The memorial certainly does bear unmistakable signs of Peter Vischer’s handiwork, but it is impossible not to feel that in many points, as for instance the articulation of the hands and feet, and the anatomy of the body in the case of the figure of Christ, it is decidedly inferior to the best work of the house of Vischer. Compare it with the beautiful tomb-plate of Frau Margarete Tucher in the cathedral at Regensburg (Ratisbon) and the difference in manner and technique at once leaps to the eye. Yet this memorial also was made in 1521. (Ill. [16].) It can hardly have been designed by the same hand, although this, like the monument of the Eissen family in the Church of St. Ægidius at Nuremberg, to which it is near akin, certainly came from the Vischer foundry, for it bears the mark and signature
Normberge. 1521. But the trade-mark between these two initials is substantially the same as that found on the inkstand of 1525. We have no choice, then, but to follow Bergau and Seeger and to attribute these two former works, in great part at any rate, to Peter Vischer the younger. And, indeed, they exhibit to a high degree all those qualities which are most characteristic of his work. There is a rhythmic balance in the composition which at once recalls the reliefs on the Sebaldusgrab attributed to him. Here again the artist has seized a fine moment in the dramatic incident he wishes to portray. He has harmonized and subordinated all the characters of that pathetic scene when Christ met the sisters of the dead Lazarus. The noble figure of the Christ who has stepped forward to listen to and to grant the prayer of the bereaved sister forms the centre of a picture whereof the disputing Apostles and the sorrowing women are the necessary complement. With regard to the Apostles themselves it only requires a moment’s comparison to demonstrate that their figures are mere modifications of those on the Sebaldusgrab, and they may have been wrought by any member of the family, therefore, or even by an assistant. For the craftsmen of those days were obliged to take a frankly business view of their handiwork. Michel Wolgemut left much in each of his pictures to be done by his pupils and assistants, and Dürer, too, following his master’s custom was, in too many cases, forced to adopt the same practice. For a man must live, and Dürer found that his careful and elaborate style of painting was simply beggaring him. The commissions received by the Vischer family were necessarily executed after something of the same spirit. The design would be sketched out by the old man or one of his sons, or, again, by him and his sons in part and in consultation. Then whilst the more skilful of them wrought the more important figures and details of the piece, the subsidiary details and characters would be left to the ’prentice hands. In the case of the Tucher monument the task of supplying the Apostle figures must have fallen to one of these, and he would naturally base them upon the famous masterpieces of the House in that line. But in the noble figure of the Christ, in the poise and the moulding of the head, and in that spiritual searching gaze with which the Saviour seems to be looking into the very heart of Lazarus’ sister and gauging her faith, we cannot fail to recognize the style of the creator of the St. Peter and St. John of the Sebaldusgrab, and of the author of the Orpheus of the Plaquettes. Equally true is this of the modelling, pose and drapery of the female figures, to which particular attention should be given.
STEIN PHOTO.] [CATHEDRAL, RATISBON
16. MEETING OF CHRIST WITH THE SISTERS OF LAZARUS
(Tucher Monument)
The background, too, is the work of a Master, and the gradual deepening of the relief is worked out with a skill and confidence which argues that it is the work of a Master who has made a considerable study of perspective. The treatment of perspective and the very low relief are indeed entirely in the manner of the early Florentine Renaissance. The same influence is discernible in the style of the architecture in the background. It is interesting to note the favourite device of a Perugino or a Raphael reproduced in the cupola-crowned building which serves as a finish to the picture. It was not for nothing that Hermann Vischer had made his journey south some years before, and returned laden with those sketches which “delighted his old father and provided practice for his brothers.” The deviser of this temple and of those framing pillars with their Corinthian capitals has learnt many a lesson recently from his brother’s work.
In the monument of the Eissen family which is placed in the Church of St. Ægidius at Nuremberg, and belongs to the year 1522, we have a work which must be by the same hand as that which designed the Tucher memorial. The similarity of the signature and of the style is convincing testimony. The subject is the favourite Pietà, the lamentation over Christ’s body after the descent from the Cross. Here we have the figures of the faithful women, and of John the beloved disciple, and Joseph of Arimathea mourning, whilst Nicodemus is reverently wrapping the corpse in the cerements of the grave. Once more in composing his subject the artist has seized the dramatic moment. The eyes of all these faithful followers are fixed upon the dead body of their Lord. Their gestures and their expressions betoken the intense grief of each, and each has his place and share in the divine tragedy. The unity thus attained is heightened by the dramatic contrast of the one person, the servant, who stares at the body, unaffected save by vulgar curiosity, all unaware that she is in the presence of the world’s most grievous and most wonderful mystery. (Ill. [17].)
The figure and head of Joseph of Arimathea are nobly beautiful, and, like the drapery, remind us of the St. Peter on the Sebaldusgrab. His outstretched hands are eloquent of sorrow and, in common with those of the women who kneel behind their Master, they speak to a study of Italian art and of the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci.
STEIN PHOTO.] [ST. ÆGIDIUS CHURCH, NÜRNBERG
17. BEWEINUNG CHRISTI
(Eissen Memorial)