MARTIN SCHONGAUER. VIRGIN SEATED IN A
COURTYARD
Size of the original engraving, 6¾ × 4⅞ inches
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
MARTIN SCHONGAUER. ANGEL OF THE ANNUNCIATION
Size of the original engraving, 6⅝ × 4½ inches
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The type of the Redeemer, which Schongauer has made so peculiarly his own, is nowhere seen to better advantage than in the two beautiful plates of the Baptism of Christ and Christ Appearing to the Magdalen. Max Geisberg acclaims the last-named as Schongauer’s most beautiful engraving. “Here, the contents of the composition have received an embodiment, the fervor, depth, and delicacy of which have never been surpassed in art.”[1] It can, however, share this high praise with the Virgin Seated in a Courtyard and the Angel of the Annunciation. For sheer beauty, these plates remain to this day not only unsurpassed, but unequalled. What quietude and restraint there is in the Virgin Seated in a Courtyard, the wall back of her discreetly bare, the grass indicated by a few small but significant strokes, while the branches of one little, leafless tree form an exquisite pattern against the untouched sky! By contrast one of Dürer’s technical masterpieces—the Virgin Seated by a City Wall—seems overworked and overloaded with needless accessories.
[1] Martin Schongauer. By Dr. Max Geisberg. The Print-Collector’s Quarterly. Vol. IV. April, 1914. p. 128.
The Angel of the Annunciation marks the culmination of Schongauer’s art and belongs to his most mature period. Everything not absolutely necessary for a clear presentation has been eliminated. A slight shadow upon the ground gives solidity to the figure. All else is blank. The art of simplification can hardly go further, and were one to be restricted to the choice of a single print by any of Dürer’s predecessors, one might wisely select the Angel of the Annunciation.
That Schongauer was equally interested in things mundane is convincingly proved by Peasants Going to Market, Goldsmith’s Apprentices Fighting, or The Miller. How well he has differentiated between the mother-ass, filled with maternal solicitude, and the woolly, stocky, and somewhat foolish little donkey which follows, while the miller with upraised staff urges her onward.