The “Master of the Death of Mary.” Nos. 63, 64, 65.
Bartholomew Bruyns. No. 72.
With the third section of this room begins the collection of Franconian and Nuremberg paintings. As I have already on more than one occasion sketched the characteristics of this school, it would be superfluous to add anything here. But perhaps one may be allowed to express the conviction that no one who studies these pictures will fail to be impressed by the comparative merits of Wolgemut, or go away without ranking the master of Durer higher in his estimation than he was wont to do before he came.
The scenes from the Passion (No. 87), 1400, may be taken to represent the beginnings of the Franconian School of painting. No. 96 is the reverse of that Imhoff altar-piece in the Lorenzkirche with which we have already dealt at some length (p. 249). No. 95—from the Frauenkirche—is an important picture of the same date (1430-40).
The workshop of Pleydenwurff and Wolgemut is very well represented here. The admirable portrait of Kanonikus Schönborn (101), whose figure appears again in the Crucifixion (100) painted for him by the master, and SS. Thomas Aquinas and Dominicus (102, 103) are good examples of Hans Pleydenwurff at his best. Of the numerous pictures by Michel Wolgemut it will suffice to mention in particular the two portraits of old men so full of individuality (Hans Perckmeister and another, 119, 119A), and the Hallersche Epitaph (115), besides his masterpiece, the
Peringsdörffer Altar-piece
(107-110, Room 73; 113 and 114, Room 71, SS. Cosmos Damian, Magdalena, and Lucia). We have seen how Wolgemut usually allowed his assistants to help him in his pictures. The Peringsdörffer masterpiece (1488) was no exception; but in this at any rate the master’s own share was very considerable.
The outer sides of the altar contain four pairs of Saints, male and female, standing on Gothic brackets—SS. Catherine and Barbara, Rosalia and Margaret, George and Sebald, John the Baptist and Nicholas. Here we have the most animated of Wolgemut’s female figures, the most vigorous and life-like of his men. The most notable faces,—finer even than that of the St. Sebald who stands like some great architect holding the model of his Church, or of the St. Nicholas, with his refined and critical countenance, are those of SS. John and George. The former turns upon us his keen and spiritual gaze, so that his great brown eyes seem to pierce the veil that bounds our earthly vision and to penetrate into the hidden depths of futurity; whilst the latter stands rigid, his every feature—powerful nose, firmly closed mouth, thin but not sunken cheeks—eloquent of a bold and earnest resolution.
Incidents from the life of St. Vitus (Veit) and other saints form the subjects of the inner sides of the picture. Here again there is an inequality both of style and of excellence. The simple countenance of Mary, who holds on her knee a very animated Child, represents a type halfway between that of Rogier and that of Schongauer. The St. Luke, the character of whose head is well worked out, is attractive through his expression of earnestness. But there is far more dramatic power and “soul” in the scene from the legend of St. Bernard, according to which Christ came down from the Cross to his ardent worshipper. There the countenance of St. Bernard is made to exhibit a depth of feeling rarely to be found in Wolgemut; as if the artist’s imagination had indeed been lit by something of the glow of the Saint’s adoration.
The St. Christopher, who is walking through the stream with the Christ-child on his shoulder, is rough to the point of ugliness, whilst in the landscape, which is beautifully executed, there is a most intimate charm.