(From the Oil-painting in the National Gallery. Painted in 1497)
An interesting picture, which has unfortunately suffered by retouching. It is the only portrait by Dürer the nation possesses. Other works of his may be seen at South Kensington and at Hampton Court.
Now the old Italians thought Dürer a most admirable artist, blamed what they called the defects of his Art on the ungainliness of his models, and felt convinced that he might have easily been the first among the Italians had he lived there, instead of the first among the "Flemings." They were of course wrong, for it is the individual reflex-action of Dürer's brain which caused his Art to be what it is; in Italy it would still have been an individual reflex-action, and Dürer had been in Venice without the desired effect. Dürer might, however, himself seem to confirm the Italians' opinion: he strayed into the barren fields of theoretical speculations—barren because some of his best work was done before he had elaborated his system, barren because speculation saps the strength of natural perception. Dürer sought a "Canon of Beauty," and the history of Art has proved over and over again that beauty canonised is damned.
One more remark: his contemporaries and critics praised the extraordinary technical skill with which he could draw straight lines without the aid of a ruler, or the astounding legerdemain with which he reproduced every single hair in a curl—the "Paganini" worship which runs through all the ages; which in itself is fruitless; touches the fiddle-strings at best or cerebral cords, not heart-strings.
Out of all the foregoing, out of all the mortal and mouldering coverings we have now to shell the real, the immortal Dürer—the Dürer whose mind was longing for truth, whose soul was longing for harmony, and who out of his longings fashioned his Art, as all great men have done and will do until the last.
On the title-page of the "Small Passion" is a woodcut—the "Man of Sorrows."
There, reader, you have, in my opinion, the greatness of Dürer; he never surpassed it. It is the consciousness of man's impotence; it is the saddest sight mortal eyes can behold—that of a man who has lost faith in himself.
If Dürer were here now I am sure he would lay his hand upon my shoulder, and, his deep true eyes searching mine, his soft and human lips would say:—
You are right, my friend; this is my best, for it is the spirit of my age that spoke in me then.