The Christ in this monument resembles in the treatment of the eyes, and the hair and in the moulding of the head that of the Tucher memorial of the previous year. The body is foreshortened, and the foreshortening cannot be termed altogether successful. But successful to an extraordinary degree is the spiritual, sympathetic expression of the countenance, and indicative of a poet’s sympathy with sorrow, and his power of showing it, is that down-hanging arm, masterly executed in strong relief.
The young Peter Vischer had known much sorrow, and was acquainted with grief beyond his years. The bereavements of his father, the loss of his brother’s wife, and afterwards of his brother Hermann himself, must have touched his poet’s heart and deepened his powers of sympathetic imagination. The strong stirring of religious emotion which was at this time abroad in the land would tend still further to chasten the exuberant joyousness of his youthful spirit, and to bring him into touch with the more serious aspects of life. Neudörffer has recorded for us his love of the poetical side of life; his own Aquarelle on the Reformation proves the seriousness of his interest in the great religious question of the day, and the evidence of the development of his powers in his own undoubted works of art is potent to demonstrate his enthusiasm for learning. Remembering these facts let us compare for a moment with the sisters of Lazarus in the Tucher memorial, that superb work of art in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg, which is known as the “Praying Madonna.” (Ill. [18].)
[MUSEUM, NÜRNBERG
18. THE NUREMBERG MADONNA
“No second glance is required to assure us that we have here not only the chef-d’œuvre of Nuremberg carving, but also one of the works of art of all time. And yet the name of the master is unknown, and the very date of the work is a matter of dispute. Clearly the beautiful female figure of this sorrowing Mary, this praying Madonna as she is called (trauende, betende Maria) once formed one of a group, and stood facing St. John at the foot of the Cross, gazing upwards in that bitter grief which is beyond the expression and abandonment of tears. Who can that artist have been who could select that pose of the head, that poise of the limbs, who could carve those robes, which, in purity and flow have never been surpassed in German art, and who could express in the suppliant hands such poignant emotion? Man weiss nicht! And whose touch was so delicate that with his chisel he could stamp on the upturned face those mingled feelings of sorrow so supreme, yearning so intense, love so human, hope so divine? For all this we can read there still, even through the grey-green coat of paint which certainly had no place in the original intentions of the artist. Man weiss nicht! But this much one may hazard—that it was some German artist, touched by the spirit of the Italian Renaissance till he rose to heights of artistic performance never elsewhere attained by him, and scarcely ever approached by his fellows.”
So I have written elsewhere of this beautiful gem of German art. But is it so certain that the author is unknown? The temptation to attribute it to Peter Vischer the younger is extremely strong, especially when we compare it with the figure of Lazarus’ sister.
It has, at different times and by various writers, been attributed to almost every conceivable German craftsman—to Adam Krafft, of course, and to Veit Stoss in turn, amongst others. But the work of none of these artists approaches the style, the beauty, the refinement of this figure, and is, in many essentials, distinctly opposed thereto. But if it is not by these, can it be by Peter Vischer’s great son? The theory, it must be confessed, is more probable than provable. We can only say that in his greatest moment he might have done this thing, in making a model for a projected bronze figure. For the creator of the King Arthur at Innsbruck must be conceded to be potentially capable of any masterpiece in this kind, and the Madonna is not beyond the limits of his power. The slenderness of the figure is a point in favour of this authorship, and not, as has been argued, in opposition to it, for there is noticeable in the female figures of the young Peter Vischer, an increasing tendency to discard the squat Bavarian type and to adopt the slenderer proportions of the Italian model. Observe, further, that in the fall of the drapery of the Madonna there is nothing of severity, nothing of distortion as in other carvings of the same period by other hands. Rather do the sweep and movement of it recall that of certain of the apostles of the Sebaldusgrab and the arrangement of it as regards the feet is similar. It may, in fact, be stated, without fear of contradiction, that the serpentine sweep and the arrangement of the drapery, drawn tight over the right leg and covering, as it does, the thrust out foot below, is a motive practically confined in the German art of that period to the works of the House of Vischer. It reminds us of the Apostles in St. Sebald’s church: it is repeated emphatically in the fall of the drapery of the sisters of Lazarus.
And surely the pose of the sister of Lazarus on the left hand and that of the Madonna is substantially the same, although, in the case of the latter, it has been refined and improved. That pose of the bent leg is one of the most beautiful and eloquent of all the positions of the human body.[[6]] But the similarity does not end there.
[6]. That it was a favourite one with the young Vischer may be seen by comparing the female figures of the Inkstands, pp. 96, 97.
The right leg, the left arm and hand resting on the hip, the poise of the head and the style of dress are all in the same manner. Nothing, again, is more characteristic of an artist than his treatment of hands. And with those expressive hands of the Madonna we may confidently compare the hands of the woman who is behind the body of Christ or the hands of Joseph in the Pietà of 1522, or the hands of St. John in the Sebaldusgrab, or of the female figure on the inkstand of 1525. Vischer-like also is the pure, refined expression and type of face, which recalls on the one hand the yearning gaze of the aforesaid figure, and the soulful look of Eurydice on the other.