Rambles of an archæologist among old books and in old places

by F. W. Fairholt

The Emperor Maximilian was a great patron of the arts, but particularly of that branch which had newly arisen—the art of wood-engraving—which he fostered with continual care, and by the help of such men as Dürer, Burgmeyer, Schaufflein, and Cranach, produced works which have never been excelled. During this period, extending over the first quarter of the sixteenth century, a series of elaborate woodcuts were executed under his own auspices, which were, however, principally devoted to his own glorification. Two of these are the well-known “Adventures of Sir Thuerdank,” and “The Wise King,” written in ponderous folios after the fashion of the old romances, by Melchior Pfintzing, who resided in the old parsonage house of St. Sebald (he being a canon of that church), a picturesque building on the sloping ground beside it, which rises upward to the Schlossberg, and which still retains the aspect it bore in his days; its beautiful oriel and open balcony still testify to the taste of mediæval architects. It is but a short distance from Dürer’s house, and he must have frequently visited here. Here also, came the emperor to examine the progress of these works: and the great interest he took in superintending them has been recorded; for it is said that during the time when Jerome Retzsch was engaged in engraving on wood the triumphal car from the drawing by Dürer, the emperor was almost a daily visitant to his house. This anecdote may naturally lead here to the consideration of the question—did Dürer engrave the cuts which bear his name, or did he only draw them upon the wood for the engraver? It is generally considered that all cuts bearing an artist’s mark are engraved by that artist, but this is in reality an error resulting from modern practice. It is now the custom for wood-engravers to place their names or marks on their cuts, and very seldom those of the artists who draw the designs for them upon the wood. It was the reverse in the old time; then it was usual to place that of the designer alone, and as he drew upon wood every line to be engraved, after the manner of a pen-and-ink drawing, the engraver had little else to do than cut the wood from between the spaces: hence his art was a very mechanical one, and his name was seldom recorded. That of Retzsch does not appear on the car just named, but the mark of Dürer solely; and when we consider the vast amount of labour performed by Dürer as an artist, it is not likely that he wasted time in the mechanical labour of cutting out his own drawings when he could employ it more profitably. The Baron Derschau, himself a collector of old cuts, assured Dr. Dibdin “that he once possessed a journal of Dürer’s, from which it appeared that he was in the habit of drawing upon the blocks, and that his men performed the remaining operation of cutting away the wood.” Bartsch is decidedly of opinion “that he had never employed himself in this kind of work.” Mr. W. A. Chatto, in his anonymous “History of Wood Engraving,” has gone into this question with much research and learning, and comes to the same conclusion; which is strengthened by the fact, that the names of fourteen engravers, and the initials of several others, were found engraved on the backs of the cuts they executed for the “Triumph of Maximilian,” now preserved in the imperial library at Vienna; the names of others are incidentally preserved; and among the drawings by Dürer in the British Museum, is one of a young lady, whom he has designated “wood engraver,” and who was most probably employed by him. There is also a sufficient difference in the style and manner of cutting his designs, which shows they must have been done by different hands. It is not possible to note here a tithe of the cuts done from his drawings.[221-*] His great serials are the “Apocalypse,” published in 1498, the two series of the “Passion of Christ,” and the “Life of the Virgin” (from which we give a specimen, [Fig. 241], “Christ bidding Farewell to his Mother”), all published in 1511. His largest woodcut was published in 1515, the “Triumphal Arch of the Emperor Maximilian,” and this, like the car already alluded to, was engraved on a series of ninety-two wood blocks, and then the impressions pasted together, forming a large print ten feet high. It is a work of great labour, and displays considerable invention.

Of Dürer’s powers as a painter we have already spoken; but he excelled also as an engraver on copper, and his prints of “Adam and Eve,” “Melancholia,” and the small “Life of Christ,” have not been surpassed. To him also we owe the invention of etching; he practised the art on iron and on copper, and it is impossible to overvalue its utility. In addition to his other labours he executed several pieces of sculpture, one of which, the “Naming of John the Baptist,” we have already alluded to as preserved in the British Museum, and some few others in hone-stone, bearing his well-known mark, exist. He also wrote on Art, and a portion of the original manuscripts of his book on the proportions of the human figure, is still preserved in the library of the old Dominican monastery at Nürnberg. He was a good mathematician, he also studied engineering, and is believed to have designed and superintended the additional fortifications in the town walls beside the castle, which are remarkable as the earliest examples of the more modern system of defence, which originated in the south of Europe, and with which Dürer became acquainted during his sojourn in Venice, and the fruits of which he thus practically brought to the service of his native city.[223-*] He published too an essay on the fortification of towns. In fact, there were few subjects to which his mind was directed that he did not make himself complete master of.

Thus lived and laboured Dürer in the city of his adoption, studying nature most diligently, and combining therewith high imaginings of his own. In 1506 he undertook a journey to Venice, and its influence improved him greatly. In the letters he wrote on this journey to his intimate friend Pirkheimer he acknowledges this; in one of them he declares “the things which pleased me eleven years ago please me no longer.” He also notes the popularity which had preceded him, and says, “the Italian artists counterfeit my works in the churches and wherever else they can find them, and yet they blame them, and declare that as they are not in accordance with ancient art they are worthless.”[223-†] But though subjected to the slights of the unworthy, Dürer gratefully records the nobler acts of nobler men, and notes that Giovanni Bellini publicly praised him before many gentlemen, “so that I am full of affection for him.” This noble old man did not confine his acts to praise alone, but came to Dürer’s lodging and requested him to paint him a picture, as he was desirous to possess one of his works, and he would pay liberally for it. Dürer at this time was far from rich, was merely paying his way by the practice of his art; and the small sums of money he notes as sending for the use of his wife and widowed mother in Nürnberg, sufficiently attest this, as well as his request to Pirkheimer to help them with loans which he would repay.

Pirkheimer’s name is so intimately connected with Dürer, and he remained throughout his life so steady and consistent a friend, that no memoir of Dürer can be written, however briefly, without his name appearing. He was a man of considerable wealth and influence in Nürnberg, a member of the Imperial Council, and frequently employed in state affairs. He had it, therefore, in his power to aid Dürer greatly; he did so, and Dürer returned it with a gratitude which ripened to affection, he declares in one of his letters that he had “no other friend but him on earth,” and he was equally attached to Dürer. The constant intercourse and kindly advices of his friend were the few happy relaxations Dürer enjoyed. Pirkheimer was a learned man, and cheerful withal, as his facetious book “Laus Podagræ,” or the “Praise of the Gout,” can testify. The house in which he resided is still pointed out in the Egidien Platz; it has undergone alterations, but the old doorway remains intact, through which Dürer must have frequently passed to consult his friend. “What is more touching in the history of men of genius than that deep and constant attachment they have shown to their early patrons?” asks Mrs. Jameson.[225-*] How many men have been immortalised by friendships of this kind; how many of the greatest been rendered greater and happier thereby? When the Elector John Frederick of Saxony met with his reverses in 1547, was driven from his palace, and was imprisoned for five years, the painter Lucas Cranach, whom he had patronised in his days of prosperity, shared his adversity and his prison with him, giving up his liberty to console his prince by his cheerful society, and diverting his mind by painting pictures in his company. He thus lightened a captivity and turned a prison into a home of art and friendship; thus the kindness and condescension of a prince were returned in more value “than much fine gold,” in the bitter hour of his adversity, by his humble but warm-hearted artist-friend.