ALBERT DÜRER: HIS WORKS, HIS COMPATRIOTS, AND HIS TIMES.
Dürer is the one great name which represents early German art in its pure nationality. In his works we see all its peculiarities and may study all its merits. It is not without its defects also, but as they may be honestly considered a part of the whole, it becomes a necessary thing to consider them with the beauties to which they may be conjoined; nor must we be deterred in our search for the latter quality by such occasional drawbacks, if we would investigate the efforts of the artist-mind toward excellence, for that was its characteristic feature from the fall of Rome to the period in which Dürer flourished. In the somewhat gaudy glories of the Byzantine school, we can trace only the failing powers of a great empire conscious of its old dignity but not fully able to display it. In the barbaric night which succeeded, we find art sunk to the most childish attempt at imitating simple nature; which was “copied most vilely.” In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we trace the latent wish for the delineation of beauty struggling again into life; but it was simply the wish rather than the power to delineate the graceful, that we find displayed in the contorted figures which the artists of these days attempted to picture as graceful beings. Still, crude and strange, or even grotesque, as they may appear, they are not to be despised. Amid much that is repulsive to modern cultivated taste, we occasionally find naïve delineations of simple beauty, natural expression, and touches of human pathos, which tell how honestly and how eagerly these old artists worked; how truly they wished to do more than they had power to accomplish; and though clogged to the earth by the dark age they lived in, how earnestly they wished to soar above that position. The archaisms of old Greece are not better than such works; and as we can trace the onward course of those ancient masters of art from the rude outlines on the vases of Etruria, to the glorious works of Phidias and Praxiteles—even so, if we wish to know the true course of the revival of modern art, must we trace it in the sculpture, wall-painting, and missal-drawing, of the middle ages, until we find it assume a more definite and better-regulated style in the fifteenth century; that period of the revival of classical tastes, and bright day-spring of art in Italy, from which we ourselves still drink inspiration as from the “well undefiled.”
The influence of the Italian school after the era of Raffaelle may be said to be paramount. As his works became known and studied, they gave laws to other artists; and the mannerisms and peculiarities of earlier schools were softened down and disappeared. Gothic art—if such a term may be applied to the art which was the hand-maiden of Gothic architecture (the term Gothic being by no means understood as meaning barbaric)—had run its course by aid of its own experience alone, possessing qualifications of its own, but being in some degree more remarkable for its strength of feeling than grace of expression. The Italian school inoculated it with elegance; but it naturally possessed an independent power, together with a vigour and native grace which rewarded those who sought for it, rather than courted them by its palpable display. Gothic art in its native strength, as it had grown gradually and achieved its own position, may be seen in the works of the northern contemporaries of Raffaelle; the study of its rise and progress is no unworthy study of the human mind in its onward course toward excellence, nor should we allow prejudice to weigh with us in contemplating these labours. It has been well observed that “in art as in many other branches of human knowledge and industry, exclusiveness, or the tendency to depreciate that which does not conform to our own taste and feelings, is a fertile source of error and mischief. Such a disposition deprives mankind of the free and unrestrained enjoyment of much that is calculated to cheer and improve them. The naïveté of the early German and Italian painters, the earnest simplicity with which they conceived and expressed the devotional subjects treated by them, and the moral beauty of the subjects themselves, may excite our admiration, without disqualifying us for duly admiring the brilliant breadth of light and shadow of Rembrandt, or the genuine truth and humour of Wilkie.”[190-*] In this spirit must we study the works of the early native artists of the northern schools, and in this way comprehend their true philosophic position, and the æsthetics of their style.
Germany, a great and powerful nation, was in the fifteenth century the home of northern intelligence; and nowhere was it more fully made visible than in the old town of Nürnberg; it was the centre of trade, the abode of opulence, the patron of literature and the arts. Here, amid congenial spirits, lived Albert Dürer—“in him,” says Dr. Kügler, “the style of art already existing attained its most peculiar and its highest perfection. He became the representative of German art at this period.” To himself and his works, therefore, must we look for a true knowledge of the German school; and to Nürnberg, as it was in his epoch, for an acquaintance with the characteristics of the refined life of the German people. It is no unprofitable labour to unveil these ancient and forgotten times; much in man’s history, great and good, is hidden in the pages of old chronicles, and it is a worthy task to call back forgotten glories that may induce modern emulation, or at least vindicate the true position of the great departed.
“From the barred visor of antiquity,
Reflected, shines the eternal light of truth
As from a mirror.”[191-*]
The modern traveller who visits Nürnberg will see an old city most singularly unaltered. For the last two centuries it would seem to have remained almost stationary; its inhabitants succeeding each other without a wish for change, living in the old houses of their progenitors, and quietly retaining a certain stolid position which has neither lost nor won in the great battle of life around them. On approaching its walls it is difficult at first to believe that a city so quaint and peculiar still exists intact. It is precisely like looking at a pictured town in an old missal, with its series of square towers, and long curtain wall embracing its entire circumference; its old castle perched on the rock, and its great massive round towers proudly protecting its chief gates upon all sides. There is a strange “old-world” look about everything within these walls also, and we scarcely feel that we have arrived at the nineteenth century as we indulge in the thoughts they call forth. It is a place to dream in over the past, to carry one’s mind away from the bustle of modern life to the thoughtful contemplation of that once enjoyed here by generations long departed. It seems no place for the actual realities of our railroad days, and there is a sort of impertinence in bringing us by such means close to its quiet old walls; you feel thrown, as it were, from the go-a-head rapidities of modern times into the calm, heavy, slow-going days of Kaiser Maximilian, without time to consider the change. It is a place for a poet, one imbued with a love of old cities and their denizens, like Longfellow,—and how admirably in a few lines has he described the feeling it engenders, and the aspect of the city and its suburbs!—
“In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow lands,
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nürnberg, the ancient, stands.
Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng.
Memories of the middle ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old.
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.”
The “uncouth rhyme” was the familiar old proverb which told of the universal trade of the old city, couched in the few words—
Nürnberg’s hand,
Geht durch alle land;
and which may be rendered in our modern vernacular—
“Nürnberg’s hand
Goes through every land.”
This proud boast was more truthful than boasts are in general; its artisans literally sent their handiwork far and wide, their connections were great, and their city was the centre of trade between the East and West; for, prior to the discovery of the circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope, it was the depôt for eastern merchandise, which was principally sent with their own productions from Venice and Genoa; its convenient central position in Europe enabling its traders to distribute such produce, and all others coming to it, by means of the Danube and the Rhine to the north and west of Europe. Its own manufacturers were also much esteemed, and their works in metal highly valued, whether consisting of armour for the knight or bijouterie for his lady. The city, in fact, held within its warehouses the combined results of the taste, luxury, and necessities of the age, and was busied in exchanging them with the great trading towns of the low countries,—Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp,—the trade of the latter rising on the decline of that of old Nürnberg, whose inland position kept it far away from the sea-traffic which resulted from the discovery already alluded to. The religious wars contributed ultimately to accelerate its downfall at the commencement of the seventeenth century, and when peace was again restored, prosperity had flown in the turmoil.
It was during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that Nürnberg attained its greatest prosperity. At this time it was a free city of the German empire, possessing an independent domain around it extending twenty-three German miles, and was enabled to furnish the Emperor with six thousand soldiers. Its castle had been the home of these rulers from the twelfth century: memories of such inhabitants may still be traced.
“In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden, planted by Queen Cunigunde’s hand.”
The old tree still overshadows the inner yard of the castle, and the “Heathen Tower” tells of still earlier times. The entire place is full of antique memories; it has no sympathy with modern life; and you stand in its quiet crumbling walls, and expect, if the silence be broken at all, it will be by the heavy tread and clanking echo of a mail-clad knight. Maximilian himself and his knights, so quaintly delineated by Hans Burgmair, might rise from their graves, and enter their old quarters as if they had but left them yesterday, so unchanged is the aspect of the picturesque old castle which crowns the rock, and was erst the proud home of Germany’s proudest rulers.
But why dwell on the past glories of the warlike great? rather let us again quote the words of Longfellow, and exclaim
“Not thy councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world’s regard;
But thy painter Albert Dürer, and Hans Sachs the cobbler bard.”
Of the latter worthy we shall discourse anon; but the place of honour and our primary attention must now be given to the artist.
In the city of Nürnberg, on the 20th of May, in the year 1471, the house of the goldsmith, Albert Dürer, rejoiced over the birth of a son. Albert was thrifty, industrious, and had achieved for himself a good position among the burghers of the old town. He was a native of Cola in Hungary, but had sought congenial employ early in life where patronage was more rife, and had entered the service of the goldsmith, Jerome Haller, who had perfected him in a knowledge of his art, and finding the young man worthy, he had ultimately given him his daughter in marriage, living to rejoice with him over his increasing prosperity, and to congratulate him on the birth of his son, who was destined to bear the same names as his father, and to give them an undying celebrity. The young Albert grew up a handsome, intellectual lad, and his tastes were such as an artistic life in early youth might lead him to. The old goldsmiths were indeed the best patrons of ancient art; but for them an important branch of it—ornamental design—would have wanted the constancy of inventive spur, and the art of engraving and printing from incised plates originated in their workshops. They were intimately connected with the artists of their day; and the greatest among them did not disdain to furnish designs for their artisans. Hence the great variety and flow of fancy exhibited in their works. This intercommunication benefited both parties, and should be a lesson to modern exclusiveness, as it is a sort of key to the reason why the artistic beauty of the past eclipses much of the artisan’s work of the present age; and why also it displays an abundance of creative ingenuity, which can scarcely be compatible with the narrow studio a modern workshop has made itself. The early intercourse of young Dürer with art and artists, spurred him on to desire to occupy himself in greater works than he could find himself employed upon in his father’s house. He had learned nearly all he could learn there, and had diligently acquired the power to execute good works as a goldsmith by the time he had reached his sixteenth year; but he was wearied with the task of copying, and wished to join the ranks of the master spirits of whom he occasionally caught a glimpse in the hours of business. He also would be an artist, and communicated his higher aspirations to his father. The elder Dürer had worked his way patiently on by a slow and steady course, and could not understand why his son, now a good workman, with a fair prospect of equally succeeding in trade, should not be content to do as he had done. He had also that unpoetic thrifty style of looking at the whole question, which led him to consider his son as making a total wreck of the many years’ study which he had already gone through to fit him for the goldsmith’s trade; and he was, consequently, much displeased. He considered the question in the light of a positive loss for an uncertain gain, and somewhat rudely dismissed it from his mind. Like the majority of men, he could not bear that his son should shape himself a new course by the aid of the strong will of his own genius, when he considered the old course the best. He had rested on the hope of his son’s aid, which he saw he was well able to give him; and the prospect of his quietly succeeding him as a thrifty goldsmith of Nürnberg he thought enough to satisfy the most ardent hope. It was long before he could patiently listen to his son’s contrary mode of reasoning, and it was not until the young Albert, by reiterated attacks of earnest argument, closely but carefully enforced, had in some degree shaken him, that he would turn a willing ear to his wishes. Once having done this, and become fully aware of the strength of his son’s hopes, and the eagerness of his aspirations, the elder Dürer changed his whole conduct, and with laudable zeal sought the best artist by whom his son should be instructed. There were always many in Nürnberg, but none had better reputation than Michael Wohlgemuth; he also was an earnest, busy man, constantly employed in many branches of his profession, possessing in fact a great deal of the trading spirit, and therefore he was the man with whom Dürer would most desire to see his son studying. It was ultimately arranged that the young Albert should be bound to him for the term of three years to learn the art of painting.
Wohlgemuth was at this period in the full vigour of his life, and was performing an abundance of labour; he painted pictures, he furnished designs for goldsmiths and artisans, he illustrated books, and was a thriving and prosperous man. His works would not delight any eye now as they once charmed the Nürnbergers. They are essentially stiff and hard, exhibiting the exaggeration of form and attitude which makes early art look grotesque: he was fond of stern drawing, and generally painted a firm black outline to his figures, which has a very harsh effect. His colouring is equally positive, and his saints are generally arrayed in prismatic tints, relieved by the gold backgrounds which prevailed so constantly in early art. His portrait painted by Dürer at a later period of his life, is characteristic of the man. It is now in the Pinacothek at Munich, and has been well described by Dr. Kügler, as delineating “a strangely sharp, bony, and severe countenance.” Wohlgemuth was born at Nürnberg in 1434, and died in 1519. His native city still contains some of his best works, particularly in the Moritzkapelle, that sacred resting-place of quaint old art, thus religiously preserved for an age which brings to it few worshippers. It is but justice, however, to one who was great in his own day, to observe that he occasionally rises above the level of the bald style above indicated; and the eminent writer we have just now quoted, observes,—“whenever tranquil feeling is to be shown, he then exhibits many indications of a sense for grace in form, and tenderness in expression;” and at a later period of his life,—“the sharp cutting style, which strikes us so disagreeably in his early works, is much softened: the colouring is also warm and powerful.” He was certainly the best of the Nürnberg painters until his pupil eclipsed him. Dr. Waagen considers the picture in the south aisle of the Frauenkirche as one of the best works now possessed by his native city; it represents St. Gregory celebrating mass amid many other saints; but the men of Nürnberg seem most to value those in the Moritzkapelle, and which he painted in 1487 for the high altar of the Schusterkirche, at the expense of the family of Peringsdorfer. They represent various saints life-size, and are drawn with much vigour, and coloured with considerable power; the outlines are strongly marked in black, and they exhibit his full merits. We select the figure of St. Margaret as an example of his style; the somewhat constrained and angular attitude of the right arm carries the mind back to the missal paintings of the previous century; the small, pinched, and confused folds of the drapery, belong to the German school almost entirely; and to it may be traced Dürer’s errors in this particular portion of art. In the figure we have selected from his works for comparison, we see the same peculiar, “crinkled,” minute folds, completely destructive of dignity or breadth, and untrue to nature: but we see also a grandeur of general conception, and the bold leading lines of the composition unbroken by such minutiæ, which are secondary to the main idea. It represents St. Anne (the mother of the Virgin) clasping her hands in anguish at the refusal of the high priest to accept the offering of herself and husband in the temple at Jerusalem, and occurs in the first of Dürer’s series of woodcuts illustrating the life of the Virgin.
Fig. 232.—St. Margaret, after Wohlgemuth. | Fig. 233.—St. Anne, after Dürer. |
This striking peculiarity of treatment adopted by the early German artists in their draperies, was once explained to us by an old native artist, who assured us that it was entirely caused by the models for study which they universally employed. These were small lay figures, over which draperies were cast formed in wet paper, disposed according to the artist’s fancy, and allowed to dry and set in the rigid form we see in their pictures. We have nowhere met with this key to the mode of study adopted by them; but it so completely accords with the character of their drawings, and would be so easy to attain in this material, and so difficult in any other, that it seems to bear the impress of accuracy.
The work of Wohlgemuth, by which he is now most familiarly known, are the illustrations of the Nürnberg Chronicle, of Hartmann Schedel, published in 1493, which he executed in conjunction with William Pleydenwurff. This once famous history is a folio, full of historic learning, and illustrated by more than a thousand woodcuts, many of which are very large. It would appear that Pleydenwurff executed the views of cities and minor illustrations, and his greater fellow-labourer designed and drew upon the wood the historical scenes. In conformity with the custom of ancient chronicles, the history begins with the creation of the world, the various incidents connected therewith being all delineated. There is considerable invention, but great lack of grace, in all these designs; they bear, however, strong resemblances to the leading characteristics of Wohlgemuth’s paintings, and they are superior to the woodcuts that preceded him, particularly as regards the amount of finish and chiaroscuro they exhibit. The earliest woodcuts by Dürer bear some resemblance to these works, and are in the dry hard style of a master who evidently valued positive drawing at a higher rate than the blandishments of colour; this, indeed, has always been a characteristic of German art.
The three years of Dürer’s pupilage having expired, in conformity with the usual German custom, he travelled to see the world and improve himself. Of the early works of his genius we have no certain trace. That he was a good portrait painter we may be assured by the examination of his own picture in the gallery of the Uffizi at Florence, painted in 1498, and that of his father, in the Pinacotheck at Munich; but earlier chalk drawings exist, showing his proficiency in this branch of art at the age of fourteen. In the course of his peregrinations in Germany he visited his brother artists, returning to his native city in 1494. His earliest works on his return seem to have been designs on wood, for in 1498 appeared the series of woodcuts, illustrating the Revelations of St. John. Dr. Kügler says “we should regard them as proofs of his activity in the years immediately preceding; such at least is the case in similar works. In these compositions the artist has already attained great and peculiar excellence, but in these, as might be expected from the subject, the fantastic element forms the groundwork of the whole. These mystical subjects are conceived in a singularly poetical spirit; the wonderful and monstrous meet us in living bodily forms. Some of them exhibit a power of representation to the eye, and a grandeur of conception the more surprising, since the shapeless exuberance of the scriptural visions might easily have led the artist astray, as has indeed frequently happened in the case of others who have attempted these subjects.” In artistic effects these cuts are inferior to his latter works, and the drawing is sometimes more defective; but in inventive power they are master-pieces, and no artist before or since has so successfully treated these mysteries. The reputation of Dürer was well-established by these cuts, and gave him a good position in his native town, which he never left afterwards, except for a journey to Venice in 1506, and to the Netherlands in 1520.
All Dürer’s tastes were essentially national, if indeed they may not be said to be narrowed within the circle of the town of Nürnberg and its neighbourhood. He married soon after his return; and living entirely at home, prosecuted his art with unwearied assiduity, the avarice of his wife urging still further his constant labours. His studies seem to have been made from the people around him, or from the scenes which constantly met his eye. Thus, in his scripture prints, the people of Nürnberg and the peasants of the neighbourhood, figure as representatives of the ancient Jews. St. Joseph is a Nürnberg carpenter, and the Virgin herself seems to have been modelled from some fair maiden of the city. The stout burghers, who witness the happy meeting of St. Joachim and Anne at the golden gate of the temple, in his series of prints illustrative of the Life of the Virgin, are such as Dürer might have seen daily loitering by the tower gate opposite his own windows; and the modest-looking maiden with the extravagantly fashionable head-dress, whom he has introduced in his “Marriage of the Virgin,” has been absolutely copied from nature; the original sketch, made by his own hand from a Nürnberg damsel, is preserved with many similar studies by him in the British Museum. He was untiring in his converse with nature as he saw it around him; and the minutely careful sketches which now enrich our national collection, testify to his industry and anxiety for truth as the basis of his labours.
The old town of Nürnberg was eminently picturesque, and was enriched with artistic works by the best men of the day. The wealth of its inhabitants was expended on their houses within and without, and the churches were lavishly adorned with paintings and sculpture, as well as with other riches of art connected with the service of religion. In its quaint old streets might be studied the fruits of the faith and feeling of its inhabitants. Numerous figures of the Holy Mother decorated the street corners, or were enshrined over the portals of the doors of the merchantmen, the light burning before each serving the double purpose of religion and utility, in a city of dark tortuous lanes. The ingenuity of the mason and sculptor was taxed in varied inventions for the further adornment of the homes of the wealthy; and the numerous specimens of artistic ironwork still remaining attest the taste and opulence of the merchant princes of the old city. Art was thus wedded to utility as well as to luxury, and at every step in Nürnberg the attention will still be arrested by its influence.
Dürer lived in a large mansion at one extremity of the town, close to the gate from whence he could in a few minutes escape from the pent-up city to the open fields. His house is one of those roomy buildings in which there is enough timber to build at least a dozen modern houses. The lower portion is stone, the upper, with its open galleries, of wood. The view from his doors embraced the town gate, and the picturesque tower, known as the Thiergartenthor, beside it. The house between that and the narrow lane which leads up the castle hill was the property at that time of one Martin Kötzel, who, having twice employed himself in pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and in measuring the number of paces the Saviour trod on the Via Dolorosa, had determined on his return to consider his house as the representative of Pilate’s house, the Gate of Nürnberg as that of Jerusalem, the churchyard of St. John in the fields beyond, as Calvary, and the road between as the Via Dolorosa, and to cause representations of the events of the Saviour’s journey in the line of this road at the various distances where they were traditionally supposed to occur; and the chief sculptor of Nürnberg, Adam Kraft, was employed to execute the sculptures, which still stand a monument of the piety of the old citizen, whose house (known by the figure of an armed knight at its angle) is still familiarly called “Pilate’s House.” Time has written strange alterations on these old works, and wanton injury has also been done to them, but there still remains enough to show the ability of their conception and execution.
The castle comprises the somewhat rambling series of buildings of all ages, styles, and dates, which crown the rock above. The singular manner in which this isolated mass of stone suddenly rises from the sandy plain may have induced the first foundation of the city, by the secure locality it afforded the castle of a ruler in days of old. Its early history is shrouded in obscurity—one of its towers has been attributed to the Romans; it can still show undoubted works of the ninth century in the chapels of Sts. Ottmar and Margaret, from which time it received alterations and additions of all kinds, ending in leaving it the picturesque assemblage of quaint old buildings which it at present remains. The Himmelsthor, or “tower of heaven,” is the name given to the large round tower which is built within the castle precincts on the highest point of the rock, and which, as its title implies, soars toward heaven, and forms a prominent feature in all views of Nürnberg. The panorama from its summit is singularly striking, comprising the entire country for an immense distance round. The alt Feste, where Wallenstein encamped, in his memorable defence of these lines and of the city when besieged by Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, and the blue hills known as the Franconian Switzerland, terminating with the Moritzberg, give relief to the otherwise flat vicinity. This tower has been introduced in the background of some of Dürer’s designs, as well as other portions of the castle. The old town-walls also figure in those scenes from Holy Writ he so frequently designed. The anachronisms which result from such a mode of realising scenes in past history were sufficiently familiar in his own day to save them from all adverse criticism; indeed, it had become the formula of early art, thus to verify sacred events by adapting them to the experiences of every-day life around, to which it never appealed in vain. To comprehend fully the art of any one period, and the talent of any artist of that period, we must go back mentally to the time in which he flourished, and measure him by such as had preceded him. In this way alone can we form a right judgment of his powers, and award him his due place in art.
In the days of Albert Dürer the street in which he resided was known as “die Zisselgasse;” it is now appropriately named after the great artist himself. When he lived and worked in his roomy old mansion, Nürnberg was not quite so crowded within its own walls as it has since become by the pressure of modern exigencies; and Dürer’s house appears to have had out-buildings, and, most probably, a small garden, such as was awarded to better-class houses in mediæval times. Dr. Frederick Campe tells us that he bought, in 1826, from the proprietor of the house, a balcony in which Dürer worked in summer time, and which originally must have commanded some sheltered space wherein a few trees might grow. The house has since been purchased by a society of artists, who honour themselves by that act, and do honour to Dürer by preserving it as much as possible in the state in which he left it, and exhibiting his works in the rooms. The interior of the house has undergone some renovation, but it has been done cautiously, and in strict character with the original portions: it chiefly consists of new panelling and new doors, and they are quaintly carved in the style of the sixteenth century. The external door of the house still retains its old ironwork and lock fittings.[212-*] We pass through from the street, and enter a roomy hall, with a wide passage on one side, and an equally wide staircase on the other, which leads to the upper floors. A ponderous beam supports the ceiling, and a massive wooden pillar props the centre of this beam. The profusion of timber, and abundance of space accorded to passages and staircase, are indicative of past times, when wood was of less value than it has since become. The floor on which this pillar rests is flagged with stones; a small parlour is to the right; we pass it, and midway in the passage come to a low door leading into a small square room,—it was the studio of Dürer.
“Here, when art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
Lived and laboured Albert Dürer, the Evangelist of Art.”[212-†]
It is lighted from the street by a long narrow window about five feet from the ground inserted in the top of an arch in the wall, as seen from the inside, beneath which is a shelf of capacious breadth. A small richly-carved altar-piece is now placed within it, and a few chairs. It is a quiet secluded room, having no communication with any other. The top of the walls and turrets of the old town, and a small patch of sky, may be seen by an upward glance at the window; but there is no feature to distract the denizen of the apartment: it is a place for concentration of mind, and such must have been Dürer’s habits, as the enormous amount of his works show. Leaving this room and proceeding farther, we reach the quaintly constructed kitchen, with its enormous fire-place half filling the apartment. The one small window to the street lets in a gleam of light such as Rembrandt would have admired. The arched door is fitted with a lock of that peculiar form and character which assure the spectator that it is the handwork of an ingenious smith of Dürer’s day; its broad plate is decorated with a simple ornament consisting of the favourite gnarled twigs and leaves, so constantly adopted in German decorations of all kinds, at the end of the fifteenth, and during the sixteenth century. We leave the ground floor and ascend the wide stairs. The front room on the first floor commands a pleasant view of the small Platz opposite the house, as it fronts the Thiergartenthor, and the castled crag rises grandly over the houses beside it. The walls are panelled, and the beams across the wooden ceiling chamfered, and slightly carved. The aspect of the whole room is striking, and it is rendered more impressive by the many examples of Dürer’s genius placed within it, as well as of others by his master Wohlgemuth. The woodcuts are framed, and comprise the best examples of both masters; there is also an original drawing on vellum testifying to the minute accuracy of Dürer’s studies. It is the figure of a lion, bearing date 1512, drawn with all that patient care which characterises his transcripts from nature. In the British Museum is a large volume containing numerous studies for his principal works, and it is a wonderful record of truth-seeking patience, as the minute parts of his designs appear to have been drawn from nature as carefully as if such sketches had been parts of a finished picture; his unwearied assiduity in his profession has never been exceeded.
Nürnberg contains fewer of Dürer’s works than a stranger might be led to expect.[215-*] The print-room of our British Museum, with its great number of engravings and drawings, and its wonderful sculpture in hone-stone by him, is a far better place to study the works of this artist. There is, however, one work of singular interest preserved in the old city, which is worth a long journey to see. It is the portrait of the old Nürnberg patrician—Jerome Holzschuher, the friend and patron of the artist. It represents a cheerful, healthy man over whose head fifty-seven years have passed without diminishing his freshness and buoyancy of spirit; the clear complexion, searching eye, and general vigour which characterise the features, almost seem to contradict the white hair that falls in thick masses over the forehead. For freshness, power, and truth, this portrait may challenge comparison with any of its age. Time has also dealt leniently with the picture, for it is as clear and bright as the day it was painted, and is carefully preserved in its original frame, into which a sliding wooden panel is made to fit and cover it: the outside being emblazoned with the armes parlantes of the family of Holzschuher—a wooden shoe, raised from the ground in the manner of the Venetian chopine. The picture was painted in 1526, and “combines,” says Kügler, “the most perfect modelling with the freest handling of the colours; and is certainly the most beautiful of all this master’s portraits, since it plainly shows how well he could seize nature in her happiest moments, and represent her with irresistible power.” It still remains in the possession of the Holzschuher family, and is located in their mansion at the back of the Egidienkirche, where it is politely shown to strangers on proper application; and should the visitor have the advantage accorded to the writer, of the attendance of the last representative of the family, he will see that the same clear eye and expressive features have also descended as a heir-loom in the house.
It is at Florence, Vienna, and Munich, that Dürer’s paintings are principally located. The Castle at Nürnberg possesses his portraits of the Emperors Charlemagne and Sigismund. In the Moritzkapelle is the picture which he painted for the church of St. Sebald in Nürnberg, by the order of Holzschuher. It represents the dead Saviour just removed from the cross, and mourned over by his mother and friends. It is peculiarly brilliant in colour, and there is considerable force in the deep rich draperies with which the figures are clothed, but it has the defect visible in the works of Dürer’s master—a love of hard black outlines. In this picture the faces, hands, and feet are delineated by lines very slightly relieved by shadow, and reminding the spectator too much of his woodcuts. This love for expressing firm outline is better adapted to such works as his wall-paintings in the Rathhaus, or Town-hall. They are executed on the north wall of the grand saloon, and are divided by the principal door leading from the gallery; on one side of which is an allegory of the “Unjust Judge” (which formed one of the series of moral broadsheets published by Hans Sachs); and a group of musicians in a gallery, probably representing those that belonged to the town; on the other side of the door the entire length of the wall is occupied by the allegorical triumphal car of the Emperor Maximilian I., a work which Dürer copied on wood in a series of large cuts, published in 1522. In a fanciful car, drawn by many horses, sits the emperor in regal state, attended by all the virtues and attributes which may be supposed to wait on moral royalty. The very nature of such a work is beset with difficulties, and it is seldom that any artist has entirely surmounted them. State allegories present small fascinations to any but the statesman glorified; but Dr. Kügler in his criticism of this work, while he acknowledges its defects, is prepared to say that some of the figures “display motives of extraordinary beauty, such as might have proceeded from the graceful simplicity of Raphael.”[218-*] This painting has suffered from time, and “restoration;” the design may be best studied in the woodcut made from it.
The Emperor Maximilian was a great patron of the arts, but particularly of that branch which had newly arisen—the art of wood-engraving—which he fostered with continual care, and by the help of such men as Dürer, Burgmeyer, Schaufflein, and Cranach, produced works which have never been excelled. During this period, extending over the first quarter of the sixteenth century, a series of elaborate woodcuts were executed under his own auspices, which were, however, principally devoted to his own glorification. Two of these are the well-known “Adventures of Sir Thuerdank,” and “The Wise King,” written in ponderous folios after the fashion of the old romances, by Melchior Pfintzing, who resided in the old parsonage house of St. Sebald (he being a canon of that church), a picturesque building on the sloping ground beside it, which rises upward to the Schlossberg, and which still retains the aspect it bore in his days; its beautiful oriel and open balcony still testify to the taste of mediæval architects. It is but a short distance from Dürer’s house, and he must have frequently visited here. Here also, came the emperor to examine the progress of these works: and the great interest he took in superintending them has been recorded; for it is said that during the time when Jerome Retzsch was engaged in engraving on wood the triumphal car from the drawing by Dürer, the emperor was almost a daily visitant to his house. This anecdote may naturally lead here to the consideration of the question—did Dürer engrave the cuts which bear his name, or did he only draw them upon the wood for the engraver? It is generally considered that all cuts bearing an artist’s mark are engraved by that artist, but this is in reality an error resulting from modern practice. It is now the custom for wood-engravers to place their names or marks on their cuts, and very seldom those of the artists who draw the designs for them upon the wood. It was the reverse in the old time; then it was usual to place that of the designer alone, and as he drew upon wood every line to be engraved, after the manner of a pen-and-ink drawing, the engraver had little else to do than cut the wood from between the spaces: hence his art was a very mechanical one, and his name was seldom recorded. That of Retzsch does not appear on the car just named, but the mark of Dürer solely; and when we consider the vast amount of labour performed by Dürer as an artist, it is not likely that he wasted time in the mechanical labour of cutting out his own drawings when he could employ it more profitably. The Baron Derschau, himself a collector of old cuts, assured Dr. Dibdin “that he once possessed a journal of Dürer’s, from which it appeared that he was in the habit of drawing upon the blocks, and that his men performed the remaining operation of cutting away the wood.” Bartsch is decidedly of opinion “that he had never employed himself in this kind of work.” Mr. W. A. Chatto, in his anonymous “History of Wood Engraving,” has gone into this question with much research and learning, and comes to the same conclusion; which is strengthened by the fact, that the names of fourteen engravers, and the initials of several others, were found engraved on the backs of the cuts they executed for the “Triumph of Maximilian,” now preserved in the imperial library at Vienna; the names of others are incidentally preserved; and among the drawings by Dürer in the British Museum, is one of a young lady, whom he has designated “wood engraver,” and who was most probably employed by him. There is also a sufficient difference in the style and manner of cutting his designs, which shows they must have been done by different hands. It is not possible to note here a tithe of the cuts done from his drawings.[221-*] His great serials are the “Apocalypse,” published in 1498, the two series of the “Passion of Christ,” and the “Life of the Virgin” (from which we give a specimen, [Fig. 241], “Christ bidding Farewell to his Mother”), all published in 1511. His largest woodcut was published in 1515, the “Triumphal Arch of the Emperor Maximilian,” and this, like the car already alluded to, was engraved on a series of ninety-two wood blocks, and then the impressions pasted together, forming a large print ten feet high. It is a work of great labour, and displays considerable invention.
Of Dürer’s powers as a painter we have already spoken; but he excelled also as an engraver on copper, and his prints of “Adam and Eve,” “Melancholia,” and the small “Life of Christ,” have not been surpassed. To him also we owe the invention of etching; he practised the art on iron and on copper, and it is impossible to overvalue its utility. In addition to his other labours he executed several pieces of sculpture, one of which, the “Naming of John the Baptist,” we have already alluded to as preserved in the British Museum, and some few others in hone-stone, bearing his well-known mark, exist. He also wrote on Art, and a portion of the original manuscripts of his book on the proportions of the human figure, is still preserved in the library of the old Dominican monastery at Nürnberg. He was a good mathematician, he also studied engineering, and is believed to have designed and superintended the additional fortifications in the town walls beside the castle, which are remarkable as the earliest examples of the more modern system of defence, which originated in the south of Europe, and with which Dürer became acquainted during his sojourn in Venice, and the fruits of which he thus practically brought to the service of his native city.[223-*] He published too an essay on the fortification of towns. In fact, there were few subjects to which his mind was directed that he did not make himself complete master of.
Thus lived and laboured Dürer in the city of his adoption, studying nature most diligently, and combining therewith high imaginings of his own. In 1506 he undertook a journey to Venice, and its influence improved him greatly. In the letters he wrote on this journey to his intimate friend Pirkheimer he acknowledges this; in one of them he declares “the things which pleased me eleven years ago please me no longer.” He also notes the popularity which had preceded him, and says, “the Italian artists counterfeit my works in the churches and wherever else they can find them, and yet they blame them, and declare that as they are not in accordance with ancient art they are worthless.”[223-†] But though subjected to the slights of the unworthy, Dürer gratefully records the nobler acts of nobler men, and notes that Giovanni Bellini publicly praised him before many gentlemen, “so that I am full of affection for him.” This noble old man did not confine his acts to praise alone, but came to Dürer’s lodging and requested him to paint him a picture, as he was desirous to possess one of his works, and he would pay liberally for it. Dürer at this time was far from rich, was merely paying his way by the practice of his art; and the small sums of money he notes as sending for the use of his wife and widowed mother in Nürnberg, sufficiently attest this, as well as his request to Pirkheimer to help them with loans which he would repay.
Pirkheimer’s name is so intimately connected with Dürer, and he remained throughout his life so steady and consistent a friend, that no memoir of Dürer can be written, however briefly, without his name appearing. He was a man of considerable wealth and influence in Nürnberg, a member of the Imperial Council, and frequently employed in state affairs. He had it, therefore, in his power to aid Dürer greatly; he did so, and Dürer returned it with a gratitude which ripened to affection, he declares in one of his letters that he had “no other friend but him on earth,” and he was equally attached to Dürer. The constant intercourse and kindly advices of his friend were the few happy relaxations Dürer enjoyed. Pirkheimer was a learned man, and cheerful withal, as his facetious book “Laus Podagræ,” or the “Praise of the Gout,” can testify. The house in which he resided is still pointed out in the Egidien Platz; it has undergone alterations, but the old doorway remains intact, through which Dürer must have frequently passed to consult his friend. “What is more touching in the history of men of genius than that deep and constant attachment they have shown to their early patrons?” asks Mrs. Jameson.[225-*] How many men have been immortalised by friendships of this kind; how many of the greatest been rendered greater and happier thereby? When the Elector John Frederick of Saxony met with his reverses in 1547, was driven from his palace, and was imprisoned for five years, the painter Lucas Cranach, whom he had patronised in his days of prosperity, shared his adversity and his prison with him, giving up his liberty to console his prince by his cheerful society, and diverting his mind by painting pictures in his company. He thus lightened a captivity and turned a prison into a home of art and friendship; thus the kindness and condescension of a prince were returned in more value “than much fine gold,” in the bitter hour of his adversity, by his humble but warm-hearted artist-friend.
That brotherly unity which ought to bind professional men of all kinds—isolated as they must be from the general world—was more of a necessity in the past time than in the present; and the artists formed a little band of friends within the walls of ancient Nürnberg, consulting with and aiding each other. The peculiarity of thought and tendency of habit which constitute the vitality of the artist-mind, are altogether unappreciated by the general world; completely misunderstood, and most frequently contemned by men of a trading spirit, who look upon artists as “eccentrics,” upon art as a “poor business,” and judge of pictures solely by their “market value.” These things should bind professors more strongly together. Their numbers are few; their time for socialities limited; their world a small select circle; few can sympathise with their cares or their more exquisite sensibilities; they must, therefore, be content with the few whose minds respond to theirs, and they ought not to make the narrow circle narrower, by unworthy jealousies or captious criticism. Well would it be for us all, and infinitely better for the world of art, if we practised still more
“Those gentler charities which draw
Man closer with his kind,
Those sweet humilities which make
The music which they find.”[227-*]
Dürer was essentially a man to love. His nature was kindly and open; he knew no envy, and was never known to condemn the work of another artist,—which, if bad, he would only criticise with a smile, and a “Well! the master has done his best.” His general information was so good, that it was declared of him by a contemporary, that his power as an artist was his least qualification. His personal appearance was dignified, and his face eminently handsome.[227-†] Yet, with all these means of being happy, and making others so, few men endured more misery. In an evil hour his family made a match for him in the household of Hans Frei, whose daughter Agnes he married, and scarcely knew peace after. She was a heartless, selfish woman, who could have no feeling in common with her husband, and who only valued his art according to the money it realised. “She urged him to labour day and night solely to earn money, even at the cost of his life, that he might leave it to her,” says Pirkheimer, in one of his letters to Tscherte, their mutual friend the Viennese architect. All his friends she insulted and drove from the house, in order that their visits might not interfere with his labours. His aged mother, whom he had taken into his house after his father’s death, was subject to contempt and ill-treatment. His letters from Venice are sad, and show no pleasant home-thoughts. Yet he did much for the bad woman to whom he was wedded, and seems to have thought of her gratification by numerous presents. His amiable heart would not allow him to separate from her, thus he bore her ill humours for his life, and patiently endured his lot.[228-*] There were few men more adapted to make a woman happy than Dürer: he had a handsome person, much fame, good friends, great talent, and the most kindly amiability; but his wife was perhaps the worst on record, on whom all this was thrown away. Yet she was of very religious habit, and preserved all the externals of propriety; but, as Pirkheimer observes, “one would rather choose a woman who conducts herself in an agreeable manner, than a fretful, jealous, scolding wife, however devout she may be.”
Banished from the society of friends, Dürer’s only solace was in his art. Here only he found peace and pleasure. How earnestly and deeply he laboured, the long catalogue of his productions can prove. The truthfulness of his style is shown in his patient studies from nature, and his works are the reflex of such a habit. The figure of the burly townsman of Jerusalem who lifts his cap in acknowledgment of Joachim and Anna, as they meet at the Golden Gate, in his illustrations of the Life of the Virgin ([Fig. 243]), may be cited for its homely truth, a characteristic which runs through all Dürer’s works, and gives them a certain naïveté. The figure is an evident study of an honest townsman of Nürnberg, and is as little like an ancient Jew as possible, though admirable as a transcript from nature. Of far higher order are the figures of the apostles, John, Peter, Mark, and Paul, which he painted in 1526, and presented to his native city.[229-*] We engrave the figure of Paul, the drapery of which is simple and majestic. A study for this drapery, made as early as 1523, is in the collection of the Archduke Charles of Austria. In these pictures, which are painted of life-size, he has exerted his utmost ability, and eschewed any peculiarities of his own which might interfere with the greatness of his design. “These pictures are the fruit of the deepest thought which then stirred the mind of Dürer, and are executed with overpowering force. Finished as they are they form the first complete work of art produced by Protestantism.[229-†] What dignity and sublimity pervade those heads of such varied character![230-*] What simplicity and majesty in the lines of the drapery! what sublime and statue-like repose in their attitudes! Here we no longer find any disturbing element: there are no small angular breaks in the folds, no arbitrary or fantastic features in the countenances, or even in the fall of the hair. The colouring too is very perfect, true to nature in its power and warmth. There is scarcely any trace of the bright glazing, or of those sharply defined forms seen in other works by him, but everywhere a free pure impasto. Well might the artist now close his eyes, he had in this picture attained the summit of his art—here he stands side by side with the greatest masters known in history.”[231-*]
|
Fig. 243.—Figure from Dürer’s Life of the Virgin. |
Fig. 244.—St. Paul, after Dürer. |
Of the great contemporaries of Dürer—whose works have given undying celebrity to the old town of their residence—we must now discourse a little. Honoured as these works still are by the Nürnbergers, they are little known out of Germany; although, as exemplars of art in general at the particular period when they were executed, they may challenge their due position anywhere. The most remarkable is the bronze shrine of St. Sebald, the work of Peter Vischer and his five sons, which still stands in all its beauty in the elegant church dedicated to the saint. The shrine encloses, amid the most florid Gothic architecture, the oaken chest encased with silver plates, containing the body of the venerated saint; this rests on an altar decorated with basso-relievos, depicting his miracles.[231-†] The architectural portion of this exquisite shrine partakes of the characteristics of the Renaissance forms engrafted on the mediæval, by the influence of Italian art. Indeed, the latter school is visible as the leading agent throughout the entire composition. The figures of the Twelve Apostles and others placed around it, scarcely seem to belong to German art: they are quite worthy of the best Trans-alpine master. The grandeur, breadth and repose of these wonderful statues cannot be excelled. Vischer seems to have completely freed his mind from the conventionalities of his native schools: we have here none of the constrained “crumpled draperies,” the home-studies for face and form, so strikingly present in nearly all the works of art of this era; but noble figures of the men elevated above the earthly standard by companionship with the Saviour, exhibiting their high destiny by a noble bearing, worthy of the solemn and glorious duties they were devoted to fulfil. We gaze on these figures as we do on the works of Giotto and Fra Angelico, until we feel human nature may lose nearly all of its debasements before the “mortal coil” is “shuffled off,” and that mental goodness may shine through and glorify its earthly tabernacle, and give an assurance in time present of the superiorities of an hereafter. Dead, indeed, must be the soul that can gaze on such works unmoved, appealing as they do to our noblest aspirations, and vindicating humanity from its fallen position, by asserting its innate, latent glories. Here we feel the truth of the scriptural phrase—“In his own image made He them.”
The memory of Peter Vischer is deservedly honoured by his townsmen. The street in which his house is situated, like that in which Dürer’s stands, has lost its original name, and is now only known as “Peter Vischer’s Strasse;” but these two artists are the only ones thus distinguished.[234-*] Vischer was born in 1460, and died in 1529. He was employed by the warden of St. Sebald’s, and magistrate of Nürnberg, Sebald Schreyer, to construct this work in honour of his patron saint; he began it in 1506, and finished it in 1519. Thirteen years of labour were thus devoted to its completion, for which he received seven hundred and seventy florins. “According to tradition, Vischer was miserably paid for this great work of labour and art; and he has himself recorded in an inscription upon the monument, that ‘he completed it for the praise of God Almighty alone, and the honour of St. Sebald, Prince of Heaven, by the aid of pious persons, paid by their voluntary contributions.’”[235-*] The elaboration of the entire work is marvellous; it abounds with fanciful figures, seventy-two in number, disposed among the ornaments, or acting as supporters to the general composition. Syrens hold candelabra at the angles; and the centre has an air of singular lightness and grace. It is supported at the base by huge snails. At the western end there is a small bronze statue of Vischer, which we copy ([Fig. 247]): he holds his chisels in his hand, and in his workman’s dress, with capacious, leather apron, stands unaffectedly forth as a true, honest labourer, appealing only to such sympathies as are justly due to one who laboured so lovingly and so well.
Sharing the palm with Vischer for perfect mastery in sculpture (the one as a worker in metal, the other in stone) stands Adam Krafft, whose works are still the principal ornaments of the city. To him were his fellow-townsmen indebted for the grand gate of the Frauenkirche, the series of sculptures on the “Via Dolorosa,” numerous others in the churches and public buildings, but principally for the “Sacramentshauslein,” in the Church of St. Laurence ([Fig. 248]). This marvellous work is placed against a pillar beside the high altar, and is intended as a receptacle for the consecrated bread and wine in its service; a small gallery runs round the lower portion, in which the “host” is kept; over this the sculpture ascends upwards in a series of tapering columns and foliage of the most light and fanciful description, until it reaches the spring of the arched roof, where the crowning pinnacle “bows its beautiful head like the snowdrop on its stem,” in the curve of the arch, gracefully completing a work which, for originality, delicacy, and the most extraordinary elaboration of design, is a perfect marvel of stone-carving. The foliations are so flowing and delicate, that it has given rise to a popular tradition that Krafft was possessed of some secret for making stone plastic. We have nothing so delicate in this country, unless it be some of the leaflets on the Percy shrine, and screen of Beverley Minster. Krafft’s leaves are as thin and delicate, as crisp and free, as if moulded from nature in plaster of Paris, while the grand curves of his ornamental adjuncts are astonishing, when we reflect on the mass of stone necessarily cut away to produce these boldly-flowing enrichments. Krafft was born at Ulm in 1430, and died 1507. His father was the printer, Ulrich Krafft. He commenced this work in the year 1496, and completed it in 1500. In it we see the perfect mastery produced by a life of labour, and in front of it he has sculptured his own effigy, kneeling, mallet in hand, and supporting his favourite work. There is a touching simplicity in this union of the artist and his labours, made in these instances all the more impressive by its utter want of pretension. There is no affectation—no studied artistic or classical portraying; we have simply the man and his work before us, appealing by their dumb native eloquence to that homage and love, which are their due by their own inherent greatness.
That works based on truth and nature will always possess this power, may be proved by the admiration bestowed on a small work by a pupil of Vischer’s, which is popularly loved by the Nürnbergers, and known as “Das Gänsemänchen” ([Fig. 250]). It forms the central figure of a small fountain beside the Frauenkirche, and represents a country boor leaning against a small pillar, with a goose under each arm, waiting a customer in the market; from the mouth of each goose a stream of water descends. The figure is not more than eighteen inches high, and is, from the smallness of its size, compared with the greatness of its celebrity, a general disappointment to those who see it for the first time. It rivals in celebrity the work of Vischer himself, and was executed by his scholar, Pancratius Labenwolf (born 1492, died 1563); the fountain in the quadrangle of the “Rathhaus” is also by him. The Goose-seller owes its popularity to its perfect truth and simplicity.
Another artist of this era, inferior to none in taste and delicacy of sentiment, was Veit Stoss. He was a native of Poland, born at Cracow in 1447; making Nürnberg the city of his adoption, and dying there in 1542.[240-*] The same exquisite grace and purity which characterises the works of Vischer is seen in those of Stoss. He devoted himself to sculpture in wood, and in this way is said to have furnished models to those who worked in stone, as well as to goldsmiths, and other artisans who required designs. “The Crowning of the Virgin,” still preserved in the old castle at Nürnberg, had all the delicacy and grace of the missal paintings of Julio Clovio.
There is an exquisite repose about his works, only to be gained by great mastership in art. At times a tenderness of sentiment singularly beautiful is apparent in these too-much-forgotten works. We engrave, as an illustration of this, one of the compartments of the “Rosenkranztafel,” preserved in the same locality, and representing the “Nativity.” The Virgin in the stable at Bethlehem, piously rejoices in the birth of the Lord, and is about to wrap the sacred infant in the folds of her own garments, having no other clothing. She has reverently laid the babe in a corner of her mantle, when, penetrated with a sense of the divinity, she clasps her hands in prayer before the Infant Saviour; while her husband Joseph, who holds the lantern beside her, feeling the same emotion, drops on one knee, and reverently lifts his hat in acknowledgment of the Immortal One.
It is this fervent devotion, this pure, high, yet simple-mindedness, which gives vitality to ancient works of art, and is to be felt by all who are not insensible to its agency in the time present. Another touching incident is seen in the sculpture by Adam Krafft over the grave of Schreyer, representing “The Entombment.”[243-*] The dead body of our Saviour is being reverently lifted into the tomb; the sorrowing mother, loving as only mothers love, partially supports the wounded body of her inanimate son; in process of movement the Saviour’s head falls languidly on one side, and the dead cheek is again greeted with the fervent kiss of love, which still burns in the breast of the sorrowing mother. Who shall rudely criticise the perspective, the draperies, the absence of “scholastic rule,” in this touching work of a true-hearted man? Not the writer of these lines! Let it be rather his province to vindicate for these old artists their due position, among the few forming that galaxy of the great and good, elevating and adorning human nature.
Our parting glance at “the Athens of Germany” must comprehend a view of the life and manners of the people among whom Dürer and his compatriots lived. Theirs were the palmy days of the old city, for its glories rapidly fell to decay toward the end of the sixteenth century. Its aspect now is that of a place of dignity and importance left to loneliness and the quiet wear of time; like an antique mansion of a noble not quite allowed to decay, but merely existing shorn of its full glories. “Nürnberg—with its long, narrow, winding, involved streets, its precipitous ascents and descents, its completely Gothic physiognomy—is by far the strangest old city I ever beheld; it has retained in every part the aspect of the Middle Ages. No two houses resemble each other: yet, differing in form, in colour, in height, in ornament, all have a family likeness; and with their peaked and carved gables, and projecting central balconies, and painted fronts, stand up in a row, like so many tall, gaunt, stately old maids, with the toques and stomachers of the last century. Age is here, but it does not suggest the idea of dilapidation or decay; rather of something which has been put under a glass case, and preserved with care from all extraneous influences. But, what is most curious and striking in this old city, is to see it stationary, while time and change are working such miracles and transformations everywhere else. The house where Martin Behaim, four centuries ago, invented the sphere, and drew the first geographical chart, is still the house of a map-seller. In the house where cards were first manufactured, cards are now sold. In the very shops where clocks and watches were first seen, you may still buy clocks and watches. The same families have inhabited the same mansions from one generation to another for four or five centuries.”[244-*]
In a city where all its associations of greatness are with the past, and its memories essentially connected with those who have been long numbered with the dead, it is natural we should find a strong tendency to remembrances of events and personages generally forgotten in other and more stirring cities. The Nürnbergers lovingly preserve all that will connect them with the glorious days of Kaiser Maximilian, when their “great Imperial City” held the treasures of the Holy Roman empire, the crown and royal insignia of Charlemagne, as well as the still more precious “relics” which he had brought from the Holy Land.[245-*]
Among all their literary magnates none is better remembered than
“Hans Sachs, the cobbler-bard,”
and statuettes of this great poet of small things are to be seen in most Nürnberg book and print shops. Since the days of Lope de Vega no writer scribbled so fluently and so well on the thousand-and-one incidents of his own day, or fancies of his own brain. Sachs was born at Nürnberg in 1494 and was the son of a poor tailor, who insured his education in the free-school of the town, and at fifteen he was apprenticed to a shoemaker; when the period of servitude had expired, in accordance with the German practice, he set out on his travels to see the world. It was a stirring time, and men’s eyes were rapidly opened to the corruptions of church and state; the great principles of the Reformation were making way. Hans possessed much of that stirling common sense, and shrewd practical observation which belong to many of the lower class, and make them outspoken rude despisers of courtiership. On his return he applied for admission as a fellow rhymester among the master-singers’ fraternity of Nürnberg, a corporation of self-styled poets, who surrounded the “divine art” with all kinds of routine ordinances, and regulated the length of lines and number of syllables which each “poem” (?) should contain, so magisterially that they reduced it to a mathematical precision, and might class it among the “exact sciences.” Before this august tribunal the muse of Sachs appeared, his poem was read, its lines were measured, its syllables counted, and he was admitted to the honour of being an acknowledged master of song. From that hour till his death, he cobbled and sang to the wonderful amusement of the good citizens; and when seventy-seven years had passed gaily over his head, “he took an inventory of his poetical stock-in-trade, and found, according to his narrative, that his works filled thirty volumes folio, and consisted of 4,273 songs, 1,700 miscellaneous poems, and 208 tragedies, comedies and farces, making an astounding sum-total of 6,181 pieces of all kinds. The humour of his tales is not contemptible; he laughs lustily and makes his reader join him; his manner, so far as verse can be compared to prose, is not unlike that of Rabelais, but less grotesque.”[246-*] His most popular productions were broadsheets with woodcuts, devoted to all kinds of subjects, sold about the streets, and stuck “like ballads on the wall” of old English cottages; speaking boldly out to the comprehension and tastes of the people on subjects they were interested in. From a large volume of these “curiosities of literature” now lying before the writer, his immense popularity with the people can be well understood. Here we find fables of never-dying interest, such as “The Old Man and his Ass,” reproduced in doggerel they could enjoy, with a humour they could relish, and headed by bold woodcuts. If they wanted morality they had it in “pious chansons” about fair Susannah, “The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,” “Daniel in the Lions’ Den,” “Twelve short Sermons,” &c. Moral allegories suited to every-day life wooed their attention in his “Christian Patience,” where the whole human family is depicted as a solitary in a ship on a stormy sea, with the world, death, and the devil, as adversaries to oppose his safe entry into his port, “das vaterland,” but who is mercifully guarded by the Most High. If amusing satire were required, it might be found in his “Women setting Traps for Fools;” while the strong religious tendencies of the Reformers were enforced in his rhymes of the “True and False Way,” above which was printed a large cut where the Saviour invites all to the open door of his fold, while the pope and his priests hinder all from entering, except by back-doors, holes, and corners. At this period Nürnberg was torn by religious faction; and it ultimately became enthusiastically Protestant. There is no doubt that Hans Sachs helped greatly to foster the feeling in its favour, as his “broadsides” told forcibly, and were immensely popular. They were in fact the only books of the poor.
The portrait of the old cobbler was painted in 1568 by Hans Hoffman, and is a strikingly characteristic resemblance of a man whose
“age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.”
There is an intensity of expression in the clear, deep-set eye, a shrewd observant look in the entire features, while it shows a capacity of forehead that will make Hans pass muster with modern phrenologists. The cobbler-bard wrote and sung, and mended his neighbours’ boots in an unpretending domicile in a street leading from the principal market, which street now goes by his name. Since his time the house has been almost rebuilt and entirely new fronted. Its old features have been preserved in an etching by Fleischmann, after a sketch by J. A. Klein, at which period it was a beershop known by the sign of the “Golden Bear.” Hans died full of years and honour in the year 1576, and is buried with the great men of his city in the cemetery of St. John.
The domestic life of the old Nürnbergers seems to have been characterised by honourable simplicity, and their posterity appear to follow laudably in their footsteps. They delight in the antiquity of their city, and reverently preserve the relics of their past glories. Their houses seem built for a past generation, their public edifices for the Middle Ages; their galleries abound in the art of the fifteenth century, and admit nothing more modern than the seventeenth. In the old garden upon the castle bastion is a quaint quadrangular tower[250-*] having its entrance therefrom, and this has been fitted up with antique furniture, to give a true idea of the indoor life of Dürer’s days. It contains a hall hung with tapestries, from which a staircase leads to a suite of rooms, one fitted as a kitchen, another as a music-room, filled with the most quaint and curious antique instruments, which have ceased “discoursing most eloquent music” for the last two hundred years. The third room (a view of which we engrave) is a boudoir, containing the large antique German stove, built up with ornamental tiles cast in relief, with stories from bible history of saints, and arabesque. Beside it is a bronze receptacle for water, shaped like a huge acorn, the tap having a grotesque head, and the spigot being a small seated figure; this was gently turned when wanted, and a thin stream of water trickled over the hands into the basin beneath; an embroidered napkin hangs beside it; and above it is the old-fashioned set of four hour-glasses, so graduated that each ran out a quarter of an hour after the other. The furniture and fittings of the entire building are all equally curious, and reproduce a faithful picture of old times, worthy of being copied in National Museums elsewhere.
Nürnberg being a “free city” was governed by its own appointed magistrates, having independent courts of law. The executive council of state consisted of eight members, chosen from the thirty patrician families who, by the privilege granted to them from the thirteenth century, ruled the city entirely. In process of time these privileges assumed the form of a civic tyranny, which was felt to be intolerable by the people, and occasionally opposed by them. The fierce religious wars of the sixteenth century assisted in destroying this monopoly of power still more; yet now that it is gone for ever, it has left fearful traces of its irresponsible strength. All who sigh for “the good old times,” should not moralise over the fallen greatness of the city, and its almost deserted but noble town-hall; but descend below the building into the dark vaults and corridors which form its basement; the terrible substructure upon which the glorious municipal palace of a free imperial self-ruled city was based in the Middle Ages, into whose secrets none dared pry, and where friends, hope, life itself, were lost to those who dared revolt against the rulers. There is no romance-writer who has imagined more horrors than we have evidences were perpetrated under the name of justice in these frightful vaults, unknown to the busy citizens around them, within a few feet of the streets down which a gay wedding procession might pass, while a true patriot was torn in every limb, and racked to death by the refined cruelty of his fellow-men. The heart sickens in these vaults, and an instinctive desire to quit them takes possession of the mind, while remaining merely as a curious spectator within them. The narrow steps leading to them are reached through a decorated doorway, and the passage below receives light through a series of gratings. You shortly reach the labyrinthine ways, totally excluded from external light and air, and enter one after another confined dungeons, little more than six feet square, cased with oak to deaden sounds, and to increase the difficulty of attempted escape. To make these narrow places even more horrible, strong wooden stocks are in some, and day and night prisoners were secured in total darkness, in an atmosphere which even now seems too oppressive to bear. In close proximity to these dungeons is a strong stone room, about twelve feet wide each way, into which you descend by three steps. It is the torture-chamber. The massive bars before you are all that remain of the perpendicular rack, upon which unfortunates were hung with weights attached to their ankles. Two such of stone, weighing each fifty pounds, were kept here some years back, as well as many other implements of torture since removed or sold for old iron. The raised stone bench around the room was for the use of the executioner and attendants. The vaulted roof condensed the voice of the tortured man, and an aperture on one side gave it freedom to ascend into the room above, where the judicial listeners waited for the faltering words which succeeded the agonising screams of their victim. So much we know and still see, but worse horrors were dreamily spoken of by the old Nürnbergers; there was a tradition of a certain something that not only destroyed life, but annihilated the body of the person sacrificed. The tradition took a more definite form in the seventeenth century, and the “kiss of the Virgin” expressed this punishment, and was believed to consist in a figure of the Virgin, which clasped its victim in arms furnished with poignards, and then opening them, dropped the body down a trap on a sort of cradle of swords, arranged so as to cut it to pieces, a running stream below clearing all traces of it away.
These frightful traditions were received with doubt by many, and with positive disbelief by others, until a countryman of our own, with unexampled patience and perseverance, fully substantiated the truth of all, and after many years traced the absolute “Virgin” herself, which had been hurriedly removed from Nürnberg during the French Revolution, two or three days before the French army entered the town, and then passed into the collection of a certain Baron Diedrich, and was kept by him in a castle called Feistritz, on the borders of Steinmark. Determined to persevere in tracing this figure, our countryman visited this castle in 1834, and there was the machine; it was formed of bars and hoops covered with sheet iron, representing a Nürnberg maiden of the sixteenth century in the long mantle generally worn. It opened with folding doors, closing again over the victim, and pressing a series of poignards into the body, two being affixed to the front of the face, to penetrate to the brain through the eyes. “That this machine had formerly been used cannot be doubted; because there are evident blood-stains yet visible on its breast and part of the pedestal.” This machine was introduced to Nürnberg in 1533, and is believed to have originated in Spain, and to have been transplanted into Germany during the reign of Charles V., who was monarch of both countries. At this period there were great tumults in Germany and continual quarrels at Nürnberg between the Catholics and Protestants: the men of that city had no doubt to thank “the most holy Inquisition” for this importation of horrors.
The great leading principles of the Reformation interested Dürer as they did other thinking men. He examined by the biblical test the unwholesome power and pretensions of the papacy, and found it wanting. We have already noted the exhortation to abide by “the written word” which he appended to his famous picture of the Apostles. In his journal he breaks forth into uncontrolled lamentations over the crafty capture of Luther made by his friend the Elector of Saxony, who conveyed him thus out of harm’s way, and kept him nearly a twelvemonth in the Wartburg. He exclaims, “And is Luther dead? who will now explain the Gospel so clearly to us? Aid me, all pious Christians, to bewail this man of heavenly mind, and pray God for some other as divinely enlightened.” He then exhorts Erasmus to “come forth, defend the truth, and deserve the martyr’s crown, for thou art already an old man.” Dürer had painted Erasmus’s portrait at Brussels in 1520, and appears to have been intimate with that great man as he was with Melancthon, who said of Dürer, that “his least merit was that of his art.”
Amid the strong dissensions of the Reformation, at a time when old Nürnberg was tottering to its fall, worn down by mental toil, and withered at heart by one of the worst wives on record, died Albert Dürer at the age of fifty-seven.
In the old cemetery of St. John lies all that is mortal of the artist who has given lasting celebrity to Nürnberg. Let us take a walk in that direction. Passing out of the town by the gate opposite Dürer’s house, the sculptured representations of the scenes of Christ’s Passion, by Adam Krafft, already alluded to, will guide our footsteps on our way. About three-quarters of a mile from the town, we reach the gate beside which stands Krafft’s group of the Crucifixion.[257-*] We enter, and stand in a graveyard thickly covered with gravestones. Here the burgher aristocracy of Nürnberg have been buried for centuries.
The heavy slabs which cover the graves are in many instances highly enriched by bronze plates elaborately executed, containing coats of arms, emblems, or full-length figures. Each grave is numbered, and that of Dürer is marked 649. The stone had fallen into decay, when Sandrart the painter had it renewed in 1681.[258-*] This honourable act of love from a living artist to a dead brother, enabled the memorial to stand another century of time. The artists of Nürnberg now look after its conservation; it has recently been repaired by them, and on the anniversary of the Spring morning when the great master departed, they reverently visit his resting-place. The inscription upon it runs thus:—
ME. AL. DU.
QUICQUID ALBERTI DURERI MORTALE
FVIT SUB HOC CONDITUR TUMULO.
EMIGRAVIT. VIII. IDUS. APRILIS
M.D.XXVIII.
The sentiment of this epitaph has been beautifully rendered by Longfellow—
“Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;
Dead he is not,—but departed—for the artist never dies.”
Thus ends our brief review of the life and labours of Dürer and his fellow artists. If it has “called up forgotten glories,” it has not been a labour ill-bestowed. If it should induce others to leave England for Nürnberg, as the writer hereof was induced, he can venture to predict full satisfaction from the journey. Any one who may ramble through its streets, know its past history, feel its poetic associations, like the American bard we have just quoted, will say, as he has done, of old Nürnberg and the great and good Albert Dürer—
“Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,
That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!”
FINIS.
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., CITY ROAD, LONDON.
[190-*] Sir E. Head’s introduction to the English translation of Kügler’s “Handbook of Painting.” Part II.
[191-*] Longfellow’s “Spanish Student.”
[212-*] Engravings of these will be found in the Art-Journal for 1854, pp. 307-8.
[212-†] Longfellow.
[215-*] They have been presented from time to time to such potentates as the townsmen wished to conciliate. Thus, his Four Apostles, bequeathed by the artist to his native town, was presented by the council to the Elector Maximilian I., of Bavaria, and are now in the Pinacothek in Munich.
[218-*] “Guido seems to have availed himself of some of these figures in his celebrated fresco of the Car of Apollo, preceded by Aurora, and accompanied by the Hours.”—Chatto’s History of Wood Engraving, p. 303.
[221-*] For a general notice of Dürer’s works, and several engravings of the best of them, see the Art-Journal for 1851, pp. 141-144 and pp. 193-196. See also, “Vignettes d’Albert Dürer,” par George Franz.
[223-*] These incipient bastions and horn-works may be seen in our cut, p. 194.
[223-†] Marc Antonio had copied Dürer’s cuts on copper, but they are poor substitutes for the originals. They, however, did Dürer an injury of which he complained.
[225-*] In her “Visits and Sketches of Art at Home and Abroad,” 4 vols. 8vo., 1834.
[227-*] L. E. L.
[227-†] Mrs. Jameson speaks of his portrait as “beautiful, like the old heads of our Saviour; and the predominant expression is calm, dignified, intellectual, with a tinge of melancholy. This picture was painted at the age of twenty-eight; he was then suffering from that bitter domestic curse, a shrewish, avaricious wife, who finally broke his heart.” We have engraved this portrait in the head-piece to this subject (p. 187), along with those of his wife and of his friend Pirkheimer.
[228-*] Leopold Schefer has constructed a novelette on his domestic career, which has been cleverly translated by Mrs. Stodart. It is entitled “The Artist’s Married Life, being that of Albert Dürer.” It teaches much by its pure philosophy.
[229-*] They are now in the Pinacothek at Munich.
[229-†] Dürer had warmly espoused the Reformation, and had placed quotations from the gospels and epistles of the Apostles beneath each picture, containing pressing warnings not to swerve from the written word, or listen to false prophets and perverters of the truth. When the town presented these pictures to the Roman Catholic Elector Maximilian I., of Bavaria, in 1627, they cut off these inscriptions, and affixed them to the copies they had made for themselves by Vischer, and which are now in the Landauer Gallery at Nürnberg.
[230-*] There is an old tradition that Dürer intended these figures also as embodiments of the four mental temperaments—John, representing the melancholic; Peter, the meditative, or phlegmatic; Mark, the sanguine; and Paul, the resolute or choleric.
[231-*] Kügler. Mrs. Jameson, in her “Visits at Home and Abroad,” also speaks of them as “wonderful! In expression, in calm religious majesty, in suavity of pencilling, and the grand, pure style of the heads and drapery, quite like Raffaelle.”
[231-†] Among the rest is the very marvellous one performed during a journey in winter, when he was nearly destroyed by cold, and entered a peasant’s cottage, hoping to find relief. The poor man had no fuel, so the saint made up a fire from the icicles which hung around the house, completing his good acts by mending his broken kettle, “by blessing it, at the request of his host,” and converting stones into bread by the same simple process.
[234-*] Vischer’s house is situated on the other side of the River Pegnitz, which divides the town; it is in a steep street rising suddenly from the water. The house has undergone some alterations in its external aspect, apparently about the latter half of the seventeenth century. It is now a baker’s shop, having that quiet aspect which characterises such trades in Germany, the central window on the ground-floor being that through which bread is passed to applicants, who may mount the steps in front, or rest on them while waiting. The beam projecting from the large window in the roof is used as a crane to lift wood and heavy stores to the upper floors, which are the depositaries for such necessities, and not the cellars, as with us.
[235-*] Murray’s “Handbook of Germany.”
[240-*] His grave is in the cemetery of St. John, No. 268.
[243-*] This grave, surrounded by sculpture, forms a little external chapel, at the back of the choir of St. Sebald’s Church. We have already mentioned Schreyer as the originator of Vischer’s shrine in that church.
[244-*] Mrs. Jameson, “Sketches of Art at Home and Abroad.” The curious series of views in Nürnberg, published there by Conrad Monath, about 1650, are remarkably identical with the present aspect of each locality engraved.
[245-*] The crown and royal robes of Charlemagne were those found in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle, afterwards used in the coronation of the German emperors for many centuries, and only transferred to Vienna during the great political changes of the last century. “The sacred relics” are also at Vienna, and were among the most valued and venerated of church treasures. They also were publicly exhibited at the coronations, and consisted of the lance which pierced the Saviour’s side when upon the cross; a piece of the cross, showing the hole made by the nail which pierced one of the Saviour’s hands; one of the nails; and five of the thorns of the crown put upon his head by the soldiers; a portion of the manger of Bethlehem; a piece of the table-cloth used at the Last Supper; and a piece of the towel with which Christ wiped the Apostles’ feet; an arm-bone of St. Anne; a tooth of St. John the Baptist; a piece of the coat of St. John the Evangelist; and three links of the chains which bound St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John in the Roman prison.
[246-*] Edgar Taylor’s “Lays of the Minnesingers.”
[250-*] It is seen in our view from Albert Dürer’s house, and is close beside the gate of the town.
[257-*] Our engraving ([Fig. 257]) is taken from a sketch made on this spot, looking back towards the city, and its ancient castle on the rock. Krafft’s sculptures are seen to the left, at intervals, on the road-side.
[258-*] He also is interred in this cemetery. So is Dürer’s friend, Pirkheimer; his grave is No. 1414.
The following typographical errors were corrected.
| Page | Error | Correction |
| [95] | Gealic | Gaelic |
| [173] | Figs 212, | Figs. 212, |
| [174] | Fig 215 represents | Fig. 215 represents |
| [247] | classical pourtraying | classical portraying |
The following words were inconsistently spelled or hyphenated:
- cross bar / cross-bar
- Dürer / Durer
- DÜRER / DURER
- Dürer’s / Durer’s
- ironwork / iron-work
- Pinacotheck / Pinacothek