+when a young man he climbed the tower of Ulm Cathedral by the help of
+the iron rings that served to hold the torches by which it was
+illuminated on high days and holidays. Again we read: "A secretary had
+embezzled 3000 gulden. Maximilian sent for him and asked what should be
+done to a confidential servant who had robbed his master. The secretary
+recommended the gallows. 'Nay, nay,' the Emperor said, and tapped him on
+the shoulder, 'I cannot spare you yet'"; an anecdote which reveals more
+good sense and a larger humanity than either monarchs or others are apt
+to have at hand on such vexing occasions. Thausing says admirably, "A
+happy imagination and a great idea of his exalted position made up to
+him for any want of success in his many wars and political
+negotiations," and elsewhere calls him the last of the "nomadic
+emperors," who spent their lives travelling from palace to palace and
+from city to city, beseeching, cajoling, or threatening their subjects
+into obedience. He himself said, "I am a king of kings. If I give an
+order to the princes of the empire, they obey if they please, if they do
+not please they disobey." He was even then called "the last of the
+knights," because he had an amateurish passion for a chivalry that was
+already gone, and was constantly attempting to revive its costumes and
+ordinances. Then, like certain of the Pharaohs of Egypt, he was pleased
+to read of, and see illustrated by brush and graver, victories he had
+never won, and events in which he had not shone. He himself dictated or
+planned out those wonderful lives or allegories of a life which might
+have been his. It was on such a work of futile self-glorification that
+he now wished to employ Duerer.
+
+The novelty of the art of printing, and the convenience to a nomadic
+emperor of a monument that could be rolled up, suggested the form of
+this last absurdity--a monster woodcut in 92 blocks which, when joined
+together, produced a picture 9 feet by 10, representing what had at
+first been intended as an imitation of a Roman triumphal arch; but so
+much information about so many more or less dubious ancestors, &c., had
+to be conveyed by quaint and conceited inventions, that in the end it
+was rather comparable to the confusion of a Juggernaut car, which
+never-the-less imposes by a barbarous wealth and magnificence of
+fantastic detail. And to this was to be joined another monster,
+representing on several yards of paper a triumphal procession of the
+emperor, escorted by his family, and the virtues of himself and
+ancestors, &c. Such is fortune's malice that Duerer, who alone or almost
+alone had conceived of the simplicity of true dignity and the beauty of
+choice proportions and propriety, should have been called upon by his
+only royal patron to superintend a production wherein the rank and
+flaccid taste of the time ran riot. The absurdity, barbarism, and
+grotesque quaintness of this monument to vanity cannot be laid
+exclusively at Maximilian's door; for the architecture, particularly of
+the fountains, in Altdorfer's or Manuel's designs, and in those of many
+others, reveals a like wantonness in delighted elaboration of the
+impossible and unstructural. The scholars and pedantic posturers who
+surrounded the emperor no doubt improved and abetted. Probably it was
+this Juggernaut element, inherited from the Gothic gargoyle, which
+Goethe censured when he said that "Duerer was retarded by a gloomy
+fantasy devoid of form or foundation." Perhaps this was written at a
+period when the great critic was touched with that resentment against
+the Middle Ages begotten by the feeling that his own art was still
+encumbered by its irrational and confused fantasy. We who certainly are
+able to take a more ample view of Duerer's situation in the art of his
+times, see that he is rather characterised by an effort which lay in
+exactly the same direction as that of Goethe's own; and while
+sympathising with the irritation expressed, can also admire the great
+engraver for having freed himself in so large a degree from the
+influence of fantasy "devoid of form and foundation," even as the
+justest Shakespearean criticism admires the degree in which the author
+of Othello freed himself from Elizabethan conceits. It is difficult to
+appreciate the difference for a great artist in having the general taste
+with rather than against the purer tendencies of his art. Probably the
+Greeks and certain Italians owe their freedom from eccentricity, in a
+very large measure, to this cause. But I intend to treat these questions
+more at length in dealing with Duerer's character as an artist and
+creator. It was necessary to touch on the subject here, because
+Maximilian embodies the peculiar and fantastic aftergrowth, which
+sprouted up in some northern minds from the old stumps remaining from
+the great mediaeval forest of thoughts and sentiments which had
+gradually fallen into decay. All around, even in the same minds, waved
+the saplings of the New Birth when these old stumps put forth their so
+fantastic second youth, seeming for a time to share in the new vigour,
+though they were never to attain expansion and maturity.
+
+
+V
+
+Thausing shrewdly remarks, "This love of fame and naive delight in the
+glorification of his own person are further proofs that the Emperor Max
+was the true child of his age. No one was so akin to him in this respect
+as the painter of his choice, Albert Duerer." This last is a reference to
+those strutting, finely-dressed portraits of the artist which stand
+beside the entablatures bearing his name, that of his birthplace, the
+date, &c., in four out of the five most elaborate pictures which Duerer
+painted. But I would like to suggest that probably this apparent
+resemblance to his royal patron is not thus altogether well accounted
+for. May there not have been something of Homer's invocation of his
+Muse, or of that sincerity which makes Dante play such a large part in
+the "Divine Comedy"?--something resembling the ninth verse of the
+Apocalypse: "I John, who also am your brother and companion in
+tribulation ... was in the isle that is called Patmos ... and heard
+behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying...." Those little
+strutting portraits of himself sprung, perhaps, out of this relation to
+those about him of the man by native gift very superior, who is not made
+contemptuous or inclined to emphasise his isolation, but who is ever
+ready to say, "It is I, be not afraid." The man who painted and
+conceived this is the man you know, whom you have admired because he
+carried his fine clothes so well in your streets. Here I am even in the
+midst of this massacre of saints, I have conceived it all and taken a
+whole year to elaborate it; and since you see me looking so cool and
+well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or
+overwhelmed. Such is ever the naivety of great souls among those whose
+culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among
+little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a
+selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a
+foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust,
+they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and
+console, for whose sakes they will even hide whatever in them is really
+unworthy of such admiration and such trust.
+
+We do not easily realise the corporate character of life in those days.
+Very much that seems to us quaint and absurd drew proper significance
+from the practical solidarity that then obtained; what appears to us a
+strange vanity or parade may have appeared to them respect for the
+guild, the town, the country to which they belonged. Duerer signed
+"Noricus,"--of Nuremberg;--and preferred its little lucrative
+citizenship to those more remunerative offered by Venice and Antwerp.
+"Let all the world behold how fine the artist of Nuremberg is." Just as
+he says, "God gave me diligence," so it seems natural to him to
+attribute a large half of his fame and glory to his native town. In many
+respects the great man of those days felt less individual than an
+ordinary man does now; for classes did not so merge one into the other,
+and their character was more distinct and authoritative. The little
+portrait of himself added to those wonderful _tours-de-force_ made them
+something that belonged to Nuremberg and to Germans. Even so it would be
+with some treasure cup, all gold and jewels, belonging to a village
+schoolmaster, which none of his neighbours dared look at save in his
+presence; for he was the son of a great baron whom his elder brothers
+robbed of everything except this, and his presence among them alone made
+them able to feel that it really belonged to their village, was theirs
+in a fashion. These suggestions will not, I think, appear fantastic to
+those who ponder on the apparently vainglorious address of much of
+Duerer's work, and keep in mind such a passage from his writings as this:
+
+"I would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver and gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something
+burning, and ye all add to it skilful furthering, a blaze may in time
+arise therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world."[22]
+
+But still, even if such considerations may bring many to accept my
+explanation of this contrast, I do not want to over-insist on it. I
+think that wherever men have been superior in character, as well as in
+gift or rank, to those about them, something of this spirit of the good
+eldest child in a family is bound to be manifested. But just as such a
+child may be veritably boastful and vain at other times,--however purely
+now and then, in crises of apparent difficulty or danger, its vaunt and
+strut may spring from real kindness and a considerate wish to inspire
+courage in the younger and weaker;--so doubtless there was a
+haughtiness, sometimes a fault, in Duerer as in Milton.
+
+
+VI
+
+But we have been led a long way from Kaiser Max and his portable
+monument. The reader will re-picture how the court arrived at Nuremberg
+like a troop of actors, whose performance was really their life, and was
+taken quite seriously and admired heartily by the good and solid
+burghers. This old comedy, often farce, entitled "The Importance of
+Authority," is no longer played with such a telling make-up, or with
+such showy properties as formerly, but is still as popular as ever; as
+we Londoners know, since the last few years have given us perhaps an
+over-dose of processions, illuminations, &c. &c. In this case the chief
+actors in the show piece were men of mark of an exceptionally
+entertaining character; with many of them Duerer and Pirkheimer were soon
+on the best of terms.
+
+Foremost, Johann Stabius, the companion of the Emperor for sixteen years
+without intermission in war and in peace, who was associated with Duerer
+to provide the written accompaniment for the monument; a literary
+jack-of-all-trades of ready wit and lively presence. A contemporary
+records: "The emperor took constant pleasure in the strange things which
+Stabius devised, and esteemed him so highly that he instituted a new
+chair of Astronomy and Mathematics for him at Vienna," in the Collegium
+Poetarum et Mathematicorum founded in the year 1501, under the
+presidency of Conrad Celtes.
+
+In all probability there would have been besides the learned protonotary
+of the supreme court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in
+the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of
+Duerer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later,
+still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes,
+and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the
+thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to be in vain.
+
+It may be that Duerer then met for the first time too the Imperial
+architect, Johannes Tscherte, for whom he afterwards drew two armillary
+spheres, to take the place of those on which he had cast ridicule; for
+Pirkheimer wrote to Tscherte: "I wish you could have heard how Albert
+Duerer spoke to me about your plate, in which there is not one good
+stroke, and laughed at me. What honour it will do us when it makes its
+appearance in Italy, and the clever painters there see it!" To which
+Tscherte replied: "Albert Duerer knows me well, he is also well aware
+that I love art, though I am no expert at it; let him if he likes
+despise my plate, I never pretended it was a work of art." And in a
+later letter he speaks "of the armillary spheres drawn by our common
+friend Albert Duerer." He was one of those who helped Duerer in his
+mathematical and geometrical studies; and he, like Pirkheimer, dedicated
+books to him. Although the mathematics of those times are hardly
+considered seriously nowadays, they then ranked with verse-making as a
+polite accomplishment, and had all the charm of novelty. Duerer, no
+doubt, had some gift that way, as he seems to have made a hobby of them
+during many years. Besides those who came in the Imperial troop, Duerer
+had many opportunities of meeting men of this kind, for such were
+constantly passing through Nuremberg. Duerer has left us what are
+evidently portraits of some whose names are lost: of others we have both
+name and likeness, among them the English ambassador, Lord Morley.
+
+In 1515 "Rafahel de' Urbin, who is held in such high esteem by the Pope,
+he made these naked figures and sent them to Albrecht Duerer at Nuremberg
+to show him his hand." This shows us that travellers through Nuremberg
+sometimes brought with them something of the breath of the great
+Renaissance in Italy. The drawing, which bears the above inscription in
+Duerer's own handwriting on the back, is a fine one in red sanguine,
+representing the same male model in two different poses, in the
+Albertina. Raphael had, we are told by Lodovico Dolce, drawings,
+engravings, and woodcuts of Duerer's hanging in his studio; and Vasari
+tells us he said: "If Duerer had been acquainted with the antique he
+would have surpassed us all." The Nuremberg master, in return for the
+drawing, sent a portrait of himself to Raphael, which has unfortunately
+been lost. There appears to have been quite a rage for Duerer's work in
+Italy, and above all at Rome: we know that it provoked Michael Angelo to
+remonstrate; probably on many lips it was merely a vaunt of superior
+knowledge or taste, as rapture over the conjectural friends or aids of a
+great quatrocentist is to-day. The tokens of esteem which he won from
+distinguished travellers, and this drawing which reached him testifying
+to the interest and friendship felt for him by the Italian whose fame
+was most widespread, must have been full of encouragement, and have
+compensated in some measure for the feeling he had that he was only a
+hanger-on at Nuremberg, though he might still have been "a gentleman" in
+Venice. Yet Nuremberg itself furnished many desirable or notable
+acquaintances. There was Duerer's neighbour, the jurist, Lazarus
+Spengler; later the most prominent reformer in Nuremberg, who in 1520
+dedicated to him his "Exhortation and Instruction towards the leading of
+a virtuous life," addressing him as "his particular and confidential
+friend and brother," whom he considers, "without any flattery, to be a
+man of understanding, inclined to honesty and every virtue, who has
+often in our daily familiar intercourse been to me in no common degree a
+pattern and an example to a more circumspect way of life;" whom,
+finally, he asks to improve his little book to the best of his ability.
+Duerer had before this rendered him service in designing his coat of arms
+for a woodcut and furnishing a frontispiece to his translation of
+Eusebius' "Life of St. Jerome." He was, moreover, a poet, author of "an
+often-translated song"; he wrote verses to discourage Duerer from
+spending his time in producing the doggerel rhymes which at one time he
+was moved to attempt,--framing poems of didactic import, and publishing
+one or two on separate sheets with a woodcut at the top, in spite of the
+inappreciative reception given to them by Spengler and Pirkheimer.
+Besides Spengler, there were "Christopher Kress, a soldier, a traveller,
+and a town councillor;" and Caspar Nuetzel, of one of the oldest
+families, and Captain-general of the town bands. Both of these went with
+Duerer to the Diet at Augsburg in 1518. The martial Paumgartners were two
+brothers for whom Duerer painted the early triptych at Munich (see page
+204). One of them is supposed to figure as St. George in the All Saints
+picture. Lastly, there were the Imhoffs, the merchant princes of
+Nuremberg, as the Fuggers were at Augsburg. A son of the family married
+Felicitas, Pirkheimer's favourite daughter, in 1515, and Duerer stood
+godfather to their little Hieronymus in 1518. It is easy to imagine that
+there was many a supper and dinner, when a thousand strange subjects
+were even more strangely discussed; when Pirkheimer now made them roar
+with a hazardous joke, or again dumbfounded them with Greek quotations
+pompously done into German, or made their flesh creep and the
+superstitions of their race stir in them by mysteriously enlarging on
+his astrological lore,--for to his many weaknesses he added this, which
+was then scarcely recognised as one.
+
+
+VII
+
+In spite of all his wealthy and influential friends, Duerer found it
+difficult to get the emperor to indemnify him for his labours, though
+the Town Council had received a royal mandate as early as 1512 from
+Landau. The following is an extract:
+
+Whereas our and the Empire's trusty Albrecht Duerer has devoted much zeal
+to the drawings he has made for us at our command, and has promised
+henceforth ever to do the like, whereat we have received particular
+pleasure; and whereas we are informed on all hands that the said Duerer
+is famous in the art of painting before all other Masters: we have
+therefore felt ourself moved, to further him with our especial grace,
+and we accordingly desire you with earnest solicitude, for the affection
+you bear us, to make the said Duerer free of all town imposts, having
+regard to our grace and to his famous art, which should fairly turn to
+his profit with you, &c.
+
+The town councillors sent some of their principal members to treat with
+Duerer, and he resigned his claim "in order to honour the said
+councillors and to maintain their privileges, usages, and rights." In
+1515 the drawings for the "Gate of Honour" were finished, and Duerer
+began to press again for pay. Stabius had promised to speak for him, but
+nothing had come of it. Albrecht thought Christoph Kress could be of
+more avail; so he wrote to him:
+
+(No date, but certainly 1515). DEAR HERR KRESS, The first thing I have
+to ask you is to find out from Herr Stabius whether he has done anything
+in my business with his Imperial Majesty, and how it stands. Let me know
+this in the next letter you write to my Lords. Should it happen that
+Herr Stabius has made no move in the matter, ... Point out in particular
+to his Imperial Majesty that I have served his Majesty for three years,
+spending my own money in so doing, and if I had not been diligent the
+ornamental work would have been nowise so successfully finished. I
+therefore pray his Imperial Majesty to recompense me with the 100
+florins--all which you know well how to do. You must know also that I
+made many other drawings for his Majesty besides the "Triumph."
+
+Not long after this, Maximilian, by a _Privilegium_ (dated Innsbruck,
+September 6, 1515), settled an annual pension of 100 florins on
+the artist.
+
+We Maximilian, by God's grace, &c., make openly known by this letter for
+ourself and our successors in the Empire, and to each and every one to
+wit, that we have regarded and considered the art, skill, and
+intelligence for which our and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved
+Albrecht Duerer has been praised before us, and likewise the pleasing,
+honest and useful services which he has often and willingly done for us
+and the Holy Empire and also for our own person in many ways, and which
+he still daily does and henceforward may and shall do: and that we
+therefore, of set purpose, after mature deliberation, and with the full
+knowledge of ourself and the Princes and Estates of the Empire, have
+graciously promised and granted to this same Duerer what we herewith and
+by virtue of this letter make known:
+
+_That is to say_, that one hundred florins Rhenish shall be yielded,
+given, and paid by the honourable, our and the Empire's trusty and
+well-beloved Burgomaster and Council of the town of Nuernberg and their
+successors unto the said Albrecht Duerer, against his quittance, all his
+life long and no longer, yearly and in every year, on our behalf, out of
+the customary town contributions which the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of Nuernberg are bound to yield and pay, yearly and in every
+year, into our Treasury. And whatever the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of Nuernberg and their successors shall yield, give, and pay
+to the said Albrecht Duerer, as stands written above, against his
+quittance, the same sum shall be accepted and reckoned to them as paid
+and yielded for the customary town contributions which they, as stands
+written above, are bound to pay into our Treasury, as if they had paid
+the same into our own hands and received our quittance therefor, and no
+harm or detriment shall in anywise be done therefor unto them or their
+successors by us or our successors in the Empire. Whereof this letter,
+sealed with our affixed seal, is witness.
+
+Given, &c.
+
+Thus Duerer became Court painter: in return for his salary he had to
+work. As soon as the "Gate of Honour" was finished, there was the "Car
+of Triumph" to be taken in hand, the first sketch for it (now in the
+Albertina) having already been made about 1514-15. In December 1514
+Schoensperger, the Augsburg printer, printed a splendid "Book of Hours"
+for Maximilian. The type was specially made for the book, and only a few
+copies were printed, some on fine vellum with large margins. One copy
+which Maximilian intended for his own use was sent to Duerer that he
+might decorate the margins with pen-drawings in various coloured inks.
+Of this work there exist forty-three pages by Duerer himself and eight by
+Cranach at Munich, and at Besancon thirty-five pages by Burgkmair,
+Altdorfer, Baldung Grien, and Hans Duerer. Marvellously deft and
+light-handed as are Duerer's freehand arabesques, embellished by racy
+sketches of which these borders consist, they are nevertheless touched
+with a like unsatisfactory character with the other works undertaken for
+Maximilian, and are almost as far removed from the spirit and
+performance of the best period for this kind of work, as is the
+_Triumphal Arch_ from that of Titus.
+
+Duerer was also employed on another woodcut representing a long row of
+saintly ancestors of this eccentric sovereign. He accompanied Caspar
+Nuetzel and Lazarus Spengler, the representatives of Nuremberg, to the
+Diet of Augsburg, and there made some drawings of his royal patron, on
+one of which is written, "This is my dear Prince Max, whom I, Albrecht
+Duerer, drew at Augsburg in his little room upstairs in the palace, in
+the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist's day." (_See
+opposite_.) And Melanchthon narrates that "once Max himself took the
+charcoal in hand to make his mind clear to his trusty Albert, and was
+vexed to find that the charcoal kept breaking short in his hand when
+Duerer said; 'Most gracious emperor, I would not that your Majesty should
+draw so well as I do!' by which he meant, 'I am practised in this, and
+it is my province; thou, Emperor, hast harder tasks and another
+calling.'"
+
+[Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co.
+Dornach._--"This is the Emperor Maximilian, whose likeness I, Albrecht
+Duerer, have taken, at Augsburg, high up in the palace in his little
+chamber, in the year of Grace 1518, on Monday after St. John the
+Baptist's Day" Charcoal-Drawing. Albertina, Vienna]
+
+
+VIII
+
+A charming letter from Charitas Pirkheimer gives us a little sunlit
+glimpse of the tone of Duerer's lighter hours.
+
+The prudent and wise Masters Caspar Nuetzel, Lazarus Spengler, and
+Albrecht Duerer, for the time being at Augsburg, our gracious Masters and
+good friends.
+
+Jesus.
+
+As a friendly greeting, prudent, wise, gracious Masters and especially
+good friends, cousins, and wellwishers, I desire every good thing for
+you, from the Highest Good. I received with great pleasure your friendly
+letter and its news of a kind suited to my order, or rather my trade;
+and I read it with such great devotion that more than once tears ran
+down my eyes over it--truly rather tears of laughter than of sorrow. I
+consider it a subject for great thankfulness that, with such important
+business and so much gaiety on hand, your Wisdoms do not forget me, but
+find time to instruct me, poor little nun, about the monastic life
+whereof you now have a clear reflection before your eyes. I conclude
+from this that doubtless some good spirit drove you, my gracious and
+dear Masters, to Augsburg, so that you might learn from the example of
+the free Swabian spirits how to instruct and govern the poor imprisoned
+sand-bares.[23]
+
+For since our trusty Master Warden (Caspar Nuetzel), as a lover of the
+Church, likes to help in a thorough reformation, he should first behold
+a pattern of holy observance in the Swabian League. Let Master Lazarus
+Spengler, too, inform himself well about the apostolic mode of common
+life, so that at the annual audit he may be able to give us and others
+counsel and guidance, how we may run through everything, that nought
+remain over. And Master Albrecht Duerer, also, who is such a genius and
+master at drawing, he may very carefully inspect the stately buildings,
+and then if some day we want to alter our choir he will know how to give
+us advice and help in making ample slide-windows (? blinds), so that our
+eyes may not be quite blinded.
+
+I shall not further trouble you, however, to bring us music to learn to
+sing by notes, for our beer is now so very sour that I fear the dregs
+might stick fast among the four reeds or voices, and produce such
+strange sounds that the dogs would fly out of the church. But I must
+humbly pray you not quite to wear out your eyes over the black and white
+magpies, so as no longer to know the little grey wolves at Nuernberg. I
+have heard much of the sharp-witted Swabians all my life, but it would
+be well if we learnt more from them, now that they are so wisely
+labouring with his Imperial Majesty to save the Apostolic life from
+being done away with. It is easy to see what very different lovers of
+the Church they are from our Masters here.
+
+Pardon me, my dear and gracious Masters, this my playful letter. It is
+all done _in caritate--summa summarum_; and the end of it is that I
+should rejoice at your speedy return in health and happiness with the
+glad accomplishment of the business committed to you. For this I and my
+sisters heartily pray God day and night; still we cannot carry it
+through alone, so I counsel you to entreat the pious and pure hearts (of
+Augsburg) to sing in high quavers that thereby things may speed well.
+And now many happy times to you!
+
+Given at Nuernberg on September 3, 1518.
+
+SISTER CHARITAS, unprofitable Abbess of S. Clara's at Nuernberg.
+
+Duerer returned with a letter to the Town Council of Nuernberg, from which
+the following extract is taken:
+
+Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved, Whereas you are bound to pay us on
+next St. Martin's day year a remainder, to wit 200 florins Rhenish, out
+of the accustomed town contribution which you are wont to render into
+our and the Empire's treasury....We earnestly charge you to deliver and
+pay the said 200 florins, accepting our quittance therefor, unto our and
+the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Duerer, our painter, on
+account of his honest services, willingly rendered to us at our command
+for our "Car of Triumph" and in other ways; and, at the said time, these
+200 florins shall be deducted for you from the accustomed town
+contribution. Thus you will perform our earnest desire.
+
+Given, &c.
+
+Duerer procured a receipt for the 200 florins, signed by the emperor
+himself. But before "next St. Martin's day year," Maximilian was dead,
+and the 200 florins no longer his to dispose of, being due to the new
+Emperor Charles V. The municipal authorities of Nuernberg refused to pay
+until his Privilegium had been confirmed by Maximilian's successor.
+
+Duerer wrote the following letter to the Council:
+
+NUeRNBERG, April 27, 1519.
+
+Prudent, honourable and wise, gracious, dear Lords. Your Honours are
+aware that, at the Diet lately holden by his Imperial Roman Majesty, our
+most gracious lord of very praiseworthy memory, I obtained a gracious
+assignment from his Imperial Majesty of 200 florins from the yearly
+payable town contributions of Nuernberg. This assignment was granted to
+me, after many applications and much trouble, in return for the zealous
+work and labour, which, for a long time previously, I had devoted to his
+Majesty. And he sent you order and command to that effect, signed with
+his accustomed signature, and quittance in all form, which quittance,
+duly sealed, is in my hands.
+
+Now I rest humbly confident that your Honours will graciously remember
+me as your obedient burgher, who has employed much time in the service
+and work of his Imperial Majesty, our most rightful Lord, with but small
+recompense, and has thereby lost both profit and advantage in other
+ways. And therefore I trust that you will now deliver me these 200
+florins to his Imperial Majesty's order and quittance, that so I may
+receive a fitting reward and satisfaction for my care, pains, and
+work--as, no doubt, was his Imperial Majesty's intention.
+
+But seeing that some Emperor or King might in the future claim these 200
+florins from your Honours, or might not be willing to spare them, but
+might some day demand them back again from me, I am, therefore, willing
+to relieve your Honours and the town of this chance, by appointing and
+mortgaging, as security and pledge therefor, my tenement situated at the
+corner under the Veste, and which belonged to my late father, that so
+your Honours may suffer neither prejudice nor loss thereby. Thus am I
+ready to serve your Honours, my gracious rulers and Lords.
+
+Your Wisdoms' willing burgher, ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+[Illustration: FREDERICK THE WISE. Silver-point drawing, British
+Museum.]
+
+Duerer next wrote "to the honourable, most learned Master Georg Spalatin,
+Chaplain to my most gracious lord, Duke Friedrich, the Elector"
+of Saxony.
+
+The letter is undated, but clearly belongs to the early part of the year
+1520.
+
+Most worthy and dear Master, I have already sent you my thanks in the
+short letter, for then I had only read your brief note. It was not till
+afterwards, when the bag in which the little book was wrapped was turned
+inside out, that I for the first time found the real letter in it, and
+learnt that it was my most gracious Lord himself who sent me Luther's
+little book. So I pray your worthiness to convey most emphatically my
+humble thanks to his Electoral Grace, and in all humility to beseech his
+Electoral Grace to take the praiseworthy Dr. Martin Luther under his
+protection for the sake of Christian truth. For that is of more
+importance to us than all the power and riches of this world; because
+all things pass away with time, Truth alone endures for ever.
+
+God helping me, if ever I meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a
+careful portrait of him from the life and to engrave it on copper, for a
+lasting remembrance of a Christian man who helped me out of great
+distress. And I beg your worthiness to send me for my money anything new
+that Dr. Martin may write.
+
+As to Spengler's "Apology for Luther," about which you write, I must
+tell you that no more copies are in stock; but it is being reprinted at
+Augsburg, and I will send you some copies as soon as they are ready. But
+you must know that, though the book was printed here, it is condemned in
+the pulpit as heretical and meet to be burnt, and the man who published
+it anonymously is abused and defamed. It is reported that Dr. Eck wanted
+to burn it in public at Ingolstadt, as was done to Dr. Reuchlin's book.
+
+With this letter I send for my most gracious lord three impressions of a
+copper-plate of my most gracious lord of Mainz, which I engraved at his
+request. I sent the copper-plate with 200 impressions as a present to
+his Electoral Grace, and he graciously sent me in return 200 florins in
+gold and 20 ells of damask for a coat. I joyfully and thankfully
+accepted them, especially as I was in want of them at that time.
+
+His Imperial Majesty also, of praiseworthy memory, who died too soon for
+me, had graciously made provision for me, because of the great and
+long-continued labour, pains, and care, which I spent in his service.
+But now the Council will no longer pay me the 100 florins, which I was
+to have received every year of my life from the town taxes, and which
+was yearly paid to me during his Majesty's lifetime. So I am to be
+deprived of it in my old age and to see the long time, trouble, and
+labour all lost which I spent for his Imperial Majesty. As I am losing
+my sight and freedom of hand my affairs do not look well. I don't care
+to withhold this from you, kind and trusted Sir.
+
+If my gracious lord remembers his debt to me of the staghorns, may I ask
+your Worship to keep him in mind of them, so that I may get a fine pair.
+I shall make two candlesticks of them.
+
+I send you here two little prints of the Cross from a plate engraved in
+gold. One is for your Worship. Give my service to Hirschfeld and
+Albrecht Waldner. Now, your Worship, commend me faithfully to my most
+gracious lord, the Elector.
+
+Your willing ALBRECHT DUeRER at Nuernberg.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 20: _The Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints._]
+
+[Footnote 21: Supposed to be the _Madonna with the Iris_.]
+
+[Footnote 22: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 178.]
+
+[Footnote 23: The soil about Nuernberg is sandy.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DUeRER, LUTHER AND THE HUMANISTS
+
+
+I
+
+But while Duerer was thus busily at work or dunning his great debtors,
+Luther had appeared. In 1517 he nailed his ninety-five theses to the
+door of Wittenberg church, and Cardinal Caietan by the unlucky Leo X.
+was poured like oil upon the fire which they had lighted. Luther had
+been summoned to meet the Cardinal at the Diet of Augsburg, where Duerer
+went to see Maximilian, though he only arrived there after our friends
+from Nuremberg had departed. However, Luther passed through Nuremberg on
+foot, and borrowed a coat of a friend there in order to figure with
+decency before the Diet. Yet Duerer probably did not meet him, although
+the words in the letter to George Spalatin, quoted above, "If ever I
+meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a careful portrait of him and
+engrave it on copper," do not forbid the possibility of this early
+meeting before the Reformer had become so famous. Next the Pope tried to
+soothe by sending Miltitz with flatteries and promises--a man that could
+smile and weep to order, but who succeeded neither with the Elector
+Frederic, nor with Luther, nor with Germany. At Nuremberg the preacher
+Wenzel Link soon formed a little reformed congregation, to which Duerer,
+Pirkheimer, Spengler, Nuetzel, Scheurl, Ebner, Holzschurher, and others
+belonged. We have already seen how, soon after this, Duerer was anxious
+for Luther's safety, by the letter to the wise Elector, quoted above;
+and in 1518 he sent Luther a number of his prints, and soon after joined
+with others of Link's hearers to send a greeting of encouragement. And
+before long we find him jotting down a list of sixteen of Luther's
+tracts, either because he intended to get and read them, or because they
+were already his; and on the back of a drawing we find the following
+outline of the faith such as he then apprehended it, in which we see
+clearly that Christ has become the voice of conscience--the power in a
+man by which he recognises and creates good.
+
+Seeing that through disobedience of sin we have fallen into everlasting
+Death, no help could have reached us save through the incarnation of the
+Son of God, whereby He through His innocent suffering might abundantly
+pay the Father all our guilt, so that the Justice of God might be
+satisfied. For He has repented, of and made atonement for the sins of
+the whole world, and has obtained of the Father Everlasting Life.
+Therefore Christ Jesus is the Son of God, the highest power, who can do
+all things, and He is the Eternal life. Into whomsoever Christ comes he
+lives, and himself lives in Christ. Therefore all things are in Christ
+good things. There is nothing good in us except it becomes good in
+Christ. Whosoever, therefore, will altogether justify himself is unjust.
+_If we will what is good, Christ wills it in us_. No human repentance is
+enough to equalise deadly sin and be fruitful.
+
+In this the old mythological language is retained, but it has received a
+new interpretation or significance, and this quite without the writer's
+perceiving what he is doing. Christ is affirmed to have repented of the
+sins of the whole world. Among the early heresiarchs there were, I
+believe, some who went so far as to hold that he had committed the sins
+before he repented of them, and triumphed over their effects by his
+sufferings and death. In any case, a similar feeling is expressed by our
+odd mystic Blake in his "Everlasting Gospel":
+
+  "If He (Jesus) intended to take on sin,
+  His mother should an harlot have bin."
+
+The actual records of Christ are too meagre the moment he is regarded as
+an allegory of human life; and such additions to the creed spring
+naturally out of the ardent seeker's desire to realise the universality
+implied in the dogma of his Godhead, which is accepted even by Blake as
+a historical fact beyond question. It was not the character of so much
+as can be perceived of the universe which daunted Luther and Duerer, as
+it daunts the serious man to-day. They accepted what appears to us a
+cheap and easy subterfuge, because they believed it to have been
+prescribed by God; the ambiguous inferences which such a prescription
+must logically cast on the Divine character did not arrest their
+attention. What they gained was a free conscience, a conscience in which
+Christ was, to use their language, and which was in Christ; and for
+practical piety this was sufficient. They themselves had not made up
+their minds on theoretical points; it was only in the face of their
+opponents that they thought of arming themselves with like weapons, and
+sought a mechanical agreement upon questions about which no one ever has
+known, or probably ever can know, anything at all. This was where
+Luther's pugnacity betrayed him; so that little by little he seems to
+lose spiritual beauty, as the monk, all fire and intensity, is
+transformed into the "plump doctor," and again into the bird of ill omen
+who croaked.
+
+"The arts are growing as if there was to be a new start and the world
+was to become young again. I hope God will finish with it. We have come
+already to the White Horse. Another hundred years and all will be over."
+
+Compare this with Duerer's:
+
+"Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both
+well and better about this art than I."
+
+"Would to God that it were possible for me to see the work and art of
+the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might
+be improved."
+
+I do not want to judge Luther harshly; he had done splendidly, and it is
+difficult to meddle with worldly things without soiling one's fingers
+and depressing one's heart; but I ask which of these two quotations
+expresses man's most central character best--the desire for nobler
+life--which reveals the more admirable temper? (Duerer had been touched
+by the spirit of the Renaissance as well as by that of the Reformation;
+we can distinguish easily when he is speaking under the one influence,
+when under the other, and the contrast often impresses one as the
+contrast between the above quotations. And it gives us great reason to
+deplore that the two spirits could not work side by side as they did in
+Duerer and a few rare souls, but that in the world there was war between
+them.) It seems inevitable that the things men fight about should always
+be spoiled. The best part of written thought is something that cannot be
+analysed, cannot therefore be defended or used for offence; it is a
+spirit, an emanation, something that influences us more subtly than we
+know how to describe.
+
+We see by the passage quoted that Duerer was not only influenced by
+Luther's heroism, but by his doctrinal theorising. Unfortunately we do
+not know whether he outgrew this second and less admirable influence.
+Did he feel like his friend Pirkheimer in the end, that "the new
+evangelical knaves made the old popish knaves seem pious by contrast?"
+Milton under similar circumstances came to think that "New Presbyter is
+but old Priest writ large." Probably not; for just as we know he did not
+abandon what seemed to him beautiful and helpful in old Catholic
+ceremonies, usages, and conceptions, so probably he would not confuse
+what had been real gain in the Reformation with the excesses of
+Anabaptists or Socialists, or even of Luther himself or his followers.
+There is no reason to suppose he would have judged so hastily as the
+gouty irascible Pirkheimer, however much he may have deplored the course
+of events. It must have been evident to thoughtful men, then, that it
+was impossible for so large an area to be furnished with properly
+trained pastors in so short a time, and that therefore more or less
+deplorable material was bound to be mingled in the official _personnel_
+of the new sect. It is impossible, when we consider how he solved the
+precisely parallel difficulty in aesthetics, not to feel that if he had
+had time given him, he would have arrived in point of doctrine at a
+moderation similar to that of Erasmus.
+
+Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty....
+Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know not certainly
+what the ultimate measure of true beauty is.... Because now we cannot
+altogether attain unto perfection shall we, therefore, wholly cease from
+learning? By no means ... for it behoveth the rational man to choose the
+good. (See the passage complete on page 15.)
+
+Luther imagined that the faith that saved was entire confidence in the
+fact that a bargain had been struck between the Persons of the Trinity,
+according to which Christ's sacrifice should be accepted as satisfying
+the justice of his Father, outraged by Adam's fault. To-day this appears
+to the majority of educated men a fantastic conception. For them the
+faith that saves is love of goodness, as love of beauty saves the artist
+from mistakes into which his intelligence would often plunge him. Jesus
+has no claim upon us superior to his goodness and his beauty; nor can we
+conceive of the possibility of such a claim. But we recognise with Duerer
+that we do not know what the true measure of goodness and beauty is, and
+all that we can do is to choose always the good and the beautiful
+according to the measure of our reason--to the fulness of the light at
+present granted to us.
+
+
+II
+
+The curiosity of the modern man of science no doubt is descended from
+that of men like Leonardo and the early Humanists, but it differs from
+almost more than it resembles it. The motive power behind both is no
+doubt the confidence of the healthy mind that the human intelligence
+will ultimately prove adequate to comprehend the spectacle of the
+universe. But for the Humanists, for Duerer and his friends, the
+consciousness of the irreconcilableness of that spectacle with the
+necessary ideals of human nature had not produced, as in our
+contemporaries and our immediate forerunners it has produced, either the
+atrophy of expectation which afflicts some, or the extravagance of
+ingenuity that cannot rest till it has rationalised hope, which torments
+others. They were saddled with neither the indifference nor the
+restlessness of the modern intellect. They escaped like boys on a
+holiday. They felt conscious of doing what their schoolmaster meant them
+to do, though they were actually doing just what they liked. It was all
+for the glory of God in Duerer's mind; but how or why God should be
+pleased with what he did, did not trouble him. He engraved and sold
+impressions of a plate representing a sow with eight legs; he made a
+drawing, which is at Oxford, of an infant girl with two heads and four
+arms, and calmly wrote beneath it:--
+
+Item, in the year reckoned 1512, after the birth of Christ, such a
+creature (_Frucht_) as is represented above, was born in Bavaria, on the
+Lord of Werdenberg's land, in a village named Ertingen over against
+Riedlingen. It was on the 20th of the hay month (July), and they were
+baptized, the one head Elspett, the other Margrett.
+
+Just so, Luther is no more than St. Paul abashed to say that God had
+need of some men intended for dishonour, as a potter makes some vessels
+for honourable, some for dishonourable uses. The modern mind at once
+reflects: "If that is the case, so much the worse for God; by so much is
+it impossible that I should ever worship Him;" and it will prefer any
+prolongation of "that most wholesome frame of mind, a suspended
+judgment," to accepting a solution so cheap as that offered by the
+Apostle and Reformer, which has come to seem simply injurious.
+
+The spirit of the enlarged schoolboy was, I think, really the attitude
+of the best minds then and onwards to Descartes and Spinoza. They gave
+themselves up to the study of nature without ceasing to belong to their
+school, yet freed, as on a holiday, from the constraint of being
+actually in it. Yet, in regard to their personal and social life, at
+least north of the Alps, the majority of such men were very consciously
+and dutifully under "their great taskmaster's eye"; and in that also
+they differ in a measure from the more part of modern scientists.
+
+Duerer made up a rhinoceros from a sketch and description sent to him
+from Portugal, whither the uncouth creature had been brought in a ship
+from Goa. Duerer's drawing was engraved and became the parent of
+innumerable rhinoceroses in lesson-books, doing service right down well
+into the late century, as Thausing assures us. The unfortunate original
+was sent as a present to Leo X., who wanted to see him fight with an
+elephant which had made him laugh by squirting water and kneeling down
+to be blessed as sensibly as a Christian. So the poor beast was shipped
+again, only to be shipwrecked near Porto Venere, where he was last seen
+swimming valiantly, but hopelessly impeded by his chain, and baffled by
+the rocky shore. In the Netherlands, Duerer's curiosity to see a whale
+nearly resulted in his own shipwreck, and indirectly produced the malady
+which finally killed him. But Duerer's curiosity was really most
+scientific where it was most artistic; in his portraits, in his studies
+of plants and birds and the noses of stags, or the slumber of lions.
+
+Doubtless it was not a very dissimilar motive which gained him entrance
+into the women's bath at Nuremberg, for we see he must have been there
+by the beautiful pen drawing at Bremen and the slighter one of the same
+subject at Chatsworth. These drawings may also illustrate what in his
+book on the Proportion he calls the words of difference--stout, lean,
+short, tall, &c. (see p. 285), as he would seem to have chosen types as
+various as possible, ranging from the human sow to the slim and
+dignified beauty. In the same spirit he studied perspective and the art
+of measuring; he felt the importance to art of inquiry in these
+directions; nevertheless, to seize the beautiful elements in nature was
+ever the object of his efforts, however, roundabout they may sometimes
+appear to us. "The sight of a fine human figure is above all things the
+most pleasing to us, wherefore I will first construct the right
+proportions of a man." (See p. 321.) His aesthetic curiosity had nothing
+in common with that which considers all objects and appearances as
+equally interesting. What he meant by Nature, when he bid the artist
+have continual recourse to her, was far from being the momentary and
+accidental appearance of any thing or things anywhere,--which the modern
+"student of Nature" admires because he has neither sufficient force of
+character to prefer, nor sufficient right feeling to defer to the
+preferences of those who have more.
+
+Leonardo's natural history is delightful reading, because it combines
+such fantastic and inventive fables as surpass even the happiest efforts
+of our nonsense writers with a beautiful openness of mind which we see
+oftener in children than in sages,--which is, in fact, the seriousness
+of those who are truly learning, and are not too conscious of what has
+already been learnt.
+
+As a boy adds to the pleasure he has in adventuring further and further
+into a cave the delight of awesome supposition--for what may not the
+next turn reveal?--and is pleased to feel all his young machinery ready
+instantly to enact a panic if his torch should blow out, and laughs at
+each furtive rehearsal of his own terror in which he indulges;--so the
+Humanists turned from astronomy to astrology, and used their skill in
+mathematics to play with horoscopes which they more than half believed
+might bite. There was just enough doubt as to whether any given wonder
+was a miracle to make it interesting; and at any moment the pall of
+superstition might stifle the flickering light of inquiry, as we feel
+was the case when Duerer writes:
+
+The most wonderful thing I ever saw occurred in the year 1503, when
+crosses fell upon many persons, and especially on children rather than
+on elder people. Amongst others, I saw one of the form which I have
+represented below. It had fallen into Eyrer's maid's shift, as she was
+sitting in the house at the back of Pirkheimer's (i.e., in the house
+where Duerer was born). She was so troubled about it that she wept and
+cried aloud, for she feared that she must die because of it.
+
+I have also seen a comet in the sky.
+
+And again, the terror caused by a very bad and strange dream passes the
+bounds of play; and one feels that the belief that a vision of the night
+might produce or prefigure dreadful change was for him something a great
+deal more serious than for the dilettante spiritualist and
+wonder-tickler of to-day. He writes:
+
+In the night between Wednesday and Thursday after Whit Sunday (May
+30-31, 1525), I saw this appearance in my sleep--how many great waters
+fell from heaven. The first struck the earth about four miles away from
+me with terrific force and tremendous noise, and it broke up and drowned
+the whole land. I was so sore afraid that I awoke from it. Then the
+other waters fell, and as they fell they were very powerful, and there
+were many of them, some further away, some nearer. And they came down
+from so great a height that they all seemed to fall with an equal
+slowness. But when the first water that touched the earth had very
+nearly reached it, it fell with such swiftness, with wind and roaring,
+and I was so sore afraid that when I awoke my whole body trembled, and
+for a long while I could not recover myself. So when I arose in the
+morning, I painted it above here as I saw it God turn all these things
+to the best. ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+The instinct for recording which dictates such a note as this is
+characteristic of Duerer, and called into being many of his drawings.
+Many such naive and explicit records as that on the drawing which
+Raphael sent him are to be found in the flyleaves of books and on the
+margins of prints and drawings, his possessions. In such notes we may
+see not only an effect of the curiosity, and desire to arrange and
+co-ordinate information, which resulted in modern science; but something
+that is akin to that worship and respect for the deeds and productions
+of those long dead or in distant countries, in which the human spirit
+relieved itself from the oppressive expectation of judgment and
+vengeance which had paralysed it, as the beauty of the supernatural
+world was lost sight of behind its terrors, and witches and wizards
+engrossed the popular mind, in which for a time saints and angels had
+held the ascendancy. The future now became the return of a golden age;
+not a garish and horrible novelty called heaven and hell, but a human
+society beautiful as that of the Greeks, grand as that of republican
+Rome, sweet and hospitable as the household of Jesus and Mary. The
+Reformation is in part a return of the old fears; but Duerer has recorded
+only one bad dream, whereas he tells that he was often visited by dreams
+worthy of the glorious Renascence. "Would to God it were possible for me
+to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet
+unborn, for I know that I might be improved. Ah! _how often in my_ sleep
+do I behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof
+never appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me!" Why was he not sent to Rome to see the ceiling of the
+Sistina and Raphael's Stanze? Perchance it was these that he saw in
+his dreams?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DUeRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS
+
+
+I
+
+It is even more the case with Duerer's journal written in the Netherlands
+than with the letters from Venice that, like life itself, it is full of
+repetitions and over-insistence on what is insignificant. I quote the
+most interesting passages, and as there is never a good reason for doing
+again what has already been well done; I am happy to quote Sir Martin
+Conway's excellent notes, having found occasion to add only one. Duerer
+set out on July 12, 1520, with his wife and her maid Susanna. It was
+probably this Susanna who three years later married Georg Penz, one of
+"the three godless painters." Duerer took a great many prints and
+woodcuts, books both to sell and to give as presents; and besides he
+took a sketch book in which he made silver-point sketches and portraits.
+A good number of its pages have come down to us, and a great many of the
+portraits he mentions having taken were done in it, and then cut out to
+give to the sitter. All these drawings are on the same sized paper. We
+reproduce one of them here (see page 156). Besides this sketch-book he
+evidently had a memorandum-book in which he recorded what he did, what
+he spent, whom he saw, and occasionally what he felt or what he wished.
+The original is lost, but an old copy of it is in the Bamberg Library.
+
+_July_ 12.--On Thursday after Kilian's, I, Albrecht Duerer, at my own
+charges and costs, took myself and my wife (and maid Susanna) away to
+the Netherlands. And the same day, after passing through Erlangen, we
+put up for the night at Baiersdorf and spent there 3 pounds less
+6 pfennigs.
+
+July 13.--Next day, Friday, we came to Forchheim, and there I paid 22
+pf. for the convoy.
+
+Thence I journeyed to Bamberg, where I presented the Bishop (Georg III.
+Schenk von Limburg[24]) with a Madonna painting, a Life of our Lady, an
+Apocalypse, and a Horin's worth of engravings. He invited me as his
+guest, gave me a Toll-pass[25] and three letters of introduction, and
+paid my bill at the inn, where I had spent about a florin.
+
+I paid six florins in gold to the boatman who took me from Bamberg to
+Frankfurt.
+
+Master Lukas Benedict and Hans,[26] the painter, sent me wine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, _August_ 2-26, 1520.
+
+At Antwerp I went to Jobst Plankfelt's[27] inn, and the same evening at
+Fuggers' Factor,[28] Bernhard Stecher invite and gave us a costly meal.
+My wife, however, dined at the inn. I paid the driver three gold florins
+for bringing us three, and one st. I paid for carrying the goods.
+
+_August_ 4.--On Saturday after the feast of St. Peter in Chains my host
+took me to see the Burgomaster's (Arnold van Liere) house at Antwerp. It
+is newly built and beyond measure large, and very well ordered, with
+spacious and exceedingly beautiful chambers, a tower splendidly
+ornamented, a very large garden--altogether a noble house, the like of
+which I have nowhere seen in all Germany. The house also is reached from
+both sides by a very long street, which has been quite newly built
+according to the Burgomaster's liking and at his charges.
+
+I paid three st. to the messenger, two pf. for bread, two pf. for ink.
+
+August 5.--On Sunday, it was St. Oswald's Day, the painters invited me
+to the hall of their guild, with my wife and maid. All their service was
+of silver, and they had other splendid ornaments and very costly meats.
+All their wives also were there. And as I was being led to the table the
+company stood on both sides as if they were leading some great lord. And
+there were amongst them men of very high position, who all behaved most
+respectfully towards me with deep courtesy, and promised to do
+everything in their power agreeable to me that they knew of. And as I
+was sitting there in such honour the Syndic (Adrian Horebouts) of
+Antwerp came, with two servants, and presented me with four cans of wine
+in the name of the Town Councillors of Antwerp, and they had bidden him
+say that they wished thereby to show their respect for me and to assure
+me of their good will. Wherefore I returned them my humble thanks and
+offered my humble service. After that came Master Peeter (Frans), the
+town-carpenter, and presented me with two cans of wine, with the offer
+of his willing services. So when we had spent a long and merry time
+together till late in the night, they accompanied us home with lanterns
+in great honour. And they begged me to be ever assured and confident of
+their good will, and promised that in whatever I did they would be
+all-helpful to me. So I thanked them and laid me down to sleep.
+
+The Treasurer (Lorenz Sterk) also gave me a child's head (painted) on
+linen, and a wooden weapon from Calicut, and one of the light wood
+reeds. Tomasin, too, has given me a plaited hat of alder bark. I dined
+once with the Portuguese, and have given a brother of Tomasin's three
+fl. worth of engravings.
+
+Herr Erasmus[29] has given me a small Spanish _mantilla_ and three men's
+portraits.
+
+I took the portrait of Herr Niklas Kratzer,[30] an astronomer. He lives
+with the King of England, and has been very helpful and useful to me in
+many matters. He is a German, a native of Munich. I also made the
+portrait of Tomasin's daughter, Mistress Zutta by name. Hans
+Pfaffroth[31] gave me one Philips fl. for taking his portrait in
+charcoal. I have dined once more with Tomasin. My host's brother-in-law
+entertained me and my wife once. I changed two light florins for
+twenty-four st. for living expenses, and I gave one st. _t&k&d_ to a man
+who let me see an altar-piece.
+
+[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on a white ground, in the Berlin
+Print Room]
+
+_August_ 19.--On the Sunday after our dear Lady's Assumption I saw the
+great Procession from the Church of our Lady at Antwerp, when the whole
+town of every craft and rank was assembled, each dressed in his best
+according to his rank. And all ranks and guilds had their signs, by
+which they might be known. In the intervals great costly pole-candles
+were borne, and their long old Frankish trumpets of silver. There were
+also in the German fashion many pipers and drummers. All the instruments
+were loudly and noisily blown and beaten.
+
+I saw the procession pass along the street, the people being arranged in
+rows, each man some distance from his neighbour, but the rows close one
+behind another. There were the Goldsmiths, the Painters, the Masons, the
+Broderers, the Sculptors, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Sailors, the
+Fishermen, the Butchers, the Leatherers, the Clothmakers, the Bakers,
+the Tailors, the Cordwainers--indeed, workmen of all kinds, and many
+craftsmen and dealers who work for their livelihood. Likewise the
+shopkeepers and merchants and their assistants of all kinds were there.
+After these came the shooters with guns, bows, and cross-bows, and the
+horsemen and foot-soldiers also. Then followed the watch of the Lords
+Magistrates. Then came a fine troop all in red, nobly and splendidly
+clad. Before them, however, went all the religious Orders and the
+members of some Foundations very devoutly, all in their different robes.
+
+A very large company of widows also took part in this procession. They
+support themselves with their own hands and observe a special rule. They
+were all dressed from head to foot in white linen garments, made
+expressly for the occasion, very sorrowful to see. Among them I saw some
+very stately persons. Last of all came the Chapter of our Lady's Church,
+with all their clergy, scholars, and treasurers. Twenty persons bore the
+image of the Virgin Mary with the Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest
+manner, to the honour of the Lord God.
+
+In this procession very many delightful things were shown, most
+splendidly got up. Waggons were drawn along with masques upon ships and
+other structures. Behind them came the company of the Prophets in their
+order, and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the
+Three Holy Kings riding on great camels and on other rare beasts, very
+well arranged; also how our Lady fled to Egypt--very devout--and many
+other things, which for shortness I omit. At the end came a great Dragon
+which St. Margaret and her maidens led by a girdle; she was especially
+beautiful. Behind her came St. George with his squire, a very goodly
+knight in armour. In this host also rode boys and maidens most finely
+and splendidly dressed in the costumes of many lands, representing
+various Saints. From beginning to end the procession lasted more than
+two hours before it was gone past our house. And so many things were
+there that I could never write them all in a book, so I let it
+well alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRUSSELS _August_ 26-_September_ 3, 1520.
+
+In the golden chamber in the Townhall at Brussels I saw the four
+paintings which the great Master Roger van der Weyden[32] made. And I
+saw out behind the King's house at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth,
+and Beast-garden[33]; anything more beautiful and pleasing to me and
+more like a Paradise I have never seen. Erasmus is the name of the
+little man who wrote out my supplication at Herr Jacob de Bannisis'
+house. At Brussels is a very splendid Townhall, large, and covered with
+beautiful carved stonework, and it has a noble open tower. I took a
+portrait at night by candlelight of Master Konrad of Brussels, who was
+my host; I drew at the same time Doctor Lamparter's son in charcoal,
+also the hostess.
+
+I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land
+of gold (Mexico), a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all
+of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armour of the
+people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and
+darts, very strange clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects
+of human use, much better worth seeing than prodigies. These things were
+all so precious that they are valued at 100,000 florins. All the days of
+my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these
+things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled
+at the subtle _Ingenia_ of men in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot
+express all that I thought there.
+
+At Brussels I saw many other beautiful things besides, and especially I
+saw a fish bone there, as vast as if it had been built up of squared
+stones. It was a fathom long and very thick, it weighs up to 15 cwt.,
+and its form resembles that drawn here. It stood up behind on the fish's
+head. I was also in the Count of Nassau's house,[34] which is very
+splendidly built and as beautifully adorned. I have again dined with my
+Lords (of Nuernberg).
+
+When I was in the Nassau house in the chapel there, I saw the good
+picture[35] that Master Hugo van der Goes painted, and I saw the two
+fine large halls and the treasures everywhere in the house, also the
+great bed wherein fifty men can lie. And I _saw_ the great stone which
+the storm cast down in the field near the Lord of Nassau. The house
+stands high, and from it there is a most beautiful view, at which one
+cannot but wonder: and I do not believe that in all the German lands the
+like of it exists.
+
+Master Bernard van Orley, the painter, invited me and prepared so costly
+a meal that I do not think ten fl. will pay for it. Lady Margaret's
+Treasurer (Jan de Marnix), whom I drew, and the King's Steward, Jehan de
+Metenye by name, and the Town-Treasurer named Van Busleyden invited
+themselves to it, to get me good company. I gave Master Bernard a
+_Passion_ engraved in copper, and he gave me in return a black Spanish
+bag worth three fl. I have also given Erasmus of Rotterdam a _Passion_
+engraved in copper.
+
+I have once more taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait[36] I gave Lorenz
+Sterk a sitting _Jerome_ and the _Melancholy_, and took a portrait of my
+hostess' godmother. Six people whose portraits I drew at Brussels have
+given me nothing. I paid three st. for two buffalo horns, and one st.
+for two Eulenspiegels.[37]
+
+ANTWERP, _September 6-October 4_, 1520.
+
+I have paid one st for the printed "Entry into Antwerp," telling how the
+King was received with a splendid triumph--the gates very costly
+adorned--and with plays, great joy, and graceful maidens whose like I
+have seldom seen.[38] I changed one fl. for expenses. I saw at Antwerp
+the bones of the giant. His leg above the knee is 5-1/2 ft. long and
+beyond measure heavy and very thick; so with his shoulder blades--a
+single one is broader than a strong man's back--and his other limbs. The
+man was 18 ft. high, had ruled at Antwerp and done wondrous great feats,
+as is more fully written about him in an old book,[39] which the Lords
+of the Town possess.
+
+[Illustration: ERASMUS From a reproduction of the drawing in the "Leon
+Bonnat" collection, Bayonne _Face p._ 148]
+
+The studio (school) of Raphael of Urbino has quite broken up since his
+death,[40] but one of his scholars, Tommaso Vincidor of Bologna[41] by
+name, a good painter, desired to see me. So he came to me and has given
+me an antique gold ring with a very well cut stone. It is worth five
+fl., but already I have been offered the double for it. I gave him six
+fl. worth of my best prints for it. I bought a piece of calico for three
+st.; I paid the messenger one st.; three st. I spent in company.
+
+I have presented a whole set of all my works to Lady Margaret, the
+Emperor's daughter, and have drawn her two pictures on parchment with
+the greatest pains and care. All this I set at as much as thirty fl. And
+I have had to draw the design of a house for her physician the doctor,
+according to which he intends to build one; and for drawing that I would
+not care to take less than ten fl. I have given the servant one st., and
+paid one st. for brick-colour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+October 1.--On Monday after Michaelmas, 1520, I gave Thomas of Bologna a
+whole set of prints to send for me to Rome to another painter who should
+send me Raphael's work[42] in return. I dined once with my wife. I paid
+three st. for the little tracts. The Bolognese has made my portrait;[43]
+he means to take it with him to Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AACHEN, _October 7-26, 1520_.
+
+_October_ 7.--At Aachen I saw the well-proportioned pillars,[44] with
+their good capitals of green and red porphyry (_Gassenstein_) which
+Charles the Great had brought from Rome thither and there set up. They
+are correctly made according to Vitruvius' writings.
+
+_October_ 23.--On October 23 King Karl was crowned at Aachen. There I
+saw all manner of lordly splendour, more magnificent than anything that
+those who live in our parts have seen--all, as it has been described.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+KOeLN, _October 26--November 14, 1520_.
+
+I bought a tract of Luther's for five white pf., and the "Condemnation
+of Luther," the pious man, for one white pf.; also a rosary for one
+white pf. and a girdle for two white pf., a pound of candles for
+one white pf.
+
+_November_ 12.--I have made the nun's portrait. I gave the nun seven
+white pf. and three half-sheet engravings. My confirmation[45] from the
+Emperor came to my Lords of Nuernberg for me on Monday after Martin's, in
+the year 1520, after great trouble and labour.
+
+ANTWERP, _November_ %--_December_ 3, 1520.
+
+At Zierikzee, in Zeeland, a whale has been stranded by a high tide and a
+gale of wind. It is much more than 100 fathoms long, and no man living
+in Zeeland has seen one even a third as long as this is. The fish cannot
+get off the land; the people would gladly see it gone, as they fear the
+great stink, for it is so large that they say it could not be cut in
+pieces and the blubber boiled down in half a year.
+
+ZEELAND, _December_ 3-14, 1520.
+
+_December_ 8.--I went to Middelburg. There, in the Abbey, is a great
+picture painted by Jan de Mabuse--not so good in the modelling
+(_Hauptstreichen_) as in the colouring. I went next to the Veere, where
+lie ships from all lands; it is a very fine little town.
+
+At Arnemuiden, where I landed before, a great misfortune befel me. As we
+were pushing ashore and getting out our rope, a great ship bumped hard
+against us, as we were in the act of landing, and in the crush I had let
+every one get out before me, so that only I, Georg Kotzler,[46] two old
+wives, and the skipper with a small boy were left in the ship. When now
+the other ship bumped against us, and I with those named was still in
+the ship and could not get out, the strong rope broke; and thereupon, in
+the same moment, a storm of wind arose, which drove our ship back with
+force. Then we all cried for help, but no one would risk himself for us.
+And the wind carried us away out to sea. Thereupon the skipper tore his
+hair and cried aloud, for all his men had landed and the ship was
+unmanned. Then were we in fear and danger, for the wind was strong and
+only six persons in the ship. So I spoke to the skipper that he should
+take courage (_er sollt ein Herz fahen_) and have hope in God, and that
+he should consider what was to be done. So he said that if he could haul
+up the small sail he would try if we could come again to land. So we
+toiled all together and got it feebly about half-way up, and went on
+again towards the land. And when the people on shore, who had already
+given us up, saw how we helped ourselves, they came to our aid and we
+got to land.
+
+Middelburg is a good town; it has a very beautiful Townhall with a fine
+tower. There is much art shown in all things here. In the Abbey the
+stalls are very costly and beautiful, and there is a splendid gallery of
+stone; and there is a fine Parish Church. The town was besides excellent
+for sketching (_koestlich au konterfeyen_). Zeeland is fine and wonderful
+to see because of the water, for it stands higher than the land. I made
+a portrait of my host at Arnemuiden. Master Hugo and Alexander Imhof and
+Friedrich the Hirschvogels' servant gave me, each of them, an Indian
+cocoa-nut which they had won at play, and the host gave me a
+sprouting bulb.
+
+_December_ 9--Early on Monday we started again by ship and went by the
+Veere and Zierikzee and tried to get sight of the great fish,[47] but
+the tide had carried him off again.
+
+ANTWERP, _December_ 14--_April_ 6, 1521
+
+I have eaten alone thus often.
+
+I took portraits of Gerhard Bombelli and the daughter of Sebastian the
+Procurator.
+
+_February_ 10.--On Carnival Sunday the goldsmiths invited me to dinner
+early with my wife. Amongst their assembled guests were many notable
+men. They had prepared a most splendid meal, and did me exceeding great
+honour. And in the evening the old Bailiff of the town[48] invited me
+and gave a splendid meal, and did me great honour. Many strange masquers
+came there. I have drawn the portrait in charcoal of Florent Nepotis,
+Lady Margaret's organist. On Monday night Herr Lopez invited me to the
+great banquet on Shrove-Tuesday, which lasted till two o'clock, and was
+very costly. Herr Lorenz Sterk gave me a Spanish fur. To the
+above-mentioned feast very many came in costly masks, and especially
+Tomasin and Brandan. I won two fl. at play.
+
+I dined once with the Frenchman, twice with the Hirschvogels' Fritz, and
+once with Master Peter Aegidius[49] the Secretary, when Erasmus of
+Rotterdam also dined with us.
+
+I have twice more drawn with the metal-point the portrait of the
+beautiful maiden for Gerhard.
+
+I made Tomasin a design, drawn and tinted in half colours, after which
+he intends to have his house painted.
+
+I bought the five silk girdles, which I mean to give away, for three fl.
+sixteen st.; also a border (_Borte_) for twenty st. These six borders I
+sent to the wives of Caspar Nuetzel, Hans Imhof, Straeub, the two
+Spenglers, and Loeffelholz,[50] and to each a good pair of gloves. To
+Pirkheimer I sent a large cap, a costly inkstand of buffalo horn, a
+silver Emperor, one pound of pistachios, and three sugar canes. To
+Caspar Nuetzel I sent a great elk's foot, ten large fir cones, and cones
+of the stone-pine. To Jacob Muffel I sent a scarlet breastcloth of one
+ell; to Hans Imhof's child an embroidered scarlet cap and stone-pine
+nuts; to Kramer's wife four ells of silk worth four fl.; to Lochinger's
+wife one ell of silk worth one fl.; to the two Spenglers a bag and three
+fine horns each; to Herr Hieronymus Holzschuher a very large horn.
+
+BRUGES AND GHENT, _April_ 6-11, 1521.
+
+I saw the chapel[51] there which Roger painted, and some pictures by a
+great old master. I gave one st. to the man who showed us them. Then I
+bought three ivory combs for thirty st. They took me next to St. Jacob's
+and showed me the precious pictures by Roger and Hugo,[52]
+who were both great masters. Then I saw in our Lady's Church the
+alabaster[53] Madonna, sculptured by Michael Angelo of Rome. After that
+they took me to many more churches and showed me all the good pictures,
+of which there is an abundance there; and when I had seen the Jan van
+Eyck[54] and all the other works, we came at last to the painters'
+chapel, in which there are good things. Then they prepared a banquet for
+me, and I went with them from it to their guild-hall, where many
+honourable men were gathered together, both goldsmiths, painters and
+merchants, and they made me sup with them. They gave me presents, sought
+to make my acquaintance, and did me great honour. The two brothers,
+Jacob and Peter Mostaert, the councillors, gave me twelve cans of wine;
+and the whole assembly, more than sixty persons, accompanied me home
+with many torches. I also saw at their shooting court the great fish-tub
+on which they eat; it is 19 feet long, 7 feet high, and 7 feet wide. So
+early on Tuesday we went away, but before that I drew with the
+metal-point the portrait of Jan Prost, and gave his wife ten st.
+at parting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On my arrival at Ghent the Dean of the Painters came to me and brought
+with him the first masters in painting; they showed me great honour,
+received me most courteously, offered me their goodwill and service, and
+supped with me. On Wednesday they took me early to the Belfry of St.
+John, whence I looked over the great wonderful town, yet in which even I
+had just been taken for something great. Then I saw Jan van Eycks
+picture;[55] it is a most precious painting, full of thought (_ein
+ueberkoestlich hochverstaendig Gemuehl_), and the Eve, Mary, and God the
+Father are specially good. Next I saw the lions and drew one with the
+metal-point.[56] And I saw at the place where men are beheaded on the
+bridge, the two statues erected (in 1371) as a sign that there a son
+beheaded his father.[57] Ghent is a fine and remarkable town; four great
+waters flow through it. I gave the sacristan (at St. Bavon's) and the
+lions' keepers three st. _trinkgeld_. I saw many wonderful things in
+Ghent besides, and the painters with their Dean did not leave me alone,
+but they ate with me morning and evening and paid for everything, and
+were very friendly to me. I gave away five st. at the inn at leaving.
+
+ANTWERP, _April_ 11-_May_ 17, 1521.
+
+In the third week after Easter (April 21-27) a violent fever seized me,
+with great weakness, nausea, and headache. And before, when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me. I paid six st. for cases.
+The monk has bound two books for me in return for the art-wares which I
+gave him. I bought a piece of arras to make two mantles for my
+mother-in-law and my wife, for ten fl. eight st. I paid the doctor eight
+st., and three st. to the apothecary. I also changed one fl. for
+expenses, and spent three st. in company. Paid the doctor ten st. I
+again paid the doctor six st. During my illness Rodrigo has sent me many
+sweetmeats. I gave the lad four st. _trinkgeld_.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing in silver-point on prepared ground, from the
+Netherlands sketch-book, in the Imperial Library, Vienna]
+
+On Friday (May 17) before Whit Sunday in the year 1521, came tidings to
+me at Antwerp, that Martin Luther had been so treacherously taken
+prisoner; for he trusted the Emperor Karl, who had granted him his
+herald and imperial safe conduct. But as soon as the herald had conveyed
+him to an unfriendly place near Eisenach he rode away, saying that he no
+longer needed him. Straightway there appeared ten knights, and they
+treacherously carried off the pious man, betrayed into their hands, a
+man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, a follower of the true Christian
+faith. And whether he yet lives I know not, or whether they have put him
+to death; if so, he has suffered for the truth of Christ and because he
+rebuked the unchristian Papacy, which strives with its heavy load of
+human laws against the redemption of Christ. And if he has suffered it
+is that we may again be robbed and stripped of the truth of our blood
+and sweat, that the same may be shamefully and scandalously squandered
+by idle-going folk, while the poor and the sick therefore die of hunger.
+But this is above all most grievous to me, that, may be, God will suffer
+us to remain still longer under their false, blind doctrine, invented
+and drawn up by the men alone whom they call Fathers, by whom also the
+precious Word of God is in many places wrongly expounded or
+utterly ignored.
+
+Oh God of heaven, pity us! Oh Lord Jesus Christ, pray for Thy people!
+Deliver us at the fit time. Call together Thy far-scattered sheep by Thy
+voice in the Scripture, called Thy godly Word. Help us to know this Thy
+voice and to follow no other deceiving cry of human error, so that we,
+Lord Jesus Christ, may not fall away from Thee. Call together again the
+sheep of Thy pasture, who are still in part found in the Roman Church,
+and with them also the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who
+have been scattered by the oppression and avarice of the Pope and by
+false appearance of holiness. Oh God, redeem Thy poor people constrained
+by heavy ban and edict, which it nowise willingly obeys, continually to
+sin against its conscience if it disobeys them. Never, oh God, hast Thou
+so horribly burdened a people with human laws as us poor folk under the
+Roman Chair, who daily long to be free Christians, ransomed by Thy
+blood. Oh highest, heavenly Father, pour into our hearts, through Thy
+Son, Jesus Christ, such a light, that by it we may know what messenger
+we are bound to obey, so that with good conscience we may lay aside the
+burdens of others and serve Thee, eternal, heavenly Father, with happy
+and joyful hearts.
+
+And if we have lost this man, who has written more clearly than any that
+has lived for 140 years, and to whom Thou hast given such a spirit of
+the Gospel, we pray Thee, oh heavenly Father, that Thou wouldst again
+give Thy Holy Spirit to one, that he may gather anew everywhere together
+Thy Holy Christian Church, that we may again live free and in Christian
+manner, and so, by our good works, all unbelievers, as Turks, Heathen,
+and Calicuts, may of themselves turn to us and embrace the Christian
+faith. But, ere Thou judgest, oh Lord, Thou wiliest that, as Thy Son,
+Jesus Christ, was fain to die by the hands of the priests, and to rise
+from the dead and after to ascend up to heaven, so too in like manner it
+should be with Thy follower Martin Luther, whose life the Pope
+compasseth with his money, treacherously towards God. Him wilt thou
+quicken again. And as Thou, oh my Lord, ordainedst thereafter that
+Jerusalem should for that sin be destroyed, so wilt thou also destroy
+this self-assumed authority of the Roman Chair. Oh Lord, give us then
+the new beautified Jerusalem, which descendeth out of heaven, whereof
+the Apocalypse writes, the holy, pure Gospel, which is not obscured by
+human doctrine.
+
+Every man who reads Martin Luther's books may see how clear and
+transparent is his doctrine, because he sets forth the holy Gospel.
+Wherefore his books are to be held in great honour, and not to be burnt;
+unless indeed his adversaries, who ever strive against the truth and
+would make gods out of men, were also cast into the fire, they and all
+their opinions with them, and afterwards a new edition of Luther's works
+were prepared. Oh God, if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound to
+us the holy Gospel with such clearness? What, oh God, might he not still
+have written for us in ten or twenty years!
+
+Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou an aged little
+man (_ein altes Maenniken_), and myself have heard thee say that thou
+givest thyself but two years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to
+accomplish somewhat. Lay out the same well for the good of the Gospel
+and of the true Christian faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ
+says, shall the Gates of Hell (the Roman Chair) in no wise prevail
+against thee. And if here below thou wert to be like thy master Christ
+and sufferedst infamy at the hands of the liars of this time, and didst
+die a little the sooner, then wouldst thou the sooner pass from death
+unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou drinkest of the cup
+which He drank of, with Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice
+those who have dealt unrighteously. Oh Erasmus, cleave to this that God
+Himself may be thy praise, even as it is written of David. For thou
+mayest, yea verily thou mayest overthrow Goliath. Because God stands by
+the Holy Christian Church, even as He only upholds the Roman Church,
+according to His godly will. May He help us to everlasting salvation,
+who is God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, one eternal God. Amen.
+
+Oh ye Christian men, pray God for help, for His judgment draweth nigh
+and His justice shall appear. Then shall we behold the innocent blood
+which the Pope, Priests, Bishops, and Monks have shed, judged and
+condemned (_Apocal._). These are the slain who lie beneath the Altar of
+God and cry for vengeance, to whom the voice of God answereth: Await the
+full number of the innocent slain, then will I judge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, _May_ 17--_June_ 7, 1521.
+
+Master Gerhard,[58] the illuminator, has a daughter about eighteen years
+old named Susanna. She has illuminated a _Salvator_ on a little sheet,
+for which I gave her one fl. It is very wonderful that a woman can do so
+much. I lost six st. at play. I saw the great Procession at Antwerp on
+Holy Trinity day. Master Konrad gave me a fine pair of knives, so I gave
+his little old man a _Life of our Lady_ in return. I have made a
+portrait in charcoal of Master Jan,[59] goldsmith of Brussels, also one
+of his wife. I have been paid two fl. for prints. Master Jan, the
+Brussels goldsmith, paid me three Philips fl. for what I did for him,
+the drawing for the seal and the two portraits. I gave the Veronica,
+which I painted in oils, and the _Adam and Eve_ which Franz did, to Jan,
+the goldsmith, in exchange for a jacinth and an agate, on which a
+Lucretia is engraved. Each of us valued his portion at fourteen fl.
+Further, I gave him a whole set of engravings for a ring and six stones.
+Each valued his portion at seven fl. I bought two pairs of shoes for
+fourteen st., and two small boxes for two st. I changed two Philips fl.
+for expenses. I drew three _Leadings-forth_[60] and two Mounts of
+Olives on five half-sheets. I took three portraits in black and white on
+grey paper. I also sketched in black and white on grey paper two
+Netherland costumes. I painted for the Englishman his coat of arms, and
+he gave me one fl. I have also at one time and another done many
+drawings and other things to serve different people, and for the more
+part of my work have received nothing. Andreas of Krakau paid me one
+Philips fl. for a shield and a child's head. Changed one il. for
+expenses. I paid two fl. for sweeping-brushes. I saw the great
+procession at Antwerp on Corpus Christi day; it was very splendid. I
+gave four st. as trinkgeld. I paid the doctor six st. and one st. for a
+box. I have dined five times with Tomasin. I paid ten st. at the
+apothecary's, and gave his wife fourteen st. for the clyster and
+himself.... To the monk who confessed my wife I gave eight st.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MECHLIN, _June 7 and 8, 1521_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Mechlin I lodged with Master Heinrich, the painter, at the sign of
+the Golden Head.[61] And the painters and sculptors bade me as guest at
+my inn and did me great honour in their gathering. I went also to
+Poppenreuter[62] the gunmaker's house, and found wonderful things there.
+And I went to Lady Margaret's and showed her my _Emperor,_[63] and would
+have presented it to her, but she so disliked it that I took it
+away with me.
+
+And on Friday Lady Margaret showed me all her beautiful things. Amongst
+them I saw about forty small oil pictures, the like of which for
+precision and excellence I have never beheld. There also I saw more good
+works by Jan (de Mabuse), and Jacob Walch.[64] I asked my Lady for
+Jacob's little book, but she said she had already promised it to her
+painter.[65] Then I saw many other costly things and a precious
+library.[66]
+
+ANTWERP, _June_ 8--_July_ 3, 1521.
+
+Master Lukas, who engraves in copper, asked me as his guest. He is a
+little man, born at Leyden in Holland; he was at Antwerp.
+
+I have drawn with the metal-point the portrait of Master Lukas van
+Leyden.[67]
+
+The man with the three rings has overreached me by half. I did not
+understand the matter. I bought a red cap for my god-child[68]for
+eighteen st. Lost twelve st. at play. Drank two st.
+
+Cornelius Grapheus, the Secretary, gave me Luther's "Babylonian
+Captivity,"[69] in return for which I gave him my three Large Books.
+
+[Illustration: LUCAS VAN DER LEYDEN Drawing in charcoal formerly in the
+collection at Warwick Castle.]
+
+I reckoned up with Jobst and found myself thirty-one fl. in his debt,
+which I paid him; therein were charged and deducted the two portrait
+heads which I painted in oils, for which he gave five pounds of borax
+Netherlands weight. In all my doings, spendings, sales, and other
+dealings, in all my connections with high and low, I have suffered loss
+in the Netherlands; and Lady Margaret in particular gave me nothing for
+what I made and presented to her. And this settlement with Jobst was
+made on St. Peter and Paul's day.
+
+On our Lady's Visitation, as I was just about to leave Antwerp, the King
+of Denmark sent to me to come to him at once, and take his portrait,
+which I did in charcoal. I also did that of his servant Anton, and I was
+made to dine with the King, and he behaved graciously towards me. I have
+entrusted my bale to Leonhard Tucher and given over my white cloth to
+him. The carrier with whom I bargained did not take me; I fell out with
+him. Gerhard gave me some Italian seeds. I gave the new carrier
+(_Vicarius_) the great turtle shell, the fish-shield, the long pipe, the
+long weapon, the fish-fins, and the two little casks of lemons and
+capers to take home for me, on the day of our Lady's Visitation, 1521.
+
+BRUSSELS, _July_ 3-12, 1521.
+
+I noticed how the people of Antwerp marvelled greatly when they saw the
+King of Denmark, to find him such a manly, handsome man and come hither
+through his enemy's land with only two attendants. I saw, too, how the
+Emperor rode forth from Brussels to meet him, and received him
+honourably with great pomp. Then I saw the noble, costly banquet, which
+the Emperor and Lady Margaret held next day in his honour.
+
+Thomas Bologna has given me an Italian work of art; I have also bought a
+work for one st.
+
+A few days later when the Duerers arrived at Cologne the journal breaks
+off abruptly, as the last few leaves are missing: but there is every
+reason to suppose that they got back safely to Nuremberg two or three
+weeks later.
+
+
+II
+
+This journal shows us how the influence of a greater centre of
+civilisation strengthened the spirit of the Renascence in Duerer: it is
+marked by his having again taken up the paint brushes to do the best
+sort of work, by a new out-break of the collector's acquisitiveness,
+lastly by the tone of such a passage as that wherein the procession on
+the Sunday after our Lady's Assumption (p. 145) is spoken of with
+admiration. "Twenty persons bore the image of the Virgin Mary with the
+Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest manner, to the honour of the Lord
+God." Such a spectacle has a very different significance to his mind
+from that of another procession in honour of the Virgin, depicted in a
+woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer, which presents a large space in front of
+a temporary church; in the midst is a gaudy statue of the Virgin set
+upon a pillar, around whose base seven or eight persons of both sexes,
+whom one might suppose from their attitudes to be drunk, are seen
+writhing, while a procession headed by huge cierges and a cardinal's hat
+on a pole encircles the whole building; those in the procession carrying
+offerings or else candles, two men being naked save for scanty hair
+shirts. On the margin of the copy now at Coburg Duerer has written:
+"1523, this Spectre, contrary to Holy Scripture, has set itself up at
+Regensburg and has been dressed out by the Bishop. God help us that we
+should not so dishonour His precious mother but (honour her?) in Christ
+Jesus. Amen." Indeed, it would be difficult to distinguish between the
+kind of honour done the Virgin in many of Duerer's pictures and etchings
+and that done her in the Antwerp procession; but both are infinitely
+removed from the degradation of emotion produced by an orgy of
+superstition such as that depicted in Ostendorfer's print, which is
+truly nearer akin to the scenes that occasionally occur in Salvation
+Army or Methodist revivals, and is even more repugnant to the spirit of
+the Renascence than to that of the Reformation as Luther and Duerer
+conceived of it. It is well to remind ourselves, by reading such a
+passage and by gazing at Duerer's Virgins enthroned and crowned with
+stars, that the attitude of later Protestants in regard to the worship
+of the Virgin was in no sense shared by Duerer. And we touch the very
+pulse of the Renaissance in the phrase, "Being a painter, I looked about
+me a little more boldly,"--by which Duerer explains that the beautiful
+maidens, almost naked, who figured in the mythological groups along the
+route of Charles V.'s triumphal entry into Antwerp received a very
+different reward, in his attentive gaze, to that which was meted to them
+by the young, austere, and unreformed Charles. One might almost be
+listening to Vasari when Duerer says: "I saw out behind the King's house
+at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth and Beast-garden; anything more
+beautiful and pleasing to me and more like Paradise I have never seen."
+Duerer's admiration for Luther was like Michael Angelo's for Savonarola,
+and he never doubted that fiery indignation was directed against the
+abuse of wealth, force, and beauty, not against their use; though
+perhaps both the Italian and the German reformer occasionally
+confused the two.
+
+
+III
+
+Duress journey was successful in that he obtained from Charles V. what
+he sought--the confirmation of his privilegium.
+
+CHARLES, by God's grace, Roman Emperor Elect, etc.
+
+Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved,
+
+Whereas the most illustrious Prince, Emperor Maximilian, our dear lord
+and grandfather of praiseworthy memory, appointed and assigned unto our
+and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Duerer the sum of 100
+florins Rhenish every year of his life to be paid from and out of our
+and the Empire's customary town contributions, which you are bound to
+render yearly into our Imperial Treasury; and whereas we, as Roman
+Emperor, have graciously agreed thereto, and have granted anew this life
+pension unto him according to the terms of the above letter; we
+therefore earnestly command you, and it is our will, that you render and
+give unto the said Albrecht Duerer henceforward every year of his life,
+from and out of the said town contributions and in return for his proper
+quittance, the said life pension of 100 florins Rhenish, together with
+whatever part of it stands over unpaid since the Emperor Maximilian's
+grant; etc.
+
+Given at our and the Holy Empire's town Koeln on the fourth day of the
+month November (1520), etc.
+
+(Signed) KARL.
+(Signed) ALBRECHT, Cardinal, Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor.
+
+Besides, he got back to Nuremberg without falling in with highwaymen,
+though the following little letter shows us that in this he was
+fortunate.
+
+Dear Master Wolf Stromer,--My most gracious lord of Salzburg has sent
+me a letter by the hand of his glass-painter. I shall be glad to do
+anything I can to help him. He is to buy glass and materials here. He
+tells me that near Freistadtlein he was robbed and had twenty florins
+taken from him. He has asked me to send him to you, for his gracious
+lord told him if he wanted anything to let you know. I send him,
+therefore, to your Wisdom with my apprentice. Your Wisdom's,
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+No doubt he had enriched his mind and cheered his heart in the company
+of prosperous, go-ahead, and earnest men; but as he says, "when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me" (see p. 156). And, alas! it
+was to remain with him till he died of it. So that his journey cannot be
+considered as altogether fortunate.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 24: He was one of the leading Humanists of the time. The
+Madonna referred to was still at Bamberg, at the beginning of the
+present century.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Owing to the existence of some rudimentary form of
+Zollverein, Duerer's pass not only freed him of dues in the Bamberg
+district but as far down the Rhine as Koeln.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Hans Wolf, successor to Hans Wolfgang Katzheimer.]
+
+[Footnote 27: There is a portrait drawing of Jobst Plankfelt by Duerer in
+the Staedel collection at Frankfurt.]
+
+[Footnote 28: That is the head of the Fuggers' branch house at Antwerp.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Erasmus of Rotterdam, the famous Humanist.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Holbein also painted a portrait of this man in 1528. The
+picture is in the Louvre.]
+
+[Footnote 31: A pen-and-ink likeness of him by Duerer is in the
+possession of the painter Bendemann, of Duesseldorf. It bears the
+inscription in Duerer's hand, "1520. _Hans Pfaffroth van Dantzgen ein
+Starkmann_."]
+
+[Footnote 32: These were four pictures painted upon linen. They
+represented _The justice of Trajan, Pope Gregory praying for the
+Heathen_, and two incidents in the story of Erkenbald. The pictures were
+burnt in 1695, but their compositions are reproduced in the well-known
+Burgundian tapestries at Bern. See Pinchart, in the _Bulletins de
+l'Academie de Bruxelles_, 2nd Series, XVII.: also Kinkel, _Die brusseler
+Rathhausbilder_, &c., Zurich, 1867.]
+
+[Footnote 33: A rapid sketch made by Duerer in this place is in the
+Academy at Vienna. It is dated 1520, and inscribed, "that is the
+pleasure and beast-garden at Brussels, seen down behind out of
+the Palace."]
+
+[Footnote 34: A reproduction of an old view of this house will be found
+in _L'Art_, 1884, I. p. 188.]
+
+[Footnote 35: This picture was painted on four panels and represented
+the Seven Sacraments and a Crucifix. It is now lost. A similar picture
+is in the Antwerp Gallery, ascribed to Roger van der Weyden.]
+
+[Footnote 36: This is perhaps the drawing in the Bounat collection at
+Paris; it has been photographed by Braun (see illus. opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 37: It is believed that Duerer here refers to an edition of the
+satirical tale edited by Thomas Murner, and published at Strassburg
+in 1519.]
+
+[Footnote 38: "He afterwards particularly described to Melanchthon the
+splendid spectacles he had beheld, and how in what were plainly
+mythological groups, the most beautiful maidens figured almost naked,
+and covered only with a thin transparent veil. The young Emperor did not
+hocour them with a single glance, but Duerer himself was very glad to get
+near, not less for the purpose of seeing the tableaux than to have the
+opportunity of observing closely the perfect figures of the young
+girls." As he himself says, "Being a painter, I looked about me a little
+more boldly."--See Thausing's "Life of Duerer," vol. ii., p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 39: _Het oud register van diversche mandementen_, a
+fifteenth-century folio manuscript, still preserved in the Antwerp
+archives.]
+
+[Footnote 40: On April 6, 1520.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Tommaso was sent to Flanders in 1520 by Pope Leo X. to
+oversee the manufacture of the "second series" of tapestries. The
+painter does not seem to have returned to Italy.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Engravings by Marcantonio from Raphael's designs.]
+
+[Footnote 43: The picture is lost, but an engraving of it made by And.
+Stock in 1629 is well-known.]
+
+[Footnote 44: The fine monoliths brought from Ravenna and still to be
+seen in Aachen Cathedral.]
+
+[Footnote 45: The confirmation of his pension; _see_ p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Member of a Nuernberg family.]
+
+[Footnote 47: The object of the whole expedition was doubtless, that
+Duerer might see and sketch the whale. In the British Museum is a study
+of a walrus by Duerer, dated 1521, and inscribed, "The animal whose head
+I have drawn here was taken in the Netherlandish sea, and was twelve
+Brabant ells long and had four feet."]
+
+[Footnote 48: Gerhard van de Werve.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Pupil and afterwards friend of Erasmus.]
+
+[Footnote 50: These people were Duerer's principal Nuernberg friends.]
+
+[Footnote 51: It is assumed by commentators that _Chapel_ means
+_Altar-piece_, and it is guessed that the particular altar-piece is the
+one in the Berlin Museum which Charles V. is reported to have carried
+about with him, and which belonged to the Miraflores Convent. The
+guesses are worthless.]
+
+[Footnote 52: In St. Jacob's was the _Entombment_ by Hugo van der Goes.]
+
+[Footnote 53: It is in white marble. It was sculpted about 1501-6. Some
+critics have refused to accept it as a genuine work. Duerer ought to have
+been in a position to know the truth.]
+
+[Footnote 54: At this time there were plenty of his pictures at Bruges.
+Duerer doubtless saw his Madonna in St. Donatien's, now in the Academy of
+the same town.]
+
+[Footnote 55: The famous altar-piece painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck,
+of which the central part is still in its original place and the wings
+are divided, two of their panels being at Brussels and the rest
+at Berlin.]
+
+[Footnote 56: This drawing from Duerer's sketch-book is in the Court
+Library at Vienna (see pl. opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 57: The story is recounted in _Flandria illustrata_ (A.
+Sanderi, Colon., 1641, i. 149.)]
+
+[Footnote 58: Gerhard Horeboul of Ghent. Charles V.'s 'Book of Hours' in
+the Vienna library is his work. He also had a hand in the Grimani
+Breviary. After 1521 he went to England and entered the service of Henry
+VIII. His daughter Susanna was likewise in the service of the English
+King. She married and died in England.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Perhaps Jan van den Perre, afterwards goldsmith to Charles
+V.]
+
+[Footnote 60: That is to say, drawings representing _Christ bearing HIS
+CROSS_. _Mount of Olives_ means the Agony _in the_ Garden.]
+
+[Footnote 61: The inn-keeper of the _Golden Head_ is known to have been
+a painter. His name was Heinrich Keldermann.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Though born at Koeln, he was called Hans von Nuernberg. He
+was cannon-founder and gun-maker to Charles V.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Doubtless Duerer's portrait of Maximilian, now in the
+Gallery at Vienna, dated 1519. (_see_ p. 215).]
+
+[Footnote 64: Jacopo de' Barbari.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Bernard van Orley.]
+
+[Footnote 66: The catalogue of this library exists in the inventory of
+the Archduchess' possessions.]
+
+[Footnote 67: This is in the Musee Wicar at Lille; another portrait of
+Lukas van Leyden by Duerer was in the Earl of Warwick's collection (_see_
+opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 68: Hieronymus Imhof.]
+
+[Footnote 69: A quarto tract by Luther, printed in 1520 (without place
+or date), entitled _Von der Babylonischen gefenglnuss der Kirchen_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DUeRER'S LAST YEARS
+
+
+I
+
+Duerer came back home with health broken: yet it is to this period that
+the magnificent portraits at Berlin of Nuremberg Councillors belong, and
+certainly his hand and eye had never been more sure than when he
+produced them. The hall of the Rathhaus was decorated under his
+direction and from his designs, the actual painting being, it is
+supposed, chiefly the work of George Penz, who with his fellow prentices
+became famous in 1524 as one of "the three godless painters."
+
+We now come to a letter dated
+
+NUeRNBERG, _December_ 5, 1523, Sunday after Andrew's
+
+My dear and gracious Master Frey--I have received the little book you
+sent to Master (Ulrich) Varnbueler and me; when he has finished reading
+it I will read it too. As to the monkey-dance you want me to draw for
+you, I have drawn this one here, unskilfully enough, for it is a long
+time since I saw any monkeys; so pray put up with it. Convey my willing
+service to Herr Zwingli (the reformer), Hans Leu (a Protestant painter),
+Hans Urich, and my other good masters. ALBRECHT DUeRER. Divide these five
+little prints amongst you: I have nothing else new.
+
+This Master Felix Frey was a reformer at Zurich: he was probably not
+closely related to Hans Frey, Duerer's father-in-law, whose death is thus
+recorded in Duerer's book:
+
+In the year 1523 (as they reckon it), on our dear Lady's Day, when she
+was offered in the Temple, early, before the morning chimes, Hans Frey,
+my dear father-in-law, passed away. He had lain ill for almost six years
+and suffered quite incredible adversities in this world. He received the
+Sacraments before he died. God Almighty be gracious to him.
+
+Next we have letters from and to Niklas Kratzer, Astronomer to Henry
+VIII. He had been present when Duerer drew Erasmus' portrait at Antwerp.
+Duerer had also made a drawing of Kratzer, and later on Holbein was to
+paint his masterpiece in the Louvre from the Oxford professor.
+
+To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht Duerer, burgher of Nuernberg,
+my dear Master and Friend. LONDON, _October_ 24, 1524. Honourable,
+dear Sir,
+
+I am very glad to hear of your good health and that of your wife. I have
+had Hans Pomer staying with me in England. Now that you are all
+evangelical in Nuernberg I must write to you. God grant you grace to
+persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but God is stronger, and
+is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want
+you, dear Herr Albrecht Duerer, to make a drawing for me of the
+instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure
+distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp. Or perhaps
+Herr Pirkheimer would send me the design of it--he would be doing me a
+great favour. I want also to know how much a set of impressions of all
+your prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at Nuernberg
+relating to my art. I hear that our friend Hans, the astronomer, is
+dead. Would you write and tell me what instruments and the like he has
+left, and also where our Stabius' prints and wood-blocks are to be
+found? Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I hope to make him a map of
+England, which is a great country, and was unknown to Ptolemy. He would
+like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no
+more than a small part of it. You cannot write to me any longer through
+Hans Pomer. Pray send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S.
+Koloman.[70]I have nothing more to say that would interest you, so God
+bless you. Given at London, October 24. Your servant, NIKLAS KRATZEH.
+Greet your wife heartily for me.
+
+To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his
+Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend.
+
+NUeRNBERG, Monday after Barbara's (_December_ 5), 1524.
+
+First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received
+and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are
+going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer
+about the instrument you wanted to have. He is having one made for you,
+and is going to send it to you with a letter. The things Herr Hans left
+when he died have all been scattered; as I was away at the time of his
+death I cannot find out where they are gone to. The same has happened to
+Stabius' things; they were all taken to Austria, and I can tell you no
+more about them. I should like to know whether you have yet begun to
+translate Euclid into German, as you told me, if you had time, you
+would do.
+
+We have to stand in disgrace and danger for the sake of the Christian
+faith, for they abuse us as heretics; but may God grant us His grace and
+strengthen us in His word, for we must obey Him rather than men. It is
+better to lose life and goods than that God should cast us, body and
+soul, into hell-fire. Therefore, may He confirm us in that which is
+good, and enlighten our adversaries, poor, miserable, blind creatures,
+that they may not perish in their errors.
+
+Now God bless you! I send you two likenesses, printed from copper, which
+you will know well. At present I have no good news to write you, but
+much evil. However, only God's will cometh to pass. Your Wisdom's,
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+Another letter to Duerer from Cornelius Grapheus at Antwerp gives us some
+help towards understanding how the Reformation affected Duerer and
+his friends.
+
+To Master Albrecht Duerer, unrivalled chief in the art of painting, my
+friend and most beloved brother in Christ, at Nuernberg; or in his
+absence to Wilibald Pirkheimer.
+
+I wrote a good long letter to you, some time ago, in the name of our
+common friend Thomas Bombelli, but we have received no answer from you.
+We are, therefore, the more anxious to hear even three words from you,
+that we may know how you are and what is going on in your parts, for
+there is no doubt that great events are happening. Thomas Bombelli sends
+you his heartiest greeting. I beg you, as I did in my last letter, to
+greet Wilibald Pirkheimer a score of times for me. Of my own condition I
+will tell you nothing. The bearers of this letter will be able to
+acquaint you with everything. They are very good men and most sincere
+Christians. I commend, them to you and my friend Pirkheimer as if they
+were myself; for they, themselves the best of men, merit the highest
+recommendation to the best of men. Farewell, dearest Albrecht. Amongst
+us there is a great and daily increasing persecution on account of the
+Gospel. Our brethren, the bearers, will tell you all about it more
+openly. Again farewell.
+
+Wholly yours,
+
+CORNELIUS GRAPHEUS.
+
+ANTWERP, _February_ 23, 1524.
+
+
+II
+
+The events which made Duerer an ardent Evangelical and Reformer in a
+coarser paste proved a leaven of anarchy and subversion. Young,
+hot-headed nobles like Ulrich Von Hutten became iconoclastic, were
+foremost at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a
+part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they
+were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the
+unrest, discontent, and appetite for change took forms if not more
+offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a
+foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French
+Revolution. And in the towns men like "the three godless painters" made
+the burghers shake in their shoes for the social order which kept them
+rich and respected and others poor and servile. It is strange that all
+three should have come from Duerer's workshop. Probably they were the
+most talented prentices of the craft, since the great master chose them:
+besides, painting was an occupation which allowed of a certain
+intellectual development. They may have often listened with hungry ears
+to disputes between Pirkheimer and Duerer, and envied the good luck,
+grace and gift which had enabled the latter to bridge over a gulf as
+great as that which separated them from him, between him and Pirkheimer
+or Vambueler. All this and much more we can by taking thought imagine to
+our satisfaction; but the point which we would most desire to
+satisfactorily conjecture we are utterly in the dark about. Though his
+prentices were tried, Duerer appeared neither for nor against them; nor
+can we help ourselves to understand a fact so strange by any other
+mention of his attitude. He had a year or two previously married his
+servant, (perhaps the girl that his wife took with her to the
+Netherlands), to Georg Penz, who went the farthest in his scepticism,
+recanted soonest, and possessed least talent of the three. But this
+fact, which is not quite assured, narrows the grounds of conjecture but
+little; we still face an almost boundless blank. It is difficult to
+imagine that Duerer was quite as shocked as the Town Council by a man who
+said "he had some idea that there was a God, but did not know rightly
+what conception to form of him," who was so unfortunate as to think
+"nothing" of Christ, and could not believe in the Holy Gospel or in the
+word of God; and who failed to recognise "a master of himself, his goods
+and everything belonging to him" in the Council of Nuremberg.
+Now-a-days, when we think of the licence of assertion that has obtained
+on these questions, we are inclined to admire the honesty and
+intellectual clarity of such a confession. And Duerer, who resolved the
+similar question of authority as to "things beautiful" in a manner much
+the same as this, may, we can at least hope, have viewed his prentices
+with more of pity than of anger. All the three "godless painters" were
+banished from reformed Nuremberg; but Georg, whose confession had been
+most godless, recanted and was allowed to return. The others, Sebald and
+Barthel Beham, managed to perpetuate their names as "little masters"
+without the approbation of the Town Councillors, and are to-day less
+forgotten than those who condemned them. Hieronymus Andreae, the most
+skilful and famous of Duerer's wood engravers, caused the Council the
+same kind of alarm and concern. He took part with the peasants in their
+rebellion; but rebellion against a known authority was more pardonable
+than that against the unknown, or else his services were of greater
+value. At any rate he was pardoned not once but many times, being
+apparently an obstreperous character.
+
+
+III
+
+If we can form no conjecture as to Duerer's relations with his heretical
+aids, we have evidence as to his relations with their judges; for in
+1524 he wrote to the Town Council thus:
+
+Prudent, honourable and wise, most gracious Masters,--During long years,
+by hardworking pains and labour under Gods blessing, I have saved out of
+my earnings as much as 1000 florins Rhenish, which I should now be glad
+to invest for my support.
+
+I know, indeed, that your Honours are not often wont at the present time
+to grant interest at the rate of one florin for twenty; and I have been
+told that before now other applications of a like kind have been
+refused. It is not, therefore, without scruple that I address your
+Honours in this matter. Yet my necessities impel me to prefer this
+request to your Honours, and I am encouraged to do so above all by the
+particularly gracious favour which I have always received from your
+Honourable Wisdoms, as well as by the following considerations.
+
+Your Wisdoms know how I have always hitherto shown myself dutiful,
+willing, and zealous in all matters that concerned your Wisdoms and the
+common weal of the town. You know, moreover, how, before now, I have
+served many individual members of the Council, as well as of the
+community here, gratuitously rather than for pay, when they stood in
+need of my help, art, and labour. I can also write with truth that,
+during the thirty years I have stayed at home, I have not received from
+people in this town work worth 500 florins--truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum--and not a fifth part of that has been profit. I have, on
+the contrary, earned and attained all my property (which, God knows, has
+grown irksome to me) from Princes, Lords, and other foreign persons, so
+that I only spend in this town what I have earned from foreigners.
+
+Doubtless, also, your Honours remember that at one time Emperor
+Maximilian, of most praiseworthy memory, in return for the manifold
+services which I had performed for him, year after year, of his own
+impulse and imperial charity wanted to make me free of taxes in this
+town. At the instance, however, of some of the elder Councillors, who
+treated with me in the matter in the name of the Council, I willingly
+resigned that privilege, in order to honour the said Councillors and to
+maintain their privileges, usages, and rights.
+
+Again, nineteen years ago, the government of Venice offered to appoint
+me to an office and to give me a salary of 200 ducats a year. So, too,
+only a short time ago when I was in the Netherlands, the Council of
+Antwerp would have given me 300 Philipsgulden a year, kept me there free
+of taxes, and honoured me with a well-built house; and besides I should
+have been paid in addition at both places for all the work I might have
+done for the gentry. But I declined all this, because of the particular
+love and affection which I bear to your honourable Wisdoms and to my
+fatherland, this honourable town, preferring, as I did, to live under
+your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather than to be rich and held in honour
+in other places.
+
+It is, therefore, my most submissive prayer to your Honours, that you
+will be pleased graciously to take these facts into consideration, and
+to receive from me on my account these 1000 florins, paying me 50
+florins a year as interest. I could, indeed, place them well with other
+respectable parties here and elsewhere, but I should prefer to see them
+in the hands of your Wisdoms. I and my wife will then, now that we are
+both growing daily older, feebler, and more helpless, possess the
+certainty of a fitting household for our needs; and we shall experience
+thereby, as formerly, your honourable Wisdoms' favour and goodwill. To
+merit this from your Honours with all my powers I shall ever be
+found willing.
+
+Your Wisdoms' willing, obedient burgher,
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+Duerer obtained the desired five per cent. on his savings annually until
+his death, and afterwards his widow received four per cent. until
+her death.
+
+In 1526 the grateful artist finished and dedicated to his
+fellow-townsmen his most important picture, representing the four
+temperaments in the persons of St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St.
+Mark; he wrote thus to the Council:
+
+Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters,--I have been intending, for a
+long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation
+of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance; but I have been
+prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my
+works, for I felt that with such I could not well stand before your
+Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I
+have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none
+more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.
+
+Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent
+prayer that you will favourably and graciously receive it, and will be
+and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.
+
+Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.
+
+Your Wisdoms' humble
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+The gift was accepted, and the Council voted Duerer 100 florins, his wife
+10, and his apprentice 2. Underneath the two panels which form the
+picture, the following was inscribed; the texts being from
+Luther's Bible:
+
+All worldly rulers in these dangerous times should give good heed that
+they receive not human misguidance for the Word of God, for God will
+have nothing added to His Word nor taken away from it. Hear, therefore,
+these four excellent men, Peter, John, Paul, and Mark, their warning.
+
+Peter says in his Second Epistle in the second chapter: There were false
+prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
+among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying
+the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
+And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way
+of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they
+with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long
+time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
+
+John in his First Epistle in the fourth chapter writes thus: Beloved,
+believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:
+because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye
+the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is
+come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that
+Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that
+spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and
+even now already is it in the world.
+
+In the Second Epistle to Timothy in the third chapter St. Paul writes:
+This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For
+men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,
+blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural
+affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
+despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers
+of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but
+denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are
+they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with
+sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come
+to the knowledge of the truth.
+
+St. Mark writes in his Gospel in the twelfth chapter: He said unto them
+in His doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long
+clothing, and love salutations in the market-places, and the chief seats
+in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts; which devour
+widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall
+receive greater damnation.
+
+These rather tremendous texts may make one fear that the "three godless
+painters" had found little pity in their master; but most sincere
+Christians are better than their creeds, and more charitable than the
+old-world imprecations, admonitions, and denunciations, with which they
+soothe their Cerberus of an old Adam, who is not allowed to use his
+teeth to the full extent that their formidable nature would seem to
+warrant. For have they not been told above all things to love their
+enemies, and do good to those whom they would naturally hate, by a
+master whom they really love and strive to imitate?
+
+
+IV
+
+Duerer's last years were given more and more to writing down his ideas
+for the sake of those who, coming after him, would, he was persuaded, go
+on far before him in the race for perfection. In 1525 he published his
+first book--"Instruction in the Measurement with the Compass, and Rules
+of Lines, Surfaces, and Solid Bodies, drawn up by Albert Duerer, and
+printed, for the use of all lovers of art, with appropriate diagrams."
+It contains a course of applied geometry in connection with Euclid's
+Elements. Duerer states from the very commencement that "his book will be
+of no use to any one who understands the geometry of the 'very acute'
+Euclid; for it has been written only for the young, and for those who
+have had no one to instruct them accurately." Thausing tells us his work
+shows certain resemblances to that of Luca Pacioli, a companion of
+Leonardo's, who may have been the "man who is willing to teach me the
+secrets of the art of perspective," and whom Duerer in 1506 travelled
+from Venice to Bologna to see; it is even possible that he saw Leonardo
+himself in the latter town. In 1527 he issued an essay on the "Art of
+Fortification," which the development of artillery was then
+transforming; and authorities on this very special science tell us that
+Duerer is the true author of the ideas on which the "new Prussian system"
+was founded. It was dread of the unchristian Turk who was then besieging
+Vienna which called forth from Duerer this excursion. He dedicated it in
+the following terms:
+
+To the most illustrious, mighty prince and lord, Lord Ferdinand, King of
+Hungary and Bohemia, Infant of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Duke of
+Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and Tirol, his Roman
+Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, Regent in the Holy Empire, my
+most gracious Sire.
+
+Most illustrious mighty King, most gracious Sire,--During the lifetime
+of the most illustrious and mighty Emperor Maximilian of praiseworthy
+memory, your Majesty's Lord and Grandsire, I experienced grace and
+favour from his Imperial Majesty; wherefore I consider myself no less
+bound to serve your Majesty according to my small powers. As it
+happeneth that your Majesty has commanded some towns and places to be
+fortified, I am induced to make known what little I know about these
+matters, if perchance it may please your Majesty to gather somewhat
+therefrom. For though my theory may not be accepted in every point,
+still I believe something will arise from it, here and there, useful not
+to your Majesty only, but to all other Princes, Lords, and Towns, that
+would gladly protect themselves against violence and unjust oppression.
+I therefore humbly pray your Majesty graciously to accept from me this
+evidence of my gratitude, and to be my most gracious lord,
+
+Your Royal Majesty's most humble
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+It seems that at any rate the Kronenburg Gate and Roseneck bastion of
+Strasburg were actually constructed in accordance with Duerer's method.
+
+When, on April 6, 1528, Duerer died suddenly, two volumes of his great
+work on "Human Proportions" were ready for the press, and enough raw
+material, notes, drawings, &c., to enable his friend Pirkheimer to
+prepare and issue the remaining two with them. Of the misunderstanding
+of this the most important of Duerer's writings I shall say nothing here,
+as I have devoted a separate chapter to it.
+
+
+V
+
+It seems probable that the "wondrous sickness which overcame me in
+Zeeland, such as I never heard of from any man, and which sickness
+remains with me" of the Netherlands Journal (p. 156) was an intermittent
+fever. There exists at Bremen a sketch of Duerer, nude down to the waist,
+and pointing with his finger to a spot between the pit of the stomach
+and the groin, which spot he has coloured yellow; and from its size,
+with the other descriptions of his malady, the skilful have arrived at
+the above diagnosis. The words on the sketch, "The yellow spot to which
+my finger points is where it pains me," seem to indicate that he had
+made it to send to some skilled physician. Thausing suggests either
+Master Jacob or Master Braun, whom he had met at Antwerp, and deduces
+from the length of his hair and the apparent vigour of his body, that
+the drawing was made soon after the disease was contracted. All doubt as
+to its nature would be removed, could it be made certain that by the
+words, "I have sent to your Grace early this year before I became ill,"
+in a letter to the Elector Albert dated September 4, 1523, Duerer meant
+to imply that at a certain period he became ill every year; but of
+course it is impossible to be sure of this.
+
+
+VI
+
+If not rich, Duerer died comfortably off. Thausing tells us that his
+"widow entered into possession of his whole fortune;" a fourth part
+belonged, according to Nuremberg law, to his brothers, but she was not
+bound to render it to them before her death. On June 9, 1530, however,
+she "of her own desire, and on account of the friendly feeling which she
+entertained for them for her husband's sake, and as her dear
+brothers-in-law," made over both to Andreas Duerer, goldsmith, and to
+Caspar Altmulsteiner, on behalf of Hans Duerer, then in the service of
+the King of Poland, a sum of 553 florins, three pounds, eleven pfennigs,
+and gave them a mortgage for the remaining sum of 608 florins, two
+pounds, twenty-four pfennigs on the corner house in the Zistelgasse, now
+called the Duerer House; for the property had been valued at 6848
+florins, seven pounds, twenty-four pfennigs. Johann Neudoerffer, who
+lived opposite the Duerers, has recorded the fact that Duerer's brother
+Endres inherited all his expensive colours, his copper plates and wood
+blocks, as well as any impressions there were, and all his drawings
+beside. And a year before her death, Agnes Duerer gave the interest on
+the 1000 florins invested in the town to found a scholarship for
+theological students at the University of Wittenberg; about which
+Melanchthon wrote to von Dietrich that he thanked God for this aid to
+study, and that he had praised this good deed of the widow Duerer before
+Luther and others. And yet Pirkheimer, in his spleen at having lost the
+chance of procuring some stags' antlers which had belonged to his
+friend, and which he coveted, could write of Agues Duerer: "She watched
+him day and night and drove him to work ... that he might earn money
+and leave it her when he died. For she always thought she was on the
+borders of ruin--as for the matter of that she does still--though
+Albrecht left her property worth as much as six thousand florins. But
+there! nothing was enough; and, in fact, she alone is the cause of his
+death!" We know that what with the four Apostles and his books Duerer's
+last years were not spent on remunerative labours; nor does the
+Netherlands Journal contain any hint that his wife tried to restrict the
+employment either of his time or money. His journey into Zeeland was a
+pure extravagance; for the sale of a copper engraving or woodcut of a
+whale would have taken some time to make up for such an expense, and, as
+it turned out, no whale was seen or drawn; and there is no hint that
+Frau Duerer made reproach or complaint. On the other hand, Pirkheimer's
+words probably had some slight basis; and as Duerer's sickness increased
+upon him, while at the same time he applied himself less and less to
+making money, the anxious Frau may have become fretful or even nagging
+at times; and Pirkheimer, whose companionship was probably a cause of
+extravagances to Duerer, may have been scolded by Agnes, or heard his
+friend excuse himself from taking part in some convivial meeting, on the
+plea that his wife found he was spending out of proportion to his
+takings at the moment.
+
+
+VII
+
+We have the testimony of a good number of Duerer's friends as to the
+value of his character; and first let us quote from Pirkheimer--writing
+immediately after Duerer's death and before' the loss of the coveted
+antlers had vexed him--to a common friend Ulrich, probably Ulrich
+Varnbueler.
+
+What can be more grievous for a man than to have continually to mourn,
+not only children and relations whom death steals from him, but friends
+also, and among them those whom he loved best? And though I have often
+had to mourn the loss of relations, still I do not know that any death
+ever caused me such grief as fills me now at the sudden departure of our
+good and dear Albrecht Duerer. Nor is this without reason, for of all men
+not united to me by ties of blood, I have never loved or esteemed any
+like him for his countless virtues and rare uprightness. And because I
+know, my dear Ulrich, that this blow has struck both you and me alike, I
+have not been afraid to give vent to my grief before you of all others,
+so that together we may pay the fitting tribute of tears to such a
+friend. He is gone, good Ulrich; our Albrecht is gone! Oh, inexorable
+decree of fate! Oh, miserable lot of man! Oh, pitiless severity of
+death! Such a man, yea, such a man, is torn from us, while so many
+useless and worthless men enjoy lasting happiness, and live only
+too long!
+
+Thausing insists on the fact that in this letter there is no mention of
+Duerer's death having been caused by his wife's behaviour; but as the
+relation of Ulrich to the deceased seems to have been well-nigh as
+intimate as his own, there may have been no need to mention a fact
+painfully present to both their minds. On the other hand, it is at least
+as probable that the idea was not present even to the mind of the
+writer, who, in a style less studiously commonplace, inscribed on
+Duerer's tomb:
+
+Me. AL. DU.
+
+QVICQVID ALBERTI DVRERI MORTALE FVIT, SVB HOC CONDITVR TVMVLO. EMIGRAVIT
+VIII IDVS APRILIS MDXXVIII.
+
+(To the memory of Albrecht Duerer. All that was mortal of Albrecht Duerer
+is laid beneath this mound. He departed on April 6, 1528.)
+
+Luther wrote to Eoban Hesse:
+
+As to Duerer, it is natural and right to weep for so excellent a man;
+still you should rather think him blessed, as one whom Christ has taken
+in the fulness of His wisdom, and by a happy death, from these most
+troublous times, and perhaps from times even more troublous which are to
+come, lest one who was worthy to look upon nothing but excellence should
+be forced to behold things most vile. May he rest in peace. Amen.
+
+Erasmus had some months before written and printed in a treatise on the
+right pronunciation of Latin and Greek an eulogy of Duerer. It is not
+known whether a copy had reached him before his death; in any case to
+most people it came like a funeral oration from the greatest scholar on
+the greatest artist north of the Alps. Thausing quotes the following
+passage from it:
+
+I have known Duerer's name for a long time as that of the first celebrity
+in the art of painting. Some call him the Apelles of our time. But I
+think that did Apelles live now, he, as an honourable man, would give
+the palm to Duerer. Apelles, it is true, made use of few and unobtrusive
+colours, but still he used colours; while Duerer,--admirable as he is,
+too, in other respects,--what can he not express with a single
+colour--that is to say, with black lines? He can give the effect of
+light and shade, brightness, foreground and background. Moreover, he
+reproduces _not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also observes
+the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the position of
+it_. He can also transfer by enchantment, so to say, upon the canvas,
+things which it seems not possible to represent, such as fire, sunbeams,
+storms, lightning, and mist; he can portray every passion, show us the
+whole soul of a man shining through his outward form; nay, even make us
+hear his very speech. All this he brings so happily before the eye with
+those black lines, that the picture would lose by being clothed in
+colour. Is it not more worthy of admiration to achieve without the
+winning charm of colour what Apelles only realised with its assistance?
+
+Melanchthon wrote in a letter to Camerarius:
+
+"It grieves me to see Germany deprived of such an artist and such a
+man."
+
+And we learn from his son-in-law, Caspar Penker, that he often spoke of
+Duerer with affection and respect; he writes:
+
+Melanchthon was often, and many hours together, in Pirkheimer's company,
+at the time when they were advising together about the churches and
+schools at Nuernberg; and Duerer, the painter, used _also_ to be invited
+to dinner with them. Duerer was a man of great shrewdness, and
+Melanchthon used to say of him that though he excelled in the art of
+painting, it was the least of his accomplishments. Disputes often arose
+between Pirkheimer and Duerer on these occasions about the matters
+recently discussed, and Pirkheimer used vehemently to oppose Duerer.
+Duerer was an excessively subtle disputant, and refuted his adversary's
+arguments, just as if he had come fully prepared for the discussion.
+Thereupon Pirkheimer, who was rather a choleric man and liable to very
+severe attacks of the gout, fired up and burst forth again and again
+into such words as these, "What you say cannot be painted." "Nay!"
+rejoined Duerer, "but what you advance cannot be put into words or even
+figured to the mind." I remember hearing Melanchthon often tell this
+story, and in relating it he confessed his astonishment at the ingenuity
+and power manifested by a painter in arguing with a man of
+Pirkheimer's renown.
+
+Such scenes no doubt took place during the years after Duerer's return
+from the Netherlands. Melanchthon also wrote in a letter to George
+von Anhalt:
+
+I remember how that great man, distinguished alike by his intellect and
+his virtue, Albrecht Duerer the painter, said that as a youth he had
+loved bright pictures full of figures, and when considering his own
+productions had always admired those with the greatest variety in them.
+But as an older man, he had begun to observe nature and reproduce it in
+its native forms, and had learned that this simplicity was the greatest
+ornament of art. Being unable completely to attain to this ideal, he
+said that he was no longer an admirer of his works as heretofore, but
+often sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought over his want
+of power.
+
+And in another letter he remembers that Duerer would say that in his
+youth he had found great pleasure in representing monstrous and unusual
+figures, but that in his later years he endeavoured to observe nature,
+and to imitate her as closely as possible; experience, however, had
+taught him how difficult it was not to err. And Thausing continues:
+"Melanchthon speaks even more frequently of how Duerer was pleased with
+pictures he had just finished, but when he saw them after a time, was
+ashamed of them; and those he had painted with the greatest care
+displeased him so much at the end of three years that he could scarcely
+look at them without great pain."
+
+And this on his appreciation of Luther's writings:
+
+Albrecht Duerer, painter of Nuernberg, a shrewd man, once said that there
+was this difference between the writings of Luther and other
+theologians. After reading three or four paragraphs of the first page of
+one of Luther's works he could grasp the problem to be worked out in the
+whole. This clearness and order of arrangement was, he observed, the
+glory of Luther's writings. He used, on the contrary, to say of other
+writers that, after reading a whole book through, he had to consider
+attentively what idea it was that the author intended to convey.
+
+Lastly, Camerarius, the professor of Greek and Latin in the new school
+of Nuremberg, in his Latin translation of Duerer's book on "Human
+Proportions," writes thus:
+
+It is not my present purpose to talk about art. My purpose was to speak
+somewhat, as needs must be, of the artificer, the author of this book.
+He, I trust, has become known by his virtue and his deserts, not only to
+his own country, but to foreign nations also. Full well I know that his
+praises need not our trumpetings to the world, since by his excellent
+works he is exalted and honoured with undying glory. Yet, as we were
+publishing his writings, and an opportunity arose of committing to print
+the life and habits of a remarkable man and a very dear friend of ours,
+we have judged it expedient to put together some few scraps of
+information, learnt partly from the conversations of others and partly
+from our own intercourse with him. This will give some indication of his
+singular skill and genius as artist and man, and cannot fail of
+affording pleasure to the reader. We have heard that our Albrecht was of
+Hungarian extraction, but that his forefathers emigrated to Germany. We
+can, therefore, have but little to say of his origin and birth. Though
+they were honourable, there can be no question but that they gained more
+glory from him than he from them.
+
+Nature bestowed on him a body remarkable in build and stature, and not
+unworthy of the noble mind it contained; that in this, too, Nature's
+Justice, extolled by Hippocrates, might not be forgotten--that Justice,
+which, while it assigns a grotesque form to the ape's grotesque soul, is
+wont also to clothe noble minds in bodies worthy of them. His head was
+intelligent,[71] his eyes flashing, his nose nobly formed, and, as the
+Greeks say, tetragonon. His neck was rather long, his chest broad, his
+body not too stout, his thighs muscular, his legs firm and steady. But
+his fingers--you would vow you had never seen anything more elegant.
+
+His conversation was marked by so much sweetness and wit, that nothing
+displeased his hearers so much as the end of it. Letters, it is true, he
+had not cultivated, but the great sciences of Physics and Mathematics,
+which are perpetuated by letters, he had almost entirely mastered. He
+not only understood principles and knew how to apply them in practice,
+but he was able to set them forth in words. This is proved by his
+geometrical treatises, wherein I see nothing omitted, except what he
+judged to be beyond the scope of his work. An ardent zeal impelled him
+towards the attainment of all virtue in conduct and life, the display of
+which caused him to be deservedly held a most excellent man. Yet he was
+not of a melancholy severity nor of a repulsive gravity; nay, whatever
+conduced to pleasantness and cheerfulness, and was not inconsistent
+with honour and rectitude, he cultivated all his life and approved even
+in his old age. The works he has left on Gymnastic and Music are of such
+character.
+
+But Nature had specially designed him for a painter, and therefore he
+embraced the study of that art with all his energies, and was ever
+desirous of observing the works and principles of the famous painters of
+every land, and of imitating whatever he approved in them. Moreover,
+with respect to those studies, he experienced the generosity and won the
+favour of the greatest kings and princes, and even of Maximilian himself
+and his grandson the Emperor Charles; and he was rewarded by them with
+no contemptible salary. But after his hand had, so to speak, attained
+its maturity, his sublime and virtue-loving genius became best
+discoverable in his works, for his subjects were fine and his treatment
+of them noble. You may judge the truth of these statements from his
+extant prints in honour of Maximilian, and his memorable astronomical
+diagrams, not to mention other works, not one of which but a painter of
+any nation or day would be proud to call his own. The nature of a man is
+never more certainly and definitely shown than in the works he produces
+as the fruit of his art.... What single painter has there ever been who
+did not reveal his character in his works? Instead of instances from
+ancient history, I shall content myself with examples from our own time.
+No one can fail to see that many painters have sought a vulgar celebrity
+by immodest pictures. It is not credible that those artists can be
+virtuous, whose minds and fingers composed such works. We have also seen
+pictures minutely finished and fairly well coloured, wherein, it is
+true, the master showed a certain talent and industry; but art was
+wanting. Albrecht, therefore, shall we most justly admire as an earnest
+guardian of piety and modesty, and as one who showed, by the magnitude
+of his pictures, that he was conscious of his own powers, although none
+even of his lesser works is to be despised. You will not find in them a
+single line carelessly or wrongly drawn, not a single superfluous dot.
+
+What shall I say of the steadiness and exactitude of his hand? You might
+swear that rule, square, or compasses had been employed to draw lines,
+which he, in fact, drew with the brush, or very often with pencil or
+pen, unaided by artificial means, to the great marvel of those who
+watched him. Why should I tell how his hand so closely followed the
+ideas of his mind that, in a moment, he often dashed upon paper, or, as
+painters say, composed, sketches of every kind of thing with pencil or
+pen? I see I shall not be believed by my readers when I relate, that
+sometimes he would draw separately, not only the different parts of a
+composition, but even the different parts of bodies, which, when joined
+together, agreed with one another so well that nothing could have fitted
+better. In fact this consummate artist's mind endowed with all knowledge
+and understanding of the truth and of the agreement of the parts one
+with another, governed and guided his hand and bade it trust to itself
+without any other aids. With like accuracy he held the brush, wherewith
+he drew the smallest things on canvas or wood without sketching them in
+beforehand, so that, far from giving ground for blame, they always won
+the highest praise. And this was a subject of greatest wonder to most
+distinguished painters, who, from their own great experience, could
+understand the difficulty of the thing.
+
+I cannot forbear to tell, in this place, the story of what happened
+between him and Giovanni Bellini. Bellini had the highest reputation as
+a painter at Venice, and indeed throughout all Italy. When Albrecht was
+there he easily became intimate with him, and both artists naturally
+began to show one another specimens of their skill. Albrecht frankly
+admired and made much of all Bellini's works. Bellini also candidly
+expressed his admiration of various features of Albrecht's skill, and
+particularly the fineness and delicacy with which he drew hairs. It
+chanced one day that they were talking about art, and when their
+conversation was done Bellini said: "Will you be so kind, Albrecht, as
+to gratify a friend in a small matter?" "You shall soon see," says
+Albrecht, "if you will ask of me anything I can do for you." Then says
+Bellini: "I want you to make me a present of one of the brushes with
+which you draw hairs." Duerer at once produced several, just like other
+brushes, and, in fact, of the kind Bellini himself used, and told him to
+choose those he liked best, or to take them all if he would. But
+Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these,
+but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they
+must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep
+such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I
+use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch
+me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long
+wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the most regular order
+and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and afterwards confessed to
+many that no human being could have convinced him by report of the truth
+of that which he had seen with his own eyes.
+
+A similar tribute was given him, with conspicuous candour, by Andrea
+Mantegna, who became famous at Mantua by reducing painting to some
+severity of law--a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up
+broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It
+is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not
+trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is
+held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. While Andrea
+was lying ill at Mantua he heard that Albrecht was in Italy, and had him
+summoned to his side at once, in order that he might fortify his
+(Albrecht's) facility and certainty of hand with scientific knowledge
+and principles. For Andrea often lamented in conversation with his
+friends that Albrecht's facility in drawing had not been granted to him
+nor his learning to Albrecht. On receiving the message Albrecht, leaving
+all other engagements, prepared for the journey without delay. But
+before he could reach Mantua Andrea was dead, and Duerer used to say that
+this was the saddest event in all his life; for, high as Albrecht stood,
+his great and lofty mind was ever striving after something yet
+above him.
+
+Almost with awe have we gazed upon the bearded face of the man, drawn by
+himself, in the manner we have described, with the brush on the canvas
+and without any previous sketch. The locks of the beard are almost a
+cubit long, and so exquisitely and cleverly drawn, at such regular
+distances and in so exact a manner, that the better any one understands
+art, the more he would admire it, and the more certain would he deem it
+that in fashioning these locks the hand had employed artificial aid.
+
+Further, there is nothing foul, nothing disgraceful in his work. The
+thoughts of his most pure mind shunned all such things. Artist worthy of
+success! How like, too, are his portraits! How unerring! How true!
+
+All these perfections he attained by reducing mere practice to art and
+method, in a way new at least to German painters. With Albrecht all was
+ready, certain, and at hand, because he had brought painting into the
+fixed track of rule and recalled it to scientific principles; without
+which, as Cicero said, though some things may be well done by help of
+nature, yet they cannot always be ready to hand, because they are done
+by chance. He first worked his principles out for his own use;
+afterwards with his generous and open nature he attempted to explain
+them in books, written to the illustrious and most learned Wilibald
+Pirkheimer. And he dedicated them to him in a most elegant letter which
+we have not translated, because we felt it to be beyond our power to
+render it into Latin without, so to speak, disfiguring its natural
+countenance. But before he could complete and publish the books, as he
+had hoped, he was carried off by death--a death, calm indeed and
+enviable, but in our view premature. If there was anything at all in
+that man which could seem like a fault, it was his excessive industry,
+which often made unfair demands upon him.
+
+Death, as we have said, removed him from the publication of the work
+which he had begun, but his friends completed the task from his own
+manuscript. About this, in the next place, and about our own version, we
+shall say a few words. The work, being founded on a sort of geometrical
+system, is unpolished and devoid of literary style; so it seems rather
+rugged. But that is easily forgiven in consideration of the excellence
+of the matter. He requested me himself, only a few days before his
+death, to translate it into Latin while he should correct it; and I
+willingly turned my attention and studies to the work. But death, which
+takes everything, took from him his power of supervision and correction.
+His friends subsequently, after publishing the work, prevailed on me, by
+their claims rather than their requests, to undertake the Latin
+translation, and to complete after his death the task Duerer had laid
+upon me in his life.
+
+If I find that my industry and devotion in this matter meet with my
+readers' approval, I shall be encouraged to translate into Latin the
+rest of Albrecht's treatise on painting, a work at once more finished
+and more laborious than the present. Moreover, his writings on other
+subjects will also be looked for, his Geometries and Tichismatics, in
+which he explained the fortification of towns according to the system of
+the present day. These, however, appear to be all the subjects on which
+he wrote books. As to the promise, which I hear certain persons are
+making in conversation or in writing, to publish a book by Duerer on the
+symmetry of the parts of the horse, I cannot but wonder from what
+source they will obtain after his death what he never completed during
+his life. Although I am well aware that Albrecht had begun to
+investigate the law of truth in this matter too, and had made a certain
+number of measurements, I also know that he lost all he had done through
+the treachery of certain persons, by whose means it came about that the
+author's notes were stolen, so that he never cared to begin the work
+afresh. He had a suspicion, or rather a certainty, as to the source
+whence came the drones who had invaded his store; but the great man
+preferred to hide his knowledge, to his own loss and pain, rather than
+to lose sight of generosity and kindness in the pursuit of his enemies.
+We shall not, therefore, suffer anything that may appear to be
+attributed to Albrecht's authorship, unworthy as it must evidently be of
+so great an artist.
+
+A few years ago some tracts also appeared in German, containing rules,
+in general faulty and inappropriate, about the same matter. On these I
+do not care now to waste words, though the author, unless I am much
+mistaken, has not once repented of his publication. But these rules
+above-mentioned, which are easily proved to be Albrecht's, not only
+because he prepared them himself for publication, but also because of
+their own excellence, you will, I think, obtain considerably better here
+than from other sources. Not that they are more finished in point of
+erudition and learning in the present book than elsewhere, but because
+those who interpret them in the author's own workshop, among the
+expansions and corrections of his autograph manuscripts and the
+variations of his different copies, stand in the light about many
+points, which must of necessity seem obscure to others, however learned
+they may be.
+
+This will be seen in the case of the book on Geometry, which a learned
+man has in hand and will shortly publish in a more elaborate form, and
+with more explanation of certain points than it possesses at present.
+For it will be increased by no less than twenty-six [Greek: schemata]
+(figures) and countless corrections or improvements of earlier editions.
+The author himself on rereading had thus improved and amplified what had
+already been issued. As though he foresaw that he would publish no more,
+he had directed his future editors as to what was to be done about the
+letterpress and figures; and we shall take care that it is published at
+the earliest possible date in the German language, in which the author
+wrote it. It is only to be expected that this will be welcome to the
+public, who will thus return thanks for the author's burning desire to
+do something by his discoveries for the public good, and for our own
+labour and eagerness in publishing to all nations what appears to be
+written only for one.
+
+Though these testimonies may often seem either trifling, or obscured by
+the pedantic affectation of the writers, they, like the signatures of
+well-respected men, endorse the impression produced by Duerer's works and
+writings. As we study the character of Duerer's creative gift in relation
+to his works, several of the phrases used by Erasmus, Camerarius, and
+Melanchthon should take added significance, being probably remembered
+from conversations with the great artist himself.[72] Duerer, like
+Luther, was depressed and distressed at the course the Reformation had
+run; but, like Erasmus, though regretting and disparaging the present,
+he looked forward to the future, and knew "that he would be surpassed,"
+and had no morbid inclination to see the end and final failure of human
+effort in his own exhaustion.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 70: B. 106, published in 1513. The block is in the Court
+Library at Vienna. Thawing says it was designed by Burgkmair or
+Springinklee.]
+
+[Footnote 71: "_Caput argutum_". The phrase is from Virgil's description
+of the thorough-bred horse (_Georg. iii_). The above passage is
+introduced (with modifications) into Melchior Adam's _Vitae Germ.
+Philos._ (p.66). where this sentence runs: "The deep-thinking,
+serene-souled artist was seen unmistakably in his _arched_ and _lofty_
+brow and in the fiery glance of his eye."]
+
+[Footnote 72: In the foregoing quotations the sentences which seem to me
+most reminiscent of Duerer's ideas are printed in italics.]
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+DUeRER AS A CREATOR
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DUeRER'S PICTURES
+
+
+I
+
+Duerer's paintings have suffered more by the malignity of fortune than
+any of his other works. Several have disappeared entirely, and several
+are but wrecks of what they once were. Others are, as he tells us,
+"ordinary pictures," of which "I will in a year paint a pile which no
+one would believe it possible for one man to do in the time," and are
+perhaps more the work of assistants than of the master. Others, again,
+have since been repainted, more or less disastrously. Yet enough remain
+to show us that Duerer was not a painter born, in the sense that Titian
+and Correggio or Rembrandt and Rubens are; nay, not even in the sense
+that a Jan Van Eyck or a Mantegna is. Mantegna is certainly the painter
+with whom Duerer has most affinity, and whose method of employing pigment
+is least removed from his; but Mantegna is a born colourist--a man whose
+eye for colour is like a musician's ear for melody--while Duerer is at
+best with difficulty able to avoid glaring discords, and, if we are to
+judge by the "ordinary pictures," did not avoid them. Again, Mantegna is
+not so dependent on line as Duerer--nearly the whole of whose surface is
+produced by hatching with the brush point. These facts may, perhaps,
+account for the large portion of Duerer's time devoted to engraving. As
+an engraver he early found a style for himself, which he continued to
+develop to the end of his life. As a painter he was for ever
+experimenting, influenced now by Jacopo de' Barbari, again by Bellini
+and the pictures he saw at Venice, and yet again by those he saw in the
+Netherlands. As Velasquez, after each of his journeys to Italy, returns
+to attempt a mythological picture in the grand style, so Duerer turns to
+painting after his return from Venice or from the Netherlands; and his
+pictures divide themselves into three groups: those painted after or
+during his _Wanderjahre_ and before he went to Venice in 1505, those
+painted there and during the next five years after his return, and those
+painted in the Netherlands or commenced immediately on his
+return thence.
+
+
+II
+
+The mediums of oil and tempera lend themselves to the production of
+broad-coloured surfaces that merge imperceptibly into one another. There
+are men the fundamental unit of whose picture language is a blot or
+shape; as children or as savages, they would find these most capable of
+expressing what they saw. There are others for whom the scratch or line
+is the fundamental unit, for whom every object is most naturally
+expressed by an outline. There are, of course, men who present us with
+every possible blend of these two fundamental forms of picture language.
+
+The mediums of oils and tempera are especially adapted to the
+requirements of those who see things rather as a diaper of shapes than
+as a map of lines; while for these last the point of pen, burin, or
+etching-needle offers the most congenial implement. Duerer was very
+greatly more inclined to express objects by a map of lines than as a
+diaper of coloured shapes; and for this reason I say that he was not a
+painter born. If this be true, as a painter he must have been at a
+disadvantage. In this preponderance of the draughtsman qualities he
+resembles many artists of the Florentine school, as also in his
+theoretic pre-occupation with perspective, proportion, architecture, and
+technical methods. We are impressed by a coldness of approach, an
+austerity, a dignity not altogether justified by the occasion, but as it
+were carried over from some precedent hour of spiritual elevation; the
+prophet's demeanour in between the days of visitation, a little too
+consciously careful not to compromise the divinity which informs him no
+longer. This tendency to fall back on manner greatly acquired indeed,
+but no longer consonant with the actual mood, which is really too vacant
+of import to parade such importance, is often a fault of natures whose
+native means of expression is the thin line, the geometer's precision,
+the architect's foresight in measurement. And by allowing for it I think
+we can explain the contradiction apparent between the critics' continual
+insistence on what they call Duerer's great thoughts, and the sparsity of
+intellectual creativeness which strikes one in turning over his
+engravings, so many are there of which either the occasion or the
+conception are altogether trivial when compared with the grandiose
+aspect of the composition or the impeccable mechanical performance.
+Duerer's literary remains sufficiently prove his mind to have been
+constantly exercised upon and around great thoughts, and their influence
+may be felt in the austerity and intensity of his noblest portraits and
+other creations. But "great thoughts" in respect of works of art either
+means the communication of a profound emotion by the creation of a
+suitable arabesque for a deeply significant subject, as in the flowing
+masses of Michael Angelo's _Creation of Man_, or it means the pictorial
+enhancing of the telling incidents of a dramatic situation such as we
+find it in Rembrandt's treatment of the Crucifixion, Deposition, or
+Entombment. Now it seems to me the paucity of successes on these lines
+in one who nevertheless occasionally entirely succeeds, is what is most
+striking in Duerer. Perhaps when dealing with the graphic arts one should
+rather speak of great character than great thoughts; yet Duerer, while
+constantly impressing us as a great character, seems to be one who was
+all too rarely wholly himself. The abundant felicity in expression of
+Rembrandt or Shakespeare is altogether wanting. The imperial imposition
+of mood which Michael Angelo affects is perhaps never quite certainly
+his, even in the _Melancholy_. Yet we feel that not only has he a
+capacity of the same order as those men, but that he is spiritually akin
+to them, despite his coldness, despite his ostentation.
+
+But not only is Duerer praised for "great thoughts," but he is praised
+for realism, and sometimes accused of having delighted in ugliness; or,
+as it is more cautiously expressed, of having preferred truth to grace.
+This is a point which I consider may better be discussed in respect to
+his drawings than his pictures, which nearly always have some obvious
+conventional or traditional character, so that the word realism cannot
+be applied to them. Even in his portraits his signature or an
+inscription is often added in such a manner as insists that this is a
+painting, a panel;--not a view through a window, or an attempt to
+deceive the eye with a make-believe reality.
+
+
+III
+
+The altar-piece, consisting of a centre, the Virgin Mary adoring her
+baby son in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, and two wings, St. Anthony
+and St. Sebastian, though the earliest of Duerer's pictures which has
+survived, is perhaps the most beautiful of them all, at least as far as
+the two wings are concerned. The centre has been considerably damaged by
+repainting, and was probably, owing to the greater complication of
+motives in it, never quite so successful. Whether at Venice or
+elsewhere, it would seem almost necessary that the young painter had
+seen and been impressed by pictures by Gentile Bellini and Andrea
+Mantegna, both of whom have painted in the same thin tempera on fine
+canvas, obtaining similar beauties of colour and surface. It is hardly
+possible to imagine one who had seen none but German or Flemish pictures
+painting the St. Sebastian. The treatment of the still life in the
+foreground is in itself almost a proof of this. Perhaps this thin, flat
+tempera treatment was that most suited to Duerer's native bias, and we
+should regret his having been tempted to overcome the more brilliant and
+exacting medium of oils. In any case he more than once reverted to it in
+portraits and studies, while the majority of the pictures painted before
+he went to Venice in 1506 have more or less kinship with it. The
+supposed portrait of Frederic the Wise is another masterpiece in this
+kind, and the _Hercules slaying the birds of the Stymphalian Lake_ in
+the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, 1500, was probably another. For though
+now considerably damaged by restorations and dirt, it suggests far
+greater pleasures than it actually imparts. The contrast between
+
+  "The sea-worn face sad as mortality,
+   Divine with yearning after fellowship,"
+
+and the blond richly curling hair blown back from it, is extremely fine
+and entirely suited to the treatment; as is also the similar contrast
+between the richly inlaid bow, shield, and arrows, and the broad and
+flowing modulation of the energetic limbs and back.
+
+The Paumgartner altar-piece, 1499, stands out from the "ordinary
+pictures" belonging to this early period. It consists of a charming and
+gay Nativity in the centre, and two knights in armour on the wings,
+probably portraits of the donors, Stephan and Lucas Paumgartner,
+figuring as warlike saints. Stephan, a personal friend of Duerer's,
+figured again as St. George in the _Trinity and All Saints_ picture
+painted in 1511. There were originally two panels with female saints
+beyond these again, but no trace of them remains. Now that the landscape
+backgrounds have been removed from the side panels, there is no reason
+to suppose that any one but Duerer had a hand in these works. But in
+writing to Heller, he tells him that it was unheard of to put so much
+work into an altar-piece as he was then putting into his _Coronation of
+the Virgin_, and we may feel certain that Duerer regarded this picture as
+in the altar-piece category. The two knights are represented against
+black grounds, and their silhouettes form a very fine arabesque, which
+the streamers of their lances, artificially arranged, complete and
+emphasise. This black ground points probably to the influence of Jacopo
+de' Barbari, whom Duerer had met and been mystified by. (See p. 63.)
+
+[Illustration: ST. GEORGE AND ST. EUSTACE Side panels in oils of the
+Paumgartner Altar-piece in the Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+No doubt there was much in such a background that appealed to the
+draughtsman in Duerer. It insisted on the outline which had probably been
+the starting-point of his conception. Nothing could be less
+painter-like, or make the modelling of figures more difficult, as Duerer,
+perhaps, realised when he later on painted the _Adam and Eve_ at Madrid.
+These two warriors are, however, most successful and imposing, and
+immeasurably enhanced now that the spurious backgrounds, artfully
+concocted out of Duerer's own prints by an ingenious improver of his
+betters, have been removed. This person had also tinkered the centre
+picture, painting out two heraldic groups of donors, far smaller in
+scale than the actual personages of the scene, but very useful in the
+composition, as giving a more ample base to the masses of broken and
+fretted quality; useful also now as an additional proof of how free from
+the fetters of an impertinent logic of realism Duerer ever was. These
+little kneeling donors and their coats of arms emphasise the surface,
+and are delightful in their naivety, while they serve to render the gay,
+almost gaudy panel more homely, and give it a place and a function in
+the world. For they help us to realise that it answered a demand, and
+was not the uncalled-for and slightly frigid excursion of the aesthetic
+imagination which it must otherwise appear. In the same way the
+brilliant _Adoration of the Magi_ (dated 1504) in the Uffizi, also
+somewhat gaudy and frigid, could we but see it where it originally hung
+in Luther's church at Wittenberg, might invest itself with some charm
+that one vainly seeks in it now. The failure in emotion might seem more
+natural if we saw the wise Elector discussing his new purchase; we might
+have felt what Duerer meant when a year later he wrote from Venice: "I am
+a gentleman here and only a hanger-on at home." The expectation and
+prophecy of his success in those who surround a painter,--even if it be
+chiefly expressed by bitter rivalry, or the craft by which one greedy
+purchaser tries to over-reach another, even if he has to be careful not
+to eat at some tables for fear of being poisoned by a host whose
+ambition his present performance may have dashed--even expressed in this
+truly Venetian manner, the expectation and prophecy of his success in
+those about him make it easier for a painter to soar, and may touch his
+work with an indefinable glow that the approval of honest and astute
+electors or solid burghers may have been utterly powerless to impart.
+
+
+IV
+
+At Venice, perhaps the occasion for his journey thither, Duerer undertook
+a more important work than any he had yet attempted. _The Feast of the
+Rose Garlands_ was painted for the high altar of the church of San
+Bartolommeo, belonging to the German Merchants' Exchange, and close to
+their Pondaco.[73] In it we find a very considerable influence of Italy
+in general, and Giovanni Bellini in particular; it is a splendid and
+pompous parade piece, and probably the portraits of the German merchants
+which it contained were the part of the work which was most successful,
+as it was certainly that most congenial to Duerer's genius. The _Christ
+among the Doctors_, dated 1506, and now in the Barberini Palace at Rome,
+might seem to have been painted chiefly to justify Giovanni Bellini's
+astonishment at the calligraphical painting of hair. It is one of those
+pictures of which a literary description would please more than the work
+itself. Though the contrast between the sweet childish face and those of
+the old worldly scribes is well conceived, it is in reality so violent
+as to be grotesque, and the play of hands produces the effect of a
+diagram explanatory of a conjuring trick, or a deaf and dumb alphabet,
+instead of conveying the inner sense of the scene represented after
+Rossetti's fashion, who so often succeeded in making hands speak.
+Another work, which dates from Venice, is the little _Crucifixion_ (at
+Dresden.) Perhaps the landscape and suffering body are just sufficiently
+touched with acute emotion to make the arabesque of the two floating
+ends of the loin-cloth appear a little out of place; for in spite of the
+delicacy and all but tenderness which Duerer has for once attained to in
+the workmanship, one's satisfaction seems let and hindered.
+
+
+V
+
+Shortly after his return from Venice, Duerer completed two life-size
+panels representing Adam and Eve; there are drawings for them dated
+during his stay at Venice, but as a work of art they are far less
+interesting than the engraving of the same subject completed three years
+earlier. The treatment, even the conception, has been inadequately
+influenced by the proposed scale of the work. Probably they were like
+the earlier Hercules, done to please the artist himself rather than some
+patron; they are an effort to prove that he could do something which was
+after all too hard for him. Not only had he set himself the problem
+which the Greeks and Michael Angelo, and Raphael with their aid alone,
+had solved, of finding proportions suitable to express harmoniously the
+infinite capacity for complex motion combined with that constancy of
+intention which gives dignity to men and women alone among animals; but
+the technical problems involved in representing life-size nude figures
+against a plain black ground were indeed an unconscious confession that
+Duerer did not understand paint. There is a copy of these panels,
+recently attributed to Baldung Grien, in the Pitti. Animals and birds
+have been added from drawings made by Duerer, but the picture is still
+farther from success, though Grien may not improbably have executed it
+with Duerer at his elbow. Duerer made one more attempt at representing a
+life-size nude, the _Lucretia_, finished in 1518, at a period when his
+powers seem to have been clouded, for the few pictures which belong to
+it are all inferior. However, studies for the figure exist dated 1508,
+so we may suppose it was a project brought back from Venice. His
+ill-success with this subject may remind us of Shakespeare's long
+pedantic exercise in rhyme on the same theme. The pictorial motive of
+Duerer's work is beautiful and worthy of a Greek: indeed it is identical
+with that of Watts' _Psyche_, of which the version in private hands is
+very superior to that in the Tate Gallery. The position of the bed, the
+idea of the draperies all are parallel. No doubt the lonely feather shed
+from Love's wing at which Psyche gazes is both more of a poet's and of
+a painter's invention than the cold steel of Lucretia's dagger. And in
+spite of his wide knowledge of Greek and Italian art, our English master
+could scarcely have produced a work of such classic dignity with the
+more violent motive of the dagger, which seems to call for "The torch
+that flames with many a lurid flake," or at least the torpid glow of
+smouldering embers, to light it in such a manner as would make a really
+pictorial treatment possible. No doubt Duerer has been misled by a too
+tyrannous notion as to what ought to be the physical build of so chaste
+a matron, and in his anxiety to make chastity self-evident, has
+forgotten to explain the need for it by such a degree of attractiveness
+as might tempt a tyrant to be dangerous. Just as Shakespeare, in
+attempting to exhaust every possible motive which the situation
+comports, has forgotten that for a character that can move us a
+selection is needed. Another elaborate piece of frigid invention is the
+_Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints in the reign of Sapor II. of
+Persia_, in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, dated 1508. However, in this
+case no doubt Duerer could plead that the subject was not of his own
+choice, for he was commissioned by the Elector, Frederic the Wise, whose
+wisdom probably did not extend to a knowledge of what subjects lend
+themselves to pictorial treatment. Still, making every allowance for
+these facts, it cannot be admitted that Duerer did the best possible with
+his subject. Probably it did not move him, and neither does he us. Peter
+Breughel and Albrecht Altdorfer would certainly have done far better so
+far as the conception of the picture is concerned, though neither of
+them had so much skill to waste on its realisation. Nevertheless, this
+tour _de force_ is the picture of Duerer's most pleasing in surface and
+colour, with the exception of the Wings _of the Dresden Altar-piece_. It
+contains beautiful groups and figures, and is extremely well executed;
+so that it may amuse and delight the eye for a long time while the
+significance of the subject is forgotten.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF TEN THOUSAND SAINTS UNDER SAPOR II. OF
+PERSIA--Oil picture. "Iste faciebat anno domini 1508 Albertus Duerer
+Alemanus"]
+
+
+VI
+
+We now turn to the third and fourth of the half-dozen pictures of Duerer,
+which stand out from all the rest by their elaboration and importance.
+The _Coronation of the Virgin (see_ p. 97), painted as the centre panel
+of the altar-piece commissioned by Jacob Heller at Frankfort, was
+unfortunately burnt with the palace at Munich on the night of April 9,
+1674; the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria having forced or cajoled the
+Dominicans, to whose church Heller had left it, to sell it to him. It is
+now represented by a copy made by Paul Juvenal in its original position,
+where the almost ruined portraits of Heller and his wife are supposed to
+have been partly Duerer's, though the other panels are obviously the work
+of assistants. This work exists for us in a series of magnificent brush
+drawings in black and white line on grey paper, rather than in the copy,
+and we can in a measure imagine its appearance by the perfectly-
+preserved _Trinity and All Saints_ commenced immediately after
+it for Matthew Landauer, and now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna.
+Nothing can surpass this last picture in elaboration and finish; the
+colour, if not beautiful, is rich and luminous; and though it is
+separate faces and draperies which chiefly delight the eye, the
+composition of the whole is an adequate adaptation of the traditional
+treatment for such themes which had been handed down through the middle
+ages. It invites comparison rather with the similar subjects painted by
+Fra Angelico than with the _Disputa_ of Raphael, to which German critics
+compare it; however, it possesses as little of Angelico's sweet
+blissfulness as the Dominican painter possessed of Duerer's accuracy of
+hand and searching intensity of visual realisation. Both painters are
+interested in individuals, and, representing crowds of faces, make every
+one a portrait; both evince a dramatic sense of propriety in gesture,
+both revel in bright, clear colours, especially azure; but as the light
+in Duerer's masterpiece has a rosy hotness, which ill bears comparison
+with the virginal pearliness of Angelico's heaven, so the costumes and
+the figures of the Florentine are doll-like, when compared with the
+unmistakable quality of the stuffs in which the fully-resurrected bodies
+of Duerer's saints rumple and rustle. The wings of his angels are at
+least those of birds, though coloured to fancy, while Angelico's are of
+pasteboard tinsel and paint. But in spite of the comparative genuineness
+of his upholstery, as a vision of heaven there can be no hesitation in
+preferring that of the Florentine.
+
+In a frame designed by Duerer and carved under his supervision, this
+monument to thoroughness and skill was ensconced in a little chapel
+dedicated to All Saints, which in style approaches our Tudor buildings.
+There the frame remained till lately with a poor copy of the picture and
+an inscription in old German to this effect: ('Matthew Landauer
+completed the dedication of this chapel of the twelve brethren, together
+with the foundation attached to it, and this picture, in the year 1511
+after the birth of Christ,')
+
+Duerer signed his picture with the same Latin formula as that of the
+_Coronation_:
+
+"Albrecht Duerer of Nuremberg did this the year from when the Virgin
+brought forth 1511."
+
+
+VII
+
+Of all Duerer's paintings of the Madonna, there is only one which, by its
+superb design, deserves special notice among his masterpieces. This
+_Madonna with the Iris_ exists in two versions, both unfinished; one the
+property of Sir Frederick Cook, the other at Prague, in the Rudolphium.
+This latter Mr. Campbell Dodgson considers to be a poor copy. The panel
+is badly cracked, and weeds and long grasses have been added, apparently
+with a view to masking the cracks. Judging from a photograph alone, many
+of these additions seem so appropriately placed and freely sketched that
+I feel it at least to be possibly a work by the master himself. On the
+other hand, Sir Frederick's picture is so sleepy and clumsy in handling,
+that though it is unfinished, and perhaps in part damaged by some
+restorer, I feel great hesitation in regarding it as Duerer's handiwork.
+In both cases the magnificent design is his, and that alone in either is
+fully representative of him. Mr. Campbell Dodgson ventures to criticise
+the profusion of drapery as excessive, but my feeling, I must confess,
+endorses Duerer's in this, rather than that of his learned critic. To me
+this profusion, and the grandeur it gives as a mass in the design, is of
+the very essence of what is most peculiarly creative in Duerer's
+imagination.
+
+The last picture of which it is necessary to speak is that of the _Four
+Apostles_ or the _Four Preachers_, as they have been more appropriately
+called; it was perhaps the last he painted, and is in many respects the
+most successful. It is the only one by which the comparison with
+Raphael, so dear to German critics, seems at all warranted: there is
+certainly some kinship between Duerer's St. John and St. Paul and
+apostolic figures in the cartoons or on the Vatican walls. The German
+artist's manner is less rhetorical, but his conception is hardly less
+grandiose; and his taste does not so closely border on over-emphasis,
+but neither is it so conscious or so fluent. Technically it seems to me
+that the chief influence is a recollection of the large canvases of Jan
+and Hubert Van Eyck and Hubert Van der Goes which Duerer had admired in
+the Netherlands; these had strengthened and directed the bias of his
+self-culture towards simple masses on a large scale.[74] He may very
+well have sought to combine what he learnt from them with hints he found
+in the engravings after Raphael which he obtained in Antwerp. His
+increasing sickness may probably account for the fact that the white
+mantle of St. Paul is the only portion quite finished. The assertion of
+the writing-master, Johann Neudoerffer, who in his youth had known Duerer,
+that the four figures are typical of the four temperaments, the
+sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic,--into which
+categories an amateurish psychology arbitrarily divided human
+characters,--is as likely to be correct as it is certain that it adds
+nothing to the power and beauty of the presentation. Though Duerer in his
+work on human proportions describes the physical build of these
+different types, we do not know exactly what degree of precision he
+imagined it possible to attain in discerning them, or to what extent
+their names were merely convenient handles for certain types which he
+had chosen aesthetically. To us to-day this classification is merely a
+trace of an obsolete pedantry, which it would be a vain curiosity to
+attempt to follow with the object of identifying its imaginary bases.
+
+The four preachers have all the air of being striking likenesses of
+actual people which it is possible for work so broadly and grandly
+conceived to have. These panels are interesting, even more than by their
+actual success, as showing us what a scholar Duerer was to the end; how
+he learned from every defeat as well as every victory, and constantly
+approached a conception and a rendering of human beauty which seems
+intimately connected with man's fullest intellectual and spiritual
+freedom--a conception and rendering of human beauty which Raphael
+himself had to learn from the Greeks and Michael Angelo. The work has
+suffered, it is supposed, from restorers, and also from the Munich
+monarch, Maximilian, who had the tremendous texts (see page 177) which
+Duerer had inscribed beneath the two panels sawn off in order to spare
+the feelings of the Jesuits, who were dominant at his court, for their
+conception of religion did not consist with terrors to come for those
+who, abuse their trust as governors and directors of mankind.
+
+Lastly, mention must be made of Duerer's monochrome masterpiece, The Road
+to Calvary 15.27 (see illus.), in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook.
+A poor copy of this work is at Dresden, a better one at Bergamo. The
+effect of it, and several elaborate water-colour designs of the same
+class, is akin to the peculiar richness of chased metal work; glinting
+light hovers over crowds of little figures.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 73: The original, now in the Monastery of Strahow-Prague, is
+very much damaged, and in part repainted. There are copies in the
+Imperial Gallery at Vienna (No. 1508), and in the possession of A. W.
+Miller, Esq., of Sevenoaks. It is to be regretted that the Duerer Society
+published a photogravure of this latter work, which, though till then
+unknown, is far less interesting than the original, of which they only
+gave a reproduction in the text, an exhaustive history of its fortunes
+from the learned pen of Mr. Cambell Dodgson. This picture, which is so
+frequently referred to in the letters from Venice, contains portraits of
+the Emperor Maximilian and Pope Julius II., though neither of them from
+life, and in the background those of Duerer and Pirkheimer.]
+
+[Footnote 74: See what Melanchthon says, p. 187.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+DUeRER'S PORTRAITS
+
+
+I
+
+If Duerer's pictures are as a whole the least satisfactory section of his
+work, in his portraits he makes us abundant amends for the time he might
+otherwise have been reproached for wasting to obtain a vain mastery over
+brushes and pigment.
+
+Unfortunately it is probable that many even of these have been lost or
+destroyed, while of his most interesting sitters we have nothing but
+drawings. He did not paint his friend, the boisterous and learned
+Pirkheimer; and what would we not give for a painted portrait of
+Erasmus, or a portrait of Kratzer, the astronomer royal, to compare with
+the two masterpieces by Holbein in the Louvre? Even the posthumous
+portrait of his Imperial patron Maximilian is less interesting than the
+drawings from which it was done, the eccentric sitter not having the
+time to spare for so sensible a monument.
+
+[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST Pen drawing in dark brown ink at
+Erlangen (This drawing has been cut down for reproduction)]
+
+
+II
+
+However, Duerer had one sitter who was perhaps the most beautiful of all
+the sons of men, whose features combined in an equal measure nobleness
+of character, intellectual intensity and physical beauty; and, finding
+him also most patient and accessible, he painted him frequently. The two
+earliest portraits of himself are the drawings which show him at the
+ages of thirteen and nineteen(?) respectively (see illustration). Then,
+as a young man with a sprouting chin, we have the picture till recently
+at Leipzig of which Goethe's enthusiastic description has already been
+quoted (p. 62). It is probable that neither Titian nor Holbein could
+have shown at so early an age a portrait so admirably conceived and
+executed. It is a masterpiece, even now that the inevitable improvements
+which those who lack all relish of genius rarely lack the opportunity,
+never the inclination, to add to a masterpiece, have confused the
+drawing of the eyes, and reduced the bloom and delicacy that the
+features traced by a master hand, even when they become an almost
+complete wreck, often retain; for time and fortune are not so
+conscientiously destructive as the imbecility of the incapable. Next we
+have a portrait of Duerer when only five years older, in perfect
+preservation,--that in the Prado at Madrid. This charming picture must
+certainly have drawn a sonnet from the Shakespeare who wrote _Love's
+Labour Lost_, could he have seen it. For it presents a young dandy, the
+delicacy and sensitiveness of whose features seem to demand and warrant
+the butterfly-like display of the white and black costume hemmed with
+gold, and of a cap worthy to crown those flowing honey-coloured locks.
+There is a good copy of this delightful work in the Uffizi, where, in a
+congregation of self-painted artists, it does all but justice to the
+most beautiful of them all. For fineness of touch the original has never
+been surpassed by any hand of European or even Chinese master. Next
+there are the dapper little full-length portraits which Duerer inserted
+in his chief paintings. He stands beside his friend Pirkheimer at the
+back of the adoring crowd in the _Feast of the Roses_, and again in the
+midst of the mountain slope, where on all sides of them the ten thousand
+saints suffer martyrdom. Duerer stands alone beside an inscription in a
+gentle pastoral landscape beneath the vision of the Virgin's Assumption
+seen over the heads of the Apostles, who gaze up in rapture; and again
+he is alone beside a broad peaceful river beneath the vision of the Holy
+Trinity and All Saints. I know of no parallel to these little portraits.
+Rembrandt and Botticelli and many others have introduced portraits of
+themselves into religious pictures, but always in disguise, as a
+personage in the crowd or an actor in the scene. Only the master who was
+really most exceptional for his good looks, has had the kindness, in
+spite of every incongruity, to present himself before us on all
+important occasions, like the court beauty in whom it is charity rather
+than vanity to appear in public. It is expected that the very beautiful
+be gracious thus. Emerson tells us that two centuries ago the Town
+Council of Montpelier passed a law to constrain two beautiful sisters to
+sit for a certain time on their balcony every other day, that all might
+enjoy the sight of what was most beautiful in their town. It was one of
+the most gracious traits of Jeanne d'Arc's character that she liked to
+wear beautiful clothes, because it pleased the poor people to see her
+thus. And Palm Sunday commemorates another historical example of such
+grace and truth. Duerer's face had a striking resemblance to the
+traditional type for Jesus, adding to it just that element of individual
+peculiarity, the absence of which makes it ever liable to appear a
+little vacant and unconvincing. The perception of this would seem to
+have dictated the general arrangement of Duerer's crowning portrait of
+himself, that at Munich dated 1500 (see illus.), "Before which" (Mr.
+Ricketts writes in his recently published volume on the Prado) "one
+forgets all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is equal to the
+occasion." The most exhaustive visual power and executive capacity meet
+in this picture, which would seem to have traversed the many perils to
+which it has been exposed without really suffering so much as their
+enumeration makes one expect. Thausing tells us:
+
+The following is the story of the picture's wanderings, as told at
+Nuremberg. It was lent by the magistrates, after they had taken the
+precaution of placing a seal and strings on the back of the panel, to
+the painter and engraver Kuegner, to copy. He, however, carefully sawed
+the panel in half (layer-wise) and glued to the authentic back his
+miserable copy, which now hangs in the Town Hall. The original he sold,
+and it eventually came into the possession of King Ludwig I., before
+Nuremberg belonged to Bavaria.
+
+[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl_ "I, Albert Duerer of Nuremberg, painted my
+own portrait here in the proper colours at the age of twenty-eight"
+Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+He suggests that the colour was once bright and varied, and that by
+varnish and glazes it has been reduced to its present harmonious
+condition. The hair is certainly much darker than the other portraits
+would have led one to expect, and the almost walnut brown of the general
+colour scheme is unique in Duerer's work. However, if some such
+transmogrification has been effected, it is marvellous that it should
+have obliterated so little of the inimitable handiwork of the master.
+Thausing considered the date (1500), monogram and inscription on the
+back to be forgeries, and it certainly looks as if it ought to come
+nearer to the portrait in the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ (1506) than
+to that at Madrid (1498). A genuine scalloped tablet is faintly visible
+under the dark glazes which cover the background; and this, no doubt,
+bears the original inscription and date. What may not have happened to a
+picture after or before it left the artist's studio? Critics are too
+quick to determine that such changes have been introduced by others. In
+this case we must remember how experimental Duerer was, even with regard
+to his engravings on metal. He tries iron plates and etching, and
+finally settles on a method of commencing with etching and finishing
+with the burin; and this was in a medium in which he soon found himself
+at home. But with painting he was vastly more experimental, and never
+satisfied with his results, as he told Melanchthon (see p. 187). Then we
+must remember that this picture probably was during Duerer's lifetime, if
+not in his own possession, at least never out of his reach; and no doubt
+he was aware that it was the grandest and most perfectly finished of all
+his portraits--therefore, as he came more and more, especially after his
+visit to the Netherlands, to desire and seek after simplicity, he may
+himself have added the dark glazes. If the original inscription
+contained a dedication to Pirkheimer or some other notable Nuremberger,
+there was every reason for the artist who stole the picture to
+obliterate this and add a new one: or this may have been done when it
+became the property of the town, for those who sold it may have wished
+that it should not be known that it might have been an heirloom in their
+family. Infinite are the possibilities, those only decide in such cases
+who have a personal motive for doing so; "la rage de conclure" (as
+Flaubert saw) is the pitfall of those who are vain of their knowledge.
+
+[Illustration: OSWOLT KREL Oil portrait in the Alt Pinakothek at Munich]
+
+[Illustration: _By permission_ of the "_Burlington_ Magazine" ALBERT
+DUeRER THE ELDER, 1497 National Gallery]
+
+
+III
+
+Though fearing that it will appear but tedious, I will now attempt
+briefly to describe in succession the remaining master portraits which
+we owe to Duerer, and the effect that each produces. It is by these works
+and not by his creative pictures that his ranks among the greatest names
+of painting. These might be compared with the very finest portraits by
+Raphael and Holbein, and the precedence would remain a question of
+personal predilection; since nothing reasoned, no distinguishable
+superiority over Duerer in vision or execution could be urged for either.
+Rather, if mere capacity were regarded, he must have the palm; nor did
+either of his compeers light upon a happier subject than was Duerer's
+when he represented himself; nor did they achieve nobler designs. In
+effect upon our emotions and sensations, these portraits may compete
+with the masterpieces of Titian and Rembrandt, though the method of
+expression is in their case too different to render comparison possible.
+Whatever in the glow of light, in the power of shadow, to envelop and
+enhance the features portrayed, is theirs and not his, his superiority
+of searching insight, united with its equivalent of unique facility in
+definition, seems more than to outweigh. Before he left for Venice,
+besides the renderings of himself already mentioned, Duerer had painted
+his father twice, in 1494 and in 1497. The latter was the pair to and
+compeer of his own portrait at Madrid,; and, hitherto unknown, was lent
+last year by Lord Northampton to the Royal Academy, and has since
+been bought for the National Gallery. This beautiful work is unique even
+among the works of the master, and is not so much the worse for
+repainting as some make out. The majority of Duerer's portraits stand
+alone. In each the Esthetic problem has been approached and solved in a
+strikingly different manner. This picture and its fellow, the portrait
+of the painter at Madrid, the _Oswolt Krel_, the portrait of a lady seen
+against the sea at Berlin, the _Wolgemut_, and Duerer's own portrait at
+Munich, though seen by the same absorbing eyes, are rendered each in
+quite a different manner. No man has ever been better gifted for
+portraying a likeness than Duerer; but the absence of a native
+comprehension of pigment made him ever restless, and it might be
+possible to maintain that each of these pictures presented us with a
+differing strategy to enforce pigment, to subserve the purposes of a
+draughtsman. Still this would seem to imply a greater sacrifice of ease
+and directness than those brilliant masterpieces can be charged with.
+They none of them lack beauty of colour, of surface, or of handling,
+though each so unlike the other. In this portrait of his father, Duerer
+has developed a shaken brushline, admirably adapted to suggest the
+wrinkled features of an old man, but in complete contrast to the rapid
+sweep of the caligraphic work in the _Oswolt Krel_; and it is to be
+noticed how in both pictures the touch seems to have been invented to
+facilitate the rendering of the peculiar curves and lines of the
+sitter's features, and further variations of it developed to express the
+draperies and other component parts of the picture. It is this
+inventiveness in handling which most distinguishes Duerer from painters
+like Raphael and Holbein, and makes his work comparable with the
+masterpieces of Rembrandt and Titian, in spite of the extreme
+opposition in aspect between their work and his.
+
+The noble portrait of a middle-aged man, No. 557c, in the Royal Gallery
+at Berlin, (supposed to represent Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony,
+Duerer's first patron), gives us a master portrait, in which the
+technical treatment is comparable to that of the early triptych at
+Dresden, and which is a monument of sober power and distinction, though
+again very difficult to compare with the other splendid portraits by the
+same hand which hang beside or near it in that Gallery.
+
+The vivid _Oswolt Krel_ at Munich shows the peculiarity of Duerer's
+caligraphic touch better than perhaps any other of his portraits. The
+finish is not carried so far as in the Madrid portrait of himself, where
+even the texture of the gloves has been softened by touches of the
+thumb, and the absence of these extra refinements leaves it the most
+spontaneous and vigorously bold of all Duerer's paintings. The
+concentrated energy of the sitter's features demanded such a treatment;
+he seems to burn with the inconsiderate atheism of a Marlowe. Young, and
+less surprised than indignant to be alone awake in a sleepy and bigoted
+world, he seems convinced of a mission to chastise, _even_ to scandalise
+his easy-going neighbours. Let us hope he met with better luck than the
+Marlowes, Shelleys, and Rimbauds, whose tragedies we have read; for one
+can but regret, as one meets his glance so much fiercer than need be,
+that he is not known to history.
+
+[Illustration: Oil Portrait of a Lady seen against the Sea In the Berlin
+Gallery]
+
+[Illustration: Oil portrait, dated 1506, at Hampton Court]
+
+The fine portrait of Hans Tucher, 1499, in the Grand Ducal Museum at
+Weimar should, judging from a photograph alone, be mentioned here. It
+has obvious affinities with the _Oswolt Krel_, but the caligraphic
+method is again modified in harmony with the character of the
+sitter's features. The companion piece, representing Felicitas Tucherin,
+would seem at some period to have been restored to the insignificance
+and obscurity that belonged to the sitter before Duerer painted her.
+
+
+IV
+
+The portraits which Duerer painted at Venice, or soon after his return,
+betray the influence of other masterpieces on his own. Mr. Ricketts has
+pointed to that of Antonello da Messina in the portraits of young men at
+Vienna (1505) and at Hampton Court (1506). The former of these has an
+allegorical sketch of Avarice, painted on the back in a thick impasto,
+such as seems almost a presage of after developments of the Venetian
+school, and may possibly show the influence of some early experiment by
+Giorgione which Duerer wished to show that he could imitate if he liked.
+The latter represents a personage who appears on the left of the _Feast
+of Rose Wreaths_ in exactly the same cap and with the same fastening to
+his jerkin, crossing his white shirt (see illustration opposite).
+
+Not improbably Duerer may have painted separate portraits of nearly all
+the members of the German Guild at Venice who appear in the _Rose
+Garlands_. In any case much of his work during his stay there has
+disappeared. It was here that he painted that beautiful head of a woman
+(No. 557 G in the Berlin Gallery) with soft, almost Leonardesque
+shadows, seen against the luminous hazy sea and sky, which remains
+absolutely unique in method and effect among his works, and makes one
+ask oneself unanswerable questions as to what might not have been the
+result if he could but have brought himself to accept the offered
+citizenship and salary, and stop on at Venice. A Duerer, not only
+secluded from Luther and his troubling denunciations, but living to see
+Titian and Giorgione's early masterpieces, perhaps forming friendships
+with them, and later visiting Rome, standing in the Sistine Chapel,
+seated in the Stanze between the School of Athens and the Disputa! I at
+least cannot console myself for these missed opportunities, as so many
+of his critics and biographers have done, by saying that doubtless had
+he stayed he would have been spoiled like those second-class German and
+Dutch painters, for whom the siren art of Italy proved a baneful
+influence. One could almost weep to think of what has been probably lost
+to the world because Duerer could not bring himself to stay on at Venice.
+It _was_ here he painted the tiny panel representing the head of a girl
+in gay apparel dated 1507 (in the Berlin Gallery), that makes one think,
+even more than do Holbein's _Venus_ and _Lais_ at Basle, of the triumphs
+that were reserved for Italians in the treatment of similar subjects.
+
+After his return the influence of Venetian methods gradually waned, till
+we find in the masterly and refined portrait of _Wolgemut_ (1516) (see
+illustration); something of a return to the caligraphic method so
+noticeable in the _Oswolt Krel_. About the same time Duerer recommenced
+painting in tempera in a manner resembling the early Dresden _Madonna_
+and the _Hercules_, as we see by the rather unpleasant heads of Apostles
+in the Uffizi and the tine one of an old man in a vermilion cap in the
+Louvre, &c. &c.
+
+[Illustration: _Bruckmann_--"Albrecht Duerer took this likeness of his
+master, Michael Wolgemut, in the year 1516, and he was 82 years of age,
+and lived to the year 1519, and then departed on Saint Andrew's Day,
+very early before sunrise"--Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+[Illustration: HANS IMHOF (?)--From the painting in the Royal Gallery
+at Madrid--(By permission _of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co., Dornach
+(Alsace), Paris and New York_)]
+
+
+V
+
+On his arrival at Antwerp in 1521 Duerer commenced the third and last
+group of master-portraits; foremost is the superb head and bust at
+Madrid, supposed to represent Hans Imhof, a patrician of Duerer's native
+town and his banker while at Antwerp; of the same date are the
+triumphant renderings of the grave and youthful Bernard van Orley (at
+Dresden) and that of a middle-aged man--lost for the National Gallery,
+and now in the possession of Mrs. Gardner, of Boston. All three were
+probably painted at Antwerp.
+
+It may be that the portrait of Imhof and the report of the honours and
+commissions showered on their painter while in the Netherlands, woke the
+Nuremberg Councillors up, for we have portraits of three of them dated
+1526--Jacob Muffel, Hieronymus Holzschuher, (both in the Royal Gallery,
+Berlin,) and the eccentric and unpleasing medallion representing
+Johannes Kleeberger, at Vienna. With the exception of this last, this
+group is composed of masterpieces absolutely unrivalled for intensity
+and dignity of power. Van Eyck painted with inhuman indifference a few
+ugly grotesque but otherwise uninteresting people. All but a very few of
+Holbein's best portraits pale before these instances of searching
+insight; and, north of the Alps at least, there are no others which can
+be compared to them. The _Hans Imhof_ shows a shrewd and forbidding
+schemer for gain on a large scale--a face which produces the impression
+of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent,
+seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon
+its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first
+and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The unknown
+master who is represented in Mrs. Gardner's beautiful picture is less
+forbidding, though not less patently a moulder of destiny. _Jacob
+Muffel_ has a more open face, a more serene gaze; but his mouth too has
+the firmness acquired by those who live always in the presence of
+enemies, or are at least aware that "a little folding of the hands" may
+be fatal to all their most cherished purposes. The last of these masters
+of themselves and of their fortunes in hazardous and change-fraught
+times is _Hieronymus Holzschuher_, Duerer's friend. Only less felicitous
+because less harmonious in colour than the three former, this vivacious
+portrait of a ruddy, jovial, and white-haired patrician seen against a
+bright blue background might produce the effect of a Father Christmas,
+were it not for the resolute mouth and the puissant side-glance of the
+eyes. Bernard van Orley, the only youthful person immortalised in this
+group, has a gentle, responsible air which his features are a little too
+heavy to enhance.
+
+I have now mentioned the chief of his portraits, which are the best of
+his painting, and by which he ranks for the directness and power of his
+workmanship and of his visual analysis in the company of the very
+greatest. Raphael and Holbein have alone produced portraits which, as
+they can be compared to Duerer's, might also be held to rival them;
+Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reynolds have done as
+splendidly, but the material they used and the aims they set themselves
+were too different to make a comparison serviceable. These men are
+pre-eminent among those who have produced portraits which, while
+unsurpassed for technical excellences, present to us individuals whose
+beauty or the character it expresses are equally exceptional.
+
+[Illustration: "JAKOB MUFFEL" Oil portrait in the Berlin Gallery]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DUeRER'S DRAWINGS
+
+
+I
+
+Perhaps Duerer is more felicitous as a draughtsman than in any other
+branch of art. The power of nearly all first-rate artists is more wholly
+live and effective in their drawings than in elaborated works. Duerer
+himself says:
+
+An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great
+power and art in small things, roughly and rudely done, than many
+another in his great work. Powerful artists alone will understand that
+in this strange saying I speak truth. For this reason a man may often
+draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day, or cut
+it with his graver on a small block of wood, and it shall be fuller of
+art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole
+year's careful labour.
+
+But it is possible to go far beyond this and say not only "another's
+great work," but his own great work.
+
+In the first chapter of this work I said that the standard in works of
+art is not truth but sincerity; that if the artist tells us what he
+feels to be beautiful, it does not matter how much or how little
+comparison it will bear with the actual objects represented. And from
+this fact, that sincerity not truth is of prime importance in matters of
+expression, results the strange truth that Duerer says will be
+recognised by powerful artists alone (see page 227). Any one who
+recognises how often the sketches and roughs of artists, especially of
+those who are in a peculiar degree creators, excel their finished works
+in those points which are the distinctive excellences of such men, will
+grant this at once. Only to turn to the sketch (inscribed _Memento Mei
+1505_) of _Death_ on horseback with a scythe, or the pen-portrait of
+Duerer leaning on his hand, will be enough to convince those who alone
+can be convinced on these points. For any who need to explain to
+themselves the character of such sketches--as the authoress of a recent
+little book on Duerer does that of the pen drawing "in which the boy's
+chin rests on his hand" by telling us that "it is unfinished and was
+evidently discarded as a failure,"--any who must be at such pains in a
+case of this sort is one of those who can never understand wherein the
+great power of a work of art resides. Such people may get great pleasure
+from works of art; only I am content to remain convinced that the
+pleasure they get has no kind of kinship with that which I myself
+obtain, or that which the greatest artists most constantly seek to give.
+This marvellous portrait of himself as a lad of from seventeen to
+nineteen years of age is just one of those things "roughly and rudely
+done," of which Duerer speaks. There is probably no parallel to it for
+mastery or power among works produced by artists so youthful.
+
+[Illustration: Study of a hound for the copper engraving "St. Eustache."
+B. 57 Brush drawing at Windsor]
+
+There is often some virtue in spontaneity which is difficult to define;
+perhaps it bears more convincing witness to the artist's integrity than
+slower and longer labours, from which it is difficult to ward all
+duplicity of intention. The finishing-touch is too often a Judas' kiss.
+"Blessed are the pure in heart" is absolutely true in art. (Of course,
+I do not use purity in the narrow sense which is confined to avoidance
+of certain sensual subjects and seductive intentions.) It is only
+poverty of imagination which taboos subject-matter, and lack of charity
+that believes there are themes which cannot be treated with any but
+ignoble intentions. But the virtue in a spontaneous drawing is akin to
+that single devotion to whatever is best, which true purity is; as the
+refinement of economy which results in the finished work is akin to that
+delicate repugnance to all waste, which is true chastity. A sketch by
+Rembrandt of a naked servant girl on a bed is as "simple as the infancy
+of truth"--as single in intention. A Greek statue of a raimentless
+Apollo is pre-eminently chaste. But it does not follow that Rembrandt
+was in his life eminently pure, or the Greek sculptor signal for
+chastity. Drawings rapidly executed have often a lyrical, rapturous,
+exultant purity, and are for that reason, to those whose eyes are
+blinded neither by prejudice nor by misfortune, as captivating as are
+healthy, gleeful children to those whose hearts are free. And while the
+joy that a child's glee gives is for a time, that which a drawing gives
+may well be for ever.
+
+We say a "spirited sketch" as we say "a spirited horse"; but works of
+art are instinct with a vast variety of spirits and exert manifold
+influences. It is a poverty of language which has confined the use of
+this word to one of the most obvious and least estimable. It can be
+never too much insisted on that a work of art is something that exerts
+an influence, and that its whole merit lies in the quality and degree of
+the influence exerted; for those who are not moved by it, it is no more
+than a written sentence to one who cannot read.
+
+
+II
+
+Many people in turning over a collection of Duerer's drawings would be
+constantly crying, "How marvellously realistic!" and would glow with
+enthusiasm and smile with gratitude for the perception which these words
+expressed. Others would say "merely realistic"; and the words would
+convey, if not disapprobation for something shocking, at least
+indifference. In both cases the word "realistic" would, I take it, mean
+that the objects which the pen, brush, or charcoal strokes represented
+were described with great particularity. And in the first case delight
+would have been felt at recognising the fulness of detailed information
+conveyed about the objects drawn--that each drawing represented not a
+generalisation, but an individual. In the other case the mind would have
+been repelled by the infatuated insistence on insignificant or
+negligible details, the absence of their classification and
+subordination to ideas. The first of these two frames of mind is that of
+Paul Pry, who is delighted to see, to touch, or behold, for whom
+everything is a discovery; and there are members of this class of
+temperament who in middle life continue to make the same discoveries
+every day with zest and a wonder equal to that which they felt when
+children. The second of these frames of mind is that of the man with a
+system or in search of a system, who desires to control, or, if he
+cannot do that, at least to be taken into the confidence of the
+controller, or to gain a position from which he can oversee him, and
+approve or disapprove. Now neither of these judgments is in itself
+aesthetic, or implies a comprehension of Duerer as an artist.
+
+[Illustration: ME-ENTO MEI, 1505. From the drawing in the British
+Museum]
+
+The man who cries out: "Just look how that is done!" "Who could have
+believed a single line could have expressed so much?" judges as an
+artist, a craftsman. The man who, like Jean Francois Millet, exclaims:
+"How fine! How grand! How delicate! How beautiful!" judges as a creator.
+He sees that "it is good." An artist--a creator--may possess either or
+even both the two former temperaments; but as an artist he must be
+governed by the latter two, either singly or combined. Duerer, doubtless,
+had a considerable share in all four of these points of view. He
+delighted in objects as such, in the new and the strange as new and
+strange, in the intricate as intricate, in the powerful as powerful. And
+above all in his drawings does he manifest this direct and childish
+interest and curiosity. He was also in search of a system, of an
+intellectual key or plan of things; and in the many drawings he devoted
+to explaining or developing his ideas of proportion, of perspective, of
+architecture, he shows this bias strongly. But nearly every drawing by
+him, or attributed to him, manifests the third of these temperaments.
+The never-ceasing economy and daring of the invention displayed in his
+touch, or, as he would have said, "in his hand," is almost as signal as
+his perfect assurance and composure. And when one reflects that he was
+not, like Rembrandt, an artist who made great or habitual use of the
+spaces of shade and light, but that his workmanship is almost entirely
+confined to the expressive power of lines, wonder is only increased. Of
+the fourth character that creates and estimates value, though in certain
+works Duerer rises to supreme heights, though in almost all his important
+works he appeases expectation, yet often where he could surely have done
+much better he seems to have been content not to exert his rarest
+gifts, but rather to play with or parade those that are secondary. Not
+only is this so in drawings like the _Dance of Monkeys_ at Basle, done
+to content his friend the reformer Felix Frey (see page 168), and in the
+borders designed to amuse Maximilian during the hours that custom
+ordained he should pretend to give to prayer; but there are drawings
+which were not apparently thrown as sops to the idleness of others, but
+done to content some half-vacant mood of his own (see Lippmann, 41, 83,
+394, 4.20, 333).
+
+In such drawings the economy and daring of the strokes is always
+admirable, can only be compared to that in drawings by Rembrandt and
+Hokusai; but the occasion is often idle, or treated with a condescension
+which well-nigh amounts to indifference. There is no impressiveness of
+allure, no intention in the proportions or disposition on the paper such
+as Erasmus justly praised in the engravings on copper, probably
+recollecting something which Duerer himself had said (see page 186).
+
+Yet in his portrait heads the right proportions are nearly always found;
+and in many cases I believe it is no one but the artist himself who has
+cut down such drawings after they were completed, to find a more
+harmonious or impressive proportion (see illustration opposite). And
+often these drawings are as perfect in the harmony between the means
+employed and the aspect chosen, and in the proportion between the head
+and the framing line and the spaces it encloses, as Holbein himself
+could have made them; while they far surpass his best in brilliancy and
+intensity.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing in black chalk heightened with white on reddish
+ground Formerly in the collection at Warwick Castle]
+
+[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on prepared grey ground, in the
+collection of Frederick Locker, Esq.]
+
+
+III
+
+Something must be said of Duerer's employment of the water-colours,
+pen-and-ink, silver-point, charcoal, chalk, &c., with which he made his
+drawings. He is a complete master of each and all these mediums, in so
+far as the line or stroke may be regarded as the fundamental unit; he is
+equally effective with the broad, soft line of chalk (see illustration,
+page I.), or the broad broken charcoal line (see illustration, page
+II.), as with the fine pen stroke (see illustration, page III.), the
+delicate silver-point (see illustration, page IV.), or the supple and
+tapering stroke produced by the camel's hair brush (see illustration,
+page V.). But when one comes to broad washes, large masses of light and
+shade, the expression of atmosphere, of bloom, of light, he is wanting
+in proportion as these effects become vague, cloudy, indefinite,
+mist-like. His success lies rather in the definite reflections on
+polished surfaces; he never reproduces for us the bloom on peach or
+flesh or petal. He does not revel, like Rembrandt, in the veils and
+mysteries of lucent atmosphere or muffling shadow. The emotions for
+which such things produce the most harmonious surroundings he hardly
+ever attempts to appeal to; he is mournful and compassionate, or
+indignant, for the sufferings, of his Man of Sorrows; not tender,
+romantic, or awesome. Only with the tapering tenuity and delicate spring
+of the pure line will he sometimes attain to an infantile or virginal
+freshness that is akin to the tenderness of the bloom on flowers, or the
+light of dawn on an autumn morning.[75]
+
+In the same way, when he is tragic, it is not with thick clouds rent in
+the fury of their flight, or with the light from shaken torches cast and
+scattered like spume-flakes from the angry waves; nor is it with the
+accumulated night that gives intense significance to a single tranquil
+ray. Only by a Rembrandt, to whom these means are daily present, could a
+subject like the _Massacre of the Ten Thousand_ have been treated with
+dramatic propriety; unless, indeed, Michael Angelo, in a grey dawn,
+should have twisted and wrung with manifold pain a tribe of giants,
+stark, and herded in some leafless primeval valley. With Duerer the
+occasion was merely one on which to coldly invent variations, as though
+this human suffering was a motive for _an_ arabesque. Yet even from the
+days when he copied Andrea Mantegna's struggling sea-monsters, or when
+he drew the stern matured warrior angels of his Apocalypse fighting,
+with their historied faces like men hardened by deceptions practised
+upon them, like men who have forbidden salt tears and clenched their
+teeth and closed their hearts, who see, who hate; even from these early
+days, the energy of his line was capable of all this, and his
+spontaneous sense of arabesque could become menacing and explosive.
+There are two or three drawings of angry, crying cupids (Lipp., 153 and
+446, see illustration opposite), prepared for some intended picture of
+the Crucifixion, where he has made the motive of the winged infants
+head, usually associated with bliss and scattered rose-leaves, become
+terrible and stormy. And the _Agony in the Garden_, etched on iron,
+contains a tree tortured by the wind (see illustration), as marvellous
+for rhythm, power, and invention as the blast-whipped brambles and naked
+bushes that crest a scarped brow above the jealous husband who stabs his
+wife, in Titian's fresco at Padua. Again, the unspeakable tragedy of the
+stooping figure of Jesus, who is being dragged by His hair up the steps
+to Annas' throne, in the _Little Passion_, is rendered by lines instinct
+with the highest dramatic power. These are a draughtsman's creations;
+though they are less abundant in Duerer's work than one could wish, still
+only the greatest produce such effects; only Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Rembrandt can be said to have equalled or surpassed Duerer in this kind,
+rarely though it be that he competes with them.
+
+[Illustration: CHERUB FOR A CRUCIFIXION Black chalk drawing heightened
+with white on a blue-grey paper In the collection of Herr Doctor
+Blasius, Brunswick]
+
+It is for the intense energy of his line, combined with its unique
+assurance, that Duerer is most remarkable. The same amount of detail, the
+same correctness in the articulation and relation between stem and leaf,
+arm and hand, or what not, might be attained by an insipid workmanship
+with lifeless lines, in patient drudgery. It is this fact that those who
+praise art merely as an imitation constantly forget. There is often as
+much invention in the way details are expressed by the strokes of pen or
+brush, as there could be in the grouping of a crowd; the deftness, the
+economy of the touches, counts for more in the inspiriting effect than
+the truth of the imitation. A photograph from nature never conveys this,
+the chief and most fundamental merit of art. Reynolds says:
+
+Rembrandt, in older to take advantage of an accident, appears often to
+have used the pallet-knife to lay his colours on the canvas instead of
+the pencil. Whether it is the knife or any other instrument, _it
+suffices, if it is something that does not follow exactly the will.
+Accident, in the hands of_ an artist _who knows horn to take the
+advantage of its hints, will often produce bold and capricious beauties
+of handling_, and facility such as he would not have thought of or
+ventured with his pencil, under the regular restraint of his hand.[76]
+
+In such a sketch as the _Memento Mei_, 1505, (_Death_ riding on
+horseback,) all those who have sense for such things will perceive how
+the rough paper, combined with the broken charcoal line, lends itself to
+qualities of a precisely similar nature to those described by Reynolds
+as obtained by Rembrandt's use of the pallet-knife. Yet, just as, in the
+use of charcoal, the "something that does not follow exactly the will"
+is infinitely more subtle than in the use of the palette-knife to
+represent rocks or stumps of trees, so in the pen or silver-point line
+this element, though reduced and refined till it is hardly perceptible,
+still exists, and Duerer takes "the advantage of its hints." And not only
+does he do' this, but he foresees their occurrence, and relies on them
+to render such things as crumpled skin, as in the sketches for Adam's
+hand holding the apple. (Lipp. 234). The operation is so rapid, so
+instantaneous, that it must be called an instinct, or at least a habit
+become second nature, while in the instance chosen by Reynolds, it is
+obvious and can be imagined step by step; but in every case it is this
+capacity to take advantage of the accident, and foresee and calculate
+upon its probable occurrences, that makes the handling of any material
+inventive, bold, and inimitable. It is in these qualities that an artist
+is the scholar of the materials he employs, and goes to school to the
+capacities of his own hand, being taught both by their failure to obey
+his will here, and by their facility in rendering his subtlest
+intentions there. And when he has mastered all they have to teach him,
+he can make their awkwardness and defects expressive; as stammerers
+sometimes take advantage of their impediment so that in itself it
+becomes an element of eloquence, of charm, or even of explicitness;
+while the extra attention rendered enables them to fetch about and dare
+to express things that the fluent would feel to be impossible and
+never attempt.
+
+[Illustration: APOLLO AND DIANA--Pen drawing in the British Museum,
+supposed to show the influence of the Belvedere Apollo]
+
+
+IV
+
+Lastly, it is in his drawings, perhaps, even more than in his copper
+engravings, that Duerer proves himself a master of "the art of seeing
+nature," as Reynolds phrased it; and the following sentence makes clear
+what is meant, for he says of painting "perhaps it ought to be as far
+removed from the vulgar idea of imitation, as the refined, civilised
+state in which we live is removed from a gross state of nature";[77] and
+again: "If we suppose a view of nature, represented with all the truth
+of the camera obscura, and the same scene represented by a great artist,
+how little and how mean will the one appear in comparison of the other,
+where no superiority is supposed from the choice of the subject."[78]
+Not only is outward nature infinitely varied, infinitely composite; but
+human nature--receptive and creative--is so too, and after we have gazed
+at an object for a few moments, we no longer see it the same as it was
+revealed to our first glance. Not only has its appearance changed for
+us, but the effect that it produces on our emotions and intelligence is
+no longer the same. Each successful mind, according to its degree of
+culture, arrives finally at a perception of every class of objects
+presented to it which is most in agreement with its own nature--that is,
+calls forth or nourishes its most cherished energies and efforts, while
+harmonising with its choicest memories. All objects in regard to which
+it cannot arrive at such a result oppress, depress, or even torment it.
+At least this is the case with our highest and most creative moods; but
+every man of parts has a vast range of moods, descending from this to
+the almost vacant contemplation of a cow--the innocence of whose eye,
+which perceives what is before it without transmuting it by recollection
+or creative effort, must appear almost ideal to the up-to-date critic
+who has recently revealed the innocent confusion of his mind in a
+ponderous tome on nineteenth-century art. The art of seeing nature,
+then, consists in being able to recognise how an object appears in
+harmony with any given mood; and the artist must employ his materials to
+suggest that appearance with the least expenditure of painful effort.
+The highest art sees all things in harmony with man's most elevated
+moods; the lowest sees nature much as Dutch painters and cows do. Now we
+can understand what Goethe means when he says that "Albrecht Duerer
+enjoyed the advantages of a profound realistic perception, and an
+affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions." The man who
+continued to feel, after he had become a Lutheran, the beauty of the art
+that honoured the Virgin, the man who cannot help laughing at the most
+"lying, thievish rascals" whenever they talk to him because "they know
+that their knavery is no secret, but 'they don't mind,'" is
+affectionate; he is amused by monkeys and the rhinoceros; he can bear
+with Pirkheimer's bad temper; he looks out of kindly eyes that allow
+their perception of strangeness or oddity to redeem the impression that
+might otherwise have been produced by vice, or uncouthness, or
+sullen frowns.
+
+I have supposed that a realistic perception was one which saw things
+with great particularity; and the words "a profound realistic
+perception" to Goethe's mind probably conveyed the idea of such a
+perception, in profound accord with human nature, that is where the
+human recognition, delight and acceptance followed the perception even
+to the smallest details, without growing weary or failing to find at
+least a hope of significance in them. If this was what the great critic
+meant, those who turn over a collection of Duerer's drawings will feel
+that they are profoundly realistic (realistic in a profoundly human
+sense), and that their author enjoyed an affectionate human sympathy
+with all present conditions; and by these two qualities is infinitely
+distinguished from all possessors of so-called innocent eyes, whether
+quadruped or biped.
+
+It is well to notice wherein this notion of Goethe's differs from the
+conventional notions which make up everybody's criticism. For instance,
+"In all his pictures he confined himself to facts," says Sir Martin
+Conway,[79] and then immediately qualifies this by adding, "He painted
+events as truly as his imagination could conceive them." We may safely
+say that no painter of the first rank has ever confined himself to
+facts. Nor can we take the second sentence as it stands. Any one who
+looks at the _Trinity_ in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna will see at
+once that the artist who painted it did not shut his eyes and try to
+conjure up a vision of the scene to be represented; the ordering of the
+picture shows plainly throughout that a foregone conventional
+arrangement, joined with the convenience of the methods of
+representation to be employed, dictated nearly the whole composition,
+and that the details, costumes, &c., were gradually added, being chosen
+to enhance the congruity or variety of what was already given. Perhaps
+it was never a prime object with Duerer to conceive the event, it was
+rather the picture that he attempted to conceive; it is Rembrandt who
+attempts to conceive events, not Duerer. He is very far from being a
+realist in this sense: though certain of his etchings possess a
+considerable degree of such realism, it is not what characterises him as
+a creator or inventor. But a "profound realistic perception" almost
+unequalled he did possess; what he saw he painted not as he saw it, not
+where he saw it, but as it appeared to him to really be. So he painted
+real girls, plain, ugly or pretty as the case might be, for angels, and
+put them in the sky; but for their wings he would draw on his fancy.
+Often the folds of a piece of drapery so delighted him that they are
+continued for their own sake and float out where there is no wind to
+support them, or he would develop their intricacies beyond every
+possibility of conceivable train or other superfluity of real garments;
+and it is this necessity to be richer and more magnificent than
+probability permits which brings us to the creator in Duerer; not only
+had he a profound realistic perception of what the world was like, but
+he had an imagination that suggested to him that many things could be
+played with, embroidered upon, made handsomer, richer or more
+impressive. When Goethe adds that "he was retarded by a gloomy fantasy
+devoid of form or foundation," we perceive that the great critic is
+speaking petulantly or without sufficient knowledge. Duerer's gloomy
+fantasy, the grotesque element in his pictures and prints, was not his
+own creation, it is not peculiar to him, he accepted it from tradition
+and custom (see Plate "Descent into Hell"). What is really
+characteristic of him is the richness displayed in devils' scales and
+wings, in curling hair or crumpled drapery, or flame, or smoke, or
+cloud, or halo; and, still more particularly, his is the energy of line
+or fertility of invention with which all these are displayed, and the
+dignity or austerity which results from the general proportion of the
+masses and main lines of his composition.
+
+
+V
+
+For the illustration of this volume I have chosen a larger proportion of
+drawings than of any other class of work; both because Duerer's drawings
+are less widely known than his engravings on metal, and because, though
+his fame may perhaps rest almost equally on these latter, and they may
+rightly be considered more unique in character, yet his drawings show
+the splendid creativeness of his handling of materials in greater
+variety. One engraving on copper is like another in the essential
+problem that it offered to the craftsman to resolve; but every different
+medium in which Duerer made drawings, and every variety of surface on
+which he drew, offered a different problem, and perhaps no other artist
+can compare with him in the great variety of such problems which he has
+solved with felicity. And this power of his to modify his method with
+changing conditions is, as we have seen, from the technical side the
+highest and greatest quality that an artist can possess. It only fails
+him when he has to deal with oil paintings, and even there he shows a
+corresponding sense of the nature of the problems involved, if he shows
+less felicity on the whole in solving them; and perhaps could he have
+stayed at Venice and have had the results of Giorgione's and Titian's
+experiments to suggest the right road, we should have been scarcely able
+to perceive that he was less gifted as a painter than as draughtsman. As
+it is, he has given us water-colour sketches in which the blot is used
+to render the foliage of trees in a manner till then unprecedented.
+(Lipp. 132, &c.) He can rival Watteau in the use of soft chalk, Leonardo
+in the use of the pen, and Van Eyck in the use of the brush point; and
+there are examples of every intermediate treatment to form a chain
+across the gulf that separates these widely differing modes of graphic
+expression. There can be no need to point the application of these
+remarks to the individual drawings here reproduced; those who are
+capable of recognising it will do so without difficulty.
+
+[Illustration: AN OLD CASTLE Body-dour drawing at Bremen]
+
+
+VI
+
+In conclusion, Duerer appears as a draughtsman of unrivalled powers. And
+when one looks on his drawings as what they most truly were, his
+preparation for the tasks set him by the conditions of his life, there
+is room for nothing but unmixed admiration. It is only when one asks
+whether those tasks might not have been more worthy of such high gifts
+that one is conscious of deficiency or misfortune. And can one help
+asking whether the Emperor Max might not have given Duerer his Bible or
+his Virgil to illustrate, instead of demanding to have the borders of
+his "Book of Hours" rendered amusing with fantastic and curious
+arabesques; whether Duerer's learned friends, instead of requiring from
+him recondite or ceremonious allegories, might not have demanded
+title-pages of classic propriety; or whether the imperial bent of his
+own imagination might not have rendered their demands malleable, and bid
+them call for a series of woodcuts, engravings or drawings, which could
+rival Rembrandt's etchings in significance of subject-matter and
+imaginative treatment, as they rival them in executive power? In his
+portraits--the large majority of which have come down to us only as
+drawings, the majority of which were never anything else--the demand
+made upon him was worthy; but even here Holbein, a man of lesser gift
+and power, has perhaps succeeded in leaving a more dignified, a more
+satisfying series; one containing, if not so many masterpieces, fewer on
+which an accidental or trivial subject or mood has left its impress.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is Duerer's, not Rembrandt's, not Holbein's
+character, that impresses us as most serious, most worthy to be held as
+a model. It is before his portrait of himself that Mr. Ricketts "forgets
+all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is worthy of the
+occasion." So that we feel bound to attribute our dissatisfaction to
+something in his circumstances having hindered and hampered the flow of
+what was finest in his nature into his work. From Venice he wrote: "I am
+a gentleman here, but only a hanger-on at home." Germany was a better
+home for a great character, a great personality, than for a great
+artist: Duerer the artist was never quite at home there, never a
+gentleman among his peers. The good and solid burghers rated him as a
+good and solid burgher, worth so much per annum; never as endowed with
+the rank of his unique gift. It was only at Venice and Antwerp that he
+was welcomed as the Albert Duerer whom we to-day know, love, and honour.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 75: See the exquisite landscape in the collection of Mr. C. S.
+Ricketts and Mr. C. H. Shannon, reproduced in the sixth folio of the
+Duerer Society, 1903. Mr. Campbell Dodgson describes the drawing as in a
+measure spoilt by retouching, but what convinces him that these
+retouches are not by Duerer? The pen-work seems to be at once too clever
+and too careless to have been added by another hand to preserve a
+fading drawing.]
+
+[Footnote 76: XII. Discourse.]
+
+[Footnote 77: XIII, Discourse.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer, p. I 50.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DUeRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS
+
+
+I
+
+For the artist or designer the chief difference between the engraving
+done on a wood block and that done on metal lies in the thickness of the
+line. The engraved line in a wood block is in relief, that on a metal
+plate is entrenched; the ink in the one case is applied to the crest of
+a ridge, in the other it fills a groove into which the surface of the
+paper is squeezed. Though lines almost as fine as those possible on
+metal have been achieved by wood engravers, in doing this they force the
+nature of their medium, whereas on a copper plate fine lines come
+naturally. Perhaps no section of Duerer's work reveals his unique powers
+so thoroughly as his engravings on metal. They were entirely his own
+work both in design and execution; and no expenditure of pains or
+patience seems to have limited his intentions, or to have hindered his
+execution or rendered it less vital. And perhaps it is this fact which
+witnesses with our spirit and bids us recognise the master: rather than
+the comprehension of natural forms which he evinces, subtle and vigorous
+though it be; or than the symbols and types which he composed from such
+forms for the traditional and novel ideas of his day. And this
+unweariable assiduity of his is continually employed in the discovery
+of very noble arabesques of line and patterns in black and white, more
+varied than the grain in satin wood or the clustering and dispersion of
+the stars. Intensity of application, constancy of purpose, when revealed
+to us by beautifully variegated surfaces, the result of human toil, may
+well impress us, may rightly impress us, more than quaint and antiquated
+notions about the four temperaments, or about witches and their
+sabbaths, or about virtues and vices embodied in misconceptions of the
+characters of pagan divinities, and in legends about them which scholars
+had just begun to translate with great difficulty and very ill. It is
+the astonishing assurance of the central human will for perfection that
+awes us; this perception that flinches at no difficulty, this perception
+of how greatly beauty deserves to be embodied in human creations and
+given permanence to.
+
+
+II
+
+In the encomium which Erasmus wrote of Albert Duerer he dealt, as one
+sees by the passage quoted (p. 186), with Duerer's engraved work almost
+exclusively. Perhaps the great humanist had seen no paintings by Duerer,
+and very likely had heard Duerer himself disparage them, as Melanchthon
+tells us was his wont (p. 187). We know that Duerer gave Erasmus some of
+his engravings, and we may feel sure that he was questioned pretty
+closely as to what were the aims of his art, and wherein he seemed to
+himself to have best succeeded. The sentence I underlined (on p. 186)
+gives us probably some reflection of Duerer's reply. We must remember
+that Erasmus, from his classical knowledge as to how Apelles was
+praised, was full of the idea that art was an imitation, and may
+probably have refused to understand what Duerer may very likely have told
+him in modification of this view; or he may by citing his Greek and
+Latin sources have prevented the reverent Duerer from being outspoken on
+the point. But though most of his praise seems mere literary
+commonplace, the sentence underlined strikes us as having
+another source.
+
+"He reproduces not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also
+observes the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the
+position of it." How one would like to have heard Duerer, as Erasmus may
+probably have heard him, explain the principles on which he composed! No
+doubt there is no very radical difference between his sense of
+composition and that of other great artists. But to hear one so
+preoccupied with explaining his processes to himself discourse on this
+difficult subject would be great gain. For though there are doubtless no
+absolute rules, and the appeal is always to a refined sense for
+proportion,--yet to hear a creator speak of such things is to have this
+sense, as it were, washed and rendered delicate once more. We can but
+regret that Erasmus has not saved us something fuller than this hint. In
+the same way, how tempting is the criticism that Camerarius gives of
+Mantegna,--we feel that Duerer's own is behind it; but as it stands it is
+disjointed and absurd, like some of the incomplete and confused parables
+which give us a glimpse of how much more was lost than was preserved by
+the reporters of the sayings of Jesus. It is the same thing with the
+reported sayings of Michael Angelo, and indeed of all other great men.
+It is impossible to accept "his hand was not trained to follow the
+perception and nimbleness of his mind" as Duerer's dictum on Mantegna;
+but how suggestive is the allusion to "broken and scattered statues set
+up as examples of art," for artists to form themselves upon! Yet the
+fact that Duerer missed coming into contact not only with Mantegna but
+with Titian, Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, is indeed the saddest
+fact in regard to his life. We can well believe that he felt it in
+Mantegna's case. Ah! Why could he not bring himself to accept the
+overtures made to him, and become a citizen of Venice?
+
+
+III
+
+The subjects of these engravings are even generally trivial or
+antiquated, either in themselves or by the way they are approached.
+Perhaps alone among them the figure of Jesus, as it is drawn in the
+various series on copper and wood illustrating the Passion, is conceived
+in a manner which touches us to-day with the directness of a revelation;
+and even this cannot be compared to the same figure in Rembrandt
+etchings and drawings, either for essential adequacy, or for various and
+convincing application. No, we must consent to let the expression "great
+thoughts" drop out of our appreciation of Duerer's works, and be replaced
+by the "great character" latent in them.
+
+However, one among Duerer's engravings on copper stands out from among
+the rest, and indeed from all his works. In the _Melancholy_ the
+composition is not more dignified in its spacing and proportion; the
+arabesque of line is not richer or sweeter, the variations from black to
+white are not more handsome, than in some half dozen of his other
+engravings. No, by its conception alone the _Melancholy_ attains to its
+unique impressiveness. And it is the impressiveness of an image, not the
+impressiveness of an idea or situation, as in the case of the _Knight,
+Death, and the Devil_, by which almost as much bad literature has been
+inspired. There is nothing to choose between the workmanship of the two
+plates; both are absolutely impeccable, and outside the work of Duerer
+himself, unrivalled. The _Melancholy_ is the only creation by a German
+which appears to me to invite and sustain comparison with the works of
+the greatest Italian. In it we have the impressiveness that belongs only
+to the image, the thing conceived for mental vision, and addressed to
+the eye exclusively. If there was an allegory, or if the plate formed
+(as has been imagined) one of a series representative of the four
+temperaments, the eye and the visual imagination are addressed with such
+force and felicity that the inquiries which attempt to answer these
+questions must for ever appear impertinent. They may add some languid
+interest to the contemplation which is sated with admiring the
+impeccable mastery of the Knight; for that plate always seems to me the
+mere illustration of a literary idea, a sheer statement of items which
+require to be connected by some story, and some of which have the crude
+obviousness of folk-lore symbols, without their racy and genial naivety.
+They have not been fused in the rapture of some unique mood, not
+focussed by the intensity of an emotion. With the _Melancholy_ all is
+different; perhaps among all his works only Duerer's most haunting
+portrait of himself has an equal or even similar power to bind us in its
+spell. For this reason I attempt the following comparison between the
+_Sibyls_ of the Sistine Chapel and the _Melancholy_ a comparison which I
+do not suppose to have any other value or force than that of a stimulant
+to the imagination which the works themselves address.
+
+[Illustration: MELANCHOLIA Copper engraving, B. 74]
+
+The impetuosity of his Southern blood drives Michael Angelo to betray
+his intention of impressing in the pose and build of his Sibyls. Large
+and exceptional women, "limbed" and thewed as gods are, with an habitual
+command of gesture, they lift down or open their books or unwind their
+scrolls like those accustomed to be the cynosure of many eyes, who have
+lived before crowds of inferiors, a spectacle of dignity from their
+childhood upwards. On the other hand, the pose and build of the
+_Melancholy_ must have been those of many a matron in Nuremberg. It is
+not till we come to the face that we find traits that correspond with
+the obvious symbolism of the wings and wreath, or the serious richness
+of the black and white effect of the composition; but that face holds
+our attention as not even the Sibylla Delphica cannot by beauty, not by
+conscious inspiration, but by the spell of unanswerable thought, by the
+power to brood, by the patience that can and dare go unresolved for many
+years. Everything is begun about her; she cannot see unto the end; she
+is powerful, she is capable in many works, she has borne children, she
+rests from her labours, and her thought wanders, sleeps or dreams. The
+spirit of the North, with its industry, its cool-headed calculation, its
+abundance in contrivance, its elaboration of duty and accumulation of
+possessions--there she sits, absorbed, unsatisfied. Impetuosity and the
+frank avowal of intention are themselves an expression of the will to
+create that which is desirable; they can but form the habit of every
+artist under happy circumstances. They proceed on the expectation of
+immediate effectiveness, they belong to power in action; while, if
+beauty be not impetuous, she is frank, and adds to the avowal of her
+intention the promise of its fulfilment. The work of art and the artist
+are essentially open; they promise intimacy, and fulfil that promise
+with entirety when successful. Nor is anything so impressive as intimacy
+which implies a perfect sincerity, a complete revelation, a gift without
+reserve, increase without let. But the circumstances of the artist never
+are happy: even Michael Angelo's were not. An intense brooding
+melancholy arises from the repressed and baffled desire to create; and
+in some measure this gloom of failure underlying their success is a
+necessary character of all lovely and spiritual creations in this world.
+Now Michael Angelo's works, because of their Southern impetuosity and
+volubility, are not so instinct with this divine sorrow, this immobility
+of the soul face to face with evil, as is Duerer's _Melancholy_. He
+inspires and exhilarates us more, but takes us out of ourselves rather
+than leads us home.
+
+Here is Duerer's success: let and hindered as it really is, he makes us
+feel the inalienable constancy of rational desire, watching adverse
+circumstance as one beast of prey watches another. She keeps hold on the
+bird she has caught, the ideal that perhaps she will never fully enjoy.
+Michael Angelo pictures for us freedom from trammels, the freedom that
+action, thought and ecstasy give, the freedom that is granted to beauty
+by all who recognise it; Duerer shows us the constancy that bridges the
+intervals between such free hours, that gives continuity to man's
+necessarily spasmodic effort. Thus he typifies for us the Northern
+genius: as Michael Angelo's athletes might typify by their naked beauty
+and the unexplained impressiveness of their gestures, the genius of the
+sudden South--sudden in action, sudden in thought, suddenly mature,
+suddenly asleep--as day changes to night and night to day the more
+rapidly as the tropics are approached.
+
+[Illustration: Detail enlarged from the "Agony in the Garden." Etching on
+Iron, B. 19 _Between_ pp. 250 & 251]
+
+[Illustration: ANGEL WITH THE SUDARIUM Engraving in Iron, 1516. B. 26
+_Between_ pp. 250 & 251]
+
+Instances of the highest imaginative power are rare in Duerer's work. The
+_Melancholy_ has had a world-wide success. The _Knight, Death and the
+Devil_ has one almost equal, but which is based on the facility with
+which it is associated with certain ideas dear to Christian culture,
+rather than on the creation of the mood in which these ideas arise. It
+does not move us until we know that it is an illustration of Erasmus's
+Christian Knight. Then all its dignity and mastery and the supremacy of
+the gifts employed on it are brought into touch with the idea, and each
+admirer operates, according to his imaginativeness, something of the
+transformation which Duerer had let slip or cool down before
+realising it.
+
+
+IV
+
+Among the prints with lesser reputations are several which attain a far
+higher success. There is the iron plate of the _Agony in the Garden,_ B.
+19, already mentioned (p. 235), in which the storm-tortured tree and the
+broken light and shade are full of dramatic power (see illustration),
+the _Angel with the Sudarium_, B. 26, where the arabesque of the folds
+of drapery and cloud unite with the daring invention of the central
+figure to create a mood entirely consonant with the subject. There is
+the woman carried off by a man on an unicorn, in which the turbulence of
+the subject is expressed with unrivalled force by the rich and beautiful
+arabesque and black and white pattern.
+
+B. Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, of the _Little Passion_, on
+copper, are all of them noteworthy successes of more or less the same
+kind; and in these, too, we come upon that racy sense for narration
+which can enhance dramatic import by emphasising some seemingly trivial
+circumstance, as in the gouty stiffness of one of Christ's scourgers in
+the _Flagellation_, or the abnormal ugliness of the man who with such
+perfect gravity holds the basin while Pilate _washes his hands:_ while
+in the _Crown of Thorns_ and _Descent into Hades_ we have peculiarly
+fine and suitable black and white patterns, and in the _Peter and John
+at the Beautiful Gate_[80] and the _Ecce Homo_ figures of monumental
+dignity in tiny gems of glowing engraver's work. The repose and serenity
+of the lovely little _St. Antony_;[81] the subsidence of commotion in
+the noonday victory of the little _St. George on foot_, B. 53--perhaps
+the most perfect diamond in the whole brilliant chain of little plates,
+or the staid naivety of the enchanting _Apollo and Diana_, B. 68;[82]
+who shall prefer among these things? Every time we go through them we
+choose out another until we return to the most popular and slightly
+obvious _St. George on Horseback_, B. 54. Next come the dainty series of
+little plates in honour of Our Lady the Mother of God, commencing before
+Duerer made a rule of dating his plates; before 1503 and continuing till
+after 1520, in which the last are the least worthy. Among these the
+Virgin embracing her Child at the foot of a tree, B. 34, dated 1513; The
+Virgin standing on the crescent moon, her baby in one arm, her sceptre
+in the other hand and the stars of her crown blown sideways as she bows
+her head, B. 32, dated 1516, and the stately and monumental Virgin
+seated by a wall, B. 40, dated 1514, are at present my favourites. And
+to these succeeded the noble army of Apostles and Martyrs of which the
+more part are dated from 1521 to 1526, though two, B. 48 and 50, fall as
+early as 1514.
+
+[Illustration: THE SMALL HORSE--Copper Engraving, B. 96]
+
+Then amongst the most perfect larger plates I cannot refrain from
+mentioning the _St. Jerome_, B. 60, with its homely seclusion as of
+Duerer's own best parlour in summer time which not even the presence of a
+lion can disturb; the idyllic and captivating _St. Hubert_, B. 57; the
+august and tranquil _Cannon_, B. 99: and lastly, perhaps, in the little
+_Horse_, B. 96, we come upon a theme and motive of the kind best suited
+to Duerer's peculiar powers, in which he produces an effect really
+comparable to those of the old Greek masters, about whose lost works he
+was so eager for scraps of information, and whose fame haunted him even
+into his slumbers, so that he dreamed of them and of those who should
+"give a future to their past." This delightful work may illustrate an
+allegory now grown dark or some misconception of a Grecian story; but
+though the relation between the items that compose it should remain for
+ever unexplained, its beauty, like that of some Greek sculpture that has
+been admired under many names, continues its spell, and speaks of how
+the simplicity, austerity and noble proportions of classical art were
+potent with the spirit of the great Nuremberg artist, and occasionally
+had free way with him, in spite of all there was in his circumstances
+and origins to impede or divert them. (See also the spirited drawing,
+Lipp. 366.)
+
+
+V
+
+It would be idle to attempt to say something about every masterpiece in
+Duerer's splendidly copious work on metal plates. There is perhaps not
+one of these engravings that is not vital upon one side or another,
+amazingly few that are not vital upon many. One other work, however,
+which has been much criticised and generally misunderstood, it may be as
+well to examine at more length, especially as it illustrates what was
+often Duerer's practice in regard to his theories about proportion, with
+which my next Part will deal. I speak of the _Great Fortune_ or
+_Nemesis_ (B. 77). His practice at other times is illustrated by the
+splendid _Adam and Eve_ (B. 1), over the production of which the nature
+of the canon he suggested was perhaps first thoroughly worked out. But
+before this and afterwards too he no doubt frequently followed the
+advice he gives in the following passage.
+
+To him that setteth himself to draw figures according to this book, not
+being well taught beforehand, the matter will at first become hard. Let
+him then put a man before him, who agreeth, as nearly as may be, _with
+the proportions he desireth_; and let him draw him in outline according
+to his knowledge and power. And a man is held to have done well if he
+attain accurately to copy a figure according to the life, so that his
+drawing resembleth the figure and is like unto nature. _And in
+particular if the thing copied as beautiful; then is the copy held to be
+artistic_, and, as it deserveth, it is highly praised.
+
+Duerer himself would seem to have very often followed his own advice in
+this. The _Great Fortune_ or Nemesis is a case in point. The remarks of
+critics on this superb engraving are very strange and wide. Professor
+Thausing said, "Embodied in this powerful female form, the Northern
+worship of nature here makes its first conscious and triumphant
+appearance in the history of art." With the work of the great Jan Van
+Eyck in one's mind's eye, of course this will appear one of those
+little lapses of memory so convenient to German national sentiment.
+"Everything that, according to our aesthetic formalism based on the
+antique, we should consider beautiful, is sacrificed to truth." (I have
+already pointed out that this use of the word "truth" in matters of art
+constitutes a fallacy)[83] "And yet our taste must bow before the
+imperishable fidelity to nature displayed in these forms, the fulness of
+life that animates these limbs." Of course, "imperishable fidelity to
+nature" and "taste that bows before it" are merely the figures of a
+clumsy rhetoric. But the idea they imply is one of the most common of
+vulgar errors in regard to works of art. In the first place one must
+remind our enthusiastic German that it is an engraving and not a woman
+that we are discussing; and that this engraving is extremely beautiful
+in arabesque and black and white pattern, rich, rhythmical and
+harmonious; and that there is no reason why our taste should be violated
+in having to bow submissively before such beauties as these, which it is
+a pleasure to worship. Now we come to the subject as presented to the
+intelligence, after the quick receptive eye has been satiated with
+beauty. Our German guide exclaims, "Not misled by cold definite rules of
+proportion, he gave himself up to unrestrained realism in the
+presentation of the female form." Our first remark is, that though the
+treatment of this female form may perhaps be called realistic, this
+adjective cannot be made to apply to the figure as a whole. This
+massively built matron is winged; she stands on a small globe suspended
+in the heavens, which have opened and are furled up like a garment in a
+manner entirely conventional. She carries a scarf which behaves as no
+fabric known to me would behave even under such exceptional and
+thrilling circumstances.
+
+Dr. Carl Giehlow has recently suggested that this splendid engraving
+illustrates the following Latin verses by Poliziano:
+
+  Est dea, quse vacuo sublimis in aere pendens
+  It nimbo succincta latus, sed candida pallam,
+  Sed radiata comam, ac stridentibus insonat alis.
+  Haec spes immodicas premit, haec infesta superbis
+  Imminet, huic celsas hominum contundere mentes
+  Incessusque datum et nimios turbare paratus.
+  Quam veteres Nemesin genitam de nocte silenti
+  Oceano discere patri. Stant sidera fronti.
+  Frena manu pateramque gerit, semperque verendum
+  Ridet et insanis obstat contraria coeptis.
+  Improba vota domans ac summis ima revolvens
+  Miscet et alterna nostros vice temperat actus.
+  Atque hue atque illuc ventorum turbine fertur.
+
+There is a goddess, who, aloft in the empty air, advances girdled about
+with a cloud, but with a shining white cloak and a glory in her hair,
+and makes a rushing with her wings. She it is who crushes extravagant
+hopes, who threatens the proud, to whom is given to beat down the
+haughty spirit and the haughty step, and to confound over-great
+possessions. Her the men of old called Nemesis, born to Ocean from the
+womb of silent Night. Stars stand upon her forehead. In her hand she
+bears bridles and a chalice, and smiles for ever with an awful smile,
+and stands resisting mad designs. Turning to nought the prayers of the
+wicked and setting the low above the high she puts one in the other's
+place and rules the scenes of life with alternation. And she is borne
+hither and thither on the wings of the whirlwind.
+
+If this suggestion is a good one it shows us that Duerer was no more
+consistently literal than he was realistic. The most striking features
+of his illustration are just those to which his text offers no
+counterpart, i.e., the nudity and physical maturity of his goddess.
+Neither has he girdled her about with cloud nor stood stars upon her
+forehead. I must confess that I find it hard to believe that there was
+any close connection present to his mind between his engraving and
+these verses.
+
+In a former chapter I have spoken of the fashion in female dress then
+prevalent; how it underlined whatever is most essential in the physical
+attributes of womanhood, and how probably something of good taste is
+shown in this fashion (see pp. 92 and 93). What I there said will
+explain Duerer's choice in this matter; and also that what Thausing felt
+bow in him was not taste, but his prejudices in regard to womanly
+attractiveness, and his misconception as to where the beauty of an
+engraving should be looked for and in what it consists. These same
+prejudices and misconceptions render Mrs. Heaton (as is only natural in
+one of the weaker sex) very bold. She says, "A large naked winged woman,
+whose ugliness is perfectly repulsive." This object, I must confess,
+appears to me, a coarse male, "welcome to contemplation of the mind and
+eye." The splendid Venus in Titian's _Sacred and Profane Love_, or his
+_Ariadne_ at Madrid; or Raphael's _Galatea_; or Michael Angelo's _Eve_
+(on the Sistine vault) are all of them doubtless far more akin to the
+_Aphrodite_ of Praxiteles, or to her who crouches in the Louvre, than is
+this _Nemesis_; but we must not forget that they are works on a scale
+more comparable with a marble statue; and that in works of which the
+scale is more similar to that of our engraving, Greek taste was often
+far more with Duerer than with Thausing. This is an important point,
+though one which is rarely appreciated. However, there is no reason why
+we should condemn "misled by cold definite rules of taste" even such
+pictures as Rembrandt's _Bathing Woman_ in the Louvre, though here the
+proportions of the work are heroic. Oil painting was an art not
+practised by the Greeks, and this medium lends itself to beauties which
+their materials put entirely out of reach. Besides, Rembrandt appealed
+to an audience who had been educated by Christian ideals to appreciate a
+pathos produced by the juxtaposition of the fact with the ideal, and of
+the creature with the creator, to appeal to which a Greek would have had
+to be far more circumspect in his address--even if he had, through an
+exceptional docility and receptiveness of character, come under its
+influence himself. These considerations when apprehended will, I
+believe, suffice to dispel both prejudice and misconception in regard to
+this matter; and we shall find in Professor Thausing's remarks relative
+to the treatment of the "female form divine" in this engraving no
+additional reason for considering it a comparatively early work. And we
+shall only smile when he tells us "The _Nemesis_ to a certain _degree_
+(sic) marks the extreme _point_ (sic) reached by Duerer in his unbiased
+study of the nude. His further progress became more and more influenced
+by his researches into the proportions of the human body." The bias will
+appear to us of rather more recent date, and we shall be ready to
+consider with an open mind how far Duerer's practice was influenced for
+good or evil by his researches into the proportions of the human body.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 80: See page 258.]
+
+[Footnote 81: See page 260.]
+
+[Footnote 82: See Frontispiece.]
+
+[Footnote 83: See page 19.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DUeRER'S WOODCUTS
+
+It is now generally accepted that Duerer did not himself engrave on wood.
+In his earliest blocks he shows a greater respect for the limitations of
+this means of expression than later on. The earliest wood blocks, though
+no doubt they aimed at being facsimiles, were not such in fact; but the
+engraver took certain liberties for his own convenience, and probably
+did not attempt to render what Duerer calls "the hand" of the designer.
+"The hand" was equivalent to what modern artists call "the touch," and
+meant the peculiar character recognisable in the vast majority of the
+strokes or marks which each artist uses in drawing or painting. Duerer
+affected extremely curved and rapid strokes, Mantegna the deliberate
+straight line, Rembrandt the straight stroke used so as to seem a
+continual improvisation; though indeed he varies the character of his
+touch more continually and more vastly than any other master, yet in his
+drawings and etchings the majority of the strokes are straight. Already
+in the woodcuts provided by Michael Wolgemut, Duerer's master, to
+illustrate books, there is a general attempt to render cross hatching:
+and the eyes and hair, though still those of an engraver, are
+frequently modified to some extent in deference to the character given
+by the draughtsman. Still, no one with practical experience would
+consider these woodcuts as adequate facsimiles: which makes the question
+of their attribution to Wolgemut, or his partner and step-son,
+Pleydenwurff, of still less interest and importance than it is on all
+other grounds. So conscious an exception as the soul of the accurate
+Albert Duerer was, could not be expected to endure a partner in his
+creations, especially one whose character was revealed chiefly by the
+clumsy compromises convenient to lack of skill. Doubtless the demand for
+"his hand" was a new factor in the education of the engraver, as
+constant and as imperturbable as the action of a copious stream, which,
+having its source in lonely heights, wears a channel through the hardest
+rock, the most sullen soils. It may have been the pitiless tyranny of
+the master's will for perfection which drove Hieronymus Andreae, "the
+most famous of Duerer's wood engravers," into religious and even civil
+rebellion, joining hands with levelling fanatics and taking active part
+in the Peasant War. Duerer probably would have commanded too much
+reverence and affection for these rebellions to be directed against him;
+but an insupportably heavy yoke is not rendered lighter because it is
+imposed by a loved hand,--though every other burden and restraint may in
+such a case be shaken off and resented before that which is the real
+cause of oppression. Duerer's wood cutters had no doubt to resign any
+indolence, any impatience, or whatever else it might be that had
+otherwise stamped a personal character on their work; and all
+remonstrance must have been shamed by the evident fact that the young
+master spared himself not a whit more. The perseverance and docility
+which made such engraving possible was perhaps the greatest aid that
+Duerer drew from German character; it was not only an aid, but an example
+to and restraint upon that haughty spirit of his that restively ever
+again vows never to take so much pains over another picture to be so
+poorly paid (see page 103); that complains of failure and discouragement
+after years of repeatedly more world-wide successes (see page 187).
+These are not German traits, but it may have been the German blood he
+inherited from his mother and the example of his friends,
+fellow-workers, and helpers, which enabled him to get the better of such
+petulant and gloomy outbursts, and return to the day of small things
+with the will to continue and endure.
+
+The difference introduced by the engravers becoming more and more
+capable of rendering Duerer's hand is well illustrated by comparing the
+frontispiece to the _Apocalypse_, added about 1511, with the other cuts
+which had appeared in 1498. Doubtless Duerer's hand had changed its
+character considerably during this period of constant and rapid
+development, and it requires tact and knowledge to separate the
+differences due to the creator from those due to the engraver. Duerer's
+drawings differed as widely from the earlier drawings as does the
+engraving from the earlier blocks. But, as we may see by early drawings
+done as preliminary studies for engravings, the method of his pen
+strokes had changed less than the character of the forms they rendered;
+the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than
+the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by
+1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the
+stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap
+and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface
+of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the
+radiance of the Virgin's glory). Holbein, later on, was to obtain a yet
+more wonderful fidelity from Lutzelburger, the engraver of his _Dunce
+of Death_.
+
+Still it were misleading to suppose that Duerer's disregard for the
+facilities and limitations of wood-cutting went the lengths that the
+demands made upon modern skill have gone. Not only has the line been
+reproduced, but it has been drawn not with a full pen or brush, but in
+pencil or with watered ink; and the delicate tones thus produced have
+been demanded of and rendered by human skill. Duerer always uses a clear
+definite stroke; and in thus limiting himself he shows an appreciation
+of the medium to be used in reproducing his drawing, and recognises its
+limits to a large extent, though this is the only limitation he accepts.
+Less and less does he consider the possibilities which engraving offers
+for the use of a white line on black Doing his drawing with a black
+line, he contents himself with the qualities that the resources and
+facilities of the full pen line give: and his design is for a drawing
+which can be cut on wood, not for something that first really exists in
+the print; the prints are copies of his drawings. His drawings were not
+prepared to receive additions in the course of cutting, such as could
+only be rendered by the engraver. Faithfulness was the only virtue he
+required of Hieronymus Andreae. Yet even in such drawings as Duerer's no
+doubt were, there would have been some qualities, some defects perhaps,
+that the print does not possess. For a print, from the mode of inking,
+has a breadth and unity which the drawing never can have. Even in
+drawings made with full flowing brush or pen, there will be
+modulations in the strength of the ink, or occasioned by the surface of
+the wood or paper, in every stroke, by which the, sensitive artist in
+the heat of work cannot help being influenced, and which will lead him
+to give a bloom, a delicacy, to his drawing, such as a print can never
+possess. And, on the other hand, the unity of the print can never be
+quite realised in the drawing, however much the artist may strive to
+attain it, because the conditions must change, however slightly, for
+strokes produced in succession; while in a print all are produced
+together, and variations, if variations there are, occur over wide
+spaces and not between stroke and stroke. It is considerations, of this
+kind that in the last resort determine the quality of works of art. The
+artist is taught, though often unconsciously, by the means he employs,
+but the diligent man who is not by nature an artist never can learn
+these things: he can Imitate the manner and form, never the grace, the
+bloom, and the life.
+
+[Illustration: THE APOCALYPSE, 1498 St. Michael fighting the Dragon,
+Woodcut, B. 72 From the impression in the British Museum Face p. 262]
+
+
+II
+
+Duerer's first important issue of woodcuts was the _Apocalypse_. A great
+deal has been written in praise of this production as a political
+pamphlet against the corrupt Papacy. It was undoubtedly the most
+important series of woodcuts that had ever appeared, by the size, number
+and elaboration of the designs. It also undoubtedly attacks
+ecclesiastical corruption, but not ecclesiastical only. Whether to Duerer
+and his friends it appeared even chiefly directed against prelates, or
+even against those who sat in high places; whether the popes, bishops
+and figures typical of the Church seemed to him to illustrate the moral
+in any pre-eminent degree, may be doubted. Still more doubtful is it
+whether there was any objection to papacy or priesthood as institutions
+connected with these figures in his mind. Unworthy popes, unworthy
+bishops, and an unworthy Rome were censured: but not popes, bishops, or
+Rome as the capital see of the Church. Duerer's work as a whole shows no
+distaste for saints, the Virgin, or bishops and popes; he had no
+objection, no scruple apparently, to introducing the notorious Julius
+II. into his _Feast of the_ Rosary, some ten years later. There has
+perhaps been a tendency to read the intention of these designs too much
+in the light of after events: and by so doing a great slur is cast on
+Duerer's consistency; for, had these designs the significance read into
+them, he must be supposed an altogether convinced enemy of the Church;
+and the tremendous salaams which he afterwards made to her in far more
+important works ought, to logical minds, to appear horribly insincere.
+
+Viewed as works of art, one reads about the cut of the four riders upon
+horses, "For simple grandeur this justly famous design has never been
+surpassed." One's sense of proportion receives such a shock as gives one
+the sensation of being utterly outcast, in a world where such a precious
+dictum can pass without remark as a sample of the discrimination of the
+chief authority on the life and art of Albert Duerer. Neither simple nor
+grand is an adjective applicable to this print in the sense in which we
+apply it to the chief masterpieces of antiquity and of the Renaissance.
+To say even that Duerer never surpassed this design is to utter what to
+me at least seems the most palpable absurdity. There is an immense
+advance in design, in conception and in mastery of every kind shown over
+the best prints of the _Apocalypse_ and _Great Passion_, in the
+prints added to the latter series ten years later, and still more in the
+_Life of the Virgin_. And still finer results are arrived at in single
+cuts of later date, and in the _Little Passion_. If we want to see what
+Duerer's woodcuts at their finest are for breadth and dignity of
+composition, for richness and fertility of arabesque and black and white
+pattern, for vigour and subtlety of form, for boldness and vivacity of
+workmanship, we must turn to the _Samson_ (1497?) (B. 2), the Man's
+_Bath_ (14-?), (B. 128), among the earlier blocks published before the
+_Apocalypse_, then to those designed in or about the year 1511. The
+golden period for Duerer's woodcuts, the date of the publication of his
+most magnificent series, the _Life of the Virgin_ and several delightful
+separate prints. Among these we find it hard to choose, but if some must
+be mentioned let it be the _St. Joachim's Offering Rejected by the High
+Priest_ (B. 77), the _Meeting at the Golden Gate_ (B. 79) (see
+illustration), the _Marriage of the Virgin_ (B. 82), the _Visitation_
+(B. 84), the _Nativity_ (B. 85) (see illustration), the _Presentation_
+(B. _55_), the _Flight into Egypt_ (B. 89).
+
+[Illustration: Detail enlarged from "Nativity."--"Life of the Virgin"
+Woodcut, B. 85]
+
+[Illustration: Enlarged detail from "The Embrace of St. Joachim and St.
+Anne at the Golden Gate."--"Life of the Virgin," Woodcut, B. 79]
+
+In the glorious masterpieces of this series Duerer has found the true
+balance of his powers. The dignity and charm of the decorative effect of
+these cuts has never been surpassed; and to the racy narrative vivacity
+of such groups and figures as those isolated and enlarged in our
+illustration there is added an idyllic charm of which perhaps the best
+examples are the _Visitation_ and the _Flight into Egypt_. This
+sweetness of allure is still more pervasive in the separate cuts that
+bear this golden date, 1511, that is in the _St. Christopher_ (B. 103),
+and the _St. Jerome_ (B. 114). And the _Adoration of the Magi_ (B. 3) is
+much finer than the one included in the _Life of the Virgin_. This
+idyllic charm had already been touched _upon before_ in the _Assumption
+of the Magdalen_ (B. 121) (15?), and in the _St. Antony_ and _St. Paul_
+and the _Baptist_ and _St. Onuphrius of_ 1504. It is not felt to lie
+very deep in the conception of the subject, for all are treated in an
+obviously conventional manner, the touches of racy realism being
+confined to subordinate incidents and details. Neither the subjects nor
+the mood of the artist lend themselves to the dramatic impressiveness of
+such cuts as the _Blowing of the Sixth Trumpet_ or the _St. Michael
+overwhelming the Dragon of the Apocalypse_ (_see_ page 262), where the
+inspiration appears to be Gothic, perhaps developed under the influence
+of Mantegna's _Combat between Sea Monsters_, of which Duerer early made
+an elaborate pen-and-ink copy. We find an aftermath of the same
+inspiration in the engraving on iron, dated 1516, representing a man
+riding astride of an unicorn carrying off a shrieking woman. Such stormy
+and strenuous lowerings of the imagination break in upon Duerer's
+habitual mood as St. Peter's thunders into Milton's "Lycidas," of which
+the general felicitous mingling of a conventional pedantry with idyllic
+charm and racy touches of realistic effect is very similar to the
+general effect of the golden group we have been describing. Among all
+the work that finds its climax in the beautiful creations of 1511, only
+in a few prints of the _Little Passion_, published in 1511, do we find
+any dramatic power or creativeness of essential conception. I may
+mention the _Christ Scourging the Money-changers in the Temple_, the
+_Agony in the Garden_, and Judas' _Kiss_, where, though the general
+effect be rather confused, the central figure is full of appropriate
+power. _Christ haled by the hair before_ _Annas_ (the most wonderful
+of all), Christ before _Pilate_, Christ _Mocked_, the _Ecce Homo_ (a
+most beautiful composition), the Veronica's napkin incident, _Christ_
+being nailed _to the Cross_ (a masterpiece), the _Deposition_, the
+_Entombment_:--several others of the series have idyllic charm or
+touches of narrative force which link them with the general group, but
+these alone stand out and in some ways surpass it. After this date Duerer
+seems in a great measure to have relinquished wood for metal engraving;
+however, most of his occasional resumptions of the process were marked
+by the production of masterpieces, if we put on one side the workshop
+monsters produced for Maximilian--and even in these, in details, Duerer's
+full force is recognisable. I may mention the _Madonna_ crowned and
+_worshipped by a concert of Angels_, 1518 (B. 101), which, though a
+little cold, like all the work of that period, is still a masterpiece;
+and then, after the inspiriting visit to Antwerp, we have the
+magnificent portrait of Ulrich Varnbueler, 1522 (B. 155), the _Last
+Supper_, 1523 (B. 53) (see illustration here), and the glorious piece of
+decoration representing Duerer's Arms, 1523 (B. 160) (see illustration).
+I have reproduced less of Duerer's wood engravings than would be
+necessary to represent their importance and beauty, because most, being
+large and bold, are greatly impoverished by reduction; besides, they are
+nearly all well known through comparatively cheap reproductions. I have
+enlarged two details to give an idea of Duerer's workmanship when
+employed upon racy realism (see illustration, page 264), and when
+employed in endowing a single figure with supreme grace and dignity (see
+illustration, page 265).
+
+[Illustration: Christ haled before Annas From the "Little
+Passion"--_Between_ pp. 266 & 267]
+
+[Illustration: DUeRER'S ARMORIAL BEARINGS Woodcut, B. 160]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DUeRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES
+
+I
+
+
+Before closing this part of my book something must be said of Duerer's
+influence on other artists. It is one of the foibles of modern criticism
+to please itself by tracing influences, a process of the same nature as
+that of tracing resemblances to ferns and other growths on a frosted
+pane. No one would deny that resemblances are there; it is to
+distinguish them and estimate their significance without yielding to
+fancifulness, which is the well-nigh hopeless task. It is often
+forgotten that similar circumstances produce similar effects, and that
+coincidences from this cause are very rife. Then, too, it is forgotten
+that the influence that produces rivalry is stronger, more important,
+and less easily estimated, than that which is expressed by imitation or
+plagiarism; besides, it affects more original and fertile natures. The
+stimulus of a great creative personality often is more potent where
+discernible resemblances are few and vague, than where they are many and
+obvious. In Duerer's day the study and imitation of antique art which had
+brought about the Renascence in Italy was the fashion that in successive
+waves was passing over Europe and moulding the future. He himself felt
+it, and welcomed it now as an authority not to be gainsaid, and again
+as an example to be competed against and surpassed. This fashion, this
+trend of opinion and hope, was the significance behind the effect
+produced on him by Jacopo de' Barbari, whose charming but ineffectual
+originality succeeded merely in creating an eddy in that stream. It was
+the tide behind him which so powerfully stirred and stimulated Duerer.
+The resemblances traceable between certain still life studies by the two
+men, or even in figures of their engravings, is insignificant compared
+with the fact that through Jacopo Duerer probably first felt the energy
+and true direction of the great tidal waves which were then rolling
+forth from Italy. Even Mantegna's influence was probably less the effect
+of a personal affinity than that through him a power streamed direct
+from the antique dawn. This great and master influence of those days was
+more one of hope, indefinite, incomprehensible, visionary, than one of
+knowledge and assured discovery. Raphael may have received it from
+Duerer, as well as Duerer from Bellini. Figures and incidents from Duerer's
+engravings are supposed to have been adapted in certain works, if not of
+his own hand at least proceeding from his immediate pupils. For Raphael,
+Duerer was a proof of the excellence of human nature in respect to the
+arts, even when it could not form itself on the immediate study and
+contemplation of antiques, and thus added to the zest and expectation
+with which he improved himself in that direction. These great men did
+not distinguish clearly between pregnancy due to their own efforts, that
+of their contemporaries and immediate predecessors, and that due to
+their more mystic passion for antiquity. Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Correggio were destined to be the signets by which this great power was
+to be most often and clearly stamped on the work of future artists.
+From the unhappy location of his life Duerer was debarred from any such
+obvious and overwhelming effect on after generations. The influences
+which helped to shape him were no doubt at work on all the more eminent
+artists, his fellow-countrymen; on Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Burgkmair,
+Lucas Cranach, or Baldung Grien, to mention only the elect. What the
+stimulus of his achievements, of his renown, meant for these men we have
+no means of computing; yet we may feel sure that it was vastly more
+important and significant than any actual traces of imitation or
+plagiarism from his works, which can with difficulty and for the more
+part very doubtfully be brought home to them;--vastly more important and
+significant too we may be sure than his effect upon his pupils and other
+more or less obscure painters, engravers, and block designers, in whose
+work actual imitation or adaption of his creations is more certain and
+more abundant. His pictures, plates, and woodcuts were copied both in
+Italy and in the North, both as exercises for the self-improvement of
+artists and to supply a demand for even secondhand reflections of his
+genius and skill. He was not destined to lend the impress of his
+splendid personality to the tide of fashion like the great Italians;
+their influence was to supersede his even in the North.
+
+This is obvious: but who shall compare or estimate the accession of
+force which the tide as a whole gained from him, or that more latent
+power which begins to be disengaged from the reserve and lack of proper
+issue from which he evidently suffered, now that the great tide of the
+Renaissance has spent its mighty onrush and become merged in the
+constant movement of life--that power by which he moves us to
+commiserate his circumstances and to feel after the more and better,
+which we cannot doubt that he might have given us had he been more
+happily situated?
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER Woodcut, p. 53]
+
+
+II
+
+Only to compare the value of Michael Angelo's sonnets with that of the
+doggerel rhymes which Duerer produced, may give us some idea of the
+portentous inferiority in Duerer's surroundings to those of the great
+Italian. Both borrow the general idea of the subject, treatment, and
+form of their poems from the fashion around them. But that fashion in
+Michael Angelo's case called for elevated subject, intimate and
+imaginative treatment, and adequacy of form, whereas none of these were
+called for from Albrecht Duerer; and if his friends laughed at the
+rudeness of his verses, it was not that they themselves conceived of
+anything more adequate in these respects, only something more scholarly,
+more pedantic. Michael Angelo's verse was often crabbed and rude, but
+the scholarship and pedantry of Italy forbore to laugh at that rudeness,
+because a more adequate standard made them recognise its vital power and
+noble passion as of higher importance to true success. Still, in the
+following rhymes, Duerer shows himself a true child of the Renascence, at
+least in intention; and was proud of a desire for universal excellence.
+
+When I received this from Lazarus Spengler, I made him the following
+poem in reply (Mrs. Heaton's translation):
+
+  In Nuernberg it is known full well
+  A man of letters now doth dwell,
+  One of our Lord's most useful men,
+  He is so clever with his pen,
+  And others knows so well to hit,
+  And make ridiculous with wit;
+  And he has made a jest of me,
+  Because I made some poetry,
+  And of True Wisdom something wrote,
+  But as he likes my verses not,
+  He makes a laughing stock of me,
+  And says I'm like the Cobbler, he
+  Who criticised Apelles' art.
+  With this he tries to make me smart,
+  Because he thinks it is for me
+  To paint, and not write poetry.
+  But I have undertaken this
+  (And will not stop for him or his),
+  To learn whatever thing I can,
+  For which will blame me no wise man.
+  For he who only learns one thing,
+  And to naught else his mind doth bring,
+  To him, as to the notary,
+  It haps, who lived here as do we,
+  In this our town. To him was known
+  To write one form and one alone.
+  Two men came to him with a need
+  That he should draw them up a deed;
+  And he proceeded very well,
+  Until their names he came to spell:
+  Gotz was the first name that perplexed,
+  And Rosenstammen was the next.
+  The Notary was much astonished,
+  And thus his clients he admonished,
+  "Dear friends," he said, "you must be wrong,
+  These names don't to my form belong;
+  Franz and Fritz[84] I know full well,
+  But of no others have heard tell."
+  And so he drove away his clients,
+  And people mocked his little science.
+  To me that it may hap not so,
+  Something of all things I will know.
+  Not only writing will I do,
+  But learn to practise physic too;
+  Till men surprised will say, "Beshrew me,
+  What good this painter's medicines do me!"
+  Therefore hear and I will tell
+  Some wise receipts to keep you well.
+  A little drop of alkali,
+  Is good to put into the eye;
+  He who finds it hard to hear,
+  Should mandel-oil put in his ear;
+  And he who would from gout be free,
+  Not wine but water drink should he;
+  He who would live to be a hundred,
+  Will see my counsel has not blundered.
+  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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 84: Equivalent to our John Doe and Richard Roe.]
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+DUeRER'S IDEAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE
+
+Duerer often painted the Virgin's head as a mere exercise or example in
+those proportion studies with which we must presently deal.
+
+Sir W. M. CONWAY, in "Duerer's Literary Remains," p. 151.
+
+As soon as he comes to speak of the very essence of artistic work, he
+forgets theories and imitations of the antique; he knows nothing of
+composition from fragments of Nature, of measurements and speculations.
+No longer trusting to such aids as these, but launching himself boldly
+on the broad stream of Nature, he believes that he shall attain to a
+higher harmony in his work.
+
+THAUSING'S "Albert Duerer," vol. ii., p. 318.
+
+
+I
+
+The idea of a canon for human proportions has proved a great
+stumbling-block for so-called classical or academic artists. It is
+usually taken to mean an absolutely right or harmonious proportion, any
+deviation from which cannot fail to result in a diminution of beauty.
+According to their thoroughness, the devotees of this idea seek to
+arrive at such a scale of proportions for a varying number of different
+ages in either sex; often even modifying this again for diverse types,
+as tall or short, fat or lean, dark or blonde, but allowing no excessive
+variation for these causes; so that abnormally tall people and dwarfs
+are not considered. This is, I take it, what the great artist Albert
+Duerer is generally taken to have been aiming at in his books on
+proportion. It will not be difficult, I think, to show that Duerer had
+quite a different idea of what a canon of proportion should be, and how
+it should be applied. And certainly, had it been possible to study Greek
+practice more closely, and in a larger number of examples, when this
+idea (supposed to be drawn from that source) was chiefly mooted, a very
+different notion of the canon of proportion would have been forced on
+the most academical of theorists. Duerer's great superiority over such
+academical masters is, that his idea of a canon of proportion and its
+use agrees far better with what was apparently Greek practice.
+
+Any one who has followed at all the interesting attempts made by
+Professor Furtwaengler and others to group together, by attention to the
+measurements of the different parts of the figure, works belonging to
+the different masters, schools, and centres, will have perceived that he
+is led to assume a traditional canon of proportion from which a master
+deviates slightly in the direction of some bias of his own mind towards
+closer knit or more slim figures; such variations being in the earlier
+stages very slight. Again, it is supposed that from the canon followed
+by a master, different pupils may branch off in opposite directions
+according to the leanings of their personal sentiment for beauty. The
+conception of these ramifications has at least created the hope that
+critics may follow them through a great number of complications, since
+a master may modify his canon--after certain pupils have already struck
+out for themselves, and new pupils may start from his modified canon;
+and so on into an infinite criss-cross of branches, as any sculptor may
+be influenced to modify his canon by his fellows or by the masters of
+other schools whose work he comes across later. In any case, this main
+fact arises, that the canon appears as what the artist deviated from,
+not what he abided by: and any one who has any feeling for the infinite
+nicety of the results obtained by Greek sculptors will easily apprehend
+that each masterpiece established a new and slightly different canon,
+and was then in the position to be in its turn again deviated from, as
+Flaubert says:
+
+"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved."
+
+"Chayue ceuvre a faire a sa poetique en soi, qu'il faut trouver."
+
+
+II
+
+The same thing is asserted by literary critics to have been the cause of
+the repetition of subjects in Greek tragedy, and to have resulted in the
+infinite niceties of their forms, which are never the same and never
+radically new.
+
+The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded stood,
+before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the
+spectator's mind; it stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly
+seen, at the end of a long dark vista. Then came the poet, embodying
+outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment
+capriciously thrown in. Stroke upon stroke, the drama proceeded; the
+light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the
+riveted gaze of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were
+spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of
+immortal beauty.
+
+This passage from Matthew Arnold's deservedly famous preface well
+emphasises one advantage that a tradition of subject and treatment gave
+to the Greek poet as to the Greek sculptor: the economy of means it made
+possible, "not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown
+in,"--since every deviation from, every addition to, the traditional
+story and treatment, was immediately appreciated by an audience
+thoroughly conversant with that tradition, and often with several
+previous masterpieces treating it. By merely leaving out an incident, or
+omitting to appeal to a sentiment, a Greek tragedian could flood his
+whole work with a new significance. So that the temptation to be
+eccentric, the temptation to hit too hard or at random because he was
+not sure of exactly where the mind stood that he would impress, did not
+exist in anything like the same degree for him as it did for Shakespeare
+and Michael Angelo as it does for romantic and origina natures to-day.
+The absence of a sufficient body of traditional culture belonging to
+every educated person tends always to force the artist to commence by
+teaching the alphabet to his public. As Coleridge so justly remarked in
+the case of Wordsworth: "He had, like all great artists, to create the
+taste by which he was to be relished, to teach the art by which he was
+to be seen and judged." All great artists no doubt have to do this, but
+the modern artist is in the position of the Israelite who was bidden not
+only to make bricks, but to find himself in stubble and straw, as
+compared with a Greek who could appeal to traditional conceptions with
+certainty. Dr. Verrall is no doubt right when he says:
+
+Every one knows, even if the full significance of the fact is not always
+sufficiently estimated, that the tragedians of Athens did not tell their
+story at all as the telling of a story is conceived by a modern
+dramatist, whose audience, when the curtain goes up, know nothing which
+is not in the play-bill.
+
+This ignorant public, this uncultivated and unmanured field with which
+every modern artist has to commence, is the greatest let to the creator.
+What wonder that he should so often prefer to make a gaudy show with
+yellow weeds, when he perceives that there is hardly time in one man's
+life to produce a respectable crop of wheat from such a wilderness?
+
+"The story of an Athenian tragedy is never completely told; it is
+implied, or, to repeat the expression used above, it is illustrated by a
+selected scene or scenes. And the further we go back the truer this is,"
+continues Dr. Verrall; and the same was doubtless true of sculpture and
+painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance or advantage
+of this fact to the artist. For religious art, for art that appeals to
+the sum and total of a man's experience of beauty in life, a public
+cultivated in this sense is a necessity. Giotto and Fra Angelico enjoyed
+this almost to the same degree as AEschylus or Phidias; Michael Angelo
+and the great artists of the Renascence generally enjoyed it in a very
+great degree, and reaped an advantage comparable to that which Euripides
+and his contemporaries and immediate successors enjoyed. The tradition
+enabled such an artist to impress by means of subtleties, niceties, and
+refinements, instead of forcing him to attempt always to more or less
+seduce, astonish or overawe; strong measures which grow almost
+necessarily into bad habits, and end by perverting the taste they
+created. This, it has often been remarked, was the case even with
+Michael Angelo, even with Shakespeare. Yet nowadays, to enable a man to
+remark this, exceptional culture is required.
+
+
+III
+
+This idea of the use of a canon may be illustrated in many ways; for,
+like all notions which resume actual experiences, it will be found
+applicable in many spheres. Thus, on the subject of verse, the eternal
+quarrel between the poet and the pedant is, that for the first the rules
+of prosody and rhyme are only useful in so far as they make the licenses
+he takes appreciable at their just value; while for the pedant such
+licenses ever anew seem to imply ignorance of the rule or incapacity to
+follow it,--an absurd mistake, since the power to create and impress has
+little to do with the means employed; and if a man builds up for himself
+a barrier of foregone conclusions about the exact manner in which alone
+he will allow himself to be deeply impressed, it is very certain he will
+have few save painful impressions. Or take another illustration--an
+artist the other day told me that he had noticed that one could almost
+always trace a faintly ruled vertical line on the paper which the
+greatest of all modern draughtsmen used. Ingres, then, with all his
+freedom, vivacity, and accuracy of control over the point he employed to
+draw with, still found it useful to have a straight line ruled on his
+paper as a student does, and may often even have resorted to the
+plumb-line. It enabled his eye to test the subtlest deviations in the
+other lines with which he was creating the balance, swing or stability
+of a figure. Rules of art are, like this straight line, dead and
+powerless in themselves: they help both creator and lover to follow and
+appreciate the infinite freedom and subtlety of the living work. The
+same thing might be illustrated with regard to manners; a fine standard
+of social address and receptivity must be established before the
+varieties and subtleties of those whose genius creates beautiful
+relations can be appreciated at their full value in their full variety.
+This dead law must be buried in everybody's mind and heart before they
+can rise to that conscious freedom which is opposite to the freedom of
+the wild animals, who never know why they do, nor appreciate how it is
+done; neither are they able to rejoice in the address of others; much
+less can they relish the infinite refinements of exhilarating
+apprehension, which make of laughter, tears, speech, silence, nearness
+and distance, a music which holds the enraptured soul in ecstasy; which
+created and constantly renews the hope of Heaven. And what blacker
+minister of a more sterile hell than the social pedant who only knows
+the rule, and mistakes grace and delicacy, frankness and generosity, for
+more or less grave infractions of it? But the happy critic, free from
+any personal knowledge of what creation means, or what aids are likely
+to forward it, is for ever in such a hurry to correct great creators
+like Leonardo, Duerer, or Hokusai, that he fails to understand them; and
+when he has caught them saying, "This is how anger or despair is
+expressed," calmly smiles in his superiority and says,
+
+"He had a scientific law for putting a battle on to canvas, one
+condition of which was that 'there must not be a level spot which is
+not trampled with gore.' But Leonardo did no harm; his canon was based
+on literary rather than artistic interests."
+
+Analogies with scientific laws have served art and art criticism a very
+bad turn of late years. Nothing can be more useful to an artist than
+knowledge of how the emotions are expressed by the contortion of the
+features; but nobody in his senses could ever imagine that a rule for
+the expression of anger was rigid throughout and must never be departed
+from; every one approaching such a rule with a view to practice instead
+of criticism must immediately perceive that its only use is to be
+departed from in various degrees. Leonardo's advice for the painting of
+a battle-piece is excellent if it is understood in the sense in which it
+was meant,--"everything is what it is and not another thing," as Bishop
+Butler put it. Be sure and make your battle a battle indeed. It is time
+we should realise that what the great artists wrote about art is likely
+to be as sensible as are the works they created. How absurd it is for
+some one who can neither carve nor paint, much less create, to imagine
+he easily grasps the rules of art better than a great master! To such
+people let us repeat again and again Hamlet's impatient: "Oh, mend it
+altogether!"
+
+
+IV
+
+Now it will easily be seen that the causes which shape an art tradition
+may often be independent of, and foreign to, the will that creates
+beautiful objects. Religious superstition or formalism may often hem the
+artist in, and hamper his will in every direction; though it is not
+wholly accidental that the Greeks had a religion the spirit of which
+tended always to defeat the conservatism and bigotry of its priests. So
+that their formalism, instead of frustrating or warping the growth of
+their art tradition, merely served as a check that may well seem to have
+been exactly proportioned to its need; preventing the weakness or
+rankness of over rapid growth such as detracts from the art of the
+Renascence, and at the same time causing no vital injury. The spirit of
+the race deserved and created and was again in turn recreated by
+its religion.
+
+Since it is generally recognised that too much freedom is not good for
+growing life, I think that almost everybody must at this stage have
+become aware of how immensely stupid the academical idea of a canon
+appears besides this idea. How suitable both to life and the desire for
+perfection the Greek practice was! How theologically dense the
+unprogressive inflexibility of the academical practitioner! And now let
+us hear Duerer.
+
+But first I will quote from Sir Martin Conway the explanation of what
+Duerer means by the phrase, "Words of Difference."
+
+These are what he calls the "Words of Difference": large, long, small,
+stout, broad, thick, narrow, thin, young, old, fat, lean, pretty, ugly,
+hard, soft, and so forth; in fact any word descriptive of a quality
+"whereby a thing may be differentiated from the thing (normal figure)
+first made."
+
+Or, as Duerer says in another place, "difference such as maketh a thing
+fair or foul."
+
+But further, it lieth in each man's choice whether or how far he shall
+make use of all the above written "Words of Difference." For a man may
+choose whether he will learn to labour with art, wherein is the truth,
+or without art in a freedom by which everything he doth is corrupted,
+and his toil becometh a scorn to look upon to such as understand.
+
+Wherefore it is needful for every one that he use discreetness in such
+of his works as shall come to the light Whence it ariseth that he who
+would make anything aright must in no wise abate aught (that is
+essential) from Nature, neither must he lay what is intolerable upon
+her. Howbeit some will (by going to an opposite extreme) make
+alterations (from Nature) so slight that they can scarce be perceived.
+Such are of no account if they cannot be perceived; to alter over much
+also answereth not. A right mean (in such alterations) is best. But in
+this book I have departed from this right mean in order that it might be
+so much the better traced in small things. Let not him who wishes to
+proceed to some great thing imitate this my swiftness, but let him set
+more slowly (gradually) about his work, that it be not brutish but
+artistic to look upon. For figures which differ from the mean are not
+good to look upon _when_ they are wrongly and unmasterly employed.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that a skilful master beholdeth manifold
+differences of figure, all of which he might make if he had time enough,
+but which, for lack of time, he is forced to pass by. For such chances
+come very often to artists, and their imaginations also are full of
+figures which it were possible for them to make. Wherefore, if to live
+many hundred years were granted unto a man who had skill in the use of
+such art and were thereto accustomed, he would (through the power which
+God hath granted unto men) have wherewith daily to mould and make many
+new figures of men and other creatures, which none had before seen nor
+imagined. God, therefore, in such and other ways granteth great power
+unto artistic men.
+
+Although there be such talking of differences, still it is well known
+that all things that a man doth differ of their own nature one from
+another. Consequently, there liveth no artist so sure of hand as to be
+able to make two things exactly alike the one to the other, so that they
+may not be distinguished. For of all our works none is quite and
+altogether like another, and this we can in no wise avoid.
+
+We see that if we take two prints from an engraved copper-plate, or cast
+two images in a mould, very many points may immediately be found whereby
+they may be distinguished one from another. If, then, it cometh thus to
+pass in things made by processes the least liable to error, much more
+will it happen in other things which are made by the free hand.
+
+This, however, is _not the kind of Difference_ whereof I here treat; for
+I am speaking of a difference (from the mean) which a man specially
+intendeth, and which standeth in his will, of which I have spoken once
+and again....
+
+This is not the aforesaid Difference which we cannot sever from our
+work, but, such a difference as maketh a thing fair or foul, and which
+may be set forth by the "Word of Difference" dealt with above in this
+Book. If a man produce "different" figures of this kind in his work, it
+will be judged in every man's mind according to his own opinion, and
+these judgments seldom agree one with another.... Yet let every man
+beware that he make nothing impossible and inadmissible in Nature,
+unless indeed he would make some fantasy, in which it is allowed to
+mingle creatures of all kinds together....
+
+Any one who leads this carefully cannot fail to see that it is not only
+that Duerer is not "desirous of laying down rules applicable to all
+cases," or even of "proposing a definite canon for the relative
+proportions of the human body," as Thausing indeed points out (p. 305,
+v. 11): but that he does not conceive the proportions he gives as even
+approximately capable of these functions; and considers it indeed the
+very nature and special use of a canon of proportions to be wilfully
+deviated from, pointing out that, though the deviations of which he is
+speaking are slight and subtle, they are not to be confused with the
+accidental ones that can but appear even in work done by mechanical
+processes. Rather they are such variation as a man "specially intendeth,
+and which standeth in his will;" and again, "such a difference as maketh
+a thing fair or foul;" for the use of these normal proportions is that
+they may enable an artist to deviate from the normal without the
+proportions he chooses having the air of monstrosities or mistakes or
+negligences. He does not insist that either of the scales he gives is
+the best that could be, even for this purpose, but that they are
+sufficiently good to be used; and he would have marvelled at the wonder
+that has been caused in innocent critical minds that in his own work he
+adhered to them so little. He never intended them to be adhered to.
+
+
+V
+
+It may be objected that Duerer certainly sometimes thought of a Canon of
+Proportion as a perfect rule, because he wrote on a MS. page as
+follows:--
+
+Vitruvius, the ancient architect, whom the Romans employed upon great
+buildings, says that whosoever desires to build should study the
+perfection of the human figure, for in it are discovered the most secret
+mysteries of proportion. So, before I say anything about architecture, I
+will state how a well-formed man should be made, and then about a woman,
+a child and a horse. Any object may be proportioned out (_literally_,
+measured) in a similar way. Therefore, hear first of all what Vitruvius
+says about the human figure, which he learnt from the greatest masters,
+painters and founders, who were highly famed. They said that the human
+figure is as follows.
+
+That the face from the chin upward to where the hair begins is the
+tenth part of a man, and that an out-stretched hand is the same
+length, &c.
+
+[Illustration: "This is my appearance in the eighteenth year of my age"
+Charcoal-drawing in the Academy, Vienna _Face p._288]
+
+And again in another place, as Sir Martin Conway points out, he gives a
+religious basis to this notion,[85] "the Creator fashioned men once for
+all as they must be, and I hold that the perfection of form and beauty
+is contained in the sum of all men." In an obvious sense these passages
+certainly run counter to those which I have quoted (pp. 285-207): but I
+would like to point out that these are dogmatic assertions about
+something that if it were true could never be proved by experience (see
+also pp. 64, 254), those former are Duerer's advice with a view to
+practice. Men frequently carry about a considerable amount of dogmatic
+opinion, which has so little connection with actual experience that it
+is never brought to the test without being noticeably incommoded by it.
+Yet it is not absolutely necessary to consider Duerer as inconsistent in
+regard to this matter, even to this degree.
+
+The beauty of form which he held had been Adam's, and which was now
+parcelled out among his vast progeny in various amounts as a consequence
+of his fall--this beauty of form doubtless Duerer considered it part of
+an artist's business to recollect and reveal in his work. This beauty is
+an ideal, and his canon (or rather canons) were intended as means to
+help the artist to approach towards the realisation of that ideal. It is
+obvious also that a man occupied in comparing the proportions of those
+whom he considers to be exceptionally beautiful will develop and feed
+his power of imagining beautifully proportioned figures. It would be
+futile to deny that this is very much what took place in the evolution
+of Greek statues, or that such works are perhaps of all others the most
+central and satisfying to the human spirit. The sentences that precede
+that quoted by Sir Martin are Greek in tendency.
+
+A good figure cannot be made without industry and care; it should
+therefore be well considered before it is begun, so that it be correctly
+made. For the lines of its form cannot be traced by compass or rule, but
+must be drawn by the hand from point to point, so that it is easy to go
+wrong in them. And for such figures great attention should be paid to
+human proportions, and all their kinds should be investigated. _I hold
+that the more nearly and accurately a figure is made to resemble a man,
+so much the better the work will be._ If the best parts chosen from many
+well-formed men are united in one figure, it will be worthy of praise.
+But some are of another opinion, and discuss how men ought to be made. I
+will not argue with them about that. I hold Nature for Master in such
+matters, and the fancy of men for delusion.
+
+And then follows the passage quoted by Sir Martin Conway (see p. 289).
+It is obvious that, joined with the two preceding sentences, this
+passage can in no way be made to serve the academical practitioner, as
+it seems to when taken alone. In the same way, the sentence printed in
+italics in the above quotation, if isolated, would certainly seem to
+serve the scientific practitioners and their slavish realism, though in
+connection with those that follow this is no longer possible. Duerer
+regards nature as providing raw material for a creation which may not
+tally exactly with any individual natural object. This was the Greek
+artists' idea of the serviceableness of nature, as revealed both by
+their practice and by such traditions as that concerning Zeuxis and his
+five beautiful models for the figure of Venus. But Duerer does not
+confine the use of his canons even to this aim, but clearly perceived
+their utility in regard to quite other aims, as is shown by the passage
+beginning, "It is not to be wondered at," &c. (see p. 286), in which the
+imagination of figures not merely intended to embody beautiful or newly
+assorted proportions is clearly considered; and if we review Duerer's
+actual work we shall see how much oftener he created figures for
+picturesque or dramatic effect than he did to embody beautiful
+proportions in them, though he evidently also considered the last
+purpose as of the first importance, as we see when he goes on to say:
+
+Let any one who thinks I alter the human form too much or too little
+take care to avoid my error and follow nature. There are many different
+kinds of men in various lands: whoso travels far will find this to be
+so, and see it before his eyes. We are considering about the most
+beautiful human figure conceivable, but (only) the Maker of the world
+knows how that should be. Even if we succeed well we do but approach
+towards it from afar. For we ourselves have differences of perception,
+and the vulgar who follow only their own taste usually err. Therefore I
+do not advise any one to follow me, for I only do what I can, and that
+is not enough even to satisfy myself.
+
+The extreme complexity of Duerer's ideas and their application was a
+natural result of their having been born of his experience. For
+excellence is extremely various, and widely scattered through the world.
+The simplicity of a true work of art results merely from some excellence
+having been singled out from all foreign circumstances, and presented as
+vividly as it was intensely apprehended. This excellence may be one of
+proportion or one of many other kinds. Now, a figure conceived by an
+artist, whether he value it for its choicely assorted proportions or for
+picturesque or dramatic effect, may need to be developed before it is
+serviceable in an elaborate work of art.
+
+Artists who work rapidly, and, whose pictures are dominated by passing
+moods, have always been in the habit of taking great licences with
+proportion, and, indeed, with all matters of fact. Duerer's aim is to
+endow the artist who elaborates his work slowly with a similar freedom.
+This energy and power in rapid work it is the ever-renewed despair of
+artists to feel themselves losing in the process of elaboration. And one
+of the reasons for this is that in larger or more elaborate work, the
+statement, being more ample, is expected to be also more comprehensive
+and exhaustive; for the time required begets after-thoughts as to the
+real nature of the object viewed apart from the mood, which is the only
+excuse for the work; and so some of the artist's attention is drawn away
+to facts and aspects which it would have been the success of his work to
+have ignored. Duerer's object was to help a man to carry out his
+essential intention, and that alone, in a carefully elaborated picture;
+the problems faced were precisely similar to those so successfully coped
+with in Greek statues. In the first place, he would have pointed out
+that all sketches will not bear elaboration if their merit depends on
+extreme licence, for instance. Next, that a man who had a standard of
+proportion could see wherein the deviations of his sketched figure were
+essential to the effect he wished it to produce, and wherein they were
+unessential. Then, if he drew the normal figure large, he would be able
+to deviate from it in exactly the right places and to the right degree
+to reproduce the desired effect. But to do this he must also have a
+general notion of how deviations from a normal proportion could be made
+consistent throughout all the measurements involved not that he would in
+every case want to make them consistent. Now, there is a class of
+artists for whom all these suggestions of Duerer's must for ever remain
+useless, for all science of production is impossible for those whose
+only success lies in improvisation; such improvisations, however
+dazzling or however delightful they may be, are, nevertheless, the class
+of art-works furthest removed in spirit and in method from Greek
+statuary. I do not say that they need be inferior; I say that they are
+opposite in method. And, had circumstances permitted, or Duerer's dowry
+of great gifts been more complete than it was, and enabled him to become
+as great a creator of pictures as he is a great draughtsman and
+portrait-painter, no doubt his pictures would have resembled Greek
+statues both in their effect and their method, however different they
+might have been in subject and in range. To talk about "beauty" being
+sacrificed to "truth," with Prof. Thausing; or the ideal of the North
+being "strength" in works of art as in life, with Sir Martin Conway;--is
+to confuse the issue and deceive oneself. To have mistaken the proper
+end of art, beauty, by thinking it was "truth" or "strength," is to have
+failed to labour in the right direction; that is all-who-ever may
+condone the failure.
+
+
+VI
+
+Again, Sir Martin Conway tells us:
+
+The laws of perspective can be deduced with certainty from mathematical
+first principles, the canon of proportions' could only be constructed
+empirically as the result of repeated observations. Nevertheless, once
+constructed, it can certainly be used as Duerer suggested. Its use has
+practically been superseded by the study of anatomy.
+
+This last phrase shows us in a flash how far the writer when he wrote it
+was from apprehending Duerer's meaning. How could the study of anatomy
+ever do for an artist what Duerer was trying to do? No doubt Sir Martin
+had Michael Angelo in his mind's eye; and it is true that he studied
+anatomy, and that his influence has been, on the whole, paramount with
+artists attempting subjects of this kind ever since. Whether Michael
+Angelo studied proportion or not, his practice exemplifies Duerer's
+meaning splendidly. No anatomical research could have led him to
+construct figures nine to twelve, or even fifteen to twenty, heads
+high--to do which, as his work developed, more and more became his
+practice, especially in designs and sketches for compositions. To arrive
+at such proportions he followed his imaginative instinct. He found that
+these monstrous deviations from the normal (which, of course, in a
+general sense he recognised, whether he gave any study to rendering it
+precise or not) produced the effect on his mind that he wished to
+produce on the minds of others--an effect that was emotional and
+peculiar to his habitual moods. We know that his constitution gave him
+the staying-power, while his fiery Titanic spirit gave him the energy,
+to carry out and perfect his mighty frescoes and statues at the same
+heat that the creative hour yields other men for the production of a
+sketch alone. This giant son of Time was able to live for days and weeks
+together in a state of mind two or three consecutive hours of which
+exhaust the average master even. Considering the rapidity and intensity
+of his mental process, it is a miracle that, in so many works and to so
+great a degree, he respected the too much and too little of human
+reason, and allowed himself to be governed by what the Greeks called a
+sense of measure, instead of yielding to his native impetuosity and
+becoming an a-thousand-fold-greater-Blake; and illustrating, to the
+delight of active and short-winded intelligences, and the stupefaction
+of slow and dull ones, the futility of eccentricity and the frivolity of
+passion when unseconded by constancy of character and labour. For
+futile, in the arts, is whatever the sense of beauty must condemn,
+however well-intentioned; and frivolous is the passion that forgets the
+end it would attain, and becomes merely a private rhapsody, however
+astonishing its developments; slowly but surely it will be seen that
+such fireworks do not vitally concern us. The proportions of many of
+Michael Angelo's figures are as far removed from any possible normal
+standard as what Duerer calls "this my swiftness," in the abnormally tall
+and stout figures among the diagrams illustrating his book.
+
+And this is where Duerer's idea comes nearer to Greek practice. For by
+letting the striking rather than the subtle govern his departures from
+the mean, Michael Angelo found himself always bound to go beyond
+himself; as the palate which once has entertained strong stimulants
+demands that the dose be continually strengthened. Now this is in entire
+conformity with the impatience which was perhaps his greatest weakness;
+just as Duerer's too methodical approach is in conformity with that
+acquiescence in the insufficiency of his conditions which made him in
+his weak moments swear never again to undertake those better classes of
+work which were less adequately paid, or made him content to display
+mere manual dexterity rather than do nothing on his days of darkness,
+suffering and depression: we may add, which made him choose to live at
+Nuremberg and refuse a better income and more suitable surroundings
+at Venice.
+
+It is obviously the more hopeful way to create a beautiful figure first
+and discover a mathematical way of reproducing its most essential
+proportions afterwards; and no doubt this is what Duerer intended should
+be done; and in consequence he felt a need, and sought to supply it, for
+mechanical means to simplify, shorten and render more sure that part of
+the process which must necessarily partake something of the nature of
+drudgery, if great finish is to be combined with splendid design. The
+romantic, impulsive _improvisatore_ does not feel this need, considers
+it bound to defeat its own aim; and, given his own gifts, he is right.
+But none the less, there are the Greek statues elaborated with a
+thoroughness which, if it ever dims or veils the creative intention,
+does so in a degree so slight as to seem amply compensated by the sense
+of ease maintained in spite of the innumerable difficulties overcome;
+there are besides a score or more of Duerer's copper engravings with
+their imperturbable adequacy of minute painstaking, never for a moment
+sleepy or mechanical or lifeless. The one aim need not excommunicate the
+other even in the same individual; far less need this be so in different
+artists, with diverse temperaments, diverse aptitudes.
+
+
+VII
+
+The application of this idea does not end with the simple proportions of
+measurement between the limbs and parts of the figure; it is also
+concerned with what is called the modelling, and the treatment of
+surfaces such as the draperies, the hair, the fleshy portions and those
+beneath which the bony structure comes to prominence; in painting it may
+be applied to the chiaroscuro and colour. Reynolds' remarks on the
+Venetians in his Eighth Discourse well illustrate this fact. He says:
+
+It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed that the masses of
+light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or a
+yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be
+kept _almost_ entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support
+and set off these warm colours; and, for this purpose, a small
+_proportion_ of cold colours will be sufficient.
+
+If this conduct be reversed, let the light be cold, and the surrounding
+colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine
+painters; and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of
+Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid or harmonious.[86]
+
+Here we see a great colourist attempting to establish a canon for
+colour. Had he lived at an earlier period, before expression had become
+generally a subject of criticism, he would have described his discovery
+in less guarded and elastic language, such as is now applied to
+scientific laws. And then he might have been as excusably misunderstood
+as Leonardo and Duerer have been; as it is, the misunderstanding dealt
+out to him is quite without excuse.
+
+Rembrandt, not only exemplifies the impressiveness of great deviations
+in structural proportions in much the same degree as Michael Angelo,
+using what the Greeks and Duerer would doubtless have considered a
+dangerous liberty, however much they might have felt bound to admire the
+results obtained; not only does he do this when, for instance, he
+represents Jesus now as a giant, now as almost a dwarf, according to the
+imaginative impression which he chooses to create; but he follows a
+similar process in his black and white pattern. For among his works
+there are etchings, which, though often supposed to have been left
+unfinished, are discerned by those with a sense for beauties of this
+class to be marvellously complete, stimulating, and satisfying, and in
+the nicest harmony with the other impressions produced by the mental
+point of view from which the subject is viewed, as also by the main
+lines and proportions of the composition, and to yield the visual
+delight most suitable to the occasion. Duerer and the Greeks are at one
+with Michael Angelo and Rembrandt in condemning by their practice all
+purely mechanical application of ideas or methods to the production of
+works of creative art, such as is exemplified by artists of more limited
+aims and powers; by academical practitioners, by theoretical scientists
+calling themselves impressionists, luminarists, naturalists, or any
+other name. For artists whose temperaments are impeded by some unhappy
+slowness, or difficulty in concentrating themselves, methods of
+procedure similar to those elaborated by Duerer in his books on
+proportion, properly understood, must be a real aid and benefit; as
+those who are essentially improvisors may help themselves and supply
+their deficiencies by methods similar to those which Reynolds describes
+as practised by Gainsborough.
+
+"He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of
+broken stones, dried herbs and pieces of broken glass, which he
+magnified and improved into rocks, trees and water" (Fourteenth
+Discourse).
+
+This process resembles that of tracing faces or scenes from the life of
+gnomes in glowing caverns among coals of fire on a winter's eve; it is
+resorted to in one form or another by all creative artists, but it is
+peculiarly useful to men like Gainsborough, whose art tends always to
+become an improvisation, whatever strenuous discipline they may have
+subjected themselves to in their days of ardent youth.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Perhaps Duerer's actual standards for the normal, his actual methods for
+creating self-consistent variations from it, are not likely to prove of
+much use, even when artists shall be sufficiently educated to understand
+them; nevertheless, the principle which informs them has been latent in
+the work of all great creators; is marvellously fulfilled indeed, in
+Greek statuary. The work of Antoine Louis Barye, that great and
+little-understood master--as far as I am able to judge, the only modern
+artist who has made science serve him instead of being seduced by
+her--exemplifies this central idea of Duerer's almost as fully as the
+Greek masterpieces. The future of art appears to me to lie in the hands
+of those artists who shall be able to grapple with the new means offered
+them by the advance of science, as he did, and be as little or even less
+seduced than he was by the foolish idea that art can become science
+without ceasing to be art, which has handicapped and defeated the
+efforts of so many industrious and talented men of late years. So truly
+is this the case that the improvisor appears to many as the only true
+artist, and his uncontrolled caprices as the farthest reach of human
+constructive power.
+
+In any case, no artist is unhappy if a docile and hopeful disposition
+enables him to see in the masterpieces of Greek sculpture the reward of
+an easy balance of both temperaments and methods, the improvisor's and
+the elaborator's, under felicitous circumstances, by men better endowed
+than himself. And this though never history and archaeology shall be in
+a position to give him information sufficient to determine that his
+faith is wholly warranted.
+
+  A golden age is a golden dream, that sheds
+  A golden light on waking hours, on toil,
+  On leisure, and on finished works.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 85: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 86: See also III Discourse where he defends Duerer against
+Bacon.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY
+
+
+I
+
+I now intend to re-arrange what seem the most interesting of the
+sentences on the theory of art which are found in Duerer's MSS. and books
+on proportion. He did not give them the final form or order which he
+intended, and it seems to me that to arrange the more important
+according to the subjects they treat of will be the simplest way of
+arriving at general conceptions as to their tendency and value. We shall
+thus bring together repetitions of the same thought and contradictory
+answers to the same question; and after each series of sentences, I
+myself shall discuss the points raised, illustrating my remarks from
+modern writers whose opinion in these matters seems to me deserving of
+most attention. I have heard it said by the late Mr. Arthur Strong that
+Duerer's art is always didactic; and Duerer as a writer on art certainly
+has ever before his mind this one object, to teach others, or, as I
+should prefer to phrase it, to help others to learn. For he himself is
+continually confessing that he cannot yet answer his own questions, and
+it seems to me that the best teacher is always he who most desires to
+increase his knowledge, not indeed to hoard it as some do and make of
+it a personal possession; intellectual misers, for ever gnashing their
+teeth over the reputations or the pretensions of others. No, but one who
+desires knowledge for its own sake and welcomes it in others with as
+much satisfaction as he gains it for himself. Docility, i.e.,
+teachableness, let me point out once more, seems to be the necessary
+midwife of genius, without the aid of which it often labours in vain, or
+brings forth strange incongruous and misshapen births.
+
+Sad is the condition of a brilliant and fiery spirit shut up in a man's
+brain without the humble assistance of this lively, meek and patient
+virtue! What unrelieved and insupportable throes of agony must be borne
+by such a spirit, and how often does such labour end in misanthropy or
+madness! The records of the lives of exceptionally-gifted men tell us
+only too clearly what pains those are, and how frequently they have been
+borne. So I fancy I cannot do better than choose out for my first
+section sentences which praise or advocate the effort to learn, or
+attempt to enlighten those who make such an effort on the choice of
+teachers and disciplines.
+
+
+II
+
+I shall not hesitate to transpose sentences even when they appear in
+connected passages, in order, as I hope, to bring out more clearly their
+connection. For Duerer was not a writer by profession, and his thoughts
+were often more abundant than he knew how to deal with.
+
+Before starting, however, I must prefix to my quotations some account of
+the four MS. books in the British Museum from which they are principally
+taken. Rough drafts in Pirkheimer's handwriting were found among them,
+but of Duerer's work Sir Martin Conway tells us:
+
+The volumes contain upwards of seven hundred leaves and scraps of paper
+of various kinds, covered at different dates with more or less elaborate
+outline drawings, and more or less corrected drafts for works published
+or planned by Duerer. Interspersed among them are geometrical and
+other sketches.
+
+He was in the habit of correcting and re-copying, again and again, what
+he had written. Sometimes he would jot down a sentence alongside of
+matter to which it had no relation. This sentence he would afterwards
+introduce in its right connection. There are in these volumes no less
+than four drafts of the beginning of a Dedication to Pirkheimer of the
+Books of Human Proportions. Two other drafts of this same dedication are
+among the Dresden MSS. The opening sentences of the Introduction to the
+same work were likewise, as will be seen, the subject of
+frequent revision.
+
+These drafts, notes and sketches date from 1508 to 1523. Some collector
+had had them cut out, gummed together, and bound without the slightest
+regard to order, or even to the sequence of consecutive passages. In
+January 1890 the volumes were taken to pieces and rearranged by Miss
+Lina Eckenstein, who had previously made the admirable translations of
+them for Sir Martin Conway's "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," from
+which my quotations are taken.
+
+The contents of the volumes as rearranged may be roughly described as
+follows:
+
+Volume 1. Drawings of whole figures and portions of the body,
+illustrating Duerer's theories of Proportion. Drawings of a solid
+octogon. Six coloured drawings of crystals. The description of the
+Ionic order of architecture. Drawings of columns with measurements. A
+scale for Human Proportions. A table of contents for a work on Geometry.
+Notes on perspective, curves, folds, &c. The different kinds of temple
+after Vitruvius. Mathematical diagrams, &c.
+
+Volume II. Draft of a dedicatory letter to King Ferdinand (see page
+180). Drafts and drawings for "The Art of Fortification." Drawing of a
+shield with a rearing horse. Mantles of Netherlandish women and nuns. A
+Latin inscription for his own portrait. Notes on "Proportion," and on
+the feast of the Rosenkranz. Scale for Human Proportions. An alphabet.
+Draft of a dedication for the books on Proportion. Sketch of a skeleton.
+Studies of architecture. Venetian houses and roofs. Sketches of a
+church, a house, a tower, a drapery, &c.
+
+Volume III. Drafts of a projected work on Painting and on the study of
+Proportion. Drafts for the dedication, the preface, and for a work on
+Esthetics. Drawings of a male body, a female body, and a piece of
+drapery. Notes and drawings for the proportions of heads, hands, feet,
+outline curves, a child, a woman, &c.
+
+Volume IV. Proportions of a man, a fat woman, the head of the average
+woman, the young woman, &c. Short Profession of Faith (see page 130).
+Scale for Human Proportions, &c. Fragments of the Preface of Essay on
+Aesthetics, &c. Grimacing and distorted faces. Use of measurements. On
+the characters of faces, thick, thin, broad, narrow, &c. Sketches of a
+dragon and of an angel for Maximilian's Triumphal Procession. List of
+Luther's works (see page 130). Drawings of human bodies proportioned
+to squares.
+
+[Illustration: "UNA VILANA WENDISCH" Pen drawing with wash background
+in the collection of Mrs. Seymour _face_ p. 304]
+
+See the description in "Duerer's Schriftlicher Nachlass" (Lange und
+Fuhse), page 263, from which the above abstract is made.
+
+Sir Martin Conway continues:
+
+In these volumes Duerer is seen, sometimes writing under the influence of
+impetuous impulse, sometimes with leisurely care, allowing his pen to
+embroider the script with graceful marginal flourishes.
+
+At what period of his career Duerer first conceived the idea of writing a
+comprehensive work upon the theory and practice of art is unknown. It
+was certainly before the year 1512. The following list of chapters may
+perhaps be an early sketch of the plan.
+
+Ten things are contained in the little book.
+The first, the proportions of a young child.
+The second, proportions of a grown man.
+The third, proportions of a woman.
+The fourth, proportions of a horse.
+The fifth, something about architecture.
+The sixth, about an apparatus through which it can be
+  shown that 'all things may be traced.
+The seventh, about light and shade.
+The eighth, about colours, how to paint like nature.
+The ninth, about the ordering (composition) of the
+  picture.
+The tenth, about free painting, which alone is made by
+  Imagination without any other help.
+
+
+III
+
+Glad enough should we be to attain unto great knowledge without toil,
+for nature has implanted in us the desire of knowing all things,
+thereby to discern a truth of all things. But our dull wit cannot come
+unto such perfectness of all art, truth, and wisdom. Yet are we not,
+therefore, shut out altogether from all arts. If we want to sharpen our
+reason by learning and to practise ourselves therein, having once found
+the right path we may, step by step, seek, learn, comprehend, and
+finally reach and attain unto something true. Wherefore, he that
+understandeth how to learn somewhat in his leisure time, whereby he may
+most certainly be enabled to honour God, and to do what is useful both
+for himself and others, that man doeth well; and we know that in this
+wise he will gain much experience in art and will be able to make known
+its truth for our good. It is right, therefore, for one man to teach
+another. He that joyfully doeth so, upon him shall much be bestowed by
+God, from whom we receive all things. He hath highest praise.
+
+One finds some who know nothing and learn nothing. They despise
+learning, and say that much evil cometh of the arts, and that some are
+wholly vile. I, on the contrary, hold that no art is evil, but that all
+are good. A sword is a sword which may be used either for murder or for
+justice. Similarly the arts are in themselves good. What God hath
+formed, that is good, misuse it how ye will.
+
+Thou findest arts of all kinds; choose then for thyself that which is
+like to be of greatest service to thee. Learn it; let not the difficulty
+thereof vex thee till thou hast accomplished somewhat wherewith thou
+mayest be satisfied.
+
+It is very necessary for a man to know some one thing by reason of the
+usefulness which ariseth therefrom. Wherefore we should all gladly
+learn, for the more we know so much the more do we resemble the likeness
+of God, who verily knoweth all things.
+
+The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the better doth he become,
+and so much the more love doth he win for the arts and for things
+exalted. Wherefore a man ought not to play the wanton, but should learn
+in season.
+
+Is the artistic man pious and by nature good? He escheweth the evil and
+chooseth the good; and hereunto serve the arts, for they give the
+discernment of good and evil.
+
+Some may learn somewhat of all arts, but that is not given to every man.
+Nevertheless, there is no rational man so dull but that he may learn the
+one thing towards which his fancy draweth him most strongly. Hence no
+man is excused from learning something.
+
+Let no man put too much confidence in himself, for many (pairs of eyes)
+see better than one. Though it is possible for a man to comprehend more
+than a thousand (men), still that cometh but rarely to pass.
+
+Many fall into error because they follow their own taste alone;
+therefore let each look to it that his inclination blind not his
+judgment. For every mother is well pleased with her own child, and thus
+also it ariseth that many painters paint figures resembling themselves.
+
+He that worketh in ignorance worketh more painfully than he that worketh
+with understanding; therefore let all learn to understand aright.
+
+Now I know that in our German nation, at the present time, are many
+painters who stand in need of instruction, for they lack all real art,
+yet they nevertheless have many large works to do. Forasmuch then as
+they are so numerous, it is very needful for them to learn to better
+their work.
+
+Willingly will I impart my teaching, hereafter written, to the man who
+knoweth little and would gladly learn; but I will not be cumbered with
+the proud, who, according to their own estimate of themselves, know all
+things, and are best, and despise all else. From true artists, however,
+such as can show their meaning with the hand, I desire to learn humbly
+and with much thankfulness.
+
+A thing thou beholdest is easier of belief than that thou hearest, but
+whatever is both heard and seen we grasp more firmly and lay hold on
+more securely. I will therefore do the work in both ways, that thus I
+may be better understood.
+
+Whosoever will, therefore, let him hear and see what I say, do, and
+teach, for I hope it may be of service and not for a hindrance to the
+better arts, nor lead thee to neglect better things.
+
+I hear moreover of no writer in modern times by whom aught hath been
+written and made known which I might read for my improvement. For some
+hide their art in great secrecy, and others write about things whereof
+they know nothing, so that their words are nowise better than mere
+noise, as he that knoweth somewhat is swift to discover. I therefore
+will write down with God's help the little that I know. Though many will
+scorn it I am not troubled, for I well know that it is easier to cast
+blame on a thing than to make anything better. Moreover, I will expound
+my meaning as clearly and plainly as I can; and, were it possible, I
+would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver or gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something burning
+and ye all add to it with skilful furthering, a blaze may in time arise
+therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world.
+
+I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same
+touchstone as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the
+world prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world
+esteemeth beautiful that will we also hold for beautiful, and ourselves
+strive to produce the like.
+
+No one need blindly follow this theory of mine as though it were quite
+perfect, for human nature has not yet so far degenerated that another
+man cannot discover something better. So each may use my teaching as
+long as it seems good to him, or until he finds something better. Where
+he is not willing to accept it, he may well hold that this doctrine is
+not written for him, but for others who are willing.
+
+That must be a strangely dull head which never trusts itself to find out
+anything fresh, but only travels along the old path, simply following
+others and not daring to reflect for itself. For it beseems each
+understanding, in following another, not to despair of itself
+discovering something better. If that is done, there remaineth no doubt
+but that in time this art will again reach the perfection it attained
+amongst the ancients.
+
+Much will hereafter be written about subjects and refinements of
+painting. Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will
+write both well and better about this art, and will teach it better than
+I; for I myself hold my art at a very mean value, for I know what my
+faults are. Let every man therefore strive to better these my errors
+according to his powers. Would to God it were possible for me to see the
+work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I
+know that I might be improved upon. Ah! how often in my sleep do I
+behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof never
+appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake, even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me.
+
+Compare also the passages already quoted,(pp. 15,16,26).
+
+
+IV
+
+"What an admirable temper!" is the exclamation which expresses our first
+feeling on reading the foregoing sentences. It renews the spirit of a
+man merely to peruse such things. Scales fall from our eyes, and we see
+what we most essentially are, with pleasure, as good children gleefully
+recognise their goodness: and at the same time we are filled with
+contrition that we should have ever forgotten it. And this that we most
+essentially are rational beings, lovers of goodness, children of
+hope,--how directly Duerer appeals to it: "Nature has implanted in us the
+desire of knowing all things." It reminds one of Ben Jonson's:--
+
+It is a false quarrel against nature, that she helps understanding but
+in a few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if
+they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run,
+&c., which, if they lose it, is through their own sluggishness, and by
+that means they become her prodigies, not her children.
+
+There is something refreshing and inspiriting in the mere conviction of
+our teachableness; and when the same author, referring to Plato's
+travels in search of knowledge, says, "He laboured, so must we," we do
+not find the comparison humiliating either to Plato or ourselves. For
+"without a way there is no going," and every man of superior mould says
+to us with more or less of benignity, "I am the way: follow me." Such
+means or ways of attainment have been followed by all whose success is
+known to us, and are followed now by all "finely touched and gifted
+men." I might quote in illustration of these assertions the whole of
+Reynolds' Sixth Discourse, so marvellous for its acute and delicate
+discrimination; but I will content myself with a few leading passages:
+
+We cannot suppose that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation
+of others.
+
+It is a common observation that no art was ever invented and carried to
+perfection at the same time.
+
+The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who
+resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will soon be reduced to
+the poorest of all imitations, he will be obliged to imitate himself,
+and to repeat what he has often before repeated.
+
+The truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's
+thoughts an encumbrance to him, can have no very great strength of mind
+or genius of his own to be destroyed: so that not much harm will be done
+at the worst.
+
+Of course, this last phrase will not apply universally; we must remember
+that the man who sets out to become an artist, or claims to be one by
+native gift, has made apparent that he is the possessor of no mean
+ambition. The humblest may see a way of improvement in their betters,
+and obey the command, "Follow me." Every man is not called to follow
+great artists, but only those who are peculiarly fitted to tread the
+difficult paths that climb Olympus-hill. Yet to all men alike the great
+artist in life, he who wedded failure to divinity, says, "Learn of me
+that I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls."
+
+He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never
+proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of his
+imitation. He professes only to follow; and he that follows must
+necessarily be behind.
+
+It is of course impossible to surpass perfection, but it is possible to
+be made one with it.
+
+To find excellences, however dispersed, to discover beauties, however
+concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded,
+can be the work only of him who, having a mind always alive to his art,
+has extended his views to all ages and to all schools; and has acquired
+from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself a
+well-digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is
+referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of
+that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from
+every school; selects both from what is great and what is little; brings
+home knowledge from the east and from the west; making the universe
+tributary towards furnishing his mind, and enriching his works with
+originality and variety of inventions.
+
+In this tine passage we get back to our central idea in regard to the
+sense of proportion "making the universe tributary towards furnishing
+his mind"; while in the "discovery of beauties" the complete artist
+"selects both from what is great and what is little," from the clouds of
+heaven and from the dunghills of the farmyard.
+
+Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters for ever. Study,
+as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, and on the principles
+on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those
+masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to
+imitate, and at the same time as rivals with whom you are to contend.
+For "no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any
+other terms."
+
+Yes, an artist is a child who chooses his parents, nor is he limited to
+only two. Religion tells all men they have a Father, who is God;
+philosophy and tradition repeat, "man has a mother, who is Nature."
+These sayings are platitudes; their application is so obvious that it is
+now generally forgotten. If God is a Father, it is the soul that chooses
+Him; if Nature is a mother, it is the man who chooses to regard her as
+such, since to the greater number it is well known she seems but a
+stepmother, and a cruel one at that. Elective affinities, chosen
+kindred!--"tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you who you
+are" (what you are worth). How many artist waifs one sees nowadays! lost
+souls, who choose to be nobody's children, and think they can teach
+themselves all they need to know.
+
+I think the very striking agreement between artists so totally different
+in every respect except eminence, docility and anxiety to further art,
+as Duerer and Reynolds, ought to impress our minds very deeply: even
+though, as is certainly the case, the way they point out has been very
+greatly abandoned of late years, and public institutions in this and
+other countries proceed to further art on quite other lines; even though
+critics are almost unanimous in knowing better both the end and the way
+than the great masters who had not the advantage of a dash of science in
+their hydromel to make it sparkle, but instead made it yet richer and
+thicker by stirring up with it piety and religion. I think this
+"cock-tail and sherry-cobbler" art criticism of to-day is very
+deleterious to the digestion, and that the piety and enthusiasm which
+Duerer and Reynolds worked into their art were more wholesome, and better
+supplied the needs and deficiencies of artistic temperaments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LOST TRADITION
+
+
+I
+
+Many centuries ago the great art of painting was held in high honour by
+mighty kings, and they made excellent artists rich and held them worthy,
+accounting such inventiveness a creating power like God's. For the
+imagination of a good painter is full of figures, and were it possible
+for him to live for ever, he would always have from his inward ideas,
+whereof Plato speaks, something new to set forth by the work of
+his hand.
+
+Many hundred years ago there were still some famous painters, such as
+those named Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Polycleitus, Parrhasius,
+Lysippus, Protogenes, and the rest, some of whom wrote about their art
+and very artfully described it and gave it plainly to light: but their
+praise-worthy books are, so far, unknown to us, and perhaps have been
+altogether lost by war, driving forth of the peoples, and alterations of
+laws and beliefs--a loss much to be regretted by every wise man. It
+often came to pass that noble "Ingenia" were destroyed by barbarous
+oppressors of art; for if they saw figures traced in a few lines they
+thought it nought but vain, devilish sorcery. And in destroying them
+they attempted to honour God by something displeasing to Him; and to use
+the language of men, God was angry with all destroyers of the works of
+great mastership, which is only attained by much toil, labour, and
+expenditure of time, and is bestowed by God alone. Often do I sorrow
+because I must be robbed of the aforesaid masters' books of art; but the
+enemies of art despise these things.
+
+Pliny writeth that the old painters and sculptors--such as Apelles,
+Protogenes, and the rest--told very artistically in writing how a
+well-built man's figure might be measured out. Now it may well have come
+to pass that these noble books were misunderstood and destroyed as
+idolatrous in the early days of the Church. For they would have said
+Jupiter should have such proportions, Apollo such others; Venus shall be
+thus, Hercules thus; and so with all the rest. Had it, however, been my
+fate to be there at the time, I would have said: "Oh dear, holy lords
+and fathers, do not so lamentably destroy the nobly discovered arts,
+which have been gotten by great toil and labour, only because of the
+abuses made of them. For art is very hard, and we might and would use it
+for the great honour and glory of God. For, even as the ancients used
+the fairest figure of a man to represent their false god Apollo, we will
+employ the same for Christ the Lord, who is fairest of all the earth;
+and as they figured Venus as the loveliest of women, so will we in like
+manner set down the same beauteous form for the most pure Virgin Mary,
+the mother of God; and of Hercules will we make Samson, and thus will we
+do with all the rest, for such books shall we get never more."
+Wherefore, though that which is lost ariseth not again, yet a man may
+strive after new lore; and for these reasons I have been moved to make
+known my ideas here following, in order that others may ponder the
+matter further, and may thus come to a new and better way and
+foundation.
+
+I certainly do not deny that, if the books of the ancients who wrote
+about the art of painting still lay before our eyes, my design might be
+open to the false interpretation that I thought to find out something
+better than what was known unto them. These books, however, have been
+totally lost in the lapse of time; so I cannot be justly blamed for
+publishing my opinions and discoveries in writing, for that is exactly
+what the ancients did. If other competent men are thereby induced to do
+the like, our descendants have something which they may add to and
+improve upon, and thus the art of painting may in time advance and reach
+its perfection.
+
+
+II
+
+Whether we should exercise our intellects or logical sense alone upon
+the records and remains of past ages, or whether they may not be better
+employed for the exercise and edification of the imaginative faculties,
+would seem to be a question which, though they did not perhaps in set
+terms put to themselves, modern historians have very summarily answered;
+and I think answered wrongly. The records of the past, the records even
+of yesterday, are necessarily extremely incomplete; to make them at all
+significant something must be added by the historian. The 'perception'
+of probability is never exact; it varies with the mind between man and
+man; in the same man even before and after different experiences, &c.
+But even if the perception of the highest probability were practically
+exact, it would never suffice; for, as Aristotle says, "it is probable
+that many things should happen contrary to probability." From these
+facts it follows that the man who has the most exhaustive knowledge of
+what has actually survived, and what has been recorded, will not
+necessarily form the truest judgment on a question of history; it might
+always happen that the intuition of some unscholarly person was nearer
+the truth; still no man could ever decide between the two, nor would any
+sane man think it worth his while to take sides with either of them;
+such questions are most useful when they are left open. This is the case
+because the imagination is thus left freer to use such knowledge as it
+has for the edification of the character; and that model for our example
+or warning which the imagination constructs may always possibly be the
+truth. According to the balance in it of apparent probability, with
+edifying power it will beget conviction. Such a conviction may be doomed
+to be superseded sooner or later; its value lies in its potency while it
+lasts. The temper in which we look at our historical heritage is of more
+importance to us now than the exactitude of our vision; for this latter
+can never be proved, while the former approves itself by the fruit it
+bears within us. It is better, more fruitful, to feel with Duerer about
+the art of Ancient Greece than to know all that can be known of it
+to-day and feel a great deal less. "Character calls forth character,"
+said Goethe; we may add, "even from the grave." Now that the physical
+miracle of the Resurrection has come to seem so unimportant and
+uninteresting to educated men, it might be a wise economy to connect its
+poetry with this experience, that great and creative characters can
+raise men better worth knowing than Lazarus from the dead. Nietsche
+thought that Shakespeare had brought Brutus back to life, (though he
+knew very little of Roman history), and that Brutus was the Roman best
+worth knowing. "Of all peoples, the Greeks dreamt the dream of life the
+best," Goethe said; and again, "For all other arts we have to make some
+allowance; to Greek art alone we are for ever debtors." To feel the
+truth of these sayings with a passion similar to that shown in the
+passages quoted above from Duerer, must surely be a great help to an
+artist. Such a passion is an end in itself, or rather is the only means
+by which we can win spiritual freedom from some of the heavier fetters
+that modern life lays upon us. It freed Goethe even from Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BEAUTY
+
+
+I
+
+How is beauty to be judged?--upon that we have to deliberate.
+
+A man by skill may bring it into every single thing, for in some things
+we recognise that as beautiful which elsewhere would lack beauty.
+
+Good and better in respect of beauty are not easy to discern; for it
+would be quite possible to make two different figures, one stout, the
+other thin, which should differ one from the other in every proportion,
+and yet we scarce might be able to judge which of the two excelled in
+beauty. What beauty is I know not, though it dependeth upon many things.
+
+I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same touchstone
+as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the world
+prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world esteemeth
+beautiful that we will also hold for beautiful, and ourselves strive to
+produce the like.
+
+There are many causes and varieties of beauty; he that can prove them is
+so much the more to be trusted.
+
+The accord of one thing with another is beautiful, therefore want of
+harmony is not beautiful. A real harmony linketh together things unlike.
+
+Use is a part of beauty, whatever therefore is useless unto men is
+without beauty.
+
+The more imperfection is excluded so much the more doth beauty abide in
+the work.
+
+Guard thyself from superfluity.
+
+But beauty is so put together in men and so uncertain is our judgment
+about it, that we may perhaps find two men both beautiful and fair to
+look upon, and yet neither resembleth the other, in measure or kind, in
+any single point or part; and so blind is our perception that we shall
+not understand whether of the two is the more beautiful, and if we give
+an opinion on the matter it shall lack certainty.
+
+Negro faces are seldom beautiful because of their very flat noses and
+thick lips; moreover, their shinbone is too prominent, and the knee and
+foot too long, not so good to look upon as those of the whites; and so
+also is it with their hand. Howbeit, I have seen some amongst them whose
+whole bodies have been so well-built and handsome that I never beheld
+finer figures, nor can I conceive how they might be bettered, so
+excellent were their arms and all their limbs.
+
+Seeing that man is the worthiest of all creatures, it follows that, in
+all pictures, the human figure is most frequently employed as a centre
+of interest. Every animal in the world regards nothing but his own kind,
+and the same nature is also in men, as every man may perceive
+in himself.
+
+[Illustration: Charcoal-drawing heightened with white on a green
+prepared ground, in the Berlin Print Room _Face p_. 320]
+
+Further, in order that he may arrive at a good canon whereby to bring
+somewhat of beauty into our work, there-unto it were best for thee, it
+bethinks me, to form thy canon from many living men. Howbeit seek only
+such men as are held beautiful, and from such draw with all diligence.
+For one who hath understanding may, from men of many different kinds,
+gather something good together through all the limbs of the body. But
+seldom is a man found who hath all his limbs good, for every man lacks
+something.
+
+No single man can be taken as a model of a perfect figure, for no man
+liveth on earth who uniteth in himself all manner of beauties.... There
+liveth also no man upon earth who could give a final judgment upon what
+the perfect figure of a man is; God only knoweth that.
+
+And although we cannot speak of the greatest beauty of a living
+creature, yet we find in the visible creation a beauty so far surpassing
+our understanding that no one of us can fully bring it into his work.
+
+If we were to ask how we are to make a beautiful figure, some would give
+answer: According to human judgment (i.e., common taste). Others would
+not agree thereto, neither should I without a good reason. Who will give
+us certainty in this matter?[87]
+
+
+II
+
+I have already given what I believe to be the best answer to these
+questions as to what beauty is and how it is to be judged. Beauty is
+beauty as good is good (_see_ pp. 7, 8), or yellow, yellow; indeed, to
+the second question, Matthew Arnold has given the only possible
+answer--the relative value of beauties is "as the judicious would
+determine," and the judicious are, in matters of art "finely touched and
+gifted men." This criterion obviously cannot be easily or hastily
+applied, nor could one ever be quite sure that in any given case it had
+been applied to any given effect. But for practical needs we see that it
+suffices to cast a slur on facile popularity, and vindicate over and
+over again those who had been despised and rejected. What the true
+artist desires to bring into his pictures is the power to move
+finely-touched and gifted men. Not only are such by very much the
+minority, but the more part of them being, by their capacity to be moved
+and touched, easily wounded, have developed a natural armour of reserve,
+of moroseness, of prejudice, of combativeness, of pedantry, which makes
+them as difficult to address as wombats, or bears, or tortoises, or
+porcupines, or polecats, or elephants. It is interesting to witness how
+Duerer's self-contradictions show him to be aware of the great complexity
+of these difficulties, as also to see how very near he comes to the true
+answer. At one time he tells us:
+
+"When men demand a work of a master, he is to be praised in so far as he
+succeeds in satisfying their likings ..."[88]
+
+At another he tells us:
+
+"The art of painting cannot be truly judged save by such as are
+themselves good painters; from others verily is it hidden even as a
+strange tongue."[89]
+
+Every "finely touched and gifted man" is not an artist; but every true
+artist must, in some measure, be a finely touched and gifted man. There
+is no necessity to limit the public addressed to those who themselves
+produce: yet those who "can prove what they say with their hand" bring
+credentials superior to those offered by any others,--although even
+their judgment is not sure, as they may well represent a minority of
+the true court of appeal which can never be brought together.
+
+No doubt there is a judgment and a scale of values accepted as final by
+each generation that gives any considerable attention to these
+questions. AEsthetic appear to be exactly similar to religious
+convictions. Those who are subject to them probably pass through many
+successively, even though they all their lives hold to a certain fashion
+which enables them to assert some obvious unity, like those who, in
+religion, belong always to one sect. Yet if they were in a position to
+analyse their emotions and leanings, no doubt very fundamental
+contradictions would be discovered to disconcert them. Conviction and
+enthusiasm in the arts and religion would seem to be the frame of mind
+natural to those who assimilate, and are rendered productive by what
+they study and admire. Convictions may never be wholly justifiable in
+theory, but in practice when results are considered, it would seem that
+no other frame of mind should escape censure.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 87: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 244.]
+
+[Footnote 88: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 89: _Idem_. p. 177.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NATURE
+
+
+I
+
+We regard a form and figure out of nature with more pleasure than
+another, though the thing in itself is not necessarily altogether
+better or worse.
+
+Life in nature showeth forth the truth of these things (the words of
+difference--i.e., the character of bodily habit to which they refer),
+wherefore regard it well, order thyself thereby and depart not from
+nature in thine opinions, neither imagine of thyself to invent aught
+better, else shalt thou be led astray, for art standeth firmly fixed in
+nature, and whoso can rend her forth thence he only possesseth her. If
+thou acquirest her, she will remove many faults for thee from thy work.
+
+Neither must the figure be made youthful before and old behind, or
+contrariwise; for that unto which nature is opposed is bad. Hence it
+followeth that each figure should be of one kind alone throughout,
+either young or old, or middle-aged, or lean or fat, or soft or hard.
+
+The more closely thy work abideth by life in its form, so much the
+better will it appear; and this is true. Wherefore never more imagine
+that thou either canst or shalt make anything better than God hath given
+power to His creatures to do. For thy power is weakness compared to
+God's creating hand. (_See_ continuation of passage, p. 10.)
+
+Compare also passages quoted (pp. 289-291).
+
+
+II
+
+In these and other passages Duerer speaks about "nature," and enjoins on
+the artist respect for and conformity to "nature" in a manner which
+reminds us of that still current in dictums about art. Indeed, it seems
+probable that Duerer's use of this term was almost as confused as that of
+a modern art-critic. There are two senses in which the word nature is
+employed, the confusion of which is ten times more confounded than any
+of the others, and deserves, indeed, utter damnation, so prolific of
+evil is it. We call the objects of sensory perception "nature"--whatever
+is seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted is a part of nature. And yet we
+constantly speak of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting
+monstrous and unnatural things. And a monstrous and unnatural thing is
+not merely one which is rare, but even more decidedly one of which we
+disapprove. So that the second use of the term conveys some sense of
+exceptionality, but far more of lack of conformity to human desires and
+expectations. Now, many things which do not exist are perfectly natural
+in this second sense: fairy-lands, heavens, &c. We perfectly understand
+what is meant by a natural and an unnatural imagination, we perceive
+readily all kind of degrees between the monstrous and the natural in
+pure fiction. Now, this second use of the term nature is the only one
+which is of any vital importance to our judgments upon works of art; yet
+current judgments are more often than not based wholly on the first
+sense, which means merely all objects perceived by the senses; and this,
+draped in the authority and phrases belonging to judgments based on the
+second and really pertinent sense.
+
+Whole schools of painting and criticism have arisen and flourish whose
+only reason for existence is the extreme facility with which this
+confusion is made in European languages. It sounds so plausible that
+some have censured Michael Angelo for bad drawing because men are not
+from 9 to 15 or 16 heads high, and have not muscles so developed as the
+gods and Titans of his creation. And others have objected to the angels,
+the anatomical ambiguity of their wing articulations. To say that a
+sketch or picture is out of tone or drawing damns, in many circles
+to-day; in spite of the fact that the most famous masterpieces, if
+judged by the same standard, would be equally offensive. This absurdity,
+even where its grosser developments are avoided, breeds abundant
+contradictions and confusion in the mouths of those who plume themselves
+on culture and discernment. I hope not to have been too saucy,
+therefore, in pointing out this pitfall to my readers in regard to these
+sentences which I thought it worth while to quote from Duerer, merely
+because if I did not do so I foresaw that they would be quoted
+against me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST
+
+
+I
+
+In the great earnestness with which the difficulties that beset art and
+the artist impressed him, Duerer intended to write a _Vade Mecum_ for
+those who should come after him. He has left among his MS. papers many
+plans, rough drafts, and notes for some such work, the form of which no
+doubt changed from time to time. The one which gives us the most
+comprehensive idea of his intentions is perhaps the following.
+
+
+II
+
+Ihs. Maria
+
+By the grace and help of God I have here set down all that I have learnt
+in practice, which is likely to be of use in painting, for the service
+of all students who would gladly learn. That, perchance, by my help they
+may advance still further in the higher understanding of such art, as he
+who seeketh may well do, if he is inclined thereto; for my reason
+sufficeth not to lay the foundations of this great, far-reaching,
+infinite art of true painting.
+
+Item.--In order that thou mayest thoroughly and rightly comprehend what
+is, or is called, an "artistic painter," I will inform thee and recount
+to thee. If the world often goeth without an "artistic painter," whilst
+for two or three hundred years none such appeareth, it is because those
+who might have become such devote not themselves to art. Observe then
+the three essential qualities following, which belong to the true artist
+in painting. These are the three main points in the whole book.
+
+I. The First Division of the book is the Prologue, and it compriseth
+three parts (A, B, and C).
+
+  A. The first part of the Prologue telleth us how the lad should be
+  taught, and how attention should be paid to the tendency of his
+  temperament. It falleth into six parts:
+
+    1. That note should be taken of the birth of the child, in what Sign it
+    occurreth; with some explanations. (Pray God for a lucky hour!)
+
+    2. That his form and stature should be considered; with some
+    explanations.
+
+    3. How he ought to be nurtured in learning from the first; with some
+    explanations.
+
+    4. That the child should be observed, whether he learneth best when
+    kindly praised or when chidden; with explanations.
+
+    5. That the child be kept eager to learn and be not vexed.
+
+    6. If the child worketh too hard, so that he might fall under the hand
+    of melancholy, that he be enticed therefrom by merry music to the
+    pleasuring of his blood.
+
+  B. The second part of the Preface showeth how the lad should be brought
+  up in the fear of God and in reverence, that so he may attain grace,
+  whereby he may be much strengthened in intelligent art. It falleth into
+  six parts:
+
+    1. That the lad be brought up in the fear of God and be taught to pray
+    to God for the grace of quick perception (_ubtilitet_) and to
+    honour God.
+
+    2. That he be kept moderate in eating and drinking, and also in
+    sleeping.
+
+    3. That he dwell in a pleasant house, so that he be distracted by no
+    manner of hindrance.
+
+    4. That he be kept from women and live not loosely with them; that he
+    not so much as see or touch one; and that he guard himself from all
+    impurity. Nothing weakens the understanding more than impurity.
+
+    5. That he know how to read and write well, and be also instructed in
+    Latin, so far as to understand certain writings.
+
+    6. That such an one have sufficient means to devote himself without
+    anxiety (to his art), and that his health be attended to with medicines
+    when needful.
+
+  C. The third part of the Prologue teacheth us of the great usefulness,
+  joy, and delight which spring from painting. It falleth into six parts:
+
+    1. It is a useful art when it is of godly sort, and is employed for holy
+    edification.
+
+    2. It is useful, and much evil is thereby avoided, if a man devote
+    himself thereto who else had wasted his time.
+
+    3. It is useful when no one thinks so, for a man will have great joy if
+    he occupy himself with that which is so rich in joys.
+
+    4. It is useful because a man gaineth great and lasting memory thereby
+    if he applieth it aright.
+
+    5. It is useful because God is thereby honoured when it is seen that He
+    hath bestowed such genius upon one of His creatures in whom is such
+    art. All men will be gracious unto thee by reason of thine art.
+
+    6. The sixth use is that if thou art poor thou mayest by such art come
+    unto great wealth and riches.
+
+II. The Second Division of the book treateth of Painting itself; it also
+is threefold.
+
+  A. The first part is of the freedom of painting; in six ways.
+
+  B. The second part is of the proportions of men and buildings, and what
+  is needful for painting; in six ways.[90]
+
+    1. Of the proportions of men.
+    2. Of the proportions of horses.
+    3. Of the proportions of buildings.
+    4. Of perspective.
+    5. Of light and shade.
+    6. Of colours, how they are to be made to resemble nature.
+
+  C. The third part is of all that a man conceives as subject for
+  painting.
+
+III. The Third Division of the book is the Conclusion; it also hath
+three parts.
+
+  A. The first part shows in what place such an artist should dwell to
+  practise his art; in six ways.
+
+  B. The second part shows how such a wonderful artist should charge
+  highly for his art, and that no money is too much for it, seeing that it
+  is divine and true; in six ways.
+
+The third part speaks of praise and thanksgiving which he should render
+unto God for His grace, and which others should render on his behalf;
+in six ways.
+
+
+III
+
+It is in the variety and completeness of his intentions that we perceive
+Duerer's kinship with the Renascence; he comprehends the whole of life in
+his idea of art training.
+
+In his persuasion of the fundamental necessity of morality he is akin to
+the best of the Reformation. It is in the union of these two perceptions
+that his resemblance to Michael Angelo lies. There is a rigour, an
+austerity which emanates from their work, such as is not found in the
+work of Titian or Rembrandt or Leonardo or Rubens or any other mighty
+artist of ripe epochs. Yet we find both of them illustrating the
+licentious legends of antiquity, turning from the Virgin to Amymone and
+Leda, from Christ to Apollo and Hercules. By their action and example
+neither joins either the Reformation or the Renascence in so far as
+these movements may be considered antagonistic; nor did they find it
+inconsistent to acknowledge their debt to Greece and Rome, even while
+accepting the gift of Jesus' example as freely as it was offered.
+
+Not only does Duerer insist on the necessity of a certain consonancy
+between the surrounding influences and the artist's capacity, which
+should be both called forth and relieved by the interchange of rivalry
+with instruction, of seclusion with music or society, but the process
+which Jesus made the central one of his religion is put forward as
+essential; he must form himself on a precedent example. I have already
+quoted from Reynolds at length on this point.
+
+I will merely add here some notes from another MS. fragment of Duerer's
+bearing on the same points.
+
+He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.
+
+Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than
+compulsion is.
+
+If a man is to become a really great painter he must be educated thereto
+from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good
+artists until he attain a free hand.
+
+To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing
+whatsoever that may be chosen.
+
+It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce, to
+measure the human figure, before learning anything else.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 90: The following list comes from another sheet of the MS.
+(in. 70), but was dearly intended for this place. It is jotted down on a
+thick piece of paper, on which there are also geometrical designs.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
+
+
+I
+
+If thou wishest to model well in painting, so as to deceive the
+eyesight, thou must be right cunning in thy colours, and must know how
+to keep them distinct, in painting, one from another. For example, thou
+paintest two coats of mantles, one white the other red; thou must deal
+differently with them in shading. There is light and shadow on all
+things, wherever the surface foldeth or bendeth away from the eye. If
+this were not so, everything would look flat, and then one could
+distinguish nothing save only a chequerwork of colours.
+
+If then thou art shading the white mantle, it must not be shaded with so
+dark a colour as the red, for it would be impossible for a white thing
+to yield so dark a shadow as a red. Neither could they be compared one
+with another, save that in total absence of daylight everything is
+black, seeing that colour cannot be recognised in darkness. Though,
+therefore, in such a case, the theory allows one, without blame, to use
+pure black for the shadows of a white object, yet this can seldom
+come to pass.
+
+Moreover, when thou paintest anything in one colour--be it red, blue,
+brown, or any mixed colour--beware lest thou make it so bright in the
+lights that it departs from its own kind. For example, an uneducated man
+regardeth thy picture wherein is a red coat. "Look, good friend," saith
+he, "in one part the coat is of a fair red and in another it is white
+or pale in colour." That same is to be blamed, neither hast thou done it
+aright. In such a case a red object must be painted red all over and yet
+preserve the appearance of solidity; and so with all colours. The same
+must be done with the shadows, lest it be said that a fair red is soiled
+with black Wherefore be careful that thou shade each colour with a
+similar colour. Thus I hold that a yellow, to retain its kind, must be
+shaded with a yellow, darker toned than the principal colour. If thou
+shade it with green or blue, it remaineth no longer in keeping, and is
+no longer yellow, but becometh thereby a shot colour, like the colour of
+silk stuffs woven of threads of two colours, as brown and blue, brown
+and green, dark yellow and green, chestnut-brown and dark yellow, blue
+and seal red, seal red and brown, and the many other colours one sees.
+If a man hath such as these to paint, where the surface breaketh and
+bendeth away the colours divide themselves so that they can be
+distinguished one from another, and thus must thou paint them. But where
+the surface lieth flat one colour alone appeareth. Howbeit, if thou art
+painting such a silk and shadest it with one colour (as a brown with a
+blue) thou must none the less shade the blue with a deeper blue where it
+is needful. If often cometh to pass that such silks appear brown in the
+shadows, as if one colour stood before the other. If thy model beareth
+such a garment, thou must shade the brown with a deeper brown and not
+with blue. Howbeit, happen what may, every colour must in shading keep
+to its own class.
+
+
+II
+
+The great genius Hokusai, who has obtained for popular art in Japan a
+success comparable to that of the best classic masterpieces of that
+country and to the drawings and etchings of Rembrandt, a master of an
+altogether kindred nature, wrote a little treatise on the difference of
+aim noticeable in European and Japanese art. From the few Dutch pictures
+which he had been able to examine, he concluded that European art
+attempted to deceive the eye, whereas Japanese art laboured to express
+life, to suggest movement, and to harmonise colour. What is meant is
+easily grasped when we set before the mind's eye a picture, by Teniers
+and a page of Hokusai's "Mangwa." On the other hand, if one chose a
+sketch by Rembrandt to represent Dutch art, the difference could no
+longer be apparent. If the aim of European art had ever in serious
+examples been to deceive the eye, our painting would rank with
+legerdemain and Maskelyne's famous box trick; for it is to be doubted if
+it could ever so well have attained its end as even a second-rate
+conjurer can. I have cited a passage in which Reynolds confronts the
+work of great artists with the illusions of the camera obscura (see p.
+237). The adept musical performer who reproduces the noises of a
+farmyard is the true parallel to the lesser Dutch artists; he deceives
+the ear far better than they deceive the eye. For every picture has a
+surface which, unless very carefully lighted, must immediately destroy
+the illusion, even if it were otherwise perfect. Nevertheless, Duerer in
+the foregoing passage seems to accept Hokusai's verdict that the aim of
+his painting is to deceive the eye; forgetful of all that he has
+elsewhere written about the necessity of beauty, the necessity of
+composition, the superiority of rough sketches over finished works.
+
+When a painter has conceived in his heart a vision of beauty, whether he
+suggests it with a few strokes of the pen or elaborates it as thoroughly
+as Jan Van Eyck did, he wishes it to be taken as a report of something
+seen. This is as different from wishing to deceive the eye as for some
+one to say "and then a dog barked," instead of imitating the barking of
+a dog. A circumstantial description in words and a picture by Van Eyck
+or Veronese are equally intended to pass as reports of something
+visually conceived or actually seen. Pictures would have to be made
+peep-shows of before they could veritably deceive; and Jan Van Beers, a
+modern Dutchman, actually turned some of his paintings into peep-shows.
+Duerer in the following passage is speaking of the separate details or
+objects which go to make up a picture, not of the picture as a whole; he
+never tried to make peep-shows; his signature or an inscription is often
+used to give the very surface that must destroy the peep-show illusion a
+definite decorative value. The rest of his remarks have become
+commonplaces; nor has he written at such length as to give them their
+true limitations and intersubordination. They will be easily understood
+by those who remember that art is concerned with producing the illusion
+of a true report of something seen, not that of an actual vision. Such a
+report may be slight and brief; it may be stammered by emotion; it may
+have been confused or tortured to any degree by the mental condition of
+him who delivers it: if it produces the conviction of his sincerity, it
+achieves the only illusion with which art is concerned, and its value
+will depend on its beauty and the beauty of the means employed to
+deliver it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN CONCLUSION
+
+After turning over Duerer prints and drawings, after meditating on his
+writings, we feel that we are in the presence of one of those forces
+which are constant and equal, which continue and remain like the growth
+of the body, the return of seasons, the succession of moods. This is
+always among the greatest charms of central characters: they are mild
+and even, their action is like that of the tides, not that of storms.
+"If only you had my meekness," Duerer wrote to Pirkheimer (set: p. 85),
+half in jest doubtless, but with profound truth:--though the word
+meekness does not indeed cover the whole of what we feel made Duerer's
+most radical advantage over his friend; at other times we might call it
+naivety, that sincerity of great and simple natures which can never be
+outflanked or surprised. Sometimes it might be called pride, for it has
+certainly a great deal of self-assurance behind it, the self-assurance
+of trees, of flowers, of dumb animals and little children, who never
+dream that an apology for being where and what they are can be expected
+of them. Such natures when they come home to us come to stop; we may go
+out, we may pay no heed to them, we may forget them, but they abide in
+the memory, and some day they take hold of us with all the more force
+because this new impression will exactly tally with the former one; we
+shall blush for our inconstancy, our indifference, our imbecility, which
+have led us to neglect such a pregnant communion. Not only persons but
+works of art produce this effect, and they are those with whom it is the
+greatest benefit to live.
+
+It is true that, compared with Giotto, Rembrandt, or Michael Angelo,
+Duerer does not appear comprehensive enough. It is with him as with
+Milton; we wish to add others to his great gifts, above all to take him
+out from his surroundings, to free him from the accidents of place and
+time. In one sense he is poorer than Milton: we cannot go to him as to a
+source of emotional exhilaration. If he ever proves himself able so to
+stir us, it is too occasionally to be a reason why we frequent him as it
+may be one why we frequent Milton. Nevertheless, the greater characters
+of control which are his in an unmatched degree, his constancy, his
+resource and deliberate effectiveness, joined to that blandness, that
+sunshine, which seems so often to replace emotion and thought in works
+of image-shaping art, are of priceless beneficence, and with them we
+would abide. Intellectual passion may seem indeed sometimes to dissipate
+this sunshine and control without making good their loss. Such cases
+enable us to feel that the latter are more essential: and it is these
+latter qualities which Duerer possessed in such fulness. In return for
+our contemplation, they build up within us the dignity of man and render
+it radiant and serene. Those who have felt their influence longest and
+most constantly will believe that they may well warrant the modern
+prophet who wrote:
+
+The idea of beauty and of human nature perfect on all its sides, which
+is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, though it
+has not yet had the success that the idea of conquering the obvious
+faults of our animality and of a human nature perfect on the moral
+side--which is the dominant idea of religion--has been enabled to have;
+and it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea of a devout
+energy, to transform and govern the other.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Aachen
+
+Adam (Melchor)
+
+Aeschylus
+
+Albertina
+
+Altdorfer (Albrecht)
+
+Anabaptists
+
+Andreae (Hieronymus)
+
+Angelico (Fra Beato)
+
+Antwerpo
+
+Apelles
+
+Aristotle
+
+Arnold (Matthew)
+
+Augsburg
+
+Balccarres (Lord)
+
+Bamberg (Library)
+
+Barbari (Jacopo dei)
+
+Barberini (Gallery)
+
+Barye (Antoine Louis)
+
+Basle
+
+Baudelaire (Charles)
+
+Bavaria
+
+Beers (Jan van)
+
+Beham (Barthel and Sebald)
+
+Behaim
+
+Bellini (Gentile)
+
+Bellini (Giovanni)
+
+Berlin
+
+Blake (William)
+
+Bologna
+
+Bonnat (Leon)
+
+Borgia (Cesare)
+
+Borgia (Alexander), see Pope
+
+Botticelli
+
+Bremen
+
+Breslau (Bishop of)
+
+Breughel (Peter)
+
+British Museum.
+
+Browning (Robert)
+
+Brussels
+
+Brutus
+
+Burgkmair (Hans)
+
+Butler (Bishop)
+
+Caietan (Cardinal)
+
+Calvin
+
+Camerarius (Kunz Kamerer)
+
+Carpaccio
+
+Celtes (Conrad)
+
+Charles V. (Emperor)
+
+Cicero
+
+Coleridge
+
+Colet (Dean)
+
+Colmar
+
+Cologne (Koeln)
+
+Conway (Sir Martin)
+
+Cook (Sir Francis)
+
+Correggio
+
+Cranach (Lucas)
+
+Dante
+
+Danube
+
+Dodgson (Campbell)
+
+Dolce (Ludovico)
+
+Dresden
+
+Duerer (Albert the Elder)
+
+Duerer (Agnes, nee Frey)
+
+Duerer, Andreas
+  Brothers and Sisters
+  Father-in-law, Hans Frey
+  Forefathers
+
+Duerer, Hans
+
+Duerer's House,
+
+Mother (Barbara Helper)
+
+Duerer (Quotations from),
+
+Duerer's
+ Books:
+    Art of Fortification,
+    Human Proportions,
+    Measurement with Compass.
+
+  Drawings:
+    Adam's hand,
+    Christ bearing His Cross,
+    Dance of monkeys,
+    Himself,
+    Lion,
+    Lucas van Leyden,
+    Memento Mei,
+    Mein Angnes,
+    Mount of Olives,
+    Nepotis (Florent),
+    Pfaffroth (Hans),
+    Plankfelt (Jobst),
+    Sea-monsters,
+    Women's Bath,
+    Walrus.
+
+  Engravings on Metal:
+    Agony in the Garden,
+    Great Fortune,
+    Jerome (St.),
+    Knight (The),
+    Melancholy,
+    Passion.
+
+  Pictures:
+    Adam and Eve,
+    Adoration of Magi,
+    Avarice,
+    Christ among Doctors,
+    Coronation of Virgin,
+    Crucifixion,
+    Dresden Altar Piece,
+    Feast of Bose Garlands,
+    Hercules,
+    Lucretia,
+    Madonna with Iris,
+    Martyrdom of Ten Thousand,
+    Paumgartner, Altar Piece,
+    Preachers (The Pour),
+    Road to Calvary,
+    Trinity and All Saints.
+
+  Portraits:
+    Of himself, Leipzig, Madrid, Munich,
+    Holzschuher (Hieronymus),
+    Imhof, Hans (?),
+    Kleeberger (Johannes)
+    Krel (Oswolt),
+    Maximilian,
+    Muffel (Jacob),
+    Orley (Bernard van),
+    Unknown (Vienna),
+    Unknown (Hampton Court),
+    Unknown (Boston)
+    Unknown Woman (Berlin),
+    Unknown Girl (Berlin),
+    Wolgemut.
+
+  Woodcuts:
+    Apocalypse,
+    Assumption of Magdalen,
+    St. Christopher,
+    Gate of Honour,
+    Jerome (St.),
+    Life of the Virgin,
+    Last Supper,
+    Little Passion.
+
+Ebner
+
+Eck (Dr.)
+
+Eckenstein (Miss)
+
+Emerson
+
+Erasmus
+
+Euclid
+
+Euripides
+
+Eusebius
+
+Eyck (Jan van)
+
+FLAUBERT (Gustave)
+
+Florentine
+
+Frankfort
+
+Frederick the Wise (Elector of Saxony)
+
+Frey (Hans)
+
+Frey (Felix),
+
+Fronde,
+
+Fugger,
+
+Furtwaengler,
+
+Gainsborough,
+
+Ghent,
+
+Giehlom (Dr. Carl),
+
+Giorgjone,
+
+Giotto,
+
+Goes (Hugo vander)
+
+Goethe,
+
+Gospel of
+  St. Luke,
+  St. Matthew,
+  St. John,
+
+Grapheus (Cornelius),
+
+Greece, Greeks, Greek,
+
+Grien (Baldung),
+
+Heaton (Mrs.),
+
+_Heller (Jacob)_.
+
+Henry VIII,
+
+Hess (Eoban),
+
+Hess (Martin),
+
+Hippocrates,
+
+Hokusai,
+
+Holbein,
+
+Holzselraher,
+
+Homer,
+
+Humanists,
+
+Hungary,
+
+Hutten (Ulrich von),
+
+Imhof (Hans),
+
+Innsbruck,
+
+Jeanne D'Arc,
+
+Jesus,
+
+John (St.),
+
+Jonson (Ben),
+
+Juggernaut,
+
+Keats (John),
+
+Kolb (Anton),
+
+Kratzer (Nicholas),
+
+Kress (Christopher),
+
+Lady Margaret (Governess of the Netherlands),
+
+Landauer (Matthew),
+
+Leipzig,
+
+Leonardo da Vinci,
+
+Link (Wenzel),
+
+Lippmann,
+
+London,
+
+Longfellow,
+
+Lotto (Lorenzo),
+
+Louvre,
+
+Lucas van Leyden,
+
+Luther,
+
+Lutzelburger,
+
+Mabuse (Jan de),
+
+Macbeth,
+
+Machiavelli.
+
+Madrid,
+
+Mantegna (Andrea),
+
+Mantua,
+
+Manuel,
+
+Marcantonio,
+
+Mark (St.),
+
+Marlowe,
+
+Maximilian I.,
+
+Melanchthon,
+
+Mexico,
+
+Michael Angelo,
+
+Miller (A.W., Esq.),
+
+Millet (Jean Francois),
+
+Miltitz,
+
+Milton,
+
+Montaigne,
+
+_Monthly Review_,
+
+Montpelier (Town Council),
+
+More,
+
+Morley (Lord and Lady),
+
+Moses,
+
+Muffel (Jacob),
+
+Munich,
+
+
+Nassau,
+
+Neudoerffer,
+
+Nietzsche,
+
+Nuetzel (Caspar),
+
+Orley (Bernard van)
+
+Ostendorfer (Michael)
+
+Pacioli (Luca)
+
+Padua
+
+Parrhasius
+
+Paul (St.)
+
+Paumgartner (Stephan)
+
+Peasants' War
+
+Penz (Georg)
+
+Peter (St,)
+
+Phidias
+
+Pirkheimer (Charitas)
+  (Philip)
+  (Willibald)
+
+Pitti (Gallery)
+
+Plato
+
+Pleydenwurf
+
+Pliny
+
+Polizemo
+
+Polycleitus
+
+Pope
+  Adrian IV.
+  (Alexander VI.)
+  (Julius II.)
+  (Leo X.)
+
+Porto Venere
+
+Portugal
+
+Prague
+
+Praxiteles
+
+Protogenes
+
+Psalms
+
+Rabelais
+
+Raphael
+
+Reformation, Reformers
+
+Rembrandt
+
+Renascence
+
+Reuohlin (Dr.)
+
+Reynolds
+
+Ricketts (C. S.)
+
+Rochefoucauld (La)
+
+Roger van der Weyden
+
+Rome
+
+Rossetti (Dante Gabriel)
+
+Rubens (Peter Paul)
+
+Savonarola
+
+Scheurl (Christopher)
+
+Schongauer (Martin)
+
+Schoensperger
+
+Shannon (C. H.)
+
+Shakespeare
+
+Sistine (Chapel)
+
+Spalatin (George)
+
+Spengler (Lazarus)
+
+Stabius (Johannes)
+
+Staedel Institut
+
+Stromer (Wolf)
+
+Strong (S. A)
+
+Swift (Dean)
+
+Teniers (David)
+
+Thawing (Dr. Moritz)
+
+Titian
+
+Tschertte (Johannes)
+
+Uffizi (Gallery)
+
+Ulm
+
+Van Dyck
+
+Varnbueler (Ulrioh)
+
+Vasari
+
+Velasquez
+
+Venice
+
+Veronese (Paul)
+
+Verona
+
+Verrall (Dr.)
+
+Vienna
+
+Virgil
+
+Vitruvius
+
+Warham (Archbishop)
+
+Watteail (Antoine)
+
+Watts (G. F.)
+
+Weimar (Grand Ducal Museum)
+
+Whistler (James McNeil)
+
+Wittenberg
+
+Wolfenbuettel
+
+Wolgemut
+
+Wordsworth
+
+Wuerzburg (Bishop of)
+
+Zeeland
+
+Zeuxis
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
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+Title: Albert Durer
+
+Author: T. Sturge Moore
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9837]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 23, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALBERT DURER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steve Schulze and PG Distributed Proofreaders.
+Page images generously provided by the CWRU Preservation
+Department Digital Library.
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+
+[Transcriber's note: The printing errors of the original have been
+retained in this etext.]
+
+
+
+ALBERT DÜRER
+
+BY
+
+T. STURGE MOORE
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+When the late Mr. Arthur Strong asked me to undertake the present
+volume, I pointed out to him that, to fulfil the advertised programme of
+the Series he was editing, was more than could be hoped from my
+attainments. He replied, that in the case of Dürer a book, fulfilling
+that programme, was not called for, and that what he wished me to
+attempt, was an appreciation of this great artist in relation to general
+ideas. I had hoped to benefit very largely by my editor's advice and
+supervision, but this his illness and death prevented. His great gifts
+and brilliant accomplishments, already darkened and distressed by
+disease, were all too soon to be utterly quenched; and I can but here
+express, not only my sense of personal loss in the hopes which his
+friendly welcome and generous intercourse had created and which have
+been so cruelly dashed by the event, but also that of the void which his
+disappearance has left in the too thin ranks of those who, filled with
+reverence and enthusiasm for the great traditions of the past, seem
+nevertheless eager and capable of grappling with the unwieldy present.
+Let and restricted had been the recognition of his maturing worth, and
+now we must do without both him and the impetus of his so nearly
+assured success.
+
+The present volume, then, is not the result of new research; nor is it
+an abstract resuming historical and critical discoveries on its subject
+up to date. Of this latter there are several already before the British
+public; the former, as I said, it was not for me to attempt. Nor do I
+feel my book to be altogether even what it was intended to be; but am
+conscious that too much space has been given to the enumeration of
+Dürer's principal works and the events of his life without either being
+made exhaustive. Still, I hope that even these parts may be found
+profitable by those who are not already familiar with the subjects with
+which they deal. To those for whom these subjects are well known, I
+should like to point out that Parts I. and IV. and very much of Part
+III. embody my chief intention; that chapter 1 of Part I. finds a
+further illustration in division iii. of chapter 4, Part II.; and that
+division vi., chapter 1, Part II., should be taken as prefatory to
+chapter 1, Part IV.
+
+Should exception be taken to the works chosen as illustrations, I would
+explain that the means of reproduction, the degree of reduction
+necessitated by the size of the page, and other outside considerations,
+have severely limited my choice. It is entirely owing to the extreme
+kindness of the Dürer Society--more especially of its courteous and
+enthusiastic secretaries, Mr. Campbell Dodgson and Mr. Peartree--that
+four copper-plates have so greatly enhanced the adequacy of the volume
+in this respect.
+
+I have gratefully to acknowledge Sir Martin Conway's kindness in
+permitting me to quote so liberally from his "Literary Remains of
+Albrecht Dürer," by far the best book on this great artist known to me.
+Mr. Charles Eaton's translation of Thausing's "Life of Dürer," the
+"Portfolios of the Dürer Society," and Dr. Lippmanb "Drawings of
+Albrecht Dürer," are the only other works on my subject to which I feel
+bound to acknowledge my indebtedness. Lastly, I must express deep
+gratitude to my learned friend, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, for having so
+generously consented, by reading the proofs, to mitigate my defect in
+scholarship.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PREFACE
+
+PART I
+
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE
+COMPREHENSION OF DÜRER'S LIFE AND ART
+
+  I. THE IDEA OF PROPORTION
+  II THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
+
+PART II
+
+DÜRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES
+IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+  I. DÜRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION
+  II. THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED
+  III. DÜRER AT VENICE
+  IV. HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
+  V. DÜRER, LUTHER, AND THE HUMANISTS
+  VI. DÜRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS
+  VII. DÜRER'S LAST YEARS
+
+PART III
+
+DÜRER AS A CREATOR
+
+  I. DÜRER'S PICTURES
+  II. DÜRER'S PORTRAITS
+  III. DÜRER'S DRAWINGS
+  IV. DÜRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS
+  V. DÜRER'S WOODCUTS
+  VI. DÜRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES
+
+PART IV
+
+DÜRER'S IDEAS
+
+  I. THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE
+  II. THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY
+  III. THE LAST TRADITION
+  IV. BEAUTY
+  V. NATURE
+  VI. THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST
+  VII. TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
+  VIII. IN CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Apollo and Diana, Metal Engraving
+Water-colour drawing of a Hare
+Pilate Washing his Hands. Metal Engraving
+Agnes Frey
+"Mein Angnes"
+Wilibald Pirkheimer
+Hans Burgkmair
+Adoration of the Trinity
+St. Christopher
+Assumption of the Magdalen
+Dürer's Mother
+Maximilian
+Frederick the Wise
+Silver-point Portrait
+Erasmus
+Drawing of a Lion
+Lucas van der Leyden
+Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate. Metal Engraving
+St. George and St. Eustache
+Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Saints
+Road to Calvary
+Portrait of Dürer
+Portrait of Dürer
+Albert Dürer the Elder
+Gswolt Krel
+Portrait at Hampton Court
+Portrait of a Lady
+Michel Wolgemuth
+Hans Imhof
+"Jakob Muffel"
+Study of a Hound
+Memento Mei
+Silver-point Portrait
+Portrait in Black Chalk
+Cherub for a Crucifixion
+Apollo and Diana
+An Old Castle
+Melancholia
+Detail from "The Agony in the Garden"
+Angel with Sudarium
+The Small Horse
+The Great Fortune, or Nemesis
+Silver-point Drawing
+St. Michael and the Dragon
+Detail from "The Meeting at the Golden Gate"
+Detail from "The Nativity"
+Dürer's Armorial Bearings
+Christ haled before Annas
+The Last Supper
+Saint Antony, Metal Engraving
+"In the Eighteenth Year"
+"Una Vilana Wendisch"
+Charcoal Drawing
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE COMPREHENSION OF DÜRER'S LIFE
+AND ART
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE IDEA OF PROPORTION
+
+
+I
+
+Ich hab vernomen wie der siben weysen aus kriechenland ainer gelert hab
+das dymass in allen dingen sitlichen und naturlichen das pest sey.
+
+DÜRER, British Museum MS., vol. iv., 82a.
+
+I have heard how one of the Seven Sages of Greece taught that measure is
+in all things, physical and moral, best.
+
+La souveraine habileté consiste à bien connaitre le prix des choses. LA
+ROCHEFOUCAULD, III. 252.
+
+Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the value of
+things.
+
+The attempt that the last quarter century has witnessed, to introduce
+the methods of science into the criticism of works of art, has tended,
+it seems to me, to put the question of their value into the background.
+The easily scandalous inquiries, "Who?" "When?" "Where?" have assumed an
+impertinent predominance. When I hear people very decidedly asserting
+that such a picture was painted by such an one, not generally supposed
+to be the author, at such a time, &c. &c., I often feel uneasy in the
+same way as one does on being addressed in a loud voice in a church or a
+picture gallery, where other persons are absorbed in an acknowledged and
+respected contemplation or study. I feel inclined to blush and whisper,
+for fear of being supposed to know the speaker too well. It is an
+awkward moment with me, for I am in fact very good friends with many
+such persons. "Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the
+value of things"--not their commercial value only, though that is
+sovereign skill on the Exchange, but their value for those whose chief
+riches are within them. The value of works of art is an intimate
+experience, and cannot be estimated by the methods of exact science as
+the weight of a planet can. There are and have been forgeries that are
+more beautiful, therefore more valuable, than genuine specimens of the
+class of work which they figure as. I feel that the specialist, with his
+special measure and point of view, often endangers the fair name and
+good repute of the real estimate; and that nothing but the dominion and
+diffusion of general ideas can defend us against the specialist and keep
+the specialist from being carried away by bad habits resulting from his
+devotion to a single inquiry.
+
+There was one general idea, of the greatest importance in determining
+the true value of things, which preoccupied Dürer's mind and haunted his
+imagination: the idea of proportion. I propose therefore to attempt to
+make clear to myself and my readers what the idea of proportion really
+implies, and of what service a sense for proportion really is; secondly,
+to determine the special use of the term in relation to the appreciation
+of works of art; thirdly, in relation to their internal
+structure;--before proceeding to the special studies of Dürer as a man
+and an artist.
+
+
+II
+
+I conceive the human reason to be the antagonist of all known forces
+other than itself, and that therefore its most essential character is
+the hope and desire to control and transform the universe; or, failing
+that, to annihilate, if not the universe, at least itself and the
+consciousness of a monster fact which it entirely condemns. In this
+conception I believe myself to be at one with those by whom men have
+been most influenced, and who, with or without confidence in the support
+of unknown powers, have set themselves deliberately against the face of
+things to die or conquer. This being so, and man individually weak, it
+has been the avowed object of great characters--carrying with them the
+instinctive consent of nations--to establish current values for all
+things, according as their imagination could turn them to account as
+effective aids of reason: that is, as they could be made to advance her
+apparent empire over other elemental forces, such as motion, physical
+life, &c. This evaluation, in so far as it is constant, results in what
+we call civilisation, and is the only bond of society. With difficulty
+is the value of new acquisitions recognised even in the realm of
+science, until the imagination can place them in such a light as shall
+make them appear to advance reason's ends, which accounts for the
+reluctance that has been shown to accept many scientific results. Reason
+demands that the world she would create shall be a fact, and declares
+that the world she would transform is the real world, but until the
+imagination can find a function for it in reason's ideal realm, every
+piece of knowledge remains useless, or even an obstacle in the way of
+our intended advance. This applies to individuals just as truly as it
+does to mankind. And since man's reason is a natural phenomenon and does
+apparently belong to the class of elemental forces, this warfare against
+the apparent fact, and the fortitude and hope which its whole-hearted
+prosecution begets, appear as a natural law to the intelligence and as a
+command and promise to the reason.
+
+The alternative between the will to cease and the will to serve reason,
+with which I start out, may not seem necessary to all. "Forgive their
+sin--and if not, blot me I pray thee out of thy book," was Moses'
+prayer; and to me it seems that only by lethargy can any soul escape
+from facing this alternative. The human mind in so far as it is active
+always postulates, "Let that which I desire come to pass, or let me
+cease!" Nor is there any diversity possible as to what really is
+desirable: Man desires the full and harmonious development of his
+faculties. As to how this end may most probably be attained, there is
+diversity enough to represent every possible blend of ignorance with
+knowledge, of lethargy with energy, of cowardice with courage.
+
+"So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men, whether considered in
+their persons or their states, that they will grasp at all, and can form
+no scheme of perfect happiness with less."[1] So writes the most
+powerful of English prose-writers. And this hope and desire, which is
+reason, once thrown down, the most powerful among poets has brought from
+human lips this estimate of life--
+
+  "It is a tale
+Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
+Signifying nothing."
+
+No one knows whether reason's object will or can be attained; but for
+the present each man finds confidence and encouragement in so far as he
+is able to imagine all things working together for the good of those who
+desire good--in short, for "reasonable beings."[2] The more he knows,
+the greater labour it is for him to imagine this; but the more he
+concentrates his faculties on doing good and creating good things, the
+more his imagination glows and shines and discovers to him new
+possibilities of success: the better he is able to find--
+
+  "Sermons in stones and good in everything;"
+    "And make a moral of the devil himself."
+
+But how is it that reason can accept an imagination that makes what in a
+cold light she considers her enemy, appear her friend? All things
+impress the mind with two contradictory notions--their actual condition
+and their perfection. Even the worst of its kind impresses on us an idea
+of what the best would be, or we could not know it for the worst.
+Reason, then, seizes on this aspect of things which suggests their
+perfection, and awards them her attention in proportion as such aspect
+makes their perfection seem near, or as it may further her in
+transforming the most pressing of other evils. All life tends to affirm
+its own character; and the essential characteristic of man is reason,
+which labours to perfect all things that he judges to be good, and to
+transform all evil. Ultimate results are out of sight for all human
+faculties except the early-waking eyes of long-chastened hope; but
+reason loves this visionary mood, though she prefer that it be sung, and
+find that less lyrical speech brings on it something of ridicule; for
+such a rendering betrays, as a rule, faint desire or small power to
+serve her in those who use it.
+
+The sense of proportion, then, is that fineness of susceptibility by
+which we appreciate in a given object, person, force, or mood,
+serviceableness in regard to reason's work; in other words, by which we
+estimate the capacity to transform the Universe in such a way that men
+may ultimately be enabled to give their hearty consent to its existence,
+which at present no man rationally can.
+
+
+III
+
+Now, art appeals to fine susceptibilities; for, as I have explained
+elsewhere,[3] the value of works of art depends on their having come as
+"real and intimate experiences to a large number of gifted men"--men who
+have some kinship to that "finely touched and gifted man, the [Greek
+_heuphnaes_] of the Greeks," to use the phrase of our greatest modern
+critic. And in so far as we are able to judge between works successfully
+making such an appeal, we must be governed by this sense of proportion,
+which measures how things stand in regard to reason; that is, not merely
+intellect, not merely emotion, but the alliance of both by means of the
+imagination in aid of man's most central demand--the demand for
+nobler life.
+
+Perhaps I ought to point out before proceeding, that this position is
+not that of the writers on art most in view at the present day. It is
+the negation of the so-called scientific criticism, and also of the
+personal theory that reduces art to an expression of, and an appeal to,
+individual temperaments; it is the assertion of the sovereignty of the
+aesthetic conscience on exactly the same grounds as sovereignty is
+claimed for the moral conscience. Æsthetics deals with the morality of
+appeals addressed to the senses. That is, it estimates the success of
+such appeals in regard to the promotion of fuller and more harmonious
+life. Flaubert wrote:
+
+"Le génie n'est pas rare maintenant, mais ce que personne n'a plus et ce
+qu'il faut tacher d'avoir, c'est la conscience."
+
+("Genius is not rare nowadays, but conscience is what nobody has and
+what one should strive after.")
+
+To-day I am thinking of a painter. Painting is an art addressed
+primarily to the eye, and not to the intelligence, not to the
+imagination, save as these may be reached through the eye--that most
+delicate organ of infinite susceptibility, which teaches us the meaning
+of the word light--a word so often uttered with stress of ecstasy, of
+longing, of despair, and of every other shade of emotion, that the sound
+of it must soon be almost as powerful with the young heart, almost as
+immediate in its effect, as the break of day itself, gladdening the eyes
+and glorifying the earth. And how often is this joy received through the
+eye entrusted back to it for expression? For the eye can speak with
+varieties, delicacies, and subtle shades of motion far beyond the
+attainment of any other organ. "This art of painting is made for the
+eyes, for sight is the noblest sense of man,"[4] says Dürer; and again:
+
+"It is ordained that never shall any man be able, out of his own
+thoughts, to make a beautiful figure, unless, by much study, he hath
+well stored his mind. That then is no longer to be called his own; it is
+art acquired and learnt, which soweth, waxeth, and beareth fruit after
+its kind. Thence the gathered secret treasure of the heart is manifested
+openly in the work, and the new creature which a man createth in his
+heart, appeareth in the form of a thing."[5]
+
+Yes, indeed, the function of art is far from being confined to telling
+us what we see, whatever some may pretend, or however naturally any
+small nature may desire to continue, teach, or regulate great ones. All
+so-called scientific methods of creating or criticising works of art are
+inadequate, because the only truly scientific statements that can be
+made about these inquiries are that nothing is certain--that no method
+ensures success, and that no really important quality can be defined;
+for what man can say why one cloud is more beautiful than another in the
+same sky, any more than he can explain why, of two men equally absorbed
+in doing their duty, one impresses him as being more holy than the
+other? The degrees essential to both kinds of judgment escape all
+definition; only the imagination can at times bring them home to us,
+only the refined taste or chastened conscience, as the case may be,
+witnesses with our spirit that its judgment is just, and bids us
+recognise a master in him who delivers it. As the expression on a face
+speaks to a delicate sense, often communicating more, other, and better
+than can be seen, so the proportion, harmony, rhythm of a painting may
+beget moods and joys that require the full resources of a well-stored
+mind and disciplined character in order that they may be fully
+relished--in brief, demand that maturity of reason which is the mark of
+victorious man.
+
+Such being my conception, it will easily be perceived how anxious I must
+be to truly discern and express the relation between such objects as
+works of art by common consent so highly honoured, and at the same time
+so active in their effect upon the most exquisitely endowed of mankind.
+Especially since to-day caprice, humour and temperament are, by the
+majority of writers on art, acclaimed for the radical characteristic of
+the human creative faculty, instead of its perversion and disease; and
+it is thought that to be whimsical, moody, or self-indulgent best fits a
+man both to create and appraise works of art, whereas to become so
+really is the only way in which a man capable of such high tasks can
+with certainty ruin and degrade his faculties. Precious, surpassingly
+precious indeed, must every manifestation of such faculty before its
+final extinction remain, since the race produces comparatively few
+endowed after this kind.
+
+Perhaps a sufficient illustration of this prevalent fallacy may be drawn
+from Mr. Whistler's "Ten O'Clock," where he speaks of art:
+
+"A whimsical goddess, and a capricious, her strong sense of joy
+tolerates no dulness, and, live we never so spotlessly, still may she
+turn her back upon us."
+
+"As from time immemorial, she has done upon the Swiss in their
+mountains."
+
+Here is no proof of caprice, save on the witty writer's part; for men
+who fast are not saved from bad temper, nor have the kindly necessarily
+discreet tongues. The Swiss may be brave and honest, and yet dull.
+Virtue is her own reward, and art her own. Virtue rewards the saint, art
+the artist; but men are rewarded for attention to morality by some
+measure of joy in virtue, for attention to beauty by some measure of joy
+in works of art. Between the artist and the Philistine is no great gulf
+fixed, in the sense that the witty "master of the butterfly" pretends to
+assume, but an infinite and gentle decline of persons representing every
+possible blend of the virtues and faults of these two types. Again, an
+artist is miscalled "master of art." "Where he is, there she appears,"
+is airy impudence. "Where she wills to be, there she chooses a man to
+serve her," would not only have been more gallant but more reasonable;
+for that "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
+thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is
+every one that is born of the spirit," and that "many are called, few
+chosen," are sayings as true of the influence which kindleth art as of
+that which quickeneth to holiness. Art is not dignified by being called
+whimsical--or capricious. What can a man explain? The intention, behind
+the wind, behind the spirit, behind the creative instinct, is dark. But
+man is true to his own most essential character when, if he cannot
+refrain from prating of such mysteries, he qualifies them as hope would
+have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks of the
+unknown, in whose hands his destiny so largely rests, slightingly, as of
+a woman whom he has seduced because he despised her--calling her
+capricious because she answered to his caprice, whimsical, because she
+was as flighty as his error. It is not art's function to reward virtue.
+But, caprices and whimseys being ascribed to a goddess, it will be
+natural to expect them in her worshipper; and Mr. Whistler revealed the
+limitations of his genius by whimseys and caprice. Though it was in
+their relations to the world that this goddess and her devotee claimed
+freedoms so far from perfect, yet this, their avowed characteristic
+abroad, I think in some degree disturbed their domestic relations,
+Though others have underlined the absurdity of this theory by applying
+themselves to it with more faith and less sense, I have chosen to quote
+from the "Ten O'Clock," because I admire it and accept most of the ideas
+about art advanced therein. The artist who wrote it was able, in Dürer's
+phrase, "to prove" what he wrote "with his hand." Most of those who have
+elaborated what was an occasional unsoundness of his doctrine into
+ridiculous religions are as unable to create as they are to think; there
+is no need to record names which it is wisdom to forget. But it may be
+well to point out that Mr. Whistler does not succeed in glorifying great
+artists when he declares that beauty "to them was as much a matter of
+certainty and triumph as is to the astronomer the verification of the
+result, foreseen with the light granted to him alone." No, he only sets
+up a false analogy; for the true parallel to the artist is the saint,
+not the astronomer; both are convinced, neither understands. Art is no
+more the reward of intelligence than of virtue. She permits no caprice
+in her own realm. Loyalty is the only virtue she insists on, loyalty in
+regard to her servant's experience of beauty; he may be immoral in every
+other way and she not desert him; but let him turn Balaam and declare
+beauty absent where he feels its presence--though in doing this he hopes
+to advance virtue or knowledge, she needs no better than an ass to
+rebuke him. Nothing effects more for anarchy than these notions that art
+derives from individual caprice, or defends virtue, or demonstrates
+knowledge; for they are all based on those flattering hopes of the
+unsuccessful, that chance, rules both in life and art, or that it is
+possible to serve two masters.
+
+Doctrines often repeated gain easy credence; and, since art demands
+leisure in order to be at all enjoyed, ideas about it, in so fatiguing a
+life as ours has become, take men off their guard, when their habitual
+caution is laid to sleep, and, by an over-easiness, they are inclined to
+spoil both their sense of distinction and their children. Yes, they
+consent to theatres that degrade them, because they distract and amuse;
+and read journals that are smart and diverting at the expense of dignity
+and truth--in the same way as they smile at the child whom reason bids
+them reprove, and with the like tragic result; for they become incapable
+of enjoying works of art, as the child is incapacitated for the best of
+social intercourse. To prophesy smooth things to people in this
+condition, and flatter their dulness, is to be no true friend; and so
+the modern art-critic and journalist is often the insidious enemy of the
+civilisation he contents.
+
+Nothing strikes the foreigner coming to England more than our lack of
+general ideas. Our art criticism is no exception; it, like our
+literature and politics, is happy-go-lucky and delights in the pot-shot.
+We often hear this attributed admiringly to "the sporting instinct." "If
+God, in his own time, granteth me to write something further about
+matters connected with painting, I will do so, in hope that this art may
+not rest upon use and wont alone, but that in time it may be taught on
+true and orderly principles, and may be understood to the praise of God
+and the use and pleasure of all lovers of art."[6]
+
+Our art is still worse off than our trade or our politics, for it does
+not even rest upon use and wont, but is wholly in the air. Yet the
+typical modern aesthete has learnt where to take cover, for, though
+destitute of defence, he has not entirely lost the instinct for
+self-preservation; and, when he finds the eye of reason upon him, he
+immediately flies to the diversity of opinions. But Dürer follows him
+even there with the perfect good faith of a man in earnest.
+
+"Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty, and
+they seek after it in many different ways, although ugliness is thereby
+rather attained. Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know
+not certainly what the ultimate measure of true beauty is, and cannot
+describe it aright. But glad should I be to render such help as I can,
+to the end that the gross deformities of our work might be and remain
+pruned away and avoided, unless indeed any one prefers to bestow great
+labour upon the production of deformities. We are brought back,
+therefore, to the aforesaid judgment of men, which considereth one
+figure beautiful at one time and another at another....
+
+"Because now we cannot altogether attain unto perfection, shall we
+therefore wholly cease from learning? By no means. Let us not take unto
+ourselves thoughts fit for cattle. For evil and good lie before men,
+wherefore it behoveth the rational man to choose the good."[7]
+
+A man may see, if he will but watch, who is more finely touched and
+gifted than himself. In all the various fields of human endeavour, on
+such men he should try to form himself; for only thus can he enlarge his
+nature, correct his opinions. Something he can learn from this man,
+something from that, and it is rational to learn and be taught. Are we
+to be cattle or gods? "Is it not written in your law, I said, 'Ye are
+gods?'" Reason demands that each man form himself on the pattern of a
+god, and God is an empty name if reason be not the will of God. Then he
+whom reason hath brought up may properly be called a son of God, a son
+of man, a child of light. But it is easier to bob to such phrases than
+to understand them. However, their mechanical repetition does not
+prevent their having meant something once, does not prevent their
+meaning being their true value. It is time we understood our art, just
+as it is time we understood our religion. Docility, as I have pointed
+out elsewhere, is one of the marks of genius. Dürer's spirit is the
+spirit of the great artist who will learn even from "dull men of little
+judgment."
+
+"Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel.
+Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts, let him take it from
+one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with
+his hand. Howbeit any one may give thee counsel; and when thou hast done
+a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men
+of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule
+they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the
+good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayst thus better
+thy work."[8]
+
+Those who are thoroughly versed in art are the great artists; we have
+guides then, and we have a way--the path they have trodden--and we have
+company, the gifted and docile men of to-day whom we see to be improving
+themselves; and, in so far as we are reasonable, a sense of proportion
+is ours, which we may improve; and it will help us to catch up better
+and yet better company until we enjoy the intimacy of the noblest, and
+know as we are known. Then: "May we not consider it a sign of sanity
+when we regard the human spirit as ... a poet, and art as a half written
+poem? Shall we not have a sorry disappointment if its conclusion is
+merely novel, and not the fulfilment and vindication of those great
+things gone before?"[9] For my own part, those appear to me the grandest
+characters who, on finding that there is no other purchase for effort
+but only hope, and that they can never cease from hope but by ceasing to
+live, clear their minds of all idle acquiescence in what could never be
+hoped, and concentrate their energies on conquering whatever in their
+own nature, and in the world about them, militates against their most
+essential character--reason, which seeks always to give a higher
+value to life.
+
+
+IV
+
+When we speak of the sense of proportion displayed in the design of a
+building, many will think that the word is used in quite a different
+sense, and one totally unrelated to those which I have been discussing.
+But no; life and art are parallel and correspond throughout; ethics are
+the Esthetics of life, religion the art of living. Taste and conscience
+only differ in their provinces, not in their procedure. Both are based
+on instinctive preferences; the canon of either is merely so many of
+those preferences as, by their constant recurrence to individuals gifted
+with the power of drawing others after them, are widely accepted.
+
+The preference of serenity to melancholy, of light to darkness, are
+among the most firmly established in the canon, that is all. The sense
+of proportion within a design is employed to stimulate and delight the
+eye. Ordinary people may fear there is some abstruse science about this.
+Not at all; it is as simple as relishing milk and honey, and its
+development an exact parallel to the training of the palate to
+distinguish the flavours of teas, coffees and wines. "Taste and see" is
+the whole business. There are many people who have no hesitation in
+picking out what to their eye is the wainscot panel with the richest
+grain: they see it at once. So with etchings; if people would only
+forget that they are works of art, forget all the false or
+ill-understood standards which they have been led to suppose applicable,
+and look at them as they might at agate stones; or choose out the
+richest in effect: the most suitable for a gay room, or a hall, or a
+library, as though they were patterned stuffs for curtains; they would
+come a thousand times nearer a right appreciation of Dürer's success
+than by making a pot-shot to lasso the masterpiece with the tangle of
+literary rubbish which is known as art criticism.
+
+The harmonies and contrasts of juxtaposed colours or textures are
+affected by quantity, and a sense of proportion decides what quantities
+best produce this effect and what that. The correctness or amount of
+information to be conveyed in the delineation of some object, in
+relation to the mood which the artist has chosen shall dominate his
+work, is determined by his sense of proportion. He may distort an object
+to any extent or leave it as vague as the shadow on a wall in diffused
+light, or he may make it precise and particular as ever Jan Van Eyck
+did; so only that its distortion or elaboration is so proportioned to
+the other objects and intentions of his work as to promote its success
+in the eyes of the beholder.
+
+There are no fallacies greater than the prevalent ones conveyed by the
+expressions "out of drawing" or "untrue to nature." There is no such
+thing as correct drawing or an outside standard of truth for works
+of art.
+
+"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved." "Chaque
+oeuvre à faire a sa poétique en soi, qu'il faut trouver," said Flaubert.
+Truth in a work of art is sincerity. That a man says what he really
+means--shows us what he really thinks to be beautiful--is all that
+reason bids us ask for. No science or painstaking can make up for his
+not doing this. No lack of skill or observation can entirely frustrate
+his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly
+sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the
+inexpressible is never felt. Stammering becomes more eloquent than
+oratory, a child's impulsiveness wiser than circumlocutory experience.
+When a single intention absorbs the whole nature, communication is
+direct and immediate, and makes impotence itself a means of
+effectiveness. So the naïveties of early art put to shame the
+purposeless parade of prodigious skill. Wherever there is communication
+there is art; but there are evil communications and there is vicious
+art, though, perhaps, great sincerity is incompatible with either. For
+an artist to be deterred by other people's demands means that he is not
+artist enough; it is what his reason teaches him to demand of himself
+that matters, though, doubtless, the good desire the approval of
+kindred natures.
+
+A work of art addresses the eye by means of chosen proportions; it may
+present any number of facts as exactly as may be, but if it offend the
+eye it is a mere misapplication of industry, or the illustration of a
+scientific treatise out of place; and those that choose ribbons well are
+better artists than the man that made it. Or again it may overflow with
+poetical thought and suggestion, or have the stuff to make a first-rate
+story in it; but, if it offend the eye, it is merely a misapplication of
+imagination, invention or learning, and the girl who puts a charming
+nosegay together is a better artist than he who painted it. On the other
+hand, though it have no more significance than a glass of wine and a
+loaf of bread, if the eye is rejoiced by gazing on the paint that
+expresses them, it is a work of art and a fine achievement. Still, it
+may be as fanciful as a fairy-tale, or as loaded with import as the
+Crucifixion; and, if it stimulates the eye to take delight in its
+surfaces over and above mere curiosity, it is a work of art, and great
+in proportion as the significance of what it conveys is brought home to
+us by the very quality of the stimulus that is created in return for our
+gaze. For painting is the result of a power to speak beautifully with
+paint, as poetry is of a power to express beautifully by means of words
+either simple things or those which demand the effort of a welltrained
+mind in order to be received and comprehended. The mistake made by
+impressionists, luminarists, and other modern artists, is that a true
+statement of how things appear to them will suffice; it will not, unless
+things appear beautiful to them, and they render them beautifully. It
+will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different
+thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading;
+whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is
+always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is
+inspiring--is a work of art and "a joy for ever." For reason demands
+that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, and give such pleasure as best
+consists with the universe becoming what reason demands that it shall
+become. This demand of reason is perfectly arbitrary? Yes, but it is
+also inevitable, necessitated by the nature of the human character. It
+is equally arbitrary and equally inevitable that man must, where science
+is called for, in the long run prefer a true statement to a lie. From
+art reason demands beautiful objects, from science true statements: such
+is human nature; for the possession of this reason that judges and
+condemns the universe, and demands and attempts to create something
+better, is that which differentiates human life from all other known
+forces--is that by which men may be more than conquerors, may make peace
+with the universe; for
+
+  "A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
+   For then both parties nobly are subdued
+   And neither party loser."
+
+Of such a nature is the only peace that the soul can make with the
+body--that man can make with nature--that habit can make with
+instinct--that art can make with impulse. In order to establish such a
+peace the imagination must train reason to see a friend in her enemy,
+the physical order. For, as Reynolds says of the complete artist:
+
+"He will pick up from dunghills, what, by a nice chemistry, passing
+through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold, and under the
+rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even
+sublime inventions."[10]
+
+It is not too much to say that the nature both of the artist and of the
+dunghills is "subdued" by such a process, and yet neither is a "loser."
+Goethe profoundly remarked that the highest development of the soul was
+reached through worship first of that which was above, then of that
+which was beneath it. This great critic also said, "Only with difficulty
+do we spell out from that which nature presents to us, the _DESIRED_
+word, the congenial. Men find what the artist brings intelligible and to
+their taste, stimulating and alluring, genial and friendly, spiritually
+nourishing, formative and elevating. Thus the artist, grateful to the
+nature that made him, weaves a second nature--but a conscious, a fuller,
+a more perfectly human nature."
+
+[Illustration: Water-colour drawing of a Hare]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Swift, "Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome."]
+
+[Footnote 2: It may be urged that diversities of opinion exist as to
+what good is. The convenience of the words "good" and "evil" corresponds
+to a need created by a common experience in the same way as the
+convenience of the words "light" and "darkness" does. A child might
+consider that a diamond generated light in the same way as a candle
+does. He would be mistaken, but this would not affect the correctness of
+his application of the word "light" to his experience; if he confused
+light with darkness he must immediately become unintelligible. Good and
+light are perceived and named--no one can say more of them; the effects
+of both may be described with more or less accuracy. To say that light
+is a mode of motion does not define it; we ask at once, What mode? And
+the only answer is, that which produces the effect of light. A man born
+blind, though he knew what was meant by motion, could never deduce from
+this knowledge a conception of light.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The Monthly Review, October 1902, "Rodin."]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 177.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ibid. p. 247.]
+
+[Footnote 6: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 252.]
+
+[Footnote 7: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," pp, 244 and 245.]
+
+[Footnote 8: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 180.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The Monthly Review, April 1901, "In Defence of Reynolds."]
+
+[Footnote 10: Sixth Discourse.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
+
+
+I
+
+There are some artists of whom one would naturally write in a lyrical
+strain, with praise of the flesh, and those things which add to its
+beauty, freshness, and mystery--fair scenes of mountain, woodland, or
+sea-shore; blue sky, white cloud and sunlight, or the deep and starry
+night; youth and health, strength and fertility, frankness and freedom.
+And, in such a strain, one would insist that the fondness and
+intoxication which these things quicken was natural, wise, and lovely.
+But, quite as naturally, when one has to speak of Dürer, the mind
+becomes filled with the exhilaration and the staidness that the desire
+to know and the desire to act rightly beget; with the dignity of
+conscious comprehension, the serenity of accomplished duty with all the
+strenuousness and ardour of which the soul is capable; with science
+and religion.
+
+It is natural to refer often to the towering eminence of these virtues
+in Michael Angelo; both he and Dürer were not only great artists, and
+active and powerful minds, but men imbued with, and conservative of,
+piety. And it seems to me, if we are to appreciate and sympathise deeply
+with such men, we must try to understand the religion they believed in;
+to estimate, not only what its value was supposed to be in those days,
+but what value it still has for us. Surely what they prized so highly
+must have had real and lasting worth? Surely it can only be the relation
+of that value to common speech and common thought which has changed, not
+its relation to man's most essential nature? Therefore I will first try
+to arrive at a general notion of the real worth of their ideas,--that
+is, the worth that is equally great from their point of view and ours.
+
+The whole of that period, the period of the so belauded Renascence, had
+within it (or so it seems to me) an incurable insufficiency, which
+troubles the affections of those who praise or condemn it; so that they
+show themselves more passionate than those who praise or condemn the art
+and life of ancient Greece. This insufficiency I believe to have been
+due to the fact that Christian ideas were more firmly rooted in, than
+they were understood by, the society of those days. And to-day I think
+the same cause continues to propagate a like insufficiency, a like lack
+of correspondence between effort and aim. Certain ideas found in the
+reported sayings of Jesus have so fastened upon the European intellect
+that they seem well-nigh inseparable from it. We are told that the
+effort of the Greek, of Aristotle, was to "submit to the empire of
+fact." The effort of the Jew was very similar; for the prophets, what
+happened was the will of God, what will happen is what God intends. Now
+it is noteworthy that Aristotle did not wish to submit to ignorance,
+though it and the causes which produce it and preserve it in human minds
+are among the most horrible and tremendous of facts; and it is the
+imperishable glory of the prophets, that, whatever the priest the king,
+the Sadducee or Pharisee might do, _they_ could not rest in or abide the
+idea that God's will was ever evil; no inconsistency was too glaring to
+check their indignation at Eastern fatalism which quietly supposed that
+as things went wrong it was their nature to do so;--vanity, vanity, all
+is vanity!--or that if men did wrong and prospered, it was God's doing,
+and showed that they had pleased Him with sacrifices and performances.
+
+
+II
+
+'Wherever poetry, imagination, or art had been busy, there had appeared,
+both in Judea and Greece, some degree of rebellion against the empire of
+fact.. When Jesus said: "The kingdom of heaven is within you," he
+recognised that the human reason was the antagonist of all other known
+forces, and he declared war on the god of this world and prophesied the
+downfall of--the empire of the apparent fact;--not with fume and fret,
+not with rant and rage, as poets and seers had done, but mildly
+affirming that with the soul what is best is strongest, has in the long
+run most influence; that there is one fact in the essential nature of
+man which, antagonist to the influence of all other facts, wields an
+influence destined to conquer or absorb all other influences. He said:
+"My Father which is in heaven, the master influence within me, has
+declared that I shall never find rest to my soul until I prefer His
+kingdom, the conception of my heart, to the kingdoms of earth and the
+glory of the earth." 'We have seen that Dürer describes the miracle; the
+work of art, thus:
+
+"The secret treasure which a man conceived in his heart shall appear as
+a thing" (see page 10).
+
+And we know that he prized this, the master thing, the conception of the
+heart, above everything else.
+
+Much learning is not evil to a man, though some be stiffly set against
+it, saying that art puffeth up. Were that so, then were none prouder
+than God who hath formed all arts, but that cannot be, for God is
+perfect in goodness. The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the
+better doth he become, and so much the more love doth he win for the
+arts and for things exalted.
+
+The learning Dürer chiefly intends is not book-learning or critical
+lore, but knowledge how to make, by which man becomes a creator in
+imitation of God; for this is of necessity the most perfect knowledge,
+rivalling the sureness of intuition and instinct.
+
+
+III
+
+"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
+Every one knows how anxious great artists become for the preservation of
+their works, how highly they value permanence in the materials employed,
+and immunity from the more obvious chances of destruction in the
+positions they are to occupy. Michael Angelo is said to have painted
+cracks on the Sistina ceiling to force the architect to strengthen the
+roof. When Jesus made the assertion that his teaching would outlast the
+influence of the visible world of nature and the societies of men--the
+kingdoms of earth and the glory of the earth--he did no more than every
+victorious soul strives to effect, and to feel assured that it has in
+some large degree effected; the difference between him and them is one
+of degree. It may be objected that different hearts harbour and cherish
+contradictory conceptions. Doubtless; but does the desire to win the
+co-operation and approval of other men consist with the higher
+developments of human faculties? Is it, perhaps, essential to them? If
+so, in so far as every man increases in vitality and the employment of
+his powers, he will be forced to reverence and desire the solidarity of
+the race, and consequently to relinquish or neglect whatever in his own
+ideal militates against such solidarity. And this will be the case
+whether he judge such eccentric elements to be nobler or less noble than
+the qualities which are fostered in him by the co-operation of his
+fellows. Jesus, at any rate, affirmed that the law of the kingdom within
+a man's soul was: "Love thy neighbour as thyself"; and that obedience to
+it would work in every man like leaven, which is lost sight of in the
+lump of dough, and seems to add nothing to it, yet transforms the whole
+in raising up the loaf; or as the corn of wheat which is buried in the
+glebe like a dead body, yet brings forth the blade, and nourishes a
+new life.
+
+So he that should follow Jesus by obeying the laws of the kingdom, by
+loving God (the begetter or fountainhead of a man's most essential
+conception of what is right and good) and his neighbour, was assured by
+his mild and gracious Master that he would inherit, by way of a return
+for the sacrifices which such obedience would entail, a new and better
+life. (Follow me, I laid down my life in order that I might take it
+again. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his
+life _for_ my _sake_--as I did, in imitation of me--shall find it.) For
+in order to make this very difficult obedience possible, it was to be
+turned into a labour of love done for the Master's sake. As Goethe said:
+
+  "Against the superiority of another, there is no remedy
+  but love."
+
+Is it not true that the superiority of another man humiliates, crushes
+and degrades us in our own eyes, if we envy it or hate it instead of
+loving it? while by loving it we make it in a sense ours, and can
+rejoice in it. So Jesus affirmed that he had made the superiority of the
+ideal his; so that he was in it, and it was in him, so that men who
+could no longer fix their attention on it in their own souls might love
+it in him. He was their master-conception, their true ideal, acting
+before them, captivating the attention of their senses and emotions.
+This is what a man of our times, possessed of rare receptivity and great
+range of comprehension, considered to be the pith of Jesus' teaching.
+Matthew Arnold gave much time and labour to trying to persuade men that
+this was what the religion they professed, or which was professed around
+them, most essentially meant. And he reminded us that the adequacy of
+such ideas for governing man's life depended not on the authority of a
+book or writings by eye-witnesses with or without intelligence, but on
+whether they were true in experience. He quoted Goethe's test for every
+idea about life, "But is it true, is it true for me, now?" "Taste and
+see," as the prophets put it; or as Jesus said, "Follow me." For an
+ideal must be followed, as a man woos a woman; the pursuit may have to
+be dropped, in order to be more surely recovered; an ideal must be
+humoured, not seized at once as a man seizes command over a machine.
+This _secret of success was_ was only to be won by the development of a
+temper, a spirit of docility. To love it in an example was the best,
+perhaps the only way of gaining possession of it.
+
+
+IV
+
+As we are placed, what hope can we have but to learn? and what is there
+from which we might not learn? An artist is taught by the materials he
+uses more essentially than by the objects he contemplates; for these
+teach him "how," and perfect him in creating, those only teach him
+"what," and suggest forms to be created. But for men in general the
+"what" is more important than the "how"; and only very powerful art can
+exhilarate and refine them by means of subjects which they dislike
+or avoid.
+
+Every seer of beauty is not a creator of beautiful things; and in art
+the "how" is so much more essential than the "what," that artists create
+unworthy or degrading objects beautifully, so that we admire their art
+as much as we loathe its employment; in nature, too, such objects are
+met with, created by the god of this world. A good man, too, may create
+in a repulsive manner objects whose every association is ennobling or
+elevating.
+
+"The kingdom of heaven is within you," but hell is also within.
+
+  "Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
+  In one self place; for where we are is hell
+  And where hell is, must we for ever be:
+  And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
+  And every creature shall be purified,
+  All places shall be hell that are not heaven,"
+
+as Marlowe makes his Mephistophilis say: and the best art is the most
+perfect expression of that which is within, of heaven or of hell.
+Goethe said:
+
+"In the Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was simple and positive, we
+encounter expressions of approval more often than of disapproval. With
+the Romans, on the other hand, the contrary holds good; and the more
+corrupted poetry and rhetoric become, the more will censure grow and
+praise diminish."
+
+I have sometimes thought that the difference between classic and more or
+less decadent art lies in the fact that by the one things are
+appreciated for what they most essentially are--a young man, a swift
+horse, a chaste wife, &c.--by the other for some more or less peculiar
+or accidental relation that they hold to the creator. Such writers
+lament that the young are not old, the old not young, prostitutes not
+pure, that maidens are cold and modest or matrons portly. They complain
+of having suffered from things being cross, or they take malicious
+pleasure in pointing that crossness out; whereas classical art always
+rebounds from the perception that things are evil to the assertion of
+what ought to be or shall be. It triumphs over the Prince of Darkness,
+and covers a multitude of sins, as dew or hoar frost cover and make
+beautiful a dunghill. Dunghills exist; but he who makes of Macbeth's or
+Clytemnestra's crimes an elevating or exhilarating spectacle triumphs
+over the god of this world, as Jesus did when he made the most
+ignominious death the symbol, of his victory and glory. Little wonder
+that Albert Dürer, and Michael Angelo found such deep satisfaction in
+Him as the object of their worship--his method of docility was
+next-of-kin to that of their art. Respect and solicitude create the
+soul, and these two pre-eminently docile passions preside over the
+soul's creation, whether it be a society, a life, or a thing of beauty.
+
+
+V
+
+  Here, when art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
+  Lived and laboured Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art.
+
+These jingling lines would scarcely merit consideration but that they
+express a common notion which has its part of truth as well as of error.
+Let us examine the first assertion (that art has been religion.)
+Baudelaire, in his _Curiosités Esthétiques_ says: _La première affaire
+d'un artiste est de substituer l'homme à la nature et de protester
+contre elle_. ("The first thing for an artist is to substitute man for
+nature and to protest against her.") The beginners and the smatterers
+are always "students of nature," and suppose that to be so will suffice;
+but when the understanding and imagination gain width and elasticity,
+life is more and more understood as a long struggle to overcome or
+humanise nature by that which most essentially distinguishes man from
+other animals and inanimate nature. Religion should be the drill and
+exercise of the human faculties to fit them and maintain them in
+readiness for this struggle; the work of art should be the assertion of
+victory. A life worthy of remembrance is a work of art, a life worthy of
+universal remembrance is a masterpiece: only the materials employed
+differentiate it from any other work of art. The life of Jesus is
+considered as such a masterpiece. Thus we can say that if art has never
+been religion, religion has always been and ever will be an art.
+
+Now let us examine the second assertion that Dürer was an evangelist.
+What kind of character do we mean to praise when we say a man is an
+evangelist? Two only of the four evangelists can be said to reveal any
+ascertainable personality, and only St. John is sufficiently outlined to
+stand as a type; but I do not think we mean to imply a resemblance to
+St. John. The bringer of good news, the evangelist par excellence, was
+Jesus. He it was who made it evident that the sons of men have power to
+forgive sins. Victory over evil possible--this was the good news. No
+doubt every sincere Christian is supposed to be a more or less
+successful imitator of Jesus; and as such, Dürer may rightly be called
+an evangelist. But more than this is I think, implied in the use of the
+word; an evangelist is, for us above all a bringer of good news in
+something of the same manner as Jesus brought it, by living among
+sinners for those sinners' sake, among paupers for those paupers' sake;
+to see a man sweet, radiant, and victorious under these circumstances,
+is to see an evangelist. Goethe's final claim is that, "after all, there
+are honest people up and down the world who have got light from my
+books; and whoever reads them, and gives himself the trouble to
+understand me, will acknowledge that he has acquired thence a certain
+inward freedom"; and for this reason I have been tempted to call him the
+evangelist of the modern world. But it is best to use the word as I
+believe it is most correctly employed, and not to yield to the
+temptation (for tempting it is) to call men like Dürer and Goethe
+evangelists. They are teachers who charm as well as inform us, as Jesus
+was; but they are not evangelists in the sense that he was, for they did
+not deal directly with human life where it is forced most against its
+distinctive desire for increase in nobility, or is most obviously
+degraded by having betrayed it.'[11]
+
+
+VI
+
+I have often heard it objected that Jesus is too feminine an ideal, too
+much based on renunciation and the effort to make the best of failure.
+No doubt that as women are, by the necessity of their function, more
+liable to the ship-wreck of their hopes, the bankruptcy of their powers,
+they have been drawn to cling to this hope of salvation in greater
+numbers, and with more fervour; so that the most general idea of Jesus
+may be a feminine one. It does not follow that this is the most correct
+or the best: every object, every person will appear differently to
+different natures. And it still remains true that there have been a
+great many men of very various types who have drawn strength and beauty
+from the contemplation and reverence of Jesus. That this ideal is too
+much based on making the best of failure is an objection that makes very
+little impression on me, for I think I perceive that failure is one of
+the most constant and widespread conditions of the universe, and even
+more certainly of human life.
+
+
+VII
+
+It remains now to see in what degree these ideas were felt or made
+themselves felt through the Romanism and Lutheranism of the Renascence
+period. Perhaps we English shall best recognise the presence of these
+ideas, the working of this leaven--this docility, the necessary midwife
+of 'genius, who transforms the difficult tasks which the human reason
+sets herself into labours of love--in an Englishman; so my first example
+shall be taken from Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet.
+
+It was then that my acquaintance with him began, he being then thirty, I
+two or three months his junior. He had no theological degree, but the
+whole University, doctors and all, went to hear him. Henry VII took note
+of him, and made him Dean of St. Paul's. His first step was to restore
+discipline in the Chapter, which had all gone to wreck. He preached
+every saint's day to great crowds. He cut down household expenses, and
+abolished suppers and evening parties. At dinner a boy reads a chapter
+from Scripture; Colet takes a passage from it and discourses to the
+universal delight. Conversation is his chief pleasure, and he will keep
+it up till midnight if he finds a companion. Me he has often taken with
+him on his walks, and talks all the time of Christ. He hates coarse
+language, furniture, dress, food, books, all clean and tidy, but
+scrupulously plain; and he wears grey woollen when priests generally go
+in purple. With the large fortune which he inherited from his father, he
+founded and endowed a school at St. Paul's entirely at his own cost--
+masters, houses, salaries, everything.
+
+He is a man of genuine piety. He was not born with it. He was naturally
+hot, impetuous and resentful--indolent, fond of pleasure and of women's
+society--disposed to make a joke of everything. He told me that he had
+fought against his faults with study, fasting and prayer, and thus his
+whole life was in fact unpolluted with the world's defilements. His
+money he gave all to pious uses, worked incessantly, talked always on
+serious subjects, to conquer his disposition to levity; not but what you
+could see traces of the old Adam when wit was flying at feast or
+festival. He avoided large parties for this reason. He dined on a single
+dish, with a draught or two of light ale. He liked good wine, but
+abstained on principle. I never knew a man of sunnier nature. No one
+ever more enjoyed cultivated society; but here, too, he denied himself,
+and was always thinking of the life to come.
+
+His opinions were peculiar, and he was reserved in expressing them for
+fear of exciting suspicion. He knew how unfairly men judge each other,
+how credulous they are of evil, how much easier it is for a lying tongue
+to stain a reputation than for a friend to clear it. But among his
+friends he spoke his mind freely.
+
+He admitted privately that many things were generally taught which he
+did not believe, but he would not create a scandal by blurting out his
+objections. No book could be so heretical but he would read it, and read
+it carefully. He learnt more from such books than he learnt from
+dogmatism and interested orthodoxy.[12]
+
+Some may wonder what Colet could have found to say about Christ which
+could not only interest but delight the young and witty Erasmus; and may
+judge that at any rate to-day such a subject is sufficiently fly-blown.
+The proper reflection to make is, "A rose by any other name would smell
+as sweet."
+
+Whether we say Christ or Perfection does not matter, it is what we mean
+which is either enthralling or dull, fresh or fusty; "there's nothing
+in a name."
+
+"When Colet speaks I might be listening to Plato," says Erasmus in
+another place, at a time when he was still younger and had just come
+from what had been a gay and perhaps in some measure a dissolute life in
+Paris: not that it is possible to imagine Erasmus as at any time
+committing great excesses, or deeply sinning against the sense of
+proportion and measure.
+
+Success is the only criterion, as in art, so in religion: the man that
+plucks out his eye and casts it from him, and remains the dull, greedy,
+distressful soul he was before, is a damned fool; but the man who does
+the same and becomes such that his younger friends report of him, "I
+never knew a sunnier nature," is an artist in life, a great artist in
+the sense that Christ is supposed to have been a great master; one who
+draws men to him, as bees are drawn to flowers. Colet drew the young
+Henry the Eighth as well as Erasmus. "The King said: 'Let every man
+choose his own doctor. Dean Colet shall be mine!'" Though no doubt
+charlatans have often fascinated young scholars and monarchs, yet it is
+peculiarly impossible to think of Colet as a charlatan.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Next let us take a sonnet and a sentence from Michael Angelo:
+
+  Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
+  And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;
+  For if of our affections none finds grace
+  In sight of heaven, then, wherefore hath God made
+  The world which we inhabit? Better plea
+  Love cannot have than that in loving thee
+  Glory to that eternal peace is paid,
+  Who such divinity to thee imparts,
+  As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
+  His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
+  With beauty, which is varying every hour;
+  But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power
+  Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
+  That breathes on earth the air of paradise.[13]
+
+It is very remarkable how strongly the conviction of permanence, and the
+preference for the inward conception over external beauty are expressed
+in this fine sonnet; and also that the reason given for accepting the
+discipline of love is that experience shows how it "hallows and makes
+pure all gentle hearts." In such a love poem--the object of which might
+very well have been Jesus--I seem to find more of the spirit of his
+religion, whereby he binds his disciples to the Father that ruled within
+him, till they too feel the bond of parentage as deeply as himself and
+become sons with him of his Father;--more of that binding power of Jesus
+is for me expressed in this fine sonnet than in Luther's Catechism. The
+religion that enables a great artist to write of love in this strain, is
+the religion of docility, of the meek and lowly heart. For Michael
+Angelo was not a man by nature of a meek and lowly heart, any more than
+Colet was a man naturally saintly or than Luther was a man naturally
+refined. But because Michael Angelo thus prefers the kingdom of heaven
+to external beauty, one must not suppose that he, its arch high-priest,
+despised it. Nobody had a more profound respect for the thing of beauty,
+whether it was the creation of God or man. He said:
+
+"Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavour to
+create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives for
+perfection, strives for something that is God-like."
+
+Now we can perceive how the same spirit worked in a great artist, not at
+Nuremberg or London, but at Rome, the centre of the world, where a
+Borgia could be Pope.
+
+
+IX
+
+Erasmus, the typical humanist, the man who loved humanity so much that
+he felt that his love for it might tempt him to fight against God,
+travelled from the one world to the other; passed from the society of
+cardinals and princes to the seclusion of burgher homes in London, or to
+chat with Dürer at Antwerp. He belonged perhaps to neither world at
+heart; but how greatly his love and veneration of the one exceeded his
+admiration and sense of the practical utility of the other, a comparison
+of his sketch of Colet with such a note as this from his New Testament
+makes abundantly plain:
+
+"I saw with my own eyes Pope Julius II. at Bologna, and afterwards at
+Rome, marching at the head of a triumphal procession as if he were
+Pompey or Cæsar. St. Peter subdued the world with faith, not with arms
+or soldiers or military engines. St. Peter's successors would win as
+many victories as St. Peter won if they had Peter's spirit."
+
+But we must not forget that the book in which these notes appeared was
+published with the approval of a Pope, and that he and others sought its
+author for advice as to how to cope best with their more hot-headed
+enemy Martin Luther. We must also remember that we are told that Colet
+"was not very hard on priests and monks who only sinned with women. He
+did not make light of impurity, but thought it less criminal than spite
+and malice and envy and vanity and ignorance. The loose sort were at
+least made human and modest by their very faults, and he regarded
+avarice and arrogance as blacker sins in a priest than a hundred
+concubines." This spirit was not that of the Reformation which came to
+stop, yet it existed and was widespread at that time; it was I think the
+spirit which either formed or sustained most of the great artists. At
+any rate it both formed and sustained Albert Dürer. Yet the true nature
+of these ideas, derived from Jesus, could not be understood even by
+Colet, even by Erasmus. For them it was tradition which gave value and
+assured truth to Christ's ideas, not the truth of those ideas which gave
+value to the traditions and legends concerning him. The value of those
+ideas was felt, sometimes nearer, sometimes further off; it was loved
+and admired; their lives were apprehended by it, and spent in
+illustrating and studying it, as were also those of Albert Dürer and
+Michael Angelo. To understand the life and work of such men, we must
+form some conception of the true nature and value of those ideas, as I
+have striven to do in this chapter. Otherwise we shall merely admire and
+love them, as they admired and loved Jesus; and it has now become a
+point of honour with educated men not only to love and admire, but to
+make the effort to understand. Even they desired to do this. And I think
+we may rejoice that the present time gives us some advantage over those
+days, at least in this respect.
+
+
+X
+
+And lastly, in order to bring us back to our main subject, let us quote
+from a stray leaf of a lost MS. Book of Dürer's, which contains the
+description of his father's death.
+
+    ... desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap
+    on his head had suddenly become wet with drops of sweat. Then
+    he asked to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfell wine. He
+    took a very little of it, and then desired to get into bed
+    again and thanked her. And when he had got into bed he fell
+    at once into his last agony. The old wife quickly kindled the
+    candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard's verses, and
+    ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to
+    him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly
+    to my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was
+    gone. I saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not
+    been worthy to be with him at his end.
+
+    And thus in the night before S. Matthew's eve my father
+    passed away, in the year above mentioned (Sept. 20, 1502)
+    --the merciful God help me also to a happy end--and he left
+    my mother an afflicted widow behind him. He was ever wont to
+    praise her highly to me, saying what a good wife she was,
+    wherefore I intend never to forsake her. I pray you for God's
+    sake, all ye my friends, when you read of the death of my
+    father, to remember his soul with an "Our Father" and an "Ave
+    Maria"; and also for your own sake, that we may so serve God
+    as to attain a happy life and the blessing of a good end. For
+    it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill
+    from this world, for God is full of compassion. Through which
+    may He grant us, after this pitiful life, the joy of
+    everlasting salvation--in the name of the Father, the Son,
+    and the Holy Ghost, at the beginning and at the end, one
+    Eternal Governor. Amen.
+
+The last sentences of this may seem to share in the character of the
+vain repetitions of words with which professed believers are only too
+apt to weary and disgust others. They are in any case commonplaces: the
+image has taken the place of the object; the Father in heaven is not
+considered so much as the paternal governor of the inner life as the
+ruler of a future life and of this world. The use of such phrases is as
+much idolatry as the worship of statue and picture, or as little, if the
+words are repeated, as I think in this case they were, out of a feeling
+of awe and reverence for preceding mental impressions and experiences,
+and not because their repetition in itself was counted for
+righteousness. Their use, if this was so, is no more to be found fault
+with than the contemplation of pictures or statues of holy personages in
+order to help the mind to attend to their ensample, or the reading of a
+poem, to fill the mind with ennobling emotions. Idolatry is natural and
+right in children and other simple souls among primitive peoples or
+elsewhere. It is a stage in mental development. Lovers pass through the
+idolatrous stage of their passion just as children cut their teeth. It
+is a pity to see individuals or nations remain childish in this respect
+just as much as in any other, or to see them return to it in their
+decrepitude. But a temper, a spirit, an influence cannot easily be
+apprehended apart from examples and images; and perhaps the clearest
+reason is only the exercise of an infinitely elastic idolatry, which
+with sprightly efficiency finds and worships good in everything, just as
+the devout, in Dürer's youth, found sermons in stones, carved stones
+representing saint, bishop, or Virgin. And Dürer all his life long
+continued to produce pictures and engravings which were intended to
+preach such sermons.
+
+Goethe admirably remarks:
+
+"_Superstition_ is the poetry of life; the poet therefore suffers no
+harm from being _superstitious_." (Aberglaube.)
+
+Superstition and idolatry are an expenditure of emotion of a kind and
+degree which the true facts would not warrant; poetry when least
+superstitious is a like exercise of the emotions in order to raise and
+enhance them; superstition when most poetical unconsciously effects the
+same thing.
+
+This glimpse he gives of the way in which death visited his home, and
+how the visitation impressed him, is coloured and glows with that temper
+of docility which made Colet school himself so severely, and was the
+source of Michael Angelo's so fervent outpourings. And all through the
+accounts which remain of his life, we may trace the same spirit ever
+anew setting him to school, and renewing his resolution to learn both
+from his feelings and from his senses.
+
+
+XI
+
+As I took a sentence from Michael Angelo, I will now take a sentence
+from Dürer, one showing strongly that evangelical strain so
+characteristic of him, born of his intuitive sense for human solidarity.
+After an argument, which will be found on page 306, he concludes: "It is
+right, therefore, for one man to teach another. He that doeth so
+joyfully, upon him shall much be bestowed by God."[14] These last words,
+like the last phrases of my former quotation from him, may stand perhaps
+in the way of some, as nowadays they may easily sound glib or
+irreverent. But are we less convinced that only tasks done joyfully, as
+labours of love, deserve the reward of fuller and finer powers, and
+obtain it? When Dürer thought of God, he did not only think of a
+mythological personage resembling an old king; he thought of a mind, an
+intention, "for God is perfect in goodness." Words so easily come to
+obscure what they were meant to reveal; and if we think how the notion
+of perfect goodness rules and sways such a man's mind, we shall not
+wonder that he did not stumble at the omnipotency which revolts us,
+cowed as we are by the presence of evil. The old gentleman dressed like
+a king;--this was not the part of his ideas about God which occupied
+Dürer's mind. He accepted it, but did not think about it: it filled what
+would otherwise have been a blank in his mind and in the minds of those
+about him. But he was constantly anxious about what he ought to do and
+study in order to fulfil the best in himself, and about what ought to be
+done by his town, his nation, and the civilisation that then was, in
+order to turn man's nature and the world to an account answerable to the
+beauty of their fairer aspects. God was the will that commanded that
+"consummation devoutly to be wished." Obedience to His law revealed in
+the Bible was the means by which this command could be carried out; and
+to a man turning from the Church as it then existed to the newly
+translated Bible texts, the commands of God as declared in those texts
+seemed of necessity reason itself compared with the commands of the
+Popes; were, in fact, infinitely more reasonable, infinitely more akin
+to a good man's mind and will. Luther's revolt is for us now
+characterised by those elements in it which proved inadequate--were
+irrational; but then these were insignificant in comparison with the
+light which his downright honesty shed on the monstrous and amazingly
+irrational Church. This huge closed society of bigots and worldlings
+which arrogated to itself all powers human and divine, and used them
+according to the lusts and intemperance of an Alexander Borgia, a Julius
+II., and a Leo X., was that farce perception of which made Rabelais
+shake the world with laughter, and which roused such consuming
+indignation in Luther and Calvin that they created the gloomy
+puritanical asylums in which millions of Germans, English, and Americans
+were shut up for two hundred years, as Matthew Arnold puts it. But Dürer
+was not so immured: even Luther at heart neither was himself, nor
+desired that others should be, prevented from enjoying the free use of
+their intellectual powers. It was because he was less perspicacious than
+Erasmus that he did not see that this was what he was inevitably doing
+in his wrath and in his haste.
+
+
+XII
+
+Erasmus was, perhaps, the man in Europe who at that time displayed most
+docility; the man whom neither sickness, the desire for wealth and
+honour, the hope to conquer, the lust to engage in disputes, nor the
+adverse chances that held him half his life in debt and necessitous
+straits, and kept him all his life long a vagrant, constantly upon the
+road--the man in whom none of these things could weaken a marvellous
+assiduity to learn and help others to learn. He it was who had most
+kinship with Dürer among the artists then alive; for Dürer is very
+eminent among them for this temper of docility. It is interesting to see
+how he once turned to Erasmus in a devout meditation, written in the
+journal he kept during his journey to the Netherlands. His voice comes
+to us from an atmosphere charged with the electric influence of the
+greatest Reformer, Martin Luther, who had just disappeared, no man knew
+why or whither; though all men suspected foul play. In his daily life,
+by sweetness of manner, by gentle dignity and modesty, Dürer showed his
+religion, the admiration and love that bound his life, in a way that at
+all times and in all places commands applause. The burning indignation
+of the following passage may in times of spiritual peace or somnolence
+appear over-wrought and uncouth. We must remember that all that Dürer
+loved had been bound by his religion to the teaching and inspiration of
+Jesus, and had become inseparable from it. All that he loved--learning,
+clear and orderly thought, honesty, freedom to express the worship of
+his heart without its being turned to a mockery by cynical monk, priest,
+or prelate;--these things directly, and indirectly art itself, seemed to
+him threatened by the corruption of the Papal power. We must remember
+this; for we shall naturally feel, as Erasmus did, that the path of
+martyrdom was really a short cut, which a wider view of the surrounding
+country would have shown him to be likely to prove the longest way in
+the end. Indeed the world is not altogether yet arrived where he thought
+Erasmus could bring it in less than two years. And Luther himself
+returned to the scene and was active, without any such result, a dozen
+years and more.
+
+Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou a little old
+man, and myself have heard thee say that thou givest thyself but two
+years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to accomplish somewhat. Lay
+out the same well for the good of the Gospel, and of the true Christian
+faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ says, shall the Gates of
+Hell in no wise prevail against thee. And if here below thou wert to be
+like thy master Christ, and sufferest infamy at the hands of the liars
+of this time, and didst die a little sooner, then wouldst thou the
+sooner pass from death unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou
+drinkest of the cup which He drank of, _with Him shalt thou reign and
+judge with justice those who_ HAVE _dealt unrighteously_. Oh! Erasmus!
+cleave to this, that God Himself may be thy praise, even as it is
+written of David. For thou mayest, yea, verily thou mayest overthrow
+Goliath. Because God stands by the Holy Christian Church, even as He
+alone upholds the Roman Church, according to His godly will. May He help
+us to everlasting salvation, who is God the Father, the Son, and Holy
+Ghost, one eternal God! Amen!!
+
+"With Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice those that have dealt
+unrighteously." This will seem to many a mere cry for revenge; and so
+perhaps it was. Still it may have been, as it seems to me to have been,
+uttered rather in the spirit of Moses' "Forgive their sin--and if not,
+blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book"; or the "Heaven and earth shall
+pass away, but my words shall not pass away" of Jesus. If the necessity
+for victory was uppermost, the opportunity for revenge may scarcely have
+been present to Dürer's mind.
+
+It is now more generally recognised than in Luther's day that however
+sweet vengeance may be, it is not admirable, either in God or man.
+
+The total impression produced by Dürer's life and work must help each to
+decide for himself which sense he considers most likely. The truth, as
+in most questions of history, remains for ever in the balance, and
+cannot be ascertained.
+
+
+XIII
+
+I have called docility the necessary midwife of Genius, for so it is;
+and religion is a discipline that constrains us to learn. The religion
+of Jesus constrains us to learn the most difficult things, binds us to
+the most arduous tasks that the mind of man sets itself, as a lover is
+bound by his affection to accomplish difficult feats for his mistress'
+sake. Such tasks as Michael Angelo and Dürer set themselves require that
+the lover's eagerness and zest shall not be exhausted; and to keep them
+fresh and abundant, in spite of cross circumstances, a discipline of the
+mind and will is required. This is what they found in the worship of
+Jesus. The influence of this religious hopefulness and self-discipline
+on the creative power prevents its being exhausted, perverted, or
+embittered; and in order that it may effect this perfectly, that
+influence must be abundant not only within the artist, as it was in
+Michael Angelo and Dürer, but in the world about them.
+
+This, then, is the value of religious influence to creative art: and
+though we to-day necessarily regard the personages, localities, and
+events of the creed as coming under the category of "things that are
+not," we may still as fervently hope and expect that the things of that
+category may "bring to nought the things that are," including the
+superstitious reverence for the creed and its unprovable statements; for
+has not the victory in human things often been with the things that were
+not, but which were thus ardently desired and expected? To inquire which
+of those things are best calculated to advance and nourish creative
+power, and in what manner, should engage the artist's attention far more
+than it has of late years. For what he loves, what he hopes, and what he
+expects would seem, if we study past examples, to exercise as important
+an influence on a man's creative power as his knowledge of, and respect
+for, the materials and instruments which he controls do upon his
+executive capacity.
+
+The universe in which man finds himself may be evil, but not everything
+it contains is so: then it must for ever remain our only wisdom to
+labour to transform those parts which we judge to be evil into likeness
+or conformity to those we judge to be good: and surely he who neglects
+the forces of hope and adoration in that effort, neglects the better
+half of his practical strength? The central proposition of Christianity,
+that this end can only be attained by contemplation and imitation of an
+example, is, we shall in another place (pp. [305-312]) find, maintained
+as true in regard to art by Dürer, and by Reynolds, our greatest writer
+on aesthetics. These great artists, so dissimilar in the outward aspects
+of their creations, agree in considering that the only way of
+advancement open to the aspirant is the attempt to form himself on the
+example of others, by imitating them not slavishly or mechanically, but
+in the same spirit in which they imitated their forerunners: even as the
+Christian is bound to seek union with Christ in the same spirit or way
+in which Jesus had achieved union with his Father--that is, by laying
+down life to take it again, in meekness and lowliness of heart. Docility
+is the sovran help to perfection for Dürer and Reynolds, and more or
+less explicitly for all other great artists who have treated of these
+questions.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 11: Of course all that may have been meant by the phrase "the
+Evangelist of Art" is that Dürer illustrated the narrative of the
+Passion; but by this he is not distinguished from many others, and the
+phrase is suggestive of far more.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Froude's "Life of Erasmus," Lecture vi.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Wordsworth's Translation,]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 176.]
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+DÜRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DÜRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH AND EDUCATION
+
+
+I
+
+Who was Dürer? He has told us himself very simply, and more fully than
+men of his type generally do; for he was not, like Montaigne, one whose
+chief study was himself. Yet, though he has done this, it is not easy
+for us to fully understand him. It is perhaps impossible to place
+oneself in the centre of that horizon which was of necessity his and
+belonged to his day, a vast circle from which men could no more escape
+than we from ours; this cage of iron ignorance in which every human soul
+is trapped, and to widen and enlarge which every heroic soul lives and
+dies. This cage appeared to his eyes very different from what it does to
+ours; yet it has always been a cage, and is only lost sight of at times
+when the light from within seems to flow forth, and with its radiant
+sapphire heaven of buoyancy and desire to veil the eternal bars. It is
+well to remind ourselves that ignorance was the most momentous, the most
+cruel condition of his life, as of our own; and that the effort to
+relieve himself of its pressure, either by the pursuit of knowledge, or
+by giving spur and bridle to the imagination that it might course round
+him dragging the great woof of illusion, and tent him in the ethereal
+dream of the soul's desire, was the constant effort and resource of
+his days.
+
+
+II
+
+At the age of fifty-three he took the pen and commenced:
+
+In the year 1524, I, Albrecht Dürer the younger, have put together from
+my father's papers the facts as to whence he was, how he came hither,
+lived here, and drew to a happy end. God be gracious to him and
+us! Amen.
+
+Like his relatives, Albrecht Dürer the elder was born in the kingdom of
+Hungary, in a little village named Eytas, situated not far from a little
+town called Gyula, eight miles below Grosswardein; and his kindred made
+their living from horses and cattle. My father's father was called Anton
+Dürer; he came as a lad to a goldsmith in the said little town and
+learnt the craft under him. He afterwards married a girl named
+Elizabeth, who bare him a daughter, Katharina, and three sons. The first
+son he named Albrecht; he was my dear father. He too became a goldsmith,
+a pure and skilful man. The second son he called Ladislaus; he was a
+saddler. His son is my cousin Niklas Dürer, called Niklas the Hungarian,
+who is settled at Köln. He also is a goldsmith, and learnt the craft
+here in Nürnberg with my father. The third son he called John. Him he
+set to study, and he afterwards became a parson at Grosswardein, and
+continued there thirty years.
+
+So Albrecht Dürer, my dear father, came to Germany. He had been a long
+time with the great artists in the Netherlands. At last he came hither
+to Nürnberg in the year, as reckoned from the birth of Christ, 1455, on
+S. Elogius' day (June 25). And on the same day Philip Pirkheimer had his
+marriage feast at the Veste, and there was a great dance under the big
+lime tree. For a long time after that my dear father, Albrecht Dürer,
+served my grandfather, old Hieronymus Holper, till the year reckoned
+1467 after the birth of Christ. My grandfather then gave him his
+daughter, a pretty upright girl, fifteen years old, named Barbara; and
+he was wedded to her eight days before S. Vitus (June 8). It may also be
+mentioned that my grandmother, my mother's mother, was the daughter of
+Oellinger of Weissenburg, and her name was Kunigunde.
+
+And my dear father had by his marriage with my dear mother the following
+children born--which I set down here word for word as he wrote it in
+his book:
+
+Here follow eighteen items, only one of which, the third, is of
+interest.
+
+3. Item, in the year 1471 after the birth of Christ, in the sixth hour
+of the day, on S. Prudentia's day, a Tuesday in Rogation Week (May 21),
+my wife bare me my second son. His godfather was Anton Koburger, and he
+named him Albrecht after me, &c. &c.
+
+All these, my brothers and sisters, my dear father's children, are now
+dead, some in their childhood, others as they were growing up; only we
+three brothers still live, so long as God will, namely: I, Albrecht, and
+my brother Andreas and my brother Hans, the third of the name, my
+father's children.
+
+This Albrecht Dürer the elder passed his life in great toil and stern
+hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his
+hand for himself, his wife and his children, so that he had little
+enough. He underwent moreover manifold afflictions, trials, and
+adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived
+an honourable, Christian life, was a man of patient spirit, mild and
+peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had
+little need of company and worldly pleasures; he was also of few words,
+and was a God-fearing man.
+
+
+III
+
+We shall, I think, often do well, when considering the superb
+ostentation of Dürer's workmanship, with its superabundance of curve and
+flourish, its delight in its own ease and grace, to think of those young
+men among his ancestors who made their living from horses on the
+wind-swept plains of Hungary. The perfect control which it is the
+delight of lads brought up and developing under such conditions to
+obtain over the galloping steed, is similar to the control which it
+gratified Dürer to perfect over the dashing stroke of pen or brush,
+which, however swift and impulsive, is yet brought round and performs to
+a nicety a predetermined evolution. And the way he puts a little
+portrait of himself, finely dressed, into his most important pictures,
+may also carry our thoughts away to the banks of the Danube where it
+winds and straggles over the steppes, to picture some young
+horse-breeder, whose costume and harness are his only wealth; who rides
+out in the morning as the cock-bustard that, having preened himself,
+paces before the hen birds on the plains that he can scour when his
+wings, which are slow in the air, join with his strong legs to make
+nothing of grassy leagues on leagues. And first, this life with its free
+sweeping horizon, and the swallow-like curves of its gallops for the
+sake of galloping, or those which the long lashes of its whips trace in
+deploying, and which remind us of the lithe tendrils in which terminate
+Dürer's ornamental flourishes; this life in which the eye is trained to
+watch the lasso, as with well-calculated address it swirls out and drops
+over the frighted head of an unbroken colt;--this life is first pent up
+in a little goldsmith's shop, in a country even to-day famous for the
+beauty and originality of its peasant jewelry: and here it is trained to
+follow and answer the desire of the bright dark eyes of girls in
+love;--in love, where love and the beauty that inspires it are the gifts
+of nature most guarded and most honoured, from which are expected the
+utmost that is conceived of delicacy in delight by a virile and healthy
+race. "A pure and skilful man." Patient already has this life become,
+for a jeweller can scarcely be made of impatient stuff; patient even
+before the admixture of German blood when Albert the elder married his
+Barbara Holper. The two eldest sons were made jewellers; but the third,
+John, is set to study and becomes a parson, as if already learning and
+piety stood next in the estimation of this life after thrift, skill and
+the creation of ornament. And Germany boasts of this life beyond that of
+any of her sons; but her blood was probably of small importance to the
+efficiency that it attained to in the great Albert Dürer. The German
+name of Dürer or Thürer, a door, is quite as likely to be the
+translation, correct or otherwise, of some Hungarian name, as it is an
+indication that the family had originally emigrated from Germany. In any
+case, a large admixture by intermarriage of Slavonic blood would
+correspond to the unique distinction among Germans, attained in the
+dignity, sweetness and fineness which signalised Dürer. Of course, in
+such matters no sane man looks for proof; but neither will he reject a
+probable suggestion which may help us to understand the nature of an
+exceptional man.
+
+
+IV
+
+Dürer continues to speak of his childhood:
+
+And my father took special pleasure in me, because he saw that I was
+diligent to learn. So he sent me to school, and when I had learnt to
+read and write he took me away from it, and taught me the goldsmith's
+craft. But when I could work neatly, my liking drew me rather to
+painting than to goldsmith's work, so I laid it before my father; but he
+was not well pleased, regretting the time lost while I had been learning
+to be a goldsmith. Still he let it be as I wished, and in 1486 (reckoned
+from the birth of Christ) on S. Andrew's day (November 30) my father
+bound me apprentice to Michael Wolgemut, to serve him three years long.
+During that time God gave me diligence, so that I learnt well, but I had
+much to suffer from his lads.
+
+When I had finished my learning my father sent me off, and I stayed away
+four years till he called me back again. As I had gone forth in the year
+1490 after Easter (Easter Sunday was April 11), so now I came back again
+in 1494 as it is reckoned after Whitsuntide (Whit Sunday was May 18).
+
+Erasmus tells us that German disorders were "partly due to the natural
+fierceness of the race, partly to the division into so many separate
+States, and partly to the tendency of the people to serve as
+mercenaries." That there were many swaggerers and bullies about, we
+learn from Dürer's prints. In every crowd these gentlemen in leathern
+tights, with other ostentatious additions to their costume, besides
+poniards and daggers to emphasise the brutal male, strut straddle-legged
+and self-assured; and of course raw lads and loutish prentices yielded
+them the sincerest flattery. We can well understand that the model boy,
+to whom "God had given diligence," with his long hair lovely as a
+girl's, and his consciousness of being nearly always in the right, had
+much to suffer from his fellow prentices. Besides, very likely, he
+already consorted with Willibald Pirkheimer and his friends, who were
+the aristocrats of the town. And though he may have been meek and
+gentle, there must have appeared in everything he did and was an
+assertion of superiority, all the more galling for its being difficult
+to define and as ready to blush as the innocent truth herself.
+
+
+V
+
+It is much argued as to where Dürer went when his father "sent him off."
+We have the direct statement of a contemporary, Christopher Scheurl,
+that he visited Colmar and Basle; and what is well nigh as good, for a
+visit to Venice. For Scheurl wrote in 1508: _Qui quum nuper in Italiam
+rediset, tum a Venetis, tum a Bononiensibus artificibus, me saepe
+interprete cansalutatus est alter Apelles._
+
+"When he lately _returned_ to Italy, he was often greeted as a second
+Apelles, by the craftsmen both of Venice and Bologna (I acting as their
+interpreter)."
+
+Before we accept any of these statements it is well to remember how
+easily quite intimate friends make mistakes as to where one has been and
+when; even about journeys that in one's own mind either have been or
+should have been turning-points in one's life. For they will attribute
+to the past experiences which were never ours, or forget those which we
+consider most unforgettable. No one who has paid attention to these
+facts will consider that historians prove so much or so well as they
+often fancy themselves to do. In the present case what is really
+remarkable is, that none of these sojournings of the young artist in
+foreign art centres seem to have produced such a change in his art as
+can now be traced with assurance. At Colmar he saw the masterpieces and
+the brothers of the "admirable Martin," as he always calls Schongauer.
+At Basle there is still preserved a cut wood-block representing St.
+Jerome, on the back of which is an authentic signature; there is besides
+a series of uncut wood-blocks, the designs on which it is easy to
+imagine to have been produced by the travelling journeyman that Dürer
+then seemed to the printers and painters of the towns he passed through.
+By those processes by which anything can be made of anything, much has
+been done to give substantiality to the implied first visit to Venice.
+There are drawings which were probably made there, representing ladies
+resembling those in pictures by Carpaccio as to their garments, the
+dressing of their hair, and the type of their faces. Of course it is not
+impossible that such a lady or ladies may have visited Nuremberg, or
+been seen by the young wanderer at Basle or elsewhere. And the
+resemblance between a certain drawing in the Albertina and one of the
+carved lions in red marble now on the Piazzetta de' Leoni does not count
+for much, when we consider that there is nothing in the workmanship of
+these heads to suggest that they were done after sculptured
+originals;--the manes, &c., being represented by an easy penman's
+convention, as they might have been whether the models were living or
+merely imagined. Nor is there any good reason for dating the drawings of
+sites in the Tyrol, supposed to have been sketched on the road, rather
+this year than another. Lastly, the famous sentence in a letter written
+from Venice during Dürer's authenticated visit there, in 1506, may be
+construed in more than one sense. The passage is generally rather
+curtailed when quoted.
+
+He (Giovanni Bellini) is very old, but is still the best painter of them
+all. The thing that pleased me so well eleven years ago, pleases me now
+no more; if I had not seen it for myself, I should never have believed
+any one who told me. You must know, too, that there are many better
+painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo de' Barbari) is abroad; yet
+Anton Kolb would swear an oath that no better painter than Jacob lives.
+
+If "the thing that pleased so well eleven years before" was a picture or
+pictures by Master Jacob or by Andrea Mantegna, as is usually supposed,
+the phrase, "If I had not seen it for myself I should never have
+believed any one who told me" is extremely strange. It is not usual to
+expect to change one's opinion of a work of art by hearsay, or to
+imagine others, when they have not done so, predicting with assurance
+that we shall change a decided opinion upon the merits of a work of art;
+yet one of these two suppositions seems certainly to be implied. I do
+not say that it is impossible to conceive of either, only that such
+cursory reference to such conceptions is extremely strange. Again, if
+work by Jacopo de' Barbari is referred to, it might very well have been
+seen elsewhere than at Venice eleven years ago; and indeed the last
+sentence in the passage might be taken to imply as much. To me at least
+the truth appears to be that these hints, which we may well have
+misunderstood, point to something which the imagination is only too
+delighted to entertain. It is a charming dream--the young Dürer, just of
+age, trudging from town to town, designing wood-blocks for a printer
+here, questioning the brothers of the "admirable Martin" there, or again
+painting a sign in yet another place, such as Holbein painted for the
+schoolmaster at Basle; and at last arriving in Venice--Venice untouched
+as yet by the conflicting ideals that were even then being brought to
+birth anew: Mediaeval Venice, such as we see her in the pictures of
+Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. One painting of real importance in the
+work of Dürer remains to us from this period: the greatest of modern
+critics has described it and its effect on him in a way which would make
+any second attempt impertinent.
+
+I consider as invaluable Albrecht Dürer's portrait of himself painted in
+1493, when he was in his twenty-second year. It is a bust half
+life-size, showing the two hands and the forearms. Crimson cap with
+short narrow strings, the throat bare to below the collar bone, an
+embroidered shirt, the folds of the sleeves tied underneath with
+peach-coloured ribbons, and a blue-grey, fur-edged cloak with yellow
+laces, compose a dainty dress befitting a well-bred youth. In his hand
+he significantly carries a blue _eryngo_, called in German "Mannstreu."
+He has a serious, youthful face, the mouth and chin covered with an
+incipient beard. The whole splendidly drawn, the composition simple,
+grand and harmonious; the execution perfect and in every way worthy of
+Dürer, though the colour is very thin, and has cracked in some places.
+
+Such is the figure which we may imagine making its way among the crowd
+in Gentile Bellini's Procession of the "True Cross" before St. Mark's,
+with eyes all wonder and lips often consciously imprisoning the German
+tongue, which cannot make itself understood. How comes he so finely
+dressed, the son of the modest Nuremberg goldsmith? Has he won the
+friendship of some rich burgher prince at Augsburg, or Strasburg, or
+Basle? Has he been enabled to travel in his suite as far as Venice? Or
+has he earned a large sum for painting some lord's or lady's portrait,
+which, if it were not lost, would now stand as the worthy compeer of
+this splendid portrait of the "true man" far from home; true to that
+home only, or true to Agnes Frey?--for some suppose the sprig of eryngo
+to signify that he was already betrothed to her. Or perhaps he has
+joined Willibald Pirkheimer at Basle or elsewhere, and they two,
+crossing the Alps together, have become friends for life? Will they part
+here ere long, the young burgher prince to proceed to the Universities
+of Padua and Mantua, the future great painter to trudge back over the
+Alps, getting a lift now and again in waggon or carriage or on pillion?
+Let the man of pretentious science say it is bootless to ask such
+questions; those who ask them know that it is delightful; know that it
+is the true way to make the past live for them; guess that would
+historians more generally ask them, their books would be less often
+dry as dust.
+
+
+VI
+
+It may be that to this period belongs the meeting with Jacopo de'
+Barbari to which a passage in his MS. books (now in the British Museum)
+refers: and that already he began to be exercised on the subject of a
+canon of proportions for the human figure. In the chapter which I devote
+to his studies on this subject it will be seen how the determination to
+work the problem out by experiment, since Jacopo refused to reveal, and
+Vitruvius only hinted at the secret, led to his discovering something of
+far more value than it is probable that either could have given him. And
+yet the belief that there was a hidden secret probably hindered him from
+fully realising the importance of his discovery, or reaping such benefit
+from it as he otherwise might have done. How often has not the belief
+that those of old time knew what is ignored to-day, prevented men from
+taking full advantage of the conquests over ignorance that they have
+made themselves! Because what they know is not so much as they suppose
+might be or has been known, they fail to recognise the most that has yet
+been known--the best foundation for a new building that has yet been
+discovered--and search for what they possess, and fail to rival those
+whose superiority over themselves is a delusion of their own hearts. So
+early Dürer may have begun this life-long labour which, though not
+wholly vain, was never really crowned to the degree it merited: while
+others living in more fertile lands reaped what they had not sown, he
+could only plough and scatter seed. As Raphael is supposed to have said,
+all that was lacking to him was knowledge of the antique.
+
+Perhaps many will blame me for writing, unlearned, as I am; in my
+opinion they are not wrong; they speak truly. For I myself had rather
+hear and read a learned man and one famous in this art than write of it
+myself, being unlearned. Howbeit I can find none such who hath written
+aught about how to form a canon of human proportions, save one man,
+Jacopo (de' Barbari) by name, born at Venice and a charming painter. He
+showed me the figures of a man and woman, which he had drawn according
+to a canon of proportions; and now I would rather be shown what he meant
+(_i.e._, upon what principles the proportions were constructed) than
+behold a new kingdom. If I had it (his canon), I would put it into print
+in his honour, for the use of all men. Then, however, I was still young
+and had not heard of such things before. Howbeit I was very fond of art,
+so I set myself to discover how such a canon might be wrought out. For
+this aforesaid Jacopo, as I clearly saw, would not explain to me the
+principles upon which he went. Accordingly I set to work on my own idea
+and read Vitruvius, who writes somewhat about the human figure. Thus it
+was from, or out of, these two men aforesaid that I took my start, and
+thence, from day to day, have I followed up my search according to my
+own notions.
+
+
+VII
+
+When I returned home, Hans Prey treated with my father and gave me his
+daughter, Mistress Agnes by name, and with her he gave me two hundred
+florins, and we were wedded; it was on Monday before Margaret's (July 7)
+in the year 1494.
+
+The general acceptance of the gouty and irascible Pirkheimer's
+defamation of Frau Dürer as a miser and a shrew called forth a display
+of ingenuity on the part of Professor Thausing to prove the contrary.
+And I must confess that if he has not quite done that, he seems to me to
+have very thoroughly discredited Pirkheimer's ungallant abuse. Sir
+Martin Conway bids us notice that Dürer speaks of his "dear father" and
+his "dear mother" and even of his "dear father-in-law," but that he
+never couples that adjective with his wife's name. It is very dangerous
+to draw conclusions from such a fact, which may be merely an accident:
+or may, if it represents a habit of Dürer's, bear precisely the opposite
+significance. For some men are proud to drop such outward marks of
+affection, in cases where they know that every day proves to every
+witness that they are not needed. He also considers that her portraits
+show her, when young, to have been "empty-headed," when older, a "frigid
+shrew." For my own part, if the portrait at Bremen (see opposite)
+represents "mein Angnes," as its resemblance to the sketch at Vienna
+(see illus.) convinces me it does, I cannot accept either of these
+conclusions arrived at by the redoubtable science of physiognomy. The
+Bremen portrait shows us a refined, almost an eccentric type of beauty;
+one can easily believe it to have been possessed by a person of
+difficult character, but one certainly who must have had compensating
+good qualities. The "mein Angnes" on the sketch may well be set against
+the absent "dears" in the other mentions her husband made of her,
+especially when we consider that he couples this adjective with the
+Emperor's name, "my dear Prince Max." Of her relations to him nothing is
+known except what Pirkheimer wrote in his rage, when he was writing
+things which are demonstrably false. We know, however, that she was
+capable, pious, and thrifty; and on several occasions, in the
+Netherlands, shared in the honours done to her husband. It is natural to
+suppose that as they were childless, there may have existed a moral
+equivalent to this infertility; but also, with a man such as we know
+Dürer to have been, and a woman in every case not bad, have we not
+reason to expect that this moral barrenness which may have afflicted
+their union was in some large measure conquered by mutual effort and
+discipline, and bore from time to time those rarer flowers whose beauty
+and sweetness repay the conscious culture of the soul? It seems
+difficult to imagine that a man who succeeded in charming so many
+different acquaintances, and in remaining life-long friends with the
+testy and inconsiderate Pirkheimer, should have altogether failed to
+create a relation kindly and even beautiful with his Agnes, whose
+portrait we surely have at her best in the drawing at Bremen.
+Considerations as to the general position of married women in those days
+need not prevent us of our natural desire to think as well as possible
+of Dürer and his circumstances. We know that for a great many men the
+wife was not simply counted among their goods and chattels, or regarded
+as a kind of superior servant. We are able to take a peep at many a
+fireside of those days, where the relations that obtained, however
+different in certain outward characters, might well shame the greater
+number of the respectable even in the present year of grace. We know
+what Luther was in these respects; and have rather more than less reason
+to expect from the refined and gracious Dürer the creation of a worthy
+and kindly home. Why should we expect him to have been less successful
+than his parents in these respects?
+
+[Illustration: AGNES FREY. DÜRER'S WIFE (?)--Silver-point drawing
+heightened with white on a dun paper. Kunsthalle, Bremen]
+
+[Illustration: "MEIN ANGNES"--Pen sketch of the artist's wife, in the
+Albertina at Vienna]
+
+
+VIII
+
+Some time after the marriage it happened that my father was so ill with
+dysentery that no one could stop it. And when he saw death before his
+eyes he gave himself willingly to it, with great patience, and he
+commended my mother to me, and exhorted me to live in a manner pleasing
+to God. He received the Holy Sacraments and passed away Christianly (as
+I have described at length in another book) in the year 1502, after
+midnight, before S. Matthew's eve (September 20). God be gracious and
+merciful to him.
+
+The only leaf of the "other book" referred to that has survived is that
+which I have already quoted at length.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+
+I
+
+Now let us consider what the world was like in which this virile,
+accurate and persevering spirit had grown up. Over and over again, the
+story of the New Birth has been told; how it began in France, and met an
+untimely fate at the hands of English invaders, then took refuge in
+Italy, where it grew to be the wonder of the world; and how the
+corruption of the ruling classes and of the Church, with the indignation
+and rebellion that this gave rise to, combined to frustrate the promise
+of earlier days.
+
+When the Roman Empire gradually became an anarchy of hostile fragments,
+every large monastery, every small town, girded itself with walls and
+tended to become the germ of a new civilisation. Popes, kings, and great
+lords, haunted by reminiscence of the vanished empire, made spasmodic
+attempts to subject such centres to their rule and tax them for their
+maintenance. In the first times, the Church--the See of Rome--made by
+far the most successful attempt to get its supremacy acknowledged, and
+had therefore fewer occasions to resort to violence. It was more
+respected and more respectable than the other powers which claimed to
+rule and tax these immured and isolated communities dotted over Europe;
+but as time went on, the Church became less and less beneficent, more
+and more tyrannical. Meanwhile kings and emperors, having learned wisdom
+by experience, found themselves in a position to take advantage of the
+growing bad odour of the Church; and by favouring the civil communities
+and creating a stable hierarchy among the class of lords and barons from
+which they had emerged, were at last able to face the Church, with its
+_protégés,_ the religious communities, on an equal footing.
+
+The religious communities, owing to the vow of celibacy, had become more
+and more stagnant, while the civil communities increased in power to
+adapt themselves to the age. All that was virile and creative combined
+in the towns; all that was inadequate, sterile, useless, coagulated in
+the monasteries, which thus became cesspools, and ultimately took on the
+character of festering sores by which the civil bodies which had at
+first been purged into them were endangered. Luther tells us how there
+was a Bishop of Würzburg who used to say when he saw a rogue, "'To the
+cloister with you. Thou art useless to God or man.' He meant that in the
+cloister were only hogs and gluttons, who did nothing but eat and drink
+and sleep, and were of no more profit than as many rats." And the
+loathing that another of these sties created in the young Erasmus, and
+the difficulty he had to escape from the clutches of its inmates--never
+feeling safe till the Pope had intervened--show us that by their wealth
+and by the engine of their malice, the confessional (which they had
+usurped from the regular clergy), they were as formidable as they were
+useless. It became necessary that this antiquated system of social
+drainage should be superseded.
+
+In England and Germany it was swept away. In centres like Nuremberg, the
+desire for reformation and the horror of false doctrine were grounded in
+practical experience of intolerable inconveniences, not in a clear
+understanding of the questions at issue. Intellectually, the leaders of
+the Reformation had no better foundation than those they opposed: for
+them, as for their opponents, the question was not to be solved by an
+appeal to evident truths and experience, but to historical documents and
+traditions, supposed, to be infallible. For a clear intelligence, there
+is nothing to choose between the infallibility of oecumenical councils
+or of Popes, and that of the Bible. Both have been in their time the
+expression of very worthy and very human sentiments; both are incapable
+of rational demonstration.
+
+
+II
+
+Scattered over Europe, wherever the free intelligence was waking and had
+rubbed her eyes, were men who desired that nuisances should be removed
+and reforms operated without schism or violence. To these Erasmus spoke.
+His policy was tentative, and did not proceed, like that of other
+parties, by declaring that a perfect solution was to hand. Luther's
+action divided these honest, upright souls, and would-be children of
+light, into three unequal camps.
+
+As a rule the downright, headstrong, and impatient became reformers. The
+respectful, cautious and long-suffering, such as More, Warham, and
+Adrian IV., clung to the Roman establishment, were martyred for it or
+broke their hearts over it. Erasmus and a handful of others remained
+true to a tentative policy, and, compared with their contemporaries,
+were meek and lowly in heart--became children of light. To them we now
+look back wistfully, and wish that they might have been, if not as
+numerous as the Churchmen and Beformers, at least a sufficient body to
+have made their influence an effective force, with the advantage of more
+light and more patience that was really theirs. But, alas! they only
+counted as the first dissolvent which set free more corrosive and
+detrimental acids. The exhilaration of action and battle was for others;
+for them the sad conviction that neither side deserved to be trusted
+with a victory. Yet, beyond the world whose chief interest was the
+Reformation, we may be sure that such men as Charles V., Michael Angelo,
+Rabelais, Montaigne, and all those whom they may be taken to represent,
+were in essential agreement with Erasmus. Luther and Machiavelli alone
+rejected the Papacy as such: the latter's more stringent intellectual
+development led him also to discard every ideal motive or agent of
+reform for violent means. He was ready even to regard the passions of
+men like Caesar Borgia, tyrants in the fullest sense of the word, as the
+engines by which civilisation, learning, art, and manners, might be
+maintained. Whereas Luther appealed to the passions of common honest
+men, the middle classes in fact. It is easy to let either Luther or
+Machiavelli steal away our entire sympathy. On the one hand, no
+compromise, not even the slightest, seems possible with criminal
+ruffians such as a Julius II. and an Alexander Borgia; on the other
+hand, the power swollen by the tide of minor corruption, which such men
+ruled by might, did come into the hands of a Leo X., an Adrian IV.; and
+though that power was obviously tainted through and through, it might
+have been mastered and wielded in the cause of reform. Erasmus hoped for
+this. Even Julius II. protected him from the superiors of his convent.
+Even Julius II. patronised Michael Angelo and Raphael and everything
+that had a definite character in the way of creative power or
+scholarship; and could appreciate at least the respect which what he
+patronised commanded. He could appreciate the respect commanded by the
+austerity and virtue of those who rebelled against him and denounced his
+cynical abuse of all his powers, whether natural or official. He liked
+to think he had enemies worth beating. Such a ruler is a sore temptation
+to a keen intellect. "Everything great is formative," and this Pope was
+colossal--a colossal bully and robber if you like--but the good he did
+by his patronage was real good, was practical. Michael Angelo and
+Raphael could work as splendidly as they desired. Erasmus was helped and
+encouraged. Timid honesty is often petty, does nothing, criticises and
+finds fault with artists and with learning, runs after them like Sancho
+Panza after Don Quixote, is helpless and ridiculous and horribly in the
+way. Leo X. was intelligent and well-meaning; wisdom herself might hope
+from such a man. Be the throne he is sitting on as monstrous and corrupt
+a contrivance as it may, yet it is there, it does give him authority; he
+is on it and dominates the world. It is easy to say, "But the period of
+the Renascence closed, its glory died away." Suppose Luther had been as
+subtle as he was whole-hearted, and had added to his force of character
+a delicacy and charm like that of St. Francis; or suppose that Erasmus
+instead of his schoolfellow Adrian IV. had become Pope; what a different
+tale there might have been to tell! Who will presume to point out the
+necessity by which these things were thus and not otherwise? "Regrets
+for what 'might have been' are proverbially idle," cries the historian
+from whom I have chiefly quoted. I do not recollect the proverb, unless
+he refers to "It is no use crying over spilt milk;" but in any case such
+regrets are far from being necessarily idle. "What might have been" is
+even generally "what ought to have been;" and no study has been or is
+likely to be so pregnant for us as the study of the contrast between
+"what was" and "what ought to have been," though such studies are
+inevitably mingled with regrets. We have every reason to regret that the
+Reformation was so hasty and ill-considered, and that the Papacy was as
+purblind as it was arrogant. The plant of the Roman Church machinery,
+which it had taken centuries to lay down, came into the hands of men who
+grossly ignored its function and the conditions of its working. They
+used its power partly for the benefit of the human race, by patronising
+art and scholarship; but chiefly in self-indulgence. If honest
+intelligence had been given control, a man so partially equipped for his
+task would not have been goaded into action; but only force, moral or
+physical, can act at a disadvantage; light and reason must have the
+advantage of dominant position to effect anything immediate. If they are
+not on the throne, all they can do is to sow seed, and bewail the
+present while looking forward to a better future. Now, most educated men
+are for tolerance, and see as Erasmus saw. We see that Savonarola and
+Luther were not so right as they thought themselves to be; we see that
+what they condemned as arrogancy and corruption is partly excusable--is
+in some measure a condition of efficiency in worldly spheres where one
+has to employ men already bad. True, the great princes and cardinals of
+those days not only connived at corruption and ruled by it, but often
+even professed it. Still in every epoch, under all circumstances, the
+majority of those who have governed men have more or less cynically
+employed means that will not bear the light of day. While these
+magnificoes of the Renascence do stand alone, or almost alone, by the
+ample generosity of their conception of the objects that power should be
+exerted in furtherance of; their outlook on life was more commensurate
+with the variety and competence of human nature than perhaps that of any
+ruling class has been before or since. As Shakespeare is the amplest of
+poets, so were theirs the most fruitful of courts. From the great
+Medicis to our own Elizabeth they all partake of a certain grandiose
+vitality and variety of intention.
+
+
+III
+
+Greatness demands self-assertion; self-assertion is a great virtue even
+in a Julius II. There is a vast deal of humbug in the use we make of the
+word humility. We talk about Christ's humility, but whose self-assertion
+has ever been more unmitigated? "I am the Way, the Truth, and the
+Light." "Learn of Me that I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls." No doubt it is the quality of the self asserted that
+justifies in our eyes the assertion; humility then is not opposed to
+self-assertion. When Michael Angelo shows that he thinks himself the
+greatest artist in the world, he is not necessarily lacking in humility;
+nor is Luther, asserting the authority of his conscience against the
+Pope and Emperor; nor Dürer, saying to us in those little finely-dressed
+portraits with which he signs his pictures, "I am that I am--namely, one
+of the handsomest of men and the greatest artist north of the Alps." Or
+when Erasmus lets us see that he thinks himself the most learned man
+living,--if he is the most learned, so much the better that he should
+know this also as well as the rest. The artist and the scholar were
+bound to feel gratitude for the corrupt but splendid Church and courts,
+which gave them so much both in the way of maintenance and opportunity.
+It may be asked, has all the honesty and the not always evident purity
+of Protestantism done so much for the world as those dissolute Popes and
+Princes? And the artist, judging with a hasty bias perhaps, is likely to
+answer no.
+
+
+IV
+
+For us nowadays the pith of history seems no more to be the lives of
+monarchs, or the fighting of battles, or even the deliberations of
+councils; these things we have more and more come to regard merely as
+tools and engines for the creation of societies, homes, and friends. And
+so, though religion and religious machinery dominated the life of those
+days, it is not in theological disputes, neither is it in oecumenical
+councils and Popes, nor in sermons, reformers, and synods, that we find
+the essence of the soul's life. Rather to us, the pictures, the statues,
+the books, the furniture, the wardrobes, the letters, and the scandals
+that have been left behind, speak to us of those days; for these we
+value them. And we are right, the value of the Renaissance lies in these
+things, I say "the scandals" of those days; for a part of what comes
+under that head was perhaps the manifestation of a morality based on a
+wider experience; though its association with obvious vices and its
+opposition to the old and stale ideals gave it an illegitimate
+character; while the re-establishment of the more part of those ideals
+has perpetuated its reproach. There can be no intellectual charity if
+the machinery and special sentences of current morality are supposed to
+be final or truly adequate. Their tentative and inadequate character,
+which every free intelligence recognises, is what endorses the wisdom of
+Jesus', saying, "Judge not that ye be not judged." Ordinary honest and
+good citizens do not realise how much that is in every way superior to
+the gifts of any single one of themselves is yearly sacrificed and
+tortured for their preservation as a class. On what agonies of creative
+and original minds is the safety of their homes based? These respectable
+Molochs who devour both the poor and the exceptionally gifted, and are
+so little better for their meal, were during the Renascence for a time
+gainsaid and abashed; yet even then their engines, the traditional
+secular and ecclesiastic policies, were a foreign encumbrance with which
+the human spirit was loaded, and which helped to prevent it from reaping
+the full result of its mighty upheaval.
+
+To see things as they are, and above all to value them for what is most
+essential in them with regard to the development of our own
+characters;--that is, I take it, consciously or unconsciously, the main
+effort of the modern spirit. On the world, the flesh, and the devil, we
+have put new values; and it was the first assertion of these new values
+which caused the Renascence. Fine manners, fine clothes, and varied
+social interchange make the world admirable in our eyes, not at all a
+bogey to frighten us. Health, frankness, and abundant exercise make the
+flesh a pure delight in our eyes; lastly, this new-born spirit has made
+"a moral of the devil himself," and so for us he has lost his terror.
+
+Rabelais was right when he laughed the old outworn values down, and
+declared that women were in the first place female, men in the first
+place male; that the written word should be a self-expression, a
+sincerity, not a task or a catalogue or a penance, but, like laughter
+and speech, essentially human, making all men brothers, doing away with
+artificial barriers and distinctions, making the scholar shake in time
+with the toper, and doubling the divine up with the losel; bidding even
+the lady hold her sides in company with the harlot. Eating and drinking
+were seen to be good in themselves; the eye and the nose and the palate
+were not only to be respected but courted; free love was better than
+married enmity. No rite, no church, no god, could annihilate these facts
+or restrain their influence any more than the sea could be tamed. Dürer
+was touched with this spirit; we see it in his fine clothes, in his
+collector's rapacity, above all in his letters to his friend
+Pirkheimer--a man more typical of that Rabelaisian age than Dürer and
+Michael Angelo, who were both of them not only modern men but men
+conservative of the best that had been--men in travail for the future,
+absorbed by the responsibility of those who create.
+
+Pirkheimer, one year Dürer's senior, was a gross fat man early in life,
+enjoying the clinking of goblets, the music of fork and knife, and the
+effrontery of obscene jests. A vain man, a soldier and a scholar,
+pedantic, irritable, but in earnest; a complimenter of Emperors, a
+leader of the reform party, a partisan of Luther's, the friend and
+correspondent of Erasmus, the elective brother of Dürer. The man was
+typical; his fellows were in all lands. Dürer was surprised to find how
+many of them there were at Venice--men who would delight Pirkheimer and
+delight in him. "My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you I don't know how it happens! ... men of sense and
+knowledge, good lute players and pipers, judges of painting, men of much
+noble sentiment and honest virtue; and they show me much honour and
+friendship." Something of all this was doubtless in Dürer too; but in
+him it was refined and harmonised by the sense and serious concern, not
+only for the things of to-day, but for those of to-morrow and yesterday;
+the sense of solidarity, the passion for permanent effect, eternal
+excellence. These things, in men like Pirkheimer, still more in Erasmus,
+and even in Rabelais and Montaigne, are not absent; but they are less
+stringent, less religious, than they are in a Dürer or a Michael Angelo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DÜRER AT VENICE
+
+
+I
+
+There are several reasons which may possibly have led Dürer to visit
+Venice in 1505. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German
+Merchants at Venice, had been burned down the winter before, and they
+were in haste to complete a new one. Dürer may have received assurance
+that the commission to paint the altar-piece for the new chapel would be
+his did he desire it. At any rate he seems to have set to work on such a
+picture almost as soon as he arrived there. It is strange to think that
+Giorgione and Titian probably began to paint the frescoes on the facade
+while he was still at work in the chapel, or soon after he left. The
+plague broke out in Nuremberg before he came away; but this is not
+likely to have been his principal motive for leaving home, as many
+richer men, such as his friend Pirkheimer, from whom he borrowed money
+for the journey, stayed where they were. Nor do Dürer's letters reveal
+any alarm for his friend's, his mother's, his wife's, or his brother's
+safety. He took with him six small pictures, and probably a great number
+of prints, for Venice was a first-rate market.
+
+
+II
+
+The letters which follow are like a glimpse of a distant scene in a
+_camera obscura_, and, like life itself, they are full of repetitions
+and over-insistence on what is insignificant or of temporary interest.
+To-day they call for our patience and forbearance, and it will depend
+upon our imaginative activity in what degree they repay them; even as it
+depends upon our power of affectionate assimilation in what degree and
+kind every common day adds to our real possessions.
+
+I have made my citations as ample as possible, so as to give the reader
+a just idea of their character while making them centre as far as
+possible round points of special interest.
+
+_To the honourable, wise Master Wilibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of Nürberg,
+my kind Master_. VENICE, _January 6, 1506._
+
+I wish you and yours many good, happy New Years. My willing service,
+first of all, to you dear Master Pirkheimer! Know that I am in good
+health; I pray God far better things than that for you. As to those
+pearls and precious stones which you gave me commission to buy, you must
+know that I can find nothing good or even worth its price. Everything is
+snapped up by the Germans who hang about the Riva. They always want to
+get four times the value for anything, for they are the falsest knaves
+alive. No one need look for an honest service from any of them. Some
+good fellows have warned me to beware of them, they cheat man and beast.
+You can buy better things at a lower price at Frankfurt than at Venice.
+
+[Illustration: Wilibald Pirkheimer--Charcoal Drawing, Dumesnil
+Collection, Paris _Face p._ 80]
+
+About the books which I was to order for you, the Imhofs have already
+seen after them; but if there is anything else you want, let me know and
+I will attend to it for you with all zeal. Would to God I could do you a
+right good service! gladly would I accomplish it, seeing, as I do, how
+much you do for me. And I pray you be patient with my debt, for indeed I
+think much oftener of it than you do. When God helps me home I will
+honourably repay you with many thanks; for I have a panel to paint for
+the Germans for which they are to pay me a hundred and ten Rhenish
+florins--it will not cost me as much as five. I shall have scraped it and
+laid on the ground and made it ready within eight days; then I shall at
+once begin to paint and, if God will, it shall be in its place above the
+altar a month after Easter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VENICE, _February 17_, 1506.
+
+How I wish you were here at Venice! There are so many nice men among the
+Italians who seek my company more and more every day--which is very
+pleasing to one--men of sense and knowledge, good lute-players and
+pipers, judges of painting, men of much noble sentiment and 'honest
+virtue, and they show me much honour and friendship. On the other hand
+there are also amongst them some of the most false, lying, thievish
+rascals; I should never have believed that such were living in the
+world. If one did not know them, one would think them the nicest men the
+earth could show. For my own part I cannot help laughing at them
+whenever they talk to me. They know that their knavery is no secret but
+they don't mind.
+
+Amongst the Italians I have many good friends who warn me not to eat and
+drink with their painters. Many of them are my enemies and they copy my
+work in the churches and wherever they can find it; and then they revile
+it and say that the style is not _antique_ and so not good. But Giovanni
+Bellini has highly praised me before many nobles. He wanted to have
+something of mine, and himself came to me and asked me to paint him
+something and he would pay well for it. And all men tell me what an
+upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very
+old, but is still the best painter of them all. And that which so well
+pleased me eleven years ago pleases me no longer, if I had not seen it
+for myself I should not have believed any one who told me. You must know
+too that there are many better painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo
+de' Barbari) is abroad (_wider darvsen Meister J._), yet Anton Kolb
+would swear an oath that no better painter lives than Jacob. Others
+sneer at him, saying if he were good he would stay here, and so forth.
+
+I have only to-day begun to sketch in my picture, for my hands were so
+scabby (_grindig_) that I could do no work with them, but I have got
+them cured.
+
+Now be lenient with me and don't get in a passion so easily, but be
+gentle like me. I don't know why you will not learn from me. My friend!
+I should like to know if any one of your loves is dead--that one close
+by the water for instance, or the one called [Illustration] or
+[Illustration] or a [Illustration] so that you might supply her place by
+another. ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+VENICE, February 28, 1506.
+
+I wish you had occasion to come here, I know you would not find time
+hang on your hands, for there are so many nice men in this country,
+right good artists. I have such a throng of Italians about me that at
+times I have to shut myself up. The nobles all wish me well, but few of
+the painters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VENICE, _April_ 2, 1506.
+
+The painters here, let me tell you, are very unfriendly to me. They have
+summoned me three times before the magistrates, and I have had to pay
+four florins to their school. You must also know that I might have
+gained a great deal of money if I had not undertaken to paint the German
+picture. There is much work in it and I cannot get it quite finished
+before Whitsuntide. Yet they only pay me eighty-five ducats for it. Now
+you know how much it costs to live, and then I have bought some things
+and sent some money away, so that I have not much before me now. But
+don't misunderstand me, I am firmly purposed not to go away hence till
+God enables me to repay you with thanks and to have a hundred florins
+over besides. I should easily earn this if I had not got the German
+picture to paint, for all men except the painters wish me well.
+
+Tell my mother to speak to Wolgemut about my brother, and to ask him
+whether he can make use of him and give him work till I come, or whether
+he can put him with some one else. I should gladly have brought him with
+me to Venice, and that would have been useful both to me and him, and he
+would have learnt the language, but my mother was afraid that the sky
+would fall on him. Pray keep an eye on him yourself, the women are no
+use for that. Tell the lad, as you so well can, to be studious and
+honest till I come, and not to be a trouble to his mother; if I cannot
+arrange everything I will at all events do all that I can. Alone I
+certainly should not starve, but to support many is too hard for me, for
+no one throws his gold away.
+
+Now I commend myself to you. Tell my mother to be ready to sell at the
+Crown-fair (_Heiligthumsfest_). I am arranging for my wife to have come
+home by then; I have written to her too about everything. I will not
+take any steps about buying the diamond ornament till I get your
+next letter.
+
+I don't think I shall be able to come home before next autumn, when what
+I earned for the picture, which was to have been ready by Whitsuntide,
+will be quite used up in living expenses, purchases, and payments; what,
+however, I gain afterwards I hope to save. If you see fit don't speak of
+this further, and I will keep putting off my leaving from day to day and
+writing as though I was just coming. I am indeed very uncertain what to
+do next. Write to me again soon.
+
+Given on Thursday before Palm Sunday in the year 1506. ALBRECHT DÜRER,
+Your Servant.
+
+VENICE, _August_ 18, 1506.
+
+_To the first, greatest man in the world. Your servant and slave
+Albrecht Dürer sends salutation to his Magnificent master Wilibald_
+Pirkheimer. _My truth! I hear gladly and with great satisfaction of your
+health and great honours. I wonder how it is possible for a man like you
+to stand against_ so many _wisest princes,_ swaggerers _and soldiers; it
+must be by some special grace of God. When I read your letter about this
+terrible grimace, it gave me a great fright and I thought it was a most
+important thing,_[15] but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's
+men,[16] you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it
+is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want
+to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to
+please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow
+as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so many loves that merely
+to pay each one a visit you would take a month or more before you got
+through the list.
+
+For one thing I return you my thanks, namely, for explaining my position
+in the best way to my wife; but I know that there is no lack of wisdom
+in you. If only you had my meekness you would have all virtues. Thank
+you also for all the good you have done me, if only you would not bother
+me about the rings! If they don't please you, break their heads off and
+pitch them out on to the dunghill as Peter Weisweber says. What do you
+mean by setting me to such dirty work? _I_ have become a _gentleman_
+at Venice.
+
+I have also heard that you can make lovely rhymes; you would be a find
+for our fiddlers here; they fiddle so beautifully that they can't help
+weeping over it themselves. Would God our Rechenmeister girl could hear
+them, she would cry too. At your bidding I will again lay aside my anger
+and bear myself even more bravely than usual.
+
+Now let me commend myself to you; give my willing service to our Prior
+for me; tell him to pray God for me that I may be protected, and
+especially from the French sickness; I know of nothing that I now dread
+more than that, for well nigh every one has got it. Many men are quite
+eaten up and die of it.
+
+VENICE, _September_ 8, 1506.
+
+Most learned, approved, wise, knower of many languages, sharp to detect
+all encountered lies and quick to recognise plain truth! Honourable
+much-regarded Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer. Your humble servant Albrecht
+Dürer wishes you all hail, great and worthy honour _in the devil's name,_
+so much for the twaddle of which you are so fond. I wager that for
+this[17] you would think me too an orator of a hundred parts. A chamber
+must have more than four corners which is to contain the gods of memory.
+I am not going to cram my head full of them; that I leave to you; for I
+believe that however many chambers there might be in the head, you would
+have something in each of them. The Margrave would not grant an audience
+long enough!--a hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred
+words, that takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs
+which I have not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the
+whole at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old
+driveller.
+
+I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot find any
+broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However I still look about
+every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.
+
+I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you his
+service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his Son, the nicest lad
+I ever saw.
+
+I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh, if only you were here!
+how you would like these fine Italian soldiers! How often I think of
+you! Would to God that you and Kunz Kamerer could see them! They have
+great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only touch a man with them
+he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey! I can do it well, I'll be an
+Italian soldier. The Venetians as well as the Pope and the King of
+France are collecting many men; what will come of it I don't know, but
+people ridicule our King very much.
+
+Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me. I don't wonder at his
+having taken a wife. Give my greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our
+fair friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister girl, and thank that
+head-chamber of yours alone for remembering her greeting; tell her she's
+a nasty one.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I sent you olive-wood from Venice to Augsburg, where I directed it to be
+left, a full ten hundredweight. She says she would not wait for it;
+_whence the stink_.
+
+My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it,
+it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned much praise
+but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could easily
+have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in order that
+I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the painters who used
+to say that I was good at engraving but, as to painting. I did not know
+how to handle my colours. Now every one says that better colouring they
+have never seen.
+
+My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes me that
+there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out even at
+this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting you
+pretend not to be more than twenty-five years old--oh, yes! double that
+and I'll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you; I don't know how it happens!
+
+The Doge and the Patriarch have also seen my picture. Herewith let me
+commend myself to you as your servant. I must really go to sleep as it
+is striking the seventh hour of the night, and I have already written to
+the Prior of the Augustines, to my father-in-law, to Mistress Dietrich,
+and to my wife, and they are all downright whole sheets full. So I have
+had to hurry over this letter, read it according to the sense. You would
+doubtless do better if you were writing to a lot of Princes. Many good
+nights and days too. Given at Venice on our Lady's day in September.
+
+You need not lend my wife and mother anything; they have got money
+enough,
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+VENICE, _September 23_, 1506.
+
+Your letter telling me of the praise that you get to overflowing from
+Princes and nobles gave me great delight. You must be altogether altered
+to have become so gentle; I shall hardly know you when I meet you again.
+
+You must know that my picture is finished as well as another
+_Quadro_[18] the like of which I have never painted before. And as you
+are so pleased with yourself, let me tell you that there is no better
+Madonna picture in the land than mine; for all the painters praise it,
+as the nobles do you. They say that they have never seen a nobler,
+more charming painting, and so forth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But in order to come home as soon as possible, I have, since my picture
+was finished, refused work that would have yielded me more than 2000
+ducats. This all men know who live about me here.
+
+Bernhard Holzbeck has told me great things of you, though I think he
+does so because you have become his brother-in-law. But nothing makes me
+more angry than when any one says that you are good-looking; if that
+were so I should become really ugly. That could make me mad. I have
+found a grey hair on myself, it is the result of so much excitement. And
+I fear that while I play such pranks with myself there are still bad
+days before me, &c.
+
+My French mantle, my doublet, and my brown coat send you a hearty
+greeting, I should be glad to see what great thing your head-piece can
+produce that you hold yourself so high.
+
+VENICE, _about October_ 13, 1506.
+
+Knowing that you are aware of my devotion to your service there is no
+need for me to write to you about it; but so much the more necessary is
+it for me to tell you of the great pleasure it gives me to hear of the
+high honour and fame which your manly wisdom and learned skill have
+brought you. This is the more to be wondered at, for seldom or never in
+a young body can the like be found. It comes to you, however, as to me,
+by a special grace of God. How pleased we both are when we fancy
+ourselves worth somewhat--I with my painting, and you with your wisdom.
+When any one praises us, we hold up our heads and believe him. Yet
+perhaps he is only some false flatterer who is scorning us all the time.
+So don't credit any one who praises you, for you've no notion how
+utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing
+before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly--behaving exactly as if
+you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing as you do. It did
+not escape me that, when you wrote your last letter, you were quite full
+of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an old fellow
+like you pretending to be so good-looking. Flirting pleases you in the
+same way that a shaggy old dog likes a game with a kitten. If you were
+only as fine and gentle a man as I, I could understand it. If I become
+burgomaster I will serve you with the Luginsland.[19] as you do to pious
+Zamesser and me. I will have you for once shut up there with the ladies
+Rechenmeister, Rosentaler, Gärtner, Schutz, and Pör, and many others
+whom for shortness I will not name; they must deal with you.
+
+People enquire more after me than you, for you yourself write that both
+girls and honourable wives ask after me--that is a sign of my virtue.
+When, however, God helps me home I don't know how I shall any longer
+stand you with your great wisdom; but for your virtue and good temper I
+am glad, and your dogs will be the better for it, for you will no longer
+strike them lame. Now however that you are thought so much of at home,
+you won't dare to talk to a poor painter in the street any more; to be
+seen with the painter varlet would be a great disgrace for you.
+
+O, dear Herr Pirkheimer, just now while I was writing to you, the alarm
+of fire was raised and six houses over by Pietro Venier are burnt, and a
+woollen cloth of mine, for which only yesterday I paid eight ducats, is
+burnt, so I too am in trouble. There is much excitement here about
+the fire.
+
+As to your summons to me to come home soon, I shall come as soon as ever
+I can, but I must first gain money for my expenses. I have paid away
+about 100 ducats for colours and other things. I have ordered you two
+carpets for which I shall pay to-morrow, but I could not get them cheap.
+I will pack them in with my linen.
+
+And as to your threat that, unless I come home soon, you will make love
+to my wife, don't attempt it--a ponderous fellow like you would be the
+death of her.
+
+I must tell you that I set to work to learn dancing and went twice to
+the school, for which I had to pay the master a ducat. No one could get
+me to go there again. To learn dancing I should have had to pay away all
+that I have earned, and at the end I should have known nothing about it.
+
+[Illustration: HANS BURGKMAIR--Black chalk drawing on yellowish prepared
+ground. The lights and background in watercolor may possibly have been
+added later At Oxford]
+
+In reply to your question when I shall come home, I tell you, so that my
+lords may also make their arrangements, that I shall have finished here
+in ten days; after that I should like to ride to Bologna to learn the
+secrets of the art of perspective, which a man is willing to teach me. I
+should stay there eight or ten days and then return to Venice. After
+that I shall come with the next messenger. How I shall freeze after this
+sun! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite.
+
+
+III
+
+Sir Martin Conway writes:
+
+He (Dürer) enjoyed Venice; he liked the Italians; he was oppressed with
+orders for work; the climate suited him, and the warm sun was a pleasant
+contrast to the snows and frost of a Franconian winter. But Dürer's
+German heart was true; its truth was the secret of his success.... The
+syren voice of Italy charmed to their destruction most Germans who
+listened to it. Brought face to face with the Italian Ideal of Grace,
+they one after another abandoned for it the Ideal of Strength peculiarly
+their own.
+
+We do not resort to these arguments to approve Holbein or Van Dyck for
+their long residence in England. I am not sure how much false sentiment
+inspired Thausing when he first praised Dürer in this strain; but I must
+confess I suspect it was no little. I incline to think that the best
+country for an artist is not always the one he was born in, but often
+that one where his art finds the best conditions to foster it. We do not
+honour Dürer by supposing that he would have been among that majority of
+Dutch and German artists who, weaker than Roger van der Weyden and
+Burgkmair, returned from Italy injured and enfeebled; even if he had
+passed the greater portion of his life with her syren voice in his ears.
+
+Dürer could not bring himself to undergo for art's sake what Michael
+Angelo endured; years of exile from a beloved native city, and, still
+worse, years of exile from the most congenial spiritual atmosphere.
+Nevertheless, we must remember that the difference of language would
+have made life in Venice for Dürer a much more complete exile than life
+in Verona was for Dante, or life in Rome for Michael Angelo. So he did
+not share the patronage and generous recognition which gave Titian such
+a splendid opportunity. He ceased for a time at least to be a gentleman
+to become a hanger-on, a parasite once more. At Antwerp he once more was
+met by the same generosity and recognition only to refuse again to
+accept it as a gift for life and return to his beloved Nuremberg, where
+it is true his position continually improved, though it never equalled
+what had been offered at Venice and Antwerp.
+
+
+IV
+
+The tone of some of the pleasantries in these letters may rather
+astonish good people who, having accepted the fact that Dürer was a
+religious man, have at once given him the tone and address of a meeting
+of churchwardens, if they have not conjured up a vision of him in a
+frock coat. "Things are what they are," said Bishop Butler, and so are
+women; boys will be boys. The distinctive functions of the two sexes
+were in those days kept more in view if not more in mind than is the
+case to-day. The fashions in dress and in deportment were particularly
+frank upon this point, especially for the young. One may allow as much
+as is desired for the corruption of manners produced by the civil and
+religious mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, and friars. There will
+always remain a certain truth and propriety, a certain grace and charm
+in those costumes and that deportment, as also in the freedom of jest
+which characterises even the most modest of Shakespeare's heroines; and
+under the influence of their spell we shall feel that all has not been
+gain in the change that has gradually been operated. No doubt virtue is
+a victory over nature, and chastity a refinement; but among conquerors
+some are easy and good-natured, others tactless, awkward, insulting; and
+among the chaste some are fearless and enjoy the freedom which courage
+and clear conscience give, others timid and suffer the oppression of
+their fears. Even among sinners some make the best of weaknesses and
+redeem them a great deal more than half, while others magnify smaller
+faults by lack of self-possession till they are an insupportable
+nuisance. We may well admit that from the successes of those days, those
+who succeed to our delight to-day may glean additional attractions.
+
+
+V
+
+We know that Dürer stopped on at Venice into the year 1507, by a note
+which he made in a copy of Euclid, now in the library at Wolfenbüttel.
+"This book have I bought at Venice for a ducat in the year 1507.
+Albrecht Dürer"; and by another stray note we learn the state of his
+worldly affairs on his return.
+
+The following is my property, which I have with difficulty acquired by
+the labour of my hand, for I have had no opportunity of great gain. I
+have moreover suffered much loss by lending what was not repaid me, and
+by apprentices who never paid their fees, and one died at Rome whereby I
+lost my wares.
+
+In the thirteenth year of my wedlock (Le., 1507-8) I have paid great
+debts with what I earned at Venice. I possess fairly good household
+furniture, good clothes, chests, some good pewter vessels, good
+materials for my work, bedding and cupboards, and good colours worth 100
+florins Rhenish.
+
+The wares that Dürer lost in Rome were doubtless chiefly woodcuts and
+engravings which his prentice had taken to sell during his
+_wanderjahre_, as Dürer himself during his own had very likely sold
+prints for Wolgemut. One of the reasons which had taken him to Venice
+may have been to summon Marc Antonio before the Signoria, for having
+copied not only his engravings, but the monogram with which he signed
+them; in any case he obtained a decree defending him against such
+artistic forgery. Dürer's most steady resource seems to have been the
+sale of prints; it is these that his wife had sold in his absence, and
+in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands there is constant mention
+of such sales. Nuremberg was very much behind Antwerp or Venice in the
+price paid for works of art; and the possibilities of such a market as
+Rome had very likely tempted Dürer to trust his prentice with an unusual
+quantity of prints. His worldly affairs were neither brilliant nor
+secure; yet we shall find him tempted on receiving an important
+commission to spend so much in time and material as to make it
+impossible for him to realise a profit. We are accustomed to think that
+these trials were spared to artists in the past by the munificence of
+patrons: but apart from the fact that patrons often paid only with
+promises or by granting credit, at Nuremberg there were few magnificent
+patrons, and its burghers were in no way so generous or so extravagant
+as those of Venice or Antwerp. In fact, Dürer's position was very
+similar to that of the modern artist, who finds little and insufficient
+patronage, and can make more if he is lucky by the reproduction of his
+creations for the great public. But Dürer still had one advantage over
+his fellow-sufferers of to-day--that of being his own publisher.
+Doubtless portraits were as popular then as nowadays; but if the public
+taste had not been prostituted by a seductive commercialism to the
+degree that at present obtains, on the other hand, at Nuremberg at
+least, the fashion seems to have been very little developed; and most of
+Dürer's important portraits seem to have been the result of his sojourns
+away from home.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 15: Thus far the original is in bad Italian.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The retainers of Konz Schott, a neighbouring baron, at one
+time a conspicuous enemy of Nürnberg.]
+
+[Footnote 17: These words are in Italian in the original.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Prof. Thausing suggests that this "other _Quadro_" is the
+"Christ among the Doctors" in the Barberini Gallery at Rome--a picture
+containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The
+inscription states it to have been _opus quinque dierum_. At Brunswick
+there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are
+likewise in existence. In Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna of 1508 in the
+Borghese Gallery at Rome, the head of St. Onuphrius is taken from the
+model who sat for the front Pharisee on the left in Dürer's picture.]
+
+[Footnote 19: A Nürnberg prison.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DÜRER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
+
+
+I
+
+Dürer had hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise
+Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant
+_Adoration of the Magi_ in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of
+Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron,
+as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and
+criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly
+generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of
+Dürer's relations with his clients; they show him appealing always to
+the judgment of artists against the ignorant buyer, and giving more than
+he bargained to give, though thereby he eats up his legitimate profits;
+lastly, they show him vowing never again to enter upon work so
+unprofitable, but to give all his time to the creation of engravings and
+woodcuts. The first is written to Michael Behaim, who died in 1511, and
+had commissioned him to make a design for a woodcut of his coat of arms.
+
+DEAR MASTER MICHAEL BEHAIM,--I send you back the coat of arms again.
+Pray let it stay as it is. No one could improve it for you, for I made
+it artistically and with care. Those who see it and understand such
+matters will tell you so. If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up
+backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+[Illustration: Photograph J. Lowy--THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY,
+1511--From the painting at Vienna]
+
+The other letters concern the lost _Coronation of the Virgin_, the
+centre panel of an altar-piece of which the wings are still at
+Frankfurt, of which town Jacob Heller, who commissioned it, was a
+burgher. They were to be studio work, and are supposed to be chiefly due
+to Dürer's brother Hans. There is, however, one picture extant which
+gives an idea of the execution of the missing centre panel, the _Holy
+Trinity and All Saints_ at Vienna; which, in spite of his vow never to
+do such work again, was commenced shortly after the _Coronation_, and
+for a Nuremberg patron. How much he was paid for it is not known; but it
+cannot have been a really adequate sum, as towards the end of his life
+he writes to the Nuremberg Council, "I have not received from people in
+this town work worth five hundred florins, truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum, and not the fifth part of that has been profit." The
+preceding picture, referred to in the first letters, is the _Martyrdom
+of the Ten Thousand by Sapor II_. All three pictures were signed, like
+the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ by little finely-dressed portraits of
+the painter.
+
+NÜRNBERG, _August_ 28, 1507.
+
+I did not want to receive any money in advance on it till I began to
+paint it, which, if God will, shall be the next thing after the Prince's
+work;[20] for I prefer not to begin too many things at once and then I
+do not become wearied. The Prince too will not be kept waiting, as he
+would be if I were to paint his and your pictures at the same time, as I
+had intended. At all events have confidence in me, for, so far as God
+permits, I will yet according to my power make something that not many
+men can equal.
+
+Now many good nights to you. Given at Nürnberg on Augustine's day, 1507.
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NÜRNBERG, March 19, _1508_.
+
+Dear Herr Jacob Heller. In a fortnight I shall be ready with Duke
+Friedrich's work; after that I shall begin yours, and, as my custom is,
+I will not paint any other picture till it is finished. I will be sure
+carefully to paint the middle panel with my own hand; apart from that,
+the outer sides of the wings are already sketched in--they will be in
+stone colour; I have also had the ground laid. So much for news.
+
+I wish you could see my gracious Lord's picture; I think it would please
+you. I have worked at it straight on for a year and gained very little
+by it; for I only get 280 Rhenish gulden for it, and I have spent all
+that in the time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NÜRNBERG, _August 24, 1508_.
+
+Now I commend myself to you. I want you also to know that in all my days
+I have never begun any work that pleased me better than this picture of
+yours which I am painting. Till I finish it I will not do any other
+work; I am only sorry that the winter will so soon come upon me. The
+days grow so short that one cannot do much.
+
+I have still one thing to ask you; it is about the _MADONNA_[21] that
+you saw at my house; if you know of any one near you who wants a picture
+pray offer it to him. If a proper frame was put to it, it would be a
+beautiful picture, and you know that it is nicely done. I will let you
+have it cheap. I would not take less than fifty florins to paint one
+like it. As it stands finished in the house it might be damaged for me,
+so I would give you full power to sell it for me cheap for thirty
+florins--indeed, rather than that it should not be sold I would even let
+it go for twenty-five florins. I have certainly lost much food over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nürnberg, _November_ 4, 1508.
+
+I am justly surprised at what you say in it about my last letter: seeing
+that you can accuse me of not holding to my promises to you. From such a
+slander each and everyone exempts me, for I bear myself, I trust, so as
+to take my stand amongst other straightforward men. Besides I know well
+what I have written and promised to you, and you know that in my
+cousin's house I refused to promise you to make a good thing, because I
+cannot. But to this I did pledge myself, that I would make something for
+you that not many men can. Now I have given such exceeding pains to your
+picture, that I was led to send you the aforesaid letter. I know that
+when the picture is finished all artists will be well pleased with it.
+It will not be valued at less than 300 florins. I would not paint
+another like it for three times the price agreed, for I neglect myself
+for it, suffer loss, and earn anything but thanks from you.
+
+You further reproach me with having promised you that I would paint your
+picture with the greatest possible care that ever I could. That I
+certainly never said, or if I did I was out of my senses, for in my
+whole lifetime I should scarcely finish it. With such extraordinary care
+I can hardly finish a face in half a year; now your picture contains
+fully 100 faces, not reckoning the drapery and landscape and other
+things in it. Besides, who ever heard of making such a work for an
+altar-piece? no one could see it. But I think it was thus that I wrote
+to you--that I would paint the picture with great or more than ordinary
+pains because of the time which you waited for me.
+
+You need not look about for a purchaser for my Madonna, for the Bishop
+of Breslau has given me seventy-two florins for it, so I have sold it
+well. I commend myself to you. Given at Nürnberg in the year 1508, on
+the Sunday after All Saints' Day.
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NÜRNBERG, _March_ 21, 1509.
+
+I only care for praise from those who are competent to judge; and if
+Martin Hess praises it to you, that may give you the more confidence.
+You might also inquire from some of your friends who have seen it; they
+will tell you how it is done. And if you do not like the picture when
+you see it, I will keep it myself, for I have been begged to sell it and
+make you another. But be that far from me! I will right honourably hold
+with you to that which I have promised, taking you, as I do, for an
+upright man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NÜRNBERG, _July_ 10, 1509.
+
+As you go on to say that if you had not bargained with me for the
+picture you would never do so now, and that I may keep it--I return you
+this answer: to retain your friendship, if I had to suffer loss by the
+picture, I would have done so, but now since you regret the whole
+business and provoke me to keep the picture I will do so, and that
+gladly, for I know how to get 100 florins more for it than you would
+have given me. In future I would not take 400 florins to paint another
+such as this.
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+NÜRNBERG, _July_ 24, 1509. DEAR HERR HELLER, I have read the letter
+which you addressed to me. You write that you did not mean to decline
+taking the picture from me. To that I can only say that I don't
+understand what you do mean. When you write that if you had not ordered
+the picture you would not make the bargain again, and that I may keep it
+as long as I like and so on--I can only think that you have repented of
+the whole business, so I gave you my answer in my last letter.
+
+But, at Hans Imhof's persuasion, and having regard to the fact that you
+ordered the picture of me, and also because I should prefer it to find a
+place at Frankfurt rather than anywhere else, I have consented to send
+it to you for 100 florins less than it might well have brought me.
+
+I am reckoning that I shall thus render you a pleasing service;
+otherwise I know well how I could draw far greater pecuniary advantage
+from it, but your friendship is dearer to me than any such trifling sum
+of money. I trust however that you would not wish me to suffer loss over
+it when you are better off than I. Make therefore your own arrangements
+and commands. Given at Nürnberg on Wine-Tuesday before James'.
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+NÜRNBERG, _August 26_, 1509. First my willing service to you, dear Herr
+Jacob Heller. In accordance with your last letter I am sending the
+picture well packed and seen to in all needful points. I have handed it
+over to Hans Imhof and he has paid me another 100 florins. Yet believe
+me, on my honour, I am still out of pocket over it besides losing the
+time which I have bestowed upon it. Here in Nürnberg they were ready to
+give 300 florins for it, which extra 100 florins would have done very
+nicely for me had I not preferred to please and serve you by sending you
+the picture. For I value the keeping of your friendship at more than 100
+florins. I would also rather have this painting at Frankfurt than
+anywhere else in all Germany.
+
+If you think that I have behaved unfairly in not leaving the payment to
+your own free-will, you must bear in mind that this would not have
+happened if you had not written by Hans Imhof that I might keep the
+picture as long as I liked. I should otherwise gladly have left it to
+you even if thereby I had suffered a greater loss still. My impression
+of you is that, supposing I had promised to make you something for about
+ten florins and it cost me twenty, you yourself would not wish me to
+lose by it. So pray be content with the fact that I took 100 florins
+less from you than I might have got for the picture--for I tell you that
+they wanted to take it from me, so to speak, by force.
+
+I have painted it with great care, as you will see, using none but the
+best colours I could get. It is painted with good ultramarine under, and
+over, and over that again, some five or six times; and then after it was
+finished I painted it again twice over so that it may last a long time.
+If it is kept clean I know it will remain bright and fresh 500 years,
+for it is not done as men are wont to paint. So have it kept clean and
+don't let it be touched or sprinkled with holy water. I feel sure it
+will not be criticised, or only for the purpose of annoying me; and I
+answer for it it will please you well. No one shall ever compel me to
+paint a picture again with so much labour. Herr Georg Tausy himself
+besought me to paint him a Madonna in a landscape with the same care and
+of the same size as this picture, and he would give me 400 florins for
+it. That I flatly refused to do, for it would have made a beggar of me.
+Of ordinary pictures I will in a year paint a pile which no one would
+believe it possible for one man to do in the time. But very careful
+nicety does not pay. So henceforth I shall stick to my engraving, and
+had I done so before I should to-day have been a richer man by
+1000 florins.
+
+I may tell you also that, at my own expense, I have had for the middle
+panel a new frame made which has cost me more than six florins. The old
+one I have broken off, for the joiner had made it roughly; but I have
+not had the other fastened on, for you wished it not to be. It would be
+a very good thing to have the rims screwed on so that the picture may
+not be shaken.
+
+If anyone wants to see it, let it hang forward two or three finger
+breadths, for then the light is good to see it by. And when I come over
+to you, say in one, two, or three years' time, if the picture is
+properly dry, it must be taken down and I will varnish it over anew with
+some excellent varnish, which no one else can make; it will then last
+100 years longer than it would before. But don't let anybody else
+varnish it, for all other varnishes are yellow, and the picture would be
+ruined for you. And if a thing, on which I have spent more than a year's
+work, were ruined it would be grief to me. When you have it set up be
+present yourself to see that it gets no harm. Deal carefully with it,
+for you will hear from your own and from foreign painters how it
+is done.
+
+Give my greeting to your painter Martin Hess. My wife asks you for a
+_Trinkgeld_, but that is as you please, I screw you no higher, &c. And
+now I hold myself commended to you. Read by the sense, for I write in
+haste. Given at Nürnberg on Sunday after Bartholomew's, 1509.
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+NÜRNBERG, _October 12_, 1509.
+
+DEAR HERR JACOB HELLER, I am glad to hear that my picture pleases you,
+so that my labour has not been bestowed in vain. I am also happy that
+you are content about the payment--and that rightly, for I could have
+got 100 florins more for it than you have given me. But I preferred to
+let you have it, hoping, as I do, thereby to retain you as my friend
+down in your parts.
+
+My wife thanks you very much for the present you have made her; she will
+wear it in your honour. My young brother also thanks you for the two
+florins _Trinkgeld_ you sent him. And now I too thank you myself for all
+the honour &c. In reply to your question how the picture should be
+adorned I send you a slight design of what I should do if it were mine,
+but you must do what you like. Now, many happy times to you. Given on
+Friday before Gall's, 1509. ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+Dürer must have commenced the All Saints picture almost immediately
+after having finished Heller's _Coronation of the Virgin_. Perhaps he
+had practically accepted the commission from Matthsus Landauer before he
+wrote to Heller that he would never again undertake a picture with so
+much work and labour in it, for he afterwards was as good as his word.
+This new work was for the chapel of an almshouse founded by Landauer and
+Erasmus Schiltkrot for twelve old men citizens of Nuremberg. The
+original frame designed by Dürer is now in the Germanic Museum, though a
+copy has replaced the picture. After the completion of the _Trinity and
+All Saints_, Dürer apparently carried out his threat and gave up
+painting for a dozen years, devoting his energies more especially to a
+magnificent series of engravings on copper. He also completed his series
+of wood engravings and published them with text, and produced a number
+of single cuts, many of them among his very best, like the _Assumption
+of the Magdalen_, and the _St. Christopher_, here reproduced.
+
+[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER Woodcut, B. 103]
+
+[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MAGDALEN Woodcut, B. 121]
+
+
+II
+
+In 1514 his mother died. He has recounted her death twice over, as he
+did that of his father already cited; for the single surviving leaf of
+the "other book" happens to contain this also. In the briefer
+chronicle he says:
+
+Two years after my Father's death (i.e., 1504) I took my Mother into my
+house, for she had nothing more to live upon. So she dwelt with me till
+the year 1513, as they reckon it; when, early one Tuesday morning, she
+was taken suddenly and deadly ill, and thus she lay a whole year long.
+And a whole year after the day she was first taken ill, she received the
+holy sacraments and christianly passed away two hours before
+nightfall--it was on a Tuesday, the 17th day of May in the year 1514. I
+said the prayers for her myself. God Almighty be gracious to her.
+
+The account in the "other book" is more circumstantial:
+
+Now you must know that, in the year 1513, on a Tuesday before Rogation
+week, my poor afflicted Mother, whom two years after my Father's death,
+as she was quite poor, I took into my house, and after she had lived
+nine years with me, was one morning suddenly taken so deadly ill that we
+broke into her chamber; otherwise, as she could not open, we had not
+been able to come to her. So we carried her into a room downstairs and
+she received both sacraments, for every one thought she would die,
+because ever since my Father's death she had never been in good health.
+
+Her most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always
+upbraided me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great
+anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went out or in
+her saying was always, "Go in the name of Christ." She constantly gave
+us holy admonitions with deep earnestness and she always had great
+thought for our souls' health. I cannot enough praise her good works and
+the compassion she showed to all, as well as her high character.
+
+This my pious Mother bare and brought up eighteen children; she often
+had the plague and many other severe and strange illnesses, and she
+suffered great poverty, scorn, contempt, mocking words, terrors, and
+great adversities. Yet she bore no malice.
+
+In 1514 (as they reckon it), on a Tuesday--it was the 17th day of
+May--two hours before nightfall and more than a year after the
+above-mentioned day in which she was taken ill, my Mother, Barbara
+Dürer, christianly passed away, with all the sacraments, absolved by
+papal power from pain and sin. But she first--gave me her blessing and
+wished me the peace of God, exhorting me very beautifully to keep myself
+from sin. She asked also to drink S. John's blessing, which she
+then did.
+
+She feared Death much, but she said that to come before God she feared
+not. Also she died hard, and I marked that she saw something dreadful,
+for she asked for the holy-water, although, for a long time, she had not
+spoken. Immediately afterwards her eyes closed over. I saw also how
+Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and how she closed mouth
+and eyes and departed with pain. I repeated to her the prayers. I felt
+so grieved for her that I cannot express it. God be merciful to her.
+
+To speak of God was ever her greatest delight, and gladly she beheld the
+honour of God. She was in her sixty-third year when she died and I have
+buried her honourably according to my means.
+
+[Illustration: "1514, on Oculi Sunday (March 19). This is Albrecht
+Dürer's mother; she was 63 years of age." After her death he added in
+ink, "And departed this life in the year 1514 on Tuesday Holy Cross Day
+(May 16) at two o'clock in the night" Charcoal-drawing. Royal Print
+Room, Berlin]
+
+God, the Lord, grant me that I too may attain a happy end, and that God
+with his heavenly host, my Father, Mother, relations, and friends may
+come to my death. And may God Almighty give unto us eternal life. Amen.
+
+And in her death she looked much sweeter than when she was still alive.
+
+
+III
+
+Such was the home life of this great artist; and from homes presenting
+variations on this type proceeded probably all the giants of the
+Renaissance, whose work we think so surpasses in effort, in scope, and
+in efficiency, all that has been achieved since. This Christianity was
+unreformed; it existed side by side with dissolute monasteries and
+worldly cynical prelates, surrounded by sordid hucksters and brutal
+soldiery. Turn to Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet, and we see that it
+existed in London, among the burghers, even in the household of a Lord
+Mayor. We are almost forced on the reflection that nothing that has
+succeeded to it has produced men equal to those who sprang immediately
+out of it.
+
+However much and however justly the assurance of Christian assertion in
+the realm of theory may be condemned, the success of the Christian life,
+wherever it has approached a conscientious realisation, stands out among
+the multitudinous forms of its corruption; and those who catch sight of
+it are almost bound to exclaim in the spirit of Shakespeare's:
+
+  "How far that little candle throws his beams!
+   So shines a good deed in a naughty world."
+
+I have heard a Royal Academician remark how even the poorest copies and
+reproductions of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture retain something of
+the charm and dignity of the original: whereas the quality of modern
+work is quickly lost in a reduction or even in a cast. I believe this
+may be best explained by the fact that the chief research of the Greek
+artist was to establish a beautiful proportion between the parts and the
+whole; and that fidelity to nature, dexterity of execution, the
+symbolism of the given subject, and even the finish of the surfaces,
+were always when necessary sacrificed to this. Whereas in modern work,
+even when the proportions of the whole are considered, which is rarely
+the case, they are almost without exception treated as secondary to one
+or more of these other qualities. Is it not possible that Jesus in his
+life laid down a proportion, similar to that of Greek masterpieces for
+the body, between the efforts and intentions which create the soul and
+pour forth its influence?--a proportion which, when it has been once
+thoroughly apprehended, may be subtly varied to suit new circumstances,
+and produce a similar harmony in spheres of activity with which Jesus
+himself had not even a distant connection? We often find that the rudest
+copies from copies of his actual life are like the biscuit china Venus
+of Milo sold by the Italian pedlar, which still dimly reflects the main
+beauties of the marble in the Louvre.
+
+
+IV
+
+In 1512 Kaiser Maximilian came to Nuremberg, and soon afterward Dürer
+began working for him. The employment he found for the greatest artist
+north of the Alps was sufficiently ludicrous; and perhaps Dürer showed
+that he felt this, by treating the major portion as studio work; though,
+no doubt, the impatience of his imperial patron in a measure
+necessitated the employment of many aids.
+
+It is difficult to do justice to the fine qualities of Maximilian.
+Perhaps he was not really so eccentric as he seems. The oddity of his
+doings and sayings may be perhaps more properly attributed to his having
+been a thorough German. The genial men of that nation, even to-day and
+since it has come more into line in point of culture with France and
+England, are apt to have a something ludicrous or fantastic clinging to
+them; even Goethe did not wholly escape. Maximilian was strong in body
+and in mind, and brimming over with life and interest. We are told that
+when a young man he climbed the tower of Ulm Cathedral by the help of
+the iron rings that served to hold the torches by which it was
+illuminated on high days and holidays. Again we read: "A secretary had
+embezzled 3000 gulden. Maximilian sent for him and asked what should be
+done to a confidential servant who had robbed his master. The secretary
+recommended the gallows. 'Nay, nay,' the Emperor said, and tapped him on
+the shoulder, 'I cannot spare you yet'"; an anecdote which reveals more
+good sense and a larger humanity than either monarchs or others are apt
+to have at hand on such vexing occasions. Thausing says admirably, "A
+happy imagination and a great idea of his exalted position made up to
+him for any want of success in his many wars and political
+negotiations," and elsewhere calls him the last of the "nomadic
+emperors," who spent their lives travelling from palace to palace and
+from city to city, beseeching, cajoling, or threatening their subjects
+into obedience. He himself said, "I am a king of kings. If I give an
+order to the princes of the empire, they obey if they please, if they do
+not please they disobey." He was even then called "the last of the
+knights," because he had an amateurish passion for a chivalry that was
+already gone, and was constantly attempting to revive its costumes and
+ordinances. Then, like certain of the Pharaohs of Egypt, he was pleased
+to read of, and see illustrated by brush and graver, victories he had
+never won, and events in which he had not shone. He himself dictated or
+planned out those wonderful lives or allegories of a life which might
+have been his. It was on such a work of futile self-glorification that
+he now wished to employ Dürer.
+
+The novelty of the art of printing, and the convenience to a nomadic
+emperor of a monument that could be rolled up, suggested the form of
+this last absurdity--a monster woodcut in 92 blocks which, when joined
+together, produced a picture 9 feet by 10, representing what had at
+first been intended as an imitation of a Roman triumphal arch; but so
+much information about so many more or less dubious ancestors, &c., had
+to be conveyed by quaint and conceited inventions, that in the end it
+was rather comparable to the confusion of a Juggernaut car, which
+never-the-less imposes by a barbarous wealth and magnificence of
+fantastic detail. And to this was to be joined another monster,
+representing on several yards of paper a triumphal procession of the
+emperor, escorted by his family, and the virtues of himself and
+ancestors, &c. Such is fortune's malice that Dürer, who alone or almost
+alone had conceived of the simplicity of true dignity and the beauty of
+choice proportions and propriety, should have been called upon by his
+only royal patron to superintend a production wherein the rank and
+flaccid taste of the time ran riot. The absurdity, barbarism, and
+grotesque quaintness of this monument to vanity cannot be laid
+exclusively at Maximilian's door; for the architecture, particularly of
+the fountains, in Altdorfer's or Manuel's designs, and in those of many
+others, reveals a like wantonness in delighted elaboration of the
+impossible and unstructural. The scholars and pedantic posturers who
+surrounded the emperor no doubt improved and abetted. Probably it was
+this Juggernaut element, inherited from the Gothic gargoyle, which
+Goethe censured when he said that "Dürer was retarded by a gloomy
+fantasy devoid of form or foundation." Perhaps this was written at a
+period when the great critic was touched with that resentment against
+the Middle Ages begotten by the feeling that his own art was still
+encumbered by its irrational and confused fantasy. We who certainly are
+able to take a more ample view of Dürer's situation in the art of his
+times, see that he is rather characterised by an effort which lay in
+exactly the same direction as that of Goethe's own; and while
+sympathising with the irritation expressed, can also admire the great
+engraver for having freed himself in so large a degree from the
+influence of fantasy "devoid of form and foundation," even as the
+justest Shakespearean criticism admires the degree in which the author
+of Othello freed himself from Elizabethan conceits. It is difficult to
+appreciate the difference for a great artist in having the general taste
+with rather than against the purer tendencies of his art. Probably the
+Greeks and certain Italians owe their freedom from eccentricity, in a
+very large measure, to this cause. But I intend to treat these questions
+more at length in dealing with Dürer's character as an artist and
+creator. It was necessary to touch on the subject here, because
+Maximilian embodies the peculiar and fantastic aftergrowth, which
+sprouted up in some northern minds from the old stumps remaining from
+the great mediaeval forest of thoughts and sentiments which had
+gradually fallen into decay. All around, even in the same minds, waved
+the saplings of the New Birth when these old stumps put forth their so
+fantastic second youth, seeming for a time to share in the new vigour,
+though they were never to attain expansion and maturity.
+
+
+V
+
+Thausing shrewdly remarks, "This love of fame and naïve delight in the
+glorification of his own person are further proofs that the Emperor Max
+was the true child of his age. No one was so akin to him in this respect
+as the painter of his choice, Albert Dürer." This last is a reference to
+those strutting, finely-dressed portraits of the artist which stand
+beside the entablatures bearing his name, that of his birthplace, the
+date, &c., in four out of the five most elaborate pictures which Dürer
+painted. But I would like to suggest that probably this apparent
+resemblance to his royal patron is not thus altogether well accounted
+for. May there not have been something of Homer's invocation of his
+Muse, or of that sincerity which makes Dante play such a large part in
+the "Divine Comedy"?--something resembling the ninth verse of the
+Apocalypse: "I John, who also am your brother and companion in
+tribulation ... was in the isle that is called Patmos ... and heard
+behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying...." Those little
+strutting portraits of himself sprung, perhaps, out of this relation to
+those about him of the man by native gift very superior, who is not made
+contemptuous or inclined to emphasise his isolation, but who is ever
+ready to say, "It is I, be not afraid." The man who painted and
+conceived this is the man you know, whom you have admired because he
+carried his fine clothes so well in your streets. Here I am even in the
+midst of this massacre of saints, I have conceived it all and taken a
+whole year to elaborate it; and since you see me looking so cool and
+well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or
+overwhelmed. Such is ever the naïvety of great souls among those whose
+culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among
+little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a
+selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a
+foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust,
+they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and
+console, for whose sakes they will even hide whatever in them is really
+unworthy of such admiration and such trust.
+
+We do not easily realise the corporate character of life in those days.
+Very much that seems to us quaint and absurd drew proper significance
+from the practical solidarity that then obtained; what appears to us a
+strange vanity or parade may have appeared to them respect for the
+guild, the town, the country to which they belonged. Dürer signed
+"Noricus,"--of Nuremberg;--and preferred its little lucrative
+citizenship to those more remunerative offered by Venice and Antwerp.
+"Let all the world behold how fine the artist of Nuremberg is." Just as
+he says, "God gave me diligence," so it seems natural to him to
+attribute a large half of his fame and glory to his native town. In many
+respects the great man of those days felt less individual than an
+ordinary man does now; for classes did not so merge one into the other,
+and their character was more distinct and authoritative. The little
+portrait of himself added to those wonderful _tours-de-force_ made them
+something that belonged to Nuremberg and to Germans. Even so it would be
+with some treasure cup, all gold and jewels, belonging to a village
+schoolmaster, which none of his neighbours dared look at save in his
+presence; for he was the son of a great baron whom his elder brothers
+robbed of everything except this, and his presence among them alone made
+them able to feel that it really belonged to their village, was theirs
+in a fashion. These suggestions will not, I think, appear fantastic to
+those who ponder on the apparently vainglorious address of much of
+Dürer's work, and keep in mind such a passage from his writings as this:
+
+"I would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver and gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something
+burning, and ye all add to it skilful furthering, a blaze may in time
+arise therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world."[22]
+
+But still, even if such considerations may bring many to accept my
+explanation of this contrast, I do not want to over-insist on it. I
+think that wherever men have been superior in character, as well as in
+gift or rank, to those about them, something of this spirit of the good
+eldest child in a family is bound to be manifested. But just as such a
+child may be veritably boastful and vain at other times,--however purely
+now and then, in crises of apparent difficulty or danger, its vaunt and
+strut may spring from real kindness and a considerate wish to inspire
+courage in the younger and weaker;--so doubtless there was a
+haughtiness, sometimes a fault, in Dürer as in Milton.
+
+
+VI
+
+But we have been led a long way from Kaiser Max and his portable
+monument. The reader will re-picture how the court arrived at Nuremberg
+like a troop of actors, whose performance was really their life, and was
+taken quite seriously and admired heartily by the good and solid
+burghers. This old comedy, often farce, entitled "The Importance of
+Authority," is no longer played with such a telling make-up, or with
+such showy properties as formerly, but is still as popular as ever; as
+we Londoners know, since the last few years have given us perhaps an
+over-dose of processions, illuminations, &c. &c. In this case the chief
+actors in the show piece were men of mark of an exceptionally
+entertaining character; with many of them Dürer and Pirkheimer were soon
+on the best of terms.
+
+Foremost, Johann Stabius, the companion of the Emperor for sixteen years
+without intermission in war and in peace, who was associated with Dürer
+to provide the written accompaniment for the monument; a literary
+jack-of-all-trades of ready wit and lively presence. A contemporary
+records: "The emperor took constant pleasure in the strange things which
+Stabius devised, and esteemed him so highly that he instituted a new
+chair of Astronomy and Mathematics for him at Vienna," in the Collegium
+Poetarum et Mathematicorum founded in the year 1501, under the
+presidency of Conrad Celtes.
+
+In all probability there would have been besides the learned protonotary
+of the supreme court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in
+the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of
+Dürer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later,
+still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes,
+and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the
+thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to be in vain.
+
+It may be that Dürer then met for the first time too the Imperial
+architect, Johannes Tscherte, for whom he afterwards drew two armillary
+spheres, to take the place of those on which he had cast ridicule; for
+Pirkheimer wrote to Tscherte: "I wish you could have heard how Albert
+Dürer spoke to me about your plate, in which there is not one good
+stroke, and laughed at me. What honour it will do us when it makes its
+appearance in Italy, and the clever painters there see it!" To which
+Tscherte replied: "Albert Dürer knows me well, he is also well aware
+that I love art, though I am no expert at it; let him if he likes
+despise my plate, I never pretended it was a work of art." And in a
+later letter he speaks "of the armillary spheres drawn by our common
+friend Albert Dürer." He was one of those who helped Dürer in his
+mathematical and geometrical studies; and he, like Pirkheimer, dedicated
+books to him. Although the mathematics of those times are hardly
+considered seriously nowadays, they then ranked with verse-making as a
+polite accomplishment, and had all the charm of novelty. Dürer, no
+doubt, had some gift that way, as he seems to have made a hobby of them
+during many years. Besides those who came in the Imperial troop, Dürer
+had many opportunities of meeting men of this kind, for such were
+constantly passing through Nuremberg. Dürer has left us what are
+evidently portraits of some whose names are lost: of others we have both
+name and likeness, among them the English ambassador, Lord Morley.
+
+In 1515 "Rafahel de' Urbin, who is held in such high esteem by the Pope,
+he made these naked figures and sent them to Albrecht Dürer at Nuremberg
+to show him his hand." This shows us that travellers through Nuremberg
+sometimes brought with them something of the breath of the great
+Renaissance in Italy. The drawing, which bears the above inscription in
+Dürer's own handwriting on the back, is a fine one in red sanguine,
+representing the same male model in two different poses, in the
+Albertina. Raphael had, we are told by Lodovico Dolce, drawings,
+engravings, and woodcuts of Dürer's hanging in his studio; and Vasari
+tells us he said: "If Dürer had been acquainted with the antique he
+would have surpassed us all." The Nuremberg master, in return for the
+drawing, sent a portrait of himself to Raphael, which has unfortunately
+been lost. There appears to have been quite a rage for Dürer's work in
+Italy, and above all at Rome: we know that it provoked Michael Angelo to
+remonstrate; probably on many lips it was merely a vaunt of superior
+knowledge or taste, as rapture over the conjectural friends or aids of a
+great quatrocentist is to-day. The tokens of esteem which he won from
+distinguished travellers, and this drawing which reached him testifying
+to the interest and friendship felt for him by the Italian whose fame
+was most widespread, must have been full of encouragement, and have
+compensated in some measure for the feeling he had that he was only a
+hanger-on at Nuremberg, though he might still have been "a gentleman" in
+Venice. Yet Nuremberg itself furnished many desirable or notable
+acquaintances. There was Dürer's neighbour, the jurist, Lazarus
+Spengler; later the most prominent reformer in Nuremberg, who in 1520
+dedicated to him his "Exhortation and Instruction towards the leading of
+a virtuous life," addressing him as "his particular and confidential
+friend and brother," whom he considers, "without any flattery, to be a
+man of understanding, inclined to honesty and every virtue, who has
+often in our daily familiar intercourse been to me in no common degree a
+pattern and an example to a more circumspect way of life;" whom,
+finally, he asks to improve his little book to the best of his ability.
+Dürer had before this rendered him service in designing his coat of arms
+for a woodcut and furnishing a frontispiece to his translation of
+Eusebius' "Life of St. Jerome." He was, moreover, a poet, author of "an
+often-translated song"; he wrote verses to discourage Dürer from
+spending his time in producing the doggerel rhymes which at one time he
+was moved to attempt,--framing poems of didactic import, and publishing
+one or two on separate sheets with a woodcut at the top, in spite of the
+inappreciative reception given to them by Spengler and Pirkheimer.
+Besides Spengler, there were "Christopher Kress, a soldier, a traveller,
+and a town councillor;" and Caspar Nützel, of one of the oldest
+families, and Captain-general of the town bands. Both of these went with
+Dürer to the Diet at Augsburg in 1518. The martial Paumgartners were two
+brothers for whom Dürer painted the early triptych at Munich (see page
+204). One of them is supposed to figure as St. George in the All Saints
+picture. Lastly, there were the Imhoffs, the merchant princes of
+Nuremberg, as the Fuggers were at Augsburg. A son of the family married
+Felicitas, Pirkheimer's favourite daughter, in 1515, and Dürer stood
+godfather to their little Hieronymus in 1518. It is easy to imagine that
+there was many a supper and dinner, when a thousand strange subjects
+were even more strangely discussed; when Pirkheimer now made them roar
+with a hazardous joke, or again dumbfounded them with Greek quotations
+pompously done into German, or made their flesh creep and the
+superstitions of their race stir in them by mysteriously enlarging on
+his astrological lore,--for to his many weaknesses he added this, which
+was then scarcely recognised as one.
+
+
+VII
+
+In spite of all his wealthy and influential friends, Dürer found it
+difficult to get the emperor to indemnify him for his labours, though
+the Town Council had received a royal mandate as early as 1512 from
+Landau. The following is an extract:
+
+Whereas our and the Empire's trusty Albrecht Dürer has devoted much zeal
+to the drawings he has made for us at our command, and has promised
+henceforth ever to do the like, whereat we have received particular
+pleasure; and whereas we are informed on all hands that the said Dürer
+is famous in the art of painting before all other Masters: we have
+therefore felt ourself moved, to further him with our especial grace,
+and we accordingly desire you with earnest solicitude, for the affection
+you bear us, to make the said Dürer free of all town imposts, having
+regard to our grace and to his famous art, which should fairly turn to
+his profit with you, &c.
+
+The town councillors sent some of their principal members to treat with
+Dürer, and he resigned his claim "in order to honour the said
+councillors and to maintain their privileges, usages, and rights." In
+1515 the drawings for the "Gate of Honour" were finished, and Dürer
+began to press again for pay. Stabius had promised to speak for him, but
+nothing had come of it. Albrecht thought Christoph Kress could be of
+more avail; so he wrote to him:
+
+(No date, but certainly 1515). DEAR HERR KRESS, The first thing I have
+to ask you is to find out from Herr Stabius whether he has done anything
+in my business with his Imperial Majesty, and how it stands. Let me know
+this in the next letter you write to my Lords. Should it happen that
+Herr Stabius has made no move in the matter, ... Point out in particular
+to his Imperial Majesty that I have served his Majesty for three years,
+spending my own money in so doing, and if I had not been diligent the
+ornamental work would have been nowise so successfully finished. I
+therefore pray his Imperial Majesty to recompense me with the 100
+florins--all which you know well how to do. You must know also that I
+made many other drawings for his Majesty besides the "Triumph."
+
+Not long after this, Maximilian, by a _Privilegium_ (dated Innsbruck,
+September 6, 1515), settled an annual pension of 100 florins on
+the artist.
+
+We Maximilian, by God's grace, &c., make openly known by this letter for
+ourself and our successors in the Empire, and to each and every one to
+wit, that we have regarded and considered the art, skill, and
+intelligence for which our and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved
+Albrecht Dürer has been praised before us, and likewise the pleasing,
+honest and useful services which he has often and willingly done for us
+and the Holy Empire and also for our own person in many ways, and which
+he still daily does and henceforward may and shall do: and that we
+therefore, of set purpose, after mature deliberation, and with the full
+knowledge of ourself and the Princes and Estates of the Empire, have
+graciously promised and granted to this same Dürer what we herewith and
+by virtue of this letter make known:
+
+_That is to say_, that one hundred florins Rhenish shall be yielded,
+given, and paid by the honourable, our and the Empire's trusty and
+well-beloved Burgomaster and Council of the town of Nürnberg and their
+successors unto the said Albrecht Dürer, against his quittance, all his
+life long and no longer, yearly and in every year, on our behalf, out of
+the customary town contributions which the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of Nürnberg are bound to yield and pay, yearly and in every
+year, into our Treasury. And whatever the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of Nürnberg and their successors shall yield, give, and pay
+to the said Albrecht Dürer, as stands written above, against his
+quittance, the same sum shall be accepted and reckoned to them as paid
+and yielded for the customary town contributions which they, as stands
+written above, are bound to pay into our Treasury, as if they had paid
+the same into our own hands and received our quittance therefor, and no
+harm or detriment shall in anywise be done therefor unto them or their
+successors by us or our successors in the Empire. Whereof this letter,
+sealed with our affixed seal, is witness.
+
+Given, &c.
+
+Thus Dürer became Court painter: in return for his salary he had to
+work. As soon as the "Gate of Honour" was finished, there was the "Car
+of Triumph" to be taken in hand, the first sketch for it (now in the
+Albertina) having already been made about 1514-15. In December 1514
+Schönsperger, the Augsburg printer, printed a splendid "Book of Hours"
+for Maximilian. The type was specially made for the book, and only a few
+copies were printed, some on fine vellum with large margins. One copy
+which Maximilian intended for his own use was sent to Dürer that he
+might decorate the margins with pen-drawings in various coloured inks.
+Of this work there exist forty-three pages by Dürer himself and eight by
+Cranach at Munich, and at Besançon thirty-five pages by Burgkmair,
+Altdorfer, Baldung Grien, and Hans Dürer. Marvellously deft and
+light-handed as are Dürer's freehand arabesques, embellished by racy
+sketches of which these borders consist, they are nevertheless touched
+with a like unsatisfactory character with the other works undertaken for
+Maximilian, and are almost as far removed from the spirit and
+performance of the best period for this kind of work, as is the
+_Triumphal Arch_ from that of Titus.
+
+Dürer was also employed on another woodcut representing a long row of
+saintly ancestors of this eccentric sovereign. He accompanied Caspar
+Nützel and Lazarus Spengler, the representatives of Nuremberg, to the
+Diet of Augsburg, and there made some drawings of his royal patron, on
+one of which is written, "This is my dear Prince Max, whom I, Albrecht
+Dürer, drew at Augsburg in his little room upstairs in the palace, in
+the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist's day." (_See
+opposite_.) And Melanchthon narrates that "once Max himself took the
+charcoal in hand to make his mind clear to his trusty Albert, and was
+vexed to find that the charcoal kept breaking short in his hand when
+Dürer said; 'Most gracious emperor, I would not that your Majesty should
+draw so well as I do!' by which he meant, 'I am practised in this, and
+it is my province; thou, Emperor, hast harder tasks and another
+calling.'"
+
+[Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clément & Co.
+Dornach._--"This is the Emperor Maximilian, whose likeness I, Albrecht
+Dürer, have taken, at Augsburg, high up in the palace in his little
+chamber, in the year of Grace 1518, on Monday after St. John the
+Baptist's Day" Charcoal-Drawing. Albertina, Vienna]
+
+
+VIII
+
+A charming letter from Charitas Pirkheimer gives us a little sunlit
+glimpse of the tone of Dürer's lighter hours.
+
+The prudent and wise Masters Caspar Nützel, Lazarus Spengler, and
+Albrecht Dürer, for the time being at Augsburg, our gracious Masters and
+good friends.
+
+Jesus.
+
+As a friendly greeting, prudent, wise, gracious Masters and especially
+good friends, cousins, and wellwishers, I desire every good thing for
+you, from the Highest Good. I received with great pleasure your friendly
+letter and its news of a kind suited to my order, or rather my trade;
+and I read it with such great devotion that more than once tears ran
+down my eyes over it--truly rather tears of laughter than of sorrow. I
+consider it a subject for great thankfulness that, with such important
+business and so much gaiety on hand, your Wisdoms do not forget me, but
+find time to instruct me, poor little nun, about the monastic life
+whereof you now have a clear reflection before your eyes. I conclude
+from this that doubtless some good spirit drove you, my gracious and
+dear Masters, to Augsburg, so that you might learn from the example of
+the free Swabian spirits how to instruct and govern the poor imprisoned
+sand-bares.[23]
+
+For since our trusty Master Warden (Caspar Nützel), as a lover of the
+Church, likes to help in a thorough reformation, he should first behold
+a pattern of holy observance in the Swabian League. Let Master Lazarus
+Spengler, too, inform himself well about the apostolic mode of common
+life, so that at the annual audit he may be able to give us and others
+counsel and guidance, how we may run through everything, that nought
+remain over. And Master Albrecht Dürer, also, who is such a genius and
+master at drawing, he may very carefully inspect the stately buildings,
+and then if some day we want to alter our choir he will know how to give
+us advice and help in making ample slide-windows (? blinds), so that our
+eyes may not be quite blinded.
+
+I shall not further trouble you, however, to bring us music to learn to
+sing by notes, for our beer is now so very sour that I fear the dregs
+might stick fast among the four reeds or voices, and produce such
+strange sounds that the dogs would fly out of the church. But I must
+humbly pray you not quite to wear out your eyes over the black and white
+magpies, so as no longer to know the little grey wolves at Nürnberg. I
+have heard much of the sharp-witted Swabians all my life, but it would
+be well if we learnt more from them, now that they are so wisely
+labouring with his Imperial Majesty to save the Apostolic life from
+being done away with. It is easy to see what very different lovers of
+the Church they are from our Masters here.
+
+Pardon me, my dear and gracious Masters, this my playful letter. It is
+all done _in caritate--summa summarum_; and the end of it is that I
+should rejoice at your speedy return in health and happiness with the
+glad accomplishment of the business committed to you. For this I and my
+sisters heartily pray God day and night; still we cannot carry it
+through alone, so I counsel you to entreat the pious and pure hearts (of
+Augsburg) to sing in high quavers that thereby things may speed well.
+And now many happy times to you!
+
+Given at Nürnberg on September 3, 1518.
+
+SISTER CHARITAS, unprofitable Abbess of S. Clara's at Nürnberg.
+
+Dürer returned with a letter to the Town Council of Nürnberg, from which
+the following extract is taken:
+
+Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved, Whereas you are bound to pay us on
+next St. Martin's day year a remainder, to wit 200 florins Rhenish, out
+of the accustomed town contribution which you are wont to render into
+our and the Empire's treasury....We earnestly charge you to deliver and
+pay the said 200 florins, accepting our quittance therefor, unto our and
+the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Dürer, our painter, on
+account of his honest services, willingly rendered to us at our command
+for our "Car of Triumph" and in other ways; and, at the said time, these
+200 florins shall be deducted for you from the accustomed town
+contribution. Thus you will perform our earnest desire.
+
+Given, &c.
+
+Dürer procured a receipt for the 200 florins, signed by the emperor
+himself. But before "next St. Martin's day year," Maximilian was dead,
+and the 200 florins no longer his to dispose of, being due to the new
+Emperor Charles V. The municipal authorities of Nürnberg refused to pay
+until his Privilegium had been confirmed by Maximilian's successor.
+
+Dürer wrote the following letter to the Council:
+
+NÜRNBERG, April 27, 1519.
+
+Prudent, honourable and wise, gracious, dear Lords. Your Honours are
+aware that, at the Diet lately holden by his Imperial Roman Majesty, our
+most gracious lord of very praiseworthy memory, I obtained a gracious
+assignment from his Imperial Majesty of 200 florins from the yearly
+payable town contributions of Nürnberg. This assignment was granted to
+me, after many applications and much trouble, in return for the zealous
+work and labour, which, for a long time previously, I had devoted to his
+Majesty. And he sent you order and command to that effect, signed with
+his accustomed signature, and quittance in all form, which quittance,
+duly sealed, is in my hands.
+
+Now I rest humbly confident that your Honours will graciously remember
+me as your obedient burgher, who has employed much time in the service
+and work of his Imperial Majesty, our most rightful Lord, with but small
+recompense, and has thereby lost both profit and advantage in other
+ways. And therefore I trust that you will now deliver me these 200
+florins to his Imperial Majesty's order and quittance, that so I may
+receive a fitting reward and satisfaction for my care, pains, and
+work--as, no doubt, was his Imperial Majesty's intention.
+
+But seeing that some Emperor or King might in the future claim these 200
+florins from your Honours, or might not be willing to spare them, but
+might some day demand them back again from me, I am, therefore, willing
+to relieve your Honours and the town of this chance, by appointing and
+mortgaging, as security and pledge therefor, my tenement situated at the
+corner under the Veste, and which belonged to my late father, that so
+your Honours may suffer neither prejudice nor loss thereby. Thus am I
+ready to serve your Honours, my gracious rulers and Lords.
+
+Your Wisdoms' willing burgher, ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+[Illustration: FREDERICK THE WISE. Silver-point drawing, British
+Museum.]
+
+Dürer next wrote "to the honourable, most learned Master Georg Spalatin,
+Chaplain to my most gracious lord, Duke Friedrich, the Elector"
+of Saxony.
+
+The letter is undated, but clearly belongs to the early part of the year
+1520.
+
+Most worthy and dear Master, I have already sent you my thanks in the
+short letter, for then I had only read your brief note. It was not till
+afterwards, when the bag in which the little book was wrapped was turned
+inside out, that I for the first time found the real letter in it, and
+learnt that it was my most gracious Lord himself who sent me Luther's
+little book. So I pray your worthiness to convey most emphatically my
+humble thanks to his Electoral Grace, and in all humility to beseech his
+Electoral Grace to take the praiseworthy Dr. Martin Luther under his
+protection for the sake of Christian truth. For that is of more
+importance to us than all the power and riches of this world; because
+all things pass away with time, Truth alone endures for ever.
+
+God helping me, if ever I meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a
+careful portrait of him from the life and to engrave it on copper, for a
+lasting remembrance of a Christian man who helped me out of great
+distress. And I beg your worthiness to send me for my money anything new
+that Dr. Martin may write.
+
+As to Spengler's "Apology for Luther," about which you write, I must
+tell you that no more copies are in stock; but it is being reprinted at
+Augsburg, and I will send you some copies as soon as they are ready. But
+you must know that, though the book was printed here, it is condemned in
+the pulpit as heretical and meet to be burnt, and the man who published
+it anonymously is abused and defamed. It is reported that Dr. Eck wanted
+to burn it in public at Ingolstadt, as was done to Dr. Reuchlin's book.
+
+With this letter I send for my most gracious lord three impressions of a
+copper-plate of my most gracious lord of Mainz, which I engraved at his
+request. I sent the copper-plate with 200 impressions as a present to
+his Electoral Grace, and he graciously sent me in return 200 florins in
+gold and 20 ells of damask for a coat. I joyfully and thankfully
+accepted them, especially as I was in want of them at that time.
+
+His Imperial Majesty also, of praiseworthy memory, who died too soon for
+me, had graciously made provision for me, because of the great and
+long-continued labour, pains, and care, which I spent in his service.
+But now the Council will no longer pay me the 100 florins, which I was
+to have received every year of my life from the town taxes, and which
+was yearly paid to me during his Majesty's lifetime. So I am to be
+deprived of it in my old age and to see the long time, trouble, and
+labour all lost which I spent for his Imperial Majesty. As I am losing
+my sight and freedom of hand my affairs do not look well. I don't care
+to withhold this from you, kind and trusted Sir.
+
+If my gracious lord remembers his debt to me of the staghorns, may I ask
+your Worship to keep him in mind of them, so that I may get a fine pair.
+I shall make two candlesticks of them.
+
+I send you here two little prints of the Cross from a plate engraved in
+gold. One is for your Worship. Give my service to Hirschfeld and
+Albrecht Waldner. Now, your Worship, commend me faithfully to my most
+gracious lord, the Elector.
+
+Your willing ALBRECHT DÜRER at Nürnberg.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 20: _The Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints._]
+
+[Footnote 21: Supposed to be the _Madonna with the Iris_.]
+
+[Footnote 22: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 178.]
+
+[Footnote 23: The soil about Nürnberg is sandy.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DÜRER, LUTHER AND THE HUMANISTS
+
+
+I
+
+But while Dürer was thus busily at work or dunning his great debtors,
+Luther had appeared. In 1517 he nailed his ninety-five theses to the
+door of Wittenberg church, and Cardinal Caietan by the unlucky Leo X.
+was poured like oil upon the fire which they had lighted. Luther had
+been summoned to meet the Cardinal at the Diet of Augsburg, where Dürer
+went to see Maximilian, though he only arrived there after our friends
+from Nuremberg had departed. However, Luther passed through Nuremberg on
+foot, and borrowed a coat of a friend there in order to figure with
+decency before the Diet. Yet Dürer probably did not meet him, although
+the words in the letter to George Spalatin, quoted above, "If ever I
+meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a careful portrait of him and
+engrave it on copper," do not forbid the possibility of this early
+meeting before the Reformer had become so famous. Next the Pope tried to
+soothe by sending Miltitz with flatteries and promises--a man that could
+smile and weep to order, but who succeeded neither with the Elector
+Frederic, nor with Luther, nor with Germany. At Nuremberg the preacher
+Wenzel Link soon formed a little reformed congregation, to which Dürer,
+Pirkheimer, Spengler, Nützel, Scheurl, Ebner, Holzschurher, and others
+belonged. We have already seen how, soon after this, Dürer was anxious
+for Luther's safety, by the letter to the wise Elector, quoted above;
+and in 1518 he sent Luther a number of his prints, and soon after joined
+with others of Link's hearers to send a greeting of encouragement. And
+before long we find him jotting down a list of sixteen of Luther's
+tracts, either because he intended to get and read them, or because they
+were already his; and on the back of a drawing we find the following
+outline of the faith such as he then apprehended it, in which we see
+clearly that Christ has become the voice of conscience--the power in a
+man by which he recognises and creates good.
+
+Seeing that through disobedience of sin we have fallen into everlasting
+Death, no help could have reached us save through the incarnation of the
+Son of God, whereby He through His innocent suffering might abundantly
+pay the Father all our guilt, so that the Justice of God might be
+satisfied. For He has repented, of and made atonement for the sins of
+the whole world, and has obtained of the Father Everlasting Life.
+Therefore Christ Jesus is the Son of God, the highest power, who can do
+all things, and He is the Eternal life. Into whomsoever Christ comes he
+lives, and himself lives in Christ. Therefore all things are in Christ
+good things. There is nothing good in us except it becomes good in
+Christ. Whosoever, therefore, will altogether justify himself is unjust.
+_If we will what is good, Christ wills it in us_. No human repentance is
+enough to equalise deadly sin and be fruitful.
+
+In this the old mythological language is retained, but it has received a
+new interpretation or significance, and this quite without the writer's
+perceiving what he is doing. Christ is affirmed to have repented of the
+sins of the whole world. Among the early heresiarchs there were, I
+believe, some who went so far as to hold that he had committed the sins
+before he repented of them, and triumphed over their effects by his
+sufferings and death. In any case, a similar feeling is expressed by our
+odd mystic Blake in his "Everlasting Gospel":
+
+  "If He (Jesus) intended to take on sin,
+  His mother should an harlot have bin."
+
+The actual records of Christ are too meagre the moment he is regarded as
+an allegory of human life; and such additions to the creed spring
+naturally out of the ardent seeker's desire to realise the universality
+implied in the dogma of his Godhead, which is accepted even by Blake as
+a historical fact beyond question. It was not the character of so much
+as can be perceived of the universe which daunted Luther and Dürer, as
+it daunts the serious man to-day. They accepted what appears to us a
+cheap and easy subterfuge, because they believed it to have been
+prescribed by God; the ambiguous inferences which such a prescription
+must logically cast on the Divine character did not arrest their
+attention. What they gained was a free conscience, a conscience in which
+Christ was, to use their language, and which was in Christ; and for
+practical piety this was sufficient. They themselves had not made up
+their minds on theoretical points; it was only in the face of their
+opponents that they thought of arming themselves with like weapons, and
+sought a mechanical agreement upon questions about which no one ever has
+known, or probably ever can know, anything at all. This was where
+Luther's pugnacity betrayed him; so that little by little he seems to
+lose spiritual beauty, as the monk, all fire and intensity, is
+transformed into the "plump doctor," and again into the bird of ill omen
+who croaked.
+
+"The arts are growing as if there was to be a new start and the world
+was to become young again. I hope God will finish with it. We have come
+already to the White Horse. Another hundred years and all will be over."
+
+Compare this with Dürer's:
+
+"Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both
+well and better about this art than I."
+
+"Would to God that it were possible for me to see the work and art of
+the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might
+be improved."
+
+I do not want to judge Luther harshly; he had done splendidly, and it is
+difficult to meddle with worldly things without soiling one's fingers
+and depressing one's heart; but I ask which of these two quotations
+expresses man's most central character best--the desire for nobler
+life--which reveals the more admirable temper? (Dürer had been touched
+by the spirit of the Renaissance as well as by that of the Reformation;
+we can distinguish easily when he is speaking under the one influence,
+when under the other, and the contrast often impresses one as the
+contrast between the above quotations. And it gives us great reason to
+deplore that the two spirits could not work side by side as they did in
+Dürer and a few rare souls, but that in the world there was war between
+them.) It seems inevitable that the things men fight about should always
+be spoiled. The best part of written thought is something that cannot be
+analysed, cannot therefore be defended or used for offence; it is a
+spirit, an emanation, something that influences us more subtly than we
+know how to describe.
+
+We see by the passage quoted that Dürer was not only influenced by
+Luther's heroism, but by his doctrinal theorising. Unfortunately we do
+not know whether he outgrew this second and less admirable influence.
+Did he feel like his friend Pirkheimer in the end, that "the new
+evangelical knaves made the old popish knaves seem pious by contrast?"
+Milton under similar circumstances came to think that "New Presbyter is
+but old Priest writ large." Probably not; for just as we know he did not
+abandon what seemed to him beautiful and helpful in old Catholic
+ceremonies, usages, and conceptions, so probably he would not confuse
+what had been real gain in the Reformation with the excesses of
+Anabaptists or Socialists, or even of Luther himself or his followers.
+There is no reason to suppose he would have judged so hastily as the
+gouty irascible Pirkheimer, however much he may have deplored the course
+of events. It must have been evident to thoughtful men, then, that it
+was impossible for so large an area to be furnished with properly
+trained pastors in so short a time, and that therefore more or less
+deplorable material was bound to be mingled in the official _personnel_
+of the new sect. It is impossible, when we consider how he solved the
+precisely parallel difficulty in aesthetics, not to feel that if he had
+had time given him, he would have arrived in point of doctrine at a
+moderation similar to that of Erasmus.
+
+Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty....
+Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know not certainly
+what the ultimate measure of true beauty is.... Because now we cannot
+altogether attain unto perfection shall we, therefore, wholly cease from
+learning? By no means ... for it behoveth the rational man to choose the
+good. (See the passage complete on page 15.)
+
+Luther imagined that the faith that saved was entire confidence in the
+fact that a bargain had been struck between the Persons of the Trinity,
+according to which Christ's sacrifice should be accepted as satisfying
+the justice of his Father, outraged by Adam's fault. To-day this appears
+to the majority of educated men a fantastic conception. For them the
+faith that saves is love of goodness, as love of beauty saves the artist
+from mistakes into which his intelligence would often plunge him. Jesus
+has no claim upon us superior to his goodness and his beauty; nor can we
+conceive of the possibility of such a claim. But we recognise with Dürer
+that we do not know what the true measure of goodness and beauty is, and
+all that we can do is to choose always the good and the beautiful
+according to the measure of our reason--to the fulness of the light at
+present granted to us.
+
+
+II
+
+The curiosity of the modern man of science no doubt is descended from
+that of men like Leonardo and the early Humanists, but it differs from
+almost more than it resembles it. The motive power behind both is no
+doubt the confidence of the healthy mind that the human intelligence
+will ultimately prove adequate to comprehend the spectacle of the
+universe. But for the Humanists, for Dürer and his friends, the
+consciousness of the irreconcilableness of that spectacle with the
+necessary ideals of human nature had not produced, as in our
+contemporaries and our immediate forerunners it has produced, either the
+atrophy of expectation which afflicts some, or the extravagance of
+ingenuity that cannot rest till it has rationalised hope, which torments
+others. They were saddled with neither the indifference nor the
+restlessness of the modern intellect. They escaped like boys on a
+holiday. They felt conscious of doing what their schoolmaster meant them
+to do, though they were actually doing just what they liked. It was all
+for the glory of God in Dürer's mind; but how or why God should be
+pleased with what he did, did not trouble him. He engraved and sold
+impressions of a plate representing a sow with eight legs; he made a
+drawing, which is at Oxford, of an infant girl with two heads and four
+arms, and calmly wrote beneath it:--
+
+Item, in the year reckoned 1512, after the birth of Christ, such a
+creature (_Frucht_) as is represented above, was born in Bavaria, on the
+Lord of Werdenberg's land, in a village named Ertingen over against
+Riedlingen. It was on the 20th of the hay month (July), and they were
+baptized, the one head Elspett, the other Margrett.
+
+Just so, Luther is no more than St. Paul abashed to say that God had
+need of some men intended for dishonour, as a potter makes some vessels
+for honourable, some for dishonourable uses. The modern mind at once
+reflects: "If that is the case, so much the worse for God; by so much is
+it impossible that I should ever worship Him;" and it will prefer any
+prolongation of "that most wholesome frame of mind, a suspended
+judgment," to accepting a solution so cheap as that offered by the
+Apostle and Reformer, which has come to seem simply injurious.
+
+The spirit of the enlarged schoolboy was, I think, really the attitude
+of the best minds then and onwards to Descartes and Spinoza. They gave
+themselves up to the study of nature without ceasing to belong to their
+school, yet freed, as on a holiday, from the constraint of being
+actually in it. Yet, in regard to their personal and social life, at
+least north of the Alps, the majority of such men were very consciously
+and dutifully under "their great taskmaster's eye"; and in that also
+they differ in a measure from the more part of modern scientists.
+
+Dürer made up a rhinoceros from a sketch and description sent to him
+from Portugal, whither the uncouth creature had been brought in a ship
+from Goa. Dürer's drawing was engraved and became the parent of
+innumerable rhinoceroses in lesson-books, doing service right down well
+into the late century, as Thausing assures us. The unfortunate original
+was sent as a present to Leo X., who wanted to see him fight with an
+elephant which had made him laugh by squirting water and kneeling down
+to be blessed as sensibly as a Christian. So the poor beast was shipped
+again, only to be shipwrecked near Porto Venere, where he was last seen
+swimming valiantly, but hopelessly impeded by his chain, and baffled by
+the rocky shore. In the Netherlands, Dürer's curiosity to see a whale
+nearly resulted in his own shipwreck, and indirectly produced the malady
+which finally killed him. But Dürer's curiosity was really most
+scientific where it was most artistic; in his portraits, in his studies
+of plants and birds and the noses of stags, or the slumber of lions.
+
+Doubtless it was not a very dissimilar motive which gained him entrance
+into the women's bath at Nuremberg, for we see he must have been there
+by the beautiful pen drawing at Bremen and the slighter one of the same
+subject at Chatsworth. These drawings may also illustrate what in his
+book on the Proportion he calls the words of difference--stout, lean,
+short, tall, &c. (see p. 285), as he would seem to have chosen types as
+various as possible, ranging from the human sow to the slim and
+dignified beauty. In the same spirit he studied perspective and the art
+of measuring; he felt the importance to art of inquiry in these
+directions; nevertheless, to seize the beautiful elements in nature was
+ever the object of his efforts, however, roundabout they may sometimes
+appear to us. "The sight of a fine human figure is above all things the
+most pleasing to us, wherefore I will first construct the right
+proportions of a man." (See p. 321.) His aesthetic curiosity had nothing
+in common with that which considers all objects and appearances as
+equally interesting. What he meant by Nature, when he bid the artist
+have continual recourse to her, was far from being the momentary and
+accidental appearance of any thing or things anywhere,--which the modern
+"student of Nature" admires because he has neither sufficient force of
+character to prefer, nor sufficient right feeling to defer to the
+preferences of those who have more.
+
+Leonardo's natural history is delightful reading, because it combines
+such fantastic and inventive fables as surpass even the happiest efforts
+of our nonsense writers with a beautiful openness of mind which we see
+oftener in children than in sages,--which is, in fact, the seriousness
+of those who are truly learning, and are not too conscious of what has
+already been learnt.
+
+As a boy adds to the pleasure he has in adventuring further and further
+into a cave the delight of awesome supposition--for what may not the
+next turn reveal?--and is pleased to feel all his young machinery ready
+instantly to enact a panic if his torch should blow out, and laughs at
+each furtive rehearsal of his own terror in which he indulges;--so the
+Humanists turned from astronomy to astrology, and used their skill in
+mathematics to play with horoscopes which they more than half believed
+might bite. There was just enough doubt as to whether any given wonder
+was a miracle to make it interesting; and at any moment the pall of
+superstition might stifle the flickering light of inquiry, as we feel
+was the case when Dürer writes:
+
+The most wonderful thing I ever saw occurred in the year 1503, when
+crosses fell upon many persons, and especially on children rather than
+on elder people. Amongst others, I saw one of the form which I have
+represented below. It had fallen into Eyrer's maid's shift, as she was
+sitting in the house at the back of Pirkheimer's (i.e., in the house
+where Dürer was born). She was so troubled about it that she wept and
+cried aloud, for she feared that she must die because of it.
+
+I have also seen a comet in the sky.
+
+And again, the terror caused by a very bad and strange dream passes the
+bounds of play; and one feels that the belief that a vision of the night
+might produce or prefigure dreadful change was for him something a great
+deal more serious than for the dilettante spiritualist and
+wonder-tickler of to-day. He writes:
+
+In the night between Wednesday and Thursday after Whit Sunday (May
+30-31, 1525), I saw this appearance in my sleep--how many great waters
+fell from heaven. The first struck the earth about four miles away from
+me with terrific force and tremendous noise, and it broke up and drowned
+the whole land. I was so sore afraid that I awoke from it. Then the
+other waters fell, and as they fell they were very powerful, and there
+were many of them, some further away, some nearer. And they came down
+from so great a height that they all seemed to fall with an equal
+slowness. But when the first water that touched the earth had very
+nearly reached it, it fell with such swiftness, with wind and roaring,
+and I was so sore afraid that when I awoke my whole body trembled, and
+for a long while I could not recover myself. So when I arose in the
+morning, I painted it above here as I saw it God turn all these things
+to the best. ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+The instinct for recording which dictates such a note as this is
+characteristic of Dürer, and called into being many of his drawings.
+Many such naïve and explicit records as that on the drawing which
+Raphael sent him are to be found in the flyleaves of books and on the
+margins of prints and drawings, his possessions. In such notes we may
+see not only an effect of the curiosity, and desire to arrange and
+co-ordinate information, which resulted in modern science; but something
+that is akin to that worship and respect for the deeds and productions
+of those long dead or in distant countries, in which the human spirit
+relieved itself from the oppressive expectation of judgment and
+vengeance which had paralysed it, as the beauty of the supernatural
+world was lost sight of behind its terrors, and witches and wizards
+engrossed the popular mind, in which for a time saints and angels had
+held the ascendancy. The future now became the return of a golden age;
+not a garish and horrible novelty called heaven and hell, but a human
+society beautiful as that of the Greeks, grand as that of republican
+Rome, sweet and hospitable as the household of Jesus and Mary. The
+Reformation is in part a return of the old fears; but Dürer has recorded
+only one bad dream, whereas he tells that he was often visited by dreams
+worthy of the glorious Renascence. "Would to God it were possible for me
+to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet
+unborn, for I know that I might be improved. Ah! _how often in my_ sleep
+do I behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof
+never appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me!" Why was he not sent to Rome to see the ceiling of the
+Sistina and Raphael's Stanze? Perchance it was these that he saw in
+his dreams?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DÜRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS
+
+
+I
+
+It is even more the case with Dürer's journal written in the Netherlands
+than with the letters from Venice that, like life itself, it is full of
+repetitions and over-insistence on what is insignificant. I quote the
+most interesting passages, and as there is never a good reason for doing
+again what has already been well done; I am happy to quote Sir Martin
+Conway's excellent notes, having found occasion to add only one. Dürer
+set out on July 12, 1520, with his wife and her maid Susanna. It was
+probably this Susanna who three years later married Georg Penz, one of
+"the three godless painters." Dürer took a great many prints and
+woodcuts, books both to sell and to give as presents; and besides he
+took a sketch book in which he made silver-point sketches and portraits.
+A good number of its pages have come down to us, and a great many of the
+portraits he mentions having taken were done in it, and then cut out to
+give to the sitter. All these drawings are on the same sized paper. We
+reproduce one of them here (see page 156). Besides this sketch-book he
+evidently had a memorandum-book in which he recorded what he did, what
+he spent, whom he saw, and occasionally what he felt or what he wished.
+The original is lost, but an old copy of it is in the Bamberg Library.
+
+_July_ 12.--On Thursday after Kilian's, I, Albrecht Dürer, at my own
+charges and costs, took myself and my wife (and maid Susanna) away to
+the Netherlands. And the same day, after passing through Erlangen, we
+put up for the night at Baiersdorf and spent there 3 pounds less
+6 pfennigs.
+
+July 13.--Next day, Friday, we came to Forchheim, and there I paid 22
+pf. for the convoy.
+
+Thence I journeyed to Bamberg, where I presented the Bishop (Georg III.
+Schenk von Limburg[24]) with a Madonna painting, a Life of our Lady, an
+Apocalypse, and a Horin's worth of engravings. He invited me as his
+guest, gave me a Toll-pass[25] and three letters of introduction, and
+paid my bill at the inn, where I had spent about a florin.
+
+I paid six florins in gold to the boatman who took me from Bamberg to
+Frankfurt.
+
+Master Lukas Benedict and Hans,[26] the painter, sent me wine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, _August_ 2-26, 1520.
+
+At Antwerp I went to Jobst Plankfelt's[27] inn, and the same evening at
+Fuggers' Factor,[28] Bernhard Stecher invite and gave us a costly meal.
+My wife, however, dined at the inn. I paid the driver three gold florins
+for bringing us three, and one st. I paid for carrying the goods.
+
+_August_ 4.--On Saturday after the feast of St. Peter in Chains my host
+took me to see the Burgomaster's (Arnold van Liere) house at Antwerp. It
+is newly built and beyond measure large, and very well ordered, with
+spacious and exceedingly beautiful chambers, a tower splendidly
+ornamented, a very large garden--altogether a noble house, the like of
+which I have nowhere seen in all Germany. The house also is reached from
+both sides by a very long street, which has been quite newly built
+according to the Burgomaster's liking and at his charges.
+
+I paid three st. to the messenger, two pf. for bread, two pf. for ink.
+
+August 5.--On Sunday, it was St. Oswald's Day, the painters invited me
+to the hall of their guild, with my wife and maid. All their service was
+of silver, and they had other splendid ornaments and very costly meats.
+All their wives also were there. And as I was being led to the table the
+company stood on both sides as if they were leading some great lord. And
+there were amongst them men of very high position, who all behaved most
+respectfully towards me with deep courtesy, and promised to do
+everything in their power agreeable to me that they knew of. And as I
+was sitting there in such honour the Syndic (Adrian Horebouts) of
+Antwerp came, with two servants, and presented me with four cans of wine
+in the name of the Town Councillors of Antwerp, and they had bidden him
+say that they wished thereby to show their respect for me and to assure
+me of their good will. Wherefore I returned them my humble thanks and
+offered my humble service. After that came Master Peeter (Frans), the
+town-carpenter, and presented me with two cans of wine, with the offer
+of his willing services. So when we had spent a long and merry time
+together till late in the night, they accompanied us home with lanterns
+in great honour. And they begged me to be ever assured and confident of
+their good will, and promised that in whatever I did they would be
+all-helpful to me. So I thanked them and laid me down to sleep.
+
+The Treasurer (Lorenz Sterk) also gave me a child's head (painted) on
+linen, and a wooden weapon from Calicut, and one of the light wood
+reeds. Tomasin, too, has given me a plaited hat of alder bark. I dined
+once with the Portuguese, and have given a brother of Tomasin's three
+fl. worth of engravings.
+
+Herr Erasmus[29] has given me a small Spanish _mantilla_ and three men's
+portraits.
+
+I took the portrait of Herr Niklas Kratzer,[30] an astronomer. He lives
+with the King of England, and has been very helpful and useful to me in
+many matters. He is a German, a native of Munich. I also made the
+portrait of Tomasin's daughter, Mistress Zutta by name. Hans
+Pfaffroth[31] gave me one Philips fl. for taking his portrait in
+charcoal. I have dined once more with Tomasin. My host's brother-in-law
+entertained me and my wife once. I changed two light florins for
+twenty-four st. for living expenses, and I gave one st. _t&k&d_ to a man
+who let me see an altar-piece.
+
+[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on a white ground, in the Berlin
+Print Room]
+
+_August_ 19.--On the Sunday after our dear Lady's Assumption I saw the
+great Procession from the Church of our Lady at Antwerp, when the whole
+town of every craft and rank was assembled, each dressed in his best
+according to his rank. And all ranks and guilds had their signs, by
+which they might be known. In the intervals great costly pole-candles
+were borne, and their long old Frankish trumpets of silver. There were
+also in the German fashion many pipers and drummers. All the instruments
+were loudly and noisily blown and beaten.
+
+I saw the procession pass along the street, the people being arranged in
+rows, each man some distance from his neighbour, but the rows close one
+behind another. There were the Goldsmiths, the Painters, the Masons, the
+Broderers, the Sculptors, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Sailors, the
+Fishermen, the Butchers, the Leatherers, the Clothmakers, the Bakers,
+the Tailors, the Cordwainers--indeed, workmen of all kinds, and many
+craftsmen and dealers who work for their livelihood. Likewise the
+shopkeepers and merchants and their assistants of all kinds were there.
+After these came the shooters with guns, bows, and cross-bows, and the
+horsemen and foot-soldiers also. Then followed the watch of the Lords
+Magistrates. Then came a fine troop all in red, nobly and splendidly
+clad. Before them, however, went all the religious Orders and the
+members of some Foundations very devoutly, all in their different robes.
+
+A very large company of widows also took part in this procession. They
+support themselves with their own hands and observe a special rule. They
+were all dressed from head to foot in white linen garments, made
+expressly for the occasion, very sorrowful to see. Among them I saw some
+very stately persons. Last of all came the Chapter of our Lady's Church,
+with all their clergy, scholars, and treasurers. Twenty persons bore the
+image of the Virgin Mary with the Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest
+manner, to the honour of the Lord God.
+
+In this procession very many delightful things were shown, most
+splendidly got up. Waggons were drawn along with masques upon ships and
+other structures. Behind them came the company of the Prophets in their
+order, and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the
+Three Holy Kings riding on great camels and on other rare beasts, very
+well arranged; also how our Lady fled to Egypt--very devout--and many
+other things, which for shortness I omit. At the end came a great Dragon
+which St. Margaret and her maidens led by a girdle; she was especially
+beautiful. Behind her came St. George with his squire, a very goodly
+knight in armour. In this host also rode boys and maidens most finely
+and splendidly dressed in the costumes of many lands, representing
+various Saints. From beginning to end the procession lasted more than
+two hours before it was gone past our house. And so many things were
+there that I could never write them all in a book, so I let it
+well alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRUSSELS _August_ 26-_September_ 3, 1520.
+
+In the golden chamber in the Townhall at Brussels I saw the four
+paintings which the great Master Roger van der Weyden[32] made. And I
+saw out behind the King's house at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth,
+and Beast-garden[33]; anything more beautiful and pleasing to me and
+more like a Paradise I have never seen. Erasmus is the name of the
+little man who wrote out my supplication at Herr Jacob de Bannisis'
+house. At Brussels is a very splendid Townhall, large, and covered with
+beautiful carved stonework, and it has a noble open tower. I took a
+portrait at night by candlelight of Master Konrad of Brussels, who was
+my host; I drew at the same time Doctor Lamparter's son in charcoal,
+also the hostess.
+
+I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land
+of gold (Mexico), a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all
+of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armour of the
+people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and
+darts, very strange clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects
+of human use, much better worth seeing than prodigies. These things were
+all so precious that they are valued at 100,000 florins. All the days of
+my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these
+things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled
+at the subtle _Ingenia_ of men in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot
+express all that I thought there.
+
+At Brussels I saw many other beautiful things besides, and especially I
+saw a fish bone there, as vast as if it had been built up of squared
+stones. It was a fathom long and very thick, it weighs up to 15 cwt.,
+and its form resembles that drawn here. It stood up behind on the fish's
+head. I was also in the Count of Nassau's house,[34] which is very
+splendidly built and as beautifully adorned. I have again dined with my
+Lords (of Nürnberg).
+
+When I was in the Nassau house in the chapel there, I saw the good
+picture[35] that Master Hugo van der Goes painted, and I saw the two
+fine large halls and the treasures everywhere in the house, also the
+great bed wherein fifty men can lie. And I _saw_ the great stone which
+the storm cast down in the field near the Lord of Nassau. The house
+stands high, and from it there is a most beautiful view, at which one
+cannot but wonder: and I do not believe that in all the German lands the
+like of it exists.
+
+Master Bernard van Orley, the painter, invited me and prepared so costly
+a meal that I do not think ten fl. will pay for it. Lady Margaret's
+Treasurer (Jan de Marnix), whom I drew, and the King's Steward, Jehan de
+Metenye by name, and the Town-Treasurer named Van Busleyden invited
+themselves to it, to get me good company. I gave Master Bernard a
+_Passion_ engraved in copper, and he gave me in return a black Spanish
+bag worth three fl. I have also given Erasmus of Rotterdam a _Passion_
+engraved in copper.
+
+I have once more taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait[36] I gave Lorenz
+Sterk a sitting _Jerome_ and the _Melancholy_, and took a portrait of my
+hostess' godmother. Six people whose portraits I drew at Brussels have
+given me nothing. I paid three st. for two buffalo horns, and one st.
+for two Eulenspiegels.[37]
+
+ANTWERP, _September 6-October 4_, 1520.
+
+I have paid one st for the printed "Entry into Antwerp," telling how the
+King was received with a splendid triumph--the gates very costly
+adorned--and with plays, great joy, and graceful maidens whose like I
+have seldom seen.[38] I changed one fl. for expenses. I saw at Antwerp
+the bones of the giant. His leg above the knee is 5-1/2 ft. long and
+beyond measure heavy and very thick; so with his shoulder blades--a
+single one is broader than a strong man's back--and his other limbs. The
+man was 18 ft. high, had ruled at Antwerp and done wondrous great feats,
+as is more fully written about him in an old book,[39] which the Lords
+of the Town possess.
+
+[Illustration: ERASMUS From a reproduction of the drawing in the "Léon
+Bonnat" collection, Bayonne _Face p._ 148]
+
+The studio (school) of Raphael of Urbino has quite broken up since his
+death,[40] but one of his scholars, Tommaso Vincidor of Bologna[41] by
+name, a good painter, desired to see me. So he came to me and has given
+me an antique gold ring with a very well cut stone. It is worth five
+fl., but already I have been offered the double for it. I gave him six
+fl. worth of my best prints for it. I bought a piece of calico for three
+st.; I paid the messenger one st.; three st. I spent in company.
+
+I have presented a whole set of all my works to Lady Margaret, the
+Emperor's daughter, and have drawn her two pictures on parchment with
+the greatest pains and care. All this I set at as much as thirty fl. And
+I have had to draw the design of a house for her physician the doctor,
+according to which he intends to build one; and for drawing that I would
+not care to take less than ten fl. I have given the servant one st., and
+paid one st. for brick-colour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+October 1.--On Monday after Michaelmas, 1520, I gave Thomas of Bologna a
+whole set of prints to send for me to Rome to another painter who should
+send me Raphael's work[42] in return. I dined once with my wife. I paid
+three st. for the little tracts. The Bolognese has made my portrait;[43]
+he means to take it with him to Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AACHEN, _October 7-26, 1520_.
+
+_October_ 7.--At Aachen I saw the well-proportioned pillars,[44] with
+their good capitals of green and red porphyry (_Gassenstein_) which
+Charles the Great had brought from Rome thither and there set up. They
+are correctly made according to Vitruvius' writings.
+
+_October_ 23.--On October 23 King Karl was crowned at Aachen. There I
+saw all manner of lordly splendour, more magnificent than anything that
+those who live in our parts have seen--all, as it has been described.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+KÖLN, _October 26--November 14, 1520_.
+
+I bought a tract of Luther's for five white pf., and the "Condemnation
+of Luther," the pious man, for one white pf.; also a rosary for one
+white pf. and a girdle for two white pf., a pound of candles for
+one white pf.
+
+_November_ 12.--I have made the nun's portrait. I gave the nun seven
+white pf. and three half-sheet engravings. My confirmation[45] from the
+Emperor came to my Lords of Nürnberg for me on Monday after Martin's, in
+the year 1520, after great trouble and labour.
+
+ANTWERP, _November_ %--_December_ 3, 1520.
+
+At Zierikzee, in Zeeland, a whale has been stranded by a high tide and a
+gale of wind. It is much more than 100 fathoms long, and no man living
+in Zeeland has seen one even a third as long as this is. The fish cannot
+get off the land; the people would gladly see it gone, as they fear the
+great stink, for it is so large that they say it could not be cut in
+pieces and the blubber boiled down in half a year.
+
+ZEELAND, _December_ 3-14, 1520.
+
+_December_ 8.--I went to Middelburg. There, in the Abbey, is a great
+picture painted by Jan de Mabuse--not so good in the modelling
+(_Hauptstreichen_) as in the colouring. I went next to the Veere, where
+lie ships from all lands; it is a very fine little town.
+
+At Arnemuiden, where I landed before, a great misfortune befel me. As we
+were pushing ashore and getting out our rope, a great ship bumped hard
+against us, as we were in the act of landing, and in the crush I had let
+every one get out before me, so that only I, Georg Kotzler,[46] two old
+wives, and the skipper with a small boy were left in the ship. When now
+the other ship bumped against us, and I with those named was still in
+the ship and could not get out, the strong rope broke; and thereupon, in
+the same moment, a storm of wind arose, which drove our ship back with
+force. Then we all cried for help, but no one would risk himself for us.
+And the wind carried us away out to sea. Thereupon the skipper tore his
+hair and cried aloud, for all his men had landed and the ship was
+unmanned. Then were we in fear and danger, for the wind was strong and
+only six persons in the ship. So I spoke to the skipper that he should
+take courage (_er sollt ein Herz fahen_) and have hope in God, and that
+he should consider what was to be done. So he said that if he could haul
+up the small sail he would try if we could come again to land. So we
+toiled all together and got it feebly about half-way up, and went on
+again towards the land. And when the people on shore, who had already
+given us up, saw how we helped ourselves, they came to our aid and we
+got to land.
+
+Middelburg is a good town; it has a very beautiful Townhall with a fine
+tower. There is much art shown in all things here. In the Abbey the
+stalls are very costly and beautiful, and there is a splendid gallery of
+stone; and there is a fine Parish Church. The town was besides excellent
+for sketching (_köstlich au konterfeyen_). Zeeland is fine and wonderful
+to see because of the water, for it stands higher than the land. I made
+a portrait of my host at Arnemuiden. Master Hugo and Alexander Imhof and
+Friedrich the Hirschvogels' servant gave me, each of them, an Indian
+cocoa-nut which they had won at play, and the host gave me a
+sprouting bulb.
+
+_December_ 9--Early on Monday we started again by ship and went by the
+Veere and Zierikzee and tried to get sight of the great fish,[47] but
+the tide had carried him off again.
+
+ANTWERP, _December_ 14--_April_ 6, 1521
+
+I have eaten alone thus often.
+
+I took portraits of Gerhard Bombelli and the daughter of Sebastian the
+Procurator.
+
+_February_ 10.--On Carnival Sunday the goldsmiths invited me to dinner
+early with my wife. Amongst their assembled guests were many notable
+men. They had prepared a most splendid meal, and did me exceeding great
+honour. And in the evening the old Bailiff of the town[48] invited me
+and gave a splendid meal, and did me great honour. Many strange masquers
+came there. I have drawn the portrait in charcoal of Florent Nepotis,
+Lady Margaret's organist. On Monday night Herr Lopez invited me to the
+great banquet on Shrove-Tuesday, which lasted till two o'clock, and was
+very costly. Herr Lorenz Sterk gave me a Spanish fur. To the
+above-mentioned feast very many came in costly masks, and especially
+Tomasin and Brandan. I won two fl. at play.
+
+I dined once with the Frenchman, twice with the Hirschvogels' Fritz, and
+once with Master Peter Aegidius[49] the Secretary, when Erasmus of
+Rotterdam also dined with us.
+
+I have twice more drawn with the metal-point the portrait of the
+beautiful maiden for Gerhard.
+
+I made Tomasin a design, drawn and tinted in half colours, after which
+he intends to have his house painted.
+
+I bought the five silk girdles, which I mean to give away, for three fl.
+sixteen st.; also a border (_Borte_) for twenty st. These six borders I
+sent to the wives of Caspar Nützel, Hans Imhof, Sträub, the two
+Spenglers, and Löffelholz,[50] and to each a good pair of gloves. To
+Pirkheimer I sent a large cap, a costly inkstand of buffalo horn, a
+silver Emperor, one pound of pistachios, and three sugar canes. To
+Caspar Nützel I sent a great elk's foot, ten large fir cones, and cones
+of the stone-pine. To Jacob Muffel I sent a scarlet breastcloth of one
+ell; to Hans Imhof's child an embroidered scarlet cap and stone-pine
+nuts; to Kramer's wife four ells of silk worth four fl.; to Lochinger's
+wife one ell of silk worth one fl.; to the two Spenglers a bag and three
+fine horns each; to Herr Hieronymus Holzschuher a very large horn.
+
+BRUGES AND GHENT, _April_ 6-11, 1521.
+
+I saw the chapel[51] there which Roger painted, and some pictures by a
+great old master. I gave one st. to the man who showed us them. Then I
+bought three ivory combs for thirty st. They took me next to St. Jacob's
+and showed me the precious pictures by Roger and Hugo,[52]
+who were both great masters. Then I saw in our Lady's Church the
+alabaster[53] Madonna, sculptured by Michael Angelo of Rome. After that
+they took me to many more churches and showed me all the good pictures,
+of which there is an abundance there; and when I had seen the Jan van
+Eyck[54] and all the other works, we came at last to the painters'
+chapel, in which there are good things. Then they prepared a banquet for
+me, and I went with them from it to their guild-hall, where many
+honourable men were gathered together, both goldsmiths, painters and
+merchants, and they made me sup with them. They gave me presents, sought
+to make my acquaintance, and did me great honour. The two brothers,
+Jacob and Peter Mostaert, the councillors, gave me twelve cans of wine;
+and the whole assembly, more than sixty persons, accompanied me home
+with many torches. I also saw at their shooting court the great fish-tub
+on which they eat; it is 19 feet long, 7 feet high, and 7 feet wide. So
+early on Tuesday we went away, but before that I drew with the
+metal-point the portrait of Jan Prost, and gave his wife ten st.
+at parting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On my arrival at Ghent the Dean of the Painters came to me and brought
+with him the first masters in painting; they showed me great honour,
+received me most courteously, offered me their goodwill and service, and
+supped with me. On Wednesday they took me early to the Belfry of St.
+John, whence I looked over the great wonderful town, yet in which even I
+had just been taken for something great. Then I saw Jan van Eycks
+picture;[55] it is a most precious painting, full of thought (_ein
+überköstlich hochverständig Gemühl_), and the Eve, Mary, and God the
+Father are specially good. Next I saw the lions and drew one with the
+metal-point.[56] And I saw at the place where men are beheaded on the
+bridge, the two statues erected (in 1371) as a sign that there a son
+beheaded his father.[57] Ghent is a fine and remarkable town; four great
+waters flow through it. I gave the sacristan (at St. Bavon's) and the
+lions' keepers three st. _trinkgeld_. I saw many wonderful things in
+Ghent besides, and the painters with their Dean did not leave me alone,
+but they ate with me morning and evening and paid for everything, and
+were very friendly to me. I gave away five st. at the inn at leaving.
+
+ANTWERP, _April_ 11-_May_ 17, 1521.
+
+In the third week after Easter (April 21-27) a violent fever seized me,
+with great weakness, nausea, and headache. And before, when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me. I paid six st. for cases.
+The monk has bound two books for me in return for the art-wares which I
+gave him. I bought a piece of arras to make two mantles for my
+mother-in-law and my wife, for ten fl. eight st. I paid the doctor eight
+st., and three st. to the apothecary. I also changed one fl. for
+expenses, and spent three st. in company. Paid the doctor ten st. I
+again paid the doctor six st. During my illness Rodrigo has sent me many
+sweetmeats. I gave the lad four st. _trinkgeld_.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing in silver-point on prepared ground, from the
+Netherlands sketch-book, in the Imperial Library, Vienna]
+
+On Friday (May 17) before Whit Sunday in the year 1521, came tidings to
+me at Antwerp, that Martin Luther had been so treacherously taken
+prisoner; for he trusted the Emperor Karl, who had granted him his
+herald and imperial safe conduct. But as soon as the herald had conveyed
+him to an unfriendly place near Eisenach he rode away, saying that he no
+longer needed him. Straightway there appeared ten knights, and they
+treacherously carried off the pious man, betrayed into their hands, a
+man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, a follower of the true Christian
+faith. And whether he yet lives I know not, or whether they have put him
+to death; if so, he has suffered for the truth of Christ and because he
+rebuked the unchristian Papacy, which strives with its heavy load of
+human laws against the redemption of Christ. And if he has suffered it
+is that we may again be robbed and stripped of the truth of our blood
+and sweat, that the same may be shamefully and scandalously squandered
+by idle-going folk, while the poor and the sick therefore die of hunger.
+But this is above all most grievous to me, that, may be, God will suffer
+us to remain still longer under their false, blind doctrine, invented
+and drawn up by the men alone whom they call Fathers, by whom also the
+precious Word of God is in many places wrongly expounded or
+utterly ignored.
+
+Oh God of heaven, pity us! Oh Lord Jesus Christ, pray for Thy people!
+Deliver us at the fit time. Call together Thy far-scattered sheep by Thy
+voice in the Scripture, called Thy godly Word. Help us to know this Thy
+voice and to follow no other deceiving cry of human error, so that we,
+Lord Jesus Christ, may not fall away from Thee. Call together again the
+sheep of Thy pasture, who are still in part found in the Roman Church,
+and with them also the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who
+have been scattered by the oppression and avarice of the Pope and by
+false appearance of holiness. Oh God, redeem Thy poor people constrained
+by heavy ban and edict, which it nowise willingly obeys, continually to
+sin against its conscience if it disobeys them. Never, oh God, hast Thou
+so horribly burdened a people with human laws as us poor folk under the
+Roman Chair, who daily long to be free Christians, ransomed by Thy
+blood. Oh highest, heavenly Father, pour into our hearts, through Thy
+Son, Jesus Christ, such a light, that by it we may know what messenger
+we are bound to obey, so that with good conscience we may lay aside the
+burdens of others and serve Thee, eternal, heavenly Father, with happy
+and joyful hearts.
+
+And if we have lost this man, who has written more clearly than any that
+has lived for 140 years, and to whom Thou hast given such a spirit of
+the Gospel, we pray Thee, oh heavenly Father, that Thou wouldst again
+give Thy Holy Spirit to one, that he may gather anew everywhere together
+Thy Holy Christian Church, that we may again live free and in Christian
+manner, and so, by our good works, all unbelievers, as Turks, Heathen,
+and Calicuts, may of themselves turn to us and embrace the Christian
+faith. But, ere Thou judgest, oh Lord, Thou wiliest that, as Thy Son,
+Jesus Christ, was fain to die by the hands of the priests, and to rise
+from the dead and after to ascend up to heaven, so too in like manner it
+should be with Thy follower Martin Luther, whose life the Pope
+compasseth with his money, treacherously towards God. Him wilt thou
+quicken again. And as Thou, oh my Lord, ordainedst thereafter that
+Jerusalem should for that sin be destroyed, so wilt thou also destroy
+this self-assumed authority of the Roman Chair. Oh Lord, give us then
+the new beautified Jerusalem, which descendeth out of heaven, whereof
+the Apocalypse writes, the holy, pure Gospel, which is not obscured by
+human doctrine.
+
+Every man who reads Martin Luther's books may see how clear and
+transparent is his doctrine, because he sets forth the holy Gospel.
+Wherefore his books are to be held in great honour, and not to be burnt;
+unless indeed his adversaries, who ever strive against the truth and
+would make gods out of men, were also cast into the fire, they and all
+their opinions with them, and afterwards a new edition of Luther's works
+were prepared. Oh God, if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound to
+us the holy Gospel with such clearness? What, oh God, might he not still
+have written for us in ten or twenty years!
+
+Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou an aged little
+man (_ein altes Männiken_), and myself have heard thee say that thou
+givest thyself but two years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to
+accomplish somewhat. Lay out the same well for the good of the Gospel
+and of the true Christian faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ
+says, shall the Gates of Hell (the Roman Chair) in no wise prevail
+against thee. And if here below thou wert to be like thy master Christ
+and sufferedst infamy at the hands of the liars of this time, and didst
+die a little the sooner, then wouldst thou the sooner pass from death
+unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou drinkest of the cup
+which He drank of, with Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice
+those who have dealt unrighteously. Oh Erasmus, cleave to this that God
+Himself may be thy praise, even as it is written of David. For thou
+mayest, yea verily thou mayest overthrow Goliath. Because God stands by
+the Holy Christian Church, even as He only upholds the Roman Church,
+according to His godly will. May He help us to everlasting salvation,
+who is God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, one eternal God. Amen.
+
+Oh ye Christian men, pray God for help, for His judgment draweth nigh
+and His justice shall appear. Then shall we behold the innocent blood
+which the Pope, Priests, Bishops, and Monks have shed, judged and
+condemned (_Apocal._). These are the slain who lie beneath the Altar of
+God and cry for vengeance, to whom the voice of God answereth: Await the
+full number of the innocent slain, then will I judge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, _May_ 17--_June_ 7, 1521.
+
+Master Gerhard,[58] the illuminator, has a daughter about eighteen years
+old named Susanna. She has illuminated a _Salvator_ on a little sheet,
+for which I gave her one fl. It is very wonderful that a woman can do so
+much. I lost six st. at play. I saw the great Procession at Antwerp on
+Holy Trinity day. Master Konrad gave me a fine pair of knives, so I gave
+his little old man a _Life of our Lady_ in return. I have made a
+portrait in charcoal of Master Jan,[59] goldsmith of Brussels, also one
+of his wife. I have been paid two fl. for prints. Master Jan, the
+Brussels goldsmith, paid me three Philips fl. for what I did for him,
+the drawing for the seal and the two portraits. I gave the Veronica,
+which I painted in oils, and the _Adam and Eve_ which Franz did, to Jan,
+the goldsmith, in exchange for a jacinth and an agate, on which a
+Lucretia is engraved. Each of us valued his portion at fourteen fl.
+Further, I gave him a whole set of engravings for a ring and six stones.
+Each valued his portion at seven fl. I bought two pairs of shoes for
+fourteen st., and two small boxes for two st. I changed two Philips fl.
+for expenses. I drew three _Leadings-forth_[60] and two Mounts of
+Olives on five half-sheets. I took three portraits in black and white on
+grey paper. I also sketched in black and white on grey paper two
+Netherland costumes. I painted for the Englishman his coat of arms, and
+he gave me one fl. I have also at one time and another done many
+drawings and other things to serve different people, and for the more
+part of my work have received nothing. Andreas of Krakau paid me one
+Philips fl. for a shield and a child's head. Changed one il. for
+expenses. I paid two fl. for sweeping-brushes. I saw the great
+procession at Antwerp on Corpus Christi day; it was very splendid. I
+gave four st. as trinkgeld. I paid the doctor six st. and one st. for a
+box. I have dined five times with Tomasin. I paid ten st. at the
+apothecary's, and gave his wife fourteen st. for the clyster and
+himself.... To the monk who confessed my wife I gave eight st.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MECHLIN, _June 7 and 8, 1521_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Mechlin I lodged with Master Heinrich, the painter, at the sign of
+the Golden Head.[61] And the painters and sculptors bade me as guest at
+my inn and did me great honour in their gathering. I went also to
+Poppenreuter[62] the gunmaker's house, and found wonderful things there.
+And I went to Lady Margaret's and showed her my _Emperor,_[63] and would
+have presented it to her, but she so disliked it that I took it
+away with me.
+
+And on Friday Lady Margaret showed me all her beautiful things. Amongst
+them I saw about forty small oil pictures, the like of which for
+precision and excellence I have never beheld. There also I saw more good
+works by Jan (de Mabuse), and Jacob Walch.[64] I asked my Lady for
+Jacob's little book, but she said she had already promised it to her
+painter.[65] Then I saw many other costly things and a precious
+library.[66]
+
+ANTWERP, _June_ 8--_July_ 3, 1521.
+
+Master Lukas, who engraves in copper, asked me as his guest. He is a
+little man, born at Leyden in Holland; he was at Antwerp.
+
+I have drawn with the metal-point the portrait of Master Lukas van
+Leyden.[67]
+
+The man with the three rings has overreached me by half. I did not
+understand the matter. I bought a red cap for my god-child[68]for
+eighteen st. Lost twelve st. at play. Drank two st.
+
+Cornelius Grapheus, the Secretary, gave me Luther's "Babylonian
+Captivity,"[69] in return for which I gave him my three Large Books.
+
+[Illustration: LUCAS VAN DER LEYDEN Drawing in charcoal formerly in the
+collection at Warwick Castle.]
+
+I reckoned up with Jobst and found myself thirty-one fl. in his debt,
+which I paid him; therein were charged and deducted the two portrait
+heads which I painted in oils, for which he gave five pounds of borax
+Netherlands weight. In all my doings, spendings, sales, and other
+dealings, in all my connections with high and low, I have suffered loss
+in the Netherlands; and Lady Margaret in particular gave me nothing for
+what I made and presented to her. And this settlement with Jobst was
+made on St. Peter and Paul's day.
+
+On our Lady's Visitation, as I was just about to leave Antwerp, the King
+of Denmark sent to me to come to him at once, and take his portrait,
+which I did in charcoal. I also did that of his servant Anton, and I was
+made to dine with the King, and he behaved graciously towards me. I have
+entrusted my bale to Leonhard Tucher and given over my white cloth to
+him. The carrier with whom I bargained did not take me; I fell out with
+him. Gerhard gave me some Italian seeds. I gave the new carrier
+(_Vicarius_) the great turtle shell, the fish-shield, the long pipe, the
+long weapon, the fish-fins, and the two little casks of lemons and
+capers to take home for me, on the day of our Lady's Visitation, 1521.
+
+BRUSSELS, _July_ 3-12, 1521.
+
+I noticed how the people of Antwerp marvelled greatly when they saw the
+King of Denmark, to find him such a manly, handsome man and come hither
+through his enemy's land with only two attendants. I saw, too, how the
+Emperor rode forth from Brussels to meet him, and received him
+honourably with great pomp. Then I saw the noble, costly banquet, which
+the Emperor and Lady Margaret held next day in his honour.
+
+Thomas Bologna has given me an Italian work of art; I have also bought a
+work for one st.
+
+A few days later when the Dürers arrived at Cologne the journal breaks
+off abruptly, as the last few leaves are missing: but there is every
+reason to suppose that they got back safely to Nuremberg two or three
+weeks later.
+
+
+II
+
+This journal shows us how the influence of a greater centre of
+civilisation strengthened the spirit of the Renascence in Dürer: it is
+marked by his having again taken up the paint brushes to do the best
+sort of work, by a new out-break of the collector's acquisitiveness,
+lastly by the tone of such a passage as that wherein the procession on
+the Sunday after our Lady's Assumption (p. 145) is spoken of with
+admiration. "Twenty persons bore the image of the Virgin Mary with the
+Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest manner, to the honour of the Lord
+God." Such a spectacle has a very different significance to his mind
+from that of another procession in honour of the Virgin, depicted in a
+woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer, which presents a large space in front of
+a temporary church; in the midst is a gaudy statue of the Virgin set
+upon a pillar, around whose base seven or eight persons of both sexes,
+whom one might suppose from their attitudes to be drunk, are seen
+writhing, while a procession headed by huge cierges and a cardinal's hat
+on a pole encircles the whole building; those in the procession carrying
+offerings or else candles, two men being naked save for scanty hair
+shirts. On the margin of the copy now at Coburg Dürer has written:
+"1523, this Spectre, contrary to Holy Scripture, has set itself up at
+Regensburg and has been dressed out by the Bishop. God help us that we
+should not so dishonour His precious mother but (honour her?) in Christ
+Jesus. Amen." Indeed, it would be difficult to distinguish between the
+kind of honour done the Virgin in many of Dürer's pictures and etchings
+and that done her in the Antwerp procession; but both are infinitely
+removed from the degradation of emotion produced by an orgy of
+superstition such as that depicted in Ostendorfer's print, which is
+truly nearer akin to the scenes that occasionally occur in Salvation
+Army or Methodist revivals, and is even more repugnant to the spirit of
+the Renascence than to that of the Reformation as Luther and Dürer
+conceived of it. It is well to remind ourselves, by reading such a
+passage and by gazing at Dürer's Virgins enthroned and crowned with
+stars, that the attitude of later Protestants in regard to the worship
+of the Virgin was in no sense shared by Dürer. And we touch the very
+pulse of the Renaissance in the phrase, "Being a painter, I looked about
+me a little more boldly,"--by which Dürer explains that the beautiful
+maidens, almost naked, who figured in the mythological groups along the
+route of Charles V.'s triumphal entry into Antwerp received a very
+different reward, in his attentive gaze, to that which was meted to them
+by the young, austere, and unreformed Charles. One might almost be
+listening to Vasari when Dürer says: "I saw out behind the King's house
+at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth and Beast-garden; anything more
+beautiful and pleasing to me and more like Paradise I have never seen."
+Dürer's admiration for Luther was like Michael Angelo's for Savonarola,
+and he never doubted that fiery indignation was directed against the
+abuse of wealth, force, and beauty, not against their use; though
+perhaps both the Italian and the German reformer occasionally
+confused the two.
+
+
+III
+
+Duress journey was successful in that he obtained from Charles V. what
+he sought--the confirmation of his privilegium.
+
+CHARLES, by God's grace, Roman Emperor Elect, etc.
+
+Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved,
+
+Whereas the most illustrious Prince, Emperor Maximilian, our dear lord
+and grandfather of praiseworthy memory, appointed and assigned unto our
+and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Dürer the sum of 100
+florins Rhenish every year of his life to be paid from and out of our
+and the Empire's customary town contributions, which you are bound to
+render yearly into our Imperial Treasury; and whereas we, as Roman
+Emperor, have graciously agreed thereto, and have granted anew this life
+pension unto him according to the terms of the above letter; we
+therefore earnestly command you, and it is our will, that you render and
+give unto the said Albrecht Dürer henceforward every year of his life,
+from and out of the said town contributions and in return for his proper
+quittance, the said life pension of 100 florins Rhenish, together with
+whatever part of it stands over unpaid since the Emperor Maximilian's
+grant; etc.
+
+Given at our and the Holy Empire's town Köln on the fourth day of the
+month November (1520), etc.
+
+(Signed) KARL.
+(Signed) ALBRECHT, Cardinal, Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor.
+
+Besides, he got back to Nuremberg without falling in with highwaymen,
+though the following little letter shows us that in this he was
+fortunate.
+
+Dear Master Wolf Stromer,--My most gracious lord of Salzburg has sent
+me a letter by the hand of his glass-painter. I shall be glad to do
+anything I can to help him. He is to buy glass and materials here. He
+tells me that near Freistadtlein he was robbed and had twenty florins
+taken from him. He has asked me to send him to you, for his gracious
+lord told him if he wanted anything to let you know. I send him,
+therefore, to your Wisdom with my apprentice. Your Wisdom's,
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+No doubt he had enriched his mind and cheered his heart in the company
+of prosperous, go-ahead, and earnest men; but as he says, "when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me" (see p. 156). And, alas! it
+was to remain with him till he died of it. So that his journey cannot be
+considered as altogether fortunate.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 24: He was one of the leading Humanists of the time. The
+Madonna referred to was still at Bamberg, at the beginning of the
+present century.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Owing to the existence of some rudimentary form of
+Zollverein, Dürer's pass not only freed him of dues in the Bamberg
+district but as far down the Rhine as Köln.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Hans Wolf, successor to Hans Wolfgang Katzheimer.]
+
+[Footnote 27: There is a portrait drawing of Jobst Plankfelt by Dürer in
+the Städel collection at Frankfurt.]
+
+[Footnote 28: That is the head of the Fuggers' branch house at Antwerp.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Erasmus of Rotterdam, the famous Humanist.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Holbein also painted a portrait of this man in 1528. The
+picture is in the Louvre.]
+
+[Footnote 31: A pen-and-ink likeness of him by Dürer is in the
+possession of the painter Bendemann, of Düsseldorf. It bears the
+inscription in Dürer's hand, "1520. _Hans Pfaffroth van Dantzgen ein
+Starkmann_."]
+
+[Footnote 32: These were four pictures painted upon linen. They
+represented _The justice of Trajan, Pope Gregory praying for the
+Heathen_, and two incidents in the story of Erkenbald. The pictures were
+burnt in 1695, but their compositions are reproduced in the well-known
+Burgundian tapestries at Bern. See Pinchart, in the _Bulletins de
+l'Academie de Bruxelles_, 2nd Series, XVII.: also Kinkel, _Die brusseler
+Rathhausbilder_, &c., Zurich, 1867.]
+
+[Footnote 33: A rapid sketch made by Dürer in this place is in the
+Academy at Vienna. It is dated 1520, and inscribed, "that is the
+pleasure and beast-garden at Brussels, seen down behind out of
+the Palace."]
+
+[Footnote 34: A reproduction of an old view of this house will be found
+in _L'Art_, 1884, I. p. 188.]
+
+[Footnote 35: This picture was painted on four panels and represented
+the Seven Sacraments and a Crucifix. It is now lost. A similar picture
+is in the Antwerp Gallery, ascribed to Roger van der Weyden.]
+
+[Footnote 36: This is perhaps the drawing in the Bounat collection at
+Paris; it has been photographed by Braun (see illus. opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 37: It is believed that Dürer here refers to an edition of the
+satirical tale edited by Thomas Murner, and published at Strassburg
+in 1519.]
+
+[Footnote 38: "He afterwards particularly described to Melanchthon the
+splendid spectacles he had beheld, and how in what were plainly
+mythological groups, the most beautiful maidens figured almost naked,
+and covered only with a thin transparent veil. The young Emperor did not
+hocour them with a single glance, but Dürer himself was very glad to get
+near, not less for the purpose of seeing the tableaux than to have the
+opportunity of observing closely the perfect figures of the young
+girls." As he himself says, "Being a painter, I looked about me a little
+more boldly."--See Thausing's "Life of Dürer," vol. ii., p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 39: _Het oud register van diversche mandementen_, a
+fifteenth-century folio manuscript, still preserved in the Antwerp
+archives.]
+
+[Footnote 40: On April 6, 1520.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Tommaso was sent to Flanders in 1520 by Pope Leo X. to
+oversee the manufacture of the "second series" of tapestries. The
+painter does not seem to have returned to Italy.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Engravings by Marcantonio from Raphael's designs.]
+
+[Footnote 43: The picture is lost, but an engraving of it made by And.
+Stock in 1629 is well-known.]
+
+[Footnote 44: The fine monoliths brought from Ravenna and still to be
+seen in Aachen Cathedral.]
+
+[Footnote 45: The confirmation of his pension; _see_ p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Member of a Nürnberg family.]
+
+[Footnote 47: The object of the whole expedition was doubtless, that
+Dürer might see and sketch the whale. In the British Museum is a study
+of a walrus by Dürer, dated 1521, and inscribed, "The animal whose head
+I have drawn here was taken in the Netherlandish sea, and was twelve
+Brabant ells long and had four feet."]
+
+[Footnote 48: Gerhard van de Werve.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Pupil and afterwards friend of Erasmus.]
+
+[Footnote 50: These people were Dürer's principal Nürnberg friends.]
+
+[Footnote 51: It is assumed by commentators that _Chapel_ means
+_Altar-piece_, and it is guessed that the particular altar-piece is the
+one in the Berlin Museum which Charles V. is reported to have carried
+about with him, and which belonged to the Miraflores Convent. The
+guesses are worthless.]
+
+[Footnote 52: In St. Jacob's was the _Entombment_ by Hugo van der Goes.]
+
+[Footnote 53: It is in white marble. It was sculpted about 1501-6. Some
+critics have refused to accept it as a genuine work. Dürer ought to have
+been in a position to know the truth.]
+
+[Footnote 54: At this time there were plenty of his pictures at Bruges.
+Dürer doubtless saw his Madonna in St. Donatien's, now in the Academy of
+the same town.]
+
+[Footnote 55: The famous altar-piece painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck,
+of which the central part is still in its original place and the wings
+are divided, two of their panels being at Brussels and the rest
+at Berlin.]
+
+[Footnote 56: This drawing from Dürer's sketch-book is in the Court
+Library at Vienna (see pl. opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 57: The story is recounted in _Flandria illustrata_ (A.
+Sanderi, Colon., 1641, i. 149.)]
+
+[Footnote 58: Gerhard Horeboul of Ghent. Charles V.'s 'Book of Hours' in
+the Vienna library is his work. He also had a hand in the Grimani
+Breviary. After 1521 he went to England and entered the service of Henry
+VIII. His daughter Susanna was likewise in the service of the English
+King. She married and died in England.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Perhaps Jan van den Perre, afterwards goldsmith to Charles
+V.]
+
+[Footnote 60: That is to say, drawings representing _Christ bearing HIS
+CROSS_. _Mount of Olives_ means the Agony _in the_ Garden.]
+
+[Footnote 61: The inn-keeper of the _Golden Head_ is known to have been
+a painter. His name was Heinrich Keldermann.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Though born at Köln, he was called Hans von Nürnberg. He
+was cannon-founder and gun-maker to Charles V.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Doubtless Dürer's portrait of Maximilian, now in the
+Gallery at Vienna, dated 1519. (_see_ p. 215).]
+
+[Footnote 64: Jacopo de' Barbari.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Bernard van Orley.]
+
+[Footnote 66: The catalogue of this library exists in the inventory of
+the Archduchess' possessions.]
+
+[Footnote 67: This is in the Musée Wicar at Lille; another portrait of
+Lukas van Leyden by Dürer was in the Earl of Warwick's collection (_see_
+opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 68: Hieronymus Imhof.]
+
+[Footnote 69: A quarto tract by Luther, printed in 1520 (without place
+or date), entitled _Von der Babylonischen gefenglnuss der Kirchen_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DÜRER'S LAST YEARS
+
+
+I
+
+Dürer came back home with health broken: yet it is to this period that
+the magnificent portraits at Berlin of Nuremberg Councillors belong, and
+certainly his hand and eye had never been more sure than when he
+produced them. The hall of the Rathhaus was decorated under his
+direction and from his designs, the actual painting being, it is
+supposed, chiefly the work of George Penz, who with his fellow prentices
+became famous in 1524 as one of "the three godless painters."
+
+We now come to a letter dated
+
+NÜRNBERG, _December_ 5, 1523, Sunday after Andrew's
+
+My dear and gracious Master Frey--I have received the little book you
+sent to Master (Ulrich) Varnbüler and me; when he has finished reading
+it I will read it too. As to the monkey-dance you want me to draw for
+you, I have drawn this one here, unskilfully enough, for it is a long
+time since I saw any monkeys; so pray put up with it. Convey my willing
+service to Herr Zwingli (the reformer), Hans Leu (a Protestant painter),
+Hans Urich, and my other good masters. ALBRECHT DÜRER. Divide these five
+little prints amongst you: I have nothing else new.
+
+This Master Felix Frey was a reformer at Zurich: he was probably not
+closely related to Hans Frey, Dürer's father-in-law, whose death is thus
+recorded in Dürer's book:
+
+In the year 1523 (as they reckon it), on our dear Lady's Day, when she
+was offered in the Temple, early, before the morning chimes, Hans Frey,
+my dear father-in-law, passed away. He had lain ill for almost six years
+and suffered quite incredible adversities in this world. He received the
+Sacraments before he died. God Almighty be gracious to him.
+
+Next we have letters from and to Niklas Kratzer, Astronomer to Henry
+VIII. He had been present when Dürer drew Erasmus' portrait at Antwerp.
+Dürer had also made a drawing of Kratzer, and later on Holbein was to
+paint his masterpiece in the Louvre from the Oxford professor.
+
+To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht Dürer, burgher of Nürnberg,
+my dear Master and Friend. LONDON, _October_ 24, 1524. Honourable,
+dear Sir,
+
+I am very glad to hear of your good health and that of your wife. I have
+had Hans Pomer staying with me in England. Now that you are all
+evangelical in Nürnberg I must write to you. God grant you grace to
+persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but God is stronger, and
+is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want
+you, dear Herr Albrecht Dürer, to make a drawing for me of the
+instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure
+distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp. Or perhaps
+Herr Pirkheimer would send me the design of it--he would be doing me a
+great favour. I want also to know how much a set of impressions of all
+your prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at Nürnberg
+relating to my art. I hear that our friend Hans, the astronomer, is
+dead. Would you write and tell me what instruments and the like he has
+left, and also where our Stabius' prints and wood-blocks are to be
+found? Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I hope to make him a map of
+England, which is a great country, and was unknown to Ptolemy. He would
+like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no
+more than a small part of it. You cannot write to me any longer through
+Hans Pomer. Pray send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S.
+Koloman.[70]I have nothing more to say that would interest you, so God
+bless you. Given at London, October 24. Your servant, NIKLAS KRATZEH.
+Greet your wife heartily for me.
+
+To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his
+Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend.
+
+NÜRNBERG, Monday after Barbara's (_December_ 5), 1524.
+
+First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received
+and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are
+going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer
+about the instrument you wanted to have. He is having one made for you,
+and is going to send it to you with a letter. The things Herr Hans left
+when he died have all been scattered; as I was away at the time of his
+death I cannot find out where they are gone to. The same has happened to
+Stabius' things; they were all taken to Austria, and I can tell you no
+more about them. I should like to know whether you have yet begun to
+translate Euclid into German, as you told me, if you had time, you
+would do.
+
+We have to stand in disgrace and danger for the sake of the Christian
+faith, for they abuse us as heretics; but may God grant us His grace and
+strengthen us in His word, for we must obey Him rather than men. It is
+better to lose life and goods than that God should cast us, body and
+soul, into hell-fire. Therefore, may He confirm us in that which is
+good, and enlighten our adversaries, poor, miserable, blind creatures,
+that they may not perish in their errors.
+
+Now God bless you! I send you two likenesses, printed from copper, which
+you will know well. At present I have no good news to write you, but
+much evil. However, only God's will cometh to pass. Your Wisdom's,
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+Another letter to Dürer from Cornelius Grapheus at Antwerp gives us some
+help towards understanding how the Reformation affected Dürer and
+his friends.
+
+To Master Albrecht Dürer, unrivalled chief in the art of painting, my
+friend and most beloved brother in Christ, at Nürnberg; or in his
+absence to Wilibald Pirkheimer.
+
+I wrote a good long letter to you, some time ago, in the name of our
+common friend Thomas Bombelli, but we have received no answer from you.
+We are, therefore, the more anxious to hear even three words from you,
+that we may know how you are and what is going on in your parts, for
+there is no doubt that great events are happening. Thomas Bombelli sends
+you his heartiest greeting. I beg you, as I did in my last letter, to
+greet Wilibald Pirkheimer a score of times for me. Of my own condition I
+will tell you nothing. The bearers of this letter will be able to
+acquaint you with everything. They are very good men and most sincere
+Christians. I commend, them to you and my friend Pirkheimer as if they
+were myself; for they, themselves the best of men, merit the highest
+recommendation to the best of men. Farewell, dearest Albrecht. Amongst
+us there is a great and daily increasing persecution on account of the
+Gospel. Our brethren, the bearers, will tell you all about it more
+openly. Again farewell.
+
+Wholly yours,
+
+CORNELIUS GRAPHEUS.
+
+ANTWERP, _February_ 23, 1524.
+
+
+II
+
+The events which made Dürer an ardent Evangelical and Reformer in a
+coarser paste proved a leaven of anarchy and subversion. Young,
+hot-headed nobles like Ulrich Von Hutten became iconoclastic, were
+foremost at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a
+part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they
+were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the
+unrest, discontent, and appetite for change took forms if not more
+offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a
+foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French
+Revolution. And in the towns men like "the three godless painters" made
+the burghers shake in their shoes for the social order which kept them
+rich and respected and others poor and servile. It is strange that all
+three should have come from Dürer's workshop. Probably they were the
+most talented prentices of the craft, since the great master chose them:
+besides, painting was an occupation which allowed of a certain
+intellectual development. They may have often listened with hungry ears
+to disputes between Pirkheimer and Dürer, and envied the good luck,
+grace and gift which had enabled the latter to bridge over a gulf as
+great as that which separated them from him, between him and Pirkheimer
+or Vambüler. All this and much more we can by taking thought imagine to
+our satisfaction; but the point which we would most desire to
+satisfactorily conjecture we are utterly in the dark about. Though his
+prentices were tried, Dürer appeared neither for nor against them; nor
+can we help ourselves to understand a fact so strange by any other
+mention of his attitude. He had a year or two previously married his
+servant, (perhaps the girl that his wife took with her to the
+Netherlands), to Georg Penz, who went the farthest in his scepticism,
+recanted soonest, and possessed least talent of the three. But this
+fact, which is not quite assured, narrows the grounds of conjecture but
+little; we still face an almost boundless blank. It is difficult to
+imagine that Dürer was quite as shocked as the Town Council by a man who
+said "he had some idea that there was a God, but did not know rightly
+what conception to form of him," who was so unfortunate as to think
+"nothing" of Christ, and could not believe in the Holy Gospel or in the
+word of God; and who failed to recognise "a master of himself, his goods
+and everything belonging to him" in the Council of Nuremberg.
+Now-a-days, when we think of the licence of assertion that has obtained
+on these questions, we are inclined to admire the honesty and
+intellectual clarity of such a confession. And Dürer, who resolved the
+similar question of authority as to "things beautiful" in a manner much
+the same as this, may, we can at least hope, have viewed his prentices
+with more of pity than of anger. All the three "godless painters" were
+banished from reformed Nuremberg; but Georg, whose confession had been
+most godless, recanted and was allowed to return. The others, Sebald and
+Barthel Beham, managed to perpetuate their names as "little masters"
+without the approbation of the Town Councillors, and are to-day less
+forgotten than those who condemned them. Hieronymus Andreae, the most
+skilful and famous of Dürer's wood engravers, caused the Council the
+same kind of alarm and concern. He took part with the peasants in their
+rebellion; but rebellion against a known authority was more pardonable
+than that against the unknown, or else his services were of greater
+value. At any rate he was pardoned not once but many times, being
+apparently an obstreperous character.
+
+
+III
+
+If we can form no conjecture as to Dürer's relations with his heretical
+aids, we have evidence as to his relations with their judges; for in
+1524 he wrote to the Town Council thus:
+
+Prudent, honourable and wise, most gracious Masters,--During long years,
+by hardworking pains and labour under Gods blessing, I have saved out of
+my earnings as much as 1000 florins Rhenish, which I should now be glad
+to invest for my support.
+
+I know, indeed, that your Honours are not often wont at the present time
+to grant interest at the rate of one florin for twenty; and I have been
+told that before now other applications of a like kind have been
+refused. It is not, therefore, without scruple that I address your
+Honours in this matter. Yet my necessities impel me to prefer this
+request to your Honours, and I am encouraged to do so above all by the
+particularly gracious favour which I have always received from your
+Honourable Wisdoms, as well as by the following considerations.
+
+Your Wisdoms know how I have always hitherto shown myself dutiful,
+willing, and zealous in all matters that concerned your Wisdoms and the
+common weal of the town. You know, moreover, how, before now, I have
+served many individual members of the Council, as well as of the
+community here, gratuitously rather than for pay, when they stood in
+need of my help, art, and labour. I can also write with truth that,
+during the thirty years I have stayed at home, I have not received from
+people in this town work worth 500 florins--truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum--and not a fifth part of that has been profit. I have, on
+the contrary, earned and attained all my property (which, God knows, has
+grown irksome to me) from Princes, Lords, and other foreign persons, so
+that I only spend in this town what I have earned from foreigners.
+
+Doubtless, also, your Honours remember that at one time Emperor
+Maximilian, of most praiseworthy memory, in return for the manifold
+services which I had performed for him, year after year, of his own
+impulse and imperial charity wanted to make me free of taxes in this
+town. At the instance, however, of some of the elder Councillors, who
+treated with me in the matter in the name of the Council, I willingly
+resigned that privilege, in order to honour the said Councillors and to
+maintain their privileges, usages, and rights.
+
+Again, nineteen years ago, the government of Venice offered to appoint
+me to an office and to give me a salary of 200 ducats a year. So, too,
+only a short time ago when I was in the Netherlands, the Council of
+Antwerp would have given me 300 Philipsgulden a year, kept me there free
+of taxes, and honoured me with a well-built house; and besides I should
+have been paid in addition at both places for all the work I might have
+done for the gentry. But I declined all this, because of the particular
+love and affection which I bear to your honourable Wisdoms and to my
+fatherland, this honourable town, preferring, as I did, to live under
+your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather than to be rich and held in honour
+in other places.
+
+It is, therefore, my most submissive prayer to your Honours, that you
+will be pleased graciously to take these facts into consideration, and
+to receive from me on my account these 1000 florins, paying me 50
+florins a year as interest. I could, indeed, place them well with other
+respectable parties here and elsewhere, but I should prefer to see them
+in the hands of your Wisdoms. I and my wife will then, now that we are
+both growing daily older, feebler, and more helpless, possess the
+certainty of a fitting household for our needs; and we shall experience
+thereby, as formerly, your honourable Wisdoms' favour and goodwill. To
+merit this from your Honours with all my powers I shall ever be
+found willing.
+
+Your Wisdoms' willing, obedient burgher,
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+Dürer obtained the desired five per cent. on his savings annually until
+his death, and afterwards his widow received four per cent. until
+her death.
+
+In 1526 the grateful artist finished and dedicated to his
+fellow-townsmen his most important picture, representing the four
+temperaments in the persons of St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St.
+Mark; he wrote thus to the Council:
+
+Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters,--I have been intending, for a
+long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation
+of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance; but I have been
+prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my
+works, for I felt that with such I could not well stand before your
+Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I
+have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none
+more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.
+
+Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent
+prayer that you will favourably and graciously receive it, and will be
+and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.
+
+Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.
+
+Your Wisdoms' humble
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+The gift was accepted, and the Council voted Dürer 100 florins, his wife
+10, and his apprentice 2. Underneath the two panels which form the
+picture, the following was inscribed; the texts being from
+Luther's Bible:
+
+All worldly rulers in these dangerous times should give good heed that
+they receive not human misguidance for the Word of God, for God will
+have nothing added to His Word nor taken away from it. Hear, therefore,
+these four excellent men, Peter, John, Paul, and Mark, their warning.
+
+Peter says in his Second Epistle in the second chapter: There were false
+prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
+among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying
+the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
+And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way
+of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they
+with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long
+time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
+
+John in his First Epistle in the fourth chapter writes thus: Beloved,
+believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:
+because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye
+the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is
+come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that
+Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that
+spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and
+even now already is it in the world.
+
+In the Second Epistle to Timothy in the third chapter St. Paul writes:
+This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For
+men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,
+blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural
+affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
+despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers
+of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but
+denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are
+they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with
+sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come
+to the knowledge of the truth.
+
+St. Mark writes in his Gospel in the twelfth chapter: He said unto them
+in His doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long
+clothing, and love salutations in the market-places, and the chief seats
+in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts; which devour
+widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall
+receive greater damnation.
+
+These rather tremendous texts may make one fear that the "three godless
+painters" had found little pity in their master; but most sincere
+Christians are better than their creeds, and more charitable than the
+old-world imprecations, admonitions, and denunciations, with which they
+soothe their Cerberus of an old Adam, who is not allowed to use his
+teeth to the full extent that their formidable nature would seem to
+warrant. For have they not been told above all things to love their
+enemies, and do good to those whom they would naturally hate, by a
+master whom they really love and strive to imitate?
+
+
+IV
+
+Dürer's last years were given more and more to writing down his ideas
+for the sake of those who, coming after him, would, he was persuaded, go
+on far before him in the race for perfection. In 1525 he published his
+first book--"Instruction in the Measurement with the Compass, and Rules
+of Lines, Surfaces, and Solid Bodies, drawn up by Albert Dürer, and
+printed, for the use of all lovers of art, with appropriate diagrams."
+It contains a course of applied geometry in connection with Euclid's
+Elements. Dürer states from the very commencement that "his book will be
+of no use to any one who understands the geometry of the 'very acute'
+Euclid; for it has been written only for the young, and for those who
+have had no one to instruct them accurately." Thausing tells us his work
+shows certain resemblances to that of Luca Pacioli, a companion of
+Leonardo's, who may have been the "man who is willing to teach me the
+secrets of the art of perspective," and whom Dürer in 1506 travelled
+from Venice to Bologna to see; it is even possible that he saw Leonardo
+himself in the latter town. In 1527 he issued an essay on the "Art of
+Fortification," which the development of artillery was then
+transforming; and authorities on this very special science tell us that
+Dürer is the true author of the ideas on which the "new Prussian system"
+was founded. It was dread of the unchristian Turk who was then besieging
+Vienna which called forth from Dürer this excursion. He dedicated it in
+the following terms:
+
+To the most illustrious, mighty prince and lord, Lord Ferdinand, King of
+Hungary and Bohemia, Infant of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Duke of
+Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and Tirol, his Roman
+Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, Regent in the Holy Empire, my
+most gracious Sire.
+
+Most illustrious mighty King, most gracious Sire,--During the lifetime
+of the most illustrious and mighty Emperor Maximilian of praiseworthy
+memory, your Majesty's Lord and Grandsire, I experienced grace and
+favour from his Imperial Majesty; wherefore I consider myself no less
+bound to serve your Majesty according to my small powers. As it
+happeneth that your Majesty has commanded some towns and places to be
+fortified, I am induced to make known what little I know about these
+matters, if perchance it may please your Majesty to gather somewhat
+therefrom. For though my theory may not be accepted in every point,
+still I believe something will arise from it, here and there, useful not
+to your Majesty only, but to all other Princes, Lords, and Towns, that
+would gladly protect themselves against violence and unjust oppression.
+I therefore humbly pray your Majesty graciously to accept from me this
+evidence of my gratitude, and to be my most gracious lord,
+
+Your Royal Majesty's most humble
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+It seems that at any rate the Kronenburg Gate and Roseneck bastion of
+Strasburg were actually constructed in accordance with Dürer's method.
+
+When, on April 6, 1528, Dürer died suddenly, two volumes of his great
+work on "Human Proportions" were ready for the press, and enough raw
+material, notes, drawings, &c., to enable his friend Pirkheimer to
+prepare and issue the remaining two with them. Of the misunderstanding
+of this the most important of Dürer's writings I shall say nothing here,
+as I have devoted a separate chapter to it.
+
+
+V
+
+It seems probable that the "wondrous sickness which overcame me in
+Zeeland, such as I never heard of from any man, and which sickness
+remains with me" of the Netherlands Journal (p. 156) was an intermittent
+fever. There exists at Bremen a sketch of Dürer, nude down to the waist,
+and pointing with his finger to a spot between the pit of the stomach
+and the groin, which spot he has coloured yellow; and from its size,
+with the other descriptions of his malady, the skilful have arrived at
+the above diagnosis. The words on the sketch, "The yellow spot to which
+my finger points is where it pains me," seem to indicate that he had
+made it to send to some skilled physician. Thausing suggests either
+Master Jacob or Master Braun, whom he had met at Antwerp, and deduces
+from the length of his hair and the apparent vigour of his body, that
+the drawing was made soon after the disease was contracted. All doubt as
+to its nature would be removed, could it be made certain that by the
+words, "I have sent to your Grace early this year before I became ill,"
+in a letter to the Elector Albert dated September 4, 1523, Dürer meant
+to imply that at a certain period he became ill every year; but of
+course it is impossible to be sure of this.
+
+
+VI
+
+If not rich, Dürer died comfortably off. Thausing tells us that his
+"widow entered into possession of his whole fortune;" a fourth part
+belonged, according to Nuremberg law, to his brothers, but she was not
+bound to render it to them before her death. On June 9, 1530, however,
+she "of her own desire, and on account of the friendly feeling which she
+entertained for them for her husband's sake, and as her dear
+brothers-in-law," made over both to Andreas Dürer, goldsmith, and to
+Caspar Altmulsteiner, on behalf of Hans Dürer, then in the service of
+the King of Poland, a sum of 553 florins, three pounds, eleven pfennigs,
+and gave them a mortgage for the remaining sum of 608 florins, two
+pounds, twenty-four pfennigs on the corner house in the Zistelgasse, now
+called the Dürer House; for the property had been valued at 6848
+florins, seven pounds, twenty-four pfennigs. Johann Neudörffer, who
+lived opposite the Dürers, has recorded the fact that Dürer's brother
+Endres inherited all his expensive colours, his copper plates and wood
+blocks, as well as any impressions there were, and all his drawings
+beside. And a year before her death, Agnes Dürer gave the interest on
+the 1000 florins invested in the town to found a scholarship for
+theological students at the University of Wittenberg; about which
+Melanchthon wrote to von Dietrich that he thanked God for this aid to
+study, and that he had praised this good deed of the widow Dürer before
+Luther and others. And yet Pirkheimer, in his spleen at having lost the
+chance of procuring some stags' antlers which had belonged to his
+friend, and which he coveted, could write of Agues Dürer: "She watched
+him day and night and drove him to work ... that he might earn money
+and leave it her when he died. For she always thought she was on the
+borders of ruin--as for the matter of that she does still--though
+Albrecht left her property worth as much as six thousand florins. But
+there! nothing was enough; and, in fact, she alone is the cause of his
+death!" We know that what with the four Apostles and his books Dürer's
+last years were not spent on remunerative labours; nor does the
+Netherlands Journal contain any hint that his wife tried to restrict the
+employment either of his time or money. His journey into Zeeland was a
+pure extravagance; for the sale of a copper engraving or woodcut of a
+whale would have taken some time to make up for such an expense, and, as
+it turned out, no whale was seen or drawn; and there is no hint that
+Frau Dürer made reproach or complaint. On the other hand, Pirkheimer's
+words probably had some slight basis; and as Dürer's sickness increased
+upon him, while at the same time he applied himself less and less to
+making money, the anxious Frau may have become fretful or even nagging
+at times; and Pirkheimer, whose companionship was probably a cause of
+extravagances to Dürer, may have been scolded by Agnes, or heard his
+friend excuse himself from taking part in some convivial meeting, on the
+plea that his wife found he was spending out of proportion to his
+takings at the moment.
+
+
+VII
+
+We have the testimony of a good number of Dürer's friends as to the
+value of his character; and first let us quote from Pirkheimer--writing
+immediately after Dürer's death and before' the loss of the coveted
+antlers had vexed him--to a common friend Ulrich, probably Ulrich
+Varnbüler.
+
+What can be more grievous for a man than to have continually to mourn,
+not only children and relations whom death steals from him, but friends
+also, and among them those whom he loved best? And though I have often
+had to mourn the loss of relations, still I do not know that any death
+ever caused me such grief as fills me now at the sudden departure of our
+good and dear Albrecht Dürer. Nor is this without reason, for of all men
+not united to me by ties of blood, I have never loved or esteemed any
+like him for his countless virtues and rare uprightness. And because I
+know, my dear Ulrich, that this blow has struck both you and me alike, I
+have not been afraid to give vent to my grief before you of all others,
+so that together we may pay the fitting tribute of tears to such a
+friend. He is gone, good Ulrich; our Albrecht is gone! Oh, inexorable
+decree of fate! Oh, miserable lot of man! Oh, pitiless severity of
+death! Such a man, yea, such a man, is torn from us, while so many
+useless and worthless men enjoy lasting happiness, and live only
+too long!
+
+Thausing insists on the fact that in this letter there is no mention of
+Dürer's death having been caused by his wife's behaviour; but as the
+relation of Ulrich to the deceased seems to have been well-nigh as
+intimate as his own, there may have been no need to mention a fact
+painfully present to both their minds. On the other hand, it is at least
+as probable that the idea was not present even to the mind of the
+writer, who, in a style less studiously commonplace, inscribed on
+Dürer's tomb:
+
+Me. AL. DU.
+
+QVICQVID ALBERTI DVRERI MORTALE FVIT, SVB HOC CONDITVR TVMVLO. EMIGRAVIT
+VIII IDVS APRILIS MDXXVIII.
+
+(To the memory of Albrecht Dürer. All that was mortal of Albrecht Dürer
+is laid beneath this mound. He departed on April 6, 1528.)
+
+Luther wrote to Eoban Hesse:
+
+As to Dürer, it is natural and right to weep for so excellent a man;
+still you should rather think him blessed, as one whom Christ has taken
+in the fulness of His wisdom, and by a happy death, from these most
+troublous times, and perhaps from times even more troublous which are to
+come, lest one who was worthy to look upon nothing but excellence should
+be forced to behold things most vile. May he rest in peace. Amen.
+
+Erasmus had some months before written and printed in a treatise on the
+right pronunciation of Latin and Greek an eulogy of Dürer. It is not
+known whether a copy had reached him before his death; in any case to
+most people it came like a funeral oration from the greatest scholar on
+the greatest artist north of the Alps. Thausing quotes the following
+passage from it:
+
+I have known Dürer's name for a long time as that of the first celebrity
+in the art of painting. Some call him the Apelles of our time. But I
+think that did Apelles live now, he, as an honourable man, would give
+the palm to Dürer. Apelles, it is true, made use of few and unobtrusive
+colours, but still he used colours; while Dürer,--admirable as he is,
+too, in other respects,--what can he not express with a single
+colour--that is to say, with black lines? He can give the effect of
+light and shade, brightness, foreground and background. Moreover, he
+reproduces _not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also observes
+the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the position of
+it_. He can also transfer by enchantment, so to say, upon the canvas,
+things which it seems not possible to represent, such as fire, sunbeams,
+storms, lightning, and mist; he can portray every passion, show us the
+whole soul of a man shining through his outward form; nay, even make us
+hear his very speech. All this he brings so happily before the eye with
+those black lines, that the picture would lose by being clothed in
+colour. Is it not more worthy of admiration to achieve without the
+winning charm of colour what Apelles only realised with its assistance?
+
+Melanchthon wrote in a letter to Camerarius:
+
+"It grieves me to see Germany deprived of such an artist and such a
+man."
+
+And we learn from his son-in-law, Caspar Penker, that he often spoke of
+Dürer with affection and respect; he writes:
+
+Melanchthon was often, and many hours together, in Pirkheimer's company,
+at the time when they were advising together about the churches and
+schools at Nürnberg; and Dürer, the painter, used _also_ to be invited
+to dinner with them. Dürer was a man of great shrewdness, and
+Melanchthon used to say of him that though he excelled in the art of
+painting, it was the least of his accomplishments. Disputes often arose
+between Pirkheimer and Dürer on these occasions about the matters
+recently discussed, and Pirkheimer used vehemently to oppose Dürer.
+Dürer was an excessively subtle disputant, and refuted his adversary's
+arguments, just as if he had come fully prepared for the discussion.
+Thereupon Pirkheimer, who was rather a choleric man and liable to very
+severe attacks of the gout, fired up and burst forth again and again
+into such words as these, "What you say cannot be painted." "Nay!"
+rejoined Dürer, "but what you advance cannot be put into words or even
+figured to the mind." I remember hearing Melanchthon often tell this
+story, and in relating it he confessed his astonishment at the ingenuity
+and power manifested by a painter in arguing with a man of
+Pirkheimer's renown.
+
+Such scenes no doubt took place during the years after Dürer's return
+from the Netherlands. Melanchthon also wrote in a letter to George
+von Anhalt:
+
+I remember how that great man, distinguished alike by his intellect and
+his virtue, Albrecht Dürer the painter, said that as a youth he had
+loved bright pictures full of figures, and when considering his own
+productions had always admired those with the greatest variety in them.
+But as an older man, he had begun to observe nature and reproduce it in
+its native forms, and had learned that this simplicity was the greatest
+ornament of art. Being unable completely to attain to this ideal, he
+said that he was no longer an admirer of his works as heretofore, but
+often sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought over his want
+of power.
+
+And in another letter he remembers that Dürer would say that in his
+youth he had found great pleasure in representing monstrous and unusual
+figures, but that in his later years he endeavoured to observe nature,
+and to imitate her as closely as possible; experience, however, had
+taught him how difficult it was not to err. And Thausing continues:
+"Melanchthon speaks even more frequently of how Dürer was pleased with
+pictures he had just finished, but when he saw them after a time, was
+ashamed of them; and those he had painted with the greatest care
+displeased him so much at the end of three years that he could scarcely
+look at them without great pain."
+
+And this on his appreciation of Luther's writings:
+
+Albrecht Dürer, painter of Nürnberg, a shrewd man, once said that there
+was this difference between the writings of Luther and other
+theologians. After reading three or four paragraphs of the first page of
+one of Luther's works he could grasp the problem to be worked out in the
+whole. This clearness and order of arrangement was, he observed, the
+glory of Luther's writings. He used, on the contrary, to say of other
+writers that, after reading a whole book through, he had to consider
+attentively what idea it was that the author intended to convey.
+
+Lastly, Camerarius, the professor of Greek and Latin in the new school
+of Nuremberg, in his Latin translation of Dürer's book on "Human
+Proportions," writes thus:
+
+It is not my present purpose to talk about art. My purpose was to speak
+somewhat, as needs must be, of the artificer, the author of this book.
+He, I trust, has become known by his virtue and his deserts, not only to
+his own country, but to foreign nations also. Full well I know that his
+praises need not our trumpetings to the world, since by his excellent
+works he is exalted and honoured with undying glory. Yet, as we were
+publishing his writings, and an opportunity arose of committing to print
+the life and habits of a remarkable man and a very dear friend of ours,
+we have judged it expedient to put together some few scraps of
+information, learnt partly from the conversations of others and partly
+from our own intercourse with him. This will give some indication of his
+singular skill and genius as artist and man, and cannot fail of
+affording pleasure to the reader. We have heard that our Albrecht was of
+Hungarian extraction, but that his forefathers emigrated to Germany. We
+can, therefore, have but little to say of his origin and birth. Though
+they were honourable, there can be no question but that they gained more
+glory from him than he from them.
+
+Nature bestowed on him a body remarkable in build and stature, and not
+unworthy of the noble mind it contained; that in this, too, Nature's
+Justice, extolled by Hippocrates, might not be forgotten--that Justice,
+which, while it assigns a grotesque form to the ape's grotesque soul, is
+wont also to clothe noble minds in bodies worthy of them. His head was
+intelligent,[71] his eyes flashing, his nose nobly formed, and, as the
+Greeks say, tetrágônon. His neck was rather long, his chest broad, his
+body not too stout, his thighs muscular, his legs firm and steady. But
+his fingers--you would vow you had never seen anything more elegant.
+
+His conversation was marked by so much sweetness and wit, that nothing
+displeased his hearers so much as the end of it. Letters, it is true, he
+had not cultivated, but the great sciences of Physics and Mathematics,
+which are perpetuated by letters, he had almost entirely mastered. He
+not only understood principles and knew how to apply them in practice,
+but he was able to set them forth in words. This is proved by his
+geometrical treatises, wherein I see nothing omitted, except what he
+judged to be beyond the scope of his work. An ardent zeal impelled him
+towards the attainment of all virtue in conduct and life, the display of
+which caused him to be deservedly held a most excellent man. Yet he was
+not of a melancholy severity nor of a repulsive gravity; nay, whatever
+conduced to pleasantness and cheerfulness, and was not inconsistent
+with honour and rectitude, he cultivated all his life and approved even
+in his old age. The works he has left on Gymnastic and Music are of such
+character.
+
+But Nature had specially designed him for a painter, and therefore he
+embraced the study of that art with all his energies, and was ever
+desirous of observing the works and principles of the famous painters of
+every land, and of imitating whatever he approved in them. Moreover,
+with respect to those studies, he experienced the generosity and won the
+favour of the greatest kings and princes, and even of Maximilian himself
+and his grandson the Emperor Charles; and he was rewarded by them with
+no contemptible salary. But after his hand had, so to speak, attained
+its maturity, his sublime and virtue-loving genius became best
+discoverable in his works, for his subjects were fine and his treatment
+of them noble. You may judge the truth of these statements from his
+extant prints in honour of Maximilian, and his memorable astronomical
+diagrams, not to mention other works, not one of which but a painter of
+any nation or day would be proud to call his own. The nature of a man is
+never more certainly and definitely shown than in the works he produces
+as the fruit of his art.... What single painter has there ever been who
+did not reveal his character in his works? Instead of instances from
+ancient history, I shall content myself with examples from our own time.
+No one can fail to see that many painters have sought a vulgar celebrity
+by immodest pictures. It is not credible that those artists can be
+virtuous, whose minds and fingers composed such works. We have also seen
+pictures minutely finished and fairly well coloured, wherein, it is
+true, the master showed a certain talent and industry; but art was
+wanting. Albrecht, therefore, shall we most justly admire as an earnest
+guardian of piety and modesty, and as one who showed, by the magnitude
+of his pictures, that he was conscious of his own powers, although none
+even of his lesser works is to be despised. You will not find in them a
+single line carelessly or wrongly drawn, not a single superfluous dot.
+
+What shall I say of the steadiness and exactitude of his hand? You might
+swear that rule, square, or compasses had been employed to draw lines,
+which he, in fact, drew with the brush, or very often with pencil or
+pen, unaided by artificial means, to the great marvel of those who
+watched him. Why should I tell how his hand so closely followed the
+ideas of his mind that, in a moment, he often dashed upon paper, or, as
+painters say, composed, sketches of every kind of thing with pencil or
+pen? I see I shall not be believed by my readers when I relate, that
+sometimes he would draw separately, not only the different parts of a
+composition, but even the different parts of bodies, which, when joined
+together, agreed with one another so well that nothing could have fitted
+better. In fact this consummate artist's mind endowed with all knowledge
+and understanding of the truth and of the agreement of the parts one
+with another, governed and guided his hand and bade it trust to itself
+without any other aids. With like accuracy he held the brush, wherewith
+he drew the smallest things on canvas or wood without sketching them in
+beforehand, so that, far from giving ground for blame, they always won
+the highest praise. And this was a subject of greatest wonder to most
+distinguished painters, who, from their own great experience, could
+understand the difficulty of the thing.
+
+I cannot forbear to tell, in this place, the story of what happened
+between him and Giovanni Bellini. Bellini had the highest reputation as
+a painter at Venice, and indeed throughout all Italy. When Albrecht was
+there he easily became intimate with him, and both artists naturally
+began to show one another specimens of their skill. Albrecht frankly
+admired and made much of all Bellini's works. Bellini also candidly
+expressed his admiration of various features of Albrecht's skill, and
+particularly the fineness and delicacy with which he drew hairs. It
+chanced one day that they were talking about art, and when their
+conversation was done Bellini said: "Will you be so kind, Albrecht, as
+to gratify a friend in a small matter?" "You shall soon see," says
+Albrecht, "if you will ask of me anything I can do for you." Then says
+Bellini: "I want you to make me a present of one of the brushes with
+which you draw hairs." Dürer at once produced several, just like other
+brushes, and, in fact, of the kind Bellini himself used, and told him to
+choose those he liked best, or to take them all if he would. But
+Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these,
+but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they
+must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep
+such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I
+use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch
+me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long
+wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the most regular order
+and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and afterwards confessed to
+many that no human being could have convinced him by report of the truth
+of that which he had seen with his own eyes.
+
+A similar tribute was given him, with conspicuous candour, by Andrea
+Mantegna, who became famous at Mantua by reducing painting to some
+severity of law--a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up
+broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It
+is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not
+trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is
+held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. While Andrea
+was lying ill at Mantua he heard that Albrecht was in Italy, and had him
+summoned to his side at once, in order that he might fortify his
+(Albrecht's) facility and certainty of hand with scientific knowledge
+and principles. For Andrea often lamented in conversation with his
+friends that Albrecht's facility in drawing had not been granted to him
+nor his learning to Albrecht. On receiving the message Albrecht, leaving
+all other engagements, prepared for the journey without delay. But
+before he could reach Mantua Andrea was dead, and Dürer used to say that
+this was the saddest event in all his life; for, high as Albrecht stood,
+his great and lofty mind was ever striving after something yet
+above him.
+
+Almost with awe have we gazed upon the bearded face of the man, drawn by
+himself, in the manner we have described, with the brush on the canvas
+and without any previous sketch. The locks of the beard are almost a
+cubit long, and so exquisitely and cleverly drawn, at such regular
+distances and in so exact a manner, that the better any one understands
+art, the more he would admire it, and the more certain would he deem it
+that in fashioning these locks the hand had employed artificial aid.
+
+Further, there is nothing foul, nothing disgraceful in his work. The
+thoughts of his most pure mind shunned all such things. Artist worthy of
+success! How like, too, are his portraits! How unerring! How true!
+
+All these perfections he attained by reducing mere practice to art and
+method, in a way new at least to German painters. With Albrecht all was
+ready, certain, and at hand, because he had brought painting into the
+fixed track of rule and recalled it to scientific principles; without
+which, as Cicero said, though some things may be well done by help of
+nature, yet they cannot always be ready to hand, because they are done
+by chance. He first worked his principles out for his own use;
+afterwards with his generous and open nature he attempted to explain
+them in books, written to the illustrious and most learned Wilibald
+Pirkheimer. And he dedicated them to him in a most elegant letter which
+we have not translated, because we felt it to be beyond our power to
+render it into Latin without, so to speak, disfiguring its natural
+countenance. But before he could complete and publish the books, as he
+had hoped, he was carried off by death--a death, calm indeed and
+enviable, but in our view premature. If there was anything at all in
+that man which could seem like a fault, it was his excessive industry,
+which often made unfair demands upon him.
+
+Death, as we have said, removed him from the publication of the work
+which he had begun, but his friends completed the task from his own
+manuscript. About this, in the next place, and about our own version, we
+shall say a few words. The work, being founded on a sort of geometrical
+system, is unpolished and devoid of literary style; so it seems rather
+rugged. But that is easily forgiven in consideration of the excellence
+of the matter. He requested me himself, only a few days before his
+death, to translate it into Latin while he should correct it; and I
+willingly turned my attention and studies to the work. But death, which
+takes everything, took from him his power of supervision and correction.
+His friends subsequently, after publishing the work, prevailed on me, by
+their claims rather than their requests, to undertake the Latin
+translation, and to complete after his death the task Dürer had laid
+upon me in his life.
+
+If I find that my industry and devotion in this matter meet with my
+readers' approval, I shall be encouraged to translate into Latin the
+rest of Albrecht's treatise on painting, a work at once more finished
+and more laborious than the present. Moreover, his writings on other
+subjects will also be looked for, his Geometries and Tichismatics, in
+which he explained the fortification of towns according to the system of
+the present day. These, however, appear to be all the subjects on which
+he wrote books. As to the promise, which I hear certain persons are
+making in conversation or in writing, to publish a book by Dürer on the
+symmetry of the parts of the horse, I cannot but wonder from what
+source they will obtain after his death what he never completed during
+his life. Although I am well aware that Albrecht had begun to
+investigate the law of truth in this matter too, and had made a certain
+number of measurements, I also know that he lost all he had done through
+the treachery of certain persons, by whose means it came about that the
+author's notes were stolen, so that he never cared to begin the work
+afresh. He had a suspicion, or rather a certainty, as to the source
+whence came the drones who had invaded his store; but the great man
+preferred to hide his knowledge, to his own loss and pain, rather than
+to lose sight of generosity and kindness in the pursuit of his enemies.
+We shall not, therefore, suffer anything that may appear to be
+attributed to Albrecht's authorship, unworthy as it must evidently be of
+so great an artist.
+
+A few years ago some tracts also appeared in German, containing rules,
+in general faulty and inappropriate, about the same matter. On these I
+do not care now to waste words, though the author, unless I am much
+mistaken, has not once repented of his publication. But these rules
+above-mentioned, which are easily proved to be Albrecht's, not only
+because he prepared them himself for publication, but also because of
+their own excellence, you will, I think, obtain considerably better here
+than from other sources. Not that they are more finished in point of
+erudition and learning in the present book than elsewhere, but because
+those who interpret them in the author's own workshop, among the
+expansions and corrections of his autograph manuscripts and the
+variations of his different copies, stand in the light about many
+points, which must of necessity seem obscure to others, however learned
+they may be.
+
+This will be seen in the case of the book on Geometry, which a learned
+man has in hand and will shortly publish in a more elaborate form, and
+with more explanation of certain points than it possesses at present.
+For it will be increased by no less than twenty-six [Greek: schêmata]
+(figures) and countless corrections or improvements of earlier editions.
+The author himself on rereading had thus improved and amplified what had
+already been issued. As though he foresaw that he would publish no more,
+he had directed his future editors as to what was to be done about the
+letterpress and figures; and we shall take care that it is published at
+the earliest possible date in the German language, in which the author
+wrote it. It is only to be expected that this will be welcome to the
+public, who will thus return thanks for the author's burning desire to
+do something by his discoveries for the public good, and for our own
+labour and eagerness in publishing to all nations what appears to be
+written only for one.
+
+Though these testimonies may often seem either trifling, or obscured by
+the pedantic affectation of the writers, they, like the signatures of
+well-respected men, endorse the impression produced by Dürer's works and
+writings. As we study the character of Dürer's creative gift in relation
+to his works, several of the phrases used by Erasmus, Camerarius, and
+Melanchthon should take added significance, being probably remembered
+from conversations with the great artist himself.[72] Dürer, like
+Luther, was depressed and distressed at the course the Reformation had
+run; but, like Erasmus, though regretting and disparaging the present,
+he looked forward to the future, and knew "that he would be surpassed,"
+and had no morbid inclination to see the end and final failure of human
+effort in his own exhaustion.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 70: B. 106, published in 1513. The block is in the Court
+Library at Vienna. Thawing says it was designed by Burgkmair or
+Springinklee.]
+
+[Footnote 71: "_Caput argutum_". The phrase is from Virgil's description
+of the thorough-bred horse (_Georg. iii_). The above passage is
+introduced (with modifications) into Melchior Adam's _Vitae Germ.
+Philos._ (p.66). where this sentence runs: "The deep-thinking,
+serene-souled artist was seen unmistakably in his _arched_ and _lofty_
+brow and in the fiery glance of his eye."]
+
+[Footnote 72: In the foregoing quotations the sentences which seem to me
+most reminiscent of Dürer's ideas are printed in italics.]
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+DÜRER AS A CREATOR
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DÜRER'S PICTURES
+
+
+I
+
+Dürer's paintings have suffered more by the malignity of fortune than
+any of his other works. Several have disappeared entirely, and several
+are but wrecks of what they once were. Others are, as he tells us,
+"ordinary pictures," of which "I will in a year paint a pile which no
+one would believe it possible for one man to do in the time," and are
+perhaps more the work of assistants than of the master. Others, again,
+have since been repainted, more or less disastrously. Yet enough remain
+to show us that Dürer was not a painter born, in the sense that Titian
+and Correggio or Rembrandt and Rubens are; nay, not even in the sense
+that a Jan Van Eyck or a Mantegna is. Mantegna is certainly the painter
+with whom Dürer has most affinity, and whose method of employing pigment
+is least removed from his; but Mantegna is a born colourist--a man whose
+eye for colour is like a musician's ear for melody--while Dürer is at
+best with difficulty able to avoid glaring discords, and, if we are to
+judge by the "ordinary pictures," did not avoid them. Again, Mantegna is
+not so dependent on line as Dürer--nearly the whole of whose surface is
+produced by hatching with the brush point. These facts may, perhaps,
+account for the large portion of Dürer's time devoted to engraving. As
+an engraver he early found a style for himself, which he continued to
+develop to the end of his life. As a painter he was for ever
+experimenting, influenced now by Jacopo de' Barbari, again by Bellini
+and the pictures he saw at Venice, and yet again by those he saw in the
+Netherlands. As Velasquez, after each of his journeys to Italy, returns
+to attempt a mythological picture in the grand style, so Dürer turns to
+painting after his return from Venice or from the Netherlands; and his
+pictures divide themselves into three groups: those painted after or
+during his _Wanderjahre_ and before he went to Venice in 1505, those
+painted there and during the next five years after his return, and those
+painted in the Netherlands or commenced immediately on his
+return thence.
+
+
+II
+
+The mediums of oil and tempera lend themselves to the production of
+broad-coloured surfaces that merge imperceptibly into one another. There
+are men the fundamental unit of whose picture language is a blot or
+shape; as children or as savages, they would find these most capable of
+expressing what they saw. There are others for whom the scratch or line
+is the fundamental unit, for whom every object is most naturally
+expressed by an outline. There are, of course, men who present us with
+every possible blend of these two fundamental forms of picture language.
+
+The mediums of oils and tempera are especially adapted to the
+requirements of those who see things rather as a diaper of shapes than
+as a map of lines; while for these last the point of pen, burin, or
+etching-needle offers the most congenial implement. Dürer was very
+greatly more inclined to express objects by a map of lines than as a
+diaper of coloured shapes; and for this reason I say that he was not a
+painter born. If this be true, as a painter he must have been at a
+disadvantage. In this preponderance of the draughtsman qualities he
+resembles many artists of the Florentine school, as also in his
+theoretic pre-occupation with perspective, proportion, architecture, and
+technical methods. We are impressed by a coldness of approach, an
+austerity, a dignity not altogether justified by the occasion, but as it
+were carried over from some precedent hour of spiritual elevation; the
+prophet's demeanour in between the days of visitation, a little too
+consciously careful not to compromise the divinity which informs him no
+longer. This tendency to fall back on manner greatly acquired indeed,
+but no longer consonant with the actual mood, which is really too vacant
+of import to parade such importance, is often a fault of natures whose
+native means of expression is the thin line, the geometer's precision,
+the architect's foresight in measurement. And by allowing for it I think
+we can explain the contradiction apparent between the critics' continual
+insistence on what they call Dürer's great thoughts, and the sparsity of
+intellectual creativeness which strikes one in turning over his
+engravings, so many are there of which either the occasion or the
+conception are altogether trivial when compared with the grandiose
+aspect of the composition or the impeccable mechanical performance.
+Dürer's literary remains sufficiently prove his mind to have been
+constantly exercised upon and around great thoughts, and their influence
+may be felt in the austerity and intensity of his noblest portraits and
+other creations. But "great thoughts" in respect of works of art either
+means the communication of a profound emotion by the creation of a
+suitable arabesque for a deeply significant subject, as in the flowing
+masses of Michael Angelo's _Creation of Man_, or it means the pictorial
+enhancing of the telling incidents of a dramatic situation such as we
+find it in Rembrandt's treatment of the Crucifixion, Deposition, or
+Entombment. Now it seems to me the paucity of successes on these lines
+in one who nevertheless occasionally entirely succeeds, is what is most
+striking in Dürer. Perhaps when dealing with the graphic arts one should
+rather speak of great character than great thoughts; yet Dürer, while
+constantly impressing us as a great character, seems to be one who was
+all too rarely wholly himself. The abundant felicity in expression of
+Rembrandt or Shakespeare is altogether wanting. The imperial imposition
+of mood which Michael Angelo affects is perhaps never quite certainly
+his, even in the _Melancholy_. Yet we feel that not only has he a
+capacity of the same order as those men, but that he is spiritually akin
+to them, despite his coldness, despite his ostentation.
+
+But not only is Dürer praised for "great thoughts," but he is praised
+for realism, and sometimes accused of having delighted in ugliness; or,
+as it is more cautiously expressed, of having preferred truth to grace.
+This is a point which I consider may better be discussed in respect to
+his drawings than his pictures, which nearly always have some obvious
+conventional or traditional character, so that the word realism cannot
+be applied to them. Even in his portraits his signature or an
+inscription is often added in such a manner as insists that this is a
+painting, a panel;--not a view through a window, or an attempt to
+deceive the eye with a make-believe reality.
+
+
+III
+
+The altar-piece, consisting of a centre, the Virgin Mary adoring her
+baby son in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, and two wings, St. Anthony
+and St. Sebastian, though the earliest of Dürer's pictures which has
+survived, is perhaps the most beautiful of them all, at least as far as
+the two wings are concerned. The centre has been considerably damaged by
+repainting, and was probably, owing to the greater complication of
+motives in it, never quite so successful. Whether at Venice or
+elsewhere, it would seem almost necessary that the young painter had
+seen and been impressed by pictures by Gentile Bellini and Andrea
+Mantegna, both of whom have painted in the same thin tempera on fine
+canvas, obtaining similar beauties of colour and surface. It is hardly
+possible to imagine one who had seen none but German or Flemish pictures
+painting the St. Sebastian. The treatment of the still life in the
+foreground is in itself almost a proof of this. Perhaps this thin, flat
+tempera treatment was that most suited to Dürer's native bias, and we
+should regret his having been tempted to overcome the more brilliant and
+exacting medium of oils. In any case he more than once reverted to it in
+portraits and studies, while the majority of the pictures painted before
+he went to Venice in 1506 have more or less kinship with it. The
+supposed portrait of Frederic the Wise is another masterpiece in this
+kind, and the _Hercules slaying the birds of the Stymphalian Lake_ in
+the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, 1500, was probably another. For though
+now considerably damaged by restorations and dirt, it suggests far
+greater pleasures than it actually imparts. The contrast between
+
+  "The sea-worn face sad as mortality,
+   Divine with yearning after fellowship,"
+
+and the blond richly curling hair blown back from it, is extremely fine
+and entirely suited to the treatment; as is also the similar contrast
+between the richly inlaid bow, shield, and arrows, and the broad and
+flowing modulation of the energetic limbs and back.
+
+The Paumgartner altar-piece, 1499, stands out from the "ordinary
+pictures" belonging to this early period. It consists of a charming and
+gay Nativity in the centre, and two knights in armour on the wings,
+probably portraits of the donors, Stephan and Lucas Paumgartner,
+figuring as warlike saints. Stephan, a personal friend of Dürer's,
+figured again as St. George in the _Trinity and All Saints_ picture
+painted in 1511. There were originally two panels with female saints
+beyond these again, but no trace of them remains. Now that the landscape
+backgrounds have been removed from the side panels, there is no reason
+to suppose that any one but Dürer had a hand in these works. But in
+writing to Heller, he tells him that it was unheard of to put so much
+work into an altar-piece as he was then putting into his _Coronation of
+the Virgin_, and we may feel certain that Dürer regarded this picture as
+in the altar-piece category. The two knights are represented against
+black grounds, and their silhouettes form a very fine arabesque, which
+the streamers of their lances, artificially arranged, complete and
+emphasise. This black ground points probably to the influence of Jacopo
+de' Barbari, whom Dürer had met and been mystified by. (See p. 63.)
+
+[Illustration: ST. GEORGE AND ST. EUSTACE Side panels in oils of the
+Paumgartner Altar-piece in the Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+No doubt there was much in such a background that appealed to the
+draughtsman in Dürer. It insisted on the outline which had probably been
+the starting-point of his conception. Nothing could be less
+painter-like, or make the modelling of figures more difficult, as Dürer,
+perhaps, realised when he later on painted the _Adam and Eve_ at Madrid.
+These two warriors are, however, most successful and imposing, and
+immeasurably enhanced now that the spurious backgrounds, artfully
+concocted out of Dürer's own prints by an ingenious improver of his
+betters, have been removed. This person had also tinkered the centre
+picture, painting out two heraldic groups of donors, far smaller in
+scale than the actual personages of the scene, but very useful in the
+composition, as giving a more ample base to the masses of broken and
+fretted quality; useful also now as an additional proof of how free from
+the fetters of an impertinent logic of realism Dürer ever was. These
+little kneeling donors and their coats of arms emphasise the surface,
+and are delightful in their naïvety, while they serve to render the gay,
+almost gaudy panel more homely, and give it a place and a function in
+the world. For they help us to realise that it answered a demand, and
+was not the uncalled-for and slightly frigid excursion of the aesthetic
+imagination which it must otherwise appear. In the same way the
+brilliant _Adoration of the Magi_ (dated 1504) in the Uffizi, also
+somewhat gaudy and frigid, could we but see it where it originally hung
+in Luther's church at Wittenberg, might invest itself with some charm
+that one vainly seeks in it now. The failure in emotion might seem more
+natural if we saw the wise Elector discussing his new purchase; we might
+have felt what Dürer meant when a year later he wrote from Venice: "I am
+a gentleman here and only a hanger-on at home." The expectation and
+prophecy of his success in those who surround a painter,--even if it be
+chiefly expressed by bitter rivalry, or the craft by which one greedy
+purchaser tries to over-reach another, even if he has to be careful not
+to eat at some tables for fear of being poisoned by a host whose
+ambition his present performance may have dashed--even expressed in this
+truly Venetian manner, the expectation and prophecy of his success in
+those about him make it easier for a painter to soar, and may touch his
+work with an indefinable glow that the approval of honest and astute
+electors or solid burghers may have been utterly powerless to impart.
+
+
+IV
+
+At Venice, perhaps the occasion for his journey thither, Dürer undertook
+a more important work than any he had yet attempted. _The Feast of the
+Rose Garlands_ was painted for the high altar of the church of San
+Bartolommeo, belonging to the German Merchants' Exchange, and close to
+their Pondaco.[73] In it we find a very considerable influence of Italy
+in general, and Giovanni Bellini in particular; it is a splendid and
+pompous parade piece, and probably the portraits of the German merchants
+which it contained were the part of the work which was most successful,
+as it was certainly that most congenial to Dürer's genius. The _Christ
+among the Doctors_, dated 1506, and now in the Barberini Palace at Rome,
+might seem to have been painted chiefly to justify Giovanni Bellini's
+astonishment at the calligraphical painting of hair. It is one of those
+pictures of which a literary description would please more than the work
+itself. Though the contrast between the sweet childish face and those of
+the old worldly scribes is well conceived, it is in reality so violent
+as to be grotesque, and the play of hands produces the effect of a
+diagram explanatory of a conjuring trick, or a deaf and dumb alphabet,
+instead of conveying the inner sense of the scene represented after
+Rossetti's fashion, who so often succeeded in making hands speak.
+Another work, which dates from Venice, is the little _Crucifixion_ (at
+Dresden.) Perhaps the landscape and suffering body are just sufficiently
+touched with acute emotion to make the arabesque of the two floating
+ends of the loin-cloth appear a little out of place; for in spite of the
+delicacy and all but tenderness which Dürer has for once attained to in
+the workmanship, one's satisfaction seems let and hindered.
+
+
+V
+
+Shortly after his return from Venice, Dürer completed two life-size
+panels representing Adam and Eve; there are drawings for them dated
+during his stay at Venice, but as a work of art they are far less
+interesting than the engraving of the same subject completed three years
+earlier. The treatment, even the conception, has been inadequately
+influenced by the proposed scale of the work. Probably they were like
+the earlier Hercules, done to please the artist himself rather than some
+patron; they are an effort to prove that he could do something which was
+after all too hard for him. Not only had he set himself the problem
+which the Greeks and Michael Angelo, and Raphael with their aid alone,
+had solved, of finding proportions suitable to express harmoniously the
+infinite capacity for complex motion combined with that constancy of
+intention which gives dignity to men and women alone among animals; but
+the technical problems involved in representing life-size nude figures
+against a plain black ground were indeed an unconscious confession that
+Dürer did not understand paint. There is a copy of these panels,
+recently attributed to Baldung Grien, in the Pitti. Animals and birds
+have been added from drawings made by Dürer, but the picture is still
+farther from success, though Grien may not improbably have executed it
+with Dürer at his elbow. Dürer made one more attempt at representing a
+life-size nude, the _Lucretia_, finished in 1518, at a period when his
+powers seem to have been clouded, for the few pictures which belong to
+it are all inferior. However, studies for the figure exist dated 1508,
+so we may suppose it was a project brought back from Venice. His
+ill-success with this subject may remind us of Shakespeare's long
+pedantic exercise in rhyme on the same theme. The pictorial motive of
+Dürer's work is beautiful and worthy of a Greek: indeed it is identical
+with that of Watts' _Psyche_, of which the version in private hands is
+very superior to that in the Tate Gallery. The position of the bed, the
+idea of the draperies all are parallel. No doubt the lonely feather shed
+from Love's wing at which Psyche gazes is both more of a poet's and of
+a painter's invention than the cold steel of Lucretia's dagger. And in
+spite of his wide knowledge of Greek and Italian art, our English master
+could scarcely have produced a work of such classic dignity with the
+more violent motive of the dagger, which seems to call for "The torch
+that flames with many a lurid flake," or at least the torpid glow of
+smouldering embers, to light it in such a manner as would make a really
+pictorial treatment possible. No doubt Dürer has been misled by a too
+tyrannous notion as to what ought to be the physical build of so chaste
+a matron, and in his anxiety to make chastity self-evident, has
+forgotten to explain the need for it by such a degree of attractiveness
+as might tempt a tyrant to be dangerous. Just as Shakespeare, in
+attempting to exhaust every possible motive which the situation
+comports, has forgotten that for a character that can move us a
+selection is needed. Another elaborate piece of frigid invention is the
+_Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints in the reign of Sapor II. of
+Persia_, in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, dated 1508. However, in this
+case no doubt Dürer could plead that the subject was not of his own
+choice, for he was commissioned by the Elector, Frederic the Wise, whose
+wisdom probably did not extend to a knowledge of what subjects lend
+themselves to pictorial treatment. Still, making every allowance for
+these facts, it cannot be admitted that Dürer did the best possible with
+his subject. Probably it did not move him, and neither does he us. Peter
+Breughel and Albrecht Altdorfer would certainly have done far better so
+far as the conception of the picture is concerned, though neither of
+them had so much skill to waste on its realisation. Nevertheless, this
+tour _de force_ is the picture of Dürer's most pleasing in surface and
+colour, with the exception of the Wings _of the Dresden Altar-piece_. It
+contains beautiful groups and figures, and is extremely well executed;
+so that it may amuse and delight the eye for a long time while the
+significance of the subject is forgotten.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF TEN THOUSAND SAINTS UNDER SAPOR II. OF
+PERSIA--Oil picture. "Iste faciebat anno domini 1508 Albertus Dürer
+Alemanus"]
+
+
+VI
+
+We now turn to the third and fourth of the half-dozen pictures of Dürer,
+which stand out from all the rest by their elaboration and importance.
+The _Coronation of the Virgin (see_ p. 97), painted as the centre panel
+of the altar-piece commissioned by Jacob Heller at Frankfort, was
+unfortunately burnt with the palace at Munich on the night of April 9,
+1674; the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria having forced or cajoled the
+Dominicans, to whose church Heller had left it, to sell it to him. It is
+now represented by a copy made by Paul Juvenal in its original position,
+where the almost ruined portraits of Heller and his wife are supposed to
+have been partly Dürer's, though the other panels are obviously the work
+of assistants. This work exists for us in a series of magnificent brush
+drawings in black and white line on grey paper, rather than in the copy,
+and we can in a measure imagine its appearance by the perfectly-
+preserved _Trinity and All Saints_ commenced immediately after
+it for Matthew Landauer, and now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna.
+Nothing can surpass this last picture in elaboration and finish; the
+colour, if not beautiful, is rich and luminous; and though it is
+separate faces and draperies which chiefly delight the eye, the
+composition of the whole is an adequate adaptation of the traditional
+treatment for such themes which had been handed down through the middle
+ages. It invites comparison rather with the similar subjects painted by
+Fra Angelico than with the _Disputa_ of Raphael, to which German critics
+compare it; however, it possesses as little of Angelico's sweet
+blissfulness as the Dominican painter possessed of Dürer's accuracy of
+hand and searching intensity of visual realisation. Both painters are
+interested in individuals, and, representing crowds of faces, make every
+one a portrait; both evince a dramatic sense of propriety in gesture,
+both revel in bright, clear colours, especially azure; but as the light
+in Dürer's masterpiece has a rosy hotness, which ill bears comparison
+with the virginal pearliness of Angelico's heaven, so the costumes and
+the figures of the Florentine are doll-like, when compared with the
+unmistakable quality of the stuffs in which the fully-resurrected bodies
+of Dürer's saints rumple and rustle. The wings of his angels are at
+least those of birds, though coloured to fancy, while Angelico's are of
+pasteboard tinsel and paint. But in spite of the comparative genuineness
+of his upholstery, as a vision of heaven there can be no hesitation in
+preferring that of the Florentine.
+
+In a frame designed by Dürer and carved under his supervision, this
+monument to thoroughness and skill was ensconced in a little chapel
+dedicated to All Saints, which in style approaches our Tudor buildings.
+There the frame remained till lately with a poor copy of the picture and
+an inscription in old German to this effect: ('Matthew Landauer
+completed the dedication of this chapel of the twelve brethren, together
+with the foundation attached to it, and this picture, in the year 1511
+after the birth of Christ,')
+
+Dürer signed his picture with the same Latin formula as that of the
+_Coronation_:
+
+"Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg did this the year from when the Virgin
+brought forth 1511."
+
+
+VII
+
+Of all Dürer's paintings of the Madonna, there is only one which, by its
+superb design, deserves special notice among his masterpieces. This
+_Madonna with the Iris_ exists in two versions, both unfinished; one the
+property of Sir Frederick Cook, the other at Prague, in the Rudolphium.
+This latter Mr. Campbell Dodgson considers to be a poor copy. The panel
+is badly cracked, and weeds and long grasses have been added, apparently
+with a view to masking the cracks. Judging from a photograph alone, many
+of these additions seem so appropriately placed and freely sketched that
+I feel it at least to be possibly a work by the master himself. On the
+other hand, Sir Frederick's picture is so sleepy and clumsy in handling,
+that though it is unfinished, and perhaps in part damaged by some
+restorer, I feel great hesitation in regarding it as Dürer's handiwork.
+In both cases the magnificent design is his, and that alone in either is
+fully representative of him. Mr. Campbell Dodgson ventures to criticise
+the profusion of drapery as excessive, but my feeling, I must confess,
+endorses Dürer's in this, rather than that of his learned critic. To me
+this profusion, and the grandeur it gives as a mass in the design, is of
+the very essence of what is most peculiarly creative in Dürer's
+imagination.
+
+The last picture of which it is necessary to speak is that of the _Four
+Apostles_ or the _Four Preachers_, as they have been more appropriately
+called; it was perhaps the last he painted, and is in many respects the
+most successful. It is the only one by which the comparison with
+Raphael, so dear to German critics, seems at all warranted: there is
+certainly some kinship between Dürer's St. John and St. Paul and
+apostolic figures in the cartoons or on the Vatican walls. The German
+artist's manner is less rhetorical, but his conception is hardly less
+grandiose; and his taste does not so closely border on over-emphasis,
+but neither is it so conscious or so fluent. Technically it seems to me
+that the chief influence is a recollection of the large canvases of Jan
+and Hubert Van Eyck and Hubert Van der Goes which Dürer had admired in
+the Netherlands; these had strengthened and directed the bias of his
+self-culture towards simple masses on a large scale.[74] He may very
+well have sought to combine what he learnt from them with hints he found
+in the engravings after Raphael which he obtained in Antwerp. His
+increasing sickness may probably account for the fact that the white
+mantle of St. Paul is the only portion quite finished. The assertion of
+the writing-master, Johann Neudörffer, who in his youth had known Dürer,
+that the four figures are typical of the four temperaments, the
+sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic,--into which
+categories an amateurish psychology arbitrarily divided human
+characters,--is as likely to be correct as it is certain that it adds
+nothing to the power and beauty of the presentation. Though Dürer in his
+work on human proportions describes the physical build of these
+different types, we do not know exactly what degree of precision he
+imagined it possible to attain in discerning them, or to what extent
+their names were merely convenient handles for certain types which he
+had chosen æsthetically. To us to-day this classification is merely a
+trace of an obsolete pedantry, which it would be a vain curiosity to
+attempt to follow with the object of identifying its imaginary bases.
+
+The four preachers have all the air of being striking likenesses of
+actual people which it is possible for work so broadly and grandly
+conceived to have. These panels are interesting, even more than by their
+actual success, as showing us what a scholar Dürer was to the end; how
+he learned from every defeat as well as every victory, and constantly
+approached a conception and a rendering of human beauty which seems
+intimately connected with man's fullest intellectual and spiritual
+freedom--a conception and rendering of human beauty which Raphael
+himself had to learn from the Greeks and Michael Angelo. The work has
+suffered, it is supposed, from restorers, and also from the Munich
+monarch, Maximilian, who had the tremendous texts (see page 177) which
+Dürer had inscribed beneath the two panels sawn off in order to spare
+the feelings of the Jesuits, who were dominant at his court, for their
+conception of religion did not consist with terrors to come for those
+who, abuse their trust as governors and directors of mankind.
+
+Lastly, mention must be made of Dürer's monochrome masterpiece, The Road
+to Calvary 15.27 (see illus.), in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook.
+A poor copy of this work is at Dresden, a better one at Bergamo. The
+effect of it, and several elaborate water-colour designs of the same
+class, is akin to the peculiar richness of chased metal work; glinting
+light hovers over crowds of little figures.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 73: The original, now in the Monastery of Strahow-Prague, is
+very much damaged, and in part repainted. There are copies in the
+Imperial Gallery at Vienna (No. 1508), and in the possession of A. W.
+Miller, Esq., of Sevenoaks. It is to be regretted that the Dürer Society
+published a photogravure of this latter work, which, though till then
+unknown, is far less interesting than the original, of which they only
+gave a reproduction in the text, an exhaustive history of its fortunes
+from the learned pen of Mr. Cambell Dodgson. This picture, which is so
+frequently referred to in the letters from Venice, contains portraits of
+the Emperor Maximilian and Pope Julius II., though neither of them from
+life, and in the background those of Dürer and Pirkheimer.]
+
+[Footnote 74: See what Melanchthon says, p. 187.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+DÜRER'S PORTRAITS
+
+
+I
+
+If Dürer's pictures are as a whole the least satisfactory section of his
+work, in his portraits he makes us abundant amends for the time he might
+otherwise have been reproached for wasting to obtain a vain mastery over
+brushes and pigment.
+
+Unfortunately it is probable that many even of these have been lost or
+destroyed, while of his most interesting sitters we have nothing but
+drawings. He did not paint his friend, the boisterous and learned
+Pirkheimer; and what would we not give for a painted portrait of
+Erasmus, or a portrait of Kratzer, the astronomer royal, to compare with
+the two masterpieces by Holbein in the Louvre? Even the posthumous
+portrait of his Imperial patron Maximilian is less interesting than the
+drawings from which it was done, the eccentric sitter not having the
+time to spare for so sensible a monument.
+
+[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST Pen drawing in dark brown ink at
+Erlangen (This drawing has been cut down for reproduction)]
+
+
+II
+
+However, Dürer had one sitter who was perhaps the most beautiful of all
+the sons of men, whose features combined in an equal measure nobleness
+of character, intellectual intensity and physical beauty; and, finding
+him also most patient and accessible, he painted him frequently. The two
+earliest portraits of himself are the drawings which show him at the
+ages of thirteen and nineteen(?) respectively (see illustration). Then,
+as a young man with a sprouting chin, we have the picture till recently
+at Leipzig of which Goethe's enthusiastic description has already been
+quoted (p. 62). It is probable that neither Titian nor Holbein could
+have shown at so early an age a portrait so admirably conceived and
+executed. It is a masterpiece, even now that the inevitable improvements
+which those who lack all relish of genius rarely lack the opportunity,
+never the inclination, to add to a masterpiece, have confused the
+drawing of the eyes, and reduced the bloom and delicacy that the
+features traced by a master hand, even when they become an almost
+complete wreck, often retain; for time and fortune are not so
+conscientiously destructive as the imbecility of the incapable. Next we
+have a portrait of Dürer when only five years older, in perfect
+preservation,--that in the Prado at Madrid. This charming picture must
+certainly have drawn a sonnet from the Shakespeare who wrote _Love's
+Labour Lost_, could he have seen it. For it presents a young dandy, the
+delicacy and sensitiveness of whose features seem to demand and warrant
+the butterfly-like display of the white and black costume hemmed with
+gold, and of a cap worthy to crown those flowing honey-coloured locks.
+There is a good copy of this delightful work in the Uffizi, where, in a
+congregation of self-painted artists, it does all but justice to the
+most beautiful of them all. For fineness of touch the original has never
+been surpassed by any hand of European or even Chinese master. Next
+there are the dapper little full-length portraits which Dürer inserted
+in his chief paintings. He stands beside his friend Pirkheimer at the
+back of the adoring crowd in the _Feast of the Roses_, and again in the
+midst of the mountain slope, where on all sides of them the ten thousand
+saints suffer martyrdom. Dürer stands alone beside an inscription in a
+gentle pastoral landscape beneath the vision of the Virgin's Assumption
+seen over the heads of the Apostles, who gaze up in rapture; and again
+he is alone beside a broad peaceful river beneath the vision of the Holy
+Trinity and All Saints. I know of no parallel to these little portraits.
+Rembrandt and Botticelli and many others have introduced portraits of
+themselves into religious pictures, but always in disguise, as a
+personage in the crowd or an actor in the scene. Only the master who was
+really most exceptional for his good looks, has had the kindness, in
+spite of every incongruity, to present himself before us on all
+important occasions, like the court beauty in whom it is charity rather
+than vanity to appear in public. It is expected that the very beautiful
+be gracious thus. Emerson tells us that two centuries ago the Town
+Council of Montpelier passed a law to constrain two beautiful sisters to
+sit for a certain time on their balcony every other day, that all might
+enjoy the sight of what was most beautiful in their town. It was one of
+the most gracious traits of Jeanne d'Arc's character that she liked to
+wear beautiful clothes, because it pleased the poor people to see her
+thus. And Palm Sunday commemorates another historical example of such
+grace and truth. Dürer's face had a striking resemblance to the
+traditional type for Jesus, adding to it just that element of individual
+peculiarity, the absence of which makes it ever liable to appear a
+little vacant and unconvincing. The perception of this would seem to
+have dictated the general arrangement of Dürer's crowning portrait of
+himself, that at Munich dated 1500 (see illus.), "Before which" (Mr.
+Ricketts writes in his recently published volume on the Prado) "one
+forgets all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is equal to the
+occasion." The most exhaustive visual power and executive capacity meet
+in this picture, which would seem to have traversed the many perils to
+which it has been exposed without really suffering so much as their
+enumeration makes one expect. Thausing tells us:
+
+The following is the story of the picture's wanderings, as told at
+Nuremberg. It was lent by the magistrates, after they had taken the
+precaution of placing a seal and strings on the back of the panel, to
+the painter and engraver Kügner, to copy. He, however, carefully sawed
+the panel in half (layer-wise) and glued to the authentic back his
+miserable copy, which now hangs in the Town Hall. The original he sold,
+and it eventually came into the possession of King Ludwig I., before
+Nuremberg belonged to Bavaria.
+
+[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl_ "I, Albert Dürer of Nuremberg, painted my
+own portrait here in the proper colours at the age of twenty-eight"
+Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+He suggests that the colour was once bright and varied, and that by
+varnish and glazes it has been reduced to its present harmonious
+condition. The hair is certainly much darker than the other portraits
+would have led one to expect, and the almost walnut brown of the general
+colour scheme is unique in Dürer's work. However, if some such
+transmogrification has been effected, it is marvellous that it should
+have obliterated so little of the inimitable handiwork of the master.
+Thausing considered the date (1500), monogram and inscription on the
+back to be forgeries, and it certainly looks as if it ought to come
+nearer to the portrait in the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ (1506) than
+to that at Madrid (1498). A genuine scalloped tablet is faintly visible
+under the dark glazes which cover the background; and this, no doubt,
+bears the original inscription and date. What may not have happened to a
+picture after or before it left the artist's studio? Critics are too
+quick to determine that such changes have been introduced by others. In
+this case we must remember how experimental Dürer was, even with regard
+to his engravings on metal. He tries iron plates and etching, and
+finally settles on a method of commencing with etching and finishing
+with the burin; and this was in a medium in which he soon found himself
+at home. But with painting he was vastly more experimental, and never
+satisfied with his results, as he told Melanchthon (see p. 187). Then we
+must remember that this picture probably was during Dürer's lifetime, if
+not in his own possession, at least never out of his reach; and no doubt
+he was aware that it was the grandest and most perfectly finished of all
+his portraits--therefore, as he came more and more, especially after his
+visit to the Netherlands, to desire and seek after simplicity, he may
+himself have added the dark glazes. If the original inscription
+contained a dedication to Pirkheimer or some other notable Nuremberger,
+there was every reason for the artist who stole the picture to
+obliterate this and add a new one: or this may have been done when it
+became the property of the town, for those who sold it may have wished
+that it should not be known that it might have been an heirloom in their
+family. Infinite are the possibilities, those only decide in such cases
+who have a personal motive for doing so; "la rage de conclure" (as
+Flaubert saw) is the pitfall of those who are vain of their knowledge.
+
+[Illustration: OSWOLT KREL Oil portrait in the Alt Pinakothek at Munich]
+
+[Illustration: _By permission_ of the "_Burlington_ Magazine" ALBERT
+DÜRER THE ELDER, 1497 National Gallery]
+
+
+III
+
+Though fearing that it will appear but tedious, I will now attempt
+briefly to describe in succession the remaining master portraits which
+we owe to Dürer, and the effect that each produces. It is by these works
+and not by his creative pictures that his ranks among the greatest names
+of painting. These might be compared with the very finest portraits by
+Raphael and Holbein, and the precedence would remain a question of
+personal predilection; since nothing reasoned, no distinguishable
+superiority over Dürer in vision or execution could be urged for either.
+Rather, if mere capacity were regarded, he must have the palm; nor did
+either of his compeers light upon a happier subject than was Dürer's
+when he represented himself; nor did they achieve nobler designs. In
+effect upon our emotions and sensations, these portraits may compete
+with the masterpieces of Titian and Rembrandt, though the method of
+expression is in their case too different to render comparison possible.
+Whatever in the glow of light, in the power of shadow, to envelop and
+enhance the features portrayed, is theirs and not his, his superiority
+of searching insight, united with its equivalent of unique facility in
+definition, seems more than to outweigh. Before he left for Venice,
+besides the renderings of himself already mentioned, Dürer had painted
+his father twice, in 1494 and in 1497. The latter was the pair to and
+compeer of his own portrait at Madrid,; and, hitherto unknown, was lent
+last year by Lord Northampton to the Royal Academy, and has since
+been bought for the National Gallery. This beautiful work is unique even
+among the works of the master, and is not so much the worse for
+repainting as some make out. The majority of Dürer's portraits stand
+alone. In each the Esthetic problem has been approached and solved in a
+strikingly different manner. This picture and its fellow, the portrait
+of the painter at Madrid, the _Oswolt Krel_, the portrait of a lady seen
+against the sea at Berlin, the _Wolgemut_, and Dürer's own portrait at
+Munich, though seen by the same absorbing eyes, are rendered each in
+quite a different manner. No man has ever been better gifted for
+portraying a likeness than Dürer; but the absence of a native
+comprehension of pigment made him ever restless, and it might be
+possible to maintain that each of these pictures presented us with a
+differing strategy to enforce pigment, to subserve the purposes of a
+draughtsman. Still this would seem to imply a greater sacrifice of ease
+and directness than those brilliant masterpieces can be charged with.
+They none of them lack beauty of colour, of surface, or of handling,
+though each so unlike the other. In this portrait of his father, Dürer
+has developed a shaken brushline, admirably adapted to suggest the
+wrinkled features of an old man, but in complete contrast to the rapid
+sweep of the caligraphic work in the _Oswolt Krel_; and it is to be
+noticed how in both pictures the touch seems to have been invented to
+facilitate the rendering of the peculiar curves and lines of the
+sitter's features, and further variations of it developed to express the
+draperies and other component parts of the picture. It is this
+inventiveness in handling which most distinguishes Dürer from painters
+like Raphael and Holbein, and makes his work comparable with the
+masterpieces of Rembrandt and Titian, in spite of the extreme
+opposition in aspect between their work and his.
+
+The noble portrait of a middle-aged man, No. 557c, in the Royal Gallery
+at Berlin, (supposed to represent Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony,
+Dürer's first patron), gives us a master portrait, in which the
+technical treatment is comparable to that of the early triptych at
+Dresden, and which is a monument of sober power and distinction, though
+again very difficult to compare with the other splendid portraits by the
+same hand which hang beside or near it in that Gallery.
+
+The vivid _Oswolt Krel_ at Munich shows the peculiarity of Dürer's
+caligraphic touch better than perhaps any other of his portraits. The
+finish is not carried so far as in the Madrid portrait of himself, where
+even the texture of the gloves has been softened by touches of the
+thumb, and the absence of these extra refinements leaves it the most
+spontaneous and vigorously bold of all Dürer's paintings. The
+concentrated energy of the sitter's features demanded such a treatment;
+he seems to burn with the inconsiderate atheism of a Marlowe. Young, and
+less surprised than indignant to be alone awake in a sleepy and bigoted
+world, he seems convinced of a mission to chastise, _even_ to scandalise
+his easy-going neighbours. Let us hope he met with better luck than the
+Marlowes, Shelleys, and Rimbauds, whose tragedies we have read; for one
+can but regret, as one meets his glance so much fiercer than need be,
+that he is not known to history.
+
+[Illustration: Oil Portrait of a Lady seen against the Sea In the Berlin
+Gallery]
+
+[Illustration: Oil portrait, dated 1506, at Hampton Court]
+
+The fine portrait of Hans Tucher, 1499, in the Grand Ducal Museum at
+Weimar should, judging from a photograph alone, be mentioned here. It
+has obvious affinities with the _Oswolt Krel_, but the caligraphic
+method is again modified in harmony with the character of the
+sitter's features. The companion piece, representing Felicitas Tucherin,
+would seem at some period to have been restored to the insignificance
+and obscurity that belonged to the sitter before Dürer painted her.
+
+
+IV
+
+The portraits which Dürer painted at Venice, or soon after his return,
+betray the influence of other masterpieces on his own. Mr. Ricketts has
+pointed to that of Antonello da Messina in the portraits of young men at
+Vienna (1505) and at Hampton Court (1506). The former of these has an
+allegorical sketch of Avarice, painted on the back in a thick impasto,
+such as seems almost a presage of after developments of the Venetian
+school, and may possibly show the influence of some early experiment by
+Giorgione which Dürer wished to show that he could imitate if he liked.
+The latter represents a personage who appears on the left of the _Feast
+of Rose Wreaths_ in exactly the same cap and with the same fastening to
+his jerkin, crossing his white shirt (see illustration opposite).
+
+Not improbably Dürer may have painted separate portraits of nearly all
+the members of the German Guild at Venice who appear in the _Rose
+Garlands_. In any case much of his work during his stay there has
+disappeared. It was here that he painted that beautiful head of a woman
+(No. 557 G in the Berlin Gallery) with soft, almost Leonardesque
+shadows, seen against the luminous hazy sea and sky, which remains
+absolutely unique in method and effect among his works, and makes one
+ask oneself unanswerable questions as to what might not have been the
+result if he could but have brought himself to accept the offered
+citizenship and salary, and stop on at Venice. A Dürer, not only
+secluded from Luther and his troubling denunciations, but living to see
+Titian and Giorgione's early masterpieces, perhaps forming friendships
+with them, and later visiting Rome, standing in the Sistine Chapel,
+seated in the Stanze between the School of Athens and the Disputa! I at
+least cannot console myself for these missed opportunities, as so many
+of his critics and biographers have done, by saying that doubtless had
+he stayed he would have been spoiled like those second-class German and
+Dutch painters, for whom the siren art of Italy proved a baneful
+influence. One could almost weep to think of what has been probably lost
+to the world because Dürer could not bring himself to stay on at Venice.
+It _was_ here he painted the tiny panel representing the head of a girl
+in gay apparel dated 1507 (in the Berlin Gallery), that makes one think,
+even more than do Holbein's _Venus_ and _Lais_ at Basle, of the triumphs
+that were reserved for Italians in the treatment of similar subjects.
+
+After his return the influence of Venetian methods gradually waned, till
+we find in the masterly and refined portrait of _Wolgemut_ (1516) (see
+illustration); something of a return to the caligraphic method so
+noticeable in the _Oswolt Krel_. About the same time Dürer recommenced
+painting in tempera in a manner resembling the early Dresden _Madonna_
+and the _Hercules_, as we see by the rather unpleasant heads of Apostles
+in the Uffizi and the tine one of an old man in a vermilion cap in the
+Louvre, &c. &c.
+
+[Illustration: _Bruckmann_--"Albrecht Dürer took this likeness of his
+master, Michael Wolgemut, in the year 1516, and he was 82 years of age,
+and lived to the year 1519, and then departed on Saint Andrew's Day,
+very early before sunrise"--Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+[Illustration: HANS IMHOF (?)--From the painting in the Royal Gallery
+at Madrid--(By permission _of Messrs. Braun, Clément & Co., Dornach
+(Alsace), Paris and New York_)]
+
+
+V
+
+On his arrival at Antwerp in 1521 Dürer commenced the third and last
+group of master-portraits; foremost is the superb head and bust at
+Madrid, supposed to represent Hans Imhof, a patrician of Dürer's native
+town and his banker while at Antwerp; of the same date are the
+triumphant renderings of the grave and youthful Bernard van Orley (at
+Dresden) and that of a middle-aged man--lost for the National Gallery,
+and now in the possession of Mrs. Gardner, of Boston. All three were
+probably painted at Antwerp.
+
+It may be that the portrait of Imhof and the report of the honours and
+commissions showered on their painter while in the Netherlands, woke the
+Nuremberg Councillors up, for we have portraits of three of them dated
+1526--Jacob Muffel, Hieronymus Holzschuher, (both in the Royal Gallery,
+Berlin,) and the eccentric and unpleasing medallion representing
+Johannes Kleeberger, at Vienna. With the exception of this last, this
+group is composed of masterpieces absolutely unrivalled for intensity
+and dignity of power. Van Eyck painted with inhuman indifference a few
+ugly grotesque but otherwise uninteresting people. All but a very few of
+Holbein's best portraits pale before these instances of searching
+insight; and, north of the Alps at least, there are no others which can
+be compared to them. The _Hans Imhof_ shows a shrewd and forbidding
+schemer for gain on a large scale--a face which produces the impression
+of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent,
+seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon
+its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first
+and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The unknown
+master who is represented in Mrs. Gardner's beautiful picture is less
+forbidding, though not less patently a moulder of destiny. _Jacob
+Muffel_ has a more open face, a more serene gaze; but his mouth too has
+the firmness acquired by those who live always in the presence of
+enemies, or are at least aware that "a little folding of the hands" may
+be fatal to all their most cherished purposes. The last of these masters
+of themselves and of their fortunes in hazardous and change-fraught
+times is _Hieronymus Holzschuher_, Dürer's friend. Only less felicitous
+because less harmonious in colour than the three former, this vivacious
+portrait of a ruddy, jovial, and white-haired patrician seen against a
+bright blue background might produce the effect of a Father Christmas,
+were it not for the resolute mouth and the puissant side-glance of the
+eyes. Bernard van Orley, the only youthful person immortalised in this
+group, has a gentle, responsible air which his features are a little too
+heavy to enhance.
+
+I have now mentioned the chief of his portraits, which are the best of
+his painting, and by which he ranks for the directness and power of his
+workmanship and of his visual analysis in the company of the very
+greatest. Raphael and Holbein have alone produced portraits which, as
+they can be compared to Dürer's, might also be held to rival them;
+Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reynolds have done as
+splendidly, but the material they used and the aims they set themselves
+were too different to make a comparison serviceable. These men are
+pre-eminent among those who have produced portraits which, while
+unsurpassed for technical excellences, present to us individuals whose
+beauty or the character it expresses are equally exceptional.
+
+[Illustration: "JAKOB MUFFEL" Oil portrait in the Berlin Gallery]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DÜRER'S DRAWINGS
+
+
+I
+
+Perhaps Dürer is more felicitous as a draughtsman than in any other
+branch of art. The power of nearly all first-rate artists is more wholly
+live and effective in their drawings than in elaborated works. Dürer
+himself says:
+
+An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great
+power and art in small things, roughly and rudely done, than many
+another in his great work. Powerful artists alone will understand that
+in this strange saying I speak truth. For this reason a man may often
+draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day, or cut
+it with his graver on a small block of wood, and it shall be fuller of
+art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole
+year's careful labour.
+
+But it is possible to go far beyond this and say not only "another's
+great work," but his own great work.
+
+In the first chapter of this work I said that the standard in works of
+art is not truth but sincerity; that if the artist tells us what he
+feels to be beautiful, it does not matter how much or how little
+comparison it will bear with the actual objects represented. And from
+this fact, that sincerity not truth is of prime importance in matters of
+expression, results the strange truth that Dürer says will be
+recognised by powerful artists alone (see page 227). Any one who
+recognises how often the sketches and roughs of artists, especially of
+those who are in a peculiar degree creators, excel their finished works
+in those points which are the distinctive excellences of such men, will
+grant this at once. Only to turn to the sketch (inscribed _Memento Mei
+1505_) of _Death_ on horseback with a scythe, or the pen-portrait of
+Dürer leaning on his hand, will be enough to convince those who alone
+can be convinced on these points. For any who need to explain to
+themselves the character of such sketches--as the authoress of a recent
+little book on Dürer does that of the pen drawing "in which the boy's
+chin rests on his hand" by telling us that "it is unfinished and was
+evidently discarded as a failure,"--any who must be at such pains in a
+case of this sort is one of those who can never understand wherein the
+great power of a work of art resides. Such people may get great pleasure
+from works of art; only I am content to remain convinced that the
+pleasure they get has no kind of kinship with that which I myself
+obtain, or that which the greatest artists most constantly seek to give.
+This marvellous portrait of himself as a lad of from seventeen to
+nineteen years of age is just one of those things "roughly and rudely
+done," of which Dürer speaks. There is probably no parallel to it for
+mastery or power among works produced by artists so youthful.
+
+[Illustration: Study of a hound for the copper engraving "St. Eustache."
+B. 57 Brush drawing at Windsor]
+
+There is often some virtue in spontaneity which is difficult to define;
+perhaps it bears more convincing witness to the artist's integrity than
+slower and longer labours, from which it is difficult to ward all
+duplicity of intention. The finishing-touch is too often a Judas' kiss.
+"Blessed are the pure in heart" is absolutely true in art. (Of course,
+I do not use purity in the narrow sense which is confined to avoidance
+of certain sensual subjects and seductive intentions.) It is only
+poverty of imagination which taboos subject-matter, and lack of charity
+that believes there are themes which cannot be treated with any but
+ignoble intentions. But the virtue in a spontaneous drawing is akin to
+that single devotion to whatever is best, which true purity is; as the
+refinement of economy which results in the finished work is akin to that
+delicate repugnance to all waste, which is true chastity. A sketch by
+Rembrandt of a naked servant girl on a bed is as "simple as the infancy
+of truth"--as single in intention. A Greek statue of a raimentless
+Apollo is pre-eminently chaste. But it does not follow that Rembrandt
+was in his life eminently pure, or the Greek sculptor signal for
+chastity. Drawings rapidly executed have often a lyrical, rapturous,
+exultant purity, and are for that reason, to those whose eyes are
+blinded neither by prejudice nor by misfortune, as captivating as are
+healthy, gleeful children to those whose hearts are free. And while the
+joy that a child's glee gives is for a time, that which a drawing gives
+may well be for ever.
+
+We say a "spirited sketch" as we say "a spirited horse"; but works of
+art are instinct with a vast variety of spirits and exert manifold
+influences. It is a poverty of language which has confined the use of
+this word to one of the most obvious and least estimable. It can be
+never too much insisted on that a work of art is something that exerts
+an influence, and that its whole merit lies in the quality and degree of
+the influence exerted; for those who are not moved by it, it is no more
+than a written sentence to one who cannot read.
+
+
+II
+
+Many people in turning over a collection of Dürer's drawings would be
+constantly crying, "How marvellously realistic!" and would glow with
+enthusiasm and smile with gratitude for the perception which these words
+expressed. Others would say "merely realistic"; and the words would
+convey, if not disapprobation for something shocking, at least
+indifference. In both cases the word "realistic" would, I take it, mean
+that the objects which the pen, brush, or charcoal strokes represented
+were described with great particularity. And in the first case delight
+would have been felt at recognising the fulness of detailed information
+conveyed about the objects drawn--that each drawing represented not a
+generalisation, but an individual. In the other case the mind would have
+been repelled by the infatuated insistence on insignificant or
+negligible details, the absence of their classification and
+subordination to ideas. The first of these two frames of mind is that of
+Paul Pry, who is delighted to see, to touch, or behold, for whom
+everything is a discovery; and there are members of this class of
+temperament who in middle life continue to make the same discoveries
+every day with zest and a wonder equal to that which they felt when
+children. The second of these frames of mind is that of the man with a
+system or in search of a system, who desires to control, or, if he
+cannot do that, at least to be taken into the confidence of the
+controller, or to gain a position from which he can oversee him, and
+approve or disapprove. Now neither of these judgments is in itself
+aesthetic, or implies a comprehension of Dürer as an artist.
+
+[Illustration: ME-ENTO MEI, 1505. From the drawing in the British
+Museum]
+
+The man who cries out: "Just look how that is done!" "Who could have
+believed a single line could have expressed so much?" judges as an
+artist, a craftsman. The man who, like Jean Francois Millet, exclaims:
+"How fine! How grand! How delicate! How beautiful!" judges as a creator.
+He sees that "it is good." An artist--a creator--may possess either or
+even both the two former temperaments; but as an artist he must be
+governed by the latter two, either singly or combined. Dürer, doubtless,
+had a considerable share in all four of these points of view. He
+delighted in objects as such, in the new and the strange as new and
+strange, in the intricate as intricate, in the powerful as powerful. And
+above all in his drawings does he manifest this direct and childish
+interest and curiosity. He was also in search of a system, of an
+intellectual key or plan of things; and in the many drawings he devoted
+to explaining or developing his ideas of proportion, of perspective, of
+architecture, he shows this bias strongly. But nearly every drawing by
+him, or attributed to him, manifests the third of these temperaments.
+The never-ceasing economy and daring of the invention displayed in his
+touch, or, as he would have said, "in his hand," is almost as signal as
+his perfect assurance and composure. And when one reflects that he was
+not, like Rembrandt, an artist who made great or habitual use of the
+spaces of shade and light, but that his workmanship is almost entirely
+confined to the expressive power of lines, wonder is only increased. Of
+the fourth character that creates and estimates value, though in certain
+works Dürer rises to supreme heights, though in almost all his important
+works he appeases expectation, yet often where he could surely have done
+much better he seems to have been content not to exert his rarest
+gifts, but rather to play with or parade those that are secondary. Not
+only is this so in drawings like the _Dance of Monkeys_ at Basle, done
+to content his friend the reformer Felix Frey (see page 168), and in the
+borders designed to amuse Maximilian during the hours that custom
+ordained he should pretend to give to prayer; but there are drawings
+which were not apparently thrown as sops to the idleness of others, but
+done to content some half-vacant mood of his own (see Lippmann, 41, 83,
+394, 4.20, 333).
+
+In such drawings the economy and daring of the strokes is always
+admirable, can only be compared to that in drawings by Rembrandt and
+Hokusai; but the occasion is often idle, or treated with a condescension
+which well-nigh amounts to indifference. There is no impressiveness of
+allure, no intention in the proportions or disposition on the paper such
+as Erasmus justly praised in the engravings on copper, probably
+recollecting something which Dürer himself had said (see page 186).
+
+Yet in his portrait heads the right proportions are nearly always found;
+and in many cases I believe it is no one but the artist himself who has
+cut down such drawings after they were completed, to find a more
+harmonious or impressive proportion (see illustration opposite). And
+often these drawings are as perfect in the harmony between the means
+employed and the aspect chosen, and in the proportion between the head
+and the framing line and the spaces it encloses, as Holbein himself
+could have made them; while they far surpass his best in brilliancy and
+intensity.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing in black chalk heightened with white on reddish
+ground Formerly in the collection at Warwick Castle]
+
+[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on prepared grey ground, in the
+collection of Frederick Locker, Esq.]
+
+
+III
+
+Something must be said of Dürer's employment of the water-colours,
+pen-and-ink, silver-point, charcoal, chalk, &c., with which he made his
+drawings. He is a complete master of each and all these mediums, in so
+far as the line or stroke may be regarded as the fundamental unit; he is
+equally effective with the broad, soft line of chalk (see illustration,
+page I.), or the broad broken charcoal line (see illustration, page
+II.), as with the fine pen stroke (see illustration, page III.), the
+delicate silver-point (see illustration, page IV.), or the supple and
+tapering stroke produced by the camel's hair brush (see illustration,
+page V.). But when one comes to broad washes, large masses of light and
+shade, the expression of atmosphere, of bloom, of light, he is wanting
+in proportion as these effects become vague, cloudy, indefinite,
+mist-like. His success lies rather in the definite reflections on
+polished surfaces; he never reproduces for us the bloom on peach or
+flesh or petal. He does not revel, like Rembrandt, in the veils and
+mysteries of lucent atmosphere or muffling shadow. The emotions for
+which such things produce the most harmonious surroundings he hardly
+ever attempts to appeal to; he is mournful and compassionate, or
+indignant, for the sufferings, of his Man of Sorrows; not tender,
+romantic, or awesome. Only with the tapering tenuity and delicate spring
+of the pure line will he sometimes attain to an infantile or virginal
+freshness that is akin to the tenderness of the bloom on flowers, or the
+light of dawn on an autumn morning.[75]
+
+In the same way, when he is tragic, it is not with thick clouds rent in
+the fury of their flight, or with the light from shaken torches cast and
+scattered like spume-flakes from the angry waves; nor is it with the
+accumulated night that gives intense significance to a single tranquil
+ray. Only by a Rembrandt, to whom these means are daily present, could a
+subject like the _Massacre of the Ten Thousand_ have been treated with
+dramatic propriety; unless, indeed, Michael Angelo, in a grey dawn,
+should have twisted and wrung with manifold pain a tribe of giants,
+stark, and herded in some leafless primeval valley. With Dürer the
+occasion was merely one on which to coldly invent variations, as though
+this human suffering was a motive for _an_ arabesque. Yet even from the
+days when he copied Andrea Mantegna's struggling sea-monsters, or when
+he drew the stern matured warrior angels of his Apocalypse fighting,
+with their historied faces like men hardened by deceptions practised
+upon them, like men who have forbidden salt tears and clenched their
+teeth and closed their hearts, who see, who hate; even from these early
+days, the energy of his line was capable of all this, and his
+spontaneous sense of arabesque could become menacing and explosive.
+There are two or three drawings of angry, crying cupids (Lipp., 153 and
+446, see illustration opposite), prepared for some intended picture of
+the Crucifixion, where he has made the motive of the winged infants
+head, usually associated with bliss and scattered rose-leaves, become
+terrible and stormy. And the _Agony in the Garden_, etched on iron,
+contains a tree tortured by the wind (see illustration), as marvellous
+for rhythm, power, and invention as the blast-whipped brambles and naked
+bushes that crest a scarped brow above the jealous husband who stabs his
+wife, in Titian's fresco at Padua. Again, the unspeakable tragedy of the
+stooping figure of Jesus, who is being dragged by His hair up the steps
+to Annas' throne, in the _Little Passion_, is rendered by lines instinct
+with the highest dramatic power. These are a draughtsman's creations;
+though they are less abundant in Dürer's work than one could wish, still
+only the greatest produce such effects; only Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Rembrandt can be said to have equalled or surpassed Dürer in this kind,
+rarely though it be that he competes with them.
+
+[Illustration: CHERUB FOR A CRUCIFIXION Black chalk drawing heightened
+with white on a blue-grey paper In the collection of Herr Doctor
+Blasius, Brunswick]
+
+It is for the intense energy of his line, combined with its unique
+assurance, that Dürer is most remarkable. The same amount of detail, the
+same correctness in the articulation and relation between stem and leaf,
+arm and hand, or what not, might be attained by an insipid workmanship
+with lifeless lines, in patient drudgery. It is this fact that those who
+praise art merely as an imitation constantly forget. There is often as
+much invention in the way details are expressed by the strokes of pen or
+brush, as there could be in the grouping of a crowd; the deftness, the
+economy of the touches, counts for more in the inspiriting effect than
+the truth of the imitation. A photograph from nature never conveys this,
+the chief and most fundamental merit of art. Reynolds says:
+
+Rembrandt, in older to take advantage of an accident, appears often to
+have used the pallet-knife to lay his colours on the canvas instead of
+the pencil. Whether it is the knife or any other instrument, _it
+suffices, if it is something that does not follow exactly the will.
+Accident, in the hands of_ an artist _who knows horn to take the
+advantage of its hints, will often produce bold and capricious beauties
+of handling_, and facility such as he would not have thought of or
+ventured with his pencil, under the regular restraint of his hand.[76]
+
+In such a sketch as the _Memento Mei_, 1505, (_Death_ riding on
+horseback,) all those who have sense for such things will perceive how
+the rough paper, combined with the broken charcoal line, lends itself to
+qualities of a precisely similar nature to those described by Reynolds
+as obtained by Rembrandt's use of the pallet-knife. Yet, just as, in the
+use of charcoal, the "something that does not follow exactly the will"
+is infinitely more subtle than in the use of the palette-knife to
+represent rocks or stumps of trees, so in the pen or silver-point line
+this element, though reduced and refined till it is hardly perceptible,
+still exists, and Dürer takes "the advantage of its hints." And not only
+does he do' this, but he foresees their occurrence, and relies on them
+to render such things as crumpled skin, as in the sketches for Adam's
+hand holding the apple. (Lipp. 234). The operation is so rapid, so
+instantaneous, that it must be called an instinct, or at least a habit
+become second nature, while in the instance chosen by Reynolds, it is
+obvious and can be imagined step by step; but in every case it is this
+capacity to take advantage of the accident, and foresee and calculate
+upon its probable occurrences, that makes the handling of any material
+inventive, bold, and inimitable. It is in these qualities that an artist
+is the scholar of the materials he employs, and goes to school to the
+capacities of his own hand, being taught both by their failure to obey
+his will here, and by their facility in rendering his subtlest
+intentions there. And when he has mastered all they have to teach him,
+he can make their awkwardness and defects expressive; as stammerers
+sometimes take advantage of their impediment so that in itself it
+becomes an element of eloquence, of charm, or even of explicitness;
+while the extra attention rendered enables them to fetch about and dare
+to express things that the fluent would feel to be impossible and
+never attempt.
+
+[Illustration: APOLLO AND DIANA--Pen drawing in the British Museum,
+supposed to show the influence of the Belvedere Apollo]
+
+
+IV
+
+Lastly, it is in his drawings, perhaps, even more than in his copper
+engravings, that Dürer proves himself a master of "the art of seeing
+nature," as Reynolds phrased it; and the following sentence makes clear
+what is meant, for he says of painting "perhaps it ought to be as far
+removed from the vulgar idea of imitation, as the refined, civilised
+state in which we live is removed from a gross state of nature";[77] and
+again: "If we suppose a view of nature, represented with all the truth
+of the camera obscura, and the same scene represented by a great artist,
+how little and how mean will the one appear in comparison of the other,
+where no superiority is supposed from the choice of the subject."[78]
+Not only is outward nature infinitely varied, infinitely composite; but
+human nature--receptive and creative--is so too, and after we have gazed
+at an object for a few moments, we no longer see it the same as it was
+revealed to our first glance. Not only has its appearance changed for
+us, but the effect that it produces on our emotions and intelligence is
+no longer the same. Each successful mind, according to its degree of
+culture, arrives finally at a perception of every class of objects
+presented to it which is most in agreement with its own nature--that is,
+calls forth or nourishes its most cherished energies and efforts, while
+harmonising with its choicest memories. All objects in regard to which
+it cannot arrive at such a result oppress, depress, or even torment it.
+At least this is the case with our highest and most creative moods; but
+every man of parts has a vast range of moods, descending from this to
+the almost vacant contemplation of a cow--the innocence of whose eye,
+which perceives what is before it without transmuting it by recollection
+or creative effort, must appear almost ideal to the up-to-date critic
+who has recently revealed the innocent confusion of his mind in a
+ponderous tome on nineteenth-century art. The art of seeing nature,
+then, consists in being able to recognise how an object appears in
+harmony with any given mood; and the artist must employ his materials to
+suggest that appearance with the least expenditure of painful effort.
+The highest art sees all things in harmony with man's most elevated
+moods; the lowest sees nature much as Dutch painters and cows do. Now we
+can understand what Goethe means when he says that "Albrecht Dürer
+enjoyed the advantages of a profound realistic perception, and an
+affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions." The man who
+continued to feel, after he had become a Lutheran, the beauty of the art
+that honoured the Virgin, the man who cannot help laughing at the most
+"lying, thievish rascals" whenever they talk to him because "they know
+that their knavery is no secret, but 'they don't mind,'" is
+affectionate; he is amused by monkeys and the rhinoceros; he can bear
+with Pirkheimer's bad temper; he looks out of kindly eyes that allow
+their perception of strangeness or oddity to redeem the impression that
+might otherwise have been produced by vice, or uncouthness, or
+sullen frowns.
+
+I have supposed that a realistic perception was one which saw things
+with great particularity; and the words "a profound realistic
+perception" to Goethe's mind probably conveyed the idea of such a
+perception, in profound accord with human nature, that is where the
+human recognition, delight and acceptance followed the perception even
+to the smallest details, without growing weary or failing to find at
+least a hope of significance in them. If this was what the great critic
+meant, those who turn over a collection of Dürer's drawings will feel
+that they are profoundly realistic (realistic in a profoundly human
+sense), and that their author enjoyed an affectionate human sympathy
+with all present conditions; and by these two qualities is infinitely
+distinguished from all possessors of so-called innocent eyes, whether
+quadruped or biped.
+
+It is well to notice wherein this notion of Goethe's differs from the
+conventional notions which make up everybody's criticism. For instance,
+"In all his pictures he confined himself to facts," says Sir Martin
+Conway,[79] and then immediately qualifies this by adding, "He painted
+events as truly as his imagination could conceive them." We may safely
+say that no painter of the first rank has ever confined himself to
+facts. Nor can we take the second sentence as it stands. Any one who
+looks at the _Trinity_ in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna will see at
+once that the artist who painted it did not shut his eyes and try to
+conjure up a vision of the scene to be represented; the ordering of the
+picture shows plainly throughout that a foregone conventional
+arrangement, joined with the convenience of the methods of
+representation to be employed, dictated nearly the whole composition,
+and that the details, costumes, &c., were gradually added, being chosen
+to enhance the congruity or variety of what was already given. Perhaps
+it was never a prime object with Dürer to conceive the event, it was
+rather the picture that he attempted to conceive; it is Rembrandt who
+attempts to conceive events, not Dürer. He is very far from being a
+realist in this sense: though certain of his etchings possess a
+considerable degree of such realism, it is not what characterises him as
+a creator or inventor. But a "profound realistic perception" almost
+unequalled he did possess; what he saw he painted not as he saw it, not
+where he saw it, but as it appeared to him to really be. So he painted
+real girls, plain, ugly or pretty as the case might be, for angels, and
+put them in the sky; but for their wings he would draw on his fancy.
+Often the folds of a piece of drapery so delighted him that they are
+continued for their own sake and float out where there is no wind to
+support them, or he would develop their intricacies beyond every
+possibility of conceivable train or other superfluity of real garments;
+and it is this necessity to be richer and more magnificent than
+probability permits which brings us to the creator in Dürer; not only
+had he a profound realistic perception of what the world was like, but
+he had an imagination that suggested to him that many things could be
+played with, embroidered upon, made handsomer, richer or more
+impressive. When Goethe adds that "he was retarded by a gloomy fantasy
+devoid of form or foundation," we perceive that the great critic is
+speaking petulantly or without sufficient knowledge. Dürer's gloomy
+fantasy, the grotesque element in his pictures and prints, was not his
+own creation, it is not peculiar to him, he accepted it from tradition
+and custom (see Plate "Descent into Hell"). What is really
+characteristic of him is the richness displayed in devils' scales and
+wings, in curling hair or crumpled drapery, or flame, or smoke, or
+cloud, or halo; and, still more particularly, his is the energy of line
+or fertility of invention with which all these are displayed, and the
+dignity or austerity which results from the general proportion of the
+masses and main lines of his composition.
+
+
+V
+
+For the illustration of this volume I have chosen a larger proportion of
+drawings than of any other class of work; both because Dürer's drawings
+are less widely known than his engravings on metal, and because, though
+his fame may perhaps rest almost equally on these latter, and they may
+rightly be considered more unique in character, yet his drawings show
+the splendid creativeness of his handling of materials in greater
+variety. One engraving on copper is like another in the essential
+problem that it offered to the craftsman to resolve; but every different
+medium in which Dürer made drawings, and every variety of surface on
+which he drew, offered a different problem, and perhaps no other artist
+can compare with him in the great variety of such problems which he has
+solved with felicity. And this power of his to modify his method with
+changing conditions is, as we have seen, from the technical side the
+highest and greatest quality that an artist can possess. It only fails
+him when he has to deal with oil paintings, and even there he shows a
+corresponding sense of the nature of the problems involved, if he shows
+less felicity on the whole in solving them; and perhaps could he have
+stayed at Venice and have had the results of Giorgione's and Titian's
+experiments to suggest the right road, we should have been scarcely able
+to perceive that he was less gifted as a painter than as draughtsman. As
+it is, he has given us water-colour sketches in which the blot is used
+to render the foliage of trees in a manner till then unprecedented.
+(Lipp. 132, &c.) He can rival Watteau in the use of soft chalk, Leonardo
+in the use of the pen, and Van Eyck in the use of the brush point; and
+there are examples of every intermediate treatment to form a chain
+across the gulf that separates these widely differing modes of graphic
+expression. There can be no need to point the application of these
+remarks to the individual drawings here reproduced; those who are
+capable of recognising it will do so without difficulty.
+
+[Illustration: AN OLD CASTLE Body-dour drawing at Bremen]
+
+
+VI
+
+In conclusion, Dürer appears as a draughtsman of unrivalled powers. And
+when one looks on his drawings as what they most truly were, his
+preparation for the tasks set him by the conditions of his life, there
+is room for nothing but unmixed admiration. It is only when one asks
+whether those tasks might not have been more worthy of such high gifts
+that one is conscious of deficiency or misfortune. And can one help
+asking whether the Emperor Max might not have given Dürer his Bible or
+his Virgil to illustrate, instead of demanding to have the borders of
+his "Book of Hours" rendered amusing with fantastic and curious
+arabesques; whether Dürer's learned friends, instead of requiring from
+him recondite or ceremonious allegories, might not have demanded
+title-pages of classic propriety; or whether the imperial bent of his
+own imagination might not have rendered their demands malleable, and bid
+them call for a series of woodcuts, engravings or drawings, which could
+rival Rembrandt's etchings in significance of subject-matter and
+imaginative treatment, as they rival them in executive power? In his
+portraits--the large majority of which have come down to us only as
+drawings, the majority of which were never anything else--the demand
+made upon him was worthy; but even here Holbein, a man of lesser gift
+and power, has perhaps succeeded in leaving a more dignified, a more
+satisfying series; one containing, if not so many masterpieces, fewer on
+which an accidental or trivial subject or mood has left its impress.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is Dürer's, not Rembrandt's, not Holbein's
+character, that impresses us as most serious, most worthy to be held as
+a model. It is before his portrait of himself that Mr. Ricketts "forgets
+all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is worthy of the
+occasion." So that we feel bound to attribute our dissatisfaction to
+something in his circumstances having hindered and hampered the flow of
+what was finest in his nature into his work. From Venice he wrote: "I am
+a gentleman here, but only a hanger-on at home." Germany was a better
+home for a great character, a great personality, than for a great
+artist: Dürer the artist was never quite at home there, never a
+gentleman among his peers. The good and solid burghers rated him as a
+good and solid burgher, worth so much per annum; never as endowed with
+the rank of his unique gift. It was only at Venice and Antwerp that he
+was welcomed as the Albert Dürer whom we to-day know, love, and honour.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 75: See the exquisite landscape in the collection of Mr. C. S.
+Ricketts and Mr. C. H. Shannon, reproduced in the sixth folio of the
+Dürer Society, 1903. Mr. Campbell Dodgson describes the drawing as in a
+measure spoilt by retouching, but what convinces him that these
+retouches are not by Dürer? The pen-work seems to be at once too clever
+and too careless to have been added by another hand to preserve a
+fading drawing.]
+
+[Footnote 76: XII. Discourse.]
+
+[Footnote 77: XIII, Discourse.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer, p. I 50.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DÜRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS
+
+
+I
+
+For the artist or designer the chief difference between the engraving
+done on a wood block and that done on metal lies in the thickness of the
+line. The engraved line in a wood block is in relief, that on a metal
+plate is entrenched; the ink in the one case is applied to the crest of
+a ridge, in the other it fills a groove into which the surface of the
+paper is squeezed. Though lines almost as fine as those possible on
+metal have been achieved by wood engravers, in doing this they force the
+nature of their medium, whereas on a copper plate fine lines come
+naturally. Perhaps no section of Dürer's work reveals his unique powers
+so thoroughly as his engravings on metal. They were entirely his own
+work both in design and execution; and no expenditure of pains or
+patience seems to have limited his intentions, or to have hindered his
+execution or rendered it less vital. And perhaps it is this fact which
+witnesses with our spirit and bids us recognise the master: rather than
+the comprehension of natural forms which he evinces, subtle and vigorous
+though it be; or than the symbols and types which he composed from such
+forms for the traditional and novel ideas of his day. And this
+unweariable assiduity of his is continually employed in the discovery
+of very noble arabesques of line and patterns in black and white, more
+varied than the grain in satin wood or the clustering and dispersion of
+the stars. Intensity of application, constancy of purpose, when revealed
+to us by beautifully variegated surfaces, the result of human toil, may
+well impress us, may rightly impress us, more than quaint and antiquated
+notions about the four temperaments, or about witches and their
+sabbaths, or about virtues and vices embodied in misconceptions of the
+characters of pagan divinities, and in legends about them which scholars
+had just begun to translate with great difficulty and very ill. It is
+the astonishing assurance of the central human will for perfection that
+awes us; this perception that flinches at no difficulty, this perception
+of how greatly beauty deserves to be embodied in human creations and
+given permanence to.
+
+
+II
+
+In the encomium which Erasmus wrote of Albert Dürer he dealt, as one
+sees by the passage quoted (p. 186), with Dürer's engraved work almost
+exclusively. Perhaps the great humanist had seen no paintings by Dürer,
+and very likely had heard Dürer himself disparage them, as Melanchthon
+tells us was his wont (p. 187). We know that Dürer gave Erasmus some of
+his engravings, and we may feel sure that he was questioned pretty
+closely as to what were the aims of his art, and wherein he seemed to
+himself to have best succeeded. The sentence I underlined (on p. 186)
+gives us probably some reflection of Dürer's reply. We must remember
+that Erasmus, from his classical knowledge as to how Apelles was
+praised, was full of the idea that art was an imitation, and may
+probably have refused to understand what Dürer may very likely have told
+him in modification of this view; or he may by citing his Greek and
+Latin sources have prevented the reverent Dürer from being outspoken on
+the point. But though most of his praise seems mere literary
+commonplace, the sentence underlined strikes us as having
+another source.
+
+"He reproduces not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also
+observes the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the
+position of it." How one would like to have heard Dürer, as Erasmus may
+probably have heard him, explain the principles on which he composed! No
+doubt there is no very radical difference between his sense of
+composition and that of other great artists. But to hear one so
+preoccupied with explaining his processes to himself discourse on this
+difficult subject would be great gain. For though there are doubtless no
+absolute rules, and the appeal is always to a refined sense for
+proportion,--yet to hear a creator speak of such things is to have this
+sense, as it were, washed and rendered delicate once more. We can but
+regret that Erasmus has not saved us something fuller than this hint. In
+the same way, how tempting is the criticism that Camerarius gives of
+Mantegna,--we feel that Dürer's own is behind it; but as it stands it is
+disjointed and absurd, like some of the incomplete and confused parables
+which give us a glimpse of how much more was lost than was preserved by
+the reporters of the sayings of Jesus. It is the same thing with the
+reported sayings of Michael Angelo, and indeed of all other great men.
+It is impossible to accept "his hand was not trained to follow the
+perception and nimbleness of his mind" as Dürer's dictum on Mantegna;
+but how suggestive is the allusion to "broken and scattered statues set
+up as examples of art," for artists to form themselves upon! Yet the
+fact that Dürer missed coming into contact not only with Mantegna but
+with Titian, Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, is indeed the saddest
+fact in regard to his life. We can well believe that he felt it in
+Mantegna's case. Ah! Why could he not bring himself to accept the
+overtures made to him, and become a citizen of Venice?
+
+
+III
+
+The subjects of these engravings are even generally trivial or
+antiquated, either in themselves or by the way they are approached.
+Perhaps alone among them the figure of Jesus, as it is drawn in the
+various series on copper and wood illustrating the Passion, is conceived
+in a manner which touches us to-day with the directness of a revelation;
+and even this cannot be compared to the same figure in Rembrandt
+etchings and drawings, either for essential adequacy, or for various and
+convincing application. No, we must consent to let the expression "great
+thoughts" drop out of our appreciation of Dürer's works, and be replaced
+by the "great character" latent in them.
+
+However, one among Dürer's engravings on copper stands out from among
+the rest, and indeed from all his works. In the _Melancholy_ the
+composition is not more dignified in its spacing and proportion; the
+arabesque of line is not richer or sweeter, the variations from black to
+white are not more handsome, than in some half dozen of his other
+engravings. No, by its conception alone the _Melancholy_ attains to its
+unique impressiveness. And it is the impressiveness of an image, not the
+impressiveness of an idea or situation, as in the case of the _Knight,
+Death, and the Devil_, by which almost as much bad literature has been
+inspired. There is nothing to choose between the workmanship of the two
+plates; both are absolutely impeccable, and outside the work of Dürer
+himself, unrivalled. The _Melancholy_ is the only creation by a German
+which appears to me to invite and sustain comparison with the works of
+the greatest Italian. In it we have the impressiveness that belongs only
+to the image, the thing conceived for mental vision, and addressed to
+the eye exclusively. If there was an allegory, or if the plate formed
+(as has been imagined) one of a series representative of the four
+temperaments, the eye and the visual imagination are addressed with such
+force and felicity that the inquiries which attempt to answer these
+questions must for ever appear impertinent. They may add some languid
+interest to the contemplation which is sated with admiring the
+impeccable mastery of the Knight; for that plate always seems to me the
+mere illustration of a literary idea, a sheer statement of items which
+require to be connected by some story, and some of which have the crude
+obviousness of folk-lore symbols, without their racy and genial naïvety.
+They have not been fused in the rapture of some unique mood, not
+focussed by the intensity of an emotion. With the _Melancholy_ all is
+different; perhaps among all his works only Dürer's most haunting
+portrait of himself has an equal or even similar power to bind us in its
+spell. For this reason I attempt the following comparison between the
+_Sibyls_ of the Sistine Chapel and the _Melancholy_ a comparison which I
+do not suppose to have any other value or force than that of a stimulant
+to the imagination which the works themselves address.
+
+[Illustration: MELANCHOLIA Copper engraving, B. 74]
+
+The impetuosity of his Southern blood drives Michael Angelo to betray
+his intention of impressing in the pose and build of his Sibyls. Large
+and exceptional women, "limbed" and thewed as gods are, with an habitual
+command of gesture, they lift down or open their books or unwind their
+scrolls like those accustomed to be the cynosure of many eyes, who have
+lived before crowds of inferiors, a spectacle of dignity from their
+childhood upwards. On the other hand, the pose and build of the
+_Melancholy_ must have been those of many a matron in Nuremberg. It is
+not till we come to the face that we find traits that correspond with
+the obvious symbolism of the wings and wreath, or the serious richness
+of the black and white effect of the composition; but that face holds
+our attention as not even the Sibylla Delphica cannot by beauty, not by
+conscious inspiration, but by the spell of unanswerable thought, by the
+power to brood, by the patience that can and dare go unresolved for many
+years. Everything is begun about her; she cannot see unto the end; she
+is powerful, she is capable in many works, she has borne children, she
+rests from her labours, and her thought wanders, sleeps or dreams. The
+spirit of the North, with its industry, its cool-headed calculation, its
+abundance in contrivance, its elaboration of duty and accumulation of
+possessions--there she sits, absorbed, unsatisfied. Impetuosity and the
+frank avowal of intention are themselves an expression of the will to
+create that which is desirable; they can but form the habit of every
+artist under happy circumstances. They proceed on the expectation of
+immediate effectiveness, they belong to power in action; while, if
+beauty be not impetuous, she is frank, and adds to the avowal of her
+intention the promise of its fulfilment. The work of art and the artist
+are essentially open; they promise intimacy, and fulfil that promise
+with entirety when successful. Nor is anything so impressive as intimacy
+which implies a perfect sincerity, a complete revelation, a gift without
+reserve, increase without let. But the circumstances of the artist never
+are happy: even Michael Angelo's were not. An intense brooding
+melancholy arises from the repressed and baffled desire to create; and
+in some measure this gloom of failure underlying their success is a
+necessary character of all lovely and spiritual creations in this world.
+Now Michael Angelo's works, because of their Southern impetuosity and
+volubility, are not so instinct with this divine sorrow, this immobility
+of the soul face to face with evil, as is Dürer's _Melancholy_. He
+inspires and exhilarates us more, but takes us out of ourselves rather
+than leads us home.
+
+Here is Dürer's success: let and hindered as it really is, he makes us
+feel the inalienable constancy of rational desire, watching adverse
+circumstance as one beast of prey watches another. She keeps hold on the
+bird she has caught, the ideal that perhaps she will never fully enjoy.
+Michael Angelo pictures for us freedom from trammels, the freedom that
+action, thought and ecstasy give, the freedom that is granted to beauty
+by all who recognise it; Dürer shows us the constancy that bridges the
+intervals between such free hours, that gives continuity to man's
+necessarily spasmodic effort. Thus he typifies for us the Northern
+genius: as Michael Angelo's athletes might typify by their naked beauty
+and the unexplained impressiveness of their gestures, the genius of the
+sudden South--sudden in action, sudden in thought, suddenly mature,
+suddenly asleep--as day changes to night and night to day the more
+rapidly as the tropics are approached.
+
+[Illustration: Detail enlarged from the "Agony in the Garden." Etching on
+Iron, B. 19 _Between_ pp. 250 & 251]
+
+[Illustration: ANGEL WITH THE SUDARIUM Engraving in Iron, 1516. B. 26
+_Between_ pp. 250 & 251]
+
+Instances of the highest imaginative power are rare in Dürer's work. The
+_Melancholy_ has had a world-wide success. The _Knight, Death and the
+Devil_ has one almost equal, but which is based on the facility with
+which it is associated with certain ideas dear to Christian culture,
+rather than on the creation of the mood in which these ideas arise. It
+does not move us until we know that it is an illustration of Erasmus's
+Christian Knight. Then all its dignity and mastery and the supremacy of
+the gifts employed on it are brought into touch with the idea, and each
+admirer operates, according to his imaginativeness, something of the
+transformation which Dürer had let slip or cool down before
+realising it.
+
+
+IV
+
+Among the prints with lesser reputations are several which attain a far
+higher success. There is the iron plate of the _Agony in the Garden,_ B.
+19, already mentioned (p. 235), in which the storm-tortured tree and the
+broken light and shade are full of dramatic power (see illustration),
+the _Angel with the Sudarium_, B. 26, where the arabesque of the folds
+of drapery and cloud unite with the daring invention of the central
+figure to create a mood entirely consonant with the subject. There is
+the woman carried off by a man on an unicorn, in which the turbulence of
+the subject is expressed with unrivalled force by the rich and beautiful
+arabesque and black and white pattern.
+
+B. Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, of the _Little Passion_, on
+copper, are all of them noteworthy successes of more or less the same
+kind; and in these, too, we come upon that racy sense for narration
+which can enhance dramatic import by emphasising some seemingly trivial
+circumstance, as in the gouty stiffness of one of Christ's scourgers in
+the _Flagellation_, or the abnormal ugliness of the man who with such
+perfect gravity holds the basin while Pilate _washes his hands:_ while
+in the _Crown of Thorns_ and _Descent into Hades_ we have peculiarly
+fine and suitable black and white patterns, and in the _Peter and John
+at the Beautiful Gate_[80] and the _Ecce Homo_ figures of monumental
+dignity in tiny gems of glowing engraver's work. The repose and serenity
+of the lovely little _St. Antony_;[81] the subsidence of commotion in
+the noonday victory of the little _St. George on foot_, B. 53--perhaps
+the most perfect diamond in the whole brilliant chain of little plates,
+or the staid naïvety of the enchanting _Apollo and Diana_, B. 68;[82]
+who shall prefer among these things? Every time we go through them we
+choose out another until we return to the most popular and slightly
+obvious _St. George on Horseback_, B. 54. Next come the dainty series of
+little plates in honour of Our Lady the Mother of God, commencing before
+Dürer made a rule of dating his plates; before 1503 and continuing till
+after 1520, in which the last are the least worthy. Among these the
+Virgin embracing her Child at the foot of a tree, B. 34, dated 1513; The
+Virgin standing on the crescent moon, her baby in one arm, her sceptre
+in the other hand and the stars of her crown blown sideways as she bows
+her head, B. 32, dated 1516, and the stately and monumental Virgin
+seated by a wall, B. 40, dated 1514, are at present my favourites. And
+to these succeeded the noble army of Apostles and Martyrs of which the
+more part are dated from 1521 to 1526, though two, B. 48 and 50, fall as
+early as 1514.
+
+[Illustration: THE SMALL HORSE--Copper Engraving, B. 96]
+
+Then amongst the most perfect larger plates I cannot refrain from
+mentioning the _St. Jerome_, B. 60, with its homely seclusion as of
+Dürer's own best parlour in summer time which not even the presence of a
+lion can disturb; the idyllic and captivating _St. Hubert_, B. 57; the
+august and tranquil _Cannon_, B. 99: and lastly, perhaps, in the little
+_Horse_, B. 96, we come upon a theme and motive of the kind best suited
+to Dürer's peculiar powers, in which he produces an effect really
+comparable to those of the old Greek masters, about whose lost works he
+was so eager for scraps of information, and whose fame haunted him even
+into his slumbers, so that he dreamed of them and of those who should
+"give a future to their past." This delightful work may illustrate an
+allegory now grown dark or some misconception of a Grecian story; but
+though the relation between the items that compose it should remain for
+ever unexplained, its beauty, like that of some Greek sculpture that has
+been admired under many names, continues its spell, and speaks of how
+the simplicity, austerity and noble proportions of classical art were
+potent with the spirit of the great Nuremberg artist, and occasionally
+had free way with him, in spite of all there was in his circumstances
+and origins to impede or divert them. (See also the spirited drawing,
+Lipp. 366.)
+
+
+V
+
+It would be idle to attempt to say something about every masterpiece in
+Dürer's splendidly copious work on metal plates. There is perhaps not
+one of these engravings that is not vital upon one side or another,
+amazingly few that are not vital upon many. One other work, however,
+which has been much criticised and generally misunderstood, it may be as
+well to examine at more length, especially as it illustrates what was
+often Dürer's practice in regard to his theories about proportion, with
+which my next Part will deal. I speak of the _Great Fortune_ or
+_Nemesis_ (B. 77). His practice at other times is illustrated by the
+splendid _Adam and Eve_ (B. 1), over the production of which the nature
+of the canon he suggested was perhaps first thoroughly worked out. But
+before this and afterwards too he no doubt frequently followed the
+advice he gives in the following passage.
+
+To him that setteth himself to draw figures according to this book, not
+being well taught beforehand, the matter will at first become hard. Let
+him then put a man before him, who agreeth, as nearly as may be, _with
+the proportions he desireth_; and let him draw him in outline according
+to his knowledge and power. And a man is held to have done well if he
+attain accurately to copy a figure according to the life, so that his
+drawing resembleth the figure and is like unto nature. _And in
+particular if the thing copied as beautiful; then is the copy held to be
+artistic_, and, as it deserveth, it is highly praised.
+
+Dürer himself would seem to have very often followed his own advice in
+this. The _Great Fortune_ or Nemesis is a case in point. The remarks of
+critics on this superb engraving are very strange and wide. Professor
+Thausing said, "Embodied in this powerful female form, the Northern
+worship of nature here makes its first conscious and triumphant
+appearance in the history of art." With the work of the great Jan Van
+Eyck in one's mind's eye, of course this will appear one of those
+little lapses of memory so convenient to German national sentiment.
+"Everything that, according to our aesthetic formalism based on the
+antique, we should consider beautiful, is sacrificed to truth." (I have
+already pointed out that this use of the word "truth" in matters of art
+constitutes a fallacy)[83] "And yet our taste must bow before the
+imperishable fidelity to nature displayed in these forms, the fulness of
+life that animates these limbs." Of course, "imperishable fidelity to
+nature" and "taste that bows before it" are merely the figures of a
+clumsy rhetoric. But the idea they imply is one of the most common of
+vulgar errors in regard to works of art. In the first place one must
+remind our enthusiastic German that it is an engraving and not a woman
+that we are discussing; and that this engraving is extremely beautiful
+in arabesque and black and white pattern, rich, rhythmical and
+harmonious; and that there is no reason why our taste should be violated
+in having to bow submissively before such beauties as these, which it is
+a pleasure to worship. Now we come to the subject as presented to the
+intelligence, after the quick receptive eye has been satiated with
+beauty. Our German guide exclaims, "Not misled by cold definite rules of
+proportion, he gave himself up to unrestrained realism in the
+presentation of the female form." Our first remark is, that though the
+treatment of this female form may perhaps be called realistic, this
+adjective cannot be made to apply to the figure as a whole. This
+massively built matron is winged; she stands on a small globe suspended
+in the heavens, which have opened and are furled up like a garment in a
+manner entirely conventional. She carries a scarf which behaves as no
+fabric known to me would behave even under such exceptional and
+thrilling circumstances.
+
+Dr. Carl Giehlow has recently suggested that this splendid engraving
+illustrates the following Latin verses by Poliziano:
+
+  Est dea, quse vacuo sublimis in aëre pendens
+  It nimbo succincta latus, sed candida pallam,
+  Sed radiata comam, ac stridentibus insonat alis.
+  Haec spes immodicas premit, haec infesta superbis
+  Imminet, huic celsas hominum contundere mentes
+  Incessusque datum et nimios turbare paratus.
+  Quam veteres Nemesin genitam de nocte silenti
+  Oceano discere patri. Stant sidera fronti.
+  Frena manu pateramque gerit, semperque verendum
+  Ridet et insanis obstat contraria coeptis.
+  Improba vota domans ac summis ima revolvens
+  Miscet et alterna nostros vice temperat actus.
+  Atque hue atque illuc ventorum turbine fertur.
+
+There is a goddess, who, aloft in the empty air, advances girdled about
+with a cloud, but with a shining white cloak and a glory in her hair,
+and makes a rushing with her wings. She it is who crushes extravagant
+hopes, who threatens the proud, to whom is given to beat down the
+haughty spirit and the haughty step, and to confound over-great
+possessions. Her the men of old called Nemesis, born to Ocean from the
+womb of silent Night. Stars stand upon her forehead. In her hand she
+bears bridles and a chalice, and smiles for ever with an awful smile,
+and stands resisting mad designs. Turning to nought the prayers of the
+wicked and setting the low above the high she puts one in the other's
+place and rules the scenes of life with alternation. And she is borne
+hither and thither on the wings of the whirlwind.
+
+If this suggestion is a good one it shows us that Dürer was no more
+consistently literal than he was realistic. The most striking features
+of his illustration are just those to which his text offers no
+counterpart, i.e., the nudity and physical maturity of his goddess.
+Neither has he girdled her about with cloud nor stood stars upon her
+forehead. I must confess that I find it hard to believe that there was
+any close connection present to his mind between his engraving and
+these verses.
+
+In a former chapter I have spoken of the fashion in female dress then
+prevalent; how it underlined whatever is most essential in the physical
+attributes of womanhood, and how probably something of good taste is
+shown in this fashion (see pp. 92 and 93). What I there said will
+explain Dürer's choice in this matter; and also that what Thausing felt
+bow in him was not taste, but his prejudices in regard to womanly
+attractiveness, and his misconception as to where the beauty of an
+engraving should be looked for and in what it consists. These same
+prejudices and misconceptions render Mrs. Heaton (as is only natural in
+one of the weaker sex) very bold. She says, "A large naked winged woman,
+whose ugliness is perfectly repulsive." This object, I must confess,
+appears to me, a coarse male, "welcome to contemplation of the mind and
+eye." The splendid Venus in Titian's _Sacred and Profane Love_, or his
+_Ariadne_ at Madrid; or Raphael's _Galatea_; or Michael Angelo's _Eve_
+(on the Sistine vault) are all of them doubtless far more akin to the
+_Aphrodite_ of Praxiteles, or to her who crouches in the Louvre, than is
+this _Nemesis_; but we must not forget that they are works on a scale
+more comparable with a marble statue; and that in works of which the
+scale is more similar to that of our engraving, Greek taste was often
+far more with Dürer than with Thausing. This is an important point,
+though one which is rarely appreciated. However, there is no reason why
+we should condemn "misled by cold definite rules of taste" even such
+pictures as Rembrandt's _Bathing Woman_ in the Louvre, though here the
+proportions of the work are heroic. Oil painting was an art not
+practised by the Greeks, and this medium lends itself to beauties which
+their materials put entirely out of reach. Besides, Rembrandt appealed
+to an audience who had been educated by Christian ideals to appreciate a
+pathos produced by the juxtaposition of the fact with the ideal, and of
+the creature with the creator, to appeal to which a Greek would have had
+to be far more circumspect in his address--even if he had, through an
+exceptional docility and receptiveness of character, come under its
+influence himself. These considerations when apprehended will, I
+believe, suffice to dispel both prejudice and misconception in regard to
+this matter; and we shall find in Professor Thausing's remarks relative
+to the treatment of the "female form divine" in this engraving no
+additional reason for considering it a comparatively early work. And we
+shall only smile when he tells us "The _Nemesis_ to a certain _degree_
+(sic) marks the extreme _point_ (sic) reached by Dürer in his unbiased
+study of the nude. His further progress became more and more influenced
+by his researches into the proportions of the human body." The bias will
+appear to us of rather more recent date, and we shall be ready to
+consider with an open mind how far Dürer's practice was influenced for
+good or evil by his researches into the proportions of the human body.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 80: See page 258.]
+
+[Footnote 81: See page 260.]
+
+[Footnote 82: See Frontispiece.]
+
+[Footnote 83: See page 19.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DÜRER'S WOODCUTS
+
+It is now generally accepted that Dürer did not himself engrave on wood.
+In his earliest blocks he shows a greater respect for the limitations of
+this means of expression than later on. The earliest wood blocks, though
+no doubt they aimed at being facsimiles, were not such in fact; but the
+engraver took certain liberties for his own convenience, and probably
+did not attempt to render what Dürer calls "the hand" of the designer.
+"The hand" was equivalent to what modern artists call "the touch," and
+meant the peculiar character recognisable in the vast majority of the
+strokes or marks which each artist uses in drawing or painting. Dürer
+affected extremely curved and rapid strokes, Mantegna the deliberate
+straight line, Rembrandt the straight stroke used so as to seem a
+continual improvisation; though indeed he varies the character of his
+touch more continually and more vastly than any other master, yet in his
+drawings and etchings the majority of the strokes are straight. Already
+in the woodcuts provided by Michael Wolgemut, Dürer's master, to
+illustrate books, there is a general attempt to render cross hatching:
+and the eyes and hair, though still those of an engraver, are
+frequently modified to some extent in deference to the character given
+by the draughtsman. Still, no one with practical experience would
+consider these woodcuts as adequate facsimiles: which makes the question
+of their attribution to Wolgemut, or his partner and step-son,
+Pleydenwurff, of still less interest and importance than it is on all
+other grounds. So conscious an exception as the soul of the accurate
+Albert Dürer was, could not be expected to endure a partner in his
+creations, especially one whose character was revealed chiefly by the
+clumsy compromises convenient to lack of skill. Doubtless the demand for
+"his hand" was a new factor in the education of the engraver, as
+constant and as imperturbable as the action of a copious stream, which,
+having its source in lonely heights, wears a channel through the hardest
+rock, the most sullen soils. It may have been the pitiless tyranny of
+the master's will for perfection which drove Hieronymus Andreae, "the
+most famous of Dürer's wood engravers," into religious and even civil
+rebellion, joining hands with levelling fanatics and taking active part
+in the Peasant War. Dürer probably would have commanded too much
+reverence and affection for these rebellions to be directed against him;
+but an insupportably heavy yoke is not rendered lighter because it is
+imposed by a loved hand,--though every other burden and restraint may in
+such a case be shaken off and resented before that which is the real
+cause of oppression. Dürer's wood cutters had no doubt to resign any
+indolence, any impatience, or whatever else it might be that had
+otherwise stamped a personal character on their work; and all
+remonstrance must have been shamed by the evident fact that the young
+master spared himself not a whit more. The perseverance and docility
+which made such engraving possible was perhaps the greatest aid that
+Dürer drew from German character; it was not only an aid, but an example
+to and restraint upon that haughty spirit of his that restively ever
+again vows never to take so much pains over another picture to be so
+poorly paid (see page 103); that complains of failure and discouragement
+after years of repeatedly more world-wide successes (see page 187).
+These are not German traits, but it may have been the German blood he
+inherited from his mother and the example of his friends,
+fellow-workers, and helpers, which enabled him to get the better of such
+petulant and gloomy outbursts, and return to the day of small things
+with the will to continue and endure.
+
+The difference introduced by the engravers becoming more and more
+capable of rendering Dürer's hand is well illustrated by comparing the
+frontispiece to the _Apocalypse_, added about 1511, with the other cuts
+which had appeared in 1498. Doubtless Dürer's hand had changed its
+character considerably during this period of constant and rapid
+development, and it requires tact and knowledge to separate the
+differences due to the creator from those due to the engraver. Dürer's
+drawings differed as widely from the earlier drawings as does the
+engraving from the earlier blocks. But, as we may see by early drawings
+done as preliminary studies for engravings, the method of his pen
+strokes had changed less than the character of the forms they rendered;
+the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than
+the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by
+1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the
+stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap
+and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface
+of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the
+radiance of the Virgin's glory). Holbein, later on, was to obtain a yet
+more wonderful fidelity from Lutzelburger, the engraver of his _Dunce
+of Death_.
+
+Still it were misleading to suppose that Dürer's disregard for the
+facilities and limitations of wood-cutting went the lengths that the
+demands made upon modern skill have gone. Not only has the line been
+reproduced, but it has been drawn not with a full pen or brush, but in
+pencil or with watered ink; and the delicate tones thus produced have
+been demanded of and rendered by human skill. Dürer always uses a clear
+definite stroke; and in thus limiting himself he shows an appreciation
+of the medium to be used in reproducing his drawing, and recognises its
+limits to a large extent, though this is the only limitation he accepts.
+Less and less does he consider the possibilities which engraving offers
+for the use of a white line on black Doing his drawing with a black
+line, he contents himself with the qualities that the resources and
+facilities of the full pen line give: and his design is for a drawing
+which can be cut on wood, not for something that first really exists in
+the print; the prints are copies of his drawings. His drawings were not
+prepared to receive additions in the course of cutting, such as could
+only be rendered by the engraver. Faithfulness was the only virtue he
+required of Hieronymus Andreae. Yet even in such drawings as Dürer's no
+doubt were, there would have been some qualities, some defects perhaps,
+that the print does not possess. For a print, from the mode of inking,
+has a breadth and unity which the drawing never can have. Even in
+drawings made with full flowing brush or pen, there will be
+modulations in the strength of the ink, or occasioned by the surface of
+the wood or paper, in every stroke, by which the, sensitive artist in
+the heat of work cannot help being influenced, and which will lead him
+to give a bloom, a delicacy, to his drawing, such as a print can never
+possess. And, on the other hand, the unity of the print can never be
+quite realised in the drawing, however much the artist may strive to
+attain it, because the conditions must change, however slightly, for
+strokes produced in succession; while in a print all are produced
+together, and variations, if variations there are, occur over wide
+spaces and not between stroke and stroke. It is considerations, of this
+kind that in the last resort determine the quality of works of art. The
+artist is taught, though often unconsciously, by the means he employs,
+but the diligent man who is not by nature an artist never can learn
+these things: he can Imitate the manner and form, never the grace, the
+bloom, and the life.
+
+[Illustration: THE APOCALYPSE, 1498 St. Michael fighting the Dragon,
+Woodcut, B. 72 From the impression in the British Museum Face p. 262]
+
+
+II
+
+Dürer's first important issue of woodcuts was the _Apocalypse_. A great
+deal has been written in praise of this production as a political
+pamphlet against the corrupt Papacy. It was undoubtedly the most
+important series of woodcuts that had ever appeared, by the size, number
+and elaboration of the designs. It also undoubtedly attacks
+ecclesiastical corruption, but not ecclesiastical only. Whether to Dürer
+and his friends it appeared even chiefly directed against prelates, or
+even against those who sat in high places; whether the popes, bishops
+and figures typical of the Church seemed to him to illustrate the moral
+in any pre-eminent degree, may be doubted. Still more doubtful is it
+whether there was any objection to papacy or priesthood as institutions
+connected with these figures in his mind. Unworthy popes, unworthy
+bishops, and an unworthy Rome were censured: but not popes, bishops, or
+Rome as the capital see of the Church. Dürer's work as a whole shows no
+distaste for saints, the Virgin, or bishops and popes; he had no
+objection, no scruple apparently, to introducing the notorious Julius
+II. into his _Feast of the_ Rosary, some ten years later. There has
+perhaps been a tendency to read the intention of these designs too much
+in the light of after events: and by so doing a great slur is cast on
+Dürer's consistency; for, had these designs the significance read into
+them, he must be supposed an altogether convinced enemy of the Church;
+and the tremendous salaams which he afterwards made to her in far more
+important works ought, to logical minds, to appear horribly insincere.
+
+Viewed as works of art, one reads about the cut of the four riders upon
+horses, "For simple grandeur this justly famous design has never been
+surpassed." One's sense of proportion receives such a shock as gives one
+the sensation of being utterly outcast, in a world where such a precious
+dictum can pass without remark as a sample of the discrimination of the
+chief authority on the life and art of Albert Dürer. Neither simple nor
+grand is an adjective applicable to this print in the sense in which we
+apply it to the chief masterpieces of antiquity and of the Renaissance.
+To say even that Dürer never surpassed this design is to utter what to
+me at least seems the most palpable absurdity. There is an immense
+advance in design, in conception and in mastery of every kind shown over
+the best prints of the _Apocalypse_ and _Great Passion_, in the
+prints added to the latter series ten years later, and still more in the
+_Life of the Virgin_. And still finer results are arrived at in single
+cuts of later date, and in the _Little Passion_. If we want to see what
+Dürer's woodcuts at their finest are for breadth and dignity of
+composition, for richness and fertility of arabesque and black and white
+pattern, for vigour and subtlety of form, for boldness and vivacity of
+workmanship, we must turn to the _Samson_ (1497?) (B. 2), the Man's
+_Bath_ (14-?), (B. 128), among the earlier blocks published before the
+_Apocalypse_, then to those designed in or about the year 1511. The
+golden period for Dürer's woodcuts, the date of the publication of his
+most magnificent series, the _Life of the Virgin_ and several delightful
+separate prints. Among these we find it hard to choose, but if some must
+be mentioned let it be the _St. Joachim's Offering Rejected by the High
+Priest_ (B. 77), the _Meeting at the Golden Gate_ (B. 79) (see
+illustration), the _Marriage of the Virgin_ (B. 82), the _Visitation_
+(B. 84), the _Nativity_ (B. 85) (see illustration), the _Presentation_
+(B. _55_), the _Flight into Egypt_ (B. 89).
+
+[Illustration: Detail enlarged from "Nativity."--"Life of the Virgin"
+Woodcut, B. 85]
+
+[Illustration: Enlarged detail from "The Embrace of St. Joachim and St.
+Anne at the Golden Gate."--"Life of the Virgin," Woodcut, B. 79]
+
+In the glorious masterpieces of this series Dürer has found the true
+balance of his powers. The dignity and charm of the decorative effect of
+these cuts has never been surpassed; and to the racy narrative vivacity
+of such groups and figures as those isolated and enlarged in our
+illustration there is added an idyllic charm of which perhaps the best
+examples are the _Visitation_ and the _Flight into Egypt_. This
+sweetness of allure is still more pervasive in the separate cuts that
+bear this golden date, 1511, that is in the _St. Christopher_ (B. 103),
+and the _St. Jerome_ (B. 114). And the _Adoration of the Magi_ (B. 3) is
+much finer than the one included in the _Life of the Virgin_. This
+idyllic charm had already been touched _upon before_ in the _Assumption
+of the Magdalen_ (B. 121) (15?), and in the _St. Antony_ and _St. Paul_
+and the _Baptist_ and _St. Onuphrius of_ 1504. It is not felt to lie
+very deep in the conception of the subject, for all are treated in an
+obviously conventional manner, the touches of racy realism being
+confined to subordinate incidents and details. Neither the subjects nor
+the mood of the artist lend themselves to the dramatic impressiveness of
+such cuts as the _Blowing of the Sixth Trumpet_ or the _St. Michael
+overwhelming the Dragon of the Apocalypse_ (_see_ page 262), where the
+inspiration appears to be Gothic, perhaps developed under the influence
+of Mantegna's _Combat between Sea Monsters_, of which Dürer early made
+an elaborate pen-and-ink copy. We find an aftermath of the same
+inspiration in the engraving on iron, dated 1516, representing a man
+riding astride of an unicorn carrying off a shrieking woman. Such stormy
+and strenuous lowerings of the imagination break in upon Dürer's
+habitual mood as St. Peter's thunders into Milton's "Lycidas," of which
+the general felicitous mingling of a conventional pedantry with idyllic
+charm and racy touches of realistic effect is very similar to the
+general effect of the golden group we have been describing. Among all
+the work that finds its climax in the beautiful creations of 1511, only
+in a few prints of the _Little Passion_, published in 1511, do we find
+any dramatic power or creativeness of essential conception. I may
+mention the _Christ Scourging the Money-changers in the Temple_, the
+_Agony in the Garden_, and Judas' _Kiss_, where, though the general
+effect be rather confused, the central figure is full of appropriate
+power. _Christ haled by the hair before_ _Annas_ (the most wonderful
+of all), Christ before _Pilate_, Christ _Mocked_, the _Ecce Homo_ (a
+most beautiful composition), the Veronica's napkin incident, _Christ_
+being nailed _to the Cross_ (a masterpiece), the _Deposition_, the
+_Entombment_:--several others of the series have idyllic charm or
+touches of narrative force which link them with the general group, but
+these alone stand out and in some ways surpass it. After this date Dürer
+seems in a great measure to have relinquished wood for metal engraving;
+however, most of his occasional resumptions of the process were marked
+by the production of masterpieces, if we put on one side the workshop
+monsters produced for Maximilian--and even in these, in details, Dürer's
+full force is recognisable. I may mention the _Madonna_ crowned and
+_worshipped by a concert of Angels_, 1518 (B. 101), which, though a
+little cold, like all the work of that period, is still a masterpiece;
+and then, after the inspiriting visit to Antwerp, we have the
+magnificent portrait of Ulrich Varnbüler, 1522 (B. 155), the _Last
+Supper_, 1523 (B. 53) (see illustration here), and the glorious piece of
+decoration representing Dürer's Arms, 1523 (B. 160) (see illustration).
+I have reproduced less of Dürer's wood engravings than would be
+necessary to represent their importance and beauty, because most, being
+large and bold, are greatly impoverished by reduction; besides, they are
+nearly all well known through comparatively cheap reproductions. I have
+enlarged two details to give an idea of Dürer's workmanship when
+employed upon racy realism (see illustration, page 264), and when
+employed in endowing a single figure with supreme grace and dignity (see
+illustration, page 265).
+
+[Illustration: Christ haled before Annas From the "Little
+Passion"--_Between_ pp. 266 & 267]
+
+[Illustration: DÜRER'S ARMORIAL BEARINGS Woodcut, B. 160]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DÜRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES
+
+I
+
+
+Before closing this part of my book something must be said of Dürer's
+influence on other artists. It is one of the foibles of modern criticism
+to please itself by tracing influences, a process of the same nature as
+that of tracing resemblances to ferns and other growths on a frosted
+pane. No one would deny that resemblances are there; it is to
+distinguish them and estimate their significance without yielding to
+fancifulness, which is the well-nigh hopeless task. It is often
+forgotten that similar circumstances produce similar effects, and that
+coincidences from this cause are very rife. Then, too, it is forgotten
+that the influence that produces rivalry is stronger, more important,
+and less easily estimated, than that which is expressed by imitation or
+plagiarism; besides, it affects more original and fertile natures. The
+stimulus of a great creative personality often is more potent where
+discernible resemblances are few and vague, than where they are many and
+obvious. In Dürer's day the study and imitation of antique art which had
+brought about the Renascence in Italy was the fashion that in successive
+waves was passing over Europe and moulding the future. He himself felt
+it, and welcomed it now as an authority not to be gainsaid, and again
+as an example to be competed against and surpassed. This fashion, this
+trend of opinion and hope, was the significance behind the effect
+produced on him by Jacopo de' Barbari, whose charming but ineffectual
+originality succeeded merely in creating an eddy in that stream. It was
+the tide behind him which so powerfully stirred and stimulated Dürer.
+The resemblances traceable between certain still life studies by the two
+men, or even in figures of their engravings, is insignificant compared
+with the fact that through Jacopo Dürer probably first felt the energy
+and true direction of the great tidal waves which were then rolling
+forth from Italy. Even Mantegna's influence was probably less the effect
+of a personal affinity than that through him a power streamed direct
+from the antique dawn. This great and master influence of those days was
+more one of hope, indefinite, incomprehensible, visionary, than one of
+knowledge and assured discovery. Raphael may have received it from
+Dürer, as well as Dürer from Bellini. Figures and incidents from Dürer's
+engravings are supposed to have been adapted in certain works, if not of
+his own hand at least proceeding from his immediate pupils. For Raphael,
+Dürer was a proof of the excellence of human nature in respect to the
+arts, even when it could not form itself on the immediate study and
+contemplation of antiques, and thus added to the zest and expectation
+with which he improved himself in that direction. These great men did
+not distinguish clearly between pregnancy due to their own efforts, that
+of their contemporaries and immediate predecessors, and that due to
+their more mystic passion for antiquity. Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Correggio were destined to be the signets by which this great power was
+to be most often and clearly stamped on the work of future artists.
+From the unhappy location of his life Dürer was debarred from any such
+obvious and overwhelming effect on after generations. The influences
+which helped to shape him were no doubt at work on all the more eminent
+artists, his fellow-countrymen; on Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Burgkmair,
+Lucas Cranach, or Baldung Grien, to mention only the elect. What the
+stimulus of his achievements, of his renown, meant for these men we have
+no means of computing; yet we may feel sure that it was vastly more
+important and significant than any actual traces of imitation or
+plagiarism from his works, which can with difficulty and for the more
+part very doubtfully be brought home to them;--vastly more important and
+significant too we may be sure than his effect upon his pupils and other
+more or less obscure painters, engravers, and block designers, in whose
+work actual imitation or adaption of his creations is more certain and
+more abundant. His pictures, plates, and woodcuts were copied both in
+Italy and in the North, both as exercises for the self-improvement of
+artists and to supply a demand for even secondhand reflections of his
+genius and skill. He was not destined to lend the impress of his
+splendid personality to the tide of fashion like the great Italians;
+their influence was to supersede his even in the North.
+
+This is obvious: but who shall compare or estimate the accession of
+force which the tide as a whole gained from him, or that more latent
+power which begins to be disengaged from the reserve and lack of proper
+issue from which he evidently suffered, now that the great tide of the
+Renaissance has spent its mighty onrush and become merged in the
+constant movement of life--that power by which he moves us to
+commiserate his circumstances and to feel after the more and better,
+which we cannot doubt that he might have given us had he been more
+happily situated?
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER Woodcut, p. 53]
+
+
+II
+
+Only to compare the value of Michael Angelo's sonnets with that of the
+doggerel rhymes which Dürer produced, may give us some idea of the
+portentous inferiority in Dürer's surroundings to those of the great
+Italian. Both borrow the general idea of the subject, treatment, and
+form of their poems from the fashion around them. But that fashion in
+Michael Angelo's case called for elevated subject, intimate and
+imaginative treatment, and adequacy of form, whereas none of these were
+called for from Albrecht Dürer; and if his friends laughed at the
+rudeness of his verses, it was not that they themselves conceived of
+anything more adequate in these respects, only something more scholarly,
+more pedantic. Michael Angelo's verse was often crabbed and rude, but
+the scholarship and pedantry of Italy forbore to laugh at that rudeness,
+because a more adequate standard made them recognise its vital power and
+noble passion as of higher importance to true success. Still, in the
+following rhymes, Dürer shows himself a true child of the Renascence, at
+least in intention; and was proud of a desire for universal excellence.
+
+When I received this from Lazarus Spengler, I made him the following
+poem in reply (Mrs. Heaton's translation):
+
+  In Nürnberg it is known full well
+  A man of letters now doth dwell,
+  One of our Lord's most useful men,
+  He is so clever with his pen,
+  And others knows so well to hit,
+  And make ridiculous with wit;
+  And he has made a jest of me,
+  Because I made some poetry,
+  And of True Wisdom something wrote,
+  But as he likes my verses not,
+  He makes a laughing stock of me,
+  And says I'm like the Cobbler, he
+  Who criticised Apelles' art.
+  With this he tries to make me smart,
+  Because he thinks it is for me
+  To paint, and not write poetry.
+  But I have undertaken this
+  (And will not stop for him or his),
+  To learn whatever thing I can,
+  For which will blame me no wise man.
+  For he who only learns one thing,
+  And to naught else his mind doth bring,
+  To him, as to the notary,
+  It haps, who lived here as do we,
+  In this our town. To him was known
+  To write one form and one alone.
+  Two men came to him with a need
+  That he should draw them up a deed;
+  And he proceeded very well,
+  Until their names he came to spell:
+  Gotz was the first name that perplexed,
+  And Rosenstammen was the next.
+  The Notary was much astonished,
+  And thus his clients he admonished,
+  "Dear friends," he said, "you must be wrong,
+  These names don't to my form belong;
+  Franz and Fritz[84] I know full well,
+  But of no others have heard tell."
+  And so he drove away his clients,
+  And people mocked his little science.
+  To me that it may hap not so,
+  Something of all things I will know.
+  Not only writing will I do,
+  But learn to practise physic too;
+  Till men surprised will say, "Beshrew me,
+  What good this painter's medicines do me!"
+  Therefore hear and I will tell
+  Some wise receipts to keep you well.
+  A little drop of alkali,
+  Is good to put into the eye;
+  He who finds it hard to hear,
+  Should mandel-oil put in his ear;
+  And he who would from gout be free,
+  Not wine but water drink should he;
+  He who would live to be a hundred,
+  Will see my counsel has not blundered.
+  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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 84: Equivalent to our John Doe and Richard Roe.]
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+DÜRER'S IDEAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE
+
+Dürer often painted the Virgin's head as a mere exercise or example in
+those proportion studies with which we must presently deal.
+
+Sir W. M. CONWAY, in "Dürer's Literary Remains," p. 151.
+
+As soon as he comes to speak of the very essence of artistic work, he
+forgets theories and imitations of the antique; he knows nothing of
+composition from fragments of Nature, of measurements and speculations.
+No longer trusting to such aids as these, but launching himself boldly
+on the broad stream of Nature, he believes that he shall attain to a
+higher harmony in his work.
+
+THAUSING'S "Albert Dürer," vol. ii., p. 318.
+
+
+I
+
+The idea of a canon for human proportions has proved a great
+stumbling-block for so-called classical or academic artists. It is
+usually taken to mean an absolutely right or harmonious proportion, any
+deviation from which cannot fail to result in a diminution of beauty.
+According to their thoroughness, the devotees of this idea seek to
+arrive at such a scale of proportions for a varying number of different
+ages in either sex; often even modifying this again for diverse types,
+as tall or short, fat or lean, dark or blonde, but allowing no excessive
+variation for these causes; so that abnormally tall people and dwarfs
+are not considered. This is, I take it, what the great artist Albert
+Dürer is generally taken to have been aiming at in his books on
+proportion. It will not be difficult, I think, to show that Dürer had
+quite a different idea of what a canon of proportion should be, and how
+it should be applied. And certainly, had it been possible to study Greek
+practice more closely, and in a larger number of examples, when this
+idea (supposed to be drawn from that source) was chiefly mooted, a very
+different notion of the canon of proportion would have been forced on
+the most academical of theorists. Dürer's great superiority over such
+academical masters is, that his idea of a canon of proportion and its
+use agrees far better with what was apparently Greek practice.
+
+Any one who has followed at all the interesting attempts made by
+Professor Furtwängler and others to group together, by attention to the
+measurements of the different parts of the figure, works belonging to
+the different masters, schools, and centres, will have perceived that he
+is led to assume a traditional canon of proportion from which a master
+deviates slightly in the direction of some bias of his own mind towards
+closer knit or more slim figures; such variations being in the earlier
+stages very slight. Again, it is supposed that from the canon followed
+by a master, different pupils may branch off in opposite directions
+according to the leanings of their personal sentiment for beauty. The
+conception of these ramifications has at least created the hope that
+critics may follow them through a great number of complications, since
+a master may modify his canon--after certain pupils have already struck
+out for themselves, and new pupils may start from his modified canon;
+and so on into an infinite criss-cross of branches, as any sculptor may
+be influenced to modify his canon by his fellows or by the masters of
+other schools whose work he comes across later. In any case, this main
+fact arises, that the canon appears as what the artist deviated from,
+not what he abided by: and any one who has any feeling for the infinite
+nicety of the results obtained by Greek sculptors will easily apprehend
+that each masterpiece established a new and slightly different canon,
+and was then in the position to be in its turn again deviated from, as
+Flaubert says:
+
+"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved."
+
+"Chayue ceuvre à faire a sa poëtique en soi, qu'il faut trouver."
+
+
+II
+
+The same thing is asserted by literary critics to have been the cause of
+the repetition of subjects in Greek tragedy, and to have resulted in the
+infinite niceties of their forms, which are never the same and never
+radically new.
+
+The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded stood,
+before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the
+spectator's mind; it stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly
+seen, at the end of a long dark vista. Then came the poet, embodying
+outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment
+capriciously thrown in. Stroke upon stroke, the drama proceeded; the
+light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the
+riveted gaze of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were
+spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of
+immortal beauty.
+
+This passage from Matthew Arnold's deservedly famous preface well
+emphasises one advantage that a tradition of subject and treatment gave
+to the Greek poet as to the Greek sculptor: the economy of means it made
+possible, "not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown
+in,"--since every deviation from, every addition to, the traditional
+story and treatment, was immediately appreciated by an audience
+thoroughly conversant with that tradition, and often with several
+previous masterpieces treating it. By merely leaving out an incident, or
+omitting to appeal to a sentiment, a Greek tragedian could flood his
+whole work with a new significance. So that the temptation to be
+eccentric, the temptation to hit too hard or at random because he was
+not sure of exactly where the mind stood that he would impress, did not
+exist in anything like the same degree for him as it did for Shakespeare
+and Michael Angelo as it does for romantic and origina natures to-day.
+The absence of a sufficient body of traditional culture belonging to
+every educated person tends always to force the artist to commence by
+teaching the alphabet to his public. As Coleridge so justly remarked in
+the case of Wordsworth: "He had, like all great artists, to create the
+taste by which he was to be relished, to teach the art by which he was
+to be seen and judged." All great artists no doubt have to do this, but
+the modern artist is in the position of the Israelite who was bidden not
+only to make bricks, but to find himself in stubble and straw, as
+compared with a Greek who could appeal to traditional conceptions with
+certainty. Dr. Verrall is no doubt right when he says:
+
+Every one knows, even if the full significance of the fact is not always
+sufficiently estimated, that the tragedians of Athens did not tell their
+story at all as the telling of a story is conceived by a modern
+dramatist, whose audience, when the curtain goes up, know nothing which
+is not in the play-bill.
+
+This ignorant public, this uncultivated and unmanured field with which
+every modern artist has to commence, is the greatest let to the creator.
+What wonder that he should so often prefer to make a gaudy show with
+yellow weeds, when he perceives that there is hardly time in one man's
+life to produce a respectable crop of wheat from such a wilderness?
+
+"The story of an Athenian tragedy is never completely told; it is
+implied, or, to repeat the expression used above, it is illustrated by a
+selected scene or scenes. And the further we go back the truer this is,"
+continues Dr. Verrall; and the same was doubtless true of sculpture and
+painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance or advantage
+of this fact to the artist. For religious art, for art that appeals to
+the sum and total of a man's experience of beauty in life, a public
+cultivated in this sense is a necessity. Giotto and Fra Angelico enjoyed
+this almost to the same degree as Æschylus or Phidias; Michael Angelo
+and the great artists of the Renascence generally enjoyed it in a very
+great degree, and reaped an advantage comparable to that which Euripides
+and his contemporaries and immediate successors enjoyed. The tradition
+enabled such an artist to impress by means of subtleties, niceties, and
+refinements, instead of forcing him to attempt always to more or less
+seduce, astonish or overawe; strong measures which grow almost
+necessarily into bad habits, and end by perverting the taste they
+created. This, it has often been remarked, was the case even with
+Michael Angelo, even with Shakespeare. Yet nowadays, to enable a man to
+remark this, exceptional culture is required.
+
+
+III
+
+This idea of the use of a canon may be illustrated in many ways; for,
+like all notions which resume actual experiences, it will be found
+applicable in many spheres. Thus, on the subject of verse, the eternal
+quarrel between the poet and the pedant is, that for the first the rules
+of prosody and rhyme are only useful in so far as they make the licenses
+he takes appreciable at their just value; while for the pedant such
+licenses ever anew seem to imply ignorance of the rule or incapacity to
+follow it,--an absurd mistake, since the power to create and impress has
+little to do with the means employed; and if a man builds up for himself
+a barrier of foregone conclusions about the exact manner in which alone
+he will allow himself to be deeply impressed, it is very certain he will
+have few save painful impressions. Or take another illustration--an
+artist the other day told me that he had noticed that one could almost
+always trace a faintly ruled vertical line on the paper which the
+greatest of all modern draughtsmen used. Ingres, then, with all his
+freedom, vivacity, and accuracy of control over the point he employed to
+draw with, still found it useful to have a straight line ruled on his
+paper as a student does, and may often even have resorted to the
+plumb-line. It enabled his eye to test the subtlest deviations in the
+other lines with which he was creating the balance, swing or stability
+of a figure. Rules of art are, like this straight line, dead and
+powerless in themselves: they help both creator and lover to follow and
+appreciate the infinite freedom and subtlety of the living work. The
+same thing might be illustrated with regard to manners; a fine standard
+of social address and receptivity must be established before the
+varieties and subtleties of those whose genius creates beautiful
+relations can be appreciated at their full value in their full variety.
+This dead law must be buried in everybody's mind and heart before they
+can rise to that conscious freedom which is opposite to the freedom of
+the wild animals, who never know why they do, nor appreciate how it is
+done; neither are they able to rejoice in the address of others; much
+less can they relish the infinite refinements of exhilarating
+apprehension, which make of laughter, tears, speech, silence, nearness
+and distance, a music which holds the enraptured soul in ecstasy; which
+created and constantly renews the hope of Heaven. And what blacker
+minister of a more sterile hell than the social pedant who only knows
+the rule, and mistakes grace and delicacy, frankness and generosity, for
+more or less grave infractions of it? But the happy critic, free from
+any personal knowledge of what creation means, or what aids are likely
+to forward it, is for ever in such a hurry to correct great creators
+like Leonardo, Dürer, or Hokusai, that he fails to understand them; and
+when he has caught them saying, "This is how anger or despair is
+expressed," calmly smiles in his superiority and says,
+
+"He had a scientific law for putting a battle on to canvas, one
+condition of which was that 'there must not be a level spot which is
+not trampled with gore.' But Leonardo did no harm; his canon was based
+on literary rather than artistic interests."
+
+Analogies with scientific laws have served art and art criticism a very
+bad turn of late years. Nothing can be more useful to an artist than
+knowledge of how the emotions are expressed by the contortion of the
+features; but nobody in his senses could ever imagine that a rule for
+the expression of anger was rigid throughout and must never be departed
+from; every one approaching such a rule with a view to practice instead
+of criticism must immediately perceive that its only use is to be
+departed from in various degrees. Leonardo's advice for the painting of
+a battle-piece is excellent if it is understood in the sense in which it
+was meant,--"everything is what it is and not another thing," as Bishop
+Butler put it. Be sure and make your battle a battle indeed. It is time
+we should realise that what the great artists wrote about art is likely
+to be as sensible as are the works they created. How absurd it is for
+some one who can neither carve nor paint, much less create, to imagine
+he easily grasps the rules of art better than a great master! To such
+people let us repeat again and again Hamlet's impatient: "Oh, mend it
+altogether!"
+
+
+IV
+
+Now it will easily be seen that the causes which shape an art tradition
+may often be independent of, and foreign to, the will that creates
+beautiful objects. Religious superstition or formalism may often hem the
+artist in, and hamper his will in every direction; though it is not
+wholly accidental that the Greeks had a religion the spirit of which
+tended always to defeat the conservatism and bigotry of its priests. So
+that their formalism, instead of frustrating or warping the growth of
+their art tradition, merely served as a check that may well seem to have
+been exactly proportioned to its need; preventing the weakness or
+rankness of over rapid growth such as detracts from the art of the
+Renascence, and at the same time causing no vital injury. The spirit of
+the race deserved and created and was again in turn recreated by
+its religion.
+
+Since it is generally recognised that too much freedom is not good for
+growing life, I think that almost everybody must at this stage have
+become aware of how immensely stupid the academical idea of a canon
+appears besides this idea. How suitable both to life and the desire for
+perfection the Greek practice was! How theologically dense the
+unprogressive inflexibility of the academical practitioner! And now let
+us hear Dürer.
+
+But first I will quote from Sir Martin Conway the explanation of what
+Dürer means by the phrase, "Words of Difference."
+
+These are what he calls the "Words of Difference": large, long, small,
+stout, broad, thick, narrow, thin, young, old, fat, lean, pretty, ugly,
+hard, soft, and so forth; in fact any word descriptive of a quality
+"whereby a thing may be differentiated from the thing (normal figure)
+first made."
+
+Or, as Dürer says in another place, "difference such as maketh a thing
+fair or foul."
+
+But further, it lieth in each man's choice whether or how far he shall
+make use of all the above written "Words of Difference." For a man may
+choose whether he will learn to labour with art, wherein is the truth,
+or without art in a freedom by which everything he doth is corrupted,
+and his toil becometh a scorn to look upon to such as understand.
+
+Wherefore it is needful for every one that he use discreetness in such
+of his works as shall come to the light Whence it ariseth that he who
+would make anything aright must in no wise abate aught (that is
+essential) from Nature, neither must he lay what is intolerable upon
+her. Howbeit some will (by going to an opposite extreme) make
+alterations (from Nature) so slight that they can scarce be perceived.
+Such are of no account if they cannot be perceived; to alter over much
+also answereth not. A right mean (in such alterations) is best. But in
+this book I have departed from this right mean in order that it might be
+so much the better traced in small things. Let not him who wishes to
+proceed to some great thing imitate this my swiftness, but let him set
+more slowly (gradually) about his work, that it be not brutish but
+artistic to look upon. For figures which differ from the mean are not
+good to look upon _when_ they are wrongly and unmasterly employed.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that a skilful master beholdeth manifold
+differences of figure, all of which he might make if he had time enough,
+but which, for lack of time, he is forced to pass by. For such chances
+come very often to artists, and their imaginations also are full of
+figures which it were possible for them to make. Wherefore, if to live
+many hundred years were granted unto a man who had skill in the use of
+such art and were thereto accustomed, he would (through the power which
+God hath granted unto men) have wherewith daily to mould and make many
+new figures of men and other creatures, which none had before seen nor
+imagined. God, therefore, in such and other ways granteth great power
+unto artistic men.
+
+Although there be such talking of differences, still it is well known
+that all things that a man doth differ of their own nature one from
+another. Consequently, there liveth no artist so sure of hand as to be
+able to make two things exactly alike the one to the other, so that they
+may not be distinguished. For of all our works none is quite and
+altogether like another, and this we can in no wise avoid.
+
+We see that if we take two prints from an engraved copper-plate, or cast
+two images in a mould, very many points may immediately be found whereby
+they may be distinguished one from another. If, then, it cometh thus to
+pass in things made by processes the least liable to error, much more
+will it happen in other things which are made by the free hand.
+
+This, however, is _not the kind of Difference_ whereof I here treat; for
+I am speaking of a difference (from the mean) which a man specially
+intendeth, and which standeth in his will, of which I have spoken once
+and again....
+
+This is not the aforesaid Difference which we cannot sever from our
+work, but, such a difference as maketh a thing fair or foul, and which
+may be set forth by the "Word of Difference" dealt with above in this
+Book. If a man produce "different" figures of this kind in his work, it
+will be judged in every man's mind according to his own opinion, and
+these judgments seldom agree one with another.... Yet let every man
+beware that he make nothing impossible and inadmissible in Nature,
+unless indeed he would make some fantasy, in which it is allowed to
+mingle creatures of all kinds together....
+
+Any one who leads this carefully cannot fail to see that it is not only
+that Dürer is not "desirous of laying down rules applicable to all
+cases," or even of "proposing a definite canon for the relative
+proportions of the human body," as Thausing indeed points out (p. 305,
+v. 11): but that he does not conceive the proportions he gives as even
+approximately capable of these functions; and considers it indeed the
+very nature and special use of a canon of proportions to be wilfully
+deviated from, pointing out that, though the deviations of which he is
+speaking are slight and subtle, they are not to be confused with the
+accidental ones that can but appear even in work done by mechanical
+processes. Rather they are such variation as a man "specially intendeth,
+and which standeth in his will;" and again, "such a difference as maketh
+a thing fair or foul;" for the use of these normal proportions is that
+they may enable an artist to deviate from the normal without the
+proportions he chooses having the air of monstrosities or mistakes or
+negligences. He does not insist that either of the scales he gives is
+the best that could be, even for this purpose, but that they are
+sufficiently good to be used; and he would have marvelled at the wonder
+that has been caused in innocent critical minds that in his own work he
+adhered to them so little. He never intended them to be adhered to.
+
+
+V
+
+It may be objected that Dürer certainly sometimes thought of a Canon of
+Proportion as a perfect rule, because he wrote on a MS. page as
+follows:--
+
+Vitruvius, the ancient architect, whom the Romans employed upon great
+buildings, says that whosoever desires to build should study the
+perfection of the human figure, for in it are discovered the most secret
+mysteries of proportion. So, before I say anything about architecture, I
+will state how a well-formed man should be made, and then about a woman,
+a child and a horse. Any object may be proportioned out (_literally_,
+measured) in a similar way. Therefore, hear first of all what Vitruvius
+says about the human figure, which he learnt from the greatest masters,
+painters and founders, who were highly famed. They said that the human
+figure is as follows.
+
+That the face from the chin upward to where the hair begins is the
+tenth part of a man, and that an out-stretched hand is the same
+length, &c.
+
+[Illustration: "This is my appearance in the eighteenth year of my age"
+Charcoal-drawing in the Academy, Vienna _Face p._288]
+
+And again in another place, as Sir Martin Conway points out, he gives a
+religious basis to this notion,[85] "the Creator fashioned men once for
+all as they must be, and I hold that the perfection of form and beauty
+is contained in the sum of all men." In an obvious sense these passages
+certainly run counter to those which I have quoted (pp. 285-207): but I
+would like to point out that these are dogmatic assertions about
+something that if it were true could never be proved by experience (see
+also pp. 64, 254), those former are Dürer's advice with a view to
+practice. Men frequently carry about a considerable amount of dogmatic
+opinion, which has so little connection with actual experience that it
+is never brought to the test without being noticeably incommoded by it.
+Yet it is not absolutely necessary to consider Dürer as inconsistent in
+regard to this matter, even to this degree.
+
+The beauty of form which he held had been Adam's, and which was now
+parcelled out among his vast progeny in various amounts as a consequence
+of his fall--this beauty of form doubtless Dürer considered it part of
+an artist's business to recollect and reveal in his work. This beauty is
+an ideal, and his canon (or rather canons) were intended as means to
+help the artist to approach towards the realisation of that ideal. It is
+obvious also that a man occupied in comparing the proportions of those
+whom he considers to be exceptionally beautiful will develop and feed
+his power of imagining beautifully proportioned figures. It would be
+futile to deny that this is very much what took place in the evolution
+of Greek statues, or that such works are perhaps of all others the most
+central and satisfying to the human spirit. The sentences that precede
+that quoted by Sir Martin are Greek in tendency.
+
+A good figure cannot be made without industry and care; it should
+therefore be well considered before it is begun, so that it be correctly
+made. For the lines of its form cannot be traced by compass or rule, but
+must be drawn by the hand from point to point, so that it is easy to go
+wrong in them. And for such figures great attention should be paid to
+human proportions, and all their kinds should be investigated. _I hold
+that the more nearly and accurately a figure is made to resemble a man,
+so much the better the work will be._ If the best parts chosen from many
+well-formed men are united in one figure, it will be worthy of praise.
+But some are of another opinion, and discuss how men ought to be made. I
+will not argue with them about that. I hold Nature for Master in such
+matters, and the fancy of men for delusion.
+
+And then follows the passage quoted by Sir Martin Conway (see p. 289).
+It is obvious that, joined with the two preceding sentences, this
+passage can in no way be made to serve the academical practitioner, as
+it seems to when taken alone. In the same way, the sentence printed in
+italics in the above quotation, if isolated, would certainly seem to
+serve the scientific practitioners and their slavish realism, though in
+connection with those that follow this is no longer possible. Dürer
+regards nature as providing raw material for a creation which may not
+tally exactly with any individual natural object. This was the Greek
+artists' idea of the serviceableness of nature, as revealed both by
+their practice and by such traditions as that concerning Zeuxis and his
+five beautiful models for the figure of Venus. But Dürer does not
+confine the use of his canons even to this aim, but clearly perceived
+their utility in regard to quite other aims, as is shown by the passage
+beginning, "It is not to be wondered at," &c. (see p. 286), in which the
+imagination of figures not merely intended to embody beautiful or newly
+assorted proportions is clearly considered; and if we review Dürer's
+actual work we shall see how much oftener he created figures for
+picturesque or dramatic effect than he did to embody beautiful
+proportions in them, though he evidently also considered the last
+purpose as of the first importance, as we see when he goes on to say:
+
+Let any one who thinks I alter the human form too much or too little
+take care to avoid my error and follow nature. There are many different
+kinds of men in various lands: whoso travels far will find this to be
+so, and see it before his eyes. We are considering about the most
+beautiful human figure conceivable, but (only) the Maker of the world
+knows how that should be. Even if we succeed well we do but approach
+towards it from afar. For we ourselves have differences of perception,
+and the vulgar who follow only their own taste usually err. Therefore I
+do not advise any one to follow me, for I only do what I can, and that
+is not enough even to satisfy myself.
+
+The extreme complexity of Dürer's ideas and their application was a
+natural result of their having been born of his experience. For
+excellence is extremely various, and widely scattered through the world.
+The simplicity of a true work of art results merely from some excellence
+having been singled out from all foreign circumstances, and presented as
+vividly as it was intensely apprehended. This excellence may be one of
+proportion or one of many other kinds. Now, a figure conceived by an
+artist, whether he value it for its choicely assorted proportions or for
+picturesque or dramatic effect, may need to be developed before it is
+serviceable in an elaborate work of art.
+
+Artists who work rapidly, and, whose pictures are dominated by passing
+moods, have always been in the habit of taking great licences with
+proportion, and, indeed, with all matters of fact. Dürer's aim is to
+endow the artist who elaborates his work slowly with a similar freedom.
+This energy and power in rapid work it is the ever-renewed despair of
+artists to feel themselves losing in the process of elaboration. And one
+of the reasons for this is that in larger or more elaborate work, the
+statement, being more ample, is expected to be also more comprehensive
+and exhaustive; for the time required begets after-thoughts as to the
+real nature of the object viewed apart from the mood, which is the only
+excuse for the work; and so some of the artist's attention is drawn away
+to facts and aspects which it would have been the success of his work to
+have ignored. Dürer's object was to help a man to carry out his
+essential intention, and that alone, in a carefully elaborated picture;
+the problems faced were precisely similar to those so successfully coped
+with in Greek statues. In the first place, he would have pointed out
+that all sketches will not bear elaboration if their merit depends on
+extreme licence, for instance. Next, that a man who had a standard of
+proportion could see wherein the deviations of his sketched figure were
+essential to the effect he wished it to produce, and wherein they were
+unessential. Then, if he drew the normal figure large, he would be able
+to deviate from it in exactly the right places and to the right degree
+to reproduce the desired effect. But to do this he must also have a
+general notion of how deviations from a normal proportion could be made
+consistent throughout all the measurements involved not that he would in
+every case want to make them consistent. Now, there is a class of
+artists for whom all these suggestions of Dürer's must for ever remain
+useless, for all science of production is impossible for those whose
+only success lies in improvisation; such improvisations, however
+dazzling or however delightful they may be, are, nevertheless, the class
+of art-works furthest removed in spirit and in method from Greek
+statuary. I do not say that they need be inferior; I say that they are
+opposite in method. And, had circumstances permitted, or Dürer's dowry
+of great gifts been more complete than it was, and enabled him to become
+as great a creator of pictures as he is a great draughtsman and
+portrait-painter, no doubt his pictures would have resembled Greek
+statues both in their effect and their method, however different they
+might have been in subject and in range. To talk about "beauty" being
+sacrificed to "truth," with Prof. Thausing; or the ideal of the North
+being "strength" in works of art as in life, with Sir Martin Conway;--is
+to confuse the issue and deceive oneself. To have mistaken the proper
+end of art, beauty, by thinking it was "truth" or "strength," is to have
+failed to labour in the right direction; that is all-who-ever may
+condone the failure.
+
+
+VI
+
+Again, Sir Martin Conway tells us:
+
+The laws of perspective can be deduced with certainty from mathematical
+first principles, the canon of proportions' could only be constructed
+empirically as the result of repeated observations. Nevertheless, once
+constructed, it can certainly be used as Dürer suggested. Its use has
+practically been superseded by the study of anatomy.
+
+This last phrase shows us in a flash how far the writer when he wrote it
+was from apprehending Dürer's meaning. How could the study of anatomy
+ever do for an artist what Dürer was trying to do? No doubt Sir Martin
+had Michael Angelo in his mind's eye; and it is true that he studied
+anatomy, and that his influence has been, on the whole, paramount with
+artists attempting subjects of this kind ever since. Whether Michael
+Angelo studied proportion or not, his practice exemplifies Dürer's
+meaning splendidly. No anatomical research could have led him to
+construct figures nine to twelve, or even fifteen to twenty, heads
+high--to do which, as his work developed, more and more became his
+practice, especially in designs and sketches for compositions. To arrive
+at such proportions he followed his imaginative instinct. He found that
+these monstrous deviations from the normal (which, of course, in a
+general sense he recognised, whether he gave any study to rendering it
+precise or not) produced the effect on his mind that he wished to
+produce on the minds of others--an effect that was emotional and
+peculiar to his habitual moods. We know that his constitution gave him
+the staying-power, while his fiery Titanic spirit gave him the energy,
+to carry out and perfect his mighty frescoes and statues at the same
+heat that the creative hour yields other men for the production of a
+sketch alone. This giant son of Time was able to live for days and weeks
+together in a state of mind two or three consecutive hours of which
+exhaust the average master even. Considering the rapidity and intensity
+of his mental process, it is a miracle that, in so many works and to so
+great a degree, he respected the too much and too little of human
+reason, and allowed himself to be governed by what the Greeks called a
+sense of measure, instead of yielding to his native impetuosity and
+becoming an a-thousand-fold-greater-Blake; and illustrating, to the
+delight of active and short-winded intelligences, and the stupefaction
+of slow and dull ones, the futility of eccentricity and the frivolity of
+passion when unseconded by constancy of character and labour. For
+futile, in the arts, is whatever the sense of beauty must condemn,
+however well-intentioned; and frivolous is the passion that forgets the
+end it would attain, and becomes merely a private rhapsody, however
+astonishing its developments; slowly but surely it will be seen that
+such fireworks do not vitally concern us. The proportions of many of
+Michael Angelo's figures are as far removed from any possible normal
+standard as what Dürer calls "this my swiftness," in the abnormally tall
+and stout figures among the diagrams illustrating his book.
+
+And this is where Dürer's idea comes nearer to Greek practice. For by
+letting the striking rather than the subtle govern his departures from
+the mean, Michael Angelo found himself always bound to go beyond
+himself; as the palate which once has entertained strong stimulants
+demands that the dose be continually strengthened. Now this is in entire
+conformity with the impatience which was perhaps his greatest weakness;
+just as Dürer's too methodical approach is in conformity with that
+acquiescence in the insufficiency of his conditions which made him in
+his weak moments swear never again to undertake those better classes of
+work which were less adequately paid, or made him content to display
+mere manual dexterity rather than do nothing on his days of darkness,
+suffering and depression: we may add, which made him choose to live at
+Nuremberg and refuse a better income and more suitable surroundings
+at Venice.
+
+It is obviously the more hopeful way to create a beautiful figure first
+and discover a mathematical way of reproducing its most essential
+proportions afterwards; and no doubt this is what Dürer intended should
+be done; and in consequence he felt a need, and sought to supply it, for
+mechanical means to simplify, shorten and render more sure that part of
+the process which must necessarily partake something of the nature of
+drudgery, if great finish is to be combined with splendid design. The
+romantic, impulsive _improvisatore_ does not feel this need, considers
+it bound to defeat its own aim; and, given his own gifts, he is right.
+But none the less, there are the Greek statues elaborated with a
+thoroughness which, if it ever dims or veils the creative intention,
+does so in a degree so slight as to seem amply compensated by the sense
+of ease maintained in spite of the innumerable difficulties overcome;
+there are besides a score or more of Dürer's copper engravings with
+their imperturbable adequacy of minute painstaking, never for a moment
+sleepy or mechanical or lifeless. The one aim need not excommunicate the
+other even in the same individual; far less need this be so in different
+artists, with diverse temperaments, diverse aptitudes.
+
+
+VII
+
+The application of this idea does not end with the simple proportions of
+measurement between the limbs and parts of the figure; it is also
+concerned with what is called the modelling, and the treatment of
+surfaces such as the draperies, the hair, the fleshy portions and those
+beneath which the bony structure comes to prominence; in painting it may
+be applied to the chiaroscuro and colour. Reynolds' remarks on the
+Venetians in his Eighth Discourse well illustrate this fact. He says:
+
+It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed that the masses of
+light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or a
+yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be
+kept _almost_ entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support
+and set off these warm colours; and, for this purpose, a small
+_proportion_ of cold colours will be sufficient.
+
+If this conduct be reversed, let the light be cold, and the surrounding
+colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine
+painters; and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of
+Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid or harmonious.[86]
+
+Here we see a great colourist attempting to establish a canon for
+colour. Had he lived at an earlier period, before expression had become
+generally a subject of criticism, he would have described his discovery
+in less guarded and elastic language, such as is now applied to
+scientific laws. And then he might have been as excusably misunderstood
+as Leonardo and Dürer have been; as it is, the misunderstanding dealt
+out to him is quite without excuse.
+
+Rembrandt, not only exemplifies the impressiveness of great deviations
+in structural proportions in much the same degree as Michael Angelo,
+using what the Greeks and Dürer would doubtless have considered a
+dangerous liberty, however much they might have felt bound to admire the
+results obtained; not only does he do this when, for instance, he
+represents Jesus now as a giant, now as almost a dwarf, according to the
+imaginative impression which he chooses to create; but he follows a
+similar process in his black and white pattern. For among his works
+there are etchings, which, though often supposed to have been left
+unfinished, are discerned by those with a sense for beauties of this
+class to be marvellously complete, stimulating, and satisfying, and in
+the nicest harmony with the other impressions produced by the mental
+point of view from which the subject is viewed, as also by the main
+lines and proportions of the composition, and to yield the visual
+delight most suitable to the occasion. Dürer and the Greeks are at one
+with Michael Angelo and Rembrandt in condemning by their practice all
+purely mechanical application of ideas or methods to the production of
+works of creative art, such as is exemplified by artists of more limited
+aims and powers; by academical practitioners, by theoretical scientists
+calling themselves impressionists, luminarists, naturalists, or any
+other name. For artists whose temperaments are impeded by some unhappy
+slowness, or difficulty in concentrating themselves, methods of
+procedure similar to those elaborated by Dürer in his books on
+proportion, properly understood, must be a real aid and benefit; as
+those who are essentially improvisors may help themselves and supply
+their deficiencies by methods similar to those which Reynolds describes
+as practised by Gainsborough.
+
+"He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of
+broken stones, dried herbs and pieces of broken glass, which he
+magnified and improved into rocks, trees and water" (Fourteenth
+Discourse).
+
+This process resembles that of tracing faces or scenes from the life of
+gnomes in glowing caverns among coals of fire on a winter's eve; it is
+resorted to in one form or another by all creative artists, but it is
+peculiarly useful to men like Gainsborough, whose art tends always to
+become an improvisation, whatever strenuous discipline they may have
+subjected themselves to in their days of ardent youth.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Perhaps Dürer's actual standards for the normal, his actual methods for
+creating self-consistent variations from it, are not likely to prove of
+much use, even when artists shall be sufficiently educated to understand
+them; nevertheless, the principle which informs them has been latent in
+the work of all great creators; is marvellously fulfilled indeed, in
+Greek statuary. The work of Antoine Louis Barye, that great and
+little-understood master--as far as I am able to judge, the only modern
+artist who has made science serve him instead of being seduced by
+her--exemplifies this central idea of Dürer's almost as fully as the
+Greek masterpieces. The future of art appears to me to lie in the hands
+of those artists who shall be able to grapple with the new means offered
+them by the advance of science, as he did, and be as little or even less
+seduced than he was by the foolish idea that art can become science
+without ceasing to be art, which has handicapped and defeated the
+efforts of so many industrious and talented men of late years. So truly
+is this the case that the improvisor appears to many as the only true
+artist, and his uncontrolled caprices as the farthest reach of human
+constructive power.
+
+In any case, no artist is unhappy if a docile and hopeful disposition
+enables him to see in the masterpieces of Greek sculpture the reward of
+an easy balance of both temperaments and methods, the improvisor's and
+the elaborator's, under felicitous circumstances, by men better endowed
+than himself. And this though never history and archaeology shall be in
+a position to give him information sufficient to determine that his
+faith is wholly warranted.
+
+  A golden age is a golden dream, that sheds
+  A golden light on waking hours, on toil,
+  On leisure, and on finished works.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 85: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 86: See also III Discourse where he defends Dürer against
+Bacon.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY
+
+
+I
+
+I now intend to re-arrange what seem the most interesting of the
+sentences on the theory of art which are found in Dürer's MSS. and books
+on proportion. He did not give them the final form or order which he
+intended, and it seems to me that to arrange the more important
+according to the subjects they treat of will be the simplest way of
+arriving at general conceptions as to their tendency and value. We shall
+thus bring together repetitions of the same thought and contradictory
+answers to the same question; and after each series of sentences, I
+myself shall discuss the points raised, illustrating my remarks from
+modern writers whose opinion in these matters seems to me deserving of
+most attention. I have heard it said by the late Mr. Arthur Strong that
+Dürer's art is always didactic; and Dürer as a writer on art certainly
+has ever before his mind this one object, to teach others, or, as I
+should prefer to phrase it, to help others to learn. For he himself is
+continually confessing that he cannot yet answer his own questions, and
+it seems to me that the best teacher is always he who most desires to
+increase his knowledge, not indeed to hoard it as some do and make of
+it a personal possession; intellectual misers, for ever gnashing their
+teeth over the reputations or the pretensions of others. No, but one who
+desires knowledge for its own sake and welcomes it in others with as
+much satisfaction as he gains it for himself. Docility, i.e.,
+teachableness, let me point out once more, seems to be the necessary
+midwife of genius, without the aid of which it often labours in vain, or
+brings forth strange incongruous and misshapen births.
+
+Sad is the condition of a brilliant and fiery spirit shut up in a man's
+brain without the humble assistance of this lively, meek and patient
+virtue! What unrelieved and insupportable throes of agony must be borne
+by such a spirit, and how often does such labour end in misanthropy or
+madness! The records of the lives of exceptionally-gifted men tell us
+only too clearly what pains those are, and how frequently they have been
+borne. So I fancy I cannot do better than choose out for my first
+section sentences which praise or advocate the effort to learn, or
+attempt to enlighten those who make such an effort on the choice of
+teachers and disciplines.
+
+
+II
+
+I shall not hesitate to transpose sentences even when they appear in
+connected passages, in order, as I hope, to bring out more clearly their
+connection. For Dürer was not a writer by profession, and his thoughts
+were often more abundant than he knew how to deal with.
+
+Before starting, however, I must prefix to my quotations some account of
+the four MS. books in the British Museum from which they are principally
+taken. Rough drafts in Pirkheimer's handwriting were found among them,
+but of Dürer's work Sir Martin Conway tells us:
+
+The volumes contain upwards of seven hundred leaves and scraps of paper
+of various kinds, covered at different dates with more or less elaborate
+outline drawings, and more or less corrected drafts for works published
+or planned by Dürer. Interspersed among them are geometrical and
+other sketches.
+
+He was in the habit of correcting and re-copying, again and again, what
+he had written. Sometimes he would jot down a sentence alongside of
+matter to which it had no relation. This sentence he would afterwards
+introduce in its right connection. There are in these volumes no less
+than four drafts of the beginning of a Dedication to Pirkheimer of the
+Books of Human Proportions. Two other drafts of this same dedication are
+among the Dresden MSS. The opening sentences of the Introduction to the
+same work were likewise, as will be seen, the subject of
+frequent revision.
+
+These drafts, notes and sketches date from 1508 to 1523. Some collector
+had had them cut out, gummed together, and bound without the slightest
+regard to order, or even to the sequence of consecutive passages. In
+January 1890 the volumes were taken to pieces and rearranged by Miss
+Lina Eckenstein, who had previously made the admirable translations of
+them for Sir Martin Conway's "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," from
+which my quotations are taken.
+
+The contents of the volumes as rearranged may be roughly described as
+follows:
+
+Volume 1. Drawings of whole figures and portions of the body,
+illustrating Dürer's theories of Proportion. Drawings of a solid
+octogon. Six coloured drawings of crystals. The description of the
+Ionic order of architecture. Drawings of columns with measurements. A
+scale for Human Proportions. A table of contents for a work on Geometry.
+Notes on perspective, curves, folds, &c. The different kinds of temple
+after Vitruvius. Mathematical diagrams, &c.
+
+Volume II. Draft of a dedicatory letter to King Ferdinand (see page
+180). Drafts and drawings for "The Art of Fortification." Drawing of a
+shield with a rearing horse. Mantles of Netherlandish women and nuns. A
+Latin inscription for his own portrait. Notes on "Proportion," and on
+the feast of the Rosenkranz. Scale for Human Proportions. An alphabet.
+Draft of a dedication for the books on Proportion. Sketch of a skeleton.
+Studies of architecture. Venetian houses and roofs. Sketches of a
+church, a house, a tower, a drapery, &c.
+
+Volume III. Drafts of a projected work on Painting and on the study of
+Proportion. Drafts for the dedication, the preface, and for a work on
+Esthetics. Drawings of a male body, a female body, and a piece of
+drapery. Notes and drawings for the proportions of heads, hands, feet,
+outline curves, a child, a woman, &c.
+
+Volume IV. Proportions of a man, a fat woman, the head of the average
+woman, the young woman, &c. Short Profession of Faith (see page 130).
+Scale for Human Proportions, &c. Fragments of the Preface of Essay on
+Aesthetics, &c. Grimacing and distorted faces. Use of measurements. On
+the characters of faces, thick, thin, broad, narrow, &c. Sketches of a
+dragon and of an angel for Maximilian's Triumphal Procession. List of
+Luther's works (see page 130). Drawings of human bodies proportioned
+to squares.
+
+[Illustration: "UNA VILANA WENDISCH" Pen drawing with wash background
+in the collection of Mrs. Seymour _face_ p. 304]
+
+See the description in "Dürer's Schriftlicher Nachlass" (Lange und
+Fuhse), page 263, from which the above abstract is made.
+
+Sir Martin Conway continues:
+
+In these volumes Dürer is seen, sometimes writing under the influence of
+impetuous impulse, sometimes with leisurely care, allowing his pen to
+embroider the script with graceful marginal flourishes.
+
+At what period of his career Dürer first conceived the idea of writing a
+comprehensive work upon the theory and practice of art is unknown. It
+was certainly before the year 1512. The following list of chapters may
+perhaps be an early sketch of the plan.
+
+Ten things are contained in the little book.
+The first, the proportions of a young child.
+The second, proportions of a grown man.
+The third, proportions of a woman.
+The fourth, proportions of a horse.
+The fifth, something about architecture.
+The sixth, about an apparatus through which it can be
+  shown that 'all things may be traced.
+The seventh, about light and shade.
+The eighth, about colours, how to paint like nature.
+The ninth, about the ordering (composition) of the
+  picture.
+The tenth, about free painting, which alone is made by
+  Imagination without any other help.
+
+
+III
+
+Glad enough should we be to attain unto great knowledge without toil,
+for nature has implanted in us the desire of knowing all things,
+thereby to discern a truth of all things. But our dull wit cannot come
+unto such perfectness of all art, truth, and wisdom. Yet are we not,
+therefore, shut out altogether from all arts. If we want to sharpen our
+reason by learning and to practise ourselves therein, having once found
+the right path we may, step by step, seek, learn, comprehend, and
+finally reach and attain unto something true. Wherefore, he that
+understandeth how to learn somewhat in his leisure time, whereby he may
+most certainly be enabled to honour God, and to do what is useful both
+for himself and others, that man doeth well; and we know that in this
+wise he will gain much experience in art and will be able to make known
+its truth for our good. It is right, therefore, for one man to teach
+another. He that joyfully doeth so, upon him shall much be bestowed by
+God, from whom we receive all things. He hath highest praise.
+
+One finds some who know nothing and learn nothing. They despise
+learning, and say that much evil cometh of the arts, and that some are
+wholly vile. I, on the contrary, hold that no art is evil, but that all
+are good. A sword is a sword which may be used either for murder or for
+justice. Similarly the arts are in themselves good. What God hath
+formed, that is good, misuse it how ye will.
+
+Thou findest arts of all kinds; choose then for thyself that which is
+like to be of greatest service to thee. Learn it; let not the difficulty
+thereof vex thee till thou hast accomplished somewhat wherewith thou
+mayest be satisfied.
+
+It is very necessary for a man to know some one thing by reason of the
+usefulness which ariseth therefrom. Wherefore we should all gladly
+learn, for the more we know so much the more do we resemble the likeness
+of God, who verily knoweth all things.
+
+The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the better doth he become,
+and so much the more love doth he win for the arts and for things
+exalted. Wherefore a man ought not to play the wanton, but should learn
+in season.
+
+Is the artistic man pious and by nature good? He escheweth the evil and
+chooseth the good; and hereunto serve the arts, for they give the
+discernment of good and evil.
+
+Some may learn somewhat of all arts, but that is not given to every man.
+Nevertheless, there is no rational man so dull but that he may learn the
+one thing towards which his fancy draweth him most strongly. Hence no
+man is excused from learning something.
+
+Let no man put too much confidence in himself, for many (pairs of eyes)
+see better than one. Though it is possible for a man to comprehend more
+than a thousand (men), still that cometh but rarely to pass.
+
+Many fall into error because they follow their own taste alone;
+therefore let each look to it that his inclination blind not his
+judgment. For every mother is well pleased with her own child, and thus
+also it ariseth that many painters paint figures resembling themselves.
+
+He that worketh in ignorance worketh more painfully than he that worketh
+with understanding; therefore let all learn to understand aright.
+
+Now I know that in our German nation, at the present time, are many
+painters who stand in need of instruction, for they lack all real art,
+yet they nevertheless have many large works to do. Forasmuch then as
+they are so numerous, it is very needful for them to learn to better
+their work.
+
+Willingly will I impart my teaching, hereafter written, to the man who
+knoweth little and would gladly learn; but I will not be cumbered with
+the proud, who, according to their own estimate of themselves, know all
+things, and are best, and despise all else. From true artists, however,
+such as can show their meaning with the hand, I desire to learn humbly
+and with much thankfulness.
+
+A thing thou beholdest is easier of belief than that thou hearest, but
+whatever is both heard and seen we grasp more firmly and lay hold on
+more securely. I will therefore do the work in both ways, that thus I
+may be better understood.
+
+Whosoever will, therefore, let him hear and see what I say, do, and
+teach, for I hope it may be of service and not for a hindrance to the
+better arts, nor lead thee to neglect better things.
+
+I hear moreover of no writer in modern times by whom aught hath been
+written and made known which I might read for my improvement. For some
+hide their art in great secrecy, and others write about things whereof
+they know nothing, so that their words are nowise better than mere
+noise, as he that knoweth somewhat is swift to discover. I therefore
+will write down with God's help the little that I know. Though many will
+scorn it I am not troubled, for I well know that it is easier to cast
+blame on a thing than to make anything better. Moreover, I will expound
+my meaning as clearly and plainly as I can; and, were it possible, I
+would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver or gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something burning
+and ye all add to it with skilful furthering, a blaze may in time arise
+therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world.
+
+I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same
+touchstone as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the
+world prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world
+esteemeth beautiful that will we also hold for beautiful, and ourselves
+strive to produce the like.
+
+No one need blindly follow this theory of mine as though it were quite
+perfect, for human nature has not yet so far degenerated that another
+man cannot discover something better. So each may use my teaching as
+long as it seems good to him, or until he finds something better. Where
+he is not willing to accept it, he may well hold that this doctrine is
+not written for him, but for others who are willing.
+
+That must be a strangely dull head which never trusts itself to find out
+anything fresh, but only travels along the old path, simply following
+others and not daring to reflect for itself. For it beseems each
+understanding, in following another, not to despair of itself
+discovering something better. If that is done, there remaineth no doubt
+but that in time this art will again reach the perfection it attained
+amongst the ancients.
+
+Much will hereafter be written about subjects and refinements of
+painting. Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will
+write both well and better about this art, and will teach it better than
+I; for I myself hold my art at a very mean value, for I know what my
+faults are. Let every man therefore strive to better these my errors
+according to his powers. Would to God it were possible for me to see the
+work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I
+know that I might be improved upon. Ah! how often in my sleep do I
+behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof never
+appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake, even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me.
+
+Compare also the passages already quoted,(pp. 15,16,26).
+
+
+IV
+
+"What an admirable temper!" is the exclamation which expresses our first
+feeling on reading the foregoing sentences. It renews the spirit of a
+man merely to peruse such things. Scales fall from our eyes, and we see
+what we most essentially are, with pleasure, as good children gleefully
+recognise their goodness: and at the same time we are filled with
+contrition that we should have ever forgotten it. And this that we most
+essentially are rational beings, lovers of goodness, children of
+hope,--how directly Dürer appeals to it: "Nature has implanted in us the
+desire of knowing all things." It reminds one of Ben Jonson's:--
+
+It is a false quarrel against nature, that she helps understanding but
+in a few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if
+they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run,
+&c., which, if they lose it, is through their own sluggishness, and by
+that means they become her prodigies, not her children.
+
+There is something refreshing and inspiriting in the mere conviction of
+our teachableness; and when the same author, referring to Plato's
+travels in search of knowledge, says, "He laboured, so must we," we do
+not find the comparison humiliating either to Plato or ourselves. For
+"without a way there is no going," and every man of superior mould says
+to us with more or less of benignity, "I am the way: follow me." Such
+means or ways of attainment have been followed by all whose success is
+known to us, and are followed now by all "finely touched and gifted
+men." I might quote in illustration of these assertions the whole of
+Reynolds' Sixth Discourse, so marvellous for its acute and delicate
+discrimination; but I will content myself with a few leading passages:
+
+We cannot suppose that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation
+of others.
+
+It is a common observation that no art was ever invented and carried to
+perfection at the same time.
+
+The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who
+resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will soon be reduced to
+the poorest of all imitations, he will be obliged to imitate himself,
+and to repeat what he has often before repeated.
+
+The truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's
+thoughts an encumbrance to him, can have no very great strength of mind
+or genius of his own to be destroyed: so that not much harm will be done
+at the worst.
+
+Of course, this last phrase will not apply universally; we must remember
+that the man who sets out to become an artist, or claims to be one by
+native gift, has made apparent that he is the possessor of no mean
+ambition. The humblest may see a way of improvement in their betters,
+and obey the command, "Follow me." Every man is not called to follow
+great artists, but only those who are peculiarly fitted to tread the
+difficult paths that climb Olympus-hill. Yet to all men alike the great
+artist in life, he who wedded failure to divinity, says, "Learn of me
+that I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls."
+
+He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never
+proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of his
+imitation. He professes only to follow; and he that follows must
+necessarily be behind.
+
+It is of course impossible to surpass perfection, but it is possible to
+be made one with it.
+
+To find excellences, however dispersed, to discover beauties, however
+concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded,
+can be the work only of him who, having a mind always alive to his art,
+has extended his views to all ages and to all schools; and has acquired
+from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself a
+well-digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is
+referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of
+that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from
+every school; selects both from what is great and what is little; brings
+home knowledge from the east and from the west; making the universe
+tributary towards furnishing his mind, and enriching his works with
+originality and variety of inventions.
+
+In this tine passage we get back to our central idea in regard to the
+sense of proportion "making the universe tributary towards furnishing
+his mind"; while in the "discovery of beauties" the complete artist
+"selects both from what is great and what is little," from the clouds of
+heaven and from the dunghills of the farmyard.
+
+Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters for ever. Study,
+as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, and on the principles
+on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those
+masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to
+imitate, and at the same time as rivals with whom you are to contend.
+For "no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any
+other terms."
+
+Yes, an artist is a child who chooses his parents, nor is he limited to
+only two. Religion tells all men they have a Father, who is God;
+philosophy and tradition repeat, "man has a mother, who is Nature."
+These sayings are platitudes; their application is so obvious that it is
+now generally forgotten. If God is a Father, it is the soul that chooses
+Him; if Nature is a mother, it is the man who chooses to regard her as
+such, since to the greater number it is well known she seems but a
+stepmother, and a cruel one at that. Elective affinities, chosen
+kindred!--"tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you who you
+are" (what you are worth). How many artist waifs one sees nowadays! lost
+souls, who choose to be nobody's children, and think they can teach
+themselves all they need to know.
+
+I think the very striking agreement between artists so totally different
+in every respect except eminence, docility and anxiety to further art,
+as Dürer and Reynolds, ought to impress our minds very deeply: even
+though, as is certainly the case, the way they point out has been very
+greatly abandoned of late years, and public institutions in this and
+other countries proceed to further art on quite other lines; even though
+critics are almost unanimous in knowing better both the end and the way
+than the great masters who had not the advantage of a dash of science in
+their hydromel to make it sparkle, but instead made it yet richer and
+thicker by stirring up with it piety and religion. I think this
+"cock-tail and sherry-cobbler" art criticism of to-day is very
+deleterious to the digestion, and that the piety and enthusiasm which
+Dürer and Reynolds worked into their art were more wholesome, and better
+supplied the needs and deficiencies of artistic temperaments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LOST TRADITION
+
+
+I
+
+Many centuries ago the great art of painting was held in high honour by
+mighty kings, and they made excellent artists rich and held them worthy,
+accounting such inventiveness a creating power like God's. For the
+imagination of a good painter is full of figures, and were it possible
+for him to live for ever, he would always have from his inward ideas,
+whereof Plato speaks, something new to set forth by the work of
+his hand.
+
+Many hundred years ago there were still some famous painters, such as
+those named Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Polycleitus, Parrhasius,
+Lysippus, Protogenes, and the rest, some of whom wrote about their art
+and very artfully described it and gave it plainly to light: but their
+praise-worthy books are, so far, unknown to us, and perhaps have been
+altogether lost by war, driving forth of the peoples, and alterations of
+laws and beliefs--a loss much to be regretted by every wise man. It
+often came to pass that noble "Ingenia" were destroyed by barbarous
+oppressors of art; for if they saw figures traced in a few lines they
+thought it nought but vain, devilish sorcery. And in destroying them
+they attempted to honour God by something displeasing to Him; and to use
+the language of men, God was angry with all destroyers of the works of
+great mastership, which is only attained by much toil, labour, and
+expenditure of time, and is bestowed by God alone. Often do I sorrow
+because I must be robbed of the aforesaid masters' books of art; but the
+enemies of art despise these things.
+
+Pliny writeth that the old painters and sculptors--such as Apelles,
+Protogenes, and the rest--told very artistically in writing how a
+well-built man's figure might be measured out. Now it may well have come
+to pass that these noble books were misunderstood and destroyed as
+idolatrous in the early days of the Church. For they would have said
+Jupiter should have such proportions, Apollo such others; Venus shall be
+thus, Hercules thus; and so with all the rest. Had it, however, been my
+fate to be there at the time, I would have said: "Oh dear, holy lords
+and fathers, do not so lamentably destroy the nobly discovered arts,
+which have been gotten by great toil and labour, only because of the
+abuses made of them. For art is very hard, and we might and would use it
+for the great honour and glory of God. For, even as the ancients used
+the fairest figure of a man to represent their false god Apollo, we will
+employ the same for Christ the Lord, who is fairest of all the earth;
+and as they figured Venus as the loveliest of women, so will we in like
+manner set down the same beauteous form for the most pure Virgin Mary,
+the mother of God; and of Hercules will we make Samson, and thus will we
+do with all the rest, for such books shall we get never more."
+Wherefore, though that which is lost ariseth not again, yet a man may
+strive after new lore; and for these reasons I have been moved to make
+known my ideas here following, in order that others may ponder the
+matter further, and may thus come to a new and better way and
+foundation.
+
+I certainly do not deny that, if the books of the ancients who wrote
+about the art of painting still lay before our eyes, my design might be
+open to the false interpretation that I thought to find out something
+better than what was known unto them. These books, however, have been
+totally lost in the lapse of time; so I cannot be justly blamed for
+publishing my opinions and discoveries in writing, for that is exactly
+what the ancients did. If other competent men are thereby induced to do
+the like, our descendants have something which they may add to and
+improve upon, and thus the art of painting may in time advance and reach
+its perfection.
+
+
+II
+
+Whether we should exercise our intellects or logical sense alone upon
+the records and remains of past ages, or whether they may not be better
+employed for the exercise and edification of the imaginative faculties,
+would seem to be a question which, though they did not perhaps in set
+terms put to themselves, modern historians have very summarily answered;
+and I think answered wrongly. The records of the past, the records even
+of yesterday, are necessarily extremely incomplete; to make them at all
+significant something must be added by the historian. The 'perception'
+of probability is never exact; it varies with the mind between man and
+man; in the same man even before and after different experiences, &c.
+But even if the perception of the highest probability were practically
+exact, it would never suffice; for, as Aristotle says, "it is probable
+that many things should happen contrary to probability." From these
+facts it follows that the man who has the most exhaustive knowledge of
+what has actually survived, and what has been recorded, will not
+necessarily form the truest judgment on a question of history; it might
+always happen that the intuition of some unscholarly person was nearer
+the truth; still no man could ever decide between the two, nor would any
+sane man think it worth his while to take sides with either of them;
+such questions are most useful when they are left open. This is the case
+because the imagination is thus left freer to use such knowledge as it
+has for the edification of the character; and that model for our example
+or warning which the imagination constructs may always possibly be the
+truth. According to the balance in it of apparent probability, with
+edifying power it will beget conviction. Such a conviction may be doomed
+to be superseded sooner or later; its value lies in its potency while it
+lasts. The temper in which we look at our historical heritage is of more
+importance to us now than the exactitude of our vision; for this latter
+can never be proved, while the former approves itself by the fruit it
+bears within us. It is better, more fruitful, to feel with Dürer about
+the art of Ancient Greece than to know all that can be known of it
+to-day and feel a great deal less. "Character calls forth character,"
+said Goethe; we may add, "even from the grave." Now that the physical
+miracle of the Resurrection has come to seem so unimportant and
+uninteresting to educated men, it might be a wise economy to connect its
+poetry with this experience, that great and creative characters can
+raise men better worth knowing than Lazarus from the dead. Nietsche
+thought that Shakespeare had brought Brutus back to life, (though he
+knew very little of Roman history), and that Brutus was the Roman best
+worth knowing. "Of all peoples, the Greeks dreamt the dream of life the
+best," Goethe said; and again, "For all other arts we have to make some
+allowance; to Greek art alone we are for ever debtors." To feel the
+truth of these sayings with a passion similar to that shown in the
+passages quoted above from Dürer, must surely be a great help to an
+artist. Such a passion is an end in itself, or rather is the only means
+by which we can win spiritual freedom from some of the heavier fetters
+that modern life lays upon us. It freed Goethe even from Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BEAUTY
+
+
+I
+
+How is beauty to be judged?--upon that we have to deliberate.
+
+A man by skill may bring it into every single thing, for in some things
+we recognise that as beautiful which elsewhere would lack beauty.
+
+Good and better in respect of beauty are not easy to discern; for it
+would be quite possible to make two different figures, one stout, the
+other thin, which should differ one from the other in every proportion,
+and yet we scarce might be able to judge which of the two excelled in
+beauty. What beauty is I know not, though it dependeth upon many things.
+
+I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same touchstone
+as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the world
+prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world esteemeth
+beautiful that we will also hold for beautiful, and ourselves strive to
+produce the like.
+
+There are many causes and varieties of beauty; he that can prove them is
+so much the more to be trusted.
+
+The accord of one thing with another is beautiful, therefore want of
+harmony is not beautiful. A real harmony linketh together things unlike.
+
+Use is a part of beauty, whatever therefore is useless unto men is
+without beauty.
+
+The more imperfection is excluded so much the more doth beauty abide in
+the work.
+
+Guard thyself from superfluity.
+
+But beauty is so put together in men and so uncertain is our judgment
+about it, that we may perhaps find two men both beautiful and fair to
+look upon, and yet neither resembleth the other, in measure or kind, in
+any single point or part; and so blind is our perception that we shall
+not understand whether of the two is the more beautiful, and if we give
+an opinion on the matter it shall lack certainty.
+
+Negro faces are seldom beautiful because of their very flat noses and
+thick lips; moreover, their shinbone is too prominent, and the knee and
+foot too long, not so good to look upon as those of the whites; and so
+also is it with their hand. Howbeit, I have seen some amongst them whose
+whole bodies have been so well-built and handsome that I never beheld
+finer figures, nor can I conceive how they might be bettered, so
+excellent were their arms and all their limbs.
+
+Seeing that man is the worthiest of all creatures, it follows that, in
+all pictures, the human figure is most frequently employed as a centre
+of interest. Every animal in the world regards nothing but his own kind,
+and the same nature is also in men, as every man may perceive
+in himself.
+
+[Illustration: Charcoal-drawing heightened with white on a green
+prepared ground, in the Berlin Print Room _Face p_. 320]
+
+Further, in order that he may arrive at a good canon whereby to bring
+somewhat of beauty into our work, there-unto it were best for thee, it
+bethinks me, to form thy canon from many living men. Howbeit seek only
+such men as are held beautiful, and from such draw with all diligence.
+For one who hath understanding may, from men of many different kinds,
+gather something good together through all the limbs of the body. But
+seldom is a man found who hath all his limbs good, for every man lacks
+something.
+
+No single man can be taken as a model of a perfect figure, for no man
+liveth on earth who uniteth in himself all manner of beauties.... There
+liveth also no man upon earth who could give a final judgment upon what
+the perfect figure of a man is; God only knoweth that.
+
+And although we cannot speak of the greatest beauty of a living
+creature, yet we find in the visible creation a beauty so far surpassing
+our understanding that no one of us can fully bring it into his work.
+
+If we were to ask how we are to make a beautiful figure, some would give
+answer: According to human judgment (i.e., common taste). Others would
+not agree thereto, neither should I without a good reason. Who will give
+us certainty in this matter?[87]
+
+
+II
+
+I have already given what I believe to be the best answer to these
+questions as to what beauty is and how it is to be judged. Beauty is
+beauty as good is good (_see_ pp. 7, 8), or yellow, yellow; indeed, to
+the second question, Matthew Arnold has given the only possible
+answer--the relative value of beauties is "as the judicious would
+determine," and the judicious are, in matters of art "finely touched and
+gifted men." This criterion obviously cannot be easily or hastily
+applied, nor could one ever be quite sure that in any given case it had
+been applied to any given effect. But for practical needs we see that it
+suffices to cast a slur on facile popularity, and vindicate over and
+over again those who had been despised and rejected. What the true
+artist desires to bring into his pictures is the power to move
+finely-touched and gifted men. Not only are such by very much the
+minority, but the more part of them being, by their capacity to be moved
+and touched, easily wounded, have developed a natural armour of reserve,
+of moroseness, of prejudice, of combativeness, of pedantry, which makes
+them as difficult to address as wombats, or bears, or tortoises, or
+porcupines, or polecats, or elephants. It is interesting to witness how
+Dürer's self-contradictions show him to be aware of the great complexity
+of these difficulties, as also to see how very near he comes to the true
+answer. At one time he tells us:
+
+"When men demand a work of a master, he is to be praised in so far as he
+succeeds in satisfying their likings ..."[88]
+
+At another he tells us:
+
+"The art of painting cannot be truly judged save by such as are
+themselves good painters; from others verily is it hidden even as a
+strange tongue."[89]
+
+Every "finely touched and gifted man" is not an artist; but every true
+artist must, in some measure, be a finely touched and gifted man. There
+is no necessity to limit the public addressed to those who themselves
+produce: yet those who "can prove what they say with their hand" bring
+credentials superior to those offered by any others,--although even
+their judgment is not sure, as they may well represent a minority of
+the true court of appeal which can never be brought together.
+
+No doubt there is a judgment and a scale of values accepted as final by
+each generation that gives any considerable attention to these
+questions. Æsthetic appear to be exactly similar to religious
+convictions. Those who are subject to them probably pass through many
+successively, even though they all their lives hold to a certain fashion
+which enables them to assert some obvious unity, like those who, in
+religion, belong always to one sect. Yet if they were in a position to
+analyse their emotions and leanings, no doubt very fundamental
+contradictions would be discovered to disconcert them. Conviction and
+enthusiasm in the arts and religion would seem to be the frame of mind
+natural to those who assimilate, and are rendered productive by what
+they study and admire. Convictions may never be wholly justifiable in
+theory, but in practice when results are considered, it would seem that
+no other frame of mind should escape censure.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 87: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 244.]
+
+[Footnote 88: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 89: _Idem_. p. 177.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NATURE
+
+
+I
+
+We regard a form and figure out of nature with more pleasure than
+another, though the thing in itself is not necessarily altogether
+better or worse.
+
+Life in nature showeth forth the truth of these things (the words of
+difference--i.e., the character of bodily habit to which they refer),
+wherefore regard it well, order thyself thereby and depart not from
+nature in thine opinions, neither imagine of thyself to invent aught
+better, else shalt thou be led astray, for art standeth firmly fixed in
+nature, and whoso can rend her forth thence he only possesseth her. If
+thou acquirest her, she will remove many faults for thee from thy work.
+
+Neither must the figure be made youthful before and old behind, or
+contrariwise; for that unto which nature is opposed is bad. Hence it
+followeth that each figure should be of one kind alone throughout,
+either young or old, or middle-aged, or lean or fat, or soft or hard.
+
+The more closely thy work abideth by life in its form, so much the
+better will it appear; and this is true. Wherefore never more imagine
+that thou either canst or shalt make anything better than God hath given
+power to His creatures to do. For thy power is weakness compared to
+God's creating hand. (_See_ continuation of passage, p. 10.)
+
+Compare also passages quoted (pp. 289-291).
+
+
+II
+
+In these and other passages Dürer speaks about "nature," and enjoins on
+the artist respect for and conformity to "nature" in a manner which
+reminds us of that still current in dictums about art. Indeed, it seems
+probable that Dürer's use of this term was almost as confused as that of
+a modern art-critic. There are two senses in which the word nature is
+employed, the confusion of which is ten times more confounded than any
+of the others, and deserves, indeed, utter damnation, so prolific of
+evil is it. We call the objects of sensory perception "nature"--whatever
+is seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted is a part of nature. And yet we
+constantly speak of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting
+monstrous and unnatural things. And a monstrous and unnatural thing is
+not merely one which is rare, but even more decidedly one of which we
+disapprove. So that the second use of the term conveys some sense of
+exceptionality, but far more of lack of conformity to human desires and
+expectations. Now, many things which do not exist are perfectly natural
+in this second sense: fairy-lands, heavens, &c. We perfectly understand
+what is meant by a natural and an unnatural imagination, we perceive
+readily all kind of degrees between the monstrous and the natural in
+pure fiction. Now, this second use of the term nature is the only one
+which is of any vital importance to our judgments upon works of art; yet
+current judgments are more often than not based wholly on the first
+sense, which means merely all objects perceived by the senses; and this,
+draped in the authority and phrases belonging to judgments based on the
+second and really pertinent sense.
+
+Whole schools of painting and criticism have arisen and flourish whose
+only reason for existence is the extreme facility with which this
+confusion is made in European languages. It sounds so plausible that
+some have censured Michael Angelo for bad drawing because men are not
+from 9 to 15 or 16 heads high, and have not muscles so developed as the
+gods and Titans of his creation. And others have objected to the angels,
+the anatomical ambiguity of their wing articulations. To say that a
+sketch or picture is out of tone or drawing damns, in many circles
+to-day; in spite of the fact that the most famous masterpieces, if
+judged by the same standard, would be equally offensive. This absurdity,
+even where its grosser developments are avoided, breeds abundant
+contradictions and confusion in the mouths of those who plume themselves
+on culture and discernment. I hope not to have been too saucy,
+therefore, in pointing out this pitfall to my readers in regard to these
+sentences which I thought it worth while to quote from Dürer, merely
+because if I did not do so I foresaw that they would be quoted
+against me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST
+
+
+I
+
+In the great earnestness with which the difficulties that beset art and
+the artist impressed him, Dürer intended to write a _Vade Mecum_ for
+those who should come after him. He has left among his MS. papers many
+plans, rough drafts, and notes for some such work, the form of which no
+doubt changed from time to time. The one which gives us the most
+comprehensive idea of his intentions is perhaps the following.
+
+
+II
+
+Ihs. Maria
+
+By the grace and help of God I have here set down all that I have learnt
+in practice, which is likely to be of use in painting, for the service
+of all students who would gladly learn. That, perchance, by my help they
+may advance still further in the higher understanding of such art, as he
+who seeketh may well do, if he is inclined thereto; for my reason
+sufficeth not to lay the foundations of this great, far-reaching,
+infinite art of true painting.
+
+Item.--In order that thou mayest thoroughly and rightly comprehend what
+is, or is called, an "artistic painter," I will inform thee and recount
+to thee. If the world often goeth without an "artistic painter," whilst
+for two or three hundred years none such appeareth, it is because those
+who might have become such devote not themselves to art. Observe then
+the three essential qualities following, which belong to the true artist
+in painting. These are the three main points in the whole book.
+
+I. The First Division of the book is the Prologue, and it compriseth
+three parts (A, B, and C).
+
+  A. The first part of the Prologue telleth us how the lad should be
+  taught, and how attention should be paid to the tendency of his
+  temperament. It falleth into six parts:
+
+    1. That note should be taken of the birth of the child, in what Sign it
+    occurreth; with some explanations. (Pray God for a lucky hour!)
+
+    2. That his form and stature should be considered; with some
+    explanations.
+
+    3. How he ought to be nurtured in learning from the first; with some
+    explanations.
+
+    4. That the child should be observed, whether he learneth best when
+    kindly praised or when chidden; with explanations.
+
+    5. That the child be kept eager to learn and be not vexed.
+
+    6. If the child worketh too hard, so that he might fall under the hand
+    of melancholy, that he be enticed therefrom by merry music to the
+    pleasuring of his blood.
+
+  B. The second part of the Preface showeth how the lad should be brought
+  up in the fear of God and in reverence, that so he may attain grace,
+  whereby he may be much strengthened in intelligent art. It falleth into
+  six parts:
+
+    1. That the lad be brought up in the fear of God and be taught to pray
+    to God for the grace of quick perception (_ubtilitet_) and to
+    honour God.
+
+    2. That he be kept moderate in eating and drinking, and also in
+    sleeping.
+
+    3. That he dwell in a pleasant house, so that he be distracted by no
+    manner of hindrance.
+
+    4. That he be kept from women and live not loosely with them; that he
+    not so much as see or touch one; and that he guard himself from all
+    impurity. Nothing weakens the understanding more than impurity.
+
+    5. That he know how to read and write well, and be also instructed in
+    Latin, so far as to understand certain writings.
+
+    6. That such an one have sufficient means to devote himself without
+    anxiety (to his art), and that his health be attended to with medicines
+    when needful.
+
+  C. The third part of the Prologue teacheth us of the great usefulness,
+  joy, and delight which spring from painting. It falleth into six parts:
+
+    1. It is a useful art when it is of godly sort, and is employed for holy
+    edification.
+
+    2. It is useful, and much evil is thereby avoided, if a man devote
+    himself thereto who else had wasted his time.
+
+    3. It is useful when no one thinks so, for a man will have great joy if
+    he occupy himself with that which is so rich in joys.
+
+    4. It is useful because a man gaineth great and lasting memory thereby
+    if he applieth it aright.
+
+    5. It is useful because God is thereby honoured when it is seen that He
+    hath bestowed such genius upon one of His creatures in whom is such
+    art. All men will be gracious unto thee by reason of thine art.
+
+    6. The sixth use is that if thou art poor thou mayest by such art come
+    unto great wealth and riches.
+
+II. The Second Division of the book treateth of Painting itself; it also
+is threefold.
+
+  A. The first part is of the freedom of painting; in six ways.
+
+  B. The second part is of the proportions of men and buildings, and what
+  is needful for painting; in six ways.[90]
+
+    1. Of the proportions of men.
+    2. Of the proportions of horses.
+    3. Of the proportions of buildings.
+    4. Of perspective.
+    5. Of light and shade.
+    6. Of colours, how they are to be made to resemble nature.
+
+  C. The third part is of all that a man conceives as subject for
+  painting.
+
+III. The Third Division of the book is the Conclusion; it also hath
+three parts.
+
+  A. The first part shows in what place such an artist should dwell to
+  practise his art; in six ways.
+
+  B. The second part shows how such a wonderful artist should charge
+  highly for his art, and that no money is too much for it, seeing that it
+  is divine and true; in six ways.
+
+The third part speaks of praise and thanksgiving which he should render
+unto God for His grace, and which others should render on his behalf;
+in six ways.
+
+
+III
+
+It is in the variety and completeness of his intentions that we perceive
+Dürer's kinship with the Renascence; he comprehends the whole of life in
+his idea of art training.
+
+In his persuasion of the fundamental necessity of morality he is akin to
+the best of the Reformation. It is in the union of these two perceptions
+that his resemblance to Michael Angelo lies. There is a rigour, an
+austerity which emanates from their work, such as is not found in the
+work of Titian or Rembrandt or Leonardo or Rubens or any other mighty
+artist of ripe epochs. Yet we find both of them illustrating the
+licentious legends of antiquity, turning from the Virgin to Amymone and
+Leda, from Christ to Apollo and Hercules. By their action and example
+neither joins either the Reformation or the Renascence in so far as
+these movements may be considered antagonistic; nor did they find it
+inconsistent to acknowledge their debt to Greece and Rome, even while
+accepting the gift of Jesus' example as freely as it was offered.
+
+Not only does Dürer insist on the necessity of a certain consonancy
+between the surrounding influences and the artist's capacity, which
+should be both called forth and relieved by the interchange of rivalry
+with instruction, of seclusion with music or society, but the process
+which Jesus made the central one of his religion is put forward as
+essential; he must form himself on a precedent example. I have already
+quoted from Reynolds at length on this point.
+
+I will merely add here some notes from another MS. fragment of Dürer's
+bearing on the same points.
+
+He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.
+
+Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than
+compulsion is.
+
+If a man is to become a really great painter he must be educated thereto
+from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good
+artists until he attain a free hand.
+
+To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing
+whatsoever that may be chosen.
+
+It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce, to
+measure the human figure, before learning anything else.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 90: The following list comes from another sheet of the MS.
+(in. 70), but was dearly intended for this place. It is jotted down on a
+thick piece of paper, on which there are also geometrical designs.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
+
+
+I
+
+If thou wishest to model well in painting, so as to deceive the
+eyesight, thou must be right cunning in thy colours, and must know how
+to keep them distinct, in painting, one from another. For example, thou
+paintest two coats of mantles, one white the other red; thou must deal
+differently with them in shading. There is light and shadow on all
+things, wherever the surface foldeth or bendeth away from the eye. If
+this were not so, everything would look flat, and then one could
+distinguish nothing save only a chequerwork of colours.
+
+If then thou art shading the white mantle, it must not be shaded with so
+dark a colour as the red, for it would be impossible for a white thing
+to yield so dark a shadow as a red. Neither could they be compared one
+with another, save that in total absence of daylight everything is
+black, seeing that colour cannot be recognised in darkness. Though,
+therefore, in such a case, the theory allows one, without blame, to use
+pure black for the shadows of a white object, yet this can seldom
+come to pass.
+
+Moreover, when thou paintest anything in one colour--be it red, blue,
+brown, or any mixed colour--beware lest thou make it so bright in the
+lights that it departs from its own kind. For example, an uneducated man
+regardeth thy picture wherein is a red coat. "Look, good friend," saith
+he, "in one part the coat is of a fair red and in another it is white
+or pale in colour." That same is to be blamed, neither hast thou done it
+aright. In such a case a red object must be painted red all over and yet
+preserve the appearance of solidity; and so with all colours. The same
+must be done with the shadows, lest it be said that a fair red is soiled
+with black Wherefore be careful that thou shade each colour with a
+similar colour. Thus I hold that a yellow, to retain its kind, must be
+shaded with a yellow, darker toned than the principal colour. If thou
+shade it with green or blue, it remaineth no longer in keeping, and is
+no longer yellow, but becometh thereby a shot colour, like the colour of
+silk stuffs woven of threads of two colours, as brown and blue, brown
+and green, dark yellow and green, chestnut-brown and dark yellow, blue
+and seal red, seal red and brown, and the many other colours one sees.
+If a man hath such as these to paint, where the surface breaketh and
+bendeth away the colours divide themselves so that they can be
+distinguished one from another, and thus must thou paint them. But where
+the surface lieth flat one colour alone appeareth. Howbeit, if thou art
+painting such a silk and shadest it with one colour (as a brown with a
+blue) thou must none the less shade the blue with a deeper blue where it
+is needful. If often cometh to pass that such silks appear brown in the
+shadows, as if one colour stood before the other. If thy model beareth
+such a garment, thou must shade the brown with a deeper brown and not
+with blue. Howbeit, happen what may, every colour must in shading keep
+to its own class.
+
+
+II
+
+The great genius Hokusai, who has obtained for popular art in Japan a
+success comparable to that of the best classic masterpieces of that
+country and to the drawings and etchings of Rembrandt, a master of an
+altogether kindred nature, wrote a little treatise on the difference of
+aim noticeable in European and Japanese art. From the few Dutch pictures
+which he had been able to examine, he concluded that European art
+attempted to deceive the eye, whereas Japanese art laboured to express
+life, to suggest movement, and to harmonise colour. What is meant is
+easily grasped when we set before the mind's eye a picture, by Teniers
+and a page of Hokusai's "Mangwa." On the other hand, if one chose a
+sketch by Rembrandt to represent Dutch art, the difference could no
+longer be apparent. If the aim of European art had ever in serious
+examples been to deceive the eye, our painting would rank with
+legerdemain and Maskelyne's famous box trick; for it is to be doubted if
+it could ever so well have attained its end as even a second-rate
+conjurer can. I have cited a passage in which Reynolds confronts the
+work of great artists with the illusions of the camera obscura (see p.
+237). The adept musical performer who reproduces the noises of a
+farmyard is the true parallel to the lesser Dutch artists; he deceives
+the ear far better than they deceive the eye. For every picture has a
+surface which, unless very carefully lighted, must immediately destroy
+the illusion, even if it were otherwise perfect. Nevertheless, Dürer in
+the foregoing passage seems to accept Hokusai's verdict that the aim of
+his painting is to deceive the eye; forgetful of all that he has
+elsewhere written about the necessity of beauty, the necessity of
+composition, the superiority of rough sketches over finished works.
+
+When a painter has conceived in his heart a vision of beauty, whether he
+suggests it with a few strokes of the pen or elaborates it as thoroughly
+as Jan Van Eyck did, he wishes it to be taken as a report of something
+seen. This is as different from wishing to deceive the eye as for some
+one to say "and then a dog barked," instead of imitating the barking of
+a dog. A circumstantial description in words and a picture by Van Eyck
+or Veronese are equally intended to pass as reports of something
+visually conceived or actually seen. Pictures would have to be made
+peep-shows of before they could veritably deceive; and Jan Van Beers, a
+modern Dutchman, actually turned some of his paintings into peep-shows.
+Dürer in the following passage is speaking of the separate details or
+objects which go to make up a picture, not of the picture as a whole; he
+never tried to make peep-shows; his signature or an inscription is often
+used to give the very surface that must destroy the peep-show illusion a
+definite decorative value. The rest of his remarks have become
+commonplaces; nor has he written at such length as to give them their
+true limitations and intersubordination. They will be easily understood
+by those who remember that art is concerned with producing the illusion
+of a true report of something seen, not that of an actual vision. Such a
+report may be slight and brief; it may be stammered by emotion; it may
+have been confused or tortured to any degree by the mental condition of
+him who delivers it: if it produces the conviction of his sincerity, it
+achieves the only illusion with which art is concerned, and its value
+will depend on its beauty and the beauty of the means employed to
+deliver it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN CONCLUSION
+
+After turning over Dürer prints and drawings, after meditating on his
+writings, we feel that we are in the presence of one of those forces
+which are constant and equal, which continue and remain like the growth
+of the body, the return of seasons, the succession of moods. This is
+always among the greatest charms of central characters: they are mild
+and even, their action is like that of the tides, not that of storms.
+"If only you had my meekness," Dürer wrote to Pirkheimer (set: p. 85),
+half in jest doubtless, but with profound truth:--though the word
+meekness does not indeed cover the whole of what we feel made Dürer's
+most radical advantage over his friend; at other times we might call it
+naïvety, that sincerity of great and simple natures which can never be
+outflanked or surprised. Sometimes it might be called pride, for it has
+certainly a great deal of self-assurance behind it, the self-assurance
+of trees, of flowers, of dumb animals and little children, who never
+dream that an apology for being where and what they are can be expected
+of them. Such natures when they come home to us come to stop; we may go
+out, we may pay no heed to them, we may forget them, but they abide in
+the memory, and some day they take hold of us with all the more force
+because this new impression will exactly tally with the former one; we
+shall blush for our inconstancy, our indifference, our imbecility, which
+have led us to neglect such a pregnant communion. Not only persons but
+works of art produce this effect, and they are those with whom it is the
+greatest benefit to live.
+
+It is true that, compared with Giotto, Rembrandt, or Michael Angelo,
+Dürer does not appear comprehensive enough. It is with him as with
+Milton; we wish to add others to his great gifts, above all to take him
+out from his surroundings, to free him from the accidents of place and
+time. In one sense he is poorer than Milton: we cannot go to him as to a
+source of emotional exhilaration. If he ever proves himself able so to
+stir us, it is too occasionally to be a reason why we frequent him as it
+may be one why we frequent Milton. Nevertheless, the greater characters
+of control which are his in an unmatched degree, his constancy, his
+resource and deliberate effectiveness, joined to that blandness, that
+sunshine, which seems so often to replace emotion and thought in works
+of image-shaping art, are of priceless beneficence, and with them we
+would abide. Intellectual passion may seem indeed sometimes to dissipate
+this sunshine and control without making good their loss. Such cases
+enable us to feel that the latter are more essential: and it is these
+latter qualities which Dürer possessed in such fulness. In return for
+our contemplation, they build up within us the dignity of man and render
+it radiant and serene. Those who have felt their influence longest and
+most constantly will believe that they may well warrant the modern
+prophet who wrote:
+
+The idea of beauty and of human nature perfect on all its sides, which
+is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, though it
+has not yet had the success that the idea of conquering the obvious
+faults of our animality and of a human nature perfect on the moral
+side--which is the dominant idea of religion--has been enabled to have;
+and it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea of a devout
+energy, to transform and govern the other.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Aachen
+
+Adam (Melchor)
+
+Aeschylus
+
+Albertina
+
+Altdorfer (Albrecht)
+
+Anabaptists
+
+Andreae (Hieronymus)
+
+Angelico (Fra Beato)
+
+Antwerpo
+
+Apelles
+
+Aristotle
+
+Arnold (Matthew)
+
+Augsburg
+
+Balccarres (Lord)
+
+Bamberg (Library)
+
+Barbari (Jacopo dei)
+
+Barberini (Gallery)
+
+Barye (Antoine Louis)
+
+Basle
+
+Baudelaire (Charles)
+
+Bavaria
+
+Beers (Jan van)
+
+Beham (Barthel and Sebald)
+
+Behaim
+
+Bellini (Gentile)
+
+Bellini (Giovanni)
+
+Berlin
+
+Blake (William)
+
+Bologna
+
+Bonnat (Léon)
+
+Borgia (Cesare)
+
+Borgia (Alexander), see Pope
+
+Botticelli
+
+Bremen
+
+Breslau (Bishop of)
+
+Breughel (Peter)
+
+British Museum.
+
+Browning (Robert)
+
+Brussels
+
+Brutus
+
+Burgkmair (Hans)
+
+Butler (Bishop)
+
+Caietan (Cardinal)
+
+Calvin
+
+Camerarius (Kunz Kamerer)
+
+Carpaccio
+
+Celtes (Conrad)
+
+Charles V. (Emperor)
+
+Cicero
+
+Coleridge
+
+Colet (Dean)
+
+Colmar
+
+Cologne (Köln)
+
+Conway (Sir Martin)
+
+Cook (Sir Francis)
+
+Correggio
+
+Cranach (Lucas)
+
+Dante
+
+Danube
+
+Dodgson (Campbell)
+
+Dolce (Ludovico)
+
+Dresden
+
+Dürer (Albert the Elder)
+
+Dürer (Agnes, nee Frey)
+
+Dürer, Andreas
+  Brothers and Sisters
+  Father-in-law, Hans Frey
+  Forefathers
+
+Dürer, Hans
+
+Dürer's House,
+
+Mother (Barbara Helper)
+
+Dürer (Quotations from),
+
+Dürer's
+ Books:
+    Art of Fortification,
+    Human Proportions,
+    Measurement with Compass.
+
+  Drawings:
+    Adam's hand,
+    Christ bearing His Cross,
+    Dance of monkeys,
+    Himself,
+    Lion,
+    Lucas van Leyden,
+    Memento Mei,
+    Mein Angnes,
+    Mount of Olives,
+    Nepotis (Florent),
+    Pfaffroth (Hans),
+    Plankfelt (Jobst),
+    Sea-monsters,
+    Women's Bath,
+    Walrus.
+
+  Engravings on Metal:
+    Agony in the Garden,
+    Great Fortune,
+    Jerome (St.),
+    Knight (The),
+    Melancholy,
+    Passion.
+
+  Pictures:
+    Adam and Eve,
+    Adoration of Magi,
+    Avarice,
+    Christ among Doctors,
+    Coronation of Virgin,
+    Crucifixion,
+    Dresden Altar Piece,
+    Feast of Bose Garlands,
+    Hercules,
+    Lucretia,
+    Madonna with Iris,
+    Martyrdom of Ten Thousand,
+    Paumgartner, Altar Piece,
+    Preachers (The Pour),
+    Road to Calvary,
+    Trinity and All Saints.
+
+  Portraits:
+    Of himself, Leipzig, Madrid, Munich,
+    Holzschuher (Hieronymus),
+    Imhof, Hans (?),
+    Kleeberger (Johannes)
+    Krel (Oswolt),
+    Maximilian,
+    Muffel (Jacob),
+    Orley (Bernard van),
+    Unknown (Vienna),
+    Unknown (Hampton Court),
+    Unknown (Boston)
+    Unknown Woman (Berlin),
+    Unknown Girl (Berlin),
+    Wolgemut.
+
+  Woodcuts:
+    Apocalypse,
+    Assumption of Magdalen,
+    St. Christopher,
+    Gate of Honour,
+    Jerome (St.),
+    Life of the Virgin,
+    Last Supper,
+    Little Passion.
+
+Ebner
+
+Eck (Dr.)
+
+Eckenstein (Miss)
+
+Emerson
+
+Erasmus
+
+Euclid
+
+Euripides
+
+Eusebius
+
+Eyck (Jan van)
+
+FLAUBERT (Gustave)
+
+Florentine
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+Frederick the Wise (Elector of Saxony)
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+Holbein,
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+Miller (A.W., Esq.),
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+Millet (Jean Francois),
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+Montaigne,
+
+_Monthly Review_,
+
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+More,
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+Munich,
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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+    "text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
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+Title: Albert Durer
+
+Author: T. Sturge Moore
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9837]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 23, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALBERT DURER ***
+
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+Produced by Steve Schulze and PG Distributed Proofreaders.
+Page images generously provided by the CWRU Preservation 
+Department Digital Library.
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+</pre>
+
+
+<center>
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h1>ALBERT D&Uuml;RER</h1>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>T. STURGE MOORE</h2>
+<br>
+<h4>1905</h4>
+<br>
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+</center>
+
+<p>
+[Transcriber's note: The printing errors of the original have been
+retained in this etext.]
+</p>
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>When the late Mr. Arthur Strong asked me to undertake the present
+volume, I pointed out to him that, to fulfil the advertised programme of
+the Series he was editing, was more than could be hoped from my
+attainments. He replied, that in the case of D&uuml;rer a book, fulfilling
+that programme, was not called for, and that what he wished me to
+attempt, was an appreciation of this great artist in relation to general
+ideas. I had hoped to benefit very largely by my editor's advice and
+supervision, but this his illness and death prevented. His great gifts
+and brilliant accomplishments, already darkened and distressed by
+disease, were all too soon to be utterly quenched; and I can but here
+express, not only my sense of personal loss in the hopes which his
+friendly welcome and generous intercourse had created and which have
+been so cruelly dashed by the event, but also that of the void which his
+disappearance has left in the too thin ranks of those who, filled with
+reverence and enthusiasm for the great traditions of the past, seem
+nevertheless eager and capable of grappling with the unwieldy present.
+Let and restricted had been the recognition of his maturing worth, and
+now we must do without both him and the impetus of his so nearly
+assured success.</p>
+
+<p>The present volume, then, is not the result of new research; nor is it
+an abstract resuming historical and critical discoveries on its subject
+up to date. Of this latter there are several already before the British
+public; the former, as I said, it was not for me to attempt. Nor do I
+feel my book to be altogether even what it was intended to be; but am
+conscious that too much space has been given to the enumeration of
+D&uuml;rer's principal works and the events of his life without either being
+made exhaustive. Still, I hope that even these parts may be found
+profitable by those who are not already familiar with the subjects with
+which they deal. To those for whom these subjects are well known, I
+should like to point out that Parts I. and IV. and very much of Part
+III. embody my chief intention; that chapter 1 of Part I. finds a
+further illustration in division iii. of chapter 4, Part II.; and that
+division vi., chapter 1, Part II., should be taken as prefatory to
+chapter 1, Part IV.</p>
+
+<p>Should exception be taken to the works chosen as illustrations, I would
+explain that the means of reproduction, the degree of reduction
+necessitated by the size of the page, and other outside considerations,
+have severely limited my choice. It is entirely owing to the extreme
+kindness of the D&uuml;rer Society--more especially of its courteous and
+enthusiastic secretaries, Mr. Campbell Dodgson and Mr. Peartree--that
+four copper-plates have so greatly enhanced the adequacy of the volume
+in this respect.</p>
+
+<p>I have gratefully to acknowledge Sir Martin Conway's kindness in
+permitting me to quote so liberally from his &quot;Literary Remains of
+Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; by far the best book on this great artist known to me.
+Mr. Charles Eaton's translation of Thausing's &quot;Life of D&uuml;rer,&quot; the
+&quot;Portfolios of the D&uuml;rer Society,&quot; and Dr. Lippmanb &quot;Drawings of
+Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; are the only other works on my subject to which I feel
+bound to acknowledge my indebtedness. Lastly, I must express deep
+gratitude to my learned friend, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, for having so
+generously consented, by reading the proofs, to mitigate my defect in
+scholarship.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<br>
+PREFACE<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a href="#PART_I">PART I</a></h2>
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE<br>
+COMPREHENSION OF D&Uuml;RER'S LIFE AND ART<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#THE_IDEA_OF_PROPORTION">I. THE IDEA OF PROPORTION</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#THE_INFLUENCE_OF_RELIGION_ON_THE_CREATIVE_IMPULSE">II THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE</a><br>
+<br>
+<h2><a href="#PART_II">PART II</a></h2>
+D&Uuml;RER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES<br>
+IN WHICH HE LIVED<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_ORIGIN,_YOUTH_AND_EDUCATION">I. D&Uuml;RER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#THE_WORLD_IN_WHICH_HE_LIVED">II. THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER_AT_VENICE">III. D&Uuml;RER AT VENICE</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER_AND_HIS_PATRONS_AND_FRIENDS">IV. HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER,_LUTHER_AND_THE_HUMANISTS">V. D&Uuml;RER, LUTHER, AND THE HUMANISTS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_JOURNEY_TO_THE_NETHERLANDS">VI. D&Uuml;RER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_LAST_YEARS">VII. D&Uuml;RER'S LAST YEARS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
+<h2><a href="#PART_III">PART III</a></h2>
+D&Uuml;RER AS A CREATOR<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_PICTURES">I. D&Uuml;RER'S PICTURES</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_PORTRAITS">II. D&Uuml;RER'S PORTRAITS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_DRAWINGS">III. D&Uuml;RER'S DRAWINGS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_METAL_ENGRAVINGS">IV. D&Uuml;RER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_WOODCUTS">V. D&Uuml;RER'S WOODCUTS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#RER'S_INFLUENCES_AND_VERSES">VI. D&Uuml;RER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES</a><br>
+<br>
+<h2><a href="#PART_IV">PART IV</a></h2>
+D&Uuml;RER'S IDEAS<br>
+<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#THE_IDEA_OF_A_CANON_OF_PROPORTION_FOR_THE_HUMAN_FIGURE">I. THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#THE_IMPORTANCE_OF_DOCILITY">II. THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#THE_LOST_TRADITION">III. THE LOST TRADITION</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#BEAUTY">IV. BEAUTY</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#NATURE">V. NATURE</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#THE_CHOICE_OF_AN_ARTIST">VI. THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#TECHNICAL_PRECEPTS">VII. TECHNICAL PRECEPTS</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="#IN_CONCLUSION">VIII. IN CONCLUSION</a><br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
+<h2><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+<br>
+Apollo and Diana, Metal Engraving<br>
+Water-colour drawing of a Hare<br>
+Pilate Washing his Hands. Metal Engraving<br>
+Agnes Frey<br>
+&quot;Mein Angnes&quot;<br>
+Wilibald Pirkheimer<br>
+Hans Burgkmair<br>
+Adoration of the Trinity<br>
+St. Christopher<br>
+Assumption of the Magdalen<br>
+D&uuml;rer's Mother<br>
+Maximilian<br>
+Frederick the Wise<br>
+Silver-point Portrait<br>
+Erasmus<br>
+Drawing of a Lion<br>
+Lucas van der Leyden<br>
+Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate. Metal Engraving<br>
+St. George and St. Eustache<br>
+Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Saints<br>
+Road to Calvary<br>
+Portrait of D&uuml;rer<br>
+Portrait of D&uuml;rer<br>
+Albert D&uuml;rer the Elder<br>
+Gswolt Krel<br>
+Portrait at Hampton Court<br>
+Portrait of a Lady<br>
+Michel Wolgemuth<br>
+Hans Imhof<br>
+&quot;Jakob Muffel&quot;<br>
+Study of a Hound<br>
+Memento Mei<br>
+Silver-point Portrait<br>
+Portrait in Black Chalk<br>
+Cherub for a Crucifixion<br>
+Apollo and Diana<br>
+An Old Castle<br>
+Melancholia<br>
+Detail from &quot;The Agony in the Garden&quot;<br>
+Angel with Sudarium<br>
+The Small Horse<br>
+The Great Fortune, or Nemesis<br>
+Silver-point Drawing<br>
+St. Michael and the Dragon<br>
+Detail from &quot;The Meeting at the Golden Gate&quot;<br>
+Detail from &quot;The Nativity&quot;<br>
+D&uuml;rer's Armorial Bearings<br>
+Christ haled before Annas<br>
+The Last Supper<br>
+Saint Antony, Metal Engraving<br>
+&quot;In the Eighteenth Year&quot;<br>
+&quot;Una Vilana Wendisch&quot;<br>
+Charcoal Drawing<br>
+
+
+<center>
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="PART_I"></a>PART I</h2>
+
+<h3>CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE COMPREHENSION OF D&Uuml;RER'S LIFE
+AND ART</h3></center>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<a name="THE_IDEA_OF_PROPORTION"></a><h3>THE IDEA OF PROPORTION</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>Ich hab vernomen wie der siben weysen aus kriechenland ainer gelert hab
+das dymass in allen dingen sitlichen und naturlichen das pest sey.</p>
+
+<p>D&Uuml;RER, British Museum MS., vol. iv., 82a.</p>
+
+<p>I have heard how one of the Seven Sages of Greece taught that measure is
+in all things, physical and moral, best.</p>
+
+<p>La souveraine habilet&eacute; consiste &agrave; bien connaitre le prix des choses. LA
+ROCHEFOUCAULD, III. 252.</p>
+
+<p>Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the value of
+things.</p>
+
+<p>The attempt that the last quarter century has witnessed, to introduce
+the methods of science into the criticism of works of art, has tended,
+it seems to me, to put the question of their value into the background.
+The easily scandalous inquiries, &quot;Who?&quot; &quot;When?&quot; &quot;Where?&quot; have assumed an
+impertinent predominance. When I hear people very decidedly asserting
+that such a picture was painted by such an one, not generally supposed
+to be the author, at such a time, &amp;c. &amp;c., I often feel uneasy in the
+same way as one does on being addressed in a loud voice in a church or a
+picture gallery, where other persons are absorbed in an acknowledged and
+respected contemplation or study. I feel inclined to blush and whisper,
+for fear of being supposed to know the speaker too well. It is an
+awkward moment with me, for I am in fact very good friends with many
+such persons. &quot;Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the
+value of things&quot;--not their commercial value only, though that is
+sovereign skill on the Exchange, but their value for those whose chief
+riches are within them. The value of works of art is an intimate
+experience, and cannot be estimated by the methods of exact science as
+the weight of a planet can. There are and have been forgeries that are
+more beautiful, therefore more valuable, than genuine specimens of the
+class of work which they figure as. I feel that the specialist, with his
+special measure and point of view, often endangers the fair name and
+good repute of the real estimate; and that nothing but the dominion and
+diffusion of general ideas can defend us against the specialist and keep
+the specialist from being carried away by bad habits resulting from his
+devotion to a single inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>There was one general idea, of the greatest importance in determining
+the true value of things, which preoccupied D&uuml;rer's mind and haunted his
+imagination: the idea of proportion. I propose therefore to attempt to
+make clear to myself and my readers what the idea of proportion really
+implies, and of what service a sense for proportion really is; secondly,
+to determine the special use of the term in relation to the appreciation
+of works of art; thirdly, in relation to their internal
+structure;--before proceeding to the special studies of D&uuml;rer as a man
+and an artist.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>I conceive the human reason to be the antagonist of all known forces
+other than itself, and that therefore its most essential character is
+the hope and desire to control and transform the universe; or, failing
+that, to annihilate, if not the universe, at least itself and the
+consciousness of a monster fact which it entirely condemns. In this
+conception I believe myself to be at one with those by whom men have
+been most influenced, and who, with or without confidence in the support
+of unknown powers, have set themselves deliberately against the face of
+things to die or conquer. This being so, and man individually weak, it
+has been the avowed object of great characters--carrying with them the
+instinctive consent of nations--to establish current values for all
+things, according as their imagination could turn them to account as
+effective aids of reason: that is, as they could be made to advance her
+apparent empire over other elemental forces, such as motion, physical
+life, &amp;c. This evaluation, in so far as it is constant, results in what
+we call civilisation, and is the only bond of society. With difficulty
+is the value of new acquisitions recognised even in the realm of
+science, until the imagination can place them in such a light as shall
+make them appear to advance reason's ends, which accounts for the
+reluctance that has been shown to accept many scientific results. Reason
+demands that the world she would create shall be a fact, and declares
+that the world she would transform is the real world, but until the
+imagination can find a function for it in reason's ideal realm, every
+piece of knowledge remains useless, or even an obstacle in the way of
+our intended advance. This applies to individuals just as truly as it
+does to mankind. And since man's reason is a natural phenomenon and does
+apparently belong to the class of elemental forces, this warfare against
+the apparent fact, and the fortitude and hope which its whole-hearted
+prosecution begets, appear as a natural law to the intelligence and as a
+command and promise to the reason.</p>
+
+<p>The alternative between the will to cease and the will to serve reason,
+with which I start out, may not seem necessary to all. &quot;Forgive their
+sin--and if not, blot me I pray thee out of thy book,&quot; was Moses'
+prayer; and to me it seems that only by lethargy can any soul escape
+from facing this alternative. The human mind in so far as it is active
+always postulates, &quot;Let that which I desire come to pass, or let me
+cease!&quot; Nor is there any diversity possible as to what really is
+desirable: Man desires the full and harmonious development of his
+faculties. As to how this end may most probably be attained, there is
+diversity enough to represent every possible blend of ignorance with
+knowledge, of lethargy with energy, of cowardice with courage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men, whether considered in
+their persons or their states, that they will grasp at all, and can form
+no scheme of perfect happiness with less.&quot;<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> So writes the most
+powerful of English prose-writers. And this hope and desire, which is
+reason, once thrown down, the most powerful among poets has brought from
+human lips this estimate of life--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;It is a tale<br>
+Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,<br>
+Signifying nothing.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>No one knows whether reason's object will or can be attained; but for
+the present each man finds confidence and encouragement in so far as he
+is able to imagine all things working together for the good of those who
+desire good--in short, for &quot;reasonable beings.&quot;<a name="FNanchor2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> The more he knows,
+the greater labour it is for him to imagine this; but the more he
+concentrates his faculties on doing good and creating good things, the
+more his imagination glows and shines and discovers to him new
+possibilities of success: the better he is able to find--</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Sermons in stones and good in everything;&quot;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;And make a moral of the devil himself.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>But how is it that reason can accept an imagination that makes what in a
+cold light she considers her enemy, appear her friend? All things
+impress the mind with two contradictory notions--their actual condition
+and their perfection. Even the worst of its kind impresses on us an idea
+of what the best would be, or we could not know it for the worst.
+Reason, then, seizes on this aspect of things which suggests their
+perfection, and awards them her attention in proportion as such aspect
+makes their perfection seem near, or as it may further her in
+transforming the most pressing of other evils. All life tends to affirm
+its own character; and the essential characteristic of man is reason,
+which labours to perfect all things that he judges to be good, and to
+transform all evil. Ultimate results are out of sight for all human
+faculties except the early-waking eyes of long-chastened hope; but
+reason loves this visionary mood, though she prefer that it be sung, and
+find that less lyrical speech brings on it something of ridicule; for
+such a rendering betrays, as a rule, faint desire or small power to
+serve her in those who use it.</p>
+
+<p>The sense of proportion, then, is that fineness of susceptibility by
+which we appreciate in a given object, person, force, or mood,
+serviceableness in regard to reason's work; in other words, by which we
+estimate the capacity to transform the Universe in such a way that men
+may ultimately be enabled to give their hearty consent to its existence,
+which at present no man rationally can.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Now, art appeals to fine susceptibilities; for, as I have explained
+elsewhere,<a name="FNanchor3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> the value of works of art depends on their having come as
+&quot;real and intimate experiences to a large number of gifted men&quot;--men who
+have some kinship to that &quot;finely touched and gifted man, the [Greek
+<i>heuphnaes</i>] of the Greeks,&quot; to use the phrase of our greatest modern
+critic. And in so far as we are able to judge between works successfully
+making such an appeal, we must be governed by this sense of proportion,
+which measures how things stand in regard to reason; that is, not merely
+intellect, not merely emotion, but the alliance of both by means of the
+imagination in aid of man's most central demand--the demand for
+nobler life.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I ought to point out before proceeding, that this position is
+not that of the writers on art most in view at the present day. It is
+the negation of the so-called scientific criticism, and also of the
+personal theory that reduces art to an expression of, and an appeal to,
+individual temperaments; it is the assertion of the sovereignty of the
+aesthetic conscience on exactly the same grounds as sovereignty is
+claimed for the moral conscience. &AElig;sthetics deals with the morality of
+appeals addressed to the senses. That is, it estimates the success of
+such appeals in regard to the promotion of fuller and more harmonious
+life. Flaubert wrote:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Le g&eacute;nie n'est pas rare maintenant, mais ce que personne n'a plus et ce
+qu'il faut tacher d'avoir, c'est la conscience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>(&quot;Genius is not rare nowadays, but conscience is what nobody has and
+what one should strive after.&quot;)</p>
+
+<p>To-day I am thinking of a painter. Painting is an art addressed
+primarily to the eye, and not to the intelligence, not to the
+imagination, save as these may be reached through the eye--that most
+delicate organ of infinite susceptibility, which teaches us the meaning
+of the word light--a word so often uttered with stress of ecstasy, of
+longing, of despair, and of every other shade of emotion, that the sound
+of it must soon be almost as powerful with the young heart, almost as
+immediate in its effect, as the break of day itself, gladdening the eyes
+and glorifying the earth. And how often is this joy received through the
+eye entrusted back to it for expression? For the eye can speak with
+varieties, delicacies, and subtle shades of motion far beyond the
+attainment of any other organ. &quot;This art of painting is made for the
+eyes, for sight is the noblest sense of man,&quot;<a name="FNanchor4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> says D&uuml;rer; and again:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is ordained that never shall any man be able, out of his own
+thoughts, to make a beautiful figure, unless, by much study, he hath
+well stored his mind. That then is no longer to be called his own; it is
+art acquired and learnt, which soweth, waxeth, and beareth fruit after
+its kind. Thence the gathered secret treasure of the heart is manifested
+openly in the work, and the new creature which a man createth in his
+heart, appeareth in the form of a thing.&quot;<a name="FNanchor5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Yes, indeed, the function of art is far from being confined to telling
+us what we see, whatever some may pretend, or however naturally any
+small nature may desire to continue, teach, or regulate great ones. All
+so-called scientific methods of creating or criticising works of art are
+inadequate, because the only truly scientific statements that can be
+made about these inquiries are that nothing is certain--that no method
+ensures success, and that no really important quality can be defined;
+for what man can say why one cloud is more beautiful than another in the
+same sky, any more than he can explain why, of two men equally absorbed
+in doing their duty, one impresses him as being more holy than the
+other? The degrees essential to both kinds of judgment escape all
+definition; only the imagination can at times bring them home to us,
+only the refined taste or chastened conscience, as the case may be,
+witnesses with our spirit that its judgment is just, and bids us
+recognise a master in him who delivers it. As the expression on a face
+speaks to a delicate sense, often communicating more, other, and better
+than can be seen, so the proportion, harmony, rhythm of a painting may
+beget moods and joys that require the full resources of a well-stored
+mind and disciplined character in order that they may be fully
+relished--in brief, demand that maturity of reason which is the mark of
+victorious man.</p>
+
+<p>Such being my conception, it will easily be perceived how anxious I must
+be to truly discern and express the relation between such objects as
+works of art by common consent so highly honoured, and at the same time
+so active in their effect upon the most exquisitely endowed of mankind.
+Especially since to-day caprice, humour and temperament are, by the
+majority of writers on art, acclaimed for the radical characteristic of
+the human creative faculty, instead of its perversion and disease; and
+it is thought that to be whimsical, moody, or self-indulgent best fits a
+man both to create and appraise works of art, whereas to become so
+really is the only way in which a man capable of such high tasks can
+with certainty ruin and degrade his faculties. Precious, surpassingly
+precious indeed, must every manifestation of such faculty before its
+final extinction remain, since the race produces comparatively few
+endowed after this kind.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps a sufficient illustration of this prevalent fallacy may be drawn
+from Mr. Whistler's &quot;Ten O'Clock,&quot; where he speaks of art:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A whimsical goddess, and a capricious, her strong sense of joy
+tolerates no dulness, and, live we never so spotlessly, still may she
+turn her back upon us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As from time immemorial, she has done upon the Swiss in their
+mountains.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here is no proof of caprice, save on the witty writer's part; for men
+who fast are not saved from bad temper, nor have the kindly necessarily
+discreet tongues. The Swiss may be brave and honest, and yet dull.
+Virtue is her own reward, and art her own. Virtue rewards the saint, art
+the artist; but men are rewarded for attention to morality by some
+measure of joy in virtue, for attention to beauty by some measure of joy
+in works of art. Between the artist and the Philistine is no great gulf
+fixed, in the sense that the witty &quot;master of the butterfly&quot; pretends to
+assume, but an infinite and gentle decline of persons representing every
+possible blend of the virtues and faults of these two types. Again, an
+artist is miscalled &quot;master of art.&quot; &quot;Where he is, there she appears,&quot;
+is airy impudence. &quot;Where she wills to be, there she chooses a man to
+serve her,&quot; would not only have been more gallant but more reasonable;
+for that &quot;The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
+thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is
+every one that is born of the spirit,&quot; and that &quot;many are called, few
+chosen,&quot; are sayings as true of the influence which kindleth art as of
+that which quickeneth to holiness. Art is not dignified by being called
+whimsical--or capricious. What can a man explain? The intention, behind
+the wind, behind the spirit, behind the creative instinct, is dark. But
+man is true to his own most essential character when, if he cannot
+refrain from prating of such mysteries, he qualifies them as hope would
+have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks of the
+unknown, in whose hands his destiny so largely rests, slightingly, as of
+a woman whom he has seduced because he despised her--calling her
+capricious because she answered to his caprice, whimsical, because she
+was as flighty as his error. It is not art's function to reward virtue.
+But, caprices and whimseys being ascribed to a goddess, it will be
+natural to expect them in her worshipper; and Mr. Whistler revealed the
+limitations of his genius by whimseys and caprice. Though it was in
+their relations to the world that this goddess and her devotee claimed
+freedoms so far from perfect, yet this, their avowed characteristic
+abroad, I think in some degree disturbed their domestic relations,
+Though others have underlined the absurdity of this theory by applying
+themselves to it with more faith and less sense, I have chosen to quote
+from the &quot;Ten O'Clock,&quot; because I admire it and accept most of the ideas
+about art advanced therein. The artist who wrote it was able, in D&uuml;rer's
+phrase, &quot;to prove&quot; what he wrote &quot;with his hand.&quot; Most of those who have
+elaborated what was an occasional unsoundness of his doctrine into
+ridiculous religions are as unable to create as they are to think; there
+is no need to record names which it is wisdom to forget. But it may be
+well to point out that Mr. Whistler does not succeed in glorifying great
+artists when he declares that beauty &quot;to them was as much a matter of
+certainty and triumph as is to the astronomer the verification of the
+result, foreseen with the light granted to him alone.&quot; No, he only sets
+up a false analogy; for the true parallel to the artist is the saint,
+not the astronomer; both are convinced, neither understands. Art is no
+more the reward of intelligence than of virtue. She permits no caprice
+in her own realm. Loyalty is the only virtue she insists on, loyalty in
+regard to her servant's experience of beauty; he may be immoral in every
+other way and she not desert him; but let him turn Balaam and declare
+beauty absent where he feels its presence--though in doing this he hopes
+to advance virtue or knowledge, she needs no better than an ass to
+rebuke him. Nothing effects more for anarchy than these notions that art
+derives from individual caprice, or defends virtue, or demonstrates
+knowledge; for they are all based on those flattering hopes of the
+unsuccessful, that chance, rules both in life and art, or that it is
+possible to serve two masters.</p>
+
+<p>Doctrines often repeated gain easy credence; and, since art demands
+leisure in order to be at all enjoyed, ideas about it, in so fatiguing a
+life as ours has become, take men off their guard, when their habitual
+caution is laid to sleep, and, by an over-easiness, they are inclined to
+spoil both their sense of distinction and their children. Yes, they
+consent to theatres that degrade them, because they distract and amuse;
+and read journals that are smart and diverting at the expense of dignity
+and truth--in the same way as they smile at the child whom reason bids
+them reprove, and with the like tragic result; for they become incapable
+of enjoying works of art, as the child is incapacitated for the best of
+social intercourse. To prophesy smooth things to people in this
+condition, and flatter their dulness, is to be no true friend; and so
+the modern art-critic and journalist is often the insidious enemy of the
+civilisation he contents.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing strikes the foreigner coming to England more than our lack of
+general ideas. Our art criticism is no exception; it, like our
+literature and politics, is happy-go-lucky and delights in the pot-shot.
+We often hear this attributed admiringly to &quot;the sporting instinct.&quot; &quot;If
+God, in his own time, granteth me to write something further about
+matters connected with painting, I will do so, in hope that this art may
+not rest upon use and wont alone, but that in time it may be taught on
+true and orderly principles, and may be understood to the praise of God
+and the use and pleasure of all lovers of art.&quot;<a name="FNanchor6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Our art is still worse off than our trade or our politics, for it does
+not even rest upon use and wont, but is wholly in the air. Yet the
+typical modern aesthete has learnt where to take cover, for, though
+destitute of defence, he has not entirely lost the instinct for
+self-preservation; and, when he finds the eye of reason upon him, he
+immediately flies to the diversity of opinions. But D&uuml;rer follows him
+even there with the perfect good faith of a man in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty, and
+they seek after it in many different ways, although ugliness is thereby
+rather attained. Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know
+not certainly what the ultimate measure of true beauty is, and cannot
+describe it aright. But glad should I be to render such help as I can,
+to the end that the gross deformities of our work might be and remain
+pruned away and avoided, unless indeed any one prefers to bestow great
+labour upon the production of deformities. We are brought back,
+therefore, to the aforesaid judgment of men, which considereth one
+figure beautiful at one time and another at another....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because now we cannot altogether attain unto perfection, shall we
+therefore wholly cease from learning? By no means. Let us not take unto
+ourselves thoughts fit for cattle. For evil and good lie before men,
+wherefore it behoveth the rational man to choose the good.&quot;<a name="FNanchor7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>A man may see, if he will but watch, who is more finely touched and
+gifted than himself. In all the various fields of human endeavour, on
+such men he should try to form himself; for only thus can he enlarge his
+nature, correct his opinions. Something he can learn from this man,
+something from that, and it is rational to learn and be taught. Are we
+to be cattle or gods? &quot;Is it not written in your law, I said, 'Ye are
+gods?'&quot; Reason demands that each man form himself on the pattern of a
+god, and God is an empty name if reason be not the will of God. Then he
+whom reason hath brought up may properly be called a son of God, a son
+of man, a child of light. But it is easier to bob to such phrases than
+to understand them. However, their mechanical repetition does not
+prevent their having meant something once, does not prevent their
+meaning being their true value. It is time we understood our art, just
+as it is time we understood our religion. Docility, as I have pointed
+out elsewhere, is one of the marks of genius. D&uuml;rer's spirit is the
+spirit of the great artist who will learn even from &quot;dull men of little
+judgment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel.
+Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts, let him take it from
+one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with
+his hand. Howbeit any one may give thee counsel; and when thou hast done
+a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men
+of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule
+they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the
+good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayst thus better
+thy work.&quot;<a name="FNanchor8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Those who are thoroughly versed in art are the great artists; we have
+guides then, and we have a way--the path they have trodden--and we have
+company, the gifted and docile men of to-day whom we see to be improving
+themselves; and, in so far as we are reasonable, a sense of proportion
+is ours, which we may improve; and it will help us to catch up better
+and yet better company until we enjoy the intimacy of the noblest, and
+know as we are known. Then: &quot;May we not consider it a sign of sanity
+when we regard the human spirit as ... a poet, and art as a half written
+poem? Shall we not have a sorry disappointment if its conclusion is
+merely novel, and not the fulfilment and vindication of those great
+things gone before?&quot;<a name="FNanchor9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> For my own part, those appear to me the grandest
+characters who, on finding that there is no other purchase for effort
+but only hope, and that they can never cease from hope but by ceasing to
+live, clear their minds of all idle acquiescence in what could never be
+hoped, and concentrate their energies on conquering whatever in their
+own nature, and in the world about them, militates against their most
+essential character--reason, which seeks always to give a higher
+value to life.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>When we speak of the sense of proportion displayed in the design of a
+building, many will think that the word is used in quite a different
+sense, and one totally unrelated to those which I have been discussing.
+But no; life and art are parallel and correspond throughout; ethics are
+the Esthetics of life, religion the art of living. Taste and conscience
+only differ in their provinces, not in their procedure. Both are based
+on instinctive preferences; the canon of either is merely so many of
+those preferences as, by their constant recurrence to individuals gifted
+with the power of drawing others after them, are widely accepted.</p>
+
+<p>The preference of serenity to melancholy, of light to darkness, are
+among the most firmly established in the canon, that is all. The sense
+of proportion within a design is employed to stimulate and delight the
+eye. Ordinary people may fear there is some abstruse science about this.
+Not at all; it is as simple as relishing milk and honey, and its
+development an exact parallel to the training of the palate to
+distinguish the flavours of teas, coffees and wines. &quot;Taste and see&quot; is
+the whole business. There are many people who have no hesitation in
+picking out what to their eye is the wainscot panel with the richest
+grain: they see it at once. So with etchings; if people would only
+forget that they are works of art, forget all the false or
+ill-understood standards which they have been led to suppose applicable,
+and look at them as they might at agate stones; or choose out the
+richest in effect: the most suitable for a gay room, or a hall, or a
+library, as though they were patterned stuffs for curtains; they would
+come a thousand times nearer a right appreciation of D&uuml;rer's success
+than by making a pot-shot to lasso the masterpiece with the tangle of
+literary rubbish which is known as art criticism.</p>
+
+<p>The harmonies and contrasts of juxtaposed colours or textures are
+affected by quantity, and a sense of proportion decides what quantities
+best produce this effect and what that. The correctness or amount of
+information to be conveyed in the delineation of some object, in
+relation to the mood which the artist has chosen shall dominate his
+work, is determined by his sense of proportion. He may distort an object
+to any extent or leave it as vague as the shadow on a wall in diffused
+light, or he may make it precise and particular as ever Jan Van Eyck
+did; so only that its distortion or elaboration is so proportioned to
+the other objects and intentions of his work as to promote its success
+in the eyes of the beholder.</p>
+
+<p>There are no fallacies greater than the prevalent ones conveyed by the
+expressions &quot;out of drawing&quot; or &quot;untrue to nature.&quot; There is no such
+thing as correct drawing or an outside standard of truth for works
+of art.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved.&quot; &quot;Chaque
+oeuvre &agrave; faire a sa po&eacute;tique en soi, qu'il faut trouver,&quot; said Flaubert.
+Truth in a work of art is sincerity. That a man says what he really
+means--shows us what he really thinks to be beautiful--is all that
+reason bids us ask for. No science or painstaking can make up for his
+not doing this. No lack of skill or observation can entirely frustrate
+his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly
+sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the
+inexpressible is never felt. Stammering becomes more eloquent than
+oratory, a child's impulsiveness wiser than circumlocutory experience.
+When a single intention absorbs the whole nature, communication is
+direct and immediate, and makes impotence itself a means of
+effectiveness. So the na&iuml;veties of early art put to shame the
+purposeless parade of prodigious skill. Wherever there is communication
+there is art; but there are evil communications and there is vicious
+art, though, perhaps, great sincerity is incompatible with either. For
+an artist to be deterred by other people's demands means that he is not
+artist enough; it is what his reason teaches him to demand of himself
+that matters, though, doubtless, the good desire the approval of
+kindred natures.</p>
+
+<p>A work of art addresses the eye by means of chosen proportions; it may
+present any number of facts as exactly as may be, but if it offend the
+eye it is a mere misapplication of industry, or the illustration of a
+scientific treatise out of place; and those that choose ribbons well are
+better artists than the man that made it. Or again it may overflow with
+poetical thought and suggestion, or have the stuff to make a first-rate
+story in it; but, if it offend the eye, it is merely a misapplication of
+imagination, invention or learning, and the girl who puts a charming
+nosegay together is a better artist than he who painted it. On the other
+hand, though it have no more significance than a glass of wine and a
+loaf of bread, if the eye is rejoiced by gazing on the paint that
+expresses them, it is a work of art and a fine achievement. Still, it
+may be as fanciful as a fairy-tale, or as loaded with import as the
+Crucifixion; and, if it stimulates the eye to take delight in its
+surfaces over and above mere curiosity, it is a work of art, and great
+in proportion as the significance of what it conveys is brought home to
+us by the very quality of the stimulus that is created in return for our
+gaze. For painting is the result of a power to speak beautifully with
+paint, as poetry is of a power to express beautifully by means of words
+either simple things or those which demand the effort of a welltrained
+mind in order to be received and comprehended. The mistake made by
+impressionists, luminarists, and other modern artists, is that a true
+statement of how things appear to them will suffice; it will not, unless
+things appear beautiful to them, and they render them beautifully. It
+will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different
+thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading;
+whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is
+always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is
+inspiring--is a work of art and &quot;a joy for ever.&quot; For reason demands
+that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, and give such pleasure as best
+consists with the universe becoming what reason demands that it shall
+become. This demand of reason is perfectly arbitrary? Yes, but it is
+also inevitable, necessitated by the nature of the human character. It
+is equally arbitrary and equally inevitable that man must, where science
+is called for, in the long run prefer a true statement to a lie. From
+art reason demands beautiful objects, from science true statements: such
+is human nature; for the possession of this reason that judges and
+condemns the universe, and demands and attempts to create something
+better, is that which differentiates human life from all other known
+forces--is that by which men may be more than conquerors, may make peace
+with the universe; for</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;A peace is of the nature of a conquest;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For then both parties nobly are subdued<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And neither party loser.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>Of such a nature is the only peace that the soul can make with the
+body--that man can make with nature--that habit can make with
+instinct--that art can make with impulse. In order to establish such a
+peace the imagination must train reason to see a friend in her enemy,
+the physical order. For, as Reynolds says of the complete artist:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He will pick up from dunghills, what, by a nice chemistry, passing
+through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold, and under the
+rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even
+sublime inventions.&quot;<a name="FNanchor10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It is not too much to say that the nature both of the artist and of the
+dunghills is &quot;subdued&quot; by such a process, and yet neither is a &quot;loser.&quot;
+Goethe profoundly remarked that the highest development of the soul was
+reached through worship first of that which was above, then of that
+which was beneath it. This great critic also said, &quot;Only with difficulty
+do we spell out from that which nature presents to us, the <i>DESIRED</i>
+word, the congenial. Men find what the artist brings intelligible and to
+their taste, stimulating and alluring, genial and friendly, spiritually
+nourishing, formative and elevating. Thus the artist, grateful to the
+nature that made him, weaves a second nature--but a conscious, a fuller,
+a more perfectly human nature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Water-colour drawing of a Hare]</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a><blockquote> Swift, &quot;Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a><blockquote> It may be urged that diversities of opinion exist as to
+what good is. The convenience of the words &quot;good&quot; and &quot;evil&quot; corresponds
+to a need created by a common experience in the same way as the
+convenience of the words &quot;light&quot; and &quot;darkness&quot; does. A child might
+consider that a diamond generated light in the same way as a candle
+does. He would be mistaken, but this would not affect the correctness of
+his application of the word &quot;light&quot; to his experience; if he confused
+light with darkness he must immediately become unintelligible. Good and
+light are perceived and named--no one can say more of them; the effects
+of both may be described with more or less accuracy. To say that light
+is a mode of motion does not define it; we ask at once, What mode? And
+the only answer is, that which produces the effect of light. A man born
+blind, though he knew what was meant by motion, could never deduce from
+this knowledge a conception of light.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a><blockquote> The Monthly Review, October 1902, &quot;Rodin.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; p. 177.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor5">[5]</a><blockquote> Ibid. p. 247.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor6">[6]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; p. 252.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor7">[7]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; pp, 244 and 245.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor8">[8]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; p. 180.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor9">[9]</a><blockquote> The Monthly Review, April 1901, &quot;In Defence of Reynolds.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor10">[10]</a><blockquote> Sixth Discourse.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<a name="THE_INFLUENCE_OF_RELIGION_ON_THE_CREATIVE_IMPULSE"></a><h3>THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>There are some artists of whom one would naturally write in a lyrical
+strain, with praise of the flesh, and those things which add to its
+beauty, freshness, and mystery--fair scenes of mountain, woodland, or
+sea-shore; blue sky, white cloud and sunlight, or the deep and starry
+night; youth and health, strength and fertility, frankness and freedom.
+And, in such a strain, one would insist that the fondness and
+intoxication which these things quicken was natural, wise, and lovely.
+But, quite as naturally, when one has to speak of D&uuml;rer, the mind
+becomes filled with the exhilaration and the staidness that the desire
+to know and the desire to act rightly beget; with the dignity of
+conscious comprehension, the serenity of accomplished duty with all the
+strenuousness and ardour of which the soul is capable; with science
+and religion.</p>
+
+<p>It is natural to refer often to the towering eminence of these virtues
+in Michael Angelo; both he and D&uuml;rer were not only great artists, and
+active and powerful minds, but men imbued with, and conservative of,
+piety. And it seems to me, if we are to appreciate and sympathise deeply
+with such men, we must try to understand the religion they believed in;
+to estimate, not only what its value was supposed to be in those days,
+but what value it still has for us. Surely what they prized so highly
+must have had real and lasting worth? Surely it can only be the relation
+of that value to common speech and common thought which has changed, not
+its relation to man's most essential nature? Therefore I will first try
+to arrive at a general notion of the real worth of their ideas,--that
+is, the worth that is equally great from their point of view and ours.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of that period, the period of the so belauded Renascence, had
+within it (or so it seems to me) an incurable insufficiency, which
+troubles the affections of those who praise or condemn it; so that they
+show themselves more passionate than those who praise or condemn the art
+and life of ancient Greece. This insufficiency I believe to have been
+due to the fact that Christian ideas were more firmly rooted in, than
+they were understood by, the society of those days. And to-day I think
+the same cause continues to propagate a like insufficiency, a like lack
+of correspondence between effort and aim. Certain ideas found in the
+reported sayings of Jesus have so fastened upon the European intellect
+that they seem well-nigh inseparable from it. We are told that the
+effort of the Greek, of Aristotle, was to &quot;submit to the empire of
+fact.&quot; The effort of the Jew was very similar; for the prophets, what
+happened was the will of God, what will happen is what God intends. Now
+it is noteworthy that Aristotle did not wish to submit to ignorance,
+though it and the causes which produce it and preserve it in human minds
+are among the most horrible and tremendous of facts; and it is the
+imperishable glory of the prophets, that, whatever the priest the king,
+the Sadducee or Pharisee might do, <i>they</i> could not rest in or abide the
+idea that God's will was ever evil; no inconsistency was too glaring to
+check their indignation at Eastern fatalism which quietly supposed that
+as things went wrong it was their nature to do so;--vanity, vanity, all
+is vanity!--or that if men did wrong and prospered, it was God's doing,
+and showed that they had pleased Him with sacrifices and performances.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>'Wherever poetry, imagination, or art had been busy, there had appeared,
+both in Judea and Greece, some degree of rebellion against the empire of
+fact.. When Jesus said: &quot;The kingdom of heaven is within you,&quot; he
+recognised that the human reason was the antagonist of all other known
+forces, and he declared war on the god of this world and prophesied the
+downfall of--the empire of the apparent fact;--not with fume and fret,
+not with rant and rage, as poets and seers had done, but mildly
+affirming that with the soul what is best is strongest, has in the long
+run most influence; that there is one fact in the essential nature of
+man which, antagonist to the influence of all other facts, wields an
+influence destined to conquer or absorb all other influences. He said:
+&quot;My Father which is in heaven, the master influence within me, has
+declared that I shall never find rest to my soul until I prefer His
+kingdom, the conception of my heart, to the kingdoms of earth and the
+glory of the earth.&quot; 'We have seen that D&uuml;rer describes the miracle; the
+work of art, thus:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The secret treasure which a man conceived in his heart shall appear as
+a thing&quot; (see page 10).</p>
+
+<p>And we know that he prized this, the master thing, the conception of the
+heart, above everything else.</p>
+
+<p>Much learning is not evil to a man, though some be stiffly set against
+it, saying that art puffeth up. Were that so, then were none prouder
+than God who hath formed all arts, but that cannot be, for God is
+perfect in goodness. The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the
+better doth he become, and so much the more love doth he win for the
+arts and for things exalted.</p>
+
+<p>The learning D&uuml;rer chiefly intends is not book-learning or critical
+lore, but knowledge how to make, by which man becomes a creator in
+imitation of God; for this is of necessity the most perfect knowledge,
+rivalling the sureness of intuition and instinct.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>&quot;Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.&quot;
+Every one knows how anxious great artists become for the preservation of
+their works, how highly they value permanence in the materials employed,
+and immunity from the more obvious chances of destruction in the
+positions they are to occupy. Michael Angelo is said to have painted
+cracks on the Sistina ceiling to force the architect to strengthen the
+roof. When Jesus made the assertion that his teaching would outlast the
+influence of the visible world of nature and the societies of men--the
+kingdoms of earth and the glory of the earth--he did no more than every
+victorious soul strives to effect, and to feel assured that it has in
+some large degree effected; the difference between him and them is one
+of degree. It may be objected that different hearts harbour and cherish
+contradictory conceptions. Doubtless; but does the desire to win the
+co-operation and approval of other men consist with the higher
+developments of human faculties? Is it, perhaps, essential to them? If
+so, in so far as every man increases in vitality and the employment of
+his powers, he will be forced to reverence and desire the solidarity of
+the race, and consequently to relinquish or neglect whatever in his own
+ideal militates against such solidarity. And this will be the case
+whether he judge such eccentric elements to be nobler or less noble than
+the qualities which are fostered in him by the co-operation of his
+fellows. Jesus, at any rate, affirmed that the law of the kingdom within
+a man's soul was: &quot;Love thy neighbour as thyself&quot;; and that obedience to
+it would work in every man like leaven, which is lost sight of in the
+lump of dough, and seems to add nothing to it, yet transforms the whole
+in raising up the loaf; or as the corn of wheat which is buried in the
+glebe like a dead body, yet brings forth the blade, and nourishes a
+new life.</p>
+
+<p>So he that should follow Jesus by obeying the laws of the kingdom, by
+loving God (the begetter or fountainhead of a man's most essential
+conception of what is right and good) and his neighbour, was assured by
+his mild and gracious Master that he would inherit, by way of a return
+for the sacrifices which such obedience would entail, a new and better
+life. (Follow me, I laid down my life in order that I might take it
+again. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his
+life <i>for</i> my <i>sake</i>--as I did, in imitation of me--shall find it.) For
+in order to make this very difficult obedience possible, it was to be
+turned into a labour of love done for the Master's sake. As Goethe said:</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Against the superiority of another, there is no remedy<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;but love.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>Is it not true that the superiority of another man humiliates, crushes
+and degrades us in our own eyes, if we envy it or hate it instead of
+loving it? while by loving it we make it in a sense ours, and can
+rejoice in it. So Jesus affirmed that he had made the superiority of the
+ideal his; so that he was in it, and it was in him, so that men who
+could no longer fix their attention on it in their own souls might love
+it in him. He was their master-conception, their true ideal, acting
+before them, captivating the attention of their senses and emotions.
+This is what a man of our times, possessed of rare receptivity and great
+range of comprehension, considered to be the pith of Jesus' teaching.
+Matthew Arnold gave much time and labour to trying to persuade men that
+this was what the religion they professed, or which was professed around
+them, most essentially meant. And he reminded us that the adequacy of
+such ideas for governing man's life depended not on the authority of a
+book or writings by eye-witnesses with or without intelligence, but on
+whether they were true in experience. He quoted Goethe's test for every
+idea about life, &quot;But is it true, is it true for me, now?&quot; &quot;Taste and
+see,&quot; as the prophets put it; or as Jesus said, &quot;Follow me.&quot; For an
+ideal must be followed, as a man woos a woman; the pursuit may have to
+be dropped, in order to be more surely recovered; an ideal must be
+humoured, not seized at once as a man seizes command over a machine.
+This <i>secret of success was</i> was only to be won by the development of a
+temper, a spirit of docility. To love it in an example was the best,
+perhaps the only way of gaining possession of it.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>As we are placed, what hope can we have but to learn? and what is there
+from which we might not learn? An artist is taught by the materials he
+uses more essentially than by the objects he contemplates; for these
+teach him &quot;how,&quot; and perfect him in creating, those only teach him
+&quot;what,&quot; and suggest forms to be created. But for men in general the
+&quot;what&quot; is more important than the &quot;how&quot;; and only very powerful art can
+exhilarate and refine them by means of subjects which they dislike
+or avoid.</p>
+
+<p>Every seer of beauty is not a creator of beautiful things; and in art
+the &quot;how&quot; is so much more essential than the &quot;what,&quot; that artists create
+unworthy or degrading objects beautifully, so that we admire their art
+as much as we loathe its employment; in nature, too, such objects are
+met with, created by the god of this world. A good man, too, may create
+in a repulsive manner objects whose every association is ennobling or
+elevating.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The kingdom of heaven is within you,&quot; but hell is also within.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;In one self place; for where we are is hell<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And where hell is, must we for ever be:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And every creature shall be purified,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;All places shall be hell that are not heaven,&quot;<br>
+
+<p>as Marlowe makes his Mephistophilis say: and the best art is the most
+perfect expression of that which is within, of heaven or of hell.
+Goethe said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was simple and positive, we
+encounter expressions of approval more often than of disapproval. With
+the Romans, on the other hand, the contrary holds good; and the more
+corrupted poetry and rhetoric become, the more will censure grow and
+praise diminish.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I have sometimes thought that the difference between classic and more or
+less decadent art lies in the fact that by the one things are
+appreciated for what they most essentially are--a young man, a swift
+horse, a chaste wife, &amp;c.--by the other for some more or less peculiar
+or accidental relation that they hold to the creator. Such writers
+lament that the young are not old, the old not young, prostitutes not
+pure, that maidens are cold and modest or matrons portly. They complain
+of having suffered from things being cross, or they take malicious
+pleasure in pointing that crossness out; whereas classical art always
+rebounds from the perception that things are evil to the assertion of
+what ought to be or shall be. It triumphs over the Prince of Darkness,
+and covers a multitude of sins, as dew or hoar frost cover and make
+beautiful a dunghill. Dunghills exist; but he who makes of Macbeth's or
+Clytemnestra's crimes an elevating or exhilarating spectacle triumphs
+over the god of this world, as Jesus did when he made the most
+ignominious death the symbol, of his victory and glory. Little wonder
+that Albert D&uuml;rer, and Michael Angelo found such deep satisfaction in
+Him as the object of their worship--his method of docility was
+next-of-kin to that of their art. Respect and solicitude create the
+soul, and these two pre-eminently docile passions preside over the
+soul's creation, whether it be a society, a life, or a thing of beauty.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Here, when art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Lived and laboured Albrecht D&uuml;rer, the Evangelist of Art.<br>
+
+<p>These jingling lines would scarcely merit consideration but that they
+express a common notion which has its part of truth as well as of error.
+Let us examine the first assertion (that art has been religion.)
+Baudelaire, in his <i>Curiosit&eacute;s Esth&eacute;tiques</i> says: <i>La premi&egrave;re affaire
+d'un artiste est de substituer l'homme &agrave; la nature et de protester
+contre elle</i>. (&quot;The first thing for an artist is to substitute man for
+nature and to protest against her.&quot;) The beginners and the smatterers
+are always &quot;students of nature,&quot; and suppose that to be so will suffice;
+but when the understanding and imagination gain width and elasticity,
+life is more and more understood as a long struggle to overcome or
+humanise nature by that which most essentially distinguishes man from
+other animals and inanimate nature. Religion should be the drill and
+exercise of the human faculties to fit them and maintain them in
+readiness for this struggle; the work of art should be the assertion of
+victory. A life worthy of remembrance is a work of art, a life worthy of
+universal remembrance is a masterpiece: only the materials employed
+differentiate it from any other work of art. The life of Jesus is
+considered as such a masterpiece. Thus we can say that if art has never
+been religion, religion has always been and ever will be an art.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us examine the second assertion that D&uuml;rer was an evangelist.
+What kind of character do we mean to praise when we say a man is an
+evangelist? Two only of the four evangelists can be said to reveal any
+ascertainable personality, and only St. John is sufficiently outlined to
+stand as a type; but I do not think we mean to imply a resemblance to
+St. John. The bringer of good news, the evangelist par excellence, was
+Jesus. He it was who made it evident that the sons of men have power to
+forgive sins. Victory over evil possible--this was the good news. No
+doubt every sincere Christian is supposed to be a more or less
+successful imitator of Jesus; and as such, D&uuml;rer may rightly be called
+an evangelist. But more than this is I think, implied in the use of the
+word; an evangelist is, for us above all a bringer of good news in
+something of the same manner as Jesus brought it, by living among
+sinners for those sinners' sake, among paupers for those paupers' sake;
+to see a man sweet, radiant, and victorious under these circumstances,
+is to see an evangelist. Goethe's final claim is that, &quot;after all, there
+are honest people up and down the world who have got light from my
+books; and whoever reads them, and gives himself the trouble to
+understand me, will acknowledge that he has acquired thence a certain
+inward freedom&quot;; and for this reason I have been tempted to call him the
+evangelist of the modern world. But it is best to use the word as I
+believe it is most correctly employed, and not to yield to the
+temptation (for tempting it is) to call men like D&uuml;rer and Goethe
+evangelists. They are teachers who charm as well as inform us, as Jesus
+was; but they are not evangelists in the sense that he was, for they did
+not deal directly with human life where it is forced most against its
+distinctive desire for increase in nobility, or is most obviously
+degraded by having betrayed it.'<a name="FNanchor11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>I have often heard it objected that Jesus is too feminine an ideal, too
+much based on renunciation and the effort to make the best of failure.
+No doubt that as women are, by the necessity of their function, more
+liable to the ship-wreck of their hopes, the bankruptcy of their powers,
+they have been drawn to cling to this hope of salvation in greater
+numbers, and with more fervour; so that the most general idea of Jesus
+may be a feminine one. It does not follow that this is the most correct
+or the best: every object, every person will appear differently to
+different natures. And it still remains true that there have been a
+great many men of very various types who have drawn strength and beauty
+from the contemplation and reverence of Jesus. That this ideal is too
+much based on making the best of failure is an objection that makes very
+little impression on me, for I think I perceive that failure is one of
+the most constant and widespread conditions of the universe, and even
+more certainly of human life.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>It remains now to see in what degree these ideas were felt or made
+themselves felt through the Romanism and Lutheranism of the Renascence
+period. Perhaps we English shall best recognise the presence of these
+ideas, the working of this leaven--this docility, the necessary midwife
+of 'genius, who transforms the difficult tasks which the human reason
+sets herself into labours of love--in an Englishman; so my first example
+shall be taken from Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that my acquaintance with him began, he being then thirty, I
+two or three months his junior. He had no theological degree, but the
+whole University, doctors and all, went to hear him. Henry VII took note
+of him, and made him Dean of St. Paul's. His first step was to restore
+discipline in the Chapter, which had all gone to wreck. He preached
+every saint's day to great crowds. He cut down household expenses, and
+abolished suppers and evening parties. At dinner a boy reads a chapter
+from Scripture; Colet takes a passage from it and discourses to the
+universal delight. Conversation is his chief pleasure, and he will keep
+it up till midnight if he finds a companion. Me he has often taken with
+him on his walks, and talks all the time of Christ. He hates coarse
+language, furniture, dress, food, books, all clean and tidy, but
+scrupulously plain; and he wears grey woollen when priests generally go
+in purple. With the large fortune which he inherited from his father, he
+founded and endowed a school at St. Paul's entirely at his own cost--
+masters, houses, salaries, everything.</p>
+
+<p>He is a man of genuine piety. He was not born with it. He was naturally
+hot, impetuous and resentful--indolent, fond of pleasure and of women's
+society--disposed to make a joke of everything. He told me that he had
+fought against his faults with study, fasting and prayer, and thus his
+whole life was in fact unpolluted with the world's defilements. His
+money he gave all to pious uses, worked incessantly, talked always on
+serious subjects, to conquer his disposition to levity; not but what you
+could see traces of the old Adam when wit was flying at feast or
+festival. He avoided large parties for this reason. He dined on a single
+dish, with a draught or two of light ale. He liked good wine, but
+abstained on principle. I never knew a man of sunnier nature. No one
+ever more enjoyed cultivated society; but here, too, he denied himself,
+and was always thinking of the life to come.</p>
+
+<p>His opinions were peculiar, and he was reserved in expressing them for
+fear of exciting suspicion. He knew how unfairly men judge each other,
+how credulous they are of evil, how much easier it is for a lying tongue
+to stain a reputation than for a friend to clear it. But among his
+friends he spoke his mind freely.</p>
+
+<p>He admitted privately that many things were generally taught which he
+did not believe, but he would not create a scandal by blurting out his
+objections. No book could be so heretical but he would read it, and read
+it carefully. He learnt more from such books than he learnt from
+dogmatism and interested orthodoxy.<a name="FNanchor12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Some may wonder what Colet could have found to say about Christ which
+could not only interest but delight the young and witty Erasmus; and may
+judge that at any rate to-day such a subject is sufficiently fly-blown.
+The proper reflection to make is, &quot;A rose by any other name would smell
+as sweet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Whether we say Christ or Perfection does not matter, it is what we mean
+which is either enthralling or dull, fresh or fusty; &quot;there's nothing
+in a name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When Colet speaks I might be listening to Plato,&quot; says Erasmus in
+another place, at a time when he was still younger and had just come
+from what had been a gay and perhaps in some measure a dissolute life in
+Paris: not that it is possible to imagine Erasmus as at any time
+committing great excesses, or deeply sinning against the sense of
+proportion and measure.</p>
+
+<p>Success is the only criterion, as in art, so in religion: the man that
+plucks out his eye and casts it from him, and remains the dull, greedy,
+distressful soul he was before, is a damned fool; but the man who does
+the same and becomes such that his younger friends report of him, &quot;I
+never knew a sunnier nature,&quot; is an artist in life, a great artist in
+the sense that Christ is supposed to have been a great master; one who
+draws men to him, as bees are drawn to flowers. Colet drew the young
+Henry the Eighth as well as Erasmus. &quot;The King said: 'Let every man
+choose his own doctor. Dean Colet shall be mine!'&quot; Though no doubt
+charlatans have often fascinated young scholars and monarchs, yet it is
+peculiarly impossible to think of Colet as a charlatan.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+<p>Next let us take a sonnet and a sentence from Michael Angelo:</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;For if of our affections none finds grace<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;In sight of heaven, then, wherefore hath God made<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;The world which we inhabit? Better plea<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Love cannot have than that in loving thee<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Glory to that eternal peace is paid,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Who such divinity to thee imparts,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;His hope is treacherous only whose love dies<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;With beauty, which is varying every hour;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;That breathes on earth the air of paradise.<a name="FNanchor13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br>
+
+<p>It is very remarkable how strongly the conviction of permanence, and the
+preference for the inward conception over external beauty are expressed
+in this fine sonnet; and also that the reason given for accepting the
+discipline of love is that experience shows how it &quot;hallows and makes
+pure all gentle hearts.&quot; In such a love poem--the object of which might
+very well have been Jesus--I seem to find more of the spirit of his
+religion, whereby he binds his disciples to the Father that ruled within
+him, till they too feel the bond of parentage as deeply as himself and
+become sons with him of his Father;--more of that binding power of Jesus
+is for me expressed in this fine sonnet than in Luther's Catechism. The
+religion that enables a great artist to write of love in this strain, is
+the religion of docility, of the meek and lowly heart. For Michael
+Angelo was not a man by nature of a meek and lowly heart, any more than
+Colet was a man naturally saintly or than Luther was a man naturally
+refined. But because Michael Angelo thus prefers the kingdom of heaven
+to external beauty, one must not suppose that he, its arch high-priest,
+despised it. Nobody had a more profound respect for the thing of beauty,
+whether it was the creation of God or man. He said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavour to
+create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives for
+perfection, strives for something that is God-like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now we can perceive how the same spirit worked in a great artist, not at
+Nuremberg or London, but at Rome, the centre of the world, where a
+Borgia could be Pope.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+<p>Erasmus, the typical humanist, the man who loved humanity so much that
+he felt that his love for it might tempt him to fight against God,
+travelled from the one world to the other; passed from the society of
+cardinals and princes to the seclusion of burgher homes in London, or to
+chat with D&uuml;rer at Antwerp. He belonged perhaps to neither world at
+heart; but how greatly his love and veneration of the one exceeded his
+admiration and sense of the practical utility of the other, a comparison
+of his sketch of Colet with such a note as this from his New Testament
+makes abundantly plain:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I saw with my own eyes Pope Julius II. at Bologna, and afterwards at
+Rome, marching at the head of a triumphal procession as if he were
+Pompey or C&aelig;sar. St. Peter subdued the world with faith, not with arms
+or soldiers or military engines. St. Peter's successors would win as
+many victories as St. Peter won if they had Peter's spirit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But we must not forget that the book in which these notes appeared was
+published with the approval of a Pope, and that he and others sought its
+author for advice as to how to cope best with their more hot-headed
+enemy Martin Luther. We must also remember that we are told that Colet
+&quot;was not very hard on priests and monks who only sinned with women. He
+did not make light of impurity, but thought it less criminal than spite
+and malice and envy and vanity and ignorance. The loose sort were at
+least made human and modest by their very faults, and he regarded
+avarice and arrogance as blacker sins in a priest than a hundred
+concubines.&quot; This spirit was not that of the Reformation which came to
+stop, yet it existed and was widespread at that time; it was I think the
+spirit which either formed or sustained most of the great artists. At
+any rate it both formed and sustained Albert D&uuml;rer. Yet the true nature
+of these ideas, derived from Jesus, could not be understood even by
+Colet, even by Erasmus. For them it was tradition which gave value and
+assured truth to Christ's ideas, not the truth of those ideas which gave
+value to the traditions and legends concerning him. The value of those
+ideas was felt, sometimes nearer, sometimes further off; it was loved
+and admired; their lives were apprehended by it, and spent in
+illustrating and studying it, as were also those of Albert D&uuml;rer and
+Michael Angelo. To understand the life and work of such men, we must
+form some conception of the true nature and value of those ideas, as I
+have striven to do in this chapter. Otherwise we shall merely admire and
+love them, as they admired and loved Jesus; and it has now become a
+point of honour with educated men not only to love and admire, but to
+make the effort to understand. Even they desired to do this. And I think
+we may rejoice that the present time gives us some advantage over those
+days, at least in this respect.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+<p>And lastly, in order to bring us back to our main subject, let us quote
+from a stray leaf of a lost MS. Book of D&uuml;rer's, which contains the
+description of his father's death.</p>
+
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ... desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; on his head had suddenly become wet with drops of sweat. Then<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; he asked to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfell wine. He<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; took a very little of it, and then desired to get into bed<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; again and thanked her. And when he had got into bed he fell<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; at once into his last agony. The old wife quickly kindled the<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard's verses, and<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; to my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; gone. I saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; been worthy to be with him at his end.<br>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And thus in the night before S. Matthew's eve my father<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; passed away, in the year above mentioned (Sept. 20, 1502)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; --the merciful God help me also to a happy end--and he left<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; my mother an afflicted widow behind him. He was ever wont to<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; praise her highly to me, saying what a good wife she was,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; wherefore I intend never to forsake her. I pray you for God's<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; sake, all ye my friends, when you read of the death of my<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; father, to remember his soul with an &quot;Our Father&quot; and an &quot;Ave<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Maria&quot;; and also for your own sake, that we may so serve God<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; as to attain a happy life and the blessing of a good end. For<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; from this world, for God is full of compassion. Through which<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; may He grant us, after this pitiful life, the joy of<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; everlasting salvation--in the name of the Father, the Son,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; and the Holy Ghost, at the beginning and at the end, one<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Eternal Governor. Amen.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>The last sentences of this may seem to share in the character of the
+vain repetitions of words with which professed believers are only too
+apt to weary and disgust others. They are in any case commonplaces: the
+image has taken the place of the object; the Father in heaven is not
+considered so much as the paternal governor of the inner life as the
+ruler of a future life and of this world. The use of such phrases is as
+much idolatry as the worship of statue and picture, or as little, if the
+words are repeated, as I think in this case they were, out of a feeling
+of awe and reverence for preceding mental impressions and experiences,
+and not because their repetition in itself was counted for
+righteousness. Their use, if this was so, is no more to be found fault
+with than the contemplation of pictures or statues of holy personages in
+order to help the mind to attend to their ensample, or the reading of a
+poem, to fill the mind with ennobling emotions. Idolatry is natural and
+right in children and other simple souls among primitive peoples or
+elsewhere. It is a stage in mental development. Lovers pass through the
+idolatrous stage of their passion just as children cut their teeth. It
+is a pity to see individuals or nations remain childish in this respect
+just as much as in any other, or to see them return to it in their
+decrepitude. But a temper, a spirit, an influence cannot easily be
+apprehended apart from examples and images; and perhaps the clearest
+reason is only the exercise of an infinitely elastic idolatry, which
+with sprightly efficiency finds and worships good in everything, just as
+the devout, in D&uuml;rer's youth, found sermons in stones, carved stones
+representing saint, bishop, or Virgin. And D&uuml;rer all his life long
+continued to produce pictures and engravings which were intended to
+preach such sermons.</p>
+
+<p>Goethe admirably remarks:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Superstition</i> is the poetry of life; the poet therefore suffers no
+harm from being <i>superstitious</i>.&quot; (Aberglaube.)</p>
+
+<p>Superstition and idolatry are an expenditure of emotion of a kind and
+degree which the true facts would not warrant; poetry when least
+superstitious is a like exercise of the emotions in order to raise and
+enhance them; superstition when most poetical unconsciously effects the
+same thing.</p>
+
+<p>This glimpse he gives of the way in which death visited his home, and
+how the visitation impressed him, is coloured and glows with that temper
+of docility which made Colet school himself so severely, and was the
+source of Michael Angelo's so fervent outpourings. And all through the
+accounts which remain of his life, we may trace the same spirit ever
+anew setting him to school, and renewing his resolution to learn both
+from his feelings and from his senses.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>XI</h3>
+
+<p>As I took a sentence from Michael Angelo, I will now take a sentence
+from D&uuml;rer, one showing strongly that evangelical strain so
+characteristic of him, born of his intuitive sense for human solidarity.
+After an argument, which will be found on page 306, he concludes: &quot;It is
+right, therefore, for one man to teach another. He that doeth so
+joyfully, upon him shall much be bestowed by God.&quot;<a name="FNanchor14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> These last words,
+like the last phrases of my former quotation from him, may stand perhaps
+in the way of some, as nowadays they may easily sound glib or
+irreverent. But are we less convinced that only tasks done joyfully, as
+labours of love, deserve the reward of fuller and finer powers, and
+obtain it? When D&uuml;rer thought of God, he did not only think of a
+mythological personage resembling an old king; he thought of a mind, an
+intention, &quot;for God is perfect in goodness.&quot; Words so easily come to
+obscure what they were meant to reveal; and if we think how the notion
+of perfect goodness rules and sways such a man's mind, we shall not
+wonder that he did not stumble at the omnipotency which revolts us,
+cowed as we are by the presence of evil. The old gentleman dressed like
+a king;--this was not the part of his ideas about God which occupied
+D&uuml;rer's mind. He accepted it, but did not think about it: it filled what
+would otherwise have been a blank in his mind and in the minds of those
+about him. But he was constantly anxious about what he ought to do and
+study in order to fulfil the best in himself, and about what ought to be
+done by his town, his nation, and the civilisation that then was, in
+order to turn man's nature and the world to an account answerable to the
+beauty of their fairer aspects. God was the will that commanded that
+&quot;consummation devoutly to be wished.&quot; Obedience to His law revealed in
+the Bible was the means by which this command could be carried out; and
+to a man turning from the Church as it then existed to the newly
+translated Bible texts, the commands of God as declared in those texts
+seemed of necessity reason itself compared with the commands of the
+Popes; were, in fact, infinitely more reasonable, infinitely more akin
+to a good man's mind and will. Luther's revolt is for us now
+characterised by those elements in it which proved inadequate--were
+irrational; but then these were insignificant in comparison with the
+light which his downright honesty shed on the monstrous and amazingly
+irrational Church. This huge closed society of bigots and worldlings
+which arrogated to itself all powers human and divine, and used them
+according to the lusts and intemperance of an Alexander Borgia, a Julius
+II., and a Leo X., was that farce perception of which made Rabelais
+shake the world with laughter, and which roused such consuming
+indignation in Luther and Calvin that they created the gloomy
+puritanical asylums in which millions of Germans, English, and Americans
+were shut up for two hundred years, as Matthew Arnold puts it. But D&uuml;rer
+was not so immured: even Luther at heart neither was himself, nor
+desired that others should be, prevented from enjoying the free use of
+their intellectual powers. It was because he was less perspicacious than
+Erasmus that he did not see that this was what he was inevitably doing
+in his wrath and in his haste.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>XII</h3>
+
+<p>Erasmus was, perhaps, the man in Europe who at that time displayed most
+docility; the man whom neither sickness, the desire for wealth and
+honour, the hope to conquer, the lust to engage in disputes, nor the
+adverse chances that held him half his life in debt and necessitous
+straits, and kept him all his life long a vagrant, constantly upon the
+road--the man in whom none of these things could weaken a marvellous
+assiduity to learn and help others to learn. He it was who had most
+kinship with D&uuml;rer among the artists then alive; for D&uuml;rer is very
+eminent among them for this temper of docility. It is interesting to see
+how he once turned to Erasmus in a devout meditation, written in the
+journal he kept during his journey to the Netherlands. His voice comes
+to us from an atmosphere charged with the electric influence of the
+greatest Reformer, Martin Luther, who had just disappeared, no man knew
+why or whither; though all men suspected foul play. In his daily life,
+by sweetness of manner, by gentle dignity and modesty, D&uuml;rer showed his
+religion, the admiration and love that bound his life, in a way that at
+all times and in all places commands applause. The burning indignation
+of the following passage may in times of spiritual peace or somnolence
+appear over-wrought and uncouth. We must remember that all that D&uuml;rer
+loved had been bound by his religion to the teaching and inspiration of
+Jesus, and had become inseparable from it. All that he loved--learning,
+clear and orderly thought, honesty, freedom to express the worship of
+his heart without its being turned to a mockery by cynical monk, priest,
+or prelate;--these things directly, and indirectly art itself, seemed to
+him threatened by the corruption of the Papal power. We must remember
+this; for we shall naturally feel, as Erasmus did, that the path of
+martyrdom was really a short cut, which a wider view of the surrounding
+country would have shown him to be likely to prove the longest way in
+the end. Indeed the world is not altogether yet arrived where he thought
+Erasmus could bring it in less than two years. And Luther himself
+returned to the scene and was active, without any such result, a dozen
+years and more.</p>
+
+<p>Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou a little old
+man, and myself have heard thee say that thou givest thyself but two
+years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to accomplish somewhat. Lay
+out the same well for the good of the Gospel, and of the true Christian
+faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ says, shall the Gates of
+Hell in no wise prevail against thee. And if here below thou wert to be
+like thy master Christ, and sufferest infamy at the hands of the liars
+of this time, and didst die a little sooner, then wouldst thou the
+sooner pass from death unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou
+drinkest of the cup which He drank of, <i>with Him shalt thou reign and
+judge with justice those who</i> HAVE <i>dealt unrighteously</i>. Oh! Erasmus!
+cleave to this, that God Himself may be thy praise, even as it is
+written of David. For thou mayest, yea, verily thou mayest overthrow
+Goliath. Because God stands by the Holy Christian Church, even as He
+alone upholds the Roman Church, according to His godly will. May He help
+us to everlasting salvation, who is God the Father, the Son, and Holy
+Ghost, one eternal God! Amen!!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice those that have dealt
+unrighteously.&quot; This will seem to many a mere cry for revenge; and so
+perhaps it was. Still it may have been, as it seems to me to have been,
+uttered rather in the spirit of Moses' &quot;Forgive their sin--and if not,
+blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book&quot;; or the &quot;Heaven and earth shall
+pass away, but my words shall not pass away&quot; of Jesus. If the necessity
+for victory was uppermost, the opportunity for revenge may scarcely have
+been present to D&uuml;rer's mind.</p>
+
+<p>It is now more generally recognised than in Luther's day that however
+sweet vengeance may be, it is not admirable, either in God or man.</p>
+
+<p>The total impression produced by D&uuml;rer's life and work must help each to
+decide for himself which sense he considers most likely. The truth, as
+in most questions of history, remains for ever in the balance, and
+cannot be ascertained.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>XIII</h3>
+
+<p>I have called docility the necessary midwife of Genius, for so it is;
+and religion is a discipline that constrains us to learn. The religion
+of Jesus constrains us to learn the most difficult things, binds us to
+the most arduous tasks that the mind of man sets itself, as a lover is
+bound by his affection to accomplish difficult feats for his mistress'
+sake. Such tasks as Michael Angelo and D&uuml;rer set themselves require that
+the lover's eagerness and zest shall not be exhausted; and to keep them
+fresh and abundant, in spite of cross circumstances, a discipline of the
+mind and will is required. This is what they found in the worship of
+Jesus. The influence of this religious hopefulness and self-discipline
+on the creative power prevents its being exhausted, perverted, or
+embittered; and in order that it may effect this perfectly, that
+influence must be abundant not only within the artist, as it was in
+Michael Angelo and D&uuml;rer, but in the world about them.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, is the value of religious influence to creative art: and
+though we to-day necessarily regard the personages, localities, and
+events of the creed as coming under the category of &quot;things that are
+not,&quot; we may still as fervently hope and expect that the things of that
+category may &quot;bring to nought the things that are,&quot; including the
+superstitious reverence for the creed and its unprovable statements; for
+has not the victory in human things often been with the things that were
+not, but which were thus ardently desired and expected? To inquire which
+of those things are best calculated to advance and nourish creative
+power, and in what manner, should engage the artist's attention far more
+than it has of late years. For what he loves, what he hopes, and what he
+expects would seem, if we study past examples, to exercise as important
+an influence on a man's creative power as his knowledge of, and respect
+for, the materials and instruments which he controls do upon his
+executive capacity.</p>
+
+<p>The universe in which man finds himself may be evil, but not everything
+it contains is so: then it must for ever remain our only wisdom to
+labour to transform those parts which we judge to be evil into likeness
+or conformity to those we judge to be good: and surely he who neglects
+the forces of hope and adoration in that effort, neglects the better
+half of his practical strength? The central proposition of Christianity,
+that this end can only be attained by contemplation and imitation of an
+example, is, we shall in another place (pp. [305-312]) find, maintained
+as true in regard to art by D&uuml;rer, and by Reynolds, our greatest writer
+on aesthetics. These great artists, so dissimilar in the outward aspects
+of their creations, agree in considering that the only way of
+advancement open to the aspirant is the attempt to form himself on the
+example of others, by imitating them not slavishly or mechanically, but
+in the same spirit in which they imitated their forerunners: even as the
+Christian is bound to seek union with Christ in the same spirit or way
+in which Jesus had achieved union with his Father--that is, by laying
+down life to take it again, in meekness and lowliness of heart. Docility
+is the sovran help to perfection for D&uuml;rer and Reynolds, and more or
+less explicitly for all other great artists who have treated of these
+questions.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor11">[11]</a><blockquote> Of course all that may have been meant by the phrase &quot;the
+Evangelist of Art&quot; is that D&uuml;rer illustrated the narrative of the
+Passion; but by this he is not distinguished from many others, and the
+phrase is suggestive of far more.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor12">[12]</a><blockquote> Froude's &quot;Life of Erasmus,&quot; Lecture vi.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor13">[13]</a><blockquote> Wordsworth's Translation,</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor14">[14]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; p. 176.</blockquote>
+
+
+<center>
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="PART_II"></a>PART II</h2>
+
+<h3>D&Uuml;RER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES IN WHICH HE LIVED</h3>
+
+<p>[Illustration]</p></center>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_ORIGIN,_YOUTH_AND_EDUCATION"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH AND EDUCATION</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>Who was D&uuml;rer? He has told us himself very simply, and more fully than
+men of his type generally do; for he was not, like Montaigne, one whose
+chief study was himself. Yet, though he has done this, it is not easy
+for us to fully understand him. It is perhaps impossible to place
+oneself in the centre of that horizon which was of necessity his and
+belonged to his day, a vast circle from which men could no more escape
+than we from ours; this cage of iron ignorance in which every human soul
+is trapped, and to widen and enlarge which every heroic soul lives and
+dies. This cage appeared to his eyes very different from what it does to
+ours; yet it has always been a cage, and is only lost sight of at times
+when the light from within seems to flow forth, and with its radiant
+sapphire heaven of buoyancy and desire to veil the eternal bars. It is
+well to remind ourselves that ignorance was the most momentous, the most
+cruel condition of his life, as of our own; and that the effort to
+relieve himself of its pressure, either by the pursuit of knowledge, or
+by giving spur and bridle to the imagination that it might course round
+him dragging the great woof of illusion, and tent him in the ethereal
+dream of the soul's desire, was the constant effort and resource of
+his days.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>At the age of fifty-three he took the pen and commenced:</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1524, I, Albrecht D&uuml;rer the younger, have put together from
+my father's papers the facts as to whence he was, how he came hither,
+lived here, and drew to a happy end. God be gracious to him and
+us! Amen.</p>
+
+<p>Like his relatives, Albrecht D&uuml;rer the elder was born in the kingdom of
+Hungary, in a little village named Eytas, situated not far from a little
+town called Gyula, eight miles below Grosswardein; and his kindred made
+their living from horses and cattle. My father's father was called Anton
+D&uuml;rer; he came as a lad to a goldsmith in the said little town and
+learnt the craft under him. He afterwards married a girl named
+Elizabeth, who bare him a daughter, Katharina, and three sons. The first
+son he named Albrecht; he was my dear father. He too became a goldsmith,
+a pure and skilful man. The second son he called Ladislaus; he was a
+saddler. His son is my cousin Niklas D&uuml;rer, called Niklas the Hungarian,
+who is settled at K&ouml;ln. He also is a goldsmith, and learnt the craft
+here in N&uuml;rnberg with my father. The third son he called John. Him he
+set to study, and he afterwards became a parson at Grosswardein, and
+continued there thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>So Albrecht D&uuml;rer, my dear father, came to Germany. He had been a long
+time with the great artists in the Netherlands. At last he came hither
+to N&uuml;rnberg in the year, as reckoned from the birth of Christ, 1455, on
+S. Elogius' day (June 25). And on the same day Philip Pirkheimer had his
+marriage feast at the Veste, and there was a great dance under the big
+lime tree. For a long time after that my dear father, Albrecht D&uuml;rer,
+served my grandfather, old Hieronymus Holper, till the year reckoned
+1467 after the birth of Christ. My grandfather then gave him his
+daughter, a pretty upright girl, fifteen years old, named Barbara; and
+he was wedded to her eight days before S. Vitus (June 8). It may also be
+mentioned that my grandmother, my mother's mother, was the daughter of
+Oellinger of Weissenburg, and her name was Kunigunde.</p>
+
+<p>And my dear father had by his marriage with my dear mother the following
+children born--which I set down here word for word as he wrote it in
+his book:</p>
+
+<p>Here follow eighteen items, only one of which, the third, is of
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>3. Item, in the year 1471 after the birth of Christ, in the sixth hour
+of the day, on S. Prudentia's day, a Tuesday in Rogation Week (May 21),
+my wife bare me my second son. His godfather was Anton Koburger, and he
+named him Albrecht after me, &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>All these, my brothers and sisters, my dear father's children, are now
+dead, some in their childhood, others as they were growing up; only we
+three brothers still live, so long as God will, namely: I, Albrecht, and
+my brother Andreas and my brother Hans, the third of the name, my
+father's children.</p>
+
+<p>This Albrecht D&uuml;rer the elder passed his life in great toil and stern
+hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his
+hand for himself, his wife and his children, so that he had little
+enough. He underwent moreover manifold afflictions, trials, and
+adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived
+an honourable, Christian life, was a man of patient spirit, mild and
+peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had
+little need of company and worldly pleasures; he was also of few words,
+and was a God-fearing man.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>We shall, I think, often do well, when considering the superb
+ostentation of D&uuml;rer's workmanship, with its superabundance of curve and
+flourish, its delight in its own ease and grace, to think of those young
+men among his ancestors who made their living from horses on the
+wind-swept plains of Hungary. The perfect control which it is the
+delight of lads brought up and developing under such conditions to
+obtain over the galloping steed, is similar to the control which it
+gratified D&uuml;rer to perfect over the dashing stroke of pen or brush,
+which, however swift and impulsive, is yet brought round and performs to
+a nicety a predetermined evolution. And the way he puts a little
+portrait of himself, finely dressed, into his most important pictures,
+may also carry our thoughts away to the banks of the Danube where it
+winds and straggles over the steppes, to picture some young
+horse-breeder, whose costume and harness are his only wealth; who rides
+out in the morning as the cock-bustard that, having preened himself,
+paces before the hen birds on the plains that he can scour when his
+wings, which are slow in the air, join with his strong legs to make
+nothing of grassy leagues on leagues. And first, this life with its free
+sweeping horizon, and the swallow-like curves of its gallops for the
+sake of galloping, or those which the long lashes of its whips trace in
+deploying, and which remind us of the lithe tendrils in which terminate
+D&uuml;rer's ornamental flourishes; this life in which the eye is trained to
+watch the lasso, as with well-calculated address it swirls out and drops
+over the frighted head of an unbroken colt;--this life is first pent up
+in a little goldsmith's shop, in a country even to-day famous for the
+beauty and originality of its peasant jewelry: and here it is trained to
+follow and answer the desire of the bright dark eyes of girls in
+love;--in love, where love and the beauty that inspires it are the gifts
+of nature most guarded and most honoured, from which are expected the
+utmost that is conceived of delicacy in delight by a virile and healthy
+race. &quot;A pure and skilful man.&quot; Patient already has this life become,
+for a jeweller can scarcely be made of impatient stuff; patient even
+before the admixture of German blood when Albert the elder married his
+Barbara Holper. The two eldest sons were made jewellers; but the third,
+John, is set to study and becomes a parson, as if already learning and
+piety stood next in the estimation of this life after thrift, skill and
+the creation of ornament. And Germany boasts of this life beyond that of
+any of her sons; but her blood was probably of small importance to the
+efficiency that it attained to in the great Albert D&uuml;rer. The German
+name of D&uuml;rer or Th&uuml;rer, a door, is quite as likely to be the
+translation, correct or otherwise, of some Hungarian name, as it is an
+indication that the family had originally emigrated from Germany. In any
+case, a large admixture by intermarriage of Slavonic blood would
+correspond to the unique distinction among Germans, attained in the
+dignity, sweetness and fineness which signalised D&uuml;rer. Of course, in
+such matters no sane man looks for proof; but neither will he reject a
+probable suggestion which may help us to understand the nature of an
+exceptional man.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer continues to speak of his childhood:</p>
+
+<p>And my father took special pleasure in me, because he saw that I was
+diligent to learn. So he sent me to school, and when I had learnt to
+read and write he took me away from it, and taught me the goldsmith's
+craft. But when I could work neatly, my liking drew me rather to
+painting than to goldsmith's work, so I laid it before my father; but he
+was not well pleased, regretting the time lost while I had been learning
+to be a goldsmith. Still he let it be as I wished, and in 1486 (reckoned
+from the birth of Christ) on S. Andrew's day (November 30) my father
+bound me apprentice to Michael Wolgemut, to serve him three years long.
+During that time God gave me diligence, so that I learnt well, but I had
+much to suffer from his lads.</p>
+
+<p>When I had finished my learning my father sent me off, and I stayed away
+four years till he called me back again. As I had gone forth in the year
+1490 after Easter (Easter Sunday was April 11), so now I came back again
+in 1494 as it is reckoned after Whitsuntide (Whit Sunday was May 18).</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus tells us that German disorders were &quot;partly due to the natural
+fierceness of the race, partly to the division into so many separate
+States, and partly to the tendency of the people to serve as
+mercenaries.&quot; That there were many swaggerers and bullies about, we
+learn from D&uuml;rer's prints. In every crowd these gentlemen in leathern
+tights, with other ostentatious additions to their costume, besides
+poniards and daggers to emphasise the brutal male, strut straddle-legged
+and self-assured; and of course raw lads and loutish prentices yielded
+them the sincerest flattery. We can well understand that the model boy,
+to whom &quot;God had given diligence,&quot; with his long hair lovely as a
+girl's, and his consciousness of being nearly always in the right, had
+much to suffer from his fellow prentices. Besides, very likely, he
+already consorted with Willibald Pirkheimer and his friends, who were
+the aristocrats of the town. And though he may have been meek and
+gentle, there must have appeared in everything he did and was an
+assertion of superiority, all the more galling for its being difficult
+to define and as ready to blush as the innocent truth herself.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>It is much argued as to where D&uuml;rer went when his father &quot;sent him off.&quot;
+We have the direct statement of a contemporary, Christopher Scheurl,
+that he visited Colmar and Basle; and what is well nigh as good, for a
+visit to Venice. For Scheurl wrote in 1508: <i>Qui quum nuper in Italiam
+rediset, tum a Venetis, tum a Bononiensibus artificibus, me saepe
+interprete cansalutatus est alter Apelles.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;When he lately <i>returned</i> to Italy, he was often greeted as a second
+Apelles, by the craftsmen both of Venice and Bologna (I acting as their
+interpreter).&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Before we accept any of these statements it is well to remember how
+easily quite intimate friends make mistakes as to where one has been and
+when; even about journeys that in one's own mind either have been or
+should have been turning-points in one's life. For they will attribute
+to the past experiences which were never ours, or forget those which we
+consider most unforgettable. No one who has paid attention to these
+facts will consider that historians prove so much or so well as they
+often fancy themselves to do. In the present case what is really
+remarkable is, that none of these sojournings of the young artist in
+foreign art centres seem to have produced such a change in his art as
+can now be traced with assurance. At Colmar he saw the masterpieces and
+the brothers of the &quot;admirable Martin,&quot; as he always calls Schongauer.
+At Basle there is still preserved a cut wood-block representing St.
+Jerome, on the back of which is an authentic signature; there is besides
+a series of uncut wood-blocks, the designs on which it is easy to
+imagine to have been produced by the travelling journeyman that D&uuml;rer
+then seemed to the printers and painters of the towns he passed through.
+By those processes by which anything can be made of anything, much has
+been done to give substantiality to the implied first visit to Venice.
+There are drawings which were probably made there, representing ladies
+resembling those in pictures by Carpaccio as to their garments, the
+dressing of their hair, and the type of their faces. Of course it is not
+impossible that such a lady or ladies may have visited Nuremberg, or
+been seen by the young wanderer at Basle or elsewhere. And the
+resemblance between a certain drawing in the Albertina and one of the
+carved lions in red marble now on the Piazzetta de' Leoni does not count
+for much, when we consider that there is nothing in the workmanship of
+these heads to suggest that they were done after sculptured
+originals;--the manes, &amp;c., being represented by an easy penman's
+convention, as they might have been whether the models were living or
+merely imagined. Nor is there any good reason for dating the drawings of
+sites in the Tyrol, supposed to have been sketched on the road, rather
+this year than another. Lastly, the famous sentence in a letter written
+from Venice during D&uuml;rer's authenticated visit there, in 1506, may be
+construed in more than one sense. The passage is generally rather
+curtailed when quoted.</p>
+
+<p>He (Giovanni Bellini) is very old, but is still the best painter of them
+all. The thing that pleased me so well eleven years ago, pleases me now
+no more; if I had not seen it for myself, I should never have believed
+any one who told me. You must know, too, that there are many better
+painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo de' Barbari) is abroad; yet
+Anton Kolb would swear an oath that no better painter than Jacob lives.</p>
+
+<p>If &quot;the thing that pleased so well eleven years before&quot; was a picture or
+pictures by Master Jacob or by Andrea Mantegna, as is usually supposed,
+the phrase, &quot;If I had not seen it for myself I should never have
+believed any one who told me&quot; is extremely strange. It is not usual to
+expect to change one's opinion of a work of art by hearsay, or to
+imagine others, when they have not done so, predicting with assurance
+that we shall change a decided opinion upon the merits of a work of art;
+yet one of these two suppositions seems certainly to be implied. I do
+not say that it is impossible to conceive of either, only that such
+cursory reference to such conceptions is extremely strange. Again, if
+work by Jacopo de' Barbari is referred to, it might very well have been
+seen elsewhere than at Venice eleven years ago; and indeed the last
+sentence in the passage might be taken to imply as much. To me at least
+the truth appears to be that these hints, which we may well have
+misunderstood, point to something which the imagination is only too
+delighted to entertain. It is a charming dream--the young D&uuml;rer, just of
+age, trudging from town to town, designing wood-blocks for a printer
+here, questioning the brothers of the &quot;admirable Martin&quot; there, or again
+painting a sign in yet another place, such as Holbein painted for the
+schoolmaster at Basle; and at last arriving in Venice--Venice untouched
+as yet by the conflicting ideals that were even then being brought to
+birth anew: Mediaeval Venice, such as we see her in the pictures of
+Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. One painting of real importance in the
+work of D&uuml;rer remains to us from this period: the greatest of modern
+critics has described it and its effect on him in a way which would make
+any second attempt impertinent.</p>
+
+<p>I consider as invaluable Albrecht D&uuml;rer's portrait of himself painted in
+1493, when he was in his twenty-second year. It is a bust half
+life-size, showing the two hands and the forearms. Crimson cap with
+short narrow strings, the throat bare to below the collar bone, an
+embroidered shirt, the folds of the sleeves tied underneath with
+peach-coloured ribbons, and a blue-grey, fur-edged cloak with yellow
+laces, compose a dainty dress befitting a well-bred youth. In his hand
+he significantly carries a blue <i>eryngo</i>, called in German &quot;Mannstreu.&quot;
+He has a serious, youthful face, the mouth and chin covered with an
+incipient beard. The whole splendidly drawn, the composition simple,
+grand and harmonious; the execution perfect and in every way worthy of
+D&uuml;rer, though the colour is very thin, and has cracked in some places.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the figure which we may imagine making its way among the crowd
+in Gentile Bellini's Procession of the &quot;True Cross&quot; before St. Mark's,
+with eyes all wonder and lips often consciously imprisoning the German
+tongue, which cannot make itself understood. How comes he so finely
+dressed, the son of the modest Nuremberg goldsmith? Has he won the
+friendship of some rich burgher prince at Augsburg, or Strasburg, or
+Basle? Has he been enabled to travel in his suite as far as Venice? Or
+has he earned a large sum for painting some lord's or lady's portrait,
+which, if it were not lost, would now stand as the worthy compeer of
+this splendid portrait of the &quot;true man&quot; far from home; true to that
+home only, or true to Agnes Frey?--for some suppose the sprig of eryngo
+to signify that he was already betrothed to her. Or perhaps he has
+joined Willibald Pirkheimer at Basle or elsewhere, and they two,
+crossing the Alps together, have become friends for life? Will they part
+here ere long, the young burgher prince to proceed to the Universities
+of Padua and Mantua, the future great painter to trudge back over the
+Alps, getting a lift now and again in waggon or carriage or on pillion?
+Let the man of pretentious science say it is bootless to ask such
+questions; those who ask them know that it is delightful; know that it
+is the true way to make the past live for them; guess that would
+historians more generally ask them, their books would be less often
+dry as dust.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>It may be that to this period belongs the meeting with Jacopo de'
+Barbari to which a passage in his MS. books (now in the British Museum)
+refers: and that already he began to be exercised on the subject of a
+canon of proportions for the human figure. In the chapter which I devote
+to his studies on this subject it will be seen how the determination to
+work the problem out by experiment, since Jacopo refused to reveal, and
+Vitruvius only hinted at the secret, led to his discovering something of
+far more value than it is probable that either could have given him. And
+yet the belief that there was a hidden secret probably hindered him from
+fully realising the importance of his discovery, or reaping such benefit
+from it as he otherwise might have done. How often has not the belief
+that those of old time knew what is ignored to-day, prevented men from
+taking full advantage of the conquests over ignorance that they have
+made themselves! Because what they know is not so much as they suppose
+might be or has been known, they fail to recognise the most that has yet
+been known--the best foundation for a new building that has yet been
+discovered--and search for what they possess, and fail to rival those
+whose superiority over themselves is a delusion of their own hearts. So
+early D&uuml;rer may have begun this life-long labour which, though not
+wholly vain, was never really crowned to the degree it merited: while
+others living in more fertile lands reaped what they had not sown, he
+could only plough and scatter seed. As Raphael is supposed to have said,
+all that was lacking to him was knowledge of the antique.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps many will blame me for writing, unlearned, as I am; in my
+opinion they are not wrong; they speak truly. For I myself had rather
+hear and read a learned man and one famous in this art than write of it
+myself, being unlearned. Howbeit I can find none such who hath written
+aught about how to form a canon of human proportions, save one man,
+Jacopo (de' Barbari) by name, born at Venice and a charming painter. He
+showed me the figures of a man and woman, which he had drawn according
+to a canon of proportions; and now I would rather be shown what he meant
+(<i>i.e.</i>, upon what principles the proportions were constructed) than
+behold a new kingdom. If I had it (his canon), I would put it into print
+in his honour, for the use of all men. Then, however, I was still young
+and had not heard of such things before. Howbeit I was very fond of art,
+so I set myself to discover how such a canon might be wrought out. For
+this aforesaid Jacopo, as I clearly saw, would not explain to me the
+principles upon which he went. Accordingly I set to work on my own idea
+and read Vitruvius, who writes somewhat about the human figure. Thus it
+was from, or out of, these two men aforesaid that I took my start, and
+thence, from day to day, have I followed up my search according to my
+own notions.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>When I returned home, Hans Prey treated with my father and gave me his
+daughter, Mistress Agnes by name, and with her he gave me two hundred
+florins, and we were wedded; it was on Monday before Margaret's (July 7)
+in the year 1494.</p>
+
+<p>The general acceptance of the gouty and irascible Pirkheimer's
+defamation of Frau D&uuml;rer as a miser and a shrew called forth a display
+of ingenuity on the part of Professor Thausing to prove the contrary.
+And I must confess that if he has not quite done that, he seems to me to
+have very thoroughly discredited Pirkheimer's ungallant abuse. Sir
+Martin Conway bids us notice that D&uuml;rer speaks of his &quot;dear father&quot; and
+his &quot;dear mother&quot; and even of his &quot;dear father-in-law,&quot; but that he
+never couples that adjective with his wife's name. It is very dangerous
+to draw conclusions from such a fact, which may be merely an accident:
+or may, if it represents a habit of D&uuml;rer's, bear precisely the opposite
+significance. For some men are proud to drop such outward marks of
+affection, in cases where they know that every day proves to every
+witness that they are not needed. He also considers that her portraits
+show her, when young, to have been &quot;empty-headed,&quot; when older, a &quot;frigid
+shrew.&quot; For my own part, if the portrait at Bremen (see opposite)
+represents &quot;mein Angnes,&quot; as its resemblance to the sketch at Vienna
+(see illus.) convinces me it does, I cannot accept either of these
+conclusions arrived at by the redoubtable science of physiognomy. The
+Bremen portrait shows us a refined, almost an eccentric type of beauty;
+one can easily believe it to have been possessed by a person of
+difficult character, but one certainly who must have had compensating
+good qualities. The &quot;mein Angnes&quot; on the sketch may well be set against
+the absent &quot;dears&quot; in the other mentions her husband made of her,
+especially when we consider that he couples this adjective with the
+Emperor's name, &quot;my dear Prince Max.&quot; Of her relations to him nothing is
+known except what Pirkheimer wrote in his rage, when he was writing
+things which are demonstrably false. We know, however, that she was
+capable, pious, and thrifty; and on several occasions, in the
+Netherlands, shared in the honours done to her husband. It is natural to
+suppose that as they were childless, there may have existed a moral
+equivalent to this infertility; but also, with a man such as we know
+D&uuml;rer to have been, and a woman in every case not bad, have we not
+reason to expect that this moral barrenness which may have afflicted
+their union was in some large measure conquered by mutual effort and
+discipline, and bore from time to time those rarer flowers whose beauty
+and sweetness repay the conscious culture of the soul? It seems
+difficult to imagine that a man who succeeded in charming so many
+different acquaintances, and in remaining life-long friends with the
+testy and inconsiderate Pirkheimer, should have altogether failed to
+create a relation kindly and even beautiful with his Agnes, whose
+portrait we surely have at her best in the drawing at Bremen.
+Considerations as to the general position of married women in those days
+need not prevent us of our natural desire to think as well as possible
+of D&uuml;rer and his circumstances. We know that for a great many men the
+wife was not simply counted among their goods and chattels, or regarded
+as a kind of superior servant. We are able to take a peep at many a
+fireside of those days, where the relations that obtained, however
+different in certain outward characters, might well shame the greater
+number of the respectable even in the present year of grace. We know
+what Luther was in these respects; and have rather more than less reason
+to expect from the refined and gracious D&uuml;rer the creation of a worthy
+and kindly home. Why should we expect him to have been less successful
+than his parents in these respects?</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: AGNES FREY. D&Uuml;RER'S WIFE (?)--Silver-point drawing
+heightened with white on a dun paper. Kunsthalle, Bremen]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: &quot;MEIN ANGNES&quot;--Pen sketch of the artist's wife, in the
+Albertina at Vienna]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+<p>Some time after the marriage it happened that my father was so ill with
+dysentery that no one could stop it. And when he saw death before his
+eyes he gave himself willingly to it, with great patience, and he
+commended my mother to me, and exhorted me to live in a manner pleasing
+to God. He received the Holy Sacraments and passed away Christianly (as
+I have described at length in another book) in the year 1502, after
+midnight, before S. Matthew's eve (September 20). God be gracious and
+merciful to him.</p>
+
+<p>The only leaf of the &quot;other book&quot; referred to that has survived is that
+which I have already quoted at length.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<a name="THE_WORLD_IN_WHICH_HE_LIVED"></a><h3>THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>Now let us consider what the world was like in which this virile,
+accurate and persevering spirit had grown up. Over and over again, the
+story of the New Birth has been told; how it began in France, and met an
+untimely fate at the hands of English invaders, then took refuge in
+Italy, where it grew to be the wonder of the world; and how the
+corruption of the ruling classes and of the Church, with the indignation
+and rebellion that this gave rise to, combined to frustrate the promise
+of earlier days.</p>
+
+<p>When the Roman Empire gradually became an anarchy of hostile fragments,
+every large monastery, every small town, girded itself with walls and
+tended to become the germ of a new civilisation. Popes, kings, and great
+lords, haunted by reminiscence of the vanished empire, made spasmodic
+attempts to subject such centres to their rule and tax them for their
+maintenance. In the first times, the Church--the See of Rome--made by
+far the most successful attempt to get its supremacy acknowledged, and
+had therefore fewer occasions to resort to violence. It was more
+respected and more respectable than the other powers which claimed to
+rule and tax these immured and isolated communities dotted over Europe;
+but as time went on, the Church became less and less beneficent, more
+and more tyrannical. Meanwhile kings and emperors, having learned wisdom
+by experience, found themselves in a position to take advantage of the
+growing bad odour of the Church; and by favouring the civil communities
+and creating a stable hierarchy among the class of lords and barons from
+which they had emerged, were at last able to face the Church, with its
+<i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;s,</i> the religious communities, on an equal footing.</p>
+
+<p>The religious communities, owing to the vow of celibacy, had become more
+and more stagnant, while the civil communities increased in power to
+adapt themselves to the age. All that was virile and creative combined
+in the towns; all that was inadequate, sterile, useless, coagulated in
+the monasteries, which thus became cesspools, and ultimately took on the
+character of festering sores by which the civil bodies which had at
+first been purged into them were endangered. Luther tells us how there
+was a Bishop of W&uuml;rzburg who used to say when he saw a rogue, &quot;'To the
+cloister with you. Thou art useless to God or man.' He meant that in the
+cloister were only hogs and gluttons, who did nothing but eat and drink
+and sleep, and were of no more profit than as many rats.&quot; And the
+loathing that another of these sties created in the young Erasmus, and
+the difficulty he had to escape from the clutches of its inmates--never
+feeling safe till the Pope had intervened--show us that by their wealth
+and by the engine of their malice, the confessional (which they had
+usurped from the regular clergy), they were as formidable as they were
+useless. It became necessary that this antiquated system of social
+drainage should be superseded.</p>
+
+<p>In England and Germany it was swept away. In centres like Nuremberg, the
+desire for reformation and the horror of false doctrine were grounded in
+practical experience of intolerable inconveniences, not in a clear
+understanding of the questions at issue. Intellectually, the leaders of
+the Reformation had no better foundation than those they opposed: for
+them, as for their opponents, the question was not to be solved by an
+appeal to evident truths and experience, but to historical documents and
+traditions, supposed, to be infallible. For a clear intelligence, there
+is nothing to choose between the infallibility of oecumenical councils
+or of Popes, and that of the Bible. Both have been in their time the
+expression of very worthy and very human sentiments; both are incapable
+of rational demonstration.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>Scattered over Europe, wherever the free intelligence was waking and had
+rubbed her eyes, were men who desired that nuisances should be removed
+and reforms operated without schism or violence. To these Erasmus spoke.
+His policy was tentative, and did not proceed, like that of other
+parties, by declaring that a perfect solution was to hand. Luther's
+action divided these honest, upright souls, and would-be children of
+light, into three unequal camps.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule the downright, headstrong, and impatient became reformers. The
+respectful, cautious and long-suffering, such as More, Warham, and
+Adrian IV., clung to the Roman establishment, were martyred for it or
+broke their hearts over it. Erasmus and a handful of others remained
+true to a tentative policy, and, compared with their contemporaries,
+were meek and lowly in heart--became children of light. To them we now
+look back wistfully, and wish that they might have been, if not as
+numerous as the Churchmen and Beformers, at least a sufficient body to
+have made their influence an effective force, with the advantage of more
+light and more patience that was really theirs. But, alas! they only
+counted as the first dissolvent which set free more corrosive and
+detrimental acids. The exhilaration of action and battle was for others;
+for them the sad conviction that neither side deserved to be trusted
+with a victory. Yet, beyond the world whose chief interest was the
+Reformation, we may be sure that such men as Charles V., Michael Angelo,
+Rabelais, Montaigne, and all those whom they may be taken to represent,
+were in essential agreement with Erasmus. Luther and Machiavelli alone
+rejected the Papacy as such: the latter's more stringent intellectual
+development led him also to discard every ideal motive or agent of
+reform for violent means. He was ready even to regard the passions of
+men like Caesar Borgia, tyrants in the fullest sense of the word, as the
+engines by which civilisation, learning, art, and manners, might be
+maintained. Whereas Luther appealed to the passions of common honest
+men, the middle classes in fact. It is easy to let either Luther or
+Machiavelli steal away our entire sympathy. On the one hand, no
+compromise, not even the slightest, seems possible with criminal
+ruffians such as a Julius II. and an Alexander Borgia; on the other
+hand, the power swollen by the tide of minor corruption, which such men
+ruled by might, did come into the hands of a Leo X., an Adrian IV.; and
+though that power was obviously tainted through and through, it might
+have been mastered and wielded in the cause of reform. Erasmus hoped for
+this. Even Julius II. protected him from the superiors of his convent.
+Even Julius II. patronised Michael Angelo and Raphael and everything
+that had a definite character in the way of creative power or
+scholarship; and could appreciate at least the respect which what he
+patronised commanded. He could appreciate the respect commanded by the
+austerity and virtue of those who rebelled against him and denounced his
+cynical abuse of all his powers, whether natural or official. He liked
+to think he had enemies worth beating. Such a ruler is a sore temptation
+to a keen intellect. &quot;Everything great is formative,&quot; and this Pope was
+colossal--a colossal bully and robber if you like--but the good he did
+by his patronage was real good, was practical. Michael Angelo and
+Raphael could work as splendidly as they desired. Erasmus was helped and
+encouraged. Timid honesty is often petty, does nothing, criticises and
+finds fault with artists and with learning, runs after them like Sancho
+Panza after Don Quixote, is helpless and ridiculous and horribly in the
+way. Leo X. was intelligent and well-meaning; wisdom herself might hope
+from such a man. Be the throne he is sitting on as monstrous and corrupt
+a contrivance as it may, yet it is there, it does give him authority; he
+is on it and dominates the world. It is easy to say, &quot;But the period of
+the Renascence closed, its glory died away.&quot; Suppose Luther had been as
+subtle as he was whole-hearted, and had added to his force of character
+a delicacy and charm like that of St. Francis; or suppose that Erasmus
+instead of his schoolfellow Adrian IV. had become Pope; what a different
+tale there might have been to tell! Who will presume to point out the
+necessity by which these things were thus and not otherwise? &quot;Regrets
+for what 'might have been' are proverbially idle,&quot; cries the historian
+from whom I have chiefly quoted. I do not recollect the proverb, unless
+he refers to &quot;It is no use crying over spilt milk;&quot; but in any case such
+regrets are far from being necessarily idle. &quot;What might have been&quot; is
+even generally &quot;what ought to have been;&quot; and no study has been or is
+likely to be so pregnant for us as the study of the contrast between
+&quot;what was&quot; and &quot;what ought to have been,&quot; though such studies are
+inevitably mingled with regrets. We have every reason to regret that the
+Reformation was so hasty and ill-considered, and that the Papacy was as
+purblind as it was arrogant. The plant of the Roman Church machinery,
+which it had taken centuries to lay down, came into the hands of men who
+grossly ignored its function and the conditions of its working. They
+used its power partly for the benefit of the human race, by patronising
+art and scholarship; but chiefly in self-indulgence. If honest
+intelligence had been given control, a man so partially equipped for his
+task would not have been goaded into action; but only force, moral or
+physical, can act at a disadvantage; light and reason must have the
+advantage of dominant position to effect anything immediate. If they are
+not on the throne, all they can do is to sow seed, and bewail the
+present while looking forward to a better future. Now, most educated men
+are for tolerance, and see as Erasmus saw. We see that Savonarola and
+Luther were not so right as they thought themselves to be; we see that
+what they condemned as arrogancy and corruption is partly excusable--is
+in some measure a condition of efficiency in worldly spheres where one
+has to employ men already bad. True, the great princes and cardinals of
+those days not only connived at corruption and ruled by it, but often
+even professed it. Still in every epoch, under all circumstances, the
+majority of those who have governed men have more or less cynically
+employed means that will not bear the light of day. While these
+magnificoes of the Renascence do stand alone, or almost alone, by the
+ample generosity of their conception of the objects that power should be
+exerted in furtherance of; their outlook on life was more commensurate
+with the variety and competence of human nature than perhaps that of any
+ruling class has been before or since. As Shakespeare is the amplest of
+poets, so were theirs the most fruitful of courts. From the great
+Medicis to our own Elizabeth they all partake of a certain grandiose
+vitality and variety of intention.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Greatness demands self-assertion; self-assertion is a great virtue even
+in a Julius II. There is a vast deal of humbug in the use we make of the
+word humility. We talk about Christ's humility, but whose self-assertion
+has ever been more unmitigated? &quot;I am the Way, the Truth, and the
+Light.&quot; &quot;Learn of Me that I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls.&quot; No doubt it is the quality of the self asserted that
+justifies in our eyes the assertion; humility then is not opposed to
+self-assertion. When Michael Angelo shows that he thinks himself the
+greatest artist in the world, he is not necessarily lacking in humility;
+nor is Luther, asserting the authority of his conscience against the
+Pope and Emperor; nor D&uuml;rer, saying to us in those little finely-dressed
+portraits with which he signs his pictures, &quot;I am that I am--namely, one
+of the handsomest of men and the greatest artist north of the Alps.&quot; Or
+when Erasmus lets us see that he thinks himself the most learned man
+living,--if he is the most learned, so much the better that he should
+know this also as well as the rest. The artist and the scholar were
+bound to feel gratitude for the corrupt but splendid Church and courts,
+which gave them so much both in the way of maintenance and opportunity.
+It may be asked, has all the honesty and the not always evident purity
+of Protestantism done so much for the world as those dissolute Popes and
+Princes? And the artist, judging with a hasty bias perhaps, is likely to
+answer no.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>For us nowadays the pith of history seems no more to be the lives of
+monarchs, or the fighting of battles, or even the deliberations of
+councils; these things we have more and more come to regard merely as
+tools and engines for the creation of societies, homes, and friends. And
+so, though religion and religious machinery dominated the life of those
+days, it is not in theological disputes, neither is it in oecumenical
+councils and Popes, nor in sermons, reformers, and synods, that we find
+the essence of the soul's life. Rather to us, the pictures, the statues,
+the books, the furniture, the wardrobes, the letters, and the scandals
+that have been left behind, speak to us of those days; for these we
+value them. And we are right, the value of the Renaissance lies in these
+things, I say &quot;the scandals&quot; of those days; for a part of what comes
+under that head was perhaps the manifestation of a morality based on a
+wider experience; though its association with obvious vices and its
+opposition to the old and stale ideals gave it an illegitimate
+character; while the re-establishment of the more part of those ideals
+has perpetuated its reproach. There can be no intellectual charity if
+the machinery and special sentences of current morality are supposed to
+be final or truly adequate. Their tentative and inadequate character,
+which every free intelligence recognises, is what endorses the wisdom of
+Jesus', saying, &quot;Judge not that ye be not judged.&quot; Ordinary honest and
+good citizens do not realise how much that is in every way superior to
+the gifts of any single one of themselves is yearly sacrificed and
+tortured for their preservation as a class. On what agonies of creative
+and original minds is the safety of their homes based? These respectable
+Molochs who devour both the poor and the exceptionally gifted, and are
+so little better for their meal, were during the Renascence for a time
+gainsaid and abashed; yet even then their engines, the traditional
+secular and ecclesiastic policies, were a foreign encumbrance with which
+the human spirit was loaded, and which helped to prevent it from reaping
+the full result of its mighty upheaval.</p>
+
+<p>To see things as they are, and above all to value them for what is most
+essential in them with regard to the development of our own
+characters;--that is, I take it, consciously or unconsciously, the main
+effort of the modern spirit. On the world, the flesh, and the devil, we
+have put new values; and it was the first assertion of these new values
+which caused the Renascence. Fine manners, fine clothes, and varied
+social interchange make the world admirable in our eyes, not at all a
+bogey to frighten us. Health, frankness, and abundant exercise make the
+flesh a pure delight in our eyes; lastly, this new-born spirit has made
+&quot;a moral of the devil himself,&quot; and so for us he has lost his terror.</p>
+
+<p>Rabelais was right when he laughed the old outworn values down, and
+declared that women were in the first place female, men in the first
+place male; that the written word should be a self-expression, a
+sincerity, not a task or a catalogue or a penance, but, like laughter
+and speech, essentially human, making all men brothers, doing away with
+artificial barriers and distinctions, making the scholar shake in time
+with the toper, and doubling the divine up with the losel; bidding even
+the lady hold her sides in company with the harlot. Eating and drinking
+were seen to be good in themselves; the eye and the nose and the palate
+were not only to be respected but courted; free love was better than
+married enmity. No rite, no church, no god, could annihilate these facts
+or restrain their influence any more than the sea could be tamed. D&uuml;rer
+was touched with this spirit; we see it in his fine clothes, in his
+collector's rapacity, above all in his letters to his friend
+Pirkheimer--a man more typical of that Rabelaisian age than D&uuml;rer and
+Michael Angelo, who were both of them not only modern men but men
+conservative of the best that had been--men in travail for the future,
+absorbed by the responsibility of those who create.</p>
+
+<p>Pirkheimer, one year D&uuml;rer's senior, was a gross fat man early in life,
+enjoying the clinking of goblets, the music of fork and knife, and the
+effrontery of obscene jests. A vain man, a soldier and a scholar,
+pedantic, irritable, but in earnest; a complimenter of Emperors, a
+leader of the reform party, a partisan of Luther's, the friend and
+correspondent of Erasmus, the elective brother of D&uuml;rer. The man was
+typical; his fellows were in all lands. D&uuml;rer was surprised to find how
+many of them there were at Venice--men who would delight Pirkheimer and
+delight in him. &quot;My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you I don't know how it happens! ... men of sense and
+knowledge, good lute players and pipers, judges of painting, men of much
+noble sentiment and honest virtue; and they show me much honour and
+friendship.&quot; Something of all this was doubtless in D&uuml;rer too; but in
+him it was refined and harmonised by the sense and serious concern, not
+only for the things of to-day, but for those of to-morrow and yesterday;
+the sense of solidarity, the passion for permanent effect, eternal
+excellence. These things, in men like Pirkheimer, still more in Erasmus,
+and even in Rabelais and Montaigne, are not absent; but they are less
+stringent, less religious, than they are in a D&uuml;rer or a Michael Angelo.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<a name="RER_AT_VENICE"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER AT VENICE</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>There are several reasons which may possibly have led D&uuml;rer to visit
+Venice in 1505. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German
+Merchants at Venice, had been burned down the winter before, and they
+were in haste to complete a new one. D&uuml;rer may have received assurance
+that the commission to paint the altar-piece for the new chapel would be
+his did he desire it. At any rate he seems to have set to work on such a
+picture almost as soon as he arrived there. It is strange to think that
+Giorgione and Titian probably began to paint the frescoes on the facade
+while he was still at work in the chapel, or soon after he left. The
+plague broke out in Nuremberg before he came away; but this is not
+likely to have been his principal motive for leaving home, as many
+richer men, such as his friend Pirkheimer, from whom he borrowed money
+for the journey, stayed where they were. Nor do D&uuml;rer's letters reveal
+any alarm for his friend's, his mother's, his wife's, or his brother's
+safety. He took with him six small pictures, and probably a great number
+of prints, for Venice was a first-rate market.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>The letters which follow are like a glimpse of a distant scene in a
+<i>camera obscura</i>, and, like life itself, they are full of repetitions
+and over-insistence on what is insignificant or of temporary interest.
+To-day they call for our patience and forbearance, and it will depend
+upon our imaginative activity in what degree they repay them; even as it
+depends upon our power of affectionate assimilation in what degree and
+kind every common day adds to our real possessions.</p>
+
+<p>I have made my citations as ample as possible, so as to give the reader
+a just idea of their character while making them centre as far as
+possible round points of special interest.</p>
+
+<p><i>To the honourable, wise Master Wilibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of N&uuml;rberg,
+my kind Master</i>. VENICE, <i>January 6, 1506.</i></p>
+
+<p>I wish you and yours many good, happy New Years. My willing service,
+first of all, to you dear Master Pirkheimer! Know that I am in good
+health; I pray God far better things than that for you. As to those
+pearls and precious stones which you gave me commission to buy, you must
+know that I can find nothing good or even worth its price. Everything is
+snapped up by the Germans who hang about the Riva. They always want to
+get four times the value for anything, for they are the falsest knaves
+alive. No one need look for an honest service from any of them. Some
+good fellows have warned me to beware of them, they cheat man and beast.
+You can buy better things at a lower price at Frankfurt than at Venice.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Wilibald Pirkheimer--Charcoal Drawing, Dumesnil
+Collection, Paris <i>Face p.</i> 80]</p>
+
+<p>About the books which I was to order for you, the Imhofs have already
+seen after them; but if there is anything else you want, let me know and
+I will attend to it for you with all zeal. Would to God I could do you a
+right good service! gladly would I accomplish it, seeing, as I do, how
+much you do for me. And I pray you be patient with my debt, for indeed I
+think much oftener of it than you do. When God helps me home I will
+honourably repay you with many thanks; for I have a panel to paint for
+the Germans for which they are to pay me a hundred and ten Rhenish
+florins--it will not cost me as much as five. I shall have scraped it and
+laid on the ground and made it ready within eight days; then I shall at
+once begin to paint and, if God will, it shall be in its place above the
+altar a month after Easter.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>VENICE, <i>February 17</i>, 1506.</p>
+
+<p>How I wish you were here at Venice! There are so many nice men among the
+Italians who seek my company more and more every day--which is very
+pleasing to one--men of sense and knowledge, good lute-players and
+pipers, judges of painting, men of much noble sentiment and 'honest
+virtue, and they show me much honour and friendship. On the other hand
+there are also amongst them some of the most false, lying, thievish
+rascals; I should never have believed that such were living in the
+world. If one did not know them, one would think them the nicest men the
+earth could show. For my own part I cannot help laughing at them
+whenever they talk to me. They know that their knavery is no secret but
+they don't mind.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the Italians I have many good friends who warn me not to eat and
+drink with their painters. Many of them are my enemies and they copy my
+work in the churches and wherever they can find it; and then they revile
+it and say that the style is not <i>antique</i> and so not good. But Giovanni
+Bellini has highly praised me before many nobles. He wanted to have
+something of mine, and himself came to me and asked me to paint him
+something and he would pay well for it. And all men tell me what an
+upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very
+old, but is still the best painter of them all. And that which so well
+pleased me eleven years ago pleases me no longer, if I had not seen it
+for myself I should not have believed any one who told me. You must know
+too that there are many better painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo
+de' Barbari) is abroad (<i>wider darvsen Meister J.</i>), yet Anton Kolb
+would swear an oath that no better painter lives than Jacob. Others
+sneer at him, saying if he were good he would stay here, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>I have only to-day begun to sketch in my picture, for my hands were so
+scabby (<i>grindig</i>) that I could do no work with them, but I have got
+them cured.</p>
+
+<p>Now be lenient with me and don't get in a passion so easily, but be
+gentle like me. I don't know why you will not learn from me. My friend!
+I should like to know if any one of your loves is dead--that one close
+by the water for instance, or the one called [Illustration] or
+[Illustration] or a [Illustration] so that you might supply her place by
+another. ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>VENICE, February 28, 1506.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you had occasion to come here, I know you would not find time
+hang on your hands, for there are so many nice men in this country,
+right good artists. I have such a throng of Italians about me that at
+times I have to shut myself up. The nobles all wish me well, but few of
+the painters.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>VENICE, <i>April</i> 2, 1506.</p>
+
+<p>The painters here, let me tell you, are very unfriendly to me. They have
+summoned me three times before the magistrates, and I have had to pay
+four florins to their school. You must also know that I might have
+gained a great deal of money if I had not undertaken to paint the German
+picture. There is much work in it and I cannot get it quite finished
+before Whitsuntide. Yet they only pay me eighty-five ducats for it. Now
+you know how much it costs to live, and then I have bought some things
+and sent some money away, so that I have not much before me now. But
+don't misunderstand me, I am firmly purposed not to go away hence till
+God enables me to repay you with thanks and to have a hundred florins
+over besides. I should easily earn this if I had not got the German
+picture to paint, for all men except the painters wish me well.</p>
+
+<p>Tell my mother to speak to Wolgemut about my brother, and to ask him
+whether he can make use of him and give him work till I come, or whether
+he can put him with some one else. I should gladly have brought him with
+me to Venice, and that would have been useful both to me and him, and he
+would have learnt the language, but my mother was afraid that the sky
+would fall on him. Pray keep an eye on him yourself, the women are no
+use for that. Tell the lad, as you so well can, to be studious and
+honest till I come, and not to be a trouble to his mother; if I cannot
+arrange everything I will at all events do all that I can. Alone I
+certainly should not starve, but to support many is too hard for me, for
+no one throws his gold away.</p>
+
+<p>Now I commend myself to you. Tell my mother to be ready to sell at the
+Crown-fair (<i>Heiligthumsfest</i>). I am arranging for my wife to have come
+home by then; I have written to her too about everything. I will not
+take any steps about buying the diamond ornament till I get your
+next letter.</p>
+
+<p>I don't think I shall be able to come home before next autumn, when what
+I earned for the picture, which was to have been ready by Whitsuntide,
+will be quite used up in living expenses, purchases, and payments; what,
+however, I gain afterwards I hope to save. If you see fit don't speak of
+this further, and I will keep putting off my leaving from day to day and
+writing as though I was just coming. I am indeed very uncertain what to
+do next. Write to me again soon.</p>
+
+<p>Given on Thursday before Palm Sunday in the year 1506. ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER,
+Your Servant.</p>
+
+<p>VENICE, <i>August</i> 18, 1506.</p>
+
+<p>To the first, greatest man in the world. Your servant and slave
+Albrecht D&uuml;rer sends salutation to his Magnificent master Wilibald
+Pirkheimer. My truth! I hear gladly and with great satisfaction of your
+health and great honours. I wonder how it is possible for a man like you
+to stand against so many wisest princes, swaggerers and soldiers; it
+must be by some special grace of God. When I read your letter about this
+terrible grimace, it gave me a great fright and I thought it was a most
+important thing,<a name="FNanchor15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's
+men,<a name="FNanchor16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it
+is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want
+to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to
+please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow
+as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so many loves that merely
+to pay each one a visit you would take a month or more before you got
+through the list.</p>
+
+<p>For one thing I return you my thanks, namely, for explaining my position
+in the best way to my wife; but I know that there is no lack of wisdom
+in you. If only you had my meekness you would have all virtues. Thank
+you also for all the good you have done me, if only you would not bother
+me about the rings! If they don't please you, break their heads off and
+pitch them out on to the dunghill as Peter Weisweber says. What do you
+mean by setting me to such dirty work? <i>I</i> have become a <i>gentleman</i>
+at Venice.</p>
+
+<p>I have also heard that you can make lovely rhymes; you would be a find
+for our fiddlers here; they fiddle so beautifully that they can't help
+weeping over it themselves. Would God our Rechenmeister girl could hear
+them, she would cry too. At your bidding I will again lay aside my anger
+and bear myself even more bravely than usual.</p>
+
+<p>Now let me commend myself to you; give my willing service to our Prior
+for me; tell him to pray God for me that I may be protected, and
+especially from the French sickness; I know of nothing that I now dread
+more than that, for well nigh every one has got it. Many men are quite
+eaten up and die of it.</p>
+
+<p>VENICE, <i>September</i> 8, 1506.</p>
+
+<p>Most learned, approved, wise, knower of many languages, sharp to detect
+all encountered lies and quick to recognise plain truth! Honourable
+much-regarded Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer. Your humble servant Albrecht
+D&uuml;rer wishes you all hail, great and worthy honour <i>in the devil's name,</i>
+so much for the twaddle of which you are so fond. I wager that for
+this<a name="FNanchor17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> you would think me too an orator of a hundred parts. A chamber
+must have more than four corners which is to contain the gods of memory.
+I am not going to cram my head full of them; that I leave to you; for I
+believe that however many chambers there might be in the head, you would
+have something in each of them. The Margrave would not grant an audience
+long enough!--a hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred
+words, that takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs
+which I have not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the
+whole at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old
+driveller.</p>
+
+<p>I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot find any
+broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However I still look about
+every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.</p>
+
+<p>I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you his
+service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his Son, the nicest lad
+I ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh, if only you were here!
+how you would like these fine Italian soldiers! How often I think of
+you! Would to God that you and Kunz Kamerer could see them! They have
+great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only touch a man with them
+he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey! I can do it well, I'll be an
+Italian soldier. The Venetians as well as the Pope and the King of
+France are collecting many men; what will come of it I don't know, but
+people ridicule our King very much.</p>
+
+<p>Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me. I don't wonder at his
+having taken a wife. Give my greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our
+fair friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister girl, and thank that
+head-chamber of yours alone for remembering her greeting; tell her she's
+a nasty one.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration]</p>
+
+<p>I sent you olive-wood from Venice to Augsburg, where I directed it to be
+left, a full ten hundredweight. She says she would not wait for it;
+<i>whence the stink</i>.</p>
+
+<p>My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it,
+it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned much praise
+but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could easily
+have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in order that
+I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the painters who used
+to say that I was good at engraving but, as to painting. I did not know
+how to handle my colours. Now every one says that better colouring they
+have never seen.</p>
+
+<p>My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes me that
+there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out even at
+this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting you
+pretend not to be more than twenty-five years old--oh, yes! double that
+and I'll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you; I don't know how it happens!</p>
+
+<p>The Doge and the Patriarch have also seen my picture. Herewith let me
+commend myself to you as your servant. I must really go to sleep as it
+is striking the seventh hour of the night, and I have already written to
+the Prior of the Augustines, to my father-in-law, to Mistress Dietrich,
+and to my wife, and they are all downright whole sheets full. So I have
+had to hurry over this letter, read it according to the sense. You would
+doubtless do better if you were writing to a lot of Princes. Many good
+nights and days too. Given at Venice on our Lady's day in September.</p>
+
+<p>You need not lend my wife and mother anything; they have got money
+enough,</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>VENICE, <i>September 23</i>, 1506.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter telling me of the praise that you get to overflowing from
+Princes and nobles gave me great delight. You must be altogether altered
+to have become so gentle; I shall hardly know you when I meet you again.</p>
+
+<p>You must know that my picture is finished as well as another
+<i>Quadro</i><a name="FNanchor18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18"><sup>[18]</sup></a>
+the like of which I have never painted before. And as you are so pleased
+with yourself, let me tell you that there is no better Madonna picture
+in the land than mine; for all the painters praise it, as the nobles do
+you. They say that they have never seen a nobler, more charming
+painting, and so forth.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>But in order to come home as soon as possible, I have, since my picture
+was finished, refused work that would have yielded me more than 2000
+ducats. This all men know who live about me here.</p>
+
+<p>Bernhard Holzbeck has told me great things of you, though I think he
+does so because you have become his brother-in-law. But nothing makes me
+more angry than when any one says that you are good-looking; if that
+were so I should become really ugly. That could make me mad. I have
+found a grey hair on myself, it is the result of so much excitement. And
+I fear that while I play such pranks with myself there are still bad
+days before me, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>My French mantle, my doublet, and my brown coat send you a hearty
+greeting, I should be glad to see what great thing your head-piece can
+produce that you hold yourself so high.</p>
+
+<p>VENICE, <i>about October</i> 13, 1506.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that you are aware of my devotion to your service there is no
+need for me to write to you about it; but so much the more necessary is
+it for me to tell you of the great pleasure it gives me to hear of the
+high honour and fame which your manly wisdom and learned skill have
+brought you. This is the more to be wondered at, for seldom or never in
+a young body can the like be found. It comes to you, however, as to me,
+by a special grace of God. How pleased we both are when we fancy
+ourselves worth somewhat--I with my painting, and you with your wisdom.
+When any one praises us, we hold up our heads and believe him. Yet
+perhaps he is only some false flatterer who is scorning us all the time.
+So don't credit any one who praises you, for you've no notion how
+utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing
+before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly--behaving exactly as if
+you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing as you do. It did
+not escape me that, when you wrote your last letter, you were quite full
+of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an old fellow
+like you pretending to be so good-looking. Flirting pleases you in the
+same way that a shaggy old dog likes a game with a kitten. If you were
+only as fine and gentle a man as I, I could understand it. If I become
+burgomaster I will serve you with the Luginsland.<a name="FNanchor19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> as you do to pious
+Zamesser and me. I will have you for once shut up there with the ladies
+Rechenmeister, Rosentaler, G&auml;rtner, Schutz, and P&ouml;r, and many others
+whom for shortness I will not name; they must deal with you.</p>
+
+<p>People enquire more after me than you, for you yourself write that both
+girls and honourable wives ask after me--that is a sign of my virtue.
+When, however, God helps me home I don't know how I shall any longer
+stand you with your great wisdom; but for your virtue and good temper I
+am glad, and your dogs will be the better for it, for you will no longer
+strike them lame. Now however that you are thought so much of at home,
+you won't dare to talk to a poor painter in the street any more; to be
+seen with the painter varlet would be a great disgrace for you.</p>
+
+<p>O, dear Herr Pirkheimer, just now while I was writing to you, the alarm
+of fire was raised and six houses over by Pietro Venier are burnt, and a
+woollen cloth of mine, for which only yesterday I paid eight ducats, is
+burnt, so I too am in trouble. There is much excitement here about
+the fire.</p>
+
+<p>As to your summons to me to come home soon, I shall come as soon as ever
+I can, but I must first gain money for my expenses. I have paid away
+about 100 ducats for colours and other things. I have ordered you two
+carpets for which I shall pay to-morrow, but I could not get them cheap.
+I will pack them in with my linen.</p>
+
+<p>And as to your threat that, unless I come home soon, you will make love
+to my wife, don't attempt it--a ponderous fellow like you would be the
+death of her.</p>
+
+<p>I must tell you that I set to work to learn dancing and went twice to
+the school, for which I had to pay the master a ducat. No one could get
+me to go there again. To learn dancing I should have had to pay away all
+that I have earned, and at the end I should have known nothing about it.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: HANS BURGKMAIR--Black chalk drawing on yellowish prepared
+ground. The lights and background in watercolor may possibly have been
+added later At Oxford]</p>
+
+<p>In reply to your question when I shall come home, I tell you, so that my
+lords may also make their arrangements, that I shall have finished here
+in ten days; after that I should like to ride to Bologna to learn the
+secrets of the art of perspective, which a man is willing to teach me. I
+should stay there eight or ten days and then return to Venice. After
+that I shall come with the next messenger. How I shall freeze after this
+sun! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Sir Martin Conway writes:</p>
+
+<p>He (D&uuml;rer) enjoyed Venice; he liked the Italians; he was oppressed with
+orders for work; the climate suited him, and the warm sun was a pleasant
+contrast to the snows and frost of a Franconian winter. But D&uuml;rer's
+German heart was true; its truth was the secret of his success.... The
+syren voice of Italy charmed to their destruction most Germans who
+listened to it. Brought face to face with the Italian Ideal of Grace,
+they one after another abandoned for it the Ideal of Strength peculiarly
+their own.</p>
+
+<p>We do not resort to these arguments to approve Holbein or Van Dyck for
+their long residence in England. I am not sure how much false sentiment
+inspired Thausing when he first praised D&uuml;rer in this strain; but I must
+confess I suspect it was no little. I incline to think that the best
+country for an artist is not always the one he was born in, but often
+that one where his art finds the best conditions to foster it. We do not
+honour D&uuml;rer by supposing that he would have been among that majority of
+Dutch and German artists who, weaker than Roger van der Weyden and
+Burgkmair, returned from Italy injured and enfeebled; even if he had
+passed the greater portion of his life with her syren voice in his ears.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer could not bring himself to undergo for art's sake what Michael
+Angelo endured; years of exile from a beloved native city, and, still
+worse, years of exile from the most congenial spiritual atmosphere.
+Nevertheless, we must remember that the difference of language would
+have made life in Venice for D&uuml;rer a much more complete exile than life
+in Verona was for Dante, or life in Rome for Michael Angelo. So he did
+not share the patronage and generous recognition which gave Titian such
+a splendid opportunity. He ceased for a time at least to be a gentleman
+to become a hanger-on, a parasite once more. At Antwerp he once more was
+met by the same generosity and recognition only to refuse again to
+accept it as a gift for life and return to his beloved Nuremberg, where
+it is true his position continually improved, though it never equalled
+what had been offered at Venice and Antwerp.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>The tone of some of the pleasantries in these letters may rather
+astonish good people who, having accepted the fact that D&uuml;rer was a
+religious man, have at once given him the tone and address of a meeting
+of churchwardens, if they have not conjured up a vision of him in a
+frock coat. &quot;Things are what they are,&quot; said Bishop Butler, and so are
+women; boys will be boys. The distinctive functions of the two sexes
+were in those days kept more in view if not more in mind than is the
+case to-day. The fashions in dress and in deportment were particularly
+frank upon this point, especially for the young. One may allow as much
+as is desired for the corruption of manners produced by the civil and
+religious mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, and friars. There will
+always remain a certain truth and propriety, a certain grace and charm
+in those costumes and that deportment, as also in the freedom of jest
+which characterises even the most modest of Shakespeare's heroines; and
+under the influence of their spell we shall feel that all has not been
+gain in the change that has gradually been operated. No doubt virtue is
+a victory over nature, and chastity a refinement; but among conquerors
+some are easy and good-natured, others tactless, awkward, insulting; and
+among the chaste some are fearless and enjoy the freedom which courage
+and clear conscience give, others timid and suffer the oppression of
+their fears. Even among sinners some make the best of weaknesses and
+redeem them a great deal more than half, while others magnify smaller
+faults by lack of self-possession till they are an insupportable
+nuisance. We may well admit that from the successes of those days, those
+who succeed to our delight to-day may glean additional attractions.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>We know that D&uuml;rer stopped on at Venice into the year 1507, by a note
+which he made in a copy of Euclid, now in the library at Wolfenb&uuml;ttel.
+&quot;This book have I bought at Venice for a ducat in the year 1507.
+Albrecht D&uuml;rer&quot;; and by another stray note we learn the state of his
+worldly affairs on his return.</p>
+
+<p>The following is my property, which I have with difficulty acquired by
+the labour of my hand, for I have had no opportunity of great gain. I
+have moreover suffered much loss by lending what was not repaid me, and
+by apprentices who never paid their fees, and one died at Rome whereby I
+lost my wares.</p>
+
+<p>In the thirteenth year of my wedlock (Le., 1507-8) I have paid great
+debts with what I earned at Venice. I possess fairly good household
+furniture, good clothes, chests, some good pewter vessels, good
+materials for my work, bedding and cupboards, and good colours worth 100
+florins Rhenish.</p>
+
+<p>The wares that D&uuml;rer lost in Rome were doubtless chiefly woodcuts and
+engravings which his prentice had taken to sell during his
+<i>wanderjahre</i>, as D&uuml;rer himself during his own had very likely sold
+prints for Wolgemut. One of the reasons which had taken him to Venice
+may have been to summon Marc Antonio before the Signoria, for having
+copied not only his engravings, but the monogram with which he signed
+them; in any case he obtained a decree defending him against such
+artistic forgery. D&uuml;rer's most steady resource seems to have been the
+sale of prints; it is these that his wife had sold in his absence, and
+in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands there is constant mention
+of such sales. Nuremberg was very much behind Antwerp or Venice in the
+price paid for works of art; and the possibilities of such a market as
+Rome had very likely tempted D&uuml;rer to trust his prentice with an unusual
+quantity of prints. His worldly affairs were neither brilliant nor
+secure; yet we shall find him tempted on receiving an important
+commission to spend so much in time and material as to make it
+impossible for him to realise a profit. We are accustomed to think that
+these trials were spared to artists in the past by the munificence of
+patrons: but apart from the fact that patrons often paid only with
+promises or by granting credit, at Nuremberg there were few magnificent
+patrons, and its burghers were in no way so generous or so extravagant
+as those of Venice or Antwerp. In fact, D&uuml;rer's position was very
+similar to that of the modern artist, who finds little and insufficient
+patronage, and can make more if he is lucky by the reproduction of his
+creations for the great public. But D&uuml;rer still had one advantage over
+his fellow-sufferers of to-day--that of being his own publisher.
+Doubtless portraits were as popular then as nowadays; but if the public
+taste had not been prostituted by a seductive commercialism to the
+degree that at present obtains, on the other hand, at Nuremberg at
+least, the fashion seems to have been very little developed; and most of
+D&uuml;rer's important portraits seem to have been the result of his sojourns
+away from home.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor15">[15]</a><blockquote> Thus far the original is in bad Italian.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor16">[16]</a><blockquote> The retainers of Konz Schott, a neighbouring baron, at one
+time a conspicuous enemy of N&uuml;rnberg.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor17">[17]</a><blockquote> These words are in Italian in the original.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor18">[18]</a><blockquote> Prof. Thausing suggests that this &quot;other <i>Quadro</i>&quot; is the
+&quot;Christ among the Doctors&quot; in the Barberini Gallery at Rome--a picture
+containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The
+inscription states it to have been <i>opus quinque dierum</i>. At Brunswick
+there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are
+likewise in existence. In Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna of 1508 in the
+Borghese Gallery at Rome, the head of St. Onuphrius is taken from the
+model who sat for the front Pharisee on the left in D&uuml;rer's picture.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor19">[19]</a><blockquote> A N&uuml;rnberg prison.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<a name="RER_AND_HIS_PATRONS_AND_FRIENDS"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer had hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise
+Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant
+<i>Adoration of the Magi</i> in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of
+Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron,
+as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and
+criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly
+generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of
+D&uuml;rer's relations with his clients; they show him appealing always to
+the judgment of artists against the ignorant buyer, and giving more than
+he bargained to give, though thereby he eats up his legitimate profits;
+lastly, they show him vowing never again to enter upon work so
+unprofitable, but to give all his time to the creation of engravings and
+woodcuts. The first is written to Michael Behaim, who died in 1511, and
+had commissioned him to make a design for a woodcut of his coat of arms.</p>
+
+<p>DEAR MASTER MICHAEL BEHAIM,--I send you back the coat of arms again.
+Pray let it stay as it is. No one could improve it for you, for I made
+it artistically and with care. Those who see it and understand such
+matters will tell you so. If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up
+backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Photograph J. Lowy--THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY,
+1511--From the painting at Vienna]</p>
+
+<p>The other letters concern the lost <i>Coronation of the Virgin</i>, the
+centre panel of an altar-piece of which the wings are still at
+Frankfurt, of which town Jacob Heller, who commissioned it, was a
+burgher. They were to be studio work, and are supposed to be chiefly due
+to D&uuml;rer's brother Hans. There is, however, one picture extant which
+gives an idea of the execution of the missing centre panel, the <i>Holy
+Trinity and All Saints</i> at Vienna; which, in spite of his vow never to
+do such work again, was commenced shortly after the <i>Coronation</i>, and
+for a Nuremberg patron. How much he was paid for it is not known; but it
+cannot have been a really adequate sum, as towards the end of his life
+he writes to the Nuremberg Council, &quot;I have not received from people in
+this town work worth five hundred florins, truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum, and not the fifth part of that has been profit.&quot; The
+preceding picture, referred to in the first letters, is the <i>Martyrdom
+of the Ten Thousand by Sapor II</i>. All three pictures were signed, like
+the <i>Feast of the Rose Garlands</i> by little finely-dressed portraits of
+the painter.</p>
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, <i>August</i> 28, 1507.</p>
+
+<p>I did not want to receive any money in advance on it till I began to
+paint it, which, if God will, shall be the next thing after the Prince's
+work;<a name="FNanchor20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> for I prefer not to begin too many things at once and then I
+do not become wearied. The Prince too will not be kept waiting, as he
+would be if I were to paint his and your pictures at the same time, as I
+had intended. At all events have confidence in me, for, so far as God
+permits, I will yet according to my power make something that not many
+men can equal.</p>
+
+<p>Now many good nights to you. Given at N&uuml;rnberg on Augustine's day, 1507.</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, March 19, <i>1508</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Herr Jacob Heller. In a fortnight I shall be ready with Duke
+Friedrich's work; after that I shall begin yours, and, as my custom is,
+I will not paint any other picture till it is finished. I will be sure
+carefully to paint the middle panel with my own hand; apart from that,
+the outer sides of the wings are already sketched in--they will be in
+stone colour; I have also had the ground laid. So much for news.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you could see my gracious Lord's picture; I think it would please
+you. I have worked at it straight on for a year and gained very little
+by it; for I only get 280 Rhenish gulden for it, and I have spent all
+that in the time.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, <i>August 24, 1508</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Now I commend myself to you. I want you also to know that in all my days
+I have never begun any work that pleased me better than this picture of
+yours which I am painting. Till I finish it I will not do any other
+work; I am only sorry that the winter will so soon come upon me. The
+days grow so short that one cannot do much.</p>
+
+<p>I have still one thing to ask you; it is about the <i>MADONNA</i><a name="FNanchor21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> that
+you saw at my house; if you know of any one near you who wants a picture
+pray offer it to him. If a proper frame was put to it, it would be a
+beautiful picture, and you know that it is nicely done. I will let you
+have it cheap. I would not take less than fifty florins to paint one
+like it. As it stands finished in the house it might be damaged for me,
+so I would give you full power to sell it for me cheap for thirty
+florins--indeed, rather than that it should not be sold I would even let
+it go for twenty-five florins. I have certainly lost much food over it.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>N&uuml;rnberg, <i>November</i> 4, 1508.</p>
+
+<p>I am justly surprised at what you say in it about my last letter: seeing
+that you can accuse me of not holding to my promises to you. From such a
+slander each and everyone exempts me, for I bear myself, I trust, so as
+to take my stand amongst other straightforward men. Besides I know well
+what I have written and promised to you, and you know that in my
+cousin's house I refused to promise you to make a good thing, because I
+cannot. But to this I did pledge myself, that I would make something for
+you that not many men can. Now I have given such exceeding pains to your
+picture, that I was led to send you the aforesaid letter. I know that
+when the picture is finished all artists will be well pleased with it.
+It will not be valued at less than 300 florins. I would not paint
+another like it for three times the price agreed, for I neglect myself
+for it, suffer loss, and earn anything but thanks from you.</p>
+
+<p>You further reproach me with having promised you that I would paint your
+picture with the greatest possible care that ever I could. That I
+certainly never said, or if I did I was out of my senses, for in my
+whole lifetime I should scarcely finish it. With such extraordinary care
+I can hardly finish a face in half a year; now your picture contains
+fully 100 faces, not reckoning the drapery and landscape and other
+things in it. Besides, who ever heard of making such a work for an
+altar-piece? no one could see it. But I think it was thus that I wrote
+to you--that I would paint the picture with great or more than ordinary
+pains because of the time which you waited for me.</p>
+
+<p>You need not look about for a purchaser for my Madonna, for the Bishop
+of Breslau has given me seventy-two florins for it, so I have sold it
+well. I commend myself to you. Given at N&uuml;rnberg in the year 1508, on
+the Sunday after All Saints' Day.</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, <i>March</i> 21, 1509.</p>
+
+<p>I only care for praise from those who are competent to judge; and if
+Martin Hess praises it to you, that may give you the more confidence.
+You might also inquire from some of your friends who have seen it; they
+will tell you how it is done. And if you do not like the picture when
+you see it, I will keep it myself, for I have been begged to sell it and
+make you another. But be that far from me! I will right honourably hold
+with you to that which I have promised, taking you, as I do, for an
+upright man.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, <i>July</i> 10, 1509.</p>
+
+<p>As you go on to say that if you had not bargained with me for the
+picture you would never do so now, and that I may keep it--I return you
+this answer: to retain your friendship, if I had to suffer loss by the
+picture, I would have done so, but now since you regret the whole
+business and provoke me to keep the picture I will do so, and that
+gladly, for I know how to get 100 florins more for it than you would
+have given me. In future I would not take 400 florins to paint another
+such as this.</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, <i>July</i> 24, 1509. DEAR HERR HELLER, I have read the letter
+which you addressed to me. You write that you did not mean to decline
+taking the picture from me. To that I can only say that I don't
+understand what you do mean. When you write that if you had not ordered
+the picture you would not make the bargain again, and that I may keep it
+as long as I like and so on--I can only think that you have repented of
+the whole business, so I gave you my answer in my last letter.</p>
+
+<p>But, at Hans Imhof's persuasion, and having regard to the fact that you
+ordered the picture of me, and also because I should prefer it to find a
+place at Frankfurt rather than anywhere else, I have consented to send
+it to you for 100 florins less than it might well have brought me.</p>
+
+<p>I am reckoning that I shall thus render you a pleasing service;
+otherwise I know well how I could draw far greater pecuniary advantage
+from it, but your friendship is dearer to me than any such trifling sum
+of money. I trust however that you would not wish me to suffer loss over
+it when you are better off than I. Make therefore your own arrangements
+and commands. Given at N&uuml;rnberg on Wine-Tuesday before James'.
+ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, <i>August 26</i>, 1509. First my willing service to you, dear Herr
+Jacob Heller. In accordance with your last letter I am sending the
+picture well packed and seen to in all needful points. I have handed it
+over to Hans Imhof and he has paid me another 100 florins. Yet believe
+me, on my honour, I am still out of pocket over it besides losing the
+time which I have bestowed upon it. Here in N&uuml;rnberg they were ready to
+give 300 florins for it, which extra 100 florins would have done very
+nicely for me had I not preferred to please and serve you by sending you
+the picture. For I value the keeping of your friendship at more than 100
+florins. I would also rather have this painting at Frankfurt than
+anywhere else in all Germany.</p>
+
+<p>If you think that I have behaved unfairly in not leaving the payment to
+your own free-will, you must bear in mind that this would not have
+happened if you had not written by Hans Imhof that I might keep the
+picture as long as I liked. I should otherwise gladly have left it to
+you even if thereby I had suffered a greater loss still. My impression
+of you is that, supposing I had promised to make you something for about
+ten florins and it cost me twenty, you yourself would not wish me to
+lose by it. So pray be content with the fact that I took 100 florins
+less from you than I might have got for the picture--for I tell you that
+they wanted to take it from me, so to speak, by force.</p>
+
+<p>I have painted it with great care, as you will see, using none but the
+best colours I could get. It is painted with good ultramarine under, and
+over, and over that again, some five or six times; and then after it was
+finished I painted it again twice over so that it may last a long time.
+If it is kept clean I know it will remain bright and fresh 500 years,
+for it is not done as men are wont to paint. So have it kept clean and
+don't let it be touched or sprinkled with holy water. I feel sure it
+will not be criticised, or only for the purpose of annoying me; and I
+answer for it it will please you well. No one shall ever compel me to
+paint a picture again with so much labour. Herr Georg Tausy himself
+besought me to paint him a Madonna in a landscape with the same care and
+of the same size as this picture, and he would give me 400 florins for
+it. That I flatly refused to do, for it would have made a beggar of me.
+Of ordinary pictures I will in a year paint a pile which no one would
+believe it possible for one man to do in the time. But very careful
+nicety does not pay. So henceforth I shall stick to my engraving, and
+had I done so before I should to-day have been a richer man by
+1000 florins.</p>
+
+<p>I may tell you also that, at my own expense, I have had for the middle
+panel a new frame made which has cost me more than six florins. The old
+one I have broken off, for the joiner had made it roughly; but I have
+not had the other fastened on, for you wished it not to be. It would be
+a very good thing to have the rims screwed on so that the picture may
+not be shaken.</p>
+
+<p>If anyone wants to see it, let it hang forward two or three finger
+breadths, for then the light is good to see it by. And when I come over
+to you, say in one, two, or three years' time, if the picture is
+properly dry, it must be taken down and I will varnish it over anew with
+some excellent varnish, which no one else can make; it will then last
+100 years longer than it would before. But don't let anybody else
+varnish it, for all other varnishes are yellow, and the picture would be
+ruined for you. And if a thing, on which I have spent more than a year's
+work, were ruined it would be grief to me. When you have it set up be
+present yourself to see that it gets no harm. Deal carefully with it,
+for you will hear from your own and from foreign painters how it
+is done.</p>
+
+<p>Give my greeting to your painter Martin Hess. My wife asks you for a
+<i>Trinkgeld</i>, but that is as you please, I screw you no higher, &amp;c. And
+now I hold myself commended to you. Read by the sense, for I write in
+haste. Given at N&uuml;rnberg on Sunday after Bartholomew's, 1509.
+ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, <i>October 12</i>, 1509.</p>
+
+<p>DEAR HERR JACOB HELLER, I am glad to hear that my picture pleases you,
+so that my labour has not been bestowed in vain. I am also happy that
+you are content about the payment--and that rightly, for I could have
+got 100 florins more for it than you have given me. But I preferred to
+let you have it, hoping, as I do, thereby to retain you as my friend
+down in your parts.</p>
+
+<p>My wife thanks you very much for the present you have made her; she will
+wear it in your honour. My young brother also thanks you for the two
+florins <i>Trinkgeld</i> you sent him. And now I too thank you myself for all
+the honour &amp;c. In reply to your question how the picture should be
+adorned I send you a slight design of what I should do if it were mine,
+but you must do what you like. Now, many happy times to you. Given on
+Friday before Gall's, 1509. ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer must have commenced the All Saints picture almost immediately
+after having finished Heller's <i>Coronation of the Virgin</i>. Perhaps he
+had practically accepted the commission from Matthsus Landauer before he
+wrote to Heller that he would never again undertake a picture with so
+much work and labour in it, for he afterwards was as good as his word.
+This new work was for the chapel of an almshouse founded by Landauer and
+Erasmus Schiltkrot for twelve old men citizens of Nuremberg. The
+original frame designed by D&uuml;rer is now in the Germanic Museum, though a
+copy has replaced the picture. After the completion of the <i>Trinity and
+All Saints</i>, D&uuml;rer apparently carried out his threat and gave up
+painting for a dozen years, devoting his energies more especially to a
+magnificent series of engravings on copper. He also completed his series
+of wood engravings and published them with text, and produced a number
+of single cuts, many of them among his very best, like the <i>Assumption
+of the Magdalen</i>, and the <i>St. Christopher</i>, here reproduced.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER Woodcut, B. 103]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MAGDALEN Woodcut, B. 121]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>In 1514 his mother died. He has recounted her death twice over, as he
+did that of his father already cited; for the single surviving leaf of
+the &quot;other book&quot; happens to contain this also. In the briefer
+chronicle he says:</p>
+
+<p>Two years after my Father's death (i.e., 1504) I took my Mother into my
+house, for she had nothing more to live upon. So she dwelt with me till
+the year 1513, as they reckon it; when, early one Tuesday morning, she
+was taken suddenly and deadly ill, and thus she lay a whole year long.
+And a whole year after the day she was first taken ill, she received the
+holy sacraments and christianly passed away two hours before
+nightfall--it was on a Tuesday, the 17th day of May in the year 1514. I
+said the prayers for her myself. God Almighty be gracious to her.</p>
+
+<p>The account in the &quot;other book&quot; is more circumstantial:</p>
+
+<p>Now you must know that, in the year 1513, on a Tuesday before Rogation
+week, my poor afflicted Mother, whom two years after my Father's death,
+as she was quite poor, I took into my house, and after she had lived
+nine years with me, was one morning suddenly taken so deadly ill that we
+broke into her chamber; otherwise, as she could not open, we had not
+been able to come to her. So we carried her into a room downstairs and
+she received both sacraments, for every one thought she would die,
+because ever since my Father's death she had never been in good health.</p>
+
+<p>Her most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always
+upbraided me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great
+anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went out or in
+her saying was always, &quot;Go in the name of Christ.&quot; She constantly gave
+us holy admonitions with deep earnestness and she always had great
+thought for our souls' health. I cannot enough praise her good works and
+the compassion she showed to all, as well as her high character.</p>
+
+<p>This my pious Mother bare and brought up eighteen children; she often
+had the plague and many other severe and strange illnesses, and she
+suffered great poverty, scorn, contempt, mocking words, terrors, and
+great adversities. Yet she bore no malice.</p>
+
+<p>In 1514 (as they reckon it), on a Tuesday--it was the 17th day of
+May--two hours before nightfall and more than a year after the
+above-mentioned day in which she was taken ill, my Mother, Barbara
+D&uuml;rer, christianly passed away, with all the sacraments, absolved by
+papal power from pain and sin. But she first--gave me her blessing and
+wished me the peace of God, exhorting me very beautifully to keep myself
+from sin. She asked also to drink S. John's blessing, which she
+then did.</p>
+
+<p>She feared Death much, but she said that to come before God she feared
+not. Also she died hard, and I marked that she saw something dreadful,
+for she asked for the holy-water, although, for a long time, she had not
+spoken. Immediately afterwards her eyes closed over. I saw also how
+Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and how she closed mouth
+and eyes and departed with pain. I repeated to her the prayers. I felt
+so grieved for her that I cannot express it. God be merciful to her.</p>
+
+<p>To speak of God was ever her greatest delight, and gladly she beheld the
+honour of God. She was in her sixty-third year when she died and I have
+buried her honourably according to my means.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: &quot;1514, on Oculi Sunday (March 19). This is Albrecht
+D&uuml;rer's mother; she was 63 years of age.&quot; After her death he added in
+ink, &quot;And departed this life in the year 1514 on Tuesday Holy Cross Day
+(May 16) at two o'clock in the night&quot; Charcoal-drawing. Royal Print
+Room, Berlin]</p>
+
+<p>God, the Lord, grant me that I too may attain a happy end, and that God
+with his heavenly host, my Father, Mother, relations, and friends may
+come to my death. And may God Almighty give unto us eternal life. Amen.</p>
+
+<p>And in her death she looked much sweeter than when she was still alive.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Such was the home life of this great artist; and from homes presenting
+variations on this type proceeded probably all the giants of the
+Renaissance, whose work we think so surpasses in effort, in scope, and
+in efficiency, all that has been achieved since. This Christianity was
+unreformed; it existed side by side with dissolute monasteries and
+worldly cynical prelates, surrounded by sordid hucksters and brutal
+soldiery. Turn to Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet, and we see that it
+existed in London, among the burghers, even in the household of a Lord
+Mayor. We are almost forced on the reflection that nothing that has
+succeeded to it has produced men equal to those who sprang immediately
+out of it.</p>
+
+<p>However much and however justly the assurance of Christian assertion in
+the realm of theory may be condemned, the success of the Christian life,
+wherever it has approached a conscientious realisation, stands out among
+the multitudinous forms of its corruption; and those who catch sight of
+it are almost bound to exclaim in the spirit of Shakespeare's:</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;How far that little candle throws his beams!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;So shines a good deed in a naughty world.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>I have heard a Royal Academician remark how even the poorest copies and
+reproductions of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture retain something of
+the charm and dignity of the original: whereas the quality of modern
+work is quickly lost in a reduction or even in a cast. I believe this
+may be best explained by the fact that the chief research of the Greek
+artist was to establish a beautiful proportion between the parts and the
+whole; and that fidelity to nature, dexterity of execution, the
+symbolism of the given subject, and even the finish of the surfaces,
+were always when necessary sacrificed to this. Whereas in modern work,
+even when the proportions of the whole are considered, which is rarely
+the case, they are almost without exception treated as secondary to one
+or more of these other qualities. Is it not possible that Jesus in his
+life laid down a proportion, similar to that of Greek masterpieces for
+the body, between the efforts and intentions which create the soul and
+pour forth its influence?--a proportion which, when it has been once
+thoroughly apprehended, may be subtly varied to suit new circumstances,
+and produce a similar harmony in spheres of activity with which Jesus
+himself had not even a distant connection? We often find that the rudest
+copies from copies of his actual life are like the biscuit china Venus
+of Milo sold by the Italian pedlar, which still dimly reflects the main
+beauties of the marble in the Louvre.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>In 1512 Kaiser Maximilian came to Nuremberg, and soon afterward D&uuml;rer
+began working for him. The employment he found for the greatest artist
+north of the Alps was sufficiently ludicrous; and perhaps D&uuml;rer showed
+that he felt this, by treating the major portion as studio work; though,
+no doubt, the impatience of his imperial patron in a measure
+necessitated the employment of many aids.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to do justice to the fine qualities of Maximilian.
+Perhaps he was not really so eccentric as he seems. The oddity of his
+doings and sayings may be perhaps more properly attributed to his having
+been a thorough German. The genial men of that nation, even to-day and
+since it has come more into line in point of culture with France and
+England, are apt to have a something ludicrous or fantastic clinging to
+them; even Goethe did not wholly escape. Maximilian was strong in body
+and in mind, and brimming over with life and interest. We are told that
+when a young man he climbed the tower of Ulm Cathedral by the help of
+the iron rings that served to hold the torches by which it was
+illuminated on high days and holidays. Again we read: &quot;A secretary had
+embezzled 3000 gulden. Maximilian sent for him and asked what should be
+done to a confidential servant who had robbed his master. The secretary
+recommended the gallows. 'Nay, nay,' the Emperor said, and tapped him on
+the shoulder, 'I cannot spare you yet'&quot;; an anecdote which reveals more
+good sense and a larger humanity than either monarchs or others are apt
+to have at hand on such vexing occasions. Thausing says admirably, &quot;A
+happy imagination and a great idea of his exalted position made up to
+him for any want of success in his many wars and political
+negotiations,&quot; and elsewhere calls him the last of the &quot;nomadic
+emperors,&quot; who spent their lives travelling from palace to palace and
+from city to city, beseeching, cajoling, or threatening their subjects
+into obedience. He himself said, &quot;I am a king of kings. If I give an
+order to the princes of the empire, they obey if they please, if they do
+not please they disobey.&quot; He was even then called &quot;the last of the
+knights,&quot; because he had an amateurish passion for a chivalry that was
+already gone, and was constantly attempting to revive its costumes and
+ordinances. Then, like certain of the Pharaohs of Egypt, he was pleased
+to read of, and see illustrated by brush and graver, victories he had
+never won, and events in which he had not shone. He himself dictated or
+planned out those wonderful lives or allegories of a life which might
+have been his. It was on such a work of futile self-glorification that
+he now wished to employ D&uuml;rer.</p>
+
+<p>The novelty of the art of printing, and the convenience to a nomadic
+emperor of a monument that could be rolled up, suggested the form of
+this last absurdity--a monster woodcut in 92 blocks which, when joined
+together, produced a picture 9 feet by 10, representing what had at
+first been intended as an imitation of a Roman triumphal arch; but so
+much information about so many more or less dubious ancestors, &amp;c., had
+to be conveyed by quaint and conceited inventions, that in the end it
+was rather comparable to the confusion of a Juggernaut car, which
+never-the-less imposes by a barbarous wealth and magnificence of
+fantastic detail. And to this was to be joined another monster,
+representing on several yards of paper a triumphal procession of the
+emperor, escorted by his family, and the virtues of himself and
+ancestors, &amp;c. Such is fortune's malice that D&uuml;rer, who alone or almost
+alone had conceived of the simplicity of true dignity and the beauty of
+choice proportions and propriety, should have been called upon by his
+only royal patron to superintend a production wherein the rank and
+flaccid taste of the time ran riot. The absurdity, barbarism, and
+grotesque quaintness of this monument to vanity cannot be laid
+exclusively at Maximilian's door; for the architecture, particularly of
+the fountains, in Altdorfer's or Manuel's designs, and in those of many
+others, reveals a like wantonness in delighted elaboration of the
+impossible and unstructural. The scholars and pedantic posturers who
+surrounded the emperor no doubt improved and abetted. Probably it was
+this Juggernaut element, inherited from the Gothic gargoyle, which
+Goethe censured when he said that &quot;D&uuml;rer was retarded by a gloomy
+fantasy devoid of form or foundation.&quot; Perhaps this was written at a
+period when the great critic was touched with that resentment against
+the Middle Ages begotten by the feeling that his own art was still
+encumbered by its irrational and confused fantasy. We who certainly are
+able to take a more ample view of D&uuml;rer's situation in the art of his
+times, see that he is rather characterised by an effort which lay in
+exactly the same direction as that of Goethe's own; and while
+sympathising with the irritation expressed, can also admire the great
+engraver for having freed himself in so large a degree from the
+influence of fantasy &quot;devoid of form and foundation,&quot; even as the
+justest Shakespearean criticism admires the degree in which the author
+of Othello freed himself from Elizabethan conceits. It is difficult to
+appreciate the difference for a great artist in having the general taste
+with rather than against the purer tendencies of his art. Probably the
+Greeks and certain Italians owe their freedom from eccentricity, in a
+very large measure, to this cause. But I intend to treat these questions
+more at length in dealing with D&uuml;rer's character as an artist and
+creator. It was necessary to touch on the subject here, because
+Maximilian embodies the peculiar and fantastic aftergrowth, which
+sprouted up in some northern minds from the old stumps remaining from
+the great mediaeval forest of thoughts and sentiments which had
+gradually fallen into decay. All around, even in the same minds, waved
+the saplings of the New Birth when these old stumps put forth their so
+fantastic second youth, seeming for a time to share in the new vigour,
+though they were never to attain expansion and maturity.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>Thausing shrewdly remarks, &quot;This love of fame and na&iuml;ve delight in the
+glorification of his own person are further proofs that the Emperor Max
+was the true child of his age. No one was so akin to him in this respect
+as the painter of his choice, Albert D&uuml;rer.&quot; This last is a reference to
+those strutting, finely-dressed portraits of the artist which stand
+beside the entablatures bearing his name, that of his birthplace, the
+date, &amp;c., in four out of the five most elaborate pictures which D&uuml;rer
+painted. But I would like to suggest that probably this apparent
+resemblance to his royal patron is not thus altogether well accounted
+for. May there not have been something of Homer's invocation of his
+Muse, or of that sincerity which makes Dante play such a large part in
+the &quot;Divine Comedy&quot;?--something resembling the ninth verse of the
+Apocalypse: &quot;I John, who also am your brother and companion in
+tribulation ... was in the isle that is called Patmos ... and heard
+behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying....&quot; Those little
+strutting portraits of himself sprung, perhaps, out of this relation to
+those about him of the man by native gift very superior, who is not made
+contemptuous or inclined to emphasise his isolation, but who is ever
+ready to say, &quot;It is I, be not afraid.&quot; The man who painted and
+conceived this is the man you know, whom you have admired because he
+carried his fine clothes so well in your streets. Here I am even in the
+midst of this massacre of saints, I have conceived it all and taken a
+whole year to elaborate it; and since you see me looking so cool and
+well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or
+overwhelmed. Such is ever the na&iuml;vety of great souls among those whose
+culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among
+little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a
+selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a
+foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust,
+they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and
+console, for whose sakes they will even hide whatever in them is really
+unworthy of such admiration and such trust.</p>
+
+<p>We do not easily realise the corporate character of life in those days.
+Very much that seems to us quaint and absurd drew proper significance
+from the practical solidarity that then obtained; what appears to us a
+strange vanity or parade may have appeared to them respect for the
+guild, the town, the country to which they belonged. D&uuml;rer signed
+&quot;Noricus,&quot;--of Nuremberg;--and preferred its little lucrative
+citizenship to those more remunerative offered by Venice and Antwerp.
+&quot;Let all the world behold how fine the artist of Nuremberg is.&quot; Just as
+he says, &quot;God gave me diligence,&quot; so it seems natural to him to
+attribute a large half of his fame and glory to his native town. In many
+respects the great man of those days felt less individual than an
+ordinary man does now; for classes did not so merge one into the other,
+and their character was more distinct and authoritative. The little
+portrait of himself added to those wonderful <i>tours-de-force</i> made them
+something that belonged to Nuremberg and to Germans. Even so it would be
+with some treasure cup, all gold and jewels, belonging to a village
+schoolmaster, which none of his neighbours dared look at save in his
+presence; for he was the son of a great baron whom his elder brothers
+robbed of everything except this, and his presence among them alone made
+them able to feel that it really belonged to their village, was theirs
+in a fashion. These suggestions will not, I think, appear fantastic to
+those who ponder on the apparently vainglorious address of much of
+D&uuml;rer's work, and keep in mind such a passage from his writings as this:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver and gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something
+burning, and ye all add to it skilful furthering, a blaze may in time
+arise therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world.&quot;<a name="FNanchor22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22"><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>But still, even if such considerations may bring many to accept my
+explanation of this contrast, I do not want to over-insist on it. I
+think that wherever men have been superior in character, as well as in
+gift or rank, to those about them, something of this spirit of the good
+eldest child in a family is bound to be manifested. But just as such a
+child may be veritably boastful and vain at other times,--however purely
+now and then, in crises of apparent difficulty or danger, its vaunt and
+strut may spring from real kindness and a considerate wish to inspire
+courage in the younger and weaker;--so doubtless there was a
+haughtiness, sometimes a fault, in D&uuml;rer as in Milton.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>But we have been led a long way from Kaiser Max and his portable
+monument. The reader will re-picture how the court arrived at Nuremberg
+like a troop of actors, whose performance was really their life, and was
+taken quite seriously and admired heartily by the good and solid
+burghers. This old comedy, often farce, entitled &quot;The Importance of
+Authority,&quot; is no longer played with such a telling make-up, or with
+such showy properties as formerly, but is still as popular as ever; as
+we Londoners know, since the last few years have given us perhaps an
+over-dose of processions, illuminations, &amp;c. &amp;c. In this case the chief
+actors in the show piece were men of mark of an exceptionally
+entertaining character; with many of them D&uuml;rer and Pirkheimer were soon
+on the best of terms.</p>
+
+<p>Foremost, Johann Stabius, the companion of the Emperor for sixteen years
+without intermission in war and in peace, who was associated with D&uuml;rer
+to provide the written accompaniment for the monument; a literary
+jack-of-all-trades of ready wit and lively presence. A contemporary
+records: &quot;The emperor took constant pleasure in the strange things which
+Stabius devised, and esteemed him so highly that he instituted a new
+chair of Astronomy and Mathematics for him at Vienna,&quot; in the Collegium
+Poetarum et Mathematicorum founded in the year 1501, under the
+presidency of Conrad Celtes.</p>
+
+<p>In all probability there would have been besides the learned protonotary
+of the supreme court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in
+the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of
+D&uuml;rer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later,
+still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes,
+and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the
+thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to be in vain.</p>
+
+<p>It may be that D&uuml;rer then met for the first time too the Imperial
+architect, Johannes Tscherte, for whom he afterwards drew two armillary
+spheres, to take the place of those on which he had cast ridicule; for
+Pirkheimer wrote to Tscherte: &quot;I wish you could have heard how Albert
+D&uuml;rer spoke to me about your plate, in which there is not one good
+stroke, and laughed at me. What honour it will do us when it makes its
+appearance in Italy, and the clever painters there see it!&quot; To which
+Tscherte replied: &quot;Albert D&uuml;rer knows me well, he is also well aware
+that I love art, though I am no expert at it; let him if he likes
+despise my plate, I never pretended it was a work of art.&quot; And in a
+later letter he speaks &quot;of the armillary spheres drawn by our common
+friend Albert D&uuml;rer.&quot; He was one of those who helped D&uuml;rer in his
+mathematical and geometrical studies; and he, like Pirkheimer, dedicated
+books to him. Although the mathematics of those times are hardly
+considered seriously nowadays, they then ranked with verse-making as a
+polite accomplishment, and had all the charm of novelty. D&uuml;rer, no
+doubt, had some gift that way, as he seems to have made a hobby of them
+during many years. Besides those who came in the Imperial troop, D&uuml;rer
+had many opportunities of meeting men of this kind, for such were
+constantly passing through Nuremberg. D&uuml;rer has left us what are
+evidently portraits of some whose names are lost: of others we have both
+name and likeness, among them the English ambassador, Lord Morley.</p>
+
+<p>In 1515 &quot;Rafahel de' Urbin, who is held in such high esteem by the Pope,
+he made these naked figures and sent them to Albrecht D&uuml;rer at Nuremberg
+to show him his hand.&quot; This shows us that travellers through Nuremberg
+sometimes brought with them something of the breath of the great
+Renaissance in Italy. The drawing, which bears the above inscription in
+D&uuml;rer's own handwriting on the back, is a fine one in red sanguine,
+representing the same male model in two different poses, in the
+Albertina. Raphael had, we are told by Lodovico Dolce, drawings,
+engravings, and woodcuts of D&uuml;rer's hanging in his studio; and Vasari
+tells us he said: &quot;If D&uuml;rer had been acquainted with the antique he
+would have surpassed us all.&quot; The Nuremberg master, in return for the
+drawing, sent a portrait of himself to Raphael, which has unfortunately
+been lost. There appears to have been quite a rage for D&uuml;rer's work in
+Italy, and above all at Rome: we know that it provoked Michael Angelo to
+remonstrate; probably on many lips it was merely a vaunt of superior
+knowledge or taste, as rapture over the conjectural friends or aids of a
+great quatrocentist is to-day. The tokens of esteem which he won from
+distinguished travellers, and this drawing which reached him testifying
+to the interest and friendship felt for him by the Italian whose fame
+was most widespread, must have been full of encouragement, and have
+compensated in some measure for the feeling he had that he was only a
+hanger-on at Nuremberg, though he might still have been &quot;a gentleman&quot; in
+Venice. Yet Nuremberg itself furnished many desirable or notable
+acquaintances. There was D&uuml;rer's neighbour, the jurist, Lazarus
+Spengler; later the most prominent reformer in Nuremberg, who in 1520
+dedicated to him his &quot;Exhortation and Instruction towards the leading of
+a virtuous life,&quot; addressing him as &quot;his particular and confidential
+friend and brother,&quot; whom he considers, &quot;without any flattery, to be a
+man of understanding, inclined to honesty and every virtue, who has
+often in our daily familiar intercourse been to me in no common degree a
+pattern and an example to a more circumspect way of life;&quot; whom,
+finally, he asks to improve his little book to the best of his ability.
+D&uuml;rer had before this rendered him service in designing his coat of arms
+for a woodcut and furnishing a frontispiece to his translation of
+Eusebius' &quot;Life of St. Jerome.&quot; He was, moreover, a poet, author of &quot;an
+often-translated song&quot;; he wrote verses to discourage D&uuml;rer from
+spending his time in producing the doggerel rhymes which at one time he
+was moved to attempt,--framing poems of didactic import, and publishing
+one or two on separate sheets with a woodcut at the top, in spite of the
+inappreciative reception given to them by Spengler and Pirkheimer.
+Besides Spengler, there were &quot;Christopher Kress, a soldier, a traveller,
+and a town councillor;&quot; and Caspar N&uuml;tzel, of one of the oldest
+families, and Captain-general of the town bands. Both of these went with
+D&uuml;rer to the Diet at Augsburg in 1518. The martial Paumgartners were two
+brothers for whom D&uuml;rer painted the early triptych at Munich (see page
+204). One of them is supposed to figure as St. George in the All Saints
+picture. Lastly, there were the Imhoffs, the merchant princes of
+Nuremberg, as the Fuggers were at Augsburg. A son of the family married
+Felicitas, Pirkheimer's favourite daughter, in 1515, and D&uuml;rer stood
+godfather to their little Hieronymus in 1518. It is easy to imagine that
+there was many a supper and dinner, when a thousand strange subjects
+were even more strangely discussed; when Pirkheimer now made them roar
+with a hazardous joke, or again dumbfounded them with Greek quotations
+pompously done into German, or made their flesh creep and the
+superstitions of their race stir in them by mysteriously enlarging on
+his astrological lore,--for to his many weaknesses he added this, which
+was then scarcely recognised as one.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>In spite of all his wealthy and influential friends, D&uuml;rer found it
+difficult to get the emperor to indemnify him for his labours, though
+the Town Council had received a royal mandate as early as 1512 from
+Landau. The following is an extract:</p>
+
+<p>Whereas our and the Empire's trusty Albrecht D&uuml;rer has devoted much zeal
+to the drawings he has made for us at our command, and has promised
+henceforth ever to do the like, whereat we have received particular
+pleasure; and whereas we are informed on all hands that the said D&uuml;rer
+is famous in the art of painting before all other Masters: we have
+therefore felt ourself moved, to further him with our especial grace,
+and we accordingly desire you with earnest solicitude, for the affection
+you bear us, to make the said D&uuml;rer free of all town imposts, having
+regard to our grace and to his famous art, which should fairly turn to
+his profit with you, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The town councillors sent some of their principal members to treat with
+D&uuml;rer, and he resigned his claim &quot;in order to honour the said
+councillors and to maintain their privileges, usages, and rights.&quot; In
+1515 the drawings for the &quot;Gate of Honour&quot; were finished, and D&uuml;rer
+began to press again for pay. Stabius had promised to speak for him, but
+nothing had come of it. Albrecht thought Christoph Kress could be of
+more avail; so he wrote to him:</p>
+
+<p>(No date, but certainly 1515). DEAR HERR KRESS, The first thing I have
+to ask you is to find out from Herr Stabius whether he has done anything
+in my business with his Imperial Majesty, and how it stands. Let me know
+this in the next letter you write to my Lords. Should it happen that
+Herr Stabius has made no move in the matter, ... Point out in particular
+to his Imperial Majesty that I have served his Majesty for three years,
+spending my own money in so doing, and if I had not been diligent the
+ornamental work would have been nowise so successfully finished. I
+therefore pray his Imperial Majesty to recompense me with the 100
+florins--all which you know well how to do. You must know also that I
+made many other drawings for his Majesty besides the &quot;Triumph.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Not long after this, Maximilian, by a <i>Privilegium </i> (dated Innsbruck,
+September 6, 1515), settled an annual pension of 100 florins on
+the artist.</p>
+
+<p>We Maximilian, by God's grace, &amp;c., make openly known by this letter for
+ourself and our successors in the Empire, and to each and every one to
+wit, that we have regarded and considered the art, skill, and
+intelligence for which our and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved
+Albrecht D&uuml;rer has been praised before us, and likewise the pleasing,
+honest and useful services which he has often and willingly done for us
+and the Holy Empire and also for our own person in many ways, and which
+he still daily does and henceforward may and shall do: and that we
+therefore, of set purpose, after mature deliberation, and with the full
+knowledge of ourself and the Princes and Estates of the Empire, have
+graciously promised and granted to this same D&uuml;rer what we herewith and
+by virtue of this letter make known:</p>
+
+<p><i>That is to say</i>, that one hundred florins Rhenish shall be yielded,
+given, and paid by the honourable, our and the Empire's trusty and
+well-beloved Burgomaster and Council of the town of N&uuml;rnberg and their
+successors unto the said Albrecht D&uuml;rer, against his quittance, all his
+life long and no longer, yearly and in every year, on our behalf, out of
+the customary town contributions which the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of N&uuml;rnberg are bound to yield and pay, yearly and in every
+year, into our Treasury. And whatever the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of N&uuml;rnberg and their successors shall yield, give, and pay
+to the said Albrecht D&uuml;rer, as stands written above, against his
+quittance, the same sum shall be accepted and reckoned to them as paid
+and yielded for the customary town contributions which they, as stands
+written above, are bound to pay into our Treasury, as if they had paid
+the same into our own hands and received our quittance therefor, and no
+harm or detriment shall in anywise be done therefor unto them or their
+successors by us or our successors in the Empire. Whereof this letter,
+sealed with our affixed seal, is witness.</p>
+
+<p>Given, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Thus D&uuml;rer became Court painter: in return for his salary he had to
+work. As soon as the &quot;Gate of Honour&quot; was finished, there was the &quot;Car
+of Triumph&quot; to be taken in hand, the first sketch for it (now in the
+Albertina) having already been made about 1514-15. In December 1514
+Sch&ouml;nsperger, the Augsburg printer, printed a splendid &quot;Book of Hours&quot;
+for Maximilian. The type was specially made for the book, and only a few
+copies were printed, some on fine vellum with large margins. One copy
+which Maximilian intended for his own use was sent to D&uuml;rer that he
+might decorate the margins with pen-drawings in various coloured inks.
+Of this work there exist forty-three pages by D&uuml;rer himself and eight by
+Cranach at Munich, and at Besan&ccedil;on thirty-five pages by Burgkmair,
+Altdorfer, Baldung Grien, and Hans D&uuml;rer. Marvellously deft and
+light-handed as are D&uuml;rer's freehand arabesques, embellished by racy
+sketches of which these borders consist, they are nevertheless touched
+with a like unsatisfactory character with the other works undertaken for
+Maximilian, and are almost as far removed from the spirit and
+performance of the best period for this kind of work, as is the
+<i>Triumphal Arch</i> from that of Titus.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer was also employed on another woodcut representing a long row of
+saintly ancestors of this eccentric sovereign. He accompanied Caspar
+N&uuml;tzel and Lazarus Spengler, the representatives of Nuremberg, to the
+Diet of Augsburg, and there made some drawings of his royal patron, on
+one of which is written, &quot;This is my dear Prince Max, whom I, Albrecht
+D&uuml;rer, drew at Augsburg in his little room upstairs in the palace, in
+the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist's day.&quot; (<i>See
+opposite</i>.) And Melanchthon narrates that &quot;once Max himself took the
+charcoal in hand to make his mind clear to his trusty Albert, and was
+vexed to find that the charcoal kept breaking short in his hand when
+D&uuml;rer said; 'Most gracious emperor, I would not that your Majesty should
+draw so well as I do!' by which he meant, 'I am practised in this, and
+it is my province; thou, Emperor, hast harder tasks and another
+calling.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: <i>By permission of Messrs. Braun, Cl&eacute;ment &amp; Co.
+Dornach.</i>--&quot;This is the Emperor Maximilian, whose likeness I, Albrecht
+D&uuml;rer, have taken, at Augsburg, high up in the palace in his little
+chamber, in the year of Grace 1518, on Monday after St. John the
+Baptist's Day&quot; Charcoal-Drawing. Albertina, Vienna]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+<p>A charming letter from Charitas Pirkheimer gives us a little sunlit
+glimpse of the tone of D&uuml;rer's lighter hours.</p>
+
+<p>The prudent and wise Masters Caspar N&uuml;tzel, Lazarus Spengler, and
+Albrecht D&uuml;rer, for the time being at Augsburg, our gracious Masters and
+good friends.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus.</p>
+
+<p>As a friendly greeting, prudent, wise, gracious Masters and especially
+good friends, cousins, and wellwishers, I desire every good thing for
+you, from the Highest Good. I received with great pleasure your friendly
+letter and its news of a kind suited to my order, or rather my trade;
+and I read it with such great devotion that more than once tears ran
+down my eyes over it--truly rather tears of laughter than of sorrow. I
+consider it a subject for great thankfulness that, with such important
+business and so much gaiety on hand, your Wisdoms do not forget me, but
+find time to instruct me, poor little nun, about the monastic life
+whereof you now have a clear reflection before your eyes. I conclude
+from this that doubtless some good spirit drove you, my gracious and
+dear Masters, to Augsburg, so that you might learn from the example of
+the free Swabian spirits how to instruct and govern the poor imprisoned
+sand-bares.<a name="FNanchor23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23"><sup>[23]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>For since our trusty Master Warden (Caspar N&uuml;tzel), as a lover of the
+Church, likes to help in a thorough reformation, he should first behold
+a pattern of holy observance in the Swabian League. Let Master Lazarus
+Spengler, too, inform himself well about the apostolic mode of common
+life, so that at the annual audit he may be able to give us and others
+counsel and guidance, how we may run through everything, that nought
+remain over. And Master Albrecht D&uuml;rer, also, who is such a genius and
+master at drawing, he may very carefully inspect the stately buildings,
+and then if some day we want to alter our choir he will know how to give
+us advice and help in making ample slide-windows (? blinds), so that our
+eyes may not be quite blinded.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not further trouble you, however, to bring us music to learn to
+sing by notes, for our beer is now so very sour that I fear the dregs
+might stick fast among the four reeds or voices, and produce such
+strange sounds that the dogs would fly out of the church. But I must
+humbly pray you not quite to wear out your eyes over the black and white
+magpies, so as no longer to know the little grey wolves at N&uuml;rnberg. I
+have heard much of the sharp-witted Swabians all my life, but it would
+be well if we learnt more from them, now that they are so wisely
+labouring with his Imperial Majesty to save the Apostolic life from
+being done away with. It is easy to see what very different lovers of
+the Church they are from our Masters here.</p>
+
+<p>Pardon me, my dear and gracious Masters, this my playful letter. It is
+all done <i>in caritate--summa summarum</i>; and the end of it is that I
+should rejoice at your speedy return in health and happiness with the
+glad accomplishment of the business committed to you. For this I and my
+sisters heartily pray God day and night; still we cannot carry it
+through alone, so I counsel you to entreat the pious and pure hearts (of
+Augsburg) to sing in high quavers that thereby things may speed well.
+And now many happy times to you!</p>
+
+<p>Given at N&uuml;rnberg on September 3, 1518.</p>
+
+<p>SISTER CHARITAS, unprofitable Abbess of S. Clara's at N&uuml;rnberg.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer returned with a letter to the Town Council of N&uuml;rnberg, from which
+the following extract is taken:</p>
+
+<p>Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved, Whereas you are bound to pay us on
+next St. Martin's day year a remainder, to wit 200 florins Rhenish, out
+of the accustomed town contribution which you are wont to render into
+our and the Empire's treasury....We earnestly charge you to deliver and
+pay the said 200 florins, accepting our quittance therefor, unto our and
+the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht D&uuml;rer, our painter, on
+account of his honest services, willingly rendered to us at our command
+for our &quot;Car of Triumph&quot; and in other ways; and, at the said time, these
+200 florins shall be deducted for you from the accustomed town
+contribution. Thus you will perform our earnest desire.</p>
+
+<p>Given, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer procured a receipt for the 200 florins, signed by the emperor
+himself. But before &quot;next St. Martin's day year,&quot; Maximilian was dead,
+and the 200 florins no longer his to dispose of, being due to the new
+Emperor Charles V. The municipal authorities of N&uuml;rnberg refused to pay
+until his Privilegium had been confirmed by Maximilian's successor.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer wrote the following letter to the Council:</p>
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, April 27, 1519.</p>
+
+<p>Prudent, honourable and wise, gracious, dear Lords. Your Honours are
+aware that, at the Diet lately holden by his Imperial Roman Majesty, our
+most gracious lord of very praiseworthy memory, I obtained a gracious
+assignment from his Imperial Majesty of 200 florins from the yearly
+payable town contributions of N&uuml;rnberg. This assignment was granted to
+me, after many applications and much trouble, in return for the zealous
+work and labour, which, for a long time previously, I had devoted to his
+Majesty. And he sent you order and command to that effect, signed with
+his accustomed signature, and quittance in all form, which quittance,
+duly sealed, is in my hands.</p>
+
+<p>Now I rest humbly confident that your Honours will graciously remember
+me as your obedient burgher, who has employed much time in the service
+and work of his Imperial Majesty, our most rightful Lord, with but small
+recompense, and has thereby lost both profit and advantage in other
+ways. And therefore I trust that you will now deliver me these 200
+florins to his Imperial Majesty's order and quittance, that so I may
+receive a fitting reward and satisfaction for my care, pains, and
+work--as, no doubt, was his Imperial Majesty's intention.</p>
+
+<p>But seeing that some Emperor or King might in the future claim these 200
+florins from your Honours, or might not be willing to spare them, but
+might some day demand them back again from me, I am, therefore, willing
+to relieve your Honours and the town of this chance, by appointing and
+mortgaging, as security and pledge therefor, my tenement situated at the
+corner under the Veste, and which belonged to my late father, that so
+your Honours may suffer neither prejudice nor loss thereby. Thus am I
+ready to serve your Honours, my gracious rulers and Lords.</p>
+
+<p>Your Wisdoms' willing burgher, ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: FREDERICK THE WISE. Silver-point drawing, British
+Museum.]</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer next wrote &quot;to the honourable, most learned Master Georg Spalatin,
+Chaplain to my most gracious lord, Duke Friedrich, the Elector&quot;
+of Saxony.</p>
+
+<p>The letter is undated, but clearly belongs to the early part of the year
+1520.</p>
+
+<p>Most worthy and dear Master, I have already sent you my thanks in the
+short letter, for then I had only read your brief note. It was not till
+afterwards, when the bag in which the little book was wrapped was turned
+inside out, that I for the first time found the real letter in it, and
+learnt that it was my most gracious Lord himself who sent me Luther's
+little book. So I pray your worthiness to convey most emphatically my
+humble thanks to his Electoral Grace, and in all humility to beseech his
+Electoral Grace to take the praiseworthy Dr. Martin Luther under his
+protection for the sake of Christian truth. For that is of more
+importance to us than all the power and riches of this world; because
+all things pass away with time, Truth alone endures for ever.</p>
+
+<p>God helping me, if ever I meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a
+careful portrait of him from the life and to engrave it on copper, for a
+lasting remembrance of a Christian man who helped me out of great
+distress. And I beg your worthiness to send me for my money anything new
+that Dr. Martin may write.</p>
+
+<p>As to Spengler's &quot;Apology for Luther,&quot; about which you write, I must
+tell you that no more copies are in stock; but it is being reprinted at
+Augsburg, and I will send you some copies as soon as they are ready. But
+you must know that, though the book was printed here, it is condemned in
+the pulpit as heretical and meet to be burnt, and the man who published
+it anonymously is abused and defamed. It is reported that Dr. Eck wanted
+to burn it in public at Ingolstadt, as was done to Dr. Reuchlin's book.</p>
+
+<p>With this letter I send for my most gracious lord three impressions of a
+copper-plate of my most gracious lord of Mainz, which I engraved at his
+request. I sent the copper-plate with 200 impressions as a present to
+his Electoral Grace, and he graciously sent me in return 200 florins in
+gold and 20 ells of damask for a coat. I joyfully and thankfully
+accepted them, especially as I was in want of them at that time.</p>
+
+<p>His Imperial Majesty also, of praiseworthy memory, who died too soon for
+me, had graciously made provision for me, because of the great and
+long-continued labour, pains, and care, which I spent in his service.
+But now the Council will no longer pay me the 100 florins, which I was
+to have received every year of my life from the town taxes, and which
+was yearly paid to me during his Majesty's lifetime. So I am to be
+deprived of it in my old age and to see the long time, trouble, and
+labour all lost which I spent for his Imperial Majesty. As I am losing
+my sight and freedom of hand my affairs do not look well. I don't care
+to withhold this from you, kind and trusted Sir.</p>
+
+<p>If my gracious lord remembers his debt to me of the staghorns, may I ask
+your Worship to keep him in mind of them, so that I may get a fine pair.
+I shall make two candlesticks of them.</p>
+
+<p>I send you here two little prints of the Cross from a plate engraved in
+gold. One is for your Worship. Give my service to Hirschfeld and
+Albrecht Waldner. Now, your Worship, commend me faithfully to my most
+gracious lord, the Elector.</p>
+
+<p>Your willing ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER at N&uuml;rnberg.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor20">[20]</a><blockquote> <i>The Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints.</i></blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor21">[21]</a><blockquote> Supposed to be the <i>Madonna with the Iris</i>.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor22">[22]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; p. 178.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor23">[23]</a><blockquote> The soil about N&uuml;rnberg is sandy.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<a name="RER,_LUTHER_AND_THE_HUMANISTS"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER, LUTHER AND THE HUMANISTS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>But while D&uuml;rer was thus busily at work or dunning his great debtors,
+Luther had appeared. In 1517 he nailed his ninety-five theses to the
+door of Wittenberg church, and Cardinal Caietan by the unlucky Leo X.
+was poured like oil upon the fire which they had lighted. Luther had
+been summoned to meet the Cardinal at the Diet of Augsburg, where D&uuml;rer
+went to see Maximilian, though he only arrived there after our friends
+from Nuremberg had departed. However, Luther passed through Nuremberg on
+foot, and borrowed a coat of a friend there in order to figure with
+decency before the Diet. Yet D&uuml;rer probably did not meet him, although
+the words in the letter to George Spalatin, quoted above, &quot;If ever I
+meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a careful portrait of him and
+engrave it on copper,&quot; do not forbid the possibility of this early
+meeting before the Reformer had become so famous. Next the Pope tried to
+soothe by sending Miltitz with flatteries and promises--a man that could
+smile and weep to order, but who succeeded neither with the Elector
+Frederic, nor with Luther, nor with Germany. At Nuremberg the preacher
+Wenzel Link soon formed a little reformed congregation, to which D&uuml;rer,
+Pirkheimer, Spengler, N&uuml;tzel, Scheurl, Ebner, Holzschurher, and others
+belonged. We have already seen how, soon after this, D&uuml;rer was anxious
+for Luther's safety, by the letter to the wise Elector, quoted above;
+and in 1518 he sent Luther a number of his prints, and soon after joined
+with others of Link's hearers to send a greeting of encouragement. And
+before long we find him jotting down a list of sixteen of Luther's
+tracts, either because he intended to get and read them, or because they
+were already his; and on the back of a drawing we find the following
+outline of the faith such as he then apprehended it, in which we see
+clearly that Christ has become the voice of conscience--the power in a
+man by which he recognises and creates good.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that through disobedience of sin we have fallen into everlasting
+Death, no help could have reached us save through the incarnation of the
+Son of God, whereby He through His innocent suffering might abundantly
+pay the Father all our guilt, so that the Justice of God might be
+satisfied. For He has repented, of and made atonement for the sins of
+the whole world, and has obtained of the Father Everlasting Life.
+Therefore Christ Jesus is the Son of God, the highest power, who can do
+all things, and He is the Eternal life. Into whomsoever Christ comes he
+lives, and himself lives in Christ. Therefore all things are in Christ
+good things. There is nothing good in us except it becomes good in
+Christ. Whosoever, therefore, will altogether justify himself is unjust.
+<i>If we will what is good, Christ wills it in us</i>. No human repentance is
+enough to equalise deadly sin and be fruitful.</p>
+
+<p>In this the old mythological language is retained, but it has received a
+new interpretation or significance, and this quite without the writer's
+perceiving what he is doing. Christ is affirmed to have repented of the
+sins of the whole world. Among the early heresiarchs there were, I
+believe, some who went so far as to hold that he had committed the sins
+before he repented of them, and triumphed over their effects by his
+sufferings and death. In any case, a similar feeling is expressed by our
+odd mystic Blake in his &quot;Everlasting Gospel&quot;:</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;If He (Jesus) intended to take on sin,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;His mother should an harlot have bin.&quot;<br>
+
+<p>The actual records of Christ are too meagre the moment he is regarded as
+an allegory of human life; and such additions to the creed spring
+naturally out of the ardent seeker's desire to realise the universality
+implied in the dogma of his Godhead, which is accepted even by Blake as
+a historical fact beyond question. It was not the character of so much
+as can be perceived of the universe which daunted Luther and D&uuml;rer, as
+it daunts the serious man to-day. They accepted what appears to us a
+cheap and easy subterfuge, because they believed it to have been
+prescribed by God; the ambiguous inferences which such a prescription
+must logically cast on the Divine character did not arrest their
+attention. What they gained was a free conscience, a conscience in which
+Christ was, to use their language, and which was in Christ; and for
+practical piety this was sufficient. They themselves had not made up
+their minds on theoretical points; it was only in the face of their
+opponents that they thought of arming themselves with like weapons, and
+sought a mechanical agreement upon questions about which no one ever has
+known, or probably ever can know, anything at all. This was where
+Luther's pugnacity betrayed him; so that little by little he seems to
+lose spiritual beauty, as the monk, all fire and intensity, is
+transformed into the &quot;plump doctor,&quot; and again into the bird of ill omen
+who croaked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The arts are growing as if there was to be a new start and the world
+was to become young again. I hope God will finish with it. We have come
+already to the White Horse. Another hundred years and all will be over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Compare this with D&uuml;rer's:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both
+well and better about this art than I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Would to God that it were possible for me to see the work and art of
+the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might
+be improved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I do not want to judge Luther harshly; he had done splendidly, and it is
+difficult to meddle with worldly things without soiling one's fingers
+and depressing one's heart; but I ask which of these two quotations
+expresses man's most central character best--the desire for nobler
+life--which reveals the more admirable temper? (D&uuml;rer had been touched
+by the spirit of the Renaissance as well as by that of the Reformation;
+we can distinguish easily when he is speaking under the one influence,
+when under the other, and the contrast often impresses one as the
+contrast between the above quotations. And it gives us great reason to
+deplore that the two spirits could not work side by side as they did in
+D&uuml;rer and a few rare souls, but that in the world there was war between
+them.) It seems inevitable that the things men fight about should always
+be spoiled. The best part of written thought is something that cannot be
+analysed, cannot therefore be defended or used for offence; it is a
+spirit, an emanation, something that influences us more subtly than we
+know how to describe.</p>
+
+<p>We see by the passage quoted that D&uuml;rer was not only influenced by
+Luther's heroism, but by his doctrinal theorising. Unfortunately we do
+not know whether he outgrew this second and less admirable influence.
+Did he feel like his friend Pirkheimer in the end, that &quot;the new
+evangelical knaves made the old popish knaves seem pious by contrast?&quot;
+Milton under similar circumstances came to think that &quot;New Presbyter is
+but old Priest writ large.&quot; Probably not; for just as we know he did not
+abandon what seemed to him beautiful and helpful in old Catholic
+ceremonies, usages, and conceptions, so probably he would not confuse
+what had been real gain in the Reformation with the excesses of
+Anabaptists or Socialists, or even of Luther himself or his followers.
+There is no reason to suppose he would have judged so hastily as the
+gouty irascible Pirkheimer, however much he may have deplored the course
+of events. It must have been evident to thoughtful men, then, that it
+was impossible for so large an area to be furnished with properly
+trained pastors in so short a time, and that therefore more or less
+deplorable material was bound to be mingled in the official <i>personnel</i>
+of the new sect. It is impossible, when we consider how he solved the
+precisely parallel difficulty in aesthetics, not to feel that if he had
+had time given him, he would have arrived in point of doctrine at a
+moderation similar to that of Erasmus.</p>
+
+<p>Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty....
+Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know not certainly
+what the ultimate measure of true beauty is.... Because now we cannot
+altogether attain unto perfection shall we, therefore, wholly cease from
+learning? By no means ... for it behoveth the rational man to choose the
+good. (See the passage complete on page 15.)</p>
+
+<p>Luther imagined that the faith that saved was entire confidence in the
+fact that a bargain had been struck between the Persons of the Trinity,
+according to which Christ's sacrifice should be accepted as satisfying
+the justice of his Father, outraged by Adam's fault. To-day this appears
+to the majority of educated men a fantastic conception. For them the
+faith that saves is love of goodness, as love of beauty saves the artist
+from mistakes into which his intelligence would often plunge him. Jesus
+has no claim upon us superior to his goodness and his beauty; nor can we
+conceive of the possibility of such a claim. But we recognise with D&uuml;rer
+that we do not know what the true measure of goodness and beauty is, and
+all that we can do is to choose always the good and the beautiful
+according to the measure of our reason--to the fulness of the light at
+present granted to us.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>The curiosity of the modern man of science no doubt is descended from
+that of men like Leonardo and the early Humanists, but it differs from
+almost more than it resembles it. The motive power behind both is no
+doubt the confidence of the healthy mind that the human intelligence
+will ultimately prove adequate to comprehend the spectacle of the
+universe. But for the Humanists, for D&uuml;rer and his friends, the
+consciousness of the irreconcilableness of that spectacle with the
+necessary ideals of human nature had not produced, as in our
+contemporaries and our immediate forerunners it has produced, either the
+atrophy of expectation which afflicts some, or the extravagance of
+ingenuity that cannot rest till it has rationalised hope, which torments
+others. They were saddled with neither the indifference nor the
+restlessness of the modern intellect. They escaped like boys on a
+holiday. They felt conscious of doing what their schoolmaster meant them
+to do, though they were actually doing just what they liked. It was all
+for the glory of God in D&uuml;rer's mind; but how or why God should be
+pleased with what he did, did not trouble him. He engraved and sold
+impressions of a plate representing a sow with eight legs; he made a
+drawing, which is at Oxford, of an infant girl with two heads and four
+arms, and calmly wrote beneath it:--</p>
+
+<p>Item, in the year reckoned 1512, after the birth of Christ, such a
+creature (<i>Frucht</i>) as is represented above, was born in Bavaria, on the
+Lord of Werdenberg's land, in a village named Ertingen over against
+Riedlingen. It was on the 20th of the hay month (July), and they were
+baptized, the one head Elspett, the other Margrett.</p>
+
+<p>Just so, Luther is no more than St. Paul abashed to say that God had
+need of some men intended for dishonour, as a potter makes some vessels
+for honourable, some for dishonourable uses. The modern mind at once
+reflects: &quot;If that is the case, so much the worse for God; by so much is
+it impossible that I should ever worship Him;&quot; and it will prefer any
+prolongation of &quot;that most wholesome frame of mind, a suspended
+judgment,&quot; to accepting a solution so cheap as that offered by the
+Apostle and Reformer, which has come to seem simply injurious.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of the enlarged schoolboy was, I think, really the attitude
+of the best minds then and onwards to Descartes and Spinoza. They gave
+themselves up to the study of nature without ceasing to belong to their
+school, yet freed, as on a holiday, from the constraint of being
+actually in it. Yet, in regard to their personal and social life, at
+least north of the Alps, the majority of such men were very consciously
+and dutifully under &quot;their great taskmaster's eye&quot;; and in that also
+they differ in a measure from the more part of modern scientists.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer made up a rhinoceros from a sketch and description sent to him
+from Portugal, whither the uncouth creature had been brought in a ship
+from Goa. D&uuml;rer's drawing was engraved and became the parent of
+innumerable rhinoceroses in lesson-books, doing service right down well
+into the late century, as Thausing assures us. The unfortunate original
+was sent as a present to Leo X., who wanted to see him fight with an
+elephant which had made him laugh by squirting water and kneeling down
+to be blessed as sensibly as a Christian. So the poor beast was shipped
+again, only to be shipwrecked near Porto Venere, where he was last seen
+swimming valiantly, but hopelessly impeded by his chain, and baffled by
+the rocky shore. In the Netherlands, D&uuml;rer's curiosity to see a whale
+nearly resulted in his own shipwreck, and indirectly produced the malady
+which finally killed him. But D&uuml;rer's curiosity was really most
+scientific where it was most artistic; in his portraits, in his studies
+of plants and birds and the noses of stags, or the slumber of lions.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless it was not a very dissimilar motive which gained him entrance
+into the women's bath at Nuremberg, for we see he must have been there
+by the beautiful pen drawing at Bremen and the slighter one of the same
+subject at Chatsworth. These drawings may also illustrate what in his
+book on the Proportion he calls the words of difference--stout, lean,
+short, tall, &amp;c. (see p. 285), as he would seem to have chosen types as
+various as possible, ranging from the human sow to the slim and
+dignified beauty. In the same spirit he studied perspective and the art
+of measuring; he felt the importance to art of inquiry in these
+directions; nevertheless, to seize the beautiful elements in nature was
+ever the object of his efforts, however, roundabout they may sometimes
+appear to us. &quot;The sight of a fine human figure is above all things the
+most pleasing to us, wherefore I will first construct the right
+proportions of a man.&quot; (See p. 321.) His aesthetic curiosity had nothing
+in common with that which considers all objects and appearances as
+equally interesting. What he meant by Nature, when he bid the artist
+have continual recourse to her, was far from being the momentary and
+accidental appearance of any thing or things anywhere,--which the modern
+&quot;student of Nature&quot; admires because he has neither sufficient force of
+character to prefer, nor sufficient right feeling to defer to the
+preferences of those who have more.</p>
+
+<p>Leonardo's natural history is delightful reading, because it combines
+such fantastic and inventive fables as surpass even the happiest efforts
+of our nonsense writers with a beautiful openness of mind which we see
+oftener in children than in sages,--which is, in fact, the seriousness
+of those who are truly learning, and are not too conscious of what has
+already been learnt.</p>
+
+<p>As a boy adds to the pleasure he has in adventuring further and further
+into a cave the delight of awesome supposition--for what may not the
+next turn reveal?--and is pleased to feel all his young machinery ready
+instantly to enact a panic if his torch should blow out, and laughs at
+each furtive rehearsal of his own terror in which he indulges;--so the
+Humanists turned from astronomy to astrology, and used their skill in
+mathematics to play with horoscopes which they more than half believed
+might bite. There was just enough doubt as to whether any given wonder
+was a miracle to make it interesting; and at any moment the pall of
+superstition might stifle the flickering light of inquiry, as we feel
+was the case when D&uuml;rer writes:</p>
+
+<p>The most wonderful thing I ever saw occurred in the year 1503, when
+crosses fell upon many persons, and especially on children rather than
+on elder people. Amongst others, I saw one of the form which I have
+represented below. It had fallen into Eyrer's maid's shift, as she was
+sitting in the house at the back of Pirkheimer's (i.e., in the house
+where D&uuml;rer was born). She was so troubled about it that she wept and
+cried aloud, for she feared that she must die because of it.</p>
+
+<p>I have also seen a comet in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>And again, the terror caused by a very bad and strange dream passes the
+bounds of play; and one feels that the belief that a vision of the night
+might produce or prefigure dreadful change was for him something a great
+deal more serious than for the dilettante spiritualist and
+wonder-tickler of to-day. He writes:</p>
+
+<p>In the night between Wednesday and Thursday after Whit Sunday (May
+30-31, 1525), I saw this appearance in my sleep--how many great waters
+fell from heaven. The first struck the earth about four miles away from
+me with terrific force and tremendous noise, and it broke up and drowned
+the whole land. I was so sore afraid that I awoke from it. Then the
+other waters fell, and as they fell they were very powerful, and there
+were many of them, some further away, some nearer. And they came down
+from so great a height that they all seemed to fall with an equal
+slowness. But when the first water that touched the earth had very
+nearly reached it, it fell with such swiftness, with wind and roaring,
+and I was so sore afraid that when I awoke my whole body trembled, and
+for a long while I could not recover myself. So when I arose in the
+morning, I painted it above here as I saw it God turn all these things
+to the best. ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>The instinct for recording which dictates such a note as this is
+characteristic of D&uuml;rer, and called into being many of his drawings.
+Many such na&iuml;ve and explicit records as that on the drawing which
+Raphael sent him are to be found in the flyleaves of books and on the
+margins of prints and drawings, his possessions. In such notes we may
+see not only an effect of the curiosity, and desire to arrange and
+co-ordinate information, which resulted in modern science; but something
+that is akin to that worship and respect for the deeds and productions
+of those long dead or in distant countries, in which the human spirit
+relieved itself from the oppressive expectation of judgment and
+vengeance which had paralysed it, as the beauty of the supernatural
+world was lost sight of behind its terrors, and witches and wizards
+engrossed the popular mind, in which for a time saints and angels had
+held the ascendancy. The future now became the return of a golden age;
+not a garish and horrible novelty called heaven and hell, but a human
+society beautiful as that of the Greeks, grand as that of republican
+Rome, sweet and hospitable as the household of Jesus and Mary. The
+Reformation is in part a return of the old fears; but D&uuml;rer has recorded
+only one bad dream, whereas he tells that he was often visited by dreams
+worthy of the glorious Renascence. &quot;Would to God it were possible for me
+to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet
+unborn, for I know that I might be improved. Ah! <i>how often in my</i> sleep
+do I behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof
+never appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me!&quot; Why was he not sent to Rome to see the ceiling of the
+Sistina and Raphael's Stanze? Perchance it was these that he saw in
+his dreams?</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_JOURNEY_TO_THE_NETHERLANDS"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>It is even more the case with D&uuml;rer's journal written in the Netherlands
+than with the letters from Venice that, like life itself, it is full of
+repetitions and over-insistence on what is insignificant. I quote the
+most interesting passages, and as there is never a good reason for doing
+again what has already been well done; I am happy to quote Sir Martin
+Conway's excellent notes, having found occasion to add only one. D&uuml;rer
+set out on July 12, 1520, with his wife and her maid Susanna. It was
+probably this Susanna who three years later married Georg Penz, one of
+&quot;the three godless painters.&quot; D&uuml;rer took a great many prints and
+woodcuts, books both to sell and to give as presents; and besides he
+took a sketch book in which he made silver-point sketches and portraits.
+A good number of its pages have come down to us, and a great many of the
+portraits he mentions having taken were done in it, and then cut out to
+give to the sitter. All these drawings are on the same sized paper. We
+reproduce one of them here (see page 156). Besides this sketch-book he
+evidently had a memorandum-book in which he recorded what he did, what
+he spent, whom he saw, and occasionally what he felt or what he wished.
+The original is lost, but an old copy of it is in the Bamberg Library.</p>
+
+<p><i>July</i> 12.--On Thursday after Kilian's, I, Albrecht D&uuml;rer, at my own
+charges and costs, took myself and my wife (and maid Susanna) away to
+the Netherlands. And the same day, after passing through Erlangen, we
+put up for the night at Baiersdorf and spent there 3 pounds less
+6 pfennigs.</p>
+
+<p>July 13.--Next day, Friday, we came to Forchheim, and there I paid 22
+pf. for the convoy.</p>
+
+<p>Thence I journeyed to Bamberg, where I presented the Bishop (Georg III.
+Schenk von Limburg<a name="FNanchor24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24"><sup>[24]</sup></a>) with a Madonna painting, a Life of our Lady, an
+Apocalypse, and a Horin's worth of engravings. He invited me as his
+guest, gave me a Toll-pass<a name="FNanchor25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> and three letters of introduction, and
+paid my bill at the inn, where I had spent about a florin.</p>
+
+<p>I paid six florins in gold to the boatman who took me from Bamberg to
+Frankfurt.</p>
+
+<p>Master Lukas Benedict and Hans,<a name="FNanchor26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> the painter, sent me wine.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>ANTWERP, <i>August</i> 2-26, 1520.</p>
+
+<p>At Antwerp I went to Jobst Plankfelt's<a name="FNanchor27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> inn, and the same evening at
+Fuggers' Factor,<a name="FNanchor28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> Bernhard Stecher invite and gave us a costly meal.
+My wife, however, dined at the inn. I paid the driver three gold florins
+for bringing us three, and one st. I paid for carrying the goods.</p>
+
+<p><i>August</i> 4.--On Saturday after the feast of St. Peter in Chains my host
+took me to see the Burgomaster's (Arnold van Liere) house at Antwerp. It
+is newly built and beyond measure large, and very well ordered, with
+spacious and exceedingly beautiful chambers, a tower splendidly
+ornamented, a very large garden--altogether a noble house, the like of
+which I have nowhere seen in all Germany. The house also is reached from
+both sides by a very long street, which has been quite newly built
+according to the Burgomaster's liking and at his charges.</p>
+
+<p>I paid three st. to the messenger, two pf. for bread, two pf. for ink.</p>
+
+<p>August 5.--On Sunday, it was St. Oswald's Day, the painters invited me
+to the hall of their guild, with my wife and maid. All their service was
+of silver, and they had other splendid ornaments and very costly meats.
+All their wives also were there. And as I was being led to the table the
+company stood on both sides as if they were leading some great lord. And
+there were amongst them men of very high position, who all behaved most
+respectfully towards me with deep courtesy, and promised to do
+everything in their power agreeable to me that they knew of. And as I
+was sitting there in such honour the Syndic (Adrian Horebouts) of
+Antwerp came, with two servants, and presented me with four cans of wine
+in the name of the Town Councillors of Antwerp, and they had bidden him
+say that they wished thereby to show their respect for me and to assure
+me of their good will. Wherefore I returned them my humble thanks and
+offered my humble service. After that came Master Peeter (Frans), the
+town-carpenter, and presented me with two cans of wine, with the offer
+of his willing services. So when we had spent a long and merry time
+together till late in the night, they accompanied us home with lanterns
+in great honour. And they begged me to be ever assured and confident of
+their good will, and promised that in whatever I did they would be
+all-helpful to me. So I thanked them and laid me down to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The Treasurer (Lorenz Sterk) also gave me a child's head (painted) on
+linen, and a wooden weapon from Calicut, and one of the light wood
+reeds. Tomasin, too, has given me a plaited hat of alder bark. I dined
+once with the Portuguese, and have given a brother of Tomasin's three
+fl. worth of engravings.</p>
+
+<p>Herr Erasmus<a name="FNanchor29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> has given me a small Spanish <i>mantilla</i> and three men's
+portraits.</p>
+
+<p>I took the portrait of Herr Niklas Kratzer,<a name="FNanchor30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> an astronomer. He lives
+with the King of England, and has been very helpful and useful to me in
+many matters. He is a German, a native of Munich. I also made the
+portrait of Tomasin's daughter, Mistress Zutta by name. Hans
+Pfaffroth<a name="FNanchor31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> gave me one Philips fl. for taking his portrait in
+charcoal. I have dined once more with Tomasin. My host's brother-in-law
+entertained me and my wife once. I changed two light florins for
+twenty-four st. for living expenses, and I gave one st. <i>t&amp;k&amp;d</i> to a man
+who let me see an altar-piece.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on a white ground, in the Berlin
+Print Room]</p>
+
+<p><i>August</i> 19.--On the Sunday after our dear Lady's Assumption I saw the
+great Procession from the Church of our Lady at Antwerp, when the whole
+town of every craft and rank was assembled, each dressed in his best
+according to his rank. And all ranks and guilds had their signs, by
+which they might be known. In the intervals great costly pole-candles
+were borne, and their long old Frankish trumpets of silver. There were
+also in the German fashion many pipers and drummers. All the instruments
+were loudly and noisily blown and beaten.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the procession pass along the street, the people being arranged in
+rows, each man some distance from his neighbour, but the rows close one
+behind another. There were the Goldsmiths, the Painters, the Masons, the
+Broderers, the Sculptors, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Sailors, the
+Fishermen, the Butchers, the Leatherers, the Clothmakers, the Bakers,
+the Tailors, the Cordwainers--indeed, workmen of all kinds, and many
+craftsmen and dealers who work for their livelihood. Likewise the
+shopkeepers and merchants and their assistants of all kinds were there.
+After these came the shooters with guns, bows, and cross-bows, and the
+horsemen and foot-soldiers also. Then followed the watch of the Lords
+Magistrates. Then came a fine troop all in red, nobly and splendidly
+clad. Before them, however, went all the religious Orders and the
+members of some Foundations very devoutly, all in their different robes.</p>
+
+<p>A very large company of widows also took part in this procession. They
+support themselves with their own hands and observe a special rule. They
+were all dressed from head to foot in white linen garments, made
+expressly for the occasion, very sorrowful to see. Among them I saw some
+very stately persons. Last of all came the Chapter of our Lady's Church,
+with all their clergy, scholars, and treasurers. Twenty persons bore the
+image of the Virgin Mary with the Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest
+manner, to the honour of the Lord God.</p>
+
+<p>In this procession very many delightful things were shown, most
+splendidly got up. Waggons were drawn along with masques upon ships and
+other structures. Behind them came the company of the Prophets in their
+order, and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the
+Three Holy Kings riding on great camels and on other rare beasts, very
+well arranged; also how our Lady fled to Egypt--very devout--and many
+other things, which for shortness I omit. At the end came a great Dragon
+which St. Margaret and her maidens led by a girdle; she was especially
+beautiful. Behind her came St. George with his squire, a very goodly
+knight in armour. In this host also rode boys and maidens most finely
+and splendidly dressed in the costumes of many lands, representing
+various Saints. From beginning to end the procession lasted more than
+two hours before it was gone past our house. And so many things were
+there that I could never write them all in a book, so I let it
+well alone.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>BRUSSELS <i>August</i> 26-<i>September</i> 3, 1520.</p>
+
+<p>In the golden chamber in the Townhall at Brussels I saw the four
+paintings which the great Master Roger van der Weyden<a name="FNanchor32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32"><sup>[32]</sup></a> made. And I
+saw out behind the King's house at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth,
+and Beast-garden<a name="FNanchor33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33"><sup>[33]</sup></a>; anything more beautiful and pleasing to me and
+more like a Paradise I have never seen. Erasmus is the name of the
+little man who wrote out my supplication at Herr Jacob de Bannisis'
+house. At Brussels is a very splendid Townhall, large, and covered with
+beautiful carved stonework, and it has a noble open tower. I took a
+portrait at night by candlelight of Master Konrad of Brussels, who was
+my host; I drew at the same time Doctor Lamparter's son in charcoal,
+also the hostess.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land
+of gold (Mexico), a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all
+of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armour of the
+people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and
+darts, very strange clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects
+of human use, much better worth seeing than prodigies. These things were
+all so precious that they are valued at 100,000 florins. All the days of
+my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these
+things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled
+at the subtle <i>Ingenia</i> of men in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot
+express all that I thought there.</p>
+
+<p>At Brussels I saw many other beautiful things besides, and especially I
+saw a fish bone there, as vast as if it had been built up of squared
+stones. It was a fathom long and very thick, it weighs up to 15 cwt.,
+and its form resembles that drawn here. It stood up behind on the fish's
+head. I was also in the Count of Nassau's house,<a name="FNanchor34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> which is very
+splendidly built and as beautifully adorned. I have again dined with my
+Lords (of N&uuml;rnberg).</p>
+
+<p>When I was in the Nassau house in the chapel there, I saw the good
+picture<a name="FNanchor35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> that Master Hugo van der Goes painted, and I saw the two
+fine large halls and the treasures everywhere in the house, also the
+great bed wherein fifty men can lie. And I <i>saw</i> the great stone which
+the storm cast down in the field near the Lord of Nassau. The house
+stands high, and from it there is a most beautiful view, at which one
+cannot but wonder: and I do not believe that in all the German lands the
+like of it exists.</p>
+
+<p>Master Bernard van Orley, the painter, invited me and prepared so costly
+a meal that I do not think ten fl. will pay for it. Lady Margaret's
+Treasurer (Jan de Marnix), whom I drew, and the King's Steward, Jehan de
+Metenye by name, and the Town-Treasurer named Van Busleyden invited
+themselves to it, to get me good company. I gave Master Bernard a
+<i>Passion</i> engraved in copper, and he gave me in return a black Spanish
+bag worth three fl. I have also given Erasmus of Rotterdam a <i>Passion</i>
+engraved in copper.</p>
+
+<p>I have once more taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait<a name="FNanchor36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> I gave Lorenz
+Sterk a sitting <i>Jerome</i> and the <i>Melancholy</i>, and took a portrait of my
+hostess' godmother. Six people whose portraits I drew at Brussels have
+given me nothing. I paid three st. for two buffalo horns, and one st.
+for two Eulenspiegels.<a name="FNanchor37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37"><sup>[37]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>ANTWERP, <i>September 6-October 4</i>, 1520.</p>
+
+<p>I have paid one st for the printed &quot;Entry into Antwerp,&quot; telling how the
+King was received with a splendid triumph--the gates very costly
+adorned--and with plays, great joy, and graceful maidens whose like I
+have seldom seen.<a name="FNanchor38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> I changed one fl. for expenses. I saw at Antwerp
+the bones of the giant. His leg above the knee is 5-1/2 ft. long and
+beyond measure heavy and very thick; so with his shoulder blades--a
+single one is broader than a strong man's back--and his other limbs. The
+man was 18 ft. high, had ruled at Antwerp and done wondrous great feats,
+as is more fully written about him in an old book,<a name="FNanchor39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39"><sup>[39]</sup></a> which the Lords
+of the Town possess.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: ERASMUS From a reproduction of the drawing in the &quot;L&eacute;on
+Bonnat&quot; collection, Bayonne <i>Face p.</i> 148]</p>
+
+<p>The studio (school) of Raphael of Urbino has quite broken up since his
+death,<a name="FNanchor40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> but one of his scholars, Tommaso Vincidor of Bologna<a name="FNanchor41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> by
+name, a good painter, desired to see me. So he came to me and has given
+me an antique gold ring with a very well cut stone. It is worth five
+fl., but already I have been offered the double for it. I gave him six
+fl. worth of my best prints for it. I bought a piece of calico for three
+st.; I paid the messenger one st.; three st. I spent in company.</p>
+
+<p>I have presented a whole set of all my works to Lady Margaret, the
+Emperor's daughter, and have drawn her two pictures on parchment with
+the greatest pains and care. All this I set at as much as thirty fl. And
+I have had to draw the design of a house for her physician the doctor,
+according to which he intends to build one; and for drawing that I would
+not care to take less than ten fl. I have given the servant one st., and
+paid one st. for brick-colour.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>October 1.--On Monday after Michaelmas, 1520, I gave Thomas of Bologna a
+whole set of prints to send for me to Rome to another painter who should
+send me Raphael's work<a name="FNanchor42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42"><sup>[42]</sup></a> in return. I dined once with my wife. I paid
+three st. for the little tracts. The Bolognese has made my portrait;<a name="FNanchor43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43"><sup>[43]</sup></a>
+he means to take it with him to Rome.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>AACHEN, <i>October 7-26, 1520</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>October</i> 7.--At Aachen I saw the well-proportioned pillars,<a name="FNanchor44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> with
+their good capitals of green and red porphyry (<i>Gassenstein</i>) which
+Charles the Great had brought from Rome thither and there set up. They
+are correctly made according to Vitruvius' writings.</p>
+
+<p><i>October</i> 23.--On October 23 King Karl was crowned at Aachen. There I
+saw all manner of lordly splendour, more magnificent than anything that
+those who live in our parts have seen--all, as it has been described.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>K&Ouml;LN, <i>October 26--November 14, 1520</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I bought a tract of Luther's for five white pf., and the &quot;Condemnation
+of Luther,&quot; the pious man, for one white pf.; also a rosary for one
+white pf. and a girdle for two white pf., a pound of candles for
+one white pf.</p>
+
+<p><i>November</i> 12.--I have made the nun's portrait. I gave the nun seven
+white pf. and three half-sheet engravings. My confirmation<a name="FNanchor45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45"><sup>[45]</sup></a> from the
+Emperor came to my Lords of N&uuml;rnberg for me on Monday after Martin's, in
+the year 1520, after great trouble and labour.</p>
+
+<p>ANTWERP, <i>November</i> %--<i>December</i> 3, 1520.</p>
+
+<p>At Zierikzee, in Zeeland, a whale has been stranded by a high tide and a
+gale of wind. It is much more than 100 fathoms long, and no man living
+in Zeeland has seen one even a third as long as this is. The fish cannot
+get off the land; the people would gladly see it gone, as they fear the
+great stink, for it is so large that they say it could not be cut in
+pieces and the blubber boiled down in half a year.</p>
+
+<p>ZEELAND, <i>December</i> 3-14, 1520.</p>
+
+<p><i>December</i> 8.--I went to Middelburg. There, in the Abbey, is a great
+picture painted by Jan de Mabuse--not so good in the modelling
+(<i>Hauptstreichen</i>) as in the colouring. I went next to the Veere, where
+lie ships from all lands; it is a very fine little town.</p>
+
+<p>At Arnemuiden, where I landed before, a great misfortune befel me. As we
+were pushing ashore and getting out our rope, a great ship bumped hard
+against us, as we were in the act of landing, and in the crush I had let
+every one get out before me, so that only I, Georg Kotzler,<a name="FNanchor46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46"><sup>[46]</sup></a> two old
+wives, and the skipper with a small boy were left in the ship. When now
+the other ship bumped against us, and I with those named was still in
+the ship and could not get out, the strong rope broke; and thereupon, in
+the same moment, a storm of wind arose, which drove our ship back with
+force. Then we all cried for help, but no one would risk himself for us.
+And the wind carried us away out to sea. Thereupon the skipper tore his
+hair and cried aloud, for all his men had landed and the ship was
+unmanned. Then were we in fear and danger, for the wind was strong and
+only six persons in the ship. So I spoke to the skipper that he should
+take courage (<i>er sollt ein Herz fahen</i>) and have hope in God, and that
+he should consider what was to be done. So he said that if he could haul
+up the small sail he would try if we could come again to land. So we
+toiled all together and got it feebly about half-way up, and went on
+again towards the land. And when the people on shore, who had already
+given us up, saw how we helped ourselves, they came to our aid and we
+got to land.</p>
+
+<p>Middelburg is a good town; it has a very beautiful Townhall with a fine
+tower. There is much art shown in all things here. In the Abbey the
+stalls are very costly and beautiful, and there is a splendid gallery of
+stone; and there is a fine Parish Church. The town was besides excellent
+for sketching (<i>k&ouml;stlich au konterfeyen</i>). Zeeland is fine and wonderful
+to see because of the water, for it stands higher than the land. I made
+a portrait of my host at Arnemuiden. Master Hugo and Alexander Imhof and
+Friedrich the Hirschvogels' servant gave me, each of them, an Indian
+cocoa-nut which they had won at play, and the host gave me a
+sprouting bulb.</p>
+
+<p><i>December</i> 9--Early on Monday we started again by ship and went by the
+Veere and Zierikzee and tried to get sight of the great fish,<a name="FNanchor47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47"><sup>[47]</sup></a> but
+the tide had carried him off again.</p>
+
+<p>ANTWERP, <i>December</i> 14--<i>April</i> 6, 1521</p>
+
+<p>I have eaten alone thus often.</p>
+
+<p>I took portraits of Gerhard Bombelli and the daughter of Sebastian the
+Procurator.</p>
+
+<p><i>February</i> 10.--On Carnival Sunday the goldsmiths invited me to dinner
+early with my wife. Amongst their assembled guests were many notable
+men. They had prepared a most splendid meal, and did me exceeding great
+honour. And in the evening the old Bailiff of the town<a name="FNanchor48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48"><sup>[48]</sup></a> invited me
+and gave a splendid meal, and did me great honour. Many strange masquers
+came there. I have drawn the portrait in charcoal of Florent Nepotis,
+Lady Margaret's organist. On Monday night Herr Lopez invited me to the
+great banquet on Shrove-Tuesday, which lasted till two o'clock, and was
+very costly. Herr Lorenz Sterk gave me a Spanish fur. To the
+above-mentioned feast very many came in costly masks, and especially
+Tomasin and Brandan. I won two fl. at play.</p>
+
+<p>I dined once with the Frenchman, twice with the Hirschvogels' Fritz, and
+once with Master Peter Aegidius<a name="FNanchor49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49"><sup>[49]</sup></a> the Secretary, when Erasmus of
+Rotterdam also dined with us.</p>
+
+<p>I have twice more drawn with the metal-point the portrait of the
+beautiful maiden for Gerhard.</p>
+
+<p>I made Tomasin a design, drawn and tinted in half colours, after which
+he intends to have his house painted.</p>
+
+<p>I bought the five silk girdles, which I mean to give away, for three fl.
+sixteen st.; also a border (<i>Borte</i>) for twenty st. These six borders I
+sent to the wives of Caspar N&uuml;tzel, Hans Imhof, Str&auml;ub, the two
+Spenglers, and L&ouml;ffelholz,<a name="FNanchor50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50"><sup>[50]</sup></a> and to each a good pair of gloves. To
+Pirkheimer I sent a large cap, a costly inkstand of buffalo horn, a
+silver Emperor, one pound of pistachios, and three sugar canes. To
+Caspar N&uuml;tzel I sent a great elk's foot, ten large fir cones, and cones
+of the stone-pine. To Jacob Muffel I sent a scarlet breastcloth of one
+ell; to Hans Imhof's child an embroidered scarlet cap and stone-pine
+nuts; to Kramer's wife four ells of silk worth four fl.; to Lochinger's
+wife one ell of silk worth one fl.; to the two Spenglers a bag and three
+fine horns each; to Herr Hieronymus Holzschuher a very large horn.</p>
+
+<p>BRUGES AND GHENT, <i>April</i> 6-11, 1521.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the chapel<a name="FNanchor51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51"><sup>[51]</sup></a> there which Roger painted, and some pictures by a
+great old master. I gave one st. to the man who showed us them. Then I
+bought three ivory combs for thirty st. They took me next to St. Jacob's
+and showed me the precious pictures by Roger and Hugo,<a name="FNanchor52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52"><sup>[52]</sup></a>
+who were both great masters. Then I saw in our Lady's Church the
+alabaster<a name="FNanchor53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53"><sup>[53]</sup></a> Madonna, sculptured by Michael Angelo of Rome. After that
+they took me to many more churches and showed me all the good pictures,
+of which there is an abundance there; and when I had seen the Jan van
+Eyck<a name="FNanchor54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54"><sup>[54]</sup></a> and all the other works, we came at last to the painters'
+chapel, in which there are good things. Then they prepared a banquet for
+me, and I went with them from it to their guild-hall, where many
+honourable men were gathered together, both goldsmiths, painters and
+merchants, and they made me sup with them. They gave me presents, sought
+to make my acquaintance, and did me great honour. The two brothers,
+Jacob and Peter Mostaert, the councillors, gave me twelve cans of wine;
+and the whole assembly, more than sixty persons, accompanied me home
+with many torches. I also saw at their shooting court the great fish-tub
+on which they eat; it is 19 feet long, 7 feet high, and 7 feet wide. So
+early on Tuesday we went away, but before that I drew with the
+metal-point the portrait of Jan Prost, and gave his wife ten st.
+at parting.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>On my arrival at Ghent the Dean of the Painters came to me and brought
+with him the first masters in painting; they showed me great honour,
+received me most courteously, offered me their goodwill and service, and
+supped with me. On Wednesday they took me early to the Belfry of St.
+John, whence I looked over the great wonderful town, yet in which even I
+had just been taken for something great. Then I saw Jan van Eycks
+picture;<a name="FNanchor55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55"><sup>[55]</sup></a> it is a most precious painting, full of thought (<i>ein
+&uuml;berk&ouml;stlich hochverst&auml;ndig Gem&uuml;hl</i>), and the Eve, Mary, and God the
+Father are specially good. Next I saw the lions and drew one with the
+metal-point.<a name="FNanchor56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56"><sup>[56]</sup></a> And I saw at the place where men are beheaded on the
+bridge, the two statues erected (in 1371) as a sign that there a son
+beheaded his father.<a name="FNanchor57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57"><sup>[57]</sup></a> Ghent is a fine and remarkable town; four great
+waters flow through it. I gave the sacristan (at St. Bavon's) and the
+lions' keepers three st. <i>trinkgeld</i>. I saw many wonderful things in
+Ghent besides, and the painters with their Dean did not leave me alone,
+but they ate with me morning and evening and paid for everything, and
+were very friendly to me. I gave away five st. at the inn at leaving.
+ANTWERP,
+<i>April</i>
+11-<i>May</i> 17, 1521.</p>
+
+<p>In the third week after Easter (April 21-27) a violent fever seized me,
+with great weakness, nausea, and headache. And before, when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me. I paid six st. for cases.
+The monk has bound two books for me in return for the art-wares which I
+gave him. I bought a piece of arras to make two mantles for my
+mother-in-law and my wife, for ten fl. eight st. I paid the doctor eight
+st., and three st. to the apothecary. I also changed one fl. for
+expenses, and spent three st. in company. Paid the doctor ten st. I
+again paid the doctor six st. During my illness Rodrigo has sent me many
+sweetmeats. I gave the lad four st. <i>trinkgeld</i>.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Drawing in silver-point on prepared ground, from the
+Netherlands sketch-book, in the Imperial Library, Vienna]</p>
+
+<p>On Friday (May 17) before Whit Sunday in the year 1521, came tidings to
+me at Antwerp, that Martin Luther had been so treacherously taken
+prisoner; for he trusted the Emperor Karl, who had granted him his
+herald and imperial safe conduct. But as soon as the herald had conveyed
+him to an unfriendly place near Eisenach he rode away, saying that he no
+longer needed him. Straightway there appeared ten knights, and they
+treacherously carried off the pious man, betrayed into their hands, a
+man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, a follower of the true Christian
+faith. And whether he yet lives I know not, or whether they have put him
+to death; if so, he has suffered for the truth of Christ and because he
+rebuked the unchristian Papacy, which strives with its heavy load of
+human laws against the redemption of Christ. And if he has suffered it
+is that we may again be robbed and stripped of the truth of our blood
+and sweat, that the same may be shamefully and scandalously squandered
+by idle-going folk, while the poor and the sick therefore die of hunger.
+But this is above all most grievous to me, that, may be, God will suffer
+us to remain still longer under their false, blind doctrine, invented
+and drawn up by the men alone whom they call Fathers, by whom also the
+precious Word of God is in many places wrongly expounded or
+utterly ignored.</p>
+
+<p>Oh God of heaven, pity us! Oh Lord Jesus Christ, pray for Thy people!
+Deliver us at the fit time. Call together Thy far-scattered sheep by Thy
+voice in the Scripture, called Thy godly Word. Help us to know this Thy
+voice and to follow no other deceiving cry of human error, so that we,
+Lord Jesus Christ, may not fall away from Thee. Call together again the
+sheep of Thy pasture, who are still in part found in the Roman Church,
+and with them also the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who
+have been scattered by the oppression and avarice of the Pope and by
+false appearance of holiness. Oh God, redeem Thy poor people constrained
+by heavy ban and edict, which it nowise willingly obeys, continually to
+sin against its conscience if it disobeys them. Never, oh God, hast Thou
+so horribly burdened a people with human laws as us poor folk under the
+Roman Chair, who daily long to be free Christians, ransomed by Thy
+blood. Oh highest, heavenly Father, pour into our hearts, through Thy
+Son, Jesus Christ, such a light, that by it we may know what messenger
+we are bound to obey, so that with good conscience we may lay aside the
+burdens of others and serve Thee, eternal, heavenly Father, with happy
+and joyful hearts.</p>
+
+<p>And if we have lost this man, who has written more clearly than any that
+has lived for 140 years, and to whom Thou hast given such a spirit of
+the Gospel, we pray Thee, oh heavenly Father, that Thou wouldst again
+give Thy Holy Spirit to one, that he may gather anew everywhere together
+Thy Holy Christian Church, that we may again live free and in Christian
+manner, and so, by our good works, all unbelievers, as Turks, Heathen,
+and Calicuts, may of themselves turn to us and embrace the Christian
+faith. But, ere Thou judgest, oh Lord, Thou wiliest that, as Thy Son,
+Jesus Christ, was fain to die by the hands of the priests, and to rise
+from the dead and after to ascend up to heaven, so too in like manner it
+should be with Thy follower Martin Luther, whose life the Pope
+compasseth with his money, treacherously towards God. Him wilt thou
+quicken again. And as Thou, oh my Lord, ordainedst thereafter that
+Jerusalem should for that sin be destroyed, so wilt thou also destroy
+this self-assumed authority of the Roman Chair. Oh Lord, give us then
+the new beautified Jerusalem, which descendeth out of heaven, whereof
+the Apocalypse writes, the holy, pure Gospel, which is not obscured by
+human doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>Every man who reads Martin Luther's books may see how clear and
+transparent is his doctrine, because he sets forth the holy Gospel.
+Wherefore his books are to be held in great honour, and not to be burnt;
+unless indeed his adversaries, who ever strive against the truth and
+would make gods out of men, were also cast into the fire, they and all
+their opinions with them, and afterwards a new edition of Luther's works
+were prepared. Oh God, if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound to
+us the holy Gospel with such clearness? What, oh God, might he not still
+have written for us in ten or twenty years!</p>
+
+<p>Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou an aged little
+man (<i>ein altes M&auml;nniken</i>), and myself have heard thee say that thou
+givest thyself but two years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to
+accomplish somewhat. Lay out the same well for the good of the Gospel
+and of the true Christian faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ
+says, shall the Gates of Hell (the Roman Chair) in no wise prevail
+against thee. And if here below thou wert to be like thy master Christ
+and sufferedst infamy at the hands of the liars of this time, and didst
+die a little the sooner, then wouldst thou the sooner pass from death
+unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou drinkest of the cup
+which He drank of, with Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice
+those who have dealt unrighteously. Oh Erasmus, cleave to this that God
+Himself may be thy praise, even as it is written of David. For thou
+mayest, yea verily thou mayest overthrow Goliath. Because God stands by
+the Holy Christian Church, even as He only upholds the Roman Church,
+according to His godly will. May He help us to everlasting salvation,
+who is God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, one eternal God. Amen.</p>
+
+<p>Oh ye Christian men, pray God for help, for His judgment draweth nigh
+and His justice shall appear. Then shall we behold the innocent blood
+which the Pope, Priests, Bishops, and Monks have shed, judged and
+condemned (<i>Apocal.</i>). These are the slain who lie beneath the Altar of
+God and cry for vengeance, to whom the voice of God answereth: Await the
+full number of the innocent slain, then will I judge.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>ANTWERP, <i>May</i> 17--<i>June</i> 7, 1521.</p>
+
+<p>Master Gerhard,<a name="FNanchor58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58"><sup>[58]</sup></a> the illuminator, has a daughter about eighteen years
+old named Susanna. She has illuminated a <i>Salvator</i> on a little sheet,
+for which I gave her one fl. It is very wonderful that a woman can do so
+much. I lost six st. at play. I saw the great Procession at Antwerp on
+Holy Trinity day. Master Konrad gave me a fine pair of knives, so I gave
+his little old man a <i>Life of our Lady</i> in return. I have made a
+portrait in charcoal of Master Jan,<a name="FNanchor59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59"><sup>[59]</sup></a> goldsmith of Brussels, also one
+of his wife. I have been paid two fl. for prints. Master Jan, the
+Brussels goldsmith, paid me three Philips fl. for what I did for him,
+the drawing for the seal and the two portraits. I gave the Veronica,
+which I painted in oils, and the <i>Adam and Eve</i> which Franz did, to Jan,
+the goldsmith, in exchange for a jacinth and an agate, on which a
+Lucretia is engraved. Each of us valued his portion at fourteen fl.
+Further, I gave him a whole set of engravings for a ring and six stones.
+Each valued his portion at seven fl. I bought two pairs of shoes for
+fourteen st., and two small boxes for two st. I changed two Philips fl.
+for expenses. I drew three <i>Leadings-forth</i><a name="FNanchor60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60"><sup>[60]</sup></a> and two Mounts of
+Olives on five half-sheets. I took three portraits in black and white on
+grey paper. I also sketched in black and white on grey paper two
+Netherland costumes. I painted for the Englishman his coat of arms, and
+he gave me one fl. I have also at one time and another done many
+drawings and other things to serve different people, and for the more
+part of my work have received nothing. Andreas of Krakau paid me one
+Philips fl. for a shield and a child's head. Changed one il. for
+expenses. I paid two fl. for sweeping-brushes. I saw the great
+procession at Antwerp on Corpus Christi day; it was very splendid. I
+gave four st. as trinkgeld. I paid the doctor six st. and one st. for a
+box. I have dined five times with Tomasin. I paid ten st. at the
+apothecary's, and gave his wife fourteen st. for the clyster and
+himself.... To the monk who confessed my wife I gave eight st.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>MECHLIN, <i>June 7 and 8, 1521</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;">
+
+<p>At Mechlin I lodged with Master Heinrich, the painter, at the sign of
+the Golden Head.<a name="FNanchor61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61"><sup>[61]</sup></a> And the painters and sculptors bade me as guest at
+my inn and did me great honour in their gathering. I went also to
+Poppenreuter<a name="FNanchor62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62"><sup>[62]</sup></a> the gunmaker's house, and found wonderful things there.
+And I went to Lady Margaret's and showed her my <i>Emperor,</i><a name="FNanchor63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63"><sup>[63]</sup></a> and would
+have presented it to her, but she so disliked it that I took it
+away with me.</p>
+
+<p>And on Friday Lady Margaret showed me all her beautiful things. Amongst
+them I saw about forty small oil pictures, the like of which for
+precision and excellence I have never beheld. There also I saw more good
+works by Jan (de Mabuse), and Jacob Walch.<a name="FNanchor64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64"><sup>[64]</sup></a> I asked my Lady for
+Jacob's little book, but she said she had already promised it to her
+painter.<a name="FNanchor65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65"><sup>[65]</sup></a> Then I saw many other costly things and a precious
+library.<a name="FNanchor66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66"><sup>[66]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>ANTWERP, <i>June</i> 8--<i>July</i> 3, 1521.</p>
+
+<p>Master Lukas, who engraves in copper, asked me as his guest. He is a
+little man, born at Leyden in Holland; he was at Antwerp.</p>
+
+<p>I have drawn with the metal-point the portrait of Master Lukas van
+Leyden.<a name="FNanchor67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67"><sup>[67]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The man with the three rings has overreached me by half. I did not
+understand the matter. I bought a red cap for my god-child<a name="FNanchor68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68"><sup>[68]</sup></a>for
+eighteen st. Lost twelve st. at play. Drank two st.</p>
+
+<p>Cornelius Grapheus, the Secretary, gave me Luther's &quot;Babylonian
+Captivity,&quot;<a name="FNanchor69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69"><sup>[69]</sup></a> in return for which I gave him my three Large Books.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: LUCAS VAN DER LEYDEN Drawing in charcoal formerly in the
+collection at Warwick Castle.]</p>
+
+<p>I reckoned up with Jobst and found myself thirty-one fl. in his debt,
+which I paid him; therein were charged and deducted the two portrait
+heads which I painted in oils, for which he gave five pounds of borax
+Netherlands weight. In all my doings, spendings, sales, and other
+dealings, in all my connections with high and low, I have suffered loss
+in the Netherlands; and Lady Margaret in particular gave me nothing for
+what I made and presented to her. And this settlement with Jobst was
+made on St. Peter and Paul's day.</p>
+
+<p>On our Lady's Visitation, as I was just about to leave Antwerp, the King
+of Denmark sent to me to come to him at once, and take his portrait,
+which I did in charcoal. I also did that of his servant Anton, and I was
+made to dine with the King, and he behaved graciously towards me. I have
+entrusted my bale to Leonhard Tucher and given over my white cloth to
+him. The carrier with whom I bargained did not take me; I fell out with
+him. Gerhard gave me some Italian seeds. I gave the new carrier
+(<i>Vicarius</i>) the great turtle shell, the fish-shield, the long pipe, the
+long weapon, the fish-fins, and the two little casks of lemons and
+capers to take home for me, on the day of our Lady's Visitation, 1521.</p>
+
+<p>BRUSSELS, <i>July</i> 3-12, 1521.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed how the people of Antwerp marvelled greatly when they saw the
+King of Denmark, to find him such a manly, handsome man and come hither
+through his enemy's land with only two attendants. I saw, too, how the
+Emperor rode forth from Brussels to meet him, and received him
+honourably with great pomp. Then I saw the noble, costly banquet, which
+the Emperor and Lady Margaret held next day in his honour.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Bologna has given me an Italian work of art; I have also bought a
+work for one st.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later when the D&uuml;rers arrived at Cologne the journal breaks
+off abruptly, as the last few leaves are missing: but there is every
+reason to suppose that they got back safely to Nuremberg two or three
+weeks later.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>This journal shows us how the influence of a greater centre of
+civilisation strengthened the spirit of the Renascence in D&uuml;rer: it is
+marked by his having again taken up the paint brushes to do the best
+sort of work, by a new out-break of the collector's acquisitiveness,
+lastly by the tone of such a passage as that wherein the procession on
+the Sunday after our Lady's Assumption (p. 145) is spoken of with
+admiration. &quot;Twenty persons bore the image of the Virgin Mary with the
+Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest manner, to the honour of the Lord
+God.&quot; Such a spectacle has a very different significance to his mind
+from that of another procession in honour of the Virgin, depicted in a
+woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer, which presents a large space in front of
+a temporary church; in the midst is a gaudy statue of the Virgin set
+upon a pillar, around whose base seven or eight persons of both sexes,
+whom one might suppose from their attitudes to be drunk, are seen
+writhing, while a procession headed by huge cierges and a cardinal's hat
+on a pole encircles the whole building; those in the procession carrying
+offerings or else candles, two men being naked save for scanty hair
+shirts. On the margin of the copy now at Coburg D&uuml;rer has written:
+&quot;1523, this Spectre, contrary to Holy Scripture, has set itself up at
+Regensburg and has been dressed out by the Bishop. God help us that we
+should not so dishonour His precious mother but (honour her?) in Christ
+Jesus. Amen.&quot; Indeed, it would be difficult to distinguish between the
+kind of honour done the Virgin in many of D&uuml;rer's pictures and etchings
+and that done her in the Antwerp procession; but both are infinitely
+removed from the degradation of emotion produced by an orgy of
+superstition such as that depicted in Ostendorfer's print, which is
+truly nearer akin to the scenes that occasionally occur in Salvation
+Army or Methodist revivals, and is even more repugnant to the spirit of
+the Renascence than to that of the Reformation as Luther and D&uuml;rer
+conceived of it. It is well to remind ourselves, by reading such a
+passage and by gazing at D&uuml;rer's Virgins enthroned and crowned with
+stars, that the attitude of later Protestants in regard to the worship
+of the Virgin was in no sense shared by D&uuml;rer. And we touch the very
+pulse of the Renaissance in the phrase, &quot;Being a painter, I looked about
+me a little more boldly,&quot;--by which D&uuml;rer explains that the beautiful
+maidens, almost naked, who figured in the mythological groups along the
+route of Charles V.'s triumphal entry into Antwerp received a very
+different reward, in his attentive gaze, to that which was meted to them
+by the young, austere, and unreformed Charles. One might almost be
+listening to Vasari when D&uuml;rer says: &quot;I saw out behind the King's house
+at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth and Beast-garden; anything more
+beautiful and pleasing to me and more like Paradise I have never seen.&quot;
+D&uuml;rer's admiration for Luther was like Michael Angelo's for Savonarola,
+and he never doubted that fiery indignation was directed against the
+abuse of wealth, force, and beauty, not against their use; though
+perhaps both the Italian and the German reformer occasionally
+confused the two.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Duress journey was successful in that he obtained from Charles V. what
+he sought--the confirmation of his privilegium.</p>
+
+<p>CHARLES, by God's grace, Roman Emperor Elect, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved,</p>
+
+<p>Whereas the most illustrious Prince, Emperor Maximilian, our dear lord
+and grandfather of praiseworthy memory, appointed and assigned unto our
+and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht D&uuml;rer the sum of 100
+florins Rhenish every year of his life to be paid from and out of our
+and the Empire's customary town contributions, which you are bound to
+render yearly into our Imperial Treasury; and whereas we, as Roman
+Emperor, have graciously agreed thereto, and have granted anew this life
+pension unto him according to the terms of the above letter; we
+therefore earnestly command you, and it is our will, that you render and
+give unto the said Albrecht D&uuml;rer henceforward every year of his life,
+from and out of the said town contributions and in return for his proper
+quittance, the said life pension of 100 florins Rhenish, together with
+whatever part of it stands over unpaid since the Emperor Maximilian's
+grant; etc.</p>
+
+<p>Given at our and the Holy Empire's town K&ouml;ln on the fourth day of the
+month November (1520), etc.</p>
+
+(Signed) KARL.<br>
+(Signed) ALBRECHT, Cardinal, Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor.<br>
+
+<p>Besides, he got back to Nuremberg without falling in with highwaymen,
+though the following little letter shows us that in this he was
+fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Master Wolf Stromer,--My most gracious lord of Salzburg has sent
+me a letter by the hand of his glass-painter. I shall be glad to do
+anything I can to help him. He is to buy glass and materials here. He
+tells me that near Freistadtlein he was robbed and had twenty florins
+taken from him. He has asked me to send him to you, for his gracious
+lord told him if he wanted anything to let you know. I send him,
+therefore, to your Wisdom with my apprentice. Your Wisdom's,</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt he had enriched his mind and cheered his heart in the company
+of prosperous, go-ahead, and earnest men; but as he says, &quot;when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me&quot; (see p. 156). And, alas! it
+was to remain with him till he died of it. So that his journey cannot be
+considered as altogether fortunate.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor24">[24]</a><blockquote> He was one of the leading Humanists of the time. The
+Madonna referred to was still at Bamberg, at the beginning of the
+present century.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor25">[25]</a><blockquote> Owing to the existence of some rudimentary form of
+Zollverein, D&uuml;rer's pass not only freed him of dues in the Bamberg
+district but as far down the Rhine as K&ouml;ln.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor26">[26]</a><blockquote> Hans Wolf, successor to Hans Wolfgang Katzheimer.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor27">[27]</a><blockquote> There is a portrait drawing of Jobst Plankfelt by D&uuml;rer in
+the St&auml;del collection at Frankfurt.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor28">[28]</a><blockquote> That is the head of the Fuggers' branch house at Antwerp.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor29">[29]</a><blockquote> Erasmus of Rotterdam, the famous Humanist.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor30">[30]</a><blockquote> Holbein also painted a portrait of this man in 1528. The
+picture is in the Louvre.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor31">[31]</a><blockquote> A pen-and-ink likeness of him by D&uuml;rer is in the
+possession of the painter Bendemann, of D&uuml;sseldorf. It bears the
+inscription in D&uuml;rer's hand, &quot;1520. <i>Hans Pfaffroth van Dantzgen ein
+Starkmann</i>.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor32">[32]</a><blockquote> These were four pictures painted upon linen. They
+represented <i>The justice of Trajan, Pope Gregory praying for the
+Heathen</i>, and two incidents in the story of Erkenbald. The pictures were
+burnt in 1695, but their compositions are reproduced in the well-known
+Burgundian tapestries at Bern. See Pinchart, in the <i>Bulletins de
+l'Academie de Bruxelles</i>, 2nd Series, XVII.: also Kinkel, <i>Die brusseler
+Rathhausbilder</i>, &amp;c., Zurich, 1867.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor33">[33]</a><blockquote> A rapid sketch made by D&uuml;rer in this place is in the
+Academy at Vienna. It is dated 1520, and inscribed, &quot;that is the
+pleasure and beast-garden at Brussels, seen down behind out of
+the Palace.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor34">[34]</a><blockquote> A reproduction of an old view of this house will be found
+in <i>L'Art</i>, 1884, I. p. 188.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor35">[35]</a><blockquote> This picture was painted on four panels and represented
+the Seven Sacraments and a Crucifix. It is now lost. A similar picture
+is in the Antwerp Gallery, ascribed to Roger van der Weyden.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor36">[36]</a><blockquote> This is perhaps the drawing in the Bounat collection at
+Paris; it has been photographed by Braun (see illus. opposite).</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor37">[37]</a><blockquote> It is believed that D&uuml;rer here refers to an edition of the
+satirical tale edited by Thomas Murner, and published at Strassburg
+in 1519.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor38">[38]</a><blockquote> &quot;He afterwards particularly described to Melanchthon the
+splendid spectacles he had beheld, and how in what were plainly
+mythological groups, the most beautiful maidens figured almost naked,
+and covered only with a thin transparent veil. The young Emperor did not
+hocour them with a single glance, but D&uuml;rer himself was very glad to get
+near, not less for the purpose of seeing the tableaux than to have the
+opportunity of observing closely the perfect figures of the young
+girls.&quot; As he himself says, &quot;Being a painter, I looked about me a little
+more boldly.&quot;--See Thausing's &quot;Life of D&uuml;rer,&quot; vol. ii., p. 181.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor39">[39]</a><blockquote> <i>Het oud register van diversche mandementen</i>, a
+fifteenth-century folio manuscript, still preserved in the Antwerp
+archives.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor40">[40]</a><blockquote> On April 6, 1520.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor41">[41]</a><blockquote> Tommaso was sent to Flanders in 1520 by Pope Leo X. to
+oversee the manufacture of the &quot;second series&quot; of tapestries. The
+painter does not seem to have returned to Italy.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor42">[42]</a><blockquote> Engravings by Marcantonio from Raphael's designs.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor43">[43]</a><blockquote> The picture is lost, but an engraving of it made by And.
+Stock in 1629 is well-known.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor44">[44]</a><blockquote> The fine monoliths brought from Ravenna and still to be
+seen in Aachen Cathedral.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor45">[45]</a><blockquote> The confirmation of his pension; <i>see</i> p. 166.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor46">[46]</a><blockquote> Member of a N&uuml;rnberg family.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor47">[47]</a><blockquote> The object of the whole expedition was doubtless, that
+D&uuml;rer might see and sketch the whale. In the British Museum is a study
+of a walrus by D&uuml;rer, dated 1521, and inscribed, &quot;The animal whose head
+I have drawn here was taken in the Netherlandish sea, and was twelve
+Brabant ells long and had four feet.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor48">[48]</a><blockquote> Gerhard van de Werve.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor49">[49]</a><blockquote> Pupil and afterwards friend of Erasmus.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor50">[50]</a><blockquote> These people were D&uuml;rer's principal N&uuml;rnberg friends.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor51">[51]</a><blockquote> It is assumed by commentators that <i>Chapel</i> means
+<i>Altar-piece</i>, and it is guessed that the particular altar-piece is the
+one in the Berlin Museum which Charles V. is reported to have carried
+about with him, and which belonged to the Miraflores Convent. The
+guesses are worthless.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor52">[52]</a><blockquote> In St. Jacob's was the <i>Entombment</i> by Hugo van der Goes.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor53">[53]</a><blockquote> It is in white marble. It was sculpted about 1501-6. Some
+critics have refused to accept it as a genuine work. D&uuml;rer ought to have
+been in a position to know the truth.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor54">[54]</a><blockquote> At this time there were plenty of his pictures at Bruges.
+D&uuml;rer doubtless saw his Madonna in St. Donatien's, now in the Academy of
+the same town.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor55">[55]</a><blockquote> The famous altar-piece painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck,
+of which the central part is still in its original place and the wings
+are divided, two of their panels being at Brussels and the rest
+at Berlin.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor56">[56]</a><blockquote> This drawing from D&uuml;rer's sketch-book is in the Court
+Library at Vienna (see pl. opposite).</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor57">[57]</a><blockquote> The story is recounted in <i>Flandria illustrata</i> (A.
+Sanderi, Colon., 1641, i. 149.)</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor58">[58]</a><blockquote> Gerhard Horeboul of Ghent. Charles V.'s 'Book of Hours' in
+the Vienna library is his work. He also had a hand in the Grimani
+Breviary. After 1521 he went to England and entered the service of Henry
+VIII. His daughter Susanna was likewise in the service of the English
+King. She married and died in England.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor59">[59]</a><blockquote> Perhaps Jan van den Perre, afterwards goldsmith to Charles
+V.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor60">[60]</a><blockquote> That is to say, drawings representing <i>Christ bearing HIS
+CROSS</i>. <i>Mount of Olives</i> means the Agony <i>in the</i> Garden.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor61">[61]</a><blockquote> The inn-keeper of the <i>Golden Head</i> is known to have been
+a painter. His name was Heinrich Keldermann.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor62">[62]</a><blockquote> Though born at K&ouml;ln, he was called Hans von N&uuml;rnberg. He
+was cannon-founder and gun-maker to Charles V.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor63">[63]</a><blockquote> Doubtless D&uuml;rer's portrait of Maximilian, now in the
+Gallery at Vienna, dated 1519. (<i>see</i> p. 215).</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor64">[64]</a><blockquote> Jacopo de' Barbari.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor65">[65]</a><blockquote> Bernard van Orley.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor66">[66]</a><blockquote> The catalogue of this library exists in the inventory of
+the Archduchess' possessions.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor67">[67]</a><blockquote> This is in the Mus&eacute;e Wicar at Lille; another portrait of
+Lukas van Leyden by D&uuml;rer was in the Earl of Warwick's collection (<i>see</i>
+opposite).</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor68">[68]</a><blockquote> Hieronymus Imhof.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor69">[69]</a><blockquote> A quarto tract by Luther, printed in 1520 (without place
+or date), entitled <i>Von der Babylonischen gefenglnuss der Kirchen</i>.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_LAST_YEARS"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S LAST YEARS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer came back home with health broken: yet it is to this period that
+the magnificent portraits at Berlin of Nuremberg Councillors belong, and
+certainly his hand and eye had never been more sure than when he
+produced them. The hall of the Rathhaus was decorated under his
+direction and from his designs, the actual painting being, it is
+supposed, chiefly the work of George Penz, who with his fellow prentices
+became famous in 1524 as one of &quot;the three godless painters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We now come to a letter dated</p>
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, <i>December</i> 5, 1523, Sunday after Andrew's</p>
+
+<p>My dear and gracious Master Frey--I have received the little book you
+sent to Master (Ulrich) Varnb&uuml;ler and me; when he has finished reading
+it I will read it too. As to the monkey-dance you want me to draw for
+you, I have drawn this one here, unskilfully enough, for it is a long
+time since I saw any monkeys; so pray put up with it. Convey my willing
+service to Herr Zwingli (the reformer), Hans Leu (a Protestant painter),
+Hans Urich, and my other good masters. ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER. Divide these five
+little prints amongst you: I have nothing else new.</p>
+
+<p>This Master Felix Frey was a reformer at Zurich: he was probably not
+closely related to Hans Frey, D&uuml;rer's father-in-law, whose death is thus
+recorded in D&uuml;rer's book:</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1523 (as they reckon it), on our dear Lady's Day, when she
+was offered in the Temple, early, before the morning chimes, Hans Frey,
+my dear father-in-law, passed away. He had lain ill for almost six years
+and suffered quite incredible adversities in this world. He received the
+Sacraments before he died. God Almighty be gracious to him.</p>
+
+<p>Next we have letters from and to Niklas Kratzer, Astronomer to Henry
+VIII. He had been present when D&uuml;rer drew Erasmus' portrait at Antwerp.
+D&uuml;rer had also made a drawing of Kratzer, and later on Holbein was to
+paint his masterpiece in the Louvre from the Oxford professor.</p>
+
+<p>To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht D&uuml;rer, burgher of N&uuml;rnberg,
+my dear Master and Friend. LONDON, <i>October</i> 24, 1524. Honourable,
+dear Sir,</p>
+
+<p>I am very glad to hear of your good health and that of your wife. I have
+had Hans Pomer staying with me in England. Now that you are all
+evangelical in N&uuml;rnberg I must write to you. God grant you grace to
+persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but God is stronger, and
+is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want
+you, dear Herr Albrecht D&uuml;rer, to make a drawing for me of the
+instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure
+distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp. Or perhaps
+Herr Pirkheimer would send me the design of it--he would be doing me a
+great favour. I want also to know how much a set of impressions of all
+your prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at N&uuml;rnberg
+relating to my art. I hear that our friend Hans, the astronomer, is
+dead. Would you write and tell me what instruments and the like he has
+left, and also where our Stabius' prints and wood-blocks are to be
+found? Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I hope to make him a map of
+England, which is a great country, and was unknown to Ptolemy. He would
+like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no
+more than a small part of it. You cannot write to me any longer through
+Hans Pomer. Pray send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S.
+Koloman.<a name="FNanchor70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70"><sup>[70]</sup></a>I have nothing more to say that would interest you, so God
+bless you. Given at London, October 24. Your servant, NIKLAS KRATZEH.
+Greet your wife heartily for me.</p>
+
+<p>To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his
+Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend.</p>
+
+<p>N&Uuml;RNBERG, Monday after Barbara's (<i>December</i> 5), 1524.</p>
+
+<p>First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received
+and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are
+going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer
+about the instrument you wanted to have. He is having one made for you,
+and is going to send it to you with a letter. The things Herr Hans left
+when he died have all been scattered; as I was away at the time of his
+death I cannot find out where they are gone to. The same has happened to
+Stabius' things; they were all taken to Austria, and I can tell you no
+more about them. I should like to know whether you have yet begun to
+translate Euclid into German, as you told me, if you had time, you
+would do.</p>
+
+<p>We have to stand in disgrace and danger for the sake of the Christian
+faith, for they abuse us as heretics; but may God grant us His grace and
+strengthen us in His word, for we must obey Him rather than men. It is
+better to lose life and goods than that God should cast us, body and
+soul, into hell-fire. Therefore, may He confirm us in that which is
+good, and enlighten our adversaries, poor, miserable, blind creatures,
+that they may not perish in their errors.</p>
+
+<p>Now God bless you! I send you two likenesses, printed from copper, which
+you will know well. At present I have no good news to write you, but
+much evil. However, only God's will cometh to pass. Your Wisdom's,</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>Another letter to D&uuml;rer from Cornelius Grapheus at Antwerp gives us some
+help towards understanding how the Reformation affected D&uuml;rer and
+his friends.</p>
+
+<p>To Master Albrecht D&uuml;rer, unrivalled chief in the art of painting, my
+friend and most beloved brother in Christ, at N&uuml;rnberg; or in his
+absence to Wilibald Pirkheimer.</p>
+
+<p>I wrote a good long letter to you, some time ago, in the name of our
+common friend Thomas Bombelli, but we have received no answer from you.
+We are, therefore, the more anxious to hear even three words from you,
+that we may know how you are and what is going on in your parts, for
+there is no doubt that great events are happening. Thomas Bombelli sends
+you his heartiest greeting. I beg you, as I did in my last letter, to
+greet Wilibald Pirkheimer a score of times for me. Of my own condition I
+will tell you nothing. The bearers of this letter will be able to
+acquaint you with everything. They are very good men and most sincere
+Christians. I commend, them to you and my friend Pirkheimer as if they
+were myself; for they, themselves the best of men, merit the highest
+recommendation to the best of men. Farewell, dearest Albrecht. Amongst
+us there is a great and daily increasing persecution on account of the
+Gospel. Our brethren, the bearers, will tell you all about it more
+openly. Again farewell.</p>
+
+<p>Wholly yours,</p>
+
+<p>CORNELIUS GRAPHEUS.</p>
+
+<p>ANTWERP, <i>February</i> 23, 1524.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>The events which made D&uuml;rer an ardent Evangelical and Reformer in a
+coarser paste proved a leaven of anarchy and subversion. Young,
+hot-headed nobles like Ulrich Von Hutten became iconoclastic, were
+foremost at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a
+part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they
+were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the
+unrest, discontent, and appetite for change took forms if not more
+offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a
+foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French
+Revolution. And in the towns men like &quot;the three godless painters&quot; made
+the burghers shake in their shoes for the social order which kept them
+rich and respected and others poor and servile. It is strange that all
+three should have come from D&uuml;rer's workshop. Probably they were the
+most talented prentices of the craft, since the great master chose them:
+besides, painting was an occupation which allowed of a certain
+intellectual development. They may have often listened with hungry ears
+to disputes between Pirkheimer and D&uuml;rer, and envied the good luck,
+grace and gift which had enabled the latter to bridge over a gulf as
+great as that which separated them from him, between him and Pirkheimer
+or Vamb&uuml;ler. All this and much more we can by taking thought imagine to
+our satisfaction; but the point which we would most desire to
+satisfactorily conjecture we are utterly in the dark about. Though his
+prentices were tried, D&uuml;rer appeared neither for nor against them; nor
+can we help ourselves to understand a fact so strange by any other
+mention of his attitude. He had a year or two previously married his
+servant, (perhaps the girl that his wife took with her to the
+Netherlands), to Georg Penz, who went the farthest in his scepticism,
+recanted soonest, and possessed least talent of the three. But this
+fact, which is not quite assured, narrows the grounds of conjecture but
+little; we still face an almost boundless blank. It is difficult to
+imagine that D&uuml;rer was quite as shocked as the Town Council by a man who
+said &quot;he had some idea that there was a God, but did not know rightly
+what conception to form of him,&quot; who was so unfortunate as to think
+&quot;nothing&quot; of Christ, and could not believe in the Holy Gospel or in the
+word of God; and who failed to recognise &quot;a master of himself, his goods
+and everything belonging to him&quot; in the Council of Nuremberg.
+Now-a-days, when we think of the licence of assertion that has obtained
+on these questions, we are inclined to admire the honesty and
+intellectual clarity of such a confession. And D&uuml;rer, who resolved the
+similar question of authority as to &quot;things beautiful&quot; in a manner much
+the same as this, may, we can at least hope, have viewed his prentices
+with more of pity than of anger. All the three &quot;godless painters&quot; were
+banished from reformed Nuremberg; but Georg, whose confession had been
+most godless, recanted and was allowed to return. The others, Sebald and
+Barthel Beham, managed to perpetuate their names as &quot;little masters&quot;
+without the approbation of the Town Councillors, and are to-day less
+forgotten than those who condemned them. Hieronymus Andreae, the most
+skilful and famous of D&uuml;rer's wood engravers, caused the Council the
+same kind of alarm and concern. He took part with the peasants in their
+rebellion; but rebellion against a known authority was more pardonable
+than that against the unknown, or else his services were of greater
+value. At any rate he was pardoned not once but many times, being
+apparently an obstreperous character.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>If we can form no conjecture as to D&uuml;rer's relations with his heretical
+aids, we have evidence as to his relations with their judges; for in
+1524 he wrote to the Town Council thus:</p>
+
+<p>Prudent, honourable and wise, most gracious Masters,--During long years,
+by hardworking pains and labour under Gods blessing, I have saved out of
+my earnings as much as 1000 florins Rhenish, which I should now be glad
+to invest for my support.</p>
+
+<p>I know, indeed, that your Honours are not often wont at the present time
+to grant interest at the rate of one florin for twenty; and I have been
+told that before now other applications of a like kind have been
+refused. It is not, therefore, without scruple that I address your
+Honours in this matter. Yet my necessities impel me to prefer this
+request to your Honours, and I am encouraged to do so above all by the
+particularly gracious favour which I have always received from your
+Honourable Wisdoms, as well as by the following considerations.</p>
+
+<p>Your Wisdoms know how I have always hitherto shown myself dutiful,
+willing, and zealous in all matters that concerned your Wisdoms and the
+common weal of the town. You know, moreover, how, before now, I have
+served many individual members of the Council, as well as of the
+community here, gratuitously rather than for pay, when they stood in
+need of my help, art, and labour. I can also write with truth that,
+during the thirty years I have stayed at home, I have not received from
+people in this town work worth 500 florins--truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum--and not a fifth part of that has been profit. I have, on
+the contrary, earned and attained all my property (which, God knows, has
+grown irksome to me) from Princes, Lords, and other foreign persons, so
+that I only spend in this town what I have earned from foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless, also, your Honours remember that at one time Emperor
+Maximilian, of most praiseworthy memory, in return for the manifold
+services which I had performed for him, year after year, of his own
+impulse and imperial charity wanted to make me free of taxes in this
+town. At the instance, however, of some of the elder Councillors, who
+treated with me in the matter in the name of the Council, I willingly
+resigned that privilege, in order to honour the said Councillors and to
+maintain their privileges, usages, and rights.</p>
+
+<p>Again, nineteen years ago, the government of Venice offered to appoint
+me to an office and to give me a salary of 200 ducats a year. So, too,
+only a short time ago when I was in the Netherlands, the Council of
+Antwerp would have given me 300 Philipsgulden a year, kept me there free
+of taxes, and honoured me with a well-built house; and besides I should
+have been paid in addition at both places for all the work I might have
+done for the gentry. But I declined all this, because of the particular
+love and affection which I bear to your honourable Wisdoms and to my
+fatherland, this honourable town, preferring, as I did, to live under
+your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather than to be rich and held in honour
+in other places.</p>
+
+<p>It is, therefore, my most submissive prayer to your Honours, that you
+will be pleased graciously to take these facts into consideration, and
+to receive from me on my account these 1000 florins, paying me 50
+florins a year as interest. I could, indeed, place them well with other
+respectable parties here and elsewhere, but I should prefer to see them
+in the hands of your Wisdoms. I and my wife will then, now that we are
+both growing daily older, feebler, and more helpless, possess the
+certainty of a fitting household for our needs; and we shall experience
+thereby, as formerly, your honourable Wisdoms' favour and goodwill. To
+merit this from your Honours with all my powers I shall ever be
+found willing.</p>
+
+<p>Your Wisdoms' willing, obedient burgher,</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer obtained the desired five per cent. on his savings annually until
+his death, and afterwards his widow received four per cent. until
+her death.</p>
+
+<p>In 1526 the grateful artist finished and dedicated to his
+fellow-townsmen his most important picture, representing the four
+temperaments in the persons of St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St.
+Mark; he wrote thus to the Council:</p>
+
+<p>Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters,--I have been intending, for a
+long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation
+of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance; but I have been
+prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my
+works, for I felt that with such I could not well stand before your
+Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I
+have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none
+more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent
+prayer that you will favourably and graciously receive it, and will be
+and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.</p>
+
+<p>Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.</p>
+
+<p>Your Wisdoms' humble</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>The gift was accepted, and the Council voted D&uuml;rer 100 florins, his wife
+10, and his apprentice 2. Underneath the two panels which form the
+picture, the following was inscribed; the texts being from
+Luther's Bible:</p>
+
+<p>All worldly rulers in these dangerous times should give good heed that
+they receive not human misguidance for the Word of God, for God will
+have nothing added to His Word nor taken away from it. Hear, therefore,
+these four excellent men, Peter, John, Paul, and Mark, their warning.</p>
+
+<p>Peter says in his Second Epistle in the second chapter: There were false
+prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
+among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying
+the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
+And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way
+of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they
+with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long
+time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.</p>
+
+<p>John in his First Epistle in the fourth chapter writes thus: Beloved,
+believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:
+because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye
+the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is
+come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that
+Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that
+spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and
+even now already is it in the world.</p>
+
+<p>In the Second Epistle to Timothy in the third chapter St. Paul writes:
+This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For
+men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,
+blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural
+affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
+despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers
+of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but
+denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are
+they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with
+sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come
+to the knowledge of the truth.</p>
+
+<p>St. Mark writes in his Gospel in the twelfth chapter: He said unto them
+in His doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long
+clothing, and love salutations in the market-places, and the chief seats
+in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts; which devour
+widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall
+receive greater damnation.</p>
+
+<p>These rather tremendous texts may make one fear that the &quot;three godless
+painters&quot; had found little pity in their master; but most sincere
+Christians are better than their creeds, and more charitable than the
+old-world imprecations, admonitions, and denunciations, with which they
+soothe their Cerberus of an old Adam, who is not allowed to use his
+teeth to the full extent that their formidable nature would seem to
+warrant. For have they not been told above all things to love their
+enemies, and do good to those whom they would naturally hate, by a
+master whom they really love and strive to imitate?</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer's last years were given more and more to writing down his ideas
+for the sake of those who, coming after him, would, he was persuaded, go
+on far before him in the race for perfection. In 1525 he published his
+first book--&quot;Instruction in the Measurement with the Compass, and Rules
+of Lines, Surfaces, and Solid Bodies, drawn up by Albert D&uuml;rer, and
+printed, for the use of all lovers of art, with appropriate diagrams.&quot;
+It contains a course of applied geometry in connection with Euclid's
+Elements. D&uuml;rer states from the very commencement that &quot;his book will be
+of no use to any one who understands the geometry of the 'very acute'
+Euclid; for it has been written only for the young, and for those who
+have had no one to instruct them accurately.&quot; Thausing tells us his work
+shows certain resemblances to that of Luca Pacioli, a companion of
+Leonardo's, who may have been the &quot;man who is willing to teach me the
+secrets of the art of perspective,&quot; and whom D&uuml;rer in 1506 travelled
+from Venice to Bologna to see; it is even possible that he saw Leonardo
+himself in the latter town. In 1527 he issued an essay on the &quot;Art of
+Fortification,&quot; which the development of artillery was then
+transforming; and authorities on this very special science tell us that
+D&uuml;rer is the true author of the ideas on which the &quot;new Prussian system&quot;
+was founded. It was dread of the unchristian Turk who was then besieging
+Vienna which called forth from D&uuml;rer this excursion. He dedicated it in
+the following terms:</p>
+
+<p>To the most illustrious, mighty prince and lord, Lord Ferdinand, King of
+Hungary and Bohemia, Infant of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Duke of
+Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and Tirol, his Roman
+Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, Regent in the Holy Empire, my
+most gracious Sire.</p>
+
+<p>Most illustrious mighty King, most gracious Sire,--During the lifetime
+of the most illustrious and mighty Emperor Maximilian of praiseworthy
+memory, your Majesty's Lord and Grandsire, I experienced grace and
+favour from his Imperial Majesty; wherefore I consider myself no less
+bound to serve your Majesty according to my small powers. As it
+happeneth that your Majesty has commanded some towns and places to be
+fortified, I am induced to make known what little I know about these
+matters, if perchance it may please your Majesty to gather somewhat
+therefrom. For though my theory may not be accepted in every point,
+still I believe something will arise from it, here and there, useful not
+to your Majesty only, but to all other Princes, Lords, and Towns, that
+would gladly protect themselves against violence and unjust oppression.
+I therefore humbly pray your Majesty graciously to accept from me this
+evidence of my gratitude, and to be my most gracious lord,</p>
+
+<p>Your Royal Majesty's most humble</p>
+
+<p>ALBRECHT D&Uuml;RER.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that at any rate the Kronenburg Gate and Roseneck bastion of
+Strasburg were actually constructed in accordance with D&uuml;rer's method.</p>
+
+<p>When, on April 6, 1528, D&uuml;rer died suddenly, two volumes of his great
+work on &quot;Human Proportions&quot; were ready for the press, and enough raw
+material, notes, drawings,&amp;c., to enable his friend Pirkheimer to
+prepare and issue the remaining two with them. Of the misunderstanding
+of this the most important of D&uuml;rer's writings I shall say nothing here,
+as I have devoted a separate chapter to it.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>It seems probable that the &quot;wondrous sickness which overcame me in
+Zeeland, such as I never heard of from any man, and which sickness
+remains with me&quot; of the Netherlands Journal (p. 156) was an intermittent
+fever. There exists at Bremen a sketch of D&uuml;rer, nude down to the waist,
+and pointing with his finger to a spot between the pit of the stomach
+and the groin, which spot he has coloured yellow; and from its size,
+with the other descriptions of his malady, the skilful have arrived at
+the above diagnosis. The words on the sketch, &quot;The yellow spot to which
+my finger points is where it pains me,&quot; seem to indicate that he had
+made it to send to some skilled physician. Thausing suggests either
+Master Jacob or Master Braun, whom he had met at Antwerp, and deduces
+from the length of his hair and the apparent vigour of his body, that
+the drawing was made soon after the disease was contracted. All doubt as
+to its nature would be removed, could it be made certain that by the
+words, &quot;I have sent to your Grace early this year before I became ill,&quot;
+in a letter to the Elector Albert dated September 4, 1523, D&uuml;rer meant
+to imply that at a certain period he became ill every year; but of
+course it is impossible to be sure of this.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>If not rich, D&uuml;rer died comfortably off. Thausing tells us that his
+&quot;widow entered into possession of his whole fortune;&quot; a fourth part
+belonged, according to Nuremberg law, to his brothers, but she was not
+bound to render it to them before her death. On June 9, 1530, however,
+she &quot;of her own desire, and on account of the friendly feeling which she
+entertained for them for her husband's sake, and as her dear
+brothers-in-law,&quot; made over both to Andreas D&uuml;rer, goldsmith, and to
+Caspar Altmulsteiner, on behalf of Hans D&uuml;rer, then in the service of
+the King of Poland, a sum of 553 florins, three pounds, eleven pfennigs,
+and gave them a mortgage for the remaining sum of 608 florins, two
+pounds, twenty-four pfennigs on the corner house in the Zistelgasse, now
+called the D&uuml;rer House; for the property had been valued at 6848
+florins, seven pounds, twenty-four pfennigs. Johann Neud&ouml;rffer, who
+lived opposite the D&uuml;rers, has recorded the fact that D&uuml;rer's brother
+Endres inherited all his expensive colours, his copper plates and wood
+blocks, as well as any impressions there were, and all his drawings
+beside. And a year before her death, Agnes D&uuml;rer gave the interest on
+the 1000 florins invested in the town to found a scholarship for
+theological students at the University of Wittenberg; about which
+Melanchthon wrote to von Dietrich that he thanked God for this aid to
+study, and that he had praised this good deed of the widow D&uuml;rer before
+Luther and others. And yet Pirkheimer, in his spleen at having lost the
+chance of procuring some stags' antlers which had belonged to his
+friend, and which he coveted, could write of Agues D&uuml;rer: &quot;She watched
+him day and night and drove him to work ... that he might earn money
+and leave it her when he died. For she always thought she was on the
+borders of ruin--as for the matter of that she does still--though
+Albrecht left her property worth as much as six thousand florins. But
+there! nothing was enough; and, in fact, she alone is the cause of his
+death!&quot; We know that what with the four Apostles and his books D&uuml;rer's
+last years were not spent on remunerative labours; nor does the
+Netherlands Journal contain any hint that his wife tried to restrict the
+employment either of his time or money. His journey into Zeeland was a
+pure extravagance; for the sale of a copper engraving or woodcut of a
+whale would have taken some time to make up for such an expense, and, as
+it turned out, no whale was seen or drawn; and there is no hint that
+Frau D&uuml;rer made reproach or complaint. On the other hand, Pirkheimer's
+words probably had some slight basis; and as D&uuml;rer's sickness increased
+upon him, while at the same time he applied himself less and less to
+making money, the anxious Frau may have become fretful or even nagging
+at times; and Pirkheimer, whose companionship was probably a cause of
+extravagances to D&uuml;rer, may have been scolded by Agnes, or heard his
+friend excuse himself from taking part in some convivial meeting, on the
+plea that his wife found he was spending out of proportion to his
+takings at the moment.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>We have the testimony of a good number of D&uuml;rer's friends as to the
+value of his character; and first let us quote from Pirkheimer--writing
+immediately after D&uuml;rer's death and before' the loss of the coveted
+antlers had vexed him--to a common friend Ulrich, probably Ulrich
+Varnb&uuml;ler.</p>
+
+<p>What can be more grievous for a man than to have continually to mourn,
+not only children and relations whom death steals from him, but friends
+also, and among them those whom he loved best? And though I have often
+had to mourn the loss of relations, still I do not know that any death
+ever caused me such grief as fills me now at the sudden departure of our
+good and dear Albrecht D&uuml;rer. Nor is this without reason, for of all men
+not united to me by ties of blood, I have never loved or esteemed any
+like him for his countless virtues and rare uprightness. And because I
+know, my dear Ulrich, that this blow has struck both you and me alike, I
+have not been afraid to give vent to my grief before you of all others,
+so that together we may pay the fitting tribute of tears to such a
+friend. He is gone, good Ulrich; our Albrecht is gone! Oh, inexorable
+decree of fate! Oh, miserable lot of man! Oh, pitiless severity of
+death! Such a man, yea, such a man, is torn from us, while so many
+useless and worthless men enjoy lasting happiness, and live only
+too long!</p>
+
+<p>Thausing insists on the fact that in this letter there is no mention of
+D&uuml;rer's death having been caused by his wife's behaviour; but as the
+relation of Ulrich to the deceased seems to have been well-nigh as
+intimate as his own, there may have been no need to mention a fact
+painfully present to both their minds. On the other hand, it is at least
+as probable that the idea was not present even to the mind of the
+writer, who, in a style less studiously commonplace, inscribed on
+D&uuml;rer's tomb:</p>
+
+<p>Me. AL. DU.</p>
+
+<p>QVICQVID ALBERTI DVRERI MORTALE FVIT, SVB HOC CONDITVR TVMVLO. EMIGRAVIT
+VIII IDVS APRILIS MDXXVIII.</p>
+
+<p>(To the memory of Albrecht D&uuml;rer. All that was mortal of Albrecht D&uuml;rer
+is laid beneath this mound. He departed on April 6, 1528.)</p>
+
+<p>Luther wrote to Eoban Hesse:</p>
+
+<p>As to D&uuml;rer, it is natural and right to weep for so excellent a man;
+still you should rather think him blessed, as one whom Christ has taken
+in the fulness of His wisdom, and by a happy death, from these most
+troublous times, and perhaps from times even more troublous which are to
+come, lest one who was worthy to look upon nothing but excellence should
+be forced to behold things most vile. May he rest in peace. Amen.</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus had some months before written and printed in a treatise on the
+right pronunciation of Latin and Greek an eulogy of D&uuml;rer. It is not
+known whether a copy had reached him before his death; in any case to
+most people it came like a funeral oration from the greatest scholar on
+the greatest artist north of the Alps. Thausing quotes the following
+passage from it:</p>
+
+<p>I have known D&uuml;rer's name for a long time as that of the first celebrity
+in the art of painting. Some call him the Apelles of our time. But I
+think that did Apelles live now, he, as an honourable man, would give
+the palm to D&uuml;rer. Apelles, it is true, made use of few and unobtrusive
+colours, but still he used colours; while D&uuml;rer,--admirable as he is,
+too, in other respects,--what can he not express with a single
+colour--that is to say, with black lines? He can give the effect of
+light and shade, brightness, foreground and background. Moreover, he
+reproduces <i>not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also observes
+the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the position of
+it</i>. He can also transfer by enchantment, so to say, upon the canvas,
+things which it seems not possible to represent, such as fire, sunbeams,
+storms, lightning, and mist; he can portray every passion, show us the
+whole soul of a man shining through his outward form; nay, even make us
+hear his very speech. All this he brings so happily before the eye with
+those black lines, that the picture would lose by being clothed in
+colour. Is it not more worthy of admiration to achieve without the
+winning charm of colour what Apelles only realised with its assistance?</p>
+
+<p>Melanchthon wrote in a letter to Camerarius:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It grieves me to see Germany deprived of such an artist and such a
+man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And we learn from his son-in-law, Caspar Penker, that he often spoke of
+D&uuml;rer with affection and respect; he writes:</p>
+
+<p>Melanchthon was often, and many hours together, in Pirkheimer's company,
+at the time when they were advising together about the churches and
+schools at N&uuml;rnberg; and D&uuml;rer, the painter, used <i>also</i> to be invited
+to dinner with them. D&uuml;rer was a man of great shrewdness, and
+Melanchthon used to say of him that though he excelled in the art of
+painting, it was the least of his accomplishments. Disputes often arose
+between Pirkheimer and D&uuml;rer on these occasions about the matters
+recently discussed, and Pirkheimer used vehemently to oppose D&uuml;rer.
+D&uuml;rer was an excessively subtle disputant, and refuted his adversary's
+arguments, just as if he had come fully prepared for the discussion.
+Thereupon Pirkheimer, who was rather a choleric man and liable to very
+severe attacks of the gout, fired up and burst forth again and again
+into such words as these, &quot;What you say cannot be painted.&quot; &quot;Nay!&quot;
+rejoined D&uuml;rer, &quot;but what you advance cannot be put into words or even
+figured to the mind.&quot; I remember hearing Melanchthon often tell this
+story, and in relating it he confessed his astonishment at the ingenuity
+and power manifested by a painter in arguing with a man of
+Pirkheimer's renown.</p>
+
+<p>Such scenes no doubt took place during the years after D&uuml;rer's return
+from the Netherlands. Melanchthon also wrote in a letter to George
+von Anhalt:</p>
+
+<p>I remember how that great man, distinguished alike by his intellect and
+his virtue, Albrecht D&uuml;rer the painter, said that as a youth he had
+loved bright pictures full of figures, and when considering his own
+productions had always admired those with the greatest variety in them.
+But as an older man, he had begun to observe nature and reproduce it in
+its native forms, and had learned that this simplicity was the greatest
+ornament of art. Being unable completely to attain to this ideal, he
+said that he was no longer an admirer of his works as heretofore, but
+often sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought over his want
+of power.</p>
+
+<p>And in another letter he remembers that D&uuml;rer would say that in his
+youth he had found great pleasure in representing monstrous and unusual
+figures, but that in his later years he endeavoured to observe nature,
+and to imitate her as closely as possible; experience, however, had
+taught him how difficult it was not to err. And Thausing continues:
+&quot;Melanchthon speaks even more frequently of how D&uuml;rer was pleased with
+pictures he had just finished, but when he saw them after a time, was
+ashamed of them; and those he had painted with the greatest care
+displeased him so much at the end of three years that he could scarcely
+look at them without great pain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And this on his appreciation of Luther's writings:</p>
+
+<p>Albrecht D&uuml;rer, painter of N&uuml;rnberg, a shrewd man, once said that there
+was this difference between the writings of Luther and other
+theologians. After reading three or four paragraphs of the first page of
+one of Luther's works he could grasp the problem to be worked out in the
+whole. This clearness and order of arrangement was, he observed, the
+glory of Luther's writings. He used, on the contrary, to say of other
+writers that, after reading a whole book through, he had to consider
+attentively what idea it was that the author intended to convey.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, Camerarius, the professor of Greek and Latin in the new school
+of Nuremberg, in his Latin translation of D&uuml;rer's book on &quot;Human
+Proportions,&quot; writes thus:</p>
+
+<p>It is not my present purpose to talk about art. My purpose was to speak
+somewhat, as needs must be, of the artificer, the author of this book.
+He, I trust, has become known by his virtue and his deserts, not only to
+his own country, but to foreign nations also. Full well I know that his
+praises need not our trumpetings to the world, since by his excellent
+works he is exalted and honoured with undying glory. Yet, as we were
+publishing his writings, and an opportunity arose of committing to print
+the life and habits of a remarkable man and a very dear friend of ours,
+we have judged it expedient to put together some few scraps of
+information, learnt partly from the conversations of others and partly
+from our own intercourse with him. This will give some indication of his
+singular skill and genius as artist and man, and cannot fail of
+affording pleasure to the reader. We have heard that our Albrecht was of
+Hungarian extraction, but that his forefathers emigrated to Germany. We
+can, therefore, have but little to say of his origin and birth. Though
+they were honourable, there can be no question but that they gained more
+glory from him than he from them.</p>
+
+<p>Nature bestowed on him a body remarkable in build and stature, and not
+unworthy of the noble mind it contained; that in this, too, Nature's
+Justice, extolled by Hippocrates, might not be forgotten--that Justice,
+which, while it assigns a grotesque form to the ape's grotesque soul, is
+wont also to clothe noble minds in bodies worthy of them. His head was
+intelligent,<a name="FNanchor71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71"><sup>[71]</sup></a> his eyes flashing, his nose nobly formed, and, as the
+Greeks say, tetr&aacute;g&ocirc;non. His neck was rather long, his chest broad, his
+body not too stout, his thighs muscular, his legs firm and steady. But
+his fingers--you would vow you had never seen anything more elegant.</p>
+
+<p>His conversation was marked by so much sweetness and wit, that nothing
+displeased his hearers so much as the end of it. Letters, it is true, he
+had not cultivated, but the great sciences of Physics and Mathematics,
+which are perpetuated by letters, he had almost entirely mastered. He
+not only understood principles and knew how to apply them in practice,
+but he was able to set them forth in words. This is proved by his
+geometrical treatises, wherein I see nothing omitted, except what he
+judged to be beyond the scope of his work. An ardent zeal impelled him
+towards the attainment of all virtue in conduct and life, the display of
+which caused him to be deservedly held a most excellent man. Yet he was
+not of a melancholy severity nor of a repulsive gravity; nay, whatever
+conduced to pleasantness and cheerfulness, and was not inconsistent
+with honour and rectitude, he cultivated all his life and approved even
+in his old age. The works he has left on Gymnastic and Music are of such
+character.</p>
+
+<p>But Nature had specially designed him for a painter, and therefore he
+embraced the study of that art with all his energies, and was ever
+desirous of observing the works and principles of the famous painters of
+every land, and of imitating whatever he approved in them. Moreover,
+with respect to those studies, he experienced the generosity and won the
+favour of the greatest kings and princes, and even of Maximilian himself
+and his grandson the Emperor Charles; and he was rewarded by them with
+no contemptible salary. But after his hand had, so to speak, attained
+its maturity, his sublime and virtue-loving genius became best
+discoverable in his works, for his subjects were fine and his treatment
+of them noble. You may judge the truth of these statements from his
+extant prints in honour of Maximilian, and his memorable astronomical
+diagrams, not to mention other works, not one of which but a painter of
+any nation or day would be proud to call his own. The nature of a man is
+never more certainly and definitely shown than in the works he produces
+as the fruit of his art.... What single painter has there ever been who
+did not reveal his character in his works? Instead of instances from
+ancient history, I shall content myself with examples from our own time.
+No one can fail to see that many painters have sought a vulgar celebrity
+by immodest pictures. It is not credible that those artists can be
+virtuous, whose minds and fingers composed such works. We have also seen
+pictures minutely finished and fairly well coloured, wherein, it is
+true, the master showed a certain talent and industry; but art was
+wanting. Albrecht, therefore, shall we most justly admire as an earnest
+guardian of piety and modesty, and as one who showed, by the magnitude
+of his pictures, that he was conscious of his own powers, although none
+even of his lesser works is to be despised. You will not find in them a
+single line carelessly or wrongly drawn, not a single superfluous dot.</p>
+
+<p>What shall I say of the steadiness and exactitude of his hand? You might
+swear that rule, square, or compasses had been employed to draw lines,
+which he, in fact, drew with the brush, or very often with pencil or
+pen, unaided by artificial means, to the great marvel of those who
+watched him. Why should I tell how his hand so closely followed the
+ideas of his mind that, in a moment, he often dashed upon paper, or, as
+painters say, composed, sketches of every kind of thing with pencil or
+pen? I see I shall not be believed by my readers when I relate, that
+sometimes he would draw separately, not only the different parts of a
+composition, but even the different parts of bodies, which, when joined
+together, agreed with one another so well that nothing could have fitted
+better. In fact this consummate artist's mind endowed with all knowledge
+and understanding of the truth and of the agreement of the parts one
+with another, governed and guided his hand and bade it trust to itself
+without any other aids. With like accuracy he held the brush, wherewith
+he drew the smallest things on canvas or wood without sketching them in
+beforehand, so that, far from giving ground for blame, they always won
+the highest praise. And this was a subject of greatest wonder to most
+distinguished painters, who, from their own great experience, could
+understand the difficulty of the thing.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot forbear to tell, in this place, the story of what happened
+between him and Giovanni Bellini. Bellini had the highest reputation as
+a painter at Venice, and indeed throughout all Italy. When Albrecht was
+there he easily became intimate with him, and both artists naturally
+began to show one another specimens of their skill. Albrecht frankly
+admired and made much of all Bellini's works. Bellini also candidly
+expressed his admiration of various features of Albrecht's skill, and
+particularly the fineness and delicacy with which he drew hairs. It
+chanced one day that they were talking about art, and when their
+conversation was done Bellini said: &quot;Will you be so kind, Albrecht, as
+to gratify a friend in a small matter?&quot; &quot;You shall soon see,&quot; says
+Albrecht, &quot;if you will ask of me anything I can do for you.&quot; Then says
+Bellini: &quot;I want you to make me a present of one of the brushes with
+which you draw hairs.&quot; D&uuml;rer at once produced several, just like other
+brushes, and, in fact, of the kind Bellini himself used, and told him to
+choose those he liked best, or to take them all if he would. But
+Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: &quot;No, I don't mean these,
+but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they
+must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep
+such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved.&quot; &quot;I
+use no other than these,&quot; says Albrecht, &quot;and to prove it, you may watch
+me.&quot; Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long
+wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the most regular order
+and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and afterwards confessed to
+many that no human being could have convinced him by report of the truth
+of that which he had seen with his own eyes.</p>
+
+<p>A similar tribute was given him, with conspicuous candour, by Andrea
+Mantegna, who became famous at Mantua by reducing painting to some
+severity of law--a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up
+broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It
+is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not
+trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is
+held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. While Andrea
+was lying ill at Mantua he heard that Albrecht was in Italy, and had him
+summoned to his side at once, in order that he might fortify his
+(Albrecht's) facility and certainty of hand with scientific knowledge
+and principles. For Andrea often lamented in conversation with his
+friends that Albrecht's facility in drawing had not been granted to him
+nor his learning to Albrecht. On receiving the message Albrecht, leaving
+all other engagements, prepared for the journey without delay. But
+before he could reach Mantua Andrea was dead, and D&uuml;rer used to say that
+this was the saddest event in all his life; for, high as Albrecht stood,
+his great and lofty mind was ever striving after something yet
+above him.</p>
+
+<p>Almost with awe have we gazed upon the bearded face of the man, drawn by
+himself, in the manner we have described, with the brush on the canvas
+and without any previous sketch. The locks of the beard are almost a
+cubit long, and so exquisitely and cleverly drawn, at such regular
+distances and in so exact a manner, that the better any one understands
+art, the more he would admire it, and the more certain would he deem it
+that in fashioning these locks the hand had employed artificial aid.</p>
+
+<p>Further, there is nothing foul, nothing disgraceful in his work. The
+thoughts of his most pure mind shunned all such things. Artist worthy of
+success! How like, too, are his portraits! How unerring! How true!</p>
+
+<p>All these perfections he attained by reducing mere practice to art and
+method, in a way new at least to German painters. With Albrecht all was
+ready, certain, and at hand, because he had brought painting into the
+fixed track of rule and recalled it to scientific principles; without
+which, as Cicero said, though some things may be well done by help of
+nature, yet they cannot always be ready to hand, because they are done
+by chance. He first worked his principles out for his own use;
+afterwards with his generous and open nature he attempted to explain
+them in books, written to the illustrious and most learned Wilibald
+Pirkheimer. And he dedicated them to him in a most elegant letter which
+we have not translated, because we felt it to be beyond our power to
+render it into Latin without, so to speak, disfiguring its natural
+countenance. But before he could complete and publish the books, as he
+had hoped, he was carried off by death--a death, calm indeed and
+enviable, but in our view premature. If there was anything at all in
+that man which could seem like a fault, it was his excessive industry,
+which often made unfair demands upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Death, as we have said, removed him from the publication of the work
+which he had begun, but his friends completed the task from his own
+manuscript. About this, in the next place, and about our own version, we
+shall say a few words. The work, being founded on a sort of geometrical
+system, is unpolished and devoid of literary style; so it seems rather
+rugged. But that is easily forgiven in consideration of the excellence
+of the matter. He requested me himself, only a few days before his
+death, to translate it into Latin while he should correct it; and I
+willingly turned my attention and studies to the work. But death, which
+takes everything, took from him his power of supervision and correction.
+His friends subsequently, after publishing the work, prevailed on me, by
+their claims rather than their requests, to undertake the Latin
+translation, and to complete after his death the task D&uuml;rer had laid
+upon me in his life.</p>
+
+<p>If I find that my industry and devotion in this matter meet with my
+readers' approval, I shall be encouraged to translate into Latin the
+rest of Albrecht's treatise on painting, a work at once more finished
+and more laborious than the present. Moreover, his writings on other
+subjects will also be looked for, his Geometries and Tichismatics, in
+which he explained the fortification of towns according to the system of
+the present day. These, however, appear to be all the subjects on which
+he wrote books. As to the promise, which I hear certain persons are
+making in conversation or in writing, to publish a book by D&uuml;rer on the
+symmetry of the parts of the horse, I cannot but wonder from what
+source they will obtain after his death what he never completed during
+his life. Although I am well aware that Albrecht had begun to
+investigate the law of truth in this matter too, and had made a certain
+number of measurements, I also know that he lost all he had done through
+the treachery of certain persons, by whose means it came about that the
+author's notes were stolen, so that he never cared to begin the work
+afresh. He had a suspicion, or rather a certainty, as to the source
+whence came the drones who had invaded his store; but the great man
+preferred to hide his knowledge, to his own loss and pain, rather than
+to lose sight of generosity and kindness in the pursuit of his enemies.
+We shall not, therefore, suffer anything that may appear to be
+attributed to Albrecht's authorship, unworthy as it must evidently be of
+so great an artist.</p>
+
+<p>A few years ago some tracts also appeared in German, containing rules,
+in general faulty and inappropriate, about the same matter. On these I
+do not care now to waste words, though the author, unless I am much
+mistaken, has not once repented of his publication. But these rules
+above-mentioned, which are easily proved to be Albrecht's, not only
+because he prepared them himself for publication, but also because of
+their own excellence, you will, I think, obtain considerably better here
+than from other sources. Not that they are more finished in point of
+erudition and learning in the present book than elsewhere, but because
+those who interpret them in the author's own workshop, among the
+expansions and corrections of his autograph manuscripts and the
+variations of his different copies, stand in the light about many
+points, which must of necessity seem obscure to others, however learned
+they may be.</p>
+
+<p>This will be seen in the case of the book on Geometry, which a learned
+man has in hand and will shortly publish in a more elaborate form, and
+with more explanation of certain points than it possesses at present.
+For it will be increased by no less than twenty-six [Greek: sch&ecirc;mata]
+(figures) and countless corrections or improvements of earlier editions.
+The author himself on rereading had thus improved and amplified what had
+already been issued. As though he foresaw that he would publish no more,
+he had directed his future editors as to what was to be done about the
+letterpress and figures; and we shall take care that it is published at
+the earliest possible date in the German language, in which the author
+wrote it. It is only to be expected that this will be welcome to the
+public, who will thus return thanks for the author's burning desire to
+do something by his discoveries for the public good, and for our own
+labour and eagerness in publishing to all nations what appears to be
+written only for one.</p>
+
+<p>Though these testimonies may often seem either trifling, or obscured by
+the pedantic affectation of the writers, they, like the signatures of
+well-respected men, endorse the impression produced by D&uuml;rer's works and
+writings. As we study the character of D&uuml;rer's creative gift in relation
+to his works, several of the phrases used by Erasmus, Camerarius, and
+Melanchthon should take added significance, being probably remembered
+from conversations with the great artist himself.<a name="FNanchor72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72"><sup>[72]</sup></a> D&uuml;rer, like
+Luther, was depressed and distressed at the course the Reformation had
+run; but, like Erasmus, though regretting and disparaging the present,
+he looked forward to the future, and knew &quot;that he would be surpassed,&quot;
+and had no morbid inclination to see the end and final failure of human
+effort in his own exhaustion.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor70">[70]</a><blockquote> B. 106, published in 1513. The block is in the Court
+Library at Vienna. Thawing says it was designed by Burgkmair or
+Springinklee.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor71">[71]</a><blockquote> &quot;<i>Caput argutum</i>&quot;. The phrase is from Virgil's description
+of the thorough-bred horse (<i>Georg. iii</i>). The above passage is
+introduced (with modifications) into Melchior Adam's <i>Vitae Germ.
+Philos.</i> (p.66). where this sentence runs: &quot;The deep-thinking,
+serene-souled artist was seen unmistakably in his <i>arched</i> and <i>lofty</i>
+brow and in the fiery glance of his eye.&quot;</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor72">[72]</a><blockquote> In the foregoing quotations the sentences which seem to me
+most reminiscent of D&uuml;rer's ideas are printed in italics.</blockquote>
+
+
+<center>
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="PART_III"></a>PART III</h2>
+
+<h3>D&Uuml;RER AS A CREATOR</h3>
+
+<p>[Illustration]</p></center>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_PICTURES"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S PICTURES</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer's paintings have suffered more by the malignity of fortune than
+any of his other works. Several have disappeared entirely, and several
+are but wrecks of what they once were. Others are, as he tells us,
+&quot;ordinary pictures,&quot; of which &quot;I will in a year paint a pile which no
+one would believe it possible for one man to do in the time,&quot; and are
+perhaps more the work of assistants than of the master. Others, again,
+have since been repainted, more or less disastrously. Yet enough remain
+to show us that D&uuml;rer was not a painter born, in the sense that Titian
+and Correggio or Rembrandt and Rubens are; nay, not even in the sense
+that a Jan Van Eyck or a Mantegna is. Mantegna is certainly the painter
+with whom D&uuml;rer has most affinity, and whose method of employing pigment
+is least removed from his; but Mantegna is a born colourist--a man whose
+eye for colour is like a musician's ear for melody--while D&uuml;rer is at
+best with difficulty able to avoid glaring discords, and, if we are to
+judge by the &quot;ordinary pictures,&quot; did not avoid them. Again, Mantegna is
+not so dependent on line as D&uuml;rer--nearly the whole of whose surface is
+produced by hatching with the brush point. These facts may, perhaps,
+account for the large portion of D&uuml;rer's time devoted to engraving. As
+an engraver he early found a style for himself, which he continued to
+develop to the end of his life. As a painter he was for ever
+experimenting, influenced now by Jacopo de' Barbari, again by Bellini
+and the pictures he saw at Venice, and yet again by those he saw in the
+Netherlands. As Velasquez, after each of his journeys to Italy, returns
+to attempt a mythological picture in the grand style, so D&uuml;rer turns to
+painting after his return from Venice or from the Netherlands; and his
+pictures divide themselves into three groups: those painted after or
+during his <i>Wanderjahre</i> and before he went to Venice in 1505, those
+painted there and during the next five years after his return, and those
+painted in the Netherlands or commenced immediately on his
+return thence.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>The mediums of oil and tempera lend themselves to the production of
+broad-coloured surfaces that merge imperceptibly into one another. There
+are men the fundamental unit of whose picture language is a blot or
+shape; as children or as savages, they would find these most capable of
+expressing what they saw. There are others for whom the scratch or line
+is the fundamental unit, for whom every object is most naturally
+expressed by an outline. There are, of course, men who present us with
+every possible blend of these two fundamental forms of picture language.</p>
+
+<p>The mediums of oils and tempera are especially adapted to the
+requirements of those who see things rather as a diaper of shapes than
+as a map of lines; while for these last the point of pen, burin, or
+etching-needle offers the most congenial implement. D&uuml;rer was very
+greatly more inclined to express objects by a map of lines than as a
+diaper of coloured shapes; and for this reason I say that he was not a
+painter born. If this be true, as a painter he must have been at a
+disadvantage. In this preponderance of the draughtsman qualities he
+resembles many artists of the Florentine school, as also in his
+theoretic pre-occupation with perspective, proportion, architecture, and
+technical methods. We are impressed by a coldness of approach, an
+austerity, a dignity not altogether justified by the occasion, but as it
+were carried over from some precedent hour of spiritual elevation; the
+prophet's demeanour in between the days of visitation, a little too
+consciously careful not to compromise the divinity which informs him no
+longer. This tendency to fall back on manner greatly acquired indeed,
+but no longer consonant with the actual mood, which is really too vacant
+of import to parade such importance, is often a fault of natures whose
+native means of expression is the thin line, the geometer's precision,
+the architect's foresight in measurement. And by allowing for it I think
+we can explain the contradiction apparent between the critics' continual
+insistence on what they call D&uuml;rer's great thoughts, and the sparsity of
+intellectual creativeness which strikes one in turning over his
+engravings, so many are there of which either the occasion or the
+conception are altogether trivial when compared with the grandiose
+aspect of the composition or the impeccable mechanical performance.
+D&uuml;rer's literary remains sufficiently prove his mind to have been
+constantly exercised upon and around great thoughts, and their influence
+may be felt in the austerity and intensity of his noblest portraits and
+other creations. But &quot;great thoughts&quot; in respect of works of art either
+means the communication of a profound emotion by the creation of a
+suitable arabesque for a deeply significant subject, as in the flowing
+masses of Michael Angelo's <i>Creation of Man</i>, or it means the pictorial
+enhancing of the telling incidents of a dramatic situation such as we
+find it in Rembrandt's treatment of the Crucifixion, Deposition, or
+Entombment. Now it seems to me the paucity of successes on these lines
+in one who nevertheless occasionally entirely succeeds, is what is most
+striking in D&uuml;rer. Perhaps when dealing with the graphic arts one should
+rather speak of great character than great thoughts; yet D&uuml;rer, while
+constantly impressing us as a great character, seems to be one who was
+all too rarely wholly himself. The abundant felicity in expression of
+Rembrandt or Shakespeare is altogether wanting. The imperial imposition
+of mood which Michael Angelo affects is perhaps never quite certainly
+his, even in the <i>Melancholy</i>. Yet we feel that not only has he a
+capacity of the same order as those men, but that he is spiritually akin
+to them, despite his coldness, despite his ostentation.</p>
+
+<p>But not only is D&uuml;rer praised for &quot;great thoughts,&quot; but he is praised
+for realism, and sometimes accused of having delighted in ugliness; or,
+as it is more cautiously expressed, of having preferred truth to grace.
+This is a point which I consider may better be discussed in respect to
+his drawings than his pictures, which nearly always have some obvious
+conventional or traditional character, so that the word realism cannot
+be applied to them. Even in his portraits his signature or an
+inscription is often added in such a manner as insists that this is a
+painting, a panel;--not a view through a window, or an attempt to
+deceive the eye with a make-believe reality.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>The altar-piece, consisting of a centre, the Virgin Mary adoring her
+baby son in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, and two wings, St. Anthony
+and St. Sebastian, though the earliest of D&uuml;rer's pictures which has
+survived, is perhaps the most beautiful of them all, at least as far as
+the two wings are concerned. The centre has been considerably damaged by
+repainting, and was probably, owing to the greater complication of
+motives in it, never quite so successful. Whether at Venice or
+elsewhere, it would seem almost necessary that the young painter had
+seen and been impressed by pictures by Gentile Bellini and Andrea
+Mantegna, both of whom have painted in the same thin tempera on fine
+canvas, obtaining similar beauties of colour and surface. It is hardly
+possible to imagine one who had seen none but German or Flemish pictures
+painting the St. Sebastian. The treatment of the still life in the
+foreground is in itself almost a proof of this. Perhaps this thin, flat
+tempera treatment was that most suited to D&uuml;rer's native bias, and we
+should regret his having been tempted to overcome the more brilliant and
+exacting medium of oils. In any case he more than once reverted to it in
+portraits and studies, while the majority of the pictures painted before
+he went to Venice in 1506 have more or less kinship with it. The
+supposed portrait of Frederic the Wise is another masterpiece in this
+kind, and the <i>Hercules slaying the birds of the Stymphalian Lake</i> in
+the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, 1500, was probably another. For though
+now considerably damaged by restorations and dirt, it suggests far
+greater pleasures than it actually imparts. The contrast between</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;The sea-worn face sad as mortality,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Divine with yearning after fellowship,&quot;<br>
+
+<p>and the blond richly curling hair blown back from it, is extremely fine
+and entirely suited to the treatment; as is also the similar contrast
+between the richly inlaid bow, shield, and arrows, and the broad and
+flowing modulation of the energetic limbs and back.</p>
+
+<p>The Paumgartner altar-piece, 1499, stands out from the &quot;ordinary
+pictures&quot; belonging to this early period. It consists of a charming and
+gay Nativity in the centre, and two knights in armour on the wings,
+probably portraits of the donors, Stephan and Lucas Paumgartner,
+figuring as warlike saints. Stephan, a personal friend of D&uuml;rer's,
+figured again as St. George in the <i>Trinity and All Saints</i> picture
+painted in 1511. There were originally two panels with female saints
+beyond these again, but no trace of them remains. Now that the landscape
+backgrounds have been removed from the side panels, there is no reason
+to suppose that any one but D&uuml;rer had a hand in these works. But in
+writing to Heller, he tells him that it was unheard of to put so much
+work into an altar-piece as he was then putting into his <i>Coronation of
+the Virgin</i>, and we may feel certain that D&uuml;rer regarded this picture as
+in the altar-piece category. The two knights are represented against
+black grounds, and their silhouettes form a very fine arabesque, which
+the streamers of their lances, artificially arranged, complete and
+emphasise. This black ground points probably to the influence of Jacopo
+de' Barbari, whom D&uuml;rer had met and been mystified by. (See p. 63.)</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: ST. GEORGE AND ST. EUSTACE Side panels in oils of the
+Paumgartner Altar-piece in the Alt Pinakothek, Munich]</p>
+
+<p>No doubt there was much in such a background that appealed to the
+draughtsman in D&uuml;rer. It insisted on the outline which had probably been
+the starting-point of his conception. Nothing could be less
+painter-like, or make the modelling of figures more difficult, as D&uuml;rer,
+perhaps, realised when he later on painted the <i>Adam and Eve</i> at Madrid.
+These two warriors are, however, most successful and imposing, and
+immeasurably enhanced now that the spurious backgrounds, artfully
+concocted out of D&uuml;rer's own prints by an ingenious improver of his
+betters, have been removed. This person had also tinkered the centre
+picture, painting out two heraldic groups of donors, far smaller in
+scale than the actual personages of the scene, but very useful in the
+composition, as giving a more ample base to the masses of broken and
+fretted quality; useful also now as an additional proof of how free from
+the fetters of an impertinent logic of realism D&uuml;rer ever was. These
+little kneeling donors and their coats of arms emphasise the surface,
+and are delightful in their na&iuml;vety, while they serve to render the gay,
+almost gaudy panel more homely, and give it a place and a function in
+the world. For they help us to realise that it answered a demand, and
+was not the uncalled-for and slightly frigid excursion of the aesthetic
+imagination which it must otherwise appear. In the same way the
+brilliant <i>Adoration of the Magi</i> (dated 1504) in the Uffizi, also
+somewhat gaudy and frigid, could we but see it where it originally hung
+in Luther's church at Wittenberg, might invest itself with some charm
+that one vainly seeks in it now. The failure in emotion might seem more
+natural if we saw the wise Elector discussing his new purchase; we might
+have felt what D&uuml;rer meant when a year later he wrote from Venice: &quot;I am
+a gentleman here and only a hanger-on at home.&quot; The expectation and
+prophecy of his success in those who surround a painter,--even if it be
+chiefly expressed by bitter rivalry, or the craft by which one greedy
+purchaser tries to over-reach another, even if he has to be careful not
+to eat at some tables for fear of being poisoned by a host whose
+ambition his present performance may have dashed--even expressed in this
+truly Venetian manner, the expectation and prophecy of his success in
+those about him make it easier for a painter to soar, and may touch his
+work with an indefinable glow that the approval of honest and astute
+electors or solid burghers may have been utterly powerless to impart.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>At Venice, perhaps the occasion for his journey thither, D&uuml;rer undertook
+a more important work than any he had yet attempted. <i>The Feast of the
+Rose Garlands</i> was painted for the high altar of the church of San
+Bartolommeo, belonging to the German Merchants' Exchange, and close to
+their Pondaco.<a name="FNanchor73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73"><sup>[73]</sup></a> In it we find a very considerable influence of Italy
+in general, and Giovanni Bellini in particular; it is a splendid and
+pompous parade piece, and probably the portraits of the German merchants
+which it contained were the part of the work which was most successful,
+as it was certainly that most congenial to D&uuml;rer's genius. The <i>Christ
+among the Doctors</i>, dated 1506, and now in the Barberini Palace at Rome,
+might seem to have been painted chiefly to justify Giovanni Bellini's
+astonishment at the calligraphical painting of hair. It is one of those
+pictures of which a literary description would please more than the work
+itself. Though the contrast between the sweet childish face and those of
+the old worldly scribes is well conceived, it is in reality so violent
+as to be grotesque, and the play of hands produces the effect of a
+diagram explanatory of a conjuring trick, or a deaf and dumb alphabet,
+instead of conveying the inner sense of the scene represented after
+Rossetti's fashion, who so often succeeded in making hands speak.
+Another work, which dates from Venice, is the little <i>Crucifixion</i> (at
+Dresden.) Perhaps the landscape and suffering body are just sufficiently
+touched with acute emotion to make the arabesque of the two floating
+ends of the loin-cloth appear a little out of place; for in spite of the
+delicacy and all but tenderness which D&uuml;rer has for once attained to in
+the workmanship, one's satisfaction seems let and hindered.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>Shortly after his return from Venice, D&uuml;rer completed two life-size
+panels representing Adam and Eve; there are drawings for them dated
+during his stay at Venice, but as a work of art they are far less
+interesting than the engraving of the same subject completed three years
+earlier. The treatment, even the conception, has been inadequately
+influenced by the proposed scale of the work. Probably they were like
+the earlier Hercules, done to please the artist himself rather than some
+patron; they are an effort to prove that he could do something which was
+after all too hard for him. Not only had he set himself the problem
+which the Greeks and Michael Angelo, and Raphael with their aid alone,
+had solved, of finding proportions suitable to express harmoniously the
+infinite capacity for complex motion combined with that constancy of
+intention which gives dignity to men and women alone among animals; but
+the technical problems involved in representing life-size nude figures
+against a plain black ground were indeed an unconscious confession that
+D&uuml;rer did not understand paint. There is a copy of these panels,
+recently attributed to Baldung Grien, in the Pitti. Animals and birds
+have been added from drawings made by D&uuml;rer, but the picture is still
+farther from success, though Grien may not improbably have executed it
+with D&uuml;rer at his elbow. D&uuml;rer made one more attempt at representing a
+life-size nude, the <i>Lucretia</i>, finished in 1518, at a period when his
+powers seem to have been clouded, for the few pictures which belong to
+it are all inferior. However, studies for the figure exist dated 1508,
+so we may suppose it was a project brought back from Venice. His
+ill-success with this subject may remind us of Shakespeare's long
+pedantic exercise in rhyme on the same theme. The pictorial motive of
+D&uuml;rer's work is beautiful and worthy of a Greek: indeed it is identical
+with that of Watts' <i>Psyche</i>, of which the version in private hands is
+very superior to that in the Tate Gallery. The position of the bed, the
+idea of the draperies all are parallel. No doubt the lonely feather shed
+from Love's wing at which Psyche gazes is both more of a poet's and of
+a painter's invention than the cold steel of Lucretia's dagger. And in
+spite of his wide knowledge of Greek and Italian art, our English master
+could scarcely have produced a work of such classic dignity with the
+more violent motive of the dagger, which seems to call for &quot;The torch
+that flames with many a lurid flake,&quot; or at least the torpid glow of
+smouldering embers, to light it in such a manner as would make a really
+pictorial treatment possible. No doubt D&uuml;rer has been misled by a too
+tyrannous notion as to what ought to be the physical build of so chaste
+a matron, and in his anxiety to make chastity self-evident, has
+forgotten to explain the need for it by such a degree of attractiveness
+as might tempt a tyrant to be dangerous. Just as Shakespeare, in
+attempting to exhaust every possible motive which the situation
+comports, has forgotten that for a character that can move us a
+selection is needed. Another elaborate piece of frigid invention is the
+<i>Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints in the reign of Sapor II. of
+Persia</i>, in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, dated 1508. However, in this
+case no doubt D&uuml;rer could plead that the subject was not of his own
+choice, for he was commissioned by the Elector, Frederic the Wise, whose
+wisdom probably did not extend to a knowledge of what subjects lend
+themselves to pictorial treatment. Still, making every allowance for
+these facts, it cannot be admitted that D&uuml;rer did the best possible with
+his subject. Probably it did not move him, and neither does he us. Peter
+Breughel and Albrecht Altdorfer would certainly have done far better so
+far as the conception of the picture is concerned, though neither of
+them had so much skill to waste on its realisation. Nevertheless, this
+tour <i>de force</i> is the picture of D&uuml;rer's most pleasing in surface and
+colour, with the exception of the Wings <i>of the Dresden Altar-piece</i>. It
+contains beautiful groups and figures, and is extremely well executed;
+so that it may amuse and delight the eye for a long time while the
+significance of the subject is forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF TEN THOUSAND SAINTS UNDER SAPOR II. OF
+PERSIA--Oil picture. &quot;Iste faciebat anno domini 1508 Albertus D&uuml;rer
+Alemanus&quot;]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>We now turn to the third and fourth of the half-dozen pictures of D&uuml;rer,
+which stand out from all the rest by their elaboration and importance.
+The <i>Coronation of the Virgin (see</i> p. 97), painted as the centre panel
+of the altar-piece commissioned by Jacob Heller at Frankfort, was
+unfortunately burnt with the palace at Munich on the night of April 9,
+1674; the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria having forced or cajoled the
+Dominicans, to whose church Heller had left it, to sell it to him. It is
+now represented by a copy made by Paul Juvenal in its original position,
+where the almost ruined portraits of Heller and his wife are supposed to
+have been partly D&uuml;rer's, though the other panels are obviously the work
+of assistants. This work exists for us in a series of magnificent brush
+drawings in black and white line on grey paper, rather than in the copy,
+and we can in a measure imagine its appearance by the
+perfectly-preserved <i>Trinity and All Saints</i> commenced immediately after
+it for Matthew Landauer, and now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna.
+Nothing can surpass this last picture in elaboration and finish; the
+colour, if not beautiful, is rich and luminous; and though it is
+separate faces and draperies which chiefly delight the eye, the
+composition of the whole is an adequate adaptation of the traditional
+treatment for such themes which had been handed down through the middle
+ages. It invites comparison rather with the similar subjects painted by
+Fra Angelico than with the <i>Disputa</i> of Raphael, to which German critics
+compare it; however, it possesses as little of Angelico's sweet
+blissfulness as the Dominican painter possessed of D&uuml;rer's accuracy of
+hand and searching intensity of visual realisation. Both painters are
+interested in individuals, and, representing crowds of faces, make every
+one a portrait; both evince a dramatic sense of propriety in gesture,
+both revel in bright, clear colours, especially azure; but as the light
+in D&uuml;rer's masterpiece has a rosy hotness, which ill bears comparison
+with the virginal pearliness of Angelico's heaven, so the costumes and
+the figures of the Florentine are doll-like, when compared with the
+unmistakable quality of the stuffs in which the fully-resurrected bodies
+of D&uuml;rer's saints rumple and rustle. The wings of his angels are at
+least those of birds, though coloured to fancy, while Angelico's are of
+pasteboard tinsel and paint. But in spite of the comparative genuineness
+of his upholstery, as a vision of heaven there can be no hesitation in
+preferring that of the Florentine.</p>
+
+<p>In a frame designed by D&uuml;rer and carved under his supervision, this
+monument to thoroughness and skill was ensconced in a little chapel
+dedicated to All Saints, which in style approaches our Tudor buildings.
+There the frame remained till lately with a poor copy of the picture and
+an inscription in old German to this effect: ('Matthew Landauer
+completed the dedication of this chapel of the twelve brethren, together
+with the foundation attached to it, and this picture, in the year 1511
+after the birth of Christ,')</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer signed his picture with the same Latin formula as that of the
+<i>Coronation</i>:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Albrecht D&uuml;rer of Nuremberg did this the year from when the Virgin
+brought forth 1511.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>Of all D&uuml;rer's paintings of the Madonna, there is only one which, by its
+superb design, deserves special notice among his masterpieces. This
+<i>Madonna with the Iris</i> exists in two versions, both unfinished; one the
+property of Sir Frederick Cook, the other at Prague, in the Rudolphium.
+This latter Mr. Campbell Dodgson considers to be a poor copy. The panel
+is badly cracked, and weeds and long grasses have been added, apparently
+with a view to masking the cracks. Judging from a photograph alone, many
+of these additions seem so appropriately placed and freely sketched that
+I feel it at least to be possibly a work by the master himself. On the
+other hand, Sir Frederick's picture is so sleepy and clumsy in handling,
+that though it is unfinished, and perhaps in part damaged by some
+restorer, I feel great hesitation in regarding it as D&uuml;rer's handiwork.
+In both cases the magnificent design is his, and that alone in either is
+fully representative of him. Mr. Campbell Dodgson ventures to criticise
+the profusion of drapery as excessive, but my feeling, I must confess,
+endorses D&uuml;rer's in this, rather than that of his learned critic. To me
+this profusion, and the grandeur it gives as a mass in the design, is of
+the very essence of what is most peculiarly creative in D&uuml;rer's
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>The last picture of which it is necessary to speak is that of the <i>Four
+Apostles</i> or the <i>Four Preachers</i>, as they have been more appropriately
+called; it was perhaps the last he painted, and is in many respects the
+most successful. It is the only one by which the comparison with
+Raphael, so dear to German critics, seems at all warranted: there is
+certainly some kinship between D&uuml;rer's St. John and St. Paul and
+apostolic figures in the cartoons or on the Vatican walls. The German
+artist's manner is less rhetorical, but his conception is hardly less
+grandiose; and his taste does not so closely border on over-emphasis,
+but neither is it so conscious or so fluent. Technically it seems to me
+that the chief influence is a recollection of the large canvases of Jan
+and Hubert Van Eyck and Hubert Van der Goes which D&uuml;rer had admired in
+the Netherlands; these had strengthened and directed the bias of his
+self-culture towards simple masses on a large scale.<a name="FNanchor74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74"><sup>[74]</sup></a> He may very
+well have sought to combine what he learnt from them with hints he found
+in the engravings after Raphael which he obtained in Antwerp. His
+increasing sickness may probably account for the fact that the white
+mantle of St. Paul is the only portion quite finished. The assertion of
+the writing-master, Johann Neud&ouml;rffer, who in his youth had known D&uuml;rer,
+that the four figures are typical of the four temperaments, the
+sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic,--into which
+categories an amateurish psychology arbitrarily divided human
+characters,--is as likely to be correct as it is certain that it adds
+nothing to the power and beauty of the presentation. Though D&uuml;rer in his
+work on human proportions describes the physical build of these
+different types, we do not know exactly what degree of precision he
+imagined it possible to attain in discerning them, or to what extent
+their names were merely convenient handles for certain types which he
+had chosen &aelig;sthetically. To us to-day this classification is merely a
+trace of an obsolete pedantry, which it would be a vain curiosity to
+attempt to follow with the object of identifying its imaginary bases.</p>
+
+<p>The four preachers have all the air of being striking likenesses of
+actual people which it is possible for work so broadly and grandly
+conceived to have. These panels are interesting, even more than by their
+actual success, as showing us what a scholar D&uuml;rer was to the end; how
+he learned from every defeat as well as every victory, and constantly
+approached a conception and a rendering of human beauty which seems
+intimately connected with man's fullest intellectual and spiritual
+freedom--a conception and rendering of human beauty which Raphael
+himself had to learn from the Greeks and Michael Angelo. The work has
+suffered, it is supposed, from restorers, and also from the Munich
+monarch, Maximilian, who had the tremendous texts (see page 177) which
+D&uuml;rer had inscribed beneath the two panels sawn off in order to spare
+the feelings of the Jesuits, who were dominant at his court, for their
+conception of religion did not consist with terrors to come for those
+who, abuse their trust as governors and directors of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, mention must be made of D&uuml;rer's monochrome masterpiece, The Road
+to Calvary 15.27 (see illus.), in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook.
+A poor copy of this work is at Dresden, a better one at Bergamo. The
+effect of it, and several elaborate water-colour designs of the same
+class, is akin to the peculiar richness of chased metal work; glinting
+light hovers over crowds of little figures.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor73">[73]</a><blockquote> The original, now in the Monastery of Strahow-Prague, is
+very much damaged, and in part repainted. There are copies in the
+Imperial Gallery at Vienna (No. 1508), and in the possession of A. W.
+Miller, Esq., of Sevenoaks. It is to be regretted that the D&uuml;rer Society
+published a photogravure of this latter work, which, though till then
+unknown, is far less interesting than the original, of which they only
+gave a reproduction in the text, an exhaustive history of its fortunes
+from the learned pen of Mr. Cambell Dodgson. This picture, which is so
+frequently referred to in the letters from Venice, contains portraits of
+the Emperor Maximilian and Pope Julius II., though neither of them from
+life, and in the background those of D&uuml;rer and Pirkheimer.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor74">[74]</a><blockquote> See what Melanchthon says, p. 187.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_PORTRAITS"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S PORTRAITS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>If D&uuml;rer's pictures are as a whole the least satisfactory section of his
+work, in his portraits he makes us abundant amends for the time he might
+otherwise have been reproached for wasting to obtain a vain mastery over
+brushes and pigment.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately it is probable that many even of these have been lost or
+destroyed, while of his most interesting sitters we have nothing but
+drawings. He did not paint his friend, the boisterous and learned
+Pirkheimer; and what would we not give for a painted portrait of
+Erasmus, or a portrait of Kratzer, the astronomer royal, to compare with
+the two masterpieces by Holbein in the Louvre? Even the posthumous
+portrait of his Imperial patron Maximilian is less interesting than the
+drawings from which it was done, the eccentric sitter not having the
+time to spare for so sensible a monument.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST Pen drawing in dark brown ink at
+Erlangen (This drawing has been cut down for reproduction)]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>However, D&uuml;rer had one sitter who was perhaps the most beautiful of all
+the sons of men, whose features combined in an equal measure nobleness
+of character, intellectual intensity and physical beauty; and, finding
+him also most patient and accessible, he painted him frequently. The two
+earliest portraits of himself are the drawings which show him at the
+ages of thirteen and nineteen(?) respectively (see illustration). Then,
+as a young man with a sprouting chin, we have the picture till recently
+at Leipzig of which Goethe's enthusiastic description has already been
+quoted (p. 62). It is probable that neither Titian nor Holbein could
+have shown at so early an age a portrait so admirably conceived and
+executed. It is a masterpiece, even now that the inevitable improvements
+which those who lack all relish of genius rarely lack the opportunity,
+never the inclination, to add to a masterpiece, have confused the
+drawing of the eyes, and reduced the bloom and delicacy that the
+features traced by a master hand, even when they become an almost
+complete wreck, often retain; for time and fortune are not so
+conscientiously destructive as the imbecility of the incapable. Next we
+have a portrait of D&uuml;rer when only five years older, in perfect
+preservation,--that in the Prado at Madrid. This charming picture must
+certainly have drawn a sonnet from the Shakespeare who wrote <i>Love's
+Labour Lost</i>, could he have seen it. For it presents a young dandy, the
+delicacy and sensitiveness of whose features seem to demand and warrant
+the butterfly-like display of the white and black costume hemmed with
+gold, and of a cap worthy to crown those flowing honey-coloured locks.
+There is a good copy of this delightful work in the Uffizi, where, in a
+congregation of self-painted artists, it does all but justice to the
+most beautiful of them all. For fineness of touch the original has never
+been surpassed by any hand of European or even Chinese master. Next
+there are the dapper little full-length portraits which D&uuml;rer inserted
+in his chief paintings. He stands beside his friend Pirkheimer at the
+back of the adoring crowd in the <i>Feast of the Roses</i>, and again in the
+midst of the mountain slope, where on all sides of them the ten thousand
+saints suffer martyrdom. D&uuml;rer stands alone beside an inscription in a
+gentle pastoral landscape beneath the vision of the Virgin's Assumption
+seen over the heads of the Apostles, who gaze up in rapture; and again
+he is alone beside a broad peaceful river beneath the vision of the Holy
+Trinity and All Saints. I know of no parallel to these little portraits.
+Rembrandt and Botticelli and many others have introduced portraits of
+themselves into religious pictures, but always in disguise, as a
+personage in the crowd or an actor in the scene. Only the master who was
+really most exceptional for his good looks, has had the kindness, in
+spite of every incongruity, to present himself before us on all
+important occasions, like the court beauty in whom it is charity rather
+than vanity to appear in public. It is expected that the very beautiful
+be gracious thus. Emerson tells us that two centuries ago the Town
+Council of Montpelier passed a law to constrain two beautiful sisters to
+sit for a certain time on their balcony every other day, that all might
+enjoy the sight of what was most beautiful in their town. It was one of
+the most gracious traits of Jeanne d'Arc's character that she liked to
+wear beautiful clothes, because it pleased the poor people to see her
+thus. And Palm Sunday commemorates another historical example of such
+grace and truth. D&uuml;rer's face had a striking resemblance to the
+traditional type for Jesus, adding to it just that element of individual
+peculiarity, the absence of which makes it ever liable to appear a
+little vacant and unconvincing. The perception of this would seem to
+have dictated the general arrangement of D&uuml;rer's crowning portrait of
+himself, that at Munich dated 1500 (see illus.), &quot;Before which&quot; (Mr.
+Ricketts writes in his recently published volume on the Prado) &quot;one
+forgets all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is equal to the
+occasion.&quot; The most exhaustive visual power and executive capacity meet
+in this picture, which would seem to have traversed the many perils to
+which it has been exposed without really suffering so much as their
+enumeration makes one expect. Thausing tells us:</p>
+
+<p>The following is the story of the picture's wanderings, as told at
+Nuremberg. It was lent by the magistrates, after they had taken the
+precaution of placing a seal and strings on the back of the panel, to
+the painter and engraver K&uuml;gner, to copy. He, however, carefully sawed
+the panel in half (layer-wise) and glued to the authentic back his
+miserable copy, which now hangs in the Town Hall. The original he sold,
+and it eventually came into the possession of King Ludwig I., before
+Nuremberg belonged to Bavaria.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: <i>Hanfstaengl</i> &quot;I, Albert D&uuml;rer of Nuremberg, painted my
+own portrait here in the proper colours at the age of twenty-eight&quot;
+Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]</p>
+
+<p>He suggests that the colour was once bright and varied, and that by
+varnish and glazes it has been reduced to its present harmonious
+condition. The hair is certainly much darker than the other portraits
+would have led one to expect, and the almost walnut brown of the general
+colour scheme is unique in D&uuml;rer's work. However, if some such
+transmogrification has been effected, it is marvellous that it should
+have obliterated so little of the inimitable handiwork of the master.
+Thausing considered the date (1500), monogram and inscription on the
+back to be forgeries, and it certainly looks as if it ought to come
+nearer to the portrait in the <i>Feast of the Rose Garlands</i> (1506) than
+to that at Madrid (1498). A genuine scalloped tablet is faintly visible
+under the dark glazes which cover the background; and this, no doubt,
+bears the original inscription and date. What may not have happened to a
+picture after or before it left the artist's studio? Critics are too
+quick to determine that such changes have been introduced by others. In
+this case we must remember how experimental D&uuml;rer was, even with regard
+to his engravings on metal. He tries iron plates and etching, and
+finally settles on a method of commencing with etching and finishing
+with the burin; and this was in a medium in which he soon found himself
+at home. But with painting he was vastly more experimental, and never
+satisfied with his results, as he told Melanchthon (see p. 187). Then we
+must remember that this picture probably was during D&uuml;rer's lifetime, if
+not in his own possession, at least never out of his reach; and no doubt
+he was aware that it was the grandest and most perfectly finished of all
+his portraits--therefore, as he came more and more, especially after his
+visit to the Netherlands, to desire and seek after simplicity, he may
+himself have added the dark glazes. If the original inscription
+contained a dedication to Pirkheimer or some other notable Nuremberger,
+there was every reason for the artist who stole the picture to
+obliterate this and add a new one: or this may have been done when it
+became the property of the town, for those who sold it may have wished
+that it should not be known that it might have been an heirloom in their
+family. Infinite are the possibilities, those only decide in such cases
+who have a personal motive for doing so; &quot;la rage de conclure&quot; (as
+Flaubert saw) is the pitfall of those who are vain of their knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: OSWOLT KREL Oil portrait in the Alt Pinakothek at Munich]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: <i>By permission</i> of the &quot;<i>Burlington</i> Magazine&quot; ALBERT
+D&Uuml;RER THE ELDER, 1497 National Gallery]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Though fearing that it will appear but tedious, I will now attempt
+briefly to describe in succession the remaining master portraits which
+we owe to D&uuml;rer, and the effect that each produces. It is by these works
+and not by his creative pictures that his ranks among the greatest names
+of painting. These might be compared with the very finest portraits by
+Raphael and Holbein, and the precedence would remain a question of
+personal predilection; since nothing reasoned, no distinguishable
+superiority over D&uuml;rer in vision or execution could be urged for either.
+Rather, if mere capacity were regarded, he must have the palm; nor did
+either of his compeers light upon a happier subject than was D&uuml;rer's
+when he represented himself; nor did they achieve nobler designs. In
+effect upon our emotions and sensations, these portraits may compete
+with the masterpieces of Titian and Rembrandt, though the method of
+expression is in their case too different to render comparison possible.
+Whatever in the glow of light, in the power of shadow, to envelop and
+enhance the features portrayed, is theirs and not his, his superiority
+of searching insight, united with its equivalent of unique facility in
+definition, seems more than to outweigh. Before he left for Venice,
+besides the renderings of himself already mentioned, D&uuml;rer had painted
+his father twice, in 1494 and in 1497. The latter was the pair to and
+compeer of his own portrait at Madrid,; and, hitherto unknown, was lent
+last year by Lord Northampton to the Royal Academy, and has since
+been bought for the National Gallery. This beautiful work is unique even
+among the works of the master, and is not so much the worse for
+repainting as some make out. The majority of D&uuml;rer's portraits stand
+alone. In each the Esthetic problem has been approached and solved in a
+strikingly different manner. This picture and its fellow, the portrait
+of the painter at Madrid, the <i>Oswolt Krel</i>, the portrait of a lady seen
+against the sea at Berlin, the <i>Wolgemut</i>, and D&uuml;rer's own portrait at
+Munich, though seen by the same absorbing eyes, are rendered each in
+quite a different manner. No man has ever been better gifted for
+portraying a likeness than D&uuml;rer; but the absence of a native
+comprehension of pigment made him ever restless, and it might be
+possible to maintain that each of these pictures presented us with a
+differing strategy to enforce pigment, to subserve the purposes of a
+draughtsman. Still this would seem to imply a greater sacrifice of ease
+and directness than those brilliant masterpieces can be charged with.
+They none of them lack beauty of colour, of surface, or of handling,
+though each so unlike the other. In this portrait of his father, D&uuml;rer
+has developed a shaken brushline, admirably adapted to suggest the
+wrinkled features of an old man, but in complete contrast to the rapid
+sweep of the caligraphic work in the <i>Oswolt Krel</i>; and it is to be
+noticed how in both pictures the touch seems to have been invented to
+facilitate the rendering of the peculiar curves and lines of the
+sitter's features, and further variations of it developed to express the
+draperies and other component parts of the picture. It is this
+inventiveness in handling which most distinguishes D&uuml;rer from painters
+like Raphael and Holbein, and makes his work comparable with the
+masterpieces of Rembrandt and Titian, in spite of the extreme
+opposition in aspect between their work and his.</p>
+
+<p>The noble portrait of a middle-aged man, No. 557c, in the Royal Gallery
+at Berlin, (supposed to represent Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony,
+D&uuml;rer's first patron), gives us a master portrait, in which the
+technical treatment is comparable to that of the early triptych at
+Dresden, and which is a monument of sober power and distinction, though
+again very difficult to compare with the other splendid portraits by the
+same hand which hang beside or near it in that Gallery.</p>
+
+<p>The vivid <i>Oswolt Krel</i> at Munich shows the peculiarity of D&uuml;rer's
+caligraphic touch better than perhaps any other of his portraits. The
+finish is not carried so far as in the Madrid portrait of himself, where
+even the texture of the gloves has been softened by touches of the
+thumb, and the absence of these extra refinements leaves it the most
+spontaneous and vigorously bold of all D&uuml;rer's paintings. The
+concentrated energy of the sitter's features demanded such a treatment;
+he seems to burn with the inconsiderate atheism of a Marlowe. Young, and
+less surprised than indignant to be alone awake in a sleepy and bigoted
+world, he seems convinced of a mission to chastise, <i>even</i> to scandalise
+his easy-going neighbours. Let us hope he met with better luck than the
+Marlowes, Shelleys, and Rimbauds, whose tragedies we have read; for one
+can but regret, as one meets his glance so much fiercer than need be,
+that he is not known to history.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Oil Portrait of a Lady seen against the Sea In the Berlin
+Gallery]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Oil portrait, dated 1506, at Hampton Court]</p>
+
+<p>The fine portrait of Hans Tucher, 1499, in the Grand Ducal Museum at
+Weimar should, judging from a photograph alone, be mentioned here. It
+has obvious affinities with the <i>Oswolt Krel</i>, but the caligraphic
+method is again modified in harmony with the character of the
+sitter's features. The companion piece, representing Felicitas Tucherin,
+would seem at some period to have been restored to the insignificance
+and obscurity that belonged to the sitter before D&uuml;rer painted her.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>The portraits which D&uuml;rer painted at Venice, or soon after his return,
+betray the influence of other masterpieces on his own. Mr. Ricketts has
+pointed to that of Antonello da Messina in the portraits of young men at
+Vienna (1505) and at Hampton Court (1506). The former of these has an
+allegorical sketch of Avarice, painted on the back in a thick impasto,
+such as seems almost a presage of after developments of the Venetian
+school, and may possibly show the influence of some early experiment by
+Giorgione which D&uuml;rer wished to show that he could imitate if he liked.
+The latter represents a personage who appears on the left of the <i>Feast
+of Rose Wreaths</i> in exactly the same cap and with the same fastening to
+his jerkin, crossing his white shirt (see illustration opposite).</p>
+
+<p>Not improbably D&uuml;rer may have painted separate portraits of nearly all
+the members of the German Guild at Venice who appear in the <i>Rose
+Garlands</i>. In any case much of his work during his stay there has
+disappeared. It was here that he painted that beautiful head of a woman
+(No. 557 G in the Berlin Gallery) with soft, almost Leonardesque
+shadows, seen against the luminous hazy sea and sky, which remains
+absolutely unique in method and effect among his works, and makes one
+ask oneself unanswerable questions as to what might not have been the
+result if he could but have brought himself to accept the offered
+citizenship and salary, and stop on at Venice. A D&uuml;rer, not only
+secluded from Luther and his troubling denunciations, but living to see
+Titian and Giorgione's early masterpieces, perhaps forming friendships
+with them, and later visiting Rome, standing in the Sistine Chapel,
+seated in the Stanze between the School of Athens and the Disputa! I at
+least cannot console myself for these missed opportunities, as so many
+of his critics and biographers have done, by saying that doubtless had
+he stayed he would have been spoiled like those second-class German and
+Dutch painters, for whom the siren art of Italy proved a baneful
+influence. One could almost weep to think of what has been probably lost
+to the world because D&uuml;rer could not bring himself to stay on at Venice.
+It <i>was</i> here he painted the tiny panel representing the head of a girl
+in gay apparel dated 1507 (in the Berlin Gallery), that makes one think,
+even more than do Holbein's <i>Venus</i> and <i>Lais</i> at Basle, of the triumphs
+that were reserved for Italians in the treatment of similar subjects.</p>
+
+<p>After his return the influence of Venetian methods gradually waned, till
+we find in the masterly and refined portrait of <i>Wolgemut</i> (1516) (see
+illustration); something of a return to the caligraphic method so
+noticeable in the <i>Oswolt Krel</i>. About the same time D&uuml;rer recommenced
+painting in tempera in a manner resembling the early Dresden <i>Madonna</i>
+and the <i>Hercules</i>, as we see by the rather unpleasant heads of Apostles
+in the Uffizi and the tine one of an old man in a vermilion cap in the
+Louvre, &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: <i>Bruckmann</i>--&quot;Albrecht D&uuml;rer took this likeness of his
+master, Michael Wolgemut, in the year 1516, and he was 82 years of age,
+and lived to the year 1519, and then departed on Saint Andrew's Day,
+very early before sunrise&quot;--Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: HANS IMHOF (?)--From the painting in the Royal Gallery
+at Madrid--(By permission <i>of Messrs. Braun, Cl&eacute;ment &amp; Co., Dornach
+(Alsace), Paris and New York</i>)]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>On his arrival at Antwerp in 1521 D&uuml;rer commenced the third and last
+group of master-portraits; foremost is the superb head and bust at
+Madrid, supposed to represent Hans Imhof, a patrician of D&uuml;rer's native
+town and his banker while at Antwerp; of the same date are the
+triumphant renderings of the grave and youthful Bernard van Orley (at
+Dresden) and that of a middle-aged man--lost for the National Gallery,
+and now in the possession of Mrs. Gardner, of Boston. All three were
+probably painted at Antwerp.</p>
+
+<p>It may be that the portrait of Imhof and the report of the honours and
+commissions showered on their painter while in the Netherlands, woke the
+Nuremberg Councillors up, for we have portraits of three of them dated
+1526--Jacob Muffel, Hieronymus Holzschuher, (both in the Royal Gallery,
+Berlin,) and the eccentric and unpleasing medallion representing
+Johannes Kleeberger, at Vienna. With the exception of this last, this
+group is composed of masterpieces absolutely unrivalled for intensity
+and dignity of power. Van Eyck painted with inhuman indifference a few
+ugly grotesque but otherwise uninteresting people. All but a very few of
+Holbein's best portraits pale before these instances of searching
+insight; and, north of the Alps at least, there are no others which can
+be compared to them. The <i>Hans Imhof</i> shows a shrewd and forbidding
+schemer for gain on a large scale--a face which produces the impression
+of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent,
+seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon
+its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first
+and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The unknown
+master who is represented in Mrs. Gardner's beautiful picture is less
+forbidding, though not less patently a moulder of destiny. <i>Jacob
+Muffel</i> has a more open face, a more serene gaze; but his mouth too has
+the firmness acquired by those who live always in the presence of
+enemies, or are at least aware that &quot;a little folding of the hands&quot; may
+be fatal to all their most cherished purposes. The last of these masters
+of themselves and of their fortunes in hazardous and change-fraught
+times is <i>Hieronymus Holzschuher</i>, D&uuml;rer's friend. Only less felicitous
+because less harmonious in colour than the three former, this vivacious
+portrait of a ruddy, jovial, and white-haired patrician seen against a
+bright blue background might produce the effect of a Father Christmas,
+were it not for the resolute mouth and the puissant side-glance of the
+eyes. Bernard van Orley, the only youthful person immortalised in this
+group, has a gentle, responsible air which his features are a little too
+heavy to enhance.</p>
+
+<p>I have now mentioned the chief of his portraits, which are the best of
+his painting, and by which he ranks for the directness and power of his
+workmanship and of his visual analysis in the company of the very
+greatest. Raphael and Holbein have alone produced portraits which, as
+they can be compared to D&uuml;rer's, might also be held to rival them;
+Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reynolds have done as
+splendidly, but the material they used and the aims they set themselves
+were too different to make a comparison serviceable. These men are
+pre-eminent among those who have produced portraits which, while
+unsurpassed for technical excellences, present to us individuals whose
+beauty or the character it expresses are equally exceptional.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: &quot;JAKOB MUFFEL&quot; Oil portrait in the Berlin Gallery]</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_DRAWINGS"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S DRAWINGS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>Perhaps D&uuml;rer is more felicitous as a draughtsman than in any other
+branch of art. The power of nearly all first-rate artists is more wholly
+live and effective in their drawings than in elaborated works. D&uuml;rer
+himself says:</p>
+
+<p>An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great
+power and art in small things, roughly and rudely done, than many
+another in his great work. Powerful artists alone will understand that
+in this strange saying I speak truth. For this reason a man may often
+draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day, or cut
+it with his graver on a small block of wood, and it shall be fuller of
+art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole
+year's careful labour.</p>
+
+<p>But it is possible to go far beyond this and say not only &quot;another's
+great work,&quot; but his own great work.</p>
+
+<p>In the first chapter of this work I said that the standard in works of
+art is not truth but sincerity; that if the artist tells us what he
+feels to be beautiful, it does not matter how much or how little
+comparison it will bear with the actual objects represented. And from
+this fact, that sincerity not truth is of prime importance in matters of
+expression, results the strange truth that D&uuml;rer says will be
+recognised by powerful artists alone (see page 227). Any one who
+recognises how often the sketches and roughs of artists, especially of
+those who are in a peculiar degree creators, excel their finished works
+in those points which are the distinctive excellences of such men, will
+grant this at once. Only to turn to the sketch (inscribed <i>Memento Mei
+1505</i>) of <i>Death</i> on horseback with a scythe, or the pen-portrait of
+D&uuml;rer leaning on his hand, will be enough to convince those who alone
+can be convinced on these points. For any who need to explain to
+themselves the character of such sketches--as the authoress of a recent
+little book on D&uuml;rer does that of the pen drawing &quot;in which the boy's
+chin rests on his hand&quot; by telling us that &quot;it is unfinished and was
+evidently discarded as a failure,&quot;--any who must be at such pains in a
+case of this sort is one of those who can never understand wherein the
+great power of a work of art resides. Such people may get great pleasure
+from works of art; only I am content to remain convinced that the
+pleasure they get has no kind of kinship with that which I myself
+obtain, or that which the greatest artists most constantly seek to give.
+This marvellous portrait of himself as a lad of from seventeen to
+nineteen years of age is just one of those things &quot;roughly and rudely
+done,&quot; of which D&uuml;rer speaks. There is probably no parallel to it for
+mastery or power among works produced by artists so youthful.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Study of a hound for the copper engraving &quot;St. Eustache.&quot;
+B. 57 Brush drawing at Windsor]</p>
+
+<p>There is often some virtue in spontaneity which is difficult to define;
+perhaps it bears more convincing witness to the artist's integrity than
+slower and longer labours, from which it is difficult to ward all
+duplicity of intention. The finishing-touch is too often a Judas' kiss.
+&quot;Blessed are the pure in heart&quot; is absolutely true in art. (Of course,
+I do not use purity in the narrow sense which is confined to avoidance
+of certain sensual subjects and seductive intentions.) It is only
+poverty of imagination which taboos subject-matter, and lack of charity
+that believes there are themes which cannot be treated with any but
+ignoble intentions. But the virtue in a spontaneous drawing is akin to
+that single devotion to whatever is best, which true purity is; as the
+refinement of economy which results in the finished work is akin to that
+delicate repugnance to all waste, which is true chastity. A sketch by
+Rembrandt of a naked servant girl on a bed is as &quot;simple as the infancy
+of truth&quot;--as single in intention. A Greek statue of a raimentless
+Apollo is pre-eminently chaste. But it does not follow that Rembrandt
+was in his life eminently pure, or the Greek sculptor signal for
+chastity. Drawings rapidly executed have often a lyrical, rapturous,
+exultant purity, and are for that reason, to those whose eyes are
+blinded neither by prejudice nor by misfortune, as captivating as are
+healthy, gleeful children to those whose hearts are free. And while the
+joy that a child's glee gives is for a time, that which a drawing gives
+may well be for ever.</p>
+
+<p>We say a &quot;spirited sketch&quot; as we say &quot;a spirited horse&quot;; but works of
+art are instinct with a vast variety of spirits and exert manifold
+influences. It is a poverty of language which has confined the use of
+this word to one of the most obvious and least estimable. It can be
+never too much insisted on that a work of art is something that exerts
+an influence, and that its whole merit lies in the quality and degree of
+the influence exerted; for those who are not moved by it, it is no more
+than a written sentence to one who cannot read.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>Many people in turning over a collection of D&uuml;rer's drawings would be
+constantly crying, &quot;How marvellously realistic!&quot; and would glow with
+enthusiasm and smile with gratitude for the perception which these words
+expressed. Others would say &quot;merely realistic&quot;; and the words would
+convey, if not disapprobation for something shocking, at least
+indifference. In both cases the word &quot;realistic&quot; would, I take it, mean
+that the objects which the pen, brush, or charcoal strokes represented
+were described with great particularity. And in the first case delight
+would have been felt at recognising the fulness of detailed information
+conveyed about the objects drawn--that each drawing represented not a
+generalisation, but an individual. In the other case the mind would have
+been repelled by the infatuated insistence on insignificant or
+negligible details, the absence of their classification and
+subordination to ideas. The first of these two frames of mind is that of
+Paul Pry, who is delighted to see, to touch, or behold, for whom
+everything is a discovery; and there are members of this class of
+temperament who in middle life continue to make the same discoveries
+every day with zest and a wonder equal to that which they felt when
+children. The second of these frames of mind is that of the man with a
+system or in search of a system, who desires to control, or, if he
+cannot do that, at least to be taken into the confidence of the
+controller, or to gain a position from which he can oversee him, and
+approve or disapprove. Now neither of these judgments is in itself
+aesthetic, or implies a comprehension of D&uuml;rer as an artist.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: ME-ENTO MEI, 1505. From the drawing in the British
+Museum]</p>
+
+<p>The man who cries out: &quot;Just look how that is done!&quot; &quot;Who could have
+believed a single line could have expressed so much?&quot; judges as an
+artist, a craftsman. The man who, like Jean Francois Millet, exclaims:
+&quot;How fine! How grand! How delicate! How beautiful!&quot; judges as a creator.
+He sees that &quot;it is good.&quot; An artist--a creator--may possess either or
+even both the two former temperaments; but as an artist he must be
+governed by the latter two, either singly or combined. D&uuml;rer, doubtless,
+had a considerable share in all four of these points of view. He
+delighted in objects as such, in the new and the strange as new and
+strange, in the intricate as intricate, in the powerful as powerful. And
+above all in his drawings does he manifest this direct and childish
+interest and curiosity. He was also in search of a system, of an
+intellectual key or plan of things; and in the many drawings he devoted
+to explaining or developing his ideas of proportion, of perspective, of
+architecture, he shows this bias strongly. But nearly every drawing by
+him, or attributed to him, manifests the third of these temperaments.
+The never-ceasing economy and daring of the invention displayed in his
+touch, or, as he would have said, &quot;in his hand,&quot; is almost as signal as
+his perfect assurance and composure. And when one reflects that he was
+not, like Rembrandt, an artist who made great or habitual use of the
+spaces of shade and light, but that his workmanship is almost entirely
+confined to the expressive power of lines, wonder is only increased. Of
+the fourth character that creates and estimates value, though in certain
+works D&uuml;rer rises to supreme heights, though in almost all his important
+works he appeases expectation, yet often where he could surely have done
+much better he seems to have been content not to exert his rarest
+gifts, but rather to play with or parade those that are secondary. Not
+only is this so in drawings like the <i>Dance of Monkeys</i> at Basle, done
+to content his friend the reformer Felix Frey (see page 168), and in the
+borders designed to amuse Maximilian during the hours that custom
+ordained he should pretend to give to prayer; but there are drawings
+which were not apparently thrown as sops to the idleness of others, but
+done to content some half-vacant mood of his own (see Lippmann, 41, 83,
+394, 4.20, 333).</p>
+
+<p>In such drawings the economy and daring of the strokes is always
+admirable, can only be compared to that in drawings by Rembrandt and
+Hokusai; but the occasion is often idle, or treated with a condescension
+which well-nigh amounts to indifference. There is no impressiveness of
+allure, no intention in the proportions or disposition on the paper such
+as Erasmus justly praised in the engravings on copper, probably
+recollecting something which D&uuml;rer himself had said (see page 186).</p>
+
+<p>Yet in his portrait heads the right proportions are nearly always found;
+and in many cases I believe it is no one but the artist himself who has
+cut down such drawings after they were completed, to find a more
+harmonious or impressive proportion (see illustration opposite). And
+often these drawings are as perfect in the harmony between the means
+employed and the aspect chosen, and in the proportion between the head
+and the framing line and the spaces it encloses, as Holbein himself
+could have made them; while they far surpass his best in brilliancy and
+intensity.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Drawing in black chalk heightened with white on reddish
+ground Formerly in the collection at Warwick Castle]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on prepared grey ground, in the
+collection of Frederick Locker, Esq.]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Something must be said of D&uuml;rer's employment of the water-colours,
+pen-and-ink, silver-point, charcoal, chalk, &amp;c., with which he made his
+drawings. He is a complete master of each and all these mediums, in so
+far as the line or stroke may be regarded as the fundamental unit; he is
+equally effective with the broad, soft line of chalk (see illustration,
+page I.), or the broad broken charcoal line (see illustration, page
+II.), as with the fine pen stroke (see illustration, page III.), the
+delicate silver-point (see illustration, page IV.), or the supple and
+tapering stroke produced by the camel's hair brush (see illustration,
+page V.). But when one comes to broad washes, large masses of light and
+shade, the expression of atmosphere, of bloom, of light, he is wanting
+in proportion as these effects become vague, cloudy, indefinite,
+mist-like. His success lies rather in the definite reflections on
+polished surfaces; he never reproduces for us the bloom on peach or
+flesh or petal. He does not revel, like Rembrandt, in the veils and
+mysteries of lucent atmosphere or muffling shadow. The emotions for
+which such things produce the most harmonious surroundings he hardly
+ever attempts to appeal to; he is mournful and compassionate, or
+indignant, for the sufferings, of his Man of Sorrows; not tender,
+romantic, or awesome. Only with the tapering tenuity and delicate spring
+of the pure line will he sometimes attain to an infantile or virginal
+freshness that is akin to the tenderness of the bloom on flowers, or the
+light of dawn on an autumn morning.<a name="FNanchor75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75"><sup>[75]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>In the same way, when he is tragic, it is not with thick clouds rent in
+the fury of their flight, or with the light from shaken torches cast and
+scattered like spume-flakes from the angry waves; nor is it with the
+accumulated night that gives intense significance to a single tranquil
+ray. Only by a Rembrandt, to whom these means are daily present, could a
+subject like the <i>Massacre of the Ten Thousand</i> have been treated with
+dramatic propriety; unless, indeed, Michael Angelo, in a grey dawn,
+should have twisted and wrung with manifold pain a tribe of giants,
+stark, and herded in some leafless primeval valley. With D&uuml;rer the
+occasion was merely one on which to coldly invent variations, as though
+this human suffering was a motive for <i>an</i> arabesque. Yet even from the
+days when he copied Andrea Mantegna's struggling sea-monsters, or when
+he drew the stern matured warrior angels of his Apocalypse fighting,
+with their historied faces like men hardened by deceptions practised
+upon them, like men who have forbidden salt tears and clenched their
+teeth and closed their hearts, who see, who hate; even from these early
+days, the energy of his line was capable of all this, and his
+spontaneous sense of arabesque could become menacing and explosive.
+There are two or three drawings of angry, crying cupids (Lipp., 153 and
+446, see illustration opposite), prepared for some intended picture of
+the Crucifixion, where he has made the motive of the winged infants
+head, usually associated with bliss and scattered rose-leaves, become
+terrible and stormy. And the <i>Agony in the Garden</i>, etched on iron,
+contains a tree tortured by the wind (see illustration), as marvellous
+for rhythm, power, and invention as the blast-whipped brambles and naked
+bushes that crest a scarped brow above the jealous husband who stabs his
+wife, in Titian's fresco at Padua. Again, the unspeakable tragedy of the
+stooping figure of Jesus, who is being dragged by His hair up the steps
+to Annas' throne, in the <i>Little Passion</i>, is rendered by lines instinct
+with the highest dramatic power. These are a draughtsman's creations;
+though they are less abundant in D&uuml;rer's work than one could wish, still
+only the greatest produce such effects; only Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Rembrandt can be said to have equalled or surpassed D&uuml;rer in this kind,
+rarely though it be that he competes with them.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: CHERUB FOR A CRUCIFIXION Black chalk drawing heightened
+with white on a blue-grey paper In the collection of Herr Doctor
+Blasius, Brunswick]</p>
+
+<p>It is for the intense energy of his line, combined with its unique
+assurance, that D&uuml;rer is most remarkable. The same amount of detail, the
+same correctness in the articulation and relation between stem and leaf,
+arm and hand, or what not, might be attained by an insipid workmanship
+with lifeless lines, in patient drudgery. It is this fact that those who
+praise art merely as an imitation constantly forget. There is often as
+much invention in the way details are expressed by the strokes of pen or
+brush, as there could be in the grouping of a crowd; the deftness, the
+economy of the touches, counts for more in the inspiriting effect than
+the truth of the imitation. A photograph from nature never conveys this,
+the chief and most fundamental merit of art. Reynolds says:</p>
+
+<p>Rembrandt, in older to take advantage of an accident, appears often to
+have used the pallet-knife to lay his colours on the canvas instead of
+the pencil. Whether it is the knife or any other instrument, <i>it
+suffices, if it is something that does not follow exactly the will.
+Accident, in the hands of</i> an artist <i>who knows horn to take the
+advantage of its hints, will often produce bold and capricious beauties
+of handling</i>, and facility such as he would not have thought of or
+ventured with his pencil, under the regular restraint of his hand.<a name="FNanchor76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76"><sup>[76]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>In such a sketch as the <i>Memento Mei</i>, 1505, (<i>Death</i> riding on
+horseback,) all those who have sense for such things will perceive how
+the rough paper, combined with the broken charcoal line, lends itself to
+qualities of a precisely similar nature to those described by Reynolds
+as obtained by Rembrandt's use of the pallet-knife. Yet, just as, in the
+use of charcoal, the &quot;something that does not follow exactly the will&quot;
+is infinitely more subtle than in the use of the palette-knife to
+represent rocks or stumps of trees, so in the pen or silver-point line
+this element, though reduced and refined till it is hardly perceptible,
+still exists, and D&uuml;rer takes &quot;the advantage of its hints.&quot; And not only
+does he do' this, but he foresees their occurrence, and relies on them
+to render such things as crumpled skin, as in the sketches for Adam's
+hand holding the apple. (Lipp. 234). The operation is so rapid, so
+instantaneous, that it must be called an instinct, or at least a habit
+become second nature, while in the instance chosen by Reynolds, it is
+obvious and can be imagined step by step; but in every case it is this
+capacity to take advantage of the accident, and foresee and calculate
+upon its probable occurrences, that makes the handling of any material
+inventive, bold, and inimitable. It is in these qualities that an artist
+is the scholar of the materials he employs, and goes to school to the
+capacities of his own hand, being taught both by their failure to obey
+his will here, and by their facility in rendering his subtlest
+intentions there. And when he has mastered all they have to teach him,
+he can make their awkwardness and defects expressive; as stammerers
+sometimes take advantage of their impediment so that in itself it
+becomes an element of eloquence, of charm, or even of explicitness;
+while the extra attention rendered enables them to fetch about and dare
+to express things that the fluent would feel to be impossible and
+never attempt.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: APOLLO AND DIANA--Pen drawing in the British Museum,
+supposed to show the influence of the Belvedere Apollo]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>Lastly, it is in his drawings, perhaps, even more than in his copper
+engravings, that D&uuml;rer proves himself a master of &quot;the art of seeing
+nature,&quot; as Reynolds phrased it; and the following sentence makes clear
+what is meant, for he says of painting &quot;perhaps it ought to be as far
+removed from the vulgar idea of imitation, as the refined, civilised
+state in which we live is removed from a gross state of nature&quot;;<a name="FNanchor77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77"><sup>[77]</sup></a> and
+again: &quot;If we suppose a view of nature, represented with all the truth
+of the camera obscura, and the same scene represented by a great artist,
+how little and how mean will the one appear in comparison of the other,
+where no superiority is supposed from the choice of the subject.&quot;<a name="FNanchor78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78"><sup>[78]</sup></a>
+Not only is outward nature infinitely varied, infinitely composite; but
+human nature--receptive and creative--is so too, and after we have gazed
+at an object for a few moments, we no longer see it the same as it was
+revealed to our first glance. Not only has its appearance changed for
+us, but the effect that it produces on our emotions and intelligence is
+no longer the same. Each successful mind, according to its degree of
+culture, arrives finally at a perception of every class of objects
+presented to it which is most in agreement with its own nature--that is,
+calls forth or nourishes its most cherished energies and efforts, while
+harmonising with its choicest memories. All objects in regard to which
+it cannot arrive at such a result oppress, depress, or even torment it.
+At least this is the case with our highest and most creative moods; but
+every man of parts has a vast range of moods, descending from this to
+the almost vacant contemplation of a cow--the innocence of whose eye,
+which perceives what is before it without transmuting it by recollection
+or creative effort, must appear almost ideal to the up-to-date critic
+who has recently revealed the innocent confusion of his mind in a
+ponderous tome on nineteenth-century art. The art of seeing nature,
+then, consists in being able to recognise how an object appears in
+harmony with any given mood; and the artist must employ his materials to
+suggest that appearance with the least expenditure of painful effort.
+The highest art sees all things in harmony with man's most elevated
+moods; the lowest sees nature much as Dutch painters and cows do. Now we
+can understand what Goethe means when he says that &quot;Albrecht D&uuml;rer
+enjoyed the advantages of a profound realistic perception, and an
+affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions.&quot; The man who
+continued to feel, after he had become a Lutheran, the beauty of the art
+that honoured the Virgin, the man who cannot help laughing at the most
+&quot;lying, thievish rascals&quot; whenever they talk to him because &quot;they know
+that their knavery is no secret, but 'they don't mind,'&quot; is
+affectionate; he is amused by monkeys and the rhinoceros; he can bear
+with Pirkheimer's bad temper; he looks out of kindly eyes that allow
+their perception of strangeness or oddity to redeem the impression that
+might otherwise have been produced by vice, or uncouthness, or
+sullen frowns.</p>
+
+<p>I have supposed that a realistic perception was one which saw things
+with great particularity; and the words &quot;a profound realistic
+perception&quot; to Goethe's mind probably conveyed the idea of such a
+perception, in profound accord with human nature, that is where the
+human recognition, delight and acceptance followed the perception even
+to the smallest details, without growing weary or failing to find at
+least a hope of significance in them. If this was what the great critic
+meant, those who turn over a collection of D&uuml;rer's drawings will feel
+that they are profoundly realistic (realistic in a profoundly human
+sense), and that their author enjoyed an affectionate human sympathy
+with all present conditions; and by these two qualities is infinitely
+distinguished from all possessors of so-called innocent eyes, whether
+quadruped or biped.</p>
+
+<p>It is well to notice wherein this notion of Goethe's differs from the
+conventional notions which make up everybody's criticism. For instance,
+&quot;In all his pictures he confined himself to facts,&quot; says Sir Martin
+Conway,<a name="FNanchor79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79"><sup>[79]</sup></a> and then immediately qualifies this by adding, &quot;He painted
+events as truly as his imagination could conceive them.&quot; We may safely
+say that no painter of the first rank has ever confined himself to
+facts. Nor can we take the second sentence as it stands. Any one who
+looks at the <i>Trinity</i> in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna will see at
+once that the artist who painted it did not shut his eyes and try to
+conjure up a vision of the scene to be represented; the ordering of the
+picture shows plainly throughout that a foregone conventional
+arrangement, joined with the convenience of the methods of
+representation to be employed, dictated nearly the whole composition,
+and that the details, costumes, &amp;c., were gradually added, being chosen
+to enhance the congruity or variety of what was already given. Perhaps
+it was never a prime object with D&uuml;rer to conceive the event, it was
+rather the picture that he attempted to conceive; it is Rembrandt who
+attempts to conceive events, not D&uuml;rer. He is very far from being a
+realist in this sense: though certain of his etchings possess a
+considerable degree of such realism, it is not what characterises him as
+a creator or inventor. But a &quot;profound realistic perception&quot; almost
+unequalled he did possess; what he saw he painted not as he saw it, not
+where he saw it, but as it appeared to him to really be. So he painted
+real girls, plain, ugly or pretty as the case might be, for angels, and
+put them in the sky; but for their wings he would draw on his fancy.
+Often the folds of a piece of drapery so delighted him that they are
+continued for their own sake and float out where there is no wind to
+support them, or he would develop their intricacies beyond every
+possibility of conceivable train or other superfluity of real garments;
+and it is this necessity to be richer and more magnificent than
+probability permits which brings us to the creator in D&uuml;rer; not only
+had he a profound realistic perception of what the world was like, but
+he had an imagination that suggested to him that many things could be
+played with, embroidered upon, made handsomer, richer or more
+impressive. When Goethe adds that &quot;he was retarded by a gloomy fantasy
+devoid of form or foundation,&quot; we perceive that the great critic is
+speaking petulantly or without sufficient knowledge. D&uuml;rer's gloomy
+fantasy, the grotesque element in his pictures and prints, was not his
+own creation, it is not peculiar to him, he accepted it from tradition
+and custom (see Plate &quot;Descent into Hell&quot;). What is really
+characteristic of him is the richness displayed in devils' scales and
+wings, in curling hair or crumpled drapery, or flame, or smoke, or
+cloud, or halo; and, still more particularly, his is the energy of line
+or fertility of invention with which all these are displayed, and the
+dignity or austerity which results from the general proportion of the
+masses and main lines of his composition.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>For the illustration of this volume I have chosen a larger proportion of
+drawings than of any other class of work; both because D&uuml;rer's drawings
+are less widely known than his engravings on metal, and because, though
+his fame may perhaps rest almost equally on these latter, and they may
+rightly be considered more unique in character, yet his drawings show
+the splendid creativeness of his handling of materials in greater
+variety. One engraving on copper is like another in the essential
+problem that it offered to the craftsman to resolve; but every different
+medium in which D&uuml;rer made drawings, and every variety of surface on
+which he drew, offered a different problem, and perhaps no other artist
+can compare with him in the great variety of such problems which he has
+solved with felicity. And this power of his to modify his method with
+changing conditions is, as we have seen, from the technical side the
+highest and greatest quality that an artist can possess. It only fails
+him when he has to deal with oil paintings, and even there he shows a
+corresponding sense of the nature of the problems involved, if he shows
+less felicity on the whole in solving them; and perhaps could he have
+stayed at Venice and have had the results of Giorgione's and Titian's
+experiments to suggest the right road, we should have been scarcely able
+to perceive that he was less gifted as a painter than as draughtsman. As
+it is, he has given us water-colour sketches in which the blot is used
+to render the foliage of trees in a manner till then unprecedented.
+(Lipp. 132, &amp;c.) He can rival Watteau in the use of soft chalk, Leonardo
+in the use of the pen, and Van Eyck in the use of the brush point; and
+there are examples of every intermediate treatment to form a chain
+across the gulf that separates these widely differing modes of graphic
+expression. There can be no need to point the application of these
+remarks to the individual drawings here reproduced; those who are
+capable of recognising it will do so without difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: AN OLD CASTLE Body-dour drawing at Bremen]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>In conclusion, D&uuml;rer appears as a draughtsman of unrivalled powers. And
+when one looks on his drawings as what they most truly were, his
+preparation for the tasks set him by the conditions of his life, there
+is room for nothing but unmixed admiration. It is only when one asks
+whether those tasks might not have been more worthy of such high gifts
+that one is conscious of deficiency or misfortune. And can one help
+asking whether the Emperor Max might not have given D&uuml;rer his Bible or
+his Virgil to illustrate, instead of demanding to have the borders of
+his &quot;Book of Hours&quot; rendered amusing with fantastic and curious
+arabesques; whether D&uuml;rer's learned friends, instead of requiring from
+him recondite or ceremonious allegories, might not have demanded
+title-pages of classic propriety; or whether the imperial bent of his
+own imagination might not have rendered their demands malleable, and bid
+them call for a series of woodcuts, engravings or drawings, which could
+rival Rembrandt's etchings in significance of subject-matter and
+imaginative treatment, as they rival them in executive power? In his
+portraits--the large majority of which have come down to us only as
+drawings, the majority of which were never anything else--the demand
+made upon him was worthy; but even here Holbein, a man of lesser gift
+and power, has perhaps succeeded in leaving a more dignified, a more
+satisfying series; one containing, if not so many masterpieces, fewer on
+which an accidental or trivial subject or mood has left its impress.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is D&uuml;rer's, not Rembrandt's, not Holbein's
+character, that impresses us as most serious, most worthy to be held as
+a model. It is before his portrait of himself that Mr. Ricketts &quot;forgets
+all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is worthy of the
+occasion.&quot; So that we feel bound to attribute our dissatisfaction to
+something in his circumstances having hindered and hampered the flow of
+what was finest in his nature into his work. From Venice he wrote: &quot;I am
+a gentleman here, but only a hanger-on at home.&quot; Germany was a better
+home for a great character, a great personality, than for a great
+artist: D&uuml;rer the artist was never quite at home there, never a
+gentleman among his peers. The good and solid burghers rated him as a
+good and solid burgher, worth so much per annum; never as endowed with
+the rank of his unique gift. It was only at Venice and Antwerp that he
+was welcomed as the Albert D&uuml;rer whom we to-day know, love, and honour.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor75">[75]</a><blockquote> See the exquisite landscape in the collection of Mr. C. S.
+Ricketts and Mr. C. H. Shannon, reproduced in the sixth folio of the
+D&uuml;rer Society, 1903. Mr. Campbell Dodgson describes the drawing as in a
+measure spoilt by retouching, but what convinces him that these
+retouches are not by D&uuml;rer? The pen-work seems to be at once too clever
+and too careless to have been added by another hand to preserve a
+fading drawing.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor76">[76]</a><blockquote> XII. Discourse.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor77">[77]</a><blockquote> XIII, Discourse.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor78">[78]</a><blockquote> Ibid.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor79">[79]</a><blockquote> Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer, p. I 50.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_METAL_ENGRAVINGS"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>For the artist or designer the chief difference between the engraving
+done on a wood block and that done on metal lies in the thickness of the
+line. The engraved line in a wood block is in relief, that on a metal
+plate is entrenched; the ink in the one case is applied to the crest of
+a ridge, in the other it fills a groove into which the surface of the
+paper is squeezed. Though lines almost as fine as those possible on
+metal have been achieved by wood engravers, in doing this they force the
+nature of their medium, whereas on a copper plate fine lines come
+naturally. Perhaps no section of D&uuml;rer's work reveals his unique powers
+so thoroughly as his engravings on metal. They were entirely his own
+work both in design and execution; and no expenditure of pains or
+patience seems to have limited his intentions, or to have hindered his
+execution or rendered it less vital. And perhaps it is this fact which
+witnesses with our spirit and bids us recognise the master: rather than
+the comprehension of natural forms which he evinces, subtle and vigorous
+though it be; or than the symbols and types which he composed from such
+forms for the traditional and novel ideas of his day. And this
+unweariable assiduity of his is continually employed in the discovery
+of very noble arabesques of line and patterns in black and white, more
+varied than the grain in satin wood or the clustering and dispersion of
+the stars. Intensity of application, constancy of purpose, when revealed
+to us by beautifully variegated surfaces, the result of human toil, may
+well impress us, may rightly impress us, more than quaint and antiquated
+notions about the four temperaments, or about witches and their
+sabbaths, or about virtues and vices embodied in misconceptions of the
+characters of pagan divinities, and in legends about them which scholars
+had just begun to translate with great difficulty and very ill. It is
+the astonishing assurance of the central human will for perfection that
+awes us; this perception that flinches at no difficulty, this perception
+of how greatly beauty deserves to be embodied in human creations and
+given permanence to.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>In the encomium which Erasmus wrote of Albert D&uuml;rer he dealt, as one
+sees by the passage quoted (p. 186), with D&uuml;rer's engraved work almost
+exclusively. Perhaps the great humanist had seen no paintings by D&uuml;rer,
+and very likely had heard D&uuml;rer himself disparage them, as Melanchthon
+tells us was his wont (p. 187). We know that D&uuml;rer gave Erasmus some of
+his engravings, and we may feel sure that he was questioned pretty
+closely as to what were the aims of his art, and wherein he seemed to
+himself to have best succeeded. The sentence I underlined (on p. 186)
+gives us probably some reflection of D&uuml;rer's reply. We must remember
+that Erasmus, from his classical knowledge as to how Apelles was
+praised, was full of the idea that art was an imitation, and may
+probably have refused to understand what D&uuml;rer may very likely have told
+him in modification of this view; or he may by citing his Greek and
+Latin sources have prevented the reverent D&uuml;rer from being outspoken on
+the point. But though most of his praise seems mere literary
+commonplace, the sentence underlined strikes us as having
+another source.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He reproduces not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also
+observes the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the
+position of it.&quot; How one would like to have heard D&uuml;rer, as Erasmus may
+probably have heard him, explain the principles on which he composed! No
+doubt there is no very radical difference between his sense of
+composition and that of other great artists. But to hear one so
+preoccupied with explaining his processes to himself discourse on this
+difficult subject would be great gain. For though there are doubtless no
+absolute rules, and the appeal is always to a refined sense for
+proportion,--yet to hear a creator speak of such things is to have this
+sense, as it were, washed and rendered delicate once more. We can but
+regret that Erasmus has not saved us something fuller than this hint. In
+the same way, how tempting is the criticism that Camerarius gives of
+Mantegna,--we feel that D&uuml;rer's own is behind it; but as it stands it is
+disjointed and absurd, like some of the incomplete and confused parables
+which give us a glimpse of how much more was lost than was preserved by
+the reporters of the sayings of Jesus. It is the same thing with the
+reported sayings of Michael Angelo, and indeed of all other great men.
+It is impossible to accept &quot;his hand was not trained to follow the
+perception and nimbleness of his mind&quot; as D&uuml;rer's dictum on Mantegna;
+but how suggestive is the allusion to &quot;broken and scattered statues set
+up as examples of art,&quot; for artists to form themselves upon! Yet the
+fact that D&uuml;rer missed coming into contact not only with Mantegna but
+with Titian, Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, is indeed the saddest
+fact in regard to his life. We can well believe that he felt it in
+Mantegna's case. Ah! Why could he not bring himself to accept the
+overtures made to him, and become a citizen of Venice?</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>The subjects of these engravings are even generally trivial or
+antiquated, either in themselves or by the way they are approached.
+Perhaps alone among them the figure of Jesus, as it is drawn in the
+various series on copper and wood illustrating the Passion, is conceived
+in a manner which touches us to-day with the directness of a revelation;
+and even this cannot be compared to the same figure in Rembrandt
+etchings and drawings, either for essential adequacy, or for various and
+convincing application. No, we must consent to let the expression &quot;great
+thoughts&quot; drop out of our appreciation of D&uuml;rer's works, and be replaced
+by the &quot;great character&quot; latent in them.</p>
+
+<p>However, one among D&uuml;rer's engravings on copper stands out from among
+the rest, and indeed from all his works. In the <i>Melancholy</i> the
+composition is not more dignified in its spacing and proportion; the
+arabesque of line is not richer or sweeter, the variations from black to
+white are not more handsome, than in some half dozen of his other
+engravings. No, by its conception alone the <i>Melancholy</i> attains to its
+unique impressiveness. And it is the impressiveness of an image, not the
+impressiveness of an idea or situation, as in the case of the <i>Knight,
+Death, and the Devil</i>, by which almost as much bad literature has been
+inspired. There is nothing to choose between the workmanship of the two
+plates; both are absolutely impeccable, and outside the work of D&uuml;rer
+himself, unrivalled. The <i>Melancholy</i> is the only creation by a German
+which appears to me to invite and sustain comparison with the works of
+the greatest Italian. In it we have the impressiveness that belongs only
+to the image, the thing conceived for mental vision, and addressed to
+the eye exclusively. If there was an allegory, or if the plate formed
+(as has been imagined) one of a series representative of the four
+temperaments, the eye and the visual imagination are addressed with such
+force and felicity that the inquiries which attempt to answer these
+questions must for ever appear impertinent. They may add some languid
+interest to the contemplation which is sated with admiring the
+impeccable mastery of the Knight; for that plate always seems to me the
+mere illustration of a literary idea, a sheer statement of items which
+require to be connected by some story, and some of which have the crude
+obviousness of folk-lore symbols, without their racy and genial na&iuml;vety.
+They have not been fused in the rapture of some unique mood, not
+focussed by the intensity of an emotion. With the <i>Melancholy</i> all is
+different; perhaps among all his works only D&uuml;rer's most haunting
+portrait of himself has an equal or even similar power to bind us in its
+spell. For this reason I attempt the following comparison between the
+<i>Sibyls</i> of the Sistine Chapel and the <i>Melancholy</i> a comparison which I
+do not suppose to have any other value or force than that of a stimulant
+to the imagination which the works themselves address.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: MELANCHOLIA Copper engraving, B. 74]</p>
+
+<p>The impetuosity of his Southern blood drives Michael Angelo to betray
+his intention of impressing in the pose and build of his Sibyls. Large
+and exceptional women, &quot;limbed&quot; and thewed as gods are, with an habitual
+command of gesture, they lift down or open their books or unwind their
+scrolls like those accustomed to be the cynosure of many eyes, who have
+lived before crowds of inferiors, a spectacle of dignity from their
+childhood upwards. On the other hand, the pose and build of the
+<i>Melancholy</i> must have been those of many a matron in Nuremberg. It is
+not till we come to the face that we find traits that correspond with
+the obvious symbolism of the wings and wreath, or the serious richness
+of the black and white effect of the composition; but that face holds
+our attention as not even the Sibylla Delphica cannot by beauty, not by
+conscious inspiration, but by the spell of unanswerable thought, by the
+power to brood, by the patience that can and dare go unresolved for many
+years. Everything is begun about her; she cannot see unto the end; she
+is powerful, she is capable in many works, she has borne children, she
+rests from her labours, and her thought wanders, sleeps or dreams. The
+spirit of the North, with its industry, its cool-headed calculation, its
+abundance in contrivance, its elaboration of duty and accumulation of
+possessions--there she sits, absorbed, unsatisfied. Impetuosity and the
+frank avowal of intention are themselves an expression of the will to
+create that which is desirable; they can but form the habit of every
+artist under happy circumstances. They proceed on the expectation of
+immediate effectiveness, they belong to power in action; while, if
+beauty be not impetuous, she is frank, and adds to the avowal of her
+intention the promise of its fulfilment. The work of art and the artist
+are essentially open; they promise intimacy, and fulfil that promise
+with entirety when successful. Nor is anything so impressive as intimacy
+which implies a perfect sincerity, a complete revelation, a gift without
+reserve, increase without let. But the circumstances of the artist never
+are happy: even Michael Angelo's were not. An intense brooding
+melancholy arises from the repressed and baffled desire to create; and
+in some measure this gloom of failure underlying their success is a
+necessary character of all lovely and spiritual creations in this world.
+Now Michael Angelo's works, because of their Southern impetuosity and
+volubility, are not so instinct with this divine sorrow, this immobility
+of the soul face to face with evil, as is D&uuml;rer's <i>Melancholy</i>. He
+inspires and exhilarates us more, but takes us out of ourselves rather
+than leads us home.</p>
+
+<p>Here is D&uuml;rer's success: let and hindered as it really is, he makes us
+feel the inalienable constancy of rational desire, watching adverse
+circumstance as one beast of prey watches another. She keeps hold on the
+bird she has caught, the ideal that perhaps she will never fully enjoy.
+Michael Angelo pictures for us freedom from trammels, the freedom that
+action, thought and ecstasy give, the freedom that is granted to beauty
+by all who recognise it; D&uuml;rer shows us the constancy that bridges the
+intervals between such free hours, that gives continuity to man's
+necessarily spasmodic effort. Thus he typifies for us the Northern
+genius: as Michael Angelo's athletes might typify by their naked beauty
+and the unexplained impressiveness of their gestures, the genius of the
+sudden South--sudden in action, sudden in thought, suddenly mature,
+suddenly asleep--as day changes to night and night to day the more
+rapidly as the tropics are approached.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustraton: Detail enlarged from the &quot;Agony in the Garden.&quot; Etching on
+Iron, B. 19 <i>Between</i> pp. 250 &amp; 251]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: ANGEL WITH THE SUDARIUM Engraving in Iron, 1516. B. 26
+<i>Between</i> pp. 250 &amp; 251]</p>
+
+<p>Instances of the highest imaginative power are rare in D&uuml;rer's work. The
+<i>Melancholy</i> has had a world-wide success. The <i>Knight, Death and the
+Devil</i> has one almost equal, but which is based on the facility with
+which it is associated with certain ideas dear to Christian culture,
+rather than on the creation of the mood in which these ideas arise. It
+does not move us until we know that it is an illustration of Erasmus's
+Christian Knight. Then all its dignity and mastery and the supremacy of
+the gifts employed on it are brought into touch with the idea, and each
+admirer operates, according to his imaginativeness, something of the
+transformation which D&uuml;rer had let slip or cool down before
+realising it.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>Among the prints with lesser reputations are several which attain a far
+higher success. There is the iron plate of the <i>Agony in the Garden,</i> B.
+19, already mentioned (p. 235), in which the storm-tortured tree and the
+broken light and shade are full of dramatic power (see illustration),
+the <i>Angel with the Sudarium</i>, B. 26, where the arabesque of the folds
+of drapery and cloud unite with the daring invention of the central
+figure to create a mood entirely consonant with the subject. There is
+the woman carried off by a man on an unicorn, in which the turbulence of
+the subject is expressed with unrivalled force by the rich and beautiful
+arabesque and black and white pattern.</p>
+
+<p>B. Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, of the <i>Little Passion</i>, on
+copper, are all of them noteworthy successes of more or less the same
+kind; and in these, too, we come upon that racy sense for narration
+which can enhance dramatic import by emphasising some seemingly trivial
+circumstance, as in the gouty stiffness of one of Christ's scourgers in
+the <i>Flagellation</i>, or the abnormal ugliness of the man who with such
+perfect gravity holds the basin while Pilate <i>washes his hands:</i> while
+in the <i>Crown of Thorns</i> and <i>Descent into Hades</i> we have peculiarly
+fine and suitable black and white patterns, and in the <i>Peter and John
+at the Beautiful Gate</i><a name="FNanchor80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80"><sup>[80]</sup></a> and the <i>Ecce Homo</i> figures of monumental
+dignity in tiny gems of glowing engraver's work. The repose and serenity
+of the lovely little <i>St. Antony</i>;<a name="FNanchor81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81"><sup>[81]</sup></a> the subsidence of commotion in
+the noonday victory of the little <i>St. George on foot</i>, B. 53--perhaps
+the most perfect diamond in the whole brilliant chain of little plates,
+or the staid na&iuml;vety of the enchanting <i>Apollo and Diana</i>, B. 68;<a name="FNanchor82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82"><sup>[82]</sup></a>
+who shall prefer among these things? Every time we go through them we
+choose out another until we return to the most popular and slightly
+obvious <i>St. George on Horseback</i>, B. 54. Next come the dainty series of
+little plates in honour of Our Lady the Mother of God, commencing before
+D&uuml;rer made a rule of dating his plates; before 1503 and continuing till
+after 1520, in which the last are the least worthy. Among these the
+Virgin embracing her Child at the foot of a tree, B. 34, dated 1513; The
+Virgin standing on the crescent moon, her baby in one arm, her sceptre
+in the other hand and the stars of her crown blown sideways as she bows
+her head, B. 32, dated 1516, and the stately and monumental Virgin
+seated by a wall, B. 40, dated 1514, are at present my favourites. And
+to these succeeded the noble army of Apostles and Martyrs of which the
+more part are dated from 1521 to 1526, though two, B. 48 and 50, fall as
+early as 1514.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: THE SMALL HORSE--Copper Engraving, B. 96]</p>
+
+<p>Then amongst the most perfect larger plates I cannot refrain from
+mentioning the <i>St. Jerome</i>, B. 60, with its homely seclusion as of
+D&uuml;rer's own best parlour in summer time which not even the presence of a
+lion can disturb; the idyllic and captivating <i>St. Hubert</i>, B. 57; the
+august and tranquil <i>Cannon</i>, B. 99: and lastly, perhaps, in the little
+<i>Horse</i>, B. 96, we come upon a theme and motive of the kind best suited
+to D&uuml;rer's peculiar powers, in which he produces an effect really
+comparable to those of the old Greek masters, about whose lost works he
+was so eager for scraps of information, and whose fame haunted him even
+into his slumbers, so that he dreamed of them and of those who should
+&quot;give a future to their past.&quot; This delightful work may illustrate an
+allegory now grown dark or some misconception of a Grecian story; but
+though the relation between the items that compose it should remain for
+ever unexplained, its beauty, like that of some Greek sculpture that has
+been admired under many names, continues its spell, and speaks of how
+the simplicity, austerity and noble proportions of classical art were
+potent with the spirit of the great Nuremberg artist, and occasionally
+had free way with him, in spite of all there was in his circumstances
+and origins to impede or divert them. (See also the spirited drawing,
+Lipp. 366.)</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>It would be idle to attempt to say something about every masterpiece in
+D&uuml;rer's splendidly copious work on metal plates. There is perhaps not
+one of these engravings that is not vital upon one side or another,
+amazingly few that are not vital upon many. One other work, however,
+which has been much criticised and generally misunderstood, it may be as
+well to examine at more length, especially as it illustrates what was
+often D&uuml;rer's practice in regard to his theories about proportion, with
+which my next Part will deal. I speak of the <i>Great Fortune</i> or
+<i>Nemesis</i> (B. 77). His practice at other times is illustrated by the
+splendid <i>Adam and Eve</i> (B. 1), over the production of which the nature
+of the canon he suggested was perhaps first thoroughly worked out. But
+before this and afterwards too he no doubt frequently followed the
+advice he gives in the following passage.</p>
+
+<p>To him that setteth himself to draw figures according to this book, not
+being well taught beforehand, the matter will at first become hard. Let
+him then put a man before him, who agreeth, as nearly as may be, <i>with
+the proportions he desireth</i>; and let him draw him in outline according
+to his knowledge and power. And a man is held to have done well if he
+attain accurately to copy a figure according to the life, so that his
+drawing resembleth the figure and is like unto nature. <i>And in
+particular if the thing copied as beautiful; then is the copy held to be
+artistic</i>, and, as it deserveth, it is highly praised.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer himself would seem to have very often followed his own advice in
+this. The <i>Great Fortune</i> or Nemesis is a case in point. The remarks of
+critics on this superb engraving are very strange and wide. Professor
+Thausing said, &quot;Embodied in this powerful female form, the Northern
+worship of nature here makes its first conscious and triumphant
+appearance in the history of art.&quot; With the work of the great Jan Van
+Eyck in one's mind's eye, of course this will appear one of those
+little lapses of memory so convenient to German national sentiment.
+&quot;Everything that, according to our aesthetic formalism based on the
+antique, we should consider beautiful, is sacrificed to truth.&quot; (I have
+already pointed out that this use of the word &quot;truth&quot; in matters of art
+constitutes a fallacy)<a name="FNanchor83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83"><sup>[83]</sup></a> &quot;And yet our taste must bow before the
+imperishable fidelity to nature displayed in these forms, the fulness of
+life that animates these limbs.&quot; Of course, &quot;imperishable fidelity to
+nature&quot; and &quot;taste that bows before it&quot; are merely the figures of a
+clumsy rhetoric. But the idea they imply is one of the most common of
+vulgar errors in regard to works of art. In the first place one must
+remind our enthusiastic German that it is an engraving and not a woman
+that we are discussing; and that this engraving is extremely beautiful
+in arabesque and black and white pattern, rich, rhythmical and
+harmonious; and that there is no reason why our taste should be violated
+in having to bow submissively before such beauties as these, which it is
+a pleasure to worship. Now we come to the subject as presented to the
+intelligence, after the quick receptive eye has been satiated with
+beauty. Our German guide exclaims, &quot;Not misled by cold definite rules of
+proportion, he gave himself up to unrestrained realism in the
+presentation of the female form.&quot; Our first remark is, that though the
+treatment of this female form may perhaps be called realistic, this
+adjective cannot be made to apply to the figure as a whole. This
+massively built matron is winged; she stands on a small globe suspended
+in the heavens, which have opened and are furled up like a garment in a
+manner entirely conventional. She carries a scarf which behaves as no
+fabric known to me would behave even under such exceptional and
+thrilling circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Carl Giehlow has recently suggested that this splendid engraving
+illustrates the following Latin verses by Poliziano:</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Est dea, quse vacuo sublimis in a&euml;re pendens<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;It nimbo succincta latus, sed candida pallam,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sed radiata comam, ac stridentibus insonat alis.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Haec spes immodicas premit, haec infesta superbis<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Imminet, huic celsas hominum contundere mentes<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Incessusque datum et nimios turbare paratus.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Quam veteres Nemesin genitam de nocte silenti<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Oceano discere patri. Stant sidera fronti.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Frena manu pateramque gerit, semperque verendum<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ridet et insanis obstat contraria coeptis.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Improba vota domans ac summis ima revolvens<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Miscet et alterna nostros vice temperat actus.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Atque hue atque illuc ventorum turbine fertur.<br>
+
+<p>There is a goddess, who, aloft in the empty air, advances girdled about
+with a cloud, but with a shining white cloak and a glory in her hair,
+and makes a rushing with her wings. She it is who crushes extravagant
+hopes, who threatens the proud, to whom is given to beat down the
+haughty spirit and the haughty step, and to confound over-great
+possessions. Her the men of old called Nemesis, born to Ocean from the
+womb of silent Night. Stars stand upon her forehead. In her hand she
+bears bridles and a chalice, and smiles for ever with an awful smile,
+and stands resisting mad designs. Turning to nought the prayers of the
+wicked and setting the low above the high she puts one in the other's
+place and rules the scenes of life with alternation. And she is borne
+hither and thither on the wings of the whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>If this suggestion is a good one it shows us that D&uuml;rer was no more
+consistently literal than he was realistic. The most striking features
+of his illustration are just those to which his text offers no
+counterpart, i.e., the nudity and physical maturity of his goddess.
+Neither has he girdled her about with cloud nor stood stars upon her
+forehead. I must confess that I find it hard to believe that there was
+any close connection present to his mind between his engraving and
+these verses.</p>
+
+<p>In a former chapter I have spoken of the fashion in female dress then
+prevalent; how it underlined whatever is most essential in the physical
+attributes of womanhood, and how probably something of good taste is
+shown in this fashion (see pp. 92 and 93). What I there said will
+explain D&uuml;rer's choice in this matter; and also that what Thausing felt
+bow in him was not taste, but his prejudices in regard to womanly
+attractiveness, and his misconception as to where the beauty of an
+engraving should be looked for and in what it consists. These same
+prejudices and misconceptions render Mrs. Heaton (as is only natural in
+one of the weaker sex) very bold. She says, &quot;A large naked winged woman,
+whose ugliness is perfectly repulsive.&quot; This object, I must confess,
+appears to me, a coarse male, &quot;welcome to contemplation of the mind and
+eye.&quot; The splendid Venus in Titian's <i>Sacred and Profane Love</i>, or his
+<i>Ariadne</i> at Madrid; or Raphael's <i>Galatea</i>; or Michael Angelo's <i>Eve</i>
+(on the Sistine vault) are all of them doubtless far more akin to the
+<i>Aphrodite</i> of Praxiteles, or to her who crouches in the Louvre, than is
+this <i>Nemesis</i>; but we must not forget that they are works on a scale
+more comparable with a marble statue; and that in works of which the
+scale is more similar to that of our engraving, Greek taste was often
+far more with D&uuml;rer than with Thausing. This is an important point,
+though one which is rarely appreciated. However, there is no reason why
+we should condemn &quot;misled by cold definite rules of taste&quot; even such
+pictures as Rembrandt's <i>Bathing Woman</i> in the Louvre, though here the
+proportions of the work are heroic. Oil painting was an art not
+practised by the Greeks, and this medium lends itself to beauties which
+their materials put entirely out of reach. Besides, Rembrandt appealed
+to an audience who had been educated by Christian ideals to appreciate a
+pathos produced by the juxtaposition of the fact with the ideal, and of
+the creature with the creator, to appeal to which a Greek would have had
+to be far more circumspect in his address--even if he had, through an
+exceptional docility and receptiveness of character, come under its
+influence himself. These considerations when apprehended will, I
+believe, suffice to dispel both prejudice and misconception in regard to
+this matter; and we shall find in Professor Thausing's remarks relative
+to the treatment of the &quot;female form divine&quot; in this engraving no
+additional reason for considering it a comparatively early work. And we
+shall only smile when he tells us &quot;The <i>Nemesis</i> to a certain <i>degree</i>
+(sic) marks the extreme <i>point</i> (sic) reached by D&uuml;rer in his unbiased
+study of the nude. His further progress became more and more influenced
+by his researches into the proportions of the human body.&quot; The bias will
+appear to us of rather more recent date, and we shall be ready to
+consider with an open mind how far D&uuml;rer's practice was influenced for
+good or evil by his researches into the proportions of the human body.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor80">[80]</a><blockquote> See page 258.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor81">[81]</a><blockquote> See page 260.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor82">[82]</a><blockquote> See Frontispiece.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor83">[83]</a><blockquote> See page 19.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_WOODCUTS"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S WOODCUTS</h3>
+
+<p>It is now generally accepted that D&uuml;rer did not himself engrave on wood.
+In his earliest blocks he shows a greater respect for the limitations of
+this means of expression than later on. The earliest wood blocks, though
+no doubt they aimed at being facsimiles, were not such in fact; but the
+engraver took certain liberties for his own convenience, and probably
+did not attempt to render what D&uuml;rer calls &quot;the hand&quot; of the designer.
+&quot;The hand&quot; was equivalent to what modern artists call &quot;the touch,&quot; and
+meant the peculiar character recognisable in the vast majority of the
+strokes or marks which each artist uses in drawing or painting. D&uuml;rer
+affected extremely curved and rapid strokes, Mantegna the deliberate
+straight line, Rembrandt the straight stroke used so as to seem a
+continual improvisation; though indeed he varies the character of his
+touch more continually and more vastly than any other master, yet in his
+drawings and etchings the majority of the strokes are straight. Already
+in the woodcuts provided by Michael Wolgemut, D&uuml;rer's master, to
+illustrate books, there is a general attempt to render cross hatching:
+and the eyes and hair, though still those of an engraver, are
+frequently modified to some extent in deference to the character given
+by the draughtsman. Still, no one with practical experience would
+consider these woodcuts as adequate facsimiles: which makes the question
+of their attribution to Wolgemut, or his partner and step-son,
+Pleydenwurff, of still less interest and importance than it is on all
+other grounds. So conscious an exception as the soul of the accurate
+Albert D&uuml;rer was, could not be expected to endure a partner in his
+creations, especially one whose character was revealed chiefly by the
+clumsy compromises convenient to lack of skill. Doubtless the demand for
+&quot;his hand&quot; was a new factor in the education of the engraver, as
+constant and as imperturbable as the action of a copious stream, which,
+having its source in lonely heights, wears a channel through the hardest
+rock, the most sullen soils. It may have been the pitiless tyranny of
+the master's will for perfection which drove Hieronymus Andreae, &quot;the
+most famous of D&uuml;rer's wood engravers,&quot; into religious and even civil
+rebellion, joining hands with levelling fanatics and taking active part
+in the Peasant War. D&uuml;rer probably would have commanded too much
+reverence and affection for these rebellions to be directed against him;
+but an insupportably heavy yoke is not rendered lighter because it is
+imposed by a loved hand,--though every other burden and restraint may in
+such a case be shaken off and resented before that which is the real
+cause of oppression. D&uuml;rer's wood cutters had no doubt to resign any
+indolence, any impatience, or whatever else it might be that had
+otherwise stamped a personal character on their work; and all
+remonstrance must have been shamed by the evident fact that the young
+master spared himself not a whit more. The perseverance and docility
+which made such engraving possible was perhaps the greatest aid that
+D&uuml;rer drew from German character; it was not only an aid, but an example
+to and restraint upon that haughty spirit of his that restively ever
+again vows never to take so much pains over another picture to be so
+poorly paid (see page 103); that complains of failure and discouragement
+after years of repeatedly more world-wide successes (see page 187).
+These are not German traits, but it may have been the German blood he
+inherited from his mother and the example of his friends,
+fellow-workers, and helpers, which enabled him to get the better of such
+petulant and gloomy outbursts, and return to the day of small things
+with the will to continue and endure.</p>
+
+<p>The difference introduced by the engravers becoming more and more
+capable of rendering D&uuml;rer's hand is well illustrated by comparing the
+frontispiece to the <i>Apocalypse</i>, added about 1511, with the other cuts
+which had appeared in 1498. Doubtless D&uuml;rer's hand had changed its
+character considerably during this period of constant and rapid
+development, and it requires tact and knowledge to separate the
+differences due to the creator from those due to the engraver. D&uuml;rer's
+drawings differed as widely from the earlier drawings as does the
+engraving from the earlier blocks. But, as we may see by early drawings
+done as preliminary studies for engravings, the method of his pen
+strokes had changed less than the character of the forms they rendered;
+the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than
+the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by
+1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the
+stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap
+and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface
+of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the
+radiance of the Virgin's glory). Holbein, later on, was to obtain a yet
+more wonderful fidelity from Lutzelburger, the engraver of his <i>Dunce
+of Death</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Still it were misleading to suppose that D&uuml;rer's disregard for the
+facilities and limitations of wood-cutting went the lengths that the
+demands made upon modern skill have gone. Not only has the line been
+reproduced, but it has been drawn not with a full pen or brush, but in
+pencil or with watered ink; and the delicate tones thus produced have
+been demanded of and rendered by human skill. D&uuml;rer always uses a clear
+definite stroke; and in thus limiting himself he shows an appreciation
+of the medium to be used in reproducing his drawing, and recognises its
+limits to a large extent, though this is the only limitation he accepts.
+Less and less does he consider the possibilities which engraving offers
+for the use of a white line on black Doing his drawing with a black
+line, he contents himself with the qualities that the resources and
+facilities of the full pen line give: and his design is for a drawing
+which can be cut on wood, not for something that first really exists in
+the print; the prints are copies of his drawings. His drawings were not
+prepared to receive additions in the course of cutting, such as could
+only be rendered by the engraver. Faithfulness was the only virtue he
+required of Hieronymus Andreae. Yet even in such drawings as D&uuml;rer's no
+doubt were, there would have been some qualities, some defects perhaps,
+that the print does not possess. For a print, from the mode of inking,
+has a breadth and unity which the drawing never can have. Even in
+drawings made with full flowing brush or pen, there will be
+modulations in the strength of the ink, or occasioned by the surface of
+the wood or paper, in every stroke, by which the, sensitive artist in
+the heat of work cannot help being influenced, and which will lead him
+to give a bloom, a delicacy, to his drawing, such as a print can never
+possess. And, on the other hand, the unity of the print can never be
+quite realised in the drawing, however much the artist may strive to
+attain it, because the conditions must change, however slightly, for
+strokes produced in succession; while in a print all are produced
+together, and variations, if variations there are, occur over wide
+spaces and not between stroke and stroke. It is considerations, of this
+kind that in the last resort determine the quality of works of art. The
+artist is taught, though often unconsciously, by the means he employs,
+but the diligent man who is not by nature an artist never can learn
+these things: he can Imitate the manner and form, never the grace, the
+bloom, and the life.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: THE APOCALYPSE, 1498 St. Michael fighting the Dragon,
+Woodcut, B. 72 From the impression in the British Museum Face p. 262]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer's first important issue of woodcuts was the <i>Apocalypse</i>. A great
+deal has been written in praise of this production as a political
+pamphlet against the corrupt Papacy. It was undoubtedly the most
+important series of woodcuts that had ever appeared, by the size, number
+and elaboration of the designs. It also undoubtedly attacks
+ecclesiastical corruption, but not ecclesiastical only. Whether to D&uuml;rer
+and his friends it appeared even chiefly directed against prelates, or
+even against those who sat in high places; whether the popes, bishops
+and figures typical of the Church seemed to him to illustrate the moral
+in any pre-eminent degree, may be doubted. Still more doubtful is it
+whether there was any objection to papacy or priesthood as institutions
+connected with these figures in his mind. Unworthy popes, unworthy
+bishops, and an unworthy Rome were censured: but not popes, bishops, or
+Rome as the capital see of the Church. D&uuml;rer's work as a whole shows no
+distaste for saints, the Virgin, or bishops and popes; he had no
+objection, no scruple apparently, to introducing the notorious Julius
+II. into his <i>Feast of the</i> Rosary, some ten years later. There has
+perhaps been a tendency to read the intention of these designs too much
+in the light of after events: and by so doing a great slur is cast on
+D&uuml;rer's consistency; for, had these designs the significance read into
+them, he must be supposed an altogether convinced enemy of the Church;
+and the tremendous salaams which he afterwards made to her in far more
+important works ought, to logical minds, to appear horribly insincere.</p>
+
+<p>Viewed as works of art, one reads about the cut of the four riders upon
+horses, &quot;For simple grandeur this justly famous design has never been
+surpassed.&quot; One's sense of proportion receives such a shock as gives one
+the sensation of being utterly outcast, in a world where such a precious
+dictum can pass without remark as a sample of the discrimination of the
+chief authority on the life and art of Albert D&uuml;rer. Neither simple nor
+grand is an adjective applicable to this print in the sense in which we
+apply it to the chief masterpieces of antiquity and of the Renaissance.
+To say even that D&uuml;rer never surpassed this design is to utter what to
+me at least seems the most palpable absurdity. There is an immense
+advance in design, in conception and in mastery of every kind shown over
+the best prints of the <i>Apocalypse</i> and <i>Great Passion</i>, in the
+prints added to the latter series ten years later, and still more in the
+<i>Life of the Virgin</i>. And still finer results are arrived at in single
+cuts of later date, and in the <i>Little Passion</i>. If we want to see what
+D&uuml;rer's woodcuts at their finest are for breadth and dignity of
+composition, for richness and fertility of arabesque and black and white
+pattern, for vigour and subtlety of form, for boldness and vivacity of
+workmanship, we must turn to the <i>Samson</i> (1497?) (B. 2), the Man's
+<i>Bath</i> (14-?), (B. 128), among the earlier blocks published before the
+<i>Apocalypse</i>, then to those designed in or about the year 1511. The
+golden period for D&uuml;rer's woodcuts, the date of the publication of his
+most magnificent series, the <i>Life of the Virgin</i> and several delightful
+separate prints. Among these we find it hard to choose, but if some must
+be mentioned let it be the <i>St. Joachim's Offering Rejected by the High
+Priest</i> (B. 77), the <i>Meeting at the Golden Gate</i> (B. 79) (see
+illustration), the <i>Marriage of the Virgin</i> (B. 82), the <i>Visitation</i>
+(B. 84), the <i>Nativity</i> (B. 85) (see illustration), the <i>Presentation</i>
+(B. <i>55</i>), the <i>Flight into Egypt</i> (B. 89).</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Detail enlarged from &quot;Nativity.&quot;--&quot;Life of the Virgin&quot;
+Woodcut, B. 85]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Enlarged detail from &quot;The Embrace of St. Joachim and St.
+Anne at the Golden Gate.&quot;--&quot;Life of the Virgin,&quot; Woodcut, B. 79]</p>
+
+<p>In the glorious masterpieces of this series D&uuml;rer has found the true
+balance of his powers. The dignity and charm of the decorative effect of
+these cuts has never been surpassed; and to the racy narrative vivacity
+of such groups and figures as those isolated and enlarged in our
+illustration there is added an idyllic charm of which perhaps the best
+examples are the <i>Visitation</i> and the <i>Flight into Egypt</i>. This
+sweetness of allure is still more pervasive in the separate cuts that
+bear this golden date, 1511, that is in the <i>St. Christopher</i> (B. 103),
+and the <i>St. Jerome</i> (B. 114). And the <i>Adoration of the Magi</i> (B. 3) is
+much finer than the one included in the <i>Life of the Virgin</i>. This
+idyllic charm had already been touched <i>upon before</i> in the <i>Assumption
+of the Magdalen</i> (B. 121) (15?), and in the <i>St. Antony</i> and <i>St. Paul</i>
+and the <i>Baptist</i> and <i>St. Onuphrius of</i> 1504. It is not felt to lie
+very deep in the conception of the subject, for all are treated in an
+obviously conventional manner, the touches of racy realism being
+confined to subordinate incidents and details. Neither the subjects nor
+the mood of the artist lend themselves to the dramatic impressiveness of
+such cuts as the <i>Blowing of the Sixth Trumpet</i> or the <i>St. Michael
+overwhelming the Dragon of the Apocalypse</i> (<i>see</i> page 262), where the
+inspiration appears to be Gothic, perhaps developed under the influence
+of Mantegna's <i>Combat between Sea Monsters</i>, of which D&uuml;rer early made
+an elaborate pen-and-ink copy. We find an aftermath of the same
+inspiration in the engraving on iron, dated 1516, representing a man
+riding astride of an unicorn carrying off a shrieking woman. Such stormy
+and strenuous lowerings of the imagination break in upon D&uuml;rer's
+habitual mood as St. Peter's thunders into Milton's &quot;Lycidas,&quot; of which
+the general felicitous mingling of a conventional pedantry with idyllic
+charm and racy touches of realistic effect is very similar to the
+general effect of the golden group we have been describing. Among all
+the work that finds its climax in the beautiful creations of 1511, only
+in a few prints of the <i>Little Passion</i>, published in 1511, do we find
+any dramatic power or creativeness of essential conception. I may
+mention the <i>Christ Scourging the Money-changers in the Temple</i>, the
+<i>Agony in the Garden</i>, and Judas' <i>Kiss</i>, where, though the general
+effect be rather confused, the central figure is full of appropriate
+power. <i>Christ haled by the hair before</i> <i>Annas</i> (the most wonderful
+of all), Christ before <i>Pilate</i>, Christ <i>Mocked</i>, the <i>Ecce Homo</i> (a
+most beautiful composition), the Veronica's napkin incident, <i>Christ</i>
+being nailed <i>to the Cross</i> (a masterpiece), the <i>Deposition</i>, the
+<i>Entombment</i>:--several others of the series have idyllic charm or
+touches of narrative force which link them with the general group, but
+these alone stand out and in some ways surpass it. After this date D&uuml;rer
+seems in a great measure to have relinquished wood for metal engraving;
+however, most of his occasional resumptions of the process were marked
+by the production of masterpieces, if we put on one side the workshop
+monsters produced for Maximilian--and even in these, in details, D&uuml;rer's
+full force is recognisable. I may mention the <i>Madonna</i> crowned and
+<i>worshipped by a concert of Angels</i>, 1518 (B. 101), which, though a
+little cold, like all the work of that period, is still a masterpiece;
+and then, after the inspiriting visit to Antwerp, we have the
+magnificent portrait of Ulrich Varnb&uuml;ler, 1522 (B. 155), the <i>Last
+Supper</i>, 1523 (B. 53) (see illustration here), and the glorious piece of
+decoration representing D&uuml;rer's Arms, 1523 (B. 160) (see illustration).
+I have reproduced less of D&uuml;rer's wood engravings than would be
+necessary to represent their importance and beauty, because most, being
+large and bold, are greatly impoverished by reduction; besides, they are
+nearly all well known through comparatively cheap reproductions. I have
+enlarged two details to give an idea of D&uuml;rer's workmanship when
+employed upon racy realism (see illustration, page 264), and when
+employed in endowing a single figure with supreme grace and dignity (see
+illustration, page 265).</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Christ haled before Annas From the &quot;Little
+Passion&quot;--<i>Between</i> pp. 266 &amp; 267]</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: D&Uuml;RER'S ARMORIAL BEARINGS Woodcut, B. 160]</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<a name="RER'S_INFLUENCES_AND_VERSES"></a><h3>D&Uuml;RER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p>Before closing this part of my book something must be said of D&uuml;rer's
+influence on other artists. It is one of the foibles of modern criticism
+to please itself by tracing influences, a process of the same nature as
+that of tracing resemblances to ferns and other growths on a frosted
+pane. No one would deny that resemblances are there; it is to
+distinguish them and estimate their significance without yielding to
+fancifulness, which is the well-nigh hopeless task. It is often
+forgotten that similar circumstances produce similar effects, and that
+coincidences from this cause are very rife. Then, too, it is forgotten
+that the influence that produces rivalry is stronger, more important,
+and less easily estimated, than that which is expressed by imitation or
+plagiarism; besides, it affects more original and fertile natures. The
+stimulus of a great creative personality often is more potent where
+discernible resemblances are few and vague, than where they are many and
+obvious. In D&uuml;rer's day the study and imitation of antique art which had
+brought about the Renascence in Italy was the fashion that in successive
+waves was passing over Europe and moulding the future. He himself felt
+it, and welcomed it now as an authority not to be gainsaid, and again
+as an example to be competed against and surpassed. This fashion, this
+trend of opinion and hope, was the significance behind the effect
+produced on him by Jacopo de' Barbari, whose charming but ineffectual
+originality succeeded merely in creating an eddy in that stream. It was
+the tide behind him which so powerfully stirred and stimulated D&uuml;rer.
+The resemblances traceable between certain still life studies by the two
+men, or even in figures of their engravings, is insignificant compared
+with the fact that through Jacopo D&uuml;rer probably first felt the energy
+and true direction of the great tidal waves which were then rolling
+forth from Italy. Even Mantegna's influence was probably less the effect
+of a personal affinity than that through him a power streamed direct
+from the antique dawn. This great and master influence of those days was
+more one of hope, indefinite, incomprehensible, visionary, than one of
+knowledge and assured discovery. Raphael may have received it from
+D&uuml;rer, as well as D&uuml;rer from Bellini. Figures and incidents from D&uuml;rer's
+engravings are supposed to have been adapted in certain works, if not of
+his own hand at least proceeding from his immediate pupils. For Raphael,
+D&uuml;rer was a proof of the excellence of human nature in respect to the
+arts, even when it could not form itself on the immediate study and
+contemplation of antiques, and thus added to the zest and expectation
+with which he improved himself in that direction. These great men did
+not distinguish clearly between pregnancy due to their own efforts, that
+of their contemporaries and immediate predecessors, and that due to
+their more mystic passion for antiquity. Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Correggio were destined to be the signets by which this great power was
+to be most often and clearly stamped on the work of future artists.
+From the unhappy location of his life D&uuml;rer was debarred from any such
+obvious and overwhelming effect on after generations. The influences
+which helped to shape him were no doubt at work on all the more eminent
+artists, his fellow-countrymen; on Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Burgkmair,
+Lucas Cranach, or Baldung Grien, to mention only the elect. What the
+stimulus of his achievements, of his renown, meant for these men we have
+no means of computing; yet we may feel sure that it was vastly more
+important and significant than any actual traces of imitation or
+plagiarism from his works, which can with difficulty and for the more
+part very doubtfully be brought home to them;--vastly more important and
+significant too we may be sure than his effect upon his pupils and other
+more or less obscure painters, engravers, and block designers, in whose
+work actual imitation or adaption of his creations is more certain and
+more abundant. His pictures, plates, and woodcuts were copied both in
+Italy and in the North, both as exercises for the self-improvement of
+artists and to supply a demand for even secondhand reflections of his
+genius and skill. He was not destined to lend the impress of his
+splendid personality to the tide of fashion like the great Italians;
+their influence was to supersede his even in the North.</p>
+
+<p>This is obvious: but who shall compare or estimate the accession of
+force which the tide as a whole gained from him, or that more latent
+power which begins to be disengaged from the reserve and lack of proper
+issue from which he evidently suffered, now that the great tide of the
+Renaissance has spent its mighty onrush and become merged in the
+constant movement of life--that power by which he moves us to
+commiserate his circumstances and to feel after the more and better,
+which we cannot doubt that he might have given us had he been more
+happily situated?</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER Woodcut, p. 53]</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>Only to compare the value of Michael Angelo's sonnets with that of the
+doggerel rhymes which D&uuml;rer produced, may give us some idea of the
+portentous inferiority in D&uuml;rer's surroundings to those of the great
+Italian. Both borrow the general idea of the subject, treatment, and
+form of their poems from the fashion around them. But that fashion in
+Michael Angelo's case called for elevated subject, intimate and
+imaginative treatment, and adequacy of form, whereas none of these were
+called for from Albrecht D&uuml;rer; and if his friends laughed at the
+rudeness of his verses, it was not that they themselves conceived of
+anything more adequate in these respects, only something more scholarly,
+more pedantic. Michael Angelo's verse was often crabbed and rude, but
+the scholarship and pedantry of Italy forbore to laugh at that rudeness,
+because a more adequate standard made them recognise its vital power and
+noble passion as of higher importance to true success. Still, in the
+following rhymes, D&uuml;rer shows himself a true child of the Renascence, at
+least in intention; and was proud of a desire for universal excellence.</p>
+
+<p>When I received this from Lazarus Spengler, I made him the following
+poem in reply (Mrs. Heaton's translation):</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;In N&uuml;rnberg it is known full well<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;A man of letters now doth dwell,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;One of our Lord's most useful men,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;He is so clever with his pen,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And others knows so well to hit,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And make ridiculous with wit;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And he has made a jest of me,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Because I made some poetry,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And of True Wisdom something wrote,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;But as he likes my verses not,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;He makes a laughing stock of me,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And says I'm like the Cobbler, he<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Who criticised Apelles' art.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;With this he tries to make me smart,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Because he thinks it is for me<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;To paint, and not write poetry.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;But I have undertaken this<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;(And will not stop for him or his),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;To learn whatever thing I can,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;For which will blame me no wise man.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;For he who only learns one thing,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And to naught else his mind doth bring,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;To him, as to the notary,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;It haps, who lived here as do we,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;In this our town. To him was known<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;To write one form and one alone.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Two men came to him with a need<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;That he should draw them up a deed;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And he proceeded very well,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Until their names he came to spell:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gotz was the first name that perplexed,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And Rosenstammen was the next.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;The Notary was much astonished,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And thus his clients he admonished,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Dear friends,&quot; he said, &quot;you must be wrong,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;These names don't to my form belong;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Franz and Fritz<a name="FNanchor84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84"><sup>[84]</sup></a> I know full well,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;But of no others have heard tell.&quot;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And so he drove away his clients,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And people mocked his little science.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;To me that it may hap not so,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Something of all things I will know.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Not only writing will I do,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;But learn to practise physic too;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Till men surprised will say, &quot;Beshrew me,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;What good this painter's medicines do me!&quot;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Therefore hear and I will tell<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Some wise receipts to keep you well.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;A little drop of alkali,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Is good to put into the eye;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;He who finds it hard to hear,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Should mandel-oil put in his ear;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;And he who would from gout be free,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Not wine but water drink should he;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;He who would live to be a hundred,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Will see my counsel has not blundered.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Therefore I will still make rhymes<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Though my friend may laugh at times.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;So the Painter with hairy beard<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Says to the Writer who mocked and jeered.<br>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor84">[84]</a><blockquote> Equivalent to our John Doe and Richard Roe.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<center><br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="PART_IV"></a>PART IV</h2>
+
+<h3>D&Uuml;RER'S IDEAS</h3>
+
+<p>[Illustration]</p></center>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<a name="THE_IDEA_OF_A_CANON_OF_PROPORTION_FOR_THE_HUMAN_FIGURE"></a><h3>THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE</h3>
+
+<p>D&uuml;rer often painted the Virgin's head as a mere exercise or example in
+those proportion studies with which we must presently deal.</p>
+
+<p>Sir W. M. CONWAY, in &quot;D&uuml;rer's Literary Remains,&quot; p. 151.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he comes to speak of the very essence of artistic work, he
+forgets theories and imitations of the antique; he knows nothing of
+composition from fragments of Nature, of measurements and speculations.
+No longer trusting to such aids as these, but launching himself boldly
+on the broad stream of Nature, he believes that he shall attain to a
+higher harmony in his work.</p>
+
+<p>THAUSING'S &quot;Albert D&uuml;rer,&quot; vol. ii., p. 318.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>The idea of a canon for human proportions has proved a great
+stumbling-block for so-called classical or academic artists. It is
+usually taken to mean an absolutely right or harmonious proportion, any
+deviation from which cannot fail to result in a diminution of beauty.
+According to their thoroughness, the devotees of this idea seek to
+arrive at such a scale of proportions for a varying number of different
+ages in either sex; often even modifying this again for diverse types,
+as tall or short, fat or lean, dark or blonde, but allowing no excessive
+variation for these causes; so that abnormally tall people and dwarfs
+are not considered. This is, I take it, what the great artist Albert
+D&uuml;rer is generally taken to have been aiming at in his books on
+proportion. It will not be difficult, I think, to show that D&uuml;rer had
+quite a different idea of what a canon of proportion should be, and how
+it should be applied. And certainly, had it been possible to study Greek
+practice more closely, and in a larger number of examples, when this
+idea (supposed to be drawn from that source) was chiefly mooted, a very
+different notion of the canon of proportion would have been forced on
+the most academical of theorists. D&uuml;rer's great superiority over such
+academical masters is, that his idea of a canon of proportion and its
+use agrees far better with what was apparently Greek practice.</p>
+
+<p>Any one who has followed at all the interesting attempts made by
+Professor Furtw&auml;ngler and others to group together, by attention to the
+measurements of the different parts of the figure, works belonging to
+the different masters, schools, and centres, will have perceived that he
+is led to assume a traditional canon of proportion from which a master
+deviates slightly in the direction of some bias of his own mind towards
+closer knit or more slim figures; such variations being in the earlier
+stages very slight. Again, it is supposed that from the canon followed
+by a master, different pupils may branch off in opposite directions
+according to the leanings of their personal sentiment for beauty. The
+conception of these ramifications has at least created the hope that
+critics may follow them through a great number of complications, since
+a master may modify his canon--after certain pupils have already struck
+out for themselves, and new pupils may start from his modified canon;
+and so on into an infinite criss-cross of branches, as any sculptor may
+be influenced to modify his canon by his fellows or by the masters of
+other schools whose work he comes across later. In any case, this main
+fact arises, that the canon appears as what the artist deviated from,
+not what he abided by: and any one who has any feeling for the infinite
+nicety of the results obtained by Greek sculptors will easily apprehend
+that each masterpiece established a new and slightly different canon,
+and was then in the position to be in its turn again deviated from, as
+Flaubert says:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chayue ceuvre &agrave; faire a sa po&euml;tique en soi, qu'il faut trouver.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>The same thing is asserted by literary critics to have been the cause of
+the repetition of subjects in Greek tragedy, and to have resulted in the
+infinite niceties of their forms, which are never the same and never
+radically new.</p>
+
+<p>The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded stood,
+before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the
+spectator's mind; it stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly
+seen, at the end of a long dark vista. Then came the poet, embodying
+outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment
+capriciously thrown in. Stroke upon stroke, the drama proceeded; the
+light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the
+riveted gaze of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were
+spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of
+immortal beauty.</p>
+
+<p>This passage from Matthew Arnold's deservedly famous preface well
+emphasises one advantage that a tradition of subject and treatment gave
+to the Greek poet as to the Greek sculptor: the economy of means it made
+possible, &quot;not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown
+in,&quot;--since every deviation from, every addition to, the traditional
+story and treatment, was immediately appreciated by an audience
+thoroughly conversant with that tradition, and often with several
+previous masterpieces treating it. By merely leaving out an incident, or
+omitting to appeal to a sentiment, a Greek tragedian could flood his
+whole work with a new significance. So that the temptation to be
+eccentric, the temptation to hit too hard or at random because he was
+not sure of exactly where the mind stood that he would impress, did not
+exist in anything like the same degree for him as it did for Shakespeare
+and Michael Angelo as it does for romantic and origina natures to-day.
+The absence of a sufficient body of traditional culture belonging to
+every educated person tends always to force the artist to commence by
+teaching the alphabet to his public. As Coleridge so justly remarked in
+the case of Wordsworth: &quot;He had, like all great artists, to create the
+taste by which he was to be relished, to teach the art by which he was
+to be seen and judged.&quot; All great artists no doubt have to do this, but
+the modern artist is in the position of the Israelite who was bidden not
+only to make bricks, but to find himself in stubble and straw, as
+compared with a Greek who could appeal to traditional conceptions with
+certainty. Dr. Verrall is no doubt right when he says:</p>
+
+<p>Every one knows, even if the full significance of the fact is not always
+sufficiently estimated, that the tragedians of Athens did not tell their
+story at all as the telling of a story is conceived by a modern
+dramatist, whose audience, when the curtain goes up, know nothing which
+is not in the play-bill.</p>
+
+<p>This ignorant public, this uncultivated and unmanured field with which
+every modern artist has to commence, is the greatest let to the creator.
+What wonder that he should so often prefer to make a gaudy show with
+yellow weeds, when he perceives that there is hardly time in one man's
+life to produce a respectable crop of wheat from such a wilderness?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The story of an Athenian tragedy is never completely told; it is
+implied, or, to repeat the expression used above, it is illustrated by a
+selected scene or scenes. And the further we go back the truer this is,&quot;
+continues Dr. Verrall; and the same was doubtless true of sculpture and
+painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance or advantage
+of this fact to the artist. For religious art, for art that appeals to
+the sum and total of a man's experience of beauty in life, a public
+cultivated in this sense is a necessity. Giotto and Fra Angelico enjoyed
+this almost to the same degree as &AElig;schylus or Phidias; Michael Angelo
+and the great artists of the Renascence generally enjoyed it in a very
+great degree, and reaped an advantage comparable to that which Euripides
+and his contemporaries and immediate successors enjoyed. The tradition
+enabled such an artist to impress by means of subtleties, niceties, and
+refinements, instead of forcing him to attempt always to more or less
+seduce, astonish or overawe; strong measures which grow almost
+necessarily into bad habits, and end by perverting the taste they
+created. This, it has often been remarked, was the case even with
+Michael Angelo, even with Shakespeare. Yet nowadays, to enable a man to
+remark this, exceptional culture is required.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>This idea of the use of a canon may be illustrated in many ways; for,
+like all notions which resume actual experiences, it will be found
+applicable in many spheres. Thus, on the subject of verse, the eternal
+quarrel between the poet and the pedant is, that for the first the rules
+of prosody and rhyme are only useful in so far as they make the licenses
+he takes appreciable at their just value; while for the pedant such
+licenses ever anew seem to imply ignorance of the rule or incapacity to
+follow it,--an absurd mistake, since the power to create and impress has
+little to do with the means employed; and if a man builds up for himself
+a barrier of foregone conclusions about the exact manner in which alone
+he will allow himself to be deeply impressed, it is very certain he will
+have few save painful impressions. Or take another illustration--an
+artist the other day told me that he had noticed that one could almost
+always trace a faintly ruled vertical line on the paper which the
+greatest of all modern draughtsmen used. Ingres, then, with all his
+freedom, vivacity, and accuracy of control over the point he employed to
+draw with, still found it useful to have a straight line ruled on his
+paper as a student does, and may often even have resorted to the
+plumb-line. It enabled his eye to test the subtlest deviations in the
+other lines with which he was creating the balance, swing or stability
+of a figure. Rules of art are, like this straight line, dead and
+powerless in themselves: they help both creator and lover to follow and
+appreciate the infinite freedom and subtlety of the living work. The
+same thing might be illustrated with regard to manners; a fine standard
+of social address and receptivity must be established before the
+varieties and subtleties of those whose genius creates beautiful
+relations can be appreciated at their full value in their full variety.
+This dead law must be buried in everybody's mind and heart before they
+can rise to that conscious freedom which is opposite to the freedom of
+the wild animals, who never know why they do, nor appreciate how it is
+done; neither are they able to rejoice in the address of others; much
+less can they relish the infinite refinements of exhilarating
+apprehension, which make of laughter, tears, speech, silence, nearness
+and distance, a music which holds the enraptured soul in ecstasy; which
+created and constantly renews the hope of Heaven. And what blacker
+minister of a more sterile hell than the social pedant who only knows
+the rule, and mistakes grace and delicacy, frankness and generosity, for
+more or less grave infractions of it? But the happy critic, free from
+any personal knowledge of what creation means, or what aids are likely
+to forward it, is for ever in such a hurry to correct great creators
+like Leonardo, D&uuml;rer, or Hokusai, that he fails to understand them; and
+when he has caught them saying, &quot;This is how anger or despair is
+expressed,&quot; calmly smiles in his superiority and says,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He had a scientific law for putting a battle on to canvas, one
+condition of which was that 'there must not be a level spot which is
+not trampled with gore.' But Leonardo did no harm; his canon was based
+on literary rather than artistic interests.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Analogies with scientific laws have served art and art criticism a very
+bad turn of late years. Nothing can be more useful to an artist than
+knowledge of how the emotions are expressed by the contortion of the
+features; but nobody in his senses could ever imagine that a rule for
+the expression of anger was rigid throughout and must never be departed
+from; every one approaching such a rule with a view to practice instead
+of criticism must immediately perceive that its only use is to be
+departed from in various degrees. Leonardo's advice for the painting of
+a battle-piece is excellent if it is understood in the sense in which it
+was meant,--&quot;everything is what it is and not another thing,&quot; as Bishop
+Butler put it. Be sure and make your battle a battle indeed. It is time
+we should realise that what the great artists wrote about art is likely
+to be as sensible as are the works they created. How absurd it is for
+some one who can neither carve nor paint, much less create, to imagine
+he easily grasps the rules of art better than a great master! To such
+people let us repeat again and again Hamlet's impatient: &quot;Oh, mend it
+altogether!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>Now it will easily be seen that the causes which shape an art tradition
+may often be independent of, and foreign to, the will that creates
+beautiful objects. Religious superstition or formalism may often hem the
+artist in, and hamper his will in every direction; though it is not
+wholly accidental that the Greeks had a religion the spirit of which
+tended always to defeat the conservatism and bigotry of its priests. So
+that their formalism, instead of frustrating or warping the growth of
+their art tradition, merely served as a check that may well seem to have
+been exactly proportioned to its need; preventing the weakness or
+rankness of over rapid growth such as detracts from the art of the
+Renascence, and at the same time causing no vital injury. The spirit of
+the race deserved and created and was again in turn recreated by
+its religion.</p>
+
+<p>Since it is generally recognised that too much freedom is not good for
+growing life, I think that almost everybody must at this stage have
+become aware of how immensely stupid the academical idea of a canon
+appears besides this idea. How suitable both to life and the desire for
+perfection the Greek practice was! How theologically dense the
+unprogressive inflexibility of the academical practitioner! And now let
+us hear D&uuml;rer.</p>
+
+<p>But first I will quote from Sir Martin Conway the explanation of what
+D&uuml;rer means by the phrase, &quot;Words of Difference.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>These are what he calls the &quot;Words of Difference&quot;: large, long, small,
+stout, broad, thick, narrow, thin, young, old, fat, lean, pretty, ugly,
+hard, soft, and so forth; in fact any word descriptive of a quality
+&quot;whereby a thing may be differentiated from the thing (normal figure)
+first made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Or, as D&uuml;rer says in another place, &quot;difference such as maketh a thing
+fair or foul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But further, it lieth in each man's choice whether or how far he shall
+make use of all the above written &quot;Words of Difference.&quot; For a man may
+choose whether he will learn to labour with art, wherein is the truth,
+or without art in a freedom by which everything he doth is corrupted,
+and his toil becometh a scorn to look upon to such as understand.</p>
+
+<p>Wherefore it is needful for every one that he use discreetness in such
+of his works as shall come to the light Whence it ariseth that he who
+would make anything aright must in no wise abate aught (that is
+essential) from Nature, neither must he lay what is intolerable upon
+her. Howbeit some will (by going to an opposite extreme) make
+alterations (from Nature) so slight that they can scarce be perceived.
+Such are of no account if they cannot be perceived; to alter over much
+also answereth not. A right mean (in such alterations) is best. But in
+this book I have departed from this right mean in order that it might be
+so much the better traced in small things. Let not him who wishes to
+proceed to some great thing imitate this my swiftness, but let him set
+more slowly (gradually) about his work, that it be not brutish but
+artistic to look upon. For figures which differ from the mean are not
+good to look upon <i>when</i> they are wrongly and unmasterly employed.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be wondered at that a skilful master beholdeth manifold
+differences of figure, all of which he might make if he had time enough,
+but which, for lack of time, he is forced to pass by. For such chances
+come very often to artists, and their imaginations also are full of
+figures which it were possible for them to make. Wherefore, if to live
+many hundred years were granted unto a man who had skill in the use of
+such art and were thereto accustomed, he would (through the power which
+God hath granted unto men) have wherewith daily to mould and make many
+new figures of men and other creatures, which none had before seen nor
+imagined. God, therefore, in such and other ways granteth great power
+unto artistic men.</p>
+
+<p>Although there be such talking of differences, still it is well known
+that all things that a man doth differ of their own nature one from
+another. Consequently, there liveth no artist so sure of hand as to be
+able to make two things exactly alike the one to the other, so that they
+may not be distinguished. For of all our works none is quite and
+altogether like another, and this we can in no wise avoid.</p>
+
+<p>We see that if we take two prints from an engraved copper-plate, or cast
+two images in a mould, very many points may immediately be found whereby
+they may be distinguished one from another. If, then, it cometh thus to
+pass in things made by processes the least liable to error, much more
+will it happen in other things which are made by the free hand.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, is <i>not the kind of Difference</i> whereof I here treat; for
+I am speaking of a difference (from the mean) which a man specially
+intendeth, and which standeth in his will, of which I have spoken once
+and again....</p>
+
+<p>This is not the aforesaid Difference which we cannot sever from our
+work, but, such a difference as maketh a thing fair or foul, and which
+may be set forth by the &quot;Word of Difference&quot; dealt with above in this
+Book. If a man produce &quot;different&quot; figures of this kind in his work, it
+will be judged in every man's mind according to his own opinion, and
+these judgments seldom agree one with another.... Yet let every man
+beware that he make nothing impossible and inadmissible in Nature,
+unless indeed he would make some fantasy, in which it is allowed to
+mingle creatures of all kinds together....</p>
+
+<p>Any one who leads this carefully cannot fail to see that it is not only
+that D&uuml;rer is not &quot;desirous of laying down rules applicable to all
+cases,&quot; or even of &quot;proposing a definite canon for the relative
+proportions of the human body,&quot; as Thausing indeed points out (p. 305,
+v. 11): but that he does not conceive the proportions he gives as even
+approximately capable of these functions; and considers it indeed the
+very nature and special use of a canon of proportions to be wilfully
+deviated from, pointing out that, though the deviations of which he is
+speaking are slight and subtle, they are not to be confused with the
+accidental ones that can but appear even in work done by mechanical
+processes. Rather they are such variation as a man &quot;specially intendeth,
+and which standeth in his will;&quot; and again, &quot;such a difference as maketh
+a thing fair or foul;&quot; for the use of these normal proportions is that
+they may enable an artist to deviate from the normal without the
+proportions he chooses having the air of monstrosities or mistakes or
+negligences. He does not insist that either of the scales he gives is
+the best that could be, even for this purpose, but that they are
+sufficiently good to be used; and he would have marvelled at the wonder
+that has been caused in innocent critical minds that in his own work he
+adhered to them so little. He never intended them to be adhered to.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>It may be objected that D&uuml;rer certainly sometimes thought of a Canon of
+Proportion as a perfect rule, because he wrote on a MS. page as
+follows:--</p>
+
+<p>Vitruvius, the ancient architect, whom the Romans employed upon great
+buildings, says that whosoever desires to build should study the
+perfection of the human figure, for in it are discovered the most secret
+mysteries of proportion. So, before I say anything about architecture, I
+will state how a well-formed man should be made, and then about a woman,
+a child and a horse. Any object may be proportioned out (<i>literally</i>,
+measured) in a similar way. Therefore, hear first of all what Vitruvius
+says about the human figure, which he learnt from the greatest masters,
+painters and founders, who were highly famed. They said that the human
+figure is as follows.</p>
+
+<p>That the face from the chin upward to where the hair begins is the
+tenth part of a man, and that an out-stretched hand is the same
+length, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: &quot;This is my appearance in the eighteenth year of my age&quot;
+Charcoal-drawing in the Academy, Vienna <i>Face p.</i>288]</p>
+
+<p>And again in another place, as Sir Martin Conway points out, he gives a
+religious basis to this notion,<a name="FNanchor85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85"><sup>[85]</sup></a> &quot;the Creator fashioned men once for
+all as they must be, and I hold that the perfection of form and beauty
+is contained in the sum of all men.&quot; In an obvious sense these passages
+certainly run counter to those which I have quoted (pp. 285-207): but I
+would like to point out that these are dogmatic assertions about
+something that if it were true could never be proved by experience (see
+also pp. 64, 254), those former are D&uuml;rer's advice with a view to
+practice. Men frequently carry about a considerable amount of dogmatic
+opinion, which has so little connection with actual experience that it
+is never brought to the test without being noticeably incommoded by it.
+Yet it is not absolutely necessary to consider D&uuml;rer as inconsistent in
+regard to this matter, even to this degree.</p>
+
+<p>The beauty of form which he held had been Adam's, and which was now
+parcelled out among his vast progeny in various amounts as a consequence
+of his fall--this beauty of form doubtless D&uuml;rer considered it part of
+an artist's business to recollect and reveal in his work. This beauty is
+an ideal, and his canon (or rather canons) were intended as means to
+help the artist to approach towards the realisation of that ideal. It is
+obvious also that a man occupied in comparing the proportions of those
+whom he considers to be exceptionally beautiful will develop and feed
+his power of imagining beautifully proportioned figures. It would be
+futile to deny that this is very much what took place in the evolution
+of Greek statues, or that such works are perhaps of all others the most
+central and satisfying to the human spirit. The sentences that precede
+that quoted by Sir Martin are Greek in tendency.</p>
+
+<p>A good figure cannot be made without industry and care; it should
+therefore be well considered before it is begun, so that it be correctly
+made. For the lines of its form cannot be traced by compass or rule, but
+must be drawn by the hand from point to point, so that it is easy to go
+wrong in them. And for such figures great attention should be paid to
+human proportions, and all their kinds should be investigated. <i>I hold
+that the more nearly and accurately a figure is made to resemble a man,
+so much the better the work will be.</i> If the best parts chosen from many
+well-formed men are united in one figure, it will be worthy of praise.
+But some are of another opinion, and discuss how men ought to be made. I
+will not argue with them about that. I hold Nature for Master in such
+matters, and the fancy of men for delusion.</p>
+
+<p>And then follows the passage quoted by Sir Martin Conway (see p. 289).
+It is obvious that, joined with the two preceding sentences, this
+passage can in no way be made to serve the academical practitioner, as
+it seems to when taken alone. In the same way, the sentence printed in
+italics in the above quotation, if isolated, would certainly seem to
+serve the scientific practitioners and their slavish realism, though in
+connection with those that follow this is no longer possible. D&uuml;rer
+regards nature as providing raw material for a creation which may not
+tally exactly with any individual natural object. This was the Greek
+artists' idea of the serviceableness of nature, as revealed both by
+their practice and by such traditions as that concerning Zeuxis and his
+five beautiful models for the figure of Venus. But D&uuml;rer does not
+confine the use of his canons even to this aim, but clearly perceived
+their utility in regard to quite other aims, as is shown by the passage
+beginning, &quot;It is not to be wondered at,&quot; &amp;c. (see p. 286), in which the
+imagination of figures not merely intended to embody beautiful or newly
+assorted proportions is clearly considered; and if we review D&uuml;rer's
+actual work we shall see how much oftener he created figures for
+picturesque or dramatic effect than he did to embody beautiful
+proportions in them, though he evidently also considered the last
+purpose as of the first importance, as we see when he goes on to say:</p>
+
+<p>Let any one who thinks I alter the human form too much or too little
+take care to avoid my error and follow nature. There are many different
+kinds of men in various lands: whoso travels far will find this to be
+so, and see it before his eyes. We are considering about the most
+beautiful human figure conceivable, but (only) the Maker of the world
+knows how that should be. Even if we succeed well we do but approach
+towards it from afar. For we ourselves have differences of perception,
+and the vulgar who follow only their own taste usually err. Therefore I
+do not advise any one to follow me, for I only do what I can, and that
+is not enough even to satisfy myself.</p>
+
+<p>The extreme complexity of D&uuml;rer's ideas and their application was a
+natural result of their having been born of his experience. For
+excellence is extremely various, and widely scattered through the world.
+The simplicity of a true work of art results merely from some excellence
+having been singled out from all foreign circumstances, and presented as
+vividly as it was intensely apprehended. This excellence may be one of
+proportion or one of many other kinds. Now, a figure conceived by an
+artist, whether he value it for its choicely assorted proportions or for
+picturesque or dramatic effect, may need to be developed before it is
+serviceable in an elaborate work of art.</p>
+
+<p>Artists who work rapidly, and, whose pictures are dominated by passing
+moods, have always been in the habit of taking great licences with
+proportion, and, indeed, with all matters of fact. D&uuml;rer's aim is to
+endow the artist who elaborates his work slowly with a similar freedom.
+This energy and power in rapid work it is the ever-renewed despair of
+artists to feel themselves losing in the process of elaboration. And one
+of the reasons for this is that in larger or more elaborate work, the
+statement, being more ample, is expected to be also more comprehensive
+and exhaustive; for the time required begets after-thoughts as to the
+real nature of the object viewed apart from the mood, which is the only
+excuse for the work; and so some of the artist's attention is drawn away
+to facts and aspects which it would have been the success of his work to
+have ignored. D&uuml;rer's object was to help a man to carry out his
+essential intention, and that alone, in a carefully elaborated picture;
+the problems faced were precisely similar to those so successfully coped
+with in Greek statues. In the first place, he would have pointed out
+that all sketches will not bear elaboration if their merit depends on
+extreme licence, for instance. Next, that a man who had a standard of
+proportion could see wherein the deviations of his sketched figure were
+essential to the effect he wished it to produce, and wherein they were
+unessential. Then, if he drew the normal figure large, he would be able
+to deviate from it in exactly the right places and to the right degree
+to reproduce the desired effect. But to do this he must also have a
+general notion of how deviations from a normal proportion could be made
+consistent throughout all the measurements involved not that he would in
+every case want to make them consistent. Now, there is a class of
+artists for whom all these suggestions of D&uuml;rer's must for ever remain
+useless, for all science of production is impossible for those whose
+only success lies in improvisation; such improvisations, however
+dazzling or however delightful they may be, are, nevertheless, the class
+of art-works furthest removed in spirit and in method from Greek
+statuary. I do not say that they need be inferior; I say that they are
+opposite in method. And, had circumstances permitted, or D&uuml;rer's dowry
+of great gifts been more complete than it was, and enabled him to become
+as great a creator of pictures as he is a great draughtsman and
+portrait-painter, no doubt his pictures would have resembled Greek
+statues both in their effect and their method, however different they
+might have been in subject and in range. To talk about &quot;beauty&quot; being
+sacrificed to &quot;truth,&quot; with Prof. Thausing; or the ideal of the North
+being &quot;strength&quot; in works of art as in life, with Sir Martin Conway;--is
+to confuse the issue and deceive oneself. To have mistaken the proper
+end of art, beauty, by thinking it was &quot;truth&quot; or &quot;strength,&quot; is to have
+failed to labour in the right direction; that is all-who-ever may
+condone the failure.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>Again, Sir Martin Conway tells us:</p>
+
+<p>The laws of perspective can be deduced with certainty from mathematical
+first principles, the canon of proportions' could only be constructed
+empirically as the result of repeated observations. Nevertheless, once
+constructed, it can certainly be used as D&uuml;rer suggested. Its use has
+practically been superseded by the study of anatomy.</p>
+
+<p>This last phrase shows us in a flash how far the writer when he wrote it
+was from apprehending D&uuml;rer's meaning. How could the study of anatomy
+ever do for an artist what D&uuml;rer was trying to do? No doubt Sir Martin
+had Michael Angelo in his mind's eye; and it is true that he studied
+anatomy, and that his influence has been, on the whole, paramount with
+artists attempting subjects of this kind ever since. Whether Michael
+Angelo studied proportion or not, his practice exemplifies D&uuml;rer's
+meaning splendidly. No anatomical research could have led him to
+construct figures nine to twelve, or even fifteen to twenty, heads
+high--to do which, as his work developed, more and more became his
+practice, especially in designs and sketches for compositions. To arrive
+at such proportions he followed his imaginative instinct. He found that
+these monstrous deviations from the normal (which, of course, in a
+general sense he recognised, whether he gave any study to rendering it
+precise or not) produced the effect on his mind that he wished to
+produce on the minds of others--an effect that was emotional and
+peculiar to his habitual moods. We know that his constitution gave him
+the staying-power, while his fiery Titanic spirit gave him the energy,
+to carry out and perfect his mighty frescoes and statues at the same
+heat that the creative hour yields other men for the production of a
+sketch alone. This giant son of Time was able to live for days and weeks
+together in a state of mind two or three consecutive hours of which
+exhaust the average master even. Considering the rapidity and intensity
+of his mental process, it is a miracle that, in so many works and to so
+great a degree, he respected the too much and too little of human
+reason, and allowed himself to be governed by what the Greeks called a
+sense of measure, instead of yielding to his native impetuosity and
+becoming an a-thousand-fold-greater-Blake; and illustrating, to the
+delight of active and short-winded intelligences, and the stupefaction
+of slow and dull ones, the futility of eccentricity and the frivolity of
+passion when unseconded by constancy of character and labour. For
+futile, in the arts, is whatever the sense of beauty must condemn,
+however well-intentioned; and frivolous is the passion that forgets the
+end it would attain, and becomes merely a private rhapsody, however
+astonishing its developments; slowly but surely it will be seen that
+such fireworks do not vitally concern us. The proportions of many of
+Michael Angelo's figures are as far removed from any possible normal
+standard as what D&uuml;rer calls &quot;this my swiftness,&quot; in the abnormally tall
+and stout figures among the diagrams illustrating his book.</p>
+
+<p>And this is where D&uuml;rer's idea comes nearer to Greek practice. For by
+letting the striking rather than the subtle govern his departures from
+the mean, Michael Angelo found himself always bound to go beyond
+himself; as the palate which once has entertained strong stimulants
+demands that the dose be continually strengthened. Now this is in entire
+conformity with the impatience which was perhaps his greatest weakness;
+just as D&uuml;rer's too methodical approach is in conformity with that
+acquiescence in the insufficiency of his conditions which made him in
+his weak moments swear never again to undertake those better classes of
+work which were less adequately paid, or made him content to display
+mere manual dexterity rather than do nothing on his days of darkness,
+suffering and depression: we may add, which made him choose to live at
+Nuremberg and refuse a better income and more suitable surroundings
+at Venice.</p>
+
+<p>It is obviously the more hopeful way to create a beautiful figure first
+and discover a mathematical way of reproducing its most essential
+proportions afterwards; and no doubt this is what D&uuml;rer intended should
+be done; and in consequence he felt a need, and sought to supply it, for
+mechanical means to simplify, shorten and render more sure that part of
+the process which must necessarily partake something of the nature of
+drudgery, if great finish is to be combined with splendid design. The
+romantic, impulsive <i>improvisatore</i> does not feel this need, considers
+it bound to defeat its own aim; and, given his own gifts, he is right.
+But none the less, there are the Greek statues elaborated with a
+thoroughness which, if it ever dims or veils the creative intention,
+does so in a degree so slight as to seem amply compensated by the sense
+of ease maintained in spite of the innumerable difficulties overcome;
+there are besides a score or more of D&uuml;rer's copper engravings with
+their imperturbable adequacy of minute painstaking, never for a moment
+sleepy or mechanical or lifeless. The one aim need not excommunicate the
+other even in the same individual; far less need this be so in different
+artists, with diverse temperaments, diverse aptitudes.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>The application of this idea does not end with the simple proportions of
+measurement between the limbs and parts of the figure; it is also
+concerned with what is called the modelling, and the treatment of
+surfaces such as the draperies, the hair, the fleshy portions and those
+beneath which the bony structure comes to prominence; in painting it may
+be applied to the chiaroscuro and colour. Reynolds' remarks on the
+Venetians in his Eighth Discourse well illustrate this fact. He says:</p>
+
+<p>It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed that the masses of
+light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or a
+yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be
+kept <i>almost</i> entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support
+and set off these warm colours; and, for this purpose, a small
+<i>proportion</i> of cold colours will be sufficient.</p>
+
+<p>If this conduct be reversed, let the light be cold, and the surrounding
+colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine
+painters; and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of
+Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid or harmonious.<a name="FNanchor86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86"><sup>[86]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Here we see a great colourist attempting to establish a canon for
+colour. Had he lived at an earlier period, before expression had become
+generally a subject of criticism, he would have described his discovery
+in less guarded and elastic language, such as is now applied to
+scientific laws. And then he might have been as excusably misunderstood
+as Leonardo and D&uuml;rer have been; as it is, the misunderstanding dealt
+out to him is quite without excuse.</p>
+
+<p>Rembrandt, not only exemplifies the impressiveness of great deviations
+in structural proportions in much the same degree as Michael Angelo,
+using what the Greeks and D&uuml;rer would doubtless have considered a
+dangerous liberty, however much they might have felt bound to admire the
+results obtained; not only does he do this when, for instance, he
+represents Jesus now as a giant, now as almost a dwarf, according to the
+imaginative impression which he chooses to create; but he follows a
+similar process in his black and white pattern. For among his works
+there are etchings, which, though often supposed to have been left
+unfinished, are discerned by those with a sense for beauties of this
+class to be marvellously complete, stimulating, and satisfying, and in
+the nicest harmony with the other impressions produced by the mental
+point of view from which the subject is viewed, as also by the main
+lines and proportions of the composition, and to yield the visual
+delight most suitable to the occasion. D&uuml;rer and the Greeks are at one
+with Michael Angelo and Rembrandt in condemning by their practice all
+purely mechanical application of ideas or methods to the production of
+works of creative art, such as is exemplified by artists of more limited
+aims and powers; by academical practitioners, by theoretical scientists
+calling themselves impressionists, luminarists, naturalists, or any
+other name. For artists whose temperaments are impeded by some unhappy
+slowness, or difficulty in concentrating themselves, methods of
+procedure similar to those elaborated by D&uuml;rer in his books on
+proportion, properly understood, must be a real aid and benefit; as
+those who are essentially improvisors may help themselves and supply
+their deficiencies by methods similar to those which Reynolds describes
+as practised by Gainsborough.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of
+broken stones, dried herbs and pieces of broken glass, which he
+magnified and improved into rocks, trees and water&quot; (Fourteenth
+Discourse).</p>
+
+<p>This process resembles that of tracing faces or scenes from the life of
+gnomes in glowing caverns among coals of fire on a winter's eve; it is
+resorted to in one form or another by all creative artists, but it is
+peculiarly useful to men like Gainsborough, whose art tends always to
+become an improvisation, whatever strenuous discipline they may have
+subjected themselves to in their days of ardent youth.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+<p>Perhaps D&uuml;rer's actual standards for the normal, his actual methods for
+creating self-consistent variations from it, are not likely to prove of
+much use, even when artists shall be sufficiently educated to understand
+them; nevertheless, the principle which informs them has been latent in
+the work of all great creators; is marvellously fulfilled indeed, in
+Greek statuary. The work of Antoine Louis Barye, that great and
+little-understood master--as far as I am able to judge, the only modern
+artist who has made science serve him instead of being seduced by
+her--exemplifies this central idea of D&uuml;rer's almost as fully as the
+Greek masterpieces. The future of art appears to me to lie in the hands
+of those artists who shall be able to grapple with the new means offered
+them by the advance of science, as he did, and be as little or even less
+seduced than he was by the foolish idea that art can become science
+without ceasing to be art, which has handicapped and defeated the
+efforts of so many industrious and talented men of late years. So truly
+is this the case that the improvisor appears to many as the only true
+artist, and his uncontrolled caprices as the farthest reach of human
+constructive power.</p>
+
+<p>In any case, no artist is unhappy if a docile and hopeful disposition
+enables him to see in the masterpieces of Greek sculpture the reward of
+an easy balance of both temperaments and methods, the improvisor's and
+the elaborator's, under felicitous circumstances, by men better endowed
+than himself. And this though never history and archaeology shall be in
+a position to give him information sufficient to determine that his
+faith is wholly warranted.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;A golden age is a golden dream, that sheds <br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;A golden light on waking hours, on toil,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;On leisure, and on finished works.<br>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor85">[85]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; p. 166.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor86">[86]</a><blockquote> See also III Discourse where he defends D&uuml;rer against
+Bacon.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<a name="THE_IMPORTANCE_OF_DOCILITY"></a><h3>THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>I now intend to re-arrange what seem the most interesting of the
+sentences on the theory of art which are found in D&uuml;rer's MSS. and books
+on proportion. He did not give them the final form or order which he
+intended, and it seems to me that to arrange the more important
+according to the subjects they treat of will be the simplest way of
+arriving at general conceptions as to their tendency and value. We shall
+thus bring together repetitions of the same thought and contradictory
+answers to the same question; and after each series of sentences, I
+myself shall discuss the points raised, illustrating my remarks from
+modern writers whose opinion in these matters seems to me deserving of
+most attention. I have heard it said by the late Mr. Arthur Strong that
+D&uuml;rer's art is always didactic; and D&uuml;rer as a writer on art certainly
+has ever before his mind this one object, to teach others, or, as I
+should prefer to phrase it, to help others to learn. For he himself is
+continually confessing that he cannot yet answer his own questions, and
+it seems to me that the best teacher is always he who most desires to
+increase his knowledge, not indeed to hoard it as some do and make of
+it a personal possession; intellectual misers, for ever gnashing their
+teeth over the reputations or the pretensions of others. No, but one who
+desires knowledge for its own sake and welcomes it in others with as
+much satisfaction as he gains it for himself. Docility, i.e.,
+teachableness, let me point out once more, seems to be the necessary
+midwife of genius, without the aid of which it often labours in vain, or
+brings forth strange incongruous and misshapen births.</p>
+
+<p>Sad is the condition of a brilliant and fiery spirit shut up in a man's
+brain without the humble assistance of this lively, meek and patient
+virtue! What unrelieved and insupportable throes of agony must be borne
+by such a spirit, and how often does such labour end in misanthropy or
+madness! The records of the lives of exceptionally-gifted men tell us
+only too clearly what pains those are, and how frequently they have been
+borne. So I fancy I cannot do better than choose out for my first
+section sentences which praise or advocate the effort to learn, or
+attempt to enlighten those who make such an effort on the choice of
+teachers and disciplines.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>I shall not hesitate to transpose sentences even when they appear in
+connected passages, in order, as I hope, to bring out more clearly their
+connection. For D&uuml;rer was not a writer by profession, and his thoughts
+were often more abundant than he knew how to deal with.</p>
+
+<p>Before starting, however, I must prefix to my quotations some account of
+the four MS. books in the British Museum from which they are principally
+taken. Rough drafts in Pirkheimer's handwriting were found among them,
+but of D&uuml;rer's work Sir Martin Conway tells us:</p>
+
+<p>The volumes contain upwards of seven hundred leaves and scraps of paper
+of various kinds, covered at different dates with more or less elaborate
+outline drawings, and more or less corrected drafts for works published
+or planned by D&uuml;rer. Interspersed among them are geometrical and
+other sketches.</p>
+
+<p>He was in the habit of correcting and re-copying, again and again, what
+he had written. Sometimes he would jot down a sentence alongside of
+matter to which it had no relation. This sentence he would afterwards
+introduce in its right connection. There are in these volumes no less
+than four drafts of the beginning of a Dedication to Pirkheimer of the
+Books of Human Proportions. Two other drafts of this same dedication are
+among the Dresden MSS. The opening sentences of the Introduction to the
+same work were likewise, as will be seen, the subject of
+frequent revision.</p>
+
+<p>These drafts, notes and sketches date from 1508 to 1523. Some collector
+had had them cut out, gummed together, and bound without the slightest
+regard to order, or even to the sequence of consecutive passages. In
+January 1890 the volumes were taken to pieces and rearranged by Miss
+Lina Eckenstein, who had previously made the admirable translations of
+them for Sir Martin Conway's &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; from
+which my quotations are taken.</p>
+
+<p>The contents of the volumes as rearranged may be roughly described as
+follows:</p>
+
+<p>Volume 1. Drawings of whole figures and portions of the body,
+illustrating D&uuml;rer's theories of Proportion. Drawings of a solid
+octogon. Six coloured drawings of crystals. The description of the
+Ionic order of architecture. Drawings of columns with measurements. A
+scale for Human Proportions. A table of contents for a work on Geometry.
+Notes on perspective, curves, folds, &amp;c. The different kinds of temple
+after Vitruvius. Mathematical diagrams, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Volume II. Draft of a dedicatory letter to King Ferdinand (see page
+180). Drafts and drawings for &quot;The Art of Fortification.&quot; Drawing of a
+shield with a rearing horse. Mantles of Netherlandish women and nuns. A
+Latin inscription for his own portrait. Notes on &quot;Proportion,&quot; and on
+the feast of the Rosenkranz. Scale for Human Proportions. An alphabet.
+Draft of a dedication for the books on Proportion. Sketch of a skeleton.
+Studies of architecture. Venetian houses and roofs. Sketches of a
+church, a house, a tower, a drapery, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Volume III. Drafts of a projected work on Painting and on the study of
+Proportion. Drafts for the dedication, the preface, and for a work on
+Esthetics. Drawings of a male body, a female body, and a piece of
+drapery. Notes and drawings for the proportions of heads, hands, feet,
+outline curves, a child, a woman, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Volume IV. Proportions of a man, a fat woman, the head of the average
+woman, the young woman, &amp;c. Short Profession of Faith (see page 130).
+Scale for Human Proportions, &amp;c. Fragments of the Preface of Essay on
+Aesthetics, &amp;c. Grimacing and distorted faces. Use of measurements. On
+the characters of faces, thick, thin, broad, narrow, &amp;c. Sketches of a
+dragon and of an angel for Maximilian's Triumphal Procession. List of
+Luther's works (see page 130). Drawings of human bodies proportioned
+to squares.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: &quot;UNA VILANA WENDISCH&quot; Pen drawing with wash background
+in the collection of Mrs. Seymour <i>face</i> p. 304]</p>
+
+<p>See the description in &quot;D&uuml;rer's Schriftlicher Nachlass&quot; (Lange und
+Fuhse), page 263, from which the above abstract is made.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Martin Conway continues:</p>
+
+<p>In these volumes D&uuml;rer is seen, sometimes writing under the influence of
+impetuous impulse, sometimes with leisurely care, allowing his pen to
+embroider the script with graceful marginal flourishes.</p>
+
+<p>At what period of his career D&uuml;rer first conceived the idea of writing a
+comprehensive work upon the theory and practice of art is unknown. It
+was certainly before the year 1512. The following list of chapters may
+perhaps be an early sketch of the plan.</p>
+
+Ten things are contained in the little book.<br>
+The first, the proportions of a young child.<br>
+The second, proportions of a grown man.<br>
+The third, proportions of a woman.<br>
+The fourth, proportions of a horse.<br>
+The fifth, something about architecture.<br>
+The sixth, about an apparatus through which it can be shown that 'all things may be traced.<br>
+The seventh, about light and shade.<br>
+The eighth, about colours, how to paint like nature.<br>
+The ninth, about the ordering (composition) of the picture.<br>
+The tenth, about free painting, which alone is made by Imagination without any other help.<br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>Glad enough should we be to attain unto great knowledge without toil,
+for nature has implanted in us the desire of knowing all things,
+thereby to discern a truth of all things. But our dull wit cannot come
+unto such perfectness of all art, truth, and wisdom. Yet are we not,
+therefore, shut out altogether from all arts. If we want to sharpen our
+reason by learning and to practise ourselves therein, having once found
+the right path we may, step by step, seek, learn, comprehend, and
+finally reach and attain unto something true. Wherefore, he that
+understandeth how to learn somewhat in his leisure time, whereby he may
+most certainly be enabled to honour God, and to do what is useful both
+for himself and others, that man doeth well; and we know that in this
+wise he will gain much experience in art and will be able to make known
+its truth for our good. It is right, therefore, for one man to teach
+another. He that joyfully doeth so, upon him shall much be bestowed by
+God, from whom we receive all things. He hath highest praise.</p>
+
+<p>One finds some who know nothing and learn nothing. They despise
+learning, and say that much evil cometh of the arts, and that some are
+wholly vile. I, on the contrary, hold that no art is evil, but that all
+are good. A sword is a sword which may be used either for murder or for
+justice. Similarly the arts are in themselves good. What God hath
+formed, that is good, misuse it how ye will.</p>
+
+<p>Thou findest arts of all kinds; choose then for thyself that which is
+like to be of greatest service to thee. Learn it; let not the difficulty
+thereof vex thee till thou hast accomplished somewhat wherewith thou
+mayest be satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>It is very necessary for a man to know some one thing by reason of the
+usefulness which ariseth therefrom. Wherefore we should all gladly
+learn, for the more we know so much the more do we resemble the likeness
+of God, who verily knoweth all things.</p>
+
+<p>The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the better doth he become,
+and so much the more love doth he win for the arts and for things
+exalted. Wherefore a man ought not to play the wanton, but should learn
+in season.</p>
+
+<p>Is the artistic man pious and by nature good? He escheweth the evil and
+chooseth the good; and hereunto serve the arts, for they give the
+discernment of good and evil.</p>
+
+<p>Some may learn somewhat of all arts, but that is not given to every man.
+Nevertheless, there is no rational man so dull but that he may learn the
+one thing towards which his fancy draweth him most strongly. Hence no
+man is excused from learning something.</p>
+
+<p>Let no man put too much confidence in himself, for many (pairs of eyes)
+see better than one. Though it is possible for a man to comprehend more
+than a thousand (men), still that cometh but rarely to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Many fall into error because they follow their own taste alone;
+therefore let each look to it that his inclination blind not his
+judgment. For every mother is well pleased with her own child, and thus
+also it ariseth that many painters paint figures resembling themselves.</p>
+
+<p>He that worketh in ignorance worketh more painfully than he that worketh
+with understanding; therefore let all learn to understand aright.</p>
+
+<p>Now I know that in our German nation, at the present time, are many
+painters who stand in need of instruction, for they lack all real art,
+yet they nevertheless have many large works to do. Forasmuch then as
+they are so numerous, it is very needful for them to learn to better
+their work.</p>
+
+<p>Willingly will I impart my teaching, hereafter written, to the man who
+knoweth little and would gladly learn; but I will not be cumbered with
+the proud, who, according to their own estimate of themselves, know all
+things, and are best, and despise all else. From true artists, however,
+such as can show their meaning with the hand, I desire to learn humbly
+and with much thankfulness.</p>
+
+<p>A thing thou beholdest is easier of belief than that thou hearest, but
+whatever is both heard and seen we grasp more firmly and lay hold on
+more securely. I will therefore do the work in both ways, that thus I
+may be better understood.</p>
+
+<p>Whosoever will, therefore, let him hear and see what I say, do, and
+teach, for I hope it may be of service and not for a hindrance to the
+better arts, nor lead thee to neglect better things.</p>
+
+<p>I hear moreover of no writer in modern times by whom aught hath been
+written and made known which I might read for my improvement. For some
+hide their art in great secrecy, and others write about things whereof
+they know nothing, so that their words are nowise better than mere
+noise, as he that knoweth somewhat is swift to discover. I therefore
+will write down with God's help the little that I know. Though many will
+scorn it I am not troubled, for I well know that it is easier to cast
+blame on a thing than to make anything better. Moreover, I will expound
+my meaning as clearly and plainly as I can; and, were it possible, I
+would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver or gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something burning
+and ye all add to it with skilful furthering, a blaze may in time arise
+therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world.</p>
+
+<p>I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same
+touchstone as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the
+world prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world
+esteemeth beautiful that will we also hold for beautiful, and ourselves
+strive to produce the like.</p>
+
+<p>No one need blindly follow this theory of mine as though it were quite
+perfect, for human nature has not yet so far degenerated that another
+man cannot discover something better. So each may use my teaching as
+long as it seems good to him, or until he finds something better. Where
+he is not willing to accept it, he may well hold that this doctrine is
+not written for him, but for others who are willing.</p>
+
+<p>That must be a strangely dull head which never trusts itself to find out
+anything fresh, but only travels along the old path, simply following
+others and not daring to reflect for itself. For it beseems each
+understanding, in following another, not to despair of itself
+discovering something better. If that is done, there remaineth no doubt
+but that in time this art will again reach the perfection it attained
+amongst the ancients.</p>
+
+<p>Much will hereafter be written about subjects and refinements of
+painting. Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will
+write both well and better about this art, and will teach it better than
+I; for I myself hold my art at a very mean value, for I know what my
+faults are. Let every man therefore strive to better these my errors
+according to his powers. Would to God it were possible for me to see the
+work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I
+know that I might be improved upon. Ah! how often in my sleep do I
+behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof never
+appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake, even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me.</p>
+
+<p>Compare also the passages already quoted,(pp. 15,16,26).</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>&quot;What an admirable temper!&quot; is the exclamation which expresses our first
+feeling on reading the foregoing sentences. It renews the spirit of a
+man merely to peruse such things. Scales fall from our eyes, and we see
+what we most essentially are, with pleasure, as good children gleefully
+recognise their goodness: and at the same time we are filled with
+contrition that we should have ever forgotten it. And this that we most
+essentially are rational beings, lovers of goodness, children of
+hope,--how directly D&uuml;rer appeals to it: &quot;Nature has implanted in us the
+desire of knowing all things.&quot; It reminds one of Ben Jonson's:--</p>
+
+<p>It is a false quarrel against nature, that she helps understanding but
+in a few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if
+they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run,
+&amp;c., which, if they lose it, is through their own sluggishness, and by
+that means they become her prodigies, not her children.</p>
+
+<p>There is something refreshing and inspiriting in the mere conviction of
+our teachableness; and when the same author, referring to Plato's
+travels in search of knowledge, says, &quot;He laboured, so must we,&quot; we do
+not find the comparison humiliating either to Plato or ourselves. For
+&quot;without a way there is no going,&quot; and every man of superior mould says
+to us with more or less of benignity, &quot;I am the way: follow me.&quot; Such
+means or ways of attainment have been followed by all whose success is
+known to us, and are followed now by all &quot;finely touched and gifted
+men.&quot; I might quote in illustration of these assertions the whole of
+Reynolds' Sixth Discourse, so marvellous for its acute and delicate
+discrimination; but I will content myself with a few leading passages:</p>
+
+<p>We cannot suppose that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation
+of others.</p>
+
+<p>It is a common observation that no art was ever invented and carried to
+perfection at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who
+resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will soon be reduced to
+the poorest of all imitations, he will be obliged to imitate himself,
+and to repeat what he has often before repeated.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's
+thoughts an encumbrance to him, can have no very great strength of mind
+or genius of his own to be destroyed: so that not much harm will be done
+at the worst.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, this last phrase will not apply universally; we must remember
+that the man who sets out to become an artist, or claims to be one by
+native gift, has made apparent that he is the possessor of no mean
+ambition. The humblest may see a way of improvement in their betters,
+and obey the command, &quot;Follow me.&quot; Every man is not called to follow
+great artists, but only those who are peculiarly fitted to tread the
+difficult paths that climb Olympus-hill. Yet to all men alike the great
+artist in life, he who wedded failure to divinity, says, &quot;Learn of me
+that I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never
+proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of his
+imitation. He professes only to follow; and he that follows must
+necessarily be behind.</p>
+
+<p>It is of course impossible to surpass perfection, but it is possible to
+be made one with it.</p>
+
+<p>To find excellences, however dispersed, to discover beauties, however
+concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded,
+can be the work only of him who, having a mind always alive to his art,
+has extended his views to all ages and to all schools; and has acquired
+from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself a
+well-digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is
+referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of
+that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from
+every school; selects both from what is great and what is little; brings
+home knowledge from the east and from the west; making the universe
+tributary towards furnishing his mind, and enriching his works with
+originality and variety of inventions.</p>
+
+<p>In this tine passage we get back to our central idea in regard to the
+sense of proportion &quot;making the universe tributary towards furnishing
+his mind&quot;; while in the &quot;discovery of beauties&quot; the complete artist
+&quot;selects both from what is great and what is little,&quot; from the clouds of
+heaven and from the dunghills of the farmyard.</p>
+
+<p>Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters for ever. Study,
+as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, and on the principles
+on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those
+masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to
+imitate, and at the same time as rivals with whom you are to contend.
+For &quot;no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any
+other terms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Yes, an artist is a child who chooses his parents, nor is he limited to
+only two. Religion tells all men they have a Father, who is God;
+philosophy and tradition repeat, &quot;man has a mother, who is Nature.&quot;
+These sayings are platitudes; their application is so obvious that it is
+now generally forgotten. If God is a Father, it is the soul that chooses
+Him; if Nature is a mother, it is the man who chooses to regard her as
+such, since to the greater number it is well known she seems but a
+stepmother, and a cruel one at that. Elective affinities, chosen
+kindred!--&quot;tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you who you
+are&quot; (what you are worth). How many artist waifs one sees nowadays! lost
+souls, who choose to be nobody's children, and think they can teach
+themselves all they need to know.</p>
+
+<p>I think the very striking agreement between artists so totally different
+in every respect except eminence, docility and anxiety to further art,
+as D&uuml;rer and Reynolds, ought to impress our minds very deeply: even
+though, as is certainly the case, the way they point out has been very
+greatly abandoned of late years, and public institutions in this and
+other countries proceed to further art on quite other lines; even though
+critics are almost unanimous in knowing better both the end and the way
+than the great masters who had not the advantage of a dash of science in
+their hydromel to make it sparkle, but instead made it yet richer and
+thicker by stirring up with it piety and religion. I think this
+&quot;cock-tail and sherry-cobbler&quot; art criticism of to-day is very
+deleterious to the digestion, and that the piety and enthusiasm which
+D&uuml;rer and Reynolds worked into their art were more wholesome, and better
+supplied the needs and deficiencies of artistic temperaments.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<a name="THE_LOST_TRADITION"></a><h3>THE LOST TRADITION</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>Many centuries ago the great art of painting was held in high honour by
+mighty kings, and they made excellent artists rich and held them worthy,
+accounting such inventiveness a creating power like God's. For the
+imagination of a good painter is full of figures, and were it possible
+for him to live for ever, he would always have from his inward ideas,
+whereof Plato speaks, something new to set forth by the work of
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Many hundred years ago there were still some famous painters, such as
+those named Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Polycleitus, Parrhasius,
+Lysippus, Protogenes, and the rest, some of whom wrote about their art
+and very artfully described it and gave it plainly to light: but their
+praise-worthy books are, so far, unknown to us, and perhaps have been
+altogether lost by war, driving forth of the peoples, and alterations of
+laws and beliefs--a loss much to be regretted by every wise man. It
+often came to pass that noble &quot;Ingenia&quot; were destroyed by barbarous
+oppressors of art; for if they saw figures traced in a few lines they
+thought it nought but vain, devilish sorcery. And in destroying them
+they attempted to honour God by something displeasing to Him; and to use
+the language of men, God was angry with all destroyers of the works of
+great mastership, which is only attained by much toil, labour, and
+expenditure of time, and is bestowed by God alone. Often do I sorrow
+because I must be robbed of the aforesaid masters' books of art; but the
+enemies of art despise these things.</p>
+
+<p>Pliny writeth that the old painters and sculptors--such as Apelles,
+Protogenes, and the rest--told very artistically in writing how a
+well-built man's figure might be measured out. Now it may well have come
+to pass that these noble books were misunderstood and destroyed as
+idolatrous in the early days of the Church. For they would have said
+Jupiter should have such proportions, Apollo such others; Venus shall be
+thus, Hercules thus; and so with all the rest. Had it, however, been my
+fate to be there at the time, I would have said: &quot;Oh dear, holy lords
+and fathers, do not so lamentably destroy the nobly discovered arts,
+which have been gotten by great toil and labour, only because of the
+abuses made of them. For art is very hard, and we might and would use it
+for the great honour and glory of God. For, even as the ancients used
+the fairest figure of a man to represent their false god Apollo, we will
+employ the same for Christ the Lord, who is fairest of all the earth;
+and as they figured Venus as the loveliest of women, so will we in like
+manner set down the same beauteous form for the most pure Virgin Mary,
+the mother of God; and of Hercules will we make Samson, and thus will we
+do with all the rest, for such books shall we get never more.&quot;
+Wherefore, though that which is lost ariseth not again, yet a man may
+strive after new lore; and for these reasons I have been moved to make
+known my ideas here following, in order that others may ponder the
+matter further, and may thus come to a new and better way and
+foundation.</p>
+
+<p>I certainly do not deny that, if the books of the ancients who wrote
+about the art of painting still lay before our eyes, my design might be
+open to the false interpretation that I thought to find out something
+better than what was known unto them. These books, however, have been
+totally lost in the lapse of time; so I cannot be justly blamed for
+publishing my opinions and discoveries in writing, for that is exactly
+what the ancients did. If other competent men are thereby induced to do
+the like, our descendants have something which they may add to and
+improve upon, and thus the art of painting may in time advance and reach
+its perfection.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>Whether we should exercise our intellects or logical sense alone upon
+the records and remains of past ages, or whether they may not be better
+employed for the exercise and edification of the imaginative faculties,
+would seem to be a question which, though they did not perhaps in set
+terms put to themselves, modern historians have very summarily answered;
+and I think answered wrongly. The records of the past, the records even
+of yesterday, are necessarily extremely incomplete; to make them at all
+significant something must be added by the historian. The 'perception'
+of probability is never exact; it varies with the mind between man and
+man; in the same man even before and after different experiences, &amp;c.
+But even if the perception of the highest probability were practically
+exact, it would never suffice; for, as Aristotle says, &quot;it is probable
+that many things should happen contrary to probability.&quot; From these
+facts it follows that the man who has the most exhaustive knowledge of
+what has actually survived, and what has been recorded, will not
+necessarily form the truest judgment on a question of history; it might
+always happen that the intuition of some unscholarly person was nearer
+the truth; still no man could ever decide between the two, nor would any
+sane man think it worth his while to take sides with either of them;
+such questions are most useful when they are left open. This is the case
+because the imagination is thus left freer to use such knowledge as it
+has for the edification of the character; and that model for our example
+or warning which the imagination constructs may always possibly be the
+truth. According to the balance in it of apparent probability, with
+edifying power it will beget conviction. Such a conviction may be doomed
+to be superseded sooner or later; its value lies in its potency while it
+lasts. The temper in which we look at our historical heritage is of more
+importance to us now than the exactitude of our vision; for this latter
+can never be proved, while the former approves itself by the fruit it
+bears within us. It is better, more fruitful, to feel with D&uuml;rer about
+the art of Ancient Greece than to know all that can be known of it
+to-day and feel a great deal less. &quot;Character calls forth character,&quot;
+said Goethe; we may add, &quot;even from the grave.&quot; Now that the physical
+miracle of the Resurrection has come to seem so unimportant and
+uninteresting to educated men, it might be a wise economy to connect its
+poetry with this experience, that great and creative characters can
+raise men better worth knowing than Lazarus from the dead. Nietsche
+thought that Shakespeare had brought Brutus back to life, (though he
+knew very little of Roman history), and that Brutus was the Roman best
+worth knowing. &quot;Of all peoples, the Greeks dreamt the dream of life the
+best,&quot; Goethe said; and again, &quot;For all other arts we have to make some
+allowance; to Greek art alone we are for ever debtors.&quot; To feel the
+truth of these sayings with a passion similar to that shown in the
+passages quoted above from D&uuml;rer, must surely be a great help to an
+artist. Such a passion is an end in itself, or rather is the only means
+by which we can win spiritual freedom from some of the heavier fetters
+that modern life lays upon us. It freed Goethe even from Germany.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<a name="BEAUTY"></a><h3>BEAUTY</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>How is beauty to be judged?--upon that we have to deliberate.</p>
+
+<p>A man by skill may bring it into every single thing, for in some things
+we recognise that as beautiful which elsewhere would lack beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Good and better in respect of beauty are not easy to discern; for it
+would be quite possible to make two different figures, one stout, the
+other thin, which should differ one from the other in every proportion,
+and yet we scarce might be able to judge which of the two excelled in
+beauty. What beauty is I know not, though it dependeth upon many things.</p>
+
+<p>I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same touchstone
+as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the world
+prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world esteemeth
+beautiful that we will also hold for beautiful, and ourselves strive to
+produce the like.</p>
+
+<p>There are many causes and varieties of beauty; he that can prove them is
+so much the more to be trusted.</p>
+
+<p>The accord of one thing with another is beautiful, therefore want of
+harmony is not beautiful. A real harmony linketh together things unlike.</p>
+
+<p>Use is a part of beauty, whatever therefore is useless unto men is
+without beauty.</p>
+
+<p>The more imperfection is excluded so much the more doth beauty abide in
+the work.</p>
+
+<p>Guard thyself from superfluity.</p>
+
+<p>But beauty is so put together in men and so uncertain is our judgment
+about it, that we may perhaps find two men both beautiful and fair to
+look upon, and yet neither resembleth the other, in measure or kind, in
+any single point or part; and so blind is our perception that we shall
+not understand whether of the two is the more beautiful, and if we give
+an opinion on the matter it shall lack certainty.</p>
+
+<p>Negro faces are seldom beautiful because of their very flat noses and
+thick lips; moreover, their shinbone is too prominent, and the knee and
+foot too long, not so good to look upon as those of the whites; and so
+also is it with their hand. Howbeit, I have seen some amongst them whose
+whole bodies have been so well-built and handsome that I never beheld
+finer figures, nor can I conceive how they might be bettered, so
+excellent were their arms and all their limbs.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that man is the worthiest of all creatures, it follows that, in
+all pictures, the human figure is most frequently employed as a centre
+of interest. Every animal in the world regards nothing but his own kind,
+and the same nature is also in men, as every man may perceive
+in himself.</p>
+
+<p>[Illustration: Charcoal-drawing heightened with white on a green
+prepared ground, in the Berlin Print Room <i>Face p</i>. 320]</p>
+
+<p>Further, in order that he may arrive at a good canon whereby to bring
+somewhat of beauty into our work, there-unto it were best for thee, it
+bethinks me, to form thy canon from many living men. Howbeit seek only
+such men as are held beautiful, and from such draw with all diligence.
+For one who hath understanding may, from men of many different kinds,
+gather something good together through all the limbs of the body. But
+seldom is a man found who hath all his limbs good, for every man lacks
+something.</p>
+
+<p>No single man can be taken as a model of a perfect figure, for no man
+liveth on earth who uniteth in himself all manner of beauties.... There
+liveth also no man upon earth who could give a final judgment upon what
+the perfect figure of a man is; God only knoweth that.</p>
+
+<p>And although we cannot speak of the greatest beauty of a living
+creature, yet we find in the visible creation a beauty so far surpassing
+our understanding that no one of us can fully bring it into his work.</p>
+
+<p>If we were to ask how we are to make a beautiful figure, some would give
+answer: According to human judgment (i.e., common taste). Others would
+not agree thereto, neither should I without a good reason. Who will give
+us certainty in this matter?<a name="FNanchor87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87"><sup>[87]</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>I have already given what I believe to be the best answer to these
+questions as to what beauty is and how it is to be judged. Beauty is
+beauty as good is good (<i>see</i> pp. 7, 8), or yellow, yellow; indeed, to
+the second question, Matthew Arnold has given the only possible
+answer--the relative value of beauties is &quot;as the judicious would
+determine,&quot; and the judicious are, in matters of art &quot;finely touched and
+gifted men.&quot; This criterion obviously cannot be easily or hastily
+applied, nor could one ever be quite sure that in any given case it had
+been applied to any given effect. But for practical needs we see that it
+suffices to cast a slur on facile popularity, and vindicate over and
+over again those who had been despised and rejected. What the true
+artist desires to bring into his pictures is the power to move
+finely-touched and gifted men. Not only are such by very much the
+minority, but the more part of them being, by their capacity to be moved
+and touched, easily wounded, have developed a natural armour of reserve,
+of moroseness, of prejudice, of combativeness, of pedantry, which makes
+them as difficult to address as wombats, or bears, or tortoises, or
+porcupines, or polecats, or elephants. It is interesting to witness how
+D&uuml;rer's self-contradictions show him to be aware of the great complexity
+of these difficulties, as also to see how very near he comes to the true
+answer. At one time he tells us:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When men demand a work of a master, he is to be praised in so far as he
+succeeds in satisfying their likings ...&quot;<a name="FNanchor88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88"><sup>[88]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>At another he tells us:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The art of painting cannot be truly judged save by such as are
+themselves good painters; from others verily is it hidden even as a
+strange tongue.&quot;<a name="FNanchor89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89"><sup>[89]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Every &quot;finely touched and gifted man&quot; is not an artist; but every true
+artist must, in some measure, be a finely touched and gifted man. There
+is no necessity to limit the public addressed to those who themselves
+produce: yet those who &quot;can prove what they say with their hand&quot; bring
+credentials superior to those offered by any others,--although even
+their judgment is not sure, as they may well represent a minority of
+the true court of appeal which can never be brought together.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt there is a judgment and a scale of values accepted as final by
+each generation that gives any considerable attention to these
+questions. &AElig;sthetic appear to be exactly similar to religious
+convictions. Those who are subject to them probably pass through many
+successively, even though they all their lives hold to a certain fashion
+which enables them to assert some obvious unity, like those who, in
+religion, belong always to one sect. Yet if they were in a position to
+analyse their emotions and leanings, no doubt very fundamental
+contradictions would be discovered to disconcert them. Conviction and
+enthusiasm in the arts and religion would seem to be the frame of mind
+natural to those who assimilate, and are rendered productive by what
+they study and admire. Convictions may never be wholly justifiable in
+theory, but in practice when results are considered, it would seem that
+no other frame of mind should escape censure.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor87">[87]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; p. 244.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor88">[88]</a><blockquote> &quot;Literary Remains of Albrecht D&uuml;rer,&quot; p. 245.</blockquote>
+
+<a name="Footnote_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor89">[89]</a><blockquote> <i>Idem</i>. p. 177.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<a name="NATURE"></a><h3>NATURE</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>We regard a form and figure out of nature with more pleasure than
+another, though the thing in itself is not necessarily altogether
+better or worse.</p>
+
+<p>Life in nature showeth forth the truth of these things (the words of
+difference--i.e., the character of bodily habit to which they refer),
+wherefore regard it well, order thyself thereby and depart not from
+nature in thine opinions, neither imagine of thyself to invent aught
+better, else shalt thou be led astray, for art standeth firmly fixed in
+nature, and whoso can rend her forth thence he only possesseth her. If
+thou acquirest her, she will remove many faults for thee from thy work.</p>
+
+<p>Neither must the figure be made youthful before and old behind, or
+contrariwise; for that unto which nature is opposed is bad. Hence it
+followeth that each figure should be of one kind alone throughout,
+either young or old, or middle-aged, or lean or fat, or soft or hard.</p>
+
+<p>The more closely thy work abideth by life in its form, so much the
+better will it appear; and this is true. Wherefore never more imagine
+that thou either canst or shalt make anything better than God hath given
+power to His creatures to do. For thy power is weakness compared to
+God's creating hand. (<i>See</i> continuation of passage, p. 10.)</p>
+
+<p>Compare also passages quoted (pp. 289-291).</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>In these and other passages D&uuml;rer speaks about &quot;nature,&quot; and enjoins on
+the artist respect for and conformity to &quot;nature&quot; in a manner which
+reminds us of that still current in dictums about art. Indeed, it seems
+probable that D&uuml;rer's use of this term was almost as confused as that of
+a modern art-critic. There are two senses in which the word nature is
+employed, the confusion of which is ten times more confounded than any
+of the others, and deserves, indeed, utter damnation, so prolific of
+evil is it. We call the objects of sensory perception &quot;nature&quot;--whatever
+is seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted is a part of nature. And yet we
+constantly speak of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting
+monstrous and unnatural things. And a monstrous and unnatural thing is
+not merely one which is rare, but even more decidedly one of which we
+disapprove. So that the second use of the term conveys some sense of
+exceptionality, but far more of lack of conformity to human desires and
+expectations. Now, many things which do not exist are perfectly natural
+in this second sense: fairy-lands, heavens, &amp;c. We perfectly understand
+what is meant by a natural and an unnatural imagination, we perceive
+readily all kind of degrees between the monstrous and the natural in
+pure fiction. Now, this second use of the term nature is the only one
+which is of any vital importance to our judgments upon works of art; yet
+current judgments are more often than not based wholly on the first
+sense, which means merely all objects perceived by the senses; and this,
+draped in the authority and phrases belonging to judgments based on the
+second and really pertinent sense.</p>
+
+<p>Whole schools of painting and criticism have arisen and flourish whose
+only reason for existence is the extreme facility with which this
+confusion is made in European languages. It sounds so plausible that
+some have censured Michael Angelo for bad drawing because men are not
+from 9 to 15 or 16 heads high, and have not muscles so developed as the
+gods and Titans of his creation. And others have objected to the angels,
+the anatomical ambiguity of their wing articulations. To say that a
+sketch or picture is out of tone or drawing damns, in many circles
+to-day; in spite of the fact that the most famous masterpieces, if
+judged by the same standard, would be equally offensive. This absurdity,
+even where its grosser developments are avoided, breeds abundant
+contradictions and confusion in the mouths of those who plume themselves
+on culture and discernment. I hope not to have been too saucy,
+therefore, in pointing out this pitfall to my readers in regard to these
+sentences which I thought it worth while to quote from D&uuml;rer, merely
+because if I did not do so I foresaw that they would be quoted
+against me.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<a name="THE_CHOICE_OF_AN_ARTIST"></a><h3>THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>In the great earnestness with which the difficulties that beset art and
+the artist impressed him, D&uuml;rer intended to write a <i>Vade Mecum</i> for
+those who should come after him. He has left among his MS. papers many
+plans, rough drafts, and notes for some such work, the form of which no
+doubt changed from time to time. The one which gives us the most
+comprehensive idea of his intentions is perhaps the following.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>Ihs. Maria</p>
+
+<p>By the grace and help of God I have here set down all that I have learnt
+in practice, which is likely to be of use in painting, for the service
+of all students who would gladly learn. That, perchance, by my help they
+may advance still further in the higher understanding of such art, as he
+who seeketh may well do, if he is inclined thereto; for my reason
+sufficeth not to lay the foundations of this great, far-reaching,
+infinite art of true painting.</p>
+
+<p>Item.--In order that thou mayest thoroughly and rightly comprehend what
+is, or is called, an &quot;artistic painter,&quot; I will inform thee and recount
+to thee. If the world often goeth without an &quot;artistic painter,&quot; whilst
+for two or three hundred years none such appeareth, it is because those
+who might have become such devote not themselves to art. Observe then
+the three essential qualities following, which belong to the true artist
+in painting. These are the three main points in the whole book.</p>
+<ul>
+<li>I. The First Division of the book is the Prologue, and it compriseth
+three parts (A, B, and C).
+  <ul>
+    <li>A. The first part of the Prologue telleth us how the lad should be
+    taught, and how attention should be paid to the tendency of his
+    temperament. It falleth into six parts:
+      <ul>
+        <li>1. That note should be taken of the birth of the child, in what Sign it
+        occurreth; with some explanations. (Pray God for a lucky hour!)</li>
+
+        <li>2. That his form and stature should be considered; with some
+        explanations.</li>
+
+        <li>3. How he ought to be nurtured in learning from the first; with some
+        explanations.</li>
+
+        <li>4. That the child should be observed, whether he learneth best when
+        kindly praised or when chidden; with explanations.</li>
+
+        <li>5. That the child be kept eager to learn and be not vexed.</li>
+
+        <li>6. If the child worketh too hard, so that he might fall under the hand
+        of melancholy, that he be enticed therefrom by merry music to the
+        pleasuring of his blood.</li>
+      </ul>
+    </li>
+
+    <li>B. The second part of the Preface showeth how the lad should be brought
+    up in the fear of God and in reverence, that so he may attain grace,
+    whereby he may be much strengthened in intelligent art. It falleth into
+    six parts:
+      <ul>
+        <li>1. That the lad be brought up in the fear of God and be taught to pray
+        to God for the grace of quick perception (<i>ubtilitet</i>) and to
+        honour God.</li>
+
+        <li>2. That he be kept moderate in eating and drinking, and also in
+        sleeping.</li>
+
+        <li>3. That he dwell in a pleasant house, so that he be distracted by no
+        manner of hindrance.</li>
+
+        <li>4. That he be kept from women and live not loosely with them; that he
+        not so much as see or touch one; and that he guard himself from all
+        impurity. Nothing weakens the understanding more than impurity.</li>
+
+        <li>5. That he know how to read and write well, and be also instructed in
+        Latin, so far as to understand certain writings.</li>
+
+        <li>6. That such an one have sufficient means to devote himself without
+        anxiety (to his art), and that his health be attended to with medicines
+        when needful.</li>
+      </ul>
+    </li>
+
+    <li>C. The third part of the Prologue teacheth us of the great usefulness,
+    joy, and delight which spring from painting. It falleth into six parts:
+        <ul>
+        <li>1. It is a useful art when it is of godly sort, and is employed for holy
+        edification.</li>
+
+        <li>2. It is useful, and much evil is thereby avoided, if a man devote
+        himself thereto who else had wasted his time.</li>
+
+        <li>3. It is useful when no one thinks so, for a man will have great joy if
+        he occupy himself with that which is so rich in joys.</li>
+
+        <li>4. It is useful because a man gaineth great and lasting memory thereby
+        if he applieth it aright.</li>
+
+        <li>5. It is useful because God is thereby honoured when it is seen that He
+        hath bestowed such genius upon one of His creatures in whom is such
+        art. All men will be gracious unto thee by reason of thine art.</li>
+
+        <li>6. The sixth use is that if thou art poor thou mayest by such art come
+        unto great wealth and riches.</li>
+        </ul>
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</li>
+<li>II. The Second Division of the book treateth of Painting itself; it also
+is threefold.
+  <ul>
+      <li>A. The first part is of the freedom of painting; in six ways.</li>
+
+      <li>B. The second part is of the proportions of men and buildings, and what
+      is needful for painting; in six ways.<a name="FNanchor90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90"><sup>[90]</sup></a>
+
+      <ul>
+         <li>1. Of the proportions of men.</li>
+         <li>2. Of the proportions of horses.</li>
+         <li>3. Of the proportions of buildings.</li>
+         <li>4. Of perspective.</li>
+         <li>5. Of light and shade.</li>
+         <li>6. Of colours, how they are to be made to resemble nature.</li>
+      </ul>
+      </li>
+      <li>C. The third part is of all that a man conceives as subject for
+      painting.</li>
+  </ul>
+</li>
+
+<li>III. The Third Division of the book is the Conclusion; it also hath
+  three parts.
+  <ul>
+  <li>A. The first part shows in what place such an artist should dwell to
+  practise his art; in six ways.</li>
+
+  <li>B. The second part shows how such a wonderful artist should charge
+  highly for his art, and that no money is too much for it, seeing that it
+  is divine and true; in six ways.</li>
+  </ul>
+</li>
+</ul>
+The third part speaks of praise and thanksgiving which he should render
+unto God for His grace, and which others should render on his behalf;
+in six ways.
+<br>
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>It is in the variety and completeness of his intentions that we perceive
+D&uuml;rer's kinship with the Renascence; he comprehends the whole of life in
+his idea of art training.</p>
+
+<p>In his persuasion of the fundamental necessity of morality he is akin to
+the best of the Reformation. It is in the union of these two perceptions
+that his resemblance to Michael Angelo lies. There is a rigour, an
+austerity which emanates from their work, such as is not found in the
+work of Titian or Rembrandt or Leonardo or Rubens or any other mighty
+artist of ripe epochs. Yet we find both of them illustrating the
+licentious legends of antiquity, turning from the Virgin to Amymone and
+Leda, from Christ to Apollo and Hercules. By their action and example
+neither joins either the Reformation or the Renascence in so far as
+these movements may be considered antagonistic; nor did they find it
+inconsistent to acknowledge their debt to Greece and Rome, even while
+accepting the gift of Jesus' example as freely as it was offered.</p>
+
+<p>Not only does D&uuml;rer insist on the necessity of a certain consonancy
+between the surrounding influences and the artist's capacity, which
+should be both called forth and relieved by the interchange of rivalry
+with instruction, of seclusion with music or society, but the process
+which Jesus made the central one of his religion is put forward as
+essential; he must form himself on a precedent example. I have already
+quoted from Reynolds at length on this point.</p>
+
+<p>I will merely add here some notes from another MS. fragment of D&uuml;rer's
+bearing on the same points.</p>
+
+<p>He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.</p>
+
+<p>Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than
+compulsion is.</p>
+
+<p>If a man is to become a really great painter he must be educated thereto
+from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good
+artists until he attain a free hand.</p>
+
+<p>To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing
+whatsoever that may be chosen.</p>
+
+<p>It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce, to
+measure the human figure, before learning anything else.</p>
+
+<p><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
+
+<a name="Footnote_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor90">[90]</a><blockquote> The following list comes from another sheet of the MS.
+(in. 70), but was dearly intended for this place. It is jotted down on a
+thick piece of paper, on which there are also geometrical designs.</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<a name="TECHNICAL_PRECEPTS"></a><h3>TECHNICAL PRECEPTS</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>If thou wishest to model well in painting, so as to deceive the
+eyesight, thou must be right cunning in thy colours, and must know how
+to keep them distinct, in painting, one from another. For example, thou
+paintest two coats of mantles, one white the other red; thou must deal
+differently with them in shading. There is light and shadow on all
+things, wherever the surface foldeth or bendeth away from the eye. If
+this were not so, everything would look flat, and then one could
+distinguish nothing save only a chequerwork of colours.</p>
+
+<p>If then thou art shading the white mantle, it must not be shaded with so
+dark a colour as the red, for it would be impossible for a white thing
+to yield so dark a shadow as a red. Neither could they be compared one
+with another, save that in total absence of daylight everything is
+black, seeing that colour cannot be recognised in darkness. Though,
+therefore, in such a case, the theory allows one, without blame, to use
+pure black for the shadows of a white object, yet this can seldom
+come to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, when thou paintest anything in one colour--be it red, blue,
+brown, or any mixed colour--beware lest thou make it so bright in the
+lights that it departs from its own kind. For example, an uneducated man
+regardeth thy picture wherein is a red coat. &quot;Look, good friend,&quot; saith
+he, &quot;in one part the coat is of a fair red and in another it is white
+or pale in colour.&quot; That same is to be blamed, neither hast thou done it
+aright. In such a case a red object must be painted red all over and yet
+preserve the appearance of solidity; and so with all colours. The same
+must be done with the shadows, lest it be said that a fair red is soiled
+with black Wherefore be careful that thou shade each colour with a
+similar colour. Thus I hold that a yellow, to retain its kind, must be
+shaded with a yellow, darker toned than the principal colour. If thou
+shade it with green or blue, it remaineth no longer in keeping, and is
+no longer yellow, but becometh thereby a shot colour, like the colour of
+silk stuffs woven of threads of two colours, as brown and blue, brown
+and green, dark yellow and green, chestnut-brown and dark yellow, blue
+and seal red, seal red and brown, and the many other colours one sees.
+If a man hath such as these to paint, where the surface breaketh and
+bendeth away the colours divide themselves so that they can be
+distinguished one from another, and thus must thou paint them. But where
+the surface lieth flat one colour alone appeareth. Howbeit, if thou art
+painting such a silk and shadest it with one colour (as a brown with a
+blue) thou must none the less shade the blue with a deeper blue where it
+is needful. If often cometh to pass that such silks appear brown in the
+shadows, as if one colour stood before the other. If thy model beareth
+such a garment, thou must shade the brown with a deeper brown and not
+with blue. Howbeit, happen what may, every colour must in shading keep
+to its own class.</p>
+<br>
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>The great genius Hokusai, who has obtained for popular art in Japan a
+success comparable to that of the best classic masterpieces of that
+country and to the drawings and etchings of Rembrandt, a master of an
+altogether kindred nature, wrote a little treatise on the difference of
+aim noticeable in European and Japanese art. From the few Dutch pictures
+which he had been able to examine, he concluded that European art
+attempted to deceive the eye, whereas Japanese art laboured to express
+life, to suggest movement, and to harmonise colour. What is meant is
+easily grasped when we set before the mind's eye a picture, by Teniers
+and a page of Hokusai's &quot;Mangwa.&quot; On the other hand, if one chose a
+sketch by Rembrandt to represent Dutch art, the difference could no
+longer be apparent. If the aim of European art had ever in serious
+examples been to deceive the eye, our painting would rank with
+legerdemain and Maskelyne's famous box trick; for it is to be doubted if
+it could ever so well have attained its end as even a second-rate
+conjurer can. I have cited a passage in which Reynolds confronts the
+work of great artists with the illusions of the camera obscura (see p.
+237). The adept musical performer who reproduces the noises of a
+farmyard is the true parallel to the lesser Dutch artists; he deceives
+the ear far better than they deceive the eye. For every picture has a
+surface which, unless very carefully lighted, must immediately destroy
+the illusion, even if it were otherwise perfect. Nevertheless, D&uuml;rer in
+the foregoing passage seems to accept Hokusai's verdict that the aim of
+his painting is to deceive the eye; forgetful of all that he has
+elsewhere written about the necessity of beauty, the necessity of
+composition, the superiority of rough sketches over finished works.</p>
+
+<p>When a painter has conceived in his heart a vision of beauty, whether he
+suggests it with a few strokes of the pen or elaborates it as thoroughly
+as Jan Van Eyck did, he wishes it to be taken as a report of something
+seen. This is as different from wishing to deceive the eye as for some
+one to say &quot;and then a dog barked,&quot; instead of imitating the barking of
+a dog. A circumstantial description in words and a picture by Van Eyck
+or Veronese are equally intended to pass as reports of something
+visually conceived or actually seen. Pictures would have to be made
+peep-shows of before they could veritably deceive; and Jan Van Beers, a
+modern Dutchman, actually turned some of his paintings into peep-shows.
+D&uuml;rer in the following passage is speaking of the separate details or
+objects which go to make up a picture, not of the picture as a whole; he
+never tried to make peep-shows; his signature or an inscription is often
+used to give the very surface that must destroy the peep-show illusion a
+definite decorative value. The rest of his remarks have become
+commonplaces; nor has he written at such length as to give them their
+true limitations and intersubordination. They will be easily understood
+by those who remember that art is concerned with producing the illusion
+of a true report of something seen, not that of an actual vision. Such a
+report may be slight and brief; it may be stammered by emotion; it may
+have been confused or tortured to any degree by the mental condition of
+him who delivers it: if it produces the conviction of his sincerity, it
+achieves the only illusion with which art is concerned, and its value
+will depend on its beauty and the beauty of the means employed to
+deliver it.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<a name="IN_CONCLUSION"></a><h3>IN CONCLUSION</h3>
+
+<p>After turning over D&uuml;rer prints and drawings, after meditating on his
+writings, we feel that we are in the presence of one of those forces
+which are constant and equal, which continue and remain like the growth
+of the body, the return of seasons, the succession of moods. This is
+always among the greatest charms of central characters: they are mild
+and even, their action is like that of the tides, not that of storms.
+&quot;If only you had my meekness,&quot; D&uuml;rer wrote to Pirkheimer (set: p. 85),
+half in jest doubtless, but with profound truth:--though the word
+meekness does not indeed cover the whole of what we feel made D&uuml;rer's
+most radical advantage over his friend; at other times we might call it
+na&iuml;vety, that sincerity of great and simple natures which can never be
+outflanked or surprised. Sometimes it might be called pride, for it has
+certainly a great deal of self-assurance behind it, the self-assurance
+of trees, of flowers, of dumb animals and little children, who never
+dream that an apology for being where and what they are can be expected
+of them. Such natures when they come home to us come to stop; we may go
+out, we may pay no heed to them, we may forget them, but they abide in
+the memory, and some day they take hold of us with all the more force
+because this new impression will exactly tally with the former one; we
+shall blush for our inconstancy, our indifference, our imbecility, which
+have led us to neglect such a pregnant communion. Not only persons but
+works of art produce this effect, and they are those with whom it is the
+greatest benefit to live.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that, compared with Giotto, Rembrandt, or Michael Angelo,
+D&uuml;rer does not appear comprehensive enough. It is with him as with
+Milton; we wish to add others to his great gifts, above all to take him
+out from his surroundings, to free him from the accidents of place and
+time. In one sense he is poorer than Milton: we cannot go to him as to a
+source of emotional exhilaration. If he ever proves himself able so to
+stir us, it is too occasionally to be a reason why we frequent him as it
+may be one why we frequent Milton. Nevertheless, the greater characters
+of control which are his in an unmatched degree, his constancy, his
+resource and deliberate effectiveness, joined to that blandness, that
+sunshine, which seems so often to replace emotion and thought in works
+of image-shaping art, are of priceless beneficence, and with them we
+would abide. Intellectual passion may seem indeed sometimes to dissipate
+this sunshine and control without making good their loss. Such cases
+enable us to feel that the latter are more essential: and it is these
+latter qualities which D&uuml;rer possessed in such fulness. In return for
+our contemplation, they build up within us the dignity of man and render
+it radiant and serene. Those who have felt their influence longest and
+most constantly will believe that they may well warrant the modern
+prophet who wrote:</p>
+
+<p>The idea of beauty and of human nature perfect on all its sides, which
+is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, though it
+has not yet had the success that the idea of conquering the obvious
+faults of our animality and of a human nature perfect on the moral
+side--which is the dominant idea of religion--has been enabled to have;
+and it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea of a devout
+energy, to transform and govern the other.</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+<h2><a name="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
+
+Aachen<br>
+
+Adam (Melchor)<br>
+
+Aeschylus<br>
+
+Albertina<br>
+
+Altdorfer (Albrecht)<br>
+
+Anabaptists<br>
+
+Andreae (Hieronymus)<br>
+
+Angelico (Fra Beato)<br>
+
+Antwerpo<br>
+
+Apelles<br>
+
+Aristotle<br>
+
+Arnold (Matthew)<br>
+
+Augsburg<br>
+
+Balccarres (Lord)<br>
+
+Bamberg (Library)<br>
+
+Barbari (Jacopo dei)<br>
+
+Barberini (Gallery)<br>
+
+Barye (Antoine Louis)<br>
+
+Basle<br>
+
+Baudelaire (Charles)<br>
+
+Bavaria<br>
+
+Beers (Jan van)<br>
+
+Beham (Barthel and Sebald)<br>
+
+Behaim<br>
+
+Bellini (Gentile)<br>
+
+Bellini (Giovanni)<br>
+
+Berlin<br>
+
+Blake (William)<br>
+
+Bologna<br>
+
+Bonnat (L&eacute;on)<br>
+
+Borgia (Cesare)<br>
+
+Borgia (Alexander), see Pope<br>
+
+Botticelli<br>
+
+Bremen<br>
+
+Breslau (Bishop of)<br>
+
+Breughel (Peter)<br>
+
+British Museum.<br>
+
+Browning (Robert)<br>
+
+Brussels<br>
+
+Brutus<br>
+
+Burgkmair (Hans)<br>
+
+Butler (Bishop)<br>
+
+Caietan (Cardinal)<br>
+
+Calvin<br>
+
+Camerarius (Kunz Kamerer)<br>
+
+Carpaccio<br>
+
+Celtes (Conrad)<br>
+
+Charles V. (Emperor)<br>
+
+Cicero<br>
+
+Coleridge<br>
+
+Colet (Dean)<br>
+
+Colmar<br>
+
+Cologne (K&ouml;ln)<br>
+
+Conway (Sir Martin)<br>
+
+Cook (Sir Francis)<br>
+
+Correggio<br>
+
+Cranach (Lucas)<br>
+
+Dante<br>
+
+Danube<br>
+
+Dodgson (Campbell)<br>
+
+Dolce (Ludovico)<br>
+
+Dresden<br>
+
+D&uuml;rer (Albert the Elder)<br>
+
+D&uuml;rer (Agnes, nee Frey)<br>
+
+D&uuml;rer, Andreas<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Brothers and Sisters<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Father-in-law, Hans Frey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Forefathers<br>
+
+D&uuml;rer, Hans<br>
+
+D&uuml;rer's House,<br>
+
+Mother (Barbara Helper)<br>
+
+D&uuml;rer (Quotations from),<br>
+
+D&uuml;rer's<br>
+&nbsp;Books:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Art of Fortification,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Human Proportions,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Measurement with Compass.<br>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Drawings:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Adam's hand,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Christ bearing His Cross,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Dance of monkeys,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Himself,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lion,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lucas van Leyden,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Memento Mei,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mein Angnes,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mount of Olives,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nepotis (Florent),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Pfaffroth (Hans),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Plankfelt (Jobst),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Sea-monsters,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Women's Bath,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Walrus.<br>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Engravings on Metal:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Agony in the Garden,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Great Fortune,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Jerome (St.),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Knight (The),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Melancholy,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Passion.<br>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Pictures:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Adam and Eve,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Adoration of Magi,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Avarice,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Christ among Doctors,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Coronation of Virgin,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Crucifixion,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Dresden Altar Piece,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Feast of Bose Garlands,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hercules,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lucretia,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Madonna with Iris,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Martyrdom of Ten Thousand,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Paumgartner, Altar Piece,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Preachers (The Pour),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Road to Calvary,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Trinity and All Saints.<br>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Portraits:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Of himself, Leipzig, Madrid, Munich,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Holzschuher (Hieronymus),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Imhof, Hans (?),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Kleeberger (Johannes)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Krel (Oswolt),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Maximilian,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Muffel (Jacob),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Orley (Bernard van),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Unknown (Vienna),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Unknown (Hampton Court),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Unknown (Boston)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Unknown Woman (Berlin),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Unknown Girl (Berlin),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Wolgemut.<br>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Woodcuts:<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Apocalypse,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Assumption of Magdalen,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; St. Christopher,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Gate of Honour,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Jerome (St.),<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Life of the Virgin,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Last Supper,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Little Passion.<br>
+
+Ebner<br>
+
+Eck (Dr.)<br>
+
+Eckenstein (Miss)<br>
+
+Emerson<br>
+
+Erasmus<br>
+
+Euclid<br>
+
+Euripides<br>
+
+Eusebius<br>
+
+Eyck (Jan van)<br>
+
+FLAUBERT (Gustave)<br>
+
+Florentine<br>
+
+Frankfort<br>
+
+Frederick the Wise (Elector of Saxony)<br>
+
+Frey (Hans)<br>
+
+Frey (Felix),<br>
+
+Fronde,<br>
+
+Fugger,<br>
+
+Furtw&auml;ngler,<br>
+
+Gainsborough,<br>
+
+Ghent,<br>
+
+Giehlom (Dr. Carl),<br>
+
+Giorgjone,<br>
+
+Giotto,<br>
+
+Goes (Hugo vander)<br>
+
+Goethe,<br>
+
+Gospel of<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;St. Luke,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;St. Matthew,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;St. John,<br>
+
+Grapheus (Cornelius),<br>
+
+Greece, Greeks, Greek,<br>
+
+Grien (Baldung),<br>
+
+Heaton (Mrs.),<br>
+
+<i>Heller (Jacob)</i>.<br>
+
+Henry VIII,<br>
+
+Hess (Eoban),<br>
+
+Hess (Martin),<br>
+
+Hippocrates,<br>
+
+Hokusai,<br>
+
+Holbein,<br>
+
+Holzselraher,<br>
+
+Homer,<br>
+
+Humanists,<br>
+
+Hungary,<br>
+
+Hutten (Ulrich von),<br>
+
+Imhof (Hans),<br>
+
+Innsbruck,<br>
+
+Jeanne D'Arc,<br>
+
+Jesus,<br>
+
+John (St.),<br>
+
+Jonson (Ben),<br>
+
+Juggernaut,<br>
+
+Keats (John),<br>
+
+Kolb (Anton),<br>
+
+Kratzer (Nicholas),<br>
+
+Kress (Christopher),<br>
+
+Lady Margaret (Governess of the Netherlands),<br>
+
+Landauer (Matthew),<br>
+
+Leipzig,<br>
+
+Leonardo da Vinci,<br>
+
+Link (Wenzel),<br>
+
+Lippmann,<br>
+
+London,<br>
+
+Longfellow,<br>
+
+Lotto (Lorenzo),<br>
+
+Louvre,<br>
+
+Lucas van Leyden,<br>
+
+Luther,<br>
+
+Lutzelburger,<br>
+
+Mabuse (Jan de),<br>
+
+Macbeth,<br>
+
+Machiavelli.<br>
+
+Madrid,<br>
+
+Mantegna (Andrea),<br>
+
+Mantua,<br>
+
+Manuel,<br>
+
+Marcantonio,<br>
+
+Mark (St.),<br>
+
+Marlowe,<br>
+
+Maximilian I.,<br>
+
+Melanchthon,<br>
+
+Mexico,<br>
+
+Michael Angelo,<br>
+
+Miller (A.W., Esq.),<br>
+
+Millet (Jean Francois),<br>
+
+Miltitz,<br>
+
+Milton,<br>
+
+Montaigne,<br>
+
+<i>Monthly Review</i>,<br>
+
+Montpelier (Town Council),<br>
+
+More,<br>
+
+Morley (Lord and Lady),<br>
+
+Moses,<br>
+
+Muffel (Jacob),<br>
+
+Munich,<br>
+
+
+Nassau,<br>
+
+Neud&ouml;rffer,<br>
+
+Nietzsche,<br>
+
+N&uuml;tzel (Caspar),<br>
+
+Orley (Bernard van)<br>
+
+Ostendorfer (Michael)<br>
+
+Pacioli (Luca)<br>
+
+Padua<br>
+
+Parrhasius<br>
+
+Paul (St.)<br>
+
+Paumgartner (Stephan)<br>
+
+Peasants' War<br>
+
+Penz (Georg)<br>
+
+Peter (St,)<br>
+
+Phidias<br>
+
+Pirkheimer (Charitas)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;(Philip)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;(Willibald)<br>
+
+Pitti (Gallery)<br>
+
+Plato<br>
+
+Pleydenwurf<br>
+
+Pliny<br>
+
+Polizemo<br>
+
+Polycleitus<br>
+
+Pope<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Adrian IV.<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;(Alexander VI.)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;(Julius II.)<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;(Leo X.)<br>
+
+Porto Venere<br>
+
+Portugal<br>
+
+Prague<br>
+
+Praxiteles<br>
+
+Protogenes<br>
+
+Psalms<br>
+
+Rabelais<br>
+
+Raphael<br>
+
+Reformation, Reformers<br>
+
+Rembrandt<br>
+
+Renascence<br>
+
+Reuohlin (Dr.)<br>
+
+Reynolds<br>
+
+Ricketts (C. S.)<br>
+
+Rochefoucauld (La)<br>
+
+Roger van der Weyden<br>
+
+Rome<br>
+
+Rossetti (Dante Gabriel)<br>
+
+Rubens (Peter Paul)<br>
+
+Savonarola<br>
+
+Scheurl (Christopher)<br>
+
+Schongauer (Martin)<br>
+
+Sch&ouml;nsperger<br>
+
+Shannon (C. H.)<br>
+
+Shakespeare<br>
+
+Sistine (Chapel)<br>
+
+Spalatin (George)<br>
+
+Spengler (Lazarus)<br>
+
+Stabius (Johannes)<br>
+
+St&auml;del Institut<br>
+
+Stromer (Wolf)<br>
+
+Strong (S. A)<br>
+
+Swift (Dean)<br>
+
+Teniers (David)<br>
+
+Thawing (Dr. Moritz)<br>
+
+Titian<br>
+
+Tschertte (Johannes)<br>
+
+Uffizi (Gallery)<br>
+
+Ulm<br>
+
+Van Dyck<br>
+
+Varnb&uuml;ler (Ulrioh)<br>
+
+Vasari<br>
+
+Velasquez<br>
+
+Venice<br>
+
+Veronese (Paul)<br>
+
+Verona<br>
+
+Verrall (Dr.)<br>
+
+Vienna<br>
+
+Virgil<br>
+
+Vitruvius<br>
+
+Warham (Archbishop)<br>
+
+Watteail (Antoine)<br>
+
+Watts (G. F.)<br>
+
+Weimar (Grand Ducal Museum)<br>
+
+Whistler (James McNeil)<br>
+
+Wittenberg<br>
+
+Wolfenb&uuml;ttel<br>
+
+Wolgemut<br>
+
+Wordsworth<br>
+
+W&uuml;rzburg (Bishop of)<br>
+
+Zeeland<br>
+
+Zeuxis<br>
+
+
+
+<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
+
diff --git a/old/8durr10h.zip b/old/8durr10h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..37b24c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8durr10h.zip
diff --git a/old/9837-8.txt b/old/9837-8.txt
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
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@@ -0,0 +1,10965 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Albert Durer
+
+Author: T. Sturge Moore
+
+Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9837]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 23, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALBERT DURER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steve Schulze and PG Distributed Proofreaders.
+Page images generously provided by the CWRU Preservation
+Department Digital Library.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: The printing errors of the original have been
+retained in this etext.]
+
+
+
+ALBERT DÜRER
+
+BY
+
+T. STURGE MOORE
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+When the late Mr. Arthur Strong asked me to undertake the present
+volume, I pointed out to him that, to fulfil the advertised programme of
+the Series he was editing, was more than could be hoped from my
+attainments. He replied, that in the case of Dürer a book, fulfilling
+that programme, was not called for, and that what he wished me to
+attempt, was an appreciation of this great artist in relation to general
+ideas. I had hoped to benefit very largely by my editor's advice and
+supervision, but this his illness and death prevented. His great gifts
+and brilliant accomplishments, already darkened and distressed by
+disease, were all too soon to be utterly quenched; and I can but here
+express, not only my sense of personal loss in the hopes which his
+friendly welcome and generous intercourse had created and which have
+been so cruelly dashed by the event, but also that of the void which his
+disappearance has left in the too thin ranks of those who, filled with
+reverence and enthusiasm for the great traditions of the past, seem
+nevertheless eager and capable of grappling with the unwieldy present.
+Let and restricted had been the recognition of his maturing worth, and
+now we must do without both him and the impetus of his so nearly
+assured success.
+
+The present volume, then, is not the result of new research; nor is it
+an abstract resuming historical and critical discoveries on its subject
+up to date. Of this latter there are several already before the British
+public; the former, as I said, it was not for me to attempt. Nor do I
+feel my book to be altogether even what it was intended to be; but am
+conscious that too much space has been given to the enumeration of
+Dürer's principal works and the events of his life without either being
+made exhaustive. Still, I hope that even these parts may be found
+profitable by those who are not already familiar with the subjects with
+which they deal. To those for whom these subjects are well known, I
+should like to point out that Parts I. and IV. and very much of Part
+III. embody my chief intention; that chapter 1 of Part I. finds a
+further illustration in division iii. of chapter 4, Part II.; and that
+division vi., chapter 1, Part II., should be taken as prefatory to
+chapter 1, Part IV.
+
+Should exception be taken to the works chosen as illustrations, I would
+explain that the means of reproduction, the degree of reduction
+necessitated by the size of the page, and other outside considerations,
+have severely limited my choice. It is entirely owing to the extreme
+kindness of the Dürer Society--more especially of its courteous and
+enthusiastic secretaries, Mr. Campbell Dodgson and Mr. Peartree--that
+four copper-plates have so greatly enhanced the adequacy of the volume
+in this respect.
+
+I have gratefully to acknowledge Sir Martin Conway's kindness in
+permitting me to quote so liberally from his "Literary Remains of
+Albrecht Dürer," by far the best book on this great artist known to me.
+Mr. Charles Eaton's translation of Thausing's "Life of Dürer," the
+"Portfolios of the Dürer Society," and Dr. Lippmanb "Drawings of
+Albrecht Dürer," are the only other works on my subject to which I feel
+bound to acknowledge my indebtedness. Lastly, I must express deep
+gratitude to my learned friend, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, for having so
+generously consented, by reading the proofs, to mitigate my defect in
+scholarship.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PREFACE
+
+PART I
+
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE
+COMPREHENSION OF DÜRER'S LIFE AND ART
+
+  I. THE IDEA OF PROPORTION
+  II THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
+
+PART II
+
+DÜRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES
+IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+  I. DÜRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION
+  II. THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED
+  III. DÜRER AT VENICE
+  IV. HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
+  V. DÜRER, LUTHER, AND THE HUMANISTS
+  VI. DÜRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS
+  VII. DÜRER'S LAST YEARS
+
+PART III
+
+DÜRER AS A CREATOR
+
+  I. DÜRER'S PICTURES
+  II. DÜRER'S PORTRAITS
+  III. DÜRER'S DRAWINGS
+  IV. DÜRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS
+  V. DÜRER'S WOODCUTS
+  VI. DÜRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES
+
+PART IV
+
+DÜRER'S IDEAS
+
+  I. THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE
+  II. THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY
+  III. THE LAST TRADITION
+  IV. BEAUTY
+  V. NATURE
+  VI. THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST
+  VII. TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
+  VIII. IN CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Apollo and Diana, Metal Engraving
+Water-colour drawing of a Hare
+Pilate Washing his Hands. Metal Engraving
+Agnes Frey
+"Mein Angnes"
+Wilibald Pirkheimer
+Hans Burgkmair
+Adoration of the Trinity
+St. Christopher
+Assumption of the Magdalen
+Dürer's Mother
+Maximilian
+Frederick the Wise
+Silver-point Portrait
+Erasmus
+Drawing of a Lion
+Lucas van der Leyden
+Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate. Metal Engraving
+St. George and St. Eustache
+Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Saints
+Road to Calvary
+Portrait of Dürer
+Portrait of Dürer
+Albert Dürer the Elder
+Gswolt Krel
+Portrait at Hampton Court
+Portrait of a Lady
+Michel Wolgemuth
+Hans Imhof
+"Jakob Muffel"
+Study of a Hound
+Memento Mei
+Silver-point Portrait
+Portrait in Black Chalk
+Cherub for a Crucifixion
+Apollo and Diana
+An Old Castle
+Melancholia
+Detail from "The Agony in the Garden"
+Angel with Sudarium
+The Small Horse
+The Great Fortune, or Nemesis
+Silver-point Drawing
+St. Michael and the Dragon
+Detail from "The Meeting at the Golden Gate"
+Detail from "The Nativity"
+Dürer's Armorial Bearings
+Christ haled before Annas
+The Last Supper
+Saint Antony, Metal Engraving
+"In the Eighteenth Year"
+"Una Vilana Wendisch"
+Charcoal Drawing
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE COMPREHENSION OF DÜRER'S LIFE
+AND ART
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE IDEA OF PROPORTION
+
+
+I
+
+Ich hab vernomen wie der siben weysen aus kriechenland ainer gelert hab
+das dymass in allen dingen sitlichen und naturlichen das pest sey.
+
+DÜRER, British Museum MS., vol. iv., 82a.
+
+I have heard how one of the Seven Sages of Greece taught that measure is
+in all things, physical and moral, best.
+
+La souveraine habileté consiste à bien connaitre le prix des choses. LA
+ROCHEFOUCAULD, III. 252.
+
+Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the value of
+things.
+
+The attempt that the last quarter century has witnessed, to introduce
+the methods of science into the criticism of works of art, has tended,
+it seems to me, to put the question of their value into the background.
+The easily scandalous inquiries, "Who?" "When?" "Where?" have assumed an
+impertinent predominance. When I hear people very decidedly asserting
+that such a picture was painted by such an one, not generally supposed
+to be the author, at such a time, &c. &c., I often feel uneasy in the
+same way as one does on being addressed in a loud voice in a church or a
+picture gallery, where other persons are absorbed in an acknowledged and
+respected contemplation or study. I feel inclined to blush and whisper,
+for fear of being supposed to know the speaker too well. It is an
+awkward moment with me, for I am in fact very good friends with many
+such persons. "Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the
+value of things"--not their commercial value only, though that is
+sovereign skill on the Exchange, but their value for those whose chief
+riches are within them. The value of works of art is an intimate
+experience, and cannot be estimated by the methods of exact science as
+the weight of a planet can. There are and have been forgeries that are
+more beautiful, therefore more valuable, than genuine specimens of the
+class of work which they figure as. I feel that the specialist, with his
+special measure and point of view, often endangers the fair name and
+good repute of the real estimate; and that nothing but the dominion and
+diffusion of general ideas can defend us against the specialist and keep
+the specialist from being carried away by bad habits resulting from his
+devotion to a single inquiry.
+
+There was one general idea, of the greatest importance in determining
+the true value of things, which preoccupied Dürer's mind and haunted his
+imagination: the idea of proportion. I propose therefore to attempt to
+make clear to myself and my readers what the idea of proportion really
+implies, and of what service a sense for proportion really is; secondly,
+to determine the special use of the term in relation to the appreciation
+of works of art; thirdly, in relation to their internal
+structure;--before proceeding to the special studies of Dürer as a man
+and an artist.
+
+
+II
+
+I conceive the human reason to be the antagonist of all known forces
+other than itself, and that therefore its most essential character is
+the hope and desire to control and transform the universe; or, failing
+that, to annihilate, if not the universe, at least itself and the
+consciousness of a monster fact which it entirely condemns. In this
+conception I believe myself to be at one with those by whom men have
+been most influenced, and who, with or without confidence in the support
+of unknown powers, have set themselves deliberately against the face of
+things to die or conquer. This being so, and man individually weak, it
+has been the avowed object of great characters--carrying with them the
+instinctive consent of nations--to establish current values for all
+things, according as their imagination could turn them to account as
+effective aids of reason: that is, as they could be made to advance her
+apparent empire over other elemental forces, such as motion, physical
+life, &c. This evaluation, in so far as it is constant, results in what
+we call civilisation, and is the only bond of society. With difficulty
+is the value of new acquisitions recognised even in the realm of
+science, until the imagination can place them in such a light as shall
+make them appear to advance reason's ends, which accounts for the
+reluctance that has been shown to accept many scientific results. Reason
+demands that the world she would create shall be a fact, and declares
+that the world she would transform is the real world, but until the
+imagination can find a function for it in reason's ideal realm, every
+piece of knowledge remains useless, or even an obstacle in the way of
+our intended advance. This applies to individuals just as truly as it
+does to mankind. And since man's reason is a natural phenomenon and does
+apparently belong to the class of elemental forces, this warfare against
+the apparent fact, and the fortitude and hope which its whole-hearted
+prosecution begets, appear as a natural law to the intelligence and as a
+command and promise to the reason.
+
+The alternative between the will to cease and the will to serve reason,
+with which I start out, may not seem necessary to all. "Forgive their
+sin--and if not, blot me I pray thee out of thy book," was Moses'
+prayer; and to me it seems that only by lethargy can any soul escape
+from facing this alternative. The human mind in so far as it is active
+always postulates, "Let that which I desire come to pass, or let me
+cease!" Nor is there any diversity possible as to what really is
+desirable: Man desires the full and harmonious development of his
+faculties. As to how this end may most probably be attained, there is
+diversity enough to represent every possible blend of ignorance with
+knowledge, of lethargy with energy, of cowardice with courage.
+
+"So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men, whether considered in
+their persons or their states, that they will grasp at all, and can form
+no scheme of perfect happiness with less."[1] So writes the most
+powerful of English prose-writers. And this hope and desire, which is
+reason, once thrown down, the most powerful among poets has brought from
+human lips this estimate of life--
+
+  "It is a tale
+Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
+Signifying nothing."
+
+No one knows whether reason's object will or can be attained; but for
+the present each man finds confidence and encouragement in so far as he
+is able to imagine all things working together for the good of those who
+desire good--in short, for "reasonable beings."[2] The more he knows,
+the greater labour it is for him to imagine this; but the more he
+concentrates his faculties on doing good and creating good things, the
+more his imagination glows and shines and discovers to him new
+possibilities of success: the better he is able to find--
+
+  "Sermons in stones and good in everything;"
+    "And make a moral of the devil himself."
+
+But how is it that reason can accept an imagination that makes what in a
+cold light she considers her enemy, appear her friend? All things
+impress the mind with two contradictory notions--their actual condition
+and their perfection. Even the worst of its kind impresses on us an idea
+of what the best would be, or we could not know it for the worst.
+Reason, then, seizes on this aspect of things which suggests their
+perfection, and awards them her attention in proportion as such aspect
+makes their perfection seem near, or as it may further her in
+transforming the most pressing of other evils. All life tends to affirm
+its own character; and the essential characteristic of man is reason,
+which labours to perfect all things that he judges to be good, and to
+transform all evil. Ultimate results are out of sight for all human
+faculties except the early-waking eyes of long-chastened hope; but
+reason loves this visionary mood, though she prefer that it be sung, and
+find that less lyrical speech brings on it something of ridicule; for
+such a rendering betrays, as a rule, faint desire or small power to
+serve her in those who use it.
+
+The sense of proportion, then, is that fineness of susceptibility by
+which we appreciate in a given object, person, force, or mood,
+serviceableness in regard to reason's work; in other words, by which we
+estimate the capacity to transform the Universe in such a way that men
+may ultimately be enabled to give their hearty consent to its existence,
+which at present no man rationally can.
+
+
+III
+
+Now, art appeals to fine susceptibilities; for, as I have explained
+elsewhere,[3] the value of works of art depends on their having come as
+"real and intimate experiences to a large number of gifted men"--men who
+have some kinship to that "finely touched and gifted man, the [Greek
+_heuphnaes_] of the Greeks," to use the phrase of our greatest modern
+critic. And in so far as we are able to judge between works successfully
+making such an appeal, we must be governed by this sense of proportion,
+which measures how things stand in regard to reason; that is, not merely
+intellect, not merely emotion, but the alliance of both by means of the
+imagination in aid of man's most central demand--the demand for
+nobler life.
+
+Perhaps I ought to point out before proceeding, that this position is
+not that of the writers on art most in view at the present day. It is
+the negation of the so-called scientific criticism, and also of the
+personal theory that reduces art to an expression of, and an appeal to,
+individual temperaments; it is the assertion of the sovereignty of the
+aesthetic conscience on exactly the same grounds as sovereignty is
+claimed for the moral conscience. Æsthetics deals with the morality of
+appeals addressed to the senses. That is, it estimates the success of
+such appeals in regard to the promotion of fuller and more harmonious
+life. Flaubert wrote:
+
+"Le génie n'est pas rare maintenant, mais ce que personne n'a plus et ce
+qu'il faut tacher d'avoir, c'est la conscience."
+
+("Genius is not rare nowadays, but conscience is what nobody has and
+what one should strive after.")
+
+To-day I am thinking of a painter. Painting is an art addressed
+primarily to the eye, and not to the intelligence, not to the
+imagination, save as these may be reached through the eye--that most
+delicate organ of infinite susceptibility, which teaches us the meaning
+of the word light--a word so often uttered with stress of ecstasy, of
+longing, of despair, and of every other shade of emotion, that the sound
+of it must soon be almost as powerful with the young heart, almost as
+immediate in its effect, as the break of day itself, gladdening the eyes
+and glorifying the earth. And how often is this joy received through the
+eye entrusted back to it for expression? For the eye can speak with
+varieties, delicacies, and subtle shades of motion far beyond the
+attainment of any other organ. "This art of painting is made for the
+eyes, for sight is the noblest sense of man,"[4] says Dürer; and again:
+
+"It is ordained that never shall any man be able, out of his own
+thoughts, to make a beautiful figure, unless, by much study, he hath
+well stored his mind. That then is no longer to be called his own; it is
+art acquired and learnt, which soweth, waxeth, and beareth fruit after
+its kind. Thence the gathered secret treasure of the heart is manifested
+openly in the work, and the new creature which a man createth in his
+heart, appeareth in the form of a thing."[5]
+
+Yes, indeed, the function of art is far from being confined to telling
+us what we see, whatever some may pretend, or however naturally any
+small nature may desire to continue, teach, or regulate great ones. All
+so-called scientific methods of creating or criticising works of art are
+inadequate, because the only truly scientific statements that can be
+made about these inquiries are that nothing is certain--that no method
+ensures success, and that no really important quality can be defined;
+for what man can say why one cloud is more beautiful than another in the
+same sky, any more than he can explain why, of two men equally absorbed
+in doing their duty, one impresses him as being more holy than the
+other? The degrees essential to both kinds of judgment escape all
+definition; only the imagination can at times bring them home to us,
+only the refined taste or chastened conscience, as the case may be,
+witnesses with our spirit that its judgment is just, and bids us
+recognise a master in him who delivers it. As the expression on a face
+speaks to a delicate sense, often communicating more, other, and better
+than can be seen, so the proportion, harmony, rhythm of a painting may
+beget moods and joys that require the full resources of a well-stored
+mind and disciplined character in order that they may be fully
+relished--in brief, demand that maturity of reason which is the mark of
+victorious man.
+
+Such being my conception, it will easily be perceived how anxious I must
+be to truly discern and express the relation between such objects as
+works of art by common consent so highly honoured, and at the same time
+so active in their effect upon the most exquisitely endowed of mankind.
+Especially since to-day caprice, humour and temperament are, by the
+majority of writers on art, acclaimed for the radical characteristic of
+the human creative faculty, instead of its perversion and disease; and
+it is thought that to be whimsical, moody, or self-indulgent best fits a
+man both to create and appraise works of art, whereas to become so
+really is the only way in which a man capable of such high tasks can
+with certainty ruin and degrade his faculties. Precious, surpassingly
+precious indeed, must every manifestation of such faculty before its
+final extinction remain, since the race produces comparatively few
+endowed after this kind.
+
+Perhaps a sufficient illustration of this prevalent fallacy may be drawn
+from Mr. Whistler's "Ten O'Clock," where he speaks of art:
+
+"A whimsical goddess, and a capricious, her strong sense of joy
+tolerates no dulness, and, live we never so spotlessly, still may she
+turn her back upon us."
+
+"As from time immemorial, she has done upon the Swiss in their
+mountains."
+
+Here is no proof of caprice, save on the witty writer's part; for men
+who fast are not saved from bad temper, nor have the kindly necessarily
+discreet tongues. The Swiss may be brave and honest, and yet dull.
+Virtue is her own reward, and art her own. Virtue rewards the saint, art
+the artist; but men are rewarded for attention to morality by some
+measure of joy in virtue, for attention to beauty by some measure of joy
+in works of art. Between the artist and the Philistine is no great gulf
+fixed, in the sense that the witty "master of the butterfly" pretends to
+assume, but an infinite and gentle decline of persons representing every
+possible blend of the virtues and faults of these two types. Again, an
+artist is miscalled "master of art." "Where he is, there she appears,"
+is airy impudence. "Where she wills to be, there she chooses a man to
+serve her," would not only have been more gallant but more reasonable;
+for that "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
+thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is
+every one that is born of the spirit," and that "many are called, few
+chosen," are sayings as true of the influence which kindleth art as of
+that which quickeneth to holiness. Art is not dignified by being called
+whimsical--or capricious. What can a man explain? The intention, behind
+the wind, behind the spirit, behind the creative instinct, is dark. But
+man is true to his own most essential character when, if he cannot
+refrain from prating of such mysteries, he qualifies them as hope would
+have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks of the
+unknown, in whose hands his destiny so largely rests, slightingly, as of
+a woman whom he has seduced because he despised her--calling her
+capricious because she answered to his caprice, whimsical, because she
+was as flighty as his error. It is not art's function to reward virtue.
+But, caprices and whimseys being ascribed to a goddess, it will be
+natural to expect them in her worshipper; and Mr. Whistler revealed the
+limitations of his genius by whimseys and caprice. Though it was in
+their relations to the world that this goddess and her devotee claimed
+freedoms so far from perfect, yet this, their avowed characteristic
+abroad, I think in some degree disturbed their domestic relations,
+Though others have underlined the absurdity of this theory by applying
+themselves to it with more faith and less sense, I have chosen to quote
+from the "Ten O'Clock," because I admire it and accept most of the ideas
+about art advanced therein. The artist who wrote it was able, in Dürer's
+phrase, "to prove" what he wrote "with his hand." Most of those who have
+elaborated what was an occasional unsoundness of his doctrine into
+ridiculous religions are as unable to create as they are to think; there
+is no need to record names which it is wisdom to forget. But it may be
+well to point out that Mr. Whistler does not succeed in glorifying great
+artists when he declares that beauty "to them was as much a matter of
+certainty and triumph as is to the astronomer the verification of the
+result, foreseen with the light granted to him alone." No, he only sets
+up a false analogy; for the true parallel to the artist is the saint,
+not the astronomer; both are convinced, neither understands. Art is no
+more the reward of intelligence than of virtue. She permits no caprice
+in her own realm. Loyalty is the only virtue she insists on, loyalty in
+regard to her servant's experience of beauty; he may be immoral in every
+other way and she not desert him; but let him turn Balaam and declare
+beauty absent where he feels its presence--though in doing this he hopes
+to advance virtue or knowledge, she needs no better than an ass to
+rebuke him. Nothing effects more for anarchy than these notions that art
+derives from individual caprice, or defends virtue, or demonstrates
+knowledge; for they are all based on those flattering hopes of the
+unsuccessful, that chance, rules both in life and art, or that it is
+possible to serve two masters.
+
+Doctrines often repeated gain easy credence; and, since art demands
+leisure in order to be at all enjoyed, ideas about it, in so fatiguing a
+life as ours has become, take men off their guard, when their habitual
+caution is laid to sleep, and, by an over-easiness, they are inclined to
+spoil both their sense of distinction and their children. Yes, they
+consent to theatres that degrade them, because they distract and amuse;
+and read journals that are smart and diverting at the expense of dignity
+and truth--in the same way as they smile at the child whom reason bids
+them reprove, and with the like tragic result; for they become incapable
+of enjoying works of art, as the child is incapacitated for the best of
+social intercourse. To prophesy smooth things to people in this
+condition, and flatter their dulness, is to be no true friend; and so
+the modern art-critic and journalist is often the insidious enemy of the
+civilisation he contents.
+
+Nothing strikes the foreigner coming to England more than our lack of
+general ideas. Our art criticism is no exception; it, like our
+literature and politics, is happy-go-lucky and delights in the pot-shot.
+We often hear this attributed admiringly to "the sporting instinct." "If
+God, in his own time, granteth me to write something further about
+matters connected with painting, I will do so, in hope that this art may
+not rest upon use and wont alone, but that in time it may be taught on
+true and orderly principles, and may be understood to the praise of God
+and the use and pleasure of all lovers of art."[6]
+
+Our art is still worse off than our trade or our politics, for it does
+not even rest upon use and wont, but is wholly in the air. Yet the
+typical modern aesthete has learnt where to take cover, for, though
+destitute of defence, he has not entirely lost the instinct for
+self-preservation; and, when he finds the eye of reason upon him, he
+immediately flies to the diversity of opinions. But Dürer follows him
+even there with the perfect good faith of a man in earnest.
+
+"Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty, and
+they seek after it in many different ways, although ugliness is thereby
+rather attained. Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know
+not certainly what the ultimate measure of true beauty is, and cannot
+describe it aright. But glad should I be to render such help as I can,
+to the end that the gross deformities of our work might be and remain
+pruned away and avoided, unless indeed any one prefers to bestow great
+labour upon the production of deformities. We are brought back,
+therefore, to the aforesaid judgment of men, which considereth one
+figure beautiful at one time and another at another....
+
+"Because now we cannot altogether attain unto perfection, shall we
+therefore wholly cease from learning? By no means. Let us not take unto
+ourselves thoughts fit for cattle. For evil and good lie before men,
+wherefore it behoveth the rational man to choose the good."[7]
+
+A man may see, if he will but watch, who is more finely touched and
+gifted than himself. In all the various fields of human endeavour, on
+such men he should try to form himself; for only thus can he enlarge his
+nature, correct his opinions. Something he can learn from this man,
+something from that, and it is rational to learn and be taught. Are we
+to be cattle or gods? "Is it not written in your law, I said, 'Ye are
+gods?'" Reason demands that each man form himself on the pattern of a
+god, and God is an empty name if reason be not the will of God. Then he
+whom reason hath brought up may properly be called a son of God, a son
+of man, a child of light. But it is easier to bob to such phrases than
+to understand them. However, their mechanical repetition does not
+prevent their having meant something once, does not prevent their
+meaning being their true value. It is time we understood our art, just
+as it is time we understood our religion. Docility, as I have pointed
+out elsewhere, is one of the marks of genius. Dürer's spirit is the
+spirit of the great artist who will learn even from "dull men of little
+judgment."
+
+"Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel.
+Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts, let him take it from
+one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with
+his hand. Howbeit any one may give thee counsel; and when thou hast done
+a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men
+of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule
+they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the
+good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayst thus better
+thy work."[8]
+
+Those who are thoroughly versed in art are the great artists; we have
+guides then, and we have a way--the path they have trodden--and we have
+company, the gifted and docile men of to-day whom we see to be improving
+themselves; and, in so far as we are reasonable, a sense of proportion
+is ours, which we may improve; and it will help us to catch up better
+and yet better company until we enjoy the intimacy of the noblest, and
+know as we are known. Then: "May we not consider it a sign of sanity
+when we regard the human spirit as ... a poet, and art as a half written
+poem? Shall we not have a sorry disappointment if its conclusion is
+merely novel, and not the fulfilment and vindication of those great
+things gone before?"[9] For my own part, those appear to me the grandest
+characters who, on finding that there is no other purchase for effort
+but only hope, and that they can never cease from hope but by ceasing to
+live, clear their minds of all idle acquiescence in what could never be
+hoped, and concentrate their energies on conquering whatever in their
+own nature, and in the world about them, militates against their most
+essential character--reason, which seeks always to give a higher
+value to life.
+
+
+IV
+
+When we speak of the sense of proportion displayed in the design of a
+building, many will think that the word is used in quite a different
+sense, and one totally unrelated to those which I have been discussing.
+But no; life and art are parallel and correspond throughout; ethics are
+the Esthetics of life, religion the art of living. Taste and conscience
+only differ in their provinces, not in their procedure. Both are based
+on instinctive preferences; the canon of either is merely so many of
+those preferences as, by their constant recurrence to individuals gifted
+with the power of drawing others after them, are widely accepted.
+
+The preference of serenity to melancholy, of light to darkness, are
+among the most firmly established in the canon, that is all. The sense
+of proportion within a design is employed to stimulate and delight the
+eye. Ordinary people may fear there is some abstruse science about this.
+Not at all; it is as simple as relishing milk and honey, and its
+development an exact parallel to the training of the palate to
+distinguish the flavours of teas, coffees and wines. "Taste and see" is
+the whole business. There are many people who have no hesitation in
+picking out what to their eye is the wainscot panel with the richest
+grain: they see it at once. So with etchings; if people would only
+forget that they are works of art, forget all the false or
+ill-understood standards which they have been led to suppose applicable,
+and look at them as they might at agate stones; or choose out the
+richest in effect: the most suitable for a gay room, or a hall, or a
+library, as though they were patterned stuffs for curtains; they would
+come a thousand times nearer a right appreciation of Dürer's success
+than by making a pot-shot to lasso the masterpiece with the tangle of
+literary rubbish which is known as art criticism.
+
+The harmonies and contrasts of juxtaposed colours or textures are
+affected by quantity, and a sense of proportion decides what quantities
+best produce this effect and what that. The correctness or amount of
+information to be conveyed in the delineation of some object, in
+relation to the mood which the artist has chosen shall dominate his
+work, is determined by his sense of proportion. He may distort an object
+to any extent or leave it as vague as the shadow on a wall in diffused
+light, or he may make it precise and particular as ever Jan Van Eyck
+did; so only that its distortion or elaboration is so proportioned to
+the other objects and intentions of his work as to promote its success
+in the eyes of the beholder.
+
+There are no fallacies greater than the prevalent ones conveyed by the
+expressions "out of drawing" or "untrue to nature." There is no such
+thing as correct drawing or an outside standard of truth for works
+of art.
+
+"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved." "Chaque
+oeuvre à faire a sa poétique en soi, qu'il faut trouver," said Flaubert.
+Truth in a work of art is sincerity. That a man says what he really
+means--shows us what he really thinks to be beautiful--is all that
+reason bids us ask for. No science or painstaking can make up for his
+not doing this. No lack of skill or observation can entirely frustrate
+his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly
+sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the
+inexpressible is never felt. Stammering becomes more eloquent than
+oratory, a child's impulsiveness wiser than circumlocutory experience.
+When a single intention absorbs the whole nature, communication is
+direct and immediate, and makes impotence itself a means of
+effectiveness. So the naïveties of early art put to shame the
+purposeless parade of prodigious skill. Wherever there is communication
+there is art; but there are evil communications and there is vicious
+art, though, perhaps, great sincerity is incompatible with either. For
+an artist to be deterred by other people's demands means that he is not
+artist enough; it is what his reason teaches him to demand of himself
+that matters, though, doubtless, the good desire the approval of
+kindred natures.
+
+A work of art addresses the eye by means of chosen proportions; it may
+present any number of facts as exactly as may be, but if it offend the
+eye it is a mere misapplication of industry, or the illustration of a
+scientific treatise out of place; and those that choose ribbons well are
+better artists than the man that made it. Or again it may overflow with
+poetical thought and suggestion, or have the stuff to make a first-rate
+story in it; but, if it offend the eye, it is merely a misapplication of
+imagination, invention or learning, and the girl who puts a charming
+nosegay together is a better artist than he who painted it. On the other
+hand, though it have no more significance than a glass of wine and a
+loaf of bread, if the eye is rejoiced by gazing on the paint that
+expresses them, it is a work of art and a fine achievement. Still, it
+may be as fanciful as a fairy-tale, or as loaded with import as the
+Crucifixion; and, if it stimulates the eye to take delight in its
+surfaces over and above mere curiosity, it is a work of art, and great
+in proportion as the significance of what it conveys is brought home to
+us by the very quality of the stimulus that is created in return for our
+gaze. For painting is the result of a power to speak beautifully with
+paint, as poetry is of a power to express beautifully by means of words
+either simple things or those which demand the effort of a welltrained
+mind in order to be received and comprehended. The mistake made by
+impressionists, luminarists, and other modern artists, is that a true
+statement of how things appear to them will suffice; it will not, unless
+things appear beautiful to them, and they render them beautifully. It
+will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different
+thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading;
+whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is
+always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is
+inspiring--is a work of art and "a joy for ever." For reason demands
+that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, and give such pleasure as best
+consists with the universe becoming what reason demands that it shall
+become. This demand of reason is perfectly arbitrary? Yes, but it is
+also inevitable, necessitated by the nature of the human character. It
+is equally arbitrary and equally inevitable that man must, where science
+is called for, in the long run prefer a true statement to a lie. From
+art reason demands beautiful objects, from science true statements: such
+is human nature; for the possession of this reason that judges and
+condemns the universe, and demands and attempts to create something
+better, is that which differentiates human life from all other known
+forces--is that by which men may be more than conquerors, may make peace
+with the universe; for
+
+  "A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
+   For then both parties nobly are subdued
+   And neither party loser."
+
+Of such a nature is the only peace that the soul can make with the
+body--that man can make with nature--that habit can make with
+instinct--that art can make with impulse. In order to establish such a
+peace the imagination must train reason to see a friend in her enemy,
+the physical order. For, as Reynolds says of the complete artist:
+
+"He will pick up from dunghills, what, by a nice chemistry, passing
+through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold, and under the
+rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even
+sublime inventions."[10]
+
+It is not too much to say that the nature both of the artist and of the
+dunghills is "subdued" by such a process, and yet neither is a "loser."
+Goethe profoundly remarked that the highest development of the soul was
+reached through worship first of that which was above, then of that
+which was beneath it. This great critic also said, "Only with difficulty
+do we spell out from that which nature presents to us, the _DESIRED_
+word, the congenial. Men find what the artist brings intelligible and to
+their taste, stimulating and alluring, genial and friendly, spiritually
+nourishing, formative and elevating. Thus the artist, grateful to the
+nature that made him, weaves a second nature--but a conscious, a fuller,
+a more perfectly human nature."
+
+[Illustration: Water-colour drawing of a Hare]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Swift, "Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome."]
+
+[Footnote 2: It may be urged that diversities of opinion exist as to
+what good is. The convenience of the words "good" and "evil" corresponds
+to a need created by a common experience in the same way as the
+convenience of the words "light" and "darkness" does. A child might
+consider that a diamond generated light in the same way as a candle
+does. He would be mistaken, but this would not affect the correctness of
+his application of the word "light" to his experience; if he confused
+light with darkness he must immediately become unintelligible. Good and
+light are perceived and named--no one can say more of them; the effects
+of both may be described with more or less accuracy. To say that light
+is a mode of motion does not define it; we ask at once, What mode? And
+the only answer is, that which produces the effect of light. A man born
+blind, though he knew what was meant by motion, could never deduce from
+this knowledge a conception of light.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The Monthly Review, October 1902, "Rodin."]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 177.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ibid. p. 247.]
+
+[Footnote 6: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 252.]
+
+[Footnote 7: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," pp, 244 and 245.]
+
+[Footnote 8: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 180.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The Monthly Review, April 1901, "In Defence of Reynolds."]
+
+[Footnote 10: Sixth Discourse.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
+
+
+I
+
+There are some artists of whom one would naturally write in a lyrical
+strain, with praise of the flesh, and those things which add to its
+beauty, freshness, and mystery--fair scenes of mountain, woodland, or
+sea-shore; blue sky, white cloud and sunlight, or the deep and starry
+night; youth and health, strength and fertility, frankness and freedom.
+And, in such a strain, one would insist that the fondness and
+intoxication which these things quicken was natural, wise, and lovely.
+But, quite as naturally, when one has to speak of Dürer, the mind
+becomes filled with the exhilaration and the staidness that the desire
+to know and the desire to act rightly beget; with the dignity of
+conscious comprehension, the serenity of accomplished duty with all the
+strenuousness and ardour of which the soul is capable; with science
+and religion.
+
+It is natural to refer often to the towering eminence of these virtues
+in Michael Angelo; both he and Dürer were not only great artists, and
+active and powerful minds, but men imbued with, and conservative of,
+piety. And it seems to me, if we are to appreciate and sympathise deeply
+with such men, we must try to understand the religion they believed in;
+to estimate, not only what its value was supposed to be in those days,
+but what value it still has for us. Surely what they prized so highly
+must have had real and lasting worth? Surely it can only be the relation
+of that value to common speech and common thought which has changed, not
+its relation to man's most essential nature? Therefore I will first try
+to arrive at a general notion of the real worth of their ideas,--that
+is, the worth that is equally great from their point of view and ours.
+
+The whole of that period, the period of the so belauded Renascence, had
+within it (or so it seems to me) an incurable insufficiency, which
+troubles the affections of those who praise or condemn it; so that they
+show themselves more passionate than those who praise or condemn the art
+and life of ancient Greece. This insufficiency I believe to have been
+due to the fact that Christian ideas were more firmly rooted in, than
+they were understood by, the society of those days. And to-day I think
+the same cause continues to propagate a like insufficiency, a like lack
+of correspondence between effort and aim. Certain ideas found in the
+reported sayings of Jesus have so fastened upon the European intellect
+that they seem well-nigh inseparable from it. We are told that the
+effort of the Greek, of Aristotle, was to "submit to the empire of
+fact." The effort of the Jew was very similar; for the prophets, what
+happened was the will of God, what will happen is what God intends. Now
+it is noteworthy that Aristotle did not wish to submit to ignorance,
+though it and the causes which produce it and preserve it in human minds
+are among the most horrible and tremendous of facts; and it is the
+imperishable glory of the prophets, that, whatever the priest the king,
+the Sadducee or Pharisee might do, _they_ could not rest in or abide the
+idea that God's will was ever evil; no inconsistency was too glaring to
+check their indignation at Eastern fatalism which quietly supposed that
+as things went wrong it was their nature to do so;--vanity, vanity, all
+is vanity!--or that if men did wrong and prospered, it was God's doing,
+and showed that they had pleased Him with sacrifices and performances.
+
+
+II
+
+'Wherever poetry, imagination, or art had been busy, there had appeared,
+both in Judea and Greece, some degree of rebellion against the empire of
+fact.. When Jesus said: "The kingdom of heaven is within you," he
+recognised that the human reason was the antagonist of all other known
+forces, and he declared war on the god of this world and prophesied the
+downfall of--the empire of the apparent fact;--not with fume and fret,
+not with rant and rage, as poets and seers had done, but mildly
+affirming that with the soul what is best is strongest, has in the long
+run most influence; that there is one fact in the essential nature of
+man which, antagonist to the influence of all other facts, wields an
+influence destined to conquer or absorb all other influences. He said:
+"My Father which is in heaven, the master influence within me, has
+declared that I shall never find rest to my soul until I prefer His
+kingdom, the conception of my heart, to the kingdoms of earth and the
+glory of the earth." 'We have seen that Dürer describes the miracle; the
+work of art, thus:
+
+"The secret treasure which a man conceived in his heart shall appear as
+a thing" (see page 10).
+
+And we know that he prized this, the master thing, the conception of the
+heart, above everything else.
+
+Much learning is not evil to a man, though some be stiffly set against
+it, saying that art puffeth up. Were that so, then were none prouder
+than God who hath formed all arts, but that cannot be, for God is
+perfect in goodness. The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the
+better doth he become, and so much the more love doth he win for the
+arts and for things exalted.
+
+The learning Dürer chiefly intends is not book-learning or critical
+lore, but knowledge how to make, by which man becomes a creator in
+imitation of God; for this is of necessity the most perfect knowledge,
+rivalling the sureness of intuition and instinct.
+
+
+III
+
+"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
+Every one knows how anxious great artists become for the preservation of
+their works, how highly they value permanence in the materials employed,
+and immunity from the more obvious chances of destruction in the
+positions they are to occupy. Michael Angelo is said to have painted
+cracks on the Sistina ceiling to force the architect to strengthen the
+roof. When Jesus made the assertion that his teaching would outlast the
+influence of the visible world of nature and the societies of men--the
+kingdoms of earth and the glory of the earth--he did no more than every
+victorious soul strives to effect, and to feel assured that it has in
+some large degree effected; the difference between him and them is one
+of degree. It may be objected that different hearts harbour and cherish
+contradictory conceptions. Doubtless; but does the desire to win the
+co-operation and approval of other men consist with the higher
+developments of human faculties? Is it, perhaps, essential to them? If
+so, in so far as every man increases in vitality and the employment of
+his powers, he will be forced to reverence and desire the solidarity of
+the race, and consequently to relinquish or neglect whatever in his own
+ideal militates against such solidarity. And this will be the case
+whether he judge such eccentric elements to be nobler or less noble than
+the qualities which are fostered in him by the co-operation of his
+fellows. Jesus, at any rate, affirmed that the law of the kingdom within
+a man's soul was: "Love thy neighbour as thyself"; and that obedience to
+it would work in every man like leaven, which is lost sight of in the
+lump of dough, and seems to add nothing to it, yet transforms the whole
+in raising up the loaf; or as the corn of wheat which is buried in the
+glebe like a dead body, yet brings forth the blade, and nourishes a
+new life.
+
+So he that should follow Jesus by obeying the laws of the kingdom, by
+loving God (the begetter or fountainhead of a man's most essential
+conception of what is right and good) and his neighbour, was assured by
+his mild and gracious Master that he would inherit, by way of a return
+for the sacrifices which such obedience would entail, a new and better
+life. (Follow me, I laid down my life in order that I might take it
+again. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his
+life _for_ my _sake_--as I did, in imitation of me--shall find it.) For
+in order to make this very difficult obedience possible, it was to be
+turned into a labour of love done for the Master's sake. As Goethe said:
+
+  "Against the superiority of another, there is no remedy
+  but love."
+
+Is it not true that the superiority of another man humiliates, crushes
+and degrades us in our own eyes, if we envy it or hate it instead of
+loving it? while by loving it we make it in a sense ours, and can
+rejoice in it. So Jesus affirmed that he had made the superiority of the
+ideal his; so that he was in it, and it was in him, so that men who
+could no longer fix their attention on it in their own souls might love
+it in him. He was their master-conception, their true ideal, acting
+before them, captivating the attention of their senses and emotions.
+This is what a man of our times, possessed of rare receptivity and great
+range of comprehension, considered to be the pith of Jesus' teaching.
+Matthew Arnold gave much time and labour to trying to persuade men that
+this was what the religion they professed, or which was professed around
+them, most essentially meant. And he reminded us that the adequacy of
+such ideas for governing man's life depended not on the authority of a
+book or writings by eye-witnesses with or without intelligence, but on
+whether they were true in experience. He quoted Goethe's test for every
+idea about life, "But is it true, is it true for me, now?" "Taste and
+see," as the prophets put it; or as Jesus said, "Follow me." For an
+ideal must be followed, as a man woos a woman; the pursuit may have to
+be dropped, in order to be more surely recovered; an ideal must be
+humoured, not seized at once as a man seizes command over a machine.
+This _secret of success was_ was only to be won by the development of a
+temper, a spirit of docility. To love it in an example was the best,
+perhaps the only way of gaining possession of it.
+
+
+IV
+
+As we are placed, what hope can we have but to learn? and what is there
+from which we might not learn? An artist is taught by the materials he
+uses more essentially than by the objects he contemplates; for these
+teach him "how," and perfect him in creating, those only teach him
+"what," and suggest forms to be created. But for men in general the
+"what" is more important than the "how"; and only very powerful art can
+exhilarate and refine them by means of subjects which they dislike
+or avoid.
+
+Every seer of beauty is not a creator of beautiful things; and in art
+the "how" is so much more essential than the "what," that artists create
+unworthy or degrading objects beautifully, so that we admire their art
+as much as we loathe its employment; in nature, too, such objects are
+met with, created by the god of this world. A good man, too, may create
+in a repulsive manner objects whose every association is ennobling or
+elevating.
+
+"The kingdom of heaven is within you," but hell is also within.
+
+  "Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
+  In one self place; for where we are is hell
+  And where hell is, must we for ever be:
+  And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
+  And every creature shall be purified,
+  All places shall be hell that are not heaven,"
+
+as Marlowe makes his Mephistophilis say: and the best art is the most
+perfect expression of that which is within, of heaven or of hell.
+Goethe said:
+
+"In the Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was simple and positive, we
+encounter expressions of approval more often than of disapproval. With
+the Romans, on the other hand, the contrary holds good; and the more
+corrupted poetry and rhetoric become, the more will censure grow and
+praise diminish."
+
+I have sometimes thought that the difference between classic and more or
+less decadent art lies in the fact that by the one things are
+appreciated for what they most essentially are--a young man, a swift
+horse, a chaste wife, &c.--by the other for some more or less peculiar
+or accidental relation that they hold to the creator. Such writers
+lament that the young are not old, the old not young, prostitutes not
+pure, that maidens are cold and modest or matrons portly. They complain
+of having suffered from things being cross, or they take malicious
+pleasure in pointing that crossness out; whereas classical art always
+rebounds from the perception that things are evil to the assertion of
+what ought to be or shall be. It triumphs over the Prince of Darkness,
+and covers a multitude of sins, as dew or hoar frost cover and make
+beautiful a dunghill. Dunghills exist; but he who makes of Macbeth's or
+Clytemnestra's crimes an elevating or exhilarating spectacle triumphs
+over the god of this world, as Jesus did when he made the most
+ignominious death the symbol, of his victory and glory. Little wonder
+that Albert Dürer, and Michael Angelo found such deep satisfaction in
+Him as the object of their worship--his method of docility was
+next-of-kin to that of their art. Respect and solicitude create the
+soul, and these two pre-eminently docile passions preside over the
+soul's creation, whether it be a society, a life, or a thing of beauty.
+
+
+V
+
+  Here, when art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
+  Lived and laboured Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art.
+
+These jingling lines would scarcely merit consideration but that they
+express a common notion which has its part of truth as well as of error.
+Let us examine the first assertion (that art has been religion.)
+Baudelaire, in his _Curiosités Esthétiques_ says: _La première affaire
+d'un artiste est de substituer l'homme à la nature et de protester
+contre elle_. ("The first thing for an artist is to substitute man for
+nature and to protest against her.") The beginners and the smatterers
+are always "students of nature," and suppose that to be so will suffice;
+but when the understanding and imagination gain width and elasticity,
+life is more and more understood as a long struggle to overcome or
+humanise nature by that which most essentially distinguishes man from
+other animals and inanimate nature. Religion should be the drill and
+exercise of the human faculties to fit them and maintain them in
+readiness for this struggle; the work of art should be the assertion of
+victory. A life worthy of remembrance is a work of art, a life worthy of
+universal remembrance is a masterpiece: only the materials employed
+differentiate it from any other work of art. The life of Jesus is
+considered as such a masterpiece. Thus we can say that if art has never
+been religion, religion has always been and ever will be an art.
+
+Now let us examine the second assertion that Dürer was an evangelist.
+What kind of character do we mean to praise when we say a man is an
+evangelist? Two only of the four evangelists can be said to reveal any
+ascertainable personality, and only St. John is sufficiently outlined to
+stand as a type; but I do not think we mean to imply a resemblance to
+St. John. The bringer of good news, the evangelist par excellence, was
+Jesus. He it was who made it evident that the sons of men have power to
+forgive sins. Victory over evil possible--this was the good news. No
+doubt every sincere Christian is supposed to be a more or less
+successful imitator of Jesus; and as such, Dürer may rightly be called
+an evangelist. But more than this is I think, implied in the use of the
+word; an evangelist is, for us above all a bringer of good news in
+something of the same manner as Jesus brought it, by living among
+sinners for those sinners' sake, among paupers for those paupers' sake;
+to see a man sweet, radiant, and victorious under these circumstances,
+is to see an evangelist. Goethe's final claim is that, "after all, there
+are honest people up and down the world who have got light from my
+books; and whoever reads them, and gives himself the trouble to
+understand me, will acknowledge that he has acquired thence a certain
+inward freedom"; and for this reason I have been tempted to call him the
+evangelist of the modern world. But it is best to use the word as I
+believe it is most correctly employed, and not to yield to the
+temptation (for tempting it is) to call men like Dürer and Goethe
+evangelists. They are teachers who charm as well as inform us, as Jesus
+was; but they are not evangelists in the sense that he was, for they did
+not deal directly with human life where it is forced most against its
+distinctive desire for increase in nobility, or is most obviously
+degraded by having betrayed it.'[11]
+
+
+VI
+
+I have often heard it objected that Jesus is too feminine an ideal, too
+much based on renunciation and the effort to make the best of failure.
+No doubt that as women are, by the necessity of their function, more
+liable to the ship-wreck of their hopes, the bankruptcy of their powers,
+they have been drawn to cling to this hope of salvation in greater
+numbers, and with more fervour; so that the most general idea of Jesus
+may be a feminine one. It does not follow that this is the most correct
+or the best: every object, every person will appear differently to
+different natures. And it still remains true that there have been a
+great many men of very various types who have drawn strength and beauty
+from the contemplation and reverence of Jesus. That this ideal is too
+much based on making the best of failure is an objection that makes very
+little impression on me, for I think I perceive that failure is one of
+the most constant and widespread conditions of the universe, and even
+more certainly of human life.
+
+
+VII
+
+It remains now to see in what degree these ideas were felt or made
+themselves felt through the Romanism and Lutheranism of the Renascence
+period. Perhaps we English shall best recognise the presence of these
+ideas, the working of this leaven--this docility, the necessary midwife
+of 'genius, who transforms the difficult tasks which the human reason
+sets herself into labours of love--in an Englishman; so my first example
+shall be taken from Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet.
+
+It was then that my acquaintance with him began, he being then thirty, I
+two or three months his junior. He had no theological degree, but the
+whole University, doctors and all, went to hear him. Henry VII took note
+of him, and made him Dean of St. Paul's. His first step was to restore
+discipline in the Chapter, which had all gone to wreck. He preached
+every saint's day to great crowds. He cut down household expenses, and
+abolished suppers and evening parties. At dinner a boy reads a chapter
+from Scripture; Colet takes a passage from it and discourses to the
+universal delight. Conversation is his chief pleasure, and he will keep
+it up till midnight if he finds a companion. Me he has often taken with
+him on his walks, and talks all the time of Christ. He hates coarse
+language, furniture, dress, food, books, all clean and tidy, but
+scrupulously plain; and he wears grey woollen when priests generally go
+in purple. With the large fortune which he inherited from his father, he
+founded and endowed a school at St. Paul's entirely at his own cost--
+masters, houses, salaries, everything.
+
+He is a man of genuine piety. He was not born with it. He was naturally
+hot, impetuous and resentful--indolent, fond of pleasure and of women's
+society--disposed to make a joke of everything. He told me that he had
+fought against his faults with study, fasting and prayer, and thus his
+whole life was in fact unpolluted with the world's defilements. His
+money he gave all to pious uses, worked incessantly, talked always on
+serious subjects, to conquer his disposition to levity; not but what you
+could see traces of the old Adam when wit was flying at feast or
+festival. He avoided large parties for this reason. He dined on a single
+dish, with a draught or two of light ale. He liked good wine, but
+abstained on principle. I never knew a man of sunnier nature. No one
+ever more enjoyed cultivated society; but here, too, he denied himself,
+and was always thinking of the life to come.
+
+His opinions were peculiar, and he was reserved in expressing them for
+fear of exciting suspicion. He knew how unfairly men judge each other,
+how credulous they are of evil, how much easier it is for a lying tongue
+to stain a reputation than for a friend to clear it. But among his
+friends he spoke his mind freely.
+
+He admitted privately that many things were generally taught which he
+did not believe, but he would not create a scandal by blurting out his
+objections. No book could be so heretical but he would read it, and read
+it carefully. He learnt more from such books than he learnt from
+dogmatism and interested orthodoxy.[12]
+
+Some may wonder what Colet could have found to say about Christ which
+could not only interest but delight the young and witty Erasmus; and may
+judge that at any rate to-day such a subject is sufficiently fly-blown.
+The proper reflection to make is, "A rose by any other name would smell
+as sweet."
+
+Whether we say Christ or Perfection does not matter, it is what we mean
+which is either enthralling or dull, fresh or fusty; "there's nothing
+in a name."
+
+"When Colet speaks I might be listening to Plato," says Erasmus in
+another place, at a time when he was still younger and had just come
+from what had been a gay and perhaps in some measure a dissolute life in
+Paris: not that it is possible to imagine Erasmus as at any time
+committing great excesses, or deeply sinning against the sense of
+proportion and measure.
+
+Success is the only criterion, as in art, so in religion: the man that
+plucks out his eye and casts it from him, and remains the dull, greedy,
+distressful soul he was before, is a damned fool; but the man who does
+the same and becomes such that his younger friends report of him, "I
+never knew a sunnier nature," is an artist in life, a great artist in
+the sense that Christ is supposed to have been a great master; one who
+draws men to him, as bees are drawn to flowers. Colet drew the young
+Henry the Eighth as well as Erasmus. "The King said: 'Let every man
+choose his own doctor. Dean Colet shall be mine!'" Though no doubt
+charlatans have often fascinated young scholars and monarchs, yet it is
+peculiarly impossible to think of Colet as a charlatan.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Next let us take a sonnet and a sentence from Michael Angelo:
+
+  Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
+  And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;
+  For if of our affections none finds grace
+  In sight of heaven, then, wherefore hath God made
+  The world which we inhabit? Better plea
+  Love cannot have than that in loving thee
+  Glory to that eternal peace is paid,
+  Who such divinity to thee imparts,
+  As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
+  His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
+  With beauty, which is varying every hour;
+  But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power
+  Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
+  That breathes on earth the air of paradise.[13]
+
+It is very remarkable how strongly the conviction of permanence, and the
+preference for the inward conception over external beauty are expressed
+in this fine sonnet; and also that the reason given for accepting the
+discipline of love is that experience shows how it "hallows and makes
+pure all gentle hearts." In such a love poem--the object of which might
+very well have been Jesus--I seem to find more of the spirit of his
+religion, whereby he binds his disciples to the Father that ruled within
+him, till they too feel the bond of parentage as deeply as himself and
+become sons with him of his Father;--more of that binding power of Jesus
+is for me expressed in this fine sonnet than in Luther's Catechism. The
+religion that enables a great artist to write of love in this strain, is
+the religion of docility, of the meek and lowly heart. For Michael
+Angelo was not a man by nature of a meek and lowly heart, any more than
+Colet was a man naturally saintly or than Luther was a man naturally
+refined. But because Michael Angelo thus prefers the kingdom of heaven
+to external beauty, one must not suppose that he, its arch high-priest,
+despised it. Nobody had a more profound respect for the thing of beauty,
+whether it was the creation of God or man. He said:
+
+"Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavour to
+create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives for
+perfection, strives for something that is God-like."
+
+Now we can perceive how the same spirit worked in a great artist, not at
+Nuremberg or London, but at Rome, the centre of the world, where a
+Borgia could be Pope.
+
+
+IX
+
+Erasmus, the typical humanist, the man who loved humanity so much that
+he felt that his love for it might tempt him to fight against God,
+travelled from the one world to the other; passed from the society of
+cardinals and princes to the seclusion of burgher homes in London, or to
+chat with Dürer at Antwerp. He belonged perhaps to neither world at
+heart; but how greatly his love and veneration of the one exceeded his
+admiration and sense of the practical utility of the other, a comparison
+of his sketch of Colet with such a note as this from his New Testament
+makes abundantly plain:
+
+"I saw with my own eyes Pope Julius II. at Bologna, and afterwards at
+Rome, marching at the head of a triumphal procession as if he were
+Pompey or Cæsar. St. Peter subdued the world with faith, not with arms
+or soldiers or military engines. St. Peter's successors would win as
+many victories as St. Peter won if they had Peter's spirit."
+
+But we must not forget that the book in which these notes appeared was
+published with the approval of a Pope, and that he and others sought its
+author for advice as to how to cope best with their more hot-headed
+enemy Martin Luther. We must also remember that we are told that Colet
+"was not very hard on priests and monks who only sinned with women. He
+did not make light of impurity, but thought it less criminal than spite
+and malice and envy and vanity and ignorance. The loose sort were at
+least made human and modest by their very faults, and he regarded
+avarice and arrogance as blacker sins in a priest than a hundred
+concubines." This spirit was not that of the Reformation which came to
+stop, yet it existed and was widespread at that time; it was I think the
+spirit which either formed or sustained most of the great artists. At
+any rate it both formed and sustained Albert Dürer. Yet the true nature
+of these ideas, derived from Jesus, could not be understood even by
+Colet, even by Erasmus. For them it was tradition which gave value and
+assured truth to Christ's ideas, not the truth of those ideas which gave
+value to the traditions and legends concerning him. The value of those
+ideas was felt, sometimes nearer, sometimes further off; it was loved
+and admired; their lives were apprehended by it, and spent in
+illustrating and studying it, as were also those of Albert Dürer and
+Michael Angelo. To understand the life and work of such men, we must
+form some conception of the true nature and value of those ideas, as I
+have striven to do in this chapter. Otherwise we shall merely admire and
+love them, as they admired and loved Jesus; and it has now become a
+point of honour with educated men not only to love and admire, but to
+make the effort to understand. Even they desired to do this. And I think
+we may rejoice that the present time gives us some advantage over those
+days, at least in this respect.
+
+
+X
+
+And lastly, in order to bring us back to our main subject, let us quote
+from a stray leaf of a lost MS. Book of Dürer's, which contains the
+description of his father's death.
+
+    ... desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap
+    on his head had suddenly become wet with drops of sweat. Then
+    he asked to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfell wine. He
+    took a very little of it, and then desired to get into bed
+    again and thanked her. And when he had got into bed he fell
+    at once into his last agony. The old wife quickly kindled the
+    candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard's verses, and
+    ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to
+    him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly
+    to my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was
+    gone. I saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not
+    been worthy to be with him at his end.
+
+    And thus in the night before S. Matthew's eve my father
+    passed away, in the year above mentioned (Sept. 20, 1502)
+    --the merciful God help me also to a happy end--and he left
+    my mother an afflicted widow behind him. He was ever wont to
+    praise her highly to me, saying what a good wife she was,
+    wherefore I intend never to forsake her. I pray you for God's
+    sake, all ye my friends, when you read of the death of my
+    father, to remember his soul with an "Our Father" and an "Ave
+    Maria"; and also for your own sake, that we may so serve God
+    as to attain a happy life and the blessing of a good end. For
+    it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill
+    from this world, for God is full of compassion. Through which
+    may He grant us, after this pitiful life, the joy of
+    everlasting salvation--in the name of the Father, the Son,
+    and the Holy Ghost, at the beginning and at the end, one
+    Eternal Governor. Amen.
+
+The last sentences of this may seem to share in the character of the
+vain repetitions of words with which professed believers are only too
+apt to weary and disgust others. They are in any case commonplaces: the
+image has taken the place of the object; the Father in heaven is not
+considered so much as the paternal governor of the inner life as the
+ruler of a future life and of this world. The use of such phrases is as
+much idolatry as the worship of statue and picture, or as little, if the
+words are repeated, as I think in this case they were, out of a feeling
+of awe and reverence for preceding mental impressions and experiences,
+and not because their repetition in itself was counted for
+righteousness. Their use, if this was so, is no more to be found fault
+with than the contemplation of pictures or statues of holy personages in
+order to help the mind to attend to their ensample, or the reading of a
+poem, to fill the mind with ennobling emotions. Idolatry is natural and
+right in children and other simple souls among primitive peoples or
+elsewhere. It is a stage in mental development. Lovers pass through the
+idolatrous stage of their passion just as children cut their teeth. It
+is a pity to see individuals or nations remain childish in this respect
+just as much as in any other, or to see them return to it in their
+decrepitude. But a temper, a spirit, an influence cannot easily be
+apprehended apart from examples and images; and perhaps the clearest
+reason is only the exercise of an infinitely elastic idolatry, which
+with sprightly efficiency finds and worships good in everything, just as
+the devout, in Dürer's youth, found sermons in stones, carved stones
+representing saint, bishop, or Virgin. And Dürer all his life long
+continued to produce pictures and engravings which were intended to
+preach such sermons.
+
+Goethe admirably remarks:
+
+"_Superstition_ is the poetry of life; the poet therefore suffers no
+harm from being _superstitious_." (Aberglaube.)
+
+Superstition and idolatry are an expenditure of emotion of a kind and
+degree which the true facts would not warrant; poetry when least
+superstitious is a like exercise of the emotions in order to raise and
+enhance them; superstition when most poetical unconsciously effects the
+same thing.
+
+This glimpse he gives of the way in which death visited his home, and
+how the visitation impressed him, is coloured and glows with that temper
+of docility which made Colet school himself so severely, and was the
+source of Michael Angelo's so fervent outpourings. And all through the
+accounts which remain of his life, we may trace the same spirit ever
+anew setting him to school, and renewing his resolution to learn both
+from his feelings and from his senses.
+
+
+XI
+
+As I took a sentence from Michael Angelo, I will now take a sentence
+from Dürer, one showing strongly that evangelical strain so
+characteristic of him, born of his intuitive sense for human solidarity.
+After an argument, which will be found on page 306, he concludes: "It is
+right, therefore, for one man to teach another. He that doeth so
+joyfully, upon him shall much be bestowed by God."[14] These last words,
+like the last phrases of my former quotation from him, may stand perhaps
+in the way of some, as nowadays they may easily sound glib or
+irreverent. But are we less convinced that only tasks done joyfully, as
+labours of love, deserve the reward of fuller and finer powers, and
+obtain it? When Dürer thought of God, he did not only think of a
+mythological personage resembling an old king; he thought of a mind, an
+intention, "for God is perfect in goodness." Words so easily come to
+obscure what they were meant to reveal; and if we think how the notion
+of perfect goodness rules and sways such a man's mind, we shall not
+wonder that he did not stumble at the omnipotency which revolts us,
+cowed as we are by the presence of evil. The old gentleman dressed like
+a king;--this was not the part of his ideas about God which occupied
+Dürer's mind. He accepted it, but did not think about it: it filled what
+would otherwise have been a blank in his mind and in the minds of those
+about him. But he was constantly anxious about what he ought to do and
+study in order to fulfil the best in himself, and about what ought to be
+done by his town, his nation, and the civilisation that then was, in
+order to turn man's nature and the world to an account answerable to the
+beauty of their fairer aspects. God was the will that commanded that
+"consummation devoutly to be wished." Obedience to His law revealed in
+the Bible was the means by which this command could be carried out; and
+to a man turning from the Church as it then existed to the newly
+translated Bible texts, the commands of God as declared in those texts
+seemed of necessity reason itself compared with the commands of the
+Popes; were, in fact, infinitely more reasonable, infinitely more akin
+to a good man's mind and will. Luther's revolt is for us now
+characterised by those elements in it which proved inadequate--were
+irrational; but then these were insignificant in comparison with the
+light which his downright honesty shed on the monstrous and amazingly
+irrational Church. This huge closed society of bigots and worldlings
+which arrogated to itself all powers human and divine, and used them
+according to the lusts and intemperance of an Alexander Borgia, a Julius
+II., and a Leo X., was that farce perception of which made Rabelais
+shake the world with laughter, and which roused such consuming
+indignation in Luther and Calvin that they created the gloomy
+puritanical asylums in which millions of Germans, English, and Americans
+were shut up for two hundred years, as Matthew Arnold puts it. But Dürer
+was not so immured: even Luther at heart neither was himself, nor
+desired that others should be, prevented from enjoying the free use of
+their intellectual powers. It was because he was less perspicacious than
+Erasmus that he did not see that this was what he was inevitably doing
+in his wrath and in his haste.
+
+
+XII
+
+Erasmus was, perhaps, the man in Europe who at that time displayed most
+docility; the man whom neither sickness, the desire for wealth and
+honour, the hope to conquer, the lust to engage in disputes, nor the
+adverse chances that held him half his life in debt and necessitous
+straits, and kept him all his life long a vagrant, constantly upon the
+road--the man in whom none of these things could weaken a marvellous
+assiduity to learn and help others to learn. He it was who had most
+kinship with Dürer among the artists then alive; for Dürer is very
+eminent among them for this temper of docility. It is interesting to see
+how he once turned to Erasmus in a devout meditation, written in the
+journal he kept during his journey to the Netherlands. His voice comes
+to us from an atmosphere charged with the electric influence of the
+greatest Reformer, Martin Luther, who had just disappeared, no man knew
+why or whither; though all men suspected foul play. In his daily life,
+by sweetness of manner, by gentle dignity and modesty, Dürer showed his
+religion, the admiration and love that bound his life, in a way that at
+all times and in all places commands applause. The burning indignation
+of the following passage may in times of spiritual peace or somnolence
+appear over-wrought and uncouth. We must remember that all that Dürer
+loved had been bound by his religion to the teaching and inspiration of
+Jesus, and had become inseparable from it. All that he loved--learning,
+clear and orderly thought, honesty, freedom to express the worship of
+his heart without its being turned to a mockery by cynical monk, priest,
+or prelate;--these things directly, and indirectly art itself, seemed to
+him threatened by the corruption of the Papal power. We must remember
+this; for we shall naturally feel, as Erasmus did, that the path of
+martyrdom was really a short cut, which a wider view of the surrounding
+country would have shown him to be likely to prove the longest way in
+the end. Indeed the world is not altogether yet arrived where he thought
+Erasmus could bring it in less than two years. And Luther himself
+returned to the scene and was active, without any such result, a dozen
+years and more.
+
+Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou a little old
+man, and myself have heard thee say that thou givest thyself but two
+years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to accomplish somewhat. Lay
+out the same well for the good of the Gospel, and of the true Christian
+faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ says, shall the Gates of
+Hell in no wise prevail against thee. And if here below thou wert to be
+like thy master Christ, and sufferest infamy at the hands of the liars
+of this time, and didst die a little sooner, then wouldst thou the
+sooner pass from death unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou
+drinkest of the cup which He drank of, _with Him shalt thou reign and
+judge with justice those who_ HAVE _dealt unrighteously_. Oh! Erasmus!
+cleave to this, that God Himself may be thy praise, even as it is
+written of David. For thou mayest, yea, verily thou mayest overthrow
+Goliath. Because God stands by the Holy Christian Church, even as He
+alone upholds the Roman Church, according to His godly will. May He help
+us to everlasting salvation, who is God the Father, the Son, and Holy
+Ghost, one eternal God! Amen!!
+
+"With Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice those that have dealt
+unrighteously." This will seem to many a mere cry for revenge; and so
+perhaps it was. Still it may have been, as it seems to me to have been,
+uttered rather in the spirit of Moses' "Forgive their sin--and if not,
+blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book"; or the "Heaven and earth shall
+pass away, but my words shall not pass away" of Jesus. If the necessity
+for victory was uppermost, the opportunity for revenge may scarcely have
+been present to Dürer's mind.
+
+It is now more generally recognised than in Luther's day that however
+sweet vengeance may be, it is not admirable, either in God or man.
+
+The total impression produced by Dürer's life and work must help each to
+decide for himself which sense he considers most likely. The truth, as
+in most questions of history, remains for ever in the balance, and
+cannot be ascertained.
+
+
+XIII
+
+I have called docility the necessary midwife of Genius, for so it is;
+and religion is a discipline that constrains us to learn. The religion
+of Jesus constrains us to learn the most difficult things, binds us to
+the most arduous tasks that the mind of man sets itself, as a lover is
+bound by his affection to accomplish difficult feats for his mistress'
+sake. Such tasks as Michael Angelo and Dürer set themselves require that
+the lover's eagerness and zest shall not be exhausted; and to keep them
+fresh and abundant, in spite of cross circumstances, a discipline of the
+mind and will is required. This is what they found in the worship of
+Jesus. The influence of this religious hopefulness and self-discipline
+on the creative power prevents its being exhausted, perverted, or
+embittered; and in order that it may effect this perfectly, that
+influence must be abundant not only within the artist, as it was in
+Michael Angelo and Dürer, but in the world about them.
+
+This, then, is the value of religious influence to creative art: and
+though we to-day necessarily regard the personages, localities, and
+events of the creed as coming under the category of "things that are
+not," we may still as fervently hope and expect that the things of that
+category may "bring to nought the things that are," including the
+superstitious reverence for the creed and its unprovable statements; for
+has not the victory in human things often been with the things that were
+not, but which were thus ardently desired and expected? To inquire which
+of those things are best calculated to advance and nourish creative
+power, and in what manner, should engage the artist's attention far more
+than it has of late years. For what he loves, what he hopes, and what he
+expects would seem, if we study past examples, to exercise as important
+an influence on a man's creative power as his knowledge of, and respect
+for, the materials and instruments which he controls do upon his
+executive capacity.
+
+The universe in which man finds himself may be evil, but not everything
+it contains is so: then it must for ever remain our only wisdom to
+labour to transform those parts which we judge to be evil into likeness
+or conformity to those we judge to be good: and surely he who neglects
+the forces of hope and adoration in that effort, neglects the better
+half of his practical strength? The central proposition of Christianity,
+that this end can only be attained by contemplation and imitation of an
+example, is, we shall in another place (pp. [305-312]) find, maintained
+as true in regard to art by Dürer, and by Reynolds, our greatest writer
+on aesthetics. These great artists, so dissimilar in the outward aspects
+of their creations, agree in considering that the only way of
+advancement open to the aspirant is the attempt to form himself on the
+example of others, by imitating them not slavishly or mechanically, but
+in the same spirit in which they imitated their forerunners: even as the
+Christian is bound to seek union with Christ in the same spirit or way
+in which Jesus had achieved union with his Father--that is, by laying
+down life to take it again, in meekness and lowliness of heart. Docility
+is the sovran help to perfection for Dürer and Reynolds, and more or
+less explicitly for all other great artists who have treated of these
+questions.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 11: Of course all that may have been meant by the phrase "the
+Evangelist of Art" is that Dürer illustrated the narrative of the
+Passion; but by this he is not distinguished from many others, and the
+phrase is suggestive of far more.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Froude's "Life of Erasmus," Lecture vi.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Wordsworth's Translation,]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 176.]
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+DÜRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DÜRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH AND EDUCATION
+
+
+I
+
+Who was Dürer? He has told us himself very simply, and more fully than
+men of his type generally do; for he was not, like Montaigne, one whose
+chief study was himself. Yet, though he has done this, it is not easy
+for us to fully understand him. It is perhaps impossible to place
+oneself in the centre of that horizon which was of necessity his and
+belonged to his day, a vast circle from which men could no more escape
+than we from ours; this cage of iron ignorance in which every human soul
+is trapped, and to widen and enlarge which every heroic soul lives and
+dies. This cage appeared to his eyes very different from what it does to
+ours; yet it has always been a cage, and is only lost sight of at times
+when the light from within seems to flow forth, and with its radiant
+sapphire heaven of buoyancy and desire to veil the eternal bars. It is
+well to remind ourselves that ignorance was the most momentous, the most
+cruel condition of his life, as of our own; and that the effort to
+relieve himself of its pressure, either by the pursuit of knowledge, or
+by giving spur and bridle to the imagination that it might course round
+him dragging the great woof of illusion, and tent him in the ethereal
+dream of the soul's desire, was the constant effort and resource of
+his days.
+
+
+II
+
+At the age of fifty-three he took the pen and commenced:
+
+In the year 1524, I, Albrecht Dürer the younger, have put together from
+my father's papers the facts as to whence he was, how he came hither,
+lived here, and drew to a happy end. God be gracious to him and
+us! Amen.
+
+Like his relatives, Albrecht Dürer the elder was born in the kingdom of
+Hungary, in a little village named Eytas, situated not far from a little
+town called Gyula, eight miles below Grosswardein; and his kindred made
+their living from horses and cattle. My father's father was called Anton
+Dürer; he came as a lad to a goldsmith in the said little town and
+learnt the craft under him. He afterwards married a girl named
+Elizabeth, who bare him a daughter, Katharina, and three sons. The first
+son he named Albrecht; he was my dear father. He too became a goldsmith,
+a pure and skilful man. The second son he called Ladislaus; he was a
+saddler. His son is my cousin Niklas Dürer, called Niklas the Hungarian,
+who is settled at Köln. He also is a goldsmith, and learnt the craft
+here in Nürnberg with my father. The third son he called John. Him he
+set to study, and he afterwards became a parson at Grosswardein, and
+continued there thirty years.
+
+So Albrecht Dürer, my dear father, came to Germany. He had been a long
+time with the great artists in the Netherlands. At last he came hither
+to Nürnberg in the year, as reckoned from the birth of Christ, 1455, on
+S. Elogius' day (June 25). And on the same day Philip Pirkheimer had his
+marriage feast at the Veste, and there was a great dance under the big
+lime tree. For a long time after that my dear father, Albrecht Dürer,
+served my grandfather, old Hieronymus Holper, till the year reckoned
+1467 after the birth of Christ. My grandfather then gave him his
+daughter, a pretty upright girl, fifteen years old, named Barbara; and
+he was wedded to her eight days before S. Vitus (June 8). It may also be
+mentioned that my grandmother, my mother's mother, was the daughter of
+Oellinger of Weissenburg, and her name was Kunigunde.
+
+And my dear father had by his marriage with my dear mother the following
+children born--which I set down here word for word as he wrote it in
+his book:
+
+Here follow eighteen items, only one of which, the third, is of
+interest.
+
+3. Item, in the year 1471 after the birth of Christ, in the sixth hour
+of the day, on S. Prudentia's day, a Tuesday in Rogation Week (May 21),
+my wife bare me my second son. His godfather was Anton Koburger, and he
+named him Albrecht after me, &c. &c.
+
+All these, my brothers and sisters, my dear father's children, are now
+dead, some in their childhood, others as they were growing up; only we
+three brothers still live, so long as God will, namely: I, Albrecht, and
+my brother Andreas and my brother Hans, the third of the name, my
+father's children.
+
+This Albrecht Dürer the elder passed his life in great toil and stern
+hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his
+hand for himself, his wife and his children, so that he had little
+enough. He underwent moreover manifold afflictions, trials, and
+adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived
+an honourable, Christian life, was a man of patient spirit, mild and
+peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had
+little need of company and worldly pleasures; he was also of few words,
+and was a God-fearing man.
+
+
+III
+
+We shall, I think, often do well, when considering the superb
+ostentation of Dürer's workmanship, with its superabundance of curve and
+flourish, its delight in its own ease and grace, to think of those young
+men among his ancestors who made their living from horses on the
+wind-swept plains of Hungary. The perfect control which it is the
+delight of lads brought up and developing under such conditions to
+obtain over the galloping steed, is similar to the control which it
+gratified Dürer to perfect over the dashing stroke of pen or brush,
+which, however swift and impulsive, is yet brought round and performs to
+a nicety a predetermined evolution. And the way he puts a little
+portrait of himself, finely dressed, into his most important pictures,
+may also carry our thoughts away to the banks of the Danube where it
+winds and straggles over the steppes, to picture some young
+horse-breeder, whose costume and harness are his only wealth; who rides
+out in the morning as the cock-bustard that, having preened himself,
+paces before the hen birds on the plains that he can scour when his
+wings, which are slow in the air, join with his strong legs to make
+nothing of grassy leagues on leagues. And first, this life with its free
+sweeping horizon, and the swallow-like curves of its gallops for the
+sake of galloping, or those which the long lashes of its whips trace in
+deploying, and which remind us of the lithe tendrils in which terminate
+Dürer's ornamental flourishes; this life in which the eye is trained to
+watch the lasso, as with well-calculated address it swirls out and drops
+over the frighted head of an unbroken colt;--this life is first pent up
+in a little goldsmith's shop, in a country even to-day famous for the
+beauty and originality of its peasant jewelry: and here it is trained to
+follow and answer the desire of the bright dark eyes of girls in
+love;--in love, where love and the beauty that inspires it are the gifts
+of nature most guarded and most honoured, from which are expected the
+utmost that is conceived of delicacy in delight by a virile and healthy
+race. "A pure and skilful man." Patient already has this life become,
+for a jeweller can scarcely be made of impatient stuff; patient even
+before the admixture of German blood when Albert the elder married his
+Barbara Holper. The two eldest sons were made jewellers; but the third,
+John, is set to study and becomes a parson, as if already learning and
+piety stood next in the estimation of this life after thrift, skill and
+the creation of ornament. And Germany boasts of this life beyond that of
+any of her sons; but her blood was probably of small importance to the
+efficiency that it attained to in the great Albert Dürer. The German
+name of Dürer or Thürer, a door, is quite as likely to be the
+translation, correct or otherwise, of some Hungarian name, as it is an
+indication that the family had originally emigrated from Germany. In any
+case, a large admixture by intermarriage of Slavonic blood would
+correspond to the unique distinction among Germans, attained in the
+dignity, sweetness and fineness which signalised Dürer. Of course, in
+such matters no sane man looks for proof; but neither will he reject a
+probable suggestion which may help us to understand the nature of an
+exceptional man.
+
+
+IV
+
+Dürer continues to speak of his childhood:
+
+And my father took special pleasure in me, because he saw that I was
+diligent to learn. So he sent me to school, and when I had learnt to
+read and write he took me away from it, and taught me the goldsmith's
+craft. But when I could work neatly, my liking drew me rather to
+painting than to goldsmith's work, so I laid it before my father; but he
+was not well pleased, regretting the time lost while I had been learning
+to be a goldsmith. Still he let it be as I wished, and in 1486 (reckoned
+from the birth of Christ) on S. Andrew's day (November 30) my father
+bound me apprentice to Michael Wolgemut, to serve him three years long.
+During that time God gave me diligence, so that I learnt well, but I had
+much to suffer from his lads.
+
+When I had finished my learning my father sent me off, and I stayed away
+four years till he called me back again. As I had gone forth in the year
+1490 after Easter (Easter Sunday was April 11), so now I came back again
+in 1494 as it is reckoned after Whitsuntide (Whit Sunday was May 18).
+
+Erasmus tells us that German disorders were "partly due to the natural
+fierceness of the race, partly to the division into so many separate
+States, and partly to the tendency of the people to serve as
+mercenaries." That there were many swaggerers and bullies about, we
+learn from Dürer's prints. In every crowd these gentlemen in leathern
+tights, with other ostentatious additions to their costume, besides
+poniards and daggers to emphasise the brutal male, strut straddle-legged
+and self-assured; and of course raw lads and loutish prentices yielded
+them the sincerest flattery. We can well understand that the model boy,
+to whom "God had given diligence," with his long hair lovely as a
+girl's, and his consciousness of being nearly always in the right, had
+much to suffer from his fellow prentices. Besides, very likely, he
+already consorted with Willibald Pirkheimer and his friends, who were
+the aristocrats of the town. And though he may have been meek and
+gentle, there must have appeared in everything he did and was an
+assertion of superiority, all the more galling for its being difficult
+to define and as ready to blush as the innocent truth herself.
+
+
+V
+
+It is much argued as to where Dürer went when his father "sent him off."
+We have the direct statement of a contemporary, Christopher Scheurl,
+that he visited Colmar and Basle; and what is well nigh as good, for a
+visit to Venice. For Scheurl wrote in 1508: _Qui quum nuper in Italiam
+rediset, tum a Venetis, tum a Bononiensibus artificibus, me saepe
+interprete cansalutatus est alter Apelles._
+
+"When he lately _returned_ to Italy, he was often greeted as a second
+Apelles, by the craftsmen both of Venice and Bologna (I acting as their
+interpreter)."
+
+Before we accept any of these statements it is well to remember how
+easily quite intimate friends make mistakes as to where one has been and
+when; even about journeys that in one's own mind either have been or
+should have been turning-points in one's life. For they will attribute
+to the past experiences which were never ours, or forget those which we
+consider most unforgettable. No one who has paid attention to these
+facts will consider that historians prove so much or so well as they
+often fancy themselves to do. In the present case what is really
+remarkable is, that none of these sojournings of the young artist in
+foreign art centres seem to have produced such a change in his art as
+can now be traced with assurance. At Colmar he saw the masterpieces and
+the brothers of the "admirable Martin," as he always calls Schongauer.
+At Basle there is still preserved a cut wood-block representing St.
+Jerome, on the back of which is an authentic signature; there is besides
+a series of uncut wood-blocks, the designs on which it is easy to
+imagine to have been produced by the travelling journeyman that Dürer
+then seemed to the printers and painters of the towns he passed through.
+By those processes by which anything can be made of anything, much has
+been done to give substantiality to the implied first visit to Venice.
+There are drawings which were probably made there, representing ladies
+resembling those in pictures by Carpaccio as to their garments, the
+dressing of their hair, and the type of their faces. Of course it is not
+impossible that such a lady or ladies may have visited Nuremberg, or
+been seen by the young wanderer at Basle or elsewhere. And the
+resemblance between a certain drawing in the Albertina and one of the
+carved lions in red marble now on the Piazzetta de' Leoni does not count
+for much, when we consider that there is nothing in the workmanship of
+these heads to suggest that they were done after sculptured
+originals;--the manes, &c., being represented by an easy penman's
+convention, as they might have been whether the models were living or
+merely imagined. Nor is there any good reason for dating the drawings of
+sites in the Tyrol, supposed to have been sketched on the road, rather
+this year than another. Lastly, the famous sentence in a letter written
+from Venice during Dürer's authenticated visit there, in 1506, may be
+construed in more than one sense. The passage is generally rather
+curtailed when quoted.
+
+He (Giovanni Bellini) is very old, but is still the best painter of them
+all. The thing that pleased me so well eleven years ago, pleases me now
+no more; if I had not seen it for myself, I should never have believed
+any one who told me. You must know, too, that there are many better
+painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo de' Barbari) is abroad; yet
+Anton Kolb would swear an oath that no better painter than Jacob lives.
+
+If "the thing that pleased so well eleven years before" was a picture or
+pictures by Master Jacob or by Andrea Mantegna, as is usually supposed,
+the phrase, "If I had not seen it for myself I should never have
+believed any one who told me" is extremely strange. It is not usual to
+expect to change one's opinion of a work of art by hearsay, or to
+imagine others, when they have not done so, predicting with assurance
+that we shall change a decided opinion upon the merits of a work of art;
+yet one of these two suppositions seems certainly to be implied. I do
+not say that it is impossible to conceive of either, only that such
+cursory reference to such conceptions is extremely strange. Again, if
+work by Jacopo de' Barbari is referred to, it might very well have been
+seen elsewhere than at Venice eleven years ago; and indeed the last
+sentence in the passage might be taken to imply as much. To me at least
+the truth appears to be that these hints, which we may well have
+misunderstood, point to something which the imagination is only too
+delighted to entertain. It is a charming dream--the young Dürer, just of
+age, trudging from town to town, designing wood-blocks for a printer
+here, questioning the brothers of the "admirable Martin" there, or again
+painting a sign in yet another place, such as Holbein painted for the
+schoolmaster at Basle; and at last arriving in Venice--Venice untouched
+as yet by the conflicting ideals that were even then being brought to
+birth anew: Mediaeval Venice, such as we see her in the pictures of
+Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. One painting of real importance in the
+work of Dürer remains to us from this period: the greatest of modern
+critics has described it and its effect on him in a way which would make
+any second attempt impertinent.
+
+I consider as invaluable Albrecht Dürer's portrait of himself painted in
+1493, when he was in his twenty-second year. It is a bust half
+life-size, showing the two hands and the forearms. Crimson cap with
+short narrow strings, the throat bare to below the collar bone, an
+embroidered shirt, the folds of the sleeves tied underneath with
+peach-coloured ribbons, and a blue-grey, fur-edged cloak with yellow
+laces, compose a dainty dress befitting a well-bred youth. In his hand
+he significantly carries a blue _eryngo_, called in German "Mannstreu."
+He has a serious, youthful face, the mouth and chin covered with an
+incipient beard. The whole splendidly drawn, the composition simple,
+grand and harmonious; the execution perfect and in every way worthy of
+Dürer, though the colour is very thin, and has cracked in some places.
+
+Such is the figure which we may imagine making its way among the crowd
+in Gentile Bellini's Procession of the "True Cross" before St. Mark's,
+with eyes all wonder and lips often consciously imprisoning the German
+tongue, which cannot make itself understood. How comes he so finely
+dressed, the son of the modest Nuremberg goldsmith? Has he won the
+friendship of some rich burgher prince at Augsburg, or Strasburg, or
+Basle? Has he been enabled to travel in his suite as far as Venice? Or
+has he earned a large sum for painting some lord's or lady's portrait,
+which, if it were not lost, would now stand as the worthy compeer of
+this splendid portrait of the "true man" far from home; true to that
+home only, or true to Agnes Frey?--for some suppose the sprig of eryngo
+to signify that he was already betrothed to her. Or perhaps he has
+joined Willibald Pirkheimer at Basle or elsewhere, and they two,
+crossing the Alps together, have become friends for life? Will they part
+here ere long, the young burgher prince to proceed to the Universities
+of Padua and Mantua, the future great painter to trudge back over the
+Alps, getting a lift now and again in waggon or carriage or on pillion?
+Let the man of pretentious science say it is bootless to ask such
+questions; those who ask them know that it is delightful; know that it
+is the true way to make the past live for them; guess that would
+historians more generally ask them, their books would be less often
+dry as dust.
+
+
+VI
+
+It may be that to this period belongs the meeting with Jacopo de'
+Barbari to which a passage in his MS. books (now in the British Museum)
+refers: and that already he began to be exercised on the subject of a
+canon of proportions for the human figure. In the chapter which I devote
+to his studies on this subject it will be seen how the determination to
+work the problem out by experiment, since Jacopo refused to reveal, and
+Vitruvius only hinted at the secret, led to his discovering something of
+far more value than it is probable that either could have given him. And
+yet the belief that there was a hidden secret probably hindered him from
+fully realising the importance of his discovery, or reaping such benefit
+from it as he otherwise might have done. How often has not the belief
+that those of old time knew what is ignored to-day, prevented men from
+taking full advantage of the conquests over ignorance that they have
+made themselves! Because what they know is not so much as they suppose
+might be or has been known, they fail to recognise the most that has yet
+been known--the best foundation for a new building that has yet been
+discovered--and search for what they possess, and fail to rival those
+whose superiority over themselves is a delusion of their own hearts. So
+early Dürer may have begun this life-long labour which, though not
+wholly vain, was never really crowned to the degree it merited: while
+others living in more fertile lands reaped what they had not sown, he
+could only plough and scatter seed. As Raphael is supposed to have said,
+all that was lacking to him was knowledge of the antique.
+
+Perhaps many will blame me for writing, unlearned, as I am; in my
+opinion they are not wrong; they speak truly. For I myself had rather
+hear and read a learned man and one famous in this art than write of it
+myself, being unlearned. Howbeit I can find none such who hath written
+aught about how to form a canon of human proportions, save one man,
+Jacopo (de' Barbari) by name, born at Venice and a charming painter. He
+showed me the figures of a man and woman, which he had drawn according
+to a canon of proportions; and now I would rather be shown what he meant
+(_i.e._, upon what principles the proportions were constructed) than
+behold a new kingdom. If I had it (his canon), I would put it into print
+in his honour, for the use of all men. Then, however, I was still young
+and had not heard of such things before. Howbeit I was very fond of art,
+so I set myself to discover how such a canon might be wrought out. For
+this aforesaid Jacopo, as I clearly saw, would not explain to me the
+principles upon which he went. Accordingly I set to work on my own idea
+and read Vitruvius, who writes somewhat about the human figure. Thus it
+was from, or out of, these two men aforesaid that I took my start, and
+thence, from day to day, have I followed up my search according to my
+own notions.
+
+
+VII
+
+When I returned home, Hans Prey treated with my father and gave me his
+daughter, Mistress Agnes by name, and with her he gave me two hundred
+florins, and we were wedded; it was on Monday before Margaret's (July 7)
+in the year 1494.
+
+The general acceptance of the gouty and irascible Pirkheimer's
+defamation of Frau Dürer as a miser and a shrew called forth a display
+of ingenuity on the part of Professor Thausing to prove the contrary.
+And I must confess that if he has not quite done that, he seems to me to
+have very thoroughly discredited Pirkheimer's ungallant abuse. Sir
+Martin Conway bids us notice that Dürer speaks of his "dear father" and
+his "dear mother" and even of his "dear father-in-law," but that he
+never couples that adjective with his wife's name. It is very dangerous
+to draw conclusions from such a fact, which may be merely an accident:
+or may, if it represents a habit of Dürer's, bear precisely the opposite
+significance. For some men are proud to drop such outward marks of
+affection, in cases where they know that every day proves to every
+witness that they are not needed. He also considers that her portraits
+show her, when young, to have been "empty-headed," when older, a "frigid
+shrew." For my own part, if the portrait at Bremen (see opposite)
+represents "mein Angnes," as its resemblance to the sketch at Vienna
+(see illus.) convinces me it does, I cannot accept either of these
+conclusions arrived at by the redoubtable science of physiognomy. The
+Bremen portrait shows us a refined, almost an eccentric type of beauty;
+one can easily believe it to have been possessed by a person of
+difficult character, but one certainly who must have had compensating
+good qualities. The "mein Angnes" on the sketch may well be set against
+the absent "dears" in the other mentions her husband made of her,
+especially when we consider that he couples this adjective with the
+Emperor's name, "my dear Prince Max." Of her relations to him nothing is
+known except what Pirkheimer wrote in his rage, when he was writing
+things which are demonstrably false. We know, however, that she was
+capable, pious, and thrifty; and on several occasions, in the
+Netherlands, shared in the honours done to her husband. It is natural to
+suppose that as they were childless, there may have existed a moral
+equivalent to this infertility; but also, with a man such as we know
+Dürer to have been, and a woman in every case not bad, have we not
+reason to expect that this moral barrenness which may have afflicted
+their union was in some large measure conquered by mutual effort and
+discipline, and bore from time to time those rarer flowers whose beauty
+and sweetness repay the conscious culture of the soul? It seems
+difficult to imagine that a man who succeeded in charming so many
+different acquaintances, and in remaining life-long friends with the
+testy and inconsiderate Pirkheimer, should have altogether failed to
+create a relation kindly and even beautiful with his Agnes, whose
+portrait we surely have at her best in the drawing at Bremen.
+Considerations as to the general position of married women in those days
+need not prevent us of our natural desire to think as well as possible
+of Dürer and his circumstances. We know that for a great many men the
+wife was not simply counted among their goods and chattels, or regarded
+as a kind of superior servant. We are able to take a peep at many a
+fireside of those days, where the relations that obtained, however
+different in certain outward characters, might well shame the greater
+number of the respectable even in the present year of grace. We know
+what Luther was in these respects; and have rather more than less reason
+to expect from the refined and gracious Dürer the creation of a worthy
+and kindly home. Why should we expect him to have been less successful
+than his parents in these respects?
+
+[Illustration: AGNES FREY. DÜRER'S WIFE (?)--Silver-point drawing
+heightened with white on a dun paper. Kunsthalle, Bremen]
+
+[Illustration: "MEIN ANGNES"--Pen sketch of the artist's wife, in the
+Albertina at Vienna]
+
+
+VIII
+
+Some time after the marriage it happened that my father was so ill with
+dysentery that no one could stop it. And when he saw death before his
+eyes he gave himself willingly to it, with great patience, and he
+commended my mother to me, and exhorted me to live in a manner pleasing
+to God. He received the Holy Sacraments and passed away Christianly (as
+I have described at length in another book) in the year 1502, after
+midnight, before S. Matthew's eve (September 20). God be gracious and
+merciful to him.
+
+The only leaf of the "other book" referred to that has survived is that
+which I have already quoted at length.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+
+I
+
+Now let us consider what the world was like in which this virile,
+accurate and persevering spirit had grown up. Over and over again, the
+story of the New Birth has been told; how it began in France, and met an
+untimely fate at the hands of English invaders, then took refuge in
+Italy, where it grew to be the wonder of the world; and how the
+corruption of the ruling classes and of the Church, with the indignation
+and rebellion that this gave rise to, combined to frustrate the promise
+of earlier days.
+
+When the Roman Empire gradually became an anarchy of hostile fragments,
+every large monastery, every small town, girded itself with walls and
+tended to become the germ of a new civilisation. Popes, kings, and great
+lords, haunted by reminiscence of the vanished empire, made spasmodic
+attempts to subject such centres to their rule and tax them for their
+maintenance. In the first times, the Church--the See of Rome--made by
+far the most successful attempt to get its supremacy acknowledged, and
+had therefore fewer occasions to resort to violence. It was more
+respected and more respectable than the other powers which claimed to
+rule and tax these immured and isolated communities dotted over Europe;
+but as time went on, the Church became less and less beneficent, more
+and more tyrannical. Meanwhile kings and emperors, having learned wisdom
+by experience, found themselves in a position to take advantage of the
+growing bad odour of the Church; and by favouring the civil communities
+and creating a stable hierarchy among the class of lords and barons from
+which they had emerged, were at last able to face the Church, with its
+_protégés,_ the religious communities, on an equal footing.
+
+The religious communities, owing to the vow of celibacy, had become more
+and more stagnant, while the civil communities increased in power to
+adapt themselves to the age. All that was virile and creative combined
+in the towns; all that was inadequate, sterile, useless, coagulated in
+the monasteries, which thus became cesspools, and ultimately took on the
+character of festering sores by which the civil bodies which had at
+first been purged into them were endangered. Luther tells us how there
+was a Bishop of Würzburg who used to say when he saw a rogue, "'To the
+cloister with you. Thou art useless to God or man.' He meant that in the
+cloister were only hogs and gluttons, who did nothing but eat and drink
+and sleep, and were of no more profit than as many rats." And the
+loathing that another of these sties created in the young Erasmus, and
+the difficulty he had to escape from the clutches of its inmates--never
+feeling safe till the Pope had intervened--show us that by their wealth
+and by the engine of their malice, the confessional (which they had
+usurped from the regular clergy), they were as formidable as they were
+useless. It became necessary that this antiquated system of social
+drainage should be superseded.
+
+In England and Germany it was swept away. In centres like Nuremberg, the
+desire for reformation and the horror of false doctrine were grounded in
+practical experience of intolerable inconveniences, not in a clear
+understanding of the questions at issue. Intellectually, the leaders of
+the Reformation had no better foundation than those they opposed: for
+them, as for their opponents, the question was not to be solved by an
+appeal to evident truths and experience, but to historical documents and
+traditions, supposed, to be infallible. For a clear intelligence, there
+is nothing to choose between the infallibility of oecumenical councils
+or of Popes, and that of the Bible. Both have been in their time the
+expression of very worthy and very human sentiments; both are incapable
+of rational demonstration.
+
+
+II
+
+Scattered over Europe, wherever the free intelligence was waking and had
+rubbed her eyes, were men who desired that nuisances should be removed
+and reforms operated without schism or violence. To these Erasmus spoke.
+His policy was tentative, and did not proceed, like that of other
+parties, by declaring that a perfect solution was to hand. Luther's
+action divided these honest, upright souls, and would-be children of
+light, into three unequal camps.
+
+As a rule the downright, headstrong, and impatient became reformers. The
+respectful, cautious and long-suffering, such as More, Warham, and
+Adrian IV., clung to the Roman establishment, were martyred for it or
+broke their hearts over it. Erasmus and a handful of others remained
+true to a tentative policy, and, compared with their contemporaries,
+were meek and lowly in heart--became children of light. To them we now
+look back wistfully, and wish that they might have been, if not as
+numerous as the Churchmen and Beformers, at least a sufficient body to
+have made their influence an effective force, with the advantage of more
+light and more patience that was really theirs. But, alas! they only
+counted as the first dissolvent which set free more corrosive and
+detrimental acids. The exhilaration of action and battle was for others;
+for them the sad conviction that neither side deserved to be trusted
+with a victory. Yet, beyond the world whose chief interest was the
+Reformation, we may be sure that such men as Charles V., Michael Angelo,
+Rabelais, Montaigne, and all those whom they may be taken to represent,
+were in essential agreement with Erasmus. Luther and Machiavelli alone
+rejected the Papacy as such: the latter's more stringent intellectual
+development led him also to discard every ideal motive or agent of
+reform for violent means. He was ready even to regard the passions of
+men like Caesar Borgia, tyrants in the fullest sense of the word, as the
+engines by which civilisation, learning, art, and manners, might be
+maintained. Whereas Luther appealed to the passions of common honest
+men, the middle classes in fact. It is easy to let either Luther or
+Machiavelli steal away our entire sympathy. On the one hand, no
+compromise, not even the slightest, seems possible with criminal
+ruffians such as a Julius II. and an Alexander Borgia; on the other
+hand, the power swollen by the tide of minor corruption, which such men
+ruled by might, did come into the hands of a Leo X., an Adrian IV.; and
+though that power was obviously tainted through and through, it might
+have been mastered and wielded in the cause of reform. Erasmus hoped for
+this. Even Julius II. protected him from the superiors of his convent.
+Even Julius II. patronised Michael Angelo and Raphael and everything
+that had a definite character in the way of creative power or
+scholarship; and could appreciate at least the respect which what he
+patronised commanded. He could appreciate the respect commanded by the
+austerity and virtue of those who rebelled against him and denounced his
+cynical abuse of all his powers, whether natural or official. He liked
+to think he had enemies worth beating. Such a ruler is a sore temptation
+to a keen intellect. "Everything great is formative," and this Pope was
+colossal--a colossal bully and robber if you like--but the good he did
+by his patronage was real good, was practical. Michael Angelo and
+Raphael could work as splendidly as they desired. Erasmus was helped and
+encouraged. Timid honesty is often petty, does nothing, criticises and
+finds fault with artists and with learning, runs after them like Sancho
+Panza after Don Quixote, is helpless and ridiculous and horribly in the
+way. Leo X. was intelligent and well-meaning; wisdom herself might hope
+from such a man. Be the throne he is sitting on as monstrous and corrupt
+a contrivance as it may, yet it is there, it does give him authority; he
+is on it and dominates the world. It is easy to say, "But the period of
+the Renascence closed, its glory died away." Suppose Luther had been as
+subtle as he was whole-hearted, and had added to his force of character
+a delicacy and charm like that of St. Francis; or suppose that Erasmus
+instead of his schoolfellow Adrian IV. had become Pope; what a different
+tale there might have been to tell! Who will presume to point out the
+necessity by which these things were thus and not otherwise? "Regrets
+for what 'might have been' are proverbially idle," cries the historian
+from whom I have chiefly quoted. I do not recollect the proverb, unless
+he refers to "It is no use crying over spilt milk;" but in any case such
+regrets are far from being necessarily idle. "What might have been" is
+even generally "what ought to have been;" and no study has been or is
+likely to be so pregnant for us as the study of the contrast between
+"what was" and "what ought to have been," though such studies are
+inevitably mingled with regrets. We have every reason to regret that the
+Reformation was so hasty and ill-considered, and that the Papacy was as
+purblind as it was arrogant. The plant of the Roman Church machinery,
+which it had taken centuries to lay down, came into the hands of men who
+grossly ignored its function and the conditions of its working. They
+used its power partly for the benefit of the human race, by patronising
+art and scholarship; but chiefly in self-indulgence. If honest
+intelligence had been given control, a man so partially equipped for his
+task would not have been goaded into action; but only force, moral or
+physical, can act at a disadvantage; light and reason must have the
+advantage of dominant position to effect anything immediate. If they are
+not on the throne, all they can do is to sow seed, and bewail the
+present while looking forward to a better future. Now, most educated men
+are for tolerance, and see as Erasmus saw. We see that Savonarola and
+Luther were not so right as they thought themselves to be; we see that
+what they condemned as arrogancy and corruption is partly excusable--is
+in some measure a condition of efficiency in worldly spheres where one
+has to employ men already bad. True, the great princes and cardinals of
+those days not only connived at corruption and ruled by it, but often
+even professed it. Still in every epoch, under all circumstances, the
+majority of those who have governed men have more or less cynically
+employed means that will not bear the light of day. While these
+magnificoes of the Renascence do stand alone, or almost alone, by the
+ample generosity of their conception of the objects that power should be
+exerted in furtherance of; their outlook on life was more commensurate
+with the variety and competence of human nature than perhaps that of any
+ruling class has been before or since. As Shakespeare is the amplest of
+poets, so were theirs the most fruitful of courts. From the great
+Medicis to our own Elizabeth they all partake of a certain grandiose
+vitality and variety of intention.
+
+
+III
+
+Greatness demands self-assertion; self-assertion is a great virtue even
+in a Julius II. There is a vast deal of humbug in the use we make of the
+word humility. We talk about Christ's humility, but whose self-assertion
+has ever been more unmitigated? "I am the Way, the Truth, and the
+Light." "Learn of Me that I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls." No doubt it is the quality of the self asserted that
+justifies in our eyes the assertion; humility then is not opposed to
+self-assertion. When Michael Angelo shows that he thinks himself the
+greatest artist in the world, he is not necessarily lacking in humility;
+nor is Luther, asserting the authority of his conscience against the
+Pope and Emperor; nor Dürer, saying to us in those little finely-dressed
+portraits with which he signs his pictures, "I am that I am--namely, one
+of the handsomest of men and the greatest artist north of the Alps." Or
+when Erasmus lets us see that he thinks himself the most learned man
+living,--if he is the most learned, so much the better that he should
+know this also as well as the rest. The artist and the scholar were
+bound to feel gratitude for the corrupt but splendid Church and courts,
+which gave them so much both in the way of maintenance and opportunity.
+It may be asked, has all the honesty and the not always evident purity
+of Protestantism done so much for the world as those dissolute Popes and
+Princes? And the artist, judging with a hasty bias perhaps, is likely to
+answer no.
+
+
+IV
+
+For us nowadays the pith of history seems no more to be the lives of
+monarchs, or the fighting of battles, or even the deliberations of
+councils; these things we have more and more come to regard merely as
+tools and engines for the creation of societies, homes, and friends. And
+so, though religion and religious machinery dominated the life of those
+days, it is not in theological disputes, neither is it in oecumenical
+councils and Popes, nor in sermons, reformers, and synods, that we find
+the essence of the soul's life. Rather to us, the pictures, the statues,
+the books, the furniture, the wardrobes, the letters, and the scandals
+that have been left behind, speak to us of those days; for these we
+value them. And we are right, the value of the Renaissance lies in these
+things, I say "the scandals" of those days; for a part of what comes
+under that head was perhaps the manifestation of a morality based on a
+wider experience; though its association with obvious vices and its
+opposition to the old and stale ideals gave it an illegitimate
+character; while the re-establishment of the more part of those ideals
+has perpetuated its reproach. There can be no intellectual charity if
+the machinery and special sentences of current morality are supposed to
+be final or truly adequate. Their tentative and inadequate character,
+which every free intelligence recognises, is what endorses the wisdom of
+Jesus', saying, "Judge not that ye be not judged." Ordinary honest and
+good citizens do not realise how much that is in every way superior to
+the gifts of any single one of themselves is yearly sacrificed and
+tortured for their preservation as a class. On what agonies of creative
+and original minds is the safety of their homes based? These respectable
+Molochs who devour both the poor and the exceptionally gifted, and are
+so little better for their meal, were during the Renascence for a time
+gainsaid and abashed; yet even then their engines, the traditional
+secular and ecclesiastic policies, were a foreign encumbrance with which
+the human spirit was loaded, and which helped to prevent it from reaping
+the full result of its mighty upheaval.
+
+To see things as they are, and above all to value them for what is most
+essential in them with regard to the development of our own
+characters;--that is, I take it, consciously or unconsciously, the main
+effort of the modern spirit. On the world, the flesh, and the devil, we
+have put new values; and it was the first assertion of these new values
+which caused the Renascence. Fine manners, fine clothes, and varied
+social interchange make the world admirable in our eyes, not at all a
+bogey to frighten us. Health, frankness, and abundant exercise make the
+flesh a pure delight in our eyes; lastly, this new-born spirit has made
+"a moral of the devil himself," and so for us he has lost his terror.
+
+Rabelais was right when he laughed the old outworn values down, and
+declared that women were in the first place female, men in the first
+place male; that the written word should be a self-expression, a
+sincerity, not a task or a catalogue or a penance, but, like laughter
+and speech, essentially human, making all men brothers, doing away with
+artificial barriers and distinctions, making the scholar shake in time
+with the toper, and doubling the divine up with the losel; bidding even
+the lady hold her sides in company with the harlot. Eating and drinking
+were seen to be good in themselves; the eye and the nose and the palate
+were not only to be respected but courted; free love was better than
+married enmity. No rite, no church, no god, could annihilate these facts
+or restrain their influence any more than the sea could be tamed. Dürer
+was touched with this spirit; we see it in his fine clothes, in his
+collector's rapacity, above all in his letters to his friend
+Pirkheimer--a man more typical of that Rabelaisian age than Dürer and
+Michael Angelo, who were both of them not only modern men but men
+conservative of the best that had been--men in travail for the future,
+absorbed by the responsibility of those who create.
+
+Pirkheimer, one year Dürer's senior, was a gross fat man early in life,
+enjoying the clinking of goblets, the music of fork and knife, and the
+effrontery of obscene jests. A vain man, a soldier and a scholar,
+pedantic, irritable, but in earnest; a complimenter of Emperors, a
+leader of the reform party, a partisan of Luther's, the friend and
+correspondent of Erasmus, the elective brother of Dürer. The man was
+typical; his fellows were in all lands. Dürer was surprised to find how
+many of them there were at Venice--men who would delight Pirkheimer and
+delight in him. "My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you I don't know how it happens! ... men of sense and
+knowledge, good lute players and pipers, judges of painting, men of much
+noble sentiment and honest virtue; and they show me much honour and
+friendship." Something of all this was doubtless in Dürer too; but in
+him it was refined and harmonised by the sense and serious concern, not
+only for the things of to-day, but for those of to-morrow and yesterday;
+the sense of solidarity, the passion for permanent effect, eternal
+excellence. These things, in men like Pirkheimer, still more in Erasmus,
+and even in Rabelais and Montaigne, are not absent; but they are less
+stringent, less religious, than they are in a Dürer or a Michael Angelo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DÜRER AT VENICE
+
+
+I
+
+There are several reasons which may possibly have led Dürer to visit
+Venice in 1505. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German
+Merchants at Venice, had been burned down the winter before, and they
+were in haste to complete a new one. Dürer may have received assurance
+that the commission to paint the altar-piece for the new chapel would be
+his did he desire it. At any rate he seems to have set to work on such a
+picture almost as soon as he arrived there. It is strange to think that
+Giorgione and Titian probably began to paint the frescoes on the facade
+while he was still at work in the chapel, or soon after he left. The
+plague broke out in Nuremberg before he came away; but this is not
+likely to have been his principal motive for leaving home, as many
+richer men, such as his friend Pirkheimer, from whom he borrowed money
+for the journey, stayed where they were. Nor do Dürer's letters reveal
+any alarm for his friend's, his mother's, his wife's, or his brother's
+safety. He took with him six small pictures, and probably a great number
+of prints, for Venice was a first-rate market.
+
+
+II
+
+The letters which follow are like a glimpse of a distant scene in a
+_camera obscura_, and, like life itself, they are full of repetitions
+and over-insistence on what is insignificant or of temporary interest.
+To-day they call for our patience and forbearance, and it will depend
+upon our imaginative activity in what degree they repay them; even as it
+depends upon our power of affectionate assimilation in what degree and
+kind every common day adds to our real possessions.
+
+I have made my citations as ample as possible, so as to give the reader
+a just idea of their character while making them centre as far as
+possible round points of special interest.
+
+_To the honourable, wise Master Wilibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of Nürberg,
+my kind Master_. VENICE, _January 6, 1506._
+
+I wish you and yours many good, happy New Years. My willing service,
+first of all, to you dear Master Pirkheimer! Know that I am in good
+health; I pray God far better things than that for you. As to those
+pearls and precious stones which you gave me commission to buy, you must
+know that I can find nothing good or even worth its price. Everything is
+snapped up by the Germans who hang about the Riva. They always want to
+get four times the value for anything, for they are the falsest knaves
+alive. No one need look for an honest service from any of them. Some
+good fellows have warned me to beware of them, they cheat man and beast.
+You can buy better things at a lower price at Frankfurt than at Venice.
+
+[Illustration: Wilibald Pirkheimer--Charcoal Drawing, Dumesnil
+Collection, Paris _Face p._ 80]
+
+About the books which I was to order for you, the Imhofs have already
+seen after them; but if there is anything else you want, let me know and
+I will attend to it for you with all zeal. Would to God I could do you a
+right good service! gladly would I accomplish it, seeing, as I do, how
+much you do for me. And I pray you be patient with my debt, for indeed I
+think much oftener of it than you do. When God helps me home I will
+honourably repay you with many thanks; for I have a panel to paint for
+the Germans for which they are to pay me a hundred and ten Rhenish
+florins--it will not cost me as much as five. I shall have scraped it and
+laid on the ground and made it ready within eight days; then I shall at
+once begin to paint and, if God will, it shall be in its place above the
+altar a month after Easter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VENICE, _February 17_, 1506.
+
+How I wish you were here at Venice! There are so many nice men among the
+Italians who seek my company more and more every day--which is very
+pleasing to one--men of sense and knowledge, good lute-players and
+pipers, judges of painting, men of much noble sentiment and 'honest
+virtue, and they show me much honour and friendship. On the other hand
+there are also amongst them some of the most false, lying, thievish
+rascals; I should never have believed that such were living in the
+world. If one did not know them, one would think them the nicest men the
+earth could show. For my own part I cannot help laughing at them
+whenever they talk to me. They know that their knavery is no secret but
+they don't mind.
+
+Amongst the Italians I have many good friends who warn me not to eat and
+drink with their painters. Many of them are my enemies and they copy my
+work in the churches and wherever they can find it; and then they revile
+it and say that the style is not _antique_ and so not good. But Giovanni
+Bellini has highly praised me before many nobles. He wanted to have
+something of mine, and himself came to me and asked me to paint him
+something and he would pay well for it. And all men tell me what an
+upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very
+old, but is still the best painter of them all. And that which so well
+pleased me eleven years ago pleases me no longer, if I had not seen it
+for myself I should not have believed any one who told me. You must know
+too that there are many better painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo
+de' Barbari) is abroad (_wider darvsen Meister J._), yet Anton Kolb
+would swear an oath that no better painter lives than Jacob. Others
+sneer at him, saying if he were good he would stay here, and so forth.
+
+I have only to-day begun to sketch in my picture, for my hands were so
+scabby (_grindig_) that I could do no work with them, but I have got
+them cured.
+
+Now be lenient with me and don't get in a passion so easily, but be
+gentle like me. I don't know why you will not learn from me. My friend!
+I should like to know if any one of your loves is dead--that one close
+by the water for instance, or the one called [Illustration] or
+[Illustration] or a [Illustration] so that you might supply her place by
+another. ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+VENICE, February 28, 1506.
+
+I wish you had occasion to come here, I know you would not find time
+hang on your hands, for there are so many nice men in this country,
+right good artists. I have such a throng of Italians about me that at
+times I have to shut myself up. The nobles all wish me well, but few of
+the painters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VENICE, _April_ 2, 1506.
+
+The painters here, let me tell you, are very unfriendly to me. They have
+summoned me three times before the magistrates, and I have had to pay
+four florins to their school. You must also know that I might have
+gained a great deal of money if I had not undertaken to paint the German
+picture. There is much work in it and I cannot get it quite finished
+before Whitsuntide. Yet they only pay me eighty-five ducats for it. Now
+you know how much it costs to live, and then I have bought some things
+and sent some money away, so that I have not much before me now. But
+don't misunderstand me, I am firmly purposed not to go away hence till
+God enables me to repay you with thanks and to have a hundred florins
+over besides. I should easily earn this if I had not got the German
+picture to paint, for all men except the painters wish me well.
+
+Tell my mother to speak to Wolgemut about my brother, and to ask him
+whether he can make use of him and give him work till I come, or whether
+he can put him with some one else. I should gladly have brought him with
+me to Venice, and that would have been useful both to me and him, and he
+would have learnt the language, but my mother was afraid that the sky
+would fall on him. Pray keep an eye on him yourself, the women are no
+use for that. Tell the lad, as you so well can, to be studious and
+honest till I come, and not to be a trouble to his mother; if I cannot
+arrange everything I will at all events do all that I can. Alone I
+certainly should not starve, but to support many is too hard for me, for
+no one throws his gold away.
+
+Now I commend myself to you. Tell my mother to be ready to sell at the
+Crown-fair (_Heiligthumsfest_). I am arranging for my wife to have come
+home by then; I have written to her too about everything. I will not
+take any steps about buying the diamond ornament till I get your
+next letter.
+
+I don't think I shall be able to come home before next autumn, when what
+I earned for the picture, which was to have been ready by Whitsuntide,
+will be quite used up in living expenses, purchases, and payments; what,
+however, I gain afterwards I hope to save. If you see fit don't speak of
+this further, and I will keep putting off my leaving from day to day and
+writing as though I was just coming. I am indeed very uncertain what to
+do next. Write to me again soon.
+
+Given on Thursday before Palm Sunday in the year 1506. ALBRECHT DÜRER,
+Your Servant.
+
+VENICE, _August_ 18, 1506.
+
+_To the first, greatest man in the world. Your servant and slave
+Albrecht Dürer sends salutation to his Magnificent master Wilibald_
+Pirkheimer. _My truth! I hear gladly and with great satisfaction of your
+health and great honours. I wonder how it is possible for a man like you
+to stand against_ so many _wisest princes,_ swaggerers _and soldiers; it
+must be by some special grace of God. When I read your letter about this
+terrible grimace, it gave me a great fright and I thought it was a most
+important thing,_[15] but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's
+men,[16] you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it
+is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want
+to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to
+please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow
+as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so many loves that merely
+to pay each one a visit you would take a month or more before you got
+through the list.
+
+For one thing I return you my thanks, namely, for explaining my position
+in the best way to my wife; but I know that there is no lack of wisdom
+in you. If only you had my meekness you would have all virtues. Thank
+you also for all the good you have done me, if only you would not bother
+me about the rings! If they don't please you, break their heads off and
+pitch them out on to the dunghill as Peter Weisweber says. What do you
+mean by setting me to such dirty work? _I_ have become a _gentleman_
+at Venice.
+
+I have also heard that you can make lovely rhymes; you would be a find
+for our fiddlers here; they fiddle so beautifully that they can't help
+weeping over it themselves. Would God our Rechenmeister girl could hear
+them, she would cry too. At your bidding I will again lay aside my anger
+and bear myself even more bravely than usual.
+
+Now let me commend myself to you; give my willing service to our Prior
+for me; tell him to pray God for me that I may be protected, and
+especially from the French sickness; I know of nothing that I now dread
+more than that, for well nigh every one has got it. Many men are quite
+eaten up and die of it.
+
+VENICE, _September_ 8, 1506.
+
+Most learned, approved, wise, knower of many languages, sharp to detect
+all encountered lies and quick to recognise plain truth! Honourable
+much-regarded Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer. Your humble servant Albrecht
+Dürer wishes you all hail, great and worthy honour _in the devil's name,_
+so much for the twaddle of which you are so fond. I wager that for
+this[17] you would think me too an orator of a hundred parts. A chamber
+must have more than four corners which is to contain the gods of memory.
+I am not going to cram my head full of them; that I leave to you; for I
+believe that however many chambers there might be in the head, you would
+have something in each of them. The Margrave would not grant an audience
+long enough!--a hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred
+words, that takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs
+which I have not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the
+whole at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old
+driveller.
+
+I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot find any
+broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However I still look about
+every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.
+
+I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you his
+service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his Son, the nicest lad
+I ever saw.
+
+I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh, if only you were here!
+how you would like these fine Italian soldiers! How often I think of
+you! Would to God that you and Kunz Kamerer could see them! They have
+great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only touch a man with them
+he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey! I can do it well, I'll be an
+Italian soldier. The Venetians as well as the Pope and the King of
+France are collecting many men; what will come of it I don't know, but
+people ridicule our King very much.
+
+Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me. I don't wonder at his
+having taken a wife. Give my greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our
+fair friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister girl, and thank that
+head-chamber of yours alone for remembering her greeting; tell her she's
+a nasty one.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I sent you olive-wood from Venice to Augsburg, where I directed it to be
+left, a full ten hundredweight. She says she would not wait for it;
+_whence the stink_.
+
+My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it,
+it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned much praise
+but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could easily
+have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in order that
+I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the painters who used
+to say that I was good at engraving but, as to painting. I did not know
+how to handle my colours. Now every one says that better colouring they
+have never seen.
+
+My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes me that
+there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out even at
+this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting you
+pretend not to be more than twenty-five years old--oh, yes! double that
+and I'll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you; I don't know how it happens!
+
+The Doge and the Patriarch have also seen my picture. Herewith let me
+commend myself to you as your servant. I must really go to sleep as it
+is striking the seventh hour of the night, and I have already written to
+the Prior of the Augustines, to my father-in-law, to Mistress Dietrich,
+and to my wife, and they are all downright whole sheets full. So I have
+had to hurry over this letter, read it according to the sense. You would
+doubtless do better if you were writing to a lot of Princes. Many good
+nights and days too. Given at Venice on our Lady's day in September.
+
+You need not lend my wife and mother anything; they have got money
+enough,
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+VENICE, _September 23_, 1506.
+
+Your letter telling me of the praise that you get to overflowing from
+Princes and nobles gave me great delight. You must be altogether altered
+to have become so gentle; I shall hardly know you when I meet you again.
+
+You must know that my picture is finished as well as another
+_Quadro_[18] the like of which I have never painted before. And as you
+are so pleased with yourself, let me tell you that there is no better
+Madonna picture in the land than mine; for all the painters praise it,
+as the nobles do you. They say that they have never seen a nobler,
+more charming painting, and so forth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But in order to come home as soon as possible, I have, since my picture
+was finished, refused work that would have yielded me more than 2000
+ducats. This all men know who live about me here.
+
+Bernhard Holzbeck has told me great things of you, though I think he
+does so because you have become his brother-in-law. But nothing makes me
+more angry than when any one says that you are good-looking; if that
+were so I should become really ugly. That could make me mad. I have
+found a grey hair on myself, it is the result of so much excitement. And
+I fear that while I play such pranks with myself there are still bad
+days before me, &c.
+
+My French mantle, my doublet, and my brown coat send you a hearty
+greeting, I should be glad to see what great thing your head-piece can
+produce that you hold yourself so high.
+
+VENICE, _about October_ 13, 1506.
+
+Knowing that you are aware of my devotion to your service there is no
+need for me to write to you about it; but so much the more necessary is
+it for me to tell you of the great pleasure it gives me to hear of the
+high honour and fame which your manly wisdom and learned skill have
+brought you. This is the more to be wondered at, for seldom or never in
+a young body can the like be found. It comes to you, however, as to me,
+by a special grace of God. How pleased we both are when we fancy
+ourselves worth somewhat--I with my painting, and you with your wisdom.
+When any one praises us, we hold up our heads and believe him. Yet
+perhaps he is only some false flatterer who is scorning us all the time.
+So don't credit any one who praises you, for you've no notion how
+utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing
+before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly--behaving exactly as if
+you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing as you do. It did
+not escape me that, when you wrote your last letter, you were quite full
+of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an old fellow
+like you pretending to be so good-looking. Flirting pleases you in the
+same way that a shaggy old dog likes a game with a kitten. If you were
+only as fine and gentle a man as I, I could understand it. If I become
+burgomaster I will serve you with the Luginsland.[19] as you do to pious
+Zamesser and me. I will have you for once shut up there with the ladies
+Rechenmeister, Rosentaler, Gärtner, Schutz, and Pör, and many others
+whom for shortness I will not name; they must deal with you.
+
+People enquire more after me than you, for you yourself write that both
+girls and honourable wives ask after me--that is a sign of my virtue.
+When, however, God helps me home I don't know how I shall any longer
+stand you with your great wisdom; but for your virtue and good temper I
+am glad, and your dogs will be the better for it, for you will no longer
+strike them lame. Now however that you are thought so much of at home,
+you won't dare to talk to a poor painter in the street any more; to be
+seen with the painter varlet would be a great disgrace for you.
+
+O, dear Herr Pirkheimer, just now while I was writing to you, the alarm
+of fire was raised and six houses over by Pietro Venier are burnt, and a
+woollen cloth of mine, for which only yesterday I paid eight ducats, is
+burnt, so I too am in trouble. There is much excitement here about
+the fire.
+
+As to your summons to me to come home soon, I shall come as soon as ever
+I can, but I must first gain money for my expenses. I have paid away
+about 100 ducats for colours and other things. I have ordered you two
+carpets for which I shall pay to-morrow, but I could not get them cheap.
+I will pack them in with my linen.
+
+And as to your threat that, unless I come home soon, you will make love
+to my wife, don't attempt it--a ponderous fellow like you would be the
+death of her.
+
+I must tell you that I set to work to learn dancing and went twice to
+the school, for which I had to pay the master a ducat. No one could get
+me to go there again. To learn dancing I should have had to pay away all
+that I have earned, and at the end I should have known nothing about it.
+
+[Illustration: HANS BURGKMAIR--Black chalk drawing on yellowish prepared
+ground. The lights and background in watercolor may possibly have been
+added later At Oxford]
+
+In reply to your question when I shall come home, I tell you, so that my
+lords may also make their arrangements, that I shall have finished here
+in ten days; after that I should like to ride to Bologna to learn the
+secrets of the art of perspective, which a man is willing to teach me. I
+should stay there eight or ten days and then return to Venice. After
+that I shall come with the next messenger. How I shall freeze after this
+sun! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite.
+
+
+III
+
+Sir Martin Conway writes:
+
+He (Dürer) enjoyed Venice; he liked the Italians; he was oppressed with
+orders for work; the climate suited him, and the warm sun was a pleasant
+contrast to the snows and frost of a Franconian winter. But Dürer's
+German heart was true; its truth was the secret of his success.... The
+syren voice of Italy charmed to their destruction most Germans who
+listened to it. Brought face to face with the Italian Ideal of Grace,
+they one after another abandoned for it the Ideal of Strength peculiarly
+their own.
+
+We do not resort to these arguments to approve Holbein or Van Dyck for
+their long residence in England. I am not sure how much false sentiment
+inspired Thausing when he first praised Dürer in this strain; but I must
+confess I suspect it was no little. I incline to think that the best
+country for an artist is not always the one he was born in, but often
+that one where his art finds the best conditions to foster it. We do not
+honour Dürer by supposing that he would have been among that majority of
+Dutch and German artists who, weaker than Roger van der Weyden and
+Burgkmair, returned from Italy injured and enfeebled; even if he had
+passed the greater portion of his life with her syren voice in his ears.
+
+Dürer could not bring himself to undergo for art's sake what Michael
+Angelo endured; years of exile from a beloved native city, and, still
+worse, years of exile from the most congenial spiritual atmosphere.
+Nevertheless, we must remember that the difference of language would
+have made life in Venice for Dürer a much more complete exile than life
+in Verona was for Dante, or life in Rome for Michael Angelo. So he did
+not share the patronage and generous recognition which gave Titian such
+a splendid opportunity. He ceased for a time at least to be a gentleman
+to become a hanger-on, a parasite once more. At Antwerp he once more was
+met by the same generosity and recognition only to refuse again to
+accept it as a gift for life and return to his beloved Nuremberg, where
+it is true his position continually improved, though it never equalled
+what had been offered at Venice and Antwerp.
+
+
+IV
+
+The tone of some of the pleasantries in these letters may rather
+astonish good people who, having accepted the fact that Dürer was a
+religious man, have at once given him the tone and address of a meeting
+of churchwardens, if they have not conjured up a vision of him in a
+frock coat. "Things are what they are," said Bishop Butler, and so are
+women; boys will be boys. The distinctive functions of the two sexes
+were in those days kept more in view if not more in mind than is the
+case to-day. The fashions in dress and in deportment were particularly
+frank upon this point, especially for the young. One may allow as much
+as is desired for the corruption of manners produced by the civil and
+religious mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, and friars. There will
+always remain a certain truth and propriety, a certain grace and charm
+in those costumes and that deportment, as also in the freedom of jest
+which characterises even the most modest of Shakespeare's heroines; and
+under the influence of their spell we shall feel that all has not been
+gain in the change that has gradually been operated. No doubt virtue is
+a victory over nature, and chastity a refinement; but among conquerors
+some are easy and good-natured, others tactless, awkward, insulting; and
+among the chaste some are fearless and enjoy the freedom which courage
+and clear conscience give, others timid and suffer the oppression of
+their fears. Even among sinners some make the best of weaknesses and
+redeem them a great deal more than half, while others magnify smaller
+faults by lack of self-possession till they are an insupportable
+nuisance. We may well admit that from the successes of those days, those
+who succeed to our delight to-day may glean additional attractions.
+
+
+V
+
+We know that Dürer stopped on at Venice into the year 1507, by a note
+which he made in a copy of Euclid, now in the library at Wolfenbüttel.
+"This book have I bought at Venice for a ducat in the year 1507.
+Albrecht Dürer"; and by another stray note we learn the state of his
+worldly affairs on his return.
+
+The following is my property, which I have with difficulty acquired by
+the labour of my hand, for I have had no opportunity of great gain. I
+have moreover suffered much loss by lending what was not repaid me, and
+by apprentices who never paid their fees, and one died at Rome whereby I
+lost my wares.
+
+In the thirteenth year of my wedlock (Le., 1507-8) I have paid great
+debts with what I earned at Venice. I possess fairly good household
+furniture, good clothes, chests, some good pewter vessels, good
+materials for my work, bedding and cupboards, and good colours worth 100
+florins Rhenish.
+
+The wares that Dürer lost in Rome were doubtless chiefly woodcuts and
+engravings which his prentice had taken to sell during his
+_wanderjahre_, as Dürer himself during his own had very likely sold
+prints for Wolgemut. One of the reasons which had taken him to Venice
+may have been to summon Marc Antonio before the Signoria, for having
+copied not only his engravings, but the monogram with which he signed
+them; in any case he obtained a decree defending him against such
+artistic forgery. Dürer's most steady resource seems to have been the
+sale of prints; it is these that his wife had sold in his absence, and
+in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands there is constant mention
+of such sales. Nuremberg was very much behind Antwerp or Venice in the
+price paid for works of art; and the possibilities of such a market as
+Rome had very likely tempted Dürer to trust his prentice with an unusual
+quantity of prints. His worldly affairs were neither brilliant nor
+secure; yet we shall find him tempted on receiving an important
+commission to spend so much in time and material as to make it
+impossible for him to realise a profit. We are accustomed to think that
+these trials were spared to artists in the past by the munificence of
+patrons: but apart from the fact that patrons often paid only with
+promises or by granting credit, at Nuremberg there were few magnificent
+patrons, and its burghers were in no way so generous or so extravagant
+as those of Venice or Antwerp. In fact, Dürer's position was very
+similar to that of the modern artist, who finds little and insufficient
+patronage, and can make more if he is lucky by the reproduction of his
+creations for the great public. But Dürer still had one advantage over
+his fellow-sufferers of to-day--that of being his own publisher.
+Doubtless portraits were as popular then as nowadays; but if the public
+taste had not been prostituted by a seductive commercialism to the
+degree that at present obtains, on the other hand, at Nuremberg at
+least, the fashion seems to have been very little developed; and most of
+Dürer's important portraits seem to have been the result of his sojourns
+away from home.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 15: Thus far the original is in bad Italian.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The retainers of Konz Schott, a neighbouring baron, at one
+time a conspicuous enemy of Nürnberg.]
+
+[Footnote 17: These words are in Italian in the original.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Prof. Thausing suggests that this "other _Quadro_" is the
+"Christ among the Doctors" in the Barberini Gallery at Rome--a picture
+containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The
+inscription states it to have been _opus quinque dierum_. At Brunswick
+there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are
+likewise in existence. In Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna of 1508 in the
+Borghese Gallery at Rome, the head of St. Onuphrius is taken from the
+model who sat for the front Pharisee on the left in Dürer's picture.]
+
+[Footnote 19: A Nürnberg prison.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DÜRER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
+
+
+I
+
+Dürer had hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise
+Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant
+_Adoration of the Magi_ in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of
+Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron,
+as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and
+criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly
+generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of
+Dürer's relations with his clients; they show him appealing always to
+the judgment of artists against the ignorant buyer, and giving more than
+he bargained to give, though thereby he eats up his legitimate profits;
+lastly, they show him vowing never again to enter upon work so
+unprofitable, but to give all his time to the creation of engravings and
+woodcuts. The first is written to Michael Behaim, who died in 1511, and
+had commissioned him to make a design for a woodcut of his coat of arms.
+
+DEAR MASTER MICHAEL BEHAIM,--I send you back the coat of arms again.
+Pray let it stay as it is. No one could improve it for you, for I made
+it artistically and with care. Those who see it and understand such
+matters will tell you so. If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up
+backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+[Illustration: Photograph J. Lowy--THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY,
+1511--From the painting at Vienna]
+
+The other letters concern the lost _Coronation of the Virgin_, the
+centre panel of an altar-piece of which the wings are still at
+Frankfurt, of which town Jacob Heller, who commissioned it, was a
+burgher. They were to be studio work, and are supposed to be chiefly due
+to Dürer's brother Hans. There is, however, one picture extant which
+gives an idea of the execution of the missing centre panel, the _Holy
+Trinity and All Saints_ at Vienna; which, in spite of his vow never to
+do such work again, was commenced shortly after the _Coronation_, and
+for a Nuremberg patron. How much he was paid for it is not known; but it
+cannot have been a really adequate sum, as towards the end of his life
+he writes to the Nuremberg Council, "I have not received from people in
+this town work worth five hundred florins, truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum, and not the fifth part of that has been profit." The
+preceding picture, referred to in the first letters, is the _Martyrdom
+of the Ten Thousand by Sapor II_. All three pictures were signed, like
+the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ by little finely-dressed portraits of
+the painter.
+
+NÜRNBERG, _August_ 28, 1507.
+
+I did not want to receive any money in advance on it till I began to
+paint it, which, if God will, shall be the next thing after the Prince's
+work;[20] for I prefer not to begin too many things at once and then I
+do not become wearied. The Prince too will not be kept waiting, as he
+would be if I were to paint his and your pictures at the same time, as I
+had intended. At all events have confidence in me, for, so far as God
+permits, I will yet according to my power make something that not many
+men can equal.
+
+Now many good nights to you. Given at Nürnberg on Augustine's day, 1507.
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NÜRNBERG, March 19, _1508_.
+
+Dear Herr Jacob Heller. In a fortnight I shall be ready with Duke
+Friedrich's work; after that I shall begin yours, and, as my custom is,
+I will not paint any other picture till it is finished. I will be sure
+carefully to paint the middle panel with my own hand; apart from that,
+the outer sides of the wings are already sketched in--they will be in
+stone colour; I have also had the ground laid. So much for news.
+
+I wish you could see my gracious Lord's picture; I think it would please
+you. I have worked at it straight on for a year and gained very little
+by it; for I only get 280 Rhenish gulden for it, and I have spent all
+that in the time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NÜRNBERG, _August 24, 1508_.
+
+Now I commend myself to you. I want you also to know that in all my days
+I have never begun any work that pleased me better than this picture of
+yours which I am painting. Till I finish it I will not do any other
+work; I am only sorry that the winter will so soon come upon me. The
+days grow so short that one cannot do much.
+
+I have still one thing to ask you; it is about the _MADONNA_[21] that
+you saw at my house; if you know of any one near you who wants a picture
+pray offer it to him. If a proper frame was put to it, it would be a
+beautiful picture, and you know that it is nicely done. I will let you
+have it cheap. I would not take less than fifty florins to paint one
+like it. As it stands finished in the house it might be damaged for me,
+so I would give you full power to sell it for me cheap for thirty
+florins--indeed, rather than that it should not be sold I would even let
+it go for twenty-five florins. I have certainly lost much food over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nürnberg, _November_ 4, 1508.
+
+I am justly surprised at what you say in it about my last letter: seeing
+that you can accuse me of not holding to my promises to you. From such a
+slander each and everyone exempts me, for I bear myself, I trust, so as
+to take my stand amongst other straightforward men. Besides I know well
+what I have written and promised to you, and you know that in my
+cousin's house I refused to promise you to make a good thing, because I
+cannot. But to this I did pledge myself, that I would make something for
+you that not many men can. Now I have given such exceeding pains to your
+picture, that I was led to send you the aforesaid letter. I know that
+when the picture is finished all artists will be well pleased with it.
+It will not be valued at less than 300 florins. I would not paint
+another like it for three times the price agreed, for I neglect myself
+for it, suffer loss, and earn anything but thanks from you.
+
+You further reproach me with having promised you that I would paint your
+picture with the greatest possible care that ever I could. That I
+certainly never said, or if I did I was out of my senses, for in my
+whole lifetime I should scarcely finish it. With such extraordinary care
+I can hardly finish a face in half a year; now your picture contains
+fully 100 faces, not reckoning the drapery and landscape and other
+things in it. Besides, who ever heard of making such a work for an
+altar-piece? no one could see it. But I think it was thus that I wrote
+to you--that I would paint the picture with great or more than ordinary
+pains because of the time which you waited for me.
+
+You need not look about for a purchaser for my Madonna, for the Bishop
+of Breslau has given me seventy-two florins for it, so I have sold it
+well. I commend myself to you. Given at Nürnberg in the year 1508, on
+the Sunday after All Saints' Day.
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NÜRNBERG, _March_ 21, 1509.
+
+I only care for praise from those who are competent to judge; and if
+Martin Hess praises it to you, that may give you the more confidence.
+You might also inquire from some of your friends who have seen it; they
+will tell you how it is done. And if you do not like the picture when
+you see it, I will keep it myself, for I have been begged to sell it and
+make you another. But be that far from me! I will right honourably hold
+with you to that which I have promised, taking you, as I do, for an
+upright man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NÜRNBERG, _July_ 10, 1509.
+
+As you go on to say that if you had not bargained with me for the
+picture you would never do so now, and that I may keep it--I return you
+this answer: to retain your friendship, if I had to suffer loss by the
+picture, I would have done so, but now since you regret the whole
+business and provoke me to keep the picture I will do so, and that
+gladly, for I know how to get 100 florins more for it than you would
+have given me. In future I would not take 400 florins to paint another
+such as this.
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+NÜRNBERG, _July_ 24, 1509. DEAR HERR HELLER, I have read the letter
+which you addressed to me. You write that you did not mean to decline
+taking the picture from me. To that I can only say that I don't
+understand what you do mean. When you write that if you had not ordered
+the picture you would not make the bargain again, and that I may keep it
+as long as I like and so on--I can only think that you have repented of
+the whole business, so I gave you my answer in my last letter.
+
+But, at Hans Imhof's persuasion, and having regard to the fact that you
+ordered the picture of me, and also because I should prefer it to find a
+place at Frankfurt rather than anywhere else, I have consented to send
+it to you for 100 florins less than it might well have brought me.
+
+I am reckoning that I shall thus render you a pleasing service;
+otherwise I know well how I could draw far greater pecuniary advantage
+from it, but your friendship is dearer to me than any such trifling sum
+of money. I trust however that you would not wish me to suffer loss over
+it when you are better off than I. Make therefore your own arrangements
+and commands. Given at Nürnberg on Wine-Tuesday before James'.
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+NÜRNBERG, _August 26_, 1509. First my willing service to you, dear Herr
+Jacob Heller. In accordance with your last letter I am sending the
+picture well packed and seen to in all needful points. I have handed it
+over to Hans Imhof and he has paid me another 100 florins. Yet believe
+me, on my honour, I am still out of pocket over it besides losing the
+time which I have bestowed upon it. Here in Nürnberg they were ready to
+give 300 florins for it, which extra 100 florins would have done very
+nicely for me had I not preferred to please and serve you by sending you
+the picture. For I value the keeping of your friendship at more than 100
+florins. I would also rather have this painting at Frankfurt than
+anywhere else in all Germany.
+
+If you think that I have behaved unfairly in not leaving the payment to
+your own free-will, you must bear in mind that this would not have
+happened if you had not written by Hans Imhof that I might keep the
+picture as long as I liked. I should otherwise gladly have left it to
+you even if thereby I had suffered a greater loss still. My impression
+of you is that, supposing I had promised to make you something for about
+ten florins and it cost me twenty, you yourself would not wish me to
+lose by it. So pray be content with the fact that I took 100 florins
+less from you than I might have got for the picture--for I tell you that
+they wanted to take it from me, so to speak, by force.
+
+I have painted it with great care, as you will see, using none but the
+best colours I could get. It is painted with good ultramarine under, and
+over, and over that again, some five or six times; and then after it was
+finished I painted it again twice over so that it may last a long time.
+If it is kept clean I know it will remain bright and fresh 500 years,
+for it is not done as men are wont to paint. So have it kept clean and
+don't let it be touched or sprinkled with holy water. I feel sure it
+will not be criticised, or only for the purpose of annoying me; and I
+answer for it it will please you well. No one shall ever compel me to
+paint a picture again with so much labour. Herr Georg Tausy himself
+besought me to paint him a Madonna in a landscape with the same care and
+of the same size as this picture, and he would give me 400 florins for
+it. That I flatly refused to do, for it would have made a beggar of me.
+Of ordinary pictures I will in a year paint a pile which no one would
+believe it possible for one man to do in the time. But very careful
+nicety does not pay. So henceforth I shall stick to my engraving, and
+had I done so before I should to-day have been a richer man by
+1000 florins.
+
+I may tell you also that, at my own expense, I have had for the middle
+panel a new frame made which has cost me more than six florins. The old
+one I have broken off, for the joiner had made it roughly; but I have
+not had the other fastened on, for you wished it not to be. It would be
+a very good thing to have the rims screwed on so that the picture may
+not be shaken.
+
+If anyone wants to see it, let it hang forward two or three finger
+breadths, for then the light is good to see it by. And when I come over
+to you, say in one, two, or three years' time, if the picture is
+properly dry, it must be taken down and I will varnish it over anew with
+some excellent varnish, which no one else can make; it will then last
+100 years longer than it would before. But don't let anybody else
+varnish it, for all other varnishes are yellow, and the picture would be
+ruined for you. And if a thing, on which I have spent more than a year's
+work, were ruined it would be grief to me. When you have it set up be
+present yourself to see that it gets no harm. Deal carefully with it,
+for you will hear from your own and from foreign painters how it
+is done.
+
+Give my greeting to your painter Martin Hess. My wife asks you for a
+_Trinkgeld_, but that is as you please, I screw you no higher, &c. And
+now I hold myself commended to you. Read by the sense, for I write in
+haste. Given at Nürnberg on Sunday after Bartholomew's, 1509.
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+NÜRNBERG, _October 12_, 1509.
+
+DEAR HERR JACOB HELLER, I am glad to hear that my picture pleases you,
+so that my labour has not been bestowed in vain. I am also happy that
+you are content about the payment--and that rightly, for I could have
+got 100 florins more for it than you have given me. But I preferred to
+let you have it, hoping, as I do, thereby to retain you as my friend
+down in your parts.
+
+My wife thanks you very much for the present you have made her; she will
+wear it in your honour. My young brother also thanks you for the two
+florins _Trinkgeld_ you sent him. And now I too thank you myself for all
+the honour &c. In reply to your question how the picture should be
+adorned I send you a slight design of what I should do if it were mine,
+but you must do what you like. Now, many happy times to you. Given on
+Friday before Gall's, 1509. ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+Dürer must have commenced the All Saints picture almost immediately
+after having finished Heller's _Coronation of the Virgin_. Perhaps he
+had practically accepted the commission from Matthsus Landauer before he
+wrote to Heller that he would never again undertake a picture with so
+much work and labour in it, for he afterwards was as good as his word.
+This new work was for the chapel of an almshouse founded by Landauer and
+Erasmus Schiltkrot for twelve old men citizens of Nuremberg. The
+original frame designed by Dürer is now in the Germanic Museum, though a
+copy has replaced the picture. After the completion of the _Trinity and
+All Saints_, Dürer apparently carried out his threat and gave up
+painting for a dozen years, devoting his energies more especially to a
+magnificent series of engravings on copper. He also completed his series
+of wood engravings and published them with text, and produced a number
+of single cuts, many of them among his very best, like the _Assumption
+of the Magdalen_, and the _St. Christopher_, here reproduced.
+
+[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER Woodcut, B. 103]
+
+[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MAGDALEN Woodcut, B. 121]
+
+
+II
+
+In 1514 his mother died. He has recounted her death twice over, as he
+did that of his father already cited; for the single surviving leaf of
+the "other book" happens to contain this also. In the briefer
+chronicle he says:
+
+Two years after my Father's death (i.e., 1504) I took my Mother into my
+house, for she had nothing more to live upon. So she dwelt with me till
+the year 1513, as they reckon it; when, early one Tuesday morning, she
+was taken suddenly and deadly ill, and thus she lay a whole year long.
+And a whole year after the day she was first taken ill, she received the
+holy sacraments and christianly passed away two hours before
+nightfall--it was on a Tuesday, the 17th day of May in the year 1514. I
+said the prayers for her myself. God Almighty be gracious to her.
+
+The account in the "other book" is more circumstantial:
+
+Now you must know that, in the year 1513, on a Tuesday before Rogation
+week, my poor afflicted Mother, whom two years after my Father's death,
+as she was quite poor, I took into my house, and after she had lived
+nine years with me, was one morning suddenly taken so deadly ill that we
+broke into her chamber; otherwise, as she could not open, we had not
+been able to come to her. So we carried her into a room downstairs and
+she received both sacraments, for every one thought she would die,
+because ever since my Father's death she had never been in good health.
+
+Her most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always
+upbraided me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great
+anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went out or in
+her saying was always, "Go in the name of Christ." She constantly gave
+us holy admonitions with deep earnestness and she always had great
+thought for our souls' health. I cannot enough praise her good works and
+the compassion she showed to all, as well as her high character.
+
+This my pious Mother bare and brought up eighteen children; she often
+had the plague and many other severe and strange illnesses, and she
+suffered great poverty, scorn, contempt, mocking words, terrors, and
+great adversities. Yet she bore no malice.
+
+In 1514 (as they reckon it), on a Tuesday--it was the 17th day of
+May--two hours before nightfall and more than a year after the
+above-mentioned day in which she was taken ill, my Mother, Barbara
+Dürer, christianly passed away, with all the sacraments, absolved by
+papal power from pain and sin. But she first--gave me her blessing and
+wished me the peace of God, exhorting me very beautifully to keep myself
+from sin. She asked also to drink S. John's blessing, which she
+then did.
+
+She feared Death much, but she said that to come before God she feared
+not. Also she died hard, and I marked that she saw something dreadful,
+for she asked for the holy-water, although, for a long time, she had not
+spoken. Immediately afterwards her eyes closed over. I saw also how
+Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and how she closed mouth
+and eyes and departed with pain. I repeated to her the prayers. I felt
+so grieved for her that I cannot express it. God be merciful to her.
+
+To speak of God was ever her greatest delight, and gladly she beheld the
+honour of God. She was in her sixty-third year when she died and I have
+buried her honourably according to my means.
+
+[Illustration: "1514, on Oculi Sunday (March 19). This is Albrecht
+Dürer's mother; she was 63 years of age." After her death he added in
+ink, "And departed this life in the year 1514 on Tuesday Holy Cross Day
+(May 16) at two o'clock in the night" Charcoal-drawing. Royal Print
+Room, Berlin]
+
+God, the Lord, grant me that I too may attain a happy end, and that God
+with his heavenly host, my Father, Mother, relations, and friends may
+come to my death. And may God Almighty give unto us eternal life. Amen.
+
+And in her death she looked much sweeter than when she was still alive.
+
+
+III
+
+Such was the home life of this great artist; and from homes presenting
+variations on this type proceeded probably all the giants of the
+Renaissance, whose work we think so surpasses in effort, in scope, and
+in efficiency, all that has been achieved since. This Christianity was
+unreformed; it existed side by side with dissolute monasteries and
+worldly cynical prelates, surrounded by sordid hucksters and brutal
+soldiery. Turn to Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet, and we see that it
+existed in London, among the burghers, even in the household of a Lord
+Mayor. We are almost forced on the reflection that nothing that has
+succeeded to it has produced men equal to those who sprang immediately
+out of it.
+
+However much and however justly the assurance of Christian assertion in
+the realm of theory may be condemned, the success of the Christian life,
+wherever it has approached a conscientious realisation, stands out among
+the multitudinous forms of its corruption; and those who catch sight of
+it are almost bound to exclaim in the spirit of Shakespeare's:
+
+  "How far that little candle throws his beams!
+   So shines a good deed in a naughty world."
+
+I have heard a Royal Academician remark how even the poorest copies and
+reproductions of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture retain something of
+the charm and dignity of the original: whereas the quality of modern
+work is quickly lost in a reduction or even in a cast. I believe this
+may be best explained by the fact that the chief research of the Greek
+artist was to establish a beautiful proportion between the parts and the
+whole; and that fidelity to nature, dexterity of execution, the
+symbolism of the given subject, and even the finish of the surfaces,
+were always when necessary sacrificed to this. Whereas in modern work,
+even when the proportions of the whole are considered, which is rarely
+the case, they are almost without exception treated as secondary to one
+or more of these other qualities. Is it not possible that Jesus in his
+life laid down a proportion, similar to that of Greek masterpieces for
+the body, between the efforts and intentions which create the soul and
+pour forth its influence?--a proportion which, when it has been once
+thoroughly apprehended, may be subtly varied to suit new circumstances,
+and produce a similar harmony in spheres of activity with which Jesus
+himself had not even a distant connection? We often find that the rudest
+copies from copies of his actual life are like the biscuit china Venus
+of Milo sold by the Italian pedlar, which still dimly reflects the main
+beauties of the marble in the Louvre.
+
+
+IV
+
+In 1512 Kaiser Maximilian came to Nuremberg, and soon afterward Dürer
+began working for him. The employment he found for the greatest artist
+north of the Alps was sufficiently ludicrous; and perhaps Dürer showed
+that he felt this, by treating the major portion as studio work; though,
+no doubt, the impatience of his imperial patron in a measure
+necessitated the employment of many aids.
+
+It is difficult to do justice to the fine qualities of Maximilian.
+Perhaps he was not really so eccentric as he seems. The oddity of his
+doings and sayings may be perhaps more properly attributed to his having
+been a thorough German. The genial men of that nation, even to-day and
+since it has come more into line in point of culture with France and
+England, are apt to have a something ludicrous or fantastic clinging to
+them; even Goethe did not wholly escape. Maximilian was strong in body
+and in mind, and brimming over with life and interest. We are told that
+when a young man he climbed the tower of Ulm Cathedral by the help of
+the iron rings that served to hold the torches by which it was
+illuminated on high days and holidays. Again we read: "A secretary had
+embezzled 3000 gulden. Maximilian sent for him and asked what should be
+done to a confidential servant who had robbed his master. The secretary
+recommended the gallows. 'Nay, nay,' the Emperor said, and tapped him on
+the shoulder, 'I cannot spare you yet'"; an anecdote which reveals more
+good sense and a larger humanity than either monarchs or others are apt
+to have at hand on such vexing occasions. Thausing says admirably, "A
+happy imagination and a great idea of his exalted position made up to
+him for any want of success in his many wars and political
+negotiations," and elsewhere calls him the last of the "nomadic
+emperors," who spent their lives travelling from palace to palace and
+from city to city, beseeching, cajoling, or threatening their subjects
+into obedience. He himself said, "I am a king of kings. If I give an
+order to the princes of the empire, they obey if they please, if they do
+not please they disobey." He was even then called "the last of the
+knights," because he had an amateurish passion for a chivalry that was
+already gone, and was constantly attempting to revive its costumes and
+ordinances. Then, like certain of the Pharaohs of Egypt, he was pleased
+to read of, and see illustrated by brush and graver, victories he had
+never won, and events in which he had not shone. He himself dictated or
+planned out those wonderful lives or allegories of a life which might
+have been his. It was on such a work of futile self-glorification that
+he now wished to employ Dürer.
+
+The novelty of the art of printing, and the convenience to a nomadic
+emperor of a monument that could be rolled up, suggested the form of
+this last absurdity--a monster woodcut in 92 blocks which, when joined
+together, produced a picture 9 feet by 10, representing what had at
+first been intended as an imitation of a Roman triumphal arch; but so
+much information about so many more or less dubious ancestors, &c., had
+to be conveyed by quaint and conceited inventions, that in the end it
+was rather comparable to the confusion of a Juggernaut car, which
+never-the-less imposes by a barbarous wealth and magnificence of
+fantastic detail. And to this was to be joined another monster,
+representing on several yards of paper a triumphal procession of the
+emperor, escorted by his family, and the virtues of himself and
+ancestors, &c. Such is fortune's malice that Dürer, who alone or almost
+alone had conceived of the simplicity of true dignity and the beauty of
+choice proportions and propriety, should have been called upon by his
+only royal patron to superintend a production wherein the rank and
+flaccid taste of the time ran riot. The absurdity, barbarism, and
+grotesque quaintness of this monument to vanity cannot be laid
+exclusively at Maximilian's door; for the architecture, particularly of
+the fountains, in Altdorfer's or Manuel's designs, and in those of many
+others, reveals a like wantonness in delighted elaboration of the
+impossible and unstructural. The scholars and pedantic posturers who
+surrounded the emperor no doubt improved and abetted. Probably it was
+this Juggernaut element, inherited from the Gothic gargoyle, which
+Goethe censured when he said that "Dürer was retarded by a gloomy
+fantasy devoid of form or foundation." Perhaps this was written at a
+period when the great critic was touched with that resentment against
+the Middle Ages begotten by the feeling that his own art was still
+encumbered by its irrational and confused fantasy. We who certainly are
+able to take a more ample view of Dürer's situation in the art of his
+times, see that he is rather characterised by an effort which lay in
+exactly the same direction as that of Goethe's own; and while
+sympathising with the irritation expressed, can also admire the great
+engraver for having freed himself in so large a degree from the
+influence of fantasy "devoid of form and foundation," even as the
+justest Shakespearean criticism admires the degree in which the author
+of Othello freed himself from Elizabethan conceits. It is difficult to
+appreciate the difference for a great artist in having the general taste
+with rather than against the purer tendencies of his art. Probably the
+Greeks and certain Italians owe their freedom from eccentricity, in a
+very large measure, to this cause. But I intend to treat these questions
+more at length in dealing with Dürer's character as an artist and
+creator. It was necessary to touch on the subject here, because
+Maximilian embodies the peculiar and fantastic aftergrowth, which
+sprouted up in some northern minds from the old stumps remaining from
+the great mediaeval forest of thoughts and sentiments which had
+gradually fallen into decay. All around, even in the same minds, waved
+the saplings of the New Birth when these old stumps put forth their so
+fantastic second youth, seeming for a time to share in the new vigour,
+though they were never to attain expansion and maturity.
+
+
+V
+
+Thausing shrewdly remarks, "This love of fame and naïve delight in the
+glorification of his own person are further proofs that the Emperor Max
+was the true child of his age. No one was so akin to him in this respect
+as the painter of his choice, Albert Dürer." This last is a reference to
+those strutting, finely-dressed portraits of the artist which stand
+beside the entablatures bearing his name, that of his birthplace, the
+date, &c., in four out of the five most elaborate pictures which Dürer
+painted. But I would like to suggest that probably this apparent
+resemblance to his royal patron is not thus altogether well accounted
+for. May there not have been something of Homer's invocation of his
+Muse, or of that sincerity which makes Dante play such a large part in
+the "Divine Comedy"?--something resembling the ninth verse of the
+Apocalypse: "I John, who also am your brother and companion in
+tribulation ... was in the isle that is called Patmos ... and heard
+behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying...." Those little
+strutting portraits of himself sprung, perhaps, out of this relation to
+those about him of the man by native gift very superior, who is not made
+contemptuous or inclined to emphasise his isolation, but who is ever
+ready to say, "It is I, be not afraid." The man who painted and
+conceived this is the man you know, whom you have admired because he
+carried his fine clothes so well in your streets. Here I am even in the
+midst of this massacre of saints, I have conceived it all and taken a
+whole year to elaborate it; and since you see me looking so cool and
+well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or
+overwhelmed. Such is ever the naïvety of great souls among those whose
+culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among
+little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a
+selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a
+foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust,
+they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and
+console, for whose sakes they will even hide whatever in them is really
+unworthy of such admiration and such trust.
+
+We do not easily realise the corporate character of life in those days.
+Very much that seems to us quaint and absurd drew proper significance
+from the practical solidarity that then obtained; what appears to us a
+strange vanity or parade may have appeared to them respect for the
+guild, the town, the country to which they belonged. Dürer signed
+"Noricus,"--of Nuremberg;--and preferred its little lucrative
+citizenship to those more remunerative offered by Venice and Antwerp.
+"Let all the world behold how fine the artist of Nuremberg is." Just as
+he says, "God gave me diligence," so it seems natural to him to
+attribute a large half of his fame and glory to his native town. In many
+respects the great man of those days felt less individual than an
+ordinary man does now; for classes did not so merge one into the other,
+and their character was more distinct and authoritative. The little
+portrait of himself added to those wonderful _tours-de-force_ made them
+something that belonged to Nuremberg and to Germans. Even so it would be
+with some treasure cup, all gold and jewels, belonging to a village
+schoolmaster, which none of his neighbours dared look at save in his
+presence; for he was the son of a great baron whom his elder brothers
+robbed of everything except this, and his presence among them alone made
+them able to feel that it really belonged to their village, was theirs
+in a fashion. These suggestions will not, I think, appear fantastic to
+those who ponder on the apparently vainglorious address of much of
+Dürer's work, and keep in mind such a passage from his writings as this:
+
+"I would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver and gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something
+burning, and ye all add to it skilful furthering, a blaze may in time
+arise therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world."[22]
+
+But still, even if such considerations may bring many to accept my
+explanation of this contrast, I do not want to over-insist on it. I
+think that wherever men have been superior in character, as well as in
+gift or rank, to those about them, something of this spirit of the good
+eldest child in a family is bound to be manifested. But just as such a
+child may be veritably boastful and vain at other times,--however purely
+now and then, in crises of apparent difficulty or danger, its vaunt and
+strut may spring from real kindness and a considerate wish to inspire
+courage in the younger and weaker;--so doubtless there was a
+haughtiness, sometimes a fault, in Dürer as in Milton.
+
+
+VI
+
+But we have been led a long way from Kaiser Max and his portable
+monument. The reader will re-picture how the court arrived at Nuremberg
+like a troop of actors, whose performance was really their life, and was
+taken quite seriously and admired heartily by the good and solid
+burghers. This old comedy, often farce, entitled "The Importance of
+Authority," is no longer played with such a telling make-up, or with
+such showy properties as formerly, but is still as popular as ever; as
+we Londoners know, since the last few years have given us perhaps an
+over-dose of processions, illuminations, &c. &c. In this case the chief
+actors in the show piece were men of mark of an exceptionally
+entertaining character; with many of them Dürer and Pirkheimer were soon
+on the best of terms.
+
+Foremost, Johann Stabius, the companion of the Emperor for sixteen years
+without intermission in war and in peace, who was associated with Dürer
+to provide the written accompaniment for the monument; a literary
+jack-of-all-trades of ready wit and lively presence. A contemporary
+records: "The emperor took constant pleasure in the strange things which
+Stabius devised, and esteemed him so highly that he instituted a new
+chair of Astronomy and Mathematics for him at Vienna," in the Collegium
+Poetarum et Mathematicorum founded in the year 1501, under the
+presidency of Conrad Celtes.
+
+In all probability there would have been besides the learned protonotary
+of the supreme court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in
+the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of
+Dürer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later,
+still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes,
+and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the
+thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to be in vain.
+
+It may be that Dürer then met for the first time too the Imperial
+architect, Johannes Tscherte, for whom he afterwards drew two armillary
+spheres, to take the place of those on which he had cast ridicule; for
+Pirkheimer wrote to Tscherte: "I wish you could have heard how Albert
+Dürer spoke to me about your plate, in which there is not one good
+stroke, and laughed at me. What honour it will do us when it makes its
+appearance in Italy, and the clever painters there see it!" To which
+Tscherte replied: "Albert Dürer knows me well, he is also well aware
+that I love art, though I am no expert at it; let him if he likes
+despise my plate, I never pretended it was a work of art." And in a
+later letter he speaks "of the armillary spheres drawn by our common
+friend Albert Dürer." He was one of those who helped Dürer in his
+mathematical and geometrical studies; and he, like Pirkheimer, dedicated
+books to him. Although the mathematics of those times are hardly
+considered seriously nowadays, they then ranked with verse-making as a
+polite accomplishment, and had all the charm of novelty. Dürer, no
+doubt, had some gift that way, as he seems to have made a hobby of them
+during many years. Besides those who came in the Imperial troop, Dürer
+had many opportunities of meeting men of this kind, for such were
+constantly passing through Nuremberg. Dürer has left us what are
+evidently portraits of some whose names are lost: of others we have both
+name and likeness, among them the English ambassador, Lord Morley.
+
+In 1515 "Rafahel de' Urbin, who is held in such high esteem by the Pope,
+he made these naked figures and sent them to Albrecht Dürer at Nuremberg
+to show him his hand." This shows us that travellers through Nuremberg
+sometimes brought with them something of the breath of the great
+Renaissance in Italy. The drawing, which bears the above inscription in
+Dürer's own handwriting on the back, is a fine one in red sanguine,
+representing the same male model in two different poses, in the
+Albertina. Raphael had, we are told by Lodovico Dolce, drawings,
+engravings, and woodcuts of Dürer's hanging in his studio; and Vasari
+tells us he said: "If Dürer had been acquainted with the antique he
+would have surpassed us all." The Nuremberg master, in return for the
+drawing, sent a portrait of himself to Raphael, which has unfortunately
+been lost. There appears to have been quite a rage for Dürer's work in
+Italy, and above all at Rome: we know that it provoked Michael Angelo to
+remonstrate; probably on many lips it was merely a vaunt of superior
+knowledge or taste, as rapture over the conjectural friends or aids of a
+great quatrocentist is to-day. The tokens of esteem which he won from
+distinguished travellers, and this drawing which reached him testifying
+to the interest and friendship felt for him by the Italian whose fame
+was most widespread, must have been full of encouragement, and have
+compensated in some measure for the feeling he had that he was only a
+hanger-on at Nuremberg, though he might still have been "a gentleman" in
+Venice. Yet Nuremberg itself furnished many desirable or notable
+acquaintances. There was Dürer's neighbour, the jurist, Lazarus
+Spengler; later the most prominent reformer in Nuremberg, who in 1520
+dedicated to him his "Exhortation and Instruction towards the leading of
+a virtuous life," addressing him as "his particular and confidential
+friend and brother," whom he considers, "without any flattery, to be a
+man of understanding, inclined to honesty and every virtue, who has
+often in our daily familiar intercourse been to me in no common degree a
+pattern and an example to a more circumspect way of life;" whom,
+finally, he asks to improve his little book to the best of his ability.
+Dürer had before this rendered him service in designing his coat of arms
+for a woodcut and furnishing a frontispiece to his translation of
+Eusebius' "Life of St. Jerome." He was, moreover, a poet, author of "an
+often-translated song"; he wrote verses to discourage Dürer from
+spending his time in producing the doggerel rhymes which at one time he
+was moved to attempt,--framing poems of didactic import, and publishing
+one or two on separate sheets with a woodcut at the top, in spite of the
+inappreciative reception given to them by Spengler and Pirkheimer.
+Besides Spengler, there were "Christopher Kress, a soldier, a traveller,
+and a town councillor;" and Caspar Nützel, of one of the oldest
+families, and Captain-general of the town bands. Both of these went with
+Dürer to the Diet at Augsburg in 1518. The martial Paumgartners were two
+brothers for whom Dürer painted the early triptych at Munich (see page
+204). One of them is supposed to figure as St. George in the All Saints
+picture. Lastly, there were the Imhoffs, the merchant princes of
+Nuremberg, as the Fuggers were at Augsburg. A son of the family married
+Felicitas, Pirkheimer's favourite daughter, in 1515, and Dürer stood
+godfather to their little Hieronymus in 1518. It is easy to imagine that
+there was many a supper and dinner, when a thousand strange subjects
+were even more strangely discussed; when Pirkheimer now made them roar
+with a hazardous joke, or again dumbfounded them with Greek quotations
+pompously done into German, or made their flesh creep and the
+superstitions of their race stir in them by mysteriously enlarging on
+his astrological lore,--for to his many weaknesses he added this, which
+was then scarcely recognised as one.
+
+
+VII
+
+In spite of all his wealthy and influential friends, Dürer found it
+difficult to get the emperor to indemnify him for his labours, though
+the Town Council had received a royal mandate as early as 1512 from
+Landau. The following is an extract:
+
+Whereas our and the Empire's trusty Albrecht Dürer has devoted much zeal
+to the drawings he has made for us at our command, and has promised
+henceforth ever to do the like, whereat we have received particular
+pleasure; and whereas we are informed on all hands that the said Dürer
+is famous in the art of painting before all other Masters: we have
+therefore felt ourself moved, to further him with our especial grace,
+and we accordingly desire you with earnest solicitude, for the affection
+you bear us, to make the said Dürer free of all town imposts, having
+regard to our grace and to his famous art, which should fairly turn to
+his profit with you, &c.
+
+The town councillors sent some of their principal members to treat with
+Dürer, and he resigned his claim "in order to honour the said
+councillors and to maintain their privileges, usages, and rights." In
+1515 the drawings for the "Gate of Honour" were finished, and Dürer
+began to press again for pay. Stabius had promised to speak for him, but
+nothing had come of it. Albrecht thought Christoph Kress could be of
+more avail; so he wrote to him:
+
+(No date, but certainly 1515). DEAR HERR KRESS, The first thing I have
+to ask you is to find out from Herr Stabius whether he has done anything
+in my business with his Imperial Majesty, and how it stands. Let me know
+this in the next letter you write to my Lords. Should it happen that
+Herr Stabius has made no move in the matter, ... Point out in particular
+to his Imperial Majesty that I have served his Majesty for three years,
+spending my own money in so doing, and if I had not been diligent the
+ornamental work would have been nowise so successfully finished. I
+therefore pray his Imperial Majesty to recompense me with the 100
+florins--all which you know well how to do. You must know also that I
+made many other drawings for his Majesty besides the "Triumph."
+
+Not long after this, Maximilian, by a _Privilegium_ (dated Innsbruck,
+September 6, 1515), settled an annual pension of 100 florins on
+the artist.
+
+We Maximilian, by God's grace, &c., make openly known by this letter for
+ourself and our successors in the Empire, and to each and every one to
+wit, that we have regarded and considered the art, skill, and
+intelligence for which our and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved
+Albrecht Dürer has been praised before us, and likewise the pleasing,
+honest and useful services which he has often and willingly done for us
+and the Holy Empire and also for our own person in many ways, and which
+he still daily does and henceforward may and shall do: and that we
+therefore, of set purpose, after mature deliberation, and with the full
+knowledge of ourself and the Princes and Estates of the Empire, have
+graciously promised and granted to this same Dürer what we herewith and
+by virtue of this letter make known:
+
+_That is to say_, that one hundred florins Rhenish shall be yielded,
+given, and paid by the honourable, our and the Empire's trusty and
+well-beloved Burgomaster and Council of the town of Nürnberg and their
+successors unto the said Albrecht Dürer, against his quittance, all his
+life long and no longer, yearly and in every year, on our behalf, out of
+the customary town contributions which the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of Nürnberg are bound to yield and pay, yearly and in every
+year, into our Treasury. And whatever the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of Nürnberg and their successors shall yield, give, and pay
+to the said Albrecht Dürer, as stands written above, against his
+quittance, the same sum shall be accepted and reckoned to them as paid
+and yielded for the customary town contributions which they, as stands
+written above, are bound to pay into our Treasury, as if they had paid
+the same into our own hands and received our quittance therefor, and no
+harm or detriment shall in anywise be done therefor unto them or their
+successors by us or our successors in the Empire. Whereof this letter,
+sealed with our affixed seal, is witness.
+
+Given, &c.
+
+Thus Dürer became Court painter: in return for his salary he had to
+work. As soon as the "Gate of Honour" was finished, there was the "Car
+of Triumph" to be taken in hand, the first sketch for it (now in the
+Albertina) having already been made about 1514-15. In December 1514
+Schönsperger, the Augsburg printer, printed a splendid "Book of Hours"
+for Maximilian. The type was specially made for the book, and only a few
+copies were printed, some on fine vellum with large margins. One copy
+which Maximilian intended for his own use was sent to Dürer that he
+might decorate the margins with pen-drawings in various coloured inks.
+Of this work there exist forty-three pages by Dürer himself and eight by
+Cranach at Munich, and at Besançon thirty-five pages by Burgkmair,
+Altdorfer, Baldung Grien, and Hans Dürer. Marvellously deft and
+light-handed as are Dürer's freehand arabesques, embellished by racy
+sketches of which these borders consist, they are nevertheless touched
+with a like unsatisfactory character with the other works undertaken for
+Maximilian, and are almost as far removed from the spirit and
+performance of the best period for this kind of work, as is the
+_Triumphal Arch_ from that of Titus.
+
+Dürer was also employed on another woodcut representing a long row of
+saintly ancestors of this eccentric sovereign. He accompanied Caspar
+Nützel and Lazarus Spengler, the representatives of Nuremberg, to the
+Diet of Augsburg, and there made some drawings of his royal patron, on
+one of which is written, "This is my dear Prince Max, whom I, Albrecht
+Dürer, drew at Augsburg in his little room upstairs in the palace, in
+the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist's day." (_See
+opposite_.) And Melanchthon narrates that "once Max himself took the
+charcoal in hand to make his mind clear to his trusty Albert, and was
+vexed to find that the charcoal kept breaking short in his hand when
+Dürer said; 'Most gracious emperor, I would not that your Majesty should
+draw so well as I do!' by which he meant, 'I am practised in this, and
+it is my province; thou, Emperor, hast harder tasks and another
+calling.'"
+
+[Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clément & Co.
+Dornach._--"This is the Emperor Maximilian, whose likeness I, Albrecht
+Dürer, have taken, at Augsburg, high up in the palace in his little
+chamber, in the year of Grace 1518, on Monday after St. John the
+Baptist's Day" Charcoal-Drawing. Albertina, Vienna]
+
+
+VIII
+
+A charming letter from Charitas Pirkheimer gives us a little sunlit
+glimpse of the tone of Dürer's lighter hours.
+
+The prudent and wise Masters Caspar Nützel, Lazarus Spengler, and
+Albrecht Dürer, for the time being at Augsburg, our gracious Masters and
+good friends.
+
+Jesus.
+
+As a friendly greeting, prudent, wise, gracious Masters and especially
+good friends, cousins, and wellwishers, I desire every good thing for
+you, from the Highest Good. I received with great pleasure your friendly
+letter and its news of a kind suited to my order, or rather my trade;
+and I read it with such great devotion that more than once tears ran
+down my eyes over it--truly rather tears of laughter than of sorrow. I
+consider it a subject for great thankfulness that, with such important
+business and so much gaiety on hand, your Wisdoms do not forget me, but
+find time to instruct me, poor little nun, about the monastic life
+whereof you now have a clear reflection before your eyes. I conclude
+from this that doubtless some good spirit drove you, my gracious and
+dear Masters, to Augsburg, so that you might learn from the example of
+the free Swabian spirits how to instruct and govern the poor imprisoned
+sand-bares.[23]
+
+For since our trusty Master Warden (Caspar Nützel), as a lover of the
+Church, likes to help in a thorough reformation, he should first behold
+a pattern of holy observance in the Swabian League. Let Master Lazarus
+Spengler, too, inform himself well about the apostolic mode of common
+life, so that at the annual audit he may be able to give us and others
+counsel and guidance, how we may run through everything, that nought
+remain over. And Master Albrecht Dürer, also, who is such a genius and
+master at drawing, he may very carefully inspect the stately buildings,
+and then if some day we want to alter our choir he will know how to give
+us advice and help in making ample slide-windows (? blinds), so that our
+eyes may not be quite blinded.
+
+I shall not further trouble you, however, to bring us music to learn to
+sing by notes, for our beer is now so very sour that I fear the dregs
+might stick fast among the four reeds or voices, and produce such
+strange sounds that the dogs would fly out of the church. But I must
+humbly pray you not quite to wear out your eyes over the black and white
+magpies, so as no longer to know the little grey wolves at Nürnberg. I
+have heard much of the sharp-witted Swabians all my life, but it would
+be well if we learnt more from them, now that they are so wisely
+labouring with his Imperial Majesty to save the Apostolic life from
+being done away with. It is easy to see what very different lovers of
+the Church they are from our Masters here.
+
+Pardon me, my dear and gracious Masters, this my playful letter. It is
+all done _in caritate--summa summarum_; and the end of it is that I
+should rejoice at your speedy return in health and happiness with the
+glad accomplishment of the business committed to you. For this I and my
+sisters heartily pray God day and night; still we cannot carry it
+through alone, so I counsel you to entreat the pious and pure hearts (of
+Augsburg) to sing in high quavers that thereby things may speed well.
+And now many happy times to you!
+
+Given at Nürnberg on September 3, 1518.
+
+SISTER CHARITAS, unprofitable Abbess of S. Clara's at Nürnberg.
+
+Dürer returned with a letter to the Town Council of Nürnberg, from which
+the following extract is taken:
+
+Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved, Whereas you are bound to pay us on
+next St. Martin's day year a remainder, to wit 200 florins Rhenish, out
+of the accustomed town contribution which you are wont to render into
+our and the Empire's treasury....We earnestly charge you to deliver and
+pay the said 200 florins, accepting our quittance therefor, unto our and
+the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Dürer, our painter, on
+account of his honest services, willingly rendered to us at our command
+for our "Car of Triumph" and in other ways; and, at the said time, these
+200 florins shall be deducted for you from the accustomed town
+contribution. Thus you will perform our earnest desire.
+
+Given, &c.
+
+Dürer procured a receipt for the 200 florins, signed by the emperor
+himself. But before "next St. Martin's day year," Maximilian was dead,
+and the 200 florins no longer his to dispose of, being due to the new
+Emperor Charles V. The municipal authorities of Nürnberg refused to pay
+until his Privilegium had been confirmed by Maximilian's successor.
+
+Dürer wrote the following letter to the Council:
+
+NÜRNBERG, April 27, 1519.
+
+Prudent, honourable and wise, gracious, dear Lords. Your Honours are
+aware that, at the Diet lately holden by his Imperial Roman Majesty, our
+most gracious lord of very praiseworthy memory, I obtained a gracious
+assignment from his Imperial Majesty of 200 florins from the yearly
+payable town contributions of Nürnberg. This assignment was granted to
+me, after many applications and much trouble, in return for the zealous
+work and labour, which, for a long time previously, I had devoted to his
+Majesty. And he sent you order and command to that effect, signed with
+his accustomed signature, and quittance in all form, which quittance,
+duly sealed, is in my hands.
+
+Now I rest humbly confident that your Honours will graciously remember
+me as your obedient burgher, who has employed much time in the service
+and work of his Imperial Majesty, our most rightful Lord, with but small
+recompense, and has thereby lost both profit and advantage in other
+ways. And therefore I trust that you will now deliver me these 200
+florins to his Imperial Majesty's order and quittance, that so I may
+receive a fitting reward and satisfaction for my care, pains, and
+work--as, no doubt, was his Imperial Majesty's intention.
+
+But seeing that some Emperor or King might in the future claim these 200
+florins from your Honours, or might not be willing to spare them, but
+might some day demand them back again from me, I am, therefore, willing
+to relieve your Honours and the town of this chance, by appointing and
+mortgaging, as security and pledge therefor, my tenement situated at the
+corner under the Veste, and which belonged to my late father, that so
+your Honours may suffer neither prejudice nor loss thereby. Thus am I
+ready to serve your Honours, my gracious rulers and Lords.
+
+Your Wisdoms' willing burgher, ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+[Illustration: FREDERICK THE WISE. Silver-point drawing, British
+Museum.]
+
+Dürer next wrote "to the honourable, most learned Master Georg Spalatin,
+Chaplain to my most gracious lord, Duke Friedrich, the Elector"
+of Saxony.
+
+The letter is undated, but clearly belongs to the early part of the year
+1520.
+
+Most worthy and dear Master, I have already sent you my thanks in the
+short letter, for then I had only read your brief note. It was not till
+afterwards, when the bag in which the little book was wrapped was turned
+inside out, that I for the first time found the real letter in it, and
+learnt that it was my most gracious Lord himself who sent me Luther's
+little book. So I pray your worthiness to convey most emphatically my
+humble thanks to his Electoral Grace, and in all humility to beseech his
+Electoral Grace to take the praiseworthy Dr. Martin Luther under his
+protection for the sake of Christian truth. For that is of more
+importance to us than all the power and riches of this world; because
+all things pass away with time, Truth alone endures for ever.
+
+God helping me, if ever I meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a
+careful portrait of him from the life and to engrave it on copper, for a
+lasting remembrance of a Christian man who helped me out of great
+distress. And I beg your worthiness to send me for my money anything new
+that Dr. Martin may write.
+
+As to Spengler's "Apology for Luther," about which you write, I must
+tell you that no more copies are in stock; but it is being reprinted at
+Augsburg, and I will send you some copies as soon as they are ready. But
+you must know that, though the book was printed here, it is condemned in
+the pulpit as heretical and meet to be burnt, and the man who published
+it anonymously is abused and defamed. It is reported that Dr. Eck wanted
+to burn it in public at Ingolstadt, as was done to Dr. Reuchlin's book.
+
+With this letter I send for my most gracious lord three impressions of a
+copper-plate of my most gracious lord of Mainz, which I engraved at his
+request. I sent the copper-plate with 200 impressions as a present to
+his Electoral Grace, and he graciously sent me in return 200 florins in
+gold and 20 ells of damask for a coat. I joyfully and thankfully
+accepted them, especially as I was in want of them at that time.
+
+His Imperial Majesty also, of praiseworthy memory, who died too soon for
+me, had graciously made provision for me, because of the great and
+long-continued labour, pains, and care, which I spent in his service.
+But now the Council will no longer pay me the 100 florins, which I was
+to have received every year of my life from the town taxes, and which
+was yearly paid to me during his Majesty's lifetime. So I am to be
+deprived of it in my old age and to see the long time, trouble, and
+labour all lost which I spent for his Imperial Majesty. As I am losing
+my sight and freedom of hand my affairs do not look well. I don't care
+to withhold this from you, kind and trusted Sir.
+
+If my gracious lord remembers his debt to me of the staghorns, may I ask
+your Worship to keep him in mind of them, so that I may get a fine pair.
+I shall make two candlesticks of them.
+
+I send you here two little prints of the Cross from a plate engraved in
+gold. One is for your Worship. Give my service to Hirschfeld and
+Albrecht Waldner. Now, your Worship, commend me faithfully to my most
+gracious lord, the Elector.
+
+Your willing ALBRECHT DÜRER at Nürnberg.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 20: _The Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints._]
+
+[Footnote 21: Supposed to be the _Madonna with the Iris_.]
+
+[Footnote 22: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 178.]
+
+[Footnote 23: The soil about Nürnberg is sandy.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DÜRER, LUTHER AND THE HUMANISTS
+
+
+I
+
+But while Dürer was thus busily at work or dunning his great debtors,
+Luther had appeared. In 1517 he nailed his ninety-five theses to the
+door of Wittenberg church, and Cardinal Caietan by the unlucky Leo X.
+was poured like oil upon the fire which they had lighted. Luther had
+been summoned to meet the Cardinal at the Diet of Augsburg, where Dürer
+went to see Maximilian, though he only arrived there after our friends
+from Nuremberg had departed. However, Luther passed through Nuremberg on
+foot, and borrowed a coat of a friend there in order to figure with
+decency before the Diet. Yet Dürer probably did not meet him, although
+the words in the letter to George Spalatin, quoted above, "If ever I
+meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a careful portrait of him and
+engrave it on copper," do not forbid the possibility of this early
+meeting before the Reformer had become so famous. Next the Pope tried to
+soothe by sending Miltitz with flatteries and promises--a man that could
+smile and weep to order, but who succeeded neither with the Elector
+Frederic, nor with Luther, nor with Germany. At Nuremberg the preacher
+Wenzel Link soon formed a little reformed congregation, to which Dürer,
+Pirkheimer, Spengler, Nützel, Scheurl, Ebner, Holzschurher, and others
+belonged. We have already seen how, soon after this, Dürer was anxious
+for Luther's safety, by the letter to the wise Elector, quoted above;
+and in 1518 he sent Luther a number of his prints, and soon after joined
+with others of Link's hearers to send a greeting of encouragement. And
+before long we find him jotting down a list of sixteen of Luther's
+tracts, either because he intended to get and read them, or because they
+were already his; and on the back of a drawing we find the following
+outline of the faith such as he then apprehended it, in which we see
+clearly that Christ has become the voice of conscience--the power in a
+man by which he recognises and creates good.
+
+Seeing that through disobedience of sin we have fallen into everlasting
+Death, no help could have reached us save through the incarnation of the
+Son of God, whereby He through His innocent suffering might abundantly
+pay the Father all our guilt, so that the Justice of God might be
+satisfied. For He has repented, of and made atonement for the sins of
+the whole world, and has obtained of the Father Everlasting Life.
+Therefore Christ Jesus is the Son of God, the highest power, who can do
+all things, and He is the Eternal life. Into whomsoever Christ comes he
+lives, and himself lives in Christ. Therefore all things are in Christ
+good things. There is nothing good in us except it becomes good in
+Christ. Whosoever, therefore, will altogether justify himself is unjust.
+_If we will what is good, Christ wills it in us_. No human repentance is
+enough to equalise deadly sin and be fruitful.
+
+In this the old mythological language is retained, but it has received a
+new interpretation or significance, and this quite without the writer's
+perceiving what he is doing. Christ is affirmed to have repented of the
+sins of the whole world. Among the early heresiarchs there were, I
+believe, some who went so far as to hold that he had committed the sins
+before he repented of them, and triumphed over their effects by his
+sufferings and death. In any case, a similar feeling is expressed by our
+odd mystic Blake in his "Everlasting Gospel":
+
+  "If He (Jesus) intended to take on sin,
+  His mother should an harlot have bin."
+
+The actual records of Christ are too meagre the moment he is regarded as
+an allegory of human life; and such additions to the creed spring
+naturally out of the ardent seeker's desire to realise the universality
+implied in the dogma of his Godhead, which is accepted even by Blake as
+a historical fact beyond question. It was not the character of so much
+as can be perceived of the universe which daunted Luther and Dürer, as
+it daunts the serious man to-day. They accepted what appears to us a
+cheap and easy subterfuge, because they believed it to have been
+prescribed by God; the ambiguous inferences which such a prescription
+must logically cast on the Divine character did not arrest their
+attention. What they gained was a free conscience, a conscience in which
+Christ was, to use their language, and which was in Christ; and for
+practical piety this was sufficient. They themselves had not made up
+their minds on theoretical points; it was only in the face of their
+opponents that they thought of arming themselves with like weapons, and
+sought a mechanical agreement upon questions about which no one ever has
+known, or probably ever can know, anything at all. This was where
+Luther's pugnacity betrayed him; so that little by little he seems to
+lose spiritual beauty, as the monk, all fire and intensity, is
+transformed into the "plump doctor," and again into the bird of ill omen
+who croaked.
+
+"The arts are growing as if there was to be a new start and the world
+was to become young again. I hope God will finish with it. We have come
+already to the White Horse. Another hundred years and all will be over."
+
+Compare this with Dürer's:
+
+"Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both
+well and better about this art than I."
+
+"Would to God that it were possible for me to see the work and art of
+the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might
+be improved."
+
+I do not want to judge Luther harshly; he had done splendidly, and it is
+difficult to meddle with worldly things without soiling one's fingers
+and depressing one's heart; but I ask which of these two quotations
+expresses man's most central character best--the desire for nobler
+life--which reveals the more admirable temper? (Dürer had been touched
+by the spirit of the Renaissance as well as by that of the Reformation;
+we can distinguish easily when he is speaking under the one influence,
+when under the other, and the contrast often impresses one as the
+contrast between the above quotations. And it gives us great reason to
+deplore that the two spirits could not work side by side as they did in
+Dürer and a few rare souls, but that in the world there was war between
+them.) It seems inevitable that the things men fight about should always
+be spoiled. The best part of written thought is something that cannot be
+analysed, cannot therefore be defended or used for offence; it is a
+spirit, an emanation, something that influences us more subtly than we
+know how to describe.
+
+We see by the passage quoted that Dürer was not only influenced by
+Luther's heroism, but by his doctrinal theorising. Unfortunately we do
+not know whether he outgrew this second and less admirable influence.
+Did he feel like his friend Pirkheimer in the end, that "the new
+evangelical knaves made the old popish knaves seem pious by contrast?"
+Milton under similar circumstances came to think that "New Presbyter is
+but old Priest writ large." Probably not; for just as we know he did not
+abandon what seemed to him beautiful and helpful in old Catholic
+ceremonies, usages, and conceptions, so probably he would not confuse
+what had been real gain in the Reformation with the excesses of
+Anabaptists or Socialists, or even of Luther himself or his followers.
+There is no reason to suppose he would have judged so hastily as the
+gouty irascible Pirkheimer, however much he may have deplored the course
+of events. It must have been evident to thoughtful men, then, that it
+was impossible for so large an area to be furnished with properly
+trained pastors in so short a time, and that therefore more or less
+deplorable material was bound to be mingled in the official _personnel_
+of the new sect. It is impossible, when we consider how he solved the
+precisely parallel difficulty in aesthetics, not to feel that if he had
+had time given him, he would have arrived in point of doctrine at a
+moderation similar to that of Erasmus.
+
+Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty....
+Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know not certainly
+what the ultimate measure of true beauty is.... Because now we cannot
+altogether attain unto perfection shall we, therefore, wholly cease from
+learning? By no means ... for it behoveth the rational man to choose the
+good. (See the passage complete on page 15.)
+
+Luther imagined that the faith that saved was entire confidence in the
+fact that a bargain had been struck between the Persons of the Trinity,
+according to which Christ's sacrifice should be accepted as satisfying
+the justice of his Father, outraged by Adam's fault. To-day this appears
+to the majority of educated men a fantastic conception. For them the
+faith that saves is love of goodness, as love of beauty saves the artist
+from mistakes into which his intelligence would often plunge him. Jesus
+has no claim upon us superior to his goodness and his beauty; nor can we
+conceive of the possibility of such a claim. But we recognise with Dürer
+that we do not know what the true measure of goodness and beauty is, and
+all that we can do is to choose always the good and the beautiful
+according to the measure of our reason--to the fulness of the light at
+present granted to us.
+
+
+II
+
+The curiosity of the modern man of science no doubt is descended from
+that of men like Leonardo and the early Humanists, but it differs from
+almost more than it resembles it. The motive power behind both is no
+doubt the confidence of the healthy mind that the human intelligence
+will ultimately prove adequate to comprehend the spectacle of the
+universe. But for the Humanists, for Dürer and his friends, the
+consciousness of the irreconcilableness of that spectacle with the
+necessary ideals of human nature had not produced, as in our
+contemporaries and our immediate forerunners it has produced, either the
+atrophy of expectation which afflicts some, or the extravagance of
+ingenuity that cannot rest till it has rationalised hope, which torments
+others. They were saddled with neither the indifference nor the
+restlessness of the modern intellect. They escaped like boys on a
+holiday. They felt conscious of doing what their schoolmaster meant them
+to do, though they were actually doing just what they liked. It was all
+for the glory of God in Dürer's mind; but how or why God should be
+pleased with what he did, did not trouble him. He engraved and sold
+impressions of a plate representing a sow with eight legs; he made a
+drawing, which is at Oxford, of an infant girl with two heads and four
+arms, and calmly wrote beneath it:--
+
+Item, in the year reckoned 1512, after the birth of Christ, such a
+creature (_Frucht_) as is represented above, was born in Bavaria, on the
+Lord of Werdenberg's land, in a village named Ertingen over against
+Riedlingen. It was on the 20th of the hay month (July), and they were
+baptized, the one head Elspett, the other Margrett.
+
+Just so, Luther is no more than St. Paul abashed to say that God had
+need of some men intended for dishonour, as a potter makes some vessels
+for honourable, some for dishonourable uses. The modern mind at once
+reflects: "If that is the case, so much the worse for God; by so much is
+it impossible that I should ever worship Him;" and it will prefer any
+prolongation of "that most wholesome frame of mind, a suspended
+judgment," to accepting a solution so cheap as that offered by the
+Apostle and Reformer, which has come to seem simply injurious.
+
+The spirit of the enlarged schoolboy was, I think, really the attitude
+of the best minds then and onwards to Descartes and Spinoza. They gave
+themselves up to the study of nature without ceasing to belong to their
+school, yet freed, as on a holiday, from the constraint of being
+actually in it. Yet, in regard to their personal and social life, at
+least north of the Alps, the majority of such men were very consciously
+and dutifully under "their great taskmaster's eye"; and in that also
+they differ in a measure from the more part of modern scientists.
+
+Dürer made up a rhinoceros from a sketch and description sent to him
+from Portugal, whither the uncouth creature had been brought in a ship
+from Goa. Dürer's drawing was engraved and became the parent of
+innumerable rhinoceroses in lesson-books, doing service right down well
+into the late century, as Thausing assures us. The unfortunate original
+was sent as a present to Leo X., who wanted to see him fight with an
+elephant which had made him laugh by squirting water and kneeling down
+to be blessed as sensibly as a Christian. So the poor beast was shipped
+again, only to be shipwrecked near Porto Venere, where he was last seen
+swimming valiantly, but hopelessly impeded by his chain, and baffled by
+the rocky shore. In the Netherlands, Dürer's curiosity to see a whale
+nearly resulted in his own shipwreck, and indirectly produced the malady
+which finally killed him. But Dürer's curiosity was really most
+scientific where it was most artistic; in his portraits, in his studies
+of plants and birds and the noses of stags, or the slumber of lions.
+
+Doubtless it was not a very dissimilar motive which gained him entrance
+into the women's bath at Nuremberg, for we see he must have been there
+by the beautiful pen drawing at Bremen and the slighter one of the same
+subject at Chatsworth. These drawings may also illustrate what in his
+book on the Proportion he calls the words of difference--stout, lean,
+short, tall, &c. (see p. 285), as he would seem to have chosen types as
+various as possible, ranging from the human sow to the slim and
+dignified beauty. In the same spirit he studied perspective and the art
+of measuring; he felt the importance to art of inquiry in these
+directions; nevertheless, to seize the beautiful elements in nature was
+ever the object of his efforts, however, roundabout they may sometimes
+appear to us. "The sight of a fine human figure is above all things the
+most pleasing to us, wherefore I will first construct the right
+proportions of a man." (See p. 321.) His aesthetic curiosity had nothing
+in common with that which considers all objects and appearances as
+equally interesting. What he meant by Nature, when he bid the artist
+have continual recourse to her, was far from being the momentary and
+accidental appearance of any thing or things anywhere,--which the modern
+"student of Nature" admires because he has neither sufficient force of
+character to prefer, nor sufficient right feeling to defer to the
+preferences of those who have more.
+
+Leonardo's natural history is delightful reading, because it combines
+such fantastic and inventive fables as surpass even the happiest efforts
+of our nonsense writers with a beautiful openness of mind which we see
+oftener in children than in sages,--which is, in fact, the seriousness
+of those who are truly learning, and are not too conscious of what has
+already been learnt.
+
+As a boy adds to the pleasure he has in adventuring further and further
+into a cave the delight of awesome supposition--for what may not the
+next turn reveal?--and is pleased to feel all his young machinery ready
+instantly to enact a panic if his torch should blow out, and laughs at
+each furtive rehearsal of his own terror in which he indulges;--so the
+Humanists turned from astronomy to astrology, and used their skill in
+mathematics to play with horoscopes which they more than half believed
+might bite. There was just enough doubt as to whether any given wonder
+was a miracle to make it interesting; and at any moment the pall of
+superstition might stifle the flickering light of inquiry, as we feel
+was the case when Dürer writes:
+
+The most wonderful thing I ever saw occurred in the year 1503, when
+crosses fell upon many persons, and especially on children rather than
+on elder people. Amongst others, I saw one of the form which I have
+represented below. It had fallen into Eyrer's maid's shift, as she was
+sitting in the house at the back of Pirkheimer's (i.e., in the house
+where Dürer was born). She was so troubled about it that she wept and
+cried aloud, for she feared that she must die because of it.
+
+I have also seen a comet in the sky.
+
+And again, the terror caused by a very bad and strange dream passes the
+bounds of play; and one feels that the belief that a vision of the night
+might produce or prefigure dreadful change was for him something a great
+deal more serious than for the dilettante spiritualist and
+wonder-tickler of to-day. He writes:
+
+In the night between Wednesday and Thursday after Whit Sunday (May
+30-31, 1525), I saw this appearance in my sleep--how many great waters
+fell from heaven. The first struck the earth about four miles away from
+me with terrific force and tremendous noise, and it broke up and drowned
+the whole land. I was so sore afraid that I awoke from it. Then the
+other waters fell, and as they fell they were very powerful, and there
+were many of them, some further away, some nearer. And they came down
+from so great a height that they all seemed to fall with an equal
+slowness. But when the first water that touched the earth had very
+nearly reached it, it fell with such swiftness, with wind and roaring,
+and I was so sore afraid that when I awoke my whole body trembled, and
+for a long while I could not recover myself. So when I arose in the
+morning, I painted it above here as I saw it God turn all these things
+to the best. ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+The instinct for recording which dictates such a note as this is
+characteristic of Dürer, and called into being many of his drawings.
+Many such naïve and explicit records as that on the drawing which
+Raphael sent him are to be found in the flyleaves of books and on the
+margins of prints and drawings, his possessions. In such notes we may
+see not only an effect of the curiosity, and desire to arrange and
+co-ordinate information, which resulted in modern science; but something
+that is akin to that worship and respect for the deeds and productions
+of those long dead or in distant countries, in which the human spirit
+relieved itself from the oppressive expectation of judgment and
+vengeance which had paralysed it, as the beauty of the supernatural
+world was lost sight of behind its terrors, and witches and wizards
+engrossed the popular mind, in which for a time saints and angels had
+held the ascendancy. The future now became the return of a golden age;
+not a garish and horrible novelty called heaven and hell, but a human
+society beautiful as that of the Greeks, grand as that of republican
+Rome, sweet and hospitable as the household of Jesus and Mary. The
+Reformation is in part a return of the old fears; but Dürer has recorded
+only one bad dream, whereas he tells that he was often visited by dreams
+worthy of the glorious Renascence. "Would to God it were possible for me
+to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet
+unborn, for I know that I might be improved. Ah! _how often in my_ sleep
+do I behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof
+never appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me!" Why was he not sent to Rome to see the ceiling of the
+Sistina and Raphael's Stanze? Perchance it was these that he saw in
+his dreams?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DÜRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS
+
+
+I
+
+It is even more the case with Dürer's journal written in the Netherlands
+than with the letters from Venice that, like life itself, it is full of
+repetitions and over-insistence on what is insignificant. I quote the
+most interesting passages, and as there is never a good reason for doing
+again what has already been well done; I am happy to quote Sir Martin
+Conway's excellent notes, having found occasion to add only one. Dürer
+set out on July 12, 1520, with his wife and her maid Susanna. It was
+probably this Susanna who three years later married Georg Penz, one of
+"the three godless painters." Dürer took a great many prints and
+woodcuts, books both to sell and to give as presents; and besides he
+took a sketch book in which he made silver-point sketches and portraits.
+A good number of its pages have come down to us, and a great many of the
+portraits he mentions having taken were done in it, and then cut out to
+give to the sitter. All these drawings are on the same sized paper. We
+reproduce one of them here (see page 156). Besides this sketch-book he
+evidently had a memorandum-book in which he recorded what he did, what
+he spent, whom he saw, and occasionally what he felt or what he wished.
+The original is lost, but an old copy of it is in the Bamberg Library.
+
+_July_ 12.--On Thursday after Kilian's, I, Albrecht Dürer, at my own
+charges and costs, took myself and my wife (and maid Susanna) away to
+the Netherlands. And the same day, after passing through Erlangen, we
+put up for the night at Baiersdorf and spent there 3 pounds less
+6 pfennigs.
+
+July 13.--Next day, Friday, we came to Forchheim, and there I paid 22
+pf. for the convoy.
+
+Thence I journeyed to Bamberg, where I presented the Bishop (Georg III.
+Schenk von Limburg[24]) with a Madonna painting, a Life of our Lady, an
+Apocalypse, and a Horin's worth of engravings. He invited me as his
+guest, gave me a Toll-pass[25] and three letters of introduction, and
+paid my bill at the inn, where I had spent about a florin.
+
+I paid six florins in gold to the boatman who took me from Bamberg to
+Frankfurt.
+
+Master Lukas Benedict and Hans,[26] the painter, sent me wine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, _August_ 2-26, 1520.
+
+At Antwerp I went to Jobst Plankfelt's[27] inn, and the same evening at
+Fuggers' Factor,[28] Bernhard Stecher invite and gave us a costly meal.
+My wife, however, dined at the inn. I paid the driver three gold florins
+for bringing us three, and one st. I paid for carrying the goods.
+
+_August_ 4.--On Saturday after the feast of St. Peter in Chains my host
+took me to see the Burgomaster's (Arnold van Liere) house at Antwerp. It
+is newly built and beyond measure large, and very well ordered, with
+spacious and exceedingly beautiful chambers, a tower splendidly
+ornamented, a very large garden--altogether a noble house, the like of
+which I have nowhere seen in all Germany. The house also is reached from
+both sides by a very long street, which has been quite newly built
+according to the Burgomaster's liking and at his charges.
+
+I paid three st. to the messenger, two pf. for bread, two pf. for ink.
+
+August 5.--On Sunday, it was St. Oswald's Day, the painters invited me
+to the hall of their guild, with my wife and maid. All their service was
+of silver, and they had other splendid ornaments and very costly meats.
+All their wives also were there. And as I was being led to the table the
+company stood on both sides as if they were leading some great lord. And
+there were amongst them men of very high position, who all behaved most
+respectfully towards me with deep courtesy, and promised to do
+everything in their power agreeable to me that they knew of. And as I
+was sitting there in such honour the Syndic (Adrian Horebouts) of
+Antwerp came, with two servants, and presented me with four cans of wine
+in the name of the Town Councillors of Antwerp, and they had bidden him
+say that they wished thereby to show their respect for me and to assure
+me of their good will. Wherefore I returned them my humble thanks and
+offered my humble service. After that came Master Peeter (Frans), the
+town-carpenter, and presented me with two cans of wine, with the offer
+of his willing services. So when we had spent a long and merry time
+together till late in the night, they accompanied us home with lanterns
+in great honour. And they begged me to be ever assured and confident of
+their good will, and promised that in whatever I did they would be
+all-helpful to me. So I thanked them and laid me down to sleep.
+
+The Treasurer (Lorenz Sterk) also gave me a child's head (painted) on
+linen, and a wooden weapon from Calicut, and one of the light wood
+reeds. Tomasin, too, has given me a plaited hat of alder bark. I dined
+once with the Portuguese, and have given a brother of Tomasin's three
+fl. worth of engravings.
+
+Herr Erasmus[29] has given me a small Spanish _mantilla_ and three men's
+portraits.
+
+I took the portrait of Herr Niklas Kratzer,[30] an astronomer. He lives
+with the King of England, and has been very helpful and useful to me in
+many matters. He is a German, a native of Munich. I also made the
+portrait of Tomasin's daughter, Mistress Zutta by name. Hans
+Pfaffroth[31] gave me one Philips fl. for taking his portrait in
+charcoal. I have dined once more with Tomasin. My host's brother-in-law
+entertained me and my wife once. I changed two light florins for
+twenty-four st. for living expenses, and I gave one st. _t&k&d_ to a man
+who let me see an altar-piece.
+
+[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on a white ground, in the Berlin
+Print Room]
+
+_August_ 19.--On the Sunday after our dear Lady's Assumption I saw the
+great Procession from the Church of our Lady at Antwerp, when the whole
+town of every craft and rank was assembled, each dressed in his best
+according to his rank. And all ranks and guilds had their signs, by
+which they might be known. In the intervals great costly pole-candles
+were borne, and their long old Frankish trumpets of silver. There were
+also in the German fashion many pipers and drummers. All the instruments
+were loudly and noisily blown and beaten.
+
+I saw the procession pass along the street, the people being arranged in
+rows, each man some distance from his neighbour, but the rows close one
+behind another. There were the Goldsmiths, the Painters, the Masons, the
+Broderers, the Sculptors, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Sailors, the
+Fishermen, the Butchers, the Leatherers, the Clothmakers, the Bakers,
+the Tailors, the Cordwainers--indeed, workmen of all kinds, and many
+craftsmen and dealers who work for their livelihood. Likewise the
+shopkeepers and merchants and their assistants of all kinds were there.
+After these came the shooters with guns, bows, and cross-bows, and the
+horsemen and foot-soldiers also. Then followed the watch of the Lords
+Magistrates. Then came a fine troop all in red, nobly and splendidly
+clad. Before them, however, went all the religious Orders and the
+members of some Foundations very devoutly, all in their different robes.
+
+A very large company of widows also took part in this procession. They
+support themselves with their own hands and observe a special rule. They
+were all dressed from head to foot in white linen garments, made
+expressly for the occasion, very sorrowful to see. Among them I saw some
+very stately persons. Last of all came the Chapter of our Lady's Church,
+with all their clergy, scholars, and treasurers. Twenty persons bore the
+image of the Virgin Mary with the Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest
+manner, to the honour of the Lord God.
+
+In this procession very many delightful things were shown, most
+splendidly got up. Waggons were drawn along with masques upon ships and
+other structures. Behind them came the company of the Prophets in their
+order, and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the
+Three Holy Kings riding on great camels and on other rare beasts, very
+well arranged; also how our Lady fled to Egypt--very devout--and many
+other things, which for shortness I omit. At the end came a great Dragon
+which St. Margaret and her maidens led by a girdle; she was especially
+beautiful. Behind her came St. George with his squire, a very goodly
+knight in armour. In this host also rode boys and maidens most finely
+and splendidly dressed in the costumes of many lands, representing
+various Saints. From beginning to end the procession lasted more than
+two hours before it was gone past our house. And so many things were
+there that I could never write them all in a book, so I let it
+well alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRUSSELS _August_ 26-_September_ 3, 1520.
+
+In the golden chamber in the Townhall at Brussels I saw the four
+paintings which the great Master Roger van der Weyden[32] made. And I
+saw out behind the King's house at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth,
+and Beast-garden[33]; anything more beautiful and pleasing to me and
+more like a Paradise I have never seen. Erasmus is the name of the
+little man who wrote out my supplication at Herr Jacob de Bannisis'
+house. At Brussels is a very splendid Townhall, large, and covered with
+beautiful carved stonework, and it has a noble open tower. I took a
+portrait at night by candlelight of Master Konrad of Brussels, who was
+my host; I drew at the same time Doctor Lamparter's son in charcoal,
+also the hostess.
+
+I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land
+of gold (Mexico), a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all
+of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armour of the
+people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and
+darts, very strange clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects
+of human use, much better worth seeing than prodigies. These things were
+all so precious that they are valued at 100,000 florins. All the days of
+my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these
+things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled
+at the subtle _Ingenia_ of men in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot
+express all that I thought there.
+
+At Brussels I saw many other beautiful things besides, and especially I
+saw a fish bone there, as vast as if it had been built up of squared
+stones. It was a fathom long and very thick, it weighs up to 15 cwt.,
+and its form resembles that drawn here. It stood up behind on the fish's
+head. I was also in the Count of Nassau's house,[34] which is very
+splendidly built and as beautifully adorned. I have again dined with my
+Lords (of Nürnberg).
+
+When I was in the Nassau house in the chapel there, I saw the good
+picture[35] that Master Hugo van der Goes painted, and I saw the two
+fine large halls and the treasures everywhere in the house, also the
+great bed wherein fifty men can lie. And I _saw_ the great stone which
+the storm cast down in the field near the Lord of Nassau. The house
+stands high, and from it there is a most beautiful view, at which one
+cannot but wonder: and I do not believe that in all the German lands the
+like of it exists.
+
+Master Bernard van Orley, the painter, invited me and prepared so costly
+a meal that I do not think ten fl. will pay for it. Lady Margaret's
+Treasurer (Jan de Marnix), whom I drew, and the King's Steward, Jehan de
+Metenye by name, and the Town-Treasurer named Van Busleyden invited
+themselves to it, to get me good company. I gave Master Bernard a
+_Passion_ engraved in copper, and he gave me in return a black Spanish
+bag worth three fl. I have also given Erasmus of Rotterdam a _Passion_
+engraved in copper.
+
+I have once more taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait[36] I gave Lorenz
+Sterk a sitting _Jerome_ and the _Melancholy_, and took a portrait of my
+hostess' godmother. Six people whose portraits I drew at Brussels have
+given me nothing. I paid three st. for two buffalo horns, and one st.
+for two Eulenspiegels.[37]
+
+ANTWERP, _September 6-October 4_, 1520.
+
+I have paid one st for the printed "Entry into Antwerp," telling how the
+King was received with a splendid triumph--the gates very costly
+adorned--and with plays, great joy, and graceful maidens whose like I
+have seldom seen.[38] I changed one fl. for expenses. I saw at Antwerp
+the bones of the giant. His leg above the knee is 5-1/2 ft. long and
+beyond measure heavy and very thick; so with his shoulder blades--a
+single one is broader than a strong man's back--and his other limbs. The
+man was 18 ft. high, had ruled at Antwerp and done wondrous great feats,
+as is more fully written about him in an old book,[39] which the Lords
+of the Town possess.
+
+[Illustration: ERASMUS From a reproduction of the drawing in the "Léon
+Bonnat" collection, Bayonne _Face p._ 148]
+
+The studio (school) of Raphael of Urbino has quite broken up since his
+death,[40] but one of his scholars, Tommaso Vincidor of Bologna[41] by
+name, a good painter, desired to see me. So he came to me and has given
+me an antique gold ring with a very well cut stone. It is worth five
+fl., but already I have been offered the double for it. I gave him six
+fl. worth of my best prints for it. I bought a piece of calico for three
+st.; I paid the messenger one st.; three st. I spent in company.
+
+I have presented a whole set of all my works to Lady Margaret, the
+Emperor's daughter, and have drawn her two pictures on parchment with
+the greatest pains and care. All this I set at as much as thirty fl. And
+I have had to draw the design of a house for her physician the doctor,
+according to which he intends to build one; and for drawing that I would
+not care to take less than ten fl. I have given the servant one st., and
+paid one st. for brick-colour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+October 1.--On Monday after Michaelmas, 1520, I gave Thomas of Bologna a
+whole set of prints to send for me to Rome to another painter who should
+send me Raphael's work[42] in return. I dined once with my wife. I paid
+three st. for the little tracts. The Bolognese has made my portrait;[43]
+he means to take it with him to Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AACHEN, _October 7-26, 1520_.
+
+_October_ 7.--At Aachen I saw the well-proportioned pillars,[44] with
+their good capitals of green and red porphyry (_Gassenstein_) which
+Charles the Great had brought from Rome thither and there set up. They
+are correctly made according to Vitruvius' writings.
+
+_October_ 23.--On October 23 King Karl was crowned at Aachen. There I
+saw all manner of lordly splendour, more magnificent than anything that
+those who live in our parts have seen--all, as it has been described.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+KÖLN, _October 26--November 14, 1520_.
+
+I bought a tract of Luther's for five white pf., and the "Condemnation
+of Luther," the pious man, for one white pf.; also a rosary for one
+white pf. and a girdle for two white pf., a pound of candles for
+one white pf.
+
+_November_ 12.--I have made the nun's portrait. I gave the nun seven
+white pf. and three half-sheet engravings. My confirmation[45] from the
+Emperor came to my Lords of Nürnberg for me on Monday after Martin's, in
+the year 1520, after great trouble and labour.
+
+ANTWERP, _November_ %--_December_ 3, 1520.
+
+At Zierikzee, in Zeeland, a whale has been stranded by a high tide and a
+gale of wind. It is much more than 100 fathoms long, and no man living
+in Zeeland has seen one even a third as long as this is. The fish cannot
+get off the land; the people would gladly see it gone, as they fear the
+great stink, for it is so large that they say it could not be cut in
+pieces and the blubber boiled down in half a year.
+
+ZEELAND, _December_ 3-14, 1520.
+
+_December_ 8.--I went to Middelburg. There, in the Abbey, is a great
+picture painted by Jan de Mabuse--not so good in the modelling
+(_Hauptstreichen_) as in the colouring. I went next to the Veere, where
+lie ships from all lands; it is a very fine little town.
+
+At Arnemuiden, where I landed before, a great misfortune befel me. As we
+were pushing ashore and getting out our rope, a great ship bumped hard
+against us, as we were in the act of landing, and in the crush I had let
+every one get out before me, so that only I, Georg Kotzler,[46] two old
+wives, and the skipper with a small boy were left in the ship. When now
+the other ship bumped against us, and I with those named was still in
+the ship and could not get out, the strong rope broke; and thereupon, in
+the same moment, a storm of wind arose, which drove our ship back with
+force. Then we all cried for help, but no one would risk himself for us.
+And the wind carried us away out to sea. Thereupon the skipper tore his
+hair and cried aloud, for all his men had landed and the ship was
+unmanned. Then were we in fear and danger, for the wind was strong and
+only six persons in the ship. So I spoke to the skipper that he should
+take courage (_er sollt ein Herz fahen_) and have hope in God, and that
+he should consider what was to be done. So he said that if he could haul
+up the small sail he would try if we could come again to land. So we
+toiled all together and got it feebly about half-way up, and went on
+again towards the land. And when the people on shore, who had already
+given us up, saw how we helped ourselves, they came to our aid and we
+got to land.
+
+Middelburg is a good town; it has a very beautiful Townhall with a fine
+tower. There is much art shown in all things here. In the Abbey the
+stalls are very costly and beautiful, and there is a splendid gallery of
+stone; and there is a fine Parish Church. The town was besides excellent
+for sketching (_köstlich au konterfeyen_). Zeeland is fine and wonderful
+to see because of the water, for it stands higher than the land. I made
+a portrait of my host at Arnemuiden. Master Hugo and Alexander Imhof and
+Friedrich the Hirschvogels' servant gave me, each of them, an Indian
+cocoa-nut which they had won at play, and the host gave me a
+sprouting bulb.
+
+_December_ 9--Early on Monday we started again by ship and went by the
+Veere and Zierikzee and tried to get sight of the great fish,[47] but
+the tide had carried him off again.
+
+ANTWERP, _December_ 14--_April_ 6, 1521
+
+I have eaten alone thus often.
+
+I took portraits of Gerhard Bombelli and the daughter of Sebastian the
+Procurator.
+
+_February_ 10.--On Carnival Sunday the goldsmiths invited me to dinner
+early with my wife. Amongst their assembled guests were many notable
+men. They had prepared a most splendid meal, and did me exceeding great
+honour. And in the evening the old Bailiff of the town[48] invited me
+and gave a splendid meal, and did me great honour. Many strange masquers
+came there. I have drawn the portrait in charcoal of Florent Nepotis,
+Lady Margaret's organist. On Monday night Herr Lopez invited me to the
+great banquet on Shrove-Tuesday, which lasted till two o'clock, and was
+very costly. Herr Lorenz Sterk gave me a Spanish fur. To the
+above-mentioned feast very many came in costly masks, and especially
+Tomasin and Brandan. I won two fl. at play.
+
+I dined once with the Frenchman, twice with the Hirschvogels' Fritz, and
+once with Master Peter Aegidius[49] the Secretary, when Erasmus of
+Rotterdam also dined with us.
+
+I have twice more drawn with the metal-point the portrait of the
+beautiful maiden for Gerhard.
+
+I made Tomasin a design, drawn and tinted in half colours, after which
+he intends to have his house painted.
+
+I bought the five silk girdles, which I mean to give away, for three fl.
+sixteen st.; also a border (_Borte_) for twenty st. These six borders I
+sent to the wives of Caspar Nützel, Hans Imhof, Sträub, the two
+Spenglers, and Löffelholz,[50] and to each a good pair of gloves. To
+Pirkheimer I sent a large cap, a costly inkstand of buffalo horn, a
+silver Emperor, one pound of pistachios, and three sugar canes. To
+Caspar Nützel I sent a great elk's foot, ten large fir cones, and cones
+of the stone-pine. To Jacob Muffel I sent a scarlet breastcloth of one
+ell; to Hans Imhof's child an embroidered scarlet cap and stone-pine
+nuts; to Kramer's wife four ells of silk worth four fl.; to Lochinger's
+wife one ell of silk worth one fl.; to the two Spenglers a bag and three
+fine horns each; to Herr Hieronymus Holzschuher a very large horn.
+
+BRUGES AND GHENT, _April_ 6-11, 1521.
+
+I saw the chapel[51] there which Roger painted, and some pictures by a
+great old master. I gave one st. to the man who showed us them. Then I
+bought three ivory combs for thirty st. They took me next to St. Jacob's
+and showed me the precious pictures by Roger and Hugo,[52]
+who were both great masters. Then I saw in our Lady's Church the
+alabaster[53] Madonna, sculptured by Michael Angelo of Rome. After that
+they took me to many more churches and showed me all the good pictures,
+of which there is an abundance there; and when I had seen the Jan van
+Eyck[54] and all the other works, we came at last to the painters'
+chapel, in which there are good things. Then they prepared a banquet for
+me, and I went with them from it to their guild-hall, where many
+honourable men were gathered together, both goldsmiths, painters and
+merchants, and they made me sup with them. They gave me presents, sought
+to make my acquaintance, and did me great honour. The two brothers,
+Jacob and Peter Mostaert, the councillors, gave me twelve cans of wine;
+and the whole assembly, more than sixty persons, accompanied me home
+with many torches. I also saw at their shooting court the great fish-tub
+on which they eat; it is 19 feet long, 7 feet high, and 7 feet wide. So
+early on Tuesday we went away, but before that I drew with the
+metal-point the portrait of Jan Prost, and gave his wife ten st.
+at parting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On my arrival at Ghent the Dean of the Painters came to me and brought
+with him the first masters in painting; they showed me great honour,
+received me most courteously, offered me their goodwill and service, and
+supped with me. On Wednesday they took me early to the Belfry of St.
+John, whence I looked over the great wonderful town, yet in which even I
+had just been taken for something great. Then I saw Jan van Eycks
+picture;[55] it is a most precious painting, full of thought (_ein
+überköstlich hochverständig Gemühl_), and the Eve, Mary, and God the
+Father are specially good. Next I saw the lions and drew one with the
+metal-point.[56] And I saw at the place where men are beheaded on the
+bridge, the two statues erected (in 1371) as a sign that there a son
+beheaded his father.[57] Ghent is a fine and remarkable town; four great
+waters flow through it. I gave the sacristan (at St. Bavon's) and the
+lions' keepers three st. _trinkgeld_. I saw many wonderful things in
+Ghent besides, and the painters with their Dean did not leave me alone,
+but they ate with me morning and evening and paid for everything, and
+were very friendly to me. I gave away five st. at the inn at leaving.
+
+ANTWERP, _April_ 11-_May_ 17, 1521.
+
+In the third week after Easter (April 21-27) a violent fever seized me,
+with great weakness, nausea, and headache. And before, when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me. I paid six st. for cases.
+The monk has bound two books for me in return for the art-wares which I
+gave him. I bought a piece of arras to make two mantles for my
+mother-in-law and my wife, for ten fl. eight st. I paid the doctor eight
+st., and three st. to the apothecary. I also changed one fl. for
+expenses, and spent three st. in company. Paid the doctor ten st. I
+again paid the doctor six st. During my illness Rodrigo has sent me many
+sweetmeats. I gave the lad four st. _trinkgeld_.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing in silver-point on prepared ground, from the
+Netherlands sketch-book, in the Imperial Library, Vienna]
+
+On Friday (May 17) before Whit Sunday in the year 1521, came tidings to
+me at Antwerp, that Martin Luther had been so treacherously taken
+prisoner; for he trusted the Emperor Karl, who had granted him his
+herald and imperial safe conduct. But as soon as the herald had conveyed
+him to an unfriendly place near Eisenach he rode away, saying that he no
+longer needed him. Straightway there appeared ten knights, and they
+treacherously carried off the pious man, betrayed into their hands, a
+man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, a follower of the true Christian
+faith. And whether he yet lives I know not, or whether they have put him
+to death; if so, he has suffered for the truth of Christ and because he
+rebuked the unchristian Papacy, which strives with its heavy load of
+human laws against the redemption of Christ. And if he has suffered it
+is that we may again be robbed and stripped of the truth of our blood
+and sweat, that the same may be shamefully and scandalously squandered
+by idle-going folk, while the poor and the sick therefore die of hunger.
+But this is above all most grievous to me, that, may be, God will suffer
+us to remain still longer under their false, blind doctrine, invented
+and drawn up by the men alone whom they call Fathers, by whom also the
+precious Word of God is in many places wrongly expounded or
+utterly ignored.
+
+Oh God of heaven, pity us! Oh Lord Jesus Christ, pray for Thy people!
+Deliver us at the fit time. Call together Thy far-scattered sheep by Thy
+voice in the Scripture, called Thy godly Word. Help us to know this Thy
+voice and to follow no other deceiving cry of human error, so that we,
+Lord Jesus Christ, may not fall away from Thee. Call together again the
+sheep of Thy pasture, who are still in part found in the Roman Church,
+and with them also the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who
+have been scattered by the oppression and avarice of the Pope and by
+false appearance of holiness. Oh God, redeem Thy poor people constrained
+by heavy ban and edict, which it nowise willingly obeys, continually to
+sin against its conscience if it disobeys them. Never, oh God, hast Thou
+so horribly burdened a people with human laws as us poor folk under the
+Roman Chair, who daily long to be free Christians, ransomed by Thy
+blood. Oh highest, heavenly Father, pour into our hearts, through Thy
+Son, Jesus Christ, such a light, that by it we may know what messenger
+we are bound to obey, so that with good conscience we may lay aside the
+burdens of others and serve Thee, eternal, heavenly Father, with happy
+and joyful hearts.
+
+And if we have lost this man, who has written more clearly than any that
+has lived for 140 years, and to whom Thou hast given such a spirit of
+the Gospel, we pray Thee, oh heavenly Father, that Thou wouldst again
+give Thy Holy Spirit to one, that he may gather anew everywhere together
+Thy Holy Christian Church, that we may again live free and in Christian
+manner, and so, by our good works, all unbelievers, as Turks, Heathen,
+and Calicuts, may of themselves turn to us and embrace the Christian
+faith. But, ere Thou judgest, oh Lord, Thou wiliest that, as Thy Son,
+Jesus Christ, was fain to die by the hands of the priests, and to rise
+from the dead and after to ascend up to heaven, so too in like manner it
+should be with Thy follower Martin Luther, whose life the Pope
+compasseth with his money, treacherously towards God. Him wilt thou
+quicken again. And as Thou, oh my Lord, ordainedst thereafter that
+Jerusalem should for that sin be destroyed, so wilt thou also destroy
+this self-assumed authority of the Roman Chair. Oh Lord, give us then
+the new beautified Jerusalem, which descendeth out of heaven, whereof
+the Apocalypse writes, the holy, pure Gospel, which is not obscured by
+human doctrine.
+
+Every man who reads Martin Luther's books may see how clear and
+transparent is his doctrine, because he sets forth the holy Gospel.
+Wherefore his books are to be held in great honour, and not to be burnt;
+unless indeed his adversaries, who ever strive against the truth and
+would make gods out of men, were also cast into the fire, they and all
+their opinions with them, and afterwards a new edition of Luther's works
+were prepared. Oh God, if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound to
+us the holy Gospel with such clearness? What, oh God, might he not still
+have written for us in ten or twenty years!
+
+Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou an aged little
+man (_ein altes Männiken_), and myself have heard thee say that thou
+givest thyself but two years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to
+accomplish somewhat. Lay out the same well for the good of the Gospel
+and of the true Christian faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ
+says, shall the Gates of Hell (the Roman Chair) in no wise prevail
+against thee. And if here below thou wert to be like thy master Christ
+and sufferedst infamy at the hands of the liars of this time, and didst
+die a little the sooner, then wouldst thou the sooner pass from death
+unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou drinkest of the cup
+which He drank of, with Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice
+those who have dealt unrighteously. Oh Erasmus, cleave to this that God
+Himself may be thy praise, even as it is written of David. For thou
+mayest, yea verily thou mayest overthrow Goliath. Because God stands by
+the Holy Christian Church, even as He only upholds the Roman Church,
+according to His godly will. May He help us to everlasting salvation,
+who is God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, one eternal God. Amen.
+
+Oh ye Christian men, pray God for help, for His judgment draweth nigh
+and His justice shall appear. Then shall we behold the innocent blood
+which the Pope, Priests, Bishops, and Monks have shed, judged and
+condemned (_Apocal._). These are the slain who lie beneath the Altar of
+God and cry for vengeance, to whom the voice of God answereth: Await the
+full number of the innocent slain, then will I judge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, _May_ 17--_June_ 7, 1521.
+
+Master Gerhard,[58] the illuminator, has a daughter about eighteen years
+old named Susanna. She has illuminated a _Salvator_ on a little sheet,
+for which I gave her one fl. It is very wonderful that a woman can do so
+much. I lost six st. at play. I saw the great Procession at Antwerp on
+Holy Trinity day. Master Konrad gave me a fine pair of knives, so I gave
+his little old man a _Life of our Lady_ in return. I have made a
+portrait in charcoal of Master Jan,[59] goldsmith of Brussels, also one
+of his wife. I have been paid two fl. for prints. Master Jan, the
+Brussels goldsmith, paid me three Philips fl. for what I did for him,
+the drawing for the seal and the two portraits. I gave the Veronica,
+which I painted in oils, and the _Adam and Eve_ which Franz did, to Jan,
+the goldsmith, in exchange for a jacinth and an agate, on which a
+Lucretia is engraved. Each of us valued his portion at fourteen fl.
+Further, I gave him a whole set of engravings for a ring and six stones.
+Each valued his portion at seven fl. I bought two pairs of shoes for
+fourteen st., and two small boxes for two st. I changed two Philips fl.
+for expenses. I drew three _Leadings-forth_[60] and two Mounts of
+Olives on five half-sheets. I took three portraits in black and white on
+grey paper. I also sketched in black and white on grey paper two
+Netherland costumes. I painted for the Englishman his coat of arms, and
+he gave me one fl. I have also at one time and another done many
+drawings and other things to serve different people, and for the more
+part of my work have received nothing. Andreas of Krakau paid me one
+Philips fl. for a shield and a child's head. Changed one il. for
+expenses. I paid two fl. for sweeping-brushes. I saw the great
+procession at Antwerp on Corpus Christi day; it was very splendid. I
+gave four st. as trinkgeld. I paid the doctor six st. and one st. for a
+box. I have dined five times with Tomasin. I paid ten st. at the
+apothecary's, and gave his wife fourteen st. for the clyster and
+himself.... To the monk who confessed my wife I gave eight st.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MECHLIN, _June 7 and 8, 1521_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Mechlin I lodged with Master Heinrich, the painter, at the sign of
+the Golden Head.[61] And the painters and sculptors bade me as guest at
+my inn and did me great honour in their gathering. I went also to
+Poppenreuter[62] the gunmaker's house, and found wonderful things there.
+And I went to Lady Margaret's and showed her my _Emperor,_[63] and would
+have presented it to her, but she so disliked it that I took it
+away with me.
+
+And on Friday Lady Margaret showed me all her beautiful things. Amongst
+them I saw about forty small oil pictures, the like of which for
+precision and excellence I have never beheld. There also I saw more good
+works by Jan (de Mabuse), and Jacob Walch.[64] I asked my Lady for
+Jacob's little book, but she said she had already promised it to her
+painter.[65] Then I saw many other costly things and a precious
+library.[66]
+
+ANTWERP, _June_ 8--_July_ 3, 1521.
+
+Master Lukas, who engraves in copper, asked me as his guest. He is a
+little man, born at Leyden in Holland; he was at Antwerp.
+
+I have drawn with the metal-point the portrait of Master Lukas van
+Leyden.[67]
+
+The man with the three rings has overreached me by half. I did not
+understand the matter. I bought a red cap for my god-child[68]for
+eighteen st. Lost twelve st. at play. Drank two st.
+
+Cornelius Grapheus, the Secretary, gave me Luther's "Babylonian
+Captivity,"[69] in return for which I gave him my three Large Books.
+
+[Illustration: LUCAS VAN DER LEYDEN Drawing in charcoal formerly in the
+collection at Warwick Castle.]
+
+I reckoned up with Jobst and found myself thirty-one fl. in his debt,
+which I paid him; therein were charged and deducted the two portrait
+heads which I painted in oils, for which he gave five pounds of borax
+Netherlands weight. In all my doings, spendings, sales, and other
+dealings, in all my connections with high and low, I have suffered loss
+in the Netherlands; and Lady Margaret in particular gave me nothing for
+what I made and presented to her. And this settlement with Jobst was
+made on St. Peter and Paul's day.
+
+On our Lady's Visitation, as I was just about to leave Antwerp, the King
+of Denmark sent to me to come to him at once, and take his portrait,
+which I did in charcoal. I also did that of his servant Anton, and I was
+made to dine with the King, and he behaved graciously towards me. I have
+entrusted my bale to Leonhard Tucher and given over my white cloth to
+him. The carrier with whom I bargained did not take me; I fell out with
+him. Gerhard gave me some Italian seeds. I gave the new carrier
+(_Vicarius_) the great turtle shell, the fish-shield, the long pipe, the
+long weapon, the fish-fins, and the two little casks of lemons and
+capers to take home for me, on the day of our Lady's Visitation, 1521.
+
+BRUSSELS, _July_ 3-12, 1521.
+
+I noticed how the people of Antwerp marvelled greatly when they saw the
+King of Denmark, to find him such a manly, handsome man and come hither
+through his enemy's land with only two attendants. I saw, too, how the
+Emperor rode forth from Brussels to meet him, and received him
+honourably with great pomp. Then I saw the noble, costly banquet, which
+the Emperor and Lady Margaret held next day in his honour.
+
+Thomas Bologna has given me an Italian work of art; I have also bought a
+work for one st.
+
+A few days later when the Dürers arrived at Cologne the journal breaks
+off abruptly, as the last few leaves are missing: but there is every
+reason to suppose that they got back safely to Nuremberg two or three
+weeks later.
+
+
+II
+
+This journal shows us how the influence of a greater centre of
+civilisation strengthened the spirit of the Renascence in Dürer: it is
+marked by his having again taken up the paint brushes to do the best
+sort of work, by a new out-break of the collector's acquisitiveness,
+lastly by the tone of such a passage as that wherein the procession on
+the Sunday after our Lady's Assumption (p. 145) is spoken of with
+admiration. "Twenty persons bore the image of the Virgin Mary with the
+Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest manner, to the honour of the Lord
+God." Such a spectacle has a very different significance to his mind
+from that of another procession in honour of the Virgin, depicted in a
+woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer, which presents a large space in front of
+a temporary church; in the midst is a gaudy statue of the Virgin set
+upon a pillar, around whose base seven or eight persons of both sexes,
+whom one might suppose from their attitudes to be drunk, are seen
+writhing, while a procession headed by huge cierges and a cardinal's hat
+on a pole encircles the whole building; those in the procession carrying
+offerings or else candles, two men being naked save for scanty hair
+shirts. On the margin of the copy now at Coburg Dürer has written:
+"1523, this Spectre, contrary to Holy Scripture, has set itself up at
+Regensburg and has been dressed out by the Bishop. God help us that we
+should not so dishonour His precious mother but (honour her?) in Christ
+Jesus. Amen." Indeed, it would be difficult to distinguish between the
+kind of honour done the Virgin in many of Dürer's pictures and etchings
+and that done her in the Antwerp procession; but both are infinitely
+removed from the degradation of emotion produced by an orgy of
+superstition such as that depicted in Ostendorfer's print, which is
+truly nearer akin to the scenes that occasionally occur in Salvation
+Army or Methodist revivals, and is even more repugnant to the spirit of
+the Renascence than to that of the Reformation as Luther and Dürer
+conceived of it. It is well to remind ourselves, by reading such a
+passage and by gazing at Dürer's Virgins enthroned and crowned with
+stars, that the attitude of later Protestants in regard to the worship
+of the Virgin was in no sense shared by Dürer. And we touch the very
+pulse of the Renaissance in the phrase, "Being a painter, I looked about
+me a little more boldly,"--by which Dürer explains that the beautiful
+maidens, almost naked, who figured in the mythological groups along the
+route of Charles V.'s triumphal entry into Antwerp received a very
+different reward, in his attentive gaze, to that which was meted to them
+by the young, austere, and unreformed Charles. One might almost be
+listening to Vasari when Dürer says: "I saw out behind the King's house
+at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth and Beast-garden; anything more
+beautiful and pleasing to me and more like Paradise I have never seen."
+Dürer's admiration for Luther was like Michael Angelo's for Savonarola,
+and he never doubted that fiery indignation was directed against the
+abuse of wealth, force, and beauty, not against their use; though
+perhaps both the Italian and the German reformer occasionally
+confused the two.
+
+
+III
+
+Duress journey was successful in that he obtained from Charles V. what
+he sought--the confirmation of his privilegium.
+
+CHARLES, by God's grace, Roman Emperor Elect, etc.
+
+Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved,
+
+Whereas the most illustrious Prince, Emperor Maximilian, our dear lord
+and grandfather of praiseworthy memory, appointed and assigned unto our
+and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Dürer the sum of 100
+florins Rhenish every year of his life to be paid from and out of our
+and the Empire's customary town contributions, which you are bound to
+render yearly into our Imperial Treasury; and whereas we, as Roman
+Emperor, have graciously agreed thereto, and have granted anew this life
+pension unto him according to the terms of the above letter; we
+therefore earnestly command you, and it is our will, that you render and
+give unto the said Albrecht Dürer henceforward every year of his life,
+from and out of the said town contributions and in return for his proper
+quittance, the said life pension of 100 florins Rhenish, together with
+whatever part of it stands over unpaid since the Emperor Maximilian's
+grant; etc.
+
+Given at our and the Holy Empire's town Köln on the fourth day of the
+month November (1520), etc.
+
+(Signed) KARL.
+(Signed) ALBRECHT, Cardinal, Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor.
+
+Besides, he got back to Nuremberg without falling in with highwaymen,
+though the following little letter shows us that in this he was
+fortunate.
+
+Dear Master Wolf Stromer,--My most gracious lord of Salzburg has sent
+me a letter by the hand of his glass-painter. I shall be glad to do
+anything I can to help him. He is to buy glass and materials here. He
+tells me that near Freistadtlein he was robbed and had twenty florins
+taken from him. He has asked me to send him to you, for his gracious
+lord told him if he wanted anything to let you know. I send him,
+therefore, to your Wisdom with my apprentice. Your Wisdom's,
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+No doubt he had enriched his mind and cheered his heart in the company
+of prosperous, go-ahead, and earnest men; but as he says, "when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me" (see p. 156). And, alas! it
+was to remain with him till he died of it. So that his journey cannot be
+considered as altogether fortunate.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 24: He was one of the leading Humanists of the time. The
+Madonna referred to was still at Bamberg, at the beginning of the
+present century.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Owing to the existence of some rudimentary form of
+Zollverein, Dürer's pass not only freed him of dues in the Bamberg
+district but as far down the Rhine as Köln.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Hans Wolf, successor to Hans Wolfgang Katzheimer.]
+
+[Footnote 27: There is a portrait drawing of Jobst Plankfelt by Dürer in
+the Städel collection at Frankfurt.]
+
+[Footnote 28: That is the head of the Fuggers' branch house at Antwerp.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Erasmus of Rotterdam, the famous Humanist.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Holbein also painted a portrait of this man in 1528. The
+picture is in the Louvre.]
+
+[Footnote 31: A pen-and-ink likeness of him by Dürer is in the
+possession of the painter Bendemann, of Düsseldorf. It bears the
+inscription in Dürer's hand, "1520. _Hans Pfaffroth van Dantzgen ein
+Starkmann_."]
+
+[Footnote 32: These were four pictures painted upon linen. They
+represented _The justice of Trajan, Pope Gregory praying for the
+Heathen_, and two incidents in the story of Erkenbald. The pictures were
+burnt in 1695, but their compositions are reproduced in the well-known
+Burgundian tapestries at Bern. See Pinchart, in the _Bulletins de
+l'Academie de Bruxelles_, 2nd Series, XVII.: also Kinkel, _Die brusseler
+Rathhausbilder_, &c., Zurich, 1867.]
+
+[Footnote 33: A rapid sketch made by Dürer in this place is in the
+Academy at Vienna. It is dated 1520, and inscribed, "that is the
+pleasure and beast-garden at Brussels, seen down behind out of
+the Palace."]
+
+[Footnote 34: A reproduction of an old view of this house will be found
+in _L'Art_, 1884, I. p. 188.]
+
+[Footnote 35: This picture was painted on four panels and represented
+the Seven Sacraments and a Crucifix. It is now lost. A similar picture
+is in the Antwerp Gallery, ascribed to Roger van der Weyden.]
+
+[Footnote 36: This is perhaps the drawing in the Bounat collection at
+Paris; it has been photographed by Braun (see illus. opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 37: It is believed that Dürer here refers to an edition of the
+satirical tale edited by Thomas Murner, and published at Strassburg
+in 1519.]
+
+[Footnote 38: "He afterwards particularly described to Melanchthon the
+splendid spectacles he had beheld, and how in what were plainly
+mythological groups, the most beautiful maidens figured almost naked,
+and covered only with a thin transparent veil. The young Emperor did not
+hocour them with a single glance, but Dürer himself was very glad to get
+near, not less for the purpose of seeing the tableaux than to have the
+opportunity of observing closely the perfect figures of the young
+girls." As he himself says, "Being a painter, I looked about me a little
+more boldly."--See Thausing's "Life of Dürer," vol. ii., p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 39: _Het oud register van diversche mandementen_, a
+fifteenth-century folio manuscript, still preserved in the Antwerp
+archives.]
+
+[Footnote 40: On April 6, 1520.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Tommaso was sent to Flanders in 1520 by Pope Leo X. to
+oversee the manufacture of the "second series" of tapestries. The
+painter does not seem to have returned to Italy.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Engravings by Marcantonio from Raphael's designs.]
+
+[Footnote 43: The picture is lost, but an engraving of it made by And.
+Stock in 1629 is well-known.]
+
+[Footnote 44: The fine monoliths brought from Ravenna and still to be
+seen in Aachen Cathedral.]
+
+[Footnote 45: The confirmation of his pension; _see_ p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Member of a Nürnberg family.]
+
+[Footnote 47: The object of the whole expedition was doubtless, that
+Dürer might see and sketch the whale. In the British Museum is a study
+of a walrus by Dürer, dated 1521, and inscribed, "The animal whose head
+I have drawn here was taken in the Netherlandish sea, and was twelve
+Brabant ells long and had four feet."]
+
+[Footnote 48: Gerhard van de Werve.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Pupil and afterwards friend of Erasmus.]
+
+[Footnote 50: These people were Dürer's principal Nürnberg friends.]
+
+[Footnote 51: It is assumed by commentators that _Chapel_ means
+_Altar-piece_, and it is guessed that the particular altar-piece is the
+one in the Berlin Museum which Charles V. is reported to have carried
+about with him, and which belonged to the Miraflores Convent. The
+guesses are worthless.]
+
+[Footnote 52: In St. Jacob's was the _Entombment_ by Hugo van der Goes.]
+
+[Footnote 53: It is in white marble. It was sculpted about 1501-6. Some
+critics have refused to accept it as a genuine work. Dürer ought to have
+been in a position to know the truth.]
+
+[Footnote 54: At this time there were plenty of his pictures at Bruges.
+Dürer doubtless saw his Madonna in St. Donatien's, now in the Academy of
+the same town.]
+
+[Footnote 55: The famous altar-piece painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck,
+of which the central part is still in its original place and the wings
+are divided, two of their panels being at Brussels and the rest
+at Berlin.]
+
+[Footnote 56: This drawing from Dürer's sketch-book is in the Court
+Library at Vienna (see pl. opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 57: The story is recounted in _Flandria illustrata_ (A.
+Sanderi, Colon., 1641, i. 149.)]
+
+[Footnote 58: Gerhard Horeboul of Ghent. Charles V.'s 'Book of Hours' in
+the Vienna library is his work. He also had a hand in the Grimani
+Breviary. After 1521 he went to England and entered the service of Henry
+VIII. His daughter Susanna was likewise in the service of the English
+King. She married and died in England.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Perhaps Jan van den Perre, afterwards goldsmith to Charles
+V.]
+
+[Footnote 60: That is to say, drawings representing _Christ bearing HIS
+CROSS_. _Mount of Olives_ means the Agony _in the_ Garden.]
+
+[Footnote 61: The inn-keeper of the _Golden Head_ is known to have been
+a painter. His name was Heinrich Keldermann.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Though born at Köln, he was called Hans von Nürnberg. He
+was cannon-founder and gun-maker to Charles V.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Doubtless Dürer's portrait of Maximilian, now in the
+Gallery at Vienna, dated 1519. (_see_ p. 215).]
+
+[Footnote 64: Jacopo de' Barbari.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Bernard van Orley.]
+
+[Footnote 66: The catalogue of this library exists in the inventory of
+the Archduchess' possessions.]
+
+[Footnote 67: This is in the Musée Wicar at Lille; another portrait of
+Lukas van Leyden by Dürer was in the Earl of Warwick's collection (_see_
+opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 68: Hieronymus Imhof.]
+
+[Footnote 69: A quarto tract by Luther, printed in 1520 (without place
+or date), entitled _Von der Babylonischen gefenglnuss der Kirchen_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DÜRER'S LAST YEARS
+
+
+I
+
+Dürer came back home with health broken: yet it is to this period that
+the magnificent portraits at Berlin of Nuremberg Councillors belong, and
+certainly his hand and eye had never been more sure than when he
+produced them. The hall of the Rathhaus was decorated under his
+direction and from his designs, the actual painting being, it is
+supposed, chiefly the work of George Penz, who with his fellow prentices
+became famous in 1524 as one of "the three godless painters."
+
+We now come to a letter dated
+
+NÜRNBERG, _December_ 5, 1523, Sunday after Andrew's
+
+My dear and gracious Master Frey--I have received the little book you
+sent to Master (Ulrich) Varnbüler and me; when he has finished reading
+it I will read it too. As to the monkey-dance you want me to draw for
+you, I have drawn this one here, unskilfully enough, for it is a long
+time since I saw any monkeys; so pray put up with it. Convey my willing
+service to Herr Zwingli (the reformer), Hans Leu (a Protestant painter),
+Hans Urich, and my other good masters. ALBRECHT DÜRER. Divide these five
+little prints amongst you: I have nothing else new.
+
+This Master Felix Frey was a reformer at Zurich: he was probably not
+closely related to Hans Frey, Dürer's father-in-law, whose death is thus
+recorded in Dürer's book:
+
+In the year 1523 (as they reckon it), on our dear Lady's Day, when she
+was offered in the Temple, early, before the morning chimes, Hans Frey,
+my dear father-in-law, passed away. He had lain ill for almost six years
+and suffered quite incredible adversities in this world. He received the
+Sacraments before he died. God Almighty be gracious to him.
+
+Next we have letters from and to Niklas Kratzer, Astronomer to Henry
+VIII. He had been present when Dürer drew Erasmus' portrait at Antwerp.
+Dürer had also made a drawing of Kratzer, and later on Holbein was to
+paint his masterpiece in the Louvre from the Oxford professor.
+
+To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht Dürer, burgher of Nürnberg,
+my dear Master and Friend. LONDON, _October_ 24, 1524. Honourable,
+dear Sir,
+
+I am very glad to hear of your good health and that of your wife. I have
+had Hans Pomer staying with me in England. Now that you are all
+evangelical in Nürnberg I must write to you. God grant you grace to
+persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but God is stronger, and
+is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want
+you, dear Herr Albrecht Dürer, to make a drawing for me of the
+instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure
+distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp. Or perhaps
+Herr Pirkheimer would send me the design of it--he would be doing me a
+great favour. I want also to know how much a set of impressions of all
+your prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at Nürnberg
+relating to my art. I hear that our friend Hans, the astronomer, is
+dead. Would you write and tell me what instruments and the like he has
+left, and also where our Stabius' prints and wood-blocks are to be
+found? Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I hope to make him a map of
+England, which is a great country, and was unknown to Ptolemy. He would
+like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no
+more than a small part of it. You cannot write to me any longer through
+Hans Pomer. Pray send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S.
+Koloman.[70]I have nothing more to say that would interest you, so God
+bless you. Given at London, October 24. Your servant, NIKLAS KRATZEH.
+Greet your wife heartily for me.
+
+To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his
+Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend.
+
+NÜRNBERG, Monday after Barbara's (_December_ 5), 1524.
+
+First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received
+and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are
+going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer
+about the instrument you wanted to have. He is having one made for you,
+and is going to send it to you with a letter. The things Herr Hans left
+when he died have all been scattered; as I was away at the time of his
+death I cannot find out where they are gone to. The same has happened to
+Stabius' things; they were all taken to Austria, and I can tell you no
+more about them. I should like to know whether you have yet begun to
+translate Euclid into German, as you told me, if you had time, you
+would do.
+
+We have to stand in disgrace and danger for the sake of the Christian
+faith, for they abuse us as heretics; but may God grant us His grace and
+strengthen us in His word, for we must obey Him rather than men. It is
+better to lose life and goods than that God should cast us, body and
+soul, into hell-fire. Therefore, may He confirm us in that which is
+good, and enlighten our adversaries, poor, miserable, blind creatures,
+that they may not perish in their errors.
+
+Now God bless you! I send you two likenesses, printed from copper, which
+you will know well. At present I have no good news to write you, but
+much evil. However, only God's will cometh to pass. Your Wisdom's,
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+Another letter to Dürer from Cornelius Grapheus at Antwerp gives us some
+help towards understanding how the Reformation affected Dürer and
+his friends.
+
+To Master Albrecht Dürer, unrivalled chief in the art of painting, my
+friend and most beloved brother in Christ, at Nürnberg; or in his
+absence to Wilibald Pirkheimer.
+
+I wrote a good long letter to you, some time ago, in the name of our
+common friend Thomas Bombelli, but we have received no answer from you.
+We are, therefore, the more anxious to hear even three words from you,
+that we may know how you are and what is going on in your parts, for
+there is no doubt that great events are happening. Thomas Bombelli sends
+you his heartiest greeting. I beg you, as I did in my last letter, to
+greet Wilibald Pirkheimer a score of times for me. Of my own condition I
+will tell you nothing. The bearers of this letter will be able to
+acquaint you with everything. They are very good men and most sincere
+Christians. I commend, them to you and my friend Pirkheimer as if they
+were myself; for they, themselves the best of men, merit the highest
+recommendation to the best of men. Farewell, dearest Albrecht. Amongst
+us there is a great and daily increasing persecution on account of the
+Gospel. Our brethren, the bearers, will tell you all about it more
+openly. Again farewell.
+
+Wholly yours,
+
+CORNELIUS GRAPHEUS.
+
+ANTWERP, _February_ 23, 1524.
+
+
+II
+
+The events which made Dürer an ardent Evangelical and Reformer in a
+coarser paste proved a leaven of anarchy and subversion. Young,
+hot-headed nobles like Ulrich Von Hutten became iconoclastic, were
+foremost at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a
+part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they
+were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the
+unrest, discontent, and appetite for change took forms if not more
+offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a
+foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French
+Revolution. And in the towns men like "the three godless painters" made
+the burghers shake in their shoes for the social order which kept them
+rich and respected and others poor and servile. It is strange that all
+three should have come from Dürer's workshop. Probably they were the
+most talented prentices of the craft, since the great master chose them:
+besides, painting was an occupation which allowed of a certain
+intellectual development. They may have often listened with hungry ears
+to disputes between Pirkheimer and Dürer, and envied the good luck,
+grace and gift which had enabled the latter to bridge over a gulf as
+great as that which separated them from him, between him and Pirkheimer
+or Vambüler. All this and much more we can by taking thought imagine to
+our satisfaction; but the point which we would most desire to
+satisfactorily conjecture we are utterly in the dark about. Though his
+prentices were tried, Dürer appeared neither for nor against them; nor
+can we help ourselves to understand a fact so strange by any other
+mention of his attitude. He had a year or two previously married his
+servant, (perhaps the girl that his wife took with her to the
+Netherlands), to Georg Penz, who went the farthest in his scepticism,
+recanted soonest, and possessed least talent of the three. But this
+fact, which is not quite assured, narrows the grounds of conjecture but
+little; we still face an almost boundless blank. It is difficult to
+imagine that Dürer was quite as shocked as the Town Council by a man who
+said "he had some idea that there was a God, but did not know rightly
+what conception to form of him," who was so unfortunate as to think
+"nothing" of Christ, and could not believe in the Holy Gospel or in the
+word of God; and who failed to recognise "a master of himself, his goods
+and everything belonging to him" in the Council of Nuremberg.
+Now-a-days, when we think of the licence of assertion that has obtained
+on these questions, we are inclined to admire the honesty and
+intellectual clarity of such a confession. And Dürer, who resolved the
+similar question of authority as to "things beautiful" in a manner much
+the same as this, may, we can at least hope, have viewed his prentices
+with more of pity than of anger. All the three "godless painters" were
+banished from reformed Nuremberg; but Georg, whose confession had been
+most godless, recanted and was allowed to return. The others, Sebald and
+Barthel Beham, managed to perpetuate their names as "little masters"
+without the approbation of the Town Councillors, and are to-day less
+forgotten than those who condemned them. Hieronymus Andreae, the most
+skilful and famous of Dürer's wood engravers, caused the Council the
+same kind of alarm and concern. He took part with the peasants in their
+rebellion; but rebellion against a known authority was more pardonable
+than that against the unknown, or else his services were of greater
+value. At any rate he was pardoned not once but many times, being
+apparently an obstreperous character.
+
+
+III
+
+If we can form no conjecture as to Dürer's relations with his heretical
+aids, we have evidence as to his relations with their judges; for in
+1524 he wrote to the Town Council thus:
+
+Prudent, honourable and wise, most gracious Masters,--During long years,
+by hardworking pains and labour under Gods blessing, I have saved out of
+my earnings as much as 1000 florins Rhenish, which I should now be glad
+to invest for my support.
+
+I know, indeed, that your Honours are not often wont at the present time
+to grant interest at the rate of one florin for twenty; and I have been
+told that before now other applications of a like kind have been
+refused. It is not, therefore, without scruple that I address your
+Honours in this matter. Yet my necessities impel me to prefer this
+request to your Honours, and I am encouraged to do so above all by the
+particularly gracious favour which I have always received from your
+Honourable Wisdoms, as well as by the following considerations.
+
+Your Wisdoms know how I have always hitherto shown myself dutiful,
+willing, and zealous in all matters that concerned your Wisdoms and the
+common weal of the town. You know, moreover, how, before now, I have
+served many individual members of the Council, as well as of the
+community here, gratuitously rather than for pay, when they stood in
+need of my help, art, and labour. I can also write with truth that,
+during the thirty years I have stayed at home, I have not received from
+people in this town work worth 500 florins--truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum--and not a fifth part of that has been profit. I have, on
+the contrary, earned and attained all my property (which, God knows, has
+grown irksome to me) from Princes, Lords, and other foreign persons, so
+that I only spend in this town what I have earned from foreigners.
+
+Doubtless, also, your Honours remember that at one time Emperor
+Maximilian, of most praiseworthy memory, in return for the manifold
+services which I had performed for him, year after year, of his own
+impulse and imperial charity wanted to make me free of taxes in this
+town. At the instance, however, of some of the elder Councillors, who
+treated with me in the matter in the name of the Council, I willingly
+resigned that privilege, in order to honour the said Councillors and to
+maintain their privileges, usages, and rights.
+
+Again, nineteen years ago, the government of Venice offered to appoint
+me to an office and to give me a salary of 200 ducats a year. So, too,
+only a short time ago when I was in the Netherlands, the Council of
+Antwerp would have given me 300 Philipsgulden a year, kept me there free
+of taxes, and honoured me with a well-built house; and besides I should
+have been paid in addition at both places for all the work I might have
+done for the gentry. But I declined all this, because of the particular
+love and affection which I bear to your honourable Wisdoms and to my
+fatherland, this honourable town, preferring, as I did, to live under
+your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather than to be rich and held in honour
+in other places.
+
+It is, therefore, my most submissive prayer to your Honours, that you
+will be pleased graciously to take these facts into consideration, and
+to receive from me on my account these 1000 florins, paying me 50
+florins a year as interest. I could, indeed, place them well with other
+respectable parties here and elsewhere, but I should prefer to see them
+in the hands of your Wisdoms. I and my wife will then, now that we are
+both growing daily older, feebler, and more helpless, possess the
+certainty of a fitting household for our needs; and we shall experience
+thereby, as formerly, your honourable Wisdoms' favour and goodwill. To
+merit this from your Honours with all my powers I shall ever be
+found willing.
+
+Your Wisdoms' willing, obedient burgher,
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+Dürer obtained the desired five per cent. on his savings annually until
+his death, and afterwards his widow received four per cent. until
+her death.
+
+In 1526 the grateful artist finished and dedicated to his
+fellow-townsmen his most important picture, representing the four
+temperaments in the persons of St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St.
+Mark; he wrote thus to the Council:
+
+Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters,--I have been intending, for a
+long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation
+of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance; but I have been
+prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my
+works, for I felt that with such I could not well stand before your
+Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I
+have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none
+more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.
+
+Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent
+prayer that you will favourably and graciously receive it, and will be
+and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.
+
+Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.
+
+Your Wisdoms' humble
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+The gift was accepted, and the Council voted Dürer 100 florins, his wife
+10, and his apprentice 2. Underneath the two panels which form the
+picture, the following was inscribed; the texts being from
+Luther's Bible:
+
+All worldly rulers in these dangerous times should give good heed that
+they receive not human misguidance for the Word of God, for God will
+have nothing added to His Word nor taken away from it. Hear, therefore,
+these four excellent men, Peter, John, Paul, and Mark, their warning.
+
+Peter says in his Second Epistle in the second chapter: There were false
+prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
+among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying
+the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
+And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way
+of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they
+with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long
+time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
+
+John in his First Epistle in the fourth chapter writes thus: Beloved,
+believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:
+because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye
+the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is
+come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that
+Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that
+spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and
+even now already is it in the world.
+
+In the Second Epistle to Timothy in the third chapter St. Paul writes:
+This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For
+men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,
+blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural
+affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
+despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers
+of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but
+denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are
+they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with
+sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come
+to the knowledge of the truth.
+
+St. Mark writes in his Gospel in the twelfth chapter: He said unto them
+in His doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long
+clothing, and love salutations in the market-places, and the chief seats
+in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts; which devour
+widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall
+receive greater damnation.
+
+These rather tremendous texts may make one fear that the "three godless
+painters" had found little pity in their master; but most sincere
+Christians are better than their creeds, and more charitable than the
+old-world imprecations, admonitions, and denunciations, with which they
+soothe their Cerberus of an old Adam, who is not allowed to use his
+teeth to the full extent that their formidable nature would seem to
+warrant. For have they not been told above all things to love their
+enemies, and do good to those whom they would naturally hate, by a
+master whom they really love and strive to imitate?
+
+
+IV
+
+Dürer's last years were given more and more to writing down his ideas
+for the sake of those who, coming after him, would, he was persuaded, go
+on far before him in the race for perfection. In 1525 he published his
+first book--"Instruction in the Measurement with the Compass, and Rules
+of Lines, Surfaces, and Solid Bodies, drawn up by Albert Dürer, and
+printed, for the use of all lovers of art, with appropriate diagrams."
+It contains a course of applied geometry in connection with Euclid's
+Elements. Dürer states from the very commencement that "his book will be
+of no use to any one who understands the geometry of the 'very acute'
+Euclid; for it has been written only for the young, and for those who
+have had no one to instruct them accurately." Thausing tells us his work
+shows certain resemblances to that of Luca Pacioli, a companion of
+Leonardo's, who may have been the "man who is willing to teach me the
+secrets of the art of perspective," and whom Dürer in 1506 travelled
+from Venice to Bologna to see; it is even possible that he saw Leonardo
+himself in the latter town. In 1527 he issued an essay on the "Art of
+Fortification," which the development of artillery was then
+transforming; and authorities on this very special science tell us that
+Dürer is the true author of the ideas on which the "new Prussian system"
+was founded. It was dread of the unchristian Turk who was then besieging
+Vienna which called forth from Dürer this excursion. He dedicated it in
+the following terms:
+
+To the most illustrious, mighty prince and lord, Lord Ferdinand, King of
+Hungary and Bohemia, Infant of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Duke of
+Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and Tirol, his Roman
+Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, Regent in the Holy Empire, my
+most gracious Sire.
+
+Most illustrious mighty King, most gracious Sire,--During the lifetime
+of the most illustrious and mighty Emperor Maximilian of praiseworthy
+memory, your Majesty's Lord and Grandsire, I experienced grace and
+favour from his Imperial Majesty; wherefore I consider myself no less
+bound to serve your Majesty according to my small powers. As it
+happeneth that your Majesty has commanded some towns and places to be
+fortified, I am induced to make known what little I know about these
+matters, if perchance it may please your Majesty to gather somewhat
+therefrom. For though my theory may not be accepted in every point,
+still I believe something will arise from it, here and there, useful not
+to your Majesty only, but to all other Princes, Lords, and Towns, that
+would gladly protect themselves against violence and unjust oppression.
+I therefore humbly pray your Majesty graciously to accept from me this
+evidence of my gratitude, and to be my most gracious lord,
+
+Your Royal Majesty's most humble
+
+ALBRECHT DÜRER.
+
+It seems that at any rate the Kronenburg Gate and Roseneck bastion of
+Strasburg were actually constructed in accordance with Dürer's method.
+
+When, on April 6, 1528, Dürer died suddenly, two volumes of his great
+work on "Human Proportions" were ready for the press, and enough raw
+material, notes, drawings, &c., to enable his friend Pirkheimer to
+prepare and issue the remaining two with them. Of the misunderstanding
+of this the most important of Dürer's writings I shall say nothing here,
+as I have devoted a separate chapter to it.
+
+
+V
+
+It seems probable that the "wondrous sickness which overcame me in
+Zeeland, such as I never heard of from any man, and which sickness
+remains with me" of the Netherlands Journal (p. 156) was an intermittent
+fever. There exists at Bremen a sketch of Dürer, nude down to the waist,
+and pointing with his finger to a spot between the pit of the stomach
+and the groin, which spot he has coloured yellow; and from its size,
+with the other descriptions of his malady, the skilful have arrived at
+the above diagnosis. The words on the sketch, "The yellow spot to which
+my finger points is where it pains me," seem to indicate that he had
+made it to send to some skilled physician. Thausing suggests either
+Master Jacob or Master Braun, whom he had met at Antwerp, and deduces
+from the length of his hair and the apparent vigour of his body, that
+the drawing was made soon after the disease was contracted. All doubt as
+to its nature would be removed, could it be made certain that by the
+words, "I have sent to your Grace early this year before I became ill,"
+in a letter to the Elector Albert dated September 4, 1523, Dürer meant
+to imply that at a certain period he became ill every year; but of
+course it is impossible to be sure of this.
+
+
+VI
+
+If not rich, Dürer died comfortably off. Thausing tells us that his
+"widow entered into possession of his whole fortune;" a fourth part
+belonged, according to Nuremberg law, to his brothers, but she was not
+bound to render it to them before her death. On June 9, 1530, however,
+she "of her own desire, and on account of the friendly feeling which she
+entertained for them for her husband's sake, and as her dear
+brothers-in-law," made over both to Andreas Dürer, goldsmith, and to
+Caspar Altmulsteiner, on behalf of Hans Dürer, then in the service of
+the King of Poland, a sum of 553 florins, three pounds, eleven pfennigs,
+and gave them a mortgage for the remaining sum of 608 florins, two
+pounds, twenty-four pfennigs on the corner house in the Zistelgasse, now
+called the Dürer House; for the property had been valued at 6848
+florins, seven pounds, twenty-four pfennigs. Johann Neudörffer, who
+lived opposite the Dürers, has recorded the fact that Dürer's brother
+Endres inherited all his expensive colours, his copper plates and wood
+blocks, as well as any impressions there were, and all his drawings
+beside. And a year before her death, Agnes Dürer gave the interest on
+the 1000 florins invested in the town to found a scholarship for
+theological students at the University of Wittenberg; about which
+Melanchthon wrote to von Dietrich that he thanked God for this aid to
+study, and that he had praised this good deed of the widow Dürer before
+Luther and others. And yet Pirkheimer, in his spleen at having lost the
+chance of procuring some stags' antlers which had belonged to his
+friend, and which he coveted, could write of Agues Dürer: "She watched
+him day and night and drove him to work ... that he might earn money
+and leave it her when he died. For she always thought she was on the
+borders of ruin--as for the matter of that she does still--though
+Albrecht left her property worth as much as six thousand florins. But
+there! nothing was enough; and, in fact, she alone is the cause of his
+death!" We know that what with the four Apostles and his books Dürer's
+last years were not spent on remunerative labours; nor does the
+Netherlands Journal contain any hint that his wife tried to restrict the
+employment either of his time or money. His journey into Zeeland was a
+pure extravagance; for the sale of a copper engraving or woodcut of a
+whale would have taken some time to make up for such an expense, and, as
+it turned out, no whale was seen or drawn; and there is no hint that
+Frau Dürer made reproach or complaint. On the other hand, Pirkheimer's
+words probably had some slight basis; and as Dürer's sickness increased
+upon him, while at the same time he applied himself less and less to
+making money, the anxious Frau may have become fretful or even nagging
+at times; and Pirkheimer, whose companionship was probably a cause of
+extravagances to Dürer, may have been scolded by Agnes, or heard his
+friend excuse himself from taking part in some convivial meeting, on the
+plea that his wife found he was spending out of proportion to his
+takings at the moment.
+
+
+VII
+
+We have the testimony of a good number of Dürer's friends as to the
+value of his character; and first let us quote from Pirkheimer--writing
+immediately after Dürer's death and before' the loss of the coveted
+antlers had vexed him--to a common friend Ulrich, probably Ulrich
+Varnbüler.
+
+What can be more grievous for a man than to have continually to mourn,
+not only children and relations whom death steals from him, but friends
+also, and among them those whom he loved best? And though I have often
+had to mourn the loss of relations, still I do not know that any death
+ever caused me such grief as fills me now at the sudden departure of our
+good and dear Albrecht Dürer. Nor is this without reason, for of all men
+not united to me by ties of blood, I have never loved or esteemed any
+like him for his countless virtues and rare uprightness. And because I
+know, my dear Ulrich, that this blow has struck both you and me alike, I
+have not been afraid to give vent to my grief before you of all others,
+so that together we may pay the fitting tribute of tears to such a
+friend. He is gone, good Ulrich; our Albrecht is gone! Oh, inexorable
+decree of fate! Oh, miserable lot of man! Oh, pitiless severity of
+death! Such a man, yea, such a man, is torn from us, while so many
+useless and worthless men enjoy lasting happiness, and live only
+too long!
+
+Thausing insists on the fact that in this letter there is no mention of
+Dürer's death having been caused by his wife's behaviour; but as the
+relation of Ulrich to the deceased seems to have been well-nigh as
+intimate as his own, there may have been no need to mention a fact
+painfully present to both their minds. On the other hand, it is at least
+as probable that the idea was not present even to the mind of the
+writer, who, in a style less studiously commonplace, inscribed on
+Dürer's tomb:
+
+Me. AL. DU.
+
+QVICQVID ALBERTI DVRERI MORTALE FVIT, SVB HOC CONDITVR TVMVLO. EMIGRAVIT
+VIII IDVS APRILIS MDXXVIII.
+
+(To the memory of Albrecht Dürer. All that was mortal of Albrecht Dürer
+is laid beneath this mound. He departed on April 6, 1528.)
+
+Luther wrote to Eoban Hesse:
+
+As to Dürer, it is natural and right to weep for so excellent a man;
+still you should rather think him blessed, as one whom Christ has taken
+in the fulness of His wisdom, and by a happy death, from these most
+troublous times, and perhaps from times even more troublous which are to
+come, lest one who was worthy to look upon nothing but excellence should
+be forced to behold things most vile. May he rest in peace. Amen.
+
+Erasmus had some months before written and printed in a treatise on the
+right pronunciation of Latin and Greek an eulogy of Dürer. It is not
+known whether a copy had reached him before his death; in any case to
+most people it came like a funeral oration from the greatest scholar on
+the greatest artist north of the Alps. Thausing quotes the following
+passage from it:
+
+I have known Dürer's name for a long time as that of the first celebrity
+in the art of painting. Some call him the Apelles of our time. But I
+think that did Apelles live now, he, as an honourable man, would give
+the palm to Dürer. Apelles, it is true, made use of few and unobtrusive
+colours, but still he used colours; while Dürer,--admirable as he is,
+too, in other respects,--what can he not express with a single
+colour--that is to say, with black lines? He can give the effect of
+light and shade, brightness, foreground and background. Moreover, he
+reproduces _not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also observes
+the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the position of
+it_. He can also transfer by enchantment, so to say, upon the canvas,
+things which it seems not possible to represent, such as fire, sunbeams,
+storms, lightning, and mist; he can portray every passion, show us the
+whole soul of a man shining through his outward form; nay, even make us
+hear his very speech. All this he brings so happily before the eye with
+those black lines, that the picture would lose by being clothed in
+colour. Is it not more worthy of admiration to achieve without the
+winning charm of colour what Apelles only realised with its assistance?
+
+Melanchthon wrote in a letter to Camerarius:
+
+"It grieves me to see Germany deprived of such an artist and such a
+man."
+
+And we learn from his son-in-law, Caspar Penker, that he often spoke of
+Dürer with affection and respect; he writes:
+
+Melanchthon was often, and many hours together, in Pirkheimer's company,
+at the time when they were advising together about the churches and
+schools at Nürnberg; and Dürer, the painter, used _also_ to be invited
+to dinner with them. Dürer was a man of great shrewdness, and
+Melanchthon used to say of him that though he excelled in the art of
+painting, it was the least of his accomplishments. Disputes often arose
+between Pirkheimer and Dürer on these occasions about the matters
+recently discussed, and Pirkheimer used vehemently to oppose Dürer.
+Dürer was an excessively subtle disputant, and refuted his adversary's
+arguments, just as if he had come fully prepared for the discussion.
+Thereupon Pirkheimer, who was rather a choleric man and liable to very
+severe attacks of the gout, fired up and burst forth again and again
+into such words as these, "What you say cannot be painted." "Nay!"
+rejoined Dürer, "but what you advance cannot be put into words or even
+figured to the mind." I remember hearing Melanchthon often tell this
+story, and in relating it he confessed his astonishment at the ingenuity
+and power manifested by a painter in arguing with a man of
+Pirkheimer's renown.
+
+Such scenes no doubt took place during the years after Dürer's return
+from the Netherlands. Melanchthon also wrote in a letter to George
+von Anhalt:
+
+I remember how that great man, distinguished alike by his intellect and
+his virtue, Albrecht Dürer the painter, said that as a youth he had
+loved bright pictures full of figures, and when considering his own
+productions had always admired those with the greatest variety in them.
+But as an older man, he had begun to observe nature and reproduce it in
+its native forms, and had learned that this simplicity was the greatest
+ornament of art. Being unable completely to attain to this ideal, he
+said that he was no longer an admirer of his works as heretofore, but
+often sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought over his want
+of power.
+
+And in another letter he remembers that Dürer would say that in his
+youth he had found great pleasure in representing monstrous and unusual
+figures, but that in his later years he endeavoured to observe nature,
+and to imitate her as closely as possible; experience, however, had
+taught him how difficult it was not to err. And Thausing continues:
+"Melanchthon speaks even more frequently of how Dürer was pleased with
+pictures he had just finished, but when he saw them after a time, was
+ashamed of them; and those he had painted with the greatest care
+displeased him so much at the end of three years that he could scarcely
+look at them without great pain."
+
+And this on his appreciation of Luther's writings:
+
+Albrecht Dürer, painter of Nürnberg, a shrewd man, once said that there
+was this difference between the writings of Luther and other
+theologians. After reading three or four paragraphs of the first page of
+one of Luther's works he could grasp the problem to be worked out in the
+whole. This clearness and order of arrangement was, he observed, the
+glory of Luther's writings. He used, on the contrary, to say of other
+writers that, after reading a whole book through, he had to consider
+attentively what idea it was that the author intended to convey.
+
+Lastly, Camerarius, the professor of Greek and Latin in the new school
+of Nuremberg, in his Latin translation of Dürer's book on "Human
+Proportions," writes thus:
+
+It is not my present purpose to talk about art. My purpose was to speak
+somewhat, as needs must be, of the artificer, the author of this book.
+He, I trust, has become known by his virtue and his deserts, not only to
+his own country, but to foreign nations also. Full well I know that his
+praises need not our trumpetings to the world, since by his excellent
+works he is exalted and honoured with undying glory. Yet, as we were
+publishing his writings, and an opportunity arose of committing to print
+the life and habits of a remarkable man and a very dear friend of ours,
+we have judged it expedient to put together some few scraps of
+information, learnt partly from the conversations of others and partly
+from our own intercourse with him. This will give some indication of his
+singular skill and genius as artist and man, and cannot fail of
+affording pleasure to the reader. We have heard that our Albrecht was of
+Hungarian extraction, but that his forefathers emigrated to Germany. We
+can, therefore, have but little to say of his origin and birth. Though
+they were honourable, there can be no question but that they gained more
+glory from him than he from them.
+
+Nature bestowed on him a body remarkable in build and stature, and not
+unworthy of the noble mind it contained; that in this, too, Nature's
+Justice, extolled by Hippocrates, might not be forgotten--that Justice,
+which, while it assigns a grotesque form to the ape's grotesque soul, is
+wont also to clothe noble minds in bodies worthy of them. His head was
+intelligent,[71] his eyes flashing, his nose nobly formed, and, as the
+Greeks say, tetrágônon. His neck was rather long, his chest broad, his
+body not too stout, his thighs muscular, his legs firm and steady. But
+his fingers--you would vow you had never seen anything more elegant.
+
+His conversation was marked by so much sweetness and wit, that nothing
+displeased his hearers so much as the end of it. Letters, it is true, he
+had not cultivated, but the great sciences of Physics and Mathematics,
+which are perpetuated by letters, he had almost entirely mastered. He
+not only understood principles and knew how to apply them in practice,
+but he was able to set them forth in words. This is proved by his
+geometrical treatises, wherein I see nothing omitted, except what he
+judged to be beyond the scope of his work. An ardent zeal impelled him
+towards the attainment of all virtue in conduct and life, the display of
+which caused him to be deservedly held a most excellent man. Yet he was
+not of a melancholy severity nor of a repulsive gravity; nay, whatever
+conduced to pleasantness and cheerfulness, and was not inconsistent
+with honour and rectitude, he cultivated all his life and approved even
+in his old age. The works he has left on Gymnastic and Music are of such
+character.
+
+But Nature had specially designed him for a painter, and therefore he
+embraced the study of that art with all his energies, and was ever
+desirous of observing the works and principles of the famous painters of
+every land, and of imitating whatever he approved in them. Moreover,
+with respect to those studies, he experienced the generosity and won the
+favour of the greatest kings and princes, and even of Maximilian himself
+and his grandson the Emperor Charles; and he was rewarded by them with
+no contemptible salary. But after his hand had, so to speak, attained
+its maturity, his sublime and virtue-loving genius became best
+discoverable in his works, for his subjects were fine and his treatment
+of them noble. You may judge the truth of these statements from his
+extant prints in honour of Maximilian, and his memorable astronomical
+diagrams, not to mention other works, not one of which but a painter of
+any nation or day would be proud to call his own. The nature of a man is
+never more certainly and definitely shown than in the works he produces
+as the fruit of his art.... What single painter has there ever been who
+did not reveal his character in his works? Instead of instances from
+ancient history, I shall content myself with examples from our own time.
+No one can fail to see that many painters have sought a vulgar celebrity
+by immodest pictures. It is not credible that those artists can be
+virtuous, whose minds and fingers composed such works. We have also seen
+pictures minutely finished and fairly well coloured, wherein, it is
+true, the master showed a certain talent and industry; but art was
+wanting. Albrecht, therefore, shall we most justly admire as an earnest
+guardian of piety and modesty, and as one who showed, by the magnitude
+of his pictures, that he was conscious of his own powers, although none
+even of his lesser works is to be despised. You will not find in them a
+single line carelessly or wrongly drawn, not a single superfluous dot.
+
+What shall I say of the steadiness and exactitude of his hand? You might
+swear that rule, square, or compasses had been employed to draw lines,
+which he, in fact, drew with the brush, or very often with pencil or
+pen, unaided by artificial means, to the great marvel of those who
+watched him. Why should I tell how his hand so closely followed the
+ideas of his mind that, in a moment, he often dashed upon paper, or, as
+painters say, composed, sketches of every kind of thing with pencil or
+pen? I see I shall not be believed by my readers when I relate, that
+sometimes he would draw separately, not only the different parts of a
+composition, but even the different parts of bodies, which, when joined
+together, agreed with one another so well that nothing could have fitted
+better. In fact this consummate artist's mind endowed with all knowledge
+and understanding of the truth and of the agreement of the parts one
+with another, governed and guided his hand and bade it trust to itself
+without any other aids. With like accuracy he held the brush, wherewith
+he drew the smallest things on canvas or wood without sketching them in
+beforehand, so that, far from giving ground for blame, they always won
+the highest praise. And this was a subject of greatest wonder to most
+distinguished painters, who, from their own great experience, could
+understand the difficulty of the thing.
+
+I cannot forbear to tell, in this place, the story of what happened
+between him and Giovanni Bellini. Bellini had the highest reputation as
+a painter at Venice, and indeed throughout all Italy. When Albrecht was
+there he easily became intimate with him, and both artists naturally
+began to show one another specimens of their skill. Albrecht frankly
+admired and made much of all Bellini's works. Bellini also candidly
+expressed his admiration of various features of Albrecht's skill, and
+particularly the fineness and delicacy with which he drew hairs. It
+chanced one day that they were talking about art, and when their
+conversation was done Bellini said: "Will you be so kind, Albrecht, as
+to gratify a friend in a small matter?" "You shall soon see," says
+Albrecht, "if you will ask of me anything I can do for you." Then says
+Bellini: "I want you to make me a present of one of the brushes with
+which you draw hairs." Dürer at once produced several, just like other
+brushes, and, in fact, of the kind Bellini himself used, and told him to
+choose those he liked best, or to take them all if he would. But
+Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these,
+but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they
+must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep
+such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I
+use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch
+me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long
+wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the most regular order
+and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and afterwards confessed to
+many that no human being could have convinced him by report of the truth
+of that which he had seen with his own eyes.
+
+A similar tribute was given him, with conspicuous candour, by Andrea
+Mantegna, who became famous at Mantua by reducing painting to some
+severity of law--a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up
+broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It
+is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not
+trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is
+held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. While Andrea
+was lying ill at Mantua he heard that Albrecht was in Italy, and had him
+summoned to his side at once, in order that he might fortify his
+(Albrecht's) facility and certainty of hand with scientific knowledge
+and principles. For Andrea often lamented in conversation with his
+friends that Albrecht's facility in drawing had not been granted to him
+nor his learning to Albrecht. On receiving the message Albrecht, leaving
+all other engagements, prepared for the journey without delay. But
+before he could reach Mantua Andrea was dead, and Dürer used to say that
+this was the saddest event in all his life; for, high as Albrecht stood,
+his great and lofty mind was ever striving after something yet
+above him.
+
+Almost with awe have we gazed upon the bearded face of the man, drawn by
+himself, in the manner we have described, with the brush on the canvas
+and without any previous sketch. The locks of the beard are almost a
+cubit long, and so exquisitely and cleverly drawn, at such regular
+distances and in so exact a manner, that the better any one understands
+art, the more he would admire it, and the more certain would he deem it
+that in fashioning these locks the hand had employed artificial aid.
+
+Further, there is nothing foul, nothing disgraceful in his work. The
+thoughts of his most pure mind shunned all such things. Artist worthy of
+success! How like, too, are his portraits! How unerring! How true!
+
+All these perfections he attained by reducing mere practice to art and
+method, in a way new at least to German painters. With Albrecht all was
+ready, certain, and at hand, because he had brought painting into the
+fixed track of rule and recalled it to scientific principles; without
+which, as Cicero said, though some things may be well done by help of
+nature, yet they cannot always be ready to hand, because they are done
+by chance. He first worked his principles out for his own use;
+afterwards with his generous and open nature he attempted to explain
+them in books, written to the illustrious and most learned Wilibald
+Pirkheimer. And he dedicated them to him in a most elegant letter which
+we have not translated, because we felt it to be beyond our power to
+render it into Latin without, so to speak, disfiguring its natural
+countenance. But before he could complete and publish the books, as he
+had hoped, he was carried off by death--a death, calm indeed and
+enviable, but in our view premature. If there was anything at all in
+that man which could seem like a fault, it was his excessive industry,
+which often made unfair demands upon him.
+
+Death, as we have said, removed him from the publication of the work
+which he had begun, but his friends completed the task from his own
+manuscript. About this, in the next place, and about our own version, we
+shall say a few words. The work, being founded on a sort of geometrical
+system, is unpolished and devoid of literary style; so it seems rather
+rugged. But that is easily forgiven in consideration of the excellence
+of the matter. He requested me himself, only a few days before his
+death, to translate it into Latin while he should correct it; and I
+willingly turned my attention and studies to the work. But death, which
+takes everything, took from him his power of supervision and correction.
+His friends subsequently, after publishing the work, prevailed on me, by
+their claims rather than their requests, to undertake the Latin
+translation, and to complete after his death the task Dürer had laid
+upon me in his life.
+
+If I find that my industry and devotion in this matter meet with my
+readers' approval, I shall be encouraged to translate into Latin the
+rest of Albrecht's treatise on painting, a work at once more finished
+and more laborious than the present. Moreover, his writings on other
+subjects will also be looked for, his Geometries and Tichismatics, in
+which he explained the fortification of towns according to the system of
+the present day. These, however, appear to be all the subjects on which
+he wrote books. As to the promise, which I hear certain persons are
+making in conversation or in writing, to publish a book by Dürer on the
+symmetry of the parts of the horse, I cannot but wonder from what
+source they will obtain after his death what he never completed during
+his life. Although I am well aware that Albrecht had begun to
+investigate the law of truth in this matter too, and had made a certain
+number of measurements, I also know that he lost all he had done through
+the treachery of certain persons, by whose means it came about that the
+author's notes were stolen, so that he never cared to begin the work
+afresh. He had a suspicion, or rather a certainty, as to the source
+whence came the drones who had invaded his store; but the great man
+preferred to hide his knowledge, to his own loss and pain, rather than
+to lose sight of generosity and kindness in the pursuit of his enemies.
+We shall not, therefore, suffer anything that may appear to be
+attributed to Albrecht's authorship, unworthy as it must evidently be of
+so great an artist.
+
+A few years ago some tracts also appeared in German, containing rules,
+in general faulty and inappropriate, about the same matter. On these I
+do not care now to waste words, though the author, unless I am much
+mistaken, has not once repented of his publication. But these rules
+above-mentioned, which are easily proved to be Albrecht's, not only
+because he prepared them himself for publication, but also because of
+their own excellence, you will, I think, obtain considerably better here
+than from other sources. Not that they are more finished in point of
+erudition and learning in the present book than elsewhere, but because
+those who interpret them in the author's own workshop, among the
+expansions and corrections of his autograph manuscripts and the
+variations of his different copies, stand in the light about many
+points, which must of necessity seem obscure to others, however learned
+they may be.
+
+This will be seen in the case of the book on Geometry, which a learned
+man has in hand and will shortly publish in a more elaborate form, and
+with more explanation of certain points than it possesses at present.
+For it will be increased by no less than twenty-six [Greek: schêmata]
+(figures) and countless corrections or improvements of earlier editions.
+The author himself on rereading had thus improved and amplified what had
+already been issued. As though he foresaw that he would publish no more,
+he had directed his future editors as to what was to be done about the
+letterpress and figures; and we shall take care that it is published at
+the earliest possible date in the German language, in which the author
+wrote it. It is only to be expected that this will be welcome to the
+public, who will thus return thanks for the author's burning desire to
+do something by his discoveries for the public good, and for our own
+labour and eagerness in publishing to all nations what appears to be
+written only for one.
+
+Though these testimonies may often seem either trifling, or obscured by
+the pedantic affectation of the writers, they, like the signatures of
+well-respected men, endorse the impression produced by Dürer's works and
+writings. As we study the character of Dürer's creative gift in relation
+to his works, several of the phrases used by Erasmus, Camerarius, and
+Melanchthon should take added significance, being probably remembered
+from conversations with the great artist himself.[72] Dürer, like
+Luther, was depressed and distressed at the course the Reformation had
+run; but, like Erasmus, though regretting and disparaging the present,
+he looked forward to the future, and knew "that he would be surpassed,"
+and had no morbid inclination to see the end and final failure of human
+effort in his own exhaustion.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 70: B. 106, published in 1513. The block is in the Court
+Library at Vienna. Thawing says it was designed by Burgkmair or
+Springinklee.]
+
+[Footnote 71: "_Caput argutum_". The phrase is from Virgil's description
+of the thorough-bred horse (_Georg. iii_). The above passage is
+introduced (with modifications) into Melchior Adam's _Vitae Germ.
+Philos._ (p.66). where this sentence runs: "The deep-thinking,
+serene-souled artist was seen unmistakably in his _arched_ and _lofty_
+brow and in the fiery glance of his eye."]
+
+[Footnote 72: In the foregoing quotations the sentences which seem to me
+most reminiscent of Dürer's ideas are printed in italics.]
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+DÜRER AS A CREATOR
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DÜRER'S PICTURES
+
+
+I
+
+Dürer's paintings have suffered more by the malignity of fortune than
+any of his other works. Several have disappeared entirely, and several
+are but wrecks of what they once were. Others are, as he tells us,
+"ordinary pictures," of which "I will in a year paint a pile which no
+one would believe it possible for one man to do in the time," and are
+perhaps more the work of assistants than of the master. Others, again,
+have since been repainted, more or less disastrously. Yet enough remain
+to show us that Dürer was not a painter born, in the sense that Titian
+and Correggio or Rembrandt and Rubens are; nay, not even in the sense
+that a Jan Van Eyck or a Mantegna is. Mantegna is certainly the painter
+with whom Dürer has most affinity, and whose method of employing pigment
+is least removed from his; but Mantegna is a born colourist--a man whose
+eye for colour is like a musician's ear for melody--while Dürer is at
+best with difficulty able to avoid glaring discords, and, if we are to
+judge by the "ordinary pictures," did not avoid them. Again, Mantegna is
+not so dependent on line as Dürer--nearly the whole of whose surface is
+produced by hatching with the brush point. These facts may, perhaps,
+account for the large portion of Dürer's time devoted to engraving. As
+an engraver he early found a style for himself, which he continued to
+develop to the end of his life. As a painter he was for ever
+experimenting, influenced now by Jacopo de' Barbari, again by Bellini
+and the pictures he saw at Venice, and yet again by those he saw in the
+Netherlands. As Velasquez, after each of his journeys to Italy, returns
+to attempt a mythological picture in the grand style, so Dürer turns to
+painting after his return from Venice or from the Netherlands; and his
+pictures divide themselves into three groups: those painted after or
+during his _Wanderjahre_ and before he went to Venice in 1505, those
+painted there and during the next five years after his return, and those
+painted in the Netherlands or commenced immediately on his
+return thence.
+
+
+II
+
+The mediums of oil and tempera lend themselves to the production of
+broad-coloured surfaces that merge imperceptibly into one another. There
+are men the fundamental unit of whose picture language is a blot or
+shape; as children or as savages, they would find these most capable of
+expressing what they saw. There are others for whom the scratch or line
+is the fundamental unit, for whom every object is most naturally
+expressed by an outline. There are, of course, men who present us with
+every possible blend of these two fundamental forms of picture language.
+
+The mediums of oils and tempera are especially adapted to the
+requirements of those who see things rather as a diaper of shapes than
+as a map of lines; while for these last the point of pen, burin, or
+etching-needle offers the most congenial implement. Dürer was very
+greatly more inclined to express objects by a map of lines than as a
+diaper of coloured shapes; and for this reason I say that he was not a
+painter born. If this be true, as a painter he must have been at a
+disadvantage. In this preponderance of the draughtsman qualities he
+resembles many artists of the Florentine school, as also in his
+theoretic pre-occupation with perspective, proportion, architecture, and
+technical methods. We are impressed by a coldness of approach, an
+austerity, a dignity not altogether justified by the occasion, but as it
+were carried over from some precedent hour of spiritual elevation; the
+prophet's demeanour in between the days of visitation, a little too
+consciously careful not to compromise the divinity which informs him no
+longer. This tendency to fall back on manner greatly acquired indeed,
+but no longer consonant with the actual mood, which is really too vacant
+of import to parade such importance, is often a fault of natures whose
+native means of expression is the thin line, the geometer's precision,
+the architect's foresight in measurement. And by allowing for it I think
+we can explain the contradiction apparent between the critics' continual
+insistence on what they call Dürer's great thoughts, and the sparsity of
+intellectual creativeness which strikes one in turning over his
+engravings, so many are there of which either the occasion or the
+conception are altogether trivial when compared with the grandiose
+aspect of the composition or the impeccable mechanical performance.
+Dürer's literary remains sufficiently prove his mind to have been
+constantly exercised upon and around great thoughts, and their influence
+may be felt in the austerity and intensity of his noblest portraits and
+other creations. But "great thoughts" in respect of works of art either
+means the communication of a profound emotion by the creation of a
+suitable arabesque for a deeply significant subject, as in the flowing
+masses of Michael Angelo's _Creation of Man_, or it means the pictorial
+enhancing of the telling incidents of a dramatic situation such as we
+find it in Rembrandt's treatment of the Crucifixion, Deposition, or
+Entombment. Now it seems to me the paucity of successes on these lines
+in one who nevertheless occasionally entirely succeeds, is what is most
+striking in Dürer. Perhaps when dealing with the graphic arts one should
+rather speak of great character than great thoughts; yet Dürer, while
+constantly impressing us as a great character, seems to be one who was
+all too rarely wholly himself. The abundant felicity in expression of
+Rembrandt or Shakespeare is altogether wanting. The imperial imposition
+of mood which Michael Angelo affects is perhaps never quite certainly
+his, even in the _Melancholy_. Yet we feel that not only has he a
+capacity of the same order as those men, but that he is spiritually akin
+to them, despite his coldness, despite his ostentation.
+
+But not only is Dürer praised for "great thoughts," but he is praised
+for realism, and sometimes accused of having delighted in ugliness; or,
+as it is more cautiously expressed, of having preferred truth to grace.
+This is a point which I consider may better be discussed in respect to
+his drawings than his pictures, which nearly always have some obvious
+conventional or traditional character, so that the word realism cannot
+be applied to them. Even in his portraits his signature or an
+inscription is often added in such a manner as insists that this is a
+painting, a panel;--not a view through a window, or an attempt to
+deceive the eye with a make-believe reality.
+
+
+III
+
+The altar-piece, consisting of a centre, the Virgin Mary adoring her
+baby son in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, and two wings, St. Anthony
+and St. Sebastian, though the earliest of Dürer's pictures which has
+survived, is perhaps the most beautiful of them all, at least as far as
+the two wings are concerned. The centre has been considerably damaged by
+repainting, and was probably, owing to the greater complication of
+motives in it, never quite so successful. Whether at Venice or
+elsewhere, it would seem almost necessary that the young painter had
+seen and been impressed by pictures by Gentile Bellini and Andrea
+Mantegna, both of whom have painted in the same thin tempera on fine
+canvas, obtaining similar beauties of colour and surface. It is hardly
+possible to imagine one who had seen none but German or Flemish pictures
+painting the St. Sebastian. The treatment of the still life in the
+foreground is in itself almost a proof of this. Perhaps this thin, flat
+tempera treatment was that most suited to Dürer's native bias, and we
+should regret his having been tempted to overcome the more brilliant and
+exacting medium of oils. In any case he more than once reverted to it in
+portraits and studies, while the majority of the pictures painted before
+he went to Venice in 1506 have more or less kinship with it. The
+supposed portrait of Frederic the Wise is another masterpiece in this
+kind, and the _Hercules slaying the birds of the Stymphalian Lake_ in
+the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, 1500, was probably another. For though
+now considerably damaged by restorations and dirt, it suggests far
+greater pleasures than it actually imparts. The contrast between
+
+  "The sea-worn face sad as mortality,
+   Divine with yearning after fellowship,"
+
+and the blond richly curling hair blown back from it, is extremely fine
+and entirely suited to the treatment; as is also the similar contrast
+between the richly inlaid bow, shield, and arrows, and the broad and
+flowing modulation of the energetic limbs and back.
+
+The Paumgartner altar-piece, 1499, stands out from the "ordinary
+pictures" belonging to this early period. It consists of a charming and
+gay Nativity in the centre, and two knights in armour on the wings,
+probably portraits of the donors, Stephan and Lucas Paumgartner,
+figuring as warlike saints. Stephan, a personal friend of Dürer's,
+figured again as St. George in the _Trinity and All Saints_ picture
+painted in 1511. There were originally two panels with female saints
+beyond these again, but no trace of them remains. Now that the landscape
+backgrounds have been removed from the side panels, there is no reason
+to suppose that any one but Dürer had a hand in these works. But in
+writing to Heller, he tells him that it was unheard of to put so much
+work into an altar-piece as he was then putting into his _Coronation of
+the Virgin_, and we may feel certain that Dürer regarded this picture as
+in the altar-piece category. The two knights are represented against
+black grounds, and their silhouettes form a very fine arabesque, which
+the streamers of their lances, artificially arranged, complete and
+emphasise. This black ground points probably to the influence of Jacopo
+de' Barbari, whom Dürer had met and been mystified by. (See p. 63.)
+
+[Illustration: ST. GEORGE AND ST. EUSTACE Side panels in oils of the
+Paumgartner Altar-piece in the Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+No doubt there was much in such a background that appealed to the
+draughtsman in Dürer. It insisted on the outline which had probably been
+the starting-point of his conception. Nothing could be less
+painter-like, or make the modelling of figures more difficult, as Dürer,
+perhaps, realised when he later on painted the _Adam and Eve_ at Madrid.
+These two warriors are, however, most successful and imposing, and
+immeasurably enhanced now that the spurious backgrounds, artfully
+concocted out of Dürer's own prints by an ingenious improver of his
+betters, have been removed. This person had also tinkered the centre
+picture, painting out two heraldic groups of donors, far smaller in
+scale than the actual personages of the scene, but very useful in the
+composition, as giving a more ample base to the masses of broken and
+fretted quality; useful also now as an additional proof of how free from
+the fetters of an impertinent logic of realism Dürer ever was. These
+little kneeling donors and their coats of arms emphasise the surface,
+and are delightful in their naïvety, while they serve to render the gay,
+almost gaudy panel more homely, and give it a place and a function in
+the world. For they help us to realise that it answered a demand, and
+was not the uncalled-for and slightly frigid excursion of the aesthetic
+imagination which it must otherwise appear. In the same way the
+brilliant _Adoration of the Magi_ (dated 1504) in the Uffizi, also
+somewhat gaudy and frigid, could we but see it where it originally hung
+in Luther's church at Wittenberg, might invest itself with some charm
+that one vainly seeks in it now. The failure in emotion might seem more
+natural if we saw the wise Elector discussing his new purchase; we might
+have felt what Dürer meant when a year later he wrote from Venice: "I am
+a gentleman here and only a hanger-on at home." The expectation and
+prophecy of his success in those who surround a painter,--even if it be
+chiefly expressed by bitter rivalry, or the craft by which one greedy
+purchaser tries to over-reach another, even if he has to be careful not
+to eat at some tables for fear of being poisoned by a host whose
+ambition his present performance may have dashed--even expressed in this
+truly Venetian manner, the expectation and prophecy of his success in
+those about him make it easier for a painter to soar, and may touch his
+work with an indefinable glow that the approval of honest and astute
+electors or solid burghers may have been utterly powerless to impart.
+
+
+IV
+
+At Venice, perhaps the occasion for his journey thither, Dürer undertook
+a more important work than any he had yet attempted. _The Feast of the
+Rose Garlands_ was painted for the high altar of the church of San
+Bartolommeo, belonging to the German Merchants' Exchange, and close to
+their Pondaco.[73] In it we find a very considerable influence of Italy
+in general, and Giovanni Bellini in particular; it is a splendid and
+pompous parade piece, and probably the portraits of the German merchants
+which it contained were the part of the work which was most successful,
+as it was certainly that most congenial to Dürer's genius. The _Christ
+among the Doctors_, dated 1506, and now in the Barberini Palace at Rome,
+might seem to have been painted chiefly to justify Giovanni Bellini's
+astonishment at the calligraphical painting of hair. It is one of those
+pictures of which a literary description would please more than the work
+itself. Though the contrast between the sweet childish face and those of
+the old worldly scribes is well conceived, it is in reality so violent
+as to be grotesque, and the play of hands produces the effect of a
+diagram explanatory of a conjuring trick, or a deaf and dumb alphabet,
+instead of conveying the inner sense of the scene represented after
+Rossetti's fashion, who so often succeeded in making hands speak.
+Another work, which dates from Venice, is the little _Crucifixion_ (at
+Dresden.) Perhaps the landscape and suffering body are just sufficiently
+touched with acute emotion to make the arabesque of the two floating
+ends of the loin-cloth appear a little out of place; for in spite of the
+delicacy and all but tenderness which Dürer has for once attained to in
+the workmanship, one's satisfaction seems let and hindered.
+
+
+V
+
+Shortly after his return from Venice, Dürer completed two life-size
+panels representing Adam and Eve; there are drawings for them dated
+during his stay at Venice, but as a work of art they are far less
+interesting than the engraving of the same subject completed three years
+earlier. The treatment, even the conception, has been inadequately
+influenced by the proposed scale of the work. Probably they were like
+the earlier Hercules, done to please the artist himself rather than some
+patron; they are an effort to prove that he could do something which was
+after all too hard for him. Not only had he set himself the problem
+which the Greeks and Michael Angelo, and Raphael with their aid alone,
+had solved, of finding proportions suitable to express harmoniously the
+infinite capacity for complex motion combined with that constancy of
+intention which gives dignity to men and women alone among animals; but
+the technical problems involved in representing life-size nude figures
+against a plain black ground were indeed an unconscious confession that
+Dürer did not understand paint. There is a copy of these panels,
+recently attributed to Baldung Grien, in the Pitti. Animals and birds
+have been added from drawings made by Dürer, but the picture is still
+farther from success, though Grien may not improbably have executed it
+with Dürer at his elbow. Dürer made one more attempt at representing a
+life-size nude, the _Lucretia_, finished in 1518, at a period when his
+powers seem to have been clouded, for the few pictures which belong to
+it are all inferior. However, studies for the figure exist dated 1508,
+so we may suppose it was a project brought back from Venice. His
+ill-success with this subject may remind us of Shakespeare's long
+pedantic exercise in rhyme on the same theme. The pictorial motive of
+Dürer's work is beautiful and worthy of a Greek: indeed it is identical
+with that of Watts' _Psyche_, of which the version in private hands is
+very superior to that in the Tate Gallery. The position of the bed, the
+idea of the draperies all are parallel. No doubt the lonely feather shed
+from Love's wing at which Psyche gazes is both more of a poet's and of
+a painter's invention than the cold steel of Lucretia's dagger. And in
+spite of his wide knowledge of Greek and Italian art, our English master
+could scarcely have produced a work of such classic dignity with the
+more violent motive of the dagger, which seems to call for "The torch
+that flames with many a lurid flake," or at least the torpid glow of
+smouldering embers, to light it in such a manner as would make a really
+pictorial treatment possible. No doubt Dürer has been misled by a too
+tyrannous notion as to what ought to be the physical build of so chaste
+a matron, and in his anxiety to make chastity self-evident, has
+forgotten to explain the need for it by such a degree of attractiveness
+as might tempt a tyrant to be dangerous. Just as Shakespeare, in
+attempting to exhaust every possible motive which the situation
+comports, has forgotten that for a character that can move us a
+selection is needed. Another elaborate piece of frigid invention is the
+_Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints in the reign of Sapor II. of
+Persia_, in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, dated 1508. However, in this
+case no doubt Dürer could plead that the subject was not of his own
+choice, for he was commissioned by the Elector, Frederic the Wise, whose
+wisdom probably did not extend to a knowledge of what subjects lend
+themselves to pictorial treatment. Still, making every allowance for
+these facts, it cannot be admitted that Dürer did the best possible with
+his subject. Probably it did not move him, and neither does he us. Peter
+Breughel and Albrecht Altdorfer would certainly have done far better so
+far as the conception of the picture is concerned, though neither of
+them had so much skill to waste on its realisation. Nevertheless, this
+tour _de force_ is the picture of Dürer's most pleasing in surface and
+colour, with the exception of the Wings _of the Dresden Altar-piece_. It
+contains beautiful groups and figures, and is extremely well executed;
+so that it may amuse and delight the eye for a long time while the
+significance of the subject is forgotten.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF TEN THOUSAND SAINTS UNDER SAPOR II. OF
+PERSIA--Oil picture. "Iste faciebat anno domini 1508 Albertus Dürer
+Alemanus"]
+
+
+VI
+
+We now turn to the third and fourth of the half-dozen pictures of Dürer,
+which stand out from all the rest by their elaboration and importance.
+The _Coronation of the Virgin (see_ p. 97), painted as the centre panel
+of the altar-piece commissioned by Jacob Heller at Frankfort, was
+unfortunately burnt with the palace at Munich on the night of April 9,
+1674; the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria having forced or cajoled the
+Dominicans, to whose church Heller had left it, to sell it to him. It is
+now represented by a copy made by Paul Juvenal in its original position,
+where the almost ruined portraits of Heller and his wife are supposed to
+have been partly Dürer's, though the other panels are obviously the work
+of assistants. This work exists for us in a series of magnificent brush
+drawings in black and white line on grey paper, rather than in the copy,
+and we can in a measure imagine its appearance by the perfectly-
+preserved _Trinity and All Saints_ commenced immediately after
+it for Matthew Landauer, and now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna.
+Nothing can surpass this last picture in elaboration and finish; the
+colour, if not beautiful, is rich and luminous; and though it is
+separate faces and draperies which chiefly delight the eye, the
+composition of the whole is an adequate adaptation of the traditional
+treatment for such themes which had been handed down through the middle
+ages. It invites comparison rather with the similar subjects painted by
+Fra Angelico than with the _Disputa_ of Raphael, to which German critics
+compare it; however, it possesses as little of Angelico's sweet
+blissfulness as the Dominican painter possessed of Dürer's accuracy of
+hand and searching intensity of visual realisation. Both painters are
+interested in individuals, and, representing crowds of faces, make every
+one a portrait; both evince a dramatic sense of propriety in gesture,
+both revel in bright, clear colours, especially azure; but as the light
+in Dürer's masterpiece has a rosy hotness, which ill bears comparison
+with the virginal pearliness of Angelico's heaven, so the costumes and
+the figures of the Florentine are doll-like, when compared with the
+unmistakable quality of the stuffs in which the fully-resurrected bodies
+of Dürer's saints rumple and rustle. The wings of his angels are at
+least those of birds, though coloured to fancy, while Angelico's are of
+pasteboard tinsel and paint. But in spite of the comparative genuineness
+of his upholstery, as a vision of heaven there can be no hesitation in
+preferring that of the Florentine.
+
+In a frame designed by Dürer and carved under his supervision, this
+monument to thoroughness and skill was ensconced in a little chapel
+dedicated to All Saints, which in style approaches our Tudor buildings.
+There the frame remained till lately with a poor copy of the picture and
+an inscription in old German to this effect: ('Matthew Landauer
+completed the dedication of this chapel of the twelve brethren, together
+with the foundation attached to it, and this picture, in the year 1511
+after the birth of Christ,')
+
+Dürer signed his picture with the same Latin formula as that of the
+_Coronation_:
+
+"Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg did this the year from when the Virgin
+brought forth 1511."
+
+
+VII
+
+Of all Dürer's paintings of the Madonna, there is only one which, by its
+superb design, deserves special notice among his masterpieces. This
+_Madonna with the Iris_ exists in two versions, both unfinished; one the
+property of Sir Frederick Cook, the other at Prague, in the Rudolphium.
+This latter Mr. Campbell Dodgson considers to be a poor copy. The panel
+is badly cracked, and weeds and long grasses have been added, apparently
+with a view to masking the cracks. Judging from a photograph alone, many
+of these additions seem so appropriately placed and freely sketched that
+I feel it at least to be possibly a work by the master himself. On the
+other hand, Sir Frederick's picture is so sleepy and clumsy in handling,
+that though it is unfinished, and perhaps in part damaged by some
+restorer, I feel great hesitation in regarding it as Dürer's handiwork.
+In both cases the magnificent design is his, and that alone in either is
+fully representative of him. Mr. Campbell Dodgson ventures to criticise
+the profusion of drapery as excessive, but my feeling, I must confess,
+endorses Dürer's in this, rather than that of his learned critic. To me
+this profusion, and the grandeur it gives as a mass in the design, is of
+the very essence of what is most peculiarly creative in Dürer's
+imagination.
+
+The last picture of which it is necessary to speak is that of the _Four
+Apostles_ or the _Four Preachers_, as they have been more appropriately
+called; it was perhaps the last he painted, and is in many respects the
+most successful. It is the only one by which the comparison with
+Raphael, so dear to German critics, seems at all warranted: there is
+certainly some kinship between Dürer's St. John and St. Paul and
+apostolic figures in the cartoons or on the Vatican walls. The German
+artist's manner is less rhetorical, but his conception is hardly less
+grandiose; and his taste does not so closely border on over-emphasis,
+but neither is it so conscious or so fluent. Technically it seems to me
+that the chief influence is a recollection of the large canvases of Jan
+and Hubert Van Eyck and Hubert Van der Goes which Dürer had admired in
+the Netherlands; these had strengthened and directed the bias of his
+self-culture towards simple masses on a large scale.[74] He may very
+well have sought to combine what he learnt from them with hints he found
+in the engravings after Raphael which he obtained in Antwerp. His
+increasing sickness may probably account for the fact that the white
+mantle of St. Paul is the only portion quite finished. The assertion of
+the writing-master, Johann Neudörffer, who in his youth had known Dürer,
+that the four figures are typical of the four temperaments, the
+sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic,--into which
+categories an amateurish psychology arbitrarily divided human
+characters,--is as likely to be correct as it is certain that it adds
+nothing to the power and beauty of the presentation. Though Dürer in his
+work on human proportions describes the physical build of these
+different types, we do not know exactly what degree of precision he
+imagined it possible to attain in discerning them, or to what extent
+their names were merely convenient handles for certain types which he
+had chosen æsthetically. To us to-day this classification is merely a
+trace of an obsolete pedantry, which it would be a vain curiosity to
+attempt to follow with the object of identifying its imaginary bases.
+
+The four preachers have all the air of being striking likenesses of
+actual people which it is possible for work so broadly and grandly
+conceived to have. These panels are interesting, even more than by their
+actual success, as showing us what a scholar Dürer was to the end; how
+he learned from every defeat as well as every victory, and constantly
+approached a conception and a rendering of human beauty which seems
+intimately connected with man's fullest intellectual and spiritual
+freedom--a conception and rendering of human beauty which Raphael
+himself had to learn from the Greeks and Michael Angelo. The work has
+suffered, it is supposed, from restorers, and also from the Munich
+monarch, Maximilian, who had the tremendous texts (see page 177) which
+Dürer had inscribed beneath the two panels sawn off in order to spare
+the feelings of the Jesuits, who were dominant at his court, for their
+conception of religion did not consist with terrors to come for those
+who, abuse their trust as governors and directors of mankind.
+
+Lastly, mention must be made of Dürer's monochrome masterpiece, The Road
+to Calvary 15.27 (see illus.), in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook.
+A poor copy of this work is at Dresden, a better one at Bergamo. The
+effect of it, and several elaborate water-colour designs of the same
+class, is akin to the peculiar richness of chased metal work; glinting
+light hovers over crowds of little figures.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 73: The original, now in the Monastery of Strahow-Prague, is
+very much damaged, and in part repainted. There are copies in the
+Imperial Gallery at Vienna (No. 1508), and in the possession of A. W.
+Miller, Esq., of Sevenoaks. It is to be regretted that the Dürer Society
+published a photogravure of this latter work, which, though till then
+unknown, is far less interesting than the original, of which they only
+gave a reproduction in the text, an exhaustive history of its fortunes
+from the learned pen of Mr. Cambell Dodgson. This picture, which is so
+frequently referred to in the letters from Venice, contains portraits of
+the Emperor Maximilian and Pope Julius II., though neither of them from
+life, and in the background those of Dürer and Pirkheimer.]
+
+[Footnote 74: See what Melanchthon says, p. 187.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+DÜRER'S PORTRAITS
+
+
+I
+
+If Dürer's pictures are as a whole the least satisfactory section of his
+work, in his portraits he makes us abundant amends for the time he might
+otherwise have been reproached for wasting to obtain a vain mastery over
+brushes and pigment.
+
+Unfortunately it is probable that many even of these have been lost or
+destroyed, while of his most interesting sitters we have nothing but
+drawings. He did not paint his friend, the boisterous and learned
+Pirkheimer; and what would we not give for a painted portrait of
+Erasmus, or a portrait of Kratzer, the astronomer royal, to compare with
+the two masterpieces by Holbein in the Louvre? Even the posthumous
+portrait of his Imperial patron Maximilian is less interesting than the
+drawings from which it was done, the eccentric sitter not having the
+time to spare for so sensible a monument.
+
+[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST Pen drawing in dark brown ink at
+Erlangen (This drawing has been cut down for reproduction)]
+
+
+II
+
+However, Dürer had one sitter who was perhaps the most beautiful of all
+the sons of men, whose features combined in an equal measure nobleness
+of character, intellectual intensity and physical beauty; and, finding
+him also most patient and accessible, he painted him frequently. The two
+earliest portraits of himself are the drawings which show him at the
+ages of thirteen and nineteen(?) respectively (see illustration). Then,
+as a young man with a sprouting chin, we have the picture till recently
+at Leipzig of which Goethe's enthusiastic description has already been
+quoted (p. 62). It is probable that neither Titian nor Holbein could
+have shown at so early an age a portrait so admirably conceived and
+executed. It is a masterpiece, even now that the inevitable improvements
+which those who lack all relish of genius rarely lack the opportunity,
+never the inclination, to add to a masterpiece, have confused the
+drawing of the eyes, and reduced the bloom and delicacy that the
+features traced by a master hand, even when they become an almost
+complete wreck, often retain; for time and fortune are not so
+conscientiously destructive as the imbecility of the incapable. Next we
+have a portrait of Dürer when only five years older, in perfect
+preservation,--that in the Prado at Madrid. This charming picture must
+certainly have drawn a sonnet from the Shakespeare who wrote _Love's
+Labour Lost_, could he have seen it. For it presents a young dandy, the
+delicacy and sensitiveness of whose features seem to demand and warrant
+the butterfly-like display of the white and black costume hemmed with
+gold, and of a cap worthy to crown those flowing honey-coloured locks.
+There is a good copy of this delightful work in the Uffizi, where, in a
+congregation of self-painted artists, it does all but justice to the
+most beautiful of them all. For fineness of touch the original has never
+been surpassed by any hand of European or even Chinese master. Next
+there are the dapper little full-length portraits which Dürer inserted
+in his chief paintings. He stands beside his friend Pirkheimer at the
+back of the adoring crowd in the _Feast of the Roses_, and again in the
+midst of the mountain slope, where on all sides of them the ten thousand
+saints suffer martyrdom. Dürer stands alone beside an inscription in a
+gentle pastoral landscape beneath the vision of the Virgin's Assumption
+seen over the heads of the Apostles, who gaze up in rapture; and again
+he is alone beside a broad peaceful river beneath the vision of the Holy
+Trinity and All Saints. I know of no parallel to these little portraits.
+Rembrandt and Botticelli and many others have introduced portraits of
+themselves into religious pictures, but always in disguise, as a
+personage in the crowd or an actor in the scene. Only the master who was
+really most exceptional for his good looks, has had the kindness, in
+spite of every incongruity, to present himself before us on all
+important occasions, like the court beauty in whom it is charity rather
+than vanity to appear in public. It is expected that the very beautiful
+be gracious thus. Emerson tells us that two centuries ago the Town
+Council of Montpelier passed a law to constrain two beautiful sisters to
+sit for a certain time on their balcony every other day, that all might
+enjoy the sight of what was most beautiful in their town. It was one of
+the most gracious traits of Jeanne d'Arc's character that she liked to
+wear beautiful clothes, because it pleased the poor people to see her
+thus. And Palm Sunday commemorates another historical example of such
+grace and truth. Dürer's face had a striking resemblance to the
+traditional type for Jesus, adding to it just that element of individual
+peculiarity, the absence of which makes it ever liable to appear a
+little vacant and unconvincing. The perception of this would seem to
+have dictated the general arrangement of Dürer's crowning portrait of
+himself, that at Munich dated 1500 (see illus.), "Before which" (Mr.
+Ricketts writes in his recently published volume on the Prado) "one
+forgets all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is equal to the
+occasion." The most exhaustive visual power and executive capacity meet
+in this picture, which would seem to have traversed the many perils to
+which it has been exposed without really suffering so much as their
+enumeration makes one expect. Thausing tells us:
+
+The following is the story of the picture's wanderings, as told at
+Nuremberg. It was lent by the magistrates, after they had taken the
+precaution of placing a seal and strings on the back of the panel, to
+the painter and engraver Kügner, to copy. He, however, carefully sawed
+the panel in half (layer-wise) and glued to the authentic back his
+miserable copy, which now hangs in the Town Hall. The original he sold,
+and it eventually came into the possession of King Ludwig I., before
+Nuremberg belonged to Bavaria.
+
+[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl_ "I, Albert Dürer of Nuremberg, painted my
+own portrait here in the proper colours at the age of twenty-eight"
+Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+He suggests that the colour was once bright and varied, and that by
+varnish and glazes it has been reduced to its present harmonious
+condition. The hair is certainly much darker than the other portraits
+would have led one to expect, and the almost walnut brown of the general
+colour scheme is unique in Dürer's work. However, if some such
+transmogrification has been effected, it is marvellous that it should
+have obliterated so little of the inimitable handiwork of the master.
+Thausing considered the date (1500), monogram and inscription on the
+back to be forgeries, and it certainly looks as if it ought to come
+nearer to the portrait in the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ (1506) than
+to that at Madrid (1498). A genuine scalloped tablet is faintly visible
+under the dark glazes which cover the background; and this, no doubt,
+bears the original inscription and date. What may not have happened to a
+picture after or before it left the artist's studio? Critics are too
+quick to determine that such changes have been introduced by others. In
+this case we must remember how experimental Dürer was, even with regard
+to his engravings on metal. He tries iron plates and etching, and
+finally settles on a method of commencing with etching and finishing
+with the burin; and this was in a medium in which he soon found himself
+at home. But with painting he was vastly more experimental, and never
+satisfied with his results, as he told Melanchthon (see p. 187). Then we
+must remember that this picture probably was during Dürer's lifetime, if
+not in his own possession, at least never out of his reach; and no doubt
+he was aware that it was the grandest and most perfectly finished of all
+his portraits--therefore, as he came more and more, especially after his
+visit to the Netherlands, to desire and seek after simplicity, he may
+himself have added the dark glazes. If the original inscription
+contained a dedication to Pirkheimer or some other notable Nuremberger,
+there was every reason for the artist who stole the picture to
+obliterate this and add a new one: or this may have been done when it
+became the property of the town, for those who sold it may have wished
+that it should not be known that it might have been an heirloom in their
+family. Infinite are the possibilities, those only decide in such cases
+who have a personal motive for doing so; "la rage de conclure" (as
+Flaubert saw) is the pitfall of those who are vain of their knowledge.
+
+[Illustration: OSWOLT KREL Oil portrait in the Alt Pinakothek at Munich]
+
+[Illustration: _By permission_ of the "_Burlington_ Magazine" ALBERT
+DÜRER THE ELDER, 1497 National Gallery]
+
+
+III
+
+Though fearing that it will appear but tedious, I will now attempt
+briefly to describe in succession the remaining master portraits which
+we owe to Dürer, and the effect that each produces. It is by these works
+and not by his creative pictures that his ranks among the greatest names
+of painting. These might be compared with the very finest portraits by
+Raphael and Holbein, and the precedence would remain a question of
+personal predilection; since nothing reasoned, no distinguishable
+superiority over Dürer in vision or execution could be urged for either.
+Rather, if mere capacity were regarded, he must have the palm; nor did
+either of his compeers light upon a happier subject than was Dürer's
+when he represented himself; nor did they achieve nobler designs. In
+effect upon our emotions and sensations, these portraits may compete
+with the masterpieces of Titian and Rembrandt, though the method of
+expression is in their case too different to render comparison possible.
+Whatever in the glow of light, in the power of shadow, to envelop and
+enhance the features portrayed, is theirs and not his, his superiority
+of searching insight, united with its equivalent of unique facility in
+definition, seems more than to outweigh. Before he left for Venice,
+besides the renderings of himself already mentioned, Dürer had painted
+his father twice, in 1494 and in 1497. The latter was the pair to and
+compeer of his own portrait at Madrid,; and, hitherto unknown, was lent
+last year by Lord Northampton to the Royal Academy, and has since
+been bought for the National Gallery. This beautiful work is unique even
+among the works of the master, and is not so much the worse for
+repainting as some make out. The majority of Dürer's portraits stand
+alone. In each the Esthetic problem has been approached and solved in a
+strikingly different manner. This picture and its fellow, the portrait
+of the painter at Madrid, the _Oswolt Krel_, the portrait of a lady seen
+against the sea at Berlin, the _Wolgemut_, and Dürer's own portrait at
+Munich, though seen by the same absorbing eyes, are rendered each in
+quite a different manner. No man has ever been better gifted for
+portraying a likeness than Dürer; but the absence of a native
+comprehension of pigment made him ever restless, and it might be
+possible to maintain that each of these pictures presented us with a
+differing strategy to enforce pigment, to subserve the purposes of a
+draughtsman. Still this would seem to imply a greater sacrifice of ease
+and directness than those brilliant masterpieces can be charged with.
+They none of them lack beauty of colour, of surface, or of handling,
+though each so unlike the other. In this portrait of his father, Dürer
+has developed a shaken brushline, admirably adapted to suggest the
+wrinkled features of an old man, but in complete contrast to the rapid
+sweep of the caligraphic work in the _Oswolt Krel_; and it is to be
+noticed how in both pictures the touch seems to have been invented to
+facilitate the rendering of the peculiar curves and lines of the
+sitter's features, and further variations of it developed to express the
+draperies and other component parts of the picture. It is this
+inventiveness in handling which most distinguishes Dürer from painters
+like Raphael and Holbein, and makes his work comparable with the
+masterpieces of Rembrandt and Titian, in spite of the extreme
+opposition in aspect between their work and his.
+
+The noble portrait of a middle-aged man, No. 557c, in the Royal Gallery
+at Berlin, (supposed to represent Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony,
+Dürer's first patron), gives us a master portrait, in which the
+technical treatment is comparable to that of the early triptych at
+Dresden, and which is a monument of sober power and distinction, though
+again very difficult to compare with the other splendid portraits by the
+same hand which hang beside or near it in that Gallery.
+
+The vivid _Oswolt Krel_ at Munich shows the peculiarity of Dürer's
+caligraphic touch better than perhaps any other of his portraits. The
+finish is not carried so far as in the Madrid portrait of himself, where
+even the texture of the gloves has been softened by touches of the
+thumb, and the absence of these extra refinements leaves it the most
+spontaneous and vigorously bold of all Dürer's paintings. The
+concentrated energy of the sitter's features demanded such a treatment;
+he seems to burn with the inconsiderate atheism of a Marlowe. Young, and
+less surprised than indignant to be alone awake in a sleepy and bigoted
+world, he seems convinced of a mission to chastise, _even_ to scandalise
+his easy-going neighbours. Let us hope he met with better luck than the
+Marlowes, Shelleys, and Rimbauds, whose tragedies we have read; for one
+can but regret, as one meets his glance so much fiercer than need be,
+that he is not known to history.
+
+[Illustration: Oil Portrait of a Lady seen against the Sea In the Berlin
+Gallery]
+
+[Illustration: Oil portrait, dated 1506, at Hampton Court]
+
+The fine portrait of Hans Tucher, 1499, in the Grand Ducal Museum at
+Weimar should, judging from a photograph alone, be mentioned here. It
+has obvious affinities with the _Oswolt Krel_, but the caligraphic
+method is again modified in harmony with the character of the
+sitter's features. The companion piece, representing Felicitas Tucherin,
+would seem at some period to have been restored to the insignificance
+and obscurity that belonged to the sitter before Dürer painted her.
+
+
+IV
+
+The portraits which Dürer painted at Venice, or soon after his return,
+betray the influence of other masterpieces on his own. Mr. Ricketts has
+pointed to that of Antonello da Messina in the portraits of young men at
+Vienna (1505) and at Hampton Court (1506). The former of these has an
+allegorical sketch of Avarice, painted on the back in a thick impasto,
+such as seems almost a presage of after developments of the Venetian
+school, and may possibly show the influence of some early experiment by
+Giorgione which Dürer wished to show that he could imitate if he liked.
+The latter represents a personage who appears on the left of the _Feast
+of Rose Wreaths_ in exactly the same cap and with the same fastening to
+his jerkin, crossing his white shirt (see illustration opposite).
+
+Not improbably Dürer may have painted separate portraits of nearly all
+the members of the German Guild at Venice who appear in the _Rose
+Garlands_. In any case much of his work during his stay there has
+disappeared. It was here that he painted that beautiful head of a woman
+(No. 557 G in the Berlin Gallery) with soft, almost Leonardesque
+shadows, seen against the luminous hazy sea and sky, which remains
+absolutely unique in method and effect among his works, and makes one
+ask oneself unanswerable questions as to what might not have been the
+result if he could but have brought himself to accept the offered
+citizenship and salary, and stop on at Venice. A Dürer, not only
+secluded from Luther and his troubling denunciations, but living to see
+Titian and Giorgione's early masterpieces, perhaps forming friendships
+with them, and later visiting Rome, standing in the Sistine Chapel,
+seated in the Stanze between the School of Athens and the Disputa! I at
+least cannot console myself for these missed opportunities, as so many
+of his critics and biographers have done, by saying that doubtless had
+he stayed he would have been spoiled like those second-class German and
+Dutch painters, for whom the siren art of Italy proved a baneful
+influence. One could almost weep to think of what has been probably lost
+to the world because Dürer could not bring himself to stay on at Venice.
+It _was_ here he painted the tiny panel representing the head of a girl
+in gay apparel dated 1507 (in the Berlin Gallery), that makes one think,
+even more than do Holbein's _Venus_ and _Lais_ at Basle, of the triumphs
+that were reserved for Italians in the treatment of similar subjects.
+
+After his return the influence of Venetian methods gradually waned, till
+we find in the masterly and refined portrait of _Wolgemut_ (1516) (see
+illustration); something of a return to the caligraphic method so
+noticeable in the _Oswolt Krel_. About the same time Dürer recommenced
+painting in tempera in a manner resembling the early Dresden _Madonna_
+and the _Hercules_, as we see by the rather unpleasant heads of Apostles
+in the Uffizi and the tine one of an old man in a vermilion cap in the
+Louvre, &c. &c.
+
+[Illustration: _Bruckmann_--"Albrecht Dürer took this likeness of his
+master, Michael Wolgemut, in the year 1516, and he was 82 years of age,
+and lived to the year 1519, and then departed on Saint Andrew's Day,
+very early before sunrise"--Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+[Illustration: HANS IMHOF (?)--From the painting in the Royal Gallery
+at Madrid--(By permission _of Messrs. Braun, Clément & Co., Dornach
+(Alsace), Paris and New York_)]
+
+
+V
+
+On his arrival at Antwerp in 1521 Dürer commenced the third and last
+group of master-portraits; foremost is the superb head and bust at
+Madrid, supposed to represent Hans Imhof, a patrician of Dürer's native
+town and his banker while at Antwerp; of the same date are the
+triumphant renderings of the grave and youthful Bernard van Orley (at
+Dresden) and that of a middle-aged man--lost for the National Gallery,
+and now in the possession of Mrs. Gardner, of Boston. All three were
+probably painted at Antwerp.
+
+It may be that the portrait of Imhof and the report of the honours and
+commissions showered on their painter while in the Netherlands, woke the
+Nuremberg Councillors up, for we have portraits of three of them dated
+1526--Jacob Muffel, Hieronymus Holzschuher, (both in the Royal Gallery,
+Berlin,) and the eccentric and unpleasing medallion representing
+Johannes Kleeberger, at Vienna. With the exception of this last, this
+group is composed of masterpieces absolutely unrivalled for intensity
+and dignity of power. Van Eyck painted with inhuman indifference a few
+ugly grotesque but otherwise uninteresting people. All but a very few of
+Holbein's best portraits pale before these instances of searching
+insight; and, north of the Alps at least, there are no others which can
+be compared to them. The _Hans Imhof_ shows a shrewd and forbidding
+schemer for gain on a large scale--a face which produces the impression
+of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent,
+seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon
+its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first
+and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The unknown
+master who is represented in Mrs. Gardner's beautiful picture is less
+forbidding, though not less patently a moulder of destiny. _Jacob
+Muffel_ has a more open face, a more serene gaze; but his mouth too has
+the firmness acquired by those who live always in the presence of
+enemies, or are at least aware that "a little folding of the hands" may
+be fatal to all their most cherished purposes. The last of these masters
+of themselves and of their fortunes in hazardous and change-fraught
+times is _Hieronymus Holzschuher_, Dürer's friend. Only less felicitous
+because less harmonious in colour than the three former, this vivacious
+portrait of a ruddy, jovial, and white-haired patrician seen against a
+bright blue background might produce the effect of a Father Christmas,
+were it not for the resolute mouth and the puissant side-glance of the
+eyes. Bernard van Orley, the only youthful person immortalised in this
+group, has a gentle, responsible air which his features are a little too
+heavy to enhance.
+
+I have now mentioned the chief of his portraits, which are the best of
+his painting, and by which he ranks for the directness and power of his
+workmanship and of his visual analysis in the company of the very
+greatest. Raphael and Holbein have alone produced portraits which, as
+they can be compared to Dürer's, might also be held to rival them;
+Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reynolds have done as
+splendidly, but the material they used and the aims they set themselves
+were too different to make a comparison serviceable. These men are
+pre-eminent among those who have produced portraits which, while
+unsurpassed for technical excellences, present to us individuals whose
+beauty or the character it expresses are equally exceptional.
+
+[Illustration: "JAKOB MUFFEL" Oil portrait in the Berlin Gallery]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DÜRER'S DRAWINGS
+
+
+I
+
+Perhaps Dürer is more felicitous as a draughtsman than in any other
+branch of art. The power of nearly all first-rate artists is more wholly
+live and effective in their drawings than in elaborated works. Dürer
+himself says:
+
+An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great
+power and art in small things, roughly and rudely done, than many
+another in his great work. Powerful artists alone will understand that
+in this strange saying I speak truth. For this reason a man may often
+draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day, or cut
+it with his graver on a small block of wood, and it shall be fuller of
+art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole
+year's careful labour.
+
+But it is possible to go far beyond this and say not only "another's
+great work," but his own great work.
+
+In the first chapter of this work I said that the standard in works of
+art is not truth but sincerity; that if the artist tells us what he
+feels to be beautiful, it does not matter how much or how little
+comparison it will bear with the actual objects represented. And from
+this fact, that sincerity not truth is of prime importance in matters of
+expression, results the strange truth that Dürer says will be
+recognised by powerful artists alone (see page 227). Any one who
+recognises how often the sketches and roughs of artists, especially of
+those who are in a peculiar degree creators, excel their finished works
+in those points which are the distinctive excellences of such men, will
+grant this at once. Only to turn to the sketch (inscribed _Memento Mei
+1505_) of _Death_ on horseback with a scythe, or the pen-portrait of
+Dürer leaning on his hand, will be enough to convince those who alone
+can be convinced on these points. For any who need to explain to
+themselves the character of such sketches--as the authoress of a recent
+little book on Dürer does that of the pen drawing "in which the boy's
+chin rests on his hand" by telling us that "it is unfinished and was
+evidently discarded as a failure,"--any who must be at such pains in a
+case of this sort is one of those who can never understand wherein the
+great power of a work of art resides. Such people may get great pleasure
+from works of art; only I am content to remain convinced that the
+pleasure they get has no kind of kinship with that which I myself
+obtain, or that which the greatest artists most constantly seek to give.
+This marvellous portrait of himself as a lad of from seventeen to
+nineteen years of age is just one of those things "roughly and rudely
+done," of which Dürer speaks. There is probably no parallel to it for
+mastery or power among works produced by artists so youthful.
+
+[Illustration: Study of a hound for the copper engraving "St. Eustache."
+B. 57 Brush drawing at Windsor]
+
+There is often some virtue in spontaneity which is difficult to define;
+perhaps it bears more convincing witness to the artist's integrity than
+slower and longer labours, from which it is difficult to ward all
+duplicity of intention. The finishing-touch is too often a Judas' kiss.
+"Blessed are the pure in heart" is absolutely true in art. (Of course,
+I do not use purity in the narrow sense which is confined to avoidance
+of certain sensual subjects and seductive intentions.) It is only
+poverty of imagination which taboos subject-matter, and lack of charity
+that believes there are themes which cannot be treated with any but
+ignoble intentions. But the virtue in a spontaneous drawing is akin to
+that single devotion to whatever is best, which true purity is; as the
+refinement of economy which results in the finished work is akin to that
+delicate repugnance to all waste, which is true chastity. A sketch by
+Rembrandt of a naked servant girl on a bed is as "simple as the infancy
+of truth"--as single in intention. A Greek statue of a raimentless
+Apollo is pre-eminently chaste. But it does not follow that Rembrandt
+was in his life eminently pure, or the Greek sculptor signal for
+chastity. Drawings rapidly executed have often a lyrical, rapturous,
+exultant purity, and are for that reason, to those whose eyes are
+blinded neither by prejudice nor by misfortune, as captivating as are
+healthy, gleeful children to those whose hearts are free. And while the
+joy that a child's glee gives is for a time, that which a drawing gives
+may well be for ever.
+
+We say a "spirited sketch" as we say "a spirited horse"; but works of
+art are instinct with a vast variety of spirits and exert manifold
+influences. It is a poverty of language which has confined the use of
+this word to one of the most obvious and least estimable. It can be
+never too much insisted on that a work of art is something that exerts
+an influence, and that its whole merit lies in the quality and degree of
+the influence exerted; for those who are not moved by it, it is no more
+than a written sentence to one who cannot read.
+
+
+II
+
+Many people in turning over a collection of Dürer's drawings would be
+constantly crying, "How marvellously realistic!" and would glow with
+enthusiasm and smile with gratitude for the perception which these words
+expressed. Others would say "merely realistic"; and the words would
+convey, if not disapprobation for something shocking, at least
+indifference. In both cases the word "realistic" would, I take it, mean
+that the objects which the pen, brush, or charcoal strokes represented
+were described with great particularity. And in the first case delight
+would have been felt at recognising the fulness of detailed information
+conveyed about the objects drawn--that each drawing represented not a
+generalisation, but an individual. In the other case the mind would have
+been repelled by the infatuated insistence on insignificant or
+negligible details, the absence of their classification and
+subordination to ideas. The first of these two frames of mind is that of
+Paul Pry, who is delighted to see, to touch, or behold, for whom
+everything is a discovery; and there are members of this class of
+temperament who in middle life continue to make the same discoveries
+every day with zest and a wonder equal to that which they felt when
+children. The second of these frames of mind is that of the man with a
+system or in search of a system, who desires to control, or, if he
+cannot do that, at least to be taken into the confidence of the
+controller, or to gain a position from which he can oversee him, and
+approve or disapprove. Now neither of these judgments is in itself
+aesthetic, or implies a comprehension of Dürer as an artist.
+
+[Illustration: ME-ENTO MEI, 1505. From the drawing in the British
+Museum]
+
+The man who cries out: "Just look how that is done!" "Who could have
+believed a single line could have expressed so much?" judges as an
+artist, a craftsman. The man who, like Jean Francois Millet, exclaims:
+"How fine! How grand! How delicate! How beautiful!" judges as a creator.
+He sees that "it is good." An artist--a creator--may possess either or
+even both the two former temperaments; but as an artist he must be
+governed by the latter two, either singly or combined. Dürer, doubtless,
+had a considerable share in all four of these points of view. He
+delighted in objects as such, in the new and the strange as new and
+strange, in the intricate as intricate, in the powerful as powerful. And
+above all in his drawings does he manifest this direct and childish
+interest and curiosity. He was also in search of a system, of an
+intellectual key or plan of things; and in the many drawings he devoted
+to explaining or developing his ideas of proportion, of perspective, of
+architecture, he shows this bias strongly. But nearly every drawing by
+him, or attributed to him, manifests the third of these temperaments.
+The never-ceasing economy and daring of the invention displayed in his
+touch, or, as he would have said, "in his hand," is almost as signal as
+his perfect assurance and composure. And when one reflects that he was
+not, like Rembrandt, an artist who made great or habitual use of the
+spaces of shade and light, but that his workmanship is almost entirely
+confined to the expressive power of lines, wonder is only increased. Of
+the fourth character that creates and estimates value, though in certain
+works Dürer rises to supreme heights, though in almost all his important
+works he appeases expectation, yet often where he could surely have done
+much better he seems to have been content not to exert his rarest
+gifts, but rather to play with or parade those that are secondary. Not
+only is this so in drawings like the _Dance of Monkeys_ at Basle, done
+to content his friend the reformer Felix Frey (see page 168), and in the
+borders designed to amuse Maximilian during the hours that custom
+ordained he should pretend to give to prayer; but there are drawings
+which were not apparently thrown as sops to the idleness of others, but
+done to content some half-vacant mood of his own (see Lippmann, 41, 83,
+394, 4.20, 333).
+
+In such drawings the economy and daring of the strokes is always
+admirable, can only be compared to that in drawings by Rembrandt and
+Hokusai; but the occasion is often idle, or treated with a condescension
+which well-nigh amounts to indifference. There is no impressiveness of
+allure, no intention in the proportions or disposition on the paper such
+as Erasmus justly praised in the engravings on copper, probably
+recollecting something which Dürer himself had said (see page 186).
+
+Yet in his portrait heads the right proportions are nearly always found;
+and in many cases I believe it is no one but the artist himself who has
+cut down such drawings after they were completed, to find a more
+harmonious or impressive proportion (see illustration opposite). And
+often these drawings are as perfect in the harmony between the means
+employed and the aspect chosen, and in the proportion between the head
+and the framing line and the spaces it encloses, as Holbein himself
+could have made them; while they far surpass his best in brilliancy and
+intensity.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing in black chalk heightened with white on reddish
+ground Formerly in the collection at Warwick Castle]
+
+[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on prepared grey ground, in the
+collection of Frederick Locker, Esq.]
+
+
+III
+
+Something must be said of Dürer's employment of the water-colours,
+pen-and-ink, silver-point, charcoal, chalk, &c., with which he made his
+drawings. He is a complete master of each and all these mediums, in so
+far as the line or stroke may be regarded as the fundamental unit; he is
+equally effective with the broad, soft line of chalk (see illustration,
+page I.), or the broad broken charcoal line (see illustration, page
+II.), as with the fine pen stroke (see illustration, page III.), the
+delicate silver-point (see illustration, page IV.), or the supple and
+tapering stroke produced by the camel's hair brush (see illustration,
+page V.). But when one comes to broad washes, large masses of light and
+shade, the expression of atmosphere, of bloom, of light, he is wanting
+in proportion as these effects become vague, cloudy, indefinite,
+mist-like. His success lies rather in the definite reflections on
+polished surfaces; he never reproduces for us the bloom on peach or
+flesh or petal. He does not revel, like Rembrandt, in the veils and
+mysteries of lucent atmosphere or muffling shadow. The emotions for
+which such things produce the most harmonious surroundings he hardly
+ever attempts to appeal to; he is mournful and compassionate, or
+indignant, for the sufferings, of his Man of Sorrows; not tender,
+romantic, or awesome. Only with the tapering tenuity and delicate spring
+of the pure line will he sometimes attain to an infantile or virginal
+freshness that is akin to the tenderness of the bloom on flowers, or the
+light of dawn on an autumn morning.[75]
+
+In the same way, when he is tragic, it is not with thick clouds rent in
+the fury of their flight, or with the light from shaken torches cast and
+scattered like spume-flakes from the angry waves; nor is it with the
+accumulated night that gives intense significance to a single tranquil
+ray. Only by a Rembrandt, to whom these means are daily present, could a
+subject like the _Massacre of the Ten Thousand_ have been treated with
+dramatic propriety; unless, indeed, Michael Angelo, in a grey dawn,
+should have twisted and wrung with manifold pain a tribe of giants,
+stark, and herded in some leafless primeval valley. With Dürer the
+occasion was merely one on which to coldly invent variations, as though
+this human suffering was a motive for _an_ arabesque. Yet even from the
+days when he copied Andrea Mantegna's struggling sea-monsters, or when
+he drew the stern matured warrior angels of his Apocalypse fighting,
+with their historied faces like men hardened by deceptions practised
+upon them, like men who have forbidden salt tears and clenched their
+teeth and closed their hearts, who see, who hate; even from these early
+days, the energy of his line was capable of all this, and his
+spontaneous sense of arabesque could become menacing and explosive.
+There are two or three drawings of angry, crying cupids (Lipp., 153 and
+446, see illustration opposite), prepared for some intended picture of
+the Crucifixion, where he has made the motive of the winged infants
+head, usually associated with bliss and scattered rose-leaves, become
+terrible and stormy. And the _Agony in the Garden_, etched on iron,
+contains a tree tortured by the wind (see illustration), as marvellous
+for rhythm, power, and invention as the blast-whipped brambles and naked
+bushes that crest a scarped brow above the jealous husband who stabs his
+wife, in Titian's fresco at Padua. Again, the unspeakable tragedy of the
+stooping figure of Jesus, who is being dragged by His hair up the steps
+to Annas' throne, in the _Little Passion_, is rendered by lines instinct
+with the highest dramatic power. These are a draughtsman's creations;
+though they are less abundant in Dürer's work than one could wish, still
+only the greatest produce such effects; only Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Rembrandt can be said to have equalled or surpassed Dürer in this kind,
+rarely though it be that he competes with them.
+
+[Illustration: CHERUB FOR A CRUCIFIXION Black chalk drawing heightened
+with white on a blue-grey paper In the collection of Herr Doctor
+Blasius, Brunswick]
+
+It is for the intense energy of his line, combined with its unique
+assurance, that Dürer is most remarkable. The same amount of detail, the
+same correctness in the articulation and relation between stem and leaf,
+arm and hand, or what not, might be attained by an insipid workmanship
+with lifeless lines, in patient drudgery. It is this fact that those who
+praise art merely as an imitation constantly forget. There is often as
+much invention in the way details are expressed by the strokes of pen or
+brush, as there could be in the grouping of a crowd; the deftness, the
+economy of the touches, counts for more in the inspiriting effect than
+the truth of the imitation. A photograph from nature never conveys this,
+the chief and most fundamental merit of art. Reynolds says:
+
+Rembrandt, in older to take advantage of an accident, appears often to
+have used the pallet-knife to lay his colours on the canvas instead of
+the pencil. Whether it is the knife or any other instrument, _it
+suffices, if it is something that does not follow exactly the will.
+Accident, in the hands of_ an artist _who knows horn to take the
+advantage of its hints, will often produce bold and capricious beauties
+of handling_, and facility such as he would not have thought of or
+ventured with his pencil, under the regular restraint of his hand.[76]
+
+In such a sketch as the _Memento Mei_, 1505, (_Death_ riding on
+horseback,) all those who have sense for such things will perceive how
+the rough paper, combined with the broken charcoal line, lends itself to
+qualities of a precisely similar nature to those described by Reynolds
+as obtained by Rembrandt's use of the pallet-knife. Yet, just as, in the
+use of charcoal, the "something that does not follow exactly the will"
+is infinitely more subtle than in the use of the palette-knife to
+represent rocks or stumps of trees, so in the pen or silver-point line
+this element, though reduced and refined till it is hardly perceptible,
+still exists, and Dürer takes "the advantage of its hints." And not only
+does he do' this, but he foresees their occurrence, and relies on them
+to render such things as crumpled skin, as in the sketches for Adam's
+hand holding the apple. (Lipp. 234). The operation is so rapid, so
+instantaneous, that it must be called an instinct, or at least a habit
+become second nature, while in the instance chosen by Reynolds, it is
+obvious and can be imagined step by step; but in every case it is this
+capacity to take advantage of the accident, and foresee and calculate
+upon its probable occurrences, that makes the handling of any material
+inventive, bold, and inimitable. It is in these qualities that an artist
+is the scholar of the materials he employs, and goes to school to the
+capacities of his own hand, being taught both by their failure to obey
+his will here, and by their facility in rendering his subtlest
+intentions there. And when he has mastered all they have to teach him,
+he can make their awkwardness and defects expressive; as stammerers
+sometimes take advantage of their impediment so that in itself it
+becomes an element of eloquence, of charm, or even of explicitness;
+while the extra attention rendered enables them to fetch about and dare
+to express things that the fluent would feel to be impossible and
+never attempt.
+
+[Illustration: APOLLO AND DIANA--Pen drawing in the British Museum,
+supposed to show the influence of the Belvedere Apollo]
+
+
+IV
+
+Lastly, it is in his drawings, perhaps, even more than in his copper
+engravings, that Dürer proves himself a master of "the art of seeing
+nature," as Reynolds phrased it; and the following sentence makes clear
+what is meant, for he says of painting "perhaps it ought to be as far
+removed from the vulgar idea of imitation, as the refined, civilised
+state in which we live is removed from a gross state of nature";[77] and
+again: "If we suppose a view of nature, represented with all the truth
+of the camera obscura, and the same scene represented by a great artist,
+how little and how mean will the one appear in comparison of the other,
+where no superiority is supposed from the choice of the subject."[78]
+Not only is outward nature infinitely varied, infinitely composite; but
+human nature--receptive and creative--is so too, and after we have gazed
+at an object for a few moments, we no longer see it the same as it was
+revealed to our first glance. Not only has its appearance changed for
+us, but the effect that it produces on our emotions and intelligence is
+no longer the same. Each successful mind, according to its degree of
+culture, arrives finally at a perception of every class of objects
+presented to it which is most in agreement with its own nature--that is,
+calls forth or nourishes its most cherished energies and efforts, while
+harmonising with its choicest memories. All objects in regard to which
+it cannot arrive at such a result oppress, depress, or even torment it.
+At least this is the case with our highest and most creative moods; but
+every man of parts has a vast range of moods, descending from this to
+the almost vacant contemplation of a cow--the innocence of whose eye,
+which perceives what is before it without transmuting it by recollection
+or creative effort, must appear almost ideal to the up-to-date critic
+who has recently revealed the innocent confusion of his mind in a
+ponderous tome on nineteenth-century art. The art of seeing nature,
+then, consists in being able to recognise how an object appears in
+harmony with any given mood; and the artist must employ his materials to
+suggest that appearance with the least expenditure of painful effort.
+The highest art sees all things in harmony with man's most elevated
+moods; the lowest sees nature much as Dutch painters and cows do. Now we
+can understand what Goethe means when he says that "Albrecht Dürer
+enjoyed the advantages of a profound realistic perception, and an
+affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions." The man who
+continued to feel, after he had become a Lutheran, the beauty of the art
+that honoured the Virgin, the man who cannot help laughing at the most
+"lying, thievish rascals" whenever they talk to him because "they know
+that their knavery is no secret, but 'they don't mind,'" is
+affectionate; he is amused by monkeys and the rhinoceros; he can bear
+with Pirkheimer's bad temper; he looks out of kindly eyes that allow
+their perception of strangeness or oddity to redeem the impression that
+might otherwise have been produced by vice, or uncouthness, or
+sullen frowns.
+
+I have supposed that a realistic perception was one which saw things
+with great particularity; and the words "a profound realistic
+perception" to Goethe's mind probably conveyed the idea of such a
+perception, in profound accord with human nature, that is where the
+human recognition, delight and acceptance followed the perception even
+to the smallest details, without growing weary or failing to find at
+least a hope of significance in them. If this was what the great critic
+meant, those who turn over a collection of Dürer's drawings will feel
+that they are profoundly realistic (realistic in a profoundly human
+sense), and that their author enjoyed an affectionate human sympathy
+with all present conditions; and by these two qualities is infinitely
+distinguished from all possessors of so-called innocent eyes, whether
+quadruped or biped.
+
+It is well to notice wherein this notion of Goethe's differs from the
+conventional notions which make up everybody's criticism. For instance,
+"In all his pictures he confined himself to facts," says Sir Martin
+Conway,[79] and then immediately qualifies this by adding, "He painted
+events as truly as his imagination could conceive them." We may safely
+say that no painter of the first rank has ever confined himself to
+facts. Nor can we take the second sentence as it stands. Any one who
+looks at the _Trinity_ in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna will see at
+once that the artist who painted it did not shut his eyes and try to
+conjure up a vision of the scene to be represented; the ordering of the
+picture shows plainly throughout that a foregone conventional
+arrangement, joined with the convenience of the methods of
+representation to be employed, dictated nearly the whole composition,
+and that the details, costumes, &c., were gradually added, being chosen
+to enhance the congruity or variety of what was already given. Perhaps
+it was never a prime object with Dürer to conceive the event, it was
+rather the picture that he attempted to conceive; it is Rembrandt who
+attempts to conceive events, not Dürer. He is very far from being a
+realist in this sense: though certain of his etchings possess a
+considerable degree of such realism, it is not what characterises him as
+a creator or inventor. But a "profound realistic perception" almost
+unequalled he did possess; what he saw he painted not as he saw it, not
+where he saw it, but as it appeared to him to really be. So he painted
+real girls, plain, ugly or pretty as the case might be, for angels, and
+put them in the sky; but for their wings he would draw on his fancy.
+Often the folds of a piece of drapery so delighted him that they are
+continued for their own sake and float out where there is no wind to
+support them, or he would develop their intricacies beyond every
+possibility of conceivable train or other superfluity of real garments;
+and it is this necessity to be richer and more magnificent than
+probability permits which brings us to the creator in Dürer; not only
+had he a profound realistic perception of what the world was like, but
+he had an imagination that suggested to him that many things could be
+played with, embroidered upon, made handsomer, richer or more
+impressive. When Goethe adds that "he was retarded by a gloomy fantasy
+devoid of form or foundation," we perceive that the great critic is
+speaking petulantly or without sufficient knowledge. Dürer's gloomy
+fantasy, the grotesque element in his pictures and prints, was not his
+own creation, it is not peculiar to him, he accepted it from tradition
+and custom (see Plate "Descent into Hell"). What is really
+characteristic of him is the richness displayed in devils' scales and
+wings, in curling hair or crumpled drapery, or flame, or smoke, or
+cloud, or halo; and, still more particularly, his is the energy of line
+or fertility of invention with which all these are displayed, and the
+dignity or austerity which results from the general proportion of the
+masses and main lines of his composition.
+
+
+V
+
+For the illustration of this volume I have chosen a larger proportion of
+drawings than of any other class of work; both because Dürer's drawings
+are less widely known than his engravings on metal, and because, though
+his fame may perhaps rest almost equally on these latter, and they may
+rightly be considered more unique in character, yet his drawings show
+the splendid creativeness of his handling of materials in greater
+variety. One engraving on copper is like another in the essential
+problem that it offered to the craftsman to resolve; but every different
+medium in which Dürer made drawings, and every variety of surface on
+which he drew, offered a different problem, and perhaps no other artist
+can compare with him in the great variety of such problems which he has
+solved with felicity. And this power of his to modify his method with
+changing conditions is, as we have seen, from the technical side the
+highest and greatest quality that an artist can possess. It only fails
+him when he has to deal with oil paintings, and even there he shows a
+corresponding sense of the nature of the problems involved, if he shows
+less felicity on the whole in solving them; and perhaps could he have
+stayed at Venice and have had the results of Giorgione's and Titian's
+experiments to suggest the right road, we should have been scarcely able
+to perceive that he was less gifted as a painter than as draughtsman. As
+it is, he has given us water-colour sketches in which the blot is used
+to render the foliage of trees in a manner till then unprecedented.
+(Lipp. 132, &c.) He can rival Watteau in the use of soft chalk, Leonardo
+in the use of the pen, and Van Eyck in the use of the brush point; and
+there are examples of every intermediate treatment to form a chain
+across the gulf that separates these widely differing modes of graphic
+expression. There can be no need to point the application of these
+remarks to the individual drawings here reproduced; those who are
+capable of recognising it will do so without difficulty.
+
+[Illustration: AN OLD CASTLE Body-dour drawing at Bremen]
+
+
+VI
+
+In conclusion, Dürer appears as a draughtsman of unrivalled powers. And
+when one looks on his drawings as what they most truly were, his
+preparation for the tasks set him by the conditions of his life, there
+is room for nothing but unmixed admiration. It is only when one asks
+whether those tasks might not have been more worthy of such high gifts
+that one is conscious of deficiency or misfortune. And can one help
+asking whether the Emperor Max might not have given Dürer his Bible or
+his Virgil to illustrate, instead of demanding to have the borders of
+his "Book of Hours" rendered amusing with fantastic and curious
+arabesques; whether Dürer's learned friends, instead of requiring from
+him recondite or ceremonious allegories, might not have demanded
+title-pages of classic propriety; or whether the imperial bent of his
+own imagination might not have rendered their demands malleable, and bid
+them call for a series of woodcuts, engravings or drawings, which could
+rival Rembrandt's etchings in significance of subject-matter and
+imaginative treatment, as they rival them in executive power? In his
+portraits--the large majority of which have come down to us only as
+drawings, the majority of which were never anything else--the demand
+made upon him was worthy; but even here Holbein, a man of lesser gift
+and power, has perhaps succeeded in leaving a more dignified, a more
+satisfying series; one containing, if not so many masterpieces, fewer on
+which an accidental or trivial subject or mood has left its impress.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is Dürer's, not Rembrandt's, not Holbein's
+character, that impresses us as most serious, most worthy to be held as
+a model. It is before his portrait of himself that Mr. Ricketts "forgets
+all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is worthy of the
+occasion." So that we feel bound to attribute our dissatisfaction to
+something in his circumstances having hindered and hampered the flow of
+what was finest in his nature into his work. From Venice he wrote: "I am
+a gentleman here, but only a hanger-on at home." Germany was a better
+home for a great character, a great personality, than for a great
+artist: Dürer the artist was never quite at home there, never a
+gentleman among his peers. The good and solid burghers rated him as a
+good and solid burgher, worth so much per annum; never as endowed with
+the rank of his unique gift. It was only at Venice and Antwerp that he
+was welcomed as the Albert Dürer whom we to-day know, love, and honour.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 75: See the exquisite landscape in the collection of Mr. C. S.
+Ricketts and Mr. C. H. Shannon, reproduced in the sixth folio of the
+Dürer Society, 1903. Mr. Campbell Dodgson describes the drawing as in a
+measure spoilt by retouching, but what convinces him that these
+retouches are not by Dürer? The pen-work seems to be at once too clever
+and too careless to have been added by another hand to preserve a
+fading drawing.]
+
+[Footnote 76: XII. Discourse.]
+
+[Footnote 77: XIII, Discourse.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer, p. I 50.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DÜRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS
+
+
+I
+
+For the artist or designer the chief difference between the engraving
+done on a wood block and that done on metal lies in the thickness of the
+line. The engraved line in a wood block is in relief, that on a metal
+plate is entrenched; the ink in the one case is applied to the crest of
+a ridge, in the other it fills a groove into which the surface of the
+paper is squeezed. Though lines almost as fine as those possible on
+metal have been achieved by wood engravers, in doing this they force the
+nature of their medium, whereas on a copper plate fine lines come
+naturally. Perhaps no section of Dürer's work reveals his unique powers
+so thoroughly as his engravings on metal. They were entirely his own
+work both in design and execution; and no expenditure of pains or
+patience seems to have limited his intentions, or to have hindered his
+execution or rendered it less vital. And perhaps it is this fact which
+witnesses with our spirit and bids us recognise the master: rather than
+the comprehension of natural forms which he evinces, subtle and vigorous
+though it be; or than the symbols and types which he composed from such
+forms for the traditional and novel ideas of his day. And this
+unweariable assiduity of his is continually employed in the discovery
+of very noble arabesques of line and patterns in black and white, more
+varied than the grain in satin wood or the clustering and dispersion of
+the stars. Intensity of application, constancy of purpose, when revealed
+to us by beautifully variegated surfaces, the result of human toil, may
+well impress us, may rightly impress us, more than quaint and antiquated
+notions about the four temperaments, or about witches and their
+sabbaths, or about virtues and vices embodied in misconceptions of the
+characters of pagan divinities, and in legends about them which scholars
+had just begun to translate with great difficulty and very ill. It is
+the astonishing assurance of the central human will for perfection that
+awes us; this perception that flinches at no difficulty, this perception
+of how greatly beauty deserves to be embodied in human creations and
+given permanence to.
+
+
+II
+
+In the encomium which Erasmus wrote of Albert Dürer he dealt, as one
+sees by the passage quoted (p. 186), with Dürer's engraved work almost
+exclusively. Perhaps the great humanist had seen no paintings by Dürer,
+and very likely had heard Dürer himself disparage them, as Melanchthon
+tells us was his wont (p. 187). We know that Dürer gave Erasmus some of
+his engravings, and we may feel sure that he was questioned pretty
+closely as to what were the aims of his art, and wherein he seemed to
+himself to have best succeeded. The sentence I underlined (on p. 186)
+gives us probably some reflection of Dürer's reply. We must remember
+that Erasmus, from his classical knowledge as to how Apelles was
+praised, was full of the idea that art was an imitation, and may
+probably have refused to understand what Dürer may very likely have told
+him in modification of this view; or he may by citing his Greek and
+Latin sources have prevented the reverent Dürer from being outspoken on
+the point. But though most of his praise seems mere literary
+commonplace, the sentence underlined strikes us as having
+another source.
+
+"He reproduces not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also
+observes the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the
+position of it." How one would like to have heard Dürer, as Erasmus may
+probably have heard him, explain the principles on which he composed! No
+doubt there is no very radical difference between his sense of
+composition and that of other great artists. But to hear one so
+preoccupied with explaining his processes to himself discourse on this
+difficult subject would be great gain. For though there are doubtless no
+absolute rules, and the appeal is always to a refined sense for
+proportion,--yet to hear a creator speak of such things is to have this
+sense, as it were, washed and rendered delicate once more. We can but
+regret that Erasmus has not saved us something fuller than this hint. In
+the same way, how tempting is the criticism that Camerarius gives of
+Mantegna,--we feel that Dürer's own is behind it; but as it stands it is
+disjointed and absurd, like some of the incomplete and confused parables
+which give us a glimpse of how much more was lost than was preserved by
+the reporters of the sayings of Jesus. It is the same thing with the
+reported sayings of Michael Angelo, and indeed of all other great men.
+It is impossible to accept "his hand was not trained to follow the
+perception and nimbleness of his mind" as Dürer's dictum on Mantegna;
+but how suggestive is the allusion to "broken and scattered statues set
+up as examples of art," for artists to form themselves upon! Yet the
+fact that Dürer missed coming into contact not only with Mantegna but
+with Titian, Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, is indeed the saddest
+fact in regard to his life. We can well believe that he felt it in
+Mantegna's case. Ah! Why could he not bring himself to accept the
+overtures made to him, and become a citizen of Venice?
+
+
+III
+
+The subjects of these engravings are even generally trivial or
+antiquated, either in themselves or by the way they are approached.
+Perhaps alone among them the figure of Jesus, as it is drawn in the
+various series on copper and wood illustrating the Passion, is conceived
+in a manner which touches us to-day with the directness of a revelation;
+and even this cannot be compared to the same figure in Rembrandt
+etchings and drawings, either for essential adequacy, or for various and
+convincing application. No, we must consent to let the expression "great
+thoughts" drop out of our appreciation of Dürer's works, and be replaced
+by the "great character" latent in them.
+
+However, one among Dürer's engravings on copper stands out from among
+the rest, and indeed from all his works. In the _Melancholy_ the
+composition is not more dignified in its spacing and proportion; the
+arabesque of line is not richer or sweeter, the variations from black to
+white are not more handsome, than in some half dozen of his other
+engravings. No, by its conception alone the _Melancholy_ attains to its
+unique impressiveness. And it is the impressiveness of an image, not the
+impressiveness of an idea or situation, as in the case of the _Knight,
+Death, and the Devil_, by which almost as much bad literature has been
+inspired. There is nothing to choose between the workmanship of the two
+plates; both are absolutely impeccable, and outside the work of Dürer
+himself, unrivalled. The _Melancholy_ is the only creation by a German
+which appears to me to invite and sustain comparison with the works of
+the greatest Italian. In it we have the impressiveness that belongs only
+to the image, the thing conceived for mental vision, and addressed to
+the eye exclusively. If there was an allegory, or if the plate formed
+(as has been imagined) one of a series representative of the four
+temperaments, the eye and the visual imagination are addressed with such
+force and felicity that the inquiries which attempt to answer these
+questions must for ever appear impertinent. They may add some languid
+interest to the contemplation which is sated with admiring the
+impeccable mastery of the Knight; for that plate always seems to me the
+mere illustration of a literary idea, a sheer statement of items which
+require to be connected by some story, and some of which have the crude
+obviousness of folk-lore symbols, without their racy and genial naïvety.
+They have not been fused in the rapture of some unique mood, not
+focussed by the intensity of an emotion. With the _Melancholy_ all is
+different; perhaps among all his works only Dürer's most haunting
+portrait of himself has an equal or even similar power to bind us in its
+spell. For this reason I attempt the following comparison between the
+_Sibyls_ of the Sistine Chapel and the _Melancholy_ a comparison which I
+do not suppose to have any other value or force than that of a stimulant
+to the imagination which the works themselves address.
+
+[Illustration: MELANCHOLIA Copper engraving, B. 74]
+
+The impetuosity of his Southern blood drives Michael Angelo to betray
+his intention of impressing in the pose and build of his Sibyls. Large
+and exceptional women, "limbed" and thewed as gods are, with an habitual
+command of gesture, they lift down or open their books or unwind their
+scrolls like those accustomed to be the cynosure of many eyes, who have
+lived before crowds of inferiors, a spectacle of dignity from their
+childhood upwards. On the other hand, the pose and build of the
+_Melancholy_ must have been those of many a matron in Nuremberg. It is
+not till we come to the face that we find traits that correspond with
+the obvious symbolism of the wings and wreath, or the serious richness
+of the black and white effect of the composition; but that face holds
+our attention as not even the Sibylla Delphica cannot by beauty, not by
+conscious inspiration, but by the spell of unanswerable thought, by the
+power to brood, by the patience that can and dare go unresolved for many
+years. Everything is begun about her; she cannot see unto the end; she
+is powerful, she is capable in many works, she has borne children, she
+rests from her labours, and her thought wanders, sleeps or dreams. The
+spirit of the North, with its industry, its cool-headed calculation, its
+abundance in contrivance, its elaboration of duty and accumulation of
+possessions--there she sits, absorbed, unsatisfied. Impetuosity and the
+frank avowal of intention are themselves an expression of the will to
+create that which is desirable; they can but form the habit of every
+artist under happy circumstances. They proceed on the expectation of
+immediate effectiveness, they belong to power in action; while, if
+beauty be not impetuous, she is frank, and adds to the avowal of her
+intention the promise of its fulfilment. The work of art and the artist
+are essentially open; they promise intimacy, and fulfil that promise
+with entirety when successful. Nor is anything so impressive as intimacy
+which implies a perfect sincerity, a complete revelation, a gift without
+reserve, increase without let. But the circumstances of the artist never
+are happy: even Michael Angelo's were not. An intense brooding
+melancholy arises from the repressed and baffled desire to create; and
+in some measure this gloom of failure underlying their success is a
+necessary character of all lovely and spiritual creations in this world.
+Now Michael Angelo's works, because of their Southern impetuosity and
+volubility, are not so instinct with this divine sorrow, this immobility
+of the soul face to face with evil, as is Dürer's _Melancholy_. He
+inspires and exhilarates us more, but takes us out of ourselves rather
+than leads us home.
+
+Here is Dürer's success: let and hindered as it really is, he makes us
+feel the inalienable constancy of rational desire, watching adverse
+circumstance as one beast of prey watches another. She keeps hold on the
+bird she has caught, the ideal that perhaps she will never fully enjoy.
+Michael Angelo pictures for us freedom from trammels, the freedom that
+action, thought and ecstasy give, the freedom that is granted to beauty
+by all who recognise it; Dürer shows us the constancy that bridges the
+intervals between such free hours, that gives continuity to man's
+necessarily spasmodic effort. Thus he typifies for us the Northern
+genius: as Michael Angelo's athletes might typify by their naked beauty
+and the unexplained impressiveness of their gestures, the genius of the
+sudden South--sudden in action, sudden in thought, suddenly mature,
+suddenly asleep--as day changes to night and night to day the more
+rapidly as the tropics are approached.
+
+[Illustration: Detail enlarged from the "Agony in the Garden." Etching on
+Iron, B. 19 _Between_ pp. 250 & 251]
+
+[Illustration: ANGEL WITH THE SUDARIUM Engraving in Iron, 1516. B. 26
+_Between_ pp. 250 & 251]
+
+Instances of the highest imaginative power are rare in Dürer's work. The
+_Melancholy_ has had a world-wide success. The _Knight, Death and the
+Devil_ has one almost equal, but which is based on the facility with
+which it is associated with certain ideas dear to Christian culture,
+rather than on the creation of the mood in which these ideas arise. It
+does not move us until we know that it is an illustration of Erasmus's
+Christian Knight. Then all its dignity and mastery and the supremacy of
+the gifts employed on it are brought into touch with the idea, and each
+admirer operates, according to his imaginativeness, something of the
+transformation which Dürer had let slip or cool down before
+realising it.
+
+
+IV
+
+Among the prints with lesser reputations are several which attain a far
+higher success. There is the iron plate of the _Agony in the Garden,_ B.
+19, already mentioned (p. 235), in which the storm-tortured tree and the
+broken light and shade are full of dramatic power (see illustration),
+the _Angel with the Sudarium_, B. 26, where the arabesque of the folds
+of drapery and cloud unite with the daring invention of the central
+figure to create a mood entirely consonant with the subject. There is
+the woman carried off by a man on an unicorn, in which the turbulence of
+the subject is expressed with unrivalled force by the rich and beautiful
+arabesque and black and white pattern.
+
+B. Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, of the _Little Passion_, on
+copper, are all of them noteworthy successes of more or less the same
+kind; and in these, too, we come upon that racy sense for narration
+which can enhance dramatic import by emphasising some seemingly trivial
+circumstance, as in the gouty stiffness of one of Christ's scourgers in
+the _Flagellation_, or the abnormal ugliness of the man who with such
+perfect gravity holds the basin while Pilate _washes his hands:_ while
+in the _Crown of Thorns_ and _Descent into Hades_ we have peculiarly
+fine and suitable black and white patterns, and in the _Peter and John
+at the Beautiful Gate_[80] and the _Ecce Homo_ figures of monumental
+dignity in tiny gems of glowing engraver's work. The repose and serenity
+of the lovely little _St. Antony_;[81] the subsidence of commotion in
+the noonday victory of the little _St. George on foot_, B. 53--perhaps
+the most perfect diamond in the whole brilliant chain of little plates,
+or the staid naïvety of the enchanting _Apollo and Diana_, B. 68;[82]
+who shall prefer among these things? Every time we go through them we
+choose out another until we return to the most popular and slightly
+obvious _St. George on Horseback_, B. 54. Next come the dainty series of
+little plates in honour of Our Lady the Mother of God, commencing before
+Dürer made a rule of dating his plates; before 1503 and continuing till
+after 1520, in which the last are the least worthy. Among these the
+Virgin embracing her Child at the foot of a tree, B. 34, dated 1513; The
+Virgin standing on the crescent moon, her baby in one arm, her sceptre
+in the other hand and the stars of her crown blown sideways as she bows
+her head, B. 32, dated 1516, and the stately and monumental Virgin
+seated by a wall, B. 40, dated 1514, are at present my favourites. And
+to these succeeded the noble army of Apostles and Martyrs of which the
+more part are dated from 1521 to 1526, though two, B. 48 and 50, fall as
+early as 1514.
+
+[Illustration: THE SMALL HORSE--Copper Engraving, B. 96]
+
+Then amongst the most perfect larger plates I cannot refrain from
+mentioning the _St. Jerome_, B. 60, with its homely seclusion as of
+Dürer's own best parlour in summer time which not even the presence of a
+lion can disturb; the idyllic and captivating _St. Hubert_, B. 57; the
+august and tranquil _Cannon_, B. 99: and lastly, perhaps, in the little
+_Horse_, B. 96, we come upon a theme and motive of the kind best suited
+to Dürer's peculiar powers, in which he produces an effect really
+comparable to those of the old Greek masters, about whose lost works he
+was so eager for scraps of information, and whose fame haunted him even
+into his slumbers, so that he dreamed of them and of those who should
+"give a future to their past." This delightful work may illustrate an
+allegory now grown dark or some misconception of a Grecian story; but
+though the relation between the items that compose it should remain for
+ever unexplained, its beauty, like that of some Greek sculpture that has
+been admired under many names, continues its spell, and speaks of how
+the simplicity, austerity and noble proportions of classical art were
+potent with the spirit of the great Nuremberg artist, and occasionally
+had free way with him, in spite of all there was in his circumstances
+and origins to impede or divert them. (See also the spirited drawing,
+Lipp. 366.)
+
+
+V
+
+It would be idle to attempt to say something about every masterpiece in
+Dürer's splendidly copious work on metal plates. There is perhaps not
+one of these engravings that is not vital upon one side or another,
+amazingly few that are not vital upon many. One other work, however,
+which has been much criticised and generally misunderstood, it may be as
+well to examine at more length, especially as it illustrates what was
+often Dürer's practice in regard to his theories about proportion, with
+which my next Part will deal. I speak of the _Great Fortune_ or
+_Nemesis_ (B. 77). His practice at other times is illustrated by the
+splendid _Adam and Eve_ (B. 1), over the production of which the nature
+of the canon he suggested was perhaps first thoroughly worked out. But
+before this and afterwards too he no doubt frequently followed the
+advice he gives in the following passage.
+
+To him that setteth himself to draw figures according to this book, not
+being well taught beforehand, the matter will at first become hard. Let
+him then put a man before him, who agreeth, as nearly as may be, _with
+the proportions he desireth_; and let him draw him in outline according
+to his knowledge and power. And a man is held to have done well if he
+attain accurately to copy a figure according to the life, so that his
+drawing resembleth the figure and is like unto nature. _And in
+particular if the thing copied as beautiful; then is the copy held to be
+artistic_, and, as it deserveth, it is highly praised.
+
+Dürer himself would seem to have very often followed his own advice in
+this. The _Great Fortune_ or Nemesis is a case in point. The remarks of
+critics on this superb engraving are very strange and wide. Professor
+Thausing said, "Embodied in this powerful female form, the Northern
+worship of nature here makes its first conscious and triumphant
+appearance in the history of art." With the work of the great Jan Van
+Eyck in one's mind's eye, of course this will appear one of those
+little lapses of memory so convenient to German national sentiment.
+"Everything that, according to our aesthetic formalism based on the
+antique, we should consider beautiful, is sacrificed to truth." (I have
+already pointed out that this use of the word "truth" in matters of art
+constitutes a fallacy)[83] "And yet our taste must bow before the
+imperishable fidelity to nature displayed in these forms, the fulness of
+life that animates these limbs." Of course, "imperishable fidelity to
+nature" and "taste that bows before it" are merely the figures of a
+clumsy rhetoric. But the idea they imply is one of the most common of
+vulgar errors in regard to works of art. In the first place one must
+remind our enthusiastic German that it is an engraving and not a woman
+that we are discussing; and that this engraving is extremely beautiful
+in arabesque and black and white pattern, rich, rhythmical and
+harmonious; and that there is no reason why our taste should be violated
+in having to bow submissively before such beauties as these, which it is
+a pleasure to worship. Now we come to the subject as presented to the
+intelligence, after the quick receptive eye has been satiated with
+beauty. Our German guide exclaims, "Not misled by cold definite rules of
+proportion, he gave himself up to unrestrained realism in the
+presentation of the female form." Our first remark is, that though the
+treatment of this female form may perhaps be called realistic, this
+adjective cannot be made to apply to the figure as a whole. This
+massively built matron is winged; she stands on a small globe suspended
+in the heavens, which have opened and are furled up like a garment in a
+manner entirely conventional. She carries a scarf which behaves as no
+fabric known to me would behave even under such exceptional and
+thrilling circumstances.
+
+Dr. Carl Giehlow has recently suggested that this splendid engraving
+illustrates the following Latin verses by Poliziano:
+
+  Est dea, quse vacuo sublimis in aëre pendens
+  It nimbo succincta latus, sed candida pallam,
+  Sed radiata comam, ac stridentibus insonat alis.
+  Haec spes immodicas premit, haec infesta superbis
+  Imminet, huic celsas hominum contundere mentes
+  Incessusque datum et nimios turbare paratus.
+  Quam veteres Nemesin genitam de nocte silenti
+  Oceano discere patri. Stant sidera fronti.
+  Frena manu pateramque gerit, semperque verendum
+  Ridet et insanis obstat contraria coeptis.
+  Improba vota domans ac summis ima revolvens
+  Miscet et alterna nostros vice temperat actus.
+  Atque hue atque illuc ventorum turbine fertur.
+
+There is a goddess, who, aloft in the empty air, advances girdled about
+with a cloud, but with a shining white cloak and a glory in her hair,
+and makes a rushing with her wings. She it is who crushes extravagant
+hopes, who threatens the proud, to whom is given to beat down the
+haughty spirit and the haughty step, and to confound over-great
+possessions. Her the men of old called Nemesis, born to Ocean from the
+womb of silent Night. Stars stand upon her forehead. In her hand she
+bears bridles and a chalice, and smiles for ever with an awful smile,
+and stands resisting mad designs. Turning to nought the prayers of the
+wicked and setting the low above the high she puts one in the other's
+place and rules the scenes of life with alternation. And she is borne
+hither and thither on the wings of the whirlwind.
+
+If this suggestion is a good one it shows us that Dürer was no more
+consistently literal than he was realistic. The most striking features
+of his illustration are just those to which his text offers no
+counterpart, i.e., the nudity and physical maturity of his goddess.
+Neither has he girdled her about with cloud nor stood stars upon her
+forehead. I must confess that I find it hard to believe that there was
+any close connection present to his mind between his engraving and
+these verses.
+
+In a former chapter I have spoken of the fashion in female dress then
+prevalent; how it underlined whatever is most essential in the physical
+attributes of womanhood, and how probably something of good taste is
+shown in this fashion (see pp. 92 and 93). What I there said will
+explain Dürer's choice in this matter; and also that what Thausing felt
+bow in him was not taste, but his prejudices in regard to womanly
+attractiveness, and his misconception as to where the beauty of an
+engraving should be looked for and in what it consists. These same
+prejudices and misconceptions render Mrs. Heaton (as is only natural in
+one of the weaker sex) very bold. She says, "A large naked winged woman,
+whose ugliness is perfectly repulsive." This object, I must confess,
+appears to me, a coarse male, "welcome to contemplation of the mind and
+eye." The splendid Venus in Titian's _Sacred and Profane Love_, or his
+_Ariadne_ at Madrid; or Raphael's _Galatea_; or Michael Angelo's _Eve_
+(on the Sistine vault) are all of them doubtless far more akin to the
+_Aphrodite_ of Praxiteles, or to her who crouches in the Louvre, than is
+this _Nemesis_; but we must not forget that they are works on a scale
+more comparable with a marble statue; and that in works of which the
+scale is more similar to that of our engraving, Greek taste was often
+far more with Dürer than with Thausing. This is an important point,
+though one which is rarely appreciated. However, there is no reason why
+we should condemn "misled by cold definite rules of taste" even such
+pictures as Rembrandt's _Bathing Woman_ in the Louvre, though here the
+proportions of the work are heroic. Oil painting was an art not
+practised by the Greeks, and this medium lends itself to beauties which
+their materials put entirely out of reach. Besides, Rembrandt appealed
+to an audience who had been educated by Christian ideals to appreciate a
+pathos produced by the juxtaposition of the fact with the ideal, and of
+the creature with the creator, to appeal to which a Greek would have had
+to be far more circumspect in his address--even if he had, through an
+exceptional docility and receptiveness of character, come under its
+influence himself. These considerations when apprehended will, I
+believe, suffice to dispel both prejudice and misconception in regard to
+this matter; and we shall find in Professor Thausing's remarks relative
+to the treatment of the "female form divine" in this engraving no
+additional reason for considering it a comparatively early work. And we
+shall only smile when he tells us "The _Nemesis_ to a certain _degree_
+(sic) marks the extreme _point_ (sic) reached by Dürer in his unbiased
+study of the nude. His further progress became more and more influenced
+by his researches into the proportions of the human body." The bias will
+appear to us of rather more recent date, and we shall be ready to
+consider with an open mind how far Dürer's practice was influenced for
+good or evil by his researches into the proportions of the human body.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 80: See page 258.]
+
+[Footnote 81: See page 260.]
+
+[Footnote 82: See Frontispiece.]
+
+[Footnote 83: See page 19.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DÜRER'S WOODCUTS
+
+It is now generally accepted that Dürer did not himself engrave on wood.
+In his earliest blocks he shows a greater respect for the limitations of
+this means of expression than later on. The earliest wood blocks, though
+no doubt they aimed at being facsimiles, were not such in fact; but the
+engraver took certain liberties for his own convenience, and probably
+did not attempt to render what Dürer calls "the hand" of the designer.
+"The hand" was equivalent to what modern artists call "the touch," and
+meant the peculiar character recognisable in the vast majority of the
+strokes or marks which each artist uses in drawing or painting. Dürer
+affected extremely curved and rapid strokes, Mantegna the deliberate
+straight line, Rembrandt the straight stroke used so as to seem a
+continual improvisation; though indeed he varies the character of his
+touch more continually and more vastly than any other master, yet in his
+drawings and etchings the majority of the strokes are straight. Already
+in the woodcuts provided by Michael Wolgemut, Dürer's master, to
+illustrate books, there is a general attempt to render cross hatching:
+and the eyes and hair, though still those of an engraver, are
+frequently modified to some extent in deference to the character given
+by the draughtsman. Still, no one with practical experience would
+consider these woodcuts as adequate facsimiles: which makes the question
+of their attribution to Wolgemut, or his partner and step-son,
+Pleydenwurff, of still less interest and importance than it is on all
+other grounds. So conscious an exception as the soul of the accurate
+Albert Dürer was, could not be expected to endure a partner in his
+creations, especially one whose character was revealed chiefly by the
+clumsy compromises convenient to lack of skill. Doubtless the demand for
+"his hand" was a new factor in the education of the engraver, as
+constant and as imperturbable as the action of a copious stream, which,
+having its source in lonely heights, wears a channel through the hardest
+rock, the most sullen soils. It may have been the pitiless tyranny of
+the master's will for perfection which drove Hieronymus Andreae, "the
+most famous of Dürer's wood engravers," into religious and even civil
+rebellion, joining hands with levelling fanatics and taking active part
+in the Peasant War. Dürer probably would have commanded too much
+reverence and affection for these rebellions to be directed against him;
+but an insupportably heavy yoke is not rendered lighter because it is
+imposed by a loved hand,--though every other burden and restraint may in
+such a case be shaken off and resented before that which is the real
+cause of oppression. Dürer's wood cutters had no doubt to resign any
+indolence, any impatience, or whatever else it might be that had
+otherwise stamped a personal character on their work; and all
+remonstrance must have been shamed by the evident fact that the young
+master spared himself not a whit more. The perseverance and docility
+which made such engraving possible was perhaps the greatest aid that
+Dürer drew from German character; it was not only an aid, but an example
+to and restraint upon that haughty spirit of his that restively ever
+again vows never to take so much pains over another picture to be so
+poorly paid (see page 103); that complains of failure and discouragement
+after years of repeatedly more world-wide successes (see page 187).
+These are not German traits, but it may have been the German blood he
+inherited from his mother and the example of his friends,
+fellow-workers, and helpers, which enabled him to get the better of such
+petulant and gloomy outbursts, and return to the day of small things
+with the will to continue and endure.
+
+The difference introduced by the engravers becoming more and more
+capable of rendering Dürer's hand is well illustrated by comparing the
+frontispiece to the _Apocalypse_, added about 1511, with the other cuts
+which had appeared in 1498. Doubtless Dürer's hand had changed its
+character considerably during this period of constant and rapid
+development, and it requires tact and knowledge to separate the
+differences due to the creator from those due to the engraver. Dürer's
+drawings differed as widely from the earlier drawings as does the
+engraving from the earlier blocks. But, as we may see by early drawings
+done as preliminary studies for engravings, the method of his pen
+strokes had changed less than the character of the forms they rendered;
+the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than
+the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by
+1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the
+stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap
+and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface
+of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the
+radiance of the Virgin's glory). Holbein, later on, was to obtain a yet
+more wonderful fidelity from Lutzelburger, the engraver of his _Dunce
+of Death_.
+
+Still it were misleading to suppose that Dürer's disregard for the
+facilities and limitations of wood-cutting went the lengths that the
+demands made upon modern skill have gone. Not only has the line been
+reproduced, but it has been drawn not with a full pen or brush, but in
+pencil or with watered ink; and the delicate tones thus produced have
+been demanded of and rendered by human skill. Dürer always uses a clear
+definite stroke; and in thus limiting himself he shows an appreciation
+of the medium to be used in reproducing his drawing, and recognises its
+limits to a large extent, though this is the only limitation he accepts.
+Less and less does he consider the possibilities which engraving offers
+for the use of a white line on black Doing his drawing with a black
+line, he contents himself with the qualities that the resources and
+facilities of the full pen line give: and his design is for a drawing
+which can be cut on wood, not for something that first really exists in
+the print; the prints are copies of his drawings. His drawings were not
+prepared to receive additions in the course of cutting, such as could
+only be rendered by the engraver. Faithfulness was the only virtue he
+required of Hieronymus Andreae. Yet even in such drawings as Dürer's no
+doubt were, there would have been some qualities, some defects perhaps,
+that the print does not possess. For a print, from the mode of inking,
+has a breadth and unity which the drawing never can have. Even in
+drawings made with full flowing brush or pen, there will be
+modulations in the strength of the ink, or occasioned by the surface of
+the wood or paper, in every stroke, by which the, sensitive artist in
+the heat of work cannot help being influenced, and which will lead him
+to give a bloom, a delicacy, to his drawing, such as a print can never
+possess. And, on the other hand, the unity of the print can never be
+quite realised in the drawing, however much the artist may strive to
+attain it, because the conditions must change, however slightly, for
+strokes produced in succession; while in a print all are produced
+together, and variations, if variations there are, occur over wide
+spaces and not between stroke and stroke. It is considerations, of this
+kind that in the last resort determine the quality of works of art. The
+artist is taught, though often unconsciously, by the means he employs,
+but the diligent man who is not by nature an artist never can learn
+these things: he can Imitate the manner and form, never the grace, the
+bloom, and the life.
+
+[Illustration: THE APOCALYPSE, 1498 St. Michael fighting the Dragon,
+Woodcut, B. 72 From the impression in the British Museum Face p. 262]
+
+
+II
+
+Dürer's first important issue of woodcuts was the _Apocalypse_. A great
+deal has been written in praise of this production as a political
+pamphlet against the corrupt Papacy. It was undoubtedly the most
+important series of woodcuts that had ever appeared, by the size, number
+and elaboration of the designs. It also undoubtedly attacks
+ecclesiastical corruption, but not ecclesiastical only. Whether to Dürer
+and his friends it appeared even chiefly directed against prelates, or
+even against those who sat in high places; whether the popes, bishops
+and figures typical of the Church seemed to him to illustrate the moral
+in any pre-eminent degree, may be doubted. Still more doubtful is it
+whether there was any objection to papacy or priesthood as institutions
+connected with these figures in his mind. Unworthy popes, unworthy
+bishops, and an unworthy Rome were censured: but not popes, bishops, or
+Rome as the capital see of the Church. Dürer's work as a whole shows no
+distaste for saints, the Virgin, or bishops and popes; he had no
+objection, no scruple apparently, to introducing the notorious Julius
+II. into his _Feast of the_ Rosary, some ten years later. There has
+perhaps been a tendency to read the intention of these designs too much
+in the light of after events: and by so doing a great slur is cast on
+Dürer's consistency; for, had these designs the significance read into
+them, he must be supposed an altogether convinced enemy of the Church;
+and the tremendous salaams which he afterwards made to her in far more
+important works ought, to logical minds, to appear horribly insincere.
+
+Viewed as works of art, one reads about the cut of the four riders upon
+horses, "For simple grandeur this justly famous design has never been
+surpassed." One's sense of proportion receives such a shock as gives one
+the sensation of being utterly outcast, in a world where such a precious
+dictum can pass without remark as a sample of the discrimination of the
+chief authority on the life and art of Albert Dürer. Neither simple nor
+grand is an adjective applicable to this print in the sense in which we
+apply it to the chief masterpieces of antiquity and of the Renaissance.
+To say even that Dürer never surpassed this design is to utter what to
+me at least seems the most palpable absurdity. There is an immense
+advance in design, in conception and in mastery of every kind shown over
+the best prints of the _Apocalypse_ and _Great Passion_, in the
+prints added to the latter series ten years later, and still more in the
+_Life of the Virgin_. And still finer results are arrived at in single
+cuts of later date, and in the _Little Passion_. If we want to see what
+Dürer's woodcuts at their finest are for breadth and dignity of
+composition, for richness and fertility of arabesque and black and white
+pattern, for vigour and subtlety of form, for boldness and vivacity of
+workmanship, we must turn to the _Samson_ (1497?) (B. 2), the Man's
+_Bath_ (14-?), (B. 128), among the earlier blocks published before the
+_Apocalypse_, then to those designed in or about the year 1511. The
+golden period for Dürer's woodcuts, the date of the publication of his
+most magnificent series, the _Life of the Virgin_ and several delightful
+separate prints. Among these we find it hard to choose, but if some must
+be mentioned let it be the _St. Joachim's Offering Rejected by the High
+Priest_ (B. 77), the _Meeting at the Golden Gate_ (B. 79) (see
+illustration), the _Marriage of the Virgin_ (B. 82), the _Visitation_
+(B. 84), the _Nativity_ (B. 85) (see illustration), the _Presentation_
+(B. _55_), the _Flight into Egypt_ (B. 89).
+
+[Illustration: Detail enlarged from "Nativity."--"Life of the Virgin"
+Woodcut, B. 85]
+
+[Illustration: Enlarged detail from "The Embrace of St. Joachim and St.
+Anne at the Golden Gate."--"Life of the Virgin," Woodcut, B. 79]
+
+In the glorious masterpieces of this series Dürer has found the true
+balance of his powers. The dignity and charm of the decorative effect of
+these cuts has never been surpassed; and to the racy narrative vivacity
+of such groups and figures as those isolated and enlarged in our
+illustration there is added an idyllic charm of which perhaps the best
+examples are the _Visitation_ and the _Flight into Egypt_. This
+sweetness of allure is still more pervasive in the separate cuts that
+bear this golden date, 1511, that is in the _St. Christopher_ (B. 103),
+and the _St. Jerome_ (B. 114). And the _Adoration of the Magi_ (B. 3) is
+much finer than the one included in the _Life of the Virgin_. This
+idyllic charm had already been touched _upon before_ in the _Assumption
+of the Magdalen_ (B. 121) (15?), and in the _St. Antony_ and _St. Paul_
+and the _Baptist_ and _St. Onuphrius of_ 1504. It is not felt to lie
+very deep in the conception of the subject, for all are treated in an
+obviously conventional manner, the touches of racy realism being
+confined to subordinate incidents and details. Neither the subjects nor
+the mood of the artist lend themselves to the dramatic impressiveness of
+such cuts as the _Blowing of the Sixth Trumpet_ or the _St. Michael
+overwhelming the Dragon of the Apocalypse_ (_see_ page 262), where the
+inspiration appears to be Gothic, perhaps developed under the influence
+of Mantegna's _Combat between Sea Monsters_, of which Dürer early made
+an elaborate pen-and-ink copy. We find an aftermath of the same
+inspiration in the engraving on iron, dated 1516, representing a man
+riding astride of an unicorn carrying off a shrieking woman. Such stormy
+and strenuous lowerings of the imagination break in upon Dürer's
+habitual mood as St. Peter's thunders into Milton's "Lycidas," of which
+the general felicitous mingling of a conventional pedantry with idyllic
+charm and racy touches of realistic effect is very similar to the
+general effect of the golden group we have been describing. Among all
+the work that finds its climax in the beautiful creations of 1511, only
+in a few prints of the _Little Passion_, published in 1511, do we find
+any dramatic power or creativeness of essential conception. I may
+mention the _Christ Scourging the Money-changers in the Temple_, the
+_Agony in the Garden_, and Judas' _Kiss_, where, though the general
+effect be rather confused, the central figure is full of appropriate
+power. _Christ haled by the hair before_ _Annas_ (the most wonderful
+of all), Christ before _Pilate_, Christ _Mocked_, the _Ecce Homo_ (a
+most beautiful composition), the Veronica's napkin incident, _Christ_
+being nailed _to the Cross_ (a masterpiece), the _Deposition_, the
+_Entombment_:--several others of the series have idyllic charm or
+touches of narrative force which link them with the general group, but
+these alone stand out and in some ways surpass it. After this date Dürer
+seems in a great measure to have relinquished wood for metal engraving;
+however, most of his occasional resumptions of the process were marked
+by the production of masterpieces, if we put on one side the workshop
+monsters produced for Maximilian--and even in these, in details, Dürer's
+full force is recognisable. I may mention the _Madonna_ crowned and
+_worshipped by a concert of Angels_, 1518 (B. 101), which, though a
+little cold, like all the work of that period, is still a masterpiece;
+and then, after the inspiriting visit to Antwerp, we have the
+magnificent portrait of Ulrich Varnbüler, 1522 (B. 155), the _Last
+Supper_, 1523 (B. 53) (see illustration here), and the glorious piece of
+decoration representing Dürer's Arms, 1523 (B. 160) (see illustration).
+I have reproduced less of Dürer's wood engravings than would be
+necessary to represent their importance and beauty, because most, being
+large and bold, are greatly impoverished by reduction; besides, they are
+nearly all well known through comparatively cheap reproductions. I have
+enlarged two details to give an idea of Dürer's workmanship when
+employed upon racy realism (see illustration, page 264), and when
+employed in endowing a single figure with supreme grace and dignity (see
+illustration, page 265).
+
+[Illustration: Christ haled before Annas From the "Little
+Passion"--_Between_ pp. 266 & 267]
+
+[Illustration: DÜRER'S ARMORIAL BEARINGS Woodcut, B. 160]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DÜRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES
+
+I
+
+
+Before closing this part of my book something must be said of Dürer's
+influence on other artists. It is one of the foibles of modern criticism
+to please itself by tracing influences, a process of the same nature as
+that of tracing resemblances to ferns and other growths on a frosted
+pane. No one would deny that resemblances are there; it is to
+distinguish them and estimate their significance without yielding to
+fancifulness, which is the well-nigh hopeless task. It is often
+forgotten that similar circumstances produce similar effects, and that
+coincidences from this cause are very rife. Then, too, it is forgotten
+that the influence that produces rivalry is stronger, more important,
+and less easily estimated, than that which is expressed by imitation or
+plagiarism; besides, it affects more original and fertile natures. The
+stimulus of a great creative personality often is more potent where
+discernible resemblances are few and vague, than where they are many and
+obvious. In Dürer's day the study and imitation of antique art which had
+brought about the Renascence in Italy was the fashion that in successive
+waves was passing over Europe and moulding the future. He himself felt
+it, and welcomed it now as an authority not to be gainsaid, and again
+as an example to be competed against and surpassed. This fashion, this
+trend of opinion and hope, was the significance behind the effect
+produced on him by Jacopo de' Barbari, whose charming but ineffectual
+originality succeeded merely in creating an eddy in that stream. It was
+the tide behind him which so powerfully stirred and stimulated Dürer.
+The resemblances traceable between certain still life studies by the two
+men, or even in figures of their engravings, is insignificant compared
+with the fact that through Jacopo Dürer probably first felt the energy
+and true direction of the great tidal waves which were then rolling
+forth from Italy. Even Mantegna's influence was probably less the effect
+of a personal affinity than that through him a power streamed direct
+from the antique dawn. This great and master influence of those days was
+more one of hope, indefinite, incomprehensible, visionary, than one of
+knowledge and assured discovery. Raphael may have received it from
+Dürer, as well as Dürer from Bellini. Figures and incidents from Dürer's
+engravings are supposed to have been adapted in certain works, if not of
+his own hand at least proceeding from his immediate pupils. For Raphael,
+Dürer was a proof of the excellence of human nature in respect to the
+arts, even when it could not form itself on the immediate study and
+contemplation of antiques, and thus added to the zest and expectation
+with which he improved himself in that direction. These great men did
+not distinguish clearly between pregnancy due to their own efforts, that
+of their contemporaries and immediate predecessors, and that due to
+their more mystic passion for antiquity. Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Correggio were destined to be the signets by which this great power was
+to be most often and clearly stamped on the work of future artists.
+From the unhappy location of his life Dürer was debarred from any such
+obvious and overwhelming effect on after generations. The influences
+which helped to shape him were no doubt at work on all the more eminent
+artists, his fellow-countrymen; on Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Burgkmair,
+Lucas Cranach, or Baldung Grien, to mention only the elect. What the
+stimulus of his achievements, of his renown, meant for these men we have
+no means of computing; yet we may feel sure that it was vastly more
+important and significant than any actual traces of imitation or
+plagiarism from his works, which can with difficulty and for the more
+part very doubtfully be brought home to them;--vastly more important and
+significant too we may be sure than his effect upon his pupils and other
+more or less obscure painters, engravers, and block designers, in whose
+work actual imitation or adaption of his creations is more certain and
+more abundant. His pictures, plates, and woodcuts were copied both in
+Italy and in the North, both as exercises for the self-improvement of
+artists and to supply a demand for even secondhand reflections of his
+genius and skill. He was not destined to lend the impress of his
+splendid personality to the tide of fashion like the great Italians;
+their influence was to supersede his even in the North.
+
+This is obvious: but who shall compare or estimate the accession of
+force which the tide as a whole gained from him, or that more latent
+power which begins to be disengaged from the reserve and lack of proper
+issue from which he evidently suffered, now that the great tide of the
+Renaissance has spent its mighty onrush and become merged in the
+constant movement of life--that power by which he moves us to
+commiserate his circumstances and to feel after the more and better,
+which we cannot doubt that he might have given us had he been more
+happily situated?
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER Woodcut, p. 53]
+
+
+II
+
+Only to compare the value of Michael Angelo's sonnets with that of the
+doggerel rhymes which Dürer produced, may give us some idea of the
+portentous inferiority in Dürer's surroundings to those of the great
+Italian. Both borrow the general idea of the subject, treatment, and
+form of their poems from the fashion around them. But that fashion in
+Michael Angelo's case called for elevated subject, intimate and
+imaginative treatment, and adequacy of form, whereas none of these were
+called for from Albrecht Dürer; and if his friends laughed at the
+rudeness of his verses, it was not that they themselves conceived of
+anything more adequate in these respects, only something more scholarly,
+more pedantic. Michael Angelo's verse was often crabbed and rude, but
+the scholarship and pedantry of Italy forbore to laugh at that rudeness,
+because a more adequate standard made them recognise its vital power and
+noble passion as of higher importance to true success. Still, in the
+following rhymes, Dürer shows himself a true child of the Renascence, at
+least in intention; and was proud of a desire for universal excellence.
+
+When I received this from Lazarus Spengler, I made him the following
+poem in reply (Mrs. Heaton's translation):
+
+  In Nürnberg it is known full well
+  A man of letters now doth dwell,
+  One of our Lord's most useful men,
+  He is so clever with his pen,
+  And others knows so well to hit,
+  And make ridiculous with wit;
+  And he has made a jest of me,
+  Because I made some poetry,
+  And of True Wisdom something wrote,
+  But as he likes my verses not,
+  He makes a laughing stock of me,
+  And says I'm like the Cobbler, he
+  Who criticised Apelles' art.
+  With this he tries to make me smart,
+  Because he thinks it is for me
+  To paint, and not write poetry.
+  But I have undertaken this
+  (And will not stop for him or his),
+  To learn whatever thing I can,
+  For which will blame me no wise man.
+  For he who only learns one thing,
+  And to naught else his mind doth bring,
+  To him, as to the notary,
+  It haps, who lived here as do we,
+  In this our town. To him was known
+  To write one form and one alone.
+  Two men came to him with a need
+  That he should draw them up a deed;
+  And he proceeded very well,
+  Until their names he came to spell:
+  Gotz was the first name that perplexed,
+  And Rosenstammen was the next.
+  The Notary was much astonished,
+  And thus his clients he admonished,
+  "Dear friends," he said, "you must be wrong,
+  These names don't to my form belong;
+  Franz and Fritz[84] I know full well,
+  But of no others have heard tell."
+  And so he drove away his clients,
+  And people mocked his little science.
+  To me that it may hap not so,
+  Something of all things I will know.
+  Not only writing will I do,
+  But learn to practise physic too;
+  Till men surprised will say, "Beshrew me,
+  What good this painter's medicines do me!"
+  Therefore hear and I will tell
+  Some wise receipts to keep you well.
+  A little drop of alkali,
+  Is good to put into the eye;
+  He who finds it hard to hear,
+  Should mandel-oil put in his ear;
+  And he who would from gout be free,
+  Not wine but water drink should he;
+  He who would live to be a hundred,
+  Will see my counsel has not blundered.
+  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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 84: Equivalent to our John Doe and Richard Roe.]
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+DÜRER'S IDEAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE
+
+Dürer often painted the Virgin's head as a mere exercise or example in
+those proportion studies with which we must presently deal.
+
+Sir W. M. CONWAY, in "Dürer's Literary Remains," p. 151.
+
+As soon as he comes to speak of the very essence of artistic work, he
+forgets theories and imitations of the antique; he knows nothing of
+composition from fragments of Nature, of measurements and speculations.
+No longer trusting to such aids as these, but launching himself boldly
+on the broad stream of Nature, he believes that he shall attain to a
+higher harmony in his work.
+
+THAUSING'S "Albert Dürer," vol. ii., p. 318.
+
+
+I
+
+The idea of a canon for human proportions has proved a great
+stumbling-block for so-called classical or academic artists. It is
+usually taken to mean an absolutely right or harmonious proportion, any
+deviation from which cannot fail to result in a diminution of beauty.
+According to their thoroughness, the devotees of this idea seek to
+arrive at such a scale of proportions for a varying number of different
+ages in either sex; often even modifying this again for diverse types,
+as tall or short, fat or lean, dark or blonde, but allowing no excessive
+variation for these causes; so that abnormally tall people and dwarfs
+are not considered. This is, I take it, what the great artist Albert
+Dürer is generally taken to have been aiming at in his books on
+proportion. It will not be difficult, I think, to show that Dürer had
+quite a different idea of what a canon of proportion should be, and how
+it should be applied. And certainly, had it been possible to study Greek
+practice more closely, and in a larger number of examples, when this
+idea (supposed to be drawn from that source) was chiefly mooted, a very
+different notion of the canon of proportion would have been forced on
+the most academical of theorists. Dürer's great superiority over such
+academical masters is, that his idea of a canon of proportion and its
+use agrees far better with what was apparently Greek practice.
+
+Any one who has followed at all the interesting attempts made by
+Professor Furtwängler and others to group together, by attention to the
+measurements of the different parts of the figure, works belonging to
+the different masters, schools, and centres, will have perceived that he
+is led to assume a traditional canon of proportion from which a master
+deviates slightly in the direction of some bias of his own mind towards
+closer knit or more slim figures; such variations being in the earlier
+stages very slight. Again, it is supposed that from the canon followed
+by a master, different pupils may branch off in opposite directions
+according to the leanings of their personal sentiment for beauty. The
+conception of these ramifications has at least created the hope that
+critics may follow them through a great number of complications, since
+a master may modify his canon--after certain pupils have already struck
+out for themselves, and new pupils may start from his modified canon;
+and so on into an infinite criss-cross of branches, as any sculptor may
+be influenced to modify his canon by his fellows or by the masters of
+other schools whose work he comes across later. In any case, this main
+fact arises, that the canon appears as what the artist deviated from,
+not what he abided by: and any one who has any feeling for the infinite
+nicety of the results obtained by Greek sculptors will easily apprehend
+that each masterpiece established a new and slightly different canon,
+and was then in the position to be in its turn again deviated from, as
+Flaubert says:
+
+"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved."
+
+"Chayue ceuvre à faire a sa poëtique en soi, qu'il faut trouver."
+
+
+II
+
+The same thing is asserted by literary critics to have been the cause of
+the repetition of subjects in Greek tragedy, and to have resulted in the
+infinite niceties of their forms, which are never the same and never
+radically new.
+
+The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded stood,
+before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the
+spectator's mind; it stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly
+seen, at the end of a long dark vista. Then came the poet, embodying
+outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment
+capriciously thrown in. Stroke upon stroke, the drama proceeded; the
+light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the
+riveted gaze of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were
+spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of
+immortal beauty.
+
+This passage from Matthew Arnold's deservedly famous preface well
+emphasises one advantage that a tradition of subject and treatment gave
+to the Greek poet as to the Greek sculptor: the economy of means it made
+possible, "not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown
+in,"--since every deviation from, every addition to, the traditional
+story and treatment, was immediately appreciated by an audience
+thoroughly conversant with that tradition, and often with several
+previous masterpieces treating it. By merely leaving out an incident, or
+omitting to appeal to a sentiment, a Greek tragedian could flood his
+whole work with a new significance. So that the temptation to be
+eccentric, the temptation to hit too hard or at random because he was
+not sure of exactly where the mind stood that he would impress, did not
+exist in anything like the same degree for him as it did for Shakespeare
+and Michael Angelo as it does for romantic and origina natures to-day.
+The absence of a sufficient body of traditional culture belonging to
+every educated person tends always to force the artist to commence by
+teaching the alphabet to his public. As Coleridge so justly remarked in
+the case of Wordsworth: "He had, like all great artists, to create the
+taste by which he was to be relished, to teach the art by which he was
+to be seen and judged." All great artists no doubt have to do this, but
+the modern artist is in the position of the Israelite who was bidden not
+only to make bricks, but to find himself in stubble and straw, as
+compared with a Greek who could appeal to traditional conceptions with
+certainty. Dr. Verrall is no doubt right when he says:
+
+Every one knows, even if the full significance of the fact is not always
+sufficiently estimated, that the tragedians of Athens did not tell their
+story at all as the telling of a story is conceived by a modern
+dramatist, whose audience, when the curtain goes up, know nothing which
+is not in the play-bill.
+
+This ignorant public, this uncultivated and unmanured field with which
+every modern artist has to commence, is the greatest let to the creator.
+What wonder that he should so often prefer to make a gaudy show with
+yellow weeds, when he perceives that there is hardly time in one man's
+life to produce a respectable crop of wheat from such a wilderness?
+
+"The story of an Athenian tragedy is never completely told; it is
+implied, or, to repeat the expression used above, it is illustrated by a
+selected scene or scenes. And the further we go back the truer this is,"
+continues Dr. Verrall; and the same was doubtless true of sculpture and
+painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance or advantage
+of this fact to the artist. For religious art, for art that appeals to
+the sum and total of a man's experience of beauty in life, a public
+cultivated in this sense is a necessity. Giotto and Fra Angelico enjoyed
+this almost to the same degree as Æschylus or Phidias; Michael Angelo
+and the great artists of the Renascence generally enjoyed it in a very
+great degree, and reaped an advantage comparable to that which Euripides
+and his contemporaries and immediate successors enjoyed. The tradition
+enabled such an artist to impress by means of subtleties, niceties, and
+refinements, instead of forcing him to attempt always to more or less
+seduce, astonish or overawe; strong measures which grow almost
+necessarily into bad habits, and end by perverting the taste they
+created. This, it has often been remarked, was the case even with
+Michael Angelo, even with Shakespeare. Yet nowadays, to enable a man to
+remark this, exceptional culture is required.
+
+
+III
+
+This idea of the use of a canon may be illustrated in many ways; for,
+like all notions which resume actual experiences, it will be found
+applicable in many spheres. Thus, on the subject of verse, the eternal
+quarrel between the poet and the pedant is, that for the first the rules
+of prosody and rhyme are only useful in so far as they make the licenses
+he takes appreciable at their just value; while for the pedant such
+licenses ever anew seem to imply ignorance of the rule or incapacity to
+follow it,--an absurd mistake, since the power to create and impress has
+little to do with the means employed; and if a man builds up for himself
+a barrier of foregone conclusions about the exact manner in which alone
+he will allow himself to be deeply impressed, it is very certain he will
+have few save painful impressions. Or take another illustration--an
+artist the other day told me that he had noticed that one could almost
+always trace a faintly ruled vertical line on the paper which the
+greatest of all modern draughtsmen used. Ingres, then, with all his
+freedom, vivacity, and accuracy of control over the point he employed to
+draw with, still found it useful to have a straight line ruled on his
+paper as a student does, and may often even have resorted to the
+plumb-line. It enabled his eye to test the subtlest deviations in the
+other lines with which he was creating the balance, swing or stability
+of a figure. Rules of art are, like this straight line, dead and
+powerless in themselves: they help both creator and lover to follow and
+appreciate the infinite freedom and subtlety of the living work. The
+same thing might be illustrated with regard to manners; a fine standard
+of social address and receptivity must be established before the
+varieties and subtleties of those whose genius creates beautiful
+relations can be appreciated at their full value in their full variety.
+This dead law must be buried in everybody's mind and heart before they
+can rise to that conscious freedom which is opposite to the freedom of
+the wild animals, who never know why they do, nor appreciate how it is
+done; neither are they able to rejoice in the address of others; much
+less can they relish the infinite refinements of exhilarating
+apprehension, which make of laughter, tears, speech, silence, nearness
+and distance, a music which holds the enraptured soul in ecstasy; which
+created and constantly renews the hope of Heaven. And what blacker
+minister of a more sterile hell than the social pedant who only knows
+the rule, and mistakes grace and delicacy, frankness and generosity, for
+more or less grave infractions of it? But the happy critic, free from
+any personal knowledge of what creation means, or what aids are likely
+to forward it, is for ever in such a hurry to correct great creators
+like Leonardo, Dürer, or Hokusai, that he fails to understand them; and
+when he has caught them saying, "This is how anger or despair is
+expressed," calmly smiles in his superiority and says,
+
+"He had a scientific law for putting a battle on to canvas, one
+condition of which was that 'there must not be a level spot which is
+not trampled with gore.' But Leonardo did no harm; his canon was based
+on literary rather than artistic interests."
+
+Analogies with scientific laws have served art and art criticism a very
+bad turn of late years. Nothing can be more useful to an artist than
+knowledge of how the emotions are expressed by the contortion of the
+features; but nobody in his senses could ever imagine that a rule for
+the expression of anger was rigid throughout and must never be departed
+from; every one approaching such a rule with a view to practice instead
+of criticism must immediately perceive that its only use is to be
+departed from in various degrees. Leonardo's advice for the painting of
+a battle-piece is excellent if it is understood in the sense in which it
+was meant,--"everything is what it is and not another thing," as Bishop
+Butler put it. Be sure and make your battle a battle indeed. It is time
+we should realise that what the great artists wrote about art is likely
+to be as sensible as are the works they created. How absurd it is for
+some one who can neither carve nor paint, much less create, to imagine
+he easily grasps the rules of art better than a great master! To such
+people let us repeat again and again Hamlet's impatient: "Oh, mend it
+altogether!"
+
+
+IV
+
+Now it will easily be seen that the causes which shape an art tradition
+may often be independent of, and foreign to, the will that creates
+beautiful objects. Religious superstition or formalism may often hem the
+artist in, and hamper his will in every direction; though it is not
+wholly accidental that the Greeks had a religion the spirit of which
+tended always to defeat the conservatism and bigotry of its priests. So
+that their formalism, instead of frustrating or warping the growth of
+their art tradition, merely served as a check that may well seem to have
+been exactly proportioned to its need; preventing the weakness or
+rankness of over rapid growth such as detracts from the art of the
+Renascence, and at the same time causing no vital injury. The spirit of
+the race deserved and created and was again in turn recreated by
+its religion.
+
+Since it is generally recognised that too much freedom is not good for
+growing life, I think that almost everybody must at this stage have
+become aware of how immensely stupid the academical idea of a canon
+appears besides this idea. How suitable both to life and the desire for
+perfection the Greek practice was! How theologically dense the
+unprogressive inflexibility of the academical practitioner! And now let
+us hear Dürer.
+
+But first I will quote from Sir Martin Conway the explanation of what
+Dürer means by the phrase, "Words of Difference."
+
+These are what he calls the "Words of Difference": large, long, small,
+stout, broad, thick, narrow, thin, young, old, fat, lean, pretty, ugly,
+hard, soft, and so forth; in fact any word descriptive of a quality
+"whereby a thing may be differentiated from the thing (normal figure)
+first made."
+
+Or, as Dürer says in another place, "difference such as maketh a thing
+fair or foul."
+
+But further, it lieth in each man's choice whether or how far he shall
+make use of all the above written "Words of Difference." For a man may
+choose whether he will learn to labour with art, wherein is the truth,
+or without art in a freedom by which everything he doth is corrupted,
+and his toil becometh a scorn to look upon to such as understand.
+
+Wherefore it is needful for every one that he use discreetness in such
+of his works as shall come to the light Whence it ariseth that he who
+would make anything aright must in no wise abate aught (that is
+essential) from Nature, neither must he lay what is intolerable upon
+her. Howbeit some will (by going to an opposite extreme) make
+alterations (from Nature) so slight that they can scarce be perceived.
+Such are of no account if they cannot be perceived; to alter over much
+also answereth not. A right mean (in such alterations) is best. But in
+this book I have departed from this right mean in order that it might be
+so much the better traced in small things. Let not him who wishes to
+proceed to some great thing imitate this my swiftness, but let him set
+more slowly (gradually) about his work, that it be not brutish but
+artistic to look upon. For figures which differ from the mean are not
+good to look upon _when_ they are wrongly and unmasterly employed.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that a skilful master beholdeth manifold
+differences of figure, all of which he might make if he had time enough,
+but which, for lack of time, he is forced to pass by. For such chances
+come very often to artists, and their imaginations also are full of
+figures which it were possible for them to make. Wherefore, if to live
+many hundred years were granted unto a man who had skill in the use of
+such art and were thereto accustomed, he would (through the power which
+God hath granted unto men) have wherewith daily to mould and make many
+new figures of men and other creatures, which none had before seen nor
+imagined. God, therefore, in such and other ways granteth great power
+unto artistic men.
+
+Although there be such talking of differences, still it is well known
+that all things that a man doth differ of their own nature one from
+another. Consequently, there liveth no artist so sure of hand as to be
+able to make two things exactly alike the one to the other, so that they
+may not be distinguished. For of all our works none is quite and
+altogether like another, and this we can in no wise avoid.
+
+We see that if we take two prints from an engraved copper-plate, or cast
+two images in a mould, very many points may immediately be found whereby
+they may be distinguished one from another. If, then, it cometh thus to
+pass in things made by processes the least liable to error, much more
+will it happen in other things which are made by the free hand.
+
+This, however, is _not the kind of Difference_ whereof I here treat; for
+I am speaking of a difference (from the mean) which a man specially
+intendeth, and which standeth in his will, of which I have spoken once
+and again....
+
+This is not the aforesaid Difference which we cannot sever from our
+work, but, such a difference as maketh a thing fair or foul, and which
+may be set forth by the "Word of Difference" dealt with above in this
+Book. If a man produce "different" figures of this kind in his work, it
+will be judged in every man's mind according to his own opinion, and
+these judgments seldom agree one with another.... Yet let every man
+beware that he make nothing impossible and inadmissible in Nature,
+unless indeed he would make some fantasy, in which it is allowed to
+mingle creatures of all kinds together....
+
+Any one who leads this carefully cannot fail to see that it is not only
+that Dürer is not "desirous of laying down rules applicable to all
+cases," or even of "proposing a definite canon for the relative
+proportions of the human body," as Thausing indeed points out (p. 305,
+v. 11): but that he does not conceive the proportions he gives as even
+approximately capable of these functions; and considers it indeed the
+very nature and special use of a canon of proportions to be wilfully
+deviated from, pointing out that, though the deviations of which he is
+speaking are slight and subtle, they are not to be confused with the
+accidental ones that can but appear even in work done by mechanical
+processes. Rather they are such variation as a man "specially intendeth,
+and which standeth in his will;" and again, "such a difference as maketh
+a thing fair or foul;" for the use of these normal proportions is that
+they may enable an artist to deviate from the normal without the
+proportions he chooses having the air of monstrosities or mistakes or
+negligences. He does not insist that either of the scales he gives is
+the best that could be, even for this purpose, but that they are
+sufficiently good to be used; and he would have marvelled at the wonder
+that has been caused in innocent critical minds that in his own work he
+adhered to them so little. He never intended them to be adhered to.
+
+
+V
+
+It may be objected that Dürer certainly sometimes thought of a Canon of
+Proportion as a perfect rule, because he wrote on a MS. page as
+follows:--
+
+Vitruvius, the ancient architect, whom the Romans employed upon great
+buildings, says that whosoever desires to build should study the
+perfection of the human figure, for in it are discovered the most secret
+mysteries of proportion. So, before I say anything about architecture, I
+will state how a well-formed man should be made, and then about a woman,
+a child and a horse. Any object may be proportioned out (_literally_,
+measured) in a similar way. Therefore, hear first of all what Vitruvius
+says about the human figure, which he learnt from the greatest masters,
+painters and founders, who were highly famed. They said that the human
+figure is as follows.
+
+That the face from the chin upward to where the hair begins is the
+tenth part of a man, and that an out-stretched hand is the same
+length, &c.
+
+[Illustration: "This is my appearance in the eighteenth year of my age"
+Charcoal-drawing in the Academy, Vienna _Face p._288]
+
+And again in another place, as Sir Martin Conway points out, he gives a
+religious basis to this notion,[85] "the Creator fashioned men once for
+all as they must be, and I hold that the perfection of form and beauty
+is contained in the sum of all men." In an obvious sense these passages
+certainly run counter to those which I have quoted (pp. 285-207): but I
+would like to point out that these are dogmatic assertions about
+something that if it were true could never be proved by experience (see
+also pp. 64, 254), those former are Dürer's advice with a view to
+practice. Men frequently carry about a considerable amount of dogmatic
+opinion, which has so little connection with actual experience that it
+is never brought to the test without being noticeably incommoded by it.
+Yet it is not absolutely necessary to consider Dürer as inconsistent in
+regard to this matter, even to this degree.
+
+The beauty of form which he held had been Adam's, and which was now
+parcelled out among his vast progeny in various amounts as a consequence
+of his fall--this beauty of form doubtless Dürer considered it part of
+an artist's business to recollect and reveal in his work. This beauty is
+an ideal, and his canon (or rather canons) were intended as means to
+help the artist to approach towards the realisation of that ideal. It is
+obvious also that a man occupied in comparing the proportions of those
+whom he considers to be exceptionally beautiful will develop and feed
+his power of imagining beautifully proportioned figures. It would be
+futile to deny that this is very much what took place in the evolution
+of Greek statues, or that such works are perhaps of all others the most
+central and satisfying to the human spirit. The sentences that precede
+that quoted by Sir Martin are Greek in tendency.
+
+A good figure cannot be made without industry and care; it should
+therefore be well considered before it is begun, so that it be correctly
+made. For the lines of its form cannot be traced by compass or rule, but
+must be drawn by the hand from point to point, so that it is easy to go
+wrong in them. And for such figures great attention should be paid to
+human proportions, and all their kinds should be investigated. _I hold
+that the more nearly and accurately a figure is made to resemble a man,
+so much the better the work will be._ If the best parts chosen from many
+well-formed men are united in one figure, it will be worthy of praise.
+But some are of another opinion, and discuss how men ought to be made. I
+will not argue with them about that. I hold Nature for Master in such
+matters, and the fancy of men for delusion.
+
+And then follows the passage quoted by Sir Martin Conway (see p. 289).
+It is obvious that, joined with the two preceding sentences, this
+passage can in no way be made to serve the academical practitioner, as
+it seems to when taken alone. In the same way, the sentence printed in
+italics in the above quotation, if isolated, would certainly seem to
+serve the scientific practitioners and their slavish realism, though in
+connection with those that follow this is no longer possible. Dürer
+regards nature as providing raw material for a creation which may not
+tally exactly with any individual natural object. This was the Greek
+artists' idea of the serviceableness of nature, as revealed both by
+their practice and by such traditions as that concerning Zeuxis and his
+five beautiful models for the figure of Venus. But Dürer does not
+confine the use of his canons even to this aim, but clearly perceived
+their utility in regard to quite other aims, as is shown by the passage
+beginning, "It is not to be wondered at," &c. (see p. 286), in which the
+imagination of figures not merely intended to embody beautiful or newly
+assorted proportions is clearly considered; and if we review Dürer's
+actual work we shall see how much oftener he created figures for
+picturesque or dramatic effect than he did to embody beautiful
+proportions in them, though he evidently also considered the last
+purpose as of the first importance, as we see when he goes on to say:
+
+Let any one who thinks I alter the human form too much or too little
+take care to avoid my error and follow nature. There are many different
+kinds of men in various lands: whoso travels far will find this to be
+so, and see it before his eyes. We are considering about the most
+beautiful human figure conceivable, but (only) the Maker of the world
+knows how that should be. Even if we succeed well we do but approach
+towards it from afar. For we ourselves have differences of perception,
+and the vulgar who follow only their own taste usually err. Therefore I
+do not advise any one to follow me, for I only do what I can, and that
+is not enough even to satisfy myself.
+
+The extreme complexity of Dürer's ideas and their application was a
+natural result of their having been born of his experience. For
+excellence is extremely various, and widely scattered through the world.
+The simplicity of a true work of art results merely from some excellence
+having been singled out from all foreign circumstances, and presented as
+vividly as it was intensely apprehended. This excellence may be one of
+proportion or one of many other kinds. Now, a figure conceived by an
+artist, whether he value it for its choicely assorted proportions or for
+picturesque or dramatic effect, may need to be developed before it is
+serviceable in an elaborate work of art.
+
+Artists who work rapidly, and, whose pictures are dominated by passing
+moods, have always been in the habit of taking great licences with
+proportion, and, indeed, with all matters of fact. Dürer's aim is to
+endow the artist who elaborates his work slowly with a similar freedom.
+This energy and power in rapid work it is the ever-renewed despair of
+artists to feel themselves losing in the process of elaboration. And one
+of the reasons for this is that in larger or more elaborate work, the
+statement, being more ample, is expected to be also more comprehensive
+and exhaustive; for the time required begets after-thoughts as to the
+real nature of the object viewed apart from the mood, which is the only
+excuse for the work; and so some of the artist's attention is drawn away
+to facts and aspects which it would have been the success of his work to
+have ignored. Dürer's object was to help a man to carry out his
+essential intention, and that alone, in a carefully elaborated picture;
+the problems faced were precisely similar to those so successfully coped
+with in Greek statues. In the first place, he would have pointed out
+that all sketches will not bear elaboration if their merit depends on
+extreme licence, for instance. Next, that a man who had a standard of
+proportion could see wherein the deviations of his sketched figure were
+essential to the effect he wished it to produce, and wherein they were
+unessential. Then, if he drew the normal figure large, he would be able
+to deviate from it in exactly the right places and to the right degree
+to reproduce the desired effect. But to do this he must also have a
+general notion of how deviations from a normal proportion could be made
+consistent throughout all the measurements involved not that he would in
+every case want to make them consistent. Now, there is a class of
+artists for whom all these suggestions of Dürer's must for ever remain
+useless, for all science of production is impossible for those whose
+only success lies in improvisation; such improvisations, however
+dazzling or however delightful they may be, are, nevertheless, the class
+of art-works furthest removed in spirit and in method from Greek
+statuary. I do not say that they need be inferior; I say that they are
+opposite in method. And, had circumstances permitted, or Dürer's dowry
+of great gifts been more complete than it was, and enabled him to become
+as great a creator of pictures as he is a great draughtsman and
+portrait-painter, no doubt his pictures would have resembled Greek
+statues both in their effect and their method, however different they
+might have been in subject and in range. To talk about "beauty" being
+sacrificed to "truth," with Prof. Thausing; or the ideal of the North
+being "strength" in works of art as in life, with Sir Martin Conway;--is
+to confuse the issue and deceive oneself. To have mistaken the proper
+end of art, beauty, by thinking it was "truth" or "strength," is to have
+failed to labour in the right direction; that is all-who-ever may
+condone the failure.
+
+
+VI
+
+Again, Sir Martin Conway tells us:
+
+The laws of perspective can be deduced with certainty from mathematical
+first principles, the canon of proportions' could only be constructed
+empirically as the result of repeated observations. Nevertheless, once
+constructed, it can certainly be used as Dürer suggested. Its use has
+practically been superseded by the study of anatomy.
+
+This last phrase shows us in a flash how far the writer when he wrote it
+was from apprehending Dürer's meaning. How could the study of anatomy
+ever do for an artist what Dürer was trying to do? No doubt Sir Martin
+had Michael Angelo in his mind's eye; and it is true that he studied
+anatomy, and that his influence has been, on the whole, paramount with
+artists attempting subjects of this kind ever since. Whether Michael
+Angelo studied proportion or not, his practice exemplifies Dürer's
+meaning splendidly. No anatomical research could have led him to
+construct figures nine to twelve, or even fifteen to twenty, heads
+high--to do which, as his work developed, more and more became his
+practice, especially in designs and sketches for compositions. To arrive
+at such proportions he followed his imaginative instinct. He found that
+these monstrous deviations from the normal (which, of course, in a
+general sense he recognised, whether he gave any study to rendering it
+precise or not) produced the effect on his mind that he wished to
+produce on the minds of others--an effect that was emotional and
+peculiar to his habitual moods. We know that his constitution gave him
+the staying-power, while his fiery Titanic spirit gave him the energy,
+to carry out and perfect his mighty frescoes and statues at the same
+heat that the creative hour yields other men for the production of a
+sketch alone. This giant son of Time was able to live for days and weeks
+together in a state of mind two or three consecutive hours of which
+exhaust the average master even. Considering the rapidity and intensity
+of his mental process, it is a miracle that, in so many works and to so
+great a degree, he respected the too much and too little of human
+reason, and allowed himself to be governed by what the Greeks called a
+sense of measure, instead of yielding to his native impetuosity and
+becoming an a-thousand-fold-greater-Blake; and illustrating, to the
+delight of active and short-winded intelligences, and the stupefaction
+of slow and dull ones, the futility of eccentricity and the frivolity of
+passion when unseconded by constancy of character and labour. For
+futile, in the arts, is whatever the sense of beauty must condemn,
+however well-intentioned; and frivolous is the passion that forgets the
+end it would attain, and becomes merely a private rhapsody, however
+astonishing its developments; slowly but surely it will be seen that
+such fireworks do not vitally concern us. The proportions of many of
+Michael Angelo's figures are as far removed from any possible normal
+standard as what Dürer calls "this my swiftness," in the abnormally tall
+and stout figures among the diagrams illustrating his book.
+
+And this is where Dürer's idea comes nearer to Greek practice. For by
+letting the striking rather than the subtle govern his departures from
+the mean, Michael Angelo found himself always bound to go beyond
+himself; as the palate which once has entertained strong stimulants
+demands that the dose be continually strengthened. Now this is in entire
+conformity with the impatience which was perhaps his greatest weakness;
+just as Dürer's too methodical approach is in conformity with that
+acquiescence in the insufficiency of his conditions which made him in
+his weak moments swear never again to undertake those better classes of
+work which were less adequately paid, or made him content to display
+mere manual dexterity rather than do nothing on his days of darkness,
+suffering and depression: we may add, which made him choose to live at
+Nuremberg and refuse a better income and more suitable surroundings
+at Venice.
+
+It is obviously the more hopeful way to create a beautiful figure first
+and discover a mathematical way of reproducing its most essential
+proportions afterwards; and no doubt this is what Dürer intended should
+be done; and in consequence he felt a need, and sought to supply it, for
+mechanical means to simplify, shorten and render more sure that part of
+the process which must necessarily partake something of the nature of
+drudgery, if great finish is to be combined with splendid design. The
+romantic, impulsive _improvisatore_ does not feel this need, considers
+it bound to defeat its own aim; and, given his own gifts, he is right.
+But none the less, there are the Greek statues elaborated with a
+thoroughness which, if it ever dims or veils the creative intention,
+does so in a degree so slight as to seem amply compensated by the sense
+of ease maintained in spite of the innumerable difficulties overcome;
+there are besides a score or more of Dürer's copper engravings with
+their imperturbable adequacy of minute painstaking, never for a moment
+sleepy or mechanical or lifeless. The one aim need not excommunicate the
+other even in the same individual; far less need this be so in different
+artists, with diverse temperaments, diverse aptitudes.
+
+
+VII
+
+The application of this idea does not end with the simple proportions of
+measurement between the limbs and parts of the figure; it is also
+concerned with what is called the modelling, and the treatment of
+surfaces such as the draperies, the hair, the fleshy portions and those
+beneath which the bony structure comes to prominence; in painting it may
+be applied to the chiaroscuro and colour. Reynolds' remarks on the
+Venetians in his Eighth Discourse well illustrate this fact. He says:
+
+It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed that the masses of
+light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or a
+yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be
+kept _almost_ entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support
+and set off these warm colours; and, for this purpose, a small
+_proportion_ of cold colours will be sufficient.
+
+If this conduct be reversed, let the light be cold, and the surrounding
+colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine
+painters; and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of
+Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid or harmonious.[86]
+
+Here we see a great colourist attempting to establish a canon for
+colour. Had he lived at an earlier period, before expression had become
+generally a subject of criticism, he would have described his discovery
+in less guarded and elastic language, such as is now applied to
+scientific laws. And then he might have been as excusably misunderstood
+as Leonardo and Dürer have been; as it is, the misunderstanding dealt
+out to him is quite without excuse.
+
+Rembrandt, not only exemplifies the impressiveness of great deviations
+in structural proportions in much the same degree as Michael Angelo,
+using what the Greeks and Dürer would doubtless have considered a
+dangerous liberty, however much they might have felt bound to admire the
+results obtained; not only does he do this when, for instance, he
+represents Jesus now as a giant, now as almost a dwarf, according to the
+imaginative impression which he chooses to create; but he follows a
+similar process in his black and white pattern. For among his works
+there are etchings, which, though often supposed to have been left
+unfinished, are discerned by those with a sense for beauties of this
+class to be marvellously complete, stimulating, and satisfying, and in
+the nicest harmony with the other impressions produced by the mental
+point of view from which the subject is viewed, as also by the main
+lines and proportions of the composition, and to yield the visual
+delight most suitable to the occasion. Dürer and the Greeks are at one
+with Michael Angelo and Rembrandt in condemning by their practice all
+purely mechanical application of ideas or methods to the production of
+works of creative art, such as is exemplified by artists of more limited
+aims and powers; by academical practitioners, by theoretical scientists
+calling themselves impressionists, luminarists, naturalists, or any
+other name. For artists whose temperaments are impeded by some unhappy
+slowness, or difficulty in concentrating themselves, methods of
+procedure similar to those elaborated by Dürer in his books on
+proportion, properly understood, must be a real aid and benefit; as
+those who are essentially improvisors may help themselves and supply
+their deficiencies by methods similar to those which Reynolds describes
+as practised by Gainsborough.
+
+"He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of
+broken stones, dried herbs and pieces of broken glass, which he
+magnified and improved into rocks, trees and water" (Fourteenth
+Discourse).
+
+This process resembles that of tracing faces or scenes from the life of
+gnomes in glowing caverns among coals of fire on a winter's eve; it is
+resorted to in one form or another by all creative artists, but it is
+peculiarly useful to men like Gainsborough, whose art tends always to
+become an improvisation, whatever strenuous discipline they may have
+subjected themselves to in their days of ardent youth.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Perhaps Dürer's actual standards for the normal, his actual methods for
+creating self-consistent variations from it, are not likely to prove of
+much use, even when artists shall be sufficiently educated to understand
+them; nevertheless, the principle which informs them has been latent in
+the work of all great creators; is marvellously fulfilled indeed, in
+Greek statuary. The work of Antoine Louis Barye, that great and
+little-understood master--as far as I am able to judge, the only modern
+artist who has made science serve him instead of being seduced by
+her--exemplifies this central idea of Dürer's almost as fully as the
+Greek masterpieces. The future of art appears to me to lie in the hands
+of those artists who shall be able to grapple with the new means offered
+them by the advance of science, as he did, and be as little or even less
+seduced than he was by the foolish idea that art can become science
+without ceasing to be art, which has handicapped and defeated the
+efforts of so many industrious and talented men of late years. So truly
+is this the case that the improvisor appears to many as the only true
+artist, and his uncontrolled caprices as the farthest reach of human
+constructive power.
+
+In any case, no artist is unhappy if a docile and hopeful disposition
+enables him to see in the masterpieces of Greek sculpture the reward of
+an easy balance of both temperaments and methods, the improvisor's and
+the elaborator's, under felicitous circumstances, by men better endowed
+than himself. And this though never history and archaeology shall be in
+a position to give him information sufficient to determine that his
+faith is wholly warranted.
+
+  A golden age is a golden dream, that sheds
+  A golden light on waking hours, on toil,
+  On leisure, and on finished works.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 85: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 86: See also III Discourse where he defends Dürer against
+Bacon.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY
+
+
+I
+
+I now intend to re-arrange what seem the most interesting of the
+sentences on the theory of art which are found in Dürer's MSS. and books
+on proportion. He did not give them the final form or order which he
+intended, and it seems to me that to arrange the more important
+according to the subjects they treat of will be the simplest way of
+arriving at general conceptions as to their tendency and value. We shall
+thus bring together repetitions of the same thought and contradictory
+answers to the same question; and after each series of sentences, I
+myself shall discuss the points raised, illustrating my remarks from
+modern writers whose opinion in these matters seems to me deserving of
+most attention. I have heard it said by the late Mr. Arthur Strong that
+Dürer's art is always didactic; and Dürer as a writer on art certainly
+has ever before his mind this one object, to teach others, or, as I
+should prefer to phrase it, to help others to learn. For he himself is
+continually confessing that he cannot yet answer his own questions, and
+it seems to me that the best teacher is always he who most desires to
+increase his knowledge, not indeed to hoard it as some do and make of
+it a personal possession; intellectual misers, for ever gnashing their
+teeth over the reputations or the pretensions of others. No, but one who
+desires knowledge for its own sake and welcomes it in others with as
+much satisfaction as he gains it for himself. Docility, i.e.,
+teachableness, let me point out once more, seems to be the necessary
+midwife of genius, without the aid of which it often labours in vain, or
+brings forth strange incongruous and misshapen births.
+
+Sad is the condition of a brilliant and fiery spirit shut up in a man's
+brain without the humble assistance of this lively, meek and patient
+virtue! What unrelieved and insupportable throes of agony must be borne
+by such a spirit, and how often does such labour end in misanthropy or
+madness! The records of the lives of exceptionally-gifted men tell us
+only too clearly what pains those are, and how frequently they have been
+borne. So I fancy I cannot do better than choose out for my first
+section sentences which praise or advocate the effort to learn, or
+attempt to enlighten those who make such an effort on the choice of
+teachers and disciplines.
+
+
+II
+
+I shall not hesitate to transpose sentences even when they appear in
+connected passages, in order, as I hope, to bring out more clearly their
+connection. For Dürer was not a writer by profession, and his thoughts
+were often more abundant than he knew how to deal with.
+
+Before starting, however, I must prefix to my quotations some account of
+the four MS. books in the British Museum from which they are principally
+taken. Rough drafts in Pirkheimer's handwriting were found among them,
+but of Dürer's work Sir Martin Conway tells us:
+
+The volumes contain upwards of seven hundred leaves and scraps of paper
+of various kinds, covered at different dates with more or less elaborate
+outline drawings, and more or less corrected drafts for works published
+or planned by Dürer. Interspersed among them are geometrical and
+other sketches.
+
+He was in the habit of correcting and re-copying, again and again, what
+he had written. Sometimes he would jot down a sentence alongside of
+matter to which it had no relation. This sentence he would afterwards
+introduce in its right connection. There are in these volumes no less
+than four drafts of the beginning of a Dedication to Pirkheimer of the
+Books of Human Proportions. Two other drafts of this same dedication are
+among the Dresden MSS. The opening sentences of the Introduction to the
+same work were likewise, as will be seen, the subject of
+frequent revision.
+
+These drafts, notes and sketches date from 1508 to 1523. Some collector
+had had them cut out, gummed together, and bound without the slightest
+regard to order, or even to the sequence of consecutive passages. In
+January 1890 the volumes were taken to pieces and rearranged by Miss
+Lina Eckenstein, who had previously made the admirable translations of
+them for Sir Martin Conway's "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," from
+which my quotations are taken.
+
+The contents of the volumes as rearranged may be roughly described as
+follows:
+
+Volume 1. Drawings of whole figures and portions of the body,
+illustrating Dürer's theories of Proportion. Drawings of a solid
+octogon. Six coloured drawings of crystals. The description of the
+Ionic order of architecture. Drawings of columns with measurements. A
+scale for Human Proportions. A table of contents for a work on Geometry.
+Notes on perspective, curves, folds, &c. The different kinds of temple
+after Vitruvius. Mathematical diagrams, &c.
+
+Volume II. Draft of a dedicatory letter to King Ferdinand (see page
+180). Drafts and drawings for "The Art of Fortification." Drawing of a
+shield with a rearing horse. Mantles of Netherlandish women and nuns. A
+Latin inscription for his own portrait. Notes on "Proportion," and on
+the feast of the Rosenkranz. Scale for Human Proportions. An alphabet.
+Draft of a dedication for the books on Proportion. Sketch of a skeleton.
+Studies of architecture. Venetian houses and roofs. Sketches of a
+church, a house, a tower, a drapery, &c.
+
+Volume III. Drafts of a projected work on Painting and on the study of
+Proportion. Drafts for the dedication, the preface, and for a work on
+Esthetics. Drawings of a male body, a female body, and a piece of
+drapery. Notes and drawings for the proportions of heads, hands, feet,
+outline curves, a child, a woman, &c.
+
+Volume IV. Proportions of a man, a fat woman, the head of the average
+woman, the young woman, &c. Short Profession of Faith (see page 130).
+Scale for Human Proportions, &c. Fragments of the Preface of Essay on
+Aesthetics, &c. Grimacing and distorted faces. Use of measurements. On
+the characters of faces, thick, thin, broad, narrow, &c. Sketches of a
+dragon and of an angel for Maximilian's Triumphal Procession. List of
+Luther's works (see page 130). Drawings of human bodies proportioned
+to squares.
+
+[Illustration: "UNA VILANA WENDISCH" Pen drawing with wash background
+in the collection of Mrs. Seymour _face_ p. 304]
+
+See the description in "Dürer's Schriftlicher Nachlass" (Lange und
+Fuhse), page 263, from which the above abstract is made.
+
+Sir Martin Conway continues:
+
+In these volumes Dürer is seen, sometimes writing under the influence of
+impetuous impulse, sometimes with leisurely care, allowing his pen to
+embroider the script with graceful marginal flourishes.
+
+At what period of his career Dürer first conceived the idea of writing a
+comprehensive work upon the theory and practice of art is unknown. It
+was certainly before the year 1512. The following list of chapters may
+perhaps be an early sketch of the plan.
+
+Ten things are contained in the little book.
+The first, the proportions of a young child.
+The second, proportions of a grown man.
+The third, proportions of a woman.
+The fourth, proportions of a horse.
+The fifth, something about architecture.
+The sixth, about an apparatus through which it can be
+  shown that 'all things may be traced.
+The seventh, about light and shade.
+The eighth, about colours, how to paint like nature.
+The ninth, about the ordering (composition) of the
+  picture.
+The tenth, about free painting, which alone is made by
+  Imagination without any other help.
+
+
+III
+
+Glad enough should we be to attain unto great knowledge without toil,
+for nature has implanted in us the desire of knowing all things,
+thereby to discern a truth of all things. But our dull wit cannot come
+unto such perfectness of all art, truth, and wisdom. Yet are we not,
+therefore, shut out altogether from all arts. If we want to sharpen our
+reason by learning and to practise ourselves therein, having once found
+the right path we may, step by step, seek, learn, comprehend, and
+finally reach and attain unto something true. Wherefore, he that
+understandeth how to learn somewhat in his leisure time, whereby he may
+most certainly be enabled to honour God, and to do what is useful both
+for himself and others, that man doeth well; and we know that in this
+wise he will gain much experience in art and will be able to make known
+its truth for our good. It is right, therefore, for one man to teach
+another. He that joyfully doeth so, upon him shall much be bestowed by
+God, from whom we receive all things. He hath highest praise.
+
+One finds some who know nothing and learn nothing. They despise
+learning, and say that much evil cometh of the arts, and that some are
+wholly vile. I, on the contrary, hold that no art is evil, but that all
+are good. A sword is a sword which may be used either for murder or for
+justice. Similarly the arts are in themselves good. What God hath
+formed, that is good, misuse it how ye will.
+
+Thou findest arts of all kinds; choose then for thyself that which is
+like to be of greatest service to thee. Learn it; let not the difficulty
+thereof vex thee till thou hast accomplished somewhat wherewith thou
+mayest be satisfied.
+
+It is very necessary for a man to know some one thing by reason of the
+usefulness which ariseth therefrom. Wherefore we should all gladly
+learn, for the more we know so much the more do we resemble the likeness
+of God, who verily knoweth all things.
+
+The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the better doth he become,
+and so much the more love doth he win for the arts and for things
+exalted. Wherefore a man ought not to play the wanton, but should learn
+in season.
+
+Is the artistic man pious and by nature good? He escheweth the evil and
+chooseth the good; and hereunto serve the arts, for they give the
+discernment of good and evil.
+
+Some may learn somewhat of all arts, but that is not given to every man.
+Nevertheless, there is no rational man so dull but that he may learn the
+one thing towards which his fancy draweth him most strongly. Hence no
+man is excused from learning something.
+
+Let no man put too much confidence in himself, for many (pairs of eyes)
+see better than one. Though it is possible for a man to comprehend more
+than a thousand (men), still that cometh but rarely to pass.
+
+Many fall into error because they follow their own taste alone;
+therefore let each look to it that his inclination blind not his
+judgment. For every mother is well pleased with her own child, and thus
+also it ariseth that many painters paint figures resembling themselves.
+
+He that worketh in ignorance worketh more painfully than he that worketh
+with understanding; therefore let all learn to understand aright.
+
+Now I know that in our German nation, at the present time, are many
+painters who stand in need of instruction, for they lack all real art,
+yet they nevertheless have many large works to do. Forasmuch then as
+they are so numerous, it is very needful for them to learn to better
+their work.
+
+Willingly will I impart my teaching, hereafter written, to the man who
+knoweth little and would gladly learn; but I will not be cumbered with
+the proud, who, according to their own estimate of themselves, know all
+things, and are best, and despise all else. From true artists, however,
+such as can show their meaning with the hand, I desire to learn humbly
+and with much thankfulness.
+
+A thing thou beholdest is easier of belief than that thou hearest, but
+whatever is both heard and seen we grasp more firmly and lay hold on
+more securely. I will therefore do the work in both ways, that thus I
+may be better understood.
+
+Whosoever will, therefore, let him hear and see what I say, do, and
+teach, for I hope it may be of service and not for a hindrance to the
+better arts, nor lead thee to neglect better things.
+
+I hear moreover of no writer in modern times by whom aught hath been
+written and made known which I might read for my improvement. For some
+hide their art in great secrecy, and others write about things whereof
+they know nothing, so that their words are nowise better than mere
+noise, as he that knoweth somewhat is swift to discover. I therefore
+will write down with God's help the little that I know. Though many will
+scorn it I am not troubled, for I well know that it is easier to cast
+blame on a thing than to make anything better. Moreover, I will expound
+my meaning as clearly and plainly as I can; and, were it possible, I
+would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver or gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something burning
+and ye all add to it with skilful furthering, a blaze may in time arise
+therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world.
+
+I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same
+touchstone as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the
+world prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world
+esteemeth beautiful that will we also hold for beautiful, and ourselves
+strive to produce the like.
+
+No one need blindly follow this theory of mine as though it were quite
+perfect, for human nature has not yet so far degenerated that another
+man cannot discover something better. So each may use my teaching as
+long as it seems good to him, or until he finds something better. Where
+he is not willing to accept it, he may well hold that this doctrine is
+not written for him, but for others who are willing.
+
+That must be a strangely dull head which never trusts itself to find out
+anything fresh, but only travels along the old path, simply following
+others and not daring to reflect for itself. For it beseems each
+understanding, in following another, not to despair of itself
+discovering something better. If that is done, there remaineth no doubt
+but that in time this art will again reach the perfection it attained
+amongst the ancients.
+
+Much will hereafter be written about subjects and refinements of
+painting. Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will
+write both well and better about this art, and will teach it better than
+I; for I myself hold my art at a very mean value, for I know what my
+faults are. Let every man therefore strive to better these my errors
+according to his powers. Would to God it were possible for me to see the
+work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I
+know that I might be improved upon. Ah! how often in my sleep do I
+behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof never
+appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake, even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me.
+
+Compare also the passages already quoted,(pp. 15,16,26).
+
+
+IV
+
+"What an admirable temper!" is the exclamation which expresses our first
+feeling on reading the foregoing sentences. It renews the spirit of a
+man merely to peruse such things. Scales fall from our eyes, and we see
+what we most essentially are, with pleasure, as good children gleefully
+recognise their goodness: and at the same time we are filled with
+contrition that we should have ever forgotten it. And this that we most
+essentially are rational beings, lovers of goodness, children of
+hope,--how directly Dürer appeals to it: "Nature has implanted in us the
+desire of knowing all things." It reminds one of Ben Jonson's:--
+
+It is a false quarrel against nature, that she helps understanding but
+in a few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if
+they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run,
+&c., which, if they lose it, is through their own sluggishness, and by
+that means they become her prodigies, not her children.
+
+There is something refreshing and inspiriting in the mere conviction of
+our teachableness; and when the same author, referring to Plato's
+travels in search of knowledge, says, "He laboured, so must we," we do
+not find the comparison humiliating either to Plato or ourselves. For
+"without a way there is no going," and every man of superior mould says
+to us with more or less of benignity, "I am the way: follow me." Such
+means or ways of attainment have been followed by all whose success is
+known to us, and are followed now by all "finely touched and gifted
+men." I might quote in illustration of these assertions the whole of
+Reynolds' Sixth Discourse, so marvellous for its acute and delicate
+discrimination; but I will content myself with a few leading passages:
+
+We cannot suppose that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation
+of others.
+
+It is a common observation that no art was ever invented and carried to
+perfection at the same time.
+
+The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who
+resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will soon be reduced to
+the poorest of all imitations, he will be obliged to imitate himself,
+and to repeat what he has often before repeated.
+
+The truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's
+thoughts an encumbrance to him, can have no very great strength of mind
+or genius of his own to be destroyed: so that not much harm will be done
+at the worst.
+
+Of course, this last phrase will not apply universally; we must remember
+that the man who sets out to become an artist, or claims to be one by
+native gift, has made apparent that he is the possessor of no mean
+ambition. The humblest may see a way of improvement in their betters,
+and obey the command, "Follow me." Every man is not called to follow
+great artists, but only those who are peculiarly fitted to tread the
+difficult paths that climb Olympus-hill. Yet to all men alike the great
+artist in life, he who wedded failure to divinity, says, "Learn of me
+that I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls."
+
+He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never
+proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of his
+imitation. He professes only to follow; and he that follows must
+necessarily be behind.
+
+It is of course impossible to surpass perfection, but it is possible to
+be made one with it.
+
+To find excellences, however dispersed, to discover beauties, however
+concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded,
+can be the work only of him who, having a mind always alive to his art,
+has extended his views to all ages and to all schools; and has acquired
+from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself a
+well-digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is
+referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of
+that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from
+every school; selects both from what is great and what is little; brings
+home knowledge from the east and from the west; making the universe
+tributary towards furnishing his mind, and enriching his works with
+originality and variety of inventions.
+
+In this tine passage we get back to our central idea in regard to the
+sense of proportion "making the universe tributary towards furnishing
+his mind"; while in the "discovery of beauties" the complete artist
+"selects both from what is great and what is little," from the clouds of
+heaven and from the dunghills of the farmyard.
+
+Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters for ever. Study,
+as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, and on the principles
+on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those
+masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to
+imitate, and at the same time as rivals with whom you are to contend.
+For "no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any
+other terms."
+
+Yes, an artist is a child who chooses his parents, nor is he limited to
+only two. Religion tells all men they have a Father, who is God;
+philosophy and tradition repeat, "man has a mother, who is Nature."
+These sayings are platitudes; their application is so obvious that it is
+now generally forgotten. If God is a Father, it is the soul that chooses
+Him; if Nature is a mother, it is the man who chooses to regard her as
+such, since to the greater number it is well known she seems but a
+stepmother, and a cruel one at that. Elective affinities, chosen
+kindred!--"tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you who you
+are" (what you are worth). How many artist waifs one sees nowadays! lost
+souls, who choose to be nobody's children, and think they can teach
+themselves all they need to know.
+
+I think the very striking agreement between artists so totally different
+in every respect except eminence, docility and anxiety to further art,
+as Dürer and Reynolds, ought to impress our minds very deeply: even
+though, as is certainly the case, the way they point out has been very
+greatly abandoned of late years, and public institutions in this and
+other countries proceed to further art on quite other lines; even though
+critics are almost unanimous in knowing better both the end and the way
+than the great masters who had not the advantage of a dash of science in
+their hydromel to make it sparkle, but instead made it yet richer and
+thicker by stirring up with it piety and religion. I think this
+"cock-tail and sherry-cobbler" art criticism of to-day is very
+deleterious to the digestion, and that the piety and enthusiasm which
+Dürer and Reynolds worked into their art were more wholesome, and better
+supplied the needs and deficiencies of artistic temperaments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LOST TRADITION
+
+
+I
+
+Many centuries ago the great art of painting was held in high honour by
+mighty kings, and they made excellent artists rich and held them worthy,
+accounting such inventiveness a creating power like God's. For the
+imagination of a good painter is full of figures, and were it possible
+for him to live for ever, he would always have from his inward ideas,
+whereof Plato speaks, something new to set forth by the work of
+his hand.
+
+Many hundred years ago there were still some famous painters, such as
+those named Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Polycleitus, Parrhasius,
+Lysippus, Protogenes, and the rest, some of whom wrote about their art
+and very artfully described it and gave it plainly to light: but their
+praise-worthy books are, so far, unknown to us, and perhaps have been
+altogether lost by war, driving forth of the peoples, and alterations of
+laws and beliefs--a loss much to be regretted by every wise man. It
+often came to pass that noble "Ingenia" were destroyed by barbarous
+oppressors of art; for if they saw figures traced in a few lines they
+thought it nought but vain, devilish sorcery. And in destroying them
+they attempted to honour God by something displeasing to Him; and to use
+the language of men, God was angry with all destroyers of the works of
+great mastership, which is only attained by much toil, labour, and
+expenditure of time, and is bestowed by God alone. Often do I sorrow
+because I must be robbed of the aforesaid masters' books of art; but the
+enemies of art despise these things.
+
+Pliny writeth that the old painters and sculptors--such as Apelles,
+Protogenes, and the rest--told very artistically in writing how a
+well-built man's figure might be measured out. Now it may well have come
+to pass that these noble books were misunderstood and destroyed as
+idolatrous in the early days of the Church. For they would have said
+Jupiter should have such proportions, Apollo such others; Venus shall be
+thus, Hercules thus; and so with all the rest. Had it, however, been my
+fate to be there at the time, I would have said: "Oh dear, holy lords
+and fathers, do not so lamentably destroy the nobly discovered arts,
+which have been gotten by great toil and labour, only because of the
+abuses made of them. For art is very hard, and we might and would use it
+for the great honour and glory of God. For, even as the ancients used
+the fairest figure of a man to represent their false god Apollo, we will
+employ the same for Christ the Lord, who is fairest of all the earth;
+and as they figured Venus as the loveliest of women, so will we in like
+manner set down the same beauteous form for the most pure Virgin Mary,
+the mother of God; and of Hercules will we make Samson, and thus will we
+do with all the rest, for such books shall we get never more."
+Wherefore, though that which is lost ariseth not again, yet a man may
+strive after new lore; and for these reasons I have been moved to make
+known my ideas here following, in order that others may ponder the
+matter further, and may thus come to a new and better way and
+foundation.
+
+I certainly do not deny that, if the books of the ancients who wrote
+about the art of painting still lay before our eyes, my design might be
+open to the false interpretation that I thought to find out something
+better than what was known unto them. These books, however, have been
+totally lost in the lapse of time; so I cannot be justly blamed for
+publishing my opinions and discoveries in writing, for that is exactly
+what the ancients did. If other competent men are thereby induced to do
+the like, our descendants have something which they may add to and
+improve upon, and thus the art of painting may in time advance and reach
+its perfection.
+
+
+II
+
+Whether we should exercise our intellects or logical sense alone upon
+the records and remains of past ages, or whether they may not be better
+employed for the exercise and edification of the imaginative faculties,
+would seem to be a question which, though they did not perhaps in set
+terms put to themselves, modern historians have very summarily answered;
+and I think answered wrongly. The records of the past, the records even
+of yesterday, are necessarily extremely incomplete; to make them at all
+significant something must be added by the historian. The 'perception'
+of probability is never exact; it varies with the mind between man and
+man; in the same man even before and after different experiences, &c.
+But even if the perception of the highest probability were practically
+exact, it would never suffice; for, as Aristotle says, "it is probable
+that many things should happen contrary to probability." From these
+facts it follows that the man who has the most exhaustive knowledge of
+what has actually survived, and what has been recorded, will not
+necessarily form the truest judgment on a question of history; it might
+always happen that the intuition of some unscholarly person was nearer
+the truth; still no man could ever decide between the two, nor would any
+sane man think it worth his while to take sides with either of them;
+such questions are most useful when they are left open. This is the case
+because the imagination is thus left freer to use such knowledge as it
+has for the edification of the character; and that model for our example
+or warning which the imagination constructs may always possibly be the
+truth. According to the balance in it of apparent probability, with
+edifying power it will beget conviction. Such a conviction may be doomed
+to be superseded sooner or later; its value lies in its potency while it
+lasts. The temper in which we look at our historical heritage is of more
+importance to us now than the exactitude of our vision; for this latter
+can never be proved, while the former approves itself by the fruit it
+bears within us. It is better, more fruitful, to feel with Dürer about
+the art of Ancient Greece than to know all that can be known of it
+to-day and feel a great deal less. "Character calls forth character,"
+said Goethe; we may add, "even from the grave." Now that the physical
+miracle of the Resurrection has come to seem so unimportant and
+uninteresting to educated men, it might be a wise economy to connect its
+poetry with this experience, that great and creative characters can
+raise men better worth knowing than Lazarus from the dead. Nietsche
+thought that Shakespeare had brought Brutus back to life, (though he
+knew very little of Roman history), and that Brutus was the Roman best
+worth knowing. "Of all peoples, the Greeks dreamt the dream of life the
+best," Goethe said; and again, "For all other arts we have to make some
+allowance; to Greek art alone we are for ever debtors." To feel the
+truth of these sayings with a passion similar to that shown in the
+passages quoted above from Dürer, must surely be a great help to an
+artist. Such a passion is an end in itself, or rather is the only means
+by which we can win spiritual freedom from some of the heavier fetters
+that modern life lays upon us. It freed Goethe even from Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BEAUTY
+
+
+I
+
+How is beauty to be judged?--upon that we have to deliberate.
+
+A man by skill may bring it into every single thing, for in some things
+we recognise that as beautiful which elsewhere would lack beauty.
+
+Good and better in respect of beauty are not easy to discern; for it
+would be quite possible to make two different figures, one stout, the
+other thin, which should differ one from the other in every proportion,
+and yet we scarce might be able to judge which of the two excelled in
+beauty. What beauty is I know not, though it dependeth upon many things.
+
+I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same touchstone
+as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the world
+prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world esteemeth
+beautiful that we will also hold for beautiful, and ourselves strive to
+produce the like.
+
+There are many causes and varieties of beauty; he that can prove them is
+so much the more to be trusted.
+
+The accord of one thing with another is beautiful, therefore want of
+harmony is not beautiful. A real harmony linketh together things unlike.
+
+Use is a part of beauty, whatever therefore is useless unto men is
+without beauty.
+
+The more imperfection is excluded so much the more doth beauty abide in
+the work.
+
+Guard thyself from superfluity.
+
+But beauty is so put together in men and so uncertain is our judgment
+about it, that we may perhaps find two men both beautiful and fair to
+look upon, and yet neither resembleth the other, in measure or kind, in
+any single point or part; and so blind is our perception that we shall
+not understand whether of the two is the more beautiful, and if we give
+an opinion on the matter it shall lack certainty.
+
+Negro faces are seldom beautiful because of their very flat noses and
+thick lips; moreover, their shinbone is too prominent, and the knee and
+foot too long, not so good to look upon as those of the whites; and so
+also is it with their hand. Howbeit, I have seen some amongst them whose
+whole bodies have been so well-built and handsome that I never beheld
+finer figures, nor can I conceive how they might be bettered, so
+excellent were their arms and all their limbs.
+
+Seeing that man is the worthiest of all creatures, it follows that, in
+all pictures, the human figure is most frequently employed as a centre
+of interest. Every animal in the world regards nothing but his own kind,
+and the same nature is also in men, as every man may perceive
+in himself.
+
+[Illustration: Charcoal-drawing heightened with white on a green
+prepared ground, in the Berlin Print Room _Face p_. 320]
+
+Further, in order that he may arrive at a good canon whereby to bring
+somewhat of beauty into our work, there-unto it were best for thee, it
+bethinks me, to form thy canon from many living men. Howbeit seek only
+such men as are held beautiful, and from such draw with all diligence.
+For one who hath understanding may, from men of many different kinds,
+gather something good together through all the limbs of the body. But
+seldom is a man found who hath all his limbs good, for every man lacks
+something.
+
+No single man can be taken as a model of a perfect figure, for no man
+liveth on earth who uniteth in himself all manner of beauties.... There
+liveth also no man upon earth who could give a final judgment upon what
+the perfect figure of a man is; God only knoweth that.
+
+And although we cannot speak of the greatest beauty of a living
+creature, yet we find in the visible creation a beauty so far surpassing
+our understanding that no one of us can fully bring it into his work.
+
+If we were to ask how we are to make a beautiful figure, some would give
+answer: According to human judgment (i.e., common taste). Others would
+not agree thereto, neither should I without a good reason. Who will give
+us certainty in this matter?[87]
+
+
+II
+
+I have already given what I believe to be the best answer to these
+questions as to what beauty is and how it is to be judged. Beauty is
+beauty as good is good (_see_ pp. 7, 8), or yellow, yellow; indeed, to
+the second question, Matthew Arnold has given the only possible
+answer--the relative value of beauties is "as the judicious would
+determine," and the judicious are, in matters of art "finely touched and
+gifted men." This criterion obviously cannot be easily or hastily
+applied, nor could one ever be quite sure that in any given case it had
+been applied to any given effect. But for practical needs we see that it
+suffices to cast a slur on facile popularity, and vindicate over and
+over again those who had been despised and rejected. What the true
+artist desires to bring into his pictures is the power to move
+finely-touched and gifted men. Not only are such by very much the
+minority, but the more part of them being, by their capacity to be moved
+and touched, easily wounded, have developed a natural armour of reserve,
+of moroseness, of prejudice, of combativeness, of pedantry, which makes
+them as difficult to address as wombats, or bears, or tortoises, or
+porcupines, or polecats, or elephants. It is interesting to witness how
+Dürer's self-contradictions show him to be aware of the great complexity
+of these difficulties, as also to see how very near he comes to the true
+answer. At one time he tells us:
+
+"When men demand a work of a master, he is to be praised in so far as he
+succeeds in satisfying their likings ..."[88]
+
+At another he tells us:
+
+"The art of painting cannot be truly judged save by such as are
+themselves good painters; from others verily is it hidden even as a
+strange tongue."[89]
+
+Every "finely touched and gifted man" is not an artist; but every true
+artist must, in some measure, be a finely touched and gifted man. There
+is no necessity to limit the public addressed to those who themselves
+produce: yet those who "can prove what they say with their hand" bring
+credentials superior to those offered by any others,--although even
+their judgment is not sure, as they may well represent a minority of
+the true court of appeal which can never be brought together.
+
+No doubt there is a judgment and a scale of values accepted as final by
+each generation that gives any considerable attention to these
+questions. Æsthetic appear to be exactly similar to religious
+convictions. Those who are subject to them probably pass through many
+successively, even though they all their lives hold to a certain fashion
+which enables them to assert some obvious unity, like those who, in
+religion, belong always to one sect. Yet if they were in a position to
+analyse their emotions and leanings, no doubt very fundamental
+contradictions would be discovered to disconcert them. Conviction and
+enthusiasm in the arts and religion would seem to be the frame of mind
+natural to those who assimilate, and are rendered productive by what
+they study and admire. Convictions may never be wholly justifiable in
+theory, but in practice when results are considered, it would seem that
+no other frame of mind should escape censure.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 87: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 244.]
+
+[Footnote 88: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer," p. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 89: _Idem_. p. 177.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NATURE
+
+
+I
+
+We regard a form and figure out of nature with more pleasure than
+another, though the thing in itself is not necessarily altogether
+better or worse.
+
+Life in nature showeth forth the truth of these things (the words of
+difference--i.e., the character of bodily habit to which they refer),
+wherefore regard it well, order thyself thereby and depart not from
+nature in thine opinions, neither imagine of thyself to invent aught
+better, else shalt thou be led astray, for art standeth firmly fixed in
+nature, and whoso can rend her forth thence he only possesseth her. If
+thou acquirest her, she will remove many faults for thee from thy work.
+
+Neither must the figure be made youthful before and old behind, or
+contrariwise; for that unto which nature is opposed is bad. Hence it
+followeth that each figure should be of one kind alone throughout,
+either young or old, or middle-aged, or lean or fat, or soft or hard.
+
+The more closely thy work abideth by life in its form, so much the
+better will it appear; and this is true. Wherefore never more imagine
+that thou either canst or shalt make anything better than God hath given
+power to His creatures to do. For thy power is weakness compared to
+God's creating hand. (_See_ continuation of passage, p. 10.)
+
+Compare also passages quoted (pp. 289-291).
+
+
+II
+
+In these and other passages Dürer speaks about "nature," and enjoins on
+the artist respect for and conformity to "nature" in a manner which
+reminds us of that still current in dictums about art. Indeed, it seems
+probable that Dürer's use of this term was almost as confused as that of
+a modern art-critic. There are two senses in which the word nature is
+employed, the confusion of which is ten times more confounded than any
+of the others, and deserves, indeed, utter damnation, so prolific of
+evil is it. We call the objects of sensory perception "nature"--whatever
+is seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted is a part of nature. And yet we
+constantly speak of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting
+monstrous and unnatural things. And a monstrous and unnatural thing is
+not merely one which is rare, but even more decidedly one of which we
+disapprove. So that the second use of the term conveys some sense of
+exceptionality, but far more of lack of conformity to human desires and
+expectations. Now, many things which do not exist are perfectly natural
+in this second sense: fairy-lands, heavens, &c. We perfectly understand
+what is meant by a natural and an unnatural imagination, we perceive
+readily all kind of degrees between the monstrous and the natural in
+pure fiction. Now, this second use of the term nature is the only one
+which is of any vital importance to our judgments upon works of art; yet
+current judgments are more often than not based wholly on the first
+sense, which means merely all objects perceived by the senses; and this,
+draped in the authority and phrases belonging to judgments based on the
+second and really pertinent sense.
+
+Whole schools of painting and criticism have arisen and flourish whose
+only reason for existence is the extreme facility with which this
+confusion is made in European languages. It sounds so plausible that
+some have censured Michael Angelo for bad drawing because men are not
+from 9 to 15 or 16 heads high, and have not muscles so developed as the
+gods and Titans of his creation. And others have objected to the angels,
+the anatomical ambiguity of their wing articulations. To say that a
+sketch or picture is out of tone or drawing damns, in many circles
+to-day; in spite of the fact that the most famous masterpieces, if
+judged by the same standard, would be equally offensive. This absurdity,
+even where its grosser developments are avoided, breeds abundant
+contradictions and confusion in the mouths of those who plume themselves
+on culture and discernment. I hope not to have been too saucy,
+therefore, in pointing out this pitfall to my readers in regard to these
+sentences which I thought it worth while to quote from Dürer, merely
+because if I did not do so I foresaw that they would be quoted
+against me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST
+
+
+I
+
+In the great earnestness with which the difficulties that beset art and
+the artist impressed him, Dürer intended to write a _Vade Mecum_ for
+those who should come after him. He has left among his MS. papers many
+plans, rough drafts, and notes for some such work, the form of which no
+doubt changed from time to time. The one which gives us the most
+comprehensive idea of his intentions is perhaps the following.
+
+
+II
+
+Ihs. Maria
+
+By the grace and help of God I have here set down all that I have learnt
+in practice, which is likely to be of use in painting, for the service
+of all students who would gladly learn. That, perchance, by my help they
+may advance still further in the higher understanding of such art, as he
+who seeketh may well do, if he is inclined thereto; for my reason
+sufficeth not to lay the foundations of this great, far-reaching,
+infinite art of true painting.
+
+Item.--In order that thou mayest thoroughly and rightly comprehend what
+is, or is called, an "artistic painter," I will inform thee and recount
+to thee. If the world often goeth without an "artistic painter," whilst
+for two or three hundred years none such appeareth, it is because those
+who might have become such devote not themselves to art. Observe then
+the three essential qualities following, which belong to the true artist
+in painting. These are the three main points in the whole book.
+
+I. The First Division of the book is the Prologue, and it compriseth
+three parts (A, B, and C).
+
+  A. The first part of the Prologue telleth us how the lad should be
+  taught, and how attention should be paid to the tendency of his
+  temperament. It falleth into six parts:
+
+    1. That note should be taken of the birth of the child, in what Sign it
+    occurreth; with some explanations. (Pray God for a lucky hour!)
+
+    2. That his form and stature should be considered; with some
+    explanations.
+
+    3. How he ought to be nurtured in learning from the first; with some
+    explanations.
+
+    4. That the child should be observed, whether he learneth best when
+    kindly praised or when chidden; with explanations.
+
+    5. That the child be kept eager to learn and be not vexed.
+
+    6. If the child worketh too hard, so that he might fall under the hand
+    of melancholy, that he be enticed therefrom by merry music to the
+    pleasuring of his blood.
+
+  B. The second part of the Preface showeth how the lad should be brought
+  up in the fear of God and in reverence, that so he may attain grace,
+  whereby he may be much strengthened in intelligent art. It falleth into
+  six parts:
+
+    1. That the lad be brought up in the fear of God and be taught to pray
+    to God for the grace of quick perception (_ubtilitet_) and to
+    honour God.
+
+    2. That he be kept moderate in eating and drinking, and also in
+    sleeping.
+
+    3. That he dwell in a pleasant house, so that he be distracted by no
+    manner of hindrance.
+
+    4. That he be kept from women and live not loosely with them; that he
+    not so much as see or touch one; and that he guard himself from all
+    impurity. Nothing weakens the understanding more than impurity.
+
+    5. That he know how to read and write well, and be also instructed in
+    Latin, so far as to understand certain writings.
+
+    6. That such an one have sufficient means to devote himself without
+    anxiety (to his art), and that his health be attended to with medicines
+    when needful.
+
+  C. The third part of the Prologue teacheth us of the great usefulness,
+  joy, and delight which spring from painting. It falleth into six parts:
+
+    1. It is a useful art when it is of godly sort, and is employed for holy
+    edification.
+
+    2. It is useful, and much evil is thereby avoided, if a man devote
+    himself thereto who else had wasted his time.
+
+    3. It is useful when no one thinks so, for a man will have great joy if
+    he occupy himself with that which is so rich in joys.
+
+    4. It is useful because a man gaineth great and lasting memory thereby
+    if he applieth it aright.
+
+    5. It is useful because God is thereby honoured when it is seen that He
+    hath bestowed such genius upon one of His creatures in whom is such
+    art. All men will be gracious unto thee by reason of thine art.
+
+    6. The sixth use is that if thou art poor thou mayest by such art come
+    unto great wealth and riches.
+
+II. The Second Division of the book treateth of Painting itself; it also
+is threefold.
+
+  A. The first part is of the freedom of painting; in six ways.
+
+  B. The second part is of the proportions of men and buildings, and what
+  is needful for painting; in six ways.[90]
+
+    1. Of the proportions of men.
+    2. Of the proportions of horses.
+    3. Of the proportions of buildings.
+    4. Of perspective.
+    5. Of light and shade.
+    6. Of colours, how they are to be made to resemble nature.
+
+  C. The third part is of all that a man conceives as subject for
+  painting.
+
+III. The Third Division of the book is the Conclusion; it also hath
+three parts.
+
+  A. The first part shows in what place such an artist should dwell to
+  practise his art; in six ways.
+
+  B. The second part shows how such a wonderful artist should charge
+  highly for his art, and that no money is too much for it, seeing that it
+  is divine and true; in six ways.
+
+The third part speaks of praise and thanksgiving which he should render
+unto God for His grace, and which others should render on his behalf;
+in six ways.
+
+
+III
+
+It is in the variety and completeness of his intentions that we perceive
+Dürer's kinship with the Renascence; he comprehends the whole of life in
+his idea of art training.
+
+In his persuasion of the fundamental necessity of morality he is akin to
+the best of the Reformation. It is in the union of these two perceptions
+that his resemblance to Michael Angelo lies. There is a rigour, an
+austerity which emanates from their work, such as is not found in the
+work of Titian or Rembrandt or Leonardo or Rubens or any other mighty
+artist of ripe epochs. Yet we find both of them illustrating the
+licentious legends of antiquity, turning from the Virgin to Amymone and
+Leda, from Christ to Apollo and Hercules. By their action and example
+neither joins either the Reformation or the Renascence in so far as
+these movements may be considered antagonistic; nor did they find it
+inconsistent to acknowledge their debt to Greece and Rome, even while
+accepting the gift of Jesus' example as freely as it was offered.
+
+Not only does Dürer insist on the necessity of a certain consonancy
+between the surrounding influences and the artist's capacity, which
+should be both called forth and relieved by the interchange of rivalry
+with instruction, of seclusion with music or society, but the process
+which Jesus made the central one of his religion is put forward as
+essential; he must form himself on a precedent example. I have already
+quoted from Reynolds at length on this point.
+
+I will merely add here some notes from another MS. fragment of Dürer's
+bearing on the same points.
+
+He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.
+
+Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than
+compulsion is.
+
+If a man is to become a really great painter he must be educated thereto
+from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good
+artists until he attain a free hand.
+
+To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing
+whatsoever that may be chosen.
+
+It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce, to
+measure the human figure, before learning anything else.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 90: The following list comes from another sheet of the MS.
+(in. 70), but was dearly intended for this place. It is jotted down on a
+thick piece of paper, on which there are also geometrical designs.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
+
+
+I
+
+If thou wishest to model well in painting, so as to deceive the
+eyesight, thou must be right cunning in thy colours, and must know how
+to keep them distinct, in painting, one from another. For example, thou
+paintest two coats of mantles, one white the other red; thou must deal
+differently with them in shading. There is light and shadow on all
+things, wherever the surface foldeth or bendeth away from the eye. If
+this were not so, everything would look flat, and then one could
+distinguish nothing save only a chequerwork of colours.
+
+If then thou art shading the white mantle, it must not be shaded with so
+dark a colour as the red, for it would be impossible for a white thing
+to yield so dark a shadow as a red. Neither could they be compared one
+with another, save that in total absence of daylight everything is
+black, seeing that colour cannot be recognised in darkness. Though,
+therefore, in such a case, the theory allows one, without blame, to use
+pure black for the shadows of a white object, yet this can seldom
+come to pass.
+
+Moreover, when thou paintest anything in one colour--be it red, blue,
+brown, or any mixed colour--beware lest thou make it so bright in the
+lights that it departs from its own kind. For example, an uneducated man
+regardeth thy picture wherein is a red coat. "Look, good friend," saith
+he, "in one part the coat is of a fair red and in another it is white
+or pale in colour." That same is to be blamed, neither hast thou done it
+aright. In such a case a red object must be painted red all over and yet
+preserve the appearance of solidity; and so with all colours. The same
+must be done with the shadows, lest it be said that a fair red is soiled
+with black Wherefore be careful that thou shade each colour with a
+similar colour. Thus I hold that a yellow, to retain its kind, must be
+shaded with a yellow, darker toned than the principal colour. If thou
+shade it with green or blue, it remaineth no longer in keeping, and is
+no longer yellow, but becometh thereby a shot colour, like the colour of
+silk stuffs woven of threads of two colours, as brown and blue, brown
+and green, dark yellow and green, chestnut-brown and dark yellow, blue
+and seal red, seal red and brown, and the many other colours one sees.
+If a man hath such as these to paint, where the surface breaketh and
+bendeth away the colours divide themselves so that they can be
+distinguished one from another, and thus must thou paint them. But where
+the surface lieth flat one colour alone appeareth. Howbeit, if thou art
+painting such a silk and shadest it with one colour (as a brown with a
+blue) thou must none the less shade the blue with a deeper blue where it
+is needful. If often cometh to pass that such silks appear brown in the
+shadows, as if one colour stood before the other. If thy model beareth
+such a garment, thou must shade the brown with a deeper brown and not
+with blue. Howbeit, happen what may, every colour must in shading keep
+to its own class.
+
+
+II
+
+The great genius Hokusai, who has obtained for popular art in Japan a
+success comparable to that of the best classic masterpieces of that
+country and to the drawings and etchings of Rembrandt, a master of an
+altogether kindred nature, wrote a little treatise on the difference of
+aim noticeable in European and Japanese art. From the few Dutch pictures
+which he had been able to examine, he concluded that European art
+attempted to deceive the eye, whereas Japanese art laboured to express
+life, to suggest movement, and to harmonise colour. What is meant is
+easily grasped when we set before the mind's eye a picture, by Teniers
+and a page of Hokusai's "Mangwa." On the other hand, if one chose a
+sketch by Rembrandt to represent Dutch art, the difference could no
+longer be apparent. If the aim of European art had ever in serious
+examples been to deceive the eye, our painting would rank with
+legerdemain and Maskelyne's famous box trick; for it is to be doubted if
+it could ever so well have attained its end as even a second-rate
+conjurer can. I have cited a passage in which Reynolds confronts the
+work of great artists with the illusions of the camera obscura (see p.
+237). The adept musical performer who reproduces the noises of a
+farmyard is the true parallel to the lesser Dutch artists; he deceives
+the ear far better than they deceive the eye. For every picture has a
+surface which, unless very carefully lighted, must immediately destroy
+the illusion, even if it were otherwise perfect. Nevertheless, Dürer in
+the foregoing passage seems to accept Hokusai's verdict that the aim of
+his painting is to deceive the eye; forgetful of all that he has
+elsewhere written about the necessity of beauty, the necessity of
+composition, the superiority of rough sketches over finished works.
+
+When a painter has conceived in his heart a vision of beauty, whether he
+suggests it with a few strokes of the pen or elaborates it as thoroughly
+as Jan Van Eyck did, he wishes it to be taken as a report of something
+seen. This is as different from wishing to deceive the eye as for some
+one to say "and then a dog barked," instead of imitating the barking of
+a dog. A circumstantial description in words and a picture by Van Eyck
+or Veronese are equally intended to pass as reports of something
+visually conceived or actually seen. Pictures would have to be made
+peep-shows of before they could veritably deceive; and Jan Van Beers, a
+modern Dutchman, actually turned some of his paintings into peep-shows.
+Dürer in the following passage is speaking of the separate details or
+objects which go to make up a picture, not of the picture as a whole; he
+never tried to make peep-shows; his signature or an inscription is often
+used to give the very surface that must destroy the peep-show illusion a
+definite decorative value. The rest of his remarks have become
+commonplaces; nor has he written at such length as to give them their
+true limitations and intersubordination. They will be easily understood
+by those who remember that art is concerned with producing the illusion
+of a true report of something seen, not that of an actual vision. Such a
+report may be slight and brief; it may be stammered by emotion; it may
+have been confused or tortured to any degree by the mental condition of
+him who delivers it: if it produces the conviction of his sincerity, it
+achieves the only illusion with which art is concerned, and its value
+will depend on its beauty and the beauty of the means employed to
+deliver it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN CONCLUSION
+
+After turning over Dürer prints and drawings, after meditating on his
+writings, we feel that we are in the presence of one of those forces
+which are constant and equal, which continue and remain like the growth
+of the body, the return of seasons, the succession of moods. This is
+always among the greatest charms of central characters: they are mild
+and even, their action is like that of the tides, not that of storms.
+"If only you had my meekness," Dürer wrote to Pirkheimer (set: p. 85),
+half in jest doubtless, but with profound truth:--though the word
+meekness does not indeed cover the whole of what we feel made Dürer's
+most radical advantage over his friend; at other times we might call it
+naïvety, that sincerity of great and simple natures which can never be
+outflanked or surprised. Sometimes it might be called pride, for it has
+certainly a great deal of self-assurance behind it, the self-assurance
+of trees, of flowers, of dumb animals and little children, who never
+dream that an apology for being where and what they are can be expected
+of them. Such natures when they come home to us come to stop; we may go
+out, we may pay no heed to them, we may forget them, but they abide in
+the memory, and some day they take hold of us with all the more force
+because this new impression will exactly tally with the former one; we
+shall blush for our inconstancy, our indifference, our imbecility, which
+have led us to neglect such a pregnant communion. Not only persons but
+works of art produce this effect, and they are those with whom it is the
+greatest benefit to live.
+
+It is true that, compared with Giotto, Rembrandt, or Michael Angelo,
+Dürer does not appear comprehensive enough. It is with him as with
+Milton; we wish to add others to his great gifts, above all to take him
+out from his surroundings, to free him from the accidents of place and
+time. In one sense he is poorer than Milton: we cannot go to him as to a
+source of emotional exhilaration. If he ever proves himself able so to
+stir us, it is too occasionally to be a reason why we frequent him as it
+may be one why we frequent Milton. Nevertheless, the greater characters
+of control which are his in an unmatched degree, his constancy, his
+resource and deliberate effectiveness, joined to that blandness, that
+sunshine, which seems so often to replace emotion and thought in works
+of image-shaping art, are of priceless beneficence, and with them we
+would abide. Intellectual passion may seem indeed sometimes to dissipate
+this sunshine and control without making good their loss. Such cases
+enable us to feel that the latter are more essential: and it is these
+latter qualities which Dürer possessed in such fulness. In return for
+our contemplation, they build up within us the dignity of man and render
+it radiant and serene. Those who have felt their influence longest and
+most constantly will believe that they may well warrant the modern
+prophet who wrote:
+
+The idea of beauty and of human nature perfect on all its sides, which
+is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, though it
+has not yet had the success that the idea of conquering the obvious
+faults of our animality and of a human nature perfect on the moral
+side--which is the dominant idea of religion--has been enabled to have;
+and it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea of a devout
+energy, to transform and govern the other.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Aachen
+
+Adam (Melchor)
+
+Aeschylus
+
+Albertina
+
+Altdorfer (Albrecht)
+
+Anabaptists
+
+Andreae (Hieronymus)
+
+Angelico (Fra Beato)
+
+Antwerpo
+
+Apelles
+
+Aristotle
+
+Arnold (Matthew)
+
+Augsburg
+
+Balccarres (Lord)
+
+Bamberg (Library)
+
+Barbari (Jacopo dei)
+
+Barberini (Gallery)
+
+Barye (Antoine Louis)
+
+Basle
+
+Baudelaire (Charles)
+
+Bavaria
+
+Beers (Jan van)
+
+Beham (Barthel and Sebald)
+
+Behaim
+
+Bellini (Gentile)
+
+Bellini (Giovanni)
+
+Berlin
+
+Blake (William)
+
+Bologna
+
+Bonnat (Léon)
+
+Borgia (Cesare)
+
+Borgia (Alexander), see Pope
+
+Botticelli
+
+Bremen
+
+Breslau (Bishop of)
+
+Breughel (Peter)
+
+British Museum.
+
+Browning (Robert)
+
+Brussels
+
+Brutus
+
+Burgkmair (Hans)
+
+Butler (Bishop)
+
+Caietan (Cardinal)
+
+Calvin
+
+Camerarius (Kunz Kamerer)
+
+Carpaccio
+
+Celtes (Conrad)
+
+Charles V. (Emperor)
+
+Cicero
+
+Coleridge
+
+Colet (Dean)
+
+Colmar
+
+Cologne (Köln)
+
+Conway (Sir Martin)
+
+Cook (Sir Francis)
+
+Correggio
+
+Cranach (Lucas)
+
+Dante
+
+Danube
+
+Dodgson (Campbell)
+
+Dolce (Ludovico)
+
+Dresden
+
+Dürer (Albert the Elder)
+
+Dürer (Agnes, nee Frey)
+
+Dürer, Andreas
+  Brothers and Sisters
+  Father-in-law, Hans Frey
+  Forefathers
+
+Dürer, Hans
+
+Dürer's House,
+
+Mother (Barbara Helper)
+
+Dürer (Quotations from),
+
+Dürer's
+ Books:
+    Art of Fortification,
+    Human Proportions,
+    Measurement with Compass.
+
+  Drawings:
+    Adam's hand,
+    Christ bearing His Cross,
+    Dance of monkeys,
+    Himself,
+    Lion,
+    Lucas van Leyden,
+    Memento Mei,
+    Mein Angnes,
+    Mount of Olives,
+    Nepotis (Florent),
+    Pfaffroth (Hans),
+    Plankfelt (Jobst),
+    Sea-monsters,
+    Women's Bath,
+    Walrus.
+
+  Engravings on Metal:
+    Agony in the Garden,
+    Great Fortune,
+    Jerome (St.),
+    Knight (The),
+    Melancholy,
+    Passion.
+
+  Pictures:
+    Adam and Eve,
+    Adoration of Magi,
+    Avarice,
+    Christ among Doctors,
+    Coronation of Virgin,
+    Crucifixion,
+    Dresden Altar Piece,
+    Feast of Bose Garlands,
+    Hercules,
+    Lucretia,
+    Madonna with Iris,
+    Martyrdom of Ten Thousand,
+    Paumgartner, Altar Piece,
+    Preachers (The Pour),
+    Road to Calvary,
+    Trinity and All Saints.
+
+  Portraits:
+    Of himself, Leipzig, Madrid, Munich,
+    Holzschuher (Hieronymus),
+    Imhof, Hans (?),
+    Kleeberger (Johannes)
+    Krel (Oswolt),
+    Maximilian,
+    Muffel (Jacob),
+    Orley (Bernard van),
+    Unknown (Vienna),
+    Unknown (Hampton Court),
+    Unknown (Boston)
+    Unknown Woman (Berlin),
+    Unknown Girl (Berlin),
+    Wolgemut.
+
+  Woodcuts:
+    Apocalypse,
+    Assumption of Magdalen,
+    St. Christopher,
+    Gate of Honour,
+    Jerome (St.),
+    Life of the Virgin,
+    Last Supper,
+    Little Passion.
+
+Ebner
+
+Eck (Dr.)
+
+Eckenstein (Miss)
+
+Emerson
+
+Erasmus
+
+Euclid
+
+Euripides
+
+Eusebius
+
+Eyck (Jan van)
+
+FLAUBERT (Gustave)
+
+Florentine
+
+Frankfort
+
+Frederick the Wise (Elector of Saxony)
+
+Frey (Hans)
+
+Frey (Felix),
+
+Fronde,
+
+Fugger,
+
+Furtwängler,
+
+Gainsborough,
+
+Ghent,
+
+Giehlom (Dr. Carl),
+
+Giorgjone,
+
+Giotto,
+
+Goes (Hugo vander)
+
+Goethe,
+
+Gospel of
+  St. Luke,
+  St. Matthew,
+  St. John,
+
+Grapheus (Cornelius),
+
+Greece, Greeks, Greek,
+
+Grien (Baldung),
+
+Heaton (Mrs.),
+
+_Heller (Jacob)_.
+
+Henry VIII,
+
+Hess (Eoban),
+
+Hess (Martin),
+
+Hippocrates,
+
+Hokusai,
+
+Holbein,
+
+Holzselraher,
+
+Homer,
+
+Humanists,
+
+Hungary,
+
+Hutten (Ulrich von),
+
+Imhof (Hans),
+
+Innsbruck,
+
+Jeanne D'Arc,
+
+Jesus,
+
+John (St.),
+
+Jonson (Ben),
+
+Juggernaut,
+
+Keats (John),
+
+Kolb (Anton),
+
+Kratzer (Nicholas),
+
+Kress (Christopher),
+
+Lady Margaret (Governess of the Netherlands),
+
+Landauer (Matthew),
+
+Leipzig,
+
+Leonardo da Vinci,
+
+Link (Wenzel),
+
+Lippmann,
+
+London,
+
+Longfellow,
+
+Lotto (Lorenzo),
+
+Louvre,
+
+Lucas van Leyden,
+
+Luther,
+
+Lutzelburger,
+
+Mabuse (Jan de),
+
+Macbeth,
+
+Machiavelli.
+
+Madrid,
+
+Mantegna (Andrea),
+
+Mantua,
+
+Manuel,
+
+Marcantonio,
+
+Mark (St.),
+
+Marlowe,
+
+Maximilian I.,
+
+Melanchthon,
+
+Mexico,
+
+Michael Angelo,
+
+Miller (A.W., Esq.),
+
+Millet (Jean Francois),
+
+Miltitz,
+
+Milton,
+
+Montaigne,
+
+_Monthly Review_,
+
+Montpelier (Town Council),
+
+More,
+
+Morley (Lord and Lady),
+
+Moses,
+
+Muffel (Jacob),
+
+Munich,
+
+
+Nassau,
+
+Neudörffer,
+
+Nietzsche,
+
+Nützel (Caspar),
+
+Orley (Bernard van)
+
+Ostendorfer (Michael)
+
+Pacioli (Luca)
+
+Padua
+
+Parrhasius
+
+Paul (St.)
+
+Paumgartner (Stephan)
+
+Peasants' War
+
+Penz (Georg)
+
+Peter (St,)
+
+Phidias
+
+Pirkheimer (Charitas)
+  (Philip)
+  (Willibald)
+
+Pitti (Gallery)
+
+Plato
+
+Pleydenwurf
+
+Pliny
+
+Polizemo
+
+Polycleitus
+
+Pope
+  Adrian IV.
+  (Alexander VI.)
+  (Julius II.)
+  (Leo X.)
+
+Porto Venere
+
+Portugal
+
+Prague
+
+Praxiteles
+
+Protogenes
+
+Psalms
+
+Rabelais
+
+Raphael
+
+Reformation, Reformers
+
+Rembrandt
+
+Renascence
+
+Reuohlin (Dr.)
+
+Reynolds
+
+Ricketts (C. S.)
+
+Rochefoucauld (La)
+
+Roger van der Weyden
+
+Rome
+
+Rossetti (Dante Gabriel)
+
+Rubens (Peter Paul)
+
+Savonarola
+
+Scheurl (Christopher)
+
+Schongauer (Martin)
+
+Schönsperger
+
+Shannon (C. H.)
+
+Shakespeare
+
+Sistine (Chapel)
+
+Spalatin (George)
+
+Spengler (Lazarus)
+
+Stabius (Johannes)
+
+Städel Institut
+
+Stromer (Wolf)
+
+Strong (S. A)
+
+Swift (Dean)
+
+Teniers (David)
+
+Thawing (Dr. Moritz)
+
+Titian
+
+Tschertte (Johannes)
+
+Uffizi (Gallery)
+
+Ulm
+
+Van Dyck
+
+Varnbüler (Ulrioh)
+
+Vasari
+
+Velasquez
+
+Venice
+
+Veronese (Paul)
+
+Verona
+
+Verrall (Dr.)
+
+Vienna
+
+Virgil
+
+Vitruvius
+
+Warham (Archbishop)
+
+Watteail (Antoine)
+
+Watts (G. F.)
+
+Weimar (Grand Ducal Museum)
+
+Whistler (James McNeil)
+
+Wittenberg
+
+Wolfenbüttel
+
+Wolgemut
+
+Wordsworth
+
+Würzburg (Bishop of)
+
+Zeeland
+
+Zeuxis
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Albert Durer
+
+Author: T. Sturge Moore
+
+Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9837]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 23, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALBERT DURER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steve Schulze and PG Distributed Proofreaders.
+Page images generously provided by the CWRU Preservation
+Department Digital Library.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: The printing errors of the original have been
+retained in this etext.]
+
+
+
+ALBERT DUeRER
+
+BY
+
+T. STURGE MOORE
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+When the late Mr. Arthur Strong asked me to undertake the present
+volume, I pointed out to him that, to fulfil the advertised programme of
+the Series he was editing, was more than could be hoped from my
+attainments. He replied, that in the case of Duerer a book, fulfilling
+that programme, was not called for, and that what he wished me to
+attempt, was an appreciation of this great artist in relation to general
+ideas. I had hoped to benefit very largely by my editor's advice and
+supervision, but this his illness and death prevented. His great gifts
+and brilliant accomplishments, already darkened and distressed by
+disease, were all too soon to be utterly quenched; and I can but here
+express, not only my sense of personal loss in the hopes which his
+friendly welcome and generous intercourse had created and which have
+been so cruelly dashed by the event, but also that of the void which his
+disappearance has left in the too thin ranks of those who, filled with
+reverence and enthusiasm for the great traditions of the past, seem
+nevertheless eager and capable of grappling with the unwieldy present.
+Let and restricted had been the recognition of his maturing worth, and
+now we must do without both him and the impetus of his so nearly
+assured success.
+
+The present volume, then, is not the result of new research; nor is it
+an abstract resuming historical and critical discoveries on its subject
+up to date. Of this latter there are several already before the British
+public; the former, as I said, it was not for me to attempt. Nor do I
+feel my book to be altogether even what it was intended to be; but am
+conscious that too much space has been given to the enumeration of
+Duerer's principal works and the events of his life without either being
+made exhaustive. Still, I hope that even these parts may be found
+profitable by those who are not already familiar with the subjects with
+which they deal. To those for whom these subjects are well known, I
+should like to point out that Parts I. and IV. and very much of Part
+III. embody my chief intention; that chapter 1 of Part I. finds a
+further illustration in division iii. of chapter 4, Part II.; and that
+division vi., chapter 1, Part II., should be taken as prefatory to
+chapter 1, Part IV.
+
+Should exception be taken to the works chosen as illustrations, I would
+explain that the means of reproduction, the degree of reduction
+necessitated by the size of the page, and other outside considerations,
+have severely limited my choice. It is entirely owing to the extreme
+kindness of the Duerer Society--more especially of its courteous and
+enthusiastic secretaries, Mr. Campbell Dodgson and Mr. Peartree--that
+four copper-plates have so greatly enhanced the adequacy of the volume
+in this respect.
+
+I have gratefully to acknowledge Sir Martin Conway's kindness in
+permitting me to quote so liberally from his "Literary Remains of
+Albrecht Duerer," by far the best book on this great artist known to me.
+Mr. Charles Eaton's translation of Thausing's "Life of Duerer," the
+"Portfolios of the Duerer Society," and Dr. Lippmanb "Drawings of
+Albrecht Duerer," are the only other works on my subject to which I feel
+bound to acknowledge my indebtedness. Lastly, I must express deep
+gratitude to my learned friend, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, for having so
+generously consented, by reading the proofs, to mitigate my defect in
+scholarship.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PREFACE
+
+PART I
+
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE
+COMPREHENSION OF DUeRER'S LIFE AND ART
+
+  I. THE IDEA OF PROPORTION
+  II THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
+
+PART II
+
+DUeRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES
+IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+  I. DUeRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION
+  II. THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED
+  III. DUeRER AT VENICE
+  IV. HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
+  V. DUeRER, LUTHER, AND THE HUMANISTS
+  VI. DUeRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS
+  VII. DUeRER'S LAST YEARS
+
+PART III
+
+DUeRER AS A CREATOR
+
+  I. DUeRER'S PICTURES
+  II. DUeRER'S PORTRAITS
+  III. DUeRER'S DRAWINGS
+  IV. DUeRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS
+  V. DUeRER'S WOODCUTS
+  VI. DUeRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES
+
+PART IV
+
+DUeRER'S IDEAS
+
+  I. THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE
+  II. THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY
+  III. THE LAST TRADITION
+  IV. BEAUTY
+  V. NATURE
+  VI. THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST
+  VII. TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
+  VIII. IN CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+Apollo and Diana, Metal Engraving
+Water-colour drawing of a Hare
+Pilate Washing his Hands. Metal Engraving
+Agnes Frey
+"Mein Angnes"
+Wilibald Pirkheimer
+Hans Burgkmair
+Adoration of the Trinity
+St. Christopher
+Assumption of the Magdalen
+Duerer's Mother
+Maximilian
+Frederick the Wise
+Silver-point Portrait
+Erasmus
+Drawing of a Lion
+Lucas van der Leyden
+Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate. Metal Engraving
+St. George and St. Eustache
+Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Saints
+Road to Calvary
+Portrait of Duerer
+Portrait of Duerer
+Albert Duerer the Elder
+Gswolt Krel
+Portrait at Hampton Court
+Portrait of a Lady
+Michel Wolgemuth
+Hans Imhof
+"Jakob Muffel"
+Study of a Hound
+Memento Mei
+Silver-point Portrait
+Portrait in Black Chalk
+Cherub for a Crucifixion
+Apollo and Diana
+An Old Castle
+Melancholia
+Detail from "The Agony in the Garden"
+Angel with Sudarium
+The Small Horse
+The Great Fortune, or Nemesis
+Silver-point Drawing
+St. Michael and the Dragon
+Detail from "The Meeting at the Golden Gate"
+Detail from "The Nativity"
+Duerer's Armorial Bearings
+Christ haled before Annas
+The Last Supper
+Saint Antony, Metal Engraving
+"In the Eighteenth Year"
+"Una Vilana Wendisch"
+Charcoal Drawing
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE COMPREHENSION OF DUeRER'S LIFE
+AND ART
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE IDEA OF PROPORTION
+
+
+I
+
+Ich hab vernomen wie der siben weysen aus kriechenland ainer gelert hab
+das dymass in allen dingen sitlichen und naturlichen das pest sey.
+
+DUeRER, British Museum MS., vol. iv., 82a.
+
+I have heard how one of the Seven Sages of Greece taught that measure is
+in all things, physical and moral, best.
+
+La souveraine habilete consiste a bien connaitre le prix des choses. LA
+ROCHEFOUCAULD, III. 252.
+
+Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the value of
+things.
+
+The attempt that the last quarter century has witnessed, to introduce
+the methods of science into the criticism of works of art, has tended,
+it seems to me, to put the question of their value into the background.
+The easily scandalous inquiries, "Who?" "When?" "Where?" have assumed an
+impertinent predominance. When I hear people very decidedly asserting
+that such a picture was painted by such an one, not generally supposed
+to be the author, at such a time, &c. &c., I often feel uneasy in the
+same way as one does on being addressed in a loud voice in a church or a
+picture gallery, where other persons are absorbed in an acknowledged and
+respected contemplation or study. I feel inclined to blush and whisper,
+for fear of being supposed to know the speaker too well. It is an
+awkward moment with me, for I am in fact very good friends with many
+such persons. "Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the
+value of things"--not their commercial value only, though that is
+sovereign skill on the Exchange, but their value for those whose chief
+riches are within them. The value of works of art is an intimate
+experience, and cannot be estimated by the methods of exact science as
+the weight of a planet can. There are and have been forgeries that are
+more beautiful, therefore more valuable, than genuine specimens of the
+class of work which they figure as. I feel that the specialist, with his
+special measure and point of view, often endangers the fair name and
+good repute of the real estimate; and that nothing but the dominion and
+diffusion of general ideas can defend us against the specialist and keep
+the specialist from being carried away by bad habits resulting from his
+devotion to a single inquiry.
+
+There was one general idea, of the greatest importance in determining
+the true value of things, which preoccupied Duerer's mind and haunted his
+imagination: the idea of proportion. I propose therefore to attempt to
+make clear to myself and my readers what the idea of proportion really
+implies, and of what service a sense for proportion really is; secondly,
+to determine the special use of the term in relation to the appreciation
+of works of art; thirdly, in relation to their internal
+structure;--before proceeding to the special studies of Duerer as a man
+and an artist.
+
+
+II
+
+I conceive the human reason to be the antagonist of all known forces
+other than itself, and that therefore its most essential character is
+the hope and desire to control and transform the universe; or, failing
+that, to annihilate, if not the universe, at least itself and the
+consciousness of a monster fact which it entirely condemns. In this
+conception I believe myself to be at one with those by whom men have
+been most influenced, and who, with or without confidence in the support
+of unknown powers, have set themselves deliberately against the face of
+things to die or conquer. This being so, and man individually weak, it
+has been the avowed object of great characters--carrying with them the
+instinctive consent of nations--to establish current values for all
+things, according as their imagination could turn them to account as
+effective aids of reason: that is, as they could be made to advance her
+apparent empire over other elemental forces, such as motion, physical
+life, &c. This evaluation, in so far as it is constant, results in what
+we call civilisation, and is the only bond of society. With difficulty
+is the value of new acquisitions recognised even in the realm of
+science, until the imagination can place them in such a light as shall
+make them appear to advance reason's ends, which accounts for the
+reluctance that has been shown to accept many scientific results. Reason
+demands that the world she would create shall be a fact, and declares
+that the world she would transform is the real world, but until the
+imagination can find a function for it in reason's ideal realm, every
+piece of knowledge remains useless, or even an obstacle in the way of
+our intended advance. This applies to individuals just as truly as it
+does to mankind. And since man's reason is a natural phenomenon and does
+apparently belong to the class of elemental forces, this warfare against
+the apparent fact, and the fortitude and hope which its whole-hearted
+prosecution begets, appear as a natural law to the intelligence and as a
+command and promise to the reason.
+
+The alternative between the will to cease and the will to serve reason,
+with which I start out, may not seem necessary to all. "Forgive their
+sin--and if not, blot me I pray thee out of thy book," was Moses'
+prayer; and to me it seems that only by lethargy can any soul escape
+from facing this alternative. The human mind in so far as it is active
+always postulates, "Let that which I desire come to pass, or let me
+cease!" Nor is there any diversity possible as to what really is
+desirable: Man desires the full and harmonious development of his
+faculties. As to how this end may most probably be attained, there is
+diversity enough to represent every possible blend of ignorance with
+knowledge, of lethargy with energy, of cowardice with courage.
+
+"So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men, whether considered in
+their persons or their states, that they will grasp at all, and can form
+no scheme of perfect happiness with less."[1] So writes the most
+powerful of English prose-writers. And this hope and desire, which is
+reason, once thrown down, the most powerful among poets has brought from
+human lips this estimate of life--
+
+  "It is a tale
+Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
+Signifying nothing."
+
+No one knows whether reason's object will or can be attained; but for
+the present each man finds confidence and encouragement in so far as he
+is able to imagine all things working together for the good of those who
+desire good--in short, for "reasonable beings."[2] The more he knows,
+the greater labour it is for him to imagine this; but the more he
+concentrates his faculties on doing good and creating good things, the
+more his imagination glows and shines and discovers to him new
+possibilities of success: the better he is able to find--
+
+  "Sermons in stones and good in everything;"
+    "And make a moral of the devil himself."
+
+But how is it that reason can accept an imagination that makes what in a
+cold light she considers her enemy, appear her friend? All things
+impress the mind with two contradictory notions--their actual condition
+and their perfection. Even the worst of its kind impresses on us an idea
+of what the best would be, or we could not know it for the worst.
+Reason, then, seizes on this aspect of things which suggests their
+perfection, and awards them her attention in proportion as such aspect
+makes their perfection seem near, or as it may further her in
+transforming the most pressing of other evils. All life tends to affirm
+its own character; and the essential characteristic of man is reason,
+which labours to perfect all things that he judges to be good, and to
+transform all evil. Ultimate results are out of sight for all human
+faculties except the early-waking eyes of long-chastened hope; but
+reason loves this visionary mood, though she prefer that it be sung, and
+find that less lyrical speech brings on it something of ridicule; for
+such a rendering betrays, as a rule, faint desire or small power to
+serve her in those who use it.
+
+The sense of proportion, then, is that fineness of susceptibility by
+which we appreciate in a given object, person, force, or mood,
+serviceableness in regard to reason's work; in other words, by which we
+estimate the capacity to transform the Universe in such a way that men
+may ultimately be enabled to give their hearty consent to its existence,
+which at present no man rationally can.
+
+
+III
+
+Now, art appeals to fine susceptibilities; for, as I have explained
+elsewhere,[3] the value of works of art depends on their having come as
+"real and intimate experiences to a large number of gifted men"--men who
+have some kinship to that "finely touched and gifted man, the [Greek
+_heuphnaes_] of the Greeks," to use the phrase of our greatest modern
+critic. And in so far as we are able to judge between works successfully
+making such an appeal, we must be governed by this sense of proportion,
+which measures how things stand in regard to reason; that is, not merely
+intellect, not merely emotion, but the alliance of both by means of the
+imagination in aid of man's most central demand--the demand for
+nobler life.
+
+Perhaps I ought to point out before proceeding, that this position is
+not that of the writers on art most in view at the present day. It is
+the negation of the so-called scientific criticism, and also of the
+personal theory that reduces art to an expression of, and an appeal to,
+individual temperaments; it is the assertion of the sovereignty of the
+aesthetic conscience on exactly the same grounds as sovereignty is
+claimed for the moral conscience. AEsthetics deals with the morality of
+appeals addressed to the senses. That is, it estimates the success of
+such appeals in regard to the promotion of fuller and more harmonious
+life. Flaubert wrote:
+
+"Le genie n'est pas rare maintenant, mais ce que personne n'a plus et ce
+qu'il faut tacher d'avoir, c'est la conscience."
+
+("Genius is not rare nowadays, but conscience is what nobody has and
+what one should strive after.")
+
+To-day I am thinking of a painter. Painting is an art addressed
+primarily to the eye, and not to the intelligence, not to the
+imagination, save as these may be reached through the eye--that most
+delicate organ of infinite susceptibility, which teaches us the meaning
+of the word light--a word so often uttered with stress of ecstasy, of
+longing, of despair, and of every other shade of emotion, that the sound
+of it must soon be almost as powerful with the young heart, almost as
+immediate in its effect, as the break of day itself, gladdening the eyes
+and glorifying the earth. And how often is this joy received through the
+eye entrusted back to it for expression? For the eye can speak with
+varieties, delicacies, and subtle shades of motion far beyond the
+attainment of any other organ. "This art of painting is made for the
+eyes, for sight is the noblest sense of man,"[4] says Duerer; and again:
+
+"It is ordained that never shall any man be able, out of his own
+thoughts, to make a beautiful figure, unless, by much study, he hath
+well stored his mind. That then is no longer to be called his own; it is
+art acquired and learnt, which soweth, waxeth, and beareth fruit after
+its kind. Thence the gathered secret treasure of the heart is manifested
+openly in the work, and the new creature which a man createth in his
+heart, appeareth in the form of a thing."[5]
+
+Yes, indeed, the function of art is far from being confined to telling
+us what we see, whatever some may pretend, or however naturally any
+small nature may desire to continue, teach, or regulate great ones. All
+so-called scientific methods of creating or criticising works of art are
+inadequate, because the only truly scientific statements that can be
+made about these inquiries are that nothing is certain--that no method
+ensures success, and that no really important quality can be defined;
+for what man can say why one cloud is more beautiful than another in the
+same sky, any more than he can explain why, of two men equally absorbed
+in doing their duty, one impresses him as being more holy than the
+other? The degrees essential to both kinds of judgment escape all
+definition; only the imagination can at times bring them home to us,
+only the refined taste or chastened conscience, as the case may be,
+witnesses with our spirit that its judgment is just, and bids us
+recognise a master in him who delivers it. As the expression on a face
+speaks to a delicate sense, often communicating more, other, and better
+than can be seen, so the proportion, harmony, rhythm of a painting may
+beget moods and joys that require the full resources of a well-stored
+mind and disciplined character in order that they may be fully
+relished--in brief, demand that maturity of reason which is the mark of
+victorious man.
+
+Such being my conception, it will easily be perceived how anxious I must
+be to truly discern and express the relation between such objects as
+works of art by common consent so highly honoured, and at the same time
+so active in their effect upon the most exquisitely endowed of mankind.
+Especially since to-day caprice, humour and temperament are, by the
+majority of writers on art, acclaimed for the radical characteristic of
+the human creative faculty, instead of its perversion and disease; and
+it is thought that to be whimsical, moody, or self-indulgent best fits a
+man both to create and appraise works of art, whereas to become so
+really is the only way in which a man capable of such high tasks can
+with certainty ruin and degrade his faculties. Precious, surpassingly
+precious indeed, must every manifestation of such faculty before its
+final extinction remain, since the race produces comparatively few
+endowed after this kind.
+
+Perhaps a sufficient illustration of this prevalent fallacy may be drawn
+from Mr. Whistler's "Ten O'Clock," where he speaks of art:
+
+"A whimsical goddess, and a capricious, her strong sense of joy
+tolerates no dulness, and, live we never so spotlessly, still may she
+turn her back upon us."
+
+"As from time immemorial, she has done upon the Swiss in their
+mountains."
+
+Here is no proof of caprice, save on the witty writer's part; for men
+who fast are not saved from bad temper, nor have the kindly necessarily
+discreet tongues. The Swiss may be brave and honest, and yet dull.
+Virtue is her own reward, and art her own. Virtue rewards the saint, art
+the artist; but men are rewarded for attention to morality by some
+measure of joy in virtue, for attention to beauty by some measure of joy
+in works of art. Between the artist and the Philistine is no great gulf
+fixed, in the sense that the witty "master of the butterfly" pretends to
+assume, but an infinite and gentle decline of persons representing every
+possible blend of the virtues and faults of these two types. Again, an
+artist is miscalled "master of art." "Where he is, there she appears,"
+is airy impudence. "Where she wills to be, there she chooses a man to
+serve her," would not only have been more gallant but more reasonable;
+for that "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
+thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is
+every one that is born of the spirit," and that "many are called, few
+chosen," are sayings as true of the influence which kindleth art as of
+that which quickeneth to holiness. Art is not dignified by being called
+whimsical--or capricious. What can a man explain? The intention, behind
+the wind, behind the spirit, behind the creative instinct, is dark. But
+man is true to his own most essential character when, if he cannot
+refrain from prating of such mysteries, he qualifies them as hope would
+have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks of the
+unknown, in whose hands his destiny so largely rests, slightingly, as of
+a woman whom he has seduced because he despised her--calling her
+capricious because she answered to his caprice, whimsical, because she
+was as flighty as his error. It is not art's function to reward virtue.
+But, caprices and whimseys being ascribed to a goddess, it will be
+natural to expect them in her worshipper; and Mr. Whistler revealed the
+limitations of his genius by whimseys and caprice. Though it was in
+their relations to the world that this goddess and her devotee claimed
+freedoms so far from perfect, yet this, their avowed characteristic
+abroad, I think in some degree disturbed their domestic relations,
+Though others have underlined the absurdity of this theory by applying
+themselves to it with more faith and less sense, I have chosen to quote
+from the "Ten O'Clock," because I admire it and accept most of the ideas
+about art advanced therein. The artist who wrote it was able, in Duerer's
+phrase, "to prove" what he wrote "with his hand." Most of those who have
+elaborated what was an occasional unsoundness of his doctrine into
+ridiculous religions are as unable to create as they are to think; there
+is no need to record names which it is wisdom to forget. But it may be
+well to point out that Mr. Whistler does not succeed in glorifying great
+artists when he declares that beauty "to them was as much a matter of
+certainty and triumph as is to the astronomer the verification of the
+result, foreseen with the light granted to him alone." No, he only sets
+up a false analogy; for the true parallel to the artist is the saint,
+not the astronomer; both are convinced, neither understands. Art is no
+more the reward of intelligence than of virtue. She permits no caprice
+in her own realm. Loyalty is the only virtue she insists on, loyalty in
+regard to her servant's experience of beauty; he may be immoral in every
+other way and she not desert him; but let him turn Balaam and declare
+beauty absent where he feels its presence--though in doing this he hopes
+to advance virtue or knowledge, she needs no better than an ass to
+rebuke him. Nothing effects more for anarchy than these notions that art
+derives from individual caprice, or defends virtue, or demonstrates
+knowledge; for they are all based on those flattering hopes of the
+unsuccessful, that chance, rules both in life and art, or that it is
+possible to serve two masters.
+
+Doctrines often repeated gain easy credence; and, since art demands
+leisure in order to be at all enjoyed, ideas about it, in so fatiguing a
+life as ours has become, take men off their guard, when their habitual
+caution is laid to sleep, and, by an over-easiness, they are inclined to
+spoil both their sense of distinction and their children. Yes, they
+consent to theatres that degrade them, because they distract and amuse;
+and read journals that are smart and diverting at the expense of dignity
+and truth--in the same way as they smile at the child whom reason bids
+them reprove, and with the like tragic result; for they become incapable
+of enjoying works of art, as the child is incapacitated for the best of
+social intercourse. To prophesy smooth things to people in this
+condition, and flatter their dulness, is to be no true friend; and so
+the modern art-critic and journalist is often the insidious enemy of the
+civilisation he contents.
+
+Nothing strikes the foreigner coming to England more than our lack of
+general ideas. Our art criticism is no exception; it, like our
+literature and politics, is happy-go-lucky and delights in the pot-shot.
+We often hear this attributed admiringly to "the sporting instinct." "If
+God, in his own time, granteth me to write something further about
+matters connected with painting, I will do so, in hope that this art may
+not rest upon use and wont alone, but that in time it may be taught on
+true and orderly principles, and may be understood to the praise of God
+and the use and pleasure of all lovers of art."[6]
+
+Our art is still worse off than our trade or our politics, for it does
+not even rest upon use and wont, but is wholly in the air. Yet the
+typical modern aesthete has learnt where to take cover, for, though
+destitute of defence, he has not entirely lost the instinct for
+self-preservation; and, when he finds the eye of reason upon him, he
+immediately flies to the diversity of opinions. But Duerer follows him
+even there with the perfect good faith of a man in earnest.
+
+"Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty, and
+they seek after it in many different ways, although ugliness is thereby
+rather attained. Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know
+not certainly what the ultimate measure of true beauty is, and cannot
+describe it aright. But glad should I be to render such help as I can,
+to the end that the gross deformities of our work might be and remain
+pruned away and avoided, unless indeed any one prefers to bestow great
+labour upon the production of deformities. We are brought back,
+therefore, to the aforesaid judgment of men, which considereth one
+figure beautiful at one time and another at another....
+
+"Because now we cannot altogether attain unto perfection, shall we
+therefore wholly cease from learning? By no means. Let us not take unto
+ourselves thoughts fit for cattle. For evil and good lie before men,
+wherefore it behoveth the rational man to choose the good."[7]
+
+A man may see, if he will but watch, who is more finely touched and
+gifted than himself. In all the various fields of human endeavour, on
+such men he should try to form himself; for only thus can he enlarge his
+nature, correct his opinions. Something he can learn from this man,
+something from that, and it is rational to learn and be taught. Are we
+to be cattle or gods? "Is it not written in your law, I said, 'Ye are
+gods?'" Reason demands that each man form himself on the pattern of a
+god, and God is an empty name if reason be not the will of God. Then he
+whom reason hath brought up may properly be called a son of God, a son
+of man, a child of light. But it is easier to bob to such phrases than
+to understand them. However, their mechanical repetition does not
+prevent their having meant something once, does not prevent their
+meaning being their true value. It is time we understood our art, just
+as it is time we understood our religion. Docility, as I have pointed
+out elsewhere, is one of the marks of genius. Duerer's spirit is the
+spirit of the great artist who will learn even from "dull men of little
+judgment."
+
+"Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel.
+Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts, let him take it from
+one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with
+his hand. Howbeit any one may give thee counsel; and when thou hast done
+a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men
+of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule
+they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the
+good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayst thus better
+thy work."[8]
+
+Those who are thoroughly versed in art are the great artists; we have
+guides then, and we have a way--the path they have trodden--and we have
+company, the gifted and docile men of to-day whom we see to be improving
+themselves; and, in so far as we are reasonable, a sense of proportion
+is ours, which we may improve; and it will help us to catch up better
+and yet better company until we enjoy the intimacy of the noblest, and
+know as we are known. Then: "May we not consider it a sign of sanity
+when we regard the human spirit as ... a poet, and art as a half written
+poem? Shall we not have a sorry disappointment if its conclusion is
+merely novel, and not the fulfilment and vindication of those great
+things gone before?"[9] For my own part, those appear to me the grandest
+characters who, on finding that there is no other purchase for effort
+but only hope, and that they can never cease from hope but by ceasing to
+live, clear their minds of all idle acquiescence in what could never be
+hoped, and concentrate their energies on conquering whatever in their
+own nature, and in the world about them, militates against their most
+essential character--reason, which seeks always to give a higher
+value to life.
+
+
+IV
+
+When we speak of the sense of proportion displayed in the design of a
+building, many will think that the word is used in quite a different
+sense, and one totally unrelated to those which I have been discussing.
+But no; life and art are parallel and correspond throughout; ethics are
+the Esthetics of life, religion the art of living. Taste and conscience
+only differ in their provinces, not in their procedure. Both are based
+on instinctive preferences; the canon of either is merely so many of
+those preferences as, by their constant recurrence to individuals gifted
+with the power of drawing others after them, are widely accepted.
+
+The preference of serenity to melancholy, of light to darkness, are
+among the most firmly established in the canon, that is all. The sense
+of proportion within a design is employed to stimulate and delight the
+eye. Ordinary people may fear there is some abstruse science about this.
+Not at all; it is as simple as relishing milk and honey, and its
+development an exact parallel to the training of the palate to
+distinguish the flavours of teas, coffees and wines. "Taste and see" is
+the whole business. There are many people who have no hesitation in
+picking out what to their eye is the wainscot panel with the richest
+grain: they see it at once. So with etchings; if people would only
+forget that they are works of art, forget all the false or
+ill-understood standards which they have been led to suppose applicable,
+and look at them as they might at agate stones; or choose out the
+richest in effect: the most suitable for a gay room, or a hall, or a
+library, as though they were patterned stuffs for curtains; they would
+come a thousand times nearer a right appreciation of Duerer's success
+than by making a pot-shot to lasso the masterpiece with the tangle of
+literary rubbish which is known as art criticism.
+
+The harmonies and contrasts of juxtaposed colours or textures are
+affected by quantity, and a sense of proportion decides what quantities
+best produce this effect and what that. The correctness or amount of
+information to be conveyed in the delineation of some object, in
+relation to the mood which the artist has chosen shall dominate his
+work, is determined by his sense of proportion. He may distort an object
+to any extent or leave it as vague as the shadow on a wall in diffused
+light, or he may make it precise and particular as ever Jan Van Eyck
+did; so only that its distortion or elaboration is so proportioned to
+the other objects and intentions of his work as to promote its success
+in the eyes of the beholder.
+
+There are no fallacies greater than the prevalent ones conveyed by the
+expressions "out of drawing" or "untrue to nature." There is no such
+thing as correct drawing or an outside standard of truth for works
+of art.
+
+"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved." "Chaque
+oeuvre a faire a sa poetique en soi, qu'il faut trouver," said Flaubert.
+Truth in a work of art is sincerity. That a man says what he really
+means--shows us what he really thinks to be beautiful--is all that
+reason bids us ask for. No science or painstaking can make up for his
+not doing this. No lack of skill or observation can entirely frustrate
+his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly
+sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the
+inexpressible is never felt. Stammering becomes more eloquent than
+oratory, a child's impulsiveness wiser than circumlocutory experience.
+When a single intention absorbs the whole nature, communication is
+direct and immediate, and makes impotence itself a means of
+effectiveness. So the naiveties of early art put to shame the
+purposeless parade of prodigious skill. Wherever there is communication
+there is art; but there are evil communications and there is vicious
+art, though, perhaps, great sincerity is incompatible with either. For
+an artist to be deterred by other people's demands means that he is not
+artist enough; it is what his reason teaches him to demand of himself
+that matters, though, doubtless, the good desire the approval of
+kindred natures.
+
+A work of art addresses the eye by means of chosen proportions; it may
+present any number of facts as exactly as may be, but if it offend the
+eye it is a mere misapplication of industry, or the illustration of a
+scientific treatise out of place; and those that choose ribbons well are
+better artists than the man that made it. Or again it may overflow with
+poetical thought and suggestion, or have the stuff to make a first-rate
+story in it; but, if it offend the eye, it is merely a misapplication of
+imagination, invention or learning, and the girl who puts a charming
+nosegay together is a better artist than he who painted it. On the other
+hand, though it have no more significance than a glass of wine and a
+loaf of bread, if the eye is rejoiced by gazing on the paint that
+expresses them, it is a work of art and a fine achievement. Still, it
+may be as fanciful as a fairy-tale, or as loaded with import as the
+Crucifixion; and, if it stimulates the eye to take delight in its
+surfaces over and above mere curiosity, it is a work of art, and great
+in proportion as the significance of what it conveys is brought home to
+us by the very quality of the stimulus that is created in return for our
+gaze. For painting is the result of a power to speak beautifully with
+paint, as poetry is of a power to express beautifully by means of words
+either simple things or those which demand the effort of a welltrained
+mind in order to be received and comprehended. The mistake made by
+impressionists, luminarists, and other modern artists, is that a true
+statement of how things appear to them will suffice; it will not, unless
+things appear beautiful to them, and they render them beautifully. It
+will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different
+thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading;
+whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is
+always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is
+inspiring--is a work of art and "a joy for ever." For reason demands
+that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, and give such pleasure as best
+consists with the universe becoming what reason demands that it shall
+become. This demand of reason is perfectly arbitrary? Yes, but it is
+also inevitable, necessitated by the nature of the human character. It
+is equally arbitrary and equally inevitable that man must, where science
+is called for, in the long run prefer a true statement to a lie. From
+art reason demands beautiful objects, from science true statements: such
+is human nature; for the possession of this reason that judges and
+condemns the universe, and demands and attempts to create something
+better, is that which differentiates human life from all other known
+forces--is that by which men may be more than conquerors, may make peace
+with the universe; for
+
+  "A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
+   For then both parties nobly are subdued
+   And neither party loser."
+
+Of such a nature is the only peace that the soul can make with the
+body--that man can make with nature--that habit can make with
+instinct--that art can make with impulse. In order to establish such a
+peace the imagination must train reason to see a friend in her enemy,
+the physical order. For, as Reynolds says of the complete artist:
+
+"He will pick up from dunghills, what, by a nice chemistry, passing
+through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold, and under the
+rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even
+sublime inventions."[10]
+
+It is not too much to say that the nature both of the artist and of the
+dunghills is "subdued" by such a process, and yet neither is a "loser."
+Goethe profoundly remarked that the highest development of the soul was
+reached through worship first of that which was above, then of that
+which was beneath it. This great critic also said, "Only with difficulty
+do we spell out from that which nature presents to us, the _DESIRED_
+word, the congenial. Men find what the artist brings intelligible and to
+their taste, stimulating and alluring, genial and friendly, spiritually
+nourishing, formative and elevating. Thus the artist, grateful to the
+nature that made him, weaves a second nature--but a conscious, a fuller,
+a more perfectly human nature."
+
+[Illustration: Water-colour drawing of a Hare]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Swift, "Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome."]
+
+[Footnote 2: It may be urged that diversities of opinion exist as to
+what good is. The convenience of the words "good" and "evil" corresponds
+to a need created by a common experience in the same way as the
+convenience of the words "light" and "darkness" does. A child might
+consider that a diamond generated light in the same way as a candle
+does. He would be mistaken, but this would not affect the correctness of
+his application of the word "light" to his experience; if he confused
+light with darkness he must immediately become unintelligible. Good and
+light are perceived and named--no one can say more of them; the effects
+of both may be described with more or less accuracy. To say that light
+is a mode of motion does not define it; we ask at once, What mode? And
+the only answer is, that which produces the effect of light. A man born
+blind, though he knew what was meant by motion, could never deduce from
+this knowledge a conception of light.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The Monthly Review, October 1902, "Rodin."]
+
+[Footnote 4: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 177.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ibid. p. 247.]
+
+[Footnote 6: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 252.]
+
+[Footnote 7: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," pp, 244 and 245.]
+
+[Footnote 8: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 180.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The Monthly Review, April 1901, "In Defence of Reynolds."]
+
+[Footnote 10: Sixth Discourse.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
+
+
+I
+
+There are some artists of whom one would naturally write in a lyrical
+strain, with praise of the flesh, and those things which add to its
+beauty, freshness, and mystery--fair scenes of mountain, woodland, or
+sea-shore; blue sky, white cloud and sunlight, or the deep and starry
+night; youth and health, strength and fertility, frankness and freedom.
+And, in such a strain, one would insist that the fondness and
+intoxication which these things quicken was natural, wise, and lovely.
+But, quite as naturally, when one has to speak of Duerer, the mind
+becomes filled with the exhilaration and the staidness that the desire
+to know and the desire to act rightly beget; with the dignity of
+conscious comprehension, the serenity of accomplished duty with all the
+strenuousness and ardour of which the soul is capable; with science
+and religion.
+
+It is natural to refer often to the towering eminence of these virtues
+in Michael Angelo; both he and Duerer were not only great artists, and
+active and powerful minds, but men imbued with, and conservative of,
+piety. And it seems to me, if we are to appreciate and sympathise deeply
+with such men, we must try to understand the religion they believed in;
+to estimate, not only what its value was supposed to be in those days,
+but what value it still has for us. Surely what they prized so highly
+must have had real and lasting worth? Surely it can only be the relation
+of that value to common speech and common thought which has changed, not
+its relation to man's most essential nature? Therefore I will first try
+to arrive at a general notion of the real worth of their ideas,--that
+is, the worth that is equally great from their point of view and ours.
+
+The whole of that period, the period of the so belauded Renascence, had
+within it (or so it seems to me) an incurable insufficiency, which
+troubles the affections of those who praise or condemn it; so that they
+show themselves more passionate than those who praise or condemn the art
+and life of ancient Greece. This insufficiency I believe to have been
+due to the fact that Christian ideas were more firmly rooted in, than
+they were understood by, the society of those days. And to-day I think
+the same cause continues to propagate a like insufficiency, a like lack
+of correspondence between effort and aim. Certain ideas found in the
+reported sayings of Jesus have so fastened upon the European intellect
+that they seem well-nigh inseparable from it. We are told that the
+effort of the Greek, of Aristotle, was to "submit to the empire of
+fact." The effort of the Jew was very similar; for the prophets, what
+happened was the will of God, what will happen is what God intends. Now
+it is noteworthy that Aristotle did not wish to submit to ignorance,
+though it and the causes which produce it and preserve it in human minds
+are among the most horrible and tremendous of facts; and it is the
+imperishable glory of the prophets, that, whatever the priest the king,
+the Sadducee or Pharisee might do, _they_ could not rest in or abide the
+idea that God's will was ever evil; no inconsistency was too glaring to
+check their indignation at Eastern fatalism which quietly supposed that
+as things went wrong it was their nature to do so;--vanity, vanity, all
+is vanity!--or that if men did wrong and prospered, it was God's doing,
+and showed that they had pleased Him with sacrifices and performances.
+
+
+II
+
+'Wherever poetry, imagination, or art had been busy, there had appeared,
+both in Judea and Greece, some degree of rebellion against the empire of
+fact.. When Jesus said: "The kingdom of heaven is within you," he
+recognised that the human reason was the antagonist of all other known
+forces, and he declared war on the god of this world and prophesied the
+downfall of--the empire of the apparent fact;--not with fume and fret,
+not with rant and rage, as poets and seers had done, but mildly
+affirming that with the soul what is best is strongest, has in the long
+run most influence; that there is one fact in the essential nature of
+man which, antagonist to the influence of all other facts, wields an
+influence destined to conquer or absorb all other influences. He said:
+"My Father which is in heaven, the master influence within me, has
+declared that I shall never find rest to my soul until I prefer His
+kingdom, the conception of my heart, to the kingdoms of earth and the
+glory of the earth." 'We have seen that Duerer describes the miracle; the
+work of art, thus:
+
+"The secret treasure which a man conceived in his heart shall appear as
+a thing" (see page 10).
+
+And we know that he prized this, the master thing, the conception of the
+heart, above everything else.
+
+Much learning is not evil to a man, though some be stiffly set against
+it, saying that art puffeth up. Were that so, then were none prouder
+than God who hath formed all arts, but that cannot be, for God is
+perfect in goodness. The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the
+better doth he become, and so much the more love doth he win for the
+arts and for things exalted.
+
+The learning Duerer chiefly intends is not book-learning or critical
+lore, but knowledge how to make, by which man becomes a creator in
+imitation of God; for this is of necessity the most perfect knowledge,
+rivalling the sureness of intuition and instinct.
+
+
+III
+
+"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
+Every one knows how anxious great artists become for the preservation of
+their works, how highly they value permanence in the materials employed,
+and immunity from the more obvious chances of destruction in the
+positions they are to occupy. Michael Angelo is said to have painted
+cracks on the Sistina ceiling to force the architect to strengthen the
+roof. When Jesus made the assertion that his teaching would outlast the
+influence of the visible world of nature and the societies of men--the
+kingdoms of earth and the glory of the earth--he did no more than every
+victorious soul strives to effect, and to feel assured that it has in
+some large degree effected; the difference between him and them is one
+of degree. It may be objected that different hearts harbour and cherish
+contradictory conceptions. Doubtless; but does the desire to win the
+co-operation and approval of other men consist with the higher
+developments of human faculties? Is it, perhaps, essential to them? If
+so, in so far as every man increases in vitality and the employment of
+his powers, he will be forced to reverence and desire the solidarity of
+the race, and consequently to relinquish or neglect whatever in his own
+ideal militates against such solidarity. And this will be the case
+whether he judge such eccentric elements to be nobler or less noble than
+the qualities which are fostered in him by the co-operation of his
+fellows. Jesus, at any rate, affirmed that the law of the kingdom within
+a man's soul was: "Love thy neighbour as thyself"; and that obedience to
+it would work in every man like leaven, which is lost sight of in the
+lump of dough, and seems to add nothing to it, yet transforms the whole
+in raising up the loaf; or as the corn of wheat which is buried in the
+glebe like a dead body, yet brings forth the blade, and nourishes a
+new life.
+
+So he that should follow Jesus by obeying the laws of the kingdom, by
+loving God (the begetter or fountainhead of a man's most essential
+conception of what is right and good) and his neighbour, was assured by
+his mild and gracious Master that he would inherit, by way of a return
+for the sacrifices which such obedience would entail, a new and better
+life. (Follow me, I laid down my life in order that I might take it
+again. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his
+life _for_ my _sake_--as I did, in imitation of me--shall find it.) For
+in order to make this very difficult obedience possible, it was to be
+turned into a labour of love done for the Master's sake. As Goethe said:
+
+  "Against the superiority of another, there is no remedy
+  but love."
+
+Is it not true that the superiority of another man humiliates, crushes
+and degrades us in our own eyes, if we envy it or hate it instead of
+loving it? while by loving it we make it in a sense ours, and can
+rejoice in it. So Jesus affirmed that he had made the superiority of the
+ideal his; so that he was in it, and it was in him, so that men who
+could no longer fix their attention on it in their own souls might love
+it in him. He was their master-conception, their true ideal, acting
+before them, captivating the attention of their senses and emotions.
+This is what a man of our times, possessed of rare receptivity and great
+range of comprehension, considered to be the pith of Jesus' teaching.
+Matthew Arnold gave much time and labour to trying to persuade men that
+this was what the religion they professed, or which was professed around
+them, most essentially meant. And he reminded us that the adequacy of
+such ideas for governing man's life depended not on the authority of a
+book or writings by eye-witnesses with or without intelligence, but on
+whether they were true in experience. He quoted Goethe's test for every
+idea about life, "But is it true, is it true for me, now?" "Taste and
+see," as the prophets put it; or as Jesus said, "Follow me." For an
+ideal must be followed, as a man woos a woman; the pursuit may have to
+be dropped, in order to be more surely recovered; an ideal must be
+humoured, not seized at once as a man seizes command over a machine.
+This _secret of success was_ was only to be won by the development of a
+temper, a spirit of docility. To love it in an example was the best,
+perhaps the only way of gaining possession of it.
+
+
+IV
+
+As we are placed, what hope can we have but to learn? and what is there
+from which we might not learn? An artist is taught by the materials he
+uses more essentially than by the objects he contemplates; for these
+teach him "how," and perfect him in creating, those only teach him
+"what," and suggest forms to be created. But for men in general the
+"what" is more important than the "how"; and only very powerful art can
+exhilarate and refine them by means of subjects which they dislike
+or avoid.
+
+Every seer of beauty is not a creator of beautiful things; and in art
+the "how" is so much more essential than the "what," that artists create
+unworthy or degrading objects beautifully, so that we admire their art
+as much as we loathe its employment; in nature, too, such objects are
+met with, created by the god of this world. A good man, too, may create
+in a repulsive manner objects whose every association is ennobling or
+elevating.
+
+"The kingdom of heaven is within you," but hell is also within.
+
+  "Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
+  In one self place; for where we are is hell
+  And where hell is, must we for ever be:
+  And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
+  And every creature shall be purified,
+  All places shall be hell that are not heaven,"
+
+as Marlowe makes his Mephistophilis say: and the best art is the most
+perfect expression of that which is within, of heaven or of hell.
+Goethe said:
+
+"In the Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was simple and positive, we
+encounter expressions of approval more often than of disapproval. With
+the Romans, on the other hand, the contrary holds good; and the more
+corrupted poetry and rhetoric become, the more will censure grow and
+praise diminish."
+
+I have sometimes thought that the difference between classic and more or
+less decadent art lies in the fact that by the one things are
+appreciated for what they most essentially are--a young man, a swift
+horse, a chaste wife, &c.--by the other for some more or less peculiar
+or accidental relation that they hold to the creator. Such writers
+lament that the young are not old, the old not young, prostitutes not
+pure, that maidens are cold and modest or matrons portly. They complain
+of having suffered from things being cross, or they take malicious
+pleasure in pointing that crossness out; whereas classical art always
+rebounds from the perception that things are evil to the assertion of
+what ought to be or shall be. It triumphs over the Prince of Darkness,
+and covers a multitude of sins, as dew or hoar frost cover and make
+beautiful a dunghill. Dunghills exist; but he who makes of Macbeth's or
+Clytemnestra's crimes an elevating or exhilarating spectacle triumphs
+over the god of this world, as Jesus did when he made the most
+ignominious death the symbol, of his victory and glory. Little wonder
+that Albert Duerer, and Michael Angelo found such deep satisfaction in
+Him as the object of their worship--his method of docility was
+next-of-kin to that of their art. Respect and solicitude create the
+soul, and these two pre-eminently docile passions preside over the
+soul's creation, whether it be a society, a life, or a thing of beauty.
+
+
+V
+
+  Here, when art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
+  Lived and laboured Albrecht Duerer, the Evangelist of Art.
+
+These jingling lines would scarcely merit consideration but that they
+express a common notion which has its part of truth as well as of error.
+Let us examine the first assertion (that art has been religion.)
+Baudelaire, in his _Curiosites Esthetiques_ says: _La premiere affaire
+d'un artiste est de substituer l'homme a la nature et de protester
+contre elle_. ("The first thing for an artist is to substitute man for
+nature and to protest against her.") The beginners and the smatterers
+are always "students of nature," and suppose that to be so will suffice;
+but when the understanding and imagination gain width and elasticity,
+life is more and more understood as a long struggle to overcome or
+humanise nature by that which most essentially distinguishes man from
+other animals and inanimate nature. Religion should be the drill and
+exercise of the human faculties to fit them and maintain them in
+readiness for this struggle; the work of art should be the assertion of
+victory. A life worthy of remembrance is a work of art, a life worthy of
+universal remembrance is a masterpiece: only the materials employed
+differentiate it from any other work of art. The life of Jesus is
+considered as such a masterpiece. Thus we can say that if art has never
+been religion, religion has always been and ever will be an art.
+
+Now let us examine the second assertion that Duerer was an evangelist.
+What kind of character do we mean to praise when we say a man is an
+evangelist? Two only of the four evangelists can be said to reveal any
+ascertainable personality, and only St. John is sufficiently outlined to
+stand as a type; but I do not think we mean to imply a resemblance to
+St. John. The bringer of good news, the evangelist par excellence, was
+Jesus. He it was who made it evident that the sons of men have power to
+forgive sins. Victory over evil possible--this was the good news. No
+doubt every sincere Christian is supposed to be a more or less
+successful imitator of Jesus; and as such, Duerer may rightly be called
+an evangelist. But more than this is I think, implied in the use of the
+word; an evangelist is, for us above all a bringer of good news in
+something of the same manner as Jesus brought it, by living among
+sinners for those sinners' sake, among paupers for those paupers' sake;
+to see a man sweet, radiant, and victorious under these circumstances,
+is to see an evangelist. Goethe's final claim is that, "after all, there
+are honest people up and down the world who have got light from my
+books; and whoever reads them, and gives himself the trouble to
+understand me, will acknowledge that he has acquired thence a certain
+inward freedom"; and for this reason I have been tempted to call him the
+evangelist of the modern world. But it is best to use the word as I
+believe it is most correctly employed, and not to yield to the
+temptation (for tempting it is) to call men like Duerer and Goethe
+evangelists. They are teachers who charm as well as inform us, as Jesus
+was; but they are not evangelists in the sense that he was, for they did
+not deal directly with human life where it is forced most against its
+distinctive desire for increase in nobility, or is most obviously
+degraded by having betrayed it.'[11]
+
+
+VI
+
+I have often heard it objected that Jesus is too feminine an ideal, too
+much based on renunciation and the effort to make the best of failure.
+No doubt that as women are, by the necessity of their function, more
+liable to the ship-wreck of their hopes, the bankruptcy of their powers,
+they have been drawn to cling to this hope of salvation in greater
+numbers, and with more fervour; so that the most general idea of Jesus
+may be a feminine one. It does not follow that this is the most correct
+or the best: every object, every person will appear differently to
+different natures. And it still remains true that there have been a
+great many men of very various types who have drawn strength and beauty
+from the contemplation and reverence of Jesus. That this ideal is too
+much based on making the best of failure is an objection that makes very
+little impression on me, for I think I perceive that failure is one of
+the most constant and widespread conditions of the universe, and even
+more certainly of human life.
+
+
+VII
+
+It remains now to see in what degree these ideas were felt or made
+themselves felt through the Romanism and Lutheranism of the Renascence
+period. Perhaps we English shall best recognise the presence of these
+ideas, the working of this leaven--this docility, the necessary midwife
+of 'genius, who transforms the difficult tasks which the human reason
+sets herself into labours of love--in an Englishman; so my first example
+shall be taken from Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet.
+
+It was then that my acquaintance with him began, he being then thirty, I
+two or three months his junior. He had no theological degree, but the
+whole University, doctors and all, went to hear him. Henry VII took note
+of him, and made him Dean of St. Paul's. His first step was to restore
+discipline in the Chapter, which had all gone to wreck. He preached
+every saint's day to great crowds. He cut down household expenses, and
+abolished suppers and evening parties. At dinner a boy reads a chapter
+from Scripture; Colet takes a passage from it and discourses to the
+universal delight. Conversation is his chief pleasure, and he will keep
+it up till midnight if he finds a companion. Me he has often taken with
+him on his walks, and talks all the time of Christ. He hates coarse
+language, furniture, dress, food, books, all clean and tidy, but
+scrupulously plain; and he wears grey woollen when priests generally go
+in purple. With the large fortune which he inherited from his father, he
+founded and endowed a school at St. Paul's entirely at his own cost--
+masters, houses, salaries, everything.
+
+He is a man of genuine piety. He was not born with it. He was naturally
+hot, impetuous and resentful--indolent, fond of pleasure and of women's
+society--disposed to make a joke of everything. He told me that he had
+fought against his faults with study, fasting and prayer, and thus his
+whole life was in fact unpolluted with the world's defilements. His
+money he gave all to pious uses, worked incessantly, talked always on
+serious subjects, to conquer his disposition to levity; not but what you
+could see traces of the old Adam when wit was flying at feast or
+festival. He avoided large parties for this reason. He dined on a single
+dish, with a draught or two of light ale. He liked good wine, but
+abstained on principle. I never knew a man of sunnier nature. No one
+ever more enjoyed cultivated society; but here, too, he denied himself,
+and was always thinking of the life to come.
+
+His opinions were peculiar, and he was reserved in expressing them for
+fear of exciting suspicion. He knew how unfairly men judge each other,
+how credulous they are of evil, how much easier it is for a lying tongue
+to stain a reputation than for a friend to clear it. But among his
+friends he spoke his mind freely.
+
+He admitted privately that many things were generally taught which he
+did not believe, but he would not create a scandal by blurting out his
+objections. No book could be so heretical but he would read it, and read
+it carefully. He learnt more from such books than he learnt from
+dogmatism and interested orthodoxy.[12]
+
+Some may wonder what Colet could have found to say about Christ which
+could not only interest but delight the young and witty Erasmus; and may
+judge that at any rate to-day such a subject is sufficiently fly-blown.
+The proper reflection to make is, "A rose by any other name would smell
+as sweet."
+
+Whether we say Christ or Perfection does not matter, it is what we mean
+which is either enthralling or dull, fresh or fusty; "there's nothing
+in a name."
+
+"When Colet speaks I might be listening to Plato," says Erasmus in
+another place, at a time when he was still younger and had just come
+from what had been a gay and perhaps in some measure a dissolute life in
+Paris: not that it is possible to imagine Erasmus as at any time
+committing great excesses, or deeply sinning against the sense of
+proportion and measure.
+
+Success is the only criterion, as in art, so in religion: the man that
+plucks out his eye and casts it from him, and remains the dull, greedy,
+distressful soul he was before, is a damned fool; but the man who does
+the same and becomes such that his younger friends report of him, "I
+never knew a sunnier nature," is an artist in life, a great artist in
+the sense that Christ is supposed to have been a great master; one who
+draws men to him, as bees are drawn to flowers. Colet drew the young
+Henry the Eighth as well as Erasmus. "The King said: 'Let every man
+choose his own doctor. Dean Colet shall be mine!'" Though no doubt
+charlatans have often fascinated young scholars and monarchs, yet it is
+peculiarly impossible to think of Colet as a charlatan.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Next let us take a sonnet and a sentence from Michael Angelo:
+
+  Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
+  And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;
+  For if of our affections none finds grace
+  In sight of heaven, then, wherefore hath God made
+  The world which we inhabit? Better plea
+  Love cannot have than that in loving thee
+  Glory to that eternal peace is paid,
+  Who such divinity to thee imparts,
+  As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
+  His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
+  With beauty, which is varying every hour;
+  But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power
+  Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
+  That breathes on earth the air of paradise.[13]
+
+It is very remarkable how strongly the conviction of permanence, and the
+preference for the inward conception over external beauty are expressed
+in this fine sonnet; and also that the reason given for accepting the
+discipline of love is that experience shows how it "hallows and makes
+pure all gentle hearts." In such a love poem--the object of which might
+very well have been Jesus--I seem to find more of the spirit of his
+religion, whereby he binds his disciples to the Father that ruled within
+him, till they too feel the bond of parentage as deeply as himself and
+become sons with him of his Father;--more of that binding power of Jesus
+is for me expressed in this fine sonnet than in Luther's Catechism. The
+religion that enables a great artist to write of love in this strain, is
+the religion of docility, of the meek and lowly heart. For Michael
+Angelo was not a man by nature of a meek and lowly heart, any more than
+Colet was a man naturally saintly or than Luther was a man naturally
+refined. But because Michael Angelo thus prefers the kingdom of heaven
+to external beauty, one must not suppose that he, its arch high-priest,
+despised it. Nobody had a more profound respect for the thing of beauty,
+whether it was the creation of God or man. He said:
+
+"Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavour to
+create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives for
+perfection, strives for something that is God-like."
+
+Now we can perceive how the same spirit worked in a great artist, not at
+Nuremberg or London, but at Rome, the centre of the world, where a
+Borgia could be Pope.
+
+
+IX
+
+Erasmus, the typical humanist, the man who loved humanity so much that
+he felt that his love for it might tempt him to fight against God,
+travelled from the one world to the other; passed from the society of
+cardinals and princes to the seclusion of burgher homes in London, or to
+chat with Duerer at Antwerp. He belonged perhaps to neither world at
+heart; but how greatly his love and veneration of the one exceeded his
+admiration and sense of the practical utility of the other, a comparison
+of his sketch of Colet with such a note as this from his New Testament
+makes abundantly plain:
+
+"I saw with my own eyes Pope Julius II. at Bologna, and afterwards at
+Rome, marching at the head of a triumphal procession as if he were
+Pompey or Caesar. St. Peter subdued the world with faith, not with arms
+or soldiers or military engines. St. Peter's successors would win as
+many victories as St. Peter won if they had Peter's spirit."
+
+But we must not forget that the book in which these notes appeared was
+published with the approval of a Pope, and that he and others sought its
+author for advice as to how to cope best with their more hot-headed
+enemy Martin Luther. We must also remember that we are told that Colet
+"was not very hard on priests and monks who only sinned with women. He
+did not make light of impurity, but thought it less criminal than spite
+and malice and envy and vanity and ignorance. The loose sort were at
+least made human and modest by their very faults, and he regarded
+avarice and arrogance as blacker sins in a priest than a hundred
+concubines." This spirit was not that of the Reformation which came to
+stop, yet it existed and was widespread at that time; it was I think the
+spirit which either formed or sustained most of the great artists. At
+any rate it both formed and sustained Albert Duerer. Yet the true nature
+of these ideas, derived from Jesus, could not be understood even by
+Colet, even by Erasmus. For them it was tradition which gave value and
+assured truth to Christ's ideas, not the truth of those ideas which gave
+value to the traditions and legends concerning him. The value of those
+ideas was felt, sometimes nearer, sometimes further off; it was loved
+and admired; their lives were apprehended by it, and spent in
+illustrating and studying it, as were also those of Albert Duerer and
+Michael Angelo. To understand the life and work of such men, we must
+form some conception of the true nature and value of those ideas, as I
+have striven to do in this chapter. Otherwise we shall merely admire and
+love them, as they admired and loved Jesus; and it has now become a
+point of honour with educated men not only to love and admire, but to
+make the effort to understand. Even they desired to do this. And I think
+we may rejoice that the present time gives us some advantage over those
+days, at least in this respect.
+
+
+X
+
+And lastly, in order to bring us back to our main subject, let us quote
+from a stray leaf of a lost MS. Book of Duerer's, which contains the
+description of his father's death.
+
+    ... desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap
+    on his head had suddenly become wet with drops of sweat. Then
+    he asked to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfell wine. He
+    took a very little of it, and then desired to get into bed
+    again and thanked her. And when he had got into bed he fell
+    at once into his last agony. The old wife quickly kindled the
+    candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard's verses, and
+    ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to
+    him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly
+    to my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was
+    gone. I saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not
+    been worthy to be with him at his end.
+
+    And thus in the night before S. Matthew's eve my father
+    passed away, in the year above mentioned (Sept. 20, 1502)
+    --the merciful God help me also to a happy end--and he left
+    my mother an afflicted widow behind him. He was ever wont to
+    praise her highly to me, saying what a good wife she was,
+    wherefore I intend never to forsake her. I pray you for God's
+    sake, all ye my friends, when you read of the death of my
+    father, to remember his soul with an "Our Father" and an "Ave
+    Maria"; and also for your own sake, that we may so serve God
+    as to attain a happy life and the blessing of a good end. For
+    it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill
+    from this world, for God is full of compassion. Through which
+    may He grant us, after this pitiful life, the joy of
+    everlasting salvation--in the name of the Father, the Son,
+    and the Holy Ghost, at the beginning and at the end, one
+    Eternal Governor. Amen.
+
+The last sentences of this may seem to share in the character of the
+vain repetitions of words with which professed believers are only too
+apt to weary and disgust others. They are in any case commonplaces: the
+image has taken the place of the object; the Father in heaven is not
+considered so much as the paternal governor of the inner life as the
+ruler of a future life and of this world. The use of such phrases is as
+much idolatry as the worship of statue and picture, or as little, if the
+words are repeated, as I think in this case they were, out of a feeling
+of awe and reverence for preceding mental impressions and experiences,
+and not because their repetition in itself was counted for
+righteousness. Their use, if this was so, is no more to be found fault
+with than the contemplation of pictures or statues of holy personages in
+order to help the mind to attend to their ensample, or the reading of a
+poem, to fill the mind with ennobling emotions. Idolatry is natural and
+right in children and other simple souls among primitive peoples or
+elsewhere. It is a stage in mental development. Lovers pass through the
+idolatrous stage of their passion just as children cut their teeth. It
+is a pity to see individuals or nations remain childish in this respect
+just as much as in any other, or to see them return to it in their
+decrepitude. But a temper, a spirit, an influence cannot easily be
+apprehended apart from examples and images; and perhaps the clearest
+reason is only the exercise of an infinitely elastic idolatry, which
+with sprightly efficiency finds and worships good in everything, just as
+the devout, in Duerer's youth, found sermons in stones, carved stones
+representing saint, bishop, or Virgin. And Duerer all his life long
+continued to produce pictures and engravings which were intended to
+preach such sermons.
+
+Goethe admirably remarks:
+
+"_Superstition_ is the poetry of life; the poet therefore suffers no
+harm from being _superstitious_." (Aberglaube.)
+
+Superstition and idolatry are an expenditure of emotion of a kind and
+degree which the true facts would not warrant; poetry when least
+superstitious is a like exercise of the emotions in order to raise and
+enhance them; superstition when most poetical unconsciously effects the
+same thing.
+
+This glimpse he gives of the way in which death visited his home, and
+how the visitation impressed him, is coloured and glows with that temper
+of docility which made Colet school himself so severely, and was the
+source of Michael Angelo's so fervent outpourings. And all through the
+accounts which remain of his life, we may trace the same spirit ever
+anew setting him to school, and renewing his resolution to learn both
+from his feelings and from his senses.
+
+
+XI
+
+As I took a sentence from Michael Angelo, I will now take a sentence
+from Duerer, one showing strongly that evangelical strain so
+characteristic of him, born of his intuitive sense for human solidarity.
+After an argument, which will be found on page 306, he concludes: "It is
+right, therefore, for one man to teach another. He that doeth so
+joyfully, upon him shall much be bestowed by God."[14] These last words,
+like the last phrases of my former quotation from him, may stand perhaps
+in the way of some, as nowadays they may easily sound glib or
+irreverent. But are we less convinced that only tasks done joyfully, as
+labours of love, deserve the reward of fuller and finer powers, and
+obtain it? When Duerer thought of God, he did not only think of a
+mythological personage resembling an old king; he thought of a mind, an
+intention, "for God is perfect in goodness." Words so easily come to
+obscure what they were meant to reveal; and if we think how the notion
+of perfect goodness rules and sways such a man's mind, we shall not
+wonder that he did not stumble at the omnipotency which revolts us,
+cowed as we are by the presence of evil. The old gentleman dressed like
+a king;--this was not the part of his ideas about God which occupied
+Duerer's mind. He accepted it, but did not think about it: it filled what
+would otherwise have been a blank in his mind and in the minds of those
+about him. But he was constantly anxious about what he ought to do and
+study in order to fulfil the best in himself, and about what ought to be
+done by his town, his nation, and the civilisation that then was, in
+order to turn man's nature and the world to an account answerable to the
+beauty of their fairer aspects. God was the will that commanded that
+"consummation devoutly to be wished." Obedience to His law revealed in
+the Bible was the means by which this command could be carried out; and
+to a man turning from the Church as it then existed to the newly
+translated Bible texts, the commands of God as declared in those texts
+seemed of necessity reason itself compared with the commands of the
+Popes; were, in fact, infinitely more reasonable, infinitely more akin
+to a good man's mind and will. Luther's revolt is for us now
+characterised by those elements in it which proved inadequate--were
+irrational; but then these were insignificant in comparison with the
+light which his downright honesty shed on the monstrous and amazingly
+irrational Church. This huge closed society of bigots and worldlings
+which arrogated to itself all powers human and divine, and used them
+according to the lusts and intemperance of an Alexander Borgia, a Julius
+II., and a Leo X., was that farce perception of which made Rabelais
+shake the world with laughter, and which roused such consuming
+indignation in Luther and Calvin that they created the gloomy
+puritanical asylums in which millions of Germans, English, and Americans
+were shut up for two hundred years, as Matthew Arnold puts it. But Duerer
+was not so immured: even Luther at heart neither was himself, nor
+desired that others should be, prevented from enjoying the free use of
+their intellectual powers. It was because he was less perspicacious than
+Erasmus that he did not see that this was what he was inevitably doing
+in his wrath and in his haste.
+
+
+XII
+
+Erasmus was, perhaps, the man in Europe who at that time displayed most
+docility; the man whom neither sickness, the desire for wealth and
+honour, the hope to conquer, the lust to engage in disputes, nor the
+adverse chances that held him half his life in debt and necessitous
+straits, and kept him all his life long a vagrant, constantly upon the
+road--the man in whom none of these things could weaken a marvellous
+assiduity to learn and help others to learn. He it was who had most
+kinship with Duerer among the artists then alive; for Duerer is very
+eminent among them for this temper of docility. It is interesting to see
+how he once turned to Erasmus in a devout meditation, written in the
+journal he kept during his journey to the Netherlands. His voice comes
+to us from an atmosphere charged with the electric influence of the
+greatest Reformer, Martin Luther, who had just disappeared, no man knew
+why or whither; though all men suspected foul play. In his daily life,
+by sweetness of manner, by gentle dignity and modesty, Duerer showed his
+religion, the admiration and love that bound his life, in a way that at
+all times and in all places commands applause. The burning indignation
+of the following passage may in times of spiritual peace or somnolence
+appear over-wrought and uncouth. We must remember that all that Duerer
+loved had been bound by his religion to the teaching and inspiration of
+Jesus, and had become inseparable from it. All that he loved--learning,
+clear and orderly thought, honesty, freedom to express the worship of
+his heart without its being turned to a mockery by cynical monk, priest,
+or prelate;--these things directly, and indirectly art itself, seemed to
+him threatened by the corruption of the Papal power. We must remember
+this; for we shall naturally feel, as Erasmus did, that the path of
+martyrdom was really a short cut, which a wider view of the surrounding
+country would have shown him to be likely to prove the longest way in
+the end. Indeed the world is not altogether yet arrived where he thought
+Erasmus could bring it in less than two years. And Luther himself
+returned to the scene and was active, without any such result, a dozen
+years and more.
+
+Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou a little old
+man, and myself have heard thee say that thou givest thyself but two
+years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to accomplish somewhat. Lay
+out the same well for the good of the Gospel, and of the true Christian
+faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ says, shall the Gates of
+Hell in no wise prevail against thee. And if here below thou wert to be
+like thy master Christ, and sufferest infamy at the hands of the liars
+of this time, and didst die a little sooner, then wouldst thou the
+sooner pass from death unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou
+drinkest of the cup which He drank of, _with Him shalt thou reign and
+judge with justice those who_ HAVE _dealt unrighteously_. Oh! Erasmus!
+cleave to this, that God Himself may be thy praise, even as it is
+written of David. For thou mayest, yea, verily thou mayest overthrow
+Goliath. Because God stands by the Holy Christian Church, even as He
+alone upholds the Roman Church, according to His godly will. May He help
+us to everlasting salvation, who is God the Father, the Son, and Holy
+Ghost, one eternal God! Amen!!
+
+"With Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice those that have dealt
+unrighteously." This will seem to many a mere cry for revenge; and so
+perhaps it was. Still it may have been, as it seems to me to have been,
+uttered rather in the spirit of Moses' "Forgive their sin--and if not,
+blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book"; or the "Heaven and earth shall
+pass away, but my words shall not pass away" of Jesus. If the necessity
+for victory was uppermost, the opportunity for revenge may scarcely have
+been present to Duerer's mind.
+
+It is now more generally recognised than in Luther's day that however
+sweet vengeance may be, it is not admirable, either in God or man.
+
+The total impression produced by Duerer's life and work must help each to
+decide for himself which sense he considers most likely. The truth, as
+in most questions of history, remains for ever in the balance, and
+cannot be ascertained.
+
+
+XIII
+
+I have called docility the necessary midwife of Genius, for so it is;
+and religion is a discipline that constrains us to learn. The religion
+of Jesus constrains us to learn the most difficult things, binds us to
+the most arduous tasks that the mind of man sets itself, as a lover is
+bound by his affection to accomplish difficult feats for his mistress'
+sake. Such tasks as Michael Angelo and Duerer set themselves require that
+the lover's eagerness and zest shall not be exhausted; and to keep them
+fresh and abundant, in spite of cross circumstances, a discipline of the
+mind and will is required. This is what they found in the worship of
+Jesus. The influence of this religious hopefulness and self-discipline
+on the creative power prevents its being exhausted, perverted, or
+embittered; and in order that it may effect this perfectly, that
+influence must be abundant not only within the artist, as it was in
+Michael Angelo and Duerer, but in the world about them.
+
+This, then, is the value of religious influence to creative art: and
+though we to-day necessarily regard the personages, localities, and
+events of the creed as coming under the category of "things that are
+not," we may still as fervently hope and expect that the things of that
+category may "bring to nought the things that are," including the
+superstitious reverence for the creed and its unprovable statements; for
+has not the victory in human things often been with the things that were
+not, but which were thus ardently desired and expected? To inquire which
+of those things are best calculated to advance and nourish creative
+power, and in what manner, should engage the artist's attention far more
+than it has of late years. For what he loves, what he hopes, and what he
+expects would seem, if we study past examples, to exercise as important
+an influence on a man's creative power as his knowledge of, and respect
+for, the materials and instruments which he controls do upon his
+executive capacity.
+
+The universe in which man finds himself may be evil, but not everything
+it contains is so: then it must for ever remain our only wisdom to
+labour to transform those parts which we judge to be evil into likeness
+or conformity to those we judge to be good: and surely he who neglects
+the forces of hope and adoration in that effort, neglects the better
+half of his practical strength? The central proposition of Christianity,
+that this end can only be attained by contemplation and imitation of an
+example, is, we shall in another place (pp. [305-312]) find, maintained
+as true in regard to art by Duerer, and by Reynolds, our greatest writer
+on aesthetics. These great artists, so dissimilar in the outward aspects
+of their creations, agree in considering that the only way of
+advancement open to the aspirant is the attempt to form himself on the
+example of others, by imitating them not slavishly or mechanically, but
+in the same spirit in which they imitated their forerunners: even as the
+Christian is bound to seek union with Christ in the same spirit or way
+in which Jesus had achieved union with his Father--that is, by laying
+down life to take it again, in meekness and lowliness of heart. Docility
+is the sovran help to perfection for Duerer and Reynolds, and more or
+less explicitly for all other great artists who have treated of these
+questions.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 11: Of course all that may have been meant by the phrase "the
+Evangelist of Art" is that Duerer illustrated the narrative of the
+Passion; but by this he is not distinguished from many others, and the
+phrase is suggestive of far more.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Froude's "Life of Erasmus," Lecture vi.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Wordsworth's Translation,]
+
+[Footnote 14: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 176.]
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+DUeRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DUeRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH AND EDUCATION
+
+
+I
+
+Who was Duerer? He has told us himself very simply, and more fully than
+men of his type generally do; for he was not, like Montaigne, one whose
+chief study was himself. Yet, though he has done this, it is not easy
+for us to fully understand him. It is perhaps impossible to place
+oneself in the centre of that horizon which was of necessity his and
+belonged to his day, a vast circle from which men could no more escape
+than we from ours; this cage of iron ignorance in which every human soul
+is trapped, and to widen and enlarge which every heroic soul lives and
+dies. This cage appeared to his eyes very different from what it does to
+ours; yet it has always been a cage, and is only lost sight of at times
+when the light from within seems to flow forth, and with its radiant
+sapphire heaven of buoyancy and desire to veil the eternal bars. It is
+well to remind ourselves that ignorance was the most momentous, the most
+cruel condition of his life, as of our own; and that the effort to
+relieve himself of its pressure, either by the pursuit of knowledge, or
+by giving spur and bridle to the imagination that it might course round
+him dragging the great woof of illusion, and tent him in the ethereal
+dream of the soul's desire, was the constant effort and resource of
+his days.
+
+
+II
+
+At the age of fifty-three he took the pen and commenced:
+
+In the year 1524, I, Albrecht Duerer the younger, have put together from
+my father's papers the facts as to whence he was, how he came hither,
+lived here, and drew to a happy end. God be gracious to him and
+us! Amen.
+
+Like his relatives, Albrecht Duerer the elder was born in the kingdom of
+Hungary, in a little village named Eytas, situated not far from a little
+town called Gyula, eight miles below Grosswardein; and his kindred made
+their living from horses and cattle. My father's father was called Anton
+Duerer; he came as a lad to a goldsmith in the said little town and
+learnt the craft under him. He afterwards married a girl named
+Elizabeth, who bare him a daughter, Katharina, and three sons. The first
+son he named Albrecht; he was my dear father. He too became a goldsmith,
+a pure and skilful man. The second son he called Ladislaus; he was a
+saddler. His son is my cousin Niklas Duerer, called Niklas the Hungarian,
+who is settled at Koeln. He also is a goldsmith, and learnt the craft
+here in Nuernberg with my father. The third son he called John. Him he
+set to study, and he afterwards became a parson at Grosswardein, and
+continued there thirty years.
+
+So Albrecht Duerer, my dear father, came to Germany. He had been a long
+time with the great artists in the Netherlands. At last he came hither
+to Nuernberg in the year, as reckoned from the birth of Christ, 1455, on
+S. Elogius' day (June 25). And on the same day Philip Pirkheimer had his
+marriage feast at the Veste, and there was a great dance under the big
+lime tree. For a long time after that my dear father, Albrecht Duerer,
+served my grandfather, old Hieronymus Holper, till the year reckoned
+1467 after the birth of Christ. My grandfather then gave him his
+daughter, a pretty upright girl, fifteen years old, named Barbara; and
+he was wedded to her eight days before S. Vitus (June 8). It may also be
+mentioned that my grandmother, my mother's mother, was the daughter of
+Oellinger of Weissenburg, and her name was Kunigunde.
+
+And my dear father had by his marriage with my dear mother the following
+children born--which I set down here word for word as he wrote it in
+his book:
+
+Here follow eighteen items, only one of which, the third, is of
+interest.
+
+3. Item, in the year 1471 after the birth of Christ, in the sixth hour
+of the day, on S. Prudentia's day, a Tuesday in Rogation Week (May 21),
+my wife bare me my second son. His godfather was Anton Koburger, and he
+named him Albrecht after me, &c. &c.
+
+All these, my brothers and sisters, my dear father's children, are now
+dead, some in their childhood, others as they were growing up; only we
+three brothers still live, so long as God will, namely: I, Albrecht, and
+my brother Andreas and my brother Hans, the third of the name, my
+father's children.
+
+This Albrecht Duerer the elder passed his life in great toil and stern
+hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his
+hand for himself, his wife and his children, so that he had little
+enough. He underwent moreover manifold afflictions, trials, and
+adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived
+an honourable, Christian life, was a man of patient spirit, mild and
+peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had
+little need of company and worldly pleasures; he was also of few words,
+and was a God-fearing man.
+
+
+III
+
+We shall, I think, often do well, when considering the superb
+ostentation of Duerer's workmanship, with its superabundance of curve and
+flourish, its delight in its own ease and grace, to think of those young
+men among his ancestors who made their living from horses on the
+wind-swept plains of Hungary. The perfect control which it is the
+delight of lads brought up and developing under such conditions to
+obtain over the galloping steed, is similar to the control which it
+gratified Duerer to perfect over the dashing stroke of pen or brush,
+which, however swift and impulsive, is yet brought round and performs to
+a nicety a predetermined evolution. And the way he puts a little
+portrait of himself, finely dressed, into his most important pictures,
+may also carry our thoughts away to the banks of the Danube where it
+winds and straggles over the steppes, to picture some young
+horse-breeder, whose costume and harness are his only wealth; who rides
+out in the morning as the cock-bustard that, having preened himself,
+paces before the hen birds on the plains that he can scour when his
+wings, which are slow in the air, join with his strong legs to make
+nothing of grassy leagues on leagues. And first, this life with its free
+sweeping horizon, and the swallow-like curves of its gallops for the
+sake of galloping, or those which the long lashes of its whips trace in
+deploying, and which remind us of the lithe tendrils in which terminate
+Duerer's ornamental flourishes; this life in which the eye is trained to
+watch the lasso, as with well-calculated address it swirls out and drops
+over the frighted head of an unbroken colt;--this life is first pent up
+in a little goldsmith's shop, in a country even to-day famous for the
+beauty and originality of its peasant jewelry: and here it is trained to
+follow and answer the desire of the bright dark eyes of girls in
+love;--in love, where love and the beauty that inspires it are the gifts
+of nature most guarded and most honoured, from which are expected the
+utmost that is conceived of delicacy in delight by a virile and healthy
+race. "A pure and skilful man." Patient already has this life become,
+for a jeweller can scarcely be made of impatient stuff; patient even
+before the admixture of German blood when Albert the elder married his
+Barbara Holper. The two eldest sons were made jewellers; but the third,
+John, is set to study and becomes a parson, as if already learning and
+piety stood next in the estimation of this life after thrift, skill and
+the creation of ornament. And Germany boasts of this life beyond that of
+any of her sons; but her blood was probably of small importance to the
+efficiency that it attained to in the great Albert Duerer. The German
+name of Duerer or Thuerer, a door, is quite as likely to be the
+translation, correct or otherwise, of some Hungarian name, as it is an
+indication that the family had originally emigrated from Germany. In any
+case, a large admixture by intermarriage of Slavonic blood would
+correspond to the unique distinction among Germans, attained in the
+dignity, sweetness and fineness which signalised Duerer. Of course, in
+such matters no sane man looks for proof; but neither will he reject a
+probable suggestion which may help us to understand the nature of an
+exceptional man.
+
+
+IV
+
+Duerer continues to speak of his childhood:
+
+And my father took special pleasure in me, because he saw that I was
+diligent to learn. So he sent me to school, and when I had learnt to
+read and write he took me away from it, and taught me the goldsmith's
+craft. But when I could work neatly, my liking drew me rather to
+painting than to goldsmith's work, so I laid it before my father; but he
+was not well pleased, regretting the time lost while I had been learning
+to be a goldsmith. Still he let it be as I wished, and in 1486 (reckoned
+from the birth of Christ) on S. Andrew's day (November 30) my father
+bound me apprentice to Michael Wolgemut, to serve him three years long.
+During that time God gave me diligence, so that I learnt well, but I had
+much to suffer from his lads.
+
+When I had finished my learning my father sent me off, and I stayed away
+four years till he called me back again. As I had gone forth in the year
+1490 after Easter (Easter Sunday was April 11), so now I came back again
+in 1494 as it is reckoned after Whitsuntide (Whit Sunday was May 18).
+
+Erasmus tells us that German disorders were "partly due to the natural
+fierceness of the race, partly to the division into so many separate
+States, and partly to the tendency of the people to serve as
+mercenaries." That there were many swaggerers and bullies about, we
+learn from Duerer's prints. In every crowd these gentlemen in leathern
+tights, with other ostentatious additions to their costume, besides
+poniards and daggers to emphasise the brutal male, strut straddle-legged
+and self-assured; and of course raw lads and loutish prentices yielded
+them the sincerest flattery. We can well understand that the model boy,
+to whom "God had given diligence," with his long hair lovely as a
+girl's, and his consciousness of being nearly always in the right, had
+much to suffer from his fellow prentices. Besides, very likely, he
+already consorted with Willibald Pirkheimer and his friends, who were
+the aristocrats of the town. And though he may have been meek and
+gentle, there must have appeared in everything he did and was an
+assertion of superiority, all the more galling for its being difficult
+to define and as ready to blush as the innocent truth herself.
+
+
+V
+
+It is much argued as to where Duerer went when his father "sent him off."
+We have the direct statement of a contemporary, Christopher Scheurl,
+that he visited Colmar and Basle; and what is well nigh as good, for a
+visit to Venice. For Scheurl wrote in 1508: _Qui quum nuper in Italiam
+rediset, tum a Venetis, tum a Bononiensibus artificibus, me saepe
+interprete cansalutatus est alter Apelles._
+
+"When he lately _returned_ to Italy, he was often greeted as a second
+Apelles, by the craftsmen both of Venice and Bologna (I acting as their
+interpreter)."
+
+Before we accept any of these statements it is well to remember how
+easily quite intimate friends make mistakes as to where one has been and
+when; even about journeys that in one's own mind either have been or
+should have been turning-points in one's life. For they will attribute
+to the past experiences which were never ours, or forget those which we
+consider most unforgettable. No one who has paid attention to these
+facts will consider that historians prove so much or so well as they
+often fancy themselves to do. In the present case what is really
+remarkable is, that none of these sojournings of the young artist in
+foreign art centres seem to have produced such a change in his art as
+can now be traced with assurance. At Colmar he saw the masterpieces and
+the brothers of the "admirable Martin," as he always calls Schongauer.
+At Basle there is still preserved a cut wood-block representing St.
+Jerome, on the back of which is an authentic signature; there is besides
+a series of uncut wood-blocks, the designs on which it is easy to
+imagine to have been produced by the travelling journeyman that Duerer
+then seemed to the printers and painters of the towns he passed through.
+By those processes by which anything can be made of anything, much has
+been done to give substantiality to the implied first visit to Venice.
+There are drawings which were probably made there, representing ladies
+resembling those in pictures by Carpaccio as to their garments, the
+dressing of their hair, and the type of their faces. Of course it is not
+impossible that such a lady or ladies may have visited Nuremberg, or
+been seen by the young wanderer at Basle or elsewhere. And the
+resemblance between a certain drawing in the Albertina and one of the
+carved lions in red marble now on the Piazzetta de' Leoni does not count
+for much, when we consider that there is nothing in the workmanship of
+these heads to suggest that they were done after sculptured
+originals;--the manes, &c., being represented by an easy penman's
+convention, as they might have been whether the models were living or
+merely imagined. Nor is there any good reason for dating the drawings of
+sites in the Tyrol, supposed to have been sketched on the road, rather
+this year than another. Lastly, the famous sentence in a letter written
+from Venice during Duerer's authenticated visit there, in 1506, may be
+construed in more than one sense. The passage is generally rather
+curtailed when quoted.
+
+He (Giovanni Bellini) is very old, but is still the best painter of them
+all. The thing that pleased me so well eleven years ago, pleases me now
+no more; if I had not seen it for myself, I should never have believed
+any one who told me. You must know, too, that there are many better
+painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo de' Barbari) is abroad; yet
+Anton Kolb would swear an oath that no better painter than Jacob lives.
+
+If "the thing that pleased so well eleven years before" was a picture or
+pictures by Master Jacob or by Andrea Mantegna, as is usually supposed,
+the phrase, "If I had not seen it for myself I should never have
+believed any one who told me" is extremely strange. It is not usual to
+expect to change one's opinion of a work of art by hearsay, or to
+imagine others, when they have not done so, predicting with assurance
+that we shall change a decided opinion upon the merits of a work of art;
+yet one of these two suppositions seems certainly to be implied. I do
+not say that it is impossible to conceive of either, only that such
+cursory reference to such conceptions is extremely strange. Again, if
+work by Jacopo de' Barbari is referred to, it might very well have been
+seen elsewhere than at Venice eleven years ago; and indeed the last
+sentence in the passage might be taken to imply as much. To me at least
+the truth appears to be that these hints, which we may well have
+misunderstood, point to something which the imagination is only too
+delighted to entertain. It is a charming dream--the young Duerer, just of
+age, trudging from town to town, designing wood-blocks for a printer
+here, questioning the brothers of the "admirable Martin" there, or again
+painting a sign in yet another place, such as Holbein painted for the
+schoolmaster at Basle; and at last arriving in Venice--Venice untouched
+as yet by the conflicting ideals that were even then being brought to
+birth anew: Mediaeval Venice, such as we see her in the pictures of
+Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. One painting of real importance in the
+work of Duerer remains to us from this period: the greatest of modern
+critics has described it and its effect on him in a way which would make
+any second attempt impertinent.
+
+I consider as invaluable Albrecht Duerer's portrait of himself painted in
+1493, when he was in his twenty-second year. It is a bust half
+life-size, showing the two hands and the forearms. Crimson cap with
+short narrow strings, the throat bare to below the collar bone, an
+embroidered shirt, the folds of the sleeves tied underneath with
+peach-coloured ribbons, and a blue-grey, fur-edged cloak with yellow
+laces, compose a dainty dress befitting a well-bred youth. In his hand
+he significantly carries a blue _eryngo_, called in German "Mannstreu."
+He has a serious, youthful face, the mouth and chin covered with an
+incipient beard. The whole splendidly drawn, the composition simple,
+grand and harmonious; the execution perfect and in every way worthy of
+Duerer, though the colour is very thin, and has cracked in some places.
+
+Such is the figure which we may imagine making its way among the crowd
+in Gentile Bellini's Procession of the "True Cross" before St. Mark's,
+with eyes all wonder and lips often consciously imprisoning the German
+tongue, which cannot make itself understood. How comes he so finely
+dressed, the son of the modest Nuremberg goldsmith? Has he won the
+friendship of some rich burgher prince at Augsburg, or Strasburg, or
+Basle? Has he been enabled to travel in his suite as far as Venice? Or
+has he earned a large sum for painting some lord's or lady's portrait,
+which, if it were not lost, would now stand as the worthy compeer of
+this splendid portrait of the "true man" far from home; true to that
+home only, or true to Agnes Frey?--for some suppose the sprig of eryngo
+to signify that he was already betrothed to her. Or perhaps he has
+joined Willibald Pirkheimer at Basle or elsewhere, and they two,
+crossing the Alps together, have become friends for life? Will they part
+here ere long, the young burgher prince to proceed to the Universities
+of Padua and Mantua, the future great painter to trudge back over the
+Alps, getting a lift now and again in waggon or carriage or on pillion?
+Let the man of pretentious science say it is bootless to ask such
+questions; those who ask them know that it is delightful; know that it
+is the true way to make the past live for them; guess that would
+historians more generally ask them, their books would be less often
+dry as dust.
+
+
+VI
+
+It may be that to this period belongs the meeting with Jacopo de'
+Barbari to which a passage in his MS. books (now in the British Museum)
+refers: and that already he began to be exercised on the subject of a
+canon of proportions for the human figure. In the chapter which I devote
+to his studies on this subject it will be seen how the determination to
+work the problem out by experiment, since Jacopo refused to reveal, and
+Vitruvius only hinted at the secret, led to his discovering something of
+far more value than it is probable that either could have given him. And
+yet the belief that there was a hidden secret probably hindered him from
+fully realising the importance of his discovery, or reaping such benefit
+from it as he otherwise might have done. How often has not the belief
+that those of old time knew what is ignored to-day, prevented men from
+taking full advantage of the conquests over ignorance that they have
+made themselves! Because what they know is not so much as they suppose
+might be or has been known, they fail to recognise the most that has yet
+been known--the best foundation for a new building that has yet been
+discovered--and search for what they possess, and fail to rival those
+whose superiority over themselves is a delusion of their own hearts. So
+early Duerer may have begun this life-long labour which, though not
+wholly vain, was never really crowned to the degree it merited: while
+others living in more fertile lands reaped what they had not sown, he
+could only plough and scatter seed. As Raphael is supposed to have said,
+all that was lacking to him was knowledge of the antique.
+
+Perhaps many will blame me for writing, unlearned, as I am; in my
+opinion they are not wrong; they speak truly. For I myself had rather
+hear and read a learned man and one famous in this art than write of it
+myself, being unlearned. Howbeit I can find none such who hath written
+aught about how to form a canon of human proportions, save one man,
+Jacopo (de' Barbari) by name, born at Venice and a charming painter. He
+showed me the figures of a man and woman, which he had drawn according
+to a canon of proportions; and now I would rather be shown what he meant
+(_i.e._, upon what principles the proportions were constructed) than
+behold a new kingdom. If I had it (his canon), I would put it into print
+in his honour, for the use of all men. Then, however, I was still young
+and had not heard of such things before. Howbeit I was very fond of art,
+so I set myself to discover how such a canon might be wrought out. For
+this aforesaid Jacopo, as I clearly saw, would not explain to me the
+principles upon which he went. Accordingly I set to work on my own idea
+and read Vitruvius, who writes somewhat about the human figure. Thus it
+was from, or out of, these two men aforesaid that I took my start, and
+thence, from day to day, have I followed up my search according to my
+own notions.
+
+
+VII
+
+When I returned home, Hans Prey treated with my father and gave me his
+daughter, Mistress Agnes by name, and with her he gave me two hundred
+florins, and we were wedded; it was on Monday before Margaret's (July 7)
+in the year 1494.
+
+The general acceptance of the gouty and irascible Pirkheimer's
+defamation of Frau Duerer as a miser and a shrew called forth a display
+of ingenuity on the part of Professor Thausing to prove the contrary.
+And I must confess that if he has not quite done that, he seems to me to
+have very thoroughly discredited Pirkheimer's ungallant abuse. Sir
+Martin Conway bids us notice that Duerer speaks of his "dear father" and
+his "dear mother" and even of his "dear father-in-law," but that he
+never couples that adjective with his wife's name. It is very dangerous
+to draw conclusions from such a fact, which may be merely an accident:
+or may, if it represents a habit of Duerer's, bear precisely the opposite
+significance. For some men are proud to drop such outward marks of
+affection, in cases where they know that every day proves to every
+witness that they are not needed. He also considers that her portraits
+show her, when young, to have been "empty-headed," when older, a "frigid
+shrew." For my own part, if the portrait at Bremen (see opposite)
+represents "mein Angnes," as its resemblance to the sketch at Vienna
+(see illus.) convinces me it does, I cannot accept either of these
+conclusions arrived at by the redoubtable science of physiognomy. The
+Bremen portrait shows us a refined, almost an eccentric type of beauty;
+one can easily believe it to have been possessed by a person of
+difficult character, but one certainly who must have had compensating
+good qualities. The "mein Angnes" on the sketch may well be set against
+the absent "dears" in the other mentions her husband made of her,
+especially when we consider that he couples this adjective with the
+Emperor's name, "my dear Prince Max." Of her relations to him nothing is
+known except what Pirkheimer wrote in his rage, when he was writing
+things which are demonstrably false. We know, however, that she was
+capable, pious, and thrifty; and on several occasions, in the
+Netherlands, shared in the honours done to her husband. It is natural to
+suppose that as they were childless, there may have existed a moral
+equivalent to this infertility; but also, with a man such as we know
+Duerer to have been, and a woman in every case not bad, have we not
+reason to expect that this moral barrenness which may have afflicted
+their union was in some large measure conquered by mutual effort and
+discipline, and bore from time to time those rarer flowers whose beauty
+and sweetness repay the conscious culture of the soul? It seems
+difficult to imagine that a man who succeeded in charming so many
+different acquaintances, and in remaining life-long friends with the
+testy and inconsiderate Pirkheimer, should have altogether failed to
+create a relation kindly and even beautiful with his Agnes, whose
+portrait we surely have at her best in the drawing at Bremen.
+Considerations as to the general position of married women in those days
+need not prevent us of our natural desire to think as well as possible
+of Duerer and his circumstances. We know that for a great many men the
+wife was not simply counted among their goods and chattels, or regarded
+as a kind of superior servant. We are able to take a peep at many a
+fireside of those days, where the relations that obtained, however
+different in certain outward characters, might well shame the greater
+number of the respectable even in the present year of grace. We know
+what Luther was in these respects; and have rather more than less reason
+to expect from the refined and gracious Duerer the creation of a worthy
+and kindly home. Why should we expect him to have been less successful
+than his parents in these respects?
+
+[Illustration: AGNES FREY. DUeRER'S WIFE (?)--Silver-point drawing
+heightened with white on a dun paper. Kunsthalle, Bremen]
+
+[Illustration: "MEIN ANGNES"--Pen sketch of the artist's wife, in the
+Albertina at Vienna]
+
+
+VIII
+
+Some time after the marriage it happened that my father was so ill with
+dysentery that no one could stop it. And when he saw death before his
+eyes he gave himself willingly to it, with great patience, and he
+commended my mother to me, and exhorted me to live in a manner pleasing
+to God. He received the Holy Sacraments and passed away Christianly (as
+I have described at length in another book) in the year 1502, after
+midnight, before S. Matthew's eve (September 20). God be gracious and
+merciful to him.
+
+The only leaf of the "other book" referred to that has survived is that
+which I have already quoted at length.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED
+
+
+I
+
+Now let us consider what the world was like in which this virile,
+accurate and persevering spirit had grown up. Over and over again, the
+story of the New Birth has been told; how it began in France, and met an
+untimely fate at the hands of English invaders, then took refuge in
+Italy, where it grew to be the wonder of the world; and how the
+corruption of the ruling classes and of the Church, with the indignation
+and rebellion that this gave rise to, combined to frustrate the promise
+of earlier days.
+
+When the Roman Empire gradually became an anarchy of hostile fragments,
+every large monastery, every small town, girded itself with walls and
+tended to become the germ of a new civilisation. Popes, kings, and great
+lords, haunted by reminiscence of the vanished empire, made spasmodic
+attempts to subject such centres to their rule and tax them for their
+maintenance. In the first times, the Church--the See of Rome--made by
+far the most successful attempt to get its supremacy acknowledged, and
+had therefore fewer occasions to resort to violence. It was more
+respected and more respectable than the other powers which claimed to
+rule and tax these immured and isolated communities dotted over Europe;
+but as time went on, the Church became less and less beneficent, more
+and more tyrannical. Meanwhile kings and emperors, having learned wisdom
+by experience, found themselves in a position to take advantage of the
+growing bad odour of the Church; and by favouring the civil communities
+and creating a stable hierarchy among the class of lords and barons from
+which they had emerged, were at last able to face the Church, with its
+_proteges,_ the religious communities, on an equal footing.
+
+The religious communities, owing to the vow of celibacy, had become more
+and more stagnant, while the civil communities increased in power to
+adapt themselves to the age. All that was virile and creative combined
+in the towns; all that was inadequate, sterile, useless, coagulated in
+the monasteries, which thus became cesspools, and ultimately took on the
+character of festering sores by which the civil bodies which had at
+first been purged into them were endangered. Luther tells us how there
+was a Bishop of Wuerzburg who used to say when he saw a rogue, "'To the
+cloister with you. Thou art useless to God or man.' He meant that in the
+cloister were only hogs and gluttons, who did nothing but eat and drink
+and sleep, and were of no more profit than as many rats." And the
+loathing that another of these sties created in the young Erasmus, and
+the difficulty he had to escape from the clutches of its inmates--never
+feeling safe till the Pope had intervened--show us that by their wealth
+and by the engine of their malice, the confessional (which they had
+usurped from the regular clergy), they were as formidable as they were
+useless. It became necessary that this antiquated system of social
+drainage should be superseded.
+
+In England and Germany it was swept away. In centres like Nuremberg, the
+desire for reformation and the horror of false doctrine were grounded in
+practical experience of intolerable inconveniences, not in a clear
+understanding of the questions at issue. Intellectually, the leaders of
+the Reformation had no better foundation than those they opposed: for
+them, as for their opponents, the question was not to be solved by an
+appeal to evident truths and experience, but to historical documents and
+traditions, supposed, to be infallible. For a clear intelligence, there
+is nothing to choose between the infallibility of oecumenical councils
+or of Popes, and that of the Bible. Both have been in their time the
+expression of very worthy and very human sentiments; both are incapable
+of rational demonstration.
+
+
+II
+
+Scattered over Europe, wherever the free intelligence was waking and had
+rubbed her eyes, were men who desired that nuisances should be removed
+and reforms operated without schism or violence. To these Erasmus spoke.
+His policy was tentative, and did not proceed, like that of other
+parties, by declaring that a perfect solution was to hand. Luther's
+action divided these honest, upright souls, and would-be children of
+light, into three unequal camps.
+
+As a rule the downright, headstrong, and impatient became reformers. The
+respectful, cautious and long-suffering, such as More, Warham, and
+Adrian IV., clung to the Roman establishment, were martyred for it or
+broke their hearts over it. Erasmus and a handful of others remained
+true to a tentative policy, and, compared with their contemporaries,
+were meek and lowly in heart--became children of light. To them we now
+look back wistfully, and wish that they might have been, if not as
+numerous as the Churchmen and Beformers, at least a sufficient body to
+have made their influence an effective force, with the advantage of more
+light and more patience that was really theirs. But, alas! they only
+counted as the first dissolvent which set free more corrosive and
+detrimental acids. The exhilaration of action and battle was for others;
+for them the sad conviction that neither side deserved to be trusted
+with a victory. Yet, beyond the world whose chief interest was the
+Reformation, we may be sure that such men as Charles V., Michael Angelo,
+Rabelais, Montaigne, and all those whom they may be taken to represent,
+were in essential agreement with Erasmus. Luther and Machiavelli alone
+rejected the Papacy as such: the latter's more stringent intellectual
+development led him also to discard every ideal motive or agent of
+reform for violent means. He was ready even to regard the passions of
+men like Caesar Borgia, tyrants in the fullest sense of the word, as the
+engines by which civilisation, learning, art, and manners, might be
+maintained. Whereas Luther appealed to the passions of common honest
+men, the middle classes in fact. It is easy to let either Luther or
+Machiavelli steal away our entire sympathy. On the one hand, no
+compromise, not even the slightest, seems possible with criminal
+ruffians such as a Julius II. and an Alexander Borgia; on the other
+hand, the power swollen by the tide of minor corruption, which such men
+ruled by might, did come into the hands of a Leo X., an Adrian IV.; and
+though that power was obviously tainted through and through, it might
+have been mastered and wielded in the cause of reform. Erasmus hoped for
+this. Even Julius II. protected him from the superiors of his convent.
+Even Julius II. patronised Michael Angelo and Raphael and everything
+that had a definite character in the way of creative power or
+scholarship; and could appreciate at least the respect which what he
+patronised commanded. He could appreciate the respect commanded by the
+austerity and virtue of those who rebelled against him and denounced his
+cynical abuse of all his powers, whether natural or official. He liked
+to think he had enemies worth beating. Such a ruler is a sore temptation
+to a keen intellect. "Everything great is formative," and this Pope was
+colossal--a colossal bully and robber if you like--but the good he did
+by his patronage was real good, was practical. Michael Angelo and
+Raphael could work as splendidly as they desired. Erasmus was helped and
+encouraged. Timid honesty is often petty, does nothing, criticises and
+finds fault with artists and with learning, runs after them like Sancho
+Panza after Don Quixote, is helpless and ridiculous and horribly in the
+way. Leo X. was intelligent and well-meaning; wisdom herself might hope
+from such a man. Be the throne he is sitting on as monstrous and corrupt
+a contrivance as it may, yet it is there, it does give him authority; he
+is on it and dominates the world. It is easy to say, "But the period of
+the Renascence closed, its glory died away." Suppose Luther had been as
+subtle as he was whole-hearted, and had added to his force of character
+a delicacy and charm like that of St. Francis; or suppose that Erasmus
+instead of his schoolfellow Adrian IV. had become Pope; what a different
+tale there might have been to tell! Who will presume to point out the
+necessity by which these things were thus and not otherwise? "Regrets
+for what 'might have been' are proverbially idle," cries the historian
+from whom I have chiefly quoted. I do not recollect the proverb, unless
+he refers to "It is no use crying over spilt milk;" but in any case such
+regrets are far from being necessarily idle. "What might have been" is
+even generally "what ought to have been;" and no study has been or is
+likely to be so pregnant for us as the study of the contrast between
+"what was" and "what ought to have been," though such studies are
+inevitably mingled with regrets. We have every reason to regret that the
+Reformation was so hasty and ill-considered, and that the Papacy was as
+purblind as it was arrogant. The plant of the Roman Church machinery,
+which it had taken centuries to lay down, came into the hands of men who
+grossly ignored its function and the conditions of its working. They
+used its power partly for the benefit of the human race, by patronising
+art and scholarship; but chiefly in self-indulgence. If honest
+intelligence had been given control, a man so partially equipped for his
+task would not have been goaded into action; but only force, moral or
+physical, can act at a disadvantage; light and reason must have the
+advantage of dominant position to effect anything immediate. If they are
+not on the throne, all they can do is to sow seed, and bewail the
+present while looking forward to a better future. Now, most educated men
+are for tolerance, and see as Erasmus saw. We see that Savonarola and
+Luther were not so right as they thought themselves to be; we see that
+what they condemned as arrogancy and corruption is partly excusable--is
+in some measure a condition of efficiency in worldly spheres where one
+has to employ men already bad. True, the great princes and cardinals of
+those days not only connived at corruption and ruled by it, but often
+even professed it. Still in every epoch, under all circumstances, the
+majority of those who have governed men have more or less cynically
+employed means that will not bear the light of day. While these
+magnificoes of the Renascence do stand alone, or almost alone, by the
+ample generosity of their conception of the objects that power should be
+exerted in furtherance of; their outlook on life was more commensurate
+with the variety and competence of human nature than perhaps that of any
+ruling class has been before or since. As Shakespeare is the amplest of
+poets, so were theirs the most fruitful of courts. From the great
+Medicis to our own Elizabeth they all partake of a certain grandiose
+vitality and variety of intention.
+
+
+III
+
+Greatness demands self-assertion; self-assertion is a great virtue even
+in a Julius II. There is a vast deal of humbug in the use we make of the
+word humility. We talk about Christ's humility, but whose self-assertion
+has ever been more unmitigated? "I am the Way, the Truth, and the
+Light." "Learn of Me that I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls." No doubt it is the quality of the self asserted that
+justifies in our eyes the assertion; humility then is not opposed to
+self-assertion. When Michael Angelo shows that he thinks himself the
+greatest artist in the world, he is not necessarily lacking in humility;
+nor is Luther, asserting the authority of his conscience against the
+Pope and Emperor; nor Duerer, saying to us in those little finely-dressed
+portraits with which he signs his pictures, "I am that I am--namely, one
+of the handsomest of men and the greatest artist north of the Alps." Or
+when Erasmus lets us see that he thinks himself the most learned man
+living,--if he is the most learned, so much the better that he should
+know this also as well as the rest. The artist and the scholar were
+bound to feel gratitude for the corrupt but splendid Church and courts,
+which gave them so much both in the way of maintenance and opportunity.
+It may be asked, has all the honesty and the not always evident purity
+of Protestantism done so much for the world as those dissolute Popes and
+Princes? And the artist, judging with a hasty bias perhaps, is likely to
+answer no.
+
+
+IV
+
+For us nowadays the pith of history seems no more to be the lives of
+monarchs, or the fighting of battles, or even the deliberations of
+councils; these things we have more and more come to regard merely as
+tools and engines for the creation of societies, homes, and friends. And
+so, though religion and religious machinery dominated the life of those
+days, it is not in theological disputes, neither is it in oecumenical
+councils and Popes, nor in sermons, reformers, and synods, that we find
+the essence of the soul's life. Rather to us, the pictures, the statues,
+the books, the furniture, the wardrobes, the letters, and the scandals
+that have been left behind, speak to us of those days; for these we
+value them. And we are right, the value of the Renaissance lies in these
+things, I say "the scandals" of those days; for a part of what comes
+under that head was perhaps the manifestation of a morality based on a
+wider experience; though its association with obvious vices and its
+opposition to the old and stale ideals gave it an illegitimate
+character; while the re-establishment of the more part of those ideals
+has perpetuated its reproach. There can be no intellectual charity if
+the machinery and special sentences of current morality are supposed to
+be final or truly adequate. Their tentative and inadequate character,
+which every free intelligence recognises, is what endorses the wisdom of
+Jesus', saying, "Judge not that ye be not judged." Ordinary honest and
+good citizens do not realise how much that is in every way superior to
+the gifts of any single one of themselves is yearly sacrificed and
+tortured for their preservation as a class. On what agonies of creative
+and original minds is the safety of their homes based? These respectable
+Molochs who devour both the poor and the exceptionally gifted, and are
+so little better for their meal, were during the Renascence for a time
+gainsaid and abashed; yet even then their engines, the traditional
+secular and ecclesiastic policies, were a foreign encumbrance with which
+the human spirit was loaded, and which helped to prevent it from reaping
+the full result of its mighty upheaval.
+
+To see things as they are, and above all to value them for what is most
+essential in them with regard to the development of our own
+characters;--that is, I take it, consciously or unconsciously, the main
+effort of the modern spirit. On the world, the flesh, and the devil, we
+have put new values; and it was the first assertion of these new values
+which caused the Renascence. Fine manners, fine clothes, and varied
+social interchange make the world admirable in our eyes, not at all a
+bogey to frighten us. Health, frankness, and abundant exercise make the
+flesh a pure delight in our eyes; lastly, this new-born spirit has made
+"a moral of the devil himself," and so for us he has lost his terror.
+
+Rabelais was right when he laughed the old outworn values down, and
+declared that women were in the first place female, men in the first
+place male; that the written word should be a self-expression, a
+sincerity, not a task or a catalogue or a penance, but, like laughter
+and speech, essentially human, making all men brothers, doing away with
+artificial barriers and distinctions, making the scholar shake in time
+with the toper, and doubling the divine up with the losel; bidding even
+the lady hold her sides in company with the harlot. Eating and drinking
+were seen to be good in themselves; the eye and the nose and the palate
+were not only to be respected but courted; free love was better than
+married enmity. No rite, no church, no god, could annihilate these facts
+or restrain their influence any more than the sea could be tamed. Duerer
+was touched with this spirit; we see it in his fine clothes, in his
+collector's rapacity, above all in his letters to his friend
+Pirkheimer--a man more typical of that Rabelaisian age than Duerer and
+Michael Angelo, who were both of them not only modern men but men
+conservative of the best that had been--men in travail for the future,
+absorbed by the responsibility of those who create.
+
+Pirkheimer, one year Duerer's senior, was a gross fat man early in life,
+enjoying the clinking of goblets, the music of fork and knife, and the
+effrontery of obscene jests. A vain man, a soldier and a scholar,
+pedantic, irritable, but in earnest; a complimenter of Emperors, a
+leader of the reform party, a partisan of Luther's, the friend and
+correspondent of Erasmus, the elective brother of Duerer. The man was
+typical; his fellows were in all lands. Duerer was surprised to find how
+many of them there were at Venice--men who would delight Pirkheimer and
+delight in him. "My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you I don't know how it happens! ... men of sense and
+knowledge, good lute players and pipers, judges of painting, men of much
+noble sentiment and honest virtue; and they show me much honour and
+friendship." Something of all this was doubtless in Duerer too; but in
+him it was refined and harmonised by the sense and serious concern, not
+only for the things of to-day, but for those of to-morrow and yesterday;
+the sense of solidarity, the passion for permanent effect, eternal
+excellence. These things, in men like Pirkheimer, still more in Erasmus,
+and even in Rabelais and Montaigne, are not absent; but they are less
+stringent, less religious, than they are in a Duerer or a Michael Angelo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DUeRER AT VENICE
+
+
+I
+
+There are several reasons which may possibly have led Duerer to visit
+Venice in 1505. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German
+Merchants at Venice, had been burned down the winter before, and they
+were in haste to complete a new one. Duerer may have received assurance
+that the commission to paint the altar-piece for the new chapel would be
+his did he desire it. At any rate he seems to have set to work on such a
+picture almost as soon as he arrived there. It is strange to think that
+Giorgione and Titian probably began to paint the frescoes on the facade
+while he was still at work in the chapel, or soon after he left. The
+plague broke out in Nuremberg before he came away; but this is not
+likely to have been his principal motive for leaving home, as many
+richer men, such as his friend Pirkheimer, from whom he borrowed money
+for the journey, stayed where they were. Nor do Duerer's letters reveal
+any alarm for his friend's, his mother's, his wife's, or his brother's
+safety. He took with him six small pictures, and probably a great number
+of prints, for Venice was a first-rate market.
+
+
+II
+
+The letters which follow are like a glimpse of a distant scene in a
+_camera obscura_, and, like life itself, they are full of repetitions
+and over-insistence on what is insignificant or of temporary interest.
+To-day they call for our patience and forbearance, and it will depend
+upon our imaginative activity in what degree they repay them; even as it
+depends upon our power of affectionate assimilation in what degree and
+kind every common day adds to our real possessions.
+
+I have made my citations as ample as possible, so as to give the reader
+a just idea of their character while making them centre as far as
+possible round points of special interest.
+
+_To the honourable, wise Master Wilibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of Nuerberg,
+my kind Master_. VENICE, _January 6, 1506._
+
+I wish you and yours many good, happy New Years. My willing service,
+first of all, to you dear Master Pirkheimer! Know that I am in good
+health; I pray God far better things than that for you. As to those
+pearls and precious stones which you gave me commission to buy, you must
+know that I can find nothing good or even worth its price. Everything is
+snapped up by the Germans who hang about the Riva. They always want to
+get four times the value for anything, for they are the falsest knaves
+alive. No one need look for an honest service from any of them. Some
+good fellows have warned me to beware of them, they cheat man and beast.
+You can buy better things at a lower price at Frankfurt than at Venice.
+
+[Illustration: Wilibald Pirkheimer--Charcoal Drawing, Dumesnil
+Collection, Paris _Face p._ 80]
+
+About the books which I was to order for you, the Imhofs have already
+seen after them; but if there is anything else you want, let me know and
+I will attend to it for you with all zeal. Would to God I could do you a
+right good service! gladly would I accomplish it, seeing, as I do, how
+much you do for me. And I pray you be patient with my debt, for indeed I
+think much oftener of it than you do. When God helps me home I will
+honourably repay you with many thanks; for I have a panel to paint for
+the Germans for which they are to pay me a hundred and ten Rhenish
+florins--it will not cost me as much as five. I shall have scraped it and
+laid on the ground and made it ready within eight days; then I shall at
+once begin to paint and, if God will, it shall be in its place above the
+altar a month after Easter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VENICE, _February 17_, 1506.
+
+How I wish you were here at Venice! There are so many nice men among the
+Italians who seek my company more and more every day--which is very
+pleasing to one--men of sense and knowledge, good lute-players and
+pipers, judges of painting, men of much noble sentiment and 'honest
+virtue, and they show me much honour and friendship. On the other hand
+there are also amongst them some of the most false, lying, thievish
+rascals; I should never have believed that such were living in the
+world. If one did not know them, one would think them the nicest men the
+earth could show. For my own part I cannot help laughing at them
+whenever they talk to me. They know that their knavery is no secret but
+they don't mind.
+
+Amongst the Italians I have many good friends who warn me not to eat and
+drink with their painters. Many of them are my enemies and they copy my
+work in the churches and wherever they can find it; and then they revile
+it and say that the style is not _antique_ and so not good. But Giovanni
+Bellini has highly praised me before many nobles. He wanted to have
+something of mine, and himself came to me and asked me to paint him
+something and he would pay well for it. And all men tell me what an
+upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very
+old, but is still the best painter of them all. And that which so well
+pleased me eleven years ago pleases me no longer, if I had not seen it
+for myself I should not have believed any one who told me. You must know
+too that there are many better painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo
+de' Barbari) is abroad (_wider darvsen Meister J._), yet Anton Kolb
+would swear an oath that no better painter lives than Jacob. Others
+sneer at him, saying if he were good he would stay here, and so forth.
+
+I have only to-day begun to sketch in my picture, for my hands were so
+scabby (_grindig_) that I could do no work with them, but I have got
+them cured.
+
+Now be lenient with me and don't get in a passion so easily, but be
+gentle like me. I don't know why you will not learn from me. My friend!
+I should like to know if any one of your loves is dead--that one close
+by the water for instance, or the one called [Illustration] or
+[Illustration] or a [Illustration] so that you might supply her place by
+another. ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+VENICE, February 28, 1506.
+
+I wish you had occasion to come here, I know you would not find time
+hang on your hands, for there are so many nice men in this country,
+right good artists. I have such a throng of Italians about me that at
+times I have to shut myself up. The nobles all wish me well, but few of
+the painters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+VENICE, _April_ 2, 1506.
+
+The painters here, let me tell you, are very unfriendly to me. They have
+summoned me three times before the magistrates, and I have had to pay
+four florins to their school. You must also know that I might have
+gained a great deal of money if I had not undertaken to paint the German
+picture. There is much work in it and I cannot get it quite finished
+before Whitsuntide. Yet they only pay me eighty-five ducats for it. Now
+you know how much it costs to live, and then I have bought some things
+and sent some money away, so that I have not much before me now. But
+don't misunderstand me, I am firmly purposed not to go away hence till
+God enables me to repay you with thanks and to have a hundred florins
+over besides. I should easily earn this if I had not got the German
+picture to paint, for all men except the painters wish me well.
+
+Tell my mother to speak to Wolgemut about my brother, and to ask him
+whether he can make use of him and give him work till I come, or whether
+he can put him with some one else. I should gladly have brought him with
+me to Venice, and that would have been useful both to me and him, and he
+would have learnt the language, but my mother was afraid that the sky
+would fall on him. Pray keep an eye on him yourself, the women are no
+use for that. Tell the lad, as you so well can, to be studious and
+honest till I come, and not to be a trouble to his mother; if I cannot
+arrange everything I will at all events do all that I can. Alone I
+certainly should not starve, but to support many is too hard for me, for
+no one throws his gold away.
+
+Now I commend myself to you. Tell my mother to be ready to sell at the
+Crown-fair (_Heiligthumsfest_). I am arranging for my wife to have come
+home by then; I have written to her too about everything. I will not
+take any steps about buying the diamond ornament till I get your
+next letter.
+
+I don't think I shall be able to come home before next autumn, when what
+I earned for the picture, which was to have been ready by Whitsuntide,
+will be quite used up in living expenses, purchases, and payments; what,
+however, I gain afterwards I hope to save. If you see fit don't speak of
+this further, and I will keep putting off my leaving from day to day and
+writing as though I was just coming. I am indeed very uncertain what to
+do next. Write to me again soon.
+
+Given on Thursday before Palm Sunday in the year 1506. ALBRECHT DUeRER,
+Your Servant.
+
+VENICE, _August_ 18, 1506.
+
+_To the first, greatest man in the world. Your servant and slave
+Albrecht Duerer sends salutation to his Magnificent master Wilibald_
+Pirkheimer. _My truth! I hear gladly and with great satisfaction of your
+health and great honours. I wonder how it is possible for a man like you
+to stand against_ so many _wisest princes,_ swaggerers _and soldiers; it
+must be by some special grace of God. When I read your letter about this
+terrible grimace, it gave me a great fright and I thought it was a most
+important thing,_[15] but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's
+men,[16] you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it
+is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want
+to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to
+please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow
+as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so many loves that merely
+to pay each one a visit you would take a month or more before you got
+through the list.
+
+For one thing I return you my thanks, namely, for explaining my position
+in the best way to my wife; but I know that there is no lack of wisdom
+in you. If only you had my meekness you would have all virtues. Thank
+you also for all the good you have done me, if only you would not bother
+me about the rings! If they don't please you, break their heads off and
+pitch them out on to the dunghill as Peter Weisweber says. What do you
+mean by setting me to such dirty work? _I_ have become a _gentleman_
+at Venice.
+
+I have also heard that you can make lovely rhymes; you would be a find
+for our fiddlers here; they fiddle so beautifully that they can't help
+weeping over it themselves. Would God our Rechenmeister girl could hear
+them, she would cry too. At your bidding I will again lay aside my anger
+and bear myself even more bravely than usual.
+
+Now let me commend myself to you; give my willing service to our Prior
+for me; tell him to pray God for me that I may be protected, and
+especially from the French sickness; I know of nothing that I now dread
+more than that, for well nigh every one has got it. Many men are quite
+eaten up and die of it.
+
+VENICE, _September_ 8, 1506.
+
+Most learned, approved, wise, knower of many languages, sharp to detect
+all encountered lies and quick to recognise plain truth! Honourable
+much-regarded Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer. Your humble servant Albrecht
+Duerer wishes you all hail, great and worthy honour _in the devil's name,_
+so much for the twaddle of which you are so fond. I wager that for
+this[17] you would think me too an orator of a hundred parts. A chamber
+must have more than four corners which is to contain the gods of memory.
+I am not going to cram my head full of them; that I leave to you; for I
+believe that however many chambers there might be in the head, you would
+have something in each of them. The Margrave would not grant an audience
+long enough!--a hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred
+words, that takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs
+which I have not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the
+whole at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old
+driveller.
+
+I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot find any
+broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However I still look about
+every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.
+
+I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you his
+service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his Son, the nicest lad
+I ever saw.
+
+I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh, if only you were here!
+how you would like these fine Italian soldiers! How often I think of
+you! Would to God that you and Kunz Kamerer could see them! They have
+great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only touch a man with them
+he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey! I can do it well, I'll be an
+Italian soldier. The Venetians as well as the Pope and the King of
+France are collecting many men; what will come of it I don't know, but
+people ridicule our King very much.
+
+Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me. I don't wonder at his
+having taken a wife. Give my greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our
+fair friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister girl, and thank that
+head-chamber of yours alone for remembering her greeting; tell her she's
+a nasty one.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I sent you olive-wood from Venice to Augsburg, where I directed it to be
+left, a full ten hundredweight. She says she would not wait for it;
+_whence the stink_.
+
+My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it,
+it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned much praise
+but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could easily
+have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in order that
+I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the painters who used
+to say that I was good at engraving but, as to painting. I did not know
+how to handle my colours. Now every one says that better colouring they
+have never seen.
+
+My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes me that
+there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out even at
+this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting you
+pretend not to be more than twenty-five years old--oh, yes! double that
+and I'll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who look
+exactly like you; I don't know how it happens!
+
+The Doge and the Patriarch have also seen my picture. Herewith let me
+commend myself to you as your servant. I must really go to sleep as it
+is striking the seventh hour of the night, and I have already written to
+the Prior of the Augustines, to my father-in-law, to Mistress Dietrich,
+and to my wife, and they are all downright whole sheets full. So I have
+had to hurry over this letter, read it according to the sense. You would
+doubtless do better if you were writing to a lot of Princes. Many good
+nights and days too. Given at Venice on our Lady's day in September.
+
+You need not lend my wife and mother anything; they have got money
+enough,
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+VENICE, _September 23_, 1506.
+
+Your letter telling me of the praise that you get to overflowing from
+Princes and nobles gave me great delight. You must be altogether altered
+to have become so gentle; I shall hardly know you when I meet you again.
+
+You must know that my picture is finished as well as another
+_Quadro_[18] the like of which I have never painted before. And as you
+are so pleased with yourself, let me tell you that there is no better
+Madonna picture in the land than mine; for all the painters praise it,
+as the nobles do you. They say that they have never seen a nobler,
+more charming painting, and so forth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But in order to come home as soon as possible, I have, since my picture
+was finished, refused work that would have yielded me more than 2000
+ducats. This all men know who live about me here.
+
+Bernhard Holzbeck has told me great things of you, though I think he
+does so because you have become his brother-in-law. But nothing makes me
+more angry than when any one says that you are good-looking; if that
+were so I should become really ugly. That could make me mad. I have
+found a grey hair on myself, it is the result of so much excitement. And
+I fear that while I play such pranks with myself there are still bad
+days before me, &c.
+
+My French mantle, my doublet, and my brown coat send you a hearty
+greeting, I should be glad to see what great thing your head-piece can
+produce that you hold yourself so high.
+
+VENICE, _about October_ 13, 1506.
+
+Knowing that you are aware of my devotion to your service there is no
+need for me to write to you about it; but so much the more necessary is
+it for me to tell you of the great pleasure it gives me to hear of the
+high honour and fame which your manly wisdom and learned skill have
+brought you. This is the more to be wondered at, for seldom or never in
+a young body can the like be found. It comes to you, however, as to me,
+by a special grace of God. How pleased we both are when we fancy
+ourselves worth somewhat--I with my painting, and you with your wisdom.
+When any one praises us, we hold up our heads and believe him. Yet
+perhaps he is only some false flatterer who is scorning us all the time.
+So don't credit any one who praises you, for you've no notion how
+utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing
+before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly--behaving exactly as if
+you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing as you do. It did
+not escape me that, when you wrote your last letter, you were quite full
+of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an old fellow
+like you pretending to be so good-looking. Flirting pleases you in the
+same way that a shaggy old dog likes a game with a kitten. If you were
+only as fine and gentle a man as I, I could understand it. If I become
+burgomaster I will serve you with the Luginsland.[19] as you do to pious
+Zamesser and me. I will have you for once shut up there with the ladies
+Rechenmeister, Rosentaler, Gaertner, Schutz, and Poer, and many others
+whom for shortness I will not name; they must deal with you.
+
+People enquire more after me than you, for you yourself write that both
+girls and honourable wives ask after me--that is a sign of my virtue.
+When, however, God helps me home I don't know how I shall any longer
+stand you with your great wisdom; but for your virtue and good temper I
+am glad, and your dogs will be the better for it, for you will no longer
+strike them lame. Now however that you are thought so much of at home,
+you won't dare to talk to a poor painter in the street any more; to be
+seen with the painter varlet would be a great disgrace for you.
+
+O, dear Herr Pirkheimer, just now while I was writing to you, the alarm
+of fire was raised and six houses over by Pietro Venier are burnt, and a
+woollen cloth of mine, for which only yesterday I paid eight ducats, is
+burnt, so I too am in trouble. There is much excitement here about
+the fire.
+
+As to your summons to me to come home soon, I shall come as soon as ever
+I can, but I must first gain money for my expenses. I have paid away
+about 100 ducats for colours and other things. I have ordered you two
+carpets for which I shall pay to-morrow, but I could not get them cheap.
+I will pack them in with my linen.
+
+And as to your threat that, unless I come home soon, you will make love
+to my wife, don't attempt it--a ponderous fellow like you would be the
+death of her.
+
+I must tell you that I set to work to learn dancing and went twice to
+the school, for which I had to pay the master a ducat. No one could get
+me to go there again. To learn dancing I should have had to pay away all
+that I have earned, and at the end I should have known nothing about it.
+
+[Illustration: HANS BURGKMAIR--Black chalk drawing on yellowish prepared
+ground. The lights and background in watercolor may possibly have been
+added later At Oxford]
+
+In reply to your question when I shall come home, I tell you, so that my
+lords may also make their arrangements, that I shall have finished here
+in ten days; after that I should like to ride to Bologna to learn the
+secrets of the art of perspective, which a man is willing to teach me. I
+should stay there eight or ten days and then return to Venice. After
+that I shall come with the next messenger. How I shall freeze after this
+sun! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite.
+
+
+III
+
+Sir Martin Conway writes:
+
+He (Duerer) enjoyed Venice; he liked the Italians; he was oppressed with
+orders for work; the climate suited him, and the warm sun was a pleasant
+contrast to the snows and frost of a Franconian winter. But Duerer's
+German heart was true; its truth was the secret of his success.... The
+syren voice of Italy charmed to their destruction most Germans who
+listened to it. Brought face to face with the Italian Ideal of Grace,
+they one after another abandoned for it the Ideal of Strength peculiarly
+their own.
+
+We do not resort to these arguments to approve Holbein or Van Dyck for
+their long residence in England. I am not sure how much false sentiment
+inspired Thausing when he first praised Duerer in this strain; but I must
+confess I suspect it was no little. I incline to think that the best
+country for an artist is not always the one he was born in, but often
+that one where his art finds the best conditions to foster it. We do not
+honour Duerer by supposing that he would have been among that majority of
+Dutch and German artists who, weaker than Roger van der Weyden and
+Burgkmair, returned from Italy injured and enfeebled; even if he had
+passed the greater portion of his life with her syren voice in his ears.
+
+Duerer could not bring himself to undergo for art's sake what Michael
+Angelo endured; years of exile from a beloved native city, and, still
+worse, years of exile from the most congenial spiritual atmosphere.
+Nevertheless, we must remember that the difference of language would
+have made life in Venice for Duerer a much more complete exile than life
+in Verona was for Dante, or life in Rome for Michael Angelo. So he did
+not share the patronage and generous recognition which gave Titian such
+a splendid opportunity. He ceased for a time at least to be a gentleman
+to become a hanger-on, a parasite once more. At Antwerp he once more was
+met by the same generosity and recognition only to refuse again to
+accept it as a gift for life and return to his beloved Nuremberg, where
+it is true his position continually improved, though it never equalled
+what had been offered at Venice and Antwerp.
+
+
+IV
+
+The tone of some of the pleasantries in these letters may rather
+astonish good people who, having accepted the fact that Duerer was a
+religious man, have at once given him the tone and address of a meeting
+of churchwardens, if they have not conjured up a vision of him in a
+frock coat. "Things are what they are," said Bishop Butler, and so are
+women; boys will be boys. The distinctive functions of the two sexes
+were in those days kept more in view if not more in mind than is the
+case to-day. The fashions in dress and in deportment were particularly
+frank upon this point, especially for the young. One may allow as much
+as is desired for the corruption of manners produced by the civil and
+religious mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, and friars. There will
+always remain a certain truth and propriety, a certain grace and charm
+in those costumes and that deportment, as also in the freedom of jest
+which characterises even the most modest of Shakespeare's heroines; and
+under the influence of their spell we shall feel that all has not been
+gain in the change that has gradually been operated. No doubt virtue is
+a victory over nature, and chastity a refinement; but among conquerors
+some are easy and good-natured, others tactless, awkward, insulting; and
+among the chaste some are fearless and enjoy the freedom which courage
+and clear conscience give, others timid and suffer the oppression of
+their fears. Even among sinners some make the best of weaknesses and
+redeem them a great deal more than half, while others magnify smaller
+faults by lack of self-possession till they are an insupportable
+nuisance. We may well admit that from the successes of those days, those
+who succeed to our delight to-day may glean additional attractions.
+
+
+V
+
+We know that Duerer stopped on at Venice into the year 1507, by a note
+which he made in a copy of Euclid, now in the library at Wolfenbuettel.
+"This book have I bought at Venice for a ducat in the year 1507.
+Albrecht Duerer"; and by another stray note we learn the state of his
+worldly affairs on his return.
+
+The following is my property, which I have with difficulty acquired by
+the labour of my hand, for I have had no opportunity of great gain. I
+have moreover suffered much loss by lending what was not repaid me, and
+by apprentices who never paid their fees, and one died at Rome whereby I
+lost my wares.
+
+In the thirteenth year of my wedlock (Le., 1507-8) I have paid great
+debts with what I earned at Venice. I possess fairly good household
+furniture, good clothes, chests, some good pewter vessels, good
+materials for my work, bedding and cupboards, and good colours worth 100
+florins Rhenish.
+
+The wares that Duerer lost in Rome were doubtless chiefly woodcuts and
+engravings which his prentice had taken to sell during his
+_wanderjahre_, as Duerer himself during his own had very likely sold
+prints for Wolgemut. One of the reasons which had taken him to Venice
+may have been to summon Marc Antonio before the Signoria, for having
+copied not only his engravings, but the monogram with which he signed
+them; in any case he obtained a decree defending him against such
+artistic forgery. Duerer's most steady resource seems to have been the
+sale of prints; it is these that his wife had sold in his absence, and
+in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands there is constant mention
+of such sales. Nuremberg was very much behind Antwerp or Venice in the
+price paid for works of art; and the possibilities of such a market as
+Rome had very likely tempted Duerer to trust his prentice with an unusual
+quantity of prints. His worldly affairs were neither brilliant nor
+secure; yet we shall find him tempted on receiving an important
+commission to spend so much in time and material as to make it
+impossible for him to realise a profit. We are accustomed to think that
+these trials were spared to artists in the past by the munificence of
+patrons: but apart from the fact that patrons often paid only with
+promises or by granting credit, at Nuremberg there were few magnificent
+patrons, and its burghers were in no way so generous or so extravagant
+as those of Venice or Antwerp. In fact, Duerer's position was very
+similar to that of the modern artist, who finds little and insufficient
+patronage, and can make more if he is lucky by the reproduction of his
+creations for the great public. But Duerer still had one advantage over
+his fellow-sufferers of to-day--that of being his own publisher.
+Doubtless portraits were as popular then as nowadays; but if the public
+taste had not been prostituted by a seductive commercialism to the
+degree that at present obtains, on the other hand, at Nuremberg at
+least, the fashion seems to have been very little developed; and most of
+Duerer's important portraits seem to have been the result of his sojourns
+away from home.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 15: Thus far the original is in bad Italian.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The retainers of Konz Schott, a neighbouring baron, at one
+time a conspicuous enemy of Nuernberg.]
+
+[Footnote 17: These words are in Italian in the original.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Prof. Thausing suggests that this "other _Quadro_" is the
+"Christ among the Doctors" in the Barberini Gallery at Rome--a picture
+containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The
+inscription states it to have been _opus quinque dierum_. At Brunswick
+there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are
+likewise in existence. In Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna of 1508 in the
+Borghese Gallery at Rome, the head of St. Onuphrius is taken from the
+model who sat for the front Pharisee on the left in Duerer's picture.]
+
+[Footnote 19: A Nuernberg prison.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DUeRER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
+
+
+I
+
+Duerer had hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise
+Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant
+_Adoration of the Magi_ in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of
+Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron,
+as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and
+criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly
+generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of
+Duerer's relations with his clients; they show him appealing always to
+the judgment of artists against the ignorant buyer, and giving more than
+he bargained to give, though thereby he eats up his legitimate profits;
+lastly, they show him vowing never again to enter upon work so
+unprofitable, but to give all his time to the creation of engravings and
+woodcuts. The first is written to Michael Behaim, who died in 1511, and
+had commissioned him to make a design for a woodcut of his coat of arms.
+
+DEAR MASTER MICHAEL BEHAIM,--I send you back the coat of arms again.
+Pray let it stay as it is. No one could improve it for you, for I made
+it artistically and with care. Those who see it and understand such
+matters will tell you so. If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up
+backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+[Illustration: Photograph J. Lowy--THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY,
+1511--From the painting at Vienna]
+
+The other letters concern the lost _Coronation of the Virgin_, the
+centre panel of an altar-piece of which the wings are still at
+Frankfurt, of which town Jacob Heller, who commissioned it, was a
+burgher. They were to be studio work, and are supposed to be chiefly due
+to Duerer's brother Hans. There is, however, one picture extant which
+gives an idea of the execution of the missing centre panel, the _Holy
+Trinity and All Saints_ at Vienna; which, in spite of his vow never to
+do such work again, was commenced shortly after the _Coronation_, and
+for a Nuremberg patron. How much he was paid for it is not known; but it
+cannot have been a really adequate sum, as towards the end of his life
+he writes to the Nuremberg Council, "I have not received from people in
+this town work worth five hundred florins, truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum, and not the fifth part of that has been profit." The
+preceding picture, referred to in the first letters, is the _Martyrdom
+of the Ten Thousand by Sapor II_. All three pictures were signed, like
+the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ by little finely-dressed portraits of
+the painter.
+
+NUeRNBERG, _August_ 28, 1507.
+
+I did not want to receive any money in advance on it till I began to
+paint it, which, if God will, shall be the next thing after the Prince's
+work;[20] for I prefer not to begin too many things at once and then I
+do not become wearied. The Prince too will not be kept waiting, as he
+would be if I were to paint his and your pictures at the same time, as I
+had intended. At all events have confidence in me, for, so far as God
+permits, I will yet according to my power make something that not many
+men can equal.
+
+Now many good nights to you. Given at Nuernberg on Augustine's day, 1507.
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NUeRNBERG, March 19, _1508_.
+
+Dear Herr Jacob Heller. In a fortnight I shall be ready with Duke
+Friedrich's work; after that I shall begin yours, and, as my custom is,
+I will not paint any other picture till it is finished. I will be sure
+carefully to paint the middle panel with my own hand; apart from that,
+the outer sides of the wings are already sketched in--they will be in
+stone colour; I have also had the ground laid. So much for news.
+
+I wish you could see my gracious Lord's picture; I think it would please
+you. I have worked at it straight on for a year and gained very little
+by it; for I only get 280 Rhenish gulden for it, and I have spent all
+that in the time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NUeRNBERG, _August 24, 1508_.
+
+Now I commend myself to you. I want you also to know that in all my days
+I have never begun any work that pleased me better than this picture of
+yours which I am painting. Till I finish it I will not do any other
+work; I am only sorry that the winter will so soon come upon me. The
+days grow so short that one cannot do much.
+
+I have still one thing to ask you; it is about the _MADONNA_[21] that
+you saw at my house; if you know of any one near you who wants a picture
+pray offer it to him. If a proper frame was put to it, it would be a
+beautiful picture, and you know that it is nicely done. I will let you
+have it cheap. I would not take less than fifty florins to paint one
+like it. As it stands finished in the house it might be damaged for me,
+so I would give you full power to sell it for me cheap for thirty
+florins--indeed, rather than that it should not be sold I would even let
+it go for twenty-five florins. I have certainly lost much food over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nuernberg, _November_ 4, 1508.
+
+I am justly surprised at what you say in it about my last letter: seeing
+that you can accuse me of not holding to my promises to you. From such a
+slander each and everyone exempts me, for I bear myself, I trust, so as
+to take my stand amongst other straightforward men. Besides I know well
+what I have written and promised to you, and you know that in my
+cousin's house I refused to promise you to make a good thing, because I
+cannot. But to this I did pledge myself, that I would make something for
+you that not many men can. Now I have given such exceeding pains to your
+picture, that I was led to send you the aforesaid letter. I know that
+when the picture is finished all artists will be well pleased with it.
+It will not be valued at less than 300 florins. I would not paint
+another like it for three times the price agreed, for I neglect myself
+for it, suffer loss, and earn anything but thanks from you.
+
+You further reproach me with having promised you that I would paint your
+picture with the greatest possible care that ever I could. That I
+certainly never said, or if I did I was out of my senses, for in my
+whole lifetime I should scarcely finish it. With such extraordinary care
+I can hardly finish a face in half a year; now your picture contains
+fully 100 faces, not reckoning the drapery and landscape and other
+things in it. Besides, who ever heard of making such a work for an
+altar-piece? no one could see it. But I think it was thus that I wrote
+to you--that I would paint the picture with great or more than ordinary
+pains because of the time which you waited for me.
+
+You need not look about for a purchaser for my Madonna, for the Bishop
+of Breslau has given me seventy-two florins for it, so I have sold it
+well. I commend myself to you. Given at Nuernberg in the year 1508, on
+the Sunday after All Saints' Day.
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NUeRNBERG, _March_ 21, 1509.
+
+I only care for praise from those who are competent to judge; and if
+Martin Hess praises it to you, that may give you the more confidence.
+You might also inquire from some of your friends who have seen it; they
+will tell you how it is done. And if you do not like the picture when
+you see it, I will keep it myself, for I have been begged to sell it and
+make you another. But be that far from me! I will right honourably hold
+with you to that which I have promised, taking you, as I do, for an
+upright man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NUeRNBERG, _July_ 10, 1509.
+
+As you go on to say that if you had not bargained with me for the
+picture you would never do so now, and that I may keep it--I return you
+this answer: to retain your friendship, if I had to suffer loss by the
+picture, I would have done so, but now since you regret the whole
+business and provoke me to keep the picture I will do so, and that
+gladly, for I know how to get 100 florins more for it than you would
+have given me. In future I would not take 400 florins to paint another
+such as this.
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+NUeRNBERG, _July_ 24, 1509. DEAR HERR HELLER, I have read the letter
+which you addressed to me. You write that you did not mean to decline
+taking the picture from me. To that I can only say that I don't
+understand what you do mean. When you write that if you had not ordered
+the picture you would not make the bargain again, and that I may keep it
+as long as I like and so on--I can only think that you have repented of
+the whole business, so I gave you my answer in my last letter.
+
+But, at Hans Imhof's persuasion, and having regard to the fact that you
+ordered the picture of me, and also because I should prefer it to find a
+place at Frankfurt rather than anywhere else, I have consented to send
+it to you for 100 florins less than it might well have brought me.
+
+I am reckoning that I shall thus render you a pleasing service;
+otherwise I know well how I could draw far greater pecuniary advantage
+from it, but your friendship is dearer to me than any such trifling sum
+of money. I trust however that you would not wish me to suffer loss over
+it when you are better off than I. Make therefore your own arrangements
+and commands. Given at Nuernberg on Wine-Tuesday before James'.
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+NUeRNBERG, _August 26_, 1509. First my willing service to you, dear Herr
+Jacob Heller. In accordance with your last letter I am sending the
+picture well packed and seen to in all needful points. I have handed it
+over to Hans Imhof and he has paid me another 100 florins. Yet believe
+me, on my honour, I am still out of pocket over it besides losing the
+time which I have bestowed upon it. Here in Nuernberg they were ready to
+give 300 florins for it, which extra 100 florins would have done very
+nicely for me had I not preferred to please and serve you by sending you
+the picture. For I value the keeping of your friendship at more than 100
+florins. I would also rather have this painting at Frankfurt than
+anywhere else in all Germany.
+
+If you think that I have behaved unfairly in not leaving the payment to
+your own free-will, you must bear in mind that this would not have
+happened if you had not written by Hans Imhof that I might keep the
+picture as long as I liked. I should otherwise gladly have left it to
+you even if thereby I had suffered a greater loss still. My impression
+of you is that, supposing I had promised to make you something for about
+ten florins and it cost me twenty, you yourself would not wish me to
+lose by it. So pray be content with the fact that I took 100 florins
+less from you than I might have got for the picture--for I tell you that
+they wanted to take it from me, so to speak, by force.
+
+I have painted it with great care, as you will see, using none but the
+best colours I could get. It is painted with good ultramarine under, and
+over, and over that again, some five or six times; and then after it was
+finished I painted it again twice over so that it may last a long time.
+If it is kept clean I know it will remain bright and fresh 500 years,
+for it is not done as men are wont to paint. So have it kept clean and
+don't let it be touched or sprinkled with holy water. I feel sure it
+will not be criticised, or only for the purpose of annoying me; and I
+answer for it it will please you well. No one shall ever compel me to
+paint a picture again with so much labour. Herr Georg Tausy himself
+besought me to paint him a Madonna in a landscape with the same care and
+of the same size as this picture, and he would give me 400 florins for
+it. That I flatly refused to do, for it would have made a beggar of me.
+Of ordinary pictures I will in a year paint a pile which no one would
+believe it possible for one man to do in the time. But very careful
+nicety does not pay. So henceforth I shall stick to my engraving, and
+had I done so before I should to-day have been a richer man by
+1000 florins.
+
+I may tell you also that, at my own expense, I have had for the middle
+panel a new frame made which has cost me more than six florins. The old
+one I have broken off, for the joiner had made it roughly; but I have
+not had the other fastened on, for you wished it not to be. It would be
+a very good thing to have the rims screwed on so that the picture may
+not be shaken.
+
+If anyone wants to see it, let it hang forward two or three finger
+breadths, for then the light is good to see it by. And when I come over
+to you, say in one, two, or three years' time, if the picture is
+properly dry, it must be taken down and I will varnish it over anew with
+some excellent varnish, which no one else can make; it will then last
+100 years longer than it would before. But don't let anybody else
+varnish it, for all other varnishes are yellow, and the picture would be
+ruined for you. And if a thing, on which I have spent more than a year's
+work, were ruined it would be grief to me. When you have it set up be
+present yourself to see that it gets no harm. Deal carefully with it,
+for you will hear from your own and from foreign painters how it
+is done.
+
+Give my greeting to your painter Martin Hess. My wife asks you for a
+_Trinkgeld_, but that is as you please, I screw you no higher, &c. And
+now I hold myself commended to you. Read by the sense, for I write in
+haste. Given at Nuernberg on Sunday after Bartholomew's, 1509.
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+NUeRNBERG, _October 12_, 1509.
+
+DEAR HERR JACOB HELLER, I am glad to hear that my picture pleases you,
+so that my labour has not been bestowed in vain. I am also happy that
+you are content about the payment--and that rightly, for I could have
+got 100 florins more for it than you have given me. But I preferred to
+let you have it, hoping, as I do, thereby to retain you as my friend
+down in your parts.
+
+My wife thanks you very much for the present you have made her; she will
+wear it in your honour. My young brother also thanks you for the two
+florins _Trinkgeld_ you sent him. And now I too thank you myself for all
+the honour &c. In reply to your question how the picture should be
+adorned I send you a slight design of what I should do if it were mine,
+but you must do what you like. Now, many happy times to you. Given on
+Friday before Gall's, 1509. ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+Duerer must have commenced the All Saints picture almost immediately
+after having finished Heller's _Coronation of the Virgin_. Perhaps he
+had practically accepted the commission from Matthsus Landauer before he
+wrote to Heller that he would never again undertake a picture with so
+much work and labour in it, for he afterwards was as good as his word.
+This new work was for the chapel of an almshouse founded by Landauer and
+Erasmus Schiltkrot for twelve old men citizens of Nuremberg. The
+original frame designed by Duerer is now in the Germanic Museum, though a
+copy has replaced the picture. After the completion of the _Trinity and
+All Saints_, Duerer apparently carried out his threat and gave up
+painting for a dozen years, devoting his energies more especially to a
+magnificent series of engravings on copper. He also completed his series
+of wood engravings and published them with text, and produced a number
+of single cuts, many of them among his very best, like the _Assumption
+of the Magdalen_, and the _St. Christopher_, here reproduced.
+
+[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER Woodcut, B. 103]
+
+[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MAGDALEN Woodcut, B. 121]
+
+
+II
+
+In 1514 his mother died. He has recounted her death twice over, as he
+did that of his father already cited; for the single surviving leaf of
+the "other book" happens to contain this also. In the briefer
+chronicle he says:
+
+Two years after my Father's death (i.e., 1504) I took my Mother into my
+house, for she had nothing more to live upon. So she dwelt with me till
+the year 1513, as they reckon it; when, early one Tuesday morning, she
+was taken suddenly and deadly ill, and thus she lay a whole year long.
+And a whole year after the day she was first taken ill, she received the
+holy sacraments and christianly passed away two hours before
+nightfall--it was on a Tuesday, the 17th day of May in the year 1514. I
+said the prayers for her myself. God Almighty be gracious to her.
+
+The account in the "other book" is more circumstantial:
+
+Now you must know that, in the year 1513, on a Tuesday before Rogation
+week, my poor afflicted Mother, whom two years after my Father's death,
+as she was quite poor, I took into my house, and after she had lived
+nine years with me, was one morning suddenly taken so deadly ill that we
+broke into her chamber; otherwise, as she could not open, we had not
+been able to come to her. So we carried her into a room downstairs and
+she received both sacraments, for every one thought she would die,
+because ever since my Father's death she had never been in good health.
+
+Her most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always
+upbraided me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great
+anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went out or in
+her saying was always, "Go in the name of Christ." She constantly gave
+us holy admonitions with deep earnestness and she always had great
+thought for our souls' health. I cannot enough praise her good works and
+the compassion she showed to all, as well as her high character.
+
+This my pious Mother bare and brought up eighteen children; she often
+had the plague and many other severe and strange illnesses, and she
+suffered great poverty, scorn, contempt, mocking words, terrors, and
+great adversities. Yet she bore no malice.
+
+In 1514 (as they reckon it), on a Tuesday--it was the 17th day of
+May--two hours before nightfall and more than a year after the
+above-mentioned day in which she was taken ill, my Mother, Barbara
+Duerer, christianly passed away, with all the sacraments, absolved by
+papal power from pain and sin. But she first--gave me her blessing and
+wished me the peace of God, exhorting me very beautifully to keep myself
+from sin. She asked also to drink S. John's blessing, which she
+then did.
+
+She feared Death much, but she said that to come before God she feared
+not. Also she died hard, and I marked that she saw something dreadful,
+for she asked for the holy-water, although, for a long time, she had not
+spoken. Immediately afterwards her eyes closed over. I saw also how
+Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and how she closed mouth
+and eyes and departed with pain. I repeated to her the prayers. I felt
+so grieved for her that I cannot express it. God be merciful to her.
+
+To speak of God was ever her greatest delight, and gladly she beheld the
+honour of God. She was in her sixty-third year when she died and I have
+buried her honourably according to my means.
+
+[Illustration: "1514, on Oculi Sunday (March 19). This is Albrecht
+Duerer's mother; she was 63 years of age." After her death he added in
+ink, "And departed this life in the year 1514 on Tuesday Holy Cross Day
+(May 16) at two o'clock in the night" Charcoal-drawing. Royal Print
+Room, Berlin]
+
+God, the Lord, grant me that I too may attain a happy end, and that God
+with his heavenly host, my Father, Mother, relations, and friends may
+come to my death. And may God Almighty give unto us eternal life. Amen.
+
+And in her death she looked much sweeter than when she was still alive.
+
+
+III
+
+Such was the home life of this great artist; and from homes presenting
+variations on this type proceeded probably all the giants of the
+Renaissance, whose work we think so surpasses in effort, in scope, and
+in efficiency, all that has been achieved since. This Christianity was
+unreformed; it existed side by side with dissolute monasteries and
+worldly cynical prelates, surrounded by sordid hucksters and brutal
+soldiery. Turn to Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet, and we see that it
+existed in London, among the burghers, even in the household of a Lord
+Mayor. We are almost forced on the reflection that nothing that has
+succeeded to it has produced men equal to those who sprang immediately
+out of it.
+
+However much and however justly the assurance of Christian assertion in
+the realm of theory may be condemned, the success of the Christian life,
+wherever it has approached a conscientious realisation, stands out among
+the multitudinous forms of its corruption; and those who catch sight of
+it are almost bound to exclaim in the spirit of Shakespeare's:
+
+  "How far that little candle throws his beams!
+   So shines a good deed in a naughty world."
+
+I have heard a Royal Academician remark how even the poorest copies and
+reproductions of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture retain something of
+the charm and dignity of the original: whereas the quality of modern
+work is quickly lost in a reduction or even in a cast. I believe this
+may be best explained by the fact that the chief research of the Greek
+artist was to establish a beautiful proportion between the parts and the
+whole; and that fidelity to nature, dexterity of execution, the
+symbolism of the given subject, and even the finish of the surfaces,
+were always when necessary sacrificed to this. Whereas in modern work,
+even when the proportions of the whole are considered, which is rarely
+the case, they are almost without exception treated as secondary to one
+or more of these other qualities. Is it not possible that Jesus in his
+life laid down a proportion, similar to that of Greek masterpieces for
+the body, between the efforts and intentions which create the soul and
+pour forth its influence?--a proportion which, when it has been once
+thoroughly apprehended, may be subtly varied to suit new circumstances,
+and produce a similar harmony in spheres of activity with which Jesus
+himself had not even a distant connection? We often find that the rudest
+copies from copies of his actual life are like the biscuit china Venus
+of Milo sold by the Italian pedlar, which still dimly reflects the main
+beauties of the marble in the Louvre.
+
+
+IV
+
+In 1512 Kaiser Maximilian came to Nuremberg, and soon afterward Duerer
+began working for him. The employment he found for the greatest artist
+north of the Alps was sufficiently ludicrous; and perhaps Duerer showed
+that he felt this, by treating the major portion as studio work; though,
+no doubt, the impatience of his imperial patron in a measure
+necessitated the employment of many aids.
+
+It is difficult to do justice to the fine qualities of Maximilian.
+Perhaps he was not really so eccentric as he seems. The oddity of his
+doings and sayings may be perhaps more properly attributed to his having
+been a thorough German. The genial men of that nation, even to-day and
+since it has come more into line in point of culture with France and
+England, are apt to have a something ludicrous or fantastic clinging to
+them; even Goethe did not wholly escape. Maximilian was strong in body
+and in mind, and brimming over with life and interest. We are told that
+when a young man he climbed the tower of Ulm Cathedral by the help of
+the iron rings that served to hold the torches by which it was
+illuminated on high days and holidays. Again we read: "A secretary had
+embezzled 3000 gulden. Maximilian sent for him and asked what should be
+done to a confidential servant who had robbed his master. The secretary
+recommended the gallows. 'Nay, nay,' the Emperor said, and tapped him on
+the shoulder, 'I cannot spare you yet'"; an anecdote which reveals more
+good sense and a larger humanity than either monarchs or others are apt
+to have at hand on such vexing occasions. Thausing says admirably, "A
+happy imagination and a great idea of his exalted position made up to
+him for any want of success in his many wars and political
+negotiations," and elsewhere calls him the last of the "nomadic
+emperors," who spent their lives travelling from palace to palace and
+from city to city, beseeching, cajoling, or threatening their subjects
+into obedience. He himself said, "I am a king of kings. If I give an
+order to the princes of the empire, they obey if they please, if they do
+not please they disobey." He was even then called "the last of the
+knights," because he had an amateurish passion for a chivalry that was
+already gone, and was constantly attempting to revive its costumes and
+ordinances. Then, like certain of the Pharaohs of Egypt, he was pleased
+to read of, and see illustrated by brush and graver, victories he had
+never won, and events in which he had not shone. He himself dictated or
+planned out those wonderful lives or allegories of a life which might
+have been his. It was on such a work of futile self-glorification that
+he now wished to employ Duerer.
+
+The novelty of the art of printing, and the convenience to a nomadic
+emperor of a monument that could be rolled up, suggested the form of
+this last absurdity--a monster woodcut in 92 blocks which, when joined
+together, produced a picture 9 feet by 10, representing what had at
+first been intended as an imitation of a Roman triumphal arch; but so
+much information about so many more or less dubious ancestors, &c., had
+to be conveyed by quaint and conceited inventions, that in the end it
+was rather comparable to the confusion of a Juggernaut car, which
+never-the-less imposes by a barbarous wealth and magnificence of
+fantastic detail. And to this was to be joined another monster,
+representing on several yards of paper a triumphal procession of the
+emperor, escorted by his family, and the virtues of himself and
+ancestors, &c. Such is fortune's malice that Duerer, who alone or almost
+alone had conceived of the simplicity of true dignity and the beauty of
+choice proportions and propriety, should have been called upon by his
+only royal patron to superintend a production wherein the rank and
+flaccid taste of the time ran riot. The absurdity, barbarism, and
+grotesque quaintness of this monument to vanity cannot be laid
+exclusively at Maximilian's door; for the architecture, particularly of
+the fountains, in Altdorfer's or Manuel's designs, and in those of many
+others, reveals a like wantonness in delighted elaboration of the
+impossible and unstructural. The scholars and pedantic posturers who
+surrounded the emperor no doubt improved and abetted. Probably it was
+this Juggernaut element, inherited from the Gothic gargoyle, which
+Goethe censured when he said that "Duerer was retarded by a gloomy
+fantasy devoid of form or foundation." Perhaps this was written at a
+period when the great critic was touched with that resentment against
+the Middle Ages begotten by the feeling that his own art was still
+encumbered by its irrational and confused fantasy. We who certainly are
+able to take a more ample view of Duerer's situation in the art of his
+times, see that he is rather characterised by an effort which lay in
+exactly the same direction as that of Goethe's own; and while
+sympathising with the irritation expressed, can also admire the great
+engraver for having freed himself in so large a degree from the
+influence of fantasy "devoid of form and foundation," even as the
+justest Shakespearean criticism admires the degree in which the author
+of Othello freed himself from Elizabethan conceits. It is difficult to
+appreciate the difference for a great artist in having the general taste
+with rather than against the purer tendencies of his art. Probably the
+Greeks and certain Italians owe their freedom from eccentricity, in a
+very large measure, to this cause. But I intend to treat these questions
+more at length in dealing with Duerer's character as an artist and
+creator. It was necessary to touch on the subject here, because
+Maximilian embodies the peculiar and fantastic aftergrowth, which
+sprouted up in some northern minds from the old stumps remaining from
+the great mediaeval forest of thoughts and sentiments which had
+gradually fallen into decay. All around, even in the same minds, waved
+the saplings of the New Birth when these old stumps put forth their so
+fantastic second youth, seeming for a time to share in the new vigour,
+though they were never to attain expansion and maturity.
+
+
+V
+
+Thausing shrewdly remarks, "This love of fame and naive delight in the
+glorification of his own person are further proofs that the Emperor Max
+was the true child of his age. No one was so akin to him in this respect
+as the painter of his choice, Albert Duerer." This last is a reference to
+those strutting, finely-dressed portraits of the artist which stand
+beside the entablatures bearing his name, that of his birthplace, the
+date, &c., in four out of the five most elaborate pictures which Duerer
+painted. But I would like to suggest that probably this apparent
+resemblance to his royal patron is not thus altogether well accounted
+for. May there not have been something of Homer's invocation of his
+Muse, or of that sincerity which makes Dante play such a large part in
+the "Divine Comedy"?--something resembling the ninth verse of the
+Apocalypse: "I John, who also am your brother and companion in
+tribulation ... was in the isle that is called Patmos ... and heard
+behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying...." Those little
+strutting portraits of himself sprung, perhaps, out of this relation to
+those about him of the man by native gift very superior, who is not made
+contemptuous or inclined to emphasise his isolation, but who is ever
+ready to say, "It is I, be not afraid." The man who painted and
+conceived this is the man you know, whom you have admired because he
+carried his fine clothes so well in your streets. Here I am even in the
+midst of this massacre of saints, I have conceived it all and taken a
+whole year to elaborate it; and since you see me looking so cool and
+well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or
+overwhelmed. Such is ever the naivety of great souls among those whose
+culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among
+little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a
+selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a
+foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust,
+they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and
+console, for whose sakes they will even hide whatever in them is really
+unworthy of such admiration and such trust.
+
+We do not easily realise the corporate character of life in those days.
+Very much that seems to us quaint and absurd drew proper significance
+from the practical solidarity that then obtained; what appears to us a
+strange vanity or parade may have appeared to them respect for the
+guild, the town, the country to which they belonged. Duerer signed
+"Noricus,"--of Nuremberg;--and preferred its little lucrative
+citizenship to those more remunerative offered by Venice and Antwerp.
+"Let all the world behold how fine the artist of Nuremberg is." Just as
+he says, "God gave me diligence," so it seems natural to him to
+attribute a large half of his fame and glory to his native town. In many
+respects the great man of those days felt less individual than an
+ordinary man does now; for classes did not so merge one into the other,
+and their character was more distinct and authoritative. The little
+portrait of himself added to those wonderful _tours-de-force_ made them
+something that belonged to Nuremberg and to Germans. Even so it would be
+with some treasure cup, all gold and jewels, belonging to a village
+schoolmaster, which none of his neighbours dared look at save in his
+presence; for he was the son of a great baron whom his elder brothers
+robbed of everything except this, and his presence among them alone made
+them able to feel that it really belonged to their village, was theirs
+in a fashion. These suggestions will not, I think, appear fantastic to
+those who ponder on the apparently vainglorious address of much of
+Duerer's work, and keep in mind such a passage from his writings as this:
+
+"I would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver and gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something
+burning, and ye all add to it skilful furthering, a blaze may in time
+arise therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world."[22]
+
+But still, even if such considerations may bring many to accept my
+explanation of this contrast, I do not want to over-insist on it. I
+think that wherever men have been superior in character, as well as in
+gift or rank, to those about them, something of this spirit of the good
+eldest child in a family is bound to be manifested. But just as such a
+child may be veritably boastful and vain at other times,--however purely
+now and then, in crises of apparent difficulty or danger, its vaunt and
+strut may spring from real kindness and a considerate wish to inspire
+courage in the younger and weaker;--so doubtless there was a
+haughtiness, sometimes a fault, in Duerer as in Milton.
+
+
+VI
+
+But we have been led a long way from Kaiser Max and his portable
+monument. The reader will re-picture how the court arrived at Nuremberg
+like a troop of actors, whose performance was really their life, and was
+taken quite seriously and admired heartily by the good and solid
+burghers. This old comedy, often farce, entitled "The Importance of
+Authority," is no longer played with such a telling make-up, or with
+such showy properties as formerly, but is still as popular as ever; as
+we Londoners know, since the last few years have given us perhaps an
+over-dose of processions, illuminations, &c. &c. In this case the chief
+actors in the show piece were men of mark of an exceptionally
+entertaining character; with many of them Duerer and Pirkheimer were soon
+on the best of terms.
+
+Foremost, Johann Stabius, the companion of the Emperor for sixteen years
+without intermission in war and in peace, who was associated with Duerer
+to provide the written accompaniment for the monument; a literary
+jack-of-all-trades of ready wit and lively presence. A contemporary
+records: "The emperor took constant pleasure in the strange things which
+Stabius devised, and esteemed him so highly that he instituted a new
+chair of Astronomy and Mathematics for him at Vienna," in the Collegium
+Poetarum et Mathematicorum founded in the year 1501, under the
+presidency of Conrad Celtes.
+
+In all probability there would have been besides the learned protonotary
+of the supreme court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in
+the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of
+Duerer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later,
+still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes,
+and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the
+thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to be in vain.
+
+It may be that Duerer then met for the first time too the Imperial
+architect, Johannes Tscherte, for whom he afterwards drew two armillary
+spheres, to take the place of those on which he had cast ridicule; for
+Pirkheimer wrote to Tscherte: "I wish you could have heard how Albert
+Duerer spoke to me about your plate, in which there is not one good
+stroke, and laughed at me. What honour it will do us when it makes its
+appearance in Italy, and the clever painters there see it!" To which
+Tscherte replied: "Albert Duerer knows me well, he is also well aware
+that I love art, though I am no expert at it; let him if he likes
+despise my plate, I never pretended it was a work of art." And in a
+later letter he speaks "of the armillary spheres drawn by our common
+friend Albert Duerer." He was one of those who helped Duerer in his
+mathematical and geometrical studies; and he, like Pirkheimer, dedicated
+books to him. Although the mathematics of those times are hardly
+considered seriously nowadays, they then ranked with verse-making as a
+polite accomplishment, and had all the charm of novelty. Duerer, no
+doubt, had some gift that way, as he seems to have made a hobby of them
+during many years. Besides those who came in the Imperial troop, Duerer
+had many opportunities of meeting men of this kind, for such were
+constantly passing through Nuremberg. Duerer has left us what are
+evidently portraits of some whose names are lost: of others we have both
+name and likeness, among them the English ambassador, Lord Morley.
+
+In 1515 "Rafahel de' Urbin, who is held in such high esteem by the Pope,
+he made these naked figures and sent them to Albrecht Duerer at Nuremberg
+to show him his hand." This shows us that travellers through Nuremberg
+sometimes brought with them something of the breath of the great
+Renaissance in Italy. The drawing, which bears the above inscription in
+Duerer's own handwriting on the back, is a fine one in red sanguine,
+representing the same male model in two different poses, in the
+Albertina. Raphael had, we are told by Lodovico Dolce, drawings,
+engravings, and woodcuts of Duerer's hanging in his studio; and Vasari
+tells us he said: "If Duerer had been acquainted with the antique he
+would have surpassed us all." The Nuremberg master, in return for the
+drawing, sent a portrait of himself to Raphael, which has unfortunately
+been lost. There appears to have been quite a rage for Duerer's work in
+Italy, and above all at Rome: we know that it provoked Michael Angelo to
+remonstrate; probably on many lips it was merely a vaunt of superior
+knowledge or taste, as rapture over the conjectural friends or aids of a
+great quatrocentist is to-day. The tokens of esteem which he won from
+distinguished travellers, and this drawing which reached him testifying
+to the interest and friendship felt for him by the Italian whose fame
+was most widespread, must have been full of encouragement, and have
+compensated in some measure for the feeling he had that he was only a
+hanger-on at Nuremberg, though he might still have been "a gentleman" in
+Venice. Yet Nuremberg itself furnished many desirable or notable
+acquaintances. There was Duerer's neighbour, the jurist, Lazarus
+Spengler; later the most prominent reformer in Nuremberg, who in 1520
+dedicated to him his "Exhortation and Instruction towards the leading of
+a virtuous life," addressing him as "his particular and confidential
+friend and brother," whom he considers, "without any flattery, to be a
+man of understanding, inclined to honesty and every virtue, who has
+often in our daily familiar intercourse been to me in no common degree a
+pattern and an example to a more circumspect way of life;" whom,
+finally, he asks to improve his little book to the best of his ability.
+Duerer had before this rendered him service in designing his coat of arms
+for a woodcut and furnishing a frontispiece to his translation of
+Eusebius' "Life of St. Jerome." He was, moreover, a poet, author of "an
+often-translated song"; he wrote verses to discourage Duerer from
+spending his time in producing the doggerel rhymes which at one time he
+was moved to attempt,--framing poems of didactic import, and publishing
+one or two on separate sheets with a woodcut at the top, in spite of the
+inappreciative reception given to them by Spengler and Pirkheimer.
+Besides Spengler, there were "Christopher Kress, a soldier, a traveller,
+and a town councillor;" and Caspar Nuetzel, of one of the oldest
+families, and Captain-general of the town bands. Both of these went with
+Duerer to the Diet at Augsburg in 1518. The martial Paumgartners were two
+brothers for whom Duerer painted the early triptych at Munich (see page
+204). One of them is supposed to figure as St. George in the All Saints
+picture. Lastly, there were the Imhoffs, the merchant princes of
+Nuremberg, as the Fuggers were at Augsburg. A son of the family married
+Felicitas, Pirkheimer's favourite daughter, in 1515, and Duerer stood
+godfather to their little Hieronymus in 1518. It is easy to imagine that
+there was many a supper and dinner, when a thousand strange subjects
+were even more strangely discussed; when Pirkheimer now made them roar
+with a hazardous joke, or again dumbfounded them with Greek quotations
+pompously done into German, or made their flesh creep and the
+superstitions of their race stir in them by mysteriously enlarging on
+his astrological lore,--for to his many weaknesses he added this, which
+was then scarcely recognised as one.
+
+
+VII
+
+In spite of all his wealthy and influential friends, Duerer found it
+difficult to get the emperor to indemnify him for his labours, though
+the Town Council had received a royal mandate as early as 1512 from
+Landau. The following is an extract:
+
+Whereas our and the Empire's trusty Albrecht Duerer has devoted much zeal
+to the drawings he has made for us at our command, and has promised
+henceforth ever to do the like, whereat we have received particular
+pleasure; and whereas we are informed on all hands that the said Duerer
+is famous in the art of painting before all other Masters: we have
+therefore felt ourself moved, to further him with our especial grace,
+and we accordingly desire you with earnest solicitude, for the affection
+you bear us, to make the said Duerer free of all town imposts, having
+regard to our grace and to his famous art, which should fairly turn to
+his profit with you, &c.
+
+The town councillors sent some of their principal members to treat with
+Duerer, and he resigned his claim "in order to honour the said
+councillors and to maintain their privileges, usages, and rights." In
+1515 the drawings for the "Gate of Honour" were finished, and Duerer
+began to press again for pay. Stabius had promised to speak for him, but
+nothing had come of it. Albrecht thought Christoph Kress could be of
+more avail; so he wrote to him:
+
+(No date, but certainly 1515). DEAR HERR KRESS, The first thing I have
+to ask you is to find out from Herr Stabius whether he has done anything
+in my business with his Imperial Majesty, and how it stands. Let me know
+this in the next letter you write to my Lords. Should it happen that
+Herr Stabius has made no move in the matter, ... Point out in particular
+to his Imperial Majesty that I have served his Majesty for three years,
+spending my own money in so doing, and if I had not been diligent the
+ornamental work would have been nowise so successfully finished. I
+therefore pray his Imperial Majesty to recompense me with the 100
+florins--all which you know well how to do. You must know also that I
+made many other drawings for his Majesty besides the "Triumph."
+
+Not long after this, Maximilian, by a _Privilegium_ (dated Innsbruck,
+September 6, 1515), settled an annual pension of 100 florins on
+the artist.
+
+We Maximilian, by God's grace, &c., make openly known by this letter for
+ourself and our successors in the Empire, and to each and every one to
+wit, that we have regarded and considered the art, skill, and
+intelligence for which our and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved
+Albrecht Duerer has been praised before us, and likewise the pleasing,
+honest and useful services which he has often and willingly done for us
+and the Holy Empire and also for our own person in many ways, and which
+he still daily does and henceforward may and shall do: and that we
+therefore, of set purpose, after mature deliberation, and with the full
+knowledge of ourself and the Princes and Estates of the Empire, have
+graciously promised and granted to this same Duerer what we herewith and
+by virtue of this letter make known:
+
+_That is to say_, that one hundred florins Rhenish shall be yielded,
+given, and paid by the honourable, our and the Empire's trusty and
+well-beloved Burgomaster and Council of the town of Nuernberg and their
+successors unto the said Albrecht Duerer, against his quittance, all his
+life long and no longer, yearly and in every year, on our behalf, out of
+the customary town contributions which the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of Nuernberg are bound to yield and pay, yearly and in every
+year, into our Treasury. And whatever the said Burgomaster and Council
+of the town of Nuernberg and their successors shall yield, give, and pay
+to the said Albrecht Duerer, as stands written above, against his
+quittance, the same sum shall be accepted and reckoned to them as paid
+and yielded for the customary town contributions which they, as stands
+written above, are bound to pay into our Treasury, as if they had paid
+the same into our own hands and received our quittance therefor, and no
+harm or detriment shall in anywise be done therefor unto them or their
+successors by us or our successors in the Empire. Whereof this letter,
+sealed with our affixed seal, is witness.
+
+Given, &c.
+
+Thus Duerer became Court painter: in return for his salary he had to
+work. As soon as the "Gate of Honour" was finished, there was the "Car
+of Triumph" to be taken in hand, the first sketch for it (now in the
+Albertina) having already been made about 1514-15. In December 1514
+Schoensperger, the Augsburg printer, printed a splendid "Book of Hours"
+for Maximilian. The type was specially made for the book, and only a few
+copies were printed, some on fine vellum with large margins. One copy
+which Maximilian intended for his own use was sent to Duerer that he
+might decorate the margins with pen-drawings in various coloured inks.
+Of this work there exist forty-three pages by Duerer himself and eight by
+Cranach at Munich, and at Besancon thirty-five pages by Burgkmair,
+Altdorfer, Baldung Grien, and Hans Duerer. Marvellously deft and
+light-handed as are Duerer's freehand arabesques, embellished by racy
+sketches of which these borders consist, they are nevertheless touched
+with a like unsatisfactory character with the other works undertaken for
+Maximilian, and are almost as far removed from the spirit and
+performance of the best period for this kind of work, as is the
+_Triumphal Arch_ from that of Titus.
+
+Duerer was also employed on another woodcut representing a long row of
+saintly ancestors of this eccentric sovereign. He accompanied Caspar
+Nuetzel and Lazarus Spengler, the representatives of Nuremberg, to the
+Diet of Augsburg, and there made some drawings of his royal patron, on
+one of which is written, "This is my dear Prince Max, whom I, Albrecht
+Duerer, drew at Augsburg in his little room upstairs in the palace, in
+the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist's day." (_See
+opposite_.) And Melanchthon narrates that "once Max himself took the
+charcoal in hand to make his mind clear to his trusty Albert, and was
+vexed to find that the charcoal kept breaking short in his hand when
+Duerer said; 'Most gracious emperor, I would not that your Majesty should
+draw so well as I do!' by which he meant, 'I am practised in this, and
+it is my province; thou, Emperor, hast harder tasks and another
+calling.'"
+
+[Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co.
+Dornach._--"This is the Emperor Maximilian, whose likeness I, Albrecht
+Duerer, have taken, at Augsburg, high up in the palace in his little
+chamber, in the year of Grace 1518, on Monday after St. John the
+Baptist's Day" Charcoal-Drawing. Albertina, Vienna]
+
+
+VIII
+
+A charming letter from Charitas Pirkheimer gives us a little sunlit
+glimpse of the tone of Duerer's lighter hours.
+
+The prudent and wise Masters Caspar Nuetzel, Lazarus Spengler, and
+Albrecht Duerer, for the time being at Augsburg, our gracious Masters and
+good friends.
+
+Jesus.
+
+As a friendly greeting, prudent, wise, gracious Masters and especially
+good friends, cousins, and wellwishers, I desire every good thing for
+you, from the Highest Good. I received with great pleasure your friendly
+letter and its news of a kind suited to my order, or rather my trade;
+and I read it with such great devotion that more than once tears ran
+down my eyes over it--truly rather tears of laughter than of sorrow. I
+consider it a subject for great thankfulness that, with such important
+business and so much gaiety on hand, your Wisdoms do not forget me, but
+find time to instruct me, poor little nun, about the monastic life
+whereof you now have a clear reflection before your eyes. I conclude
+from this that doubtless some good spirit drove you, my gracious and
+dear Masters, to Augsburg, so that you might learn from the example of
+the free Swabian spirits how to instruct and govern the poor imprisoned
+sand-bares.[23]
+
+For since our trusty Master Warden (Caspar Nuetzel), as a lover of the
+Church, likes to help in a thorough reformation, he should first behold
+a pattern of holy observance in the Swabian League. Let Master Lazarus
+Spengler, too, inform himself well about the apostolic mode of common
+life, so that at the annual audit he may be able to give us and others
+counsel and guidance, how we may run through everything, that nought
+remain over. And Master Albrecht Duerer, also, who is such a genius and
+master at drawing, he may very carefully inspect the stately buildings,
+and then if some day we want to alter our choir he will know how to give
+us advice and help in making ample slide-windows (? blinds), so that our
+eyes may not be quite blinded.
+
+I shall not further trouble you, however, to bring us music to learn to
+sing by notes, for our beer is now so very sour that I fear the dregs
+might stick fast among the four reeds or voices, and produce such
+strange sounds that the dogs would fly out of the church. But I must
+humbly pray you not quite to wear out your eyes over the black and white
+magpies, so as no longer to know the little grey wolves at Nuernberg. I
+have heard much of the sharp-witted Swabians all my life, but it would
+be well if we learnt more from them, now that they are so wisely
+labouring with his Imperial Majesty to save the Apostolic life from
+being done away with. It is easy to see what very different lovers of
+the Church they are from our Masters here.
+
+Pardon me, my dear and gracious Masters, this my playful letter. It is
+all done _in caritate--summa summarum_; and the end of it is that I
+should rejoice at your speedy return in health and happiness with the
+glad accomplishment of the business committed to you. For this I and my
+sisters heartily pray God day and night; still we cannot carry it
+through alone, so I counsel you to entreat the pious and pure hearts (of
+Augsburg) to sing in high quavers that thereby things may speed well.
+And now many happy times to you!
+
+Given at Nuernberg on September 3, 1518.
+
+SISTER CHARITAS, unprofitable Abbess of S. Clara's at Nuernberg.
+
+Duerer returned with a letter to the Town Council of Nuernberg, from which
+the following extract is taken:
+
+Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved, Whereas you are bound to pay us on
+next St. Martin's day year a remainder, to wit 200 florins Rhenish, out
+of the accustomed town contribution which you are wont to render into
+our and the Empire's treasury....We earnestly charge you to deliver and
+pay the said 200 florins, accepting our quittance therefor, unto our and
+the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Duerer, our painter, on
+account of his honest services, willingly rendered to us at our command
+for our "Car of Triumph" and in other ways; and, at the said time, these
+200 florins shall be deducted for you from the accustomed town
+contribution. Thus you will perform our earnest desire.
+
+Given, &c.
+
+Duerer procured a receipt for the 200 florins, signed by the emperor
+himself. But before "next St. Martin's day year," Maximilian was dead,
+and the 200 florins no longer his to dispose of, being due to the new
+Emperor Charles V. The municipal authorities of Nuernberg refused to pay
+until his Privilegium had been confirmed by Maximilian's successor.
+
+Duerer wrote the following letter to the Council:
+
+NUeRNBERG, April 27, 1519.
+
+Prudent, honourable and wise, gracious, dear Lords. Your Honours are
+aware that, at the Diet lately holden by his Imperial Roman Majesty, our
+most gracious lord of very praiseworthy memory, I obtained a gracious
+assignment from his Imperial Majesty of 200 florins from the yearly
+payable town contributions of Nuernberg. This assignment was granted to
+me, after many applications and much trouble, in return for the zealous
+work and labour, which, for a long time previously, I had devoted to his
+Majesty. And he sent you order and command to that effect, signed with
+his accustomed signature, and quittance in all form, which quittance,
+duly sealed, is in my hands.
+
+Now I rest humbly confident that your Honours will graciously remember
+me as your obedient burgher, who has employed much time in the service
+and work of his Imperial Majesty, our most rightful Lord, with but small
+recompense, and has thereby lost both profit and advantage in other
+ways. And therefore I trust that you will now deliver me these 200
+florins to his Imperial Majesty's order and quittance, that so I may
+receive a fitting reward and satisfaction for my care, pains, and
+work--as, no doubt, was his Imperial Majesty's intention.
+
+But seeing that some Emperor or King might in the future claim these 200
+florins from your Honours, or might not be willing to spare them, but
+might some day demand them back again from me, I am, therefore, willing
+to relieve your Honours and the town of this chance, by appointing and
+mortgaging, as security and pledge therefor, my tenement situated at the
+corner under the Veste, and which belonged to my late father, that so
+your Honours may suffer neither prejudice nor loss thereby. Thus am I
+ready to serve your Honours, my gracious rulers and Lords.
+
+Your Wisdoms' willing burgher, ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+[Illustration: FREDERICK THE WISE. Silver-point drawing, British
+Museum.]
+
+Duerer next wrote "to the honourable, most learned Master Georg Spalatin,
+Chaplain to my most gracious lord, Duke Friedrich, the Elector"
+of Saxony.
+
+The letter is undated, but clearly belongs to the early part of the year
+1520.
+
+Most worthy and dear Master, I have already sent you my thanks in the
+short letter, for then I had only read your brief note. It was not till
+afterwards, when the bag in which the little book was wrapped was turned
+inside out, that I for the first time found the real letter in it, and
+learnt that it was my most gracious Lord himself who sent me Luther's
+little book. So I pray your worthiness to convey most emphatically my
+humble thanks to his Electoral Grace, and in all humility to beseech his
+Electoral Grace to take the praiseworthy Dr. Martin Luther under his
+protection for the sake of Christian truth. For that is of more
+importance to us than all the power and riches of this world; because
+all things pass away with time, Truth alone endures for ever.
+
+God helping me, if ever I meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a
+careful portrait of him from the life and to engrave it on copper, for a
+lasting remembrance of a Christian man who helped me out of great
+distress. And I beg your worthiness to send me for my money anything new
+that Dr. Martin may write.
+
+As to Spengler's "Apology for Luther," about which you write, I must
+tell you that no more copies are in stock; but it is being reprinted at
+Augsburg, and I will send you some copies as soon as they are ready. But
+you must know that, though the book was printed here, it is condemned in
+the pulpit as heretical and meet to be burnt, and the man who published
+it anonymously is abused and defamed. It is reported that Dr. Eck wanted
+to burn it in public at Ingolstadt, as was done to Dr. Reuchlin's book.
+
+With this letter I send for my most gracious lord three impressions of a
+copper-plate of my most gracious lord of Mainz, which I engraved at his
+request. I sent the copper-plate with 200 impressions as a present to
+his Electoral Grace, and he graciously sent me in return 200 florins in
+gold and 20 ells of damask for a coat. I joyfully and thankfully
+accepted them, especially as I was in want of them at that time.
+
+His Imperial Majesty also, of praiseworthy memory, who died too soon for
+me, had graciously made provision for me, because of the great and
+long-continued labour, pains, and care, which I spent in his service.
+But now the Council will no longer pay me the 100 florins, which I was
+to have received every year of my life from the town taxes, and which
+was yearly paid to me during his Majesty's lifetime. So I am to be
+deprived of it in my old age and to see the long time, trouble, and
+labour all lost which I spent for his Imperial Majesty. As I am losing
+my sight and freedom of hand my affairs do not look well. I don't care
+to withhold this from you, kind and trusted Sir.
+
+If my gracious lord remembers his debt to me of the staghorns, may I ask
+your Worship to keep him in mind of them, so that I may get a fine pair.
+I shall make two candlesticks of them.
+
+I send you here two little prints of the Cross from a plate engraved in
+gold. One is for your Worship. Give my service to Hirschfeld and
+Albrecht Waldner. Now, your Worship, commend me faithfully to my most
+gracious lord, the Elector.
+
+Your willing ALBRECHT DUeRER at Nuernberg.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 20: _The Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints._]
+
+[Footnote 21: Supposed to be the _Madonna with the Iris_.]
+
+[Footnote 22: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 178.]
+
+[Footnote 23: The soil about Nuernberg is sandy.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DUeRER, LUTHER AND THE HUMANISTS
+
+
+I
+
+But while Duerer was thus busily at work or dunning his great debtors,
+Luther had appeared. In 1517 he nailed his ninety-five theses to the
+door of Wittenberg church, and Cardinal Caietan by the unlucky Leo X.
+was poured like oil upon the fire which they had lighted. Luther had
+been summoned to meet the Cardinal at the Diet of Augsburg, where Duerer
+went to see Maximilian, though he only arrived there after our friends
+from Nuremberg had departed. However, Luther passed through Nuremberg on
+foot, and borrowed a coat of a friend there in order to figure with
+decency before the Diet. Yet Duerer probably did not meet him, although
+the words in the letter to George Spalatin, quoted above, "If ever I
+meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a careful portrait of him and
+engrave it on copper," do not forbid the possibility of this early
+meeting before the Reformer had become so famous. Next the Pope tried to
+soothe by sending Miltitz with flatteries and promises--a man that could
+smile and weep to order, but who succeeded neither with the Elector
+Frederic, nor with Luther, nor with Germany. At Nuremberg the preacher
+Wenzel Link soon formed a little reformed congregation, to which Duerer,
+Pirkheimer, Spengler, Nuetzel, Scheurl, Ebner, Holzschurher, and others
+belonged. We have already seen how, soon after this, Duerer was anxious
+for Luther's safety, by the letter to the wise Elector, quoted above;
+and in 1518 he sent Luther a number of his prints, and soon after joined
+with others of Link's hearers to send a greeting of encouragement. And
+before long we find him jotting down a list of sixteen of Luther's
+tracts, either because he intended to get and read them, or because they
+were already his; and on the back of a drawing we find the following
+outline of the faith such as he then apprehended it, in which we see
+clearly that Christ has become the voice of conscience--the power in a
+man by which he recognises and creates good.
+
+Seeing that through disobedience of sin we have fallen into everlasting
+Death, no help could have reached us save through the incarnation of the
+Son of God, whereby He through His innocent suffering might abundantly
+pay the Father all our guilt, so that the Justice of God might be
+satisfied. For He has repented, of and made atonement for the sins of
+the whole world, and has obtained of the Father Everlasting Life.
+Therefore Christ Jesus is the Son of God, the highest power, who can do
+all things, and He is the Eternal life. Into whomsoever Christ comes he
+lives, and himself lives in Christ. Therefore all things are in Christ
+good things. There is nothing good in us except it becomes good in
+Christ. Whosoever, therefore, will altogether justify himself is unjust.
+_If we will what is good, Christ wills it in us_. No human repentance is
+enough to equalise deadly sin and be fruitful.
+
+In this the old mythological language is retained, but it has received a
+new interpretation or significance, and this quite without the writer's
+perceiving what he is doing. Christ is affirmed to have repented of the
+sins of the whole world. Among the early heresiarchs there were, I
+believe, some who went so far as to hold that he had committed the sins
+before he repented of them, and triumphed over their effects by his
+sufferings and death. In any case, a similar feeling is expressed by our
+odd mystic Blake in his "Everlasting Gospel":
+
+  "If He (Jesus) intended to take on sin,
+  His mother should an harlot have bin."
+
+The actual records of Christ are too meagre the moment he is regarded as
+an allegory of human life; and such additions to the creed spring
+naturally out of the ardent seeker's desire to realise the universality
+implied in the dogma of his Godhead, which is accepted even by Blake as
+a historical fact beyond question. It was not the character of so much
+as can be perceived of the universe which daunted Luther and Duerer, as
+it daunts the serious man to-day. They accepted what appears to us a
+cheap and easy subterfuge, because they believed it to have been
+prescribed by God; the ambiguous inferences which such a prescription
+must logically cast on the Divine character did not arrest their
+attention. What they gained was a free conscience, a conscience in which
+Christ was, to use their language, and which was in Christ; and for
+practical piety this was sufficient. They themselves had not made up
+their minds on theoretical points; it was only in the face of their
+opponents that they thought of arming themselves with like weapons, and
+sought a mechanical agreement upon questions about which no one ever has
+known, or probably ever can know, anything at all. This was where
+Luther's pugnacity betrayed him; so that little by little he seems to
+lose spiritual beauty, as the monk, all fire and intensity, is
+transformed into the "plump doctor," and again into the bird of ill omen
+who croaked.
+
+"The arts are growing as if there was to be a new start and the world
+was to become young again. I hope God will finish with it. We have come
+already to the White Horse. Another hundred years and all will be over."
+
+Compare this with Duerer's:
+
+"Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both
+well and better about this art than I."
+
+"Would to God that it were possible for me to see the work and art of
+the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might
+be improved."
+
+I do not want to judge Luther harshly; he had done splendidly, and it is
+difficult to meddle with worldly things without soiling one's fingers
+and depressing one's heart; but I ask which of these two quotations
+expresses man's most central character best--the desire for nobler
+life--which reveals the more admirable temper? (Duerer had been touched
+by the spirit of the Renaissance as well as by that of the Reformation;
+we can distinguish easily when he is speaking under the one influence,
+when under the other, and the contrast often impresses one as the
+contrast between the above quotations. And it gives us great reason to
+deplore that the two spirits could not work side by side as they did in
+Duerer and a few rare souls, but that in the world there was war between
+them.) It seems inevitable that the things men fight about should always
+be spoiled. The best part of written thought is something that cannot be
+analysed, cannot therefore be defended or used for offence; it is a
+spirit, an emanation, something that influences us more subtly than we
+know how to describe.
+
+We see by the passage quoted that Duerer was not only influenced by
+Luther's heroism, but by his doctrinal theorising. Unfortunately we do
+not know whether he outgrew this second and less admirable influence.
+Did he feel like his friend Pirkheimer in the end, that "the new
+evangelical knaves made the old popish knaves seem pious by contrast?"
+Milton under similar circumstances came to think that "New Presbyter is
+but old Priest writ large." Probably not; for just as we know he did not
+abandon what seemed to him beautiful and helpful in old Catholic
+ceremonies, usages, and conceptions, so probably he would not confuse
+what had been real gain in the Reformation with the excesses of
+Anabaptists or Socialists, or even of Luther himself or his followers.
+There is no reason to suppose he would have judged so hastily as the
+gouty irascible Pirkheimer, however much he may have deplored the course
+of events. It must have been evident to thoughtful men, then, that it
+was impossible for so large an area to be furnished with properly
+trained pastors in so short a time, and that therefore more or less
+deplorable material was bound to be mingled in the official _personnel_
+of the new sect. It is impossible, when we consider how he solved the
+precisely parallel difficulty in aesthetics, not to feel that if he had
+had time given him, he would have arrived in point of doctrine at a
+moderation similar to that of Erasmus.
+
+Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty....
+Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know not certainly
+what the ultimate measure of true beauty is.... Because now we cannot
+altogether attain unto perfection shall we, therefore, wholly cease from
+learning? By no means ... for it behoveth the rational man to choose the
+good. (See the passage complete on page 15.)
+
+Luther imagined that the faith that saved was entire confidence in the
+fact that a bargain had been struck between the Persons of the Trinity,
+according to which Christ's sacrifice should be accepted as satisfying
+the justice of his Father, outraged by Adam's fault. To-day this appears
+to the majority of educated men a fantastic conception. For them the
+faith that saves is love of goodness, as love of beauty saves the artist
+from mistakes into which his intelligence would often plunge him. Jesus
+has no claim upon us superior to his goodness and his beauty; nor can we
+conceive of the possibility of such a claim. But we recognise with Duerer
+that we do not know what the true measure of goodness and beauty is, and
+all that we can do is to choose always the good and the beautiful
+according to the measure of our reason--to the fulness of the light at
+present granted to us.
+
+
+II
+
+The curiosity of the modern man of science no doubt is descended from
+that of men like Leonardo and the early Humanists, but it differs from
+almost more than it resembles it. The motive power behind both is no
+doubt the confidence of the healthy mind that the human intelligence
+will ultimately prove adequate to comprehend the spectacle of the
+universe. But for the Humanists, for Duerer and his friends, the
+consciousness of the irreconcilableness of that spectacle with the
+necessary ideals of human nature had not produced, as in our
+contemporaries and our immediate forerunners it has produced, either the
+atrophy of expectation which afflicts some, or the extravagance of
+ingenuity that cannot rest till it has rationalised hope, which torments
+others. They were saddled with neither the indifference nor the
+restlessness of the modern intellect. They escaped like boys on a
+holiday. They felt conscious of doing what their schoolmaster meant them
+to do, though they were actually doing just what they liked. It was all
+for the glory of God in Duerer's mind; but how or why God should be
+pleased with what he did, did not trouble him. He engraved and sold
+impressions of a plate representing a sow with eight legs; he made a
+drawing, which is at Oxford, of an infant girl with two heads and four
+arms, and calmly wrote beneath it:--
+
+Item, in the year reckoned 1512, after the birth of Christ, such a
+creature (_Frucht_) as is represented above, was born in Bavaria, on the
+Lord of Werdenberg's land, in a village named Ertingen over against
+Riedlingen. It was on the 20th of the hay month (July), and they were
+baptized, the one head Elspett, the other Margrett.
+
+Just so, Luther is no more than St. Paul abashed to say that God had
+need of some men intended for dishonour, as a potter makes some vessels
+for honourable, some for dishonourable uses. The modern mind at once
+reflects: "If that is the case, so much the worse for God; by so much is
+it impossible that I should ever worship Him;" and it will prefer any
+prolongation of "that most wholesome frame of mind, a suspended
+judgment," to accepting a solution so cheap as that offered by the
+Apostle and Reformer, which has come to seem simply injurious.
+
+The spirit of the enlarged schoolboy was, I think, really the attitude
+of the best minds then and onwards to Descartes and Spinoza. They gave
+themselves up to the study of nature without ceasing to belong to their
+school, yet freed, as on a holiday, from the constraint of being
+actually in it. Yet, in regard to their personal and social life, at
+least north of the Alps, the majority of such men were very consciously
+and dutifully under "their great taskmaster's eye"; and in that also
+they differ in a measure from the more part of modern scientists.
+
+Duerer made up a rhinoceros from a sketch and description sent to him
+from Portugal, whither the uncouth creature had been brought in a ship
+from Goa. Duerer's drawing was engraved and became the parent of
+innumerable rhinoceroses in lesson-books, doing service right down well
+into the late century, as Thausing assures us. The unfortunate original
+was sent as a present to Leo X., who wanted to see him fight with an
+elephant which had made him laugh by squirting water and kneeling down
+to be blessed as sensibly as a Christian. So the poor beast was shipped
+again, only to be shipwrecked near Porto Venere, where he was last seen
+swimming valiantly, but hopelessly impeded by his chain, and baffled by
+the rocky shore. In the Netherlands, Duerer's curiosity to see a whale
+nearly resulted in his own shipwreck, and indirectly produced the malady
+which finally killed him. But Duerer's curiosity was really most
+scientific where it was most artistic; in his portraits, in his studies
+of plants and birds and the noses of stags, or the slumber of lions.
+
+Doubtless it was not a very dissimilar motive which gained him entrance
+into the women's bath at Nuremberg, for we see he must have been there
+by the beautiful pen drawing at Bremen and the slighter one of the same
+subject at Chatsworth. These drawings may also illustrate what in his
+book on the Proportion he calls the words of difference--stout, lean,
+short, tall, &c. (see p. 285), as he would seem to have chosen types as
+various as possible, ranging from the human sow to the slim and
+dignified beauty. In the same spirit he studied perspective and the art
+of measuring; he felt the importance to art of inquiry in these
+directions; nevertheless, to seize the beautiful elements in nature was
+ever the object of his efforts, however, roundabout they may sometimes
+appear to us. "The sight of a fine human figure is above all things the
+most pleasing to us, wherefore I will first construct the right
+proportions of a man." (See p. 321.) His aesthetic curiosity had nothing
+in common with that which considers all objects and appearances as
+equally interesting. What he meant by Nature, when he bid the artist
+have continual recourse to her, was far from being the momentary and
+accidental appearance of any thing or things anywhere,--which the modern
+"student of Nature" admires because he has neither sufficient force of
+character to prefer, nor sufficient right feeling to defer to the
+preferences of those who have more.
+
+Leonardo's natural history is delightful reading, because it combines
+such fantastic and inventive fables as surpass even the happiest efforts
+of our nonsense writers with a beautiful openness of mind which we see
+oftener in children than in sages,--which is, in fact, the seriousness
+of those who are truly learning, and are not too conscious of what has
+already been learnt.
+
+As a boy adds to the pleasure he has in adventuring further and further
+into a cave the delight of awesome supposition--for what may not the
+next turn reveal?--and is pleased to feel all his young machinery ready
+instantly to enact a panic if his torch should blow out, and laughs at
+each furtive rehearsal of his own terror in which he indulges;--so the
+Humanists turned from astronomy to astrology, and used their skill in
+mathematics to play with horoscopes which they more than half believed
+might bite. There was just enough doubt as to whether any given wonder
+was a miracle to make it interesting; and at any moment the pall of
+superstition might stifle the flickering light of inquiry, as we feel
+was the case when Duerer writes:
+
+The most wonderful thing I ever saw occurred in the year 1503, when
+crosses fell upon many persons, and especially on children rather than
+on elder people. Amongst others, I saw one of the form which I have
+represented below. It had fallen into Eyrer's maid's shift, as she was
+sitting in the house at the back of Pirkheimer's (i.e., in the house
+where Duerer was born). She was so troubled about it that she wept and
+cried aloud, for she feared that she must die because of it.
+
+I have also seen a comet in the sky.
+
+And again, the terror caused by a very bad and strange dream passes the
+bounds of play; and one feels that the belief that a vision of the night
+might produce or prefigure dreadful change was for him something a great
+deal more serious than for the dilettante spiritualist and
+wonder-tickler of to-day. He writes:
+
+In the night between Wednesday and Thursday after Whit Sunday (May
+30-31, 1525), I saw this appearance in my sleep--how many great waters
+fell from heaven. The first struck the earth about four miles away from
+me with terrific force and tremendous noise, and it broke up and drowned
+the whole land. I was so sore afraid that I awoke from it. Then the
+other waters fell, and as they fell they were very powerful, and there
+were many of them, some further away, some nearer. And they came down
+from so great a height that they all seemed to fall with an equal
+slowness. But when the first water that touched the earth had very
+nearly reached it, it fell with such swiftness, with wind and roaring,
+and I was so sore afraid that when I awoke my whole body trembled, and
+for a long while I could not recover myself. So when I arose in the
+morning, I painted it above here as I saw it God turn all these things
+to the best. ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+The instinct for recording which dictates such a note as this is
+characteristic of Duerer, and called into being many of his drawings.
+Many such naive and explicit records as that on the drawing which
+Raphael sent him are to be found in the flyleaves of books and on the
+margins of prints and drawings, his possessions. In such notes we may
+see not only an effect of the curiosity, and desire to arrange and
+co-ordinate information, which resulted in modern science; but something
+that is akin to that worship and respect for the deeds and productions
+of those long dead or in distant countries, in which the human spirit
+relieved itself from the oppressive expectation of judgment and
+vengeance which had paralysed it, as the beauty of the supernatural
+world was lost sight of behind its terrors, and witches and wizards
+engrossed the popular mind, in which for a time saints and angels had
+held the ascendancy. The future now became the return of a golden age;
+not a garish and horrible novelty called heaven and hell, but a human
+society beautiful as that of the Greeks, grand as that of republican
+Rome, sweet and hospitable as the household of Jesus and Mary. The
+Reformation is in part a return of the old fears; but Duerer has recorded
+only one bad dream, whereas he tells that he was often visited by dreams
+worthy of the glorious Renascence. "Would to God it were possible for me
+to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet
+unborn, for I know that I might be improved. Ah! _how often in my_ sleep
+do I behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof
+never appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me!" Why was he not sent to Rome to see the ceiling of the
+Sistina and Raphael's Stanze? Perchance it was these that he saw in
+his dreams?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DUeRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS
+
+
+I
+
+It is even more the case with Duerer's journal written in the Netherlands
+than with the letters from Venice that, like life itself, it is full of
+repetitions and over-insistence on what is insignificant. I quote the
+most interesting passages, and as there is never a good reason for doing
+again what has already been well done; I am happy to quote Sir Martin
+Conway's excellent notes, having found occasion to add only one. Duerer
+set out on July 12, 1520, with his wife and her maid Susanna. It was
+probably this Susanna who three years later married Georg Penz, one of
+"the three godless painters." Duerer took a great many prints and
+woodcuts, books both to sell and to give as presents; and besides he
+took a sketch book in which he made silver-point sketches and portraits.
+A good number of its pages have come down to us, and a great many of the
+portraits he mentions having taken were done in it, and then cut out to
+give to the sitter. All these drawings are on the same sized paper. We
+reproduce one of them here (see page 156). Besides this sketch-book he
+evidently had a memorandum-book in which he recorded what he did, what
+he spent, whom he saw, and occasionally what he felt or what he wished.
+The original is lost, but an old copy of it is in the Bamberg Library.
+
+_July_ 12.--On Thursday after Kilian's, I, Albrecht Duerer, at my own
+charges and costs, took myself and my wife (and maid Susanna) away to
+the Netherlands. And the same day, after passing through Erlangen, we
+put up for the night at Baiersdorf and spent there 3 pounds less
+6 pfennigs.
+
+July 13.--Next day, Friday, we came to Forchheim, and there I paid 22
+pf. for the convoy.
+
+Thence I journeyed to Bamberg, where I presented the Bishop (Georg III.
+Schenk von Limburg[24]) with a Madonna painting, a Life of our Lady, an
+Apocalypse, and a Horin's worth of engravings. He invited me as his
+guest, gave me a Toll-pass[25] and three letters of introduction, and
+paid my bill at the inn, where I had spent about a florin.
+
+I paid six florins in gold to the boatman who took me from Bamberg to
+Frankfurt.
+
+Master Lukas Benedict and Hans,[26] the painter, sent me wine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, _August_ 2-26, 1520.
+
+At Antwerp I went to Jobst Plankfelt's[27] inn, and the same evening at
+Fuggers' Factor,[28] Bernhard Stecher invite and gave us a costly meal.
+My wife, however, dined at the inn. I paid the driver three gold florins
+for bringing us three, and one st. I paid for carrying the goods.
+
+_August_ 4.--On Saturday after the feast of St. Peter in Chains my host
+took me to see the Burgomaster's (Arnold van Liere) house at Antwerp. It
+is newly built and beyond measure large, and very well ordered, with
+spacious and exceedingly beautiful chambers, a tower splendidly
+ornamented, a very large garden--altogether a noble house, the like of
+which I have nowhere seen in all Germany. The house also is reached from
+both sides by a very long street, which has been quite newly built
+according to the Burgomaster's liking and at his charges.
+
+I paid three st. to the messenger, two pf. for bread, two pf. for ink.
+
+August 5.--On Sunday, it was St. Oswald's Day, the painters invited me
+to the hall of their guild, with my wife and maid. All their service was
+of silver, and they had other splendid ornaments and very costly meats.
+All their wives also were there. And as I was being led to the table the
+company stood on both sides as if they were leading some great lord. And
+there were amongst them men of very high position, who all behaved most
+respectfully towards me with deep courtesy, and promised to do
+everything in their power agreeable to me that they knew of. And as I
+was sitting there in such honour the Syndic (Adrian Horebouts) of
+Antwerp came, with two servants, and presented me with four cans of wine
+in the name of the Town Councillors of Antwerp, and they had bidden him
+say that they wished thereby to show their respect for me and to assure
+me of their good will. Wherefore I returned them my humble thanks and
+offered my humble service. After that came Master Peeter (Frans), the
+town-carpenter, and presented me with two cans of wine, with the offer
+of his willing services. So when we had spent a long and merry time
+together till late in the night, they accompanied us home with lanterns
+in great honour. And they begged me to be ever assured and confident of
+their good will, and promised that in whatever I did they would be
+all-helpful to me. So I thanked them and laid me down to sleep.
+
+The Treasurer (Lorenz Sterk) also gave me a child's head (painted) on
+linen, and a wooden weapon from Calicut, and one of the light wood
+reeds. Tomasin, too, has given me a plaited hat of alder bark. I dined
+once with the Portuguese, and have given a brother of Tomasin's three
+fl. worth of engravings.
+
+Herr Erasmus[29] has given me a small Spanish _mantilla_ and three men's
+portraits.
+
+I took the portrait of Herr Niklas Kratzer,[30] an astronomer. He lives
+with the King of England, and has been very helpful and useful to me in
+many matters. He is a German, a native of Munich. I also made the
+portrait of Tomasin's daughter, Mistress Zutta by name. Hans
+Pfaffroth[31] gave me one Philips fl. for taking his portrait in
+charcoal. I have dined once more with Tomasin. My host's brother-in-law
+entertained me and my wife once. I changed two light florins for
+twenty-four st. for living expenses, and I gave one st. _t&k&d_ to a man
+who let me see an altar-piece.
+
+[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on a white ground, in the Berlin
+Print Room]
+
+_August_ 19.--On the Sunday after our dear Lady's Assumption I saw the
+great Procession from the Church of our Lady at Antwerp, when the whole
+town of every craft and rank was assembled, each dressed in his best
+according to his rank. And all ranks and guilds had their signs, by
+which they might be known. In the intervals great costly pole-candles
+were borne, and their long old Frankish trumpets of silver. There were
+also in the German fashion many pipers and drummers. All the instruments
+were loudly and noisily blown and beaten.
+
+I saw the procession pass along the street, the people being arranged in
+rows, each man some distance from his neighbour, but the rows close one
+behind another. There were the Goldsmiths, the Painters, the Masons, the
+Broderers, the Sculptors, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Sailors, the
+Fishermen, the Butchers, the Leatherers, the Clothmakers, the Bakers,
+the Tailors, the Cordwainers--indeed, workmen of all kinds, and many
+craftsmen and dealers who work for their livelihood. Likewise the
+shopkeepers and merchants and their assistants of all kinds were there.
+After these came the shooters with guns, bows, and cross-bows, and the
+horsemen and foot-soldiers also. Then followed the watch of the Lords
+Magistrates. Then came a fine troop all in red, nobly and splendidly
+clad. Before them, however, went all the religious Orders and the
+members of some Foundations very devoutly, all in their different robes.
+
+A very large company of widows also took part in this procession. They
+support themselves with their own hands and observe a special rule. They
+were all dressed from head to foot in white linen garments, made
+expressly for the occasion, very sorrowful to see. Among them I saw some
+very stately persons. Last of all came the Chapter of our Lady's Church,
+with all their clergy, scholars, and treasurers. Twenty persons bore the
+image of the Virgin Mary with the Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest
+manner, to the honour of the Lord God.
+
+In this procession very many delightful things were shown, most
+splendidly got up. Waggons were drawn along with masques upon ships and
+other structures. Behind them came the company of the Prophets in their
+order, and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the
+Three Holy Kings riding on great camels and on other rare beasts, very
+well arranged; also how our Lady fled to Egypt--very devout--and many
+other things, which for shortness I omit. At the end came a great Dragon
+which St. Margaret and her maidens led by a girdle; she was especially
+beautiful. Behind her came St. George with his squire, a very goodly
+knight in armour. In this host also rode boys and maidens most finely
+and splendidly dressed in the costumes of many lands, representing
+various Saints. From beginning to end the procession lasted more than
+two hours before it was gone past our house. And so many things were
+there that I could never write them all in a book, so I let it
+well alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BRUSSELS _August_ 26-_September_ 3, 1520.
+
+In the golden chamber in the Townhall at Brussels I saw the four
+paintings which the great Master Roger van der Weyden[32] made. And I
+saw out behind the King's house at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth,
+and Beast-garden[33]; anything more beautiful and pleasing to me and
+more like a Paradise I have never seen. Erasmus is the name of the
+little man who wrote out my supplication at Herr Jacob de Bannisis'
+house. At Brussels is a very splendid Townhall, large, and covered with
+beautiful carved stonework, and it has a noble open tower. I took a
+portrait at night by candlelight of Master Konrad of Brussels, who was
+my host; I drew at the same time Doctor Lamparter's son in charcoal,
+also the hostess.
+
+I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land
+of gold (Mexico), a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all
+of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armour of the
+people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and
+darts, very strange clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects
+of human use, much better worth seeing than prodigies. These things were
+all so precious that they are valued at 100,000 florins. All the days of
+my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these
+things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled
+at the subtle _Ingenia_ of men in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot
+express all that I thought there.
+
+At Brussels I saw many other beautiful things besides, and especially I
+saw a fish bone there, as vast as if it had been built up of squared
+stones. It was a fathom long and very thick, it weighs up to 15 cwt.,
+and its form resembles that drawn here. It stood up behind on the fish's
+head. I was also in the Count of Nassau's house,[34] which is very
+splendidly built and as beautifully adorned. I have again dined with my
+Lords (of Nuernberg).
+
+When I was in the Nassau house in the chapel there, I saw the good
+picture[35] that Master Hugo van der Goes painted, and I saw the two
+fine large halls and the treasures everywhere in the house, also the
+great bed wherein fifty men can lie. And I _saw_ the great stone which
+the storm cast down in the field near the Lord of Nassau. The house
+stands high, and from it there is a most beautiful view, at which one
+cannot but wonder: and I do not believe that in all the German lands the
+like of it exists.
+
+Master Bernard van Orley, the painter, invited me and prepared so costly
+a meal that I do not think ten fl. will pay for it. Lady Margaret's
+Treasurer (Jan de Marnix), whom I drew, and the King's Steward, Jehan de
+Metenye by name, and the Town-Treasurer named Van Busleyden invited
+themselves to it, to get me good company. I gave Master Bernard a
+_Passion_ engraved in copper, and he gave me in return a black Spanish
+bag worth three fl. I have also given Erasmus of Rotterdam a _Passion_
+engraved in copper.
+
+I have once more taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait[36] I gave Lorenz
+Sterk a sitting _Jerome_ and the _Melancholy_, and took a portrait of my
+hostess' godmother. Six people whose portraits I drew at Brussels have
+given me nothing. I paid three st. for two buffalo horns, and one st.
+for two Eulenspiegels.[37]
+
+ANTWERP, _September 6-October 4_, 1520.
+
+I have paid one st for the printed "Entry into Antwerp," telling how the
+King was received with a splendid triumph--the gates very costly
+adorned--and with plays, great joy, and graceful maidens whose like I
+have seldom seen.[38] I changed one fl. for expenses. I saw at Antwerp
+the bones of the giant. His leg above the knee is 5-1/2 ft. long and
+beyond measure heavy and very thick; so with his shoulder blades--a
+single one is broader than a strong man's back--and his other limbs. The
+man was 18 ft. high, had ruled at Antwerp and done wondrous great feats,
+as is more fully written about him in an old book,[39] which the Lords
+of the Town possess.
+
+[Illustration: ERASMUS From a reproduction of the drawing in the "Leon
+Bonnat" collection, Bayonne _Face p._ 148]
+
+The studio (school) of Raphael of Urbino has quite broken up since his
+death,[40] but one of his scholars, Tommaso Vincidor of Bologna[41] by
+name, a good painter, desired to see me. So he came to me and has given
+me an antique gold ring with a very well cut stone. It is worth five
+fl., but already I have been offered the double for it. I gave him six
+fl. worth of my best prints for it. I bought a piece of calico for three
+st.; I paid the messenger one st.; three st. I spent in company.
+
+I have presented a whole set of all my works to Lady Margaret, the
+Emperor's daughter, and have drawn her two pictures on parchment with
+the greatest pains and care. All this I set at as much as thirty fl. And
+I have had to draw the design of a house for her physician the doctor,
+according to which he intends to build one; and for drawing that I would
+not care to take less than ten fl. I have given the servant one st., and
+paid one st. for brick-colour.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+October 1.--On Monday after Michaelmas, 1520, I gave Thomas of Bologna a
+whole set of prints to send for me to Rome to another painter who should
+send me Raphael's work[42] in return. I dined once with my wife. I paid
+three st. for the little tracts. The Bolognese has made my portrait;[43]
+he means to take it with him to Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+AACHEN, _October 7-26, 1520_.
+
+_October_ 7.--At Aachen I saw the well-proportioned pillars,[44] with
+their good capitals of green and red porphyry (_Gassenstein_) which
+Charles the Great had brought from Rome thither and there set up. They
+are correctly made according to Vitruvius' writings.
+
+_October_ 23.--On October 23 King Karl was crowned at Aachen. There I
+saw all manner of lordly splendour, more magnificent than anything that
+those who live in our parts have seen--all, as it has been described.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+KOeLN, _October 26--November 14, 1520_.
+
+I bought a tract of Luther's for five white pf., and the "Condemnation
+of Luther," the pious man, for one white pf.; also a rosary for one
+white pf. and a girdle for two white pf., a pound of candles for
+one white pf.
+
+_November_ 12.--I have made the nun's portrait. I gave the nun seven
+white pf. and three half-sheet engravings. My confirmation[45] from the
+Emperor came to my Lords of Nuernberg for me on Monday after Martin's, in
+the year 1520, after great trouble and labour.
+
+ANTWERP, _November_ %--_December_ 3, 1520.
+
+At Zierikzee, in Zeeland, a whale has been stranded by a high tide and a
+gale of wind. It is much more than 100 fathoms long, and no man living
+in Zeeland has seen one even a third as long as this is. The fish cannot
+get off the land; the people would gladly see it gone, as they fear the
+great stink, for it is so large that they say it could not be cut in
+pieces and the blubber boiled down in half a year.
+
+ZEELAND, _December_ 3-14, 1520.
+
+_December_ 8.--I went to Middelburg. There, in the Abbey, is a great
+picture painted by Jan de Mabuse--not so good in the modelling
+(_Hauptstreichen_) as in the colouring. I went next to the Veere, where
+lie ships from all lands; it is a very fine little town.
+
+At Arnemuiden, where I landed before, a great misfortune befel me. As we
+were pushing ashore and getting out our rope, a great ship bumped hard
+against us, as we were in the act of landing, and in the crush I had let
+every one get out before me, so that only I, Georg Kotzler,[46] two old
+wives, and the skipper with a small boy were left in the ship. When now
+the other ship bumped against us, and I with those named was still in
+the ship and could not get out, the strong rope broke; and thereupon, in
+the same moment, a storm of wind arose, which drove our ship back with
+force. Then we all cried for help, but no one would risk himself for us.
+And the wind carried us away out to sea. Thereupon the skipper tore his
+hair and cried aloud, for all his men had landed and the ship was
+unmanned. Then were we in fear and danger, for the wind was strong and
+only six persons in the ship. So I spoke to the skipper that he should
+take courage (_er sollt ein Herz fahen_) and have hope in God, and that
+he should consider what was to be done. So he said that if he could haul
+up the small sail he would try if we could come again to land. So we
+toiled all together and got it feebly about half-way up, and went on
+again towards the land. And when the people on shore, who had already
+given us up, saw how we helped ourselves, they came to our aid and we
+got to land.
+
+Middelburg is a good town; it has a very beautiful Townhall with a fine
+tower. There is much art shown in all things here. In the Abbey the
+stalls are very costly and beautiful, and there is a splendid gallery of
+stone; and there is a fine Parish Church. The town was besides excellent
+for sketching (_koestlich au konterfeyen_). Zeeland is fine and wonderful
+to see because of the water, for it stands higher than the land. I made
+a portrait of my host at Arnemuiden. Master Hugo and Alexander Imhof and
+Friedrich the Hirschvogels' servant gave me, each of them, an Indian
+cocoa-nut which they had won at play, and the host gave me a
+sprouting bulb.
+
+_December_ 9--Early on Monday we started again by ship and went by the
+Veere and Zierikzee and tried to get sight of the great fish,[47] but
+the tide had carried him off again.
+
+ANTWERP, _December_ 14--_April_ 6, 1521
+
+I have eaten alone thus often.
+
+I took portraits of Gerhard Bombelli and the daughter of Sebastian the
+Procurator.
+
+_February_ 10.--On Carnival Sunday the goldsmiths invited me to dinner
+early with my wife. Amongst their assembled guests were many notable
+men. They had prepared a most splendid meal, and did me exceeding great
+honour. And in the evening the old Bailiff of the town[48] invited me
+and gave a splendid meal, and did me great honour. Many strange masquers
+came there. I have drawn the portrait in charcoal of Florent Nepotis,
+Lady Margaret's organist. On Monday night Herr Lopez invited me to the
+great banquet on Shrove-Tuesday, which lasted till two o'clock, and was
+very costly. Herr Lorenz Sterk gave me a Spanish fur. To the
+above-mentioned feast very many came in costly masks, and especially
+Tomasin and Brandan. I won two fl. at play.
+
+I dined once with the Frenchman, twice with the Hirschvogels' Fritz, and
+once with Master Peter Aegidius[49] the Secretary, when Erasmus of
+Rotterdam also dined with us.
+
+I have twice more drawn with the metal-point the portrait of the
+beautiful maiden for Gerhard.
+
+I made Tomasin a design, drawn and tinted in half colours, after which
+he intends to have his house painted.
+
+I bought the five silk girdles, which I mean to give away, for three fl.
+sixteen st.; also a border (_Borte_) for twenty st. These six borders I
+sent to the wives of Caspar Nuetzel, Hans Imhof, Straeub, the two
+Spenglers, and Loeffelholz,[50] and to each a good pair of gloves. To
+Pirkheimer I sent a large cap, a costly inkstand of buffalo horn, a
+silver Emperor, one pound of pistachios, and three sugar canes. To
+Caspar Nuetzel I sent a great elk's foot, ten large fir cones, and cones
+of the stone-pine. To Jacob Muffel I sent a scarlet breastcloth of one
+ell; to Hans Imhof's child an embroidered scarlet cap and stone-pine
+nuts; to Kramer's wife four ells of silk worth four fl.; to Lochinger's
+wife one ell of silk worth one fl.; to the two Spenglers a bag and three
+fine horns each; to Herr Hieronymus Holzschuher a very large horn.
+
+BRUGES AND GHENT, _April_ 6-11, 1521.
+
+I saw the chapel[51] there which Roger painted, and some pictures by a
+great old master. I gave one st. to the man who showed us them. Then I
+bought three ivory combs for thirty st. They took me next to St. Jacob's
+and showed me the precious pictures by Roger and Hugo,[52]
+who were both great masters. Then I saw in our Lady's Church the
+alabaster[53] Madonna, sculptured by Michael Angelo of Rome. After that
+they took me to many more churches and showed me all the good pictures,
+of which there is an abundance there; and when I had seen the Jan van
+Eyck[54] and all the other works, we came at last to the painters'
+chapel, in which there are good things. Then they prepared a banquet for
+me, and I went with them from it to their guild-hall, where many
+honourable men were gathered together, both goldsmiths, painters and
+merchants, and they made me sup with them. They gave me presents, sought
+to make my acquaintance, and did me great honour. The two brothers,
+Jacob and Peter Mostaert, the councillors, gave me twelve cans of wine;
+and the whole assembly, more than sixty persons, accompanied me home
+with many torches. I also saw at their shooting court the great fish-tub
+on which they eat; it is 19 feet long, 7 feet high, and 7 feet wide. So
+early on Tuesday we went away, but before that I drew with the
+metal-point the portrait of Jan Prost, and gave his wife ten st.
+at parting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On my arrival at Ghent the Dean of the Painters came to me and brought
+with him the first masters in painting; they showed me great honour,
+received me most courteously, offered me their goodwill and service, and
+supped with me. On Wednesday they took me early to the Belfry of St.
+John, whence I looked over the great wonderful town, yet in which even I
+had just been taken for something great. Then I saw Jan van Eycks
+picture;[55] it is a most precious painting, full of thought (_ein
+ueberkoestlich hochverstaendig Gemuehl_), and the Eve, Mary, and God the
+Father are specially good. Next I saw the lions and drew one with the
+metal-point.[56] And I saw at the place where men are beheaded on the
+bridge, the two statues erected (in 1371) as a sign that there a son
+beheaded his father.[57] Ghent is a fine and remarkable town; four great
+waters flow through it. I gave the sacristan (at St. Bavon's) and the
+lions' keepers three st. _trinkgeld_. I saw many wonderful things in
+Ghent besides, and the painters with their Dean did not leave me alone,
+but they ate with me morning and evening and paid for everything, and
+were very friendly to me. I gave away five st. at the inn at leaving.
+
+ANTWERP, _April_ 11-_May_ 17, 1521.
+
+In the third week after Easter (April 21-27) a violent fever seized me,
+with great weakness, nausea, and headache. And before, when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me. I paid six st. for cases.
+The monk has bound two books for me in return for the art-wares which I
+gave him. I bought a piece of arras to make two mantles for my
+mother-in-law and my wife, for ten fl. eight st. I paid the doctor eight
+st., and three st. to the apothecary. I also changed one fl. for
+expenses, and spent three st. in company. Paid the doctor ten st. I
+again paid the doctor six st. During my illness Rodrigo has sent me many
+sweetmeats. I gave the lad four st. _trinkgeld_.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing in silver-point on prepared ground, from the
+Netherlands sketch-book, in the Imperial Library, Vienna]
+
+On Friday (May 17) before Whit Sunday in the year 1521, came tidings to
+me at Antwerp, that Martin Luther had been so treacherously taken
+prisoner; for he trusted the Emperor Karl, who had granted him his
+herald and imperial safe conduct. But as soon as the herald had conveyed
+him to an unfriendly place near Eisenach he rode away, saying that he no
+longer needed him. Straightway there appeared ten knights, and they
+treacherously carried off the pious man, betrayed into their hands, a
+man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, a follower of the true Christian
+faith. And whether he yet lives I know not, or whether they have put him
+to death; if so, he has suffered for the truth of Christ and because he
+rebuked the unchristian Papacy, which strives with its heavy load of
+human laws against the redemption of Christ. And if he has suffered it
+is that we may again be robbed and stripped of the truth of our blood
+and sweat, that the same may be shamefully and scandalously squandered
+by idle-going folk, while the poor and the sick therefore die of hunger.
+But this is above all most grievous to me, that, may be, God will suffer
+us to remain still longer under their false, blind doctrine, invented
+and drawn up by the men alone whom they call Fathers, by whom also the
+precious Word of God is in many places wrongly expounded or
+utterly ignored.
+
+Oh God of heaven, pity us! Oh Lord Jesus Christ, pray for Thy people!
+Deliver us at the fit time. Call together Thy far-scattered sheep by Thy
+voice in the Scripture, called Thy godly Word. Help us to know this Thy
+voice and to follow no other deceiving cry of human error, so that we,
+Lord Jesus Christ, may not fall away from Thee. Call together again the
+sheep of Thy pasture, who are still in part found in the Roman Church,
+and with them also the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who
+have been scattered by the oppression and avarice of the Pope and by
+false appearance of holiness. Oh God, redeem Thy poor people constrained
+by heavy ban and edict, which it nowise willingly obeys, continually to
+sin against its conscience if it disobeys them. Never, oh God, hast Thou
+so horribly burdened a people with human laws as us poor folk under the
+Roman Chair, who daily long to be free Christians, ransomed by Thy
+blood. Oh highest, heavenly Father, pour into our hearts, through Thy
+Son, Jesus Christ, such a light, that by it we may know what messenger
+we are bound to obey, so that with good conscience we may lay aside the
+burdens of others and serve Thee, eternal, heavenly Father, with happy
+and joyful hearts.
+
+And if we have lost this man, who has written more clearly than any that
+has lived for 140 years, and to whom Thou hast given such a spirit of
+the Gospel, we pray Thee, oh heavenly Father, that Thou wouldst again
+give Thy Holy Spirit to one, that he may gather anew everywhere together
+Thy Holy Christian Church, that we may again live free and in Christian
+manner, and so, by our good works, all unbelievers, as Turks, Heathen,
+and Calicuts, may of themselves turn to us and embrace the Christian
+faith. But, ere Thou judgest, oh Lord, Thou wiliest that, as Thy Son,
+Jesus Christ, was fain to die by the hands of the priests, and to rise
+from the dead and after to ascend up to heaven, so too in like manner it
+should be with Thy follower Martin Luther, whose life the Pope
+compasseth with his money, treacherously towards God. Him wilt thou
+quicken again. And as Thou, oh my Lord, ordainedst thereafter that
+Jerusalem should for that sin be destroyed, so wilt thou also destroy
+this self-assumed authority of the Roman Chair. Oh Lord, give us then
+the new beautified Jerusalem, which descendeth out of heaven, whereof
+the Apocalypse writes, the holy, pure Gospel, which is not obscured by
+human doctrine.
+
+Every man who reads Martin Luther's books may see how clear and
+transparent is his doctrine, because he sets forth the holy Gospel.
+Wherefore his books are to be held in great honour, and not to be burnt;
+unless indeed his adversaries, who ever strive against the truth and
+would make gods out of men, were also cast into the fire, they and all
+their opinions with them, and afterwards a new edition of Luther's works
+were prepared. Oh God, if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound to
+us the holy Gospel with such clearness? What, oh God, might he not still
+have written for us in ten or twenty years!
+
+Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,
+inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened
+man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the
+wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,
+thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the
+truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou an aged little
+man (_ein altes Maenniken_), and myself have heard thee say that thou
+givest thyself but two years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to
+accomplish somewhat. Lay out the same well for the good of the Gospel
+and of the true Christian faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ
+says, shall the Gates of Hell (the Roman Chair) in no wise prevail
+against thee. And if here below thou wert to be like thy master Christ
+and sufferedst infamy at the hands of the liars of this time, and didst
+die a little the sooner, then wouldst thou the sooner pass from death
+unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou drinkest of the cup
+which He drank of, with Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice
+those who have dealt unrighteously. Oh Erasmus, cleave to this that God
+Himself may be thy praise, even as it is written of David. For thou
+mayest, yea verily thou mayest overthrow Goliath. Because God stands by
+the Holy Christian Church, even as He only upholds the Roman Church,
+according to His godly will. May He help us to everlasting salvation,
+who is God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, one eternal God. Amen.
+
+Oh ye Christian men, pray God for help, for His judgment draweth nigh
+and His justice shall appear. Then shall we behold the innocent blood
+which the Pope, Priests, Bishops, and Monks have shed, judged and
+condemned (_Apocal._). These are the slain who lie beneath the Altar of
+God and cry for vengeance, to whom the voice of God answereth: Await the
+full number of the innocent slain, then will I judge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ANTWERP, _May_ 17--_June_ 7, 1521.
+
+Master Gerhard,[58] the illuminator, has a daughter about eighteen years
+old named Susanna. She has illuminated a _Salvator_ on a little sheet,
+for which I gave her one fl. It is very wonderful that a woman can do so
+much. I lost six st. at play. I saw the great Procession at Antwerp on
+Holy Trinity day. Master Konrad gave me a fine pair of knives, so I gave
+his little old man a _Life of our Lady_ in return. I have made a
+portrait in charcoal of Master Jan,[59] goldsmith of Brussels, also one
+of his wife. I have been paid two fl. for prints. Master Jan, the
+Brussels goldsmith, paid me three Philips fl. for what I did for him,
+the drawing for the seal and the two portraits. I gave the Veronica,
+which I painted in oils, and the _Adam and Eve_ which Franz did, to Jan,
+the goldsmith, in exchange for a jacinth and an agate, on which a
+Lucretia is engraved. Each of us valued his portion at fourteen fl.
+Further, I gave him a whole set of engravings for a ring and six stones.
+Each valued his portion at seven fl. I bought two pairs of shoes for
+fourteen st., and two small boxes for two st. I changed two Philips fl.
+for expenses. I drew three _Leadings-forth_[60] and two Mounts of
+Olives on five half-sheets. I took three portraits in black and white on
+grey paper. I also sketched in black and white on grey paper two
+Netherland costumes. I painted for the Englishman his coat of arms, and
+he gave me one fl. I have also at one time and another done many
+drawings and other things to serve different people, and for the more
+part of my work have received nothing. Andreas of Krakau paid me one
+Philips fl. for a shield and a child's head. Changed one il. for
+expenses. I paid two fl. for sweeping-brushes. I saw the great
+procession at Antwerp on Corpus Christi day; it was very splendid. I
+gave four st. as trinkgeld. I paid the doctor six st. and one st. for a
+box. I have dined five times with Tomasin. I paid ten st. at the
+apothecary's, and gave his wife fourteen st. for the clyster and
+himself.... To the monk who confessed my wife I gave eight st.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MECHLIN, _June 7 and 8, 1521_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Mechlin I lodged with Master Heinrich, the painter, at the sign of
+the Golden Head.[61] And the painters and sculptors bade me as guest at
+my inn and did me great honour in their gathering. I went also to
+Poppenreuter[62] the gunmaker's house, and found wonderful things there.
+And I went to Lady Margaret's and showed her my _Emperor,_[63] and would
+have presented it to her, but she so disliked it that I took it
+away with me.
+
+And on Friday Lady Margaret showed me all her beautiful things. Amongst
+them I saw about forty small oil pictures, the like of which for
+precision and excellence I have never beheld. There also I saw more good
+works by Jan (de Mabuse), and Jacob Walch.[64] I asked my Lady for
+Jacob's little book, but she said she had already promised it to her
+painter.[65] Then I saw many other costly things and a precious
+library.[66]
+
+ANTWERP, _June_ 8--_July_ 3, 1521.
+
+Master Lukas, who engraves in copper, asked me as his guest. He is a
+little man, born at Leyden in Holland; he was at Antwerp.
+
+I have drawn with the metal-point the portrait of Master Lukas van
+Leyden.[67]
+
+The man with the three rings has overreached me by half. I did not
+understand the matter. I bought a red cap for my god-child[68]for
+eighteen st. Lost twelve st. at play. Drank two st.
+
+Cornelius Grapheus, the Secretary, gave me Luther's "Babylonian
+Captivity,"[69] in return for which I gave him my three Large Books.
+
+[Illustration: LUCAS VAN DER LEYDEN Drawing in charcoal formerly in the
+collection at Warwick Castle.]
+
+I reckoned up with Jobst and found myself thirty-one fl. in his debt,
+which I paid him; therein were charged and deducted the two portrait
+heads which I painted in oils, for which he gave five pounds of borax
+Netherlands weight. In all my doings, spendings, sales, and other
+dealings, in all my connections with high and low, I have suffered loss
+in the Netherlands; and Lady Margaret in particular gave me nothing for
+what I made and presented to her. And this settlement with Jobst was
+made on St. Peter and Paul's day.
+
+On our Lady's Visitation, as I was just about to leave Antwerp, the King
+of Denmark sent to me to come to him at once, and take his portrait,
+which I did in charcoal. I also did that of his servant Anton, and I was
+made to dine with the King, and he behaved graciously towards me. I have
+entrusted my bale to Leonhard Tucher and given over my white cloth to
+him. The carrier with whom I bargained did not take me; I fell out with
+him. Gerhard gave me some Italian seeds. I gave the new carrier
+(_Vicarius_) the great turtle shell, the fish-shield, the long pipe, the
+long weapon, the fish-fins, and the two little casks of lemons and
+capers to take home for me, on the day of our Lady's Visitation, 1521.
+
+BRUSSELS, _July_ 3-12, 1521.
+
+I noticed how the people of Antwerp marvelled greatly when they saw the
+King of Denmark, to find him such a manly, handsome man and come hither
+through his enemy's land with only two attendants. I saw, too, how the
+Emperor rode forth from Brussels to meet him, and received him
+honourably with great pomp. Then I saw the noble, costly banquet, which
+the Emperor and Lady Margaret held next day in his honour.
+
+Thomas Bologna has given me an Italian work of art; I have also bought a
+work for one st.
+
+A few days later when the Duerers arrived at Cologne the journal breaks
+off abruptly, as the last few leaves are missing: but there is every
+reason to suppose that they got back safely to Nuremberg two or three
+weeks later.
+
+
+II
+
+This journal shows us how the influence of a greater centre of
+civilisation strengthened the spirit of the Renascence in Duerer: it is
+marked by his having again taken up the paint brushes to do the best
+sort of work, by a new out-break of the collector's acquisitiveness,
+lastly by the tone of such a passage as that wherein the procession on
+the Sunday after our Lady's Assumption (p. 145) is spoken of with
+admiration. "Twenty persons bore the image of the Virgin Mary with the
+Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest manner, to the honour of the Lord
+God." Such a spectacle has a very different significance to his mind
+from that of another procession in honour of the Virgin, depicted in a
+woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer, which presents a large space in front of
+a temporary church; in the midst is a gaudy statue of the Virgin set
+upon a pillar, around whose base seven or eight persons of both sexes,
+whom one might suppose from their attitudes to be drunk, are seen
+writhing, while a procession headed by huge cierges and a cardinal's hat
+on a pole encircles the whole building; those in the procession carrying
+offerings or else candles, two men being naked save for scanty hair
+shirts. On the margin of the copy now at Coburg Duerer has written:
+"1523, this Spectre, contrary to Holy Scripture, has set itself up at
+Regensburg and has been dressed out by the Bishop. God help us that we
+should not so dishonour His precious mother but (honour her?) in Christ
+Jesus. Amen." Indeed, it would be difficult to distinguish between the
+kind of honour done the Virgin in many of Duerer's pictures and etchings
+and that done her in the Antwerp procession; but both are infinitely
+removed from the degradation of emotion produced by an orgy of
+superstition such as that depicted in Ostendorfer's print, which is
+truly nearer akin to the scenes that occasionally occur in Salvation
+Army or Methodist revivals, and is even more repugnant to the spirit of
+the Renascence than to that of the Reformation as Luther and Duerer
+conceived of it. It is well to remind ourselves, by reading such a
+passage and by gazing at Duerer's Virgins enthroned and crowned with
+stars, that the attitude of later Protestants in regard to the worship
+of the Virgin was in no sense shared by Duerer. And we touch the very
+pulse of the Renaissance in the phrase, "Being a painter, I looked about
+me a little more boldly,"--by which Duerer explains that the beautiful
+maidens, almost naked, who figured in the mythological groups along the
+route of Charles V.'s triumphal entry into Antwerp received a very
+different reward, in his attentive gaze, to that which was meted to them
+by the young, austere, and unreformed Charles. One might almost be
+listening to Vasari when Duerer says: "I saw out behind the King's house
+at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth and Beast-garden; anything more
+beautiful and pleasing to me and more like Paradise I have never seen."
+Duerer's admiration for Luther was like Michael Angelo's for Savonarola,
+and he never doubted that fiery indignation was directed against the
+abuse of wealth, force, and beauty, not against their use; though
+perhaps both the Italian and the German reformer occasionally
+confused the two.
+
+
+III
+
+Duress journey was successful in that he obtained from Charles V. what
+he sought--the confirmation of his privilegium.
+
+CHARLES, by God's grace, Roman Emperor Elect, etc.
+
+Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved,
+
+Whereas the most illustrious Prince, Emperor Maximilian, our dear lord
+and grandfather of praiseworthy memory, appointed and assigned unto our
+and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Duerer the sum of 100
+florins Rhenish every year of his life to be paid from and out of our
+and the Empire's customary town contributions, which you are bound to
+render yearly into our Imperial Treasury; and whereas we, as Roman
+Emperor, have graciously agreed thereto, and have granted anew this life
+pension unto him according to the terms of the above letter; we
+therefore earnestly command you, and it is our will, that you render and
+give unto the said Albrecht Duerer henceforward every year of his life,
+from and out of the said town contributions and in return for his proper
+quittance, the said life pension of 100 florins Rhenish, together with
+whatever part of it stands over unpaid since the Emperor Maximilian's
+grant; etc.
+
+Given at our and the Holy Empire's town Koeln on the fourth day of the
+month November (1520), etc.
+
+(Signed) KARL.
+(Signed) ALBRECHT, Cardinal, Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor.
+
+Besides, he got back to Nuremberg without falling in with highwaymen,
+though the following little letter shows us that in this he was
+fortunate.
+
+Dear Master Wolf Stromer,--My most gracious lord of Salzburg has sent
+me a letter by the hand of his glass-painter. I shall be glad to do
+anything I can to help him. He is to buy glass and materials here. He
+tells me that near Freistadtlein he was robbed and had twenty florins
+taken from him. He has asked me to send him to you, for his gracious
+lord told him if he wanted anything to let you know. I send him,
+therefore, to your Wisdom with my apprentice. Your Wisdom's,
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+No doubt he had enriched his mind and cheered his heart in the company
+of prosperous, go-ahead, and earnest men; but as he says, "when I was in
+Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from
+any man, and this sickness remains with me" (see p. 156). And, alas! it
+was to remain with him till he died of it. So that his journey cannot be
+considered as altogether fortunate.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 24: He was one of the leading Humanists of the time. The
+Madonna referred to was still at Bamberg, at the beginning of the
+present century.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Owing to the existence of some rudimentary form of
+Zollverein, Duerer's pass not only freed him of dues in the Bamberg
+district but as far down the Rhine as Koeln.]
+
+[Footnote 26: Hans Wolf, successor to Hans Wolfgang Katzheimer.]
+
+[Footnote 27: There is a portrait drawing of Jobst Plankfelt by Duerer in
+the Staedel collection at Frankfurt.]
+
+[Footnote 28: That is the head of the Fuggers' branch house at Antwerp.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Erasmus of Rotterdam, the famous Humanist.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Holbein also painted a portrait of this man in 1528. The
+picture is in the Louvre.]
+
+[Footnote 31: A pen-and-ink likeness of him by Duerer is in the
+possession of the painter Bendemann, of Duesseldorf. It bears the
+inscription in Duerer's hand, "1520. _Hans Pfaffroth van Dantzgen ein
+Starkmann_."]
+
+[Footnote 32: These were four pictures painted upon linen. They
+represented _The justice of Trajan, Pope Gregory praying for the
+Heathen_, and two incidents in the story of Erkenbald. The pictures were
+burnt in 1695, but their compositions are reproduced in the well-known
+Burgundian tapestries at Bern. See Pinchart, in the _Bulletins de
+l'Academie de Bruxelles_, 2nd Series, XVII.: also Kinkel, _Die brusseler
+Rathhausbilder_, &c., Zurich, 1867.]
+
+[Footnote 33: A rapid sketch made by Duerer in this place is in the
+Academy at Vienna. It is dated 1520, and inscribed, "that is the
+pleasure and beast-garden at Brussels, seen down behind out of
+the Palace."]
+
+[Footnote 34: A reproduction of an old view of this house will be found
+in _L'Art_, 1884, I. p. 188.]
+
+[Footnote 35: This picture was painted on four panels and represented
+the Seven Sacraments and a Crucifix. It is now lost. A similar picture
+is in the Antwerp Gallery, ascribed to Roger van der Weyden.]
+
+[Footnote 36: This is perhaps the drawing in the Bounat collection at
+Paris; it has been photographed by Braun (see illus. opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 37: It is believed that Duerer here refers to an edition of the
+satirical tale edited by Thomas Murner, and published at Strassburg
+in 1519.]
+
+[Footnote 38: "He afterwards particularly described to Melanchthon the
+splendid spectacles he had beheld, and how in what were plainly
+mythological groups, the most beautiful maidens figured almost naked,
+and covered only with a thin transparent veil. The young Emperor did not
+hocour them with a single glance, but Duerer himself was very glad to get
+near, not less for the purpose of seeing the tableaux than to have the
+opportunity of observing closely the perfect figures of the young
+girls." As he himself says, "Being a painter, I looked about me a little
+more boldly."--See Thausing's "Life of Duerer," vol. ii., p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 39: _Het oud register van diversche mandementen_, a
+fifteenth-century folio manuscript, still preserved in the Antwerp
+archives.]
+
+[Footnote 40: On April 6, 1520.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Tommaso was sent to Flanders in 1520 by Pope Leo X. to
+oversee the manufacture of the "second series" of tapestries. The
+painter does not seem to have returned to Italy.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Engravings by Marcantonio from Raphael's designs.]
+
+[Footnote 43: The picture is lost, but an engraving of it made by And.
+Stock in 1629 is well-known.]
+
+[Footnote 44: The fine monoliths brought from Ravenna and still to be
+seen in Aachen Cathedral.]
+
+[Footnote 45: The confirmation of his pension; _see_ p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Member of a Nuernberg family.]
+
+[Footnote 47: The object of the whole expedition was doubtless, that
+Duerer might see and sketch the whale. In the British Museum is a study
+of a walrus by Duerer, dated 1521, and inscribed, "The animal whose head
+I have drawn here was taken in the Netherlandish sea, and was twelve
+Brabant ells long and had four feet."]
+
+[Footnote 48: Gerhard van de Werve.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Pupil and afterwards friend of Erasmus.]
+
+[Footnote 50: These people were Duerer's principal Nuernberg friends.]
+
+[Footnote 51: It is assumed by commentators that _Chapel_ means
+_Altar-piece_, and it is guessed that the particular altar-piece is the
+one in the Berlin Museum which Charles V. is reported to have carried
+about with him, and which belonged to the Miraflores Convent. The
+guesses are worthless.]
+
+[Footnote 52: In St. Jacob's was the _Entombment_ by Hugo van der Goes.]
+
+[Footnote 53: It is in white marble. It was sculpted about 1501-6. Some
+critics have refused to accept it as a genuine work. Duerer ought to have
+been in a position to know the truth.]
+
+[Footnote 54: At this time there were plenty of his pictures at Bruges.
+Duerer doubtless saw his Madonna in St. Donatien's, now in the Academy of
+the same town.]
+
+[Footnote 55: The famous altar-piece painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck,
+of which the central part is still in its original place and the wings
+are divided, two of their panels being at Brussels and the rest
+at Berlin.]
+
+[Footnote 56: This drawing from Duerer's sketch-book is in the Court
+Library at Vienna (see pl. opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 57: The story is recounted in _Flandria illustrata_ (A.
+Sanderi, Colon., 1641, i. 149.)]
+
+[Footnote 58: Gerhard Horeboul of Ghent. Charles V.'s 'Book of Hours' in
+the Vienna library is his work. He also had a hand in the Grimani
+Breviary. After 1521 he went to England and entered the service of Henry
+VIII. His daughter Susanna was likewise in the service of the English
+King. She married and died in England.]
+
+[Footnote 59: Perhaps Jan van den Perre, afterwards goldsmith to Charles
+V.]
+
+[Footnote 60: That is to say, drawings representing _Christ bearing HIS
+CROSS_. _Mount of Olives_ means the Agony _in the_ Garden.]
+
+[Footnote 61: The inn-keeper of the _Golden Head_ is known to have been
+a painter. His name was Heinrich Keldermann.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Though born at Koeln, he was called Hans von Nuernberg. He
+was cannon-founder and gun-maker to Charles V.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Doubtless Duerer's portrait of Maximilian, now in the
+Gallery at Vienna, dated 1519. (_see_ p. 215).]
+
+[Footnote 64: Jacopo de' Barbari.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Bernard van Orley.]
+
+[Footnote 66: The catalogue of this library exists in the inventory of
+the Archduchess' possessions.]
+
+[Footnote 67: This is in the Musee Wicar at Lille; another portrait of
+Lukas van Leyden by Duerer was in the Earl of Warwick's collection (_see_
+opposite).]
+
+[Footnote 68: Hieronymus Imhof.]
+
+[Footnote 69: A quarto tract by Luther, printed in 1520 (without place
+or date), entitled _Von der Babylonischen gefenglnuss der Kirchen_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DUeRER'S LAST YEARS
+
+
+I
+
+Duerer came back home with health broken: yet it is to this period that
+the magnificent portraits at Berlin of Nuremberg Councillors belong, and
+certainly his hand and eye had never been more sure than when he
+produced them. The hall of the Rathhaus was decorated under his
+direction and from his designs, the actual painting being, it is
+supposed, chiefly the work of George Penz, who with his fellow prentices
+became famous in 1524 as one of "the three godless painters."
+
+We now come to a letter dated
+
+NUeRNBERG, _December_ 5, 1523, Sunday after Andrew's
+
+My dear and gracious Master Frey--I have received the little book you
+sent to Master (Ulrich) Varnbueler and me; when he has finished reading
+it I will read it too. As to the monkey-dance you want me to draw for
+you, I have drawn this one here, unskilfully enough, for it is a long
+time since I saw any monkeys; so pray put up with it. Convey my willing
+service to Herr Zwingli (the reformer), Hans Leu (a Protestant painter),
+Hans Urich, and my other good masters. ALBRECHT DUeRER. Divide these five
+little prints amongst you: I have nothing else new.
+
+This Master Felix Frey was a reformer at Zurich: he was probably not
+closely related to Hans Frey, Duerer's father-in-law, whose death is thus
+recorded in Duerer's book:
+
+In the year 1523 (as they reckon it), on our dear Lady's Day, when she
+was offered in the Temple, early, before the morning chimes, Hans Frey,
+my dear father-in-law, passed away. He had lain ill for almost six years
+and suffered quite incredible adversities in this world. He received the
+Sacraments before he died. God Almighty be gracious to him.
+
+Next we have letters from and to Niklas Kratzer, Astronomer to Henry
+VIII. He had been present when Duerer drew Erasmus' portrait at Antwerp.
+Duerer had also made a drawing of Kratzer, and later on Holbein was to
+paint his masterpiece in the Louvre from the Oxford professor.
+
+To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht Duerer, burgher of Nuernberg,
+my dear Master and Friend. LONDON, _October_ 24, 1524. Honourable,
+dear Sir,
+
+I am very glad to hear of your good health and that of your wife. I have
+had Hans Pomer staying with me in England. Now that you are all
+evangelical in Nuernberg I must write to you. God grant you grace to
+persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but God is stronger, and
+is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want
+you, dear Herr Albrecht Duerer, to make a drawing for me of the
+instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure
+distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp. Or perhaps
+Herr Pirkheimer would send me the design of it--he would be doing me a
+great favour. I want also to know how much a set of impressions of all
+your prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at Nuernberg
+relating to my art. I hear that our friend Hans, the astronomer, is
+dead. Would you write and tell me what instruments and the like he has
+left, and also where our Stabius' prints and wood-blocks are to be
+found? Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I hope to make him a map of
+England, which is a great country, and was unknown to Ptolemy. He would
+like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no
+more than a small part of it. You cannot write to me any longer through
+Hans Pomer. Pray send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S.
+Koloman.[70]I have nothing more to say that would interest you, so God
+bless you. Given at London, October 24. Your servant, NIKLAS KRATZEH.
+Greet your wife heartily for me.
+
+To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his
+Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend.
+
+NUeRNBERG, Monday after Barbara's (_December_ 5), 1524.
+
+First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received
+and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are
+going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer
+about the instrument you wanted to have. He is having one made for you,
+and is going to send it to you with a letter. The things Herr Hans left
+when he died have all been scattered; as I was away at the time of his
+death I cannot find out where they are gone to. The same has happened to
+Stabius' things; they were all taken to Austria, and I can tell you no
+more about them. I should like to know whether you have yet begun to
+translate Euclid into German, as you told me, if you had time, you
+would do.
+
+We have to stand in disgrace and danger for the sake of the Christian
+faith, for they abuse us as heretics; but may God grant us His grace and
+strengthen us in His word, for we must obey Him rather than men. It is
+better to lose life and goods than that God should cast us, body and
+soul, into hell-fire. Therefore, may He confirm us in that which is
+good, and enlighten our adversaries, poor, miserable, blind creatures,
+that they may not perish in their errors.
+
+Now God bless you! I send you two likenesses, printed from copper, which
+you will know well. At present I have no good news to write you, but
+much evil. However, only God's will cometh to pass. Your Wisdom's,
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+Another letter to Duerer from Cornelius Grapheus at Antwerp gives us some
+help towards understanding how the Reformation affected Duerer and
+his friends.
+
+To Master Albrecht Duerer, unrivalled chief in the art of painting, my
+friend and most beloved brother in Christ, at Nuernberg; or in his
+absence to Wilibald Pirkheimer.
+
+I wrote a good long letter to you, some time ago, in the name of our
+common friend Thomas Bombelli, but we have received no answer from you.
+We are, therefore, the more anxious to hear even three words from you,
+that we may know how you are and what is going on in your parts, for
+there is no doubt that great events are happening. Thomas Bombelli sends
+you his heartiest greeting. I beg you, as I did in my last letter, to
+greet Wilibald Pirkheimer a score of times for me. Of my own condition I
+will tell you nothing. The bearers of this letter will be able to
+acquaint you with everything. They are very good men and most sincere
+Christians. I commend, them to you and my friend Pirkheimer as if they
+were myself; for they, themselves the best of men, merit the highest
+recommendation to the best of men. Farewell, dearest Albrecht. Amongst
+us there is a great and daily increasing persecution on account of the
+Gospel. Our brethren, the bearers, will tell you all about it more
+openly. Again farewell.
+
+Wholly yours,
+
+CORNELIUS GRAPHEUS.
+
+ANTWERP, _February_ 23, 1524.
+
+
+II
+
+The events which made Duerer an ardent Evangelical and Reformer in a
+coarser paste proved a leaven of anarchy and subversion. Young,
+hot-headed nobles like Ulrich Von Hutten became iconoclastic, were
+foremost at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a
+part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they
+were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the
+unrest, discontent, and appetite for change took forms if not more
+offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a
+foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French
+Revolution. And in the towns men like "the three godless painters" made
+the burghers shake in their shoes for the social order which kept them
+rich and respected and others poor and servile. It is strange that all
+three should have come from Duerer's workshop. Probably they were the
+most talented prentices of the craft, since the great master chose them:
+besides, painting was an occupation which allowed of a certain
+intellectual development. They may have often listened with hungry ears
+to disputes between Pirkheimer and Duerer, and envied the good luck,
+grace and gift which had enabled the latter to bridge over a gulf as
+great as that which separated them from him, between him and Pirkheimer
+or Vambueler. All this and much more we can by taking thought imagine to
+our satisfaction; but the point which we would most desire to
+satisfactorily conjecture we are utterly in the dark about. Though his
+prentices were tried, Duerer appeared neither for nor against them; nor
+can we help ourselves to understand a fact so strange by any other
+mention of his attitude. He had a year or two previously married his
+servant, (perhaps the girl that his wife took with her to the
+Netherlands), to Georg Penz, who went the farthest in his scepticism,
+recanted soonest, and possessed least talent of the three. But this
+fact, which is not quite assured, narrows the grounds of conjecture but
+little; we still face an almost boundless blank. It is difficult to
+imagine that Duerer was quite as shocked as the Town Council by a man who
+said "he had some idea that there was a God, but did not know rightly
+what conception to form of him," who was so unfortunate as to think
+"nothing" of Christ, and could not believe in the Holy Gospel or in the
+word of God; and who failed to recognise "a master of himself, his goods
+and everything belonging to him" in the Council of Nuremberg.
+Now-a-days, when we think of the licence of assertion that has obtained
+on these questions, we are inclined to admire the honesty and
+intellectual clarity of such a confession. And Duerer, who resolved the
+similar question of authority as to "things beautiful" in a manner much
+the same as this, may, we can at least hope, have viewed his prentices
+with more of pity than of anger. All the three "godless painters" were
+banished from reformed Nuremberg; but Georg, whose confession had been
+most godless, recanted and was allowed to return. The others, Sebald and
+Barthel Beham, managed to perpetuate their names as "little masters"
+without the approbation of the Town Councillors, and are to-day less
+forgotten than those who condemned them. Hieronymus Andreae, the most
+skilful and famous of Duerer's wood engravers, caused the Council the
+same kind of alarm and concern. He took part with the peasants in their
+rebellion; but rebellion against a known authority was more pardonable
+than that against the unknown, or else his services were of greater
+value. At any rate he was pardoned not once but many times, being
+apparently an obstreperous character.
+
+
+III
+
+If we can form no conjecture as to Duerer's relations with his heretical
+aids, we have evidence as to his relations with their judges; for in
+1524 he wrote to the Town Council thus:
+
+Prudent, honourable and wise, most gracious Masters,--During long years,
+by hardworking pains and labour under Gods blessing, I have saved out of
+my earnings as much as 1000 florins Rhenish, which I should now be glad
+to invest for my support.
+
+I know, indeed, that your Honours are not often wont at the present time
+to grant interest at the rate of one florin for twenty; and I have been
+told that before now other applications of a like kind have been
+refused. It is not, therefore, without scruple that I address your
+Honours in this matter. Yet my necessities impel me to prefer this
+request to your Honours, and I am encouraged to do so above all by the
+particularly gracious favour which I have always received from your
+Honourable Wisdoms, as well as by the following considerations.
+
+Your Wisdoms know how I have always hitherto shown myself dutiful,
+willing, and zealous in all matters that concerned your Wisdoms and the
+common weal of the town. You know, moreover, how, before now, I have
+served many individual members of the Council, as well as of the
+community here, gratuitously rather than for pay, when they stood in
+need of my help, art, and labour. I can also write with truth that,
+during the thirty years I have stayed at home, I have not received from
+people in this town work worth 500 florins--truly a trifling and
+ridiculous sum--and not a fifth part of that has been profit. I have, on
+the contrary, earned and attained all my property (which, God knows, has
+grown irksome to me) from Princes, Lords, and other foreign persons, so
+that I only spend in this town what I have earned from foreigners.
+
+Doubtless, also, your Honours remember that at one time Emperor
+Maximilian, of most praiseworthy memory, in return for the manifold
+services which I had performed for him, year after year, of his own
+impulse and imperial charity wanted to make me free of taxes in this
+town. At the instance, however, of some of the elder Councillors, who
+treated with me in the matter in the name of the Council, I willingly
+resigned that privilege, in order to honour the said Councillors and to
+maintain their privileges, usages, and rights.
+
+Again, nineteen years ago, the government of Venice offered to appoint
+me to an office and to give me a salary of 200 ducats a year. So, too,
+only a short time ago when I was in the Netherlands, the Council of
+Antwerp would have given me 300 Philipsgulden a year, kept me there free
+of taxes, and honoured me with a well-built house; and besides I should
+have been paid in addition at both places for all the work I might have
+done for the gentry. But I declined all this, because of the particular
+love and affection which I bear to your honourable Wisdoms and to my
+fatherland, this honourable town, preferring, as I did, to live under
+your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather than to be rich and held in honour
+in other places.
+
+It is, therefore, my most submissive prayer to your Honours, that you
+will be pleased graciously to take these facts into consideration, and
+to receive from me on my account these 1000 florins, paying me 50
+florins a year as interest. I could, indeed, place them well with other
+respectable parties here and elsewhere, but I should prefer to see them
+in the hands of your Wisdoms. I and my wife will then, now that we are
+both growing daily older, feebler, and more helpless, possess the
+certainty of a fitting household for our needs; and we shall experience
+thereby, as formerly, your honourable Wisdoms' favour and goodwill. To
+merit this from your Honours with all my powers I shall ever be
+found willing.
+
+Your Wisdoms' willing, obedient burgher,
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+Duerer obtained the desired five per cent. on his savings annually until
+his death, and afterwards his widow received four per cent. until
+her death.
+
+In 1526 the grateful artist finished and dedicated to his
+fellow-townsmen his most important picture, representing the four
+temperaments in the persons of St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St.
+Mark; he wrote thus to the Council:
+
+Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters,--I have been intending, for a
+long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation
+of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance; but I have been
+prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my
+works, for I felt that with such I could not well stand before your
+Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I
+have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none
+more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.
+
+Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent
+prayer that you will favourably and graciously receive it, and will be
+and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.
+
+Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.
+
+Your Wisdoms' humble
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+The gift was accepted, and the Council voted Duerer 100 florins, his wife
+10, and his apprentice 2. Underneath the two panels which form the
+picture, the following was inscribed; the texts being from
+Luther's Bible:
+
+All worldly rulers in these dangerous times should give good heed that
+they receive not human misguidance for the Word of God, for God will
+have nothing added to His Word nor taken away from it. Hear, therefore,
+these four excellent men, Peter, John, Paul, and Mark, their warning.
+
+Peter says in his Second Epistle in the second chapter: There were false
+prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers
+among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying
+the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
+And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way
+of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they
+with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long
+time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
+
+John in his First Epistle in the fourth chapter writes thus: Beloved,
+believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:
+because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye
+the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is
+come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that
+Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that
+spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and
+even now already is it in the world.
+
+In the Second Epistle to Timothy in the third chapter St. Paul writes:
+This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For
+men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,
+blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural
+affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
+despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers
+of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but
+denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are
+they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with
+sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come
+to the knowledge of the truth.
+
+St. Mark writes in his Gospel in the twelfth chapter: He said unto them
+in His doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long
+clothing, and love salutations in the market-places, and the chief seats
+in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts; which devour
+widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall
+receive greater damnation.
+
+These rather tremendous texts may make one fear that the "three godless
+painters" had found little pity in their master; but most sincere
+Christians are better than their creeds, and more charitable than the
+old-world imprecations, admonitions, and denunciations, with which they
+soothe their Cerberus of an old Adam, who is not allowed to use his
+teeth to the full extent that their formidable nature would seem to
+warrant. For have they not been told above all things to love their
+enemies, and do good to those whom they would naturally hate, by a
+master whom they really love and strive to imitate?
+
+
+IV
+
+Duerer's last years were given more and more to writing down his ideas
+for the sake of those who, coming after him, would, he was persuaded, go
+on far before him in the race for perfection. In 1525 he published his
+first book--"Instruction in the Measurement with the Compass, and Rules
+of Lines, Surfaces, and Solid Bodies, drawn up by Albert Duerer, and
+printed, for the use of all lovers of art, with appropriate diagrams."
+It contains a course of applied geometry in connection with Euclid's
+Elements. Duerer states from the very commencement that "his book will be
+of no use to any one who understands the geometry of the 'very acute'
+Euclid; for it has been written only for the young, and for those who
+have had no one to instruct them accurately." Thausing tells us his work
+shows certain resemblances to that of Luca Pacioli, a companion of
+Leonardo's, who may have been the "man who is willing to teach me the
+secrets of the art of perspective," and whom Duerer in 1506 travelled
+from Venice to Bologna to see; it is even possible that he saw Leonardo
+himself in the latter town. In 1527 he issued an essay on the "Art of
+Fortification," which the development of artillery was then
+transforming; and authorities on this very special science tell us that
+Duerer is the true author of the ideas on which the "new Prussian system"
+was founded. It was dread of the unchristian Turk who was then besieging
+Vienna which called forth from Duerer this excursion. He dedicated it in
+the following terms:
+
+To the most illustrious, mighty prince and lord, Lord Ferdinand, King of
+Hungary and Bohemia, Infant of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Duke of
+Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and Tirol, his Roman
+Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, Regent in the Holy Empire, my
+most gracious Sire.
+
+Most illustrious mighty King, most gracious Sire,--During the lifetime
+of the most illustrious and mighty Emperor Maximilian of praiseworthy
+memory, your Majesty's Lord and Grandsire, I experienced grace and
+favour from his Imperial Majesty; wherefore I consider myself no less
+bound to serve your Majesty according to my small powers. As it
+happeneth that your Majesty has commanded some towns and places to be
+fortified, I am induced to make known what little I know about these
+matters, if perchance it may please your Majesty to gather somewhat
+therefrom. For though my theory may not be accepted in every point,
+still I believe something will arise from it, here and there, useful not
+to your Majesty only, but to all other Princes, Lords, and Towns, that
+would gladly protect themselves against violence and unjust oppression.
+I therefore humbly pray your Majesty graciously to accept from me this
+evidence of my gratitude, and to be my most gracious lord,
+
+Your Royal Majesty's most humble
+
+ALBRECHT DUeRER.
+
+It seems that at any rate the Kronenburg Gate and Roseneck bastion of
+Strasburg were actually constructed in accordance with Duerer's method.
+
+When, on April 6, 1528, Duerer died suddenly, two volumes of his great
+work on "Human Proportions" were ready for the press, and enough raw
+material, notes, drawings, &c., to enable his friend Pirkheimer to
+prepare and issue the remaining two with them. Of the misunderstanding
+of this the most important of Duerer's writings I shall say nothing here,
+as I have devoted a separate chapter to it.
+
+
+V
+
+It seems probable that the "wondrous sickness which overcame me in
+Zeeland, such as I never heard of from any man, and which sickness
+remains with me" of the Netherlands Journal (p. 156) was an intermittent
+fever. There exists at Bremen a sketch of Duerer, nude down to the waist,
+and pointing with his finger to a spot between the pit of the stomach
+and the groin, which spot he has coloured yellow; and from its size,
+with the other descriptions of his malady, the skilful have arrived at
+the above diagnosis. The words on the sketch, "The yellow spot to which
+my finger points is where it pains me," seem to indicate that he had
+made it to send to some skilled physician. Thausing suggests either
+Master Jacob or Master Braun, whom he had met at Antwerp, and deduces
+from the length of his hair and the apparent vigour of his body, that
+the drawing was made soon after the disease was contracted. All doubt as
+to its nature would be removed, could it be made certain that by the
+words, "I have sent to your Grace early this year before I became ill,"
+in a letter to the Elector Albert dated September 4, 1523, Duerer meant
+to imply that at a certain period he became ill every year; but of
+course it is impossible to be sure of this.
+
+
+VI
+
+If not rich, Duerer died comfortably off. Thausing tells us that his
+"widow entered into possession of his whole fortune;" a fourth part
+belonged, according to Nuremberg law, to his brothers, but she was not
+bound to render it to them before her death. On June 9, 1530, however,
+she "of her own desire, and on account of the friendly feeling which she
+entertained for them for her husband's sake, and as her dear
+brothers-in-law," made over both to Andreas Duerer, goldsmith, and to
+Caspar Altmulsteiner, on behalf of Hans Duerer, then in the service of
+the King of Poland, a sum of 553 florins, three pounds, eleven pfennigs,
+and gave them a mortgage for the remaining sum of 608 florins, two
+pounds, twenty-four pfennigs on the corner house in the Zistelgasse, now
+called the Duerer House; for the property had been valued at 6848
+florins, seven pounds, twenty-four pfennigs. Johann Neudoerffer, who
+lived opposite the Duerers, has recorded the fact that Duerer's brother
+Endres inherited all his expensive colours, his copper plates and wood
+blocks, as well as any impressions there were, and all his drawings
+beside. And a year before her death, Agnes Duerer gave the interest on
+the 1000 florins invested in the town to found a scholarship for
+theological students at the University of Wittenberg; about which
+Melanchthon wrote to von Dietrich that he thanked God for this aid to
+study, and that he had praised this good deed of the widow Duerer before
+Luther and others. And yet Pirkheimer, in his spleen at having lost the
+chance of procuring some stags' antlers which had belonged to his
+friend, and which he coveted, could write of Agues Duerer: "She watched
+him day and night and drove him to work ... that he might earn money
+and leave it her when he died. For she always thought she was on the
+borders of ruin--as for the matter of that she does still--though
+Albrecht left her property worth as much as six thousand florins. But
+there! nothing was enough; and, in fact, she alone is the cause of his
+death!" We know that what with the four Apostles and his books Duerer's
+last years were not spent on remunerative labours; nor does the
+Netherlands Journal contain any hint that his wife tried to restrict the
+employment either of his time or money. His journey into Zeeland was a
+pure extravagance; for the sale of a copper engraving or woodcut of a
+whale would have taken some time to make up for such an expense, and, as
+it turned out, no whale was seen or drawn; and there is no hint that
+Frau Duerer made reproach or complaint. On the other hand, Pirkheimer's
+words probably had some slight basis; and as Duerer's sickness increased
+upon him, while at the same time he applied himself less and less to
+making money, the anxious Frau may have become fretful or even nagging
+at times; and Pirkheimer, whose companionship was probably a cause of
+extravagances to Duerer, may have been scolded by Agnes, or heard his
+friend excuse himself from taking part in some convivial meeting, on the
+plea that his wife found he was spending out of proportion to his
+takings at the moment.
+
+
+VII
+
+We have the testimony of a good number of Duerer's friends as to the
+value of his character; and first let us quote from Pirkheimer--writing
+immediately after Duerer's death and before' the loss of the coveted
+antlers had vexed him--to a common friend Ulrich, probably Ulrich
+Varnbueler.
+
+What can be more grievous for a man than to have continually to mourn,
+not only children and relations whom death steals from him, but friends
+also, and among them those whom he loved best? And though I have often
+had to mourn the loss of relations, still I do not know that any death
+ever caused me such grief as fills me now at the sudden departure of our
+good and dear Albrecht Duerer. Nor is this without reason, for of all men
+not united to me by ties of blood, I have never loved or esteemed any
+like him for his countless virtues and rare uprightness. And because I
+know, my dear Ulrich, that this blow has struck both you and me alike, I
+have not been afraid to give vent to my grief before you of all others,
+so that together we may pay the fitting tribute of tears to such a
+friend. He is gone, good Ulrich; our Albrecht is gone! Oh, inexorable
+decree of fate! Oh, miserable lot of man! Oh, pitiless severity of
+death! Such a man, yea, such a man, is torn from us, while so many
+useless and worthless men enjoy lasting happiness, and live only
+too long!
+
+Thausing insists on the fact that in this letter there is no mention of
+Duerer's death having been caused by his wife's behaviour; but as the
+relation of Ulrich to the deceased seems to have been well-nigh as
+intimate as his own, there may have been no need to mention a fact
+painfully present to both their minds. On the other hand, it is at least
+as probable that the idea was not present even to the mind of the
+writer, who, in a style less studiously commonplace, inscribed on
+Duerer's tomb:
+
+Me. AL. DU.
+
+QVICQVID ALBERTI DVRERI MORTALE FVIT, SVB HOC CONDITVR TVMVLO. EMIGRAVIT
+VIII IDVS APRILIS MDXXVIII.
+
+(To the memory of Albrecht Duerer. All that was mortal of Albrecht Duerer
+is laid beneath this mound. He departed on April 6, 1528.)
+
+Luther wrote to Eoban Hesse:
+
+As to Duerer, it is natural and right to weep for so excellent a man;
+still you should rather think him blessed, as one whom Christ has taken
+in the fulness of His wisdom, and by a happy death, from these most
+troublous times, and perhaps from times even more troublous which are to
+come, lest one who was worthy to look upon nothing but excellence should
+be forced to behold things most vile. May he rest in peace. Amen.
+
+Erasmus had some months before written and printed in a treatise on the
+right pronunciation of Latin and Greek an eulogy of Duerer. It is not
+known whether a copy had reached him before his death; in any case to
+most people it came like a funeral oration from the greatest scholar on
+the greatest artist north of the Alps. Thausing quotes the following
+passage from it:
+
+I have known Duerer's name for a long time as that of the first celebrity
+in the art of painting. Some call him the Apelles of our time. But I
+think that did Apelles live now, he, as an honourable man, would give
+the palm to Duerer. Apelles, it is true, made use of few and unobtrusive
+colours, but still he used colours; while Duerer,--admirable as he is,
+too, in other respects,--what can he not express with a single
+colour--that is to say, with black lines? He can give the effect of
+light and shade, brightness, foreground and background. Moreover, he
+reproduces _not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also observes
+the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the position of
+it_. He can also transfer by enchantment, so to say, upon the canvas,
+things which it seems not possible to represent, such as fire, sunbeams,
+storms, lightning, and mist; he can portray every passion, show us the
+whole soul of a man shining through his outward form; nay, even make us
+hear his very speech. All this he brings so happily before the eye with
+those black lines, that the picture would lose by being clothed in
+colour. Is it not more worthy of admiration to achieve without the
+winning charm of colour what Apelles only realised with its assistance?
+
+Melanchthon wrote in a letter to Camerarius:
+
+"It grieves me to see Germany deprived of such an artist and such a
+man."
+
+And we learn from his son-in-law, Caspar Penker, that he often spoke of
+Duerer with affection and respect; he writes:
+
+Melanchthon was often, and many hours together, in Pirkheimer's company,
+at the time when they were advising together about the churches and
+schools at Nuernberg; and Duerer, the painter, used _also_ to be invited
+to dinner with them. Duerer was a man of great shrewdness, and
+Melanchthon used to say of him that though he excelled in the art of
+painting, it was the least of his accomplishments. Disputes often arose
+between Pirkheimer and Duerer on these occasions about the matters
+recently discussed, and Pirkheimer used vehemently to oppose Duerer.
+Duerer was an excessively subtle disputant, and refuted his adversary's
+arguments, just as if he had come fully prepared for the discussion.
+Thereupon Pirkheimer, who was rather a choleric man and liable to very
+severe attacks of the gout, fired up and burst forth again and again
+into such words as these, "What you say cannot be painted." "Nay!"
+rejoined Duerer, "but what you advance cannot be put into words or even
+figured to the mind." I remember hearing Melanchthon often tell this
+story, and in relating it he confessed his astonishment at the ingenuity
+and power manifested by a painter in arguing with a man of
+Pirkheimer's renown.
+
+Such scenes no doubt took place during the years after Duerer's return
+from the Netherlands. Melanchthon also wrote in a letter to George
+von Anhalt:
+
+I remember how that great man, distinguished alike by his intellect and
+his virtue, Albrecht Duerer the painter, said that as a youth he had
+loved bright pictures full of figures, and when considering his own
+productions had always admired those with the greatest variety in them.
+But as an older man, he had begun to observe nature and reproduce it in
+its native forms, and had learned that this simplicity was the greatest
+ornament of art. Being unable completely to attain to this ideal, he
+said that he was no longer an admirer of his works as heretofore, but
+often sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought over his want
+of power.
+
+And in another letter he remembers that Duerer would say that in his
+youth he had found great pleasure in representing monstrous and unusual
+figures, but that in his later years he endeavoured to observe nature,
+and to imitate her as closely as possible; experience, however, had
+taught him how difficult it was not to err. And Thausing continues:
+"Melanchthon speaks even more frequently of how Duerer was pleased with
+pictures he had just finished, but when he saw them after a time, was
+ashamed of them; and those he had painted with the greatest care
+displeased him so much at the end of three years that he could scarcely
+look at them without great pain."
+
+And this on his appreciation of Luther's writings:
+
+Albrecht Duerer, painter of Nuernberg, a shrewd man, once said that there
+was this difference between the writings of Luther and other
+theologians. After reading three or four paragraphs of the first page of
+one of Luther's works he could grasp the problem to be worked out in the
+whole. This clearness and order of arrangement was, he observed, the
+glory of Luther's writings. He used, on the contrary, to say of other
+writers that, after reading a whole book through, he had to consider
+attentively what idea it was that the author intended to convey.
+
+Lastly, Camerarius, the professor of Greek and Latin in the new school
+of Nuremberg, in his Latin translation of Duerer's book on "Human
+Proportions," writes thus:
+
+It is not my present purpose to talk about art. My purpose was to speak
+somewhat, as needs must be, of the artificer, the author of this book.
+He, I trust, has become known by his virtue and his deserts, not only to
+his own country, but to foreign nations also. Full well I know that his
+praises need not our trumpetings to the world, since by his excellent
+works he is exalted and honoured with undying glory. Yet, as we were
+publishing his writings, and an opportunity arose of committing to print
+the life and habits of a remarkable man and a very dear friend of ours,
+we have judged it expedient to put together some few scraps of
+information, learnt partly from the conversations of others and partly
+from our own intercourse with him. This will give some indication of his
+singular skill and genius as artist and man, and cannot fail of
+affording pleasure to the reader. We have heard that our Albrecht was of
+Hungarian extraction, but that his forefathers emigrated to Germany. We
+can, therefore, have but little to say of his origin and birth. Though
+they were honourable, there can be no question but that they gained more
+glory from him than he from them.
+
+Nature bestowed on him a body remarkable in build and stature, and not
+unworthy of the noble mind it contained; that in this, too, Nature's
+Justice, extolled by Hippocrates, might not be forgotten--that Justice,
+which, while it assigns a grotesque form to the ape's grotesque soul, is
+wont also to clothe noble minds in bodies worthy of them. His head was
+intelligent,[71] his eyes flashing, his nose nobly formed, and, as the
+Greeks say, tetragonon. His neck was rather long, his chest broad, his
+body not too stout, his thighs muscular, his legs firm and steady. But
+his fingers--you would vow you had never seen anything more elegant.
+
+His conversation was marked by so much sweetness and wit, that nothing
+displeased his hearers so much as the end of it. Letters, it is true, he
+had not cultivated, but the great sciences of Physics and Mathematics,
+which are perpetuated by letters, he had almost entirely mastered. He
+not only understood principles and knew how to apply them in practice,
+but he was able to set them forth in words. This is proved by his
+geometrical treatises, wherein I see nothing omitted, except what he
+judged to be beyond the scope of his work. An ardent zeal impelled him
+towards the attainment of all virtue in conduct and life, the display of
+which caused him to be deservedly held a most excellent man. Yet he was
+not of a melancholy severity nor of a repulsive gravity; nay, whatever
+conduced to pleasantness and cheerfulness, and was not inconsistent
+with honour and rectitude, he cultivated all his life and approved even
+in his old age. The works he has left on Gymnastic and Music are of such
+character.
+
+But Nature had specially designed him for a painter, and therefore he
+embraced the study of that art with all his energies, and was ever
+desirous of observing the works and principles of the famous painters of
+every land, and of imitating whatever he approved in them. Moreover,
+with respect to those studies, he experienced the generosity and won the
+favour of the greatest kings and princes, and even of Maximilian himself
+and his grandson the Emperor Charles; and he was rewarded by them with
+no contemptible salary. But after his hand had, so to speak, attained
+its maturity, his sublime and virtue-loving genius became best
+discoverable in his works, for his subjects were fine and his treatment
+of them noble. You may judge the truth of these statements from his
+extant prints in honour of Maximilian, and his memorable astronomical
+diagrams, not to mention other works, not one of which but a painter of
+any nation or day would be proud to call his own. The nature of a man is
+never more certainly and definitely shown than in the works he produces
+as the fruit of his art.... What single painter has there ever been who
+did not reveal his character in his works? Instead of instances from
+ancient history, I shall content myself with examples from our own time.
+No one can fail to see that many painters have sought a vulgar celebrity
+by immodest pictures. It is not credible that those artists can be
+virtuous, whose minds and fingers composed such works. We have also seen
+pictures minutely finished and fairly well coloured, wherein, it is
+true, the master showed a certain talent and industry; but art was
+wanting. Albrecht, therefore, shall we most justly admire as an earnest
+guardian of piety and modesty, and as one who showed, by the magnitude
+of his pictures, that he was conscious of his own powers, although none
+even of his lesser works is to be despised. You will not find in them a
+single line carelessly or wrongly drawn, not a single superfluous dot.
+
+What shall I say of the steadiness and exactitude of his hand? You might
+swear that rule, square, or compasses had been employed to draw lines,
+which he, in fact, drew with the brush, or very often with pencil or
+pen, unaided by artificial means, to the great marvel of those who
+watched him. Why should I tell how his hand so closely followed the
+ideas of his mind that, in a moment, he often dashed upon paper, or, as
+painters say, composed, sketches of every kind of thing with pencil or
+pen? I see I shall not be believed by my readers when I relate, that
+sometimes he would draw separately, not only the different parts of a
+composition, but even the different parts of bodies, which, when joined
+together, agreed with one another so well that nothing could have fitted
+better. In fact this consummate artist's mind endowed with all knowledge
+and understanding of the truth and of the agreement of the parts one
+with another, governed and guided his hand and bade it trust to itself
+without any other aids. With like accuracy he held the brush, wherewith
+he drew the smallest things on canvas or wood without sketching them in
+beforehand, so that, far from giving ground for blame, they always won
+the highest praise. And this was a subject of greatest wonder to most
+distinguished painters, who, from their own great experience, could
+understand the difficulty of the thing.
+
+I cannot forbear to tell, in this place, the story of what happened
+between him and Giovanni Bellini. Bellini had the highest reputation as
+a painter at Venice, and indeed throughout all Italy. When Albrecht was
+there he easily became intimate with him, and both artists naturally
+began to show one another specimens of their skill. Albrecht frankly
+admired and made much of all Bellini's works. Bellini also candidly
+expressed his admiration of various features of Albrecht's skill, and
+particularly the fineness and delicacy with which he drew hairs. It
+chanced one day that they were talking about art, and when their
+conversation was done Bellini said: "Will you be so kind, Albrecht, as
+to gratify a friend in a small matter?" "You shall soon see," says
+Albrecht, "if you will ask of me anything I can do for you." Then says
+Bellini: "I want you to make me a present of one of the brushes with
+which you draw hairs." Duerer at once produced several, just like other
+brushes, and, in fact, of the kind Bellini himself used, and told him to
+choose those he liked best, or to take them all if he would. But
+Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these,
+but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they
+must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep
+such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I
+use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch
+me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long
+wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the most regular order
+and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and afterwards confessed to
+many that no human being could have convinced him by report of the truth
+of that which he had seen with his own eyes.
+
+A similar tribute was given him, with conspicuous candour, by Andrea
+Mantegna, who became famous at Mantua by reducing painting to some
+severity of law--a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up
+broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It
+is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not
+trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is
+held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. While Andrea
+was lying ill at Mantua he heard that Albrecht was in Italy, and had him
+summoned to his side at once, in order that he might fortify his
+(Albrecht's) facility and certainty of hand with scientific knowledge
+and principles. For Andrea often lamented in conversation with his
+friends that Albrecht's facility in drawing had not been granted to him
+nor his learning to Albrecht. On receiving the message Albrecht, leaving
+all other engagements, prepared for the journey without delay. But
+before he could reach Mantua Andrea was dead, and Duerer used to say that
+this was the saddest event in all his life; for, high as Albrecht stood,
+his great and lofty mind was ever striving after something yet
+above him.
+
+Almost with awe have we gazed upon the bearded face of the man, drawn by
+himself, in the manner we have described, with the brush on the canvas
+and without any previous sketch. The locks of the beard are almost a
+cubit long, and so exquisitely and cleverly drawn, at such regular
+distances and in so exact a manner, that the better any one understands
+art, the more he would admire it, and the more certain would he deem it
+that in fashioning these locks the hand had employed artificial aid.
+
+Further, there is nothing foul, nothing disgraceful in his work. The
+thoughts of his most pure mind shunned all such things. Artist worthy of
+success! How like, too, are his portraits! How unerring! How true!
+
+All these perfections he attained by reducing mere practice to art and
+method, in a way new at least to German painters. With Albrecht all was
+ready, certain, and at hand, because he had brought painting into the
+fixed track of rule and recalled it to scientific principles; without
+which, as Cicero said, though some things may be well done by help of
+nature, yet they cannot always be ready to hand, because they are done
+by chance. He first worked his principles out for his own use;
+afterwards with his generous and open nature he attempted to explain
+them in books, written to the illustrious and most learned Wilibald
+Pirkheimer. And he dedicated them to him in a most elegant letter which
+we have not translated, because we felt it to be beyond our power to
+render it into Latin without, so to speak, disfiguring its natural
+countenance. But before he could complete and publish the books, as he
+had hoped, he was carried off by death--a death, calm indeed and
+enviable, but in our view premature. If there was anything at all in
+that man which could seem like a fault, it was his excessive industry,
+which often made unfair demands upon him.
+
+Death, as we have said, removed him from the publication of the work
+which he had begun, but his friends completed the task from his own
+manuscript. About this, in the next place, and about our own version, we
+shall say a few words. The work, being founded on a sort of geometrical
+system, is unpolished and devoid of literary style; so it seems rather
+rugged. But that is easily forgiven in consideration of the excellence
+of the matter. He requested me himself, only a few days before his
+death, to translate it into Latin while he should correct it; and I
+willingly turned my attention and studies to the work. But death, which
+takes everything, took from him his power of supervision and correction.
+His friends subsequently, after publishing the work, prevailed on me, by
+their claims rather than their requests, to undertake the Latin
+translation, and to complete after his death the task Duerer had laid
+upon me in his life.
+
+If I find that my industry and devotion in this matter meet with my
+readers' approval, I shall be encouraged to translate into Latin the
+rest of Albrecht's treatise on painting, a work at once more finished
+and more laborious than the present. Moreover, his writings on other
+subjects will also be looked for, his Geometries and Tichismatics, in
+which he explained the fortification of towns according to the system of
+the present day. These, however, appear to be all the subjects on which
+he wrote books. As to the promise, which I hear certain persons are
+making in conversation or in writing, to publish a book by Duerer on the
+symmetry of the parts of the horse, I cannot but wonder from what
+source they will obtain after his death what he never completed during
+his life. Although I am well aware that Albrecht had begun to
+investigate the law of truth in this matter too, and had made a certain
+number of measurements, I also know that he lost all he had done through
+the treachery of certain persons, by whose means it came about that the
+author's notes were stolen, so that he never cared to begin the work
+afresh. He had a suspicion, or rather a certainty, as to the source
+whence came the drones who had invaded his store; but the great man
+preferred to hide his knowledge, to his own loss and pain, rather than
+to lose sight of generosity and kindness in the pursuit of his enemies.
+We shall not, therefore, suffer anything that may appear to be
+attributed to Albrecht's authorship, unworthy as it must evidently be of
+so great an artist.
+
+A few years ago some tracts also appeared in German, containing rules,
+in general faulty and inappropriate, about the same matter. On these I
+do not care now to waste words, though the author, unless I am much
+mistaken, has not once repented of his publication. But these rules
+above-mentioned, which are easily proved to be Albrecht's, not only
+because he prepared them himself for publication, but also because of
+their own excellence, you will, I think, obtain considerably better here
+than from other sources. Not that they are more finished in point of
+erudition and learning in the present book than elsewhere, but because
+those who interpret them in the author's own workshop, among the
+expansions and corrections of his autograph manuscripts and the
+variations of his different copies, stand in the light about many
+points, which must of necessity seem obscure to others, however learned
+they may be.
+
+This will be seen in the case of the book on Geometry, which a learned
+man has in hand and will shortly publish in a more elaborate form, and
+with more explanation of certain points than it possesses at present.
+For it will be increased by no less than twenty-six [Greek: schemata]
+(figures) and countless corrections or improvements of earlier editions.
+The author himself on rereading had thus improved and amplified what had
+already been issued. As though he foresaw that he would publish no more,
+he had directed his future editors as to what was to be done about the
+letterpress and figures; and we shall take care that it is published at
+the earliest possible date in the German language, in which the author
+wrote it. It is only to be expected that this will be welcome to the
+public, who will thus return thanks for the author's burning desire to
+do something by his discoveries for the public good, and for our own
+labour and eagerness in publishing to all nations what appears to be
+written only for one.
+
+Though these testimonies may often seem either trifling, or obscured by
+the pedantic affectation of the writers, they, like the signatures of
+well-respected men, endorse the impression produced by Duerer's works and
+writings. As we study the character of Duerer's creative gift in relation
+to his works, several of the phrases used by Erasmus, Camerarius, and
+Melanchthon should take added significance, being probably remembered
+from conversations with the great artist himself.[72] Duerer, like
+Luther, was depressed and distressed at the course the Reformation had
+run; but, like Erasmus, though regretting and disparaging the present,
+he looked forward to the future, and knew "that he would be surpassed,"
+and had no morbid inclination to see the end and final failure of human
+effort in his own exhaustion.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 70: B. 106, published in 1513. The block is in the Court
+Library at Vienna. Thawing says it was designed by Burgkmair or
+Springinklee.]
+
+[Footnote 71: "_Caput argutum_". The phrase is from Virgil's description
+of the thorough-bred horse (_Georg. iii_). The above passage is
+introduced (with modifications) into Melchior Adam's _Vitae Germ.
+Philos._ (p.66). where this sentence runs: "The deep-thinking,
+serene-souled artist was seen unmistakably in his _arched_ and _lofty_
+brow and in the fiery glance of his eye."]
+
+[Footnote 72: In the foregoing quotations the sentences which seem to me
+most reminiscent of Duerer's ideas are printed in italics.]
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+DUeRER AS A CREATOR
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DUeRER'S PICTURES
+
+
+I
+
+Duerer's paintings have suffered more by the malignity of fortune than
+any of his other works. Several have disappeared entirely, and several
+are but wrecks of what they once were. Others are, as he tells us,
+"ordinary pictures," of which "I will in a year paint a pile which no
+one would believe it possible for one man to do in the time," and are
+perhaps more the work of assistants than of the master. Others, again,
+have since been repainted, more or less disastrously. Yet enough remain
+to show us that Duerer was not a painter born, in the sense that Titian
+and Correggio or Rembrandt and Rubens are; nay, not even in the sense
+that a Jan Van Eyck or a Mantegna is. Mantegna is certainly the painter
+with whom Duerer has most affinity, and whose method of employing pigment
+is least removed from his; but Mantegna is a born colourist--a man whose
+eye for colour is like a musician's ear for melody--while Duerer is at
+best with difficulty able to avoid glaring discords, and, if we are to
+judge by the "ordinary pictures," did not avoid them. Again, Mantegna is
+not so dependent on line as Duerer--nearly the whole of whose surface is
+produced by hatching with the brush point. These facts may, perhaps,
+account for the large portion of Duerer's time devoted to engraving. As
+an engraver he early found a style for himself, which he continued to
+develop to the end of his life. As a painter he was for ever
+experimenting, influenced now by Jacopo de' Barbari, again by Bellini
+and the pictures he saw at Venice, and yet again by those he saw in the
+Netherlands. As Velasquez, after each of his journeys to Italy, returns
+to attempt a mythological picture in the grand style, so Duerer turns to
+painting after his return from Venice or from the Netherlands; and his
+pictures divide themselves into three groups: those painted after or
+during his _Wanderjahre_ and before he went to Venice in 1505, those
+painted there and during the next five years after his return, and those
+painted in the Netherlands or commenced immediately on his
+return thence.
+
+
+II
+
+The mediums of oil and tempera lend themselves to the production of
+broad-coloured surfaces that merge imperceptibly into one another. There
+are men the fundamental unit of whose picture language is a blot or
+shape; as children or as savages, they would find these most capable of
+expressing what they saw. There are others for whom the scratch or line
+is the fundamental unit, for whom every object is most naturally
+expressed by an outline. There are, of course, men who present us with
+every possible blend of these two fundamental forms of picture language.
+
+The mediums of oils and tempera are especially adapted to the
+requirements of those who see things rather as a diaper of shapes than
+as a map of lines; while for these last the point of pen, burin, or
+etching-needle offers the most congenial implement. Duerer was very
+greatly more inclined to express objects by a map of lines than as a
+diaper of coloured shapes; and for this reason I say that he was not a
+painter born. If this be true, as a painter he must have been at a
+disadvantage. In this preponderance of the draughtsman qualities he
+resembles many artists of the Florentine school, as also in his
+theoretic pre-occupation with perspective, proportion, architecture, and
+technical methods. We are impressed by a coldness of approach, an
+austerity, a dignity not altogether justified by the occasion, but as it
+were carried over from some precedent hour of spiritual elevation; the
+prophet's demeanour in between the days of visitation, a little too
+consciously careful not to compromise the divinity which informs him no
+longer. This tendency to fall back on manner greatly acquired indeed,
+but no longer consonant with the actual mood, which is really too vacant
+of import to parade such importance, is often a fault of natures whose
+native means of expression is the thin line, the geometer's precision,
+the architect's foresight in measurement. And by allowing for it I think
+we can explain the contradiction apparent between the critics' continual
+insistence on what they call Duerer's great thoughts, and the sparsity of
+intellectual creativeness which strikes one in turning over his
+engravings, so many are there of which either the occasion or the
+conception are altogether trivial when compared with the grandiose
+aspect of the composition or the impeccable mechanical performance.
+Duerer's literary remains sufficiently prove his mind to have been
+constantly exercised upon and around great thoughts, and their influence
+may be felt in the austerity and intensity of his noblest portraits and
+other creations. But "great thoughts" in respect of works of art either
+means the communication of a profound emotion by the creation of a
+suitable arabesque for a deeply significant subject, as in the flowing
+masses of Michael Angelo's _Creation of Man_, or it means the pictorial
+enhancing of the telling incidents of a dramatic situation such as we
+find it in Rembrandt's treatment of the Crucifixion, Deposition, or
+Entombment. Now it seems to me the paucity of successes on these lines
+in one who nevertheless occasionally entirely succeeds, is what is most
+striking in Duerer. Perhaps when dealing with the graphic arts one should
+rather speak of great character than great thoughts; yet Duerer, while
+constantly impressing us as a great character, seems to be one who was
+all too rarely wholly himself. The abundant felicity in expression of
+Rembrandt or Shakespeare is altogether wanting. The imperial imposition
+of mood which Michael Angelo affects is perhaps never quite certainly
+his, even in the _Melancholy_. Yet we feel that not only has he a
+capacity of the same order as those men, but that he is spiritually akin
+to them, despite his coldness, despite his ostentation.
+
+But not only is Duerer praised for "great thoughts," but he is praised
+for realism, and sometimes accused of having delighted in ugliness; or,
+as it is more cautiously expressed, of having preferred truth to grace.
+This is a point which I consider may better be discussed in respect to
+his drawings than his pictures, which nearly always have some obvious
+conventional or traditional character, so that the word realism cannot
+be applied to them. Even in his portraits his signature or an
+inscription is often added in such a manner as insists that this is a
+painting, a panel;--not a view through a window, or an attempt to
+deceive the eye with a make-believe reality.
+
+
+III
+
+The altar-piece, consisting of a centre, the Virgin Mary adoring her
+baby son in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, and two wings, St. Anthony
+and St. Sebastian, though the earliest of Duerer's pictures which has
+survived, is perhaps the most beautiful of them all, at least as far as
+the two wings are concerned. The centre has been considerably damaged by
+repainting, and was probably, owing to the greater complication of
+motives in it, never quite so successful. Whether at Venice or
+elsewhere, it would seem almost necessary that the young painter had
+seen and been impressed by pictures by Gentile Bellini and Andrea
+Mantegna, both of whom have painted in the same thin tempera on fine
+canvas, obtaining similar beauties of colour and surface. It is hardly
+possible to imagine one who had seen none but German or Flemish pictures
+painting the St. Sebastian. The treatment of the still life in the
+foreground is in itself almost a proof of this. Perhaps this thin, flat
+tempera treatment was that most suited to Duerer's native bias, and we
+should regret his having been tempted to overcome the more brilliant and
+exacting medium of oils. In any case he more than once reverted to it in
+portraits and studies, while the majority of the pictures painted before
+he went to Venice in 1506 have more or less kinship with it. The
+supposed portrait of Frederic the Wise is another masterpiece in this
+kind, and the _Hercules slaying the birds of the Stymphalian Lake_ in
+the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, 1500, was probably another. For though
+now considerably damaged by restorations and dirt, it suggests far
+greater pleasures than it actually imparts. The contrast between
+
+  "The sea-worn face sad as mortality,
+   Divine with yearning after fellowship,"
+
+and the blond richly curling hair blown back from it, is extremely fine
+and entirely suited to the treatment; as is also the similar contrast
+between the richly inlaid bow, shield, and arrows, and the broad and
+flowing modulation of the energetic limbs and back.
+
+The Paumgartner altar-piece, 1499, stands out from the "ordinary
+pictures" belonging to this early period. It consists of a charming and
+gay Nativity in the centre, and two knights in armour on the wings,
+probably portraits of the donors, Stephan and Lucas Paumgartner,
+figuring as warlike saints. Stephan, a personal friend of Duerer's,
+figured again as St. George in the _Trinity and All Saints_ picture
+painted in 1511. There were originally two panels with female saints
+beyond these again, but no trace of them remains. Now that the landscape
+backgrounds have been removed from the side panels, there is no reason
+to suppose that any one but Duerer had a hand in these works. But in
+writing to Heller, he tells him that it was unheard of to put so much
+work into an altar-piece as he was then putting into his _Coronation of
+the Virgin_, and we may feel certain that Duerer regarded this picture as
+in the altar-piece category. The two knights are represented against
+black grounds, and their silhouettes form a very fine arabesque, which
+the streamers of their lances, artificially arranged, complete and
+emphasise. This black ground points probably to the influence of Jacopo
+de' Barbari, whom Duerer had met and been mystified by. (See p. 63.)
+
+[Illustration: ST. GEORGE AND ST. EUSTACE Side panels in oils of the
+Paumgartner Altar-piece in the Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+No doubt there was much in such a background that appealed to the
+draughtsman in Duerer. It insisted on the outline which had probably been
+the starting-point of his conception. Nothing could be less
+painter-like, or make the modelling of figures more difficult, as Duerer,
+perhaps, realised when he later on painted the _Adam and Eve_ at Madrid.
+These two warriors are, however, most successful and imposing, and
+immeasurably enhanced now that the spurious backgrounds, artfully
+concocted out of Duerer's own prints by an ingenious improver of his
+betters, have been removed. This person had also tinkered the centre
+picture, painting out two heraldic groups of donors, far smaller in
+scale than the actual personages of the scene, but very useful in the
+composition, as giving a more ample base to the masses of broken and
+fretted quality; useful also now as an additional proof of how free from
+the fetters of an impertinent logic of realism Duerer ever was. These
+little kneeling donors and their coats of arms emphasise the surface,
+and are delightful in their naivety, while they serve to render the gay,
+almost gaudy panel more homely, and give it a place and a function in
+the world. For they help us to realise that it answered a demand, and
+was not the uncalled-for and slightly frigid excursion of the aesthetic
+imagination which it must otherwise appear. In the same way the
+brilliant _Adoration of the Magi_ (dated 1504) in the Uffizi, also
+somewhat gaudy and frigid, could we but see it where it originally hung
+in Luther's church at Wittenberg, might invest itself with some charm
+that one vainly seeks in it now. The failure in emotion might seem more
+natural if we saw the wise Elector discussing his new purchase; we might
+have felt what Duerer meant when a year later he wrote from Venice: "I am
+a gentleman here and only a hanger-on at home." The expectation and
+prophecy of his success in those who surround a painter,--even if it be
+chiefly expressed by bitter rivalry, or the craft by which one greedy
+purchaser tries to over-reach another, even if he has to be careful not
+to eat at some tables for fear of being poisoned by a host whose
+ambition his present performance may have dashed--even expressed in this
+truly Venetian manner, the expectation and prophecy of his success in
+those about him make it easier for a painter to soar, and may touch his
+work with an indefinable glow that the approval of honest and astute
+electors or solid burghers may have been utterly powerless to impart.
+
+
+IV
+
+At Venice, perhaps the occasion for his journey thither, Duerer undertook
+a more important work than any he had yet attempted. _The Feast of the
+Rose Garlands_ was painted for the high altar of the church of San
+Bartolommeo, belonging to the German Merchants' Exchange, and close to
+their Pondaco.[73] In it we find a very considerable influence of Italy
+in general, and Giovanni Bellini in particular; it is a splendid and
+pompous parade piece, and probably the portraits of the German merchants
+which it contained were the part of the work which was most successful,
+as it was certainly that most congenial to Duerer's genius. The _Christ
+among the Doctors_, dated 1506, and now in the Barberini Palace at Rome,
+might seem to have been painted chiefly to justify Giovanni Bellini's
+astonishment at the calligraphical painting of hair. It is one of those
+pictures of which a literary description would please more than the work
+itself. Though the contrast between the sweet childish face and those of
+the old worldly scribes is well conceived, it is in reality so violent
+as to be grotesque, and the play of hands produces the effect of a
+diagram explanatory of a conjuring trick, or a deaf and dumb alphabet,
+instead of conveying the inner sense of the scene represented after
+Rossetti's fashion, who so often succeeded in making hands speak.
+Another work, which dates from Venice, is the little _Crucifixion_ (at
+Dresden.) Perhaps the landscape and suffering body are just sufficiently
+touched with acute emotion to make the arabesque of the two floating
+ends of the loin-cloth appear a little out of place; for in spite of the
+delicacy and all but tenderness which Duerer has for once attained to in
+the workmanship, one's satisfaction seems let and hindered.
+
+
+V
+
+Shortly after his return from Venice, Duerer completed two life-size
+panels representing Adam and Eve; there are drawings for them dated
+during his stay at Venice, but as a work of art they are far less
+interesting than the engraving of the same subject completed three years
+earlier. The treatment, even the conception, has been inadequately
+influenced by the proposed scale of the work. Probably they were like
+the earlier Hercules, done to please the artist himself rather than some
+patron; they are an effort to prove that he could do something which was
+after all too hard for him. Not only had he set himself the problem
+which the Greeks and Michael Angelo, and Raphael with their aid alone,
+had solved, of finding proportions suitable to express harmoniously the
+infinite capacity for complex motion combined with that constancy of
+intention which gives dignity to men and women alone among animals; but
+the technical problems involved in representing life-size nude figures
+against a plain black ground were indeed an unconscious confession that
+Duerer did not understand paint. There is a copy of these panels,
+recently attributed to Baldung Grien, in the Pitti. Animals and birds
+have been added from drawings made by Duerer, but the picture is still
+farther from success, though Grien may not improbably have executed it
+with Duerer at his elbow. Duerer made one more attempt at representing a
+life-size nude, the _Lucretia_, finished in 1518, at a period when his
+powers seem to have been clouded, for the few pictures which belong to
+it are all inferior. However, studies for the figure exist dated 1508,
+so we may suppose it was a project brought back from Venice. His
+ill-success with this subject may remind us of Shakespeare's long
+pedantic exercise in rhyme on the same theme. The pictorial motive of
+Duerer's work is beautiful and worthy of a Greek: indeed it is identical
+with that of Watts' _Psyche_, of which the version in private hands is
+very superior to that in the Tate Gallery. The position of the bed, the
+idea of the draperies all are parallel. No doubt the lonely feather shed
+from Love's wing at which Psyche gazes is both more of a poet's and of
+a painter's invention than the cold steel of Lucretia's dagger. And in
+spite of his wide knowledge of Greek and Italian art, our English master
+could scarcely have produced a work of such classic dignity with the
+more violent motive of the dagger, which seems to call for "The torch
+that flames with many a lurid flake," or at least the torpid glow of
+smouldering embers, to light it in such a manner as would make a really
+pictorial treatment possible. No doubt Duerer has been misled by a too
+tyrannous notion as to what ought to be the physical build of so chaste
+a matron, and in his anxiety to make chastity self-evident, has
+forgotten to explain the need for it by such a degree of attractiveness
+as might tempt a tyrant to be dangerous. Just as Shakespeare, in
+attempting to exhaust every possible motive which the situation
+comports, has forgotten that for a character that can move us a
+selection is needed. Another elaborate piece of frigid invention is the
+_Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints in the reign of Sapor II. of
+Persia_, in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, dated 1508. However, in this
+case no doubt Duerer could plead that the subject was not of his own
+choice, for he was commissioned by the Elector, Frederic the Wise, whose
+wisdom probably did not extend to a knowledge of what subjects lend
+themselves to pictorial treatment. Still, making every allowance for
+these facts, it cannot be admitted that Duerer did the best possible with
+his subject. Probably it did not move him, and neither does he us. Peter
+Breughel and Albrecht Altdorfer would certainly have done far better so
+far as the conception of the picture is concerned, though neither of
+them had so much skill to waste on its realisation. Nevertheless, this
+tour _de force_ is the picture of Duerer's most pleasing in surface and
+colour, with the exception of the Wings _of the Dresden Altar-piece_. It
+contains beautiful groups and figures, and is extremely well executed;
+so that it may amuse and delight the eye for a long time while the
+significance of the subject is forgotten.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF TEN THOUSAND SAINTS UNDER SAPOR II. OF
+PERSIA--Oil picture. "Iste faciebat anno domini 1508 Albertus Duerer
+Alemanus"]
+
+
+VI
+
+We now turn to the third and fourth of the half-dozen pictures of Duerer,
+which stand out from all the rest by their elaboration and importance.
+The _Coronation of the Virgin (see_ p. 97), painted as the centre panel
+of the altar-piece commissioned by Jacob Heller at Frankfort, was
+unfortunately burnt with the palace at Munich on the night of April 9,
+1674; the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria having forced or cajoled the
+Dominicans, to whose church Heller had left it, to sell it to him. It is
+now represented by a copy made by Paul Juvenal in its original position,
+where the almost ruined portraits of Heller and his wife are supposed to
+have been partly Duerer's, though the other panels are obviously the work
+of assistants. This work exists for us in a series of magnificent brush
+drawings in black and white line on grey paper, rather than in the copy,
+and we can in a measure imagine its appearance by the perfectly-
+preserved _Trinity and All Saints_ commenced immediately after
+it for Matthew Landauer, and now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna.
+Nothing can surpass this last picture in elaboration and finish; the
+colour, if not beautiful, is rich and luminous; and though it is
+separate faces and draperies which chiefly delight the eye, the
+composition of the whole is an adequate adaptation of the traditional
+treatment for such themes which had been handed down through the middle
+ages. It invites comparison rather with the similar subjects painted by
+Fra Angelico than with the _Disputa_ of Raphael, to which German critics
+compare it; however, it possesses as little of Angelico's sweet
+blissfulness as the Dominican painter possessed of Duerer's accuracy of
+hand and searching intensity of visual realisation. Both painters are
+interested in individuals, and, representing crowds of faces, make every
+one a portrait; both evince a dramatic sense of propriety in gesture,
+both revel in bright, clear colours, especially azure; but as the light
+in Duerer's masterpiece has a rosy hotness, which ill bears comparison
+with the virginal pearliness of Angelico's heaven, so the costumes and
+the figures of the Florentine are doll-like, when compared with the
+unmistakable quality of the stuffs in which the fully-resurrected bodies
+of Duerer's saints rumple and rustle. The wings of his angels are at
+least those of birds, though coloured to fancy, while Angelico's are of
+pasteboard tinsel and paint. But in spite of the comparative genuineness
+of his upholstery, as a vision of heaven there can be no hesitation in
+preferring that of the Florentine.
+
+In a frame designed by Duerer and carved under his supervision, this
+monument to thoroughness and skill was ensconced in a little chapel
+dedicated to All Saints, which in style approaches our Tudor buildings.
+There the frame remained till lately with a poor copy of the picture and
+an inscription in old German to this effect: ('Matthew Landauer
+completed the dedication of this chapel of the twelve brethren, together
+with the foundation attached to it, and this picture, in the year 1511
+after the birth of Christ,')
+
+Duerer signed his picture with the same Latin formula as that of the
+_Coronation_:
+
+"Albrecht Duerer of Nuremberg did this the year from when the Virgin
+brought forth 1511."
+
+
+VII
+
+Of all Duerer's paintings of the Madonna, there is only one which, by its
+superb design, deserves special notice among his masterpieces. This
+_Madonna with the Iris_ exists in two versions, both unfinished; one the
+property of Sir Frederick Cook, the other at Prague, in the Rudolphium.
+This latter Mr. Campbell Dodgson considers to be a poor copy. The panel
+is badly cracked, and weeds and long grasses have been added, apparently
+with a view to masking the cracks. Judging from a photograph alone, many
+of these additions seem so appropriately placed and freely sketched that
+I feel it at least to be possibly a work by the master himself. On the
+other hand, Sir Frederick's picture is so sleepy and clumsy in handling,
+that though it is unfinished, and perhaps in part damaged by some
+restorer, I feel great hesitation in regarding it as Duerer's handiwork.
+In both cases the magnificent design is his, and that alone in either is
+fully representative of him. Mr. Campbell Dodgson ventures to criticise
+the profusion of drapery as excessive, but my feeling, I must confess,
+endorses Duerer's in this, rather than that of his learned critic. To me
+this profusion, and the grandeur it gives as a mass in the design, is of
+the very essence of what is most peculiarly creative in Duerer's
+imagination.
+
+The last picture of which it is necessary to speak is that of the _Four
+Apostles_ or the _Four Preachers_, as they have been more appropriately
+called; it was perhaps the last he painted, and is in many respects the
+most successful. It is the only one by which the comparison with
+Raphael, so dear to German critics, seems at all warranted: there is
+certainly some kinship between Duerer's St. John and St. Paul and
+apostolic figures in the cartoons or on the Vatican walls. The German
+artist's manner is less rhetorical, but his conception is hardly less
+grandiose; and his taste does not so closely border on over-emphasis,
+but neither is it so conscious or so fluent. Technically it seems to me
+that the chief influence is a recollection of the large canvases of Jan
+and Hubert Van Eyck and Hubert Van der Goes which Duerer had admired in
+the Netherlands; these had strengthened and directed the bias of his
+self-culture towards simple masses on a large scale.[74] He may very
+well have sought to combine what he learnt from them with hints he found
+in the engravings after Raphael which he obtained in Antwerp. His
+increasing sickness may probably account for the fact that the white
+mantle of St. Paul is the only portion quite finished. The assertion of
+the writing-master, Johann Neudoerffer, who in his youth had known Duerer,
+that the four figures are typical of the four temperaments, the
+sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic,--into which
+categories an amateurish psychology arbitrarily divided human
+characters,--is as likely to be correct as it is certain that it adds
+nothing to the power and beauty of the presentation. Though Duerer in his
+work on human proportions describes the physical build of these
+different types, we do not know exactly what degree of precision he
+imagined it possible to attain in discerning them, or to what extent
+their names were merely convenient handles for certain types which he
+had chosen aesthetically. To us to-day this classification is merely a
+trace of an obsolete pedantry, which it would be a vain curiosity to
+attempt to follow with the object of identifying its imaginary bases.
+
+The four preachers have all the air of being striking likenesses of
+actual people which it is possible for work so broadly and grandly
+conceived to have. These panels are interesting, even more than by their
+actual success, as showing us what a scholar Duerer was to the end; how
+he learned from every defeat as well as every victory, and constantly
+approached a conception and a rendering of human beauty which seems
+intimately connected with man's fullest intellectual and spiritual
+freedom--a conception and rendering of human beauty which Raphael
+himself had to learn from the Greeks and Michael Angelo. The work has
+suffered, it is supposed, from restorers, and also from the Munich
+monarch, Maximilian, who had the tremendous texts (see page 177) which
+Duerer had inscribed beneath the two panels sawn off in order to spare
+the feelings of the Jesuits, who were dominant at his court, for their
+conception of religion did not consist with terrors to come for those
+who, abuse their trust as governors and directors of mankind.
+
+Lastly, mention must be made of Duerer's monochrome masterpiece, The Road
+to Calvary 15.27 (see illus.), in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook.
+A poor copy of this work is at Dresden, a better one at Bergamo. The
+effect of it, and several elaborate water-colour designs of the same
+class, is akin to the peculiar richness of chased metal work; glinting
+light hovers over crowds of little figures.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 73: The original, now in the Monastery of Strahow-Prague, is
+very much damaged, and in part repainted. There are copies in the
+Imperial Gallery at Vienna (No. 1508), and in the possession of A. W.
+Miller, Esq., of Sevenoaks. It is to be regretted that the Duerer Society
+published a photogravure of this latter work, which, though till then
+unknown, is far less interesting than the original, of which they only
+gave a reproduction in the text, an exhaustive history of its fortunes
+from the learned pen of Mr. Cambell Dodgson. This picture, which is so
+frequently referred to in the letters from Venice, contains portraits of
+the Emperor Maximilian and Pope Julius II., though neither of them from
+life, and in the background those of Duerer and Pirkheimer.]
+
+[Footnote 74: See what Melanchthon says, p. 187.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+DUeRER'S PORTRAITS
+
+
+I
+
+If Duerer's pictures are as a whole the least satisfactory section of his
+work, in his portraits he makes us abundant amends for the time he might
+otherwise have been reproached for wasting to obtain a vain mastery over
+brushes and pigment.
+
+Unfortunately it is probable that many even of these have been lost or
+destroyed, while of his most interesting sitters we have nothing but
+drawings. He did not paint his friend, the boisterous and learned
+Pirkheimer; and what would we not give for a painted portrait of
+Erasmus, or a portrait of Kratzer, the astronomer royal, to compare with
+the two masterpieces by Holbein in the Louvre? Even the posthumous
+portrait of his Imperial patron Maximilian is less interesting than the
+drawings from which it was done, the eccentric sitter not having the
+time to spare for so sensible a monument.
+
+[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST Pen drawing in dark brown ink at
+Erlangen (This drawing has been cut down for reproduction)]
+
+
+II
+
+However, Duerer had one sitter who was perhaps the most beautiful of all
+the sons of men, whose features combined in an equal measure nobleness
+of character, intellectual intensity and physical beauty; and, finding
+him also most patient and accessible, he painted him frequently. The two
+earliest portraits of himself are the drawings which show him at the
+ages of thirteen and nineteen(?) respectively (see illustration). Then,
+as a young man with a sprouting chin, we have the picture till recently
+at Leipzig of which Goethe's enthusiastic description has already been
+quoted (p. 62). It is probable that neither Titian nor Holbein could
+have shown at so early an age a portrait so admirably conceived and
+executed. It is a masterpiece, even now that the inevitable improvements
+which those who lack all relish of genius rarely lack the opportunity,
+never the inclination, to add to a masterpiece, have confused the
+drawing of the eyes, and reduced the bloom and delicacy that the
+features traced by a master hand, even when they become an almost
+complete wreck, often retain; for time and fortune are not so
+conscientiously destructive as the imbecility of the incapable. Next we
+have a portrait of Duerer when only five years older, in perfect
+preservation,--that in the Prado at Madrid. This charming picture must
+certainly have drawn a sonnet from the Shakespeare who wrote _Love's
+Labour Lost_, could he have seen it. For it presents a young dandy, the
+delicacy and sensitiveness of whose features seem to demand and warrant
+the butterfly-like display of the white and black costume hemmed with
+gold, and of a cap worthy to crown those flowing honey-coloured locks.
+There is a good copy of this delightful work in the Uffizi, where, in a
+congregation of self-painted artists, it does all but justice to the
+most beautiful of them all. For fineness of touch the original has never
+been surpassed by any hand of European or even Chinese master. Next
+there are the dapper little full-length portraits which Duerer inserted
+in his chief paintings. He stands beside his friend Pirkheimer at the
+back of the adoring crowd in the _Feast of the Roses_, and again in the
+midst of the mountain slope, where on all sides of them the ten thousand
+saints suffer martyrdom. Duerer stands alone beside an inscription in a
+gentle pastoral landscape beneath the vision of the Virgin's Assumption
+seen over the heads of the Apostles, who gaze up in rapture; and again
+he is alone beside a broad peaceful river beneath the vision of the Holy
+Trinity and All Saints. I know of no parallel to these little portraits.
+Rembrandt and Botticelli and many others have introduced portraits of
+themselves into religious pictures, but always in disguise, as a
+personage in the crowd or an actor in the scene. Only the master who was
+really most exceptional for his good looks, has had the kindness, in
+spite of every incongruity, to present himself before us on all
+important occasions, like the court beauty in whom it is charity rather
+than vanity to appear in public. It is expected that the very beautiful
+be gracious thus. Emerson tells us that two centuries ago the Town
+Council of Montpelier passed a law to constrain two beautiful sisters to
+sit for a certain time on their balcony every other day, that all might
+enjoy the sight of what was most beautiful in their town. It was one of
+the most gracious traits of Jeanne d'Arc's character that she liked to
+wear beautiful clothes, because it pleased the poor people to see her
+thus. And Palm Sunday commemorates another historical example of such
+grace and truth. Duerer's face had a striking resemblance to the
+traditional type for Jesus, adding to it just that element of individual
+peculiarity, the absence of which makes it ever liable to appear a
+little vacant and unconvincing. The perception of this would seem to
+have dictated the general arrangement of Duerer's crowning portrait of
+himself, that at Munich dated 1500 (see illus.), "Before which" (Mr.
+Ricketts writes in his recently published volume on the Prado) "one
+forgets all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is equal to the
+occasion." The most exhaustive visual power and executive capacity meet
+in this picture, which would seem to have traversed the many perils to
+which it has been exposed without really suffering so much as their
+enumeration makes one expect. Thausing tells us:
+
+The following is the story of the picture's wanderings, as told at
+Nuremberg. It was lent by the magistrates, after they had taken the
+precaution of placing a seal and strings on the back of the panel, to
+the painter and engraver Kuegner, to copy. He, however, carefully sawed
+the panel in half (layer-wise) and glued to the authentic back his
+miserable copy, which now hangs in the Town Hall. The original he sold,
+and it eventually came into the possession of King Ludwig I., before
+Nuremberg belonged to Bavaria.
+
+[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl_ "I, Albert Duerer of Nuremberg, painted my
+own portrait here in the proper colours at the age of twenty-eight"
+Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+He suggests that the colour was once bright and varied, and that by
+varnish and glazes it has been reduced to its present harmonious
+condition. The hair is certainly much darker than the other portraits
+would have led one to expect, and the almost walnut brown of the general
+colour scheme is unique in Duerer's work. However, if some such
+transmogrification has been effected, it is marvellous that it should
+have obliterated so little of the inimitable handiwork of the master.
+Thausing considered the date (1500), monogram and inscription on the
+back to be forgeries, and it certainly looks as if it ought to come
+nearer to the portrait in the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ (1506) than
+to that at Madrid (1498). A genuine scalloped tablet is faintly visible
+under the dark glazes which cover the background; and this, no doubt,
+bears the original inscription and date. What may not have happened to a
+picture after or before it left the artist's studio? Critics are too
+quick to determine that such changes have been introduced by others. In
+this case we must remember how experimental Duerer was, even with regard
+to his engravings on metal. He tries iron plates and etching, and
+finally settles on a method of commencing with etching and finishing
+with the burin; and this was in a medium in which he soon found himself
+at home. But with painting he was vastly more experimental, and never
+satisfied with his results, as he told Melanchthon (see p. 187). Then we
+must remember that this picture probably was during Duerer's lifetime, if
+not in his own possession, at least never out of his reach; and no doubt
+he was aware that it was the grandest and most perfectly finished of all
+his portraits--therefore, as he came more and more, especially after his
+visit to the Netherlands, to desire and seek after simplicity, he may
+himself have added the dark glazes. If the original inscription
+contained a dedication to Pirkheimer or some other notable Nuremberger,
+there was every reason for the artist who stole the picture to
+obliterate this and add a new one: or this may have been done when it
+became the property of the town, for those who sold it may have wished
+that it should not be known that it might have been an heirloom in their
+family. Infinite are the possibilities, those only decide in such cases
+who have a personal motive for doing so; "la rage de conclure" (as
+Flaubert saw) is the pitfall of those who are vain of their knowledge.
+
+[Illustration: OSWOLT KREL Oil portrait in the Alt Pinakothek at Munich]
+
+[Illustration: _By permission_ of the "_Burlington_ Magazine" ALBERT
+DUeRER THE ELDER, 1497 National Gallery]
+
+
+III
+
+Though fearing that it will appear but tedious, I will now attempt
+briefly to describe in succession the remaining master portraits which
+we owe to Duerer, and the effect that each produces. It is by these works
+and not by his creative pictures that his ranks among the greatest names
+of painting. These might be compared with the very finest portraits by
+Raphael and Holbein, and the precedence would remain a question of
+personal predilection; since nothing reasoned, no distinguishable
+superiority over Duerer in vision or execution could be urged for either.
+Rather, if mere capacity were regarded, he must have the palm; nor did
+either of his compeers light upon a happier subject than was Duerer's
+when he represented himself; nor did they achieve nobler designs. In
+effect upon our emotions and sensations, these portraits may compete
+with the masterpieces of Titian and Rembrandt, though the method of
+expression is in their case too different to render comparison possible.
+Whatever in the glow of light, in the power of shadow, to envelop and
+enhance the features portrayed, is theirs and not his, his superiority
+of searching insight, united with its equivalent of unique facility in
+definition, seems more than to outweigh. Before he left for Venice,
+besides the renderings of himself already mentioned, Duerer had painted
+his father twice, in 1494 and in 1497. The latter was the pair to and
+compeer of his own portrait at Madrid,; and, hitherto unknown, was lent
+last year by Lord Northampton to the Royal Academy, and has since
+been bought for the National Gallery. This beautiful work is unique even
+among the works of the master, and is not so much the worse for
+repainting as some make out. The majority of Duerer's portraits stand
+alone. In each the Esthetic problem has been approached and solved in a
+strikingly different manner. This picture and its fellow, the portrait
+of the painter at Madrid, the _Oswolt Krel_, the portrait of a lady seen
+against the sea at Berlin, the _Wolgemut_, and Duerer's own portrait at
+Munich, though seen by the same absorbing eyes, are rendered each in
+quite a different manner. No man has ever been better gifted for
+portraying a likeness than Duerer; but the absence of a native
+comprehension of pigment made him ever restless, and it might be
+possible to maintain that each of these pictures presented us with a
+differing strategy to enforce pigment, to subserve the purposes of a
+draughtsman. Still this would seem to imply a greater sacrifice of ease
+and directness than those brilliant masterpieces can be charged with.
+They none of them lack beauty of colour, of surface, or of handling,
+though each so unlike the other. In this portrait of his father, Duerer
+has developed a shaken brushline, admirably adapted to suggest the
+wrinkled features of an old man, but in complete contrast to the rapid
+sweep of the caligraphic work in the _Oswolt Krel_; and it is to be
+noticed how in both pictures the touch seems to have been invented to
+facilitate the rendering of the peculiar curves and lines of the
+sitter's features, and further variations of it developed to express the
+draperies and other component parts of the picture. It is this
+inventiveness in handling which most distinguishes Duerer from painters
+like Raphael and Holbein, and makes his work comparable with the
+masterpieces of Rembrandt and Titian, in spite of the extreme
+opposition in aspect between their work and his.
+
+The noble portrait of a middle-aged man, No. 557c, in the Royal Gallery
+at Berlin, (supposed to represent Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony,
+Duerer's first patron), gives us a master portrait, in which the
+technical treatment is comparable to that of the early triptych at
+Dresden, and which is a monument of sober power and distinction, though
+again very difficult to compare with the other splendid portraits by the
+same hand which hang beside or near it in that Gallery.
+
+The vivid _Oswolt Krel_ at Munich shows the peculiarity of Duerer's
+caligraphic touch better than perhaps any other of his portraits. The
+finish is not carried so far as in the Madrid portrait of himself, where
+even the texture of the gloves has been softened by touches of the
+thumb, and the absence of these extra refinements leaves it the most
+spontaneous and vigorously bold of all Duerer's paintings. The
+concentrated energy of the sitter's features demanded such a treatment;
+he seems to burn with the inconsiderate atheism of a Marlowe. Young, and
+less surprised than indignant to be alone awake in a sleepy and bigoted
+world, he seems convinced of a mission to chastise, _even_ to scandalise
+his easy-going neighbours. Let us hope he met with better luck than the
+Marlowes, Shelleys, and Rimbauds, whose tragedies we have read; for one
+can but regret, as one meets his glance so much fiercer than need be,
+that he is not known to history.
+
+[Illustration: Oil Portrait of a Lady seen against the Sea In the Berlin
+Gallery]
+
+[Illustration: Oil portrait, dated 1506, at Hampton Court]
+
+The fine portrait of Hans Tucher, 1499, in the Grand Ducal Museum at
+Weimar should, judging from a photograph alone, be mentioned here. It
+has obvious affinities with the _Oswolt Krel_, but the caligraphic
+method is again modified in harmony with the character of the
+sitter's features. The companion piece, representing Felicitas Tucherin,
+would seem at some period to have been restored to the insignificance
+and obscurity that belonged to the sitter before Duerer painted her.
+
+
+IV
+
+The portraits which Duerer painted at Venice, or soon after his return,
+betray the influence of other masterpieces on his own. Mr. Ricketts has
+pointed to that of Antonello da Messina in the portraits of young men at
+Vienna (1505) and at Hampton Court (1506). The former of these has an
+allegorical sketch of Avarice, painted on the back in a thick impasto,
+such as seems almost a presage of after developments of the Venetian
+school, and may possibly show the influence of some early experiment by
+Giorgione which Duerer wished to show that he could imitate if he liked.
+The latter represents a personage who appears on the left of the _Feast
+of Rose Wreaths_ in exactly the same cap and with the same fastening to
+his jerkin, crossing his white shirt (see illustration opposite).
+
+Not improbably Duerer may have painted separate portraits of nearly all
+the members of the German Guild at Venice who appear in the _Rose
+Garlands_. In any case much of his work during his stay there has
+disappeared. It was here that he painted that beautiful head of a woman
+(No. 557 G in the Berlin Gallery) with soft, almost Leonardesque
+shadows, seen against the luminous hazy sea and sky, which remains
+absolutely unique in method and effect among his works, and makes one
+ask oneself unanswerable questions as to what might not have been the
+result if he could but have brought himself to accept the offered
+citizenship and salary, and stop on at Venice. A Duerer, not only
+secluded from Luther and his troubling denunciations, but living to see
+Titian and Giorgione's early masterpieces, perhaps forming friendships
+with them, and later visiting Rome, standing in the Sistine Chapel,
+seated in the Stanze between the School of Athens and the Disputa! I at
+least cannot console myself for these missed opportunities, as so many
+of his critics and biographers have done, by saying that doubtless had
+he stayed he would have been spoiled like those second-class German and
+Dutch painters, for whom the siren art of Italy proved a baneful
+influence. One could almost weep to think of what has been probably lost
+to the world because Duerer could not bring himself to stay on at Venice.
+It _was_ here he painted the tiny panel representing the head of a girl
+in gay apparel dated 1507 (in the Berlin Gallery), that makes one think,
+even more than do Holbein's _Venus_ and _Lais_ at Basle, of the triumphs
+that were reserved for Italians in the treatment of similar subjects.
+
+After his return the influence of Venetian methods gradually waned, till
+we find in the masterly and refined portrait of _Wolgemut_ (1516) (see
+illustration); something of a return to the caligraphic method so
+noticeable in the _Oswolt Krel_. About the same time Duerer recommenced
+painting in tempera in a manner resembling the early Dresden _Madonna_
+and the _Hercules_, as we see by the rather unpleasant heads of Apostles
+in the Uffizi and the tine one of an old man in a vermilion cap in the
+Louvre, &c. &c.
+
+[Illustration: _Bruckmann_--"Albrecht Duerer took this likeness of his
+master, Michael Wolgemut, in the year 1516, and he was 82 years of age,
+and lived to the year 1519, and then departed on Saint Andrew's Day,
+very early before sunrise"--Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]
+
+[Illustration: HANS IMHOF (?)--From the painting in the Royal Gallery
+at Madrid--(By permission _of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co., Dornach
+(Alsace), Paris and New York_)]
+
+
+V
+
+On his arrival at Antwerp in 1521 Duerer commenced the third and last
+group of master-portraits; foremost is the superb head and bust at
+Madrid, supposed to represent Hans Imhof, a patrician of Duerer's native
+town and his banker while at Antwerp; of the same date are the
+triumphant renderings of the grave and youthful Bernard van Orley (at
+Dresden) and that of a middle-aged man--lost for the National Gallery,
+and now in the possession of Mrs. Gardner, of Boston. All three were
+probably painted at Antwerp.
+
+It may be that the portrait of Imhof and the report of the honours and
+commissions showered on their painter while in the Netherlands, woke the
+Nuremberg Councillors up, for we have portraits of three of them dated
+1526--Jacob Muffel, Hieronymus Holzschuher, (both in the Royal Gallery,
+Berlin,) and the eccentric and unpleasing medallion representing
+Johannes Kleeberger, at Vienna. With the exception of this last, this
+group is composed of masterpieces absolutely unrivalled for intensity
+and dignity of power. Van Eyck painted with inhuman indifference a few
+ugly grotesque but otherwise uninteresting people. All but a very few of
+Holbein's best portraits pale before these instances of searching
+insight; and, north of the Alps at least, there are no others which can
+be compared to them. The _Hans Imhof_ shows a shrewd and forbidding
+schemer for gain on a large scale--a face which produces the impression
+of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent,
+seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon
+its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first
+and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The unknown
+master who is represented in Mrs. Gardner's beautiful picture is less
+forbidding, though not less patently a moulder of destiny. _Jacob
+Muffel_ has a more open face, a more serene gaze; but his mouth too has
+the firmness acquired by those who live always in the presence of
+enemies, or are at least aware that "a little folding of the hands" may
+be fatal to all their most cherished purposes. The last of these masters
+of themselves and of their fortunes in hazardous and change-fraught
+times is _Hieronymus Holzschuher_, Duerer's friend. Only less felicitous
+because less harmonious in colour than the three former, this vivacious
+portrait of a ruddy, jovial, and white-haired patrician seen against a
+bright blue background might produce the effect of a Father Christmas,
+were it not for the resolute mouth and the puissant side-glance of the
+eyes. Bernard van Orley, the only youthful person immortalised in this
+group, has a gentle, responsible air which his features are a little too
+heavy to enhance.
+
+I have now mentioned the chief of his portraits, which are the best of
+his painting, and by which he ranks for the directness and power of his
+workmanship and of his visual analysis in the company of the very
+greatest. Raphael and Holbein have alone produced portraits which, as
+they can be compared to Duerer's, might also be held to rival them;
+Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reynolds have done as
+splendidly, but the material they used and the aims they set themselves
+were too different to make a comparison serviceable. These men are
+pre-eminent among those who have produced portraits which, while
+unsurpassed for technical excellences, present to us individuals whose
+beauty or the character it expresses are equally exceptional.
+
+[Illustration: "JAKOB MUFFEL" Oil portrait in the Berlin Gallery]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+DUeRER'S DRAWINGS
+
+
+I
+
+Perhaps Duerer is more felicitous as a draughtsman than in any other
+branch of art. The power of nearly all first-rate artists is more wholly
+live and effective in their drawings than in elaborated works. Duerer
+himself says:
+
+An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great
+power and art in small things, roughly and rudely done, than many
+another in his great work. Powerful artists alone will understand that
+in this strange saying I speak truth. For this reason a man may often
+draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day, or cut
+it with his graver on a small block of wood, and it shall be fuller of
+art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole
+year's careful labour.
+
+But it is possible to go far beyond this and say not only "another's
+great work," but his own great work.
+
+In the first chapter of this work I said that the standard in works of
+art is not truth but sincerity; that if the artist tells us what he
+feels to be beautiful, it does not matter how much or how little
+comparison it will bear with the actual objects represented. And from
+this fact, that sincerity not truth is of prime importance in matters of
+expression, results the strange truth that Duerer says will be
+recognised by powerful artists alone (see page 227). Any one who
+recognises how often the sketches and roughs of artists, especially of
+those who are in a peculiar degree creators, excel their finished works
+in those points which are the distinctive excellences of such men, will
+grant this at once. Only to turn to the sketch (inscribed _Memento Mei
+1505_) of _Death_ on horseback with a scythe, or the pen-portrait of
+Duerer leaning on his hand, will be enough to convince those who alone
+can be convinced on these points. For any who need to explain to
+themselves the character of such sketches--as the authoress of a recent
+little book on Duerer does that of the pen drawing "in which the boy's
+chin rests on his hand" by telling us that "it is unfinished and was
+evidently discarded as a failure,"--any who must be at such pains in a
+case of this sort is one of those who can never understand wherein the
+great power of a work of art resides. Such people may get great pleasure
+from works of art; only I am content to remain convinced that the
+pleasure they get has no kind of kinship with that which I myself
+obtain, or that which the greatest artists most constantly seek to give.
+This marvellous portrait of himself as a lad of from seventeen to
+nineteen years of age is just one of those things "roughly and rudely
+done," of which Duerer speaks. There is probably no parallel to it for
+mastery or power among works produced by artists so youthful.
+
+[Illustration: Study of a hound for the copper engraving "St. Eustache."
+B. 57 Brush drawing at Windsor]
+
+There is often some virtue in spontaneity which is difficult to define;
+perhaps it bears more convincing witness to the artist's integrity than
+slower and longer labours, from which it is difficult to ward all
+duplicity of intention. The finishing-touch is too often a Judas' kiss.
+"Blessed are the pure in heart" is absolutely true in art. (Of course,
+I do not use purity in the narrow sense which is confined to avoidance
+of certain sensual subjects and seductive intentions.) It is only
+poverty of imagination which taboos subject-matter, and lack of charity
+that believes there are themes which cannot be treated with any but
+ignoble intentions. But the virtue in a spontaneous drawing is akin to
+that single devotion to whatever is best, which true purity is; as the
+refinement of economy which results in the finished work is akin to that
+delicate repugnance to all waste, which is true chastity. A sketch by
+Rembrandt of a naked servant girl on a bed is as "simple as the infancy
+of truth"--as single in intention. A Greek statue of a raimentless
+Apollo is pre-eminently chaste. But it does not follow that Rembrandt
+was in his life eminently pure, or the Greek sculptor signal for
+chastity. Drawings rapidly executed have often a lyrical, rapturous,
+exultant purity, and are for that reason, to those whose eyes are
+blinded neither by prejudice nor by misfortune, as captivating as are
+healthy, gleeful children to those whose hearts are free. And while the
+joy that a child's glee gives is for a time, that which a drawing gives
+may well be for ever.
+
+We say a "spirited sketch" as we say "a spirited horse"; but works of
+art are instinct with a vast variety of spirits and exert manifold
+influences. It is a poverty of language which has confined the use of
+this word to one of the most obvious and least estimable. It can be
+never too much insisted on that a work of art is something that exerts
+an influence, and that its whole merit lies in the quality and degree of
+the influence exerted; for those who are not moved by it, it is no more
+than a written sentence to one who cannot read.
+
+
+II
+
+Many people in turning over a collection of Duerer's drawings would be
+constantly crying, "How marvellously realistic!" and would glow with
+enthusiasm and smile with gratitude for the perception which these words
+expressed. Others would say "merely realistic"; and the words would
+convey, if not disapprobation for something shocking, at least
+indifference. In both cases the word "realistic" would, I take it, mean
+that the objects which the pen, brush, or charcoal strokes represented
+were described with great particularity. And in the first case delight
+would have been felt at recognising the fulness of detailed information
+conveyed about the objects drawn--that each drawing represented not a
+generalisation, but an individual. In the other case the mind would have
+been repelled by the infatuated insistence on insignificant or
+negligible details, the absence of their classification and
+subordination to ideas. The first of these two frames of mind is that of
+Paul Pry, who is delighted to see, to touch, or behold, for whom
+everything is a discovery; and there are members of this class of
+temperament who in middle life continue to make the same discoveries
+every day with zest and a wonder equal to that which they felt when
+children. The second of these frames of mind is that of the man with a
+system or in search of a system, who desires to control, or, if he
+cannot do that, at least to be taken into the confidence of the
+controller, or to gain a position from which he can oversee him, and
+approve or disapprove. Now neither of these judgments is in itself
+aesthetic, or implies a comprehension of Duerer as an artist.
+
+[Illustration: ME-ENTO MEI, 1505. From the drawing in the British
+Museum]
+
+The man who cries out: "Just look how that is done!" "Who could have
+believed a single line could have expressed so much?" judges as an
+artist, a craftsman. The man who, like Jean Francois Millet, exclaims:
+"How fine! How grand! How delicate! How beautiful!" judges as a creator.
+He sees that "it is good." An artist--a creator--may possess either or
+even both the two former temperaments; but as an artist he must be
+governed by the latter two, either singly or combined. Duerer, doubtless,
+had a considerable share in all four of these points of view. He
+delighted in objects as such, in the new and the strange as new and
+strange, in the intricate as intricate, in the powerful as powerful. And
+above all in his drawings does he manifest this direct and childish
+interest and curiosity. He was also in search of a system, of an
+intellectual key or plan of things; and in the many drawings he devoted
+to explaining or developing his ideas of proportion, of perspective, of
+architecture, he shows this bias strongly. But nearly every drawing by
+him, or attributed to him, manifests the third of these temperaments.
+The never-ceasing economy and daring of the invention displayed in his
+touch, or, as he would have said, "in his hand," is almost as signal as
+his perfect assurance and composure. And when one reflects that he was
+not, like Rembrandt, an artist who made great or habitual use of the
+spaces of shade and light, but that his workmanship is almost entirely
+confined to the expressive power of lines, wonder is only increased. Of
+the fourth character that creates and estimates value, though in certain
+works Duerer rises to supreme heights, though in almost all his important
+works he appeases expectation, yet often where he could surely have done
+much better he seems to have been content not to exert his rarest
+gifts, but rather to play with or parade those that are secondary. Not
+only is this so in drawings like the _Dance of Monkeys_ at Basle, done
+to content his friend the reformer Felix Frey (see page 168), and in the
+borders designed to amuse Maximilian during the hours that custom
+ordained he should pretend to give to prayer; but there are drawings
+which were not apparently thrown as sops to the idleness of others, but
+done to content some half-vacant mood of his own (see Lippmann, 41, 83,
+394, 4.20, 333).
+
+In such drawings the economy and daring of the strokes is always
+admirable, can only be compared to that in drawings by Rembrandt and
+Hokusai; but the occasion is often idle, or treated with a condescension
+which well-nigh amounts to indifference. There is no impressiveness of
+allure, no intention in the proportions or disposition on the paper such
+as Erasmus justly praised in the engravings on copper, probably
+recollecting something which Duerer himself had said (see page 186).
+
+Yet in his portrait heads the right proportions are nearly always found;
+and in many cases I believe it is no one but the artist himself who has
+cut down such drawings after they were completed, to find a more
+harmonious or impressive proportion (see illustration opposite). And
+often these drawings are as perfect in the harmony between the means
+employed and the aspect chosen, and in the proportion between the head
+and the framing line and the spaces it encloses, as Holbein himself
+could have made them; while they far surpass his best in brilliancy and
+intensity.
+
+[Illustration: Drawing in black chalk heightened with white on reddish
+ground Formerly in the collection at Warwick Castle]
+
+[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on prepared grey ground, in the
+collection of Frederick Locker, Esq.]
+
+
+III
+
+Something must be said of Duerer's employment of the water-colours,
+pen-and-ink, silver-point, charcoal, chalk, &c., with which he made his
+drawings. He is a complete master of each and all these mediums, in so
+far as the line or stroke may be regarded as the fundamental unit; he is
+equally effective with the broad, soft line of chalk (see illustration,
+page I.), or the broad broken charcoal line (see illustration, page
+II.), as with the fine pen stroke (see illustration, page III.), the
+delicate silver-point (see illustration, page IV.), or the supple and
+tapering stroke produced by the camel's hair brush (see illustration,
+page V.). But when one comes to broad washes, large masses of light and
+shade, the expression of atmosphere, of bloom, of light, he is wanting
+in proportion as these effects become vague, cloudy, indefinite,
+mist-like. His success lies rather in the definite reflections on
+polished surfaces; he never reproduces for us the bloom on peach or
+flesh or petal. He does not revel, like Rembrandt, in the veils and
+mysteries of lucent atmosphere or muffling shadow. The emotions for
+which such things produce the most harmonious surroundings he hardly
+ever attempts to appeal to; he is mournful and compassionate, or
+indignant, for the sufferings, of his Man of Sorrows; not tender,
+romantic, or awesome. Only with the tapering tenuity and delicate spring
+of the pure line will he sometimes attain to an infantile or virginal
+freshness that is akin to the tenderness of the bloom on flowers, or the
+light of dawn on an autumn morning.[75]
+
+In the same way, when he is tragic, it is not with thick clouds rent in
+the fury of their flight, or with the light from shaken torches cast and
+scattered like spume-flakes from the angry waves; nor is it with the
+accumulated night that gives intense significance to a single tranquil
+ray. Only by a Rembrandt, to whom these means are daily present, could a
+subject like the _Massacre of the Ten Thousand_ have been treated with
+dramatic propriety; unless, indeed, Michael Angelo, in a grey dawn,
+should have twisted and wrung with manifold pain a tribe of giants,
+stark, and herded in some leafless primeval valley. With Duerer the
+occasion was merely one on which to coldly invent variations, as though
+this human suffering was a motive for _an_ arabesque. Yet even from the
+days when he copied Andrea Mantegna's struggling sea-monsters, or when
+he drew the stern matured warrior angels of his Apocalypse fighting,
+with their historied faces like men hardened by deceptions practised
+upon them, like men who have forbidden salt tears and clenched their
+teeth and closed their hearts, who see, who hate; even from these early
+days, the energy of his line was capable of all this, and his
+spontaneous sense of arabesque could become menacing and explosive.
+There are two or three drawings of angry, crying cupids (Lipp., 153 and
+446, see illustration opposite), prepared for some intended picture of
+the Crucifixion, where he has made the motive of the winged infants
+head, usually associated with bliss and scattered rose-leaves, become
+terrible and stormy. And the _Agony in the Garden_, etched on iron,
+contains a tree tortured by the wind (see illustration), as marvellous
+for rhythm, power, and invention as the blast-whipped brambles and naked
+bushes that crest a scarped brow above the jealous husband who stabs his
+wife, in Titian's fresco at Padua. Again, the unspeakable tragedy of the
+stooping figure of Jesus, who is being dragged by His hair up the steps
+to Annas' throne, in the _Little Passion_, is rendered by lines instinct
+with the highest dramatic power. These are a draughtsman's creations;
+though they are less abundant in Duerer's work than one could wish, still
+only the greatest produce such effects; only Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Rembrandt can be said to have equalled or surpassed Duerer in this kind,
+rarely though it be that he competes with them.
+
+[Illustration: CHERUB FOR A CRUCIFIXION Black chalk drawing heightened
+with white on a blue-grey paper In the collection of Herr Doctor
+Blasius, Brunswick]
+
+It is for the intense energy of his line, combined with its unique
+assurance, that Duerer is most remarkable. The same amount of detail, the
+same correctness in the articulation and relation between stem and leaf,
+arm and hand, or what not, might be attained by an insipid workmanship
+with lifeless lines, in patient drudgery. It is this fact that those who
+praise art merely as an imitation constantly forget. There is often as
+much invention in the way details are expressed by the strokes of pen or
+brush, as there could be in the grouping of a crowd; the deftness, the
+economy of the touches, counts for more in the inspiriting effect than
+the truth of the imitation. A photograph from nature never conveys this,
+the chief and most fundamental merit of art. Reynolds says:
+
+Rembrandt, in older to take advantage of an accident, appears often to
+have used the pallet-knife to lay his colours on the canvas instead of
+the pencil. Whether it is the knife or any other instrument, _it
+suffices, if it is something that does not follow exactly the will.
+Accident, in the hands of_ an artist _who knows horn to take the
+advantage of its hints, will often produce bold and capricious beauties
+of handling_, and facility such as he would not have thought of or
+ventured with his pencil, under the regular restraint of his hand.[76]
+
+In such a sketch as the _Memento Mei_, 1505, (_Death_ riding on
+horseback,) all those who have sense for such things will perceive how
+the rough paper, combined with the broken charcoal line, lends itself to
+qualities of a precisely similar nature to those described by Reynolds
+as obtained by Rembrandt's use of the pallet-knife. Yet, just as, in the
+use of charcoal, the "something that does not follow exactly the will"
+is infinitely more subtle than in the use of the palette-knife to
+represent rocks or stumps of trees, so in the pen or silver-point line
+this element, though reduced and refined till it is hardly perceptible,
+still exists, and Duerer takes "the advantage of its hints." And not only
+does he do' this, but he foresees their occurrence, and relies on them
+to render such things as crumpled skin, as in the sketches for Adam's
+hand holding the apple. (Lipp. 234). The operation is so rapid, so
+instantaneous, that it must be called an instinct, or at least a habit
+become second nature, while in the instance chosen by Reynolds, it is
+obvious and can be imagined step by step; but in every case it is this
+capacity to take advantage of the accident, and foresee and calculate
+upon its probable occurrences, that makes the handling of any material
+inventive, bold, and inimitable. It is in these qualities that an artist
+is the scholar of the materials he employs, and goes to school to the
+capacities of his own hand, being taught both by their failure to obey
+his will here, and by their facility in rendering his subtlest
+intentions there. And when he has mastered all they have to teach him,
+he can make their awkwardness and defects expressive; as stammerers
+sometimes take advantage of their impediment so that in itself it
+becomes an element of eloquence, of charm, or even of explicitness;
+while the extra attention rendered enables them to fetch about and dare
+to express things that the fluent would feel to be impossible and
+never attempt.
+
+[Illustration: APOLLO AND DIANA--Pen drawing in the British Museum,
+supposed to show the influence of the Belvedere Apollo]
+
+
+IV
+
+Lastly, it is in his drawings, perhaps, even more than in his copper
+engravings, that Duerer proves himself a master of "the art of seeing
+nature," as Reynolds phrased it; and the following sentence makes clear
+what is meant, for he says of painting "perhaps it ought to be as far
+removed from the vulgar idea of imitation, as the refined, civilised
+state in which we live is removed from a gross state of nature";[77] and
+again: "If we suppose a view of nature, represented with all the truth
+of the camera obscura, and the same scene represented by a great artist,
+how little and how mean will the one appear in comparison of the other,
+where no superiority is supposed from the choice of the subject."[78]
+Not only is outward nature infinitely varied, infinitely composite; but
+human nature--receptive and creative--is so too, and after we have gazed
+at an object for a few moments, we no longer see it the same as it was
+revealed to our first glance. Not only has its appearance changed for
+us, but the effect that it produces on our emotions and intelligence is
+no longer the same. Each successful mind, according to its degree of
+culture, arrives finally at a perception of every class of objects
+presented to it which is most in agreement with its own nature--that is,
+calls forth or nourishes its most cherished energies and efforts, while
+harmonising with its choicest memories. All objects in regard to which
+it cannot arrive at such a result oppress, depress, or even torment it.
+At least this is the case with our highest and most creative moods; but
+every man of parts has a vast range of moods, descending from this to
+the almost vacant contemplation of a cow--the innocence of whose eye,
+which perceives what is before it without transmuting it by recollection
+or creative effort, must appear almost ideal to the up-to-date critic
+who has recently revealed the innocent confusion of his mind in a
+ponderous tome on nineteenth-century art. The art of seeing nature,
+then, consists in being able to recognise how an object appears in
+harmony with any given mood; and the artist must employ his materials to
+suggest that appearance with the least expenditure of painful effort.
+The highest art sees all things in harmony with man's most elevated
+moods; the lowest sees nature much as Dutch painters and cows do. Now we
+can understand what Goethe means when he says that "Albrecht Duerer
+enjoyed the advantages of a profound realistic perception, and an
+affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions." The man who
+continued to feel, after he had become a Lutheran, the beauty of the art
+that honoured the Virgin, the man who cannot help laughing at the most
+"lying, thievish rascals" whenever they talk to him because "they know
+that their knavery is no secret, but 'they don't mind,'" is
+affectionate; he is amused by monkeys and the rhinoceros; he can bear
+with Pirkheimer's bad temper; he looks out of kindly eyes that allow
+their perception of strangeness or oddity to redeem the impression that
+might otherwise have been produced by vice, or uncouthness, or
+sullen frowns.
+
+I have supposed that a realistic perception was one which saw things
+with great particularity; and the words "a profound realistic
+perception" to Goethe's mind probably conveyed the idea of such a
+perception, in profound accord with human nature, that is where the
+human recognition, delight and acceptance followed the perception even
+to the smallest details, without growing weary or failing to find at
+least a hope of significance in them. If this was what the great critic
+meant, those who turn over a collection of Duerer's drawings will feel
+that they are profoundly realistic (realistic in a profoundly human
+sense), and that their author enjoyed an affectionate human sympathy
+with all present conditions; and by these two qualities is infinitely
+distinguished from all possessors of so-called innocent eyes, whether
+quadruped or biped.
+
+It is well to notice wherein this notion of Goethe's differs from the
+conventional notions which make up everybody's criticism. For instance,
+"In all his pictures he confined himself to facts," says Sir Martin
+Conway,[79] and then immediately qualifies this by adding, "He painted
+events as truly as his imagination could conceive them." We may safely
+say that no painter of the first rank has ever confined himself to
+facts. Nor can we take the second sentence as it stands. Any one who
+looks at the _Trinity_ in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna will see at
+once that the artist who painted it did not shut his eyes and try to
+conjure up a vision of the scene to be represented; the ordering of the
+picture shows plainly throughout that a foregone conventional
+arrangement, joined with the convenience of the methods of
+representation to be employed, dictated nearly the whole composition,
+and that the details, costumes, &c., were gradually added, being chosen
+to enhance the congruity or variety of what was already given. Perhaps
+it was never a prime object with Duerer to conceive the event, it was
+rather the picture that he attempted to conceive; it is Rembrandt who
+attempts to conceive events, not Duerer. He is very far from being a
+realist in this sense: though certain of his etchings possess a
+considerable degree of such realism, it is not what characterises him as
+a creator or inventor. But a "profound realistic perception" almost
+unequalled he did possess; what he saw he painted not as he saw it, not
+where he saw it, but as it appeared to him to really be. So he painted
+real girls, plain, ugly or pretty as the case might be, for angels, and
+put them in the sky; but for their wings he would draw on his fancy.
+Often the folds of a piece of drapery so delighted him that they are
+continued for their own sake and float out where there is no wind to
+support them, or he would develop their intricacies beyond every
+possibility of conceivable train or other superfluity of real garments;
+and it is this necessity to be richer and more magnificent than
+probability permits which brings us to the creator in Duerer; not only
+had he a profound realistic perception of what the world was like, but
+he had an imagination that suggested to him that many things could be
+played with, embroidered upon, made handsomer, richer or more
+impressive. When Goethe adds that "he was retarded by a gloomy fantasy
+devoid of form or foundation," we perceive that the great critic is
+speaking petulantly or without sufficient knowledge. Duerer's gloomy
+fantasy, the grotesque element in his pictures and prints, was not his
+own creation, it is not peculiar to him, he accepted it from tradition
+and custom (see Plate "Descent into Hell"). What is really
+characteristic of him is the richness displayed in devils' scales and
+wings, in curling hair or crumpled drapery, or flame, or smoke, or
+cloud, or halo; and, still more particularly, his is the energy of line
+or fertility of invention with which all these are displayed, and the
+dignity or austerity which results from the general proportion of the
+masses and main lines of his composition.
+
+
+V
+
+For the illustration of this volume I have chosen a larger proportion of
+drawings than of any other class of work; both because Duerer's drawings
+are less widely known than his engravings on metal, and because, though
+his fame may perhaps rest almost equally on these latter, and they may
+rightly be considered more unique in character, yet his drawings show
+the splendid creativeness of his handling of materials in greater
+variety. One engraving on copper is like another in the essential
+problem that it offered to the craftsman to resolve; but every different
+medium in which Duerer made drawings, and every variety of surface on
+which he drew, offered a different problem, and perhaps no other artist
+can compare with him in the great variety of such problems which he has
+solved with felicity. And this power of his to modify his method with
+changing conditions is, as we have seen, from the technical side the
+highest and greatest quality that an artist can possess. It only fails
+him when he has to deal with oil paintings, and even there he shows a
+corresponding sense of the nature of the problems involved, if he shows
+less felicity on the whole in solving them; and perhaps could he have
+stayed at Venice and have had the results of Giorgione's and Titian's
+experiments to suggest the right road, we should have been scarcely able
+to perceive that he was less gifted as a painter than as draughtsman. As
+it is, he has given us water-colour sketches in which the blot is used
+to render the foliage of trees in a manner till then unprecedented.
+(Lipp. 132, &c.) He can rival Watteau in the use of soft chalk, Leonardo
+in the use of the pen, and Van Eyck in the use of the brush point; and
+there are examples of every intermediate treatment to form a chain
+across the gulf that separates these widely differing modes of graphic
+expression. There can be no need to point the application of these
+remarks to the individual drawings here reproduced; those who are
+capable of recognising it will do so without difficulty.
+
+[Illustration: AN OLD CASTLE Body-dour drawing at Bremen]
+
+
+VI
+
+In conclusion, Duerer appears as a draughtsman of unrivalled powers. And
+when one looks on his drawings as what they most truly were, his
+preparation for the tasks set him by the conditions of his life, there
+is room for nothing but unmixed admiration. It is only when one asks
+whether those tasks might not have been more worthy of such high gifts
+that one is conscious of deficiency or misfortune. And can one help
+asking whether the Emperor Max might not have given Duerer his Bible or
+his Virgil to illustrate, instead of demanding to have the borders of
+his "Book of Hours" rendered amusing with fantastic and curious
+arabesques; whether Duerer's learned friends, instead of requiring from
+him recondite or ceremonious allegories, might not have demanded
+title-pages of classic propriety; or whether the imperial bent of his
+own imagination might not have rendered their demands malleable, and bid
+them call for a series of woodcuts, engravings or drawings, which could
+rival Rembrandt's etchings in significance of subject-matter and
+imaginative treatment, as they rival them in executive power? In his
+portraits--the large majority of which have come down to us only as
+drawings, the majority of which were never anything else--the demand
+made upon him was worthy; but even here Holbein, a man of lesser gift
+and power, has perhaps succeeded in leaving a more dignified, a more
+satisfying series; one containing, if not so many masterpieces, fewer on
+which an accidental or trivial subject or mood has left its impress.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is Duerer's, not Rembrandt's, not Holbein's
+character, that impresses us as most serious, most worthy to be held as
+a model. It is before his portrait of himself that Mr. Ricketts "forgets
+all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect
+realisation of one of the world's greatest men is worthy of the
+occasion." So that we feel bound to attribute our dissatisfaction to
+something in his circumstances having hindered and hampered the flow of
+what was finest in his nature into his work. From Venice he wrote: "I am
+a gentleman here, but only a hanger-on at home." Germany was a better
+home for a great character, a great personality, than for a great
+artist: Duerer the artist was never quite at home there, never a
+gentleman among his peers. The good and solid burghers rated him as a
+good and solid burgher, worth so much per annum; never as endowed with
+the rank of his unique gift. It was only at Venice and Antwerp that he
+was welcomed as the Albert Duerer whom we to-day know, love, and honour.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 75: See the exquisite landscape in the collection of Mr. C. S.
+Ricketts and Mr. C. H. Shannon, reproduced in the sixth folio of the
+Duerer Society, 1903. Mr. Campbell Dodgson describes the drawing as in a
+measure spoilt by retouching, but what convinces him that these
+retouches are not by Duerer? The pen-work seems to be at once too clever
+and too careless to have been added by another hand to preserve a
+fading drawing.]
+
+[Footnote 76: XII. Discourse.]
+
+[Footnote 77: XIII, Discourse.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 79: Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer, p. I 50.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DUeRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS
+
+
+I
+
+For the artist or designer the chief difference between the engraving
+done on a wood block and that done on metal lies in the thickness of the
+line. The engraved line in a wood block is in relief, that on a metal
+plate is entrenched; the ink in the one case is applied to the crest of
+a ridge, in the other it fills a groove into which the surface of the
+paper is squeezed. Though lines almost as fine as those possible on
+metal have been achieved by wood engravers, in doing this they force the
+nature of their medium, whereas on a copper plate fine lines come
+naturally. Perhaps no section of Duerer's work reveals his unique powers
+so thoroughly as his engravings on metal. They were entirely his own
+work both in design and execution; and no expenditure of pains or
+patience seems to have limited his intentions, or to have hindered his
+execution or rendered it less vital. And perhaps it is this fact which
+witnesses with our spirit and bids us recognise the master: rather than
+the comprehension of natural forms which he evinces, subtle and vigorous
+though it be; or than the symbols and types which he composed from such
+forms for the traditional and novel ideas of his day. And this
+unweariable assiduity of his is continually employed in the discovery
+of very noble arabesques of line and patterns in black and white, more
+varied than the grain in satin wood or the clustering and dispersion of
+the stars. Intensity of application, constancy of purpose, when revealed
+to us by beautifully variegated surfaces, the result of human toil, may
+well impress us, may rightly impress us, more than quaint and antiquated
+notions about the four temperaments, or about witches and their
+sabbaths, or about virtues and vices embodied in misconceptions of the
+characters of pagan divinities, and in legends about them which scholars
+had just begun to translate with great difficulty and very ill. It is
+the astonishing assurance of the central human will for perfection that
+awes us; this perception that flinches at no difficulty, this perception
+of how greatly beauty deserves to be embodied in human creations and
+given permanence to.
+
+
+II
+
+In the encomium which Erasmus wrote of Albert Duerer he dealt, as one
+sees by the passage quoted (p. 186), with Duerer's engraved work almost
+exclusively. Perhaps the great humanist had seen no paintings by Duerer,
+and very likely had heard Duerer himself disparage them, as Melanchthon
+tells us was his wont (p. 187). We know that Duerer gave Erasmus some of
+his engravings, and we may feel sure that he was questioned pretty
+closely as to what were the aims of his art, and wherein he seemed to
+himself to have best succeeded. The sentence I underlined (on p. 186)
+gives us probably some reflection of Duerer's reply. We must remember
+that Erasmus, from his classical knowledge as to how Apelles was
+praised, was full of the idea that art was an imitation, and may
+probably have refused to understand what Duerer may very likely have told
+him in modification of this view; or he may by citing his Greek and
+Latin sources have prevented the reverent Duerer from being outspoken on
+the point. But though most of his praise seems mere literary
+commonplace, the sentence underlined strikes us as having
+another source.
+
+"He reproduces not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also
+observes the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the
+position of it." How one would like to have heard Duerer, as Erasmus may
+probably have heard him, explain the principles on which he composed! No
+doubt there is no very radical difference between his sense of
+composition and that of other great artists. But to hear one so
+preoccupied with explaining his processes to himself discourse on this
+difficult subject would be great gain. For though there are doubtless no
+absolute rules, and the appeal is always to a refined sense for
+proportion,--yet to hear a creator speak of such things is to have this
+sense, as it were, washed and rendered delicate once more. We can but
+regret that Erasmus has not saved us something fuller than this hint. In
+the same way, how tempting is the criticism that Camerarius gives of
+Mantegna,--we feel that Duerer's own is behind it; but as it stands it is
+disjointed and absurd, like some of the incomplete and confused parables
+which give us a glimpse of how much more was lost than was preserved by
+the reporters of the sayings of Jesus. It is the same thing with the
+reported sayings of Michael Angelo, and indeed of all other great men.
+It is impossible to accept "his hand was not trained to follow the
+perception and nimbleness of his mind" as Duerer's dictum on Mantegna;
+but how suggestive is the allusion to "broken and scattered statues set
+up as examples of art," for artists to form themselves upon! Yet the
+fact that Duerer missed coming into contact not only with Mantegna but
+with Titian, Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, is indeed the saddest
+fact in regard to his life. We can well believe that he felt it in
+Mantegna's case. Ah! Why could he not bring himself to accept the
+overtures made to him, and become a citizen of Venice?
+
+
+III
+
+The subjects of these engravings are even generally trivial or
+antiquated, either in themselves or by the way they are approached.
+Perhaps alone among them the figure of Jesus, as it is drawn in the
+various series on copper and wood illustrating the Passion, is conceived
+in a manner which touches us to-day with the directness of a revelation;
+and even this cannot be compared to the same figure in Rembrandt
+etchings and drawings, either for essential adequacy, or for various and
+convincing application. No, we must consent to let the expression "great
+thoughts" drop out of our appreciation of Duerer's works, and be replaced
+by the "great character" latent in them.
+
+However, one among Duerer's engravings on copper stands out from among
+the rest, and indeed from all his works. In the _Melancholy_ the
+composition is not more dignified in its spacing and proportion; the
+arabesque of line is not richer or sweeter, the variations from black to
+white are not more handsome, than in some half dozen of his other
+engravings. No, by its conception alone the _Melancholy_ attains to its
+unique impressiveness. And it is the impressiveness of an image, not the
+impressiveness of an idea or situation, as in the case of the _Knight,
+Death, and the Devil_, by which almost as much bad literature has been
+inspired. There is nothing to choose between the workmanship of the two
+plates; both are absolutely impeccable, and outside the work of Duerer
+himself, unrivalled. The _Melancholy_ is the only creation by a German
+which appears to me to invite and sustain comparison with the works of
+the greatest Italian. In it we have the impressiveness that belongs only
+to the image, the thing conceived for mental vision, and addressed to
+the eye exclusively. If there was an allegory, or if the plate formed
+(as has been imagined) one of a series representative of the four
+temperaments, the eye and the visual imagination are addressed with such
+force and felicity that the inquiries which attempt to answer these
+questions must for ever appear impertinent. They may add some languid
+interest to the contemplation which is sated with admiring the
+impeccable mastery of the Knight; for that plate always seems to me the
+mere illustration of a literary idea, a sheer statement of items which
+require to be connected by some story, and some of which have the crude
+obviousness of folk-lore symbols, without their racy and genial naivety.
+They have not been fused in the rapture of some unique mood, not
+focussed by the intensity of an emotion. With the _Melancholy_ all is
+different; perhaps among all his works only Duerer's most haunting
+portrait of himself has an equal or even similar power to bind us in its
+spell. For this reason I attempt the following comparison between the
+_Sibyls_ of the Sistine Chapel and the _Melancholy_ a comparison which I
+do not suppose to have any other value or force than that of a stimulant
+to the imagination which the works themselves address.
+
+[Illustration: MELANCHOLIA Copper engraving, B. 74]
+
+The impetuosity of his Southern blood drives Michael Angelo to betray
+his intention of impressing in the pose and build of his Sibyls. Large
+and exceptional women, "limbed" and thewed as gods are, with an habitual
+command of gesture, they lift down or open their books or unwind their
+scrolls like those accustomed to be the cynosure of many eyes, who have
+lived before crowds of inferiors, a spectacle of dignity from their
+childhood upwards. On the other hand, the pose and build of the
+_Melancholy_ must have been those of many a matron in Nuremberg. It is
+not till we come to the face that we find traits that correspond with
+the obvious symbolism of the wings and wreath, or the serious richness
+of the black and white effect of the composition; but that face holds
+our attention as not even the Sibylla Delphica cannot by beauty, not by
+conscious inspiration, but by the spell of unanswerable thought, by the
+power to brood, by the patience that can and dare go unresolved for many
+years. Everything is begun about her; she cannot see unto the end; she
+is powerful, she is capable in many works, she has borne children, she
+rests from her labours, and her thought wanders, sleeps or dreams. The
+spirit of the North, with its industry, its cool-headed calculation, its
+abundance in contrivance, its elaboration of duty and accumulation of
+possessions--there she sits, absorbed, unsatisfied. Impetuosity and the
+frank avowal of intention are themselves an expression of the will to
+create that which is desirable; they can but form the habit of every
+artist under happy circumstances. They proceed on the expectation of
+immediate effectiveness, they belong to power in action; while, if
+beauty be not impetuous, she is frank, and adds to the avowal of her
+intention the promise of its fulfilment. The work of art and the artist
+are essentially open; they promise intimacy, and fulfil that promise
+with entirety when successful. Nor is anything so impressive as intimacy
+which implies a perfect sincerity, a complete revelation, a gift without
+reserve, increase without let. But the circumstances of the artist never
+are happy: even Michael Angelo's were not. An intense brooding
+melancholy arises from the repressed and baffled desire to create; and
+in some measure this gloom of failure underlying their success is a
+necessary character of all lovely and spiritual creations in this world.
+Now Michael Angelo's works, because of their Southern impetuosity and
+volubility, are not so instinct with this divine sorrow, this immobility
+of the soul face to face with evil, as is Duerer's _Melancholy_. He
+inspires and exhilarates us more, but takes us out of ourselves rather
+than leads us home.
+
+Here is Duerer's success: let and hindered as it really is, he makes us
+feel the inalienable constancy of rational desire, watching adverse
+circumstance as one beast of prey watches another. She keeps hold on the
+bird she has caught, the ideal that perhaps she will never fully enjoy.
+Michael Angelo pictures for us freedom from trammels, the freedom that
+action, thought and ecstasy give, the freedom that is granted to beauty
+by all who recognise it; Duerer shows us the constancy that bridges the
+intervals between such free hours, that gives continuity to man's
+necessarily spasmodic effort. Thus he typifies for us the Northern
+genius: as Michael Angelo's athletes might typify by their naked beauty
+and the unexplained impressiveness of their gestures, the genius of the
+sudden South--sudden in action, sudden in thought, suddenly mature,
+suddenly asleep--as day changes to night and night to day the more
+rapidly as the tropics are approached.
+
+[Illustration: Detail enlarged from the "Agony in the Garden." Etching on
+Iron, B. 19 _Between_ pp. 250 & 251]
+
+[Illustration: ANGEL WITH THE SUDARIUM Engraving in Iron, 1516. B. 26
+_Between_ pp. 250 & 251]
+
+Instances of the highest imaginative power are rare in Duerer's work. The
+_Melancholy_ has had a world-wide success. The _Knight, Death and the
+Devil_ has one almost equal, but which is based on the facility with
+which it is associated with certain ideas dear to Christian culture,
+rather than on the creation of the mood in which these ideas arise. It
+does not move us until we know that it is an illustration of Erasmus's
+Christian Knight. Then all its dignity and mastery and the supremacy of
+the gifts employed on it are brought into touch with the idea, and each
+admirer operates, according to his imaginativeness, something of the
+transformation which Duerer had let slip or cool down before
+realising it.
+
+
+IV
+
+Among the prints with lesser reputations are several which attain a far
+higher success. There is the iron plate of the _Agony in the Garden,_ B.
+19, already mentioned (p. 235), in which the storm-tortured tree and the
+broken light and shade are full of dramatic power (see illustration),
+the _Angel with the Sudarium_, B. 26, where the arabesque of the folds
+of drapery and cloud unite with the daring invention of the central
+figure to create a mood entirely consonant with the subject. There is
+the woman carried off by a man on an unicorn, in which the turbulence of
+the subject is expressed with unrivalled force by the rich and beautiful
+arabesque and black and white pattern.
+
+B. Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, of the _Little Passion_, on
+copper, are all of them noteworthy successes of more or less the same
+kind; and in these, too, we come upon that racy sense for narration
+which can enhance dramatic import by emphasising some seemingly trivial
+circumstance, as in the gouty stiffness of one of Christ's scourgers in
+the _Flagellation_, or the abnormal ugliness of the man who with such
+perfect gravity holds the basin while Pilate _washes his hands:_ while
+in the _Crown of Thorns_ and _Descent into Hades_ we have peculiarly
+fine and suitable black and white patterns, and in the _Peter and John
+at the Beautiful Gate_[80] and the _Ecce Homo_ figures of monumental
+dignity in tiny gems of glowing engraver's work. The repose and serenity
+of the lovely little _St. Antony_;[81] the subsidence of commotion in
+the noonday victory of the little _St. George on foot_, B. 53--perhaps
+the most perfect diamond in the whole brilliant chain of little plates,
+or the staid naivety of the enchanting _Apollo and Diana_, B. 68;[82]
+who shall prefer among these things? Every time we go through them we
+choose out another until we return to the most popular and slightly
+obvious _St. George on Horseback_, B. 54. Next come the dainty series of
+little plates in honour of Our Lady the Mother of God, commencing before
+Duerer made a rule of dating his plates; before 1503 and continuing till
+after 1520, in which the last are the least worthy. Among these the
+Virgin embracing her Child at the foot of a tree, B. 34, dated 1513; The
+Virgin standing on the crescent moon, her baby in one arm, her sceptre
+in the other hand and the stars of her crown blown sideways as she bows
+her head, B. 32, dated 1516, and the stately and monumental Virgin
+seated by a wall, B. 40, dated 1514, are at present my favourites. And
+to these succeeded the noble army of Apostles and Martyrs of which the
+more part are dated from 1521 to 1526, though two, B. 48 and 50, fall as
+early as 1514.
+
+[Illustration: THE SMALL HORSE--Copper Engraving, B. 96]
+
+Then amongst the most perfect larger plates I cannot refrain from
+mentioning the _St. Jerome_, B. 60, with its homely seclusion as of
+Duerer's own best parlour in summer time which not even the presence of a
+lion can disturb; the idyllic and captivating _St. Hubert_, B. 57; the
+august and tranquil _Cannon_, B. 99: and lastly, perhaps, in the little
+_Horse_, B. 96, we come upon a theme and motive of the kind best suited
+to Duerer's peculiar powers, in which he produces an effect really
+comparable to those of the old Greek masters, about whose lost works he
+was so eager for scraps of information, and whose fame haunted him even
+into his slumbers, so that he dreamed of them and of those who should
+"give a future to their past." This delightful work may illustrate an
+allegory now grown dark or some misconception of a Grecian story; but
+though the relation between the items that compose it should remain for
+ever unexplained, its beauty, like that of some Greek sculpture that has
+been admired under many names, continues its spell, and speaks of how
+the simplicity, austerity and noble proportions of classical art were
+potent with the spirit of the great Nuremberg artist, and occasionally
+had free way with him, in spite of all there was in his circumstances
+and origins to impede or divert them. (See also the spirited drawing,
+Lipp. 366.)
+
+
+V
+
+It would be idle to attempt to say something about every masterpiece in
+Duerer's splendidly copious work on metal plates. There is perhaps not
+one of these engravings that is not vital upon one side or another,
+amazingly few that are not vital upon many. One other work, however,
+which has been much criticised and generally misunderstood, it may be as
+well to examine at more length, especially as it illustrates what was
+often Duerer's practice in regard to his theories about proportion, with
+which my next Part will deal. I speak of the _Great Fortune_ or
+_Nemesis_ (B. 77). His practice at other times is illustrated by the
+splendid _Adam and Eve_ (B. 1), over the production of which the nature
+of the canon he suggested was perhaps first thoroughly worked out. But
+before this and afterwards too he no doubt frequently followed the
+advice he gives in the following passage.
+
+To him that setteth himself to draw figures according to this book, not
+being well taught beforehand, the matter will at first become hard. Let
+him then put a man before him, who agreeth, as nearly as may be, _with
+the proportions he desireth_; and let him draw him in outline according
+to his knowledge and power. And a man is held to have done well if he
+attain accurately to copy a figure according to the life, so that his
+drawing resembleth the figure and is like unto nature. _And in
+particular if the thing copied as beautiful; then is the copy held to be
+artistic_, and, as it deserveth, it is highly praised.
+
+Duerer himself would seem to have very often followed his own advice in
+this. The _Great Fortune_ or Nemesis is a case in point. The remarks of
+critics on this superb engraving are very strange and wide. Professor
+Thausing said, "Embodied in this powerful female form, the Northern
+worship of nature here makes its first conscious and triumphant
+appearance in the history of art." With the work of the great Jan Van
+Eyck in one's mind's eye, of course this will appear one of those
+little lapses of memory so convenient to German national sentiment.
+"Everything that, according to our aesthetic formalism based on the
+antique, we should consider beautiful, is sacrificed to truth." (I have
+already pointed out that this use of the word "truth" in matters of art
+constitutes a fallacy)[83] "And yet our taste must bow before the
+imperishable fidelity to nature displayed in these forms, the fulness of
+life that animates these limbs." Of course, "imperishable fidelity to
+nature" and "taste that bows before it" are merely the figures of a
+clumsy rhetoric. But the idea they imply is one of the most common of
+vulgar errors in regard to works of art. In the first place one must
+remind our enthusiastic German that it is an engraving and not a woman
+that we are discussing; and that this engraving is extremely beautiful
+in arabesque and black and white pattern, rich, rhythmical and
+harmonious; and that there is no reason why our taste should be violated
+in having to bow submissively before such beauties as these, which it is
+a pleasure to worship. Now we come to the subject as presented to the
+intelligence, after the quick receptive eye has been satiated with
+beauty. Our German guide exclaims, "Not misled by cold definite rules of
+proportion, he gave himself up to unrestrained realism in the
+presentation of the female form." Our first remark is, that though the
+treatment of this female form may perhaps be called realistic, this
+adjective cannot be made to apply to the figure as a whole. This
+massively built matron is winged; she stands on a small globe suspended
+in the heavens, which have opened and are furled up like a garment in a
+manner entirely conventional. She carries a scarf which behaves as no
+fabric known to me would behave even under such exceptional and
+thrilling circumstances.
+
+Dr. Carl Giehlow has recently suggested that this splendid engraving
+illustrates the following Latin verses by Poliziano:
+
+  Est dea, quse vacuo sublimis in aere pendens
+  It nimbo succincta latus, sed candida pallam,
+  Sed radiata comam, ac stridentibus insonat alis.
+  Haec spes immodicas premit, haec infesta superbis
+  Imminet, huic celsas hominum contundere mentes
+  Incessusque datum et nimios turbare paratus.
+  Quam veteres Nemesin genitam de nocte silenti
+  Oceano discere patri. Stant sidera fronti.
+  Frena manu pateramque gerit, semperque verendum
+  Ridet et insanis obstat contraria coeptis.
+  Improba vota domans ac summis ima revolvens
+  Miscet et alterna nostros vice temperat actus.
+  Atque hue atque illuc ventorum turbine fertur.
+
+There is a goddess, who, aloft in the empty air, advances girdled about
+with a cloud, but with a shining white cloak and a glory in her hair,
+and makes a rushing with her wings. She it is who crushes extravagant
+hopes, who threatens the proud, to whom is given to beat down the
+haughty spirit and the haughty step, and to confound over-great
+possessions. Her the men of old called Nemesis, born to Ocean from the
+womb of silent Night. Stars stand upon her forehead. In her hand she
+bears bridles and a chalice, and smiles for ever with an awful smile,
+and stands resisting mad designs. Turning to nought the prayers of the
+wicked and setting the low above the high she puts one in the other's
+place and rules the scenes of life with alternation. And she is borne
+hither and thither on the wings of the whirlwind.
+
+If this suggestion is a good one it shows us that Duerer was no more
+consistently literal than he was realistic. The most striking features
+of his illustration are just those to which his text offers no
+counterpart, i.e., the nudity and physical maturity of his goddess.
+Neither has he girdled her about with cloud nor stood stars upon her
+forehead. I must confess that I find it hard to believe that there was
+any close connection present to his mind between his engraving and
+these verses.
+
+In a former chapter I have spoken of the fashion in female dress then
+prevalent; how it underlined whatever is most essential in the physical
+attributes of womanhood, and how probably something of good taste is
+shown in this fashion (see pp. 92 and 93). What I there said will
+explain Duerer's choice in this matter; and also that what Thausing felt
+bow in him was not taste, but his prejudices in regard to womanly
+attractiveness, and his misconception as to where the beauty of an
+engraving should be looked for and in what it consists. These same
+prejudices and misconceptions render Mrs. Heaton (as is only natural in
+one of the weaker sex) very bold. She says, "A large naked winged woman,
+whose ugliness is perfectly repulsive." This object, I must confess,
+appears to me, a coarse male, "welcome to contemplation of the mind and
+eye." The splendid Venus in Titian's _Sacred and Profane Love_, or his
+_Ariadne_ at Madrid; or Raphael's _Galatea_; or Michael Angelo's _Eve_
+(on the Sistine vault) are all of them doubtless far more akin to the
+_Aphrodite_ of Praxiteles, or to her who crouches in the Louvre, than is
+this _Nemesis_; but we must not forget that they are works on a scale
+more comparable with a marble statue; and that in works of which the
+scale is more similar to that of our engraving, Greek taste was often
+far more with Duerer than with Thausing. This is an important point,
+though one which is rarely appreciated. However, there is no reason why
+we should condemn "misled by cold definite rules of taste" even such
+pictures as Rembrandt's _Bathing Woman_ in the Louvre, though here the
+proportions of the work are heroic. Oil painting was an art not
+practised by the Greeks, and this medium lends itself to beauties which
+their materials put entirely out of reach. Besides, Rembrandt appealed
+to an audience who had been educated by Christian ideals to appreciate a
+pathos produced by the juxtaposition of the fact with the ideal, and of
+the creature with the creator, to appeal to which a Greek would have had
+to be far more circumspect in his address--even if he had, through an
+exceptional docility and receptiveness of character, come under its
+influence himself. These considerations when apprehended will, I
+believe, suffice to dispel both prejudice and misconception in regard to
+this matter; and we shall find in Professor Thausing's remarks relative
+to the treatment of the "female form divine" in this engraving no
+additional reason for considering it a comparatively early work. And we
+shall only smile when he tells us "The _Nemesis_ to a certain _degree_
+(sic) marks the extreme _point_ (sic) reached by Duerer in his unbiased
+study of the nude. His further progress became more and more influenced
+by his researches into the proportions of the human body." The bias will
+appear to us of rather more recent date, and we shall be ready to
+consider with an open mind how far Duerer's practice was influenced for
+good or evil by his researches into the proportions of the human body.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 80: See page 258.]
+
+[Footnote 81: See page 260.]
+
+[Footnote 82: See Frontispiece.]
+
+[Footnote 83: See page 19.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DUeRER'S WOODCUTS
+
+It is now generally accepted that Duerer did not himself engrave on wood.
+In his earliest blocks he shows a greater respect for the limitations of
+this means of expression than later on. The earliest wood blocks, though
+no doubt they aimed at being facsimiles, were not such in fact; but the
+engraver took certain liberties for his own convenience, and probably
+did not attempt to render what Duerer calls "the hand" of the designer.
+"The hand" was equivalent to what modern artists call "the touch," and
+meant the peculiar character recognisable in the vast majority of the
+strokes or marks which each artist uses in drawing or painting. Duerer
+affected extremely curved and rapid strokes, Mantegna the deliberate
+straight line, Rembrandt the straight stroke used so as to seem a
+continual improvisation; though indeed he varies the character of his
+touch more continually and more vastly than any other master, yet in his
+drawings and etchings the majority of the strokes are straight. Already
+in the woodcuts provided by Michael Wolgemut, Duerer's master, to
+illustrate books, there is a general attempt to render cross hatching:
+and the eyes and hair, though still those of an engraver, are
+frequently modified to some extent in deference to the character given
+by the draughtsman. Still, no one with practical experience would
+consider these woodcuts as adequate facsimiles: which makes the question
+of their attribution to Wolgemut, or his partner and step-son,
+Pleydenwurff, of still less interest and importance than it is on all
+other grounds. So conscious an exception as the soul of the accurate
+Albert Duerer was, could not be expected to endure a partner in his
+creations, especially one whose character was revealed chiefly by the
+clumsy compromises convenient to lack of skill. Doubtless the demand for
+"his hand" was a new factor in the education of the engraver, as
+constant and as imperturbable as the action of a copious stream, which,
+having its source in lonely heights, wears a channel through the hardest
+rock, the most sullen soils. It may have been the pitiless tyranny of
+the master's will for perfection which drove Hieronymus Andreae, "the
+most famous of Duerer's wood engravers," into religious and even civil
+rebellion, joining hands with levelling fanatics and taking active part
+in the Peasant War. Duerer probably would have commanded too much
+reverence and affection for these rebellions to be directed against him;
+but an insupportably heavy yoke is not rendered lighter because it is
+imposed by a loved hand,--though every other burden and restraint may in
+such a case be shaken off and resented before that which is the real
+cause of oppression. Duerer's wood cutters had no doubt to resign any
+indolence, any impatience, or whatever else it might be that had
+otherwise stamped a personal character on their work; and all
+remonstrance must have been shamed by the evident fact that the young
+master spared himself not a whit more. The perseverance and docility
+which made such engraving possible was perhaps the greatest aid that
+Duerer drew from German character; it was not only an aid, but an example
+to and restraint upon that haughty spirit of his that restively ever
+again vows never to take so much pains over another picture to be so
+poorly paid (see page 103); that complains of failure and discouragement
+after years of repeatedly more world-wide successes (see page 187).
+These are not German traits, but it may have been the German blood he
+inherited from his mother and the example of his friends,
+fellow-workers, and helpers, which enabled him to get the better of such
+petulant and gloomy outbursts, and return to the day of small things
+with the will to continue and endure.
+
+The difference introduced by the engravers becoming more and more
+capable of rendering Duerer's hand is well illustrated by comparing the
+frontispiece to the _Apocalypse_, added about 1511, with the other cuts
+which had appeared in 1498. Doubtless Duerer's hand had changed its
+character considerably during this period of constant and rapid
+development, and it requires tact and knowledge to separate the
+differences due to the creator from those due to the engraver. Duerer's
+drawings differed as widely from the earlier drawings as does the
+engraving from the earlier blocks. But, as we may see by early drawings
+done as preliminary studies for engravings, the method of his pen
+strokes had changed less than the character of the forms they rendered;
+the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than
+the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by
+1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the
+stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap
+and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface
+of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the
+radiance of the Virgin's glory). Holbein, later on, was to obtain a yet
+more wonderful fidelity from Lutzelburger, the engraver of his _Dunce
+of Death_.
+
+Still it were misleading to suppose that Duerer's disregard for the
+facilities and limitations of wood-cutting went the lengths that the
+demands made upon modern skill have gone. Not only has the line been
+reproduced, but it has been drawn not with a full pen or brush, but in
+pencil or with watered ink; and the delicate tones thus produced have
+been demanded of and rendered by human skill. Duerer always uses a clear
+definite stroke; and in thus limiting himself he shows an appreciation
+of the medium to be used in reproducing his drawing, and recognises its
+limits to a large extent, though this is the only limitation he accepts.
+Less and less does he consider the possibilities which engraving offers
+for the use of a white line on black Doing his drawing with a black
+line, he contents himself with the qualities that the resources and
+facilities of the full pen line give: and his design is for a drawing
+which can be cut on wood, not for something that first really exists in
+the print; the prints are copies of his drawings. His drawings were not
+prepared to receive additions in the course of cutting, such as could
+only be rendered by the engraver. Faithfulness was the only virtue he
+required of Hieronymus Andreae. Yet even in such drawings as Duerer's no
+doubt were, there would have been some qualities, some defects perhaps,
+that the print does not possess. For a print, from the mode of inking,
+has a breadth and unity which the drawing never can have. Even in
+drawings made with full flowing brush or pen, there will be
+modulations in the strength of the ink, or occasioned by the surface of
+the wood or paper, in every stroke, by which the, sensitive artist in
+the heat of work cannot help being influenced, and which will lead him
+to give a bloom, a delicacy, to his drawing, such as a print can never
+possess. And, on the other hand, the unity of the print can never be
+quite realised in the drawing, however much the artist may strive to
+attain it, because the conditions must change, however slightly, for
+strokes produced in succession; while in a print all are produced
+together, and variations, if variations there are, occur over wide
+spaces and not between stroke and stroke. It is considerations, of this
+kind that in the last resort determine the quality of works of art. The
+artist is taught, though often unconsciously, by the means he employs,
+but the diligent man who is not by nature an artist never can learn
+these things: he can Imitate the manner and form, never the grace, the
+bloom, and the life.
+
+[Illustration: THE APOCALYPSE, 1498 St. Michael fighting the Dragon,
+Woodcut, B. 72 From the impression in the British Museum Face p. 262]
+
+
+II
+
+Duerer's first important issue of woodcuts was the _Apocalypse_. A great
+deal has been written in praise of this production as a political
+pamphlet against the corrupt Papacy. It was undoubtedly the most
+important series of woodcuts that had ever appeared, by the size, number
+and elaboration of the designs. It also undoubtedly attacks
+ecclesiastical corruption, but not ecclesiastical only. Whether to Duerer
+and his friends it appeared even chiefly directed against prelates, or
+even against those who sat in high places; whether the popes, bishops
+and figures typical of the Church seemed to him to illustrate the moral
+in any pre-eminent degree, may be doubted. Still more doubtful is it
+whether there was any objection to papacy or priesthood as institutions
+connected with these figures in his mind. Unworthy popes, unworthy
+bishops, and an unworthy Rome were censured: but not popes, bishops, or
+Rome as the capital see of the Church. Duerer's work as a whole shows no
+distaste for saints, the Virgin, or bishops and popes; he had no
+objection, no scruple apparently, to introducing the notorious Julius
+II. into his _Feast of the_ Rosary, some ten years later. There has
+perhaps been a tendency to read the intention of these designs too much
+in the light of after events: and by so doing a great slur is cast on
+Duerer's consistency; for, had these designs the significance read into
+them, he must be supposed an altogether convinced enemy of the Church;
+and the tremendous salaams which he afterwards made to her in far more
+important works ought, to logical minds, to appear horribly insincere.
+
+Viewed as works of art, one reads about the cut of the four riders upon
+horses, "For simple grandeur this justly famous design has never been
+surpassed." One's sense of proportion receives such a shock as gives one
+the sensation of being utterly outcast, in a world where such a precious
+dictum can pass without remark as a sample of the discrimination of the
+chief authority on the life and art of Albert Duerer. Neither simple nor
+grand is an adjective applicable to this print in the sense in which we
+apply it to the chief masterpieces of antiquity and of the Renaissance.
+To say even that Duerer never surpassed this design is to utter what to
+me at least seems the most palpable absurdity. There is an immense
+advance in design, in conception and in mastery of every kind shown over
+the best prints of the _Apocalypse_ and _Great Passion_, in the
+prints added to the latter series ten years later, and still more in the
+_Life of the Virgin_. And still finer results are arrived at in single
+cuts of later date, and in the _Little Passion_. If we want to see what
+Duerer's woodcuts at their finest are for breadth and dignity of
+composition, for richness and fertility of arabesque and black and white
+pattern, for vigour and subtlety of form, for boldness and vivacity of
+workmanship, we must turn to the _Samson_ (1497?) (B. 2), the Man's
+_Bath_ (14-?), (B. 128), among the earlier blocks published before the
+_Apocalypse_, then to those designed in or about the year 1511. The
+golden period for Duerer's woodcuts, the date of the publication of his
+most magnificent series, the _Life of the Virgin_ and several delightful
+separate prints. Among these we find it hard to choose, but if some must
+be mentioned let it be the _St. Joachim's Offering Rejected by the High
+Priest_ (B. 77), the _Meeting at the Golden Gate_ (B. 79) (see
+illustration), the _Marriage of the Virgin_ (B. 82), the _Visitation_
+(B. 84), the _Nativity_ (B. 85) (see illustration), the _Presentation_
+(B. _55_), the _Flight into Egypt_ (B. 89).
+
+[Illustration: Detail enlarged from "Nativity."--"Life of the Virgin"
+Woodcut, B. 85]
+
+[Illustration: Enlarged detail from "The Embrace of St. Joachim and St.
+Anne at the Golden Gate."--"Life of the Virgin," Woodcut, B. 79]
+
+In the glorious masterpieces of this series Duerer has found the true
+balance of his powers. The dignity and charm of the decorative effect of
+these cuts has never been surpassed; and to the racy narrative vivacity
+of such groups and figures as those isolated and enlarged in our
+illustration there is added an idyllic charm of which perhaps the best
+examples are the _Visitation_ and the _Flight into Egypt_. This
+sweetness of allure is still more pervasive in the separate cuts that
+bear this golden date, 1511, that is in the _St. Christopher_ (B. 103),
+and the _St. Jerome_ (B. 114). And the _Adoration of the Magi_ (B. 3) is
+much finer than the one included in the _Life of the Virgin_. This
+idyllic charm had already been touched _upon before_ in the _Assumption
+of the Magdalen_ (B. 121) (15?), and in the _St. Antony_ and _St. Paul_
+and the _Baptist_ and _St. Onuphrius of_ 1504. It is not felt to lie
+very deep in the conception of the subject, for all are treated in an
+obviously conventional manner, the touches of racy realism being
+confined to subordinate incidents and details. Neither the subjects nor
+the mood of the artist lend themselves to the dramatic impressiveness of
+such cuts as the _Blowing of the Sixth Trumpet_ or the _St. Michael
+overwhelming the Dragon of the Apocalypse_ (_see_ page 262), where the
+inspiration appears to be Gothic, perhaps developed under the influence
+of Mantegna's _Combat between Sea Monsters_, of which Duerer early made
+an elaborate pen-and-ink copy. We find an aftermath of the same
+inspiration in the engraving on iron, dated 1516, representing a man
+riding astride of an unicorn carrying off a shrieking woman. Such stormy
+and strenuous lowerings of the imagination break in upon Duerer's
+habitual mood as St. Peter's thunders into Milton's "Lycidas," of which
+the general felicitous mingling of a conventional pedantry with idyllic
+charm and racy touches of realistic effect is very similar to the
+general effect of the golden group we have been describing. Among all
+the work that finds its climax in the beautiful creations of 1511, only
+in a few prints of the _Little Passion_, published in 1511, do we find
+any dramatic power or creativeness of essential conception. I may
+mention the _Christ Scourging the Money-changers in the Temple_, the
+_Agony in the Garden_, and Judas' _Kiss_, where, though the general
+effect be rather confused, the central figure is full of appropriate
+power. _Christ haled by the hair before_ _Annas_ (the most wonderful
+of all), Christ before _Pilate_, Christ _Mocked_, the _Ecce Homo_ (a
+most beautiful composition), the Veronica's napkin incident, _Christ_
+being nailed _to the Cross_ (a masterpiece), the _Deposition_, the
+_Entombment_:--several others of the series have idyllic charm or
+touches of narrative force which link them with the general group, but
+these alone stand out and in some ways surpass it. After this date Duerer
+seems in a great measure to have relinquished wood for metal engraving;
+however, most of his occasional resumptions of the process were marked
+by the production of masterpieces, if we put on one side the workshop
+monsters produced for Maximilian--and even in these, in details, Duerer's
+full force is recognisable. I may mention the _Madonna_ crowned and
+_worshipped by a concert of Angels_, 1518 (B. 101), which, though a
+little cold, like all the work of that period, is still a masterpiece;
+and then, after the inspiriting visit to Antwerp, we have the
+magnificent portrait of Ulrich Varnbueler, 1522 (B. 155), the _Last
+Supper_, 1523 (B. 53) (see illustration here), and the glorious piece of
+decoration representing Duerer's Arms, 1523 (B. 160) (see illustration).
+I have reproduced less of Duerer's wood engravings than would be
+necessary to represent their importance and beauty, because most, being
+large and bold, are greatly impoverished by reduction; besides, they are
+nearly all well known through comparatively cheap reproductions. I have
+enlarged two details to give an idea of Duerer's workmanship when
+employed upon racy realism (see illustration, page 264), and when
+employed in endowing a single figure with supreme grace and dignity (see
+illustration, page 265).
+
+[Illustration: Christ haled before Annas From the "Little
+Passion"--_Between_ pp. 266 & 267]
+
+[Illustration: DUeRER'S ARMORIAL BEARINGS Woodcut, B. 160]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DUeRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES
+
+I
+
+
+Before closing this part of my book something must be said of Duerer's
+influence on other artists. It is one of the foibles of modern criticism
+to please itself by tracing influences, a process of the same nature as
+that of tracing resemblances to ferns and other growths on a frosted
+pane. No one would deny that resemblances are there; it is to
+distinguish them and estimate their significance without yielding to
+fancifulness, which is the well-nigh hopeless task. It is often
+forgotten that similar circumstances produce similar effects, and that
+coincidences from this cause are very rife. Then, too, it is forgotten
+that the influence that produces rivalry is stronger, more important,
+and less easily estimated, than that which is expressed by imitation or
+plagiarism; besides, it affects more original and fertile natures. The
+stimulus of a great creative personality often is more potent where
+discernible resemblances are few and vague, than where they are many and
+obvious. In Duerer's day the study and imitation of antique art which had
+brought about the Renascence in Italy was the fashion that in successive
+waves was passing over Europe and moulding the future. He himself felt
+it, and welcomed it now as an authority not to be gainsaid, and again
+as an example to be competed against and surpassed. This fashion, this
+trend of opinion and hope, was the significance behind the effect
+produced on him by Jacopo de' Barbari, whose charming but ineffectual
+originality succeeded merely in creating an eddy in that stream. It was
+the tide behind him which so powerfully stirred and stimulated Duerer.
+The resemblances traceable between certain still life studies by the two
+men, or even in figures of their engravings, is insignificant compared
+with the fact that through Jacopo Duerer probably first felt the energy
+and true direction of the great tidal waves which were then rolling
+forth from Italy. Even Mantegna's influence was probably less the effect
+of a personal affinity than that through him a power streamed direct
+from the antique dawn. This great and master influence of those days was
+more one of hope, indefinite, incomprehensible, visionary, than one of
+knowledge and assured discovery. Raphael may have received it from
+Duerer, as well as Duerer from Bellini. Figures and incidents from Duerer's
+engravings are supposed to have been adapted in certain works, if not of
+his own hand at least proceeding from his immediate pupils. For Raphael,
+Duerer was a proof of the excellence of human nature in respect to the
+arts, even when it could not form itself on the immediate study and
+contemplation of antiques, and thus added to the zest and expectation
+with which he improved himself in that direction. These great men did
+not distinguish clearly between pregnancy due to their own efforts, that
+of their contemporaries and immediate predecessors, and that due to
+their more mystic passion for antiquity. Michael Angelo, Titian, and
+Correggio were destined to be the signets by which this great power was
+to be most often and clearly stamped on the work of future artists.
+From the unhappy location of his life Duerer was debarred from any such
+obvious and overwhelming effect on after generations. The influences
+which helped to shape him were no doubt at work on all the more eminent
+artists, his fellow-countrymen; on Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Burgkmair,
+Lucas Cranach, or Baldung Grien, to mention only the elect. What the
+stimulus of his achievements, of his renown, meant for these men we have
+no means of computing; yet we may feel sure that it was vastly more
+important and significant than any actual traces of imitation or
+plagiarism from his works, which can with difficulty and for the more
+part very doubtfully be brought home to them;--vastly more important and
+significant too we may be sure than his effect upon his pupils and other
+more or less obscure painters, engravers, and block designers, in whose
+work actual imitation or adaption of his creations is more certain and
+more abundant. His pictures, plates, and woodcuts were copied both in
+Italy and in the North, both as exercises for the self-improvement of
+artists and to supply a demand for even secondhand reflections of his
+genius and skill. He was not destined to lend the impress of his
+splendid personality to the tide of fashion like the great Italians;
+their influence was to supersede his even in the North.
+
+This is obvious: but who shall compare or estimate the accession of
+force which the tide as a whole gained from him, or that more latent
+power which begins to be disengaged from the reserve and lack of proper
+issue from which he evidently suffered, now that the great tide of the
+Renaissance has spent its mighty onrush and become merged in the
+constant movement of life--that power by which he moves us to
+commiserate his circumstances and to feel after the more and better,
+which we cannot doubt that he might have given us had he been more
+happily situated?
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER Woodcut, p. 53]
+
+
+II
+
+Only to compare the value of Michael Angelo's sonnets with that of the
+doggerel rhymes which Duerer produced, may give us some idea of the
+portentous inferiority in Duerer's surroundings to those of the great
+Italian. Both borrow the general idea of the subject, treatment, and
+form of their poems from the fashion around them. But that fashion in
+Michael Angelo's case called for elevated subject, intimate and
+imaginative treatment, and adequacy of form, whereas none of these were
+called for from Albrecht Duerer; and if his friends laughed at the
+rudeness of his verses, it was not that they themselves conceived of
+anything more adequate in these respects, only something more scholarly,
+more pedantic. Michael Angelo's verse was often crabbed and rude, but
+the scholarship and pedantry of Italy forbore to laugh at that rudeness,
+because a more adequate standard made them recognise its vital power and
+noble passion as of higher importance to true success. Still, in the
+following rhymes, Duerer shows himself a true child of the Renascence, at
+least in intention; and was proud of a desire for universal excellence.
+
+When I received this from Lazarus Spengler, I made him the following
+poem in reply (Mrs. Heaton's translation):
+
+  In Nuernberg it is known full well
+  A man of letters now doth dwell,
+  One of our Lord's most useful men,
+  He is so clever with his pen,
+  And others knows so well to hit,
+  And make ridiculous with wit;
+  And he has made a jest of me,
+  Because I made some poetry,
+  And of True Wisdom something wrote,
+  But as he likes my verses not,
+  He makes a laughing stock of me,
+  And says I'm like the Cobbler, he
+  Who criticised Apelles' art.
+  With this he tries to make me smart,
+  Because he thinks it is for me
+  To paint, and not write poetry.
+  But I have undertaken this
+  (And will not stop for him or his),
+  To learn whatever thing I can,
+  For which will blame me no wise man.
+  For he who only learns one thing,
+  And to naught else his mind doth bring,
+  To him, as to the notary,
+  It haps, who lived here as do we,
+  In this our town. To him was known
+  To write one form and one alone.
+  Two men came to him with a need
+  That he should draw them up a deed;
+  And he proceeded very well,
+  Until their names he came to spell:
+  Gotz was the first name that perplexed,
+  And Rosenstammen was the next.
+  The Notary was much astonished,
+  And thus his clients he admonished,
+  "Dear friends," he said, "you must be wrong,
+  These names don't to my form belong;
+  Franz and Fritz[84] I know full well,
+  But of no others have heard tell."
+  And so he drove away his clients,
+  And people mocked his little science.
+  To me that it may hap not so,
+  Something of all things I will know.
+  Not only writing will I do,
+  But learn to practise physic too;
+  Till men surprised will say, "Beshrew me,
+  What good this painter's medicines do me!"
+  Therefore hear and I will tell
+  Some wise receipts to keep you well.
+  A little drop of alkali,
+  Is good to put into the eye;
+  He who finds it hard to hear,
+  Should mandel-oil put in his ear;
+  And he who would from gout be free,
+  Not wine but water drink should he;
+  He who would live to be a hundred,
+  Will see my counsel has not blundered.
+  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.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 84: Equivalent to our John Doe and Richard Roe.]
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+DUeRER'S IDEAS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE
+
+Duerer often painted the Virgin's head as a mere exercise or example in
+those proportion studies with which we must presently deal.
+
+Sir W. M. CONWAY, in "Duerer's Literary Remains," p. 151.
+
+As soon as he comes to speak of the very essence of artistic work, he
+forgets theories and imitations of the antique; he knows nothing of
+composition from fragments of Nature, of measurements and speculations.
+No longer trusting to such aids as these, but launching himself boldly
+on the broad stream of Nature, he believes that he shall attain to a
+higher harmony in his work.
+
+THAUSING'S "Albert Duerer," vol. ii., p. 318.
+
+
+I
+
+The idea of a canon for human proportions has proved a great
+stumbling-block for so-called classical or academic artists. It is
+usually taken to mean an absolutely right or harmonious proportion, any
+deviation from which cannot fail to result in a diminution of beauty.
+According to their thoroughness, the devotees of this idea seek to
+arrive at such a scale of proportions for a varying number of different
+ages in either sex; often even modifying this again for diverse types,
+as tall or short, fat or lean, dark or blonde, but allowing no excessive
+variation for these causes; so that abnormally tall people and dwarfs
+are not considered. This is, I take it, what the great artist Albert
+Duerer is generally taken to have been aiming at in his books on
+proportion. It will not be difficult, I think, to show that Duerer had
+quite a different idea of what a canon of proportion should be, and how
+it should be applied. And certainly, had it been possible to study Greek
+practice more closely, and in a larger number of examples, when this
+idea (supposed to be drawn from that source) was chiefly mooted, a very
+different notion of the canon of proportion would have been forced on
+the most academical of theorists. Duerer's great superiority over such
+academical masters is, that his idea of a canon of proportion and its
+use agrees far better with what was apparently Greek practice.
+
+Any one who has followed at all the interesting attempts made by
+Professor Furtwaengler and others to group together, by attention to the
+measurements of the different parts of the figure, works belonging to
+the different masters, schools, and centres, will have perceived that he
+is led to assume a traditional canon of proportion from which a master
+deviates slightly in the direction of some bias of his own mind towards
+closer knit or more slim figures; such variations being in the earlier
+stages very slight. Again, it is supposed that from the canon followed
+by a master, different pupils may branch off in opposite directions
+according to the leanings of their personal sentiment for beauty. The
+conception of these ramifications has at least created the hope that
+critics may follow them through a great number of complications, since
+a master may modify his canon--after certain pupils have already struck
+out for themselves, and new pupils may start from his modified canon;
+and so on into an infinite criss-cross of branches, as any sculptor may
+be influenced to modify his canon by his fellows or by the masters of
+other schools whose work he comes across later. In any case, this main
+fact arises, that the canon appears as what the artist deviated from,
+not what he abided by: and any one who has any feeling for the infinite
+nicety of the results obtained by Greek sculptors will easily apprehend
+that each masterpiece established a new and slightly different canon,
+and was then in the position to be in its turn again deviated from, as
+Flaubert says:
+
+"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and
+method, which must be found out before it can be achieved."
+
+"Chayue ceuvre a faire a sa poetique en soi, qu'il faut trouver."
+
+
+II
+
+The same thing is asserted by literary critics to have been the cause of
+the repetition of subjects in Greek tragedy, and to have resulted in the
+infinite niceties of their forms, which are never the same and never
+radically new.
+
+The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded stood,
+before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the
+spectator's mind; it stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly
+seen, at the end of a long dark vista. Then came the poet, embodying
+outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment
+capriciously thrown in. Stroke upon stroke, the drama proceeded; the
+light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the
+riveted gaze of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were
+spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of
+immortal beauty.
+
+This passage from Matthew Arnold's deservedly famous preface well
+emphasises one advantage that a tradition of subject and treatment gave
+to the Greek poet as to the Greek sculptor: the economy of means it made
+possible, "not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown
+in,"--since every deviation from, every addition to, the traditional
+story and treatment, was immediately appreciated by an audience
+thoroughly conversant with that tradition, and often with several
+previous masterpieces treating it. By merely leaving out an incident, or
+omitting to appeal to a sentiment, a Greek tragedian could flood his
+whole work with a new significance. So that the temptation to be
+eccentric, the temptation to hit too hard or at random because he was
+not sure of exactly where the mind stood that he would impress, did not
+exist in anything like the same degree for him as it did for Shakespeare
+and Michael Angelo as it does for romantic and origina natures to-day.
+The absence of a sufficient body of traditional culture belonging to
+every educated person tends always to force the artist to commence by
+teaching the alphabet to his public. As Coleridge so justly remarked in
+the case of Wordsworth: "He had, like all great artists, to create the
+taste by which he was to be relished, to teach the art by which he was
+to be seen and judged." All great artists no doubt have to do this, but
+the modern artist is in the position of the Israelite who was bidden not
+only to make bricks, but to find himself in stubble and straw, as
+compared with a Greek who could appeal to traditional conceptions with
+certainty. Dr. Verrall is no doubt right when he says:
+
+Every one knows, even if the full significance of the fact is not always
+sufficiently estimated, that the tragedians of Athens did not tell their
+story at all as the telling of a story is conceived by a modern
+dramatist, whose audience, when the curtain goes up, know nothing which
+is not in the play-bill.
+
+This ignorant public, this uncultivated and unmanured field with which
+every modern artist has to commence, is the greatest let to the creator.
+What wonder that he should so often prefer to make a gaudy show with
+yellow weeds, when he perceives that there is hardly time in one man's
+life to produce a respectable crop of wheat from such a wilderness?
+
+"The story of an Athenian tragedy is never completely told; it is
+implied, or, to repeat the expression used above, it is illustrated by a
+selected scene or scenes. And the further we go back the truer this is,"
+continues Dr. Verrall; and the same was doubtless true of sculpture and
+painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance or advantage
+of this fact to the artist. For religious art, for art that appeals to
+the sum and total of a man's experience of beauty in life, a public
+cultivated in this sense is a necessity. Giotto and Fra Angelico enjoyed
+this almost to the same degree as AEschylus or Phidias; Michael Angelo
+and the great artists of the Renascence generally enjoyed it in a very
+great degree, and reaped an advantage comparable to that which Euripides
+and his contemporaries and immediate successors enjoyed. The tradition
+enabled such an artist to impress by means of subtleties, niceties, and
+refinements, instead of forcing him to attempt always to more or less
+seduce, astonish or overawe; strong measures which grow almost
+necessarily into bad habits, and end by perverting the taste they
+created. This, it has often been remarked, was the case even with
+Michael Angelo, even with Shakespeare. Yet nowadays, to enable a man to
+remark this, exceptional culture is required.
+
+
+III
+
+This idea of the use of a canon may be illustrated in many ways; for,
+like all notions which resume actual experiences, it will be found
+applicable in many spheres. Thus, on the subject of verse, the eternal
+quarrel between the poet and the pedant is, that for the first the rules
+of prosody and rhyme are only useful in so far as they make the licenses
+he takes appreciable at their just value; while for the pedant such
+licenses ever anew seem to imply ignorance of the rule or incapacity to
+follow it,--an absurd mistake, since the power to create and impress has
+little to do with the means employed; and if a man builds up for himself
+a barrier of foregone conclusions about the exact manner in which alone
+he will allow himself to be deeply impressed, it is very certain he will
+have few save painful impressions. Or take another illustration--an
+artist the other day told me that he had noticed that one could almost
+always trace a faintly ruled vertical line on the paper which the
+greatest of all modern draughtsmen used. Ingres, then, with all his
+freedom, vivacity, and accuracy of control over the point he employed to
+draw with, still found it useful to have a straight line ruled on his
+paper as a student does, and may often even have resorted to the
+plumb-line. It enabled his eye to test the subtlest deviations in the
+other lines with which he was creating the balance, swing or stability
+of a figure. Rules of art are, like this straight line, dead and
+powerless in themselves: they help both creator and lover to follow and
+appreciate the infinite freedom and subtlety of the living work. The
+same thing might be illustrated with regard to manners; a fine standard
+of social address and receptivity must be established before the
+varieties and subtleties of those whose genius creates beautiful
+relations can be appreciated at their full value in their full variety.
+This dead law must be buried in everybody's mind and heart before they
+can rise to that conscious freedom which is opposite to the freedom of
+the wild animals, who never know why they do, nor appreciate how it is
+done; neither are they able to rejoice in the address of others; much
+less can they relish the infinite refinements of exhilarating
+apprehension, which make of laughter, tears, speech, silence, nearness
+and distance, a music which holds the enraptured soul in ecstasy; which
+created and constantly renews the hope of Heaven. And what blacker
+minister of a more sterile hell than the social pedant who only knows
+the rule, and mistakes grace and delicacy, frankness and generosity, for
+more or less grave infractions of it? But the happy critic, free from
+any personal knowledge of what creation means, or what aids are likely
+to forward it, is for ever in such a hurry to correct great creators
+like Leonardo, Duerer, or Hokusai, that he fails to understand them; and
+when he has caught them saying, "This is how anger or despair is
+expressed," calmly smiles in his superiority and says,
+
+"He had a scientific law for putting a battle on to canvas, one
+condition of which was that 'there must not be a level spot which is
+not trampled with gore.' But Leonardo did no harm; his canon was based
+on literary rather than artistic interests."
+
+Analogies with scientific laws have served art and art criticism a very
+bad turn of late years. Nothing can be more useful to an artist than
+knowledge of how the emotions are expressed by the contortion of the
+features; but nobody in his senses could ever imagine that a rule for
+the expression of anger was rigid throughout and must never be departed
+from; every one approaching such a rule with a view to practice instead
+of criticism must immediately perceive that its only use is to be
+departed from in various degrees. Leonardo's advice for the painting of
+a battle-piece is excellent if it is understood in the sense in which it
+was meant,--"everything is what it is and not another thing," as Bishop
+Butler put it. Be sure and make your battle a battle indeed. It is time
+we should realise that what the great artists wrote about art is likely
+to be as sensible as are the works they created. How absurd it is for
+some one who can neither carve nor paint, much less create, to imagine
+he easily grasps the rules of art better than a great master! To such
+people let us repeat again and again Hamlet's impatient: "Oh, mend it
+altogether!"
+
+
+IV
+
+Now it will easily be seen that the causes which shape an art tradition
+may often be independent of, and foreign to, the will that creates
+beautiful objects. Religious superstition or formalism may often hem the
+artist in, and hamper his will in every direction; though it is not
+wholly accidental that the Greeks had a religion the spirit of which
+tended always to defeat the conservatism and bigotry of its priests. So
+that their formalism, instead of frustrating or warping the growth of
+their art tradition, merely served as a check that may well seem to have
+been exactly proportioned to its need; preventing the weakness or
+rankness of over rapid growth such as detracts from the art of the
+Renascence, and at the same time causing no vital injury. The spirit of
+the race deserved and created and was again in turn recreated by
+its religion.
+
+Since it is generally recognised that too much freedom is not good for
+growing life, I think that almost everybody must at this stage have
+become aware of how immensely stupid the academical idea of a canon
+appears besides this idea. How suitable both to life and the desire for
+perfection the Greek practice was! How theologically dense the
+unprogressive inflexibility of the academical practitioner! And now let
+us hear Duerer.
+
+But first I will quote from Sir Martin Conway the explanation of what
+Duerer means by the phrase, "Words of Difference."
+
+These are what he calls the "Words of Difference": large, long, small,
+stout, broad, thick, narrow, thin, young, old, fat, lean, pretty, ugly,
+hard, soft, and so forth; in fact any word descriptive of a quality
+"whereby a thing may be differentiated from the thing (normal figure)
+first made."
+
+Or, as Duerer says in another place, "difference such as maketh a thing
+fair or foul."
+
+But further, it lieth in each man's choice whether or how far he shall
+make use of all the above written "Words of Difference." For a man may
+choose whether he will learn to labour with art, wherein is the truth,
+or without art in a freedom by which everything he doth is corrupted,
+and his toil becometh a scorn to look upon to such as understand.
+
+Wherefore it is needful for every one that he use discreetness in such
+of his works as shall come to the light Whence it ariseth that he who
+would make anything aright must in no wise abate aught (that is
+essential) from Nature, neither must he lay what is intolerable upon
+her. Howbeit some will (by going to an opposite extreme) make
+alterations (from Nature) so slight that they can scarce be perceived.
+Such are of no account if they cannot be perceived; to alter over much
+also answereth not. A right mean (in such alterations) is best. But in
+this book I have departed from this right mean in order that it might be
+so much the better traced in small things. Let not him who wishes to
+proceed to some great thing imitate this my swiftness, but let him set
+more slowly (gradually) about his work, that it be not brutish but
+artistic to look upon. For figures which differ from the mean are not
+good to look upon _when_ they are wrongly and unmasterly employed.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that a skilful master beholdeth manifold
+differences of figure, all of which he might make if he had time enough,
+but which, for lack of time, he is forced to pass by. For such chances
+come very often to artists, and their imaginations also are full of
+figures which it were possible for them to make. Wherefore, if to live
+many hundred years were granted unto a man who had skill in the use of
+such art and were thereto accustomed, he would (through the power which
+God hath granted unto men) have wherewith daily to mould and make many
+new figures of men and other creatures, which none had before seen nor
+imagined. God, therefore, in such and other ways granteth great power
+unto artistic men.
+
+Although there be such talking of differences, still it is well known
+that all things that a man doth differ of their own nature one from
+another. Consequently, there liveth no artist so sure of hand as to be
+able to make two things exactly alike the one to the other, so that they
+may not be distinguished. For of all our works none is quite and
+altogether like another, and this we can in no wise avoid.
+
+We see that if we take two prints from an engraved copper-plate, or cast
+two images in a mould, very many points may immediately be found whereby
+they may be distinguished one from another. If, then, it cometh thus to
+pass in things made by processes the least liable to error, much more
+will it happen in other things which are made by the free hand.
+
+This, however, is _not the kind of Difference_ whereof I here treat; for
+I am speaking of a difference (from the mean) which a man specially
+intendeth, and which standeth in his will, of which I have spoken once
+and again....
+
+This is not the aforesaid Difference which we cannot sever from our
+work, but, such a difference as maketh a thing fair or foul, and which
+may be set forth by the "Word of Difference" dealt with above in this
+Book. If a man produce "different" figures of this kind in his work, it
+will be judged in every man's mind according to his own opinion, and
+these judgments seldom agree one with another.... Yet let every man
+beware that he make nothing impossible and inadmissible in Nature,
+unless indeed he would make some fantasy, in which it is allowed to
+mingle creatures of all kinds together....
+
+Any one who leads this carefully cannot fail to see that it is not only
+that Duerer is not "desirous of laying down rules applicable to all
+cases," or even of "proposing a definite canon for the relative
+proportions of the human body," as Thausing indeed points out (p. 305,
+v. 11): but that he does not conceive the proportions he gives as even
+approximately capable of these functions; and considers it indeed the
+very nature and special use of a canon of proportions to be wilfully
+deviated from, pointing out that, though the deviations of which he is
+speaking are slight and subtle, they are not to be confused with the
+accidental ones that can but appear even in work done by mechanical
+processes. Rather they are such variation as a man "specially intendeth,
+and which standeth in his will;" and again, "such a difference as maketh
+a thing fair or foul;" for the use of these normal proportions is that
+they may enable an artist to deviate from the normal without the
+proportions he chooses having the air of monstrosities or mistakes or
+negligences. He does not insist that either of the scales he gives is
+the best that could be, even for this purpose, but that they are
+sufficiently good to be used; and he would have marvelled at the wonder
+that has been caused in innocent critical minds that in his own work he
+adhered to them so little. He never intended them to be adhered to.
+
+
+V
+
+It may be objected that Duerer certainly sometimes thought of a Canon of
+Proportion as a perfect rule, because he wrote on a MS. page as
+follows:--
+
+Vitruvius, the ancient architect, whom the Romans employed upon great
+buildings, says that whosoever desires to build should study the
+perfection of the human figure, for in it are discovered the most secret
+mysteries of proportion. So, before I say anything about architecture, I
+will state how a well-formed man should be made, and then about a woman,
+a child and a horse. Any object may be proportioned out (_literally_,
+measured) in a similar way. Therefore, hear first of all what Vitruvius
+says about the human figure, which he learnt from the greatest masters,
+painters and founders, who were highly famed. They said that the human
+figure is as follows.
+
+That the face from the chin upward to where the hair begins is the
+tenth part of a man, and that an out-stretched hand is the same
+length, &c.
+
+[Illustration: "This is my appearance in the eighteenth year of my age"
+Charcoal-drawing in the Academy, Vienna _Face p._288]
+
+And again in another place, as Sir Martin Conway points out, he gives a
+religious basis to this notion,[85] "the Creator fashioned men once for
+all as they must be, and I hold that the perfection of form and beauty
+is contained in the sum of all men." In an obvious sense these passages
+certainly run counter to those which I have quoted (pp. 285-207): but I
+would like to point out that these are dogmatic assertions about
+something that if it were true could never be proved by experience (see
+also pp. 64, 254), those former are Duerer's advice with a view to
+practice. Men frequently carry about a considerable amount of dogmatic
+opinion, which has so little connection with actual experience that it
+is never brought to the test without being noticeably incommoded by it.
+Yet it is not absolutely necessary to consider Duerer as inconsistent in
+regard to this matter, even to this degree.
+
+The beauty of form which he held had been Adam's, and which was now
+parcelled out among his vast progeny in various amounts as a consequence
+of his fall--this beauty of form doubtless Duerer considered it part of
+an artist's business to recollect and reveal in his work. This beauty is
+an ideal, and his canon (or rather canons) were intended as means to
+help the artist to approach towards the realisation of that ideal. It is
+obvious also that a man occupied in comparing the proportions of those
+whom he considers to be exceptionally beautiful will develop and feed
+his power of imagining beautifully proportioned figures. It would be
+futile to deny that this is very much what took place in the evolution
+of Greek statues, or that such works are perhaps of all others the most
+central and satisfying to the human spirit. The sentences that precede
+that quoted by Sir Martin are Greek in tendency.
+
+A good figure cannot be made without industry and care; it should
+therefore be well considered before it is begun, so that it be correctly
+made. For the lines of its form cannot be traced by compass or rule, but
+must be drawn by the hand from point to point, so that it is easy to go
+wrong in them. And for such figures great attention should be paid to
+human proportions, and all their kinds should be investigated. _I hold
+that the more nearly and accurately a figure is made to resemble a man,
+so much the better the work will be._ If the best parts chosen from many
+well-formed men are united in one figure, it will be worthy of praise.
+But some are of another opinion, and discuss how men ought to be made. I
+will not argue with them about that. I hold Nature for Master in such
+matters, and the fancy of men for delusion.
+
+And then follows the passage quoted by Sir Martin Conway (see p. 289).
+It is obvious that, joined with the two preceding sentences, this
+passage can in no way be made to serve the academical practitioner, as
+it seems to when taken alone. In the same way, the sentence printed in
+italics in the above quotation, if isolated, would certainly seem to
+serve the scientific practitioners and their slavish realism, though in
+connection with those that follow this is no longer possible. Duerer
+regards nature as providing raw material for a creation which may not
+tally exactly with any individual natural object. This was the Greek
+artists' idea of the serviceableness of nature, as revealed both by
+their practice and by such traditions as that concerning Zeuxis and his
+five beautiful models for the figure of Venus. But Duerer does not
+confine the use of his canons even to this aim, but clearly perceived
+their utility in regard to quite other aims, as is shown by the passage
+beginning, "It is not to be wondered at," &c. (see p. 286), in which the
+imagination of figures not merely intended to embody beautiful or newly
+assorted proportions is clearly considered; and if we review Duerer's
+actual work we shall see how much oftener he created figures for
+picturesque or dramatic effect than he did to embody beautiful
+proportions in them, though he evidently also considered the last
+purpose as of the first importance, as we see when he goes on to say:
+
+Let any one who thinks I alter the human form too much or too little
+take care to avoid my error and follow nature. There are many different
+kinds of men in various lands: whoso travels far will find this to be
+so, and see it before his eyes. We are considering about the most
+beautiful human figure conceivable, but (only) the Maker of the world
+knows how that should be. Even if we succeed well we do but approach
+towards it from afar. For we ourselves have differences of perception,
+and the vulgar who follow only their own taste usually err. Therefore I
+do not advise any one to follow me, for I only do what I can, and that
+is not enough even to satisfy myself.
+
+The extreme complexity of Duerer's ideas and their application was a
+natural result of their having been born of his experience. For
+excellence is extremely various, and widely scattered through the world.
+The simplicity of a true work of art results merely from some excellence
+having been singled out from all foreign circumstances, and presented as
+vividly as it was intensely apprehended. This excellence may be one of
+proportion or one of many other kinds. Now, a figure conceived by an
+artist, whether he value it for its choicely assorted proportions or for
+picturesque or dramatic effect, may need to be developed before it is
+serviceable in an elaborate work of art.
+
+Artists who work rapidly, and, whose pictures are dominated by passing
+moods, have always been in the habit of taking great licences with
+proportion, and, indeed, with all matters of fact. Duerer's aim is to
+endow the artist who elaborates his work slowly with a similar freedom.
+This energy and power in rapid work it is the ever-renewed despair of
+artists to feel themselves losing in the process of elaboration. And one
+of the reasons for this is that in larger or more elaborate work, the
+statement, being more ample, is expected to be also more comprehensive
+and exhaustive; for the time required begets after-thoughts as to the
+real nature of the object viewed apart from the mood, which is the only
+excuse for the work; and so some of the artist's attention is drawn away
+to facts and aspects which it would have been the success of his work to
+have ignored. Duerer's object was to help a man to carry out his
+essential intention, and that alone, in a carefully elaborated picture;
+the problems faced were precisely similar to those so successfully coped
+with in Greek statues. In the first place, he would have pointed out
+that all sketches will not bear elaboration if their merit depends on
+extreme licence, for instance. Next, that a man who had a standard of
+proportion could see wherein the deviations of his sketched figure were
+essential to the effect he wished it to produce, and wherein they were
+unessential. Then, if he drew the normal figure large, he would be able
+to deviate from it in exactly the right places and to the right degree
+to reproduce the desired effect. But to do this he must also have a
+general notion of how deviations from a normal proportion could be made
+consistent throughout all the measurements involved not that he would in
+every case want to make them consistent. Now, there is a class of
+artists for whom all these suggestions of Duerer's must for ever remain
+useless, for all science of production is impossible for those whose
+only success lies in improvisation; such improvisations, however
+dazzling or however delightful they may be, are, nevertheless, the class
+of art-works furthest removed in spirit and in method from Greek
+statuary. I do not say that they need be inferior; I say that they are
+opposite in method. And, had circumstances permitted, or Duerer's dowry
+of great gifts been more complete than it was, and enabled him to become
+as great a creator of pictures as he is a great draughtsman and
+portrait-painter, no doubt his pictures would have resembled Greek
+statues both in their effect and their method, however different they
+might have been in subject and in range. To talk about "beauty" being
+sacrificed to "truth," with Prof. Thausing; or the ideal of the North
+being "strength" in works of art as in life, with Sir Martin Conway;--is
+to confuse the issue and deceive oneself. To have mistaken the proper
+end of art, beauty, by thinking it was "truth" or "strength," is to have
+failed to labour in the right direction; that is all-who-ever may
+condone the failure.
+
+
+VI
+
+Again, Sir Martin Conway tells us:
+
+The laws of perspective can be deduced with certainty from mathematical
+first principles, the canon of proportions' could only be constructed
+empirically as the result of repeated observations. Nevertheless, once
+constructed, it can certainly be used as Duerer suggested. Its use has
+practically been superseded by the study of anatomy.
+
+This last phrase shows us in a flash how far the writer when he wrote it
+was from apprehending Duerer's meaning. How could the study of anatomy
+ever do for an artist what Duerer was trying to do? No doubt Sir Martin
+had Michael Angelo in his mind's eye; and it is true that he studied
+anatomy, and that his influence has been, on the whole, paramount with
+artists attempting subjects of this kind ever since. Whether Michael
+Angelo studied proportion or not, his practice exemplifies Duerer's
+meaning splendidly. No anatomical research could have led him to
+construct figures nine to twelve, or even fifteen to twenty, heads
+high--to do which, as his work developed, more and more became his
+practice, especially in designs and sketches for compositions. To arrive
+at such proportions he followed his imaginative instinct. He found that
+these monstrous deviations from the normal (which, of course, in a
+general sense he recognised, whether he gave any study to rendering it
+precise or not) produced the effect on his mind that he wished to
+produce on the minds of others--an effect that was emotional and
+peculiar to his habitual moods. We know that his constitution gave him
+the staying-power, while his fiery Titanic spirit gave him the energy,
+to carry out and perfect his mighty frescoes and statues at the same
+heat that the creative hour yields other men for the production of a
+sketch alone. This giant son of Time was able to live for days and weeks
+together in a state of mind two or three consecutive hours of which
+exhaust the average master even. Considering the rapidity and intensity
+of his mental process, it is a miracle that, in so many works and to so
+great a degree, he respected the too much and too little of human
+reason, and allowed himself to be governed by what the Greeks called a
+sense of measure, instead of yielding to his native impetuosity and
+becoming an a-thousand-fold-greater-Blake; and illustrating, to the
+delight of active and short-winded intelligences, and the stupefaction
+of slow and dull ones, the futility of eccentricity and the frivolity of
+passion when unseconded by constancy of character and labour. For
+futile, in the arts, is whatever the sense of beauty must condemn,
+however well-intentioned; and frivolous is the passion that forgets the
+end it would attain, and becomes merely a private rhapsody, however
+astonishing its developments; slowly but surely it will be seen that
+such fireworks do not vitally concern us. The proportions of many of
+Michael Angelo's figures are as far removed from any possible normal
+standard as what Duerer calls "this my swiftness," in the abnormally tall
+and stout figures among the diagrams illustrating his book.
+
+And this is where Duerer's idea comes nearer to Greek practice. For by
+letting the striking rather than the subtle govern his departures from
+the mean, Michael Angelo found himself always bound to go beyond
+himself; as the palate which once has entertained strong stimulants
+demands that the dose be continually strengthened. Now this is in entire
+conformity with the impatience which was perhaps his greatest weakness;
+just as Duerer's too methodical approach is in conformity with that
+acquiescence in the insufficiency of his conditions which made him in
+his weak moments swear never again to undertake those better classes of
+work which were less adequately paid, or made him content to display
+mere manual dexterity rather than do nothing on his days of darkness,
+suffering and depression: we may add, which made him choose to live at
+Nuremberg and refuse a better income and more suitable surroundings
+at Venice.
+
+It is obviously the more hopeful way to create a beautiful figure first
+and discover a mathematical way of reproducing its most essential
+proportions afterwards; and no doubt this is what Duerer intended should
+be done; and in consequence he felt a need, and sought to supply it, for
+mechanical means to simplify, shorten and render more sure that part of
+the process which must necessarily partake something of the nature of
+drudgery, if great finish is to be combined with splendid design. The
+romantic, impulsive _improvisatore_ does not feel this need, considers
+it bound to defeat its own aim; and, given his own gifts, he is right.
+But none the less, there are the Greek statues elaborated with a
+thoroughness which, if it ever dims or veils the creative intention,
+does so in a degree so slight as to seem amply compensated by the sense
+of ease maintained in spite of the innumerable difficulties overcome;
+there are besides a score or more of Duerer's copper engravings with
+their imperturbable adequacy of minute painstaking, never for a moment
+sleepy or mechanical or lifeless. The one aim need not excommunicate the
+other even in the same individual; far less need this be so in different
+artists, with diverse temperaments, diverse aptitudes.
+
+
+VII
+
+The application of this idea does not end with the simple proportions of
+measurement between the limbs and parts of the figure; it is also
+concerned with what is called the modelling, and the treatment of
+surfaces such as the draperies, the hair, the fleshy portions and those
+beneath which the bony structure comes to prominence; in painting it may
+be applied to the chiaroscuro and colour. Reynolds' remarks on the
+Venetians in his Eighth Discourse well illustrate this fact. He says:
+
+It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed that the masses of
+light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or a
+yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be
+kept _almost_ entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support
+and set off these warm colours; and, for this purpose, a small
+_proportion_ of cold colours will be sufficient.
+
+If this conduct be reversed, let the light be cold, and the surrounding
+colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine
+painters; and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of
+Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid or harmonious.[86]
+
+Here we see a great colourist attempting to establish a canon for
+colour. Had he lived at an earlier period, before expression had become
+generally a subject of criticism, he would have described his discovery
+in less guarded and elastic language, such as is now applied to
+scientific laws. And then he might have been as excusably misunderstood
+as Leonardo and Duerer have been; as it is, the misunderstanding dealt
+out to him is quite without excuse.
+
+Rembrandt, not only exemplifies the impressiveness of great deviations
+in structural proportions in much the same degree as Michael Angelo,
+using what the Greeks and Duerer would doubtless have considered a
+dangerous liberty, however much they might have felt bound to admire the
+results obtained; not only does he do this when, for instance, he
+represents Jesus now as a giant, now as almost a dwarf, according to the
+imaginative impression which he chooses to create; but he follows a
+similar process in his black and white pattern. For among his works
+there are etchings, which, though often supposed to have been left
+unfinished, are discerned by those with a sense for beauties of this
+class to be marvellously complete, stimulating, and satisfying, and in
+the nicest harmony with the other impressions produced by the mental
+point of view from which the subject is viewed, as also by the main
+lines and proportions of the composition, and to yield the visual
+delight most suitable to the occasion. Duerer and the Greeks are at one
+with Michael Angelo and Rembrandt in condemning by their practice all
+purely mechanical application of ideas or methods to the production of
+works of creative art, such as is exemplified by artists of more limited
+aims and powers; by academical practitioners, by theoretical scientists
+calling themselves impressionists, luminarists, naturalists, or any
+other name. For artists whose temperaments are impeded by some unhappy
+slowness, or difficulty in concentrating themselves, methods of
+procedure similar to those elaborated by Duerer in his books on
+proportion, properly understood, must be a real aid and benefit; as
+those who are essentially improvisors may help themselves and supply
+their deficiencies by methods similar to those which Reynolds describes
+as practised by Gainsborough.
+
+"He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of
+broken stones, dried herbs and pieces of broken glass, which he
+magnified and improved into rocks, trees and water" (Fourteenth
+Discourse).
+
+This process resembles that of tracing faces or scenes from the life of
+gnomes in glowing caverns among coals of fire on a winter's eve; it is
+resorted to in one form or another by all creative artists, but it is
+peculiarly useful to men like Gainsborough, whose art tends always to
+become an improvisation, whatever strenuous discipline they may have
+subjected themselves to in their days of ardent youth.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Perhaps Duerer's actual standards for the normal, his actual methods for
+creating self-consistent variations from it, are not likely to prove of
+much use, even when artists shall be sufficiently educated to understand
+them; nevertheless, the principle which informs them has been latent in
+the work of all great creators; is marvellously fulfilled indeed, in
+Greek statuary. The work of Antoine Louis Barye, that great and
+little-understood master--as far as I am able to judge, the only modern
+artist who has made science serve him instead of being seduced by
+her--exemplifies this central idea of Duerer's almost as fully as the
+Greek masterpieces. The future of art appears to me to lie in the hands
+of those artists who shall be able to grapple with the new means offered
+them by the advance of science, as he did, and be as little or even less
+seduced than he was by the foolish idea that art can become science
+without ceasing to be art, which has handicapped and defeated the
+efforts of so many industrious and talented men of late years. So truly
+is this the case that the improvisor appears to many as the only true
+artist, and his uncontrolled caprices as the farthest reach of human
+constructive power.
+
+In any case, no artist is unhappy if a docile and hopeful disposition
+enables him to see in the masterpieces of Greek sculpture the reward of
+an easy balance of both temperaments and methods, the improvisor's and
+the elaborator's, under felicitous circumstances, by men better endowed
+than himself. And this though never history and archaeology shall be in
+a position to give him information sufficient to determine that his
+faith is wholly warranted.
+
+  A golden age is a golden dream, that sheds
+  A golden light on waking hours, on toil,
+  On leisure, and on finished works.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 85: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 86: See also III Discourse where he defends Duerer against
+Bacon.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY
+
+
+I
+
+I now intend to re-arrange what seem the most interesting of the
+sentences on the theory of art which are found in Duerer's MSS. and books
+on proportion. He did not give them the final form or order which he
+intended, and it seems to me that to arrange the more important
+according to the subjects they treat of will be the simplest way of
+arriving at general conceptions as to their tendency and value. We shall
+thus bring together repetitions of the same thought and contradictory
+answers to the same question; and after each series of sentences, I
+myself shall discuss the points raised, illustrating my remarks from
+modern writers whose opinion in these matters seems to me deserving of
+most attention. I have heard it said by the late Mr. Arthur Strong that
+Duerer's art is always didactic; and Duerer as a writer on art certainly
+has ever before his mind this one object, to teach others, or, as I
+should prefer to phrase it, to help others to learn. For he himself is
+continually confessing that he cannot yet answer his own questions, and
+it seems to me that the best teacher is always he who most desires to
+increase his knowledge, not indeed to hoard it as some do and make of
+it a personal possession; intellectual misers, for ever gnashing their
+teeth over the reputations or the pretensions of others. No, but one who
+desires knowledge for its own sake and welcomes it in others with as
+much satisfaction as he gains it for himself. Docility, i.e.,
+teachableness, let me point out once more, seems to be the necessary
+midwife of genius, without the aid of which it often labours in vain, or
+brings forth strange incongruous and misshapen births.
+
+Sad is the condition of a brilliant and fiery spirit shut up in a man's
+brain without the humble assistance of this lively, meek and patient
+virtue! What unrelieved and insupportable throes of agony must be borne
+by such a spirit, and how often does such labour end in misanthropy or
+madness! The records of the lives of exceptionally-gifted men tell us
+only too clearly what pains those are, and how frequently they have been
+borne. So I fancy I cannot do better than choose out for my first
+section sentences which praise or advocate the effort to learn, or
+attempt to enlighten those who make such an effort on the choice of
+teachers and disciplines.
+
+
+II
+
+I shall not hesitate to transpose sentences even when they appear in
+connected passages, in order, as I hope, to bring out more clearly their
+connection. For Duerer was not a writer by profession, and his thoughts
+were often more abundant than he knew how to deal with.
+
+Before starting, however, I must prefix to my quotations some account of
+the four MS. books in the British Museum from which they are principally
+taken. Rough drafts in Pirkheimer's handwriting were found among them,
+but of Duerer's work Sir Martin Conway tells us:
+
+The volumes contain upwards of seven hundred leaves and scraps of paper
+of various kinds, covered at different dates with more or less elaborate
+outline drawings, and more or less corrected drafts for works published
+or planned by Duerer. Interspersed among them are geometrical and
+other sketches.
+
+He was in the habit of correcting and re-copying, again and again, what
+he had written. Sometimes he would jot down a sentence alongside of
+matter to which it had no relation. This sentence he would afterwards
+introduce in its right connection. There are in these volumes no less
+than four drafts of the beginning of a Dedication to Pirkheimer of the
+Books of Human Proportions. Two other drafts of this same dedication are
+among the Dresden MSS. The opening sentences of the Introduction to the
+same work were likewise, as will be seen, the subject of
+frequent revision.
+
+These drafts, notes and sketches date from 1508 to 1523. Some collector
+had had them cut out, gummed together, and bound without the slightest
+regard to order, or even to the sequence of consecutive passages. In
+January 1890 the volumes were taken to pieces and rearranged by Miss
+Lina Eckenstein, who had previously made the admirable translations of
+them for Sir Martin Conway's "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," from
+which my quotations are taken.
+
+The contents of the volumes as rearranged may be roughly described as
+follows:
+
+Volume 1. Drawings of whole figures and portions of the body,
+illustrating Duerer's theories of Proportion. Drawings of a solid
+octogon. Six coloured drawings of crystals. The description of the
+Ionic order of architecture. Drawings of columns with measurements. A
+scale for Human Proportions. A table of contents for a work on Geometry.
+Notes on perspective, curves, folds, &c. The different kinds of temple
+after Vitruvius. Mathematical diagrams, &c.
+
+Volume II. Draft of a dedicatory letter to King Ferdinand (see page
+180). Drafts and drawings for "The Art of Fortification." Drawing of a
+shield with a rearing horse. Mantles of Netherlandish women and nuns. A
+Latin inscription for his own portrait. Notes on "Proportion," and on
+the feast of the Rosenkranz. Scale for Human Proportions. An alphabet.
+Draft of a dedication for the books on Proportion. Sketch of a skeleton.
+Studies of architecture. Venetian houses and roofs. Sketches of a
+church, a house, a tower, a drapery, &c.
+
+Volume III. Drafts of a projected work on Painting and on the study of
+Proportion. Drafts for the dedication, the preface, and for a work on
+Esthetics. Drawings of a male body, a female body, and a piece of
+drapery. Notes and drawings for the proportions of heads, hands, feet,
+outline curves, a child, a woman, &c.
+
+Volume IV. Proportions of a man, a fat woman, the head of the average
+woman, the young woman, &c. Short Profession of Faith (see page 130).
+Scale for Human Proportions, &c. Fragments of the Preface of Essay on
+Aesthetics, &c. Grimacing and distorted faces. Use of measurements. On
+the characters of faces, thick, thin, broad, narrow, &c. Sketches of a
+dragon and of an angel for Maximilian's Triumphal Procession. List of
+Luther's works (see page 130). Drawings of human bodies proportioned
+to squares.
+
+[Illustration: "UNA VILANA WENDISCH" Pen drawing with wash background
+in the collection of Mrs. Seymour _face_ p. 304]
+
+See the description in "Duerer's Schriftlicher Nachlass" (Lange und
+Fuhse), page 263, from which the above abstract is made.
+
+Sir Martin Conway continues:
+
+In these volumes Duerer is seen, sometimes writing under the influence of
+impetuous impulse, sometimes with leisurely care, allowing his pen to
+embroider the script with graceful marginal flourishes.
+
+At what period of his career Duerer first conceived the idea of writing a
+comprehensive work upon the theory and practice of art is unknown. It
+was certainly before the year 1512. The following list of chapters may
+perhaps be an early sketch of the plan.
+
+Ten things are contained in the little book.
+The first, the proportions of a young child.
+The second, proportions of a grown man.
+The third, proportions of a woman.
+The fourth, proportions of a horse.
+The fifth, something about architecture.
+The sixth, about an apparatus through which it can be
+  shown that 'all things may be traced.
+The seventh, about light and shade.
+The eighth, about colours, how to paint like nature.
+The ninth, about the ordering (composition) of the
+  picture.
+The tenth, about free painting, which alone is made by
+  Imagination without any other help.
+
+
+III
+
+Glad enough should we be to attain unto great knowledge without toil,
+for nature has implanted in us the desire of knowing all things,
+thereby to discern a truth of all things. But our dull wit cannot come
+unto such perfectness of all art, truth, and wisdom. Yet are we not,
+therefore, shut out altogether from all arts. If we want to sharpen our
+reason by learning and to practise ourselves therein, having once found
+the right path we may, step by step, seek, learn, comprehend, and
+finally reach and attain unto something true. Wherefore, he that
+understandeth how to learn somewhat in his leisure time, whereby he may
+most certainly be enabled to honour God, and to do what is useful both
+for himself and others, that man doeth well; and we know that in this
+wise he will gain much experience in art and will be able to make known
+its truth for our good. It is right, therefore, for one man to teach
+another. He that joyfully doeth so, upon him shall much be bestowed by
+God, from whom we receive all things. He hath highest praise.
+
+One finds some who know nothing and learn nothing. They despise
+learning, and say that much evil cometh of the arts, and that some are
+wholly vile. I, on the contrary, hold that no art is evil, but that all
+are good. A sword is a sword which may be used either for murder or for
+justice. Similarly the arts are in themselves good. What God hath
+formed, that is good, misuse it how ye will.
+
+Thou findest arts of all kinds; choose then for thyself that which is
+like to be of greatest service to thee. Learn it; let not the difficulty
+thereof vex thee till thou hast accomplished somewhat wherewith thou
+mayest be satisfied.
+
+It is very necessary for a man to know some one thing by reason of the
+usefulness which ariseth therefrom. Wherefore we should all gladly
+learn, for the more we know so much the more do we resemble the likeness
+of God, who verily knoweth all things.
+
+The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the better doth he become,
+and so much the more love doth he win for the arts and for things
+exalted. Wherefore a man ought not to play the wanton, but should learn
+in season.
+
+Is the artistic man pious and by nature good? He escheweth the evil and
+chooseth the good; and hereunto serve the arts, for they give the
+discernment of good and evil.
+
+Some may learn somewhat of all arts, but that is not given to every man.
+Nevertheless, there is no rational man so dull but that he may learn the
+one thing towards which his fancy draweth him most strongly. Hence no
+man is excused from learning something.
+
+Let no man put too much confidence in himself, for many (pairs of eyes)
+see better than one. Though it is possible for a man to comprehend more
+than a thousand (men), still that cometh but rarely to pass.
+
+Many fall into error because they follow their own taste alone;
+therefore let each look to it that his inclination blind not his
+judgment. For every mother is well pleased with her own child, and thus
+also it ariseth that many painters paint figures resembling themselves.
+
+He that worketh in ignorance worketh more painfully than he that worketh
+with understanding; therefore let all learn to understand aright.
+
+Now I know that in our German nation, at the present time, are many
+painters who stand in need of instruction, for they lack all real art,
+yet they nevertheless have many large works to do. Forasmuch then as
+they are so numerous, it is very needful for them to learn to better
+their work.
+
+Willingly will I impart my teaching, hereafter written, to the man who
+knoweth little and would gladly learn; but I will not be cumbered with
+the proud, who, according to their own estimate of themselves, know all
+things, and are best, and despise all else. From true artists, however,
+such as can show their meaning with the hand, I desire to learn humbly
+and with much thankfulness.
+
+A thing thou beholdest is easier of belief than that thou hearest, but
+whatever is both heard and seen we grasp more firmly and lay hold on
+more securely. I will therefore do the work in both ways, that thus I
+may be better understood.
+
+Whosoever will, therefore, let him hear and see what I say, do, and
+teach, for I hope it may be of service and not for a hindrance to the
+better arts, nor lead thee to neglect better things.
+
+I hear moreover of no writer in modern times by whom aught hath been
+written and made known which I might read for my improvement. For some
+hide their art in great secrecy, and others write about things whereof
+they know nothing, so that their words are nowise better than mere
+noise, as he that knoweth somewhat is swift to discover. I therefore
+will write down with God's help the little that I know. Though many will
+scorn it I am not troubled, for I well know that it is easier to cast
+blame on a thing than to make anything better. Moreover, I will expound
+my meaning as clearly and plainly as I can; and, were it possible, I
+would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
+cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver or gold. I
+further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
+write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
+length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
+great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something burning
+and ye all add to it with skilful furthering, a blaze may in time arise
+therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world.
+
+I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same
+touchstone as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the
+world prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world
+esteemeth beautiful that will we also hold for beautiful, and ourselves
+strive to produce the like.
+
+No one need blindly follow this theory of mine as though it were quite
+perfect, for human nature has not yet so far degenerated that another
+man cannot discover something better. So each may use my teaching as
+long as it seems good to him, or until he finds something better. Where
+he is not willing to accept it, he may well hold that this doctrine is
+not written for him, but for others who are willing.
+
+That must be a strangely dull head which never trusts itself to find out
+anything fresh, but only travels along the old path, simply following
+others and not daring to reflect for itself. For it beseems each
+understanding, in following another, not to despair of itself
+discovering something better. If that is done, there remaineth no doubt
+but that in time this art will again reach the perfection it attained
+amongst the ancients.
+
+Much will hereafter be written about subjects and refinements of
+painting. Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will
+write both well and better about this art, and will teach it better than
+I; for I myself hold my art at a very mean value, for I know what my
+faults are. Let every man therefore strive to better these my errors
+according to his powers. Would to God it were possible for me to see the
+work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I
+know that I might be improved upon. Ah! how often in my sleep do I
+behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof never
+appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake, even the remembrance of
+them leaveth me.
+
+Compare also the passages already quoted,(pp. 15,16,26).
+
+
+IV
+
+"What an admirable temper!" is the exclamation which expresses our first
+feeling on reading the foregoing sentences. It renews the spirit of a
+man merely to peruse such things. Scales fall from our eyes, and we see
+what we most essentially are, with pleasure, as good children gleefully
+recognise their goodness: and at the same time we are filled with
+contrition that we should have ever forgotten it. And this that we most
+essentially are rational beings, lovers of goodness, children of
+hope,--how directly Duerer appeals to it: "Nature has implanted in us the
+desire of knowing all things." It reminds one of Ben Jonson's:--
+
+It is a false quarrel against nature, that she helps understanding but
+in a few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if
+they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run,
+&c., which, if they lose it, is through their own sluggishness, and by
+that means they become her prodigies, not her children.
+
+There is something refreshing and inspiriting in the mere conviction of
+our teachableness; and when the same author, referring to Plato's
+travels in search of knowledge, says, "He laboured, so must we," we do
+not find the comparison humiliating either to Plato or ourselves. For
+"without a way there is no going," and every man of superior mould says
+to us with more or less of benignity, "I am the way: follow me." Such
+means or ways of attainment have been followed by all whose success is
+known to us, and are followed now by all "finely touched and gifted
+men." I might quote in illustration of these assertions the whole of
+Reynolds' Sixth Discourse, so marvellous for its acute and delicate
+discrimination; but I will content myself with a few leading passages:
+
+We cannot suppose that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation
+of others.
+
+It is a common observation that no art was ever invented and carried to
+perfection at the same time.
+
+The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who
+resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will soon be reduced to
+the poorest of all imitations, he will be obliged to imitate himself,
+and to repeat what he has often before repeated.
+
+The truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's
+thoughts an encumbrance to him, can have no very great strength of mind
+or genius of his own to be destroyed: so that not much harm will be done
+at the worst.
+
+Of course, this last phrase will not apply universally; we must remember
+that the man who sets out to become an artist, or claims to be one by
+native gift, has made apparent that he is the possessor of no mean
+ambition. The humblest may see a way of improvement in their betters,
+and obey the command, "Follow me." Every man is not called to follow
+great artists, but only those who are peculiarly fitted to tread the
+difficult paths that climb Olympus-hill. Yet to all men alike the great
+artist in life, he who wedded failure to divinity, says, "Learn of me
+that I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to
+your souls."
+
+He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never
+proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of his
+imitation. He professes only to follow; and he that follows must
+necessarily be behind.
+
+It is of course impossible to surpass perfection, but it is possible to
+be made one with it.
+
+To find excellences, however dispersed, to discover beauties, however
+concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded,
+can be the work only of him who, having a mind always alive to his art,
+has extended his views to all ages and to all schools; and has acquired
+from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself a
+well-digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is
+referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of
+that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from
+every school; selects both from what is great and what is little; brings
+home knowledge from the east and from the west; making the universe
+tributary towards furnishing his mind, and enriching his works with
+originality and variety of inventions.
+
+In this tine passage we get back to our central idea in regard to the
+sense of proportion "making the universe tributary towards furnishing
+his mind"; while in the "discovery of beauties" the complete artist
+"selects both from what is great and what is little," from the clouds of
+heaven and from the dunghills of the farmyard.
+
+Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters for ever. Study,
+as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, and on the principles
+on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those
+masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to
+imitate, and at the same time as rivals with whom you are to contend.
+For "no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any
+other terms."
+
+Yes, an artist is a child who chooses his parents, nor is he limited to
+only two. Religion tells all men they have a Father, who is God;
+philosophy and tradition repeat, "man has a mother, who is Nature."
+These sayings are platitudes; their application is so obvious that it is
+now generally forgotten. If God is a Father, it is the soul that chooses
+Him; if Nature is a mother, it is the man who chooses to regard her as
+such, since to the greater number it is well known she seems but a
+stepmother, and a cruel one at that. Elective affinities, chosen
+kindred!--"tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you who you
+are" (what you are worth). How many artist waifs one sees nowadays! lost
+souls, who choose to be nobody's children, and think they can teach
+themselves all they need to know.
+
+I think the very striking agreement between artists so totally different
+in every respect except eminence, docility and anxiety to further art,
+as Duerer and Reynolds, ought to impress our minds very deeply: even
+though, as is certainly the case, the way they point out has been very
+greatly abandoned of late years, and public institutions in this and
+other countries proceed to further art on quite other lines; even though
+critics are almost unanimous in knowing better both the end and the way
+than the great masters who had not the advantage of a dash of science in
+their hydromel to make it sparkle, but instead made it yet richer and
+thicker by stirring up with it piety and religion. I think this
+"cock-tail and sherry-cobbler" art criticism of to-day is very
+deleterious to the digestion, and that the piety and enthusiasm which
+Duerer and Reynolds worked into their art were more wholesome, and better
+supplied the needs and deficiencies of artistic temperaments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LOST TRADITION
+
+
+I
+
+Many centuries ago the great art of painting was held in high honour by
+mighty kings, and they made excellent artists rich and held them worthy,
+accounting such inventiveness a creating power like God's. For the
+imagination of a good painter is full of figures, and were it possible
+for him to live for ever, he would always have from his inward ideas,
+whereof Plato speaks, something new to set forth by the work of
+his hand.
+
+Many hundred years ago there were still some famous painters, such as
+those named Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Polycleitus, Parrhasius,
+Lysippus, Protogenes, and the rest, some of whom wrote about their art
+and very artfully described it and gave it plainly to light: but their
+praise-worthy books are, so far, unknown to us, and perhaps have been
+altogether lost by war, driving forth of the peoples, and alterations of
+laws and beliefs--a loss much to be regretted by every wise man. It
+often came to pass that noble "Ingenia" were destroyed by barbarous
+oppressors of art; for if they saw figures traced in a few lines they
+thought it nought but vain, devilish sorcery. And in destroying them
+they attempted to honour God by something displeasing to Him; and to use
+the language of men, God was angry with all destroyers of the works of
+great mastership, which is only attained by much toil, labour, and
+expenditure of time, and is bestowed by God alone. Often do I sorrow
+because I must be robbed of the aforesaid masters' books of art; but the
+enemies of art despise these things.
+
+Pliny writeth that the old painters and sculptors--such as Apelles,
+Protogenes, and the rest--told very artistically in writing how a
+well-built man's figure might be measured out. Now it may well have come
+to pass that these noble books were misunderstood and destroyed as
+idolatrous in the early days of the Church. For they would have said
+Jupiter should have such proportions, Apollo such others; Venus shall be
+thus, Hercules thus; and so with all the rest. Had it, however, been my
+fate to be there at the time, I would have said: "Oh dear, holy lords
+and fathers, do not so lamentably destroy the nobly discovered arts,
+which have been gotten by great toil and labour, only because of the
+abuses made of them. For art is very hard, and we might and would use it
+for the great honour and glory of God. For, even as the ancients used
+the fairest figure of a man to represent their false god Apollo, we will
+employ the same for Christ the Lord, who is fairest of all the earth;
+and as they figured Venus as the loveliest of women, so will we in like
+manner set down the same beauteous form for the most pure Virgin Mary,
+the mother of God; and of Hercules will we make Samson, and thus will we
+do with all the rest, for such books shall we get never more."
+Wherefore, though that which is lost ariseth not again, yet a man may
+strive after new lore; and for these reasons I have been moved to make
+known my ideas here following, in order that others may ponder the
+matter further, and may thus come to a new and better way and
+foundation.
+
+I certainly do not deny that, if the books of the ancients who wrote
+about the art of painting still lay before our eyes, my design might be
+open to the false interpretation that I thought to find out something
+better than what was known unto them. These books, however, have been
+totally lost in the lapse of time; so I cannot be justly blamed for
+publishing my opinions and discoveries in writing, for that is exactly
+what the ancients did. If other competent men are thereby induced to do
+the like, our descendants have something which they may add to and
+improve upon, and thus the art of painting may in time advance and reach
+its perfection.
+
+
+II
+
+Whether we should exercise our intellects or logical sense alone upon
+the records and remains of past ages, or whether they may not be better
+employed for the exercise and edification of the imaginative faculties,
+would seem to be a question which, though they did not perhaps in set
+terms put to themselves, modern historians have very summarily answered;
+and I think answered wrongly. The records of the past, the records even
+of yesterday, are necessarily extremely incomplete; to make them at all
+significant something must be added by the historian. The 'perception'
+of probability is never exact; it varies with the mind between man and
+man; in the same man even before and after different experiences, &c.
+But even if the perception of the highest probability were practically
+exact, it would never suffice; for, as Aristotle says, "it is probable
+that many things should happen contrary to probability." From these
+facts it follows that the man who has the most exhaustive knowledge of
+what has actually survived, and what has been recorded, will not
+necessarily form the truest judgment on a question of history; it might
+always happen that the intuition of some unscholarly person was nearer
+the truth; still no man could ever decide between the two, nor would any
+sane man think it worth his while to take sides with either of them;
+such questions are most useful when they are left open. This is the case
+because the imagination is thus left freer to use such knowledge as it
+has for the edification of the character; and that model for our example
+or warning which the imagination constructs may always possibly be the
+truth. According to the balance in it of apparent probability, with
+edifying power it will beget conviction. Such a conviction may be doomed
+to be superseded sooner or later; its value lies in its potency while it
+lasts. The temper in which we look at our historical heritage is of more
+importance to us now than the exactitude of our vision; for this latter
+can never be proved, while the former approves itself by the fruit it
+bears within us. It is better, more fruitful, to feel with Duerer about
+the art of Ancient Greece than to know all that can be known of it
+to-day and feel a great deal less. "Character calls forth character,"
+said Goethe; we may add, "even from the grave." Now that the physical
+miracle of the Resurrection has come to seem so unimportant and
+uninteresting to educated men, it might be a wise economy to connect its
+poetry with this experience, that great and creative characters can
+raise men better worth knowing than Lazarus from the dead. Nietsche
+thought that Shakespeare had brought Brutus back to life, (though he
+knew very little of Roman history), and that Brutus was the Roman best
+worth knowing. "Of all peoples, the Greeks dreamt the dream of life the
+best," Goethe said; and again, "For all other arts we have to make some
+allowance; to Greek art alone we are for ever debtors." To feel the
+truth of these sayings with a passion similar to that shown in the
+passages quoted above from Duerer, must surely be a great help to an
+artist. Such a passion is an end in itself, or rather is the only means
+by which we can win spiritual freedom from some of the heavier fetters
+that modern life lays upon us. It freed Goethe even from Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BEAUTY
+
+
+I
+
+How is beauty to be judged?--upon that we have to deliberate.
+
+A man by skill may bring it into every single thing, for in some things
+we recognise that as beautiful which elsewhere would lack beauty.
+
+Good and better in respect of beauty are not easy to discern; for it
+would be quite possible to make two different figures, one stout, the
+other thin, which should differ one from the other in every proportion,
+and yet we scarce might be able to judge which of the two excelled in
+beauty. What beauty is I know not, though it dependeth upon many things.
+
+I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same touchstone
+as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the world
+prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world esteemeth
+beautiful that we will also hold for beautiful, and ourselves strive to
+produce the like.
+
+There are many causes and varieties of beauty; he that can prove them is
+so much the more to be trusted.
+
+The accord of one thing with another is beautiful, therefore want of
+harmony is not beautiful. A real harmony linketh together things unlike.
+
+Use is a part of beauty, whatever therefore is useless unto men is
+without beauty.
+
+The more imperfection is excluded so much the more doth beauty abide in
+the work.
+
+Guard thyself from superfluity.
+
+But beauty is so put together in men and so uncertain is our judgment
+about it, that we may perhaps find two men both beautiful and fair to
+look upon, and yet neither resembleth the other, in measure or kind, in
+any single point or part; and so blind is our perception that we shall
+not understand whether of the two is the more beautiful, and if we give
+an opinion on the matter it shall lack certainty.
+
+Negro faces are seldom beautiful because of their very flat noses and
+thick lips; moreover, their shinbone is too prominent, and the knee and
+foot too long, not so good to look upon as those of the whites; and so
+also is it with their hand. Howbeit, I have seen some amongst them whose
+whole bodies have been so well-built and handsome that I never beheld
+finer figures, nor can I conceive how they might be bettered, so
+excellent were their arms and all their limbs.
+
+Seeing that man is the worthiest of all creatures, it follows that, in
+all pictures, the human figure is most frequently employed as a centre
+of interest. Every animal in the world regards nothing but his own kind,
+and the same nature is also in men, as every man may perceive
+in himself.
+
+[Illustration: Charcoal-drawing heightened with white on a green
+prepared ground, in the Berlin Print Room _Face p_. 320]
+
+Further, in order that he may arrive at a good canon whereby to bring
+somewhat of beauty into our work, there-unto it were best for thee, it
+bethinks me, to form thy canon from many living men. Howbeit seek only
+such men as are held beautiful, and from such draw with all diligence.
+For one who hath understanding may, from men of many different kinds,
+gather something good together through all the limbs of the body. But
+seldom is a man found who hath all his limbs good, for every man lacks
+something.
+
+No single man can be taken as a model of a perfect figure, for no man
+liveth on earth who uniteth in himself all manner of beauties.... There
+liveth also no man upon earth who could give a final judgment upon what
+the perfect figure of a man is; God only knoweth that.
+
+And although we cannot speak of the greatest beauty of a living
+creature, yet we find in the visible creation a beauty so far surpassing
+our understanding that no one of us can fully bring it into his work.
+
+If we were to ask how we are to make a beautiful figure, some would give
+answer: According to human judgment (i.e., common taste). Others would
+not agree thereto, neither should I without a good reason. Who will give
+us certainty in this matter?[87]
+
+
+II
+
+I have already given what I believe to be the best answer to these
+questions as to what beauty is and how it is to be judged. Beauty is
+beauty as good is good (_see_ pp. 7, 8), or yellow, yellow; indeed, to
+the second question, Matthew Arnold has given the only possible
+answer--the relative value of beauties is "as the judicious would
+determine," and the judicious are, in matters of art "finely touched and
+gifted men." This criterion obviously cannot be easily or hastily
+applied, nor could one ever be quite sure that in any given case it had
+been applied to any given effect. But for practical needs we see that it
+suffices to cast a slur on facile popularity, and vindicate over and
+over again those who had been despised and rejected. What the true
+artist desires to bring into his pictures is the power to move
+finely-touched and gifted men. Not only are such by very much the
+minority, but the more part of them being, by their capacity to be moved
+and touched, easily wounded, have developed a natural armour of reserve,
+of moroseness, of prejudice, of combativeness, of pedantry, which makes
+them as difficult to address as wombats, or bears, or tortoises, or
+porcupines, or polecats, or elephants. It is interesting to witness how
+Duerer's self-contradictions show him to be aware of the great complexity
+of these difficulties, as also to see how very near he comes to the true
+answer. At one time he tells us:
+
+"When men demand a work of a master, he is to be praised in so far as he
+succeeds in satisfying their likings ..."[88]
+
+At another he tells us:
+
+"The art of painting cannot be truly judged save by such as are
+themselves good painters; from others verily is it hidden even as a
+strange tongue."[89]
+
+Every "finely touched and gifted man" is not an artist; but every true
+artist must, in some measure, be a finely touched and gifted man. There
+is no necessity to limit the public addressed to those who themselves
+produce: yet those who "can prove what they say with their hand" bring
+credentials superior to those offered by any others,--although even
+their judgment is not sure, as they may well represent a minority of
+the true court of appeal which can never be brought together.
+
+No doubt there is a judgment and a scale of values accepted as final by
+each generation that gives any considerable attention to these
+questions. AEsthetic appear to be exactly similar to religious
+convictions. Those who are subject to them probably pass through many
+successively, even though they all their lives hold to a certain fashion
+which enables them to assert some obvious unity, like those who, in
+religion, belong always to one sect. Yet if they were in a position to
+analyse their emotions and leanings, no doubt very fundamental
+contradictions would be discovered to disconcert them. Conviction and
+enthusiasm in the arts and religion would seem to be the frame of mind
+natural to those who assimilate, and are rendered productive by what
+they study and admire. Convictions may never be wholly justifiable in
+theory, but in practice when results are considered, it would seem that
+no other frame of mind should escape censure.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 87: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 244.]
+
+[Footnote 88: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 89: _Idem_. p. 177.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NATURE
+
+
+I
+
+We regard a form and figure out of nature with more pleasure than
+another, though the thing in itself is not necessarily altogether
+better or worse.
+
+Life in nature showeth forth the truth of these things (the words of
+difference--i.e., the character of bodily habit to which they refer),
+wherefore regard it well, order thyself thereby and depart not from
+nature in thine opinions, neither imagine of thyself to invent aught
+better, else shalt thou be led astray, for art standeth firmly fixed in
+nature, and whoso can rend her forth thence he only possesseth her. If
+thou acquirest her, she will remove many faults for thee from thy work.
+
+Neither must the figure be made youthful before and old behind, or
+contrariwise; for that unto which nature is opposed is bad. Hence it
+followeth that each figure should be of one kind alone throughout,
+either young or old, or middle-aged, or lean or fat, or soft or hard.
+
+The more closely thy work abideth by life in its form, so much the
+better will it appear; and this is true. Wherefore never more imagine
+that thou either canst or shalt make anything better than God hath given
+power to His creatures to do. For thy power is weakness compared to
+God's creating hand. (_See_ continuation of passage, p. 10.)
+
+Compare also passages quoted (pp. 289-291).
+
+
+II
+
+In these and other passages Duerer speaks about "nature," and enjoins on
+the artist respect for and conformity to "nature" in a manner which
+reminds us of that still current in dictums about art. Indeed, it seems
+probable that Duerer's use of this term was almost as confused as that of
+a modern art-critic. There are two senses in which the word nature is
+employed, the confusion of which is ten times more confounded than any
+of the others, and deserves, indeed, utter damnation, so prolific of
+evil is it. We call the objects of sensory perception "nature"--whatever
+is seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted is a part of nature. And yet we
+constantly speak of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting
+monstrous and unnatural things. And a monstrous and unnatural thing is
+not merely one which is rare, but even more decidedly one of which we
+disapprove. So that the second use of the term conveys some sense of
+exceptionality, but far more of lack of conformity to human desires and
+expectations. Now, many things which do not exist are perfectly natural
+in this second sense: fairy-lands, heavens, &c. We perfectly understand
+what is meant by a natural and an unnatural imagination, we perceive
+readily all kind of degrees between the monstrous and the natural in
+pure fiction. Now, this second use of the term nature is the only one
+which is of any vital importance to our judgments upon works of art; yet
+current judgments are more often than not based wholly on the first
+sense, which means merely all objects perceived by the senses; and this,
+draped in the authority and phrases belonging to judgments based on the
+second and really pertinent sense.
+
+Whole schools of painting and criticism have arisen and flourish whose
+only reason for existence is the extreme facility with which this
+confusion is made in European languages. It sounds so plausible that
+some have censured Michael Angelo for bad drawing because men are not
+from 9 to 15 or 16 heads high, and have not muscles so developed as the
+gods and Titans of his creation. And others have objected to the angels,
+the anatomical ambiguity of their wing articulations. To say that a
+sketch or picture is out of tone or drawing damns, in many circles
+to-day; in spite of the fact that the most famous masterpieces, if
+judged by the same standard, would be equally offensive. This absurdity,
+even where its grosser developments are avoided, breeds abundant
+contradictions and confusion in the mouths of those who plume themselves
+on culture and discernment. I hope not to have been too saucy,
+therefore, in pointing out this pitfall to my readers in regard to these
+sentences which I thought it worth while to quote from Duerer, merely
+because if I did not do so I foresaw that they would be quoted
+against me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST
+
+
+I
+
+In the great earnestness with which the difficulties that beset art and
+the artist impressed him, Duerer intended to write a _Vade Mecum_ for
+those who should come after him. He has left among his MS. papers many
+plans, rough drafts, and notes for some such work, the form of which no
+doubt changed from time to time. The one which gives us the most
+comprehensive idea of his intentions is perhaps the following.
+
+
+II
+
+Ihs. Maria
+
+By the grace and help of God I have here set down all that I have learnt
+in practice, which is likely to be of use in painting, for the service
+of all students who would gladly learn. That, perchance, by my help they
+may advance still further in the higher understanding of such art, as he
+who seeketh may well do, if he is inclined thereto; for my reason
+sufficeth not to lay the foundations of this great, far-reaching,
+infinite art of true painting.
+
+Item.--In order that thou mayest thoroughly and rightly comprehend what
+is, or is called, an "artistic painter," I will inform thee and recount
+to thee. If the world often goeth without an "artistic painter," whilst
+for two or three hundred years none such appeareth, it is because those
+who might have become such devote not themselves to art. Observe then
+the three essential qualities following, which belong to the true artist
+in painting. These are the three main points in the whole book.
+
+I. The First Division of the book is the Prologue, and it compriseth
+three parts (A, B, and C).
+
+  A. The first part of the Prologue telleth us how the lad should be
+  taught, and how attention should be paid to the tendency of his
+  temperament. It falleth into six parts:
+
+    1. That note should be taken of the birth of the child, in what Sign it
+    occurreth; with some explanations. (Pray God for a lucky hour!)
+
+    2. That his form and stature should be considered; with some
+    explanations.
+
+    3. How he ought to be nurtured in learning from the first; with some
+    explanations.
+
+    4. That the child should be observed, whether he learneth best when
+    kindly praised or when chidden; with explanations.
+
+    5. That the child be kept eager to learn and be not vexed.
+
+    6. If the child worketh too hard, so that he might fall under the hand
+    of melancholy, that he be enticed therefrom by merry music to the
+    pleasuring of his blood.
+
+  B. The second part of the Preface showeth how the lad should be brought
+  up in the fear of God and in reverence, that so he may attain grace,
+  whereby he may be much strengthened in intelligent art. It falleth into
+  six parts:
+
+    1. That the lad be brought up in the fear of God and be taught to pray
+    to God for the grace of quick perception (_ubtilitet_) and to
+    honour God.
+
+    2. That he be kept moderate in eating and drinking, and also in
+    sleeping.
+
+    3. That he dwell in a pleasant house, so that he be distracted by no
+    manner of hindrance.
+
+    4. That he be kept from women and live not loosely with them; that he
+    not so much as see or touch one; and that he guard himself from all
+    impurity. Nothing weakens the understanding more than impurity.
+
+    5. That he know how to read and write well, and be also instructed in
+    Latin, so far as to understand certain writings.
+
+    6. That such an one have sufficient means to devote himself without
+    anxiety (to his art), and that his health be attended to with medicines
+    when needful.
+
+  C. The third part of the Prologue teacheth us of the great usefulness,
+  joy, and delight which spring from painting. It falleth into six parts:
+
+    1. It is a useful art when it is of godly sort, and is employed for holy
+    edification.
+
+    2. It is useful, and much evil is thereby avoided, if a man devote
+    himself thereto who else had wasted his time.
+
+    3. It is useful when no one thinks so, for a man will have great joy if
+    he occupy himself with that which is so rich in joys.
+
+    4. It is useful because a man gaineth great and lasting memory thereby
+    if he applieth it aright.
+
+    5. It is useful because God is thereby honoured when it is seen that He
+    hath bestowed such genius upon one of His creatures in whom is such
+    art. All men will be gracious unto thee by reason of thine art.
+
+    6. The sixth use is that if thou art poor thou mayest by such art come
+    unto great wealth and riches.
+
+II. The Second Division of the book treateth of Painting itself; it also
+is threefold.
+
+  A. The first part is of the freedom of painting; in six ways.
+
+  B. The second part is of the proportions of men and buildings, and what
+  is needful for painting; in six ways.[90]
+
+    1. Of the proportions of men.
+    2. Of the proportions of horses.
+    3. Of the proportions of buildings.
+    4. Of perspective.
+    5. Of light and shade.
+    6. Of colours, how they are to be made to resemble nature.
+
+  C. The third part is of all that a man conceives as subject for
+  painting.
+
+III. The Third Division of the book is the Conclusion; it also hath
+three parts.
+
+  A. The first part shows in what place such an artist should dwell to
+  practise his art; in six ways.
+
+  B. The second part shows how such a wonderful artist should charge
+  highly for his art, and that no money is too much for it, seeing that it
+  is divine and true; in six ways.
+
+The third part speaks of praise and thanksgiving which he should render
+unto God for His grace, and which others should render on his behalf;
+in six ways.
+
+
+III
+
+It is in the variety and completeness of his intentions that we perceive
+Duerer's kinship with the Renascence; he comprehends the whole of life in
+his idea of art training.
+
+In his persuasion of the fundamental necessity of morality he is akin to
+the best of the Reformation. It is in the union of these two perceptions
+that his resemblance to Michael Angelo lies. There is a rigour, an
+austerity which emanates from their work, such as is not found in the
+work of Titian or Rembrandt or Leonardo or Rubens or any other mighty
+artist of ripe epochs. Yet we find both of them illustrating the
+licentious legends of antiquity, turning from the Virgin to Amymone and
+Leda, from Christ to Apollo and Hercules. By their action and example
+neither joins either the Reformation or the Renascence in so far as
+these movements may be considered antagonistic; nor did they find it
+inconsistent to acknowledge their debt to Greece and Rome, even while
+accepting the gift of Jesus' example as freely as it was offered.
+
+Not only does Duerer insist on the necessity of a certain consonancy
+between the surrounding influences and the artist's capacity, which
+should be both called forth and relieved by the interchange of rivalry
+with instruction, of seclusion with music or society, but the process
+which Jesus made the central one of his religion is put forward as
+essential; he must form himself on a precedent example. I have already
+quoted from Reynolds at length on this point.
+
+I will merely add here some notes from another MS. fragment of Duerer's
+bearing on the same points.
+
+He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.
+
+Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than
+compulsion is.
+
+If a man is to become a really great painter he must be educated thereto
+from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good
+artists until he attain a free hand.
+
+To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing
+whatsoever that may be chosen.
+
+It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce, to
+measure the human figure, before learning anything else.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 90: The following list comes from another sheet of the MS.
+(in. 70), but was dearly intended for this place. It is jotted down on a
+thick piece of paper, on which there are also geometrical designs.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TECHNICAL PRECEPTS
+
+
+I
+
+If thou wishest to model well in painting, so as to deceive the
+eyesight, thou must be right cunning in thy colours, and must know how
+to keep them distinct, in painting, one from another. For example, thou
+paintest two coats of mantles, one white the other red; thou must deal
+differently with them in shading. There is light and shadow on all
+things, wherever the surface foldeth or bendeth away from the eye. If
+this were not so, everything would look flat, and then one could
+distinguish nothing save only a chequerwork of colours.
+
+If then thou art shading the white mantle, it must not be shaded with so
+dark a colour as the red, for it would be impossible for a white thing
+to yield so dark a shadow as a red. Neither could they be compared one
+with another, save that in total absence of daylight everything is
+black, seeing that colour cannot be recognised in darkness. Though,
+therefore, in such a case, the theory allows one, without blame, to use
+pure black for the shadows of a white object, yet this can seldom
+come to pass.
+
+Moreover, when thou paintest anything in one colour--be it red, blue,
+brown, or any mixed colour--beware lest thou make it so bright in the
+lights that it departs from its own kind. For example, an uneducated man
+regardeth thy picture wherein is a red coat. "Look, good friend," saith
+he, "in one part the coat is of a fair red and in another it is white
+or pale in colour." That same is to be blamed, neither hast thou done it
+aright. In such a case a red object must be painted red all over and yet
+preserve the appearance of solidity; and so with all colours. The same
+must be done with the shadows, lest it be said that a fair red is soiled
+with black Wherefore be careful that thou shade each colour with a
+similar colour. Thus I hold that a yellow, to retain its kind, must be
+shaded with a yellow, darker toned than the principal colour. If thou
+shade it with green or blue, it remaineth no longer in keeping, and is
+no longer yellow, but becometh thereby a shot colour, like the colour of
+silk stuffs woven of threads of two colours, as brown and blue, brown
+and green, dark yellow and green, chestnut-brown and dark yellow, blue
+and seal red, seal red and brown, and the many other colours one sees.
+If a man hath such as these to paint, where the surface breaketh and
+bendeth away the colours divide themselves so that they can be
+distinguished one from another, and thus must thou paint them. But where
+the surface lieth flat one colour alone appeareth. Howbeit, if thou art
+painting such a silk and shadest it with one colour (as a brown with a
+blue) thou must none the less shade the blue with a deeper blue where it
+is needful. If often cometh to pass that such silks appear brown in the
+shadows, as if one colour stood before the other. If thy model beareth
+such a garment, thou must shade the brown with a deeper brown and not
+with blue. Howbeit, happen what may, every colour must in shading keep
+to its own class.
+
+
+II
+
+The great genius Hokusai, who has obtained for popular art in Japan a
+success comparable to that of the best classic masterpieces of that
+country and to the drawings and etchings of Rembrandt, a master of an
+altogether kindred nature, wrote a little treatise on the difference of
+aim noticeable in European and Japanese art. From the few Dutch pictures
+which he had been able to examine, he concluded that European art
+attempted to deceive the eye, whereas Japanese art laboured to express
+life, to suggest movement, and to harmonise colour. What is meant is
+easily grasped when we set before the mind's eye a picture, by Teniers
+and a page of Hokusai's "Mangwa." On the other hand, if one chose a
+sketch by Rembrandt to represent Dutch art, the difference could no
+longer be apparent. If the aim of European art had ever in serious
+examples been to deceive the eye, our painting would rank with
+legerdemain and Maskelyne's famous box trick; for it is to be doubted if
+it could ever so well have attained its end as even a second-rate
+conjurer can. I have cited a passage in which Reynolds confronts the
+work of great artists with the illusions of the camera obscura (see p.
+237). The adept musical performer who reproduces the noises of a
+farmyard is the true parallel to the lesser Dutch artists; he deceives
+the ear far better than they deceive the eye. For every picture has a
+surface which, unless very carefully lighted, must immediately destroy
+the illusion, even if it were otherwise perfect. Nevertheless, Duerer in
+the foregoing passage seems to accept Hokusai's verdict that the aim of
+his painting is to deceive the eye; forgetful of all that he has
+elsewhere written about the necessity of beauty, the necessity of
+composition, the superiority of rough sketches over finished works.
+
+When a painter has conceived in his heart a vision of beauty, whether he
+suggests it with a few strokes of the pen or elaborates it as thoroughly
+as Jan Van Eyck did, he wishes it to be taken as a report of something
+seen. This is as different from wishing to deceive the eye as for some
+one to say "and then a dog barked," instead of imitating the barking of
+a dog. A circumstantial description in words and a picture by Van Eyck
+or Veronese are equally intended to pass as reports of something
+visually conceived or actually seen. Pictures would have to be made
+peep-shows of before they could veritably deceive; and Jan Van Beers, a
+modern Dutchman, actually turned some of his paintings into peep-shows.
+Duerer in the following passage is speaking of the separate details or
+objects which go to make up a picture, not of the picture as a whole; he
+never tried to make peep-shows; his signature or an inscription is often
+used to give the very surface that must destroy the peep-show illusion a
+definite decorative value. The rest of his remarks have become
+commonplaces; nor has he written at such length as to give them their
+true limitations and intersubordination. They will be easily understood
+by those who remember that art is concerned with producing the illusion
+of a true report of something seen, not that of an actual vision. Such a
+report may be slight and brief; it may be stammered by emotion; it may
+have been confused or tortured to any degree by the mental condition of
+him who delivers it: if it produces the conviction of his sincerity, it
+achieves the only illusion with which art is concerned, and its value
+will depend on its beauty and the beauty of the means employed to
+deliver it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN CONCLUSION
+
+After turning over Duerer prints and drawings, after meditating on his
+writings, we feel that we are in the presence of one of those forces
+which are constant and equal, which continue and remain like the growth
+of the body, the return of seasons, the succession of moods. This is
+always among the greatest charms of central characters: they are mild
+and even, their action is like that of the tides, not that of storms.
+"If only you had my meekness," Duerer wrote to Pirkheimer (set: p. 85),
+half in jest doubtless, but with profound truth:--though the word
+meekness does not indeed cover the whole of what we feel made Duerer's
+most radical advantage over his friend; at other times we might call it
+naivety, that sincerity of great and simple natures which can never be
+outflanked or surprised. Sometimes it might be called pride, for it has
+certainly a great deal of self-assurance behind it, the self-assurance
+of trees, of flowers, of dumb animals and little children, who never
+dream that an apology for being where and what they are can be expected
+of them. Such natures when they come home to us come to stop; we may go
+out, we may pay no heed to them, we may forget them, but they abide in
+the memory, and some day they take hold of us with all the more force
+because this new impression will exactly tally with the former one; we
+shall blush for our inconstancy, our indifference, our imbecility, which
+have led us to neglect such a pregnant communion. Not only persons but
+works of art produce this effect, and they are those with whom it is the
+greatest benefit to live.
+
+It is true that, compared with Giotto, Rembrandt, or Michael Angelo,
+Duerer does not appear comprehensive enough. It is with him as with
+Milton; we wish to add others to his great gifts, above all to take him
+out from his surroundings, to free him from the accidents of place and
+time. In one sense he is poorer than Milton: we cannot go to him as to a
+source of emotional exhilaration. If he ever proves himself able so to
+stir us, it is too occasionally to be a reason why we frequent him as it
+may be one why we frequent Milton. Nevertheless, the greater characters
+of control which are his in an unmatched degree, his constancy, his
+resource and deliberate effectiveness, joined to that blandness, that
+sunshine, which seems so often to replace emotion and thought in works
+of image-shaping art, are of priceless beneficence, and with them we
+would abide. Intellectual passion may seem indeed sometimes to dissipate
+this sunshine and control without making good their loss. Such cases
+enable us to feel that the latter are more essential: and it is these
+latter qualities which Duerer possessed in such fulness. In return for
+our contemplation, they build up within us the dignity of man and render
+it radiant and serene. Those who have felt their influence longest and
+most constantly will believe that they may well warrant the modern
+prophet who wrote:
+
+The idea of beauty and of human nature perfect on all its sides, which
+is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, though it
+has not yet had the success that the idea of conquering the obvious
+faults of our animality and of a human nature perfect on the moral
+side--which is the dominant idea of religion--has been enabled to have;
+and it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea of a devout
+energy, to transform and govern the other.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Aachen
+
+Adam (Melchor)
+
+Aeschylus
+
+Albertina
+
+Altdorfer (Albrecht)
+
+Anabaptists
+
+Andreae (Hieronymus)
+
+Angelico (Fra Beato)
+
+Antwerpo
+
+Apelles
+
+Aristotle
+
+Arnold (Matthew)
+
+Augsburg
+
+Balccarres (Lord)
+
+Bamberg (Library)
+
+Barbari (Jacopo dei)
+
+Barberini (Gallery)
+
+Barye (Antoine Louis)
+
+Basle
+
+Baudelaire (Charles)
+
+Bavaria
+
+Beers (Jan van)
+
+Beham (Barthel and Sebald)
+
+Behaim
+
+Bellini (Gentile)
+
+Bellini (Giovanni)
+
+Berlin
+
+Blake (William)
+
+Bologna
+
+Bonnat (Leon)
+
+Borgia (Cesare)
+
+Borgia (Alexander), see Pope
+
+Botticelli
+
+Bremen
+
+Breslau (Bishop of)
+
+Breughel (Peter)
+
+British Museum.
+
+Browning (Robert)
+
+Brussels
+
+Brutus
+
+Burgkmair (Hans)
+
+Butler (Bishop)
+
+Caietan (Cardinal)
+
+Calvin
+
+Camerarius (Kunz Kamerer)
+
+Carpaccio
+
+Celtes (Conrad)
+
+Charles V. (Emperor)
+
+Cicero
+
+Coleridge
+
+Colet (Dean)
+
+Colmar
+
+Cologne (Koeln)
+
+Conway (Sir Martin)
+
+Cook (Sir Francis)
+
+Correggio
+
+Cranach (Lucas)
+
+Dante
+
+Danube
+
+Dodgson (Campbell)
+
+Dolce (Ludovico)
+
+Dresden
+
+Duerer (Albert the Elder)
+
+Duerer (Agnes, nee Frey)
+
+Duerer, Andreas
+  Brothers and Sisters
+  Father-in-law, Hans Frey
+  Forefathers
+
+Duerer, Hans
+
+Duerer's House,
+
+Mother (Barbara Helper)
+
+Duerer (Quotations from),
+
+Duerer's
+ Books:
+    Art of Fortification,
+    Human Proportions,
+    Measurement with Compass.
+
+  Drawings:
+    Adam's hand,
+    Christ bearing His Cross,
+    Dance of monkeys,
+    Himself,
+    Lion,
+    Lucas van Leyden,
+    Memento Mei,
+    Mein Angnes,
+    Mount of Olives,
+    Nepotis (Florent),
+    Pfaffroth (Hans),
+    Plankfelt (Jobst),
+    Sea-monsters,
+    Women's Bath,
+    Walrus.
+
+  Engravings on Metal:
+    Agony in the Garden,
+    Great Fortune,
+    Jerome (St.),
+    Knight (The),
+    Melancholy,
+    Passion.
+
+  Pictures:
+    Adam and Eve,
+    Adoration of Magi,
+    Avarice,
+    Christ among Doctors,
+    Coronation of Virgin,
+    Crucifixion,
+    Dresden Altar Piece,
+    Feast of Bose Garlands,
+    Hercules,
+    Lucretia,
+    Madonna with Iris,
+    Martyrdom of Ten Thousand,
+    Paumgartner, Altar Piece,
+    Preachers (The Pour),
+    Road to Calvary,
+    Trinity and All Saints.
+
+  Portraits:
+    Of himself, Leipzig, Madrid, Munich,
+    Holzschuher (Hieronymus),
+    Imhof, Hans (?),
+    Kleeberger (Johannes)
+    Krel (Oswolt),
+    Maximilian,
+    Muffel (Jacob),
+    Orley (Bernard van),
+    Unknown (Vienna),
+    Unknown (Hampton Court),
+    Unknown (Boston)
+    Unknown Woman (Berlin),
+    Unknown Girl (Berlin),
+    Wolgemut.
+
+  Woodcuts:
+    Apocalypse,
+    Assumption of Magdalen,
+    St. Christopher,
+    Gate of Honour,
+    Jerome (St.),
+    Life of the Virgin,
+    Last Supper,
+    Little Passion.
+
+Ebner
+
+Eck (Dr.)
+
+Eckenstein (Miss)
+
+Emerson
+
+Erasmus
+
+Euclid
+
+Euripides
+
+Eusebius
+
+Eyck (Jan van)
+
+FLAUBERT (Gustave)
+
+Florentine
+
+Frankfort
+
+Frederick the Wise (Elector of Saxony)
+
+Frey (Hans)
+
+Frey (Felix),
+
+Fronde,
+
+Fugger,
+
+Furtwaengler,
+
+Gainsborough,
+
+Ghent,
+
+Giehlom (Dr. Carl),
+
+Giorgjone,
+
+Giotto,
+
+Goes (Hugo vander)
+
+Goethe,
+
+Gospel of
+  St. Luke,
+  St. Matthew,
+  St. John,
+
+Grapheus (Cornelius),
+
+Greece, Greeks, Greek,
+
+Grien (Baldung),
+
+Heaton (Mrs.),
+
+_Heller (Jacob)_.
+
+Henry VIII,
+
+Hess (Eoban),
+
+Hess (Martin),
+
+Hippocrates,
+
+Hokusai,
+
+Holbein,
+
+Holzselraher,
+
+Homer,
+
+Humanists,
+
+Hungary,
+
+Hutten (Ulrich von),
+
+Imhof (Hans),
+
+Innsbruck,
+
+Jeanne D'Arc,
+
+Jesus,
+
+John (St.),
+
+Jonson (Ben),
+
+Juggernaut,
+
+Keats (John),
+
+Kolb (Anton),
+
+Kratzer (Nicholas),
+
+Kress (Christopher),
+
+Lady Margaret (Governess of the Netherlands),
+
+Landauer (Matthew),
+
+Leipzig,
+
+Leonardo da Vinci,
+
+Link (Wenzel),
+
+Lippmann,
+
+London,
+
+Longfellow,
+
+Lotto (Lorenzo),
+
+Louvre,
+
+Lucas van Leyden,
+
+Luther,
+
+Lutzelburger,
+
+Mabuse (Jan de),
+
+Macbeth,
+
+Machiavelli.
+
+Madrid,
+
+Mantegna (Andrea),
+
+Mantua,
+
+Manuel,
+
+Marcantonio,
+
+Mark (St.),
+
+Marlowe,
+
+Maximilian I.,
+
+Melanchthon,
+
+Mexico,
+
+Michael Angelo,
+
+Miller (A.W., Esq.),
+
+Millet (Jean Francois),
+
+Miltitz,
+
+Milton,
+
+Montaigne,
+
+_Monthly Review_,
+
+Montpelier (Town Council),
+
+More,
+
+Morley (Lord and Lady),
+
+Moses,
+
+Muffel (Jacob),
+
+Munich,
+
+
+Nassau,
+
+Neudoerffer,
+
+Nietzsche,
+
+Nuetzel (Caspar),
+
+Orley (Bernard van)
+
+Ostendorfer (Michael)
+
+Pacioli (Luca)
+
+Padua
+
+Parrhasius
+
+Paul (St.)
+
+Paumgartner (Stephan)
+
+Peasants' War
+
+Penz (Georg)
+
+Peter (St,)
+
+Phidias
+
+Pirkheimer (Charitas)
+  (Philip)
+  (Willibald)
+
+Pitti (Gallery)
+
+Plato
+
+Pleydenwurf
+
+Pliny
+
+Polizemo
+
+Polycleitus
+
+Pope
+  Adrian IV.
+  (Alexander VI.)
+  (Julius II.)
+  (Leo X.)
+
+Porto Venere
+
+Portugal
+
+Prague
+
+Praxiteles
+
+Protogenes
+
+Psalms
+
+Rabelais
+
+Raphael
+
+Reformation, Reformers
+
+Rembrandt
+
+Renascence
+
+Reuohlin (Dr.)
+
+Reynolds
+
+Ricketts (C. S.)
+
+Rochefoucauld (La)
+
+Roger van der Weyden
+
+Rome
+
+Rossetti (Dante Gabriel)
+
+Rubens (Peter Paul)
+
+Savonarola
+
+Scheurl (Christopher)
+
+Schongauer (Martin)
+
+Schoensperger
+
+Shannon (C. H.)
+
+Shakespeare
+
+Sistine (Chapel)
+
+Spalatin (George)
+
+Spengler (Lazarus)
+
+Stabius (Johannes)
+
+Staedel Institut
+
+Stromer (Wolf)
+
+Strong (S. A)
+
+Swift (Dean)
+
+Teniers (David)
+
+Thawing (Dr. Moritz)
+
+Titian
+
+Tschertte (Johannes)
+
+Uffizi (Gallery)
+
+Ulm
+
+Van Dyck
+
+Varnbueler (Ulrioh)
+
+Vasari
+
+Velasquez
+
+Venice
+
+Veronese (Paul)
+
+Verona
+
+Verrall (Dr.)
+
+Vienna
+
+Virgil
+
+Vitruvius
+
+Warham (Archbishop)
+
+Watteail (Antoine)
+
+Watts (G. F.)
+
+Weimar (Grand Ducal Museum)
+
+Whistler (James McNeil)
+
+Wittenberg
+
+Wolfenbuettel
+
+Wolgemut
+
+Wordsworth
+
+Wuerzburg (Bishop of)
+
+Zeeland
+
+Zeuxis
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Durer, by T. Sturge Moore
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