Peter Vischer

by Cecil Headlam

As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse....

True peach,

Rosy and flawless.”

So the German Cardinal shared the taste of Browning’s Roman Bishop. It was a taste that spread rapidly from Italy about this time, and brought in its train swift ruin to the industry of the bronze craftsmen. But the day of disaster had not yet come, and meantime the young Peter Vischer was busy with other works. He had not yet, however, succeeded in being admitted as a meister of the Guild of Coppersmiths, and he took the present opportunity of submitting the Cardinal’s tomb-plate as his masterpiece. It was rejected for some obscure reason, just as, two years later, his splendid memorial of Frederick the Wise was rejected. Both of these pieces are signed “Opus M. Petri Fischers. Norimberge.” In face of the fact that they were not accepted as masterpieces we cannot interpret the letter M. in these inscriptions as the initial of Magistri (master). It must stand rather for Minoris—“the work of Peter Fischer the younger.”

The present memorial takes the form of a life-size character-study of a mighty prince of the Church, and it is set in a Renaissance framework. It is a noble and intense piece of work which has been spoilt by the inscription tablet which covers the body.

Unlike his father, but like most other artists of his day, Peter Vischer the younger, as we gather from Neudörffer’s mention of him, did not confine himself to bronze work, but dabbled in various kindred arts. We have a noticeable instance of this in the “Allegory on the Reformation” (1524), an aquarelle now preserved at Weimar, which once roused the enthusiasm of Goethe, and which reveals to us his political and religious creed. In common with Hans Sachs, Albert Dürer, and Willibald Pirkheimer, and the great majority of Nurembergers, Peter Vischer had thrown in his lot with the Protestant Reformers, and boldly espoused the cause of Luther. Luther he here represents as some hero of old story who has destroyed the palace and upset the throne of the usurper, and scattered the base crowd of his courtiers. The Pope and the mighty princes of the Church have been put down from their seat and the horde of their hateful minions—Pride, Luxury, and Avarice—flee away. In their stead Faith, Hope, and Charity are about to enthrone Justice, whilst Luther, the humble and unworldly, shows the straight path to Christ, who descends from the clouds to save publicans and sinners. Rome’s might, it is implied, is broken; the German people can at last, through Luther’s act, hold direct communion with their Redeemer once more. Only a German Emperor, so it must have seemed to the German enthusiasts of that time, was wanting—no Spaniard like Charles V., with his brood of alien courtiers—to continue the work of Luther and to fulfil the national ideal. And perhaps, as Dr. Seeger suggests, Peter Vischer the younger looked to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, as the heaven-appointed Kaiser—that Prince whose portrait he executed in so loving and masterly a fashion two years later.

That love of allegory which is indicated by this drawing, and by the artist’s addiction to poetry, was a taste he shared with Dürer and Holbein the younger. It is further illustrated by the two inkstands which come from his hand and, in a less degree, by the two plaquettes of Orpheus and Eurydice we have now to consider. (Ill. [19] and [20].)

STEIN PHOTO.] [PLAQUETTE IN POSSESSION OF M. DREYFUS, PARIS
19. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

There are, indeed, four plaquettes on this subject in existence, all undoubtedly by the same master. But three of these are practically identical. The other, the earliest as it would appear, is in the possession of M. Dreyfus of Paris. It was at one time attributed to Jacopo de’ Barbari. But this, like the other plaquettes, bears Vischer’s mark clearly enough—two fish lying back to back pierced through by a nail or dagger, a device found also on the two inkstands. The two nude figures of Orpheus and Eurydice do, however, undoubtedly owe very much to the influence of Jacopo and Sansovino on the one hand, just as they are related to the Adam and Eve of Dürer on the other. In this earlier version of the subject it is evident that the artist has been moved by the above-mentioned influences to study the nude, but his study is not yet complete. For the modelling of the Orpheus is not all that could be desired, the legs of this figure in particular being awkward and constrained. The Eurydice is more successful, and is less hard and angular in treatment. But, as Lübke observed, the parallelism produced by the presentation of the two forms in the act of turning lends a distinct harshness to the composition. For all that there is one quality present here which we have learnt to expect from this master. He has seized the dramatic moment when, in Vergil’s words, “a sudden madness took hold of the unwary lover,” and, “in his desire to behold her, he turned his eyes” upon his half-regained Eurydice. But he could not hold her safe “within the bond of one immortal look.” Just as she emerges from the rocks of the underworld he yields to this desire and turns. And as he turns and looks she stops and begins, under the constraint of the inexorable law of Proserpine, to be drawn back to the shades whence she came. Into her face there has come a look of sorrow and sad reproach, whilst the movement of her hands and head and hair betoken the beginning of that inevitable return. With the gesture of her left hand Eurydice seems almost to utter the lines of Vergil: