The figures of beasts and children found in the original are retained but changed. They are executed in the full spirit of the Renaissance, looking back to mythology. We have Cupids now and Genii, Tritons and Sirens, and in place of the Gothic crab the Renaissance dolphin. The ornamentation of the candlesticks is completely Italianate. The slender, graceful columns which hold the candelabra are decorated now with a continually varying luxuriance of ornament, recalling in form a hundred details at Como, at Bergamo and at the Certosa of Pavia. In the case of the mythological figures there is no caricature; there are none of the monstrosities in which German art usually revelled when dealing with such subjects. The artist has gone straight to Italy, to the source of the new springs of knowledge and of the new-born delight in the gods of old days. There is, too, an inexhaustible fecundity of pose. Scarce one beast or child is the same. You might almost suppose that the artist had aimed at giving us an encyclopædia of Nature, showing that all-embracing enthusiasm which rendered so many of the great minds of the Renaissance eager to excel in every department of knowledge. Each minutest figure also displays a masterly grip of anatomy, proportion and perspective, and here we clearly recognize the student of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings. The figures of the four heroes and of the lute-player are of the school of Leonardo in pose, in modelling and in drapery, whilst the Marsyas may be traced, as Seeger thinks, to a woodcut in a Venetian edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1497).
The soft, transparent handling of the drapery is, generally speaking, wholly un-German. For, until the epoch roughly marked for us by the great Adam and Eve of Albert Dürer, the study of the nude played but a small part in the labours of the German artists, and they did not trust themselves to use drapery as a means of revealing the form beneath. Their study of anatomy had so far been concentrated upon heads and hands and feet, and they treated drapery with exceeding care both as an aim and object in itself, and, more than a little, as a useful screen for defective bodies. But they were beginning to appreciate now the endeavours of a Jacopo de’ Barbari to reveal the nude form through the drapery of his figures. And to achieve this end Vischer, like Dürer, had realised that a study of anatomy and the careful drawing of the contours of the body are necessary. In some cases the drapery of the female figures, as, for instance, of those in the relief which illustrates the miracle of the “Icicles,” directly suggests the manner of Barbari, but in the miracle of the “Healing of the Blind Man” the artist has modelled his work on the antique. Thus he has taken the further step of the Italians who, after struggling to reproduce the perfections of the human body, and recognizing how far short of classic art they fell, had turned to regenerate the antique, and so gave rise to the true Renaissance which is the new birth of the old.
Between one pair of the four reliefs dealing with the miracles of St. Sebald and the other there is so marked a difference in manner and style that I do not think we can be far wrong if we attribute, with Seeger, that of the “Icicles” and the “Healing of the Blind Man” to Peter Vischer the younger, and the others, especially and certainly that of the “Punishment of the Unbeliever” to his father. The particular point which strikes one as most admirable, and which is in greater or less degree common to all of them, is the simplicity of the grouping and the avoidance of that sin of overcrowding which beset so many artists of the day. (Ill. [10] and [11].)
The miracles of St. Sebald which were chosen as subjects for these reliefs are, briefly, the following. St. Sebald was the son of a Danish king who had renounced the things of this world in favour of the chaste and solitary life of a hermit. He afterwards made his way to Rome and was sent forth thence by Pope Gregory the Second to preach the Gospel in Germany. On his way he abode for a while at Vicenza, and there one day he received a visitor for whom he ordered his disciple Dionis to bring the pitcher of wine. Dionis hesitated, for he had allowed himself to partake of the wine the night before, and he feared detection. But when the order was repeated he went to fetch the pitcher, and behold, he found it filled again to the brim.
The fame of the hermit spread abroad. From far and near, even from Milan and Pavia, people flocked to hear from his lips the wonderful works of God. But amongst those who came, came also an unbeliever, who scoffed and blasphemed at the prophet and his message. Then Sebald prayed to God that a sign might be given to prove his doctrine true, and immediately, in the sight of all, the earth opened and the scoffer sank up to his neck. Then the hermit prayed with a loud voice and interceded for him, so that he was delivered, and he and many of the unbelievers embraced the true faith. (Ill. [10].)
Sebald now left Italy and came at last to Nuremberg. He settled there in the forest in the heart of the Franconian people, teaching them the word of God and working miracles. On one occasion we are told he sought shelter in the hut of a poor and churlish waggoner. It was winter: the snow lay on the ground and the wind howled over the frozen marshes of the Pegnitz. But the signs of charity did not shine brightly in the host. Sebald called upon the man’s wife to bring more wood for the fire so that he might warm his body, for he was chilled to the bone. But though he repeated his request the niggard host forbade his wife to obey. At length the saint cried out to her to bring the cluster of icicles which hung from the roof and to put them on the fire if she could not or would not bring the faggots.
The woman, pitying him, obeyed, and, in answer to the prayer of Sebald, a flame shot up from the ice as from a firebrand and the whole bundle was quickly ablaze.
STEIN PHOTO.][RELIEF FROM THE SEBALDUSGRAB, ST. SEBALD’S CHURCH, NÜRNBERG
10. ST. SEBALD PUNISHES AN UNBELIEVER
When he saw this miracle the chilly host gave the hermit a warmer welcome, and, to make amends for his former lack of hospitality, he sallied forth to buy some fish in the market, contrary to the regulations of the authorities. Being caught he was blinded, but the holy hermit quickly restored to him the light of his eyes. (Ill. [11].)