Dürer. The Flight into Egypt

From “The Life of the Virgin”
Size of the original woodcut, 11⅝ × 8¼ inches

Dürer. The Assumption and Crowning of the Virgin

From “The Life of the Virgin”
Size of the original woodcut, 11½ × 8⅛ inches

The series opens magnificently with the group of large and stately woodcuts, abounding in vitality and dramatic invention, produced by Dürer between 1495 and 1500. These include the fifteen subjects of the “Apocalypse,” the seven early subjects of the “Great Passion” (not completed until 1510-11) and seven detached pieces uniform with the two series already named in dimensions and style, but independent of them in subject. The blocks of the majority of these single pieces are now, by the way, in an American collection, that of Mr. Junius S. Morgan, but they have suffered sadly from the ravages of the worm. There is a certain exaggeration and over-emphasis of gesture in the “Apocalypse” woodcuts, but Dürer never invented anything more sublime than the celebrated Four Riders or the St. Michael defeating the Rebel Angels, which I regard as at least equal to the subject more frequently praised. Superb, too, is the group of Angels restraining the Four Winds. The landscape at the foot of St. John’s Vision of the Four-and-twenty Elders (B. 63) is a complete picture by itself, and there is a rare early copy of this portion alone, which is itself a beautiful print, and doubtless the earliest pure landscape woodcut in existence. Samson and the Lion, the mysteriously named Ercules and the Knight and Man-at-arms, often described as its companion, and the Martyrdom of St. Catherine are among the finest of the single subjects. After this tremendously impressive group, there is for a time a certain relaxation of energy, or rather Dürer was more bent on other things, especially engraving. To the years 1500-04 belong a number of woodcuts of Holy Families and Saints, much smaller than the “Apocalypse,” and rather roughly cut. Some critics have wished to dismiss one or another of them as pupils’ work, but for this there is really no justification. Then comes another very good period, that of the “Life of the Virgin,” of which set Dürer had finished seventeen subjects before he left for Venice in 1505, while the Death of the Virgin and The Assumption were added in 1510, and the frontispiece in 1511, when the whole work came out as a book, assuredly one of the most desirable picture-books the world has ever seen! It is impossible to weary of the beautiful compositions, the details drawn with such loving care, the tender and homely sentiment, the humor, even, displayed in the accessory figures of The Embrace of Joachim and Anne, the beer-drinking gossips in the Birth of the Virgin, where the atmosphere of St. Anne’s chamber is sweetened by an angelic thurifer, and the merry group of angelic children playing round Joseph, bent on his carpenter’s business, while their elders keep solemn watch round Mary at her distaff and the Holy Child in the cradle. We find landscapes at least as beautiful as those in Dürer’s best engravings in the pastoral background of the Annunciation to Joachim and the mountainous distance of the Visitation. The architectural setting of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and the tall cross held aloft, with the happiest effect on the composition, by the Apostle kneeling on the left in Mary’s death-chamber, are among the memorable features of the set.

Beautiful again, especially in fine proofs, is the next and latest of the long sets, the “Little Passion,” consisting of thirty-six subjects and a title-page, begun in 1509 and finished, like all the other books, in 1511. But it has not the monumental grandeur of the earlier religious sets, and there is an inevitable monotony about the incessant recurrence of the figure of Our Lord, when the history of the Passion is set forth in such detail. The most original and impressive subjects, in my opinion, are Christ Appearing to St. Mary Magdalen and the next following it, The Supper at Emmaus.

Dürer. St. Jerome in his Cell

Size of the original woodcut, 9¼ × 6¼ inches