Size of the original engraving, 3⅝ × 6¾ inches
In the Royal Print Room, Amsterdam
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MASTER OF THE AMSTERDAM CABINET. ST. GEORGE
Size of the original engraving, 5⅝ × 4⅛ inches
In the British Museum
The master’s knowledge of the anatomy of the horse, and his treatment of that noble beast, unfortunately fall far short of his rendering of the dogs and stags in the Stag Hunt. The figure of St. George is sufficiently graceful and convincing, but the horse (seemingly of the rocking-horse variety) can hardly be proclaimed a complete success. In spite of this obvious defect it is one of the artist’s finest plates, remarkable for its exceptional force and animation. The unique proof, of which the British Museum is the fortunate possessor, is in splendid condition and rich in burr.
And now, with some trepidation of spirit, we approach Albrecht Dürer and his engraved work. His many-sidedness foredooms to failure any attempt at an adequate and comprehensive treatment. His compositions, as Max Allihn justly says, may fittingly be likened to the Sphinx of the old legend; for “they attack everyone who, either as critic, historian or harmless wanderer, ventures in the realm of art, and propose to him their unsolvable riddles.”
Of his own work Dürer says: “What beauty may be I know not. Art is hidden in nature and whosoever can tear it out has it,” and his life-long quest of knowledge, his truly German reverence for fact, hangs like a millstone around his neck. “Of a truth,” writes Raphael, “this man would have surpassed us all if he had had the masterpieces of art constantly before him,” Raphael himself—“Raphael the Divine”—hardly paralyzed æsthetic criticism for a longer period than has Dürer, and in studying his engravings, if the student would see them for what they are, as works of art, and not through the enchanted, oftentimes stupefying, maze of metaphysics, he must be prepared for the gibes and verbal brick-bats of his contemporaries, who hold in reverence all that has the sanction of long-continued repetition by authority after authority.
“If you see it in a book it’s true; if you see it in a German book it’s very true,” applies with only too telling a force to a considerable share of Dürer speculation. For better or worse I cannot but think that Dürer’s prime intention in his engravings was an artistic one, though obviously this intention was often overlaid with a desire to supply an existing demand and to introduce, into otherwise simple compositions, traditional moralistic motives which should render his engravings more marketable at the fairs, where mostly they were sold. So many and so fascinating are the facets of Dürer’s personality, so interesting is he as a man in whose mind meet, and sometimes blend, the ideas of the Middle Ages with those almost of our own time, that if we are to study, even in the briefest and most cursory fashion, his engraved work, we must perforce confine ourselves strictly to the artistic content of his plates and not be seduced into the by-ways of speculation which lead anywhere—or, more often, nowhere.
Earliest of his authenticated engravings, without monogram and without date, crude in handling, possibly suggested by the work of some earlier master, and in all probability executed before his first journey to Venice (that is to say, before or in the year 1490) is the Ravisher, susceptible of as many and as varied interpretations as there are authorities; from a man using violence, to the struggle for existence. It has even been connected in some way with a belief in witchcraft! The Holy Family with the Dragonfly, to which Koehler gives second place in his chronological arrangement of Dürer’s engravings, shows an astonishing advance in technique and in composition. It is undated, but the monogram is in its early form. The galley and the two gondolas, in the distant water to the right, would seem to indicate that it was engraved in or about the year 1494, upon Dürer’s return from Venice, and it is probably his first plate after his return to Nuremberg. There is a sweetness and an attractiveness in the face of the Virgin which points to an acquaintance with Schongauer’s engraving, the Virgin with a Parrot. The poise of the head and the flowing hair lend color to this supposition.
To how great an extent not only the engravings, but the theories, of Jacopo de’ Barbari may have influenced Dürer in such plates as St. Jerome in Penitence, the Carrying Off of Amymone, Hercules, or the Four Naked Women, is difficult to determine. It may have been considerable, though, at times, one cannot help wondering whether the theory of proportion of the human body, of which Jacopo spoke to Dürer, but concerning which he refused (or was unable) to give him further detailed particulars, may not have been more or less of a “bluff,” since there is no record of Jacopo having committed the results of his studies to writing, and in his engravings there is little evidence of any logical theory of proportion. That a potent influence was at work shaping Dürer’s development is clear, and the figure of St. Jerome undoubtedly owes a good deal to Jacopo. The landscape is all Dürer’s own, the first of a long series finely conceived and admirably executed. The long, sweeping lines in the foreground recall the manner of Jacopo de’ Barbari, but otherwise the engraving owes little technically to that artist.