Rambles of an archæologist among old books and in old places

by F. W. Fairholt

That brotherly unity which ought to bind professional men of all kinds—isolated as they must be from the general world—was more of a necessity in the past time than in the present; and the artists formed a little band of friends within the walls of ancient Nürnberg, consulting with and aiding each other. The peculiarity of thought and tendency of habit which constitute the vitality of the artist-mind, are altogether unappreciated by the general world; completely misunderstood, and most frequently contemned by men of a trading spirit, who look upon artists as “eccentrics,” upon art as a “poor business,” and judge of pictures solely by their “market value.” These things should bind professors more strongly together. Their numbers are few; their time for socialities limited; their world a small select circle; few can sympathise with their cares or their more exquisite sensibilities; they must, therefore, be content with the few whose minds respond to theirs, and they ought not to make the narrow circle narrower, by unworthy jealousies or captious criticism. Well would it be for us all, and infinitely better for the world of art, if we practised still more

“Those gentler charities which draw
Man closer with his kind,
Those sweet humilities which make
The music which they find.”[227-*]

Dürer was essentially a man to love. His nature was kindly and open; he knew no envy, and was never known to condemn the work of another artist,—which, if bad, he would only criticise with a smile, and a “Well! the master has done his best.” His general information was so good, that it was declared of him by a contemporary, that his power as an artist was his least qualification. His personal appearance was dignified, and his face eminently handsome.[227-†] Yet, with all these means of being happy, and making others so, few men endured more misery. In an evil hour his family made a match for him in the household of Hans Frei, whose daughter Agnes he married, and scarcely knew peace after. She was a heartless, selfish woman, who could have no feeling in common with her husband, and who only valued his art according to the money it realised. “She urged him to labour day and night solely to earn money, even at the cost of his life, that he might leave it to her,” says Pirkheimer, in one of his letters to Tscherte, their mutual friend the Viennese architect. All his friends she insulted and drove from the house, in order that their visits might not interfere with his labours. His aged mother, whom he had taken into his house after his father’s death, was subject to contempt and ill-treatment. His letters from Venice are sad, and show no pleasant home-thoughts. Yet he did much for the bad woman to whom he was wedded, and seems to have thought of her gratification by numerous presents. His amiable heart would not allow him to separate from her, thus he bore her ill humours for his life, and patiently endured his lot.[228-*] There were few men more adapted to make a woman happy than Dürer: he had a handsome person, much fame, good friends, great talent, and the most kindly amiability; but his wife was perhaps the worst on record, on whom all this was thrown away. Yet she was of very religious habit, and preserved all the externals of propriety; but, as Pirkheimer observes, “one would rather choose a woman who conducts herself in an agreeable manner, than a fretful, jealous, scolding wife, however devout she may be.”

Banished from the society of friends, Dürer’s only solace was in his art. Here only he found peace and pleasure. How earnestly and deeply he laboured, the long catalogue of his productions can prove. The truthfulness of his style is shown in his patient studies from nature, and his works are the reflex of such a habit. The figure of the burly townsman of Jerusalem who lifts his cap in acknowledgment of Joachim and Anna, as they meet at the Golden Gate, in his illustrations of the Life of the Virgin ([Fig. 243]), may be cited for its homely truth, a characteristic which runs through all Dürer’s works, and gives them a certain naïveté. The figure is an evident study of an honest townsman of Nürnberg, and is as little like an ancient Jew as possible, though admirable as a transcript from nature. Of far higher order are the figures of the apostles, John, Peter, Mark, and Paul, which he painted in 1526, and presented to his native city.[229-*] We engrave the figure of Paul, the drapery of which is simple and majestic. A study for this drapery, made as early as 1523, is in the collection of the Archduke Charles of Austria. In these pictures, which are painted of life-size, he has exerted his utmost ability, and eschewed any peculiarities of his own which might interfere with the greatness of his design. “These pictures are the fruit of the deepest thought which then stirred the mind of Dürer, and are executed with overpowering force. Finished as they are they form the first complete work of art produced by Protestantism.[229-†] What dignity and sublimity pervade those heads of such varied character![230-*] What simplicity and majesty in the lines of the drapery! what sublime and statue-like repose in their attitudes! Here we no longer find any disturbing element: there are no small angular breaks in the folds, no arbitrary or fantastic features in the countenances, or even in the fall of the hair. The colouring too is very perfect, true to nature in its power and warmth. There is scarcely any trace of the bright glazing, or of those sharply defined forms seen in other works by him, but everywhere a free pure impasto. Well might the artist now close his eyes, he had in this picture attained the summit of his art—here he stands side by side with the greatest masters known in history.”[231-*]

Fig. 243.—Figure from Dürer’s Life of the Virgin.

Fig. 244.—St. Paul, after Dürer.

Of the great contemporaries of Dürer—whose works have given undying celebrity to the old town of their residence—we must now discourse a little. Honoured as these works still are by the Nürnbergers, they are little known out of Germany; although, as exemplars of art in general at the particular period when they were executed, they may challenge their due position anywhere. The most remarkable is the bronze shrine of St. Sebald, the work of Peter Vischer and his five sons, which still stands in all its beauty in the elegant church dedicated to the saint. The shrine encloses, amid the most florid Gothic architecture, the oaken chest encased with silver plates, containing the body of the venerated saint; this rests on an altar decorated with basso-relievos, depicting his miracles.[231-†] The architectural portion of this exquisite shrine partakes of the characteristics of the Renaissance forms engrafted on the mediæval, by the influence of Italian art. Indeed, the latter school is visible as the leading agent throughout the entire composition. The figures of the Twelve Apostles and others placed around it, scarcely seem to belong to German art: they are quite worthy of the best Trans-alpine master. The grandeur, breadth and repose of these wonderful statues cannot be excelled. Vischer seems to have completely freed his mind from the conventionalities of his native schools: we have here none of the constrained “crumpled draperies,” the home-studies for face and form, so strikingly present in nearly all the works of art of this era; but noble figures of the men elevated above the earthly standard by companionship with the Saviour, exhibiting their high destiny by a noble bearing, worthy of the solemn and glorious duties they were devoted to fulfil. We gaze on these figures as we do on the works of Giotto and Fra Angelico, until we feel human nature may lose nearly all of its debasements before the “mortal coil” is “shuffled off,” and that mental goodness may shine through and glorify its earthly tabernacle, and give an assurance in time present of the superiorities of an hereafter. Dead, indeed, must be the soul that can gaze on such works unmoved, appealing as they do to our noblest aspirations, and vindicating humanity from its fallen position, by asserting its innate, latent glories. Here we feel the truth of the scriptural phrase—“In his own image made He them.”