Masters of Art - Albrecht Dürer

by Dürer, Albrecht

  Saints. — St. Arnolf, Bishop; St. Christopher, 1511; St. Christopher with the Birds; St. Christopher, 1525; St. Colman of Scotland, 1513; St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata; St. George; the Mass of St. Gregory, 1511; St. Jerome in a Chamber, 1511; St. Jerome in the Grotto, 1512; the Little St. Jerome; the Beheading of St. John the Baptist; the Head of St. John brought to Herod, 1511; St. Sebald; the Penitent; Elias and the Raven; Sts. John and Jerome; Sts. Nicholas, Udalricus, and Erasmus; Sts. Stephen, Gregory, and Lawrence; the Eight Austrian Saints; the Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Christians; the Beheading of St. Catherine; St. Mary Magdalen.

  Portraits. — The Emperor Maximilian, 1519; the Emperor; Ulrich Varnbühler, 1522; Albert Dürer, 1527.

  Heraldic Subjects. — The Beham Arms; the Dürer Arms, 1523; the Ebner-Furer Arms, 1516; the Kressen Arms; the Shield of Nuremberg; the Shield with three Lions’ Heads; the Shield with a Wild Man and two Dogs; the Scheurl-Zuiglin Arms; the Stabius Arms; the Staiber Arms.

  Miscellaneous Subjects. — The Judgment of Paris; Hercules; the Rider; the Bath; the Embrace; the Learner, 1510; Death and the Soldier, 1510; the Besieged City, 1527; the Rhinoceros, 1515; the Triumphal Chariot of Maximilian, 1522; the Great Column, 1517; a Man Sketching; two Men Sketching a Lute; a Man Sketching a Woman; a Man Sketching an Urn; Hemispherium Australe; Imagines Cœli Septentrionalis; Imagines Cœli Meridionalis; the Pirkheimer Title-border; six Ornamental designs; two title-borders.

  The Great Passion (12 cuts; 1510). — Ecce Homo; the Last Supper; the Agony in the Garden; the Seizing of Christ; the Flagellation; the Mocking; Bearing the Cross; the Crucifixion; Christ in Hades; the Wailing Maries; the Entombment; the Resurrection.

  The Little Passion (37 cuts; 1511). — Ecce Homo; Adam and Eve; the Expulsion from Eden; the Annunciation; the Nativity; the Entry into Jerusalem; the Cleansing of the Temple; Christ’s Farewell to His Mother; the Last Supper; the Washing of the Feet; the Agony in the Garden; the Kiss of Judas; Christ before Annas; Caiaphas Rends his Clothes; the Mocking; Christ and Pilate; Christ before Herod; the Scourging; the Crowning with Thorns; Christ Shown to the Jews; Pilate Washing his Hands; Bearing the Cross; the Veronica; Nailing Christ to the Cross; the Crucifixion; Descent into Hell; the Descent from the Cross; the Weeping Maries; the Entombment; the Resurrection; Christ in Glory Appearing to His Mother; Appearing to Mary Magdalen; at Emmaus; the Unbelief of St. Thomas; the Ascension; the Descent of the Holy Ghost; the Last Judgment.

  The Life of the Virgin (20 designs; 1511). — The Virgin and Child; Joachim’s Offering Rejected; the Angel Appears to Joachim; Joachim Meeting Anna; the Birth of Mary; the Virgin’s Presentation at the Temple; the Betrothal of Mary and Joseph; the Annunciation; the Visitation of St. Elizabeth; the Nativity; the Circumcision; the Purification of Mary; the Flight into Egypt; the Repose in Egypt; Christ Teaching in the Temple; Christ’s Farewell to His Mother; the Death of the Virgin; the Assumption; the Virgin and Child with seven Saints.

  The Apocalypse of St. John (16 designs; 1498). — The Virgin and Child Appearing to St. John; His Attempted Martyrdom; the Seven Golden Candlesticks and the Seven Stars; the Throne of God with the Four-and-twenty Elders and the Beasts; the Descent of the Four Horses; the Martyrs Clothed in White and the Stars Falling; the Four Angels Holding the Winds, and the Sealing of the Elect; the Seven Angel Trumpeters and the Glorified Host of Saints; the Four Angels Slaying the Third Part of Men; John is Made to Eat the Book; the Woman Clothed with the Sun, and the Seven-headed Dragon; Michael and his Angels Fighting the Great Dragon; the Worship of the Seven-headed Dragon; the Lamb in Zion; the Woman of Babylon Sitting on the Beast; the Binding of Satan for a Thousand Years.

  There are 261 other wood-engravings described in the catalogue attached to Scott’s “Life of Dürer,” and ranked as “doubtful.” Many of these are held to be authentic by one or more of the three critical authorities on Dürer’s works, — Heller, Bartsch, and Passavant. Other connoisseurs, however, ascribe them to different engravers of the early German schools, mostly to pupils and colleagues of Dürer.

  ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER.

  Bible-Subjects. — Adam and Eve, 1504; the Nativity, 1504; the Passion on copper (16 designs), 1508-13; Crucifixion, 1508, 1511; Little Crucifixion, 1513; Christ Showing His Five Wounds; Angel with the Sudarium, 1516; two Angels with the Sudarium, 1513; the Prodigal Son, 1500; the Virgin and Anna; Mary on the Crescent Moon, no date; Mary on the Crescent Moon, 1514; Mary with a Crown of Stars, 1508; Mary with the Starry Crown and Sceptre, 1516; Mary Crowned by an Angel, 1520; Mary Crowned by two Angels, 1518; the Nursing Mary, 1503; the Nursing Mary, 1519; Mary with the Swaddled Child, 1520; Mary under a Tree, 1513; Mary by the Well, 1514; Mary with the Pear, 1511; Mary with the Monkey, no date; the Holy Family with the Butterfly, early work.

  Saints. — St. Philip; St. Bartholomew, 1523; St. Thomas, 1514; St. Simon, 1514; St. Paul, 1514; St. Anthony, 1519; St. Christopher, 1521; St. Christopher, second design; St. John Chrysostom; St. Eustace, no date; St. George; Equestrian St. George, 1508; St. Jerome, 1514; St. Jerome Praying; the same, smaller, 1513; St. Sebastian; St. Sebastian Bound to a Pillar.

  Miscellaneous. — The Judgment of Paris, 1513; Apollo and Diana; the Rape of Amymone; Jealousy; the Satyr’s Family, 1505; Justice; the Little Fortune; the Great Fortune; Melencolia, 1514; the Dream; the Four Naked Women, 1497; the Witch; Three Cupids; Gentleman and Lady Walking; the Love Offer; the Wild Man Seizing a Woman, early work; the Bagpiper, 1514; the Dancing Rustics, 1514; the Peasant and his Wife; Peasant Going to Market; Three Peasants; the Cook and the Housekeeper; the Turk and his Wife; the Standard-bearer; the Six Soldiers; the Little Courier; the Equestrian Lady; the Great White Horse, 1505; the Small White Horse, 1505; the Knight, Death, and the Devil, 1513; the Monster Pig; the Coat-of-arms with the Cock, 1514; the Coat-of-arms and Death’s Head, 1503.

  Portraits. — The Cardinal-Archbishop Albert of Mayence, 1519, 1522; larger portrait of the same; Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, 1524; Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1526; Philip Melanchthon, 1526; Willibald Pirkheimer, 1524.

  Etchings. — Christ with Bound Hands, 1512; Ecce Homo, 1515; Christ on the Mount of Olives, 1515; the Holy Family; St. Jerome; Pluto and Proserpine; the Bath; the Cannon.

  ALBRECHT DÜRER by T. Sturge Moore

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  PART I. CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE COMPREHENSION OF DÜRER’S LIFE AND ART

  CHAPTER I. THE IDEA OF PROPORTION

  CHAPTER II. THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE

  PART II. DÜRER’S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES IN WHICH HE LIVED

  CHAPTER I. DÜRER’S ORIGIN, YOUTH AND EDUCATION

  CHAPTER II. THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED

  CHAPTER III. DÜRER AT VENICE

  CHAPTER IV. DÜRER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS

  CHAPTER V. DÜRER, LUTHER AND THE HUMANISTS

  CHAPTER VI. DÜRER’S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS

  CHAPTER VII. DÜRER’S LAST YEARS

  PART III. DÜRER AS A CREATOR

  CHAPTER I. DÜRER’S PICTURES

  CHAPTER II. DÜRER’S PORTRAITS

  CHAPTER III. DÜRER’S DRAWINGS

  CHAPTER IV. DÜRER’S METAL ENGRAVINGS

  CHAPTER V. DÜRER’S WOODCUTS

  CHAPTER VI. DÜRER’S INFLUENCES AND VERSES

  PART IV. DÜRER’S IDEAS

  CHAPTER I. THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE

  CHAPTER II. THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY

  CHAPTER III. THE LOST TRADITION

  CHAPTER IV. BEAUTY

  CHAPTER V. NATURE

  CHAPTER VI. THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST

  CHAPTER VII. TECHNICAL PRECEPTS

  CHAPTER VIII. IN CONCLUSION

  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 D
ürer 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.

  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.” 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.” 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.