Dürer / Artist-Biographies

by M. F. Sweetser

Isolated, like the ducal cities of Italy, from the desolating wars of the great powers of Europe, and like them also growing rapidly in wealth and cultivation, Nuremberg afforded a secure refuge for Art and its children. In Dürer’s day the great churches of St. Sebald, St. Lawrence, and Our Lady were finished; Peter Vischer executed the exquisite and unrivalled bronze Shrine of St. Sebald; and Adam Kraft completed the fairy-like Sacrament-house, sixty feet high, and “delicate as a tree covered with hoar-frost.” Intimate with these two renowned artificers was Lindenast, “the red smith,” who worked skilfully in beaten copper; and their studies were conducted in company with Vischer’s five sons, who, with their wives and children, all dwelt happily at their father’s house. Vischer lived till a year after Dürer’s death, but there is no intimation that the two artists ever met. Another eminent craftsman was the unruly Veit Stoss, the marvellous wood-carver, many of whose works remain to this day; and there was also Hans Beheim, the sculptor, “an honorable, pious, and God-fearing man;” and Bullman, who “was very learned in astronomy, and was the first to set the Theoria Planetarum in motion by clockwork;” and he who made the great alarm-bell, which was inscribed, “I am called the mass and the fire bell: Hans Glockengeiser cast me: I sound to God’s service and honor.” What shall we say also of Hartmann, Dürer’s pupil, who invented the measuring-rod; Schoner, the maker of terrestrial globes; Donner, who improved screw machinery; and all the skilful gun-makers, joiners, carpet-workers, and silk-embroiderers? There was also the burgher Martin Behaim, the inventor of the terrestrial globe, who anticipated Columbus by sailing Eastward across the Pacific Ocean, passing through the Straits of Magellan and discovering Brazil, as early as 1485.

In Germany, as in Italy, the studio of the artist, full of pure and lofty ideals, had hardly yet evolved itself from the workshop of the picture-manufacturer. Nuremberg’s chief artists at this time were Michael Wohlgemuth, Dürer’s master; Lucas Kornelisz, also called Ludwig Krug, who, though a most skilful engraver, was sometimes forced to adopt the profession of a cook in order to support himself; and Matthias Zagel, who was expert in both painting and engraving. Still another was the Venetian Jacopo de’ Barbari, or Jacob Walch, “the master of the Caduceus,” a dexterous engraver and designer, whom Dürer alludes to in his Venetian and Netherland writings. The art of engraving had been invented early in the fifteenth century, and was developing rapidly and richly toward perfection. The day of versatile artists had arrived, when men combined the fine and industrial arts in one life, and devoted themselves to making masterpieces in each department. The northern nations, unaided by classic models and traditions, were developing a new and indigenous æsthetic life, slow of growth, but bound to succeed in the long run.

The literary society of Dürer’s epoch at Nuremberg was grouped in the Sodalitas Literaria Rhenana, under the learned Conrad Celtes, who published a book of Latin comedies, pure in Latinity and lax in morals, which he mischievously attributed to the Abbess Roswitha. Pirkheimer and the monk Chelidonius also belonged to this sodality. Other contemporary literati of the city were Cochläus, Luther’s satirical opponent; the Hebraist Osiander; Venatorius, who united the discordant professions of poetry and mathematics; the Provost Pfinzing, for whose poem of Tewrdannkh, Dürer’s pupil Schäuffelein made 118 illustrations; Baumgärtner, Melanchthon’s friend; Veit Dietrich, the reformer; and Joachim Camerarius, the Latinist. But the most illustrious of Nuremberg’s authors at that time was the cobbler-poet, Hans Sachs, a radical in politics and religion, who scourged the priests and the capitalists of his day in songs and satires which were sung and recited by the workmen of all Germany. He himself tells us that he wrote 4,200 master-songs, 208 comedies and tragedies, 73 devotional and love songs, and 1,007 fables, tales, and miscellaneous poems; and others say that his songs helped the Reformation as much as Luther’s preaching.

Thus the activities of mechanics, art, and literature pressed forward with equal fervor in the quaint old Franconian city, while Albert Dürer’s life was passing on. “Abroad and far off still mightier things were doing; Copernicus was writing in his observatory, Vasco di Gama was on the Southern Seas.”

“I, Albrecht Dürer the younger, have sought out from among my father’s papers these particulars of him, where he came from, and how he lived and died holily. God rest his soul! Amen.” In this manner the pious artist begins an interesting family history, in which it is stated that the Dürers were originally from the romantic little Hungarian hamlet of Eytas, where they were engaged in herding cattle and horses. Anthony Dürer removed to the neighboring town of Jula, where he learned the goldsmith’s art, which he taught to his son Albrecht, or Albert, while his other sons were devoted to mechanical employments and the priesthood. Albert was not content to stay in sequestered Jula, and, wandering over Germany and the Low Countries, at last came to Nuremberg, where he settled in 1455, in the service of the goldsmith Hieronymus Haller. This worthy Haller and his wife Kunigund, the daughter of Oellinger of Weissenberg, at that time had an infant daughter; and as she grew up Albert endeared himself to her to such purpose that, in 1467, when Barbara had become “a fair and handy maiden of fifteen,” he married her, being forty years old himself. During the next twenty-four years she bore him eighteen children, seven daughters and eleven sons, of whose births, names, and godparents the father made careful descriptions. Three only, Albert, Andreas, and Hans, arrived at years of maturity. It may well be believed that the poor master-goldsmith was forced to work hard and struggle incessantly to support such a great family; and his portrait shows that the hand-to-mouth existence of so many years had told heavily and left its imprint on his weary and careworn face. Yet he had certain sources of peace and gentleness in his life, and never sank into moroseness or selfishness. Let us quote the tender and reverent words of his son: “My father’s life was passed in great struggles and in continuous hard work. With my dear mother bearing so many children, he never could become rich, as he had nothing but what his hands brought him. He had thus many troubles, trials, and adverse circumstances. But yet from every one who knew him he received praise, because he led an honorable Christian life, and was patient, giving all men consideration, and thanking God. He indulged himself in few pleasures, spoke little, shunned society, and was in truth a God-fearing man. My dear father took great pains with his children, bringing them up to the honor of God. He made us know what was agreeable to others as well as to our Maker, so that we might become good neighbors; and every day he talked to us of these things, the love of God and the conduct of life.”

Albert Dürer was the third child of Albert the Elder and Barbara Hallerin, and was born on the morning of the 21st of May, 1471. The house in which the Dürers then lived was a part of the great pile of buildings owned and in part occupied by the wealthy Pirkheimer family, and was called the Pirkheimer Hinterhaus. It fronted on the Winkler Strasse of Nuremberg, and was an ambitious home for a craftsman like Albert. The presence of Antonius Koberger, the famous book-printer, as godfather to the new-born child, shows also that the Dürers occupied an honorable position in the city.

The Pirkheimers were then prominent among the patrician families of Southern Germany, renowned for antiquity, enormously wealthy through successful commerce, and honored by important offices in the State. The infant Willibald Pirkheimer was of about the same age as the young Albert Dürer; and the two became close companions in all their childish sports, despite the difference in the rank of their families. When the goldsmith’s family moved to another house, at the foot of the castle-hill, five years later, the warm intimacy between the children continued unchanged.

The instruction of Albert in the rudiments of learning was begun at an early age, probably in the parochial school of St. Sebald, and was conducted after the singular manner of the schools of that day, when printed books were too costly to be intrusted to children. He lived comfortably in his father’s house, and daily received the wise admonitions and moral teachings of the elder Albert. His friendship for Willibald enabled him to learn certain elements of the higher studies into which the young patrician was led by his tutors; and his visits to the Pirkheimer mansion opened views of higher culture and more refined modes of life.

Albert was enamoured with art from his earliest years, and spent many of his leisure hours in making sketches and rude drawings, which he gave to his schoolmates and friends. The Imhoff Collection had a drawing of three heads, done in his eleventh year; the Posonyi Collection claimed to possess a Madonna of his fifteenth year; and the British Museum has a chalk-drawing of a woman holding a bird in her hand, whose first owner wrote on it, “This was drawn for me by Albert Dürer before he became a painter.” The most interesting of these early works is in the Albertina at Vienna, and bears the inscription: “This I have drawn from myself from the looking-glass, in the year 1484, when I was still a child.—Albert Dürer.” It shows a handsome and pensive boy-face, oval in shape, with large and tender eyes, filled with solemnity and vague melancholy; long hair cut straight across the forehead, and falling over the shoulders; and full and pouting lips. It is faulty in design, but shows a considerable knowledge of drawing, and a strong faculty for portraiture. The certain sadness of expression tells that the schoolboy had already become acquainted with grief, probably from the straitened circumstances of his family, and the melancholy deaths of so many brothers and sisters. The great mystery of sorrow was full early thrown across the path of the solemn artist. This portrait was always retained by Dürer as a memorial of his childhood.