STATUE OF ALBRECHT DURER, NUREMBERG
In closing this sketch, nothing can so delightfully summarize the beauty of the old town of Nuremberg and the character of its great artist as a part of Longfellow’s poem, Nuremberg:[*]
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands,
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg the ancient stands.
Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,
Memories haunt thy pointed gables like the rooks that round them throng:
Memories of the Middle Ages, when the Emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time defying, centuries old;
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand thro’ every clime.
In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde’s hand;
On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days,
Sat the poet Melchoir singing Kaiser Maximilian’s praise.
Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of art;
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;
And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.
In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;
In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains rising through the painted air.
Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart
Lived and labored Albrecht Durer, the Evangelist of Art;
Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered seeking for the Better Land.
Emigravit is the inscription on the tomb-stone where he lies;
Dead he is not, but departed—for the artist never dies.
Fairer seems the ancient city and the sunshine seems more fair,
That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!
[[*]] These stanzas are here reproduced by the courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the regular publishers of Longfellow’s works.
SUBJECTS FOR LANGUAGE WORK.
- A Day in Ancient Nuremberg.
- The Churches of Nuremberg.
- With Durer at Antwerp.
- Durer and His Friends.
- Durer and His Wife.
- Durer’s Stay in Venice.
- Maximilian and the Artist.
- Stories about Durer.
- The Art of Wood Engraving.
- The Fountains of Nuremberg.
- Some Stories about St. Sebald.