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Albert Durer

T. Sturge Moore

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Title: Albert Durer

Author: T. Sturge Moore

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ALBERT DUeRER

T. STURGE MOORE

PREFACE

When the late Mr. Arthur Strong asked me to undertake the present

volume, I pointed out to him that, to fulfil the advertised programme of

the Series he was editing, was more than could be hoped from my

attainments. He replied, that in the case of Duerer a book, fulfilling

that programme, was not called for, and that what he wished me to

attempt, was an appreciation of this great artist in relation to general

ideas. I had hoped to benefit very largely by my editor's advice and

supervision, but this his illness and death prevented. His great gifts

and brilliant accomplishments, already darkened and distressed by

disease, were all too soon to be utterly quenched; and I can but here

express, not only my sense of personal loss in the hopes which his

friendly welcome and generous intercourse had created and which have

been so cruelly dashed by the event, but also that of the void which his

disappearance has left in the too thin ranks of those who, filled with

reverence and enthusiasm for the great traditions of the past, seem

nevertheless eager and capable of grappling with the unwieldy present.

Let and restricted had been the recognition of his maturing worth, and

now we must do without both him and the impetus of his so nearly

assured success.

The present volume, then, is not the result of new research; nor is it

an abstract resuming historical and critical discoveries on its subject

up to date. Of this latter there are several already before the British

public; the former, as I said, it was not for me to attempt. Nor do I

feel my book to be altogether even what it was intended to be; but am

conscious that too much space has been given to the enumeration of

Duerer's principal works and the events of his life without either being

made exhaustive. Still, I hope that even these parts may be found

profitable by those who are not already familiar with the subjects with

which they deal. To those for whom these subjects are well known, I

should like to point out that Parts I. and IV. and very much of Part

III. embody my chief intention; that chapter 1 of Part I. finds a

further illustration in division iii. of chapter 4, Part II.; and that

division vi., chapter 1, Part II., should be taken as prefatory to

chapter 1, Part IV.

Should exception be taken to the works chosen as illustrations, I would

explain that the means of reproduction, the degree of reduction

necessitated by the size of the page, and other outside considerations,

have severely limited my choice. It is entirely owing to the extreme

kindness of the Duerer Society--more especially of its courteous and

enthusiastic secretaries, Mr. Campbell Dodgson and Mr. Peartree--that

four copper-plates have so greatly enhanced the adequacy of the volume

in this respect.

I have gratefully to acknowledge Sir Martin Conway's kindness in

permitting me to quote so liberally from his "Literary Remains of

Albrecht Duerer," by far the best book on this great artist known to me.

ads:

Mr. Charles Eaton's translation of Thausing's "Life of Duerer," the

"Portfolios of the Duerer Society," and Dr. Lippmanb "Drawings of

Albrecht Duerer," are the only other works on my subject to which I feel

bound to acknowledge my indebtedness. Lastly, I must express deep

gratitude to my learned friend, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, for having so

generously consented, by reading the proofs, to mitigate my defect in

scholarship.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PART I

CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE

COMPREHENSION OF DUeRER'S LIFE AND ART

I. THE IDEA OF PROPORTION

II THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE

PART II

DUeRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES

IN WHICH HE LIVED

I. DUeRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH, AND EDUCATION

II. THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED

III. DUeRER AT VENICE

IV. HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS

V. DUeRER, LUTHER, AND THE HUMANISTS

VI. DUeRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS

VII. DUeRER'S LAST YEARS

PART III

DUeRER AS A CREATOR

I. DUeRER'S PICTURES

II. DUeRER'S PORTRAITS

III. DUeRER'S DRAWINGS

IV. DUeRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS

V. DUeRER'S WOODCUTS

VI. DUeRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES

PART IV

DUeRER'S IDEAS

I. THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE

II. THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY

III. THE LAST TRADITION

IV. BEAUTY

V. NATURE

VI. THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST

VII. TECHNICAL PRECEPTS

VIII. IN CONCLUSION

ILLUSTRATIONS

Apollo and Diana, Metal Engraving

Water-colour drawing of a Hare

Pilate Washing his Hands. Metal Engraving

Agnes Frey

"Mein Angnes"

Wilibald Pirkheimer

Hans Burgkmair

Adoration of the Trinity

St. Christopher

Assumption of the Magdalen

Duerer's Mother

Maximilian

Frederick the Wise

Silver-point Portrait

Erasmus

Drawing of a Lion

Lucas van der Leyden

Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate. Metal Engraving

St. George and St. Eustache

Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Saints

Road to Calvary

Portrait of Duerer

Albert Duerer the Elder

Gswolt Krel

Portrait at Hampton Court

Portrait of a Lady

Michel Wolgemuth

Hans Imhof

"Jakob Muffel"

Study of a Hound

Memento Mei

Silver-point Portrait

Portrait in Black Chalk

Cherub for a Crucifixion

Apollo and Diana

An Old Castle

Melancholia

Detail from "The Agony in the Garden"

Angel with Sudarium

The Small Horse

The Great Fortune, or Nemesis

Silver-point Drawing

St. Michael and the Dragon

Detail from "The Meeting at the Golden Gate"

Detail from "The Nativity"

Duerer's Armorial Bearings

Christ haled before Annas

The Last Supper

Saint Antony, Metal Engraving

"In the Eighteenth Year"

"Una Vilana Wendisch"

Charcoal Drawing

PART I

CONCERNING GENERAL IDEAS IMPORTANT TO THE COMPREHENSION OF DUeRER'S LIFE

AND ART

CHAPTER I

THE IDEA OF PROPORTION

Ich hab vernomen wie der siben weysen aus kriechenland ainer gelert hab

das dymass in allen dingen sitlichen und naturlichen das pest sey.

DUeRER, British Museum MS., vol. iv., 82a.

I have heard how one of the Seven Sages of Greece taught that measure is

in all things, physical and moral, best.

La souveraine habilete consiste a bien connaitre le prix des choses. LA

ROCHEFOUCAULD, III. 252.

Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the value of

things.

The attempt that the last quarter century has witnessed, to introduce

the methods of science into the criticism of works of art, has tended,

it seems to me, to put the question of their value into the background.

The easily scandalous inquiries, "Who?" "When?" "Where?" have assumed an

impertinent predominance. When I hear people very decidedly asserting

that such a picture was painted by such an one, not generally supposed

to be the author, at such a time, &c. &c., I often feel uneasy in the

same way as one does on being addressed in a loud voice in a church or a

picture gallery, where other persons are absorbed in an acknowledged and

respected contemplation or study. I feel inclined to blush and whisper,

for fear of being supposed to know the speaker too well. It is an

awkward moment with me, for I am in fact very good friends with many

such persons. "Sovereign skill consists in thoroughly understanding the

value of things"--not their commercial value only, though that is

sovereign skill on the Exchange, but their value for those whose chief

riches are within them. The value of works of art is an intimate

experience, and cannot be estimated by the methods of exact science as

the weight of a planet can. There are and have been forgeries that are

more beautiful, therefore more valuable, than genuine specimens of the

class of work which they figure as. I feel that the specialist, with his

special measure and point of view, often endangers the fair name and

good repute of the real estimate; and that nothing but the dominion and

diffusion of general ideas can defend us against the specialist and keep

the specialist from being carried away by bad habits resulting from his

devotion to a single inquiry.

There was one general idea, of the greatest importance in determining

the true value of things, which preoccupied Duerer's mind and haunted his

imagination: the idea of proportion. I propose therefore to attempt to

make clear to myself and my readers what the idea of proportion really

implies, and of what service a sense for proportion really is; secondly,

to determine the special use of the term in relation to the appreciation

of works of art; thirdly, in relation to their internal

structure;--before proceeding to the special studies of Duerer as a man

and an artist.

I conceive the human reason to be the antagonist of all known forces

other than itself, and that therefore its most essential character is

the hope and desire to control and transform the universe; or, failing

that, to annihilate, if not the universe, at least itself and the

consciousness of a monster fact which it entirely condemns. In this

conception I believe myself to be at one with those by whom men have

been most influenced, and who, with or without confidence in the support

of unknown powers, have set themselves deliberately against the face of

things to die or conquer. This being so, and man individually weak, it

has been the avowed object of great characters--carrying with them the

instinctive consent of nations--to establish current values for all

things, according as their imagination could turn them to account as

effective aids of reason: that is, as they could be made to advance her

apparent empire over other elemental forces, such as motion, physical

life, &c. This evaluation, in so far as it is constant, results in what

we call civilisation, and is the only bond of society. With difficulty

is the value of new acquisitions recognised even in the realm of

science, until the imagination can place them in such a light as shall

make them appear to advance reason's ends, which accounts for the

reluctance that has been shown to accept many scientific results. Reason

demands that the world she would create shall be a fact, and declares

that the world she would transform is the real world, but until the

imagination can find a function for it in reason's ideal realm, every

piece of knowledge remains useless, or even an obstacle in the way of

our intended advance. This applies to individuals just as truly as it

does to mankind. And since man's reason is a natural phenomenon and does

apparently belong to the class of elemental forces, this warfare against

the apparent fact, and the fortitude and hope which its whole-hearted

prosecution begets, appear as a natural law to the intelligence and as a

command and promise to the reason.

The alternative between the will to cease and the will to serve reason,

with which I start out, may not seem necessary to all. "Forgive their

sin--and if not, blot me I pray thee out of thy book," was Moses'

prayer; and to me it seems that only by lethargy can any soul escape

from facing this alternative. The human mind in so far as it is active

always postulates, "Let that which I desire come to pass, or let me

cease!" Nor is there any diversity possible as to what really is

desirable: Man desires the full and harmonious development of his

faculties. As to how this end may most probably be attained, there is

diversity enough to represent every possible blend of ignorance with

knowledge, of lethargy with energy, of cowardice with courage.

"So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men, whether considered in

their persons or their states, that they will grasp at all, and can form

no scheme of perfect happiness with less."[1] So writes the most

powerful of English prose-writers. And this hope and desire, which is

reason, once thrown down, the most powerful among poets has brought from

human lips this estimate of life--

"It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

No one knows whether reason's object will or can be attained; but for

the present each man finds confidence and encouragement in so far as he

is able to imagine all things working together for the good of those who

desire good--in short, for "reasonable beings."[2] The more he knows,

the greater labour it is for him to imagine this; but the more he

concentrates his faculties on doing good and creating good things, the

more his imagination glows and shines and discovers to him new

possibilities of success: the better he is able to find--

"Sermons in stones and good in everything;"

"And make a moral of the devil himself."

But how is it that reason can accept an imagination that makes what in a

cold light she considers her enemy, appear her friend? All things

impress the mind with two contradictory notions--their actual condition

and their perfection. Even the worst of its kind impresses on us an idea

of what the best would be, or we could not know it for the worst.

Reason, then, seizes on this aspect of things which suggests their

perfection, and awards them her attention in proportion as such aspect

makes their perfection seem near, or as it may further her in

transforming the most pressing of other evils. All life tends to affirm

its own character; and the essential characteristic of man is reason,

which labours to perfect all things that he judges to be good, and to

transform all evil. Ultimate results are out of sight for all human

faculties except the early-waking eyes of long-chastened hope; but

reason loves this visionary mood, though she prefer that it be sung, and

find that less lyrical speech brings on it something of ridicule; for

such a rendering betrays, as a rule, faint desire or small power to

serve her in those who use it.

The sense of proportion, then, is that fineness of susceptibility by

which we appreciate in a given object, person, force, or mood,

serviceableness in regard to reason's work; in other words, by which we

estimate the capacity to transform the Universe in such a way that men

may ultimately be enabled to give their hearty consent to its existence,

which at present no man rationally can.

III

Now, art appeals to fine susceptibilities; for, as I have explained

elsewhere,[3] the value of works of art depends on their having come as

"real and intimate experiences to a large number of gifted men"--men who

have some kinship to that "finely touched and gifted man, the [Greek

_heuphnaes_] of the Greeks," to use the phrase of our greatest modern

critic. And in so far as we are able to judge between works successfully

making such an appeal, we must be governed by this sense of proportion,

which measures how things stand in regard to reason; that is, not merely

intellect, not merely emotion, but the alliance of both by means of the

imagination in aid of man's most central demand--the demand for

nobler life.

Perhaps I ought to point out before proceeding, that this position is

not that of the writers on art most in view at the present day. It is

the negation of the so-called scientific criticism, and also of the

personal theory that reduces art to an expression of, and an appeal to,

individual temperaments; it is the assertion of the sovereignty of the

aesthetic conscience on exactly the same grounds as sovereignty is

claimed for the moral conscience. AEsthetics deals with the morality of

appeals addressed to the senses. That is, it estimates the success of

such appeals in regard to the promotion of fuller and more harmonious

life. Flaubert wrote:

"Le genie n'est pas rare maintenant, mais ce que personne n'a plus et ce

qu'il faut tacher d'avoir, c'est la conscience."

("Genius is not rare nowadays, but conscience is what nobody has and

what one should strive after.")

To-day I am thinking of a painter. Painting is an art addressed

primarily to the eye, and not to the intelligence, not to the

imagination, save as these may be reached through the eye--that most

delicate organ of infinite susceptibility, which teaches us the meaning

of the word light--a word so often uttered with stress of ecstasy, of

longing, of despair, and of every other shade of emotion, that the sound

of it must soon be almost as powerful with the young heart, almost as

immediate in its effect, as the break of day itself, gladdening the eyes

and glorifying the earth. And how often is this joy received through the

eye entrusted back to it for expression? For the eye can speak with

varieties, delicacies, and subtle shades of motion far beyond the

attainment of any other organ. "This art of painting is made for the

eyes, for sight is the noblest sense of man,"[4] says Duerer; and again:

"It is ordained that never shall any man be able, out of his own

thoughts, to make a beautiful figure, unless, by much study, he hath

well stored his mind. That then is no longer to be called his own; it is

art acquired and learnt, which soweth, waxeth, and beareth fruit after

its kind. Thence the gathered secret treasure of the heart is manifested

openly in the work, and the new creature which a man createth in his

heart, appeareth in the form of a thing."[5]

Yes, indeed, the function of art is far from being confined to telling

us what we see, whatever some may pretend, or however naturally any

small nature may desire to continue, teach, or regulate great ones. All

so-called scientific methods of creating or criticising works of art are

inadequate, because the only truly scientific statements that can be

made about these inquiries are that nothing is certain--that no method

ensures success, and that no really important quality can be defined;

for what man can say why one cloud is more beautiful than another in the

same sky, any more than he can explain why, of two men equally absorbed

in doing their duty, one impresses him as being more holy than the

other? The degrees essential to both kinds of judgment escape all

definition; only the imagination can at times bring them home to us,

only the refined taste or chastened conscience, as the case may be,

witnesses with our spirit that its judgment is just, and bids us

recognise a master in him who delivers it. As the expression on a face

speaks to a delicate sense, often communicating more, other, and better

than can be seen, so the proportion, harmony, rhythm of a painting may

beget moods and joys that require the full resources of a well-stored

mind and disciplined character in order that they may be fully

relished--in brief, demand that maturity of reason which is the mark of

victorious man.

Such being my conception, it will easily be perceived how anxious I must

be to truly discern and express the relation between such objects as

works of art by common consent so highly honoured, and at the same time

so active in their effect upon the most exquisitely endowed of mankind.

Especially since to-day caprice, humour and temperament are, by the

majority of writers on art, acclaimed for the radical characteristic of

the human creative faculty, instead of its perversion and disease; and

it is thought that to be whimsical, moody, or self-indulgent best fits a

man both to create and appraise works of art, whereas to become so

really is the only way in which a man capable of such high tasks can

with certainty ruin and degrade his faculties. Precious, surpassingly

precious indeed, must every manifestation of such faculty before its

final extinction remain, since the race produces comparatively few

endowed after this kind.

Perhaps a sufficient illustration of this prevalent fallacy may be drawn

from Mr. Whistler's "Ten O'Clock," where he speaks of art:

"A whimsical goddess, and a capricious, her strong sense of joy

tolerates no dulness, and, live we never so spotlessly, still may she

turn her back upon us."

"As from time immemorial, she has done upon the Swiss in their

mountains."

Here is no proof of caprice, save on the witty writer's part; for men

who fast are not saved from bad temper, nor have the kindly necessarily

discreet tongues. The Swiss may be brave and honest, and yet dull.

Virtue is her own reward, and art her own. Virtue rewards the saint, art

the artist; but men are rewarded for attention to morality by some

measure of joy in virtue, for attention to beauty by some measure of joy

in works of art. Between the artist and the Philistine is no great gulf

fixed, in the sense that the witty "master of the butterfly" pretends to

assume, but an infinite and gentle decline of persons representing every

possible blend of the virtues and faults of these two types. Again, an

artist is miscalled "master of art." "Where he is, there she appears,"

is airy impudence. "Where she wills to be, there she chooses a man to

serve her," would not only have been more gallant but more reasonable;

for that "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound

thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is

every one that is born of the spirit," and that "many are called, few

chosen," are sayings as true of the influence which kindleth art as of

that which quickeneth to holiness. Art is not dignified by being called

whimsical--or capricious. What can a man explain? The intention, behind

the wind, behind the spirit, behind the creative instinct, is dark. But

man is true to his own most essential character when, if he cannot

refrain from prating of such mysteries, he qualifies them as hope would

have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks of the

unknown, in whose hands his destiny so largely rests, slightingly, as of

a woman whom he has seduced because he despised her--calling her

capricious because she answered to his caprice, whimsical, because she

was as flighty as his error. It is not art's function to reward virtue.

But, caprices and whimseys being ascribed to a goddess, it will be

natural to expect them in her worshipper; and Mr. Whistler revealed the

limitations of his genius by whimseys and caprice. Though it was in

their relations to the world that this goddess and her devotee claimed

freedoms so far from perfect, yet this, their avowed characteristic

abroad, I think in some degree disturbed their domestic relations,

Though others have underlined the absurdity of this theory by applying

themselves to it with more faith and less sense, I have chosen to quote

from the "Ten O'Clock," because I admire it and accept most of the ideas

about art advanced therein. The artist who wrote it was able, in Duerer's

phrase, "to prove" what he wrote "with his hand." Most of those who have

elaborated what was an occasional unsoundness of his doctrine into

ridiculous religions are as unable to create as they are to think; there

is no need to record names which it is wisdom to forget. But it may be

well to point out that Mr. Whistler does not succeed in glorifying great

artists when he declares that beauty "to them was as much a matter of

certainty and triumph as is to the astronomer the verification of the

result, foreseen with the light granted to him alone." No, he only sets

up a false analogy; for the true parallel to the artist is the saint,

not the astronomer; both are convinced, neither understands. Art is no

more the reward of intelligence than of virtue. She permits no caprice

in her own realm. Loyalty is the only virtue she insists on, loyalty in

regard to her servant's experience of beauty; he may be immoral in every

other way and she not desert him; but let him turn Balaam and declare

beauty absent where he feels its presence--though in doing this he hopes

to advance virtue or knowledge, she needs no better than an ass to

rebuke him. Nothing effects more for anarchy than these notions that art

derives from individual caprice, or defends virtue, or demonstrates

knowledge; for they are all based on those flattering hopes of the

unsuccessful, that chance, rules both in life and art, or that it is

possible to serve two masters.

Doctrines often repeated gain easy credence; and, since art demands

leisure in order to be at all enjoyed, ideas about it, in so fatiguing a

life as ours has become, take men off their guard, when their habitual

caution is laid to sleep, and, by an over-easiness, they are inclined to

spoil both their sense of distinction and their children. Yes, they

consent to theatres that degrade them, because they distract and amuse;

and read journals that are smart and diverting at the expense of dignity

and truth--in the same way as they smile at the child whom reason bids

them reprove, and with the like tragic result; for they become incapable

of enjoying works of art, as the child is incapacitated for the best of

social intercourse. To prophesy smooth things to people in this

condition, and flatter their dulness, is to be no true friend; and so

the modern art-critic and journalist is often the insidious enemy of the

civilisation he contents.

Nothing strikes the foreigner coming to England more than our lack of

general ideas. Our art criticism is no exception; it, like our

literature and politics, is happy-go-lucky and delights in the pot-shot.

We often hear this attributed admiringly to "the sporting instinct." "If

God, in his own time, granteth me to write something further about

matters connected with painting, I will do so, in hope that this art may

not rest upon use and wont alone, but that in time it may be taught on

true and orderly principles, and may be understood to the praise of God

and the use and pleasure of all lovers of art."[6]

Our art is still worse off than our trade or our politics, for it does

not even rest upon use and wont, but is wholly in the air. Yet the

typical modern aesthete has learnt where to take cover, for, though

destitute of defence, he has not entirely lost the instinct for

self-preservation; and, when he finds the eye of reason upon him, he

immediately flies to the diversity of opinions. But Duerer follows him

even there with the perfect good faith of a man in earnest.

"Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty, and

they seek after it in many different ways, although ugliness is thereby

rather attained. Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know

not certainly what the ultimate measure of true beauty is, and cannot

describe it aright. But glad should I be to render such help as I can,

to the end that the gross deformities of our work might be and remain

pruned away and avoided, unless indeed any one prefers to bestow great

labour upon the production of deformities. We are brought back,

therefore, to the aforesaid judgment of men, which considereth one

figure beautiful at one time and another at another....

"Because now we cannot altogether attain unto perfection, shall we

therefore wholly cease from learning? By no means. Let us not take unto

ourselves thoughts fit for cattle. For evil and good lie before men,

wherefore it behoveth the rational man to choose the good."[7]

A man may see, if he will but watch, who is more finely touched and

gifted than himself. In all the various fields of human endeavour, on

such men he should try to form himself; for only thus can he enlarge his

nature, correct his opinions. Something he can learn from this man,

something from that, and it is rational to learn and be taught. Are we

to be cattle or gods? "Is it not written in your law, I said, 'Ye are

gods?'" Reason demands that each man form himself on the pattern of a

god, and God is an empty name if reason be not the will of God. Then he

whom reason hath brought up may properly be called a son of God, a son

of man, a child of light. But it is easier to bob to such phrases than

to understand them. However, their mechanical repetition does not

prevent their having meant something once, does not prevent their

meaning being their true value. It is time we understood our art, just

as it is time we understood our religion. Docility, as I have pointed

out elsewhere, is one of the marks of genius. Duerer's spirit is the

spirit of the great artist who will learn even from "dull men of little

judgment."

"Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel.

Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts, let him take it from

one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with

his hand. Howbeit any one may give thee counsel; and when thou hast done

a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men

of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule

they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the

good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayst thus better

thy work."[8]

Those who are thoroughly versed in art are the great artists; we have

guides then, and we have a way--the path they have trodden--and we have

company, the gifted and docile men of to-day whom we see to be improving

themselves; and, in so far as we are reasonable, a sense of proportion

is ours, which we may improve; and it will help us to catch up better

and yet better company until we enjoy the intimacy of the noblest, and

know as we are known. Then: "May we not consider it a sign of sanity

when we regard the human spirit as ... a poet, and art as a half written

poem? Shall we not have a sorry disappointment if its conclusion is

merely novel, and not the fulfilment and vindication of those great

things gone before?"[9] For my own part, those appear to me the grandest

characters who, on finding that there is no other purchase for effort

but only hope, and that they can never cease from hope but by ceasing to

live, clear their minds of all idle acquiescence in what could never be

hoped, and concentrate their energies on conquering whatever in their

own nature, and in the world about them, militates against their most

essential character--reason, which seeks always to give a higher

value to life.

When we speak of the sense of proportion displayed in the design of a

building, many will think that the word is used in quite a different

sense, and one totally unrelated to those which I have been discussing.

But no; life and art are parallel and correspond throughout; ethics are

the Esthetics of life, religion the art of living. Taste and conscience

only differ in their provinces, not in their procedure. Both are based

on instinctive preferences; the canon of either is merely so many of

those preferences as, by their constant recurrence to individuals gifted

with the power of drawing others after them, are widely accepted.

The preference of serenity to melancholy, of light to darkness, are

among the most firmly established in the canon, that is all. The sense

of proportion within a design is employed to stimulate and delight the

eye. Ordinary people may fear there is some abstruse science about this.

Not at all; it is as simple as relishing milk and honey, and its

development an exact parallel to the training of the palate to

distinguish the flavours of teas, coffees and wines. "Taste and see" is

the whole business. There are many people who have no hesitation in

picking out what to their eye is the wainscot panel with the richest

grain: they see it at once. So with etchings; if people would only

forget that they are works of art, forget all the false or

ill-understood standards which they have been led to suppose applicable,

and look at them as they might at agate stones; or choose out the

richest in effect: the most suitable for a gay room, or a hall, or a

library, as though they were patterned stuffs for curtains; they would

come a thousand times nearer a right appreciation of Duerer's success

than by making a pot-shot to lasso the masterpiece with the tangle of

literary rubbish which is known as art criticism.

The harmonies and contrasts of juxtaposed colours or textures are

affected by quantity, and a sense of proportion decides what quantities

best produce this effect and what that. The correctness or amount of

information to be conveyed in the delineation of some object, in

relation to the mood which the artist has chosen shall dominate his

work, is determined by his sense of proportion. He may distort an object

to any extent or leave it as vague as the shadow on a wall in diffused

light, or he may make it precise and particular as ever Jan Van Eyck

did; so only that its distortion or elaboration is so proportioned to

the other objects and intentions of his work as to promote its success

in the eyes of the beholder.

There are no fallacies greater than the prevalent ones conveyed by the

expressions "out of drawing" or "untrue to nature." There is no such

thing as correct drawing or an outside standard of truth for works

of art.

"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and

method, which must be found out before it can be achieved." "Chaque

oeuvre a faire a sa poetique en soi, qu'il faut trouver," said Flaubert.

Truth in a work of art is sincerity. That a man says what he really

means--shows us what he really thinks to be beautiful--is all that

reason bids us ask for. No science or painstaking can make up for his

not doing this. No lack of skill or observation can entirely frustrate

his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly

sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the

inexpressible is never felt. Stammering becomes more eloquent than

oratory, a child's impulsiveness wiser than circumlocutory experience.

When a single intention absorbs the whole nature, communication is

direct and immediate, and makes impotence itself a means of

effectiveness. So the naiveties of early art put to shame the

purposeless parade of prodigious skill. Wherever there is communication

there is art; but there are evil communications and there is vicious

art, though, perhaps, great sincerity is incompatible with either. For

an artist to be deterred by other people's demands means that he is not

artist enough; it is what his reason teaches him to demand of himself

that matters, though, doubtless, the good desire the approval of

kindred natures.

A work of art addresses the eye by means of chosen proportions; it may

present any number of facts as exactly as may be, but if it offend the

eye it is a mere misapplication of industry, or the illustration of a

scientific treatise out of place; and those that choose ribbons well are

better artists than the man that made it. Or again it may overflow with

poetical thought and suggestion, or have the stuff to make a first-rate

story in it; but, if it offend the eye, it is merely a misapplication of

imagination, invention or learning, and the girl who puts a charming

nosegay together is a better artist than he who painted it. On the other

hand, though it have no more significance than a glass of wine and a

loaf of bread, if the eye is rejoiced by gazing on the paint that

expresses them, it is a work of art and a fine achievement. Still, it

may be as fanciful as a fairy-tale, or as loaded with import as the

Crucifixion; and, if it stimulates the eye to take delight in its

surfaces over and above mere curiosity, it is a work of art, and great

in proportion as the significance of what it conveys is brought home to

us by the very quality of the stimulus that is created in return for our

gaze. For painting is the result of a power to speak beautifully with

paint, as poetry is of a power to express beautifully by means of words

either simple things or those which demand the effort of a welltrained

mind in order to be received and comprehended. The mistake made by

impressionists, luminarists, and other modern artists, is that a true

statement of how things appear to them will suffice; it will not, unless

things appear beautiful to them, and they render them beautifully. It

will not, because science is not art, because knowledge is a different

thing from beauty. A true statement may be repulsive and degrading;

whereas an affirmation of beauty, whether it be true or fancied, is

always moving, and if delivered with corresponding grace is

inspiring--is a work of art and "a joy for ever." For reason demands

that all the eye sees shall be beautiful, and give such pleasure as best

consists with the universe becoming what reason demands that it shall

become. This demand of reason is perfectly arbitrary? Yes, but it is

also inevitable, necessitated by the nature of the human character. It

is equally arbitrary and equally inevitable that man must, where science

is called for, in the long run prefer a true statement to a lie. From

art reason demands beautiful objects, from science true statements: such

is human nature; for the possession of this reason that judges and

condemns the universe, and demands and attempts to create something

better, is that which differentiates human life from all other known

forces--is that by which men may be more than conquerors, may make peace

with the universe; for

"A peace is of the nature of a conquest;

For then both parties nobly are subdued

And neither party loser."

Of such a nature is the only peace that the soul can make with the

body--that man can make with nature--that habit can make with

instinct--that art can make with impulse. In order to establish such a

peace the imagination must train reason to see a friend in her enemy,

the physical order. For, as Reynolds says of the complete artist:

"He will pick up from dunghills, what, by a nice chemistry, passing

through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold, and under the

rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even

sublime inventions."[10]

It is not too much to say that the nature both of the artist and of the

dunghills is "subdued" by such a process, and yet neither is a "loser."

Goethe profoundly remarked that the highest development of the soul was

reached through worship first of that which was above, then of that

which was beneath it. This great critic also said, "Only with difficulty

do we spell out from that which nature presents to us, the _DESIRED_

word, the congenial. Men find what the artist brings intelligible and to

their taste, stimulating and alluring, genial and friendly, spiritually

nourishing, formative and elevating. Thus the artist, grateful to the

nature that made him, weaves a second nature--but a conscious, a fuller,

a more perfectly human nature."

[Illustration: Water-colour drawing of a Hare]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Swift, "Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome."]

[Footnote 2: It may be urged that diversities of opinion exist as to

what good is. The convenience of the words "good" and "evil" corresponds

to a need created by a common experience in the same way as the

convenience of the words "light" and "darkness" does. A child might

consider that a diamond generated light in the same way as a candle

does. He would be mistaken, but this would not affect the correctness of

his application of the word "light" to his experience; if he confused

light with darkness he must immediately become unintelligible. Good and

light are perceived and named--no one can say more of them; the effects

of both may be described with more or less accuracy. To say that light

is a mode of motion does not define it; we ask at once, What mode? And

the only answer is, that which produces the effect of light. A man born

blind, though he knew what was meant by motion, could never deduce from

this knowledge a conception of light.]

[Footnote 3: The Monthly Review, October 1902, "Rodin."]

[Footnote 4: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 177.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid. p. 247.]

[Footnote 6: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 252.]

[Footnote 7: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," pp, 244 and 245.]

[Footnote 8: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 180.]

[Footnote 9: The Monthly Review, April 1901, "In Defence of Reynolds."]

[Footnote 10: Sixth Discourse.]

CHAPTER II

THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE CREATIVE IMPULSE

There are some artists of whom one would naturally write in a lyrical

strain, with praise of the flesh, and those things which add to its

beauty, freshness, and mystery--fair scenes of mountain, woodland, or

sea-shore; blue sky, white cloud and sunlight, or the deep and starry

night; youth and health, strength and fertility, frankness and freedom.

And, in such a strain, one would insist that the fondness and

intoxication which these things quicken was natural, wise, and lovely.

But, quite as naturally, when one has to speak of Duerer, the mind

becomes filled with the exhilaration and the staidness that the desire

to know and the desire to act rightly beget; with the dignity of

conscious comprehension, the serenity of accomplished duty with all the

strenuousness and ardour of which the soul is capable; with science

and religion.

It is natural to refer often to the towering eminence of these virtues

in Michael Angelo; both he and Duerer were not only great artists, and

active and powerful minds, but men imbued with, and conservative of,

piety. And it seems to me, if we are to appreciate and sympathise deeply

with such men, we must try to understand the religion they believed in;

to estimate, not only what its value was supposed to be in those days,

but what value it still has for us. Surely what they prized so highly

must have had real and lasting worth? Surely it can only be the relation

of that value to common speech and common thought which has changed, not

its relation to man's most essential nature? Therefore I will first try

to arrive at a general notion of the real worth of their ideas,--that

is, the worth that is equally great from their point of view and ours.

The whole of that period, the period of the so belauded Renascence, had

within it (or so it seems to me) an incurable insufficiency, which

troubles the affections of those who praise or condemn it; so that they

show themselves more passionate than those who praise or condemn the art

and life of ancient Greece. This insufficiency I believe to have been

due to the fact that Christian ideas were more firmly rooted in, than

they were understood by, the society of those days. And to-day I think

the same cause continues to propagate a like insufficiency, a like lack

of correspondence between effort and aim. Certain ideas found in the

reported sayings of Jesus have so fastened upon the European intellect

that they seem well-nigh inseparable from it. We are told that the

effort of the Greek, of Aristotle, was to "submit to the empire of

fact." The effort of the Jew was very similar; for the prophets, what

happened was the will of God, what will happen is what God intends. Now

it is noteworthy that Aristotle did not wish to submit to ignorance,

though it and the causes which produce it and preserve it in human minds

are among the most horrible and tremendous of facts; and it is the

imperishable glory of the prophets, that, whatever the priest the king,

the Sadducee or Pharisee might do, _they_ could not rest in or abide the

idea that God's will was ever evil; no inconsistency was too glaring to

check their indignation at Eastern fatalism which quietly supposed that

as things went wrong it was their nature to do so;--vanity, vanity, all

is vanity!--or that if men did wrong and prospered, it was God's doing,

and showed that they had pleased Him with sacrifices and performances.

'Wherever poetry, imagination, or art had been busy, there had appeared,

both in Judea and Greece, some degree of rebellion against the empire of

fact.. When Jesus said: "The kingdom of heaven is within you," he

recognised that the human reason was the antagonist of all other known

forces, and he declared war on the god of this world and prophesied the

downfall of--the empire of the apparent fact;--not with fume and fret,

not with rant and rage, as poets and seers had done, but mildly

affirming that with the soul what is best is strongest, has in the long

run most influence; that there is one fact in the essential nature of

man which, antagonist to the influence of all other facts, wields an

influence destined to conquer or absorb all other influences. He said:

"My Father which is in heaven, the master influence within me, has

declared that I shall never find rest to my soul until I prefer His

kingdom, the conception of my heart, to the kingdoms of earth and the

glory of the earth." 'We have seen that Duerer describes the miracle; the

work of art, thus:

"The secret treasure which a man conceived in his heart shall appear as

a thing" (see page 10).

And we know that he prized this, the master thing, the conception of the

heart, above everything else.

Much learning is not evil to a man, though some be stiffly set against

it, saying that art puffeth up. Were that so, then were none prouder

than God who hath formed all arts, but that cannot be, for God is

perfect in goodness. The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the

better doth he become, and so much the more love doth he win for the

arts and for things exalted.

The learning Duerer chiefly intends is not book-learning or critical

lore, but knowledge how to make, by which man becomes a creator in

imitation of God; for this is of necessity the most perfect knowledge,

rivalling the sureness of intuition and instinct.

III

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

Every one knows how anxious great artists become for the preservation of

their works, how highly they value permanence in the materials employed,

and immunity from the more obvious chances of destruction in the

positions they are to occupy. Michael Angelo is said to have painted

cracks on the Sistina ceiling to force the architect to strengthen the

roof. When Jesus made the assertion that his teaching would outlast the

influence of the visible world of nature and the societies of men--the

kingdoms of earth and the glory of the earth--he did no more than every

victorious soul strives to effect, and to feel assured that it has in

some large degree effected; the difference between him and them is one

of degree. It may be objected that different hearts harbour and cherish

contradictory conceptions. Doubtless; but does the desire to win the

co-operation and approval of other men consist with the higher

developments of human faculties? Is it, perhaps, essential to them? If

so, in so far as every man increases in vitality and the employment of

his powers, he will be forced to reverence and desire the solidarity of

the race, and consequently to relinquish or neglect whatever in his own

ideal militates against such solidarity. And this will be the case

whether he judge such eccentric elements to be nobler or less noble than

the qualities which are fostered in him by the co-operation of his

fellows. Jesus, at any rate, affirmed that the law of the kingdom within

a man's soul was: "Love thy neighbour as thyself"; and that obedience to

it would work in every man like leaven, which is lost sight of in the

lump of dough, and seems to add nothing to it, yet transforms the whole

in raising up the loaf; or as the corn of wheat which is buried in the

glebe like a dead body, yet brings forth the blade, and nourishes a

new life.

So he that should follow Jesus by obeying the laws of the kingdom, by

loving God (the begetter or fountainhead of a man's most essential

conception of what is right and good) and his neighbour, was assured by

his mild and gracious Master that he would inherit, by way of a return

for the sacrifices which such obedience would entail, a new and better

life. (Follow me, I laid down my life in order that I might take it

again. He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his

life _for_ my _sake_--as I did, in imitation of me--shall find it.) For

in order to make this very difficult obedience possible, it was to be

turned into a labour of love done for the Master's sake. As Goethe said:

"Against the superiority of another, there is no remedy

but love."

Is it not true that the superiority of another man humiliates, crushes

and degrades us in our own eyes, if we envy it or hate it instead of

loving it? while by loving it we make it in a sense ours, and can

rejoice in it. So Jesus affirmed that he had made the superiority of the

ideal his; so that he was in it, and it was in him, so that men who

could no longer fix their attention on it in their own souls might love

it in him. He was their master-conception, their true ideal, acting

before them, captivating the attention of their senses and emotions.

This is what a man of our times, possessed of rare receptivity and great

range of comprehension, considered to be the pith of Jesus' teaching.

Matthew Arnold gave much time and labour to trying to persuade men that

this was what the religion they professed, or which was professed around

them, most essentially meant. And he reminded us that the adequacy of

such ideas for governing man's life depended not on the authority of a

book or writings by eye-witnesses with or without intelligence, but on

whether they were true in experience. He quoted Goethe's test for every

idea about life, "But is it true, is it true for me, now?" "Taste and

see," as the prophets put it; or as Jesus said, "Follow me." For an

ideal must be followed, as a man woos a woman; the pursuit may have to

be dropped, in order to be more surely recovered; an ideal must be

humoured, not seized at once as a man seizes command over a machine.

This _secret of success was_ was only to be won by the development of a

temper, a spirit of docility. To love it in an example was the best,

perhaps the only way of gaining possession of it.

As we are placed, what hope can we have but to learn? and what is there

from which we might not learn? An artist is taught by the materials he

uses more essentially than by the objects he contemplates; for these

teach him "how," and perfect him in creating, those only teach him

"what," and suggest forms to be created. But for men in general the

"what" is more important than the "how"; and only very powerful art can

exhilarate and refine them by means of subjects which they dislike

or avoid.

Every seer of beauty is not a creator of beautiful things; and in art

the "how" is so much more essential than the "what," that artists create

unworthy or degrading objects beautifully, so that we admire their art

as much as we loathe its employment; in nature, too, such objects are

met with, created by the god of this world. A good man, too, may create

in a repulsive manner objects whose every association is ennobling or

elevating.

"The kingdom of heaven is within you," but hell is also within.

"Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed

In one self place; for where we are is hell

And where hell is, must we for ever be:

And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell that are not heaven,"

as Marlowe makes his Mephistophilis say: and the best art is the most

perfect expression of that which is within, of heaven or of hell.

Goethe said:

"In the Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was simple and positive, we

encounter expressions of approval more often than of disapproval. With

the Romans, on the other hand, the contrary holds good; and the more

corrupted poetry and rhetoric become, the more will censure grow and

praise diminish."

I have sometimes thought that the difference between classic and more or

less decadent art lies in the fact that by the one things are

appreciated for what they most essentially are--a young man, a swift

horse, a chaste wife, &c.--by the other for some more or less peculiar

or accidental relation that they hold to the creator. Such writers

lament that the young are not old, the old not young, prostitutes not

pure, that maidens are cold and modest or matrons portly. They complain

of having suffered from things being cross, or they take malicious

pleasure in pointing that crossness out; whereas classical art always

rebounds from the perception that things are evil to the assertion of

what ought to be or shall be. It triumphs over the Prince of Darkness,

and covers a multitude of sins, as dew or hoar frost cover and make

beautiful a dunghill. Dunghills exist; but he who makes of Macbeth's or

Clytemnestra's crimes an elevating or exhilarating spectacle triumphs

over the god of this world, as Jesus did when he made the most

ignominious death the symbol, of his victory and glory. Little wonder

that Albert Duerer, and Michael Angelo found such deep satisfaction in

Him as the object of their worship--his method of docility was

next-of-kin to that of their art. Respect and solicitude create the

soul, and these two pre-eminently docile passions preside over the

soul's creation, whether it be a society, a life, or a thing of beauty.

Here, when art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,

Lived and laboured Albrecht Duerer, the Evangelist of Art.

These jingling lines would scarcely merit consideration but that they

express a common notion which has its part of truth as well as of error.

Let us examine the first assertion (that art has been religion.)

Baudelaire, in his _Curiosites Esthetiques_ says: _La premiere affaire

d'un artiste est de substituer l'homme a la nature et de protester

contre elle_. ("The first thing for an artist is to substitute man for

nature and to protest against her.") The beginners and the smatterers

are always "students of nature," and suppose that to be so will suffice;

but when the understanding and imagination gain width and elasticity,

life is more and more understood as a long struggle to overcome or

humanise nature by that which most essentially distinguishes man from

other animals and inanimate nature. Religion should be the drill and

exercise of the human faculties to fit them and maintain them in

readiness for this struggle; the work of art should be the assertion of

victory. A life worthy of remembrance is a work of art, a life worthy of

universal remembrance is a masterpiece: only the materials employed

differentiate it from any other work of art. The life of Jesus is

considered as such a masterpiece. Thus we can say that if art has never

been religion, religion has always been and ever will be an art.

Now let us examine the second assertion that Duerer was an evangelist.

What kind of character do we mean to praise when we say a man is an

evangelist? Two only of the four evangelists can be said to reveal any

ascertainable personality, and only St. John is sufficiently outlined to

stand as a type; but I do not think we mean to imply a resemblance to

St. John. The bringer of good news, the evangelist par excellence, was

Jesus. He it was who made it evident that the sons of men have power to

forgive sins. Victory over evil possible--this was the good news. No

doubt every sincere Christian is supposed to be a more or less

successful imitator of Jesus; and as such, Duerer may rightly be called

an evangelist. But more than this is I think, implied in the use of the

word; an evangelist is, for us above all a bringer of good news in

something of the same manner as Jesus brought it, by living among

sinners for those sinners' sake, among paupers for those paupers' sake;

to see a man sweet, radiant, and victorious under these circumstances,

is to see an evangelist. Goethe's final claim is that, "after all, there

are honest people up and down the world who have got light from my

books; and whoever reads them, and gives himself the trouble to

understand me, will acknowledge that he has acquired thence a certain

inward freedom"; and for this reason I have been tempted to call him the

evangelist of the modern world. But it is best to use the word as I

believe it is most correctly employed, and not to yield to the

temptation (for tempting it is) to call men like Duerer and Goethe

evangelists. They are teachers who charm as well as inform us, as Jesus

was; but they are not evangelists in the sense that he was, for they did

not deal directly with human life where it is forced most against its

distinctive desire for increase in nobility, or is most obviously

degraded by having betrayed it.'[11]

I have often heard it objected that Jesus is too feminine an ideal, too

much based on renunciation and the effort to make the best of failure.

No doubt that as women are, by the necessity of their function, more

liable to the ship-wreck of their hopes, the bankruptcy of their powers,

they have been drawn to cling to this hope of salvation in greater

numbers, and with more fervour; so that the most general idea of Jesus

may be a feminine one. It does not follow that this is the most correct

or the best: every object, every person will appear differently to

different natures. And it still remains true that there have been a

great many men of very various types who have drawn strength and beauty

from the contemplation and reverence of Jesus. That this ideal is too

much based on making the best of failure is an objection that makes very

little impression on me, for I think I perceive that failure is one of

the most constant and widespread conditions of the universe, and even

more certainly of human life.

VII

It remains now to see in what degree these ideas were felt or made

themselves felt through the Romanism and Lutheranism of the Renascence

period. Perhaps we English shall best recognise the presence of these

ideas, the working of this leaven--this docility, the necessary midwife

of 'genius, who transforms the difficult tasks which the human reason

sets herself into labours of love--in an Englishman; so my first example

shall be taken from Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet.

It was then that my acquaintance with him began, he being then thirty, I

two or three months his junior. He had no theological degree, but the

whole University, doctors and all, went to hear him. Henry VII took note

of him, and made him Dean of St. Paul's. His first step was to restore

discipline in the Chapter, which had all gone to wreck. He preached

every saint's day to great crowds. He cut down household expenses, and

abolished suppers and evening parties. At dinner a boy reads a chapter

from Scripture; Colet takes a passage from it and discourses to the

universal delight. Conversation is his chief pleasure, and he will keep

it up till midnight if he finds a companion. Me he has often taken with

him on his walks, and talks all the time of Christ. He hates coarse

language, furniture, dress, food, books, all clean and tidy, but

scrupulously plain; and he wears grey woollen when priests generally go

in purple. With the large fortune which he inherited from his father, he

founded and endowed a school at St. Paul's entirely at his own cost--

masters, houses, salaries, everything.

He is a man of genuine piety. He was not born with it. He was naturally

hot, impetuous and resentful--indolent, fond of pleasure and of women's

society--disposed to make a joke of everything. He told me that he had

fought against his faults with study, fasting and prayer, and thus his

whole life was in fact unpolluted with the world's defilements. His

money he gave all to pious uses, worked incessantly, talked always on

serious subjects, to conquer his disposition to levity; not but what you

could see traces of the old Adam when wit was flying at feast or

festival. He avoided large parties for this reason. He dined on a single

dish, with a draught or two of light ale. He liked good wine, but

abstained on principle. I never knew a man of sunnier nature. No one

ever more enjoyed cultivated society; but here, too, he denied himself,

and was always thinking of the life to come.

His opinions were peculiar, and he was reserved in expressing them for

fear of exciting suspicion. He knew how unfairly men judge each other,

how credulous they are of evil, how much easier it is for a lying tongue

to stain a reputation than for a friend to clear it. But among his

friends he spoke his mind freely.

He admitted privately that many things were generally taught which he

did not believe, but he would not create a scandal by blurting out his

objections. No book could be so heretical but he would read it, and read

it carefully. He learnt more from such books than he learnt from

dogmatism and interested orthodoxy.[12]

Some may wonder what Colet could have found to say about Christ which

could not only interest but delight the young and witty Erasmus; and may

judge that at any rate to-day such a subject is sufficiently fly-blown.

The proper reflection to make is, "A rose by any other name would smell

as sweet."

Whether we say Christ or Perfection does not matter, it is what we mean

which is either enthralling or dull, fresh or fusty; "there's nothing

in a name."

"When Colet speaks I might be listening to Plato," says Erasmus in

another place, at a time when he was still younger and had just come

from what had been a gay and perhaps in some measure a dissolute life in

Paris: not that it is possible to imagine Erasmus as at any time

committing great excesses, or deeply sinning against the sense of

proportion and measure.

Success is the only criterion, as in art, so in religion: the man that

plucks out his eye and casts it from him, and remains the dull, greedy,

distressful soul he was before, is a damned fool; but the man who does

the same and becomes such that his younger friends report of him, "I

never knew a sunnier nature," is an artist in life, a great artist in

the sense that Christ is supposed to have been a great master; one who

draws men to him, as bees are drawn to flowers. Colet drew the young

Henry the Eighth as well as Erasmus. "The King said: 'Let every man

choose his own doctor. Dean Colet shall be mine!'" Though no doubt

charlatans have often fascinated young scholars and monarchs, yet it is

peculiarly impossible to think of Colet as a charlatan.

VIII

Next let us take a sonnet and a sentence from Michael Angelo:

Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,

And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;

For if of our affections none finds grace

In sight of heaven, then, wherefore hath God made

The world which we inhabit? Better plea

Love cannot have than that in loving thee

Glory to that eternal peace is paid,

Who such divinity to thee imparts,

As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.

His hope is treacherous only whose love dies

With beauty, which is varying every hour;

But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power

Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,

That breathes on earth the air of paradise.[13]

It is very remarkable how strongly the conviction of permanence, and the

preference for the inward conception over external beauty are expressed

in this fine sonnet; and also that the reason given for accepting the

discipline of love is that experience shows how it "hallows and makes

pure all gentle hearts." In such a love poem--the object of which might

very well have been Jesus--I seem to find more of the spirit of his

religion, whereby he binds his disciples to the Father that ruled within

him, till they too feel the bond of parentage as deeply as himself and

become sons with him of his Father;--more of that binding power of Jesus

is for me expressed in this fine sonnet than in Luther's Catechism. The

religion that enables a great artist to write of love in this strain, is

the religion of docility, of the meek and lowly heart. For Michael

Angelo was not a man by nature of a meek and lowly heart, any more than

Colet was a man naturally saintly or than Luther was a man naturally

refined. But because Michael Angelo thus prefers the kingdom of heaven

to external beauty, one must not suppose that he, its arch high-priest,

despised it. Nobody had a more profound respect for the thing of beauty,

whether it was the creation of God or man. He said:

"Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavour to

create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives for

perfection, strives for something that is God-like."

Now we can perceive how the same spirit worked in a great artist, not at

Nuremberg or London, but at Rome, the centre of the world, where a

Borgia could be Pope.

Erasmus, the typical humanist, the man who loved humanity so much that

he felt that his love for it might tempt him to fight against God,

travelled from the one world to the other; passed from the society of

cardinals and princes to the seclusion of burgher homes in London, or to

chat with Duerer at Antwerp. He belonged perhaps to neither world at

heart; but how greatly his love and veneration of the one exceeded his

admiration and sense of the practical utility of the other, a comparison

of his sketch of Colet with such a note as this from his New Testament

makes abundantly plain:

"I saw with my own eyes Pope Julius II. at Bologna, and afterwards at

Rome, marching at the head of a triumphal procession as if he were

Pompey or Caesar. St. Peter subdued the world with faith, not with arms

or soldiers or military engines. St. Peter's successors would win as

many victories as St. Peter won if they had Peter's spirit."

But we must not forget that the book in which these notes appeared was

published with the approval of a Pope, and that he and others sought its

author for advice as to how to cope best with their more hot-headed

enemy Martin Luther. We must also remember that we are told that Colet

"was not very hard on priests and monks who only sinned with women. He

did not make light of impurity, but thought it less criminal than spite

and malice and envy and vanity and ignorance. The loose sort were at

least made human and modest by their very faults, and he regarded

avarice and arrogance as blacker sins in a priest than a hundred

concubines." This spirit was not that of the Reformation which came to

stop, yet it existed and was widespread at that time; it was I think the

spirit which either formed or sustained most of the great artists. At

any rate it both formed and sustained Albert Duerer. Yet the true nature

of these ideas, derived from Jesus, could not be understood even by

Colet, even by Erasmus. For them it was tradition which gave value and

assured truth to Christ's ideas, not the truth of those ideas which gave

value to the traditions and legends concerning him. The value of those

ideas was felt, sometimes nearer, sometimes further off; it was loved

and admired; their lives were apprehended by it, and spent in

illustrating and studying it, as were also those of Albert Duerer and

Michael Angelo. To understand the life and work of such men, we must

form some conception of the true nature and value of those ideas, as I

have striven to do in this chapter. Otherwise we shall merely admire and

love them, as they admired and loved Jesus; and it has now become a

point of honour with educated men not only to love and admire, but to

make the effort to understand. Even they desired to do this. And I think

we may rejoice that the present time gives us some advantage over those

days, at least in this respect.

And lastly, in order to bring us back to our main subject, let us quote

from a stray leaf of a lost MS. Book of Duerer's, which contains the

description of his father's death.

... desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap

on his head had suddenly become wet with drops of sweat. Then

he asked to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfell wine. He

took a very little of it, and then desired to get into bed

again and thanked her. And when he had got into bed he fell

at once into his last agony. The old wife quickly kindled the

candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard's verses, and

ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to

him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly

to my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was

gone. I saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not

been worthy to be with him at his end.

And thus in the night before S. Matthew's eve my father

passed away, in the year above mentioned (Sept. 20, 1502)

--the merciful God help me also to a happy end--and he left

my mother an afflicted widow behind him. He was ever wont to

praise her highly to me, saying what a good wife she was,

wherefore I intend never to forsake her. I pray you for God's

sake, all ye my friends, when you read of the death of my

father, to remember his soul with an "Our Father" and an "Ave

Maria"; and also for your own sake, that we may so serve God

as to attain a happy life and the blessing of a good end. For

it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill

from this world, for God is full of compassion. Through which

may He grant us, after this pitiful life, the joy of

everlasting salvation--in the name of the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Ghost, at the beginning and at the end, one

Eternal Governor. Amen.

The last sentences of this may seem to share in the character of the

vain repetitions of words with which professed believers are only too

apt to weary and disgust others. They are in any case commonplaces: the

image has taken the place of the object; the Father in heaven is not

considered so much as the paternal governor of the inner life as the

ruler of a future life and of this world. The use of such phrases is as

much idolatry as the worship of statue and picture, or as little, if the

words are repeated, as I think in this case they were, out of a feeling

of awe and reverence for preceding mental impressions and experiences,

and not because their repetition in itself was counted for

righteousness. Their use, if this was so, is no more to be found fault

with than the contemplation of pictures or statues of holy personages in

order to help the mind to attend to their ensample, or the reading of a

poem, to fill the mind with ennobling emotions. Idolatry is natural and

right in children and other simple souls among primitive peoples or

elsewhere. It is a stage in mental development. Lovers pass through the

idolatrous stage of their passion just as children cut their teeth. It

is a pity to see individuals or nations remain childish in this respect

just as much as in any other, or to see them return to it in their

decrepitude. But a temper, a spirit, an influence cannot easily be

apprehended apart from examples and images; and perhaps the clearest

reason is only the exercise of an infinitely elastic idolatry, which

with sprightly efficiency finds and worships good in everything, just as

the devout, in Duerer's youth, found sermons in stones, carved stones

representing saint, bishop, or Virgin. And Duerer all his life long

continued to produce pictures and engravings which were intended to

preach such sermons.

Goethe admirably remarks:

"_Superstition_ is the poetry of life; the poet therefore suffers no

harm from being _superstitious_." (Aberglaube.)

Superstition and idolatry are an expenditure of emotion of a kind and

degree which the true facts would not warrant; poetry when least

superstitious is a like exercise of the emotions in order to raise and

enhance them; superstition when most poetical unconsciously effects the

same thing.

This glimpse he gives of the way in which death visited his home, and

how the visitation impressed him, is coloured and glows with that temper

of docility which made Colet school himself so severely, and was the

source of Michael Angelo's so fervent outpourings. And all through the

accounts which remain of his life, we may trace the same spirit ever

anew setting him to school, and renewing his resolution to learn both

from his feelings and from his senses.

As I took a sentence from Michael Angelo, I will now take a sentence

from Duerer, one showing strongly that evangelical strain so

characteristic of him, born of his intuitive sense for human solidarity.

After an argument, which will be found on page 306, he concludes: "It is

right, therefore, for one man to teach another. He that doeth so

joyfully, upon him shall much be bestowed by God."[14] These last words,

like the last phrases of my former quotation from him, may stand perhaps

in the way of some, as nowadays they may easily sound glib or

irreverent. But are we less convinced that only tasks done joyfully, as

labours of love, deserve the reward of fuller and finer powers, and

obtain it? When Duerer thought of God, he did not only think of a

mythological personage resembling an old king; he thought of a mind, an

intention, "for God is perfect in goodness." Words so easily come to

obscure what they were meant to reveal; and if we think how the notion

of perfect goodness rules and sways such a man's mind, we shall not

wonder that he did not stumble at the omnipotency which revolts us,

cowed as we are by the presence of evil. The old gentleman dressed like

a king;--this was not the part of his ideas about God which occupied

Duerer's mind. He accepted it, but did not think about it: it filled what

would otherwise have been a blank in his mind and in the minds of those

about him. But he was constantly anxious about what he ought to do and

study in order to fulfil the best in himself, and about what ought to be

done by his town, his nation, and the civilisation that then was, in

order to turn man's nature and the world to an account answerable to the

beauty of their fairer aspects. God was the will that commanded that

"consummation devoutly to be wished." Obedience to His law revealed in

the Bible was the means by which this command could be carried out; and

to a man turning from the Church as it then existed to the newly

translated Bible texts, the commands of God as declared in those texts

seemed of necessity reason itself compared with the commands of the

Popes; were, in fact, infinitely more reasonable, infinitely more akin

to a good man's mind and will. Luther's revolt is for us now

characterised by those elements in it which proved inadequate--were

irrational; but then these were insignificant in comparison with the

light which his downright honesty shed on the monstrous and amazingly

irrational Church. This huge closed society of bigots and worldlings

which arrogated to itself all powers human and divine, and used them

according to the lusts and intemperance of an Alexander Borgia, a Julius

II., and a Leo X., was that farce perception of which made Rabelais

shake the world with laughter, and which roused such consuming

indignation in Luther and Calvin that they created the gloomy

puritanical asylums in which millions of Germans, English, and Americans

were shut up for two hundred years, as Matthew Arnold puts it. But Duerer

was not so immured: even Luther at heart neither was himself, nor

desired that others should be, prevented from enjoying the free use of

their intellectual powers. It was because he was less perspicacious than

Erasmus that he did not see that this was what he was inevitably doing

in his wrath and in his haste.

XII

Erasmus was, perhaps, the man in Europe who at that time displayed most

docility; the man whom neither sickness, the desire for wealth and

honour, the hope to conquer, the lust to engage in disputes, nor the

adverse chances that held him half his life in debt and necessitous

straits, and kept him all his life long a vagrant, constantly upon the

road--the man in whom none of these things could weaken a marvellous

assiduity to learn and help others to learn. He it was who had most

kinship with Duerer among the artists then alive; for Duerer is very

eminent among them for this temper of docility. It is interesting to see

how he once turned to Erasmus in a devout meditation, written in the

journal he kept during his journey to the Netherlands. His voice comes

to us from an atmosphere charged with the electric influence of the

greatest Reformer, Martin Luther, who had just disappeared, no man knew

why or whither; though all men suspected foul play. In his daily life,

by sweetness of manner, by gentle dignity and modesty, Duerer showed his

religion, the admiration and love that bound his life, in a way that at

all times and in all places commands applause. The burning indignation

of the following passage may in times of spiritual peace or somnolence

appear over-wrought and uncouth. We must remember that all that Duerer

loved had been bound by his religion to the teaching and inspiration of

Jesus, and had become inseparable from it. All that he loved--learning,

clear and orderly thought, honesty, freedom to express the worship of

his heart without its being turned to a mockery by cynical monk, priest,

or prelate;--these things directly, and indirectly art itself, seemed to

him threatened by the corruption of the Papal power. We must remember

this; for we shall naturally feel, as Erasmus did, that the path of

martyrdom was really a short cut, which a wider view of the surrounding

country would have shown him to be likely to prove the longest way in

the end. Indeed the world is not altogether yet arrived where he thought

Erasmus could bring it in less than two years. And Luther himself

returned to the scene and was active, without any such result, a dozen

years and more.

Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,

inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened

man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the

wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,

thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the

truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou a little old

man, and myself have heard thee say that thou givest thyself but two

years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to accomplish somewhat. Lay

out the same well for the good of the Gospel, and of the true Christian

faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ says, shall the Gates of

Hell in no wise prevail against thee. And if here below thou wert to be

like thy master Christ, and sufferest infamy at the hands of the liars

of this time, and didst die a little sooner, then wouldst thou the

sooner pass from death unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou

drinkest of the cup which He drank of, _with Him shalt thou reign and

judge with justice those who_ HAVE _dealt unrighteously_. Oh! Erasmus!

cleave to this, that God Himself may be thy praise, even as it is

written of David. For thou mayest, yea, verily thou mayest overthrow

Goliath. Because God stands by the Holy Christian Church, even as He

alone upholds the Roman Church, according to His godly will. May He help

us to everlasting salvation, who is God the Father, the Son, and Holy

Ghost, one eternal God! Amen!!

"With Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice those that have dealt

unrighteously." This will seem to many a mere cry for revenge; and so

perhaps it was. Still it may have been, as it seems to me to have been,

uttered rather in the spirit of Moses' "Forgive their sin--and if not,

blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book"; or the "Heaven and earth shall

pass away, but my words shall not pass away" of Jesus. If the necessity

for victory was uppermost, the opportunity for revenge may scarcely have

been present to Duerer's mind.

It is now more generally recognised than in Luther's day that however

sweet vengeance may be, it is not admirable, either in God or man.

The total impression produced by Duerer's life and work must help each to

decide for himself which sense he considers most likely. The truth, as

in most questions of history, remains for ever in the balance, and

cannot be ascertained.

XIII

I have called docility the necessary midwife of Genius, for so it is;

and religion is a discipline that constrains us to learn. The religion

of Jesus constrains us to learn the most difficult things, binds us to

the most arduous tasks that the mind of man sets itself, as a lover is

bound by his affection to accomplish difficult feats for his mistress'

sake. Such tasks as Michael Angelo and Duerer set themselves require that

the lover's eagerness and zest shall not be exhausted; and to keep them

fresh and abundant, in spite of cross circumstances, a discipline of the

mind and will is required. This is what they found in the worship of

Jesus. The influence of this religious hopefulness and self-discipline

on the creative power prevents its being exhausted, perverted, or

embittered; and in order that it may effect this perfectly, that

influence must be abundant not only within the artist, as it was in

Michael Angelo and Duerer, but in the world about them.

This, then, is the value of religious influence to creative art: and

though we to-day necessarily regard the personages, localities, and

events of the creed as coming under the category of "things that are

not," we may still as fervently hope and expect that the things of that

category may "bring to nought the things that are," including the

superstitious reverence for the creed and its unprovable statements; for

has not the victory in human things often been with the things that were

not, but which were thus ardently desired and expected? To inquire which

of those things are best calculated to advance and nourish creative

power, and in what manner, should engage the artist's attention far more

than it has of late years. For what he loves, what he hopes, and what he

expects would seem, if we study past examples, to exercise as important

an influence on a man's creative power as his knowledge of, and respect

for, the materials and instruments which he controls do upon his

executive capacity.

The universe in which man finds himself may be evil, but not everything

it contains is so: then it must for ever remain our only wisdom to

labour to transform those parts which we judge to be evil into likeness

or conformity to those we judge to be good: and surely he who neglects

the forces of hope and adoration in that effort, neglects the better

half of his practical strength? The central proposition of Christianity,

that this end can only be attained by contemplation and imitation of an

example, is, we shall in another place (pp. [305-312]) find, maintained

as true in regard to art by Duerer, and by Reynolds, our greatest writer

on aesthetics. These great artists, so dissimilar in the outward aspects

of their creations, agree in considering that the only way of

advancement open to the aspirant is the attempt to form himself on the

example of others, by imitating them not slavishly or mechanically, but

in the same spirit in which they imitated their forerunners: even as the

Christian is bound to seek union with Christ in the same spirit or way

in which Jesus had achieved union with his Father--that is, by laying

down life to take it again, in meekness and lowliness of heart. Docility

is the sovran help to perfection for Duerer and Reynolds, and more or

less explicitly for all other great artists who have treated of these

questions.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: Of course all that may have been meant by the phrase "the

Evangelist of Art" is that Duerer illustrated the narrative of the

Passion; but by this he is not distinguished from many others, and the

phrase is suggestive of far more.]

[Footnote 12: Froude's "Life of Erasmus," Lecture vi.]

[Footnote 13: Wordsworth's Translation,]

[Footnote 14: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 176.]

PART II

DUeRER'S LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TIMES IN WHICH HE LIVED

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

DUeRER'S ORIGIN, YOUTH AND EDUCATION

Who was Duerer? He has told us himself very simply, and more fully than

men of his type generally do; for he was not, like Montaigne, one whose

chief study was himself. Yet, though he has done this, it is not easy

for us to fully understand him. It is perhaps impossible to place

oneself in the centre of that horizon which was of necessity his and

belonged to his day, a vast circle from which men could no more escape

than we from ours; this cage of iron ignorance in which every human soul

is trapped, and to widen and enlarge which every heroic soul lives and

dies. This cage appeared to his eyes very different from what it does to

ours; yet it has always been a cage, and is only lost sight of at times

when the light from within seems to flow forth, and with its radiant

sapphire heaven of buoyancy and desire to veil the eternal bars. It is

well to remind ourselves that ignorance was the most momentous, the most

cruel condition of his life, as of our own; and that the effort to

relieve himself of its pressure, either by the pursuit of knowledge, or

by giving spur and bridle to the imagination that it might course round

him dragging the great woof of illusion, and tent him in the ethereal

dream of the soul's desire, was the constant effort and resource of

his days.

At the age of fifty-three he took the pen and commenced:

In the year 1524, I, Albrecht Duerer the younger, have put together from

my father's papers the facts as to whence he was, how he came hither,

lived here, and drew to a happy end. God be gracious to him and

us! Amen.

Like his relatives, Albrecht Duerer the elder was born in the kingdom of

Hungary, in a little village named Eytas, situated not far from a little

town called Gyula, eight miles below Grosswardein; and his kindred made

their living from horses and cattle. My father's father was called Anton

Duerer; he came as a lad to a goldsmith in the said little town and

learnt the craft under him. He afterwards married a girl named

Elizabeth, who bare him a daughter, Katharina, and three sons. The first

son he named Albrecht; he was my dear father. He too became a goldsmith,

a pure and skilful man. The second son he called Ladislaus; he was a

saddler. His son is my cousin Niklas Duerer, called Niklas the Hungarian,

who is settled at Koeln. He also is a goldsmith, and learnt the craft

here in Nuernberg with my father. The third son he called John. Him he

set to study, and he afterwards became a parson at Grosswardein, and

continued there thirty years.

So Albrecht Duerer, my dear father, came to Germany. He had been a long

time with the great artists in the Netherlands. At last he came hither

to Nuernberg in the year, as reckoned from the birth of Christ, 1455, on

S. Elogius' day (June 25). And on the same day Philip Pirkheimer had his

marriage feast at the Veste, and there was a great dance under the big

lime tree. For a long time after that my dear father, Albrecht Duerer,

served my grandfather, old Hieronymus Holper, till the year reckoned

1467 after the birth of Christ. My grandfather then gave him his

daughter, a pretty upright girl, fifteen years old, named Barbara; and

he was wedded to her eight days before S. Vitus (June 8). It may also be

mentioned that my grandmother, my mother's mother, was the daughter of

Oellinger of Weissenburg, and her name was Kunigunde.

And my dear father had by his marriage with my dear mother the following

children born--which I set down here word for word as he wrote it in

his book:

Here follow eighteen items, only one of which, the third, is of

interest.

3. Item, in the year 1471 after the birth of Christ, in the sixth hour

of the day, on S. Prudentia's day, a Tuesday in Rogation Week (May 21),

my wife bare me my second son. His godfather was Anton Koburger, and he

named him Albrecht after me, &c. &c.

All these, my brothers and sisters, my dear father's children, are now

dead, some in their childhood, others as they were growing up; only we

three brothers still live, so long as God will, namely: I, Albrecht, and

my brother Andreas and my brother Hans, the third of the name, my

father's children.

This Albrecht Duerer the elder passed his life in great toil and stern

hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his

hand for himself, his wife and his children, so that he had little

enough. He underwent moreover manifold afflictions, trials, and

adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived

an honourable, Christian life, was a man of patient spirit, mild and

peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had

little need of company and worldly pleasures; he was also of few words,

and was a God-fearing man.

III

We shall, I think, often do well, when considering the superb

ostentation of Duerer's workmanship, with its superabundance of curve and

flourish, its delight in its own ease and grace, to think of those young

men among his ancestors who made their living from horses on the

wind-swept plains of Hungary. The perfect control which it is the

delight of lads brought up and developing under such conditions to

obtain over the galloping steed, is similar to the control which it

gratified Duerer to perfect over the dashing stroke of pen or brush,

which, however swift and impulsive, is yet brought round and performs to

a nicety a predetermined evolution. And the way he puts a little

portrait of himself, finely dressed, into his most important pictures,

may also carry our thoughts away to the banks of the Danube where it

winds and straggles over the steppes, to picture some young

horse-breeder, whose costume and harness are his only wealth; who rides

out in the morning as the cock-bustard that, having preened himself,

paces before the hen birds on the plains that he can scour when his

wings, which are slow in the air, join with his strong legs to make

nothing of grassy leagues on leagues. And first, this life with its free

sweeping horizon, and the swallow-like curves of its gallops for the

sake of galloping, or those which the long lashes of its whips trace in

deploying, and which remind us of the lithe tendrils in which terminate

Duerer's ornamental flourishes; this life in which the eye is trained to

watch the lasso, as with well-calculated address it swirls out and drops

over the frighted head of an unbroken colt;--this life is first pent up

in a little goldsmith's shop, in a country even to-day famous for the

beauty and originality of its peasant jewelry: and here it is trained to

follow and answer the desire of the bright dark eyes of girls in

love;--in love, where love and the beauty that inspires it are the gifts

of nature most guarded and most honoured, from which are expected the

utmost that is conceived of delicacy in delight by a virile and healthy

race. "A pure and skilful man." Patient already has this life become,

for a jeweller can scarcely be made of impatient stuff; patient even

before the admixture of German blood when Albert the elder married his

Barbara Holper. The two eldest sons were made jewellers; but the third,

John, is set to study and becomes a parson, as if already learning and

piety stood next in the estimation of this life after thrift, skill and

the creation of ornament. And Germany boasts of this life beyond that of

any of her sons; but her blood was probably of small importance to the

efficiency that it attained to in the great Albert Duerer. The German

name of Duerer or Thuerer, a door, is quite as likely to be the

translation, correct or otherwise, of some Hungarian name, as it is an

indication that the family had originally emigrated from Germany. In any

case, a large admixture by intermarriage of Slavonic blood would

correspond to the unique distinction among Germans, attained in the

dignity, sweetness and fineness which signalised Duerer. Of course, in

such matters no sane man looks for proof; but neither will he reject a

probable suggestion which may help us to understand the nature of an

exceptional man.

Duerer continues to speak of his childhood:

And my father took special pleasure in me, because he saw that I was

diligent to learn. So he sent me to school, and when I had learnt to

read and write he took me away from it, and taught me the goldsmith's

craft. But when I could work neatly, my liking drew me rather to

painting than to goldsmith's work, so I laid it before my father; but he

was not well pleased, regretting the time lost while I had been learning

to be a goldsmith. Still he let it be as I wished, and in 1486 (reckoned

from the birth of Christ) on S. Andrew's day (November 30) my father

bound me apprentice to Michael Wolgemut, to serve him three years long.

During that time God gave me diligence, so that I learnt well, but I had

much to suffer from his lads.

When I had finished my learning my father sent me off, and I stayed away

four years till he called me back again. As I had gone forth in the year

1490 after Easter (Easter Sunday was April 11), so now I came back again

in 1494 as it is reckoned after Whitsuntide (Whit Sunday was May 18).

Erasmus tells us that German disorders were "partly due to the natural

fierceness of the race, partly to the division into so many separate

States, and partly to the tendency of the people to serve as

mercenaries." That there were many swaggerers and bullies about, we

learn from Duerer's prints. In every crowd these gentlemen in leathern

tights, with other ostentatious additions to their costume, besides

poniards and daggers to emphasise the brutal male, strut straddle-legged

and self-assured; and of course raw lads and loutish prentices yielded

them the sincerest flattery. We can well understand that the model boy,

to whom "God had given diligence," with his long hair lovely as a

girl's, and his consciousness of being nearly always in the right, had

much to suffer from his fellow prentices. Besides, very likely, he

already consorted with Willibald Pirkheimer and his friends, who were

the aristocrats of the town. And though he may have been meek and

gentle, there must have appeared in everything he did and was an

assertion of superiority, all the more galling for its being difficult

to define and as ready to blush as the innocent truth herself.

It is much argued as to where Duerer went when his father "sent him off."

We have the direct statement of a contemporary, Christopher Scheurl,

that he visited Colmar and Basle; and what is well nigh as good, for a

visit to Venice. For Scheurl wrote in 1508: _Qui quum nuper in Italiam

rediset, tum a Venetis, tum a Bononiensibus artificibus, me saepe

interprete cansalutatus est alter Apelles._

"When he lately _returned_ to Italy, he was often greeted as a second

Apelles, by the craftsmen both of Venice and Bologna (I acting as their

interpreter)."

Before we accept any of these statements it is well to remember how

easily quite intimate friends make mistakes as to where one has been and

when; even about journeys that in one's own mind either have been or

should have been turning-points in one's life. For they will attribute

to the past experiences which were never ours, or forget those which we

consider most unforgettable. No one who has paid attention to these

facts will consider that historians prove so much or so well as they

often fancy themselves to do. In the present case what is really

remarkable is, that none of these sojournings of the young artist in

foreign art centres seem to have produced such a change in his art as

can now be traced with assurance. At Colmar he saw the masterpieces and

the brothers of the "admirable Martin," as he always calls Schongauer.

At Basle there is still preserved a cut wood-block representing St.

Jerome, on the back of which is an authentic signature; there is besides

a series of uncut wood-blocks, the designs on which it is easy to

imagine to have been produced by the travelling journeyman that Duerer

then seemed to the printers and painters of the towns he passed through.

By those processes by which anything can be made of anything, much has

been done to give substantiality to the implied first visit to Venice.

There are drawings which were probably made there, representing ladies

resembling those in pictures by Carpaccio as to their garments, the

dressing of their hair, and the type of their faces. Of course it is not

impossible that such a lady or ladies may have visited Nuremberg, or

been seen by the young wanderer at Basle or elsewhere. And the

resemblance between a certain drawing in the Albertina and one of the

carved lions in red marble now on the Piazzetta de' Leoni does not count

for much, when we consider that there is nothing in the workmanship of

these heads to suggest that they were done after sculptured

originals;--the manes, &c., being represented by an easy penman's

convention, as they might have been whether the models were living or

merely imagined. Nor is there any good reason for dating the drawings of

sites in the Tyrol, supposed to have been sketched on the road, rather

this year than another. Lastly, the famous sentence in a letter written

from Venice during Duerer's authenticated visit there, in 1506, may be

construed in more than one sense. The passage is generally rather

curtailed when quoted.

He (Giovanni Bellini) is very old, but is still the best painter of them

all. The thing that pleased me so well eleven years ago, pleases me now

no more; if I had not seen it for myself, I should never have believed

any one who told me. You must know, too, that there are many better

painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo de' Barbari) is abroad; yet

Anton Kolb would swear an oath that no better painter than Jacob lives.

If "the thing that pleased so well eleven years before" was a picture or

pictures by Master Jacob or by Andrea Mantegna, as is usually supposed,

the phrase, "If I had not seen it for myself I should never have

believed any one who told me" is extremely strange. It is not usual to

expect to change one's opinion of a work of art by hearsay, or to

imagine others, when they have not done so, predicting with assurance

that we shall change a decided opinion upon the merits of a work of art;

yet one of these two suppositions seems certainly to be implied. I do

not say that it is impossible to conceive of either, only that such

cursory reference to such conceptions is extremely strange. Again, if

work by Jacopo de' Barbari is referred to, it might very well have been

seen elsewhere than at Venice eleven years ago; and indeed the last

sentence in the passage might be taken to imply as much. To me at least

the truth appears to be that these hints, which we may well have

misunderstood, point to something which the imagination is only too

delighted to entertain. It is a charming dream--the young Duerer, just of

age, trudging from town to town, designing wood-blocks for a printer

here, questioning the brothers of the "admirable Martin" there, or again

painting a sign in yet another place, such as Holbein painted for the

schoolmaster at Basle; and at last arriving in Venice--Venice untouched

as yet by the conflicting ideals that were even then being brought to

birth anew: Mediaeval Venice, such as we see her in the pictures of

Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. One painting of real importance in the

work of Duerer remains to us from this period: the greatest of modern

critics has described it and its effect on him in a way which would make

any second attempt impertinent.

I consider as invaluable Albrecht Duerer's portrait of himself painted in

1493, when he was in his twenty-second year. It is a bust half

life-size, showing the two hands and the forearms. Crimson cap with

short narrow strings, the throat bare to below the collar bone, an

embroidered shirt, the folds of the sleeves tied underneath with

peach-coloured ribbons, and a blue-grey, fur-edged cloak with yellow

laces, compose a dainty dress befitting a well-bred youth. In his hand

he significantly carries a blue _eryngo_, called in German "Mannstreu."

He has a serious, youthful face, the mouth and chin covered with an

incipient beard. The whole splendidly drawn, the composition simple,

grand and harmonious; the execution perfect and in every way worthy of

Duerer, though the colour is very thin, and has cracked in some places.

Such is the figure which we may imagine making its way among the crowd

in Gentile Bellini's Procession of the "True Cross" before St. Mark's,

with eyes all wonder and lips often consciously imprisoning the German

tongue, which cannot make itself understood. How comes he so finely

dressed, the son of the modest Nuremberg goldsmith? Has he won the

friendship of some rich burgher prince at Augsburg, or Strasburg, or

Basle? Has he been enabled to travel in his suite as far as Venice? Or

has he earned a large sum for painting some lord's or lady's portrait,

which, if it were not lost, would now stand as the worthy compeer of

this splendid portrait of the "true man" far from home; true to that

home only, or true to Agnes Frey?--for some suppose the sprig of eryngo

to signify that he was already betrothed to her. Or perhaps he has

joined Willibald Pirkheimer at Basle or elsewhere, and they two,

crossing the Alps together, have become friends for life? Will they part

here ere long, the young burgher prince to proceed to the Universities

of Padua and Mantua, the future great painter to trudge back over the

Alps, getting a lift now and again in waggon or carriage or on pillion?

Let the man of pretentious science say it is bootless to ask such

questions; those who ask them know that it is delightful; know that it

is the true way to make the past live for them; guess that would

historians more generally ask them, their books would be less often

dry as dust.

It may be that to this period belongs the meeting with Jacopo de'

Barbari to which a passage in his MS. books (now in the British Museum)

refers: and that already he began to be exercised on the subject of a

canon of proportions for the human figure. In the chapter which I devote

to his studies on this subject it will be seen how the determination to

work the problem out by experiment, since Jacopo refused to reveal, and

Vitruvius only hinted at the secret, led to his discovering something of

far more value than it is probable that either could have given him. And

yet the belief that there was a hidden secret probably hindered him from

fully realising the importance of his discovery, or reaping such benefit

from it as he otherwise might have done. How often has not the belief

that those of old time knew what is ignored to-day, prevented men from

taking full advantage of the conquests over ignorance that they have

made themselves! Because what they know is not so much as they suppose

might be or has been known, they fail to recognise the most that has yet

been known--the best foundation for a new building that has yet been

discovered--and search for what they possess, and fail to rival those

whose superiority over themselves is a delusion of their own hearts. So

early Duerer may have begun this life-long labour which, though not

wholly vain, was never really crowned to the degree it merited: while

others living in more fertile lands reaped what they had not sown, he

could only plough and scatter seed. As Raphael is supposed to have said,

all that was lacking to him was knowledge of the antique.

Perhaps many will blame me for writing, unlearned, as I am; in my

opinion they are not wrong; they speak truly. For I myself had rather

hear and read a learned man and one famous in this art than write of it

myself, being unlearned. Howbeit I can find none such who hath written

aught about how to form a canon of human proportions, save one man,

Jacopo (de' Barbari) by name, born at Venice and a charming painter. He

showed me the figures of a man and woman, which he had drawn according

to a canon of proportions; and now I would rather be shown what he meant

(_i.e._, upon what principles the proportions were constructed) than

behold a new kingdom. If I had it (his canon), I would put it into print

in his honour, for the use of all men. Then, however, I was still young

and had not heard of such things before. Howbeit I was very fond of art,

so I set myself to discover how such a canon might be wrought out. For

this aforesaid Jacopo, as I clearly saw, would not explain to me the

principles upon which he went. Accordingly I set to work on my own idea

and read Vitruvius, who writes somewhat about the human figure. Thus it

was from, or out of, these two men aforesaid that I took my start, and

thence, from day to day, have I followed up my search according to my

own notions.

VII

When I returned home, Hans Prey treated with my father and gave me his

daughter, Mistress Agnes by name, and with her he gave me two hundred

florins, and we were wedded; it was on Monday before Margaret's (July 7)

in the year 1494.

The general acceptance of the gouty and irascible Pirkheimer's

defamation of Frau Duerer as a miser and a shrew called forth a display

of ingenuity on the part of Professor Thausing to prove the contrary.

And I must confess that if he has not quite done that, he seems to me to

have very thoroughly discredited Pirkheimer's ungallant abuse. Sir

Martin Conway bids us notice that Duerer speaks of his "dear father" and

his "dear mother" and even of his "dear father-in-law," but that he

never couples that adjective with his wife's name. It is very dangerous

to draw conclusions from such a fact, which may be merely an accident:

or may, if it represents a habit of Duerer's, bear precisely the opposite

significance. For some men are proud to drop such outward marks of

affection, in cases where they know that every day proves to every

witness that they are not needed. He also considers that her portraits

show her, when young, to have been "empty-headed," when older, a "frigid

shrew." For my own part, if the portrait at Bremen (see opposite)

represents "mein Angnes," as its resemblance to the sketch at Vienna

(see illus.) convinces me it does, I cannot accept either of these

conclusions arrived at by the redoubtable science of physiognomy. The

Bremen portrait shows us a refined, almost an eccentric type of beauty;

one can easily believe it to have been possessed by a person of

difficult character, but one certainly who must have had compensating

good qualities. The "mein Angnes" on the sketch may well be set against

the absent "dears" in the other mentions her husband made of her,

especially when we consider that he couples this adjective with the

Emperor's name, "my dear Prince Max." Of her relations to him nothing is

known except what Pirkheimer wrote in his rage, when he was writing

things which are demonstrably false. We know, however, that she was

capable, pious, and thrifty; and on several occasions, in the

Netherlands, shared in the honours done to her husband. It is natural to

suppose that as they were childless, there may have existed a moral

equivalent to this infertility; but also, with a man such as we know

Duerer to have been, and a woman in every case not bad, have we not

reason to expect that this moral barrenness which may have afflicted

their union was in some large measure conquered by mutual effort and

discipline, and bore from time to time those rarer flowers whose beauty

and sweetness repay the conscious culture of the soul? It seems

difficult to imagine that a man who succeeded in charming so many

different acquaintances, and in remaining life-long friends with the

testy and inconsiderate Pirkheimer, should have altogether failed to

create a relation kindly and even beautiful with his Agnes, whose

portrait we surely have at her best in the drawing at Bremen.

Considerations as to the general position of married women in those days

need not prevent us of our natural desire to think as well as possible

of Duerer and his circumstances. We know that for a great many men the

wife was not simply counted among their goods and chattels, or regarded

as a kind of superior servant. We are able to take a peep at many a

fireside of those days, where the relations that obtained, however

different in certain outward characters, might well shame the greater

number of the respectable even in the present year of grace. We know

what Luther was in these respects; and have rather more than less reason

to expect from the refined and gracious Duerer the creation of a worthy

and kindly home. Why should we expect him to have been less successful

than his parents in these respects?

[Illustration: AGNES FREY. DUeRER'S WIFE (?)--Silver-point drawing

heightened with white on a dun paper. Kunsthalle, Bremen]

[Illustration: "MEIN ANGNES"--Pen sketch of the artist's wife, in the

Albertina at Vienna]

VIII

Some time after the marriage it happened that my father was so ill with

dysentery that no one could stop it. And when he saw death before his

eyes he gave himself willingly to it, with great patience, and he

commended my mother to me, and exhorted me to live in a manner pleasing

to God. He received the Holy Sacraments and passed away Christianly (as

I have described at length in another book) in the year 1502, after

midnight, before S. Matthew's eve (September 20). God be gracious and

merciful to him.

The only leaf of the "other book" referred to that has survived is that

which I have already quoted at length.

CHAPTER II

THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVED

Now let us consider what the world was like in which this virile,

accurate and persevering spirit had grown up. Over and over again, the

story of the New Birth has been told; how it began in France, and met an

untimely fate at the hands of English invaders, then took refuge in

Italy, where it grew to be the wonder of the world; and how the

corruption of the ruling classes and of the Church, with the indignation

and rebellion that this gave rise to, combined to frustrate the promise

of earlier days.

When the Roman Empire gradually became an anarchy of hostile fragments,

every large monastery, every small town, girded itself with walls and

tended to become the germ of a new civilisation. Popes, kings, and great

lords, haunted by reminiscence of the vanished empire, made spasmodic

attempts to subject such centres to their rule and tax them for their

maintenance. In the first times, the Church--the See of Rome--made by

far the most successful attempt to get its supremacy acknowledged, and

had therefore fewer occasions to resort to violence. It was more

respected and more respectable than the other powers which claimed to

rule and tax these immured and isolated communities dotted over Europe;

but as time went on, the Church became less and less beneficent, more

and more tyrannical. Meanwhile kings and emperors, having learned wisdom

by experience, found themselves in a position to take advantage of the

growing bad odour of the Church; and by favouring the civil communities

and creating a stable hierarchy among the class of lords and barons from

which they had emerged, were at last able to face the Church, with its

_proteges,_ the religious communities, on an equal footing.

The religious communities, owing to the vow of celibacy, had become more

and more stagnant, while the civil communities increased in power to

adapt themselves to the age. All that was virile and creative combined

in the towns; all that was inadequate, sterile, useless, coagulated in

the monasteries, which thus became cesspools, and ultimately took on the

character of festering sores by which the civil bodies which had at

first been purged into them were endangered. Luther tells us how there

was a Bishop of Wuerzburg who used to say when he saw a rogue, "'To the

cloister with you. Thou art useless to God or man.' He meant that in the

cloister were only hogs and gluttons, who did nothing but eat and drink

and sleep, and were of no more profit than as many rats." And the

loathing that another of these sties created in the young Erasmus, and

the difficulty he had to escape from the clutches of its inmates--never

feeling safe till the Pope had intervened--show us that by their wealth

and by the engine of their malice, the confessional (which they had

usurped from the regular clergy), they were as formidable as they were

useless. It became necessary that this antiquated system of social

drainage should be superseded.

In England and Germany it was swept away. In centres like Nuremberg, the

desire for reformation and the horror of false doctrine were grounded in

practical experience of intolerable inconveniences, not in a clear

understanding of the questions at issue. Intellectually, the leaders of

the Reformation had no better foundation than those they opposed: for

them, as for their opponents, the question was not to be solved by an

appeal to evident truths and experience, but to historical documents and

traditions, supposed, to be infallible. For a clear intelligence, there

is nothing to choose between the infallibility of oecumenical councils

or of Popes, and that of the Bible. Both have been in their time the

expression of very worthy and very human sentiments; both are incapable

of rational demonstration.

Scattered over Europe, wherever the free intelligence was waking and had

rubbed her eyes, were men who desired that nuisances should be removed

and reforms operated without schism or violence. To these Erasmus spoke.

His policy was tentative, and did not proceed, like that of other

parties, by declaring that a perfect solution was to hand. Luther's

action divided these honest, upright souls, and would-be children of

light, into three unequal camps.

As a rule the downright, headstrong, and impatient became reformers. The

respectful, cautious and long-suffering, such as More, Warham, and

Adrian IV., clung to the Roman establishment, were martyred for it or

broke their hearts over it. Erasmus and a handful of others remained

true to a tentative policy, and, compared with their contemporaries,

were meek and lowly in heart--became children of light. To them we now

look back wistfully, and wish that they might have been, if not as

numerous as the Churchmen and Beformers, at least a sufficient body to

have made their influence an effective force, with the advantage of more

light and more patience that was really theirs. But, alas! they only

counted as the first dissolvent which set free more corrosive and

detrimental acids. The exhilaration of action and battle was for others;

for them the sad conviction that neither side deserved to be trusted

with a victory. Yet, beyond the world whose chief interest was the

Reformation, we may be sure that such men as Charles V., Michael Angelo,

Rabelais, Montaigne, and all those whom they may be taken to represent,

were in essential agreement with Erasmus. Luther and Machiavelli alone

rejected the Papacy as such: the latter's more stringent intellectual

development led him also to discard every ideal motive or agent of

reform for violent means. He was ready even to regard the passions of

men like Caesar Borgia, tyrants in the fullest sense of the word, as the

engines by which civilisation, learning, art, and manners, might be

maintained. Whereas Luther appealed to the passions of common honest

men, the middle classes in fact. It is easy to let either Luther or

Machiavelli steal away our entire sympathy. On the one hand, no

compromise, not even the slightest, seems possible with criminal

ruffians such as a Julius II. and an Alexander Borgia; on the other

hand, the power swollen by the tide of minor corruption, which such men

ruled by might, did come into the hands of a Leo X., an Adrian IV.; and

though that power was obviously tainted through and through, it might

have been mastered and wielded in the cause of reform. Erasmus hoped for

this. Even Julius II. protected him from the superiors of his convent.

Even Julius II. patronised Michael Angelo and Raphael and everything

that had a definite character in the way of creative power or

scholarship; and could appreciate at least the respect which what he

patronised commanded. He could appreciate the respect commanded by the

austerity and virtue of those who rebelled against him and denounced his

cynical abuse of all his powers, whether natural or official. He liked

to think he had enemies worth beating. Such a ruler is a sore temptation

to a keen intellect. "Everything great is formative," and this Pope was

colossal--a colossal bully and robber if you like--but the good he did

by his patronage was real good, was practical. Michael Angelo and

Raphael could work as splendidly as they desired. Erasmus was helped and

encouraged. Timid honesty is often petty, does nothing, criticises and

finds fault with artists and with learning, runs after them like Sancho

Panza after Don Quixote, is helpless and ridiculous and horribly in the

way. Leo X. was intelligent and well-meaning; wisdom herself might hope

from such a man. Be the throne he is sitting on as monstrous and corrupt

a contrivance as it may, yet it is there, it does give him authority; he

is on it and dominates the world. It is easy to say, "But the period of

the Renascence closed, its glory died away." Suppose Luther had been as

subtle as he was whole-hearted, and had added to his force of character

a delicacy and charm like that of St. Francis; or suppose that Erasmus

instead of his schoolfellow Adrian IV. had become Pope; what a different

tale there might have been to tell! Who will presume to point out the

necessity by which these things were thus and not otherwise? "Regrets

for what 'might have been' are proverbially idle," cries the historian

from whom I have chiefly quoted. I do not recollect the proverb, unless

he refers to "It is no use crying over spilt milk;" but in any case such

regrets are far from being necessarily idle. "What might have been" is

even generally "what ought to have been;" and no study has been or is

likely to be so pregnant for us as the study of the contrast between

"what was" and "what ought to have been," though such studies are

inevitably mingled with regrets. We have every reason to regret that the

Reformation was so hasty and ill-considered, and that the Papacy was as

purblind as it was arrogant. The plant of the Roman Church machinery,

which it had taken centuries to lay down, came into the hands of men who

grossly ignored its function and the conditions of its working. They

used its power partly for the benefit of the human race, by patronising

art and scholarship; but chiefly in self-indulgence. If honest

intelligence had been given control, a man so partially equipped for his

task would not have been goaded into action; but only force, moral or

physical, can act at a disadvantage; light and reason must have the

advantage of dominant position to effect anything immediate. If they are

not on the throne, all they can do is to sow seed, and bewail the

present while looking forward to a better future. Now, most educated men

are for tolerance, and see as Erasmus saw. We see that Savonarola and

Luther were not so right as they thought themselves to be; we see that

what they condemned as arrogancy and corruption is partly excusable--is

in some measure a condition of efficiency in worldly spheres where one

has to employ men already bad. True, the great princes and cardinals of

those days not only connived at corruption and ruled by it, but often

even professed it. Still in every epoch, under all circumstances, the

majority of those who have governed men have more or less cynically

employed means that will not bear the light of day. While these

magnificoes of the Renascence do stand alone, or almost alone, by the

ample generosity of their conception of the objects that power should be

exerted in furtherance of; their outlook on life was more commensurate

with the variety and competence of human nature than perhaps that of any

ruling class has been before or since. As Shakespeare is the amplest of

poets, so were theirs the most fruitful of courts. From the great

Medicis to our own Elizabeth they all partake of a certain grandiose

vitality and variety of intention.

III

Greatness demands self-assertion; self-assertion is a great virtue even

in a Julius II. There is a vast deal of humbug in the use we make of the

word humility. We talk about Christ's humility, but whose self-assertion

has ever been more unmitigated? "I am the Way, the Truth, and the

Light." "Learn of Me that I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest to

your souls." No doubt it is the quality of the self asserted that

justifies in our eyes the assertion; humility then is not opposed to

self-assertion. When Michael Angelo shows that he thinks himself the

greatest artist in the world, he is not necessarily lacking in humility;

nor is Luther, asserting the authority of his conscience against the

Pope and Emperor; nor Duerer, saying to us in those little finely-dressed

portraits with which he signs his pictures, "I am that I am--namely, one

of the handsomest of men and the greatest artist north of the Alps." Or

when Erasmus lets us see that he thinks himself the most learned man

living,--if he is the most learned, so much the better that he should

know this also as well as the rest. The artist and the scholar were

bound to feel gratitude for the corrupt but splendid Church and courts,

which gave them so much both in the way of maintenance and opportunity.

It may be asked, has all the honesty and the not always evident purity

of Protestantism done so much for the world as those dissolute Popes and

Princes? And the artist, judging with a hasty bias perhaps, is likely to

answer no.

For us nowadays the pith of history seems no more to be the lives of

monarchs, or the fighting of battles, or even the deliberations of

councils; these things we have more and more come to regard merely as

tools and engines for the creation of societies, homes, and friends. And

so, though religion and religious machinery dominated the life of those

days, it is not in theological disputes, neither is it in oecumenical

councils and Popes, nor in sermons, reformers, and synods, that we find

the essence of the soul's life. Rather to us, the pictures, the statues,

the books, the furniture, the wardrobes, the letters, and the scandals

that have been left behind, speak to us of those days; for these we

value them. And we are right, the value of the Renaissance lies in these

things, I say "the scandals" of those days; for a part of what comes

under that head was perhaps the manifestation of a morality based on a

wider experience; though its association with obvious vices and its

opposition to the old and stale ideals gave it an illegitimate

character; while the re-establishment of the more part of those ideals

has perpetuated its reproach. There can be no intellectual charity if

the machinery and special sentences of current morality are supposed to

be final or truly adequate. Their tentative and inadequate character,

which every free intelligence recognises, is what endorses the wisdom of

Jesus', saying, "Judge not that ye be not judged." Ordinary honest and

good citizens do not realise how much that is in every way superior to

the gifts of any single one of themselves is yearly sacrificed and

tortured for their preservation as a class. On what agonies of creative

and original minds is the safety of their homes based? These respectable

Molochs who devour both the poor and the exceptionally gifted, and are

so little better for their meal, were during the Renascence for a time

gainsaid and abashed; yet even then their engines, the traditional

secular and ecclesiastic policies, were a foreign encumbrance with which

the human spirit was loaded, and which helped to prevent it from reaping

the full result of its mighty upheaval.

To see things as they are, and above all to value them for what is most

essential in them with regard to the development of our own

characters;--that is, I take it, consciously or unconsciously, the main

effort of the modern spirit. On the world, the flesh, and the devil, we

have put new values; and it was the first assertion of these new values

which caused the Renascence. Fine manners, fine clothes, and varied

social interchange make the world admirable in our eyes, not at all a

bogey to frighten us. Health, frankness, and abundant exercise make the

flesh a pure delight in our eyes; lastly, this new-born spirit has made

"a moral of the devil himself," and so for us he has lost his terror.

Rabelais was right when he laughed the old outworn values down, and

declared that women were in the first place female, men in the first

place male; that the written word should be a self-expression, a

sincerity, not a task or a catalogue or a penance, but, like laughter

and speech, essentially human, making all men brothers, doing away with

artificial barriers and distinctions, making the scholar shake in time

with the toper, and doubling the divine up with the losel; bidding even

the lady hold her sides in company with the harlot. Eating and drinking

were seen to be good in themselves; the eye and the nose and the palate

were not only to be respected but courted; free love was better than

married enmity. No rite, no church, no god, could annihilate these facts

or restrain their influence any more than the sea could be tamed. Duerer

was touched with this spirit; we see it in his fine clothes, in his

collector's rapacity, above all in his letters to his friend

Pirkheimer--a man more typical of that Rabelaisian age than Duerer and

Michael Angelo, who were both of them not only modern men but men

conservative of the best that had been--men in travail for the future,

absorbed by the responsibility of those who create.

Pirkheimer, one year Duerer's senior, was a gross fat man early in life,

enjoying the clinking of goblets, the music of fork and knife, and the

effrontery of obscene jests. A vain man, a soldier and a scholar,

pedantic, irritable, but in earnest; a complimenter of Emperors, a

leader of the reform party, a partisan of Luther's, the friend and

correspondent of Erasmus, the elective brother of Duerer. The man was

typical; his fellows were in all lands. Duerer was surprised to find how

many of them there were at Venice--men who would delight Pirkheimer and

delight in him. "My friend, there are so many Italians here who look

exactly like you I don't know how it happens! ... men of sense and

knowledge, good lute players and pipers, judges of painting, men of much

noble sentiment and honest virtue; and they show me much honour and

friendship." Something of all this was doubtless in Duerer too; but in

him it was refined and harmonised by the sense and serious concern, not

only for the things of to-day, but for those of to-morrow and yesterday;

the sense of solidarity, the passion for permanent effect, eternal

excellence. These things, in men like Pirkheimer, still more in Erasmus,

and even in Rabelais and Montaigne, are not absent; but they are less

stringent, less religious, than they are in a Duerer or a Michael Angelo.

CHAPTER III

DUeRER AT VENICE

There are several reasons which may possibly have led Duerer to visit

Venice in 1505. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German

Merchants at Venice, had been burned down the winter before, and they

were in haste to complete a new one. Duerer may have received assurance

that the commission to paint the altar-piece for the new chapel would be

his did he desire it. At any rate he seems to have set to work on such a

picture almost as soon as he arrived there. It is strange to think that

Giorgione and Titian probably began to paint the frescoes on the facade

while he was still at work in the chapel, or soon after he left. The

plague broke out in Nuremberg before he came away; but this is not

likely to have been his principal motive for leaving home, as many

richer men, such as his friend Pirkheimer, from whom he borrowed money

for the journey, stayed where they were. Nor do Duerer's letters reveal

any alarm for his friend's, his mother's, his wife's, or his brother's

safety. He took with him six small pictures, and probably a great number

of prints, for Venice was a first-rate market.

The letters which follow are like a glimpse of a distant scene in a

_camera obscura_, and, like life itself, they are full of repetitions

and over-insistence on what is insignificant or of temporary interest.

To-day they call for our patience and forbearance, and it will depend

upon our imaginative activity in what degree they repay them; even as it

depends upon our power of affectionate assimilation in what degree and

kind every common day adds to our real possessions.

I have made my citations as ample as possible, so as to give the reader

a just idea of their character while making them centre as far as

possible round points of special interest.

_To the honourable, wise Master Wilibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of Nuerberg,

my kind Master_. VENICE, _January 6, 1506._

I wish you and yours many good, happy New Years. My willing service,

first of all, to you dear Master Pirkheimer! Know that I am in good

health; I pray God far better things than that for you. As to those

pearls and precious stones which you gave me commission to buy, you must

know that I can find nothing good or even worth its price. Everything is

snapped up by the Germans who hang about the Riva. They always want to

get four times the value for anything, for they are the falsest knaves

alive. No one need look for an honest service from any of them. Some

good fellows have warned me to beware of them, they cheat man and beast.

You can buy better things at a lower price at Frankfurt than at Venice.

[Illustration: Wilibald Pirkheimer--Charcoal Drawing, Dumesnil

Collection, Paris _Face p._ 80]

About the books which I was to order for you, the Imhofs have already

seen after them; but if there is anything else you want, let me know and

I will attend to it for you with all zeal. Would to God I could do you a

right good service! gladly would I accomplish it, seeing, as I do, how

much you do for me. And I pray you be patient with my debt, for indeed I

think much oftener of it than you do. When God helps me home I will

honourably repay you with many thanks; for I have a panel to paint for

the Germans for which they are to pay me a hundred and ten Rhenish

florins--it will not cost me as much as five. I shall have scraped it and

laid on the ground and made it ready within eight days; then I shall at

once begin to paint and, if God will, it shall be in its place above the

altar a month after Easter.

* * * * *

VENICE, _February 17_, 1506.

How I wish you were here at Venice! There are so many nice men among the

Italians who seek my company more and more every day--which is very

pleasing to one--men of sense and knowledge, good lute-players and

pipers, judges of painting, men of much noble sentiment and 'honest

virtue, and they show me much honour and friendship. On the other hand

there are also amongst them some of the most false, lying, thievish

rascals; I should never have believed that such were living in the

world. If one did not know them, one would think them the nicest men the

earth could show. For my own part I cannot help laughing at them

whenever they talk to me. They know that their knavery is no secret but

they don't mind.

Amongst the Italians I have many good friends who warn me not to eat and

drink with their painters. Many of them are my enemies and they copy my

work in the churches and wherever they can find it; and then they revile

it and say that the style is not _antique_ and so not good. But Giovanni

Bellini has highly praised me before many nobles. He wanted to have

something of mine, and himself came to me and asked me to paint him

something and he would pay well for it. And all men tell me what an

upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very

old, but is still the best painter of them all. And that which so well

pleased me eleven years ago pleases me no longer, if I had not seen it

for myself I should not have believed any one who told me. You must know

too that there are many better painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo

de' Barbari) is abroad (_wider darvsen Meister J._), yet Anton Kolb

would swear an oath that no better painter lives than Jacob. Others

sneer at him, saying if he were good he would stay here, and so forth.

I have only to-day begun to sketch in my picture, for my hands were so

scabby (_grindig_) that I could do no work with them, but I have got

them cured.

Now be lenient with me and don't get in a passion so easily, but be

gentle like me. I don't know why you will not learn from me. My friend!

I should like to know if any one of your loves is dead--that one close

by the water for instance, or the one called [Illustration] or

[Illustration] or a [Illustration] so that you might supply her place by

another. ALBRECHT DUeRER.

VENICE, February 28, 1506.

I wish you had occasion to come here, I know you would not find time

hang on your hands, for there are so many nice men in this country,

right good artists. I have such a throng of Italians about me that at

times I have to shut myself up. The nobles all wish me well, but few of

the painters.

* * * * *

VENICE, _April_ 2, 1506.

The painters here, let me tell you, are very unfriendly to me. They have

summoned me three times before the magistrates, and I have had to pay

four florins to their school. You must also know that I might have

gained a great deal of money if I had not undertaken to paint the German

picture. There is much work in it and I cannot get it quite finished

before Whitsuntide. Yet they only pay me eighty-five ducats for it. Now

you know how much it costs to live, and then I have bought some things

and sent some money away, so that I have not much before me now. But

don't misunderstand me, I am firmly purposed not to go away hence till

God enables me to repay you with thanks and to have a hundred florins

over besides. I should easily earn this if I had not got the German

picture to paint, for all men except the painters wish me well.

Tell my mother to speak to Wolgemut about my brother, and to ask him

whether he can make use of him and give him work till I come, or whether

he can put him with some one else. I should gladly have brought him with

me to Venice, and that would have been useful both to me and him, and he

would have learnt the language, but my mother was afraid that the sky

would fall on him. Pray keep an eye on him yourself, the women are no

use for that. Tell the lad, as you so well can, to be studious and

honest till I come, and not to be a trouble to his mother; if I cannot

arrange everything I will at all events do all that I can. Alone I

certainly should not starve, but to support many is too hard for me, for

no one throws his gold away.

Now I commend myself to you. Tell my mother to be ready to sell at the

Crown-fair (_Heiligthumsfest_). I am arranging for my wife to have come

home by then; I have written to her too about everything. I will not

take any steps about buying the diamond ornament till I get your

next letter.

I don't think I shall be able to come home before next autumn, when what

I earned for the picture, which was to have been ready by Whitsuntide,

will be quite used up in living expenses, purchases, and payments; what,

however, I gain afterwards I hope to save. If you see fit don't speak of

this further, and I will keep putting off my leaving from day to day and

writing as though I was just coming. I am indeed very uncertain what to

do next. Write to me again soon.

Given on Thursday before Palm Sunday in the year 1506. ALBRECHT DUeRER,

Your Servant.

VENICE, _August_ 18, 1506.

_To the first, greatest man in the world. Your servant and slave

Albrecht Duerer sends salutation to his Magnificent master Wilibald_

Pirkheimer. _My truth! I hear gladly and with great satisfaction of your

health and great honours. I wonder how it is possible for a man like you

to stand against_ so many _wisest princes,_ swaggerers _and soldiers; it

must be by some special grace of God. When I read your letter about this

terrible grimace, it gave me a great fright and I thought it was a most

important thing,_[15] but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's

men,[16] you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it

is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want

to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to

please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow

as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so many loves that merely

to pay each one a visit you would take a month or more before you got

through the list.

For one thing I return you my thanks, namely, for explaining my position

in the best way to my wife; but I know that there is no lack of wisdom

in you. If only you had my meekness you would have all virtues. Thank

you also for all the good you have done me, if only you would not bother

me about the rings! If they don't please you, break their heads off and

pitch them out on to the dunghill as Peter Weisweber says. What do you

mean by setting me to such dirty work? _I_ have become a _gentleman_

at Venice.

I have also heard that you can make lovely rhymes; you would be a find

for our fiddlers here; they fiddle so beautifully that they can't help

weeping over it themselves. Would God our Rechenmeister girl could hear

them, she would cry too. At your bidding I will again lay aside my anger

and bear myself even more bravely than usual.

Now let me commend myself to you; give my willing service to our Prior

for me; tell him to pray God for me that I may be protected, and

especially from the French sickness; I know of nothing that I now dread

more than that, for well nigh every one has got it. Many men are quite

eaten up and die of it.

VENICE, _September_ 8, 1506.

Most learned, approved, wise, knower of many languages, sharp to detect

all encountered lies and quick to recognise plain truth! Honourable

much-regarded Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer. Your humble servant Albrecht

Duerer wishes you all hail, great and worthy honour _in the devil's name,_

so much for the twaddle of which you are so fond. I wager that for

this[17] you would think me too an orator of a hundred parts. A chamber

must have more than four corners which is to contain the gods of memory.

I am not going to cram my head full of them; that I leave to you; for I

believe that however many chambers there might be in the head, you would

have something in each of them. The Margrave would not grant an audience

long enough!--a hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred

words, that takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs

which I have not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the

whole at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old

driveller.

I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot find any

broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However I still look about

every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.

I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you his

service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his Son, the nicest lad

I ever saw.

I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh, if only you were here!

how you would like these fine Italian soldiers! How often I think of

you! Would to God that you and Kunz Kamerer could see them! They have

great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only touch a man with them

he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey! I can do it well, I'll be an

Italian soldier. The Venetians as well as the Pope and the King of

France are collecting many men; what will come of it I don't know, but

people ridicule our King very much.

Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me. I don't wonder at his

having taken a wife. Give my greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our

fair friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister girl, and thank that

head-chamber of yours alone for remembering her greeting; tell her she's

a nasty one.

[Illustration]

I sent you olive-wood from Venice to Augsburg, where I directed it to be

left, a full ten hundredweight. She says she would not wait for it;

_whence the stink_.

My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it,

it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned much praise

but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could easily

have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in order that

I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the painters who used

to say that I was good at engraving but, as to painting. I did not know

how to handle my colours. Now every one says that better colouring they

have never seen.

My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes me that

there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out even at

this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting you

pretend not to be more than twenty-five years old--oh, yes! double that

and I'll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who look

exactly like you; I don't know how it happens!

The Doge and the Patriarch have also seen my picture. Herewith let me

commend myself to you as your servant. I must really go to sleep as it

is striking the seventh hour of the night, and I have already written to

the Prior of the Augustines, to my father-in-law, to Mistress Dietrich,

and to my wife, and they are all downright whole sheets full. So I have

had to hurry over this letter, read it according to the sense. You would

doubtless do better if you were writing to a lot of Princes. Many good

nights and days too. Given at Venice on our Lady's day in September.

You need not lend my wife and mother anything; they have got money

enough,

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

VENICE, _September 23_, 1506.

Your letter telling me of the praise that you get to overflowing from

Princes and nobles gave me great delight. You must be altogether altered

to have become so gentle; I shall hardly know you when I meet you again.

You must know that my picture is finished as well as another

_Quadro_[18] the like of which I have never painted before. And as you

are so pleased with yourself, let me tell you that there is no better

Madonna picture in the land than mine; for all the painters praise it,

as the nobles do you. They say that they have never seen a nobler,

more charming painting, and so forth.

* * * * *

But in order to come home as soon as possible, I have, since my picture

was finished, refused work that would have yielded me more than 2000

ducats. This all men know who live about me here.

Bernhard Holzbeck has told me great things of you, though I think he

does so because you have become his brother-in-law. But nothing makes me

more angry than when any one says that you are good-looking; if that

were so I should become really ugly. That could make me mad. I have

found a grey hair on myself, it is the result of so much excitement. And

I fear that while I play such pranks with myself there are still bad

days before me, &c.

My French mantle, my doublet, and my brown coat send you a hearty

greeting, I should be glad to see what great thing your head-piece can

produce that you hold yourself so high.

VENICE, _about October_ 13, 1506.

Knowing that you are aware of my devotion to your service there is no

need for me to write to you about it; but so much the more necessary is

it for me to tell you of the great pleasure it gives me to hear of the

high honour and fame which your manly wisdom and learned skill have

brought you. This is the more to be wondered at, for seldom or never in

a young body can the like be found. It comes to you, however, as to me,

by a special grace of God. How pleased we both are when we fancy

ourselves worth somewhat--I with my painting, and you with your wisdom.

When any one praises us, we hold up our heads and believe him. Yet

perhaps he is only some false flatterer who is scorning us all the time.

So don't credit any one who praises you, for you've no notion how

utterly and entirely unmannerly you are. I can quite see you standing

before the Margrave and speaking so pleasantly--behaving exactly as if

you were flirting with Mistress Rosentaler, cringing as you do. It did

not escape me that, when you wrote your last letter, you were quite full

of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an old fellow

like you pretending to be so good-looking. Flirting pleases you in the

same way that a shaggy old dog likes a game with a kitten. If you were

only as fine and gentle a man as I, I could understand it. If I become

burgomaster I will serve you with the Luginsland.[19] as you do to pious

Zamesser and me. I will have you for once shut up there with the ladies

Rechenmeister, Rosentaler, Gaertner, Schutz, and Poer, and many others

whom for shortness I will not name; they must deal with you.

People enquire more after me than you, for you yourself write that both

girls and honourable wives ask after me--that is a sign of my virtue.

When, however, God helps me home I don't know how I shall any longer

stand you with your great wisdom; but for your virtue and good temper I

am glad, and your dogs will be the better for it, for you will no longer

strike them lame. Now however that you are thought so much of at home,

you won't dare to talk to a poor painter in the street any more; to be

seen with the painter varlet would be a great disgrace for you.

O, dear Herr Pirkheimer, just now while I was writing to you, the alarm

of fire was raised and six houses over by Pietro Venier are burnt, and a

woollen cloth of mine, for which only yesterday I paid eight ducats, is

burnt, so I too am in trouble. There is much excitement here about

the fire.

As to your summons to me to come home soon, I shall come as soon as ever

I can, but I must first gain money for my expenses. I have paid away

about 100 ducats for colours and other things. I have ordered you two

carpets for which I shall pay to-morrow, but I could not get them cheap.

I will pack them in with my linen.

And as to your threat that, unless I come home soon, you will make love

to my wife, don't attempt it--a ponderous fellow like you would be the

death of her.

I must tell you that I set to work to learn dancing and went twice to

the school, for which I had to pay the master a ducat. No one could get

me to go there again. To learn dancing I should have had to pay away all

that I have earned, and at the end I should have known nothing about it.

[Illustration: HANS BURGKMAIR--Black chalk drawing on yellowish prepared

ground. The lights and background in watercolor may possibly have been

added later At Oxford]

In reply to your question when I shall come home, I tell you, so that my

lords may also make their arrangements, that I shall have finished here

in ten days; after that I should like to ride to Bologna to learn the

secrets of the art of perspective, which a man is willing to teach me. I

should stay there eight or ten days and then return to Venice. After

that I shall come with the next messenger. How I shall freeze after this

sun! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite.

III

Sir Martin Conway writes:

He (Duerer) enjoyed Venice; he liked the Italians; he was oppressed with

orders for work; the climate suited him, and the warm sun was a pleasant

contrast to the snows and frost of a Franconian winter. But Duerer's

German heart was true; its truth was the secret of his success.... The

syren voice of Italy charmed to their destruction most Germans who

listened to it. Brought face to face with the Italian Ideal of Grace,

they one after another abandoned for it the Ideal of Strength peculiarly

their own.

We do not resort to these arguments to approve Holbein or Van Dyck for

their long residence in England. I am not sure how much false sentiment

inspired Thausing when he first praised Duerer in this strain; but I must

confess I suspect it was no little. I incline to think that the best

country for an artist is not always the one he was born in, but often

that one where his art finds the best conditions to foster it. We do not

honour Duerer by supposing that he would have been among that majority of

Dutch and German artists who, weaker than Roger van der Weyden and

Burgkmair, returned from Italy injured and enfeebled; even if he had

passed the greater portion of his life with her syren voice in his ears.

Duerer could not bring himself to undergo for art's sake what Michael

Angelo endured; years of exile from a beloved native city, and, still

worse, years of exile from the most congenial spiritual atmosphere.

Nevertheless, we must remember that the difference of language would

have made life in Venice for Duerer a much more complete exile than life

in Verona was for Dante, or life in Rome for Michael Angelo. So he did

not share the patronage and generous recognition which gave Titian such

a splendid opportunity. He ceased for a time at least to be a gentleman

to become a hanger-on, a parasite once more. At Antwerp he once more was

met by the same generosity and recognition only to refuse again to

accept it as a gift for life and return to his beloved Nuremberg, where

it is true his position continually improved, though it never equalled

what had been offered at Venice and Antwerp.

The tone of some of the pleasantries in these letters may rather

astonish good people who, having accepted the fact that Duerer was a

religious man, have at once given him the tone and address of a meeting

of churchwardens, if they have not conjured up a vision of him in a

frock coat. "Things are what they are," said Bishop Butler, and so are

women; boys will be boys. The distinctive functions of the two sexes

were in those days kept more in view if not more in mind than is the

case to-day. The fashions in dress and in deportment were particularly

frank upon this point, especially for the young. One may allow as much

as is desired for the corruption of manners produced by the civil and

religious mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, and friars. There will

always remain a certain truth and propriety, a certain grace and charm

in those costumes and that deportment, as also in the freedom of jest

which characterises even the most modest of Shakespeare's heroines; and

under the influence of their spell we shall feel that all has not been

gain in the change that has gradually been operated. No doubt virtue is

a victory over nature, and chastity a refinement; but among conquerors

some are easy and good-natured, others tactless, awkward, insulting; and

among the chaste some are fearless and enjoy the freedom which courage

and clear conscience give, others timid and suffer the oppression of

their fears. Even among sinners some make the best of weaknesses and

redeem them a great deal more than half, while others magnify smaller

faults by lack of self-possession till they are an insupportable

nuisance. We may well admit that from the successes of those days, those

who succeed to our delight to-day may glean additional attractions.

We know that Duerer stopped on at Venice into the year 1507, by a note

which he made in a copy of Euclid, now in the library at Wolfenbuettel.

"This book have I bought at Venice for a ducat in the year 1507.

Albrecht Duerer"; and by another stray note we learn the state of his

worldly affairs on his return.

The following is my property, which I have with difficulty acquired by

the labour of my hand, for I have had no opportunity of great gain. I

have moreover suffered much loss by lending what was not repaid me, and

by apprentices who never paid their fees, and one died at Rome whereby I

lost my wares.

In the thirteenth year of my wedlock (Le., 1507-8) I have paid great

debts with what I earned at Venice. I possess fairly good household

furniture, good clothes, chests, some good pewter vessels, good

materials for my work, bedding and cupboards, and good colours worth 100

florins Rhenish.

The wares that Duerer lost in Rome were doubtless chiefly woodcuts and

engravings which his prentice had taken to sell during his

_wanderjahre_, as Duerer himself during his own had very likely sold

prints for Wolgemut. One of the reasons which had taken him to Venice

may have been to summon Marc Antonio before the Signoria, for having

copied not only his engravings, but the monogram with which he signed

them; in any case he obtained a decree defending him against such

artistic forgery. Duerer's most steady resource seems to have been the

sale of prints; it is these that his wife had sold in his absence, and

in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands there is constant mention

of such sales. Nuremberg was very much behind Antwerp or Venice in the

price paid for works of art; and the possibilities of such a market as

Rome had very likely tempted Duerer to trust his prentice with an unusual

quantity of prints. His worldly affairs were neither brilliant nor

secure; yet we shall find him tempted on receiving an important

commission to spend so much in time and material as to make it

impossible for him to realise a profit. We are accustomed to think that

these trials were spared to artists in the past by the munificence of

patrons: but apart from the fact that patrons often paid only with

promises or by granting credit, at Nuremberg there were few magnificent

patrons, and its burghers were in no way so generous or so extravagant

as those of Venice or Antwerp. In fact, Duerer's position was very

similar to that of the modern artist, who finds little and insufficient

patronage, and can make more if he is lucky by the reproduction of his

creations for the great public. But Duerer still had one advantage over

his fellow-sufferers of to-day--that of being his own publisher.

Doubtless portraits were as popular then as nowadays; but if the public

taste had not been prostituted by a seductive commercialism to the

degree that at present obtains, on the other hand, at Nuremberg at

least, the fashion seems to have been very little developed; and most of

Duerer's important portraits seem to have been the result of his sojourns

away from home.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: Thus far the original is in bad Italian.]

[Footnote 16: The retainers of Konz Schott, a neighbouring baron, at one

time a conspicuous enemy of Nuernberg.]

[Footnote 17: These words are in Italian in the original.]

[Footnote 18: Prof. Thausing suggests that this "other _Quadro_" is the

"Christ among the Doctors" in the Barberini Gallery at Rome--a picture

containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The

inscription states it to have been _opus quinque dierum_. At Brunswick

there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are

likewise in existence. In Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna of 1508 in the

Borghese Gallery at Rome, the head of St. Onuphrius is taken from the

model who sat for the front Pharisee on the left in Duerer's picture.]

[Footnote 19: A Nuernberg prison.]

CHAPTER IV

DUeRER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS

Duerer had hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise

Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant

_Adoration of the Magi_ in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of

Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron,

as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and

criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly

generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of

Duerer's relations with his clients; they show him appealing always to

the judgment of artists against the ignorant buyer, and giving more than

he bargained to give, though thereby he eats up his legitimate profits;

lastly, they show him vowing never again to enter upon work so

unprofitable, but to give all his time to the creation of engravings and

woodcuts. The first is written to Michael Behaim, who died in 1511, and

had commissioned him to make a design for a woodcut of his coat of arms.

DEAR MASTER MICHAEL BEHAIM,--I send you back the coat of arms again.

Pray let it stay as it is. No one could improve it for you, for I made

it artistically and with care. Those who see it and understand such

matters will tell you so. If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up

backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT DUeRER.

[Illustration: Photograph J. Lowy--THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY,

1511--From the painting at Vienna]

The other letters concern the lost _Coronation of the Virgin_, the

centre panel of an altar-piece of which the wings are still at

Frankfurt, of which town Jacob Heller, who commissioned it, was a

burgher. They were to be studio work, and are supposed to be chiefly due

to Duerer's brother Hans. There is, however, one picture extant which

gives an idea of the execution of the missing centre panel, the _Holy

Trinity and All Saints_ at Vienna; which, in spite of his vow never to

do such work again, was commenced shortly after the _Coronation_, and

for a Nuremberg patron. How much he was paid for it is not known; but it

cannot have been a really adequate sum, as towards the end of his life

he writes to the Nuremberg Council, "I have not received from people in

this town work worth five hundred florins, truly a trifling and

ridiculous sum, and not the fifth part of that has been profit." The

preceding picture, referred to in the first letters, is the _Martyrdom

of the Ten Thousand by Sapor II_. All three pictures were signed, like

the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ by little finely-dressed portraits of

the painter.

NUeRNBERG, _August_ 28, 1507.

I did not want to receive any money in advance on it till I began to

paint it, which, if God will, shall be the next thing after the Prince's

work;[20] for I prefer not to begin too many things at once and then I

do not become wearied. The Prince too will not be kept waiting, as he

would be if I were to paint his and your pictures at the same time, as I

had intended. At all events have confidence in me, for, so far as God

permits, I will yet according to my power make something that not many

men can equal.

Now many good nights to you. Given at Nuernberg on Augustine's day, 1507.

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

* * * * *

NUeRNBERG, March 19, _1508_.

Dear Herr Jacob Heller. In a fortnight I shall be ready with Duke

Friedrich's work; after that I shall begin yours, and, as my custom is,

I will not paint any other picture till it is finished. I will be sure

carefully to paint the middle panel with my own hand; apart from that,

the outer sides of the wings are already sketched in--they will be in

stone colour; I have also had the ground laid. So much for news.

I wish you could see my gracious Lord's picture; I think it would please

you. I have worked at it straight on for a year and gained very little

by it; for I only get 280 Rhenish gulden for it, and I have spent all

that in the time.

* * * * *

NUeRNBERG, _August 24, 1508_.

Now I commend myself to you. I want you also to know that in all my days

I have never begun any work that pleased me better than this picture of

yours which I am painting. Till I finish it I will not do any other

work; I am only sorry that the winter will so soon come upon me. The

days grow so short that one cannot do much.

I have still one thing to ask you; it is about the _MADONNA_[21] that

you saw at my house; if you know of any one near you who wants a picture

pray offer it to him. If a proper frame was put to it, it would be a

beautiful picture, and you know that it is nicely done. I will let you

have it cheap. I would not take less than fifty florins to paint one

like it. As it stands finished in the house it might be damaged for me,

so I would give you full power to sell it for me cheap for thirty

florins--indeed, rather than that it should not be sold I would even let

it go for twenty-five florins. I have certainly lost much food over it.

* * * * *

Nuernberg, _November_ 4, 1508.

I am justly surprised at what you say in it about my last letter: seeing

that you can accuse me of not holding to my promises to you. From such a

slander each and everyone exempts me, for I bear myself, I trust, so as

to take my stand amongst other straightforward men. Besides I know well

what I have written and promised to you, and you know that in my

cousin's house I refused to promise you to make a good thing, because I

cannot. But to this I did pledge myself, that I would make something for

you that not many men can. Now I have given such exceeding pains to your

picture, that I was led to send you the aforesaid letter. I know that

when the picture is finished all artists will be well pleased with it.

It will not be valued at less than 300 florins. I would not paint

another like it for three times the price agreed, for I neglect myself

for it, suffer loss, and earn anything but thanks from you.

You further reproach me with having promised you that I would paint your

picture with the greatest possible care that ever I could. That I

certainly never said, or if I did I was out of my senses, for in my

whole lifetime I should scarcely finish it. With such extraordinary care

I can hardly finish a face in half a year; now your picture contains

fully 100 faces, not reckoning the drapery and landscape and other

things in it. Besides, who ever heard of making such a work for an

altar-piece? no one could see it. But I think it was thus that I wrote

to you--that I would paint the picture with great or more than ordinary

pains because of the time which you waited for me.

You need not look about for a purchaser for my Madonna, for the Bishop

of Breslau has given me seventy-two florins for it, so I have sold it

well. I commend myself to you. Given at Nuernberg in the year 1508, on

the Sunday after All Saints' Day.

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

* * * * *

NUeRNBERG, _March_ 21, 1509.

I only care for praise from those who are competent to judge; and if

Martin Hess praises it to you, that may give you the more confidence.

You might also inquire from some of your friends who have seen it; they

will tell you how it is done. And if you do not like the picture when

you see it, I will keep it myself, for I have been begged to sell it and

make you another. But be that far from me! I will right honourably hold

with you to that which I have promised, taking you, as I do, for an

upright man.

* * * * *

NUeRNBERG, _July_ 10, 1509.

As you go on to say that if you had not bargained with me for the

picture you would never do so now, and that I may keep it--I return you

this answer: to retain your friendship, if I had to suffer loss by the

picture, I would have done so, but now since you regret the whole

business and provoke me to keep the picture I will do so, and that

gladly, for I know how to get 100 florins more for it than you would

have given me. In future I would not take 400 florins to paint another

such as this.

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

NUeRNBERG, _July_ 24, 1509. DEAR HERR HELLER, I have read the letter

which you addressed to me. You write that you did not mean to decline

taking the picture from me. To that I can only say that I don't

understand what you do mean. When you write that if you had not ordered

the picture you would not make the bargain again, and that I may keep it

as long as I like and so on--I can only think that you have repented of

the whole business, so I gave you my answer in my last letter.

But, at Hans Imhof's persuasion, and having regard to the fact that you

ordered the picture of me, and also because I should prefer it to find a

place at Frankfurt rather than anywhere else, I have consented to send

it to you for 100 florins less than it might well have brought me.

I am reckoning that I shall thus render you a pleasing service;

otherwise I know well how I could draw far greater pecuniary advantage

from it, but your friendship is dearer to me than any such trifling sum

of money. I trust however that you would not wish me to suffer loss over

it when you are better off than I. Make therefore your own arrangements

and commands. Given at Nuernberg on Wine-Tuesday before James'.

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

NUeRNBERG, _August 26_, 1509. First my willing service to you, dear Herr

Jacob Heller. In accordance with your last letter I am sending the

picture well packed and seen to in all needful points. I have handed it

over to Hans Imhof and he has paid me another 100 florins. Yet believe

me, on my honour, I am still out of pocket over it besides losing the

time which I have bestowed upon it. Here in Nuernberg they were ready to

give 300 florins for it, which extra 100 florins would have done very

nicely for me had I not preferred to please and serve you by sending you

the picture. For I value the keeping of your friendship at more than 100

florins. I would also rather have this painting at Frankfurt than

anywhere else in all Germany.

If you think that I have behaved unfairly in not leaving the payment to

your own free-will, you must bear in mind that this would not have

happened if you had not written by Hans Imhof that I might keep the

picture as long as I liked. I should otherwise gladly have left it to

you even if thereby I had suffered a greater loss still. My impression

of you is that, supposing I had promised to make you something for about

ten florins and it cost me twenty, you yourself would not wish me to

lose by it. So pray be content with the fact that I took 100 florins

less from you than I might have got for the picture--for I tell you that

they wanted to take it from me, so to speak, by force.

I have painted it with great care, as you will see, using none but the

best colours I could get. It is painted with good ultramarine under, and

over, and over that again, some five or six times; and then after it was

finished I painted it again twice over so that it may last a long time.

If it is kept clean I know it will remain bright and fresh 500 years,

for it is not done as men are wont to paint. So have it kept clean and

don't let it be touched or sprinkled with holy water. I feel sure it

will not be criticised, or only for the purpose of annoying me; and I

answer for it it will please you well. No one shall ever compel me to

paint a picture again with so much labour. Herr Georg Tausy himself

besought me to paint him a Madonna in a landscape with the same care and

of the same size as this picture, and he would give me 400 florins for

it. That I flatly refused to do, for it would have made a beggar of me.

Of ordinary pictures I will in a year paint a pile which no one would

believe it possible for one man to do in the time. But very careful

nicety does not pay. So henceforth I shall stick to my engraving, and

had I done so before I should to-day have been a richer man by

1000 florins.

I may tell you also that, at my own expense, I have had for the middle

panel a new frame made which has cost me more than six florins. The old

one I have broken off, for the joiner had made it roughly; but I have

not had the other fastened on, for you wished it not to be. It would be

a very good thing to have the rims screwed on so that the picture may

not be shaken.

If anyone wants to see it, let it hang forward two or three finger

breadths, for then the light is good to see it by. And when I come over

to you, say in one, two, or three years' time, if the picture is

properly dry, it must be taken down and I will varnish it over anew with

some excellent varnish, which no one else can make; it will then last

100 years longer than it would before. But don't let anybody else

varnish it, for all other varnishes are yellow, and the picture would be

ruined for you. And if a thing, on which I have spent more than a year's

work, were ruined it would be grief to me. When you have it set up be

present yourself to see that it gets no harm. Deal carefully with it,

for you will hear from your own and from foreign painters how it

is done.

Give my greeting to your painter Martin Hess. My wife asks you for a

_Trinkgeld_, but that is as you please, I screw you no higher, &c. And

now I hold myself commended to you. Read by the sense, for I write in

haste. Given at Nuernberg on Sunday after Bartholomew's, 1509.

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

NUeRNBERG, _October 12_, 1509.

DEAR HERR JACOB HELLER, I am glad to hear that my picture pleases you,

so that my labour has not been bestowed in vain. I am also happy that

you are content about the payment--and that rightly, for I could have

got 100 florins more for it than you have given me. But I preferred to

let you have it, hoping, as I do, thereby to retain you as my friend

down in your parts.

My wife thanks you very much for the present you have made her; she will

wear it in your honour. My young brother also thanks you for the two

florins _Trinkgeld_ you sent him. And now I too thank you myself for all

the honour &c. In reply to your question how the picture should be

adorned I send you a slight design of what I should do if it were mine,

but you must do what you like. Now, many happy times to you. Given on

Friday before Gall's, 1509. ALBRECHT DUeRER.

Duerer must have commenced the All Saints picture almost immediately

after having finished Heller's _Coronation of the Virgin_. Perhaps he

had practically accepted the commission from Matthsus Landauer before he

wrote to Heller that he would never again undertake a picture with so

much work and labour in it, for he afterwards was as good as his word.

This new work was for the chapel of an almshouse founded by Landauer and

Erasmus Schiltkrot for twelve old men citizens of Nuremberg. The

original frame designed by Duerer is now in the Germanic Museum, though a

copy has replaced the picture. After the completion of the _Trinity and

All Saints_, Duerer apparently carried out his threat and gave up

painting for a dozen years, devoting his energies more especially to a

magnificent series of engravings on copper. He also completed his series

of wood engravings and published them with text, and produced a number

of single cuts, many of them among his very best, like the _Assumption

of the Magdalen_, and the _St. Christopher_, here reproduced.

[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER Woodcut, B. 103]

[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MAGDALEN Woodcut, B. 121]

In 1514 his mother died. He has recounted her death twice over, as he

did that of his father already cited; for the single surviving leaf of

the "other book" happens to contain this also. In the briefer

chronicle he says:

Two years after my Father's death (i.e., 1504) I took my Mother into my

house, for she had nothing more to live upon. So she dwelt with me till

the year 1513, as they reckon it; when, early one Tuesday morning, she

was taken suddenly and deadly ill, and thus she lay a whole year long.

And a whole year after the day she was first taken ill, she received the

holy sacraments and christianly passed away two hours before

nightfall--it was on a Tuesday, the 17th day of May in the year 1514. I

said the prayers for her myself. God Almighty be gracious to her.

The account in the "other book" is more circumstantial:

Now you must know that, in the year 1513, on a Tuesday before Rogation

week, my poor afflicted Mother, whom two years after my Father's death,

as she was quite poor, I took into my house, and after she had lived

nine years with me, was one morning suddenly taken so deadly ill that we

broke into her chamber; otherwise, as she could not open, we had not

been able to come to her. So we carried her into a room downstairs and

she received both sacraments, for every one thought she would die,

because ever since my Father's death she had never been in good health.

Her most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always

upbraided me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great

anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went out or in

her saying was always, "Go in the name of Christ." She constantly gave

us holy admonitions with deep earnestness and she always had great

thought for our souls' health. I cannot enough praise her good works and

the compassion she showed to all, as well as her high character.

This my pious Mother bare and brought up eighteen children; she often

had the plague and many other severe and strange illnesses, and she

suffered great poverty, scorn, contempt, mocking words, terrors, and

great adversities. Yet she bore no malice.

In 1514 (as they reckon it), on a Tuesday--it was the 17th day of

May--two hours before nightfall and more than a year after the

above-mentioned day in which she was taken ill, my Mother, Barbara

Duerer, christianly passed away, with all the sacraments, absolved by

papal power from pain and sin. But she first--gave me her blessing and

wished me the peace of God, exhorting me very beautifully to keep myself

from sin. She asked also to drink S. John's blessing, which she

then did.

She feared Death much, but she said that to come before God she feared

not. Also she died hard, and I marked that she saw something dreadful,

for she asked for the holy-water, although, for a long time, she had not

spoken. Immediately afterwards her eyes closed over. I saw also how

Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and how she closed mouth

and eyes and departed with pain. I repeated to her the prayers. I felt

so grieved for her that I cannot express it. God be merciful to her.

To speak of God was ever her greatest delight, and gladly she beheld the

honour of God. She was in her sixty-third year when she died and I have

buried her honourably according to my means.

[Illustration: "1514, on Oculi Sunday (March 19). This is Albrecht

Duerer's mother; she was 63 years of age." After her death he added in

ink, "And departed this life in the year 1514 on Tuesday Holy Cross Day

(May 16) at two o'clock in the night" Charcoal-drawing. Royal Print

Room, Berlin]

God, the Lord, grant me that I too may attain a happy end, and that God

with his heavenly host, my Father, Mother, relations, and friends may

come to my death. And may God Almighty give unto us eternal life. Amen.

And in her death she looked much sweeter than when she was still alive.

III

Such was the home life of this great artist; and from homes presenting

variations on this type proceeded probably all the giants of the

Renaissance, whose work we think so surpasses in effort, in scope, and

in efficiency, all that has been achieved since. This Christianity was

unreformed; it existed side by side with dissolute monasteries and

worldly cynical prelates, surrounded by sordid hucksters and brutal

soldiery. Turn to Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet, and we see that it

existed in London, among the burghers, even in the household of a Lord

Mayor. We are almost forced on the reflection that nothing that has

succeeded to it has produced men equal to those who sprang immediately

out of it.

However much and however justly the assurance of Christian assertion in

the realm of theory may be condemned, the success of the Christian life,

wherever it has approached a conscientious realisation, stands out among

the multitudinous forms of its corruption; and those who catch sight of

it are almost bound to exclaim in the spirit of Shakespeare's:

"How far that little candle throws his beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

I have heard a Royal Academician remark how even the poorest copies and

reproductions of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture retain something of

the charm and dignity of the original: whereas the quality of modern

work is quickly lost in a reduction or even in a cast. I believe this

may be best explained by the fact that the chief research of the Greek

artist was to establish a beautiful proportion between the parts and the

whole; and that fidelity to nature, dexterity of execution, the

symbolism of the given subject, and even the finish of the surfaces,

were always when necessary sacrificed to this. Whereas in modern work,

even when the proportions of the whole are considered, which is rarely

the case, they are almost without exception treated as secondary to one

or more of these other qualities. Is it not possible that Jesus in his

life laid down a proportion, similar to that of Greek masterpieces for

the body, between the efforts and intentions which create the soul and

pour forth its influence?--a proportion which, when it has been once

thoroughly apprehended, may be subtly varied to suit new circumstances,

and produce a similar harmony in spheres of activity with which Jesus

himself had not even a distant connection? We often find that the rudest

copies from copies of his actual life are like the biscuit china Venus

of Milo sold by the Italian pedlar, which still dimly reflects the main

beauties of the marble in the Louvre.

In 1512 Kaiser Maximilian came to Nuremberg, and soon afterward Duerer

began working for him. The employment he found for the greatest artist

north of the Alps was sufficiently ludicrous; and perhaps Duerer showed

that he felt this, by treating the major portion as studio work; though,

no doubt, the impatience of his imperial patron in a measure

necessitated the employment of many aids.

It is difficult to do justice to the fine qualities of Maximilian.

Perhaps he was not really so eccentric as he seems. The oddity of his

doings and sayings may be perhaps more properly attributed to his having

been a thorough German. The genial men of that nation, even to-day and

since it has come more into line in point of culture with France and

England, are apt to have a something ludicrous or fantastic clinging to

them; even Goethe did not wholly escape. Maximilian was strong in body

and in mind, and brimming over with life and interest. We are told that

when a young man he climbed the tower of Ulm Cathedral by the help of

the iron rings that served to hold the torches by which it was

illuminated on high days and holidays. Again we read: "A secretary had

embezzled 3000 gulden. Maximilian sent for him and asked what should be

done to a confidential servant who had robbed his master. The secretary

recommended the gallows. 'Nay, nay,' the Emperor said, and tapped him on

the shoulder, 'I cannot spare you yet'"; an anecdote which reveals more

good sense and a larger humanity than either monarchs or others are apt

to have at hand on such vexing occasions. Thausing says admirably, "A

happy imagination and a great idea of his exalted position made up to

him for any want of success in his many wars and political

negotiations," and elsewhere calls him the last of the "nomadic

emperors," who spent their lives travelling from palace to palace and

from city to city, beseeching, cajoling, or threatening their subjects

into obedience. He himself said, "I am a king of kings. If I give an

order to the princes of the empire, they obey if they please, if they do

not please they disobey." He was even then called "the last of the

knights," because he had an amateurish passion for a chivalry that was

already gone, and was constantly attempting to revive its costumes and

ordinances. Then, like certain of the Pharaohs of Egypt, he was pleased

to read of, and see illustrated by brush and graver, victories he had

never won, and events in which he had not shone. He himself dictated or

planned out those wonderful lives or allegories of a life which might

have been his. It was on such a work of futile self-glorification that

he now wished to employ Duerer.

The novelty of the art of printing, and the convenience to a nomadic

emperor of a monument that could be rolled up, suggested the form of

this last absurdity--a monster woodcut in 92 blocks which, when joined

together, produced a picture 9 feet by 10, representing what had at

first been intended as an imitation of a Roman triumphal arch; but so

much information about so many more or less dubious ancestors, &c., had

to be conveyed by quaint and conceited inventions, that in the end it

was rather comparable to the confusion of a Juggernaut car, which

never-the-less imposes by a barbarous wealth and magnificence of

fantastic detail. And to this was to be joined another monster,

representing on several yards of paper a triumphal procession of the

emperor, escorted by his family, and the virtues of himself and

ancestors, &c. Such is fortune's malice that Duerer, who alone or almost

alone had conceived of the simplicity of true dignity and the beauty of

choice proportions and propriety, should have been called upon by his

only royal patron to superintend a production wherein the rank and

flaccid taste of the time ran riot. The absurdity, barbarism, and

grotesque quaintness of this monument to vanity cannot be laid

exclusively at Maximilian's door; for the architecture, particularly of

the fountains, in Altdorfer's or Manuel's designs, and in those of many

others, reveals a like wantonness in delighted elaboration of the

impossible and unstructural. The scholars and pedantic posturers who

surrounded the emperor no doubt improved and abetted. Probably it was

this Juggernaut element, inherited from the Gothic gargoyle, which

Goethe censured when he said that "Duerer was retarded by a gloomy

fantasy devoid of form or foundation." Perhaps this was written at a

period when the great critic was touched with that resentment against

the Middle Ages begotten by the feeling that his own art was still

encumbered by its irrational and confused fantasy. We who certainly are

able to take a more ample view of Duerer's situation in the art of his

times, see that he is rather characterised by an effort which lay in

exactly the same direction as that of Goethe's own; and while

sympathising with the irritation expressed, can also admire the great

engraver for having freed himself in so large a degree from the

influence of fantasy "devoid of form and foundation," even as the

justest Shakespearean criticism admires the degree in which the author

of Othello freed himself from Elizabethan conceits. It is difficult to

appreciate the difference for a great artist in having the general taste

with rather than against the purer tendencies of his art. Probably the

Greeks and certain Italians owe their freedom from eccentricity, in a

very large measure, to this cause. But I intend to treat these questions

more at length in dealing with Duerer's character as an artist and

creator. It was necessary to touch on the subject here, because

Maximilian embodies the peculiar and fantastic aftergrowth, which

sprouted up in some northern minds from the old stumps remaining from

the great mediaeval forest of thoughts and sentiments which had

gradually fallen into decay. All around, even in the same minds, waved

the saplings of the New Birth when these old stumps put forth their so

fantastic second youth, seeming for a time to share in the new vigour,

though they were never to attain expansion and maturity.

Thausing shrewdly remarks, "This love of fame and naive delight in the

glorification of his own person are further proofs that the Emperor Max

was the true child of his age. No one was so akin to him in this respect

as the painter of his choice, Albert Duerer." This last is a reference to

those strutting, finely-dressed portraits of the artist which stand

beside the entablatures bearing his name, that of his birthplace, the

date, &c., in four out of the five most elaborate pictures which Duerer

painted. But I would like to suggest that probably this apparent

resemblance to his royal patron is not thus altogether well accounted

for. May there not have been something of Homer's invocation of his

Muse, or of that sincerity which makes Dante play such a large part in

the "Divine Comedy"?--something resembling the ninth verse of the

Apocalypse: "I John, who also am your brother and companion in

tribulation ... was in the isle that is called Patmos ... and heard

behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying...." Those little

strutting portraits of himself sprung, perhaps, out of this relation to

those about him of the man by native gift very superior, who is not made

contemptuous or inclined to emphasise his isolation, but who is ever

ready to say, "It is I, be not afraid." The man who painted and

conceived this is the man you know, whom you have admired because he

carried his fine clothes so well in your streets. Here I am even in the

midst of this massacre of saints, I have conceived it all and taken a

whole year to elaborate it; and since you see me looking so cool and

well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or

overwhelmed. Such is ever the naivety of great souls among those whose

culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among

little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a

selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a

foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust,

they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and

console, for whose sakes they will even hide whatever in them is really

unworthy of such admiration and such trust.

We do not easily realise the corporate character of life in those days.

Very much that seems to us quaint and absurd drew proper significance

from the practical solidarity that then obtained; what appears to us a

strange vanity or parade may have appeared to them respect for the

guild, the town, the country to which they belonged. Duerer signed

"Noricus,"--of Nuremberg;--and preferred its little lucrative

citizenship to those more remunerative offered by Venice and Antwerp.

"Let all the world behold how fine the artist of Nuremberg is." Just as

he says, "God gave me diligence," so it seems natural to him to

attribute a large half of his fame and glory to his native town. In many

respects the great man of those days felt less individual than an

ordinary man does now; for classes did not so merge one into the other,

and their character was more distinct and authoritative. The little

portrait of himself added to those wonderful _tours-de-force_ made them

something that belonged to Nuremberg and to Germans. Even so it would be

with some treasure cup, all gold and jewels, belonging to a village

schoolmaster, which none of his neighbours dared look at save in his

presence; for he was the son of a great baron whom his elder brothers

robbed of everything except this, and his presence among them alone made

them able to feel that it really belonged to their village, was theirs

in a fashion. These suggestions will not, I think, appear fantastic to

those who ponder on the apparently vainglorious address of much of

Duerer's work, and keep in mind such a passage from his writings as this:

"I would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of

cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver and gold. I

further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they

write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great

length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the

great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something

burning, and ye all add to it skilful furthering, a blaze may in time

arise therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world."[22]

But still, even if such considerations may bring many to accept my

explanation of this contrast, I do not want to over-insist on it. I

think that wherever men have been superior in character, as well as in

gift or rank, to those about them, something of this spirit of the good

eldest child in a family is bound to be manifested. But just as such a

child may be veritably boastful and vain at other times,--however purely

now and then, in crises of apparent difficulty or danger, its vaunt and

strut may spring from real kindness and a considerate wish to inspire

courage in the younger and weaker;--so doubtless there was a

haughtiness, sometimes a fault, in Duerer as in Milton.

But we have been led a long way from Kaiser Max and his portable

monument. The reader will re-picture how the court arrived at Nuremberg

like a troop of actors, whose performance was really their life, and was

taken quite seriously and admired heartily by the good and solid

burghers. This old comedy, often farce, entitled "The Importance of

Authority," is no longer played with such a telling make-up, or with

such showy properties as formerly, but is still as popular as ever; as

we Londoners know, since the last few years have given us perhaps an

over-dose of processions, illuminations, &c. &c. In this case the chief

actors in the show piece were men of mark of an exceptionally

entertaining character; with many of them Duerer and Pirkheimer were soon

on the best of terms.

Foremost, Johann Stabius, the companion of the Emperor for sixteen years

without intermission in war and in peace, who was associated with Duerer

to provide the written accompaniment for the monument; a literary

jack-of-all-trades of ready wit and lively presence. A contemporary

records: "The emperor took constant pleasure in the strange things which

Stabius devised, and esteemed him so highly that he instituted a new

chair of Astronomy and Mathematics for him at Vienna," in the Collegium

Poetarum et Mathematicorum founded in the year 1501, under the

presidency of Conrad Celtes.

In all probability there would have been besides the learned protonotary

of the supreme court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in

the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of

Duerer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later,

still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes,

and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the

thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to be in vain.

It may be that Duerer then met for the first time too the Imperial

architect, Johannes Tscherte, for whom he afterwards drew two armillary

spheres, to take the place of those on which he had cast ridicule; for

Pirkheimer wrote to Tscherte: "I wish you could have heard how Albert

Duerer spoke to me about your plate, in which there is not one good

stroke, and laughed at me. What honour it will do us when it makes its

appearance in Italy, and the clever painters there see it!" To which

Tscherte replied: "Albert Duerer knows me well, he is also well aware

that I love art, though I am no expert at it; let him if he likes

despise my plate, I never pretended it was a work of art." And in a

later letter he speaks "of the armillary spheres drawn by our common

friend Albert Duerer." He was one of those who helped Duerer in his

mathematical and geometrical studies; and he, like Pirkheimer, dedicated

books to him. Although the mathematics of those times are hardly

considered seriously nowadays, they then ranked with verse-making as a

polite accomplishment, and had all the charm of novelty. Duerer, no

doubt, had some gift that way, as he seems to have made a hobby of them

during many years. Besides those who came in the Imperial troop, Duerer

had many opportunities of meeting men of this kind, for such were

constantly passing through Nuremberg. Duerer has left us what are

evidently portraits of some whose names are lost: of others we have both

name and likeness, among them the English ambassador, Lord Morley.

In 1515 "Rafahel de' Urbin, who is held in such high esteem by the Pope,

he made these naked figures and sent them to Albrecht Duerer at Nuremberg

to show him his hand." This shows us that travellers through Nuremberg

sometimes brought with them something of the breath of the great

Renaissance in Italy. The drawing, which bears the above inscription in

Duerer's own handwriting on the back, is a fine one in red sanguine,

representing the same male model in two different poses, in the

Albertina. Raphael had, we are told by Lodovico Dolce, drawings,

engravings, and woodcuts of Duerer's hanging in his studio; and Vasari

tells us he said: "If Duerer had been acquainted with the antique he

would have surpassed us all." The Nuremberg master, in return for the

drawing, sent a portrait of himself to Raphael, which has unfortunately

been lost. There appears to have been quite a rage for Duerer's work in

Italy, and above all at Rome: we know that it provoked Michael Angelo to

remonstrate; probably on many lips it was merely a vaunt of superior

knowledge or taste, as rapture over the conjectural friends or aids of a

great quatrocentist is to-day. The tokens of esteem which he won from

distinguished travellers, and this drawing which reached him testifying

to the interest and friendship felt for him by the Italian whose fame

was most widespread, must have been full of encouragement, and have

compensated in some measure for the feeling he had that he was only a

hanger-on at Nuremberg, though he might still have been "a gentleman" in

Venice. Yet Nuremberg itself furnished many desirable or notable

acquaintances. There was Duerer's neighbour, the jurist, Lazarus

Spengler; later the most prominent reformer in Nuremberg, who in 1520

dedicated to him his "Exhortation and Instruction towards the leading of

a virtuous life," addressing him as "his particular and confidential

friend and brother," whom he considers, "without any flattery, to be a

man of understanding, inclined to honesty and every virtue, who has

often in our daily familiar intercourse been to me in no common degree a

pattern and an example to a more circumspect way of life;" whom,

finally, he asks to improve his little book to the best of his ability.

Duerer had before this rendered him service in designing his coat of arms

for a woodcut and furnishing a frontispiece to his translation of

Eusebius' "Life of St. Jerome." He was, moreover, a poet, author of "an

often-translated song"; he wrote verses to discourage Duerer from

spending his time in producing the doggerel rhymes which at one time he

was moved to attempt,--framing poems of didactic import, and publishing

one or two on separate sheets with a woodcut at the top, in spite of the

inappreciative reception given to them by Spengler and Pirkheimer.

Besides Spengler, there were "Christopher Kress, a soldier, a traveller,

and a town councillor;" and Caspar Nuetzel, of one of the oldest

families, and Captain-general of the town bands. Both of these went with

Duerer to the Diet at Augsburg in 1518. The martial Paumgartners were two

brothers for whom Duerer painted the early triptych at Munich (see page

204). One of them is supposed to figure as St. George in the All Saints

picture. Lastly, there were the Imhoffs, the merchant princes of

Nuremberg, as the Fuggers were at Augsburg. A son of the family married

Felicitas, Pirkheimer's favourite daughter, in 1515, and Duerer stood

godfather to their little Hieronymus in 1518. It is easy to imagine that

there was many a supper and dinner, when a thousand strange subjects

were even more strangely discussed; when Pirkheimer now made them roar

with a hazardous joke, or again dumbfounded them with Greek quotations

pompously done into German, or made their flesh creep and the

superstitions of their race stir in them by mysteriously enlarging on

his astrological lore,--for to his many weaknesses he added this, which

was then scarcely recognised as one.

VII

In spite of all his wealthy and influential friends, Duerer found it

difficult to get the emperor to indemnify him for his labours, though

the Town Council had received a royal mandate as early as 1512 from

Landau. The following is an extract:

Whereas our and the Empire's trusty Albrecht Duerer has devoted much zeal

to the drawings he has made for us at our command, and has promised

henceforth ever to do the like, whereat we have received particular

pleasure; and whereas we are informed on all hands that the said Duerer

is famous in the art of painting before all other Masters: we have

therefore felt ourself moved, to further him with our especial grace,

and we accordingly desire you with earnest solicitude, for the affection

you bear us, to make the said Duerer free of all town imposts, having

regard to our grace and to his famous art, which should fairly turn to

his profit with you, &c.

The town councillors sent some of their principal members to treat with

Duerer, and he resigned his claim "in order to honour the said

councillors and to maintain their privileges, usages, and rights." In

1515 the drawings for the "Gate of Honour" were finished, and Duerer

began to press again for pay. Stabius had promised to speak for him, but

nothing had come of it. Albrecht thought Christoph Kress could be of

more avail; so he wrote to him:

(No date, but certainly 1515). DEAR HERR KRESS, The first thing I have

to ask you is to find out from Herr Stabius whether he has done anything

in my business with his Imperial Majesty, and how it stands. Let me know

this in the next letter you write to my Lords. Should it happen that

Herr Stabius has made no move in the matter, ... Point out in particular

to his Imperial Majesty that I have served his Majesty for three years,

spending my own money in so doing, and if I had not been diligent the

ornamental work would have been nowise so successfully finished. I

therefore pray his Imperial Majesty to recompense me with the 100

florins--all which you know well how to do. You must know also that I

made many other drawings for his Majesty besides the "Triumph."

Not long after this, Maximilian, by a _Privilegium_ (dated Innsbruck,

September 6, 1515), settled an annual pension of 100 florins on

the artist.

We Maximilian, by God's grace, &c., make openly known by this letter for

ourself and our successors in the Empire, and to each and every one to

wit, that we have regarded and considered the art, skill, and

intelligence for which our and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved

Albrecht Duerer has been praised before us, and likewise the pleasing,

honest and useful services which he has often and willingly done for us

and the Holy Empire and also for our own person in many ways, and which

he still daily does and henceforward may and shall do: and that we

therefore, of set purpose, after mature deliberation, and with the full

knowledge of ourself and the Princes and Estates of the Empire, have

graciously promised and granted to this same Duerer what we herewith and

by virtue of this letter make known:

_That is to say_, that one hundred florins Rhenish shall be yielded,

given, and paid by the honourable, our and the Empire's trusty and

well-beloved Burgomaster and Council of the town of Nuernberg and their

successors unto the said Albrecht Duerer, against his quittance, all his

life long and no longer, yearly and in every year, on our behalf, out of

the customary town contributions which the said Burgomaster and Council

of the town of Nuernberg are bound to yield and pay, yearly and in every

year, into our Treasury. And whatever the said Burgomaster and Council

of the town of Nuernberg and their successors shall yield, give, and pay

to the said Albrecht Duerer, as stands written above, against his

quittance, the same sum shall be accepted and reckoned to them as paid

and yielded for the customary town contributions which they, as stands

written above, are bound to pay into our Treasury, as if they had paid

the same into our own hands and received our quittance therefor, and no

harm or detriment shall in anywise be done therefor unto them or their

successors by us or our successors in the Empire. Whereof this letter,

sealed with our affixed seal, is witness.

Given, &c.

Thus Duerer became Court painter: in return for his salary he had to

work. As soon as the "Gate of Honour" was finished, there was the "Car

of Triumph" to be taken in hand, the first sketch for it (now in the

Albertina) having already been made about 1514-15. In December 1514

Schoensperger, the Augsburg printer, printed a splendid "Book of Hours"

for Maximilian. The type was specially made for the book, and only a few

copies were printed, some on fine vellum with large margins. One copy

which Maximilian intended for his own use was sent to Duerer that he

might decorate the margins with pen-drawings in various coloured inks.

Of this work there exist forty-three pages by Duerer himself and eight by

Cranach at Munich, and at Besancon thirty-five pages by Burgkmair,

Altdorfer, Baldung Grien, and Hans Duerer. Marvellously deft and

light-handed as are Duerer's freehand arabesques, embellished by racy

sketches of which these borders consist, they are nevertheless touched

with a like unsatisfactory character with the other works undertaken for

Maximilian, and are almost as far removed from the spirit and

performance of the best period for this kind of work, as is the

_Triumphal Arch_ from that of Titus.

Duerer was also employed on another woodcut representing a long row of

saintly ancestors of this eccentric sovereign. He accompanied Caspar

Nuetzel and Lazarus Spengler, the representatives of Nuremberg, to the

Diet of Augsburg, and there made some drawings of his royal patron, on

one of which is written, "This is my dear Prince Max, whom I, Albrecht

Duerer, drew at Augsburg in his little room upstairs in the palace, in

the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist's day." (_See

opposite_.) And Melanchthon narrates that "once Max himself took the

charcoal in hand to make his mind clear to his trusty Albert, and was

vexed to find that the charcoal kept breaking short in his hand when

Duerer said; 'Most gracious emperor, I would not that your Majesty should

draw so well as I do!' by which he meant, 'I am practised in this, and

it is my province; thou, Emperor, hast harder tasks and another

calling.'"

[Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co.

Dornach._--"This is the Emperor Maximilian, whose likeness I, Albrecht

Duerer, have taken, at Augsburg, high up in the palace in his little

chamber, in the year of Grace 1518, on Monday after St. John the

Baptist's Day" Charcoal-Drawing. Albertina, Vienna]

VIII

A charming letter from Charitas Pirkheimer gives us a little sunlit

glimpse of the tone of Duerer's lighter hours.

The prudent and wise Masters Caspar Nuetzel, Lazarus Spengler, and

Albrecht Duerer, for the time being at Augsburg, our gracious Masters and

good friends.

Jesus.

As a friendly greeting, prudent, wise, gracious Masters and especially

good friends, cousins, and wellwishers, I desire every good thing for

you, from the Highest Good. I received with great pleasure your friendly

letter and its news of a kind suited to my order, or rather my trade;

and I read it with such great devotion that more than once tears ran

down my eyes over it--truly rather tears of laughter than of sorrow. I

consider it a subject for great thankfulness that, with such important

business and so much gaiety on hand, your Wisdoms do not forget me, but

find time to instruct me, poor little nun, about the monastic life

whereof you now have a clear reflection before your eyes. I conclude

from this that doubtless some good spirit drove you, my gracious and

dear Masters, to Augsburg, so that you might learn from the example of

the free Swabian spirits how to instruct and govern the poor imprisoned

sand-bares.[23]

For since our trusty Master Warden (Caspar Nuetzel), as a lover of the

Church, likes to help in a thorough reformation, he should first behold

a pattern of holy observance in the Swabian League. Let Master Lazarus

Spengler, too, inform himself well about the apostolic mode of common

life, so that at the annual audit he may be able to give us and others

counsel and guidance, how we may run through everything, that nought

remain over. And Master Albrecht Duerer, also, who is such a genius and

master at drawing, he may very carefully inspect the stately buildings,

and then if some day we want to alter our choir he will know how to give

us advice and help in making ample slide-windows (? blinds), so that our

eyes may not be quite blinded.

I shall not further trouble you, however, to bring us music to learn to

sing by notes, for our beer is now so very sour that I fear the dregs

might stick fast among the four reeds or voices, and produce such

strange sounds that the dogs would fly out of the church. But I must

humbly pray you not quite to wear out your eyes over the black and white

magpies, so as no longer to know the little grey wolves at Nuernberg. I

have heard much of the sharp-witted Swabians all my life, but it would

be well if we learnt more from them, now that they are so wisely

labouring with his Imperial Majesty to save the Apostolic life from

being done away with. It is easy to see what very different lovers of

the Church they are from our Masters here.

Pardon me, my dear and gracious Masters, this my playful letter. It is

all done _in caritate--summa summarum_; and the end of it is that I

should rejoice at your speedy return in health and happiness with the

glad accomplishment of the business committed to you. For this I and my

sisters heartily pray God day and night; still we cannot carry it

through alone, so I counsel you to entreat the pious and pure hearts (of

Augsburg) to sing in high quavers that thereby things may speed well.

And now many happy times to you!

Given at Nuernberg on September 3, 1518.

SISTER CHARITAS, unprofitable Abbess of S. Clara's at Nuernberg.

Duerer returned with a letter to the Town Council of Nuernberg, from which

the following extract is taken:

Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved, Whereas you are bound to pay us on

next St. Martin's day year a remainder, to wit 200 florins Rhenish, out

of the accustomed town contribution which you are wont to render into

our and the Empire's treasury....We earnestly charge you to deliver and

pay the said 200 florins, accepting our quittance therefor, unto our and

the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Duerer, our painter, on

account of his honest services, willingly rendered to us at our command

for our "Car of Triumph" and in other ways; and, at the said time, these

200 florins shall be deducted for you from the accustomed town

contribution. Thus you will perform our earnest desire.

Given, &c.

Duerer procured a receipt for the 200 florins, signed by the emperor

himself. But before "next St. Martin's day year," Maximilian was dead,

and the 200 florins no longer his to dispose of, being due to the new

Emperor Charles V. The municipal authorities of Nuernberg refused to pay

until his Privilegium had been confirmed by Maximilian's successor.

Duerer wrote the following letter to the Council:

NUeRNBERG, April 27, 1519.

Prudent, honourable and wise, gracious, dear Lords. Your Honours are

aware that, at the Diet lately holden by his Imperial Roman Majesty, our

most gracious lord of very praiseworthy memory, I obtained a gracious

assignment from his Imperial Majesty of 200 florins from the yearly

payable town contributions of Nuernberg. This assignment was granted to

me, after many applications and much trouble, in return for the zealous

work and labour, which, for a long time previously, I had devoted to his

Majesty. And he sent you order and command to that effect, signed with

his accustomed signature, and quittance in all form, which quittance,

duly sealed, is in my hands.

Now I rest humbly confident that your Honours will graciously remember

me as your obedient burgher, who has employed much time in the service

and work of his Imperial Majesty, our most rightful Lord, with but small

recompense, and has thereby lost both profit and advantage in other

ways. And therefore I trust that you will now deliver me these 200

florins to his Imperial Majesty's order and quittance, that so I may

receive a fitting reward and satisfaction for my care, pains, and

work--as, no doubt, was his Imperial Majesty's intention.

But seeing that some Emperor or King might in the future claim these 200

florins from your Honours, or might not be willing to spare them, but

might some day demand them back again from me, I am, therefore, willing

to relieve your Honours and the town of this chance, by appointing and

mortgaging, as security and pledge therefor, my tenement situated at the

corner under the Veste, and which belonged to my late father, that so

your Honours may suffer neither prejudice nor loss thereby. Thus am I

ready to serve your Honours, my gracious rulers and Lords.

Your Wisdoms' willing burgher, ALBRECHT DUeRER.

[Illustration: FREDERICK THE WISE. Silver-point drawing, British

Museum.]

Duerer next wrote "to the honourable, most learned Master Georg Spalatin,

Chaplain to my most gracious lord, Duke Friedrich, the Elector"

of Saxony.

The letter is undated, but clearly belongs to the early part of the year

1520.

Most worthy and dear Master, I have already sent you my thanks in the

short letter, for then I had only read your brief note. It was not till

afterwards, when the bag in which the little book was wrapped was turned

inside out, that I for the first time found the real letter in it, and

learnt that it was my most gracious Lord himself who sent me Luther's

little book. So I pray your worthiness to convey most emphatically my

humble thanks to his Electoral Grace, and in all humility to beseech his

Electoral Grace to take the praiseworthy Dr. Martin Luther under his

protection for the sake of Christian truth. For that is of more

importance to us than all the power and riches of this world; because

all things pass away with time, Truth alone endures for ever.

God helping me, if ever I meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a

careful portrait of him from the life and to engrave it on copper, for a

lasting remembrance of a Christian man who helped me out of great

distress. And I beg your worthiness to send me for my money anything new

that Dr. Martin may write.

As to Spengler's "Apology for Luther," about which you write, I must

tell you that no more copies are in stock; but it is being reprinted at

Augsburg, and I will send you some copies as soon as they are ready. But

you must know that, though the book was printed here, it is condemned in

the pulpit as heretical and meet to be burnt, and the man who published

it anonymously is abused and defamed. It is reported that Dr. Eck wanted

to burn it in public at Ingolstadt, as was done to Dr. Reuchlin's book.

With this letter I send for my most gracious lord three impressions of a

copper-plate of my most gracious lord of Mainz, which I engraved at his

request. I sent the copper-plate with 200 impressions as a present to

his Electoral Grace, and he graciously sent me in return 200 florins in

gold and 20 ells of damask for a coat. I joyfully and thankfully

accepted them, especially as I was in want of them at that time.

His Imperial Majesty also, of praiseworthy memory, who died too soon for

me, had graciously made provision for me, because of the great and

long-continued labour, pains, and care, which I spent in his service.

But now the Council will no longer pay me the 100 florins, which I was

to have received every year of my life from the town taxes, and which

was yearly paid to me during his Majesty's lifetime. So I am to be

deprived of it in my old age and to see the long time, trouble, and

labour all lost which I spent for his Imperial Majesty. As I am losing

my sight and freedom of hand my affairs do not look well. I don't care

to withhold this from you, kind and trusted Sir.

If my gracious lord remembers his debt to me of the staghorns, may I ask

your Worship to keep him in mind of them, so that I may get a fine pair.

I shall make two candlesticks of them.

I send you here two little prints of the Cross from a plate engraved in

gold. One is for your Worship. Give my service to Hirschfeld and

Albrecht Waldner. Now, your Worship, commend me faithfully to my most

gracious lord, the Elector.

Your willing ALBRECHT DUeRER at Nuernberg.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 20: _The Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints._]

[Footnote 21: Supposed to be the _Madonna with the Iris_.]

[Footnote 22: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 178.]

[Footnote 23: The soil about Nuernberg is sandy.]

CHAPTER V

DUeRER, LUTHER AND THE HUMANISTS

But while Duerer was thus busily at work or dunning his great debtors,

Luther had appeared. In 1517 he nailed his ninety-five theses to the

door of Wittenberg church, and Cardinal Caietan by the unlucky Leo X.

was poured like oil upon the fire which they had lighted. Luther had

been summoned to meet the Cardinal at the Diet of Augsburg, where Duerer

went to see Maximilian, though he only arrived there after our friends

from Nuremberg had departed. However, Luther passed through Nuremberg on

foot, and borrowed a coat of a friend there in order to figure with

decency before the Diet. Yet Duerer probably did not meet him, although

the words in the letter to George Spalatin, quoted above, "If ever I

meet Dr. Martin Luther, I intend to draw a careful portrait of him and

engrave it on copper," do not forbid the possibility of this early

meeting before the Reformer had become so famous. Next the Pope tried to

soothe by sending Miltitz with flatteries and promises--a man that could

smile and weep to order, but who succeeded neither with the Elector

Frederic, nor with Luther, nor with Germany. At Nuremberg the preacher

Wenzel Link soon formed a little reformed congregation, to which Duerer,

Pirkheimer, Spengler, Nuetzel, Scheurl, Ebner, Holzschurher, and others

belonged. We have already seen how, soon after this, Duerer was anxious

for Luther's safety, by the letter to the wise Elector, quoted above;

and in 1518 he sent Luther a number of his prints, and soon after joined

with others of Link's hearers to send a greeting of encouragement. And

before long we find him jotting down a list of sixteen of Luther's

tracts, either because he intended to get and read them, or because they

were already his; and on the back of a drawing we find the following

outline of the faith such as he then apprehended it, in which we see

clearly that Christ has become the voice of conscience--the power in a

man by which he recognises and creates good.

Seeing that through disobedience of sin we have fallen into everlasting

Death, no help could have reached us save through the incarnation of the

Son of God, whereby He through His innocent suffering might abundantly

pay the Father all our guilt, so that the Justice of God might be

satisfied. For He has repented, of and made atonement for the sins of

the whole world, and has obtained of the Father Everlasting Life.

Therefore Christ Jesus is the Son of God, the highest power, who can do

all things, and He is the Eternal life. Into whomsoever Christ comes he

lives, and himself lives in Christ. Therefore all things are in Christ

good things. There is nothing good in us except it becomes good in

Christ. Whosoever, therefore, will altogether justify himself is unjust.

_If we will what is good, Christ wills it in us_. No human repentance is

enough to equalise deadly sin and be fruitful.

In this the old mythological language is retained, but it has received a

new interpretation or significance, and this quite without the writer's

perceiving what he is doing. Christ is affirmed to have repented of the

sins of the whole world. Among the early heresiarchs there were, I

believe, some who went so far as to hold that he had committed the sins

before he repented of them, and triumphed over their effects by his

sufferings and death. In any case, a similar feeling is expressed by our

odd mystic Blake in his "Everlasting Gospel":

"If He (Jesus) intended to take on sin,

His mother should an harlot have bin."

The actual records of Christ are too meagre the moment he is regarded as

an allegory of human life; and such additions to the creed spring

naturally out of the ardent seeker's desire to realise the universality

implied in the dogma of his Godhead, which is accepted even by Blake as

a historical fact beyond question. It was not the character of so much

as can be perceived of the universe which daunted Luther and Duerer, as

it daunts the serious man to-day. They accepted what appears to us a

cheap and easy subterfuge, because they believed it to have been

prescribed by God; the ambiguous inferences which such a prescription

must logically cast on the Divine character did not arrest their

attention. What they gained was a free conscience, a conscience in which

Christ was, to use their language, and which was in Christ; and for

practical piety this was sufficient. They themselves had not made up

their minds on theoretical points; it was only in the face of their

opponents that they thought of arming themselves with like weapons, and

sought a mechanical agreement upon questions about which no one ever has

known, or probably ever can know, anything at all. This was where

Luther's pugnacity betrayed him; so that little by little he seems to

lose spiritual beauty, as the monk, all fire and intensity, is

transformed into the "plump doctor," and again into the bird of ill omen

who croaked.

"The arts are growing as if there was to be a new start and the world

was to become young again. I hope God will finish with it. We have come

already to the White Horse. Another hundred years and all will be over."

Compare this with Duerer's:

"Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both

well and better about this art than I."

"Would to God that it were possible for me to see the work and art of

the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might

be improved."

I do not want to judge Luther harshly; he had done splendidly, and it is

difficult to meddle with worldly things without soiling one's fingers

and depressing one's heart; but I ask which of these two quotations

expresses man's most central character best--the desire for nobler

life--which reveals the more admirable temper? (Duerer had been touched

by the spirit of the Renaissance as well as by that of the Reformation;

we can distinguish easily when he is speaking under the one influence,

when under the other, and the contrast often impresses one as the

contrast between the above quotations. And it gives us great reason to

deplore that the two spirits could not work side by side as they did in

Duerer and a few rare souls, but that in the world there was war between

them.) It seems inevitable that the things men fight about should always

be spoiled. The best part of written thought is something that cannot be

analysed, cannot therefore be defended or used for offence; it is a

spirit, an emanation, something that influences us more subtly than we

know how to describe.

We see by the passage quoted that Duerer was not only influenced by

Luther's heroism, but by his doctrinal theorising. Unfortunately we do

not know whether he outgrew this second and less admirable influence.

Did he feel like his friend Pirkheimer in the end, that "the new

evangelical knaves made the old popish knaves seem pious by contrast?"

Milton under similar circumstances came to think that "New Presbyter is

but old Priest writ large." Probably not; for just as we know he did not

abandon what seemed to him beautiful and helpful in old Catholic

ceremonies, usages, and conceptions, so probably he would not confuse

what had been real gain in the Reformation with the excesses of

Anabaptists or Socialists, or even of Luther himself or his followers.

There is no reason to suppose he would have judged so hastily as the

gouty irascible Pirkheimer, however much he may have deplored the course

of events. It must have been evident to thoughtful men, then, that it

was impossible for so large an area to be furnished with properly

trained pastors in so short a time, and that therefore more or less

deplorable material was bound to be mingled in the official _personnel_

of the new sect. It is impossible, when we consider how he solved the

precisely parallel difficulty in aesthetics, not to feel that if he had

had time given him, he would have arrived in point of doctrine at a

moderation similar to that of Erasmus.

Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty....

Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know not certainly

what the ultimate measure of true beauty is.... Because now we cannot

altogether attain unto perfection shall we, therefore, wholly cease from

learning? By no means ... for it behoveth the rational man to choose the

good. (See the passage complete on page 15.)

Luther imagined that the faith that saved was entire confidence in the

fact that a bargain had been struck between the Persons of the Trinity,

according to which Christ's sacrifice should be accepted as satisfying

the justice of his Father, outraged by Adam's fault. To-day this appears

to the majority of educated men a fantastic conception. For them the

faith that saves is love of goodness, as love of beauty saves the artist

from mistakes into which his intelligence would often plunge him. Jesus

has no claim upon us superior to his goodness and his beauty; nor can we

conceive of the possibility of such a claim. But we recognise with Duerer

that we do not know what the true measure of goodness and beauty is, and

all that we can do is to choose always the good and the beautiful

according to the measure of our reason--to the fulness of the light at

present granted to us.

The curiosity of the modern man of science no doubt is descended from

that of men like Leonardo and the early Humanists, but it differs from

almost more than it resembles it. The motive power behind both is no

doubt the confidence of the healthy mind that the human intelligence

will ultimately prove adequate to comprehend the spectacle of the

universe. But for the Humanists, for Duerer and his friends, the

consciousness of the irreconcilableness of that spectacle with the

necessary ideals of human nature had not produced, as in our

contemporaries and our immediate forerunners it has produced, either the

atrophy of expectation which afflicts some, or the extravagance of

ingenuity that cannot rest till it has rationalised hope, which torments

others. They were saddled with neither the indifference nor the

restlessness of the modern intellect. They escaped like boys on a

holiday. They felt conscious of doing what their schoolmaster meant them

to do, though they were actually doing just what they liked. It was all

for the glory of God in Duerer's mind; but how or why God should be

pleased with what he did, did not trouble him. He engraved and sold

impressions of a plate representing a sow with eight legs; he made a

drawing, which is at Oxford, of an infant girl with two heads and four

arms, and calmly wrote beneath it:--

Item, in the year reckoned 1512, after the birth of Christ, such a

creature (_Frucht_) as is represented above, was born in Bavaria, on the

Lord of Werdenberg's land, in a village named Ertingen over against

Riedlingen. It was on the 20th of the hay month (July), and they were

baptized, the one head Elspett, the other Margrett.

Just so, Luther is no more than St. Paul abashed to say that God had

need of some men intended for dishonour, as a potter makes some vessels

for honourable, some for dishonourable uses. The modern mind at once

reflects: "If that is the case, so much the worse for God; by so much is

it impossible that I should ever worship Him;" and it will prefer any

prolongation of "that most wholesome frame of mind, a suspended

judgment," to accepting a solution so cheap as that offered by the

Apostle and Reformer, which has come to seem simply injurious.

The spirit of the enlarged schoolboy was, I think, really the attitude

of the best minds then and onwards to Descartes and Spinoza. They gave

themselves up to the study of nature without ceasing to belong to their

school, yet freed, as on a holiday, from the constraint of being

actually in it. Yet, in regard to their personal and social life, at

least north of the Alps, the majority of such men were very consciously

and dutifully under "their great taskmaster's eye"; and in that also

they differ in a measure from the more part of modern scientists.

Duerer made up a rhinoceros from a sketch and description sent to him

from Portugal, whither the uncouth creature had been brought in a ship

from Goa. Duerer's drawing was engraved and became the parent of

innumerable rhinoceroses in lesson-books, doing service right down well

into the late century, as Thausing assures us. The unfortunate original

was sent as a present to Leo X., who wanted to see him fight with an

elephant which had made him laugh by squirting water and kneeling down

to be blessed as sensibly as a Christian. So the poor beast was shipped

again, only to be shipwrecked near Porto Venere, where he was last seen

swimming valiantly, but hopelessly impeded by his chain, and baffled by

the rocky shore. In the Netherlands, Duerer's curiosity to see a whale

nearly resulted in his own shipwreck, and indirectly produced the malady

which finally killed him. But Duerer's curiosity was really most

scientific where it was most artistic; in his portraits, in his studies

of plants and birds and the noses of stags, or the slumber of lions.

Doubtless it was not a very dissimilar motive which gained him entrance

into the women's bath at Nuremberg, for we see he must have been there

by the beautiful pen drawing at Bremen and the slighter one of the same

subject at Chatsworth. These drawings may also illustrate what in his

book on the Proportion he calls the words of difference--stout, lean,

short, tall, &c. (see p. 285), as he would seem to have chosen types as

various as possible, ranging from the human sow to the slim and

dignified beauty. In the same spirit he studied perspective and the art

of measuring; he felt the importance to art of inquiry in these

directions; nevertheless, to seize the beautiful elements in nature was

ever the object of his efforts, however, roundabout they may sometimes

appear to us. "The sight of a fine human figure is above all things the

most pleasing to us, wherefore I will first construct the right

proportions of a man." (See p. 321.) His aesthetic curiosity had nothing

in common with that which considers all objects and appearances as

equally interesting. What he meant by Nature, when he bid the artist

have continual recourse to her, was far from being the momentary and

accidental appearance of any thing or things anywhere,--which the modern

"student of Nature" admires because he has neither sufficient force of

character to prefer, nor sufficient right feeling to defer to the

preferences of those who have more.

Leonardo's natural history is delightful reading, because it combines

such fantastic and inventive fables as surpass even the happiest efforts

of our nonsense writers with a beautiful openness of mind which we see

oftener in children than in sages,--which is, in fact, the seriousness

of those who are truly learning, and are not too conscious of what has

already been learnt.

As a boy adds to the pleasure he has in adventuring further and further

into a cave the delight of awesome supposition--for what may not the

next turn reveal?--and is pleased to feel all his young machinery ready

instantly to enact a panic if his torch should blow out, and laughs at

each furtive rehearsal of his own terror in which he indulges;--so the

Humanists turned from astronomy to astrology, and used their skill in

mathematics to play with horoscopes which they more than half believed

might bite. There was just enough doubt as to whether any given wonder

was a miracle to make it interesting; and at any moment the pall of

superstition might stifle the flickering light of inquiry, as we feel

was the case when Duerer writes:

The most wonderful thing I ever saw occurred in the year 1503, when

crosses fell upon many persons, and especially on children rather than

on elder people. Amongst others, I saw one of the form which I have

represented below. It had fallen into Eyrer's maid's shift, as she was

sitting in the house at the back of Pirkheimer's (i.e., in the house

where Duerer was born). She was so troubled about it that she wept and

cried aloud, for she feared that she must die because of it.

I have also seen a comet in the sky.

And again, the terror caused by a very bad and strange dream passes the

bounds of play; and one feels that the belief that a vision of the night

might produce or prefigure dreadful change was for him something a great

deal more serious than for the dilettante spiritualist and

wonder-tickler of to-day. He writes:

In the night between Wednesday and Thursday after Whit Sunday (May

30-31, 1525), I saw this appearance in my sleep--how many great waters

fell from heaven. The first struck the earth about four miles away from

me with terrific force and tremendous noise, and it broke up and drowned

the whole land. I was so sore afraid that I awoke from it. Then the

other waters fell, and as they fell they were very powerful, and there

were many of them, some further away, some nearer. And they came down

from so great a height that they all seemed to fall with an equal

slowness. But when the first water that touched the earth had very

nearly reached it, it fell with such swiftness, with wind and roaring,

and I was so sore afraid that when I awoke my whole body trembled, and

for a long while I could not recover myself. So when I arose in the

morning, I painted it above here as I saw it God turn all these things

to the best. ALBRECHT DUeRER.

The instinct for recording which dictates such a note as this is

characteristic of Duerer, and called into being many of his drawings.

Many such naive and explicit records as that on the drawing which

Raphael sent him are to be found in the flyleaves of books and on the

margins of prints and drawings, his possessions. In such notes we may

see not only an effect of the curiosity, and desire to arrange and

co-ordinate information, which resulted in modern science; but something

that is akin to that worship and respect for the deeds and productions

of those long dead or in distant countries, in which the human spirit

relieved itself from the oppressive expectation of judgment and

vengeance which had paralysed it, as the beauty of the supernatural

world was lost sight of behind its terrors, and witches and wizards

engrossed the popular mind, in which for a time saints and angels had

held the ascendancy. The future now became the return of a golden age;

not a garish and horrible novelty called heaven and hell, but a human

society beautiful as that of the Greeks, grand as that of republican

Rome, sweet and hospitable as the household of Jesus and Mary. The

Reformation is in part a return of the old fears; but Duerer has recorded

only one bad dream, whereas he tells that he was often visited by dreams

worthy of the glorious Renascence. "Would to God it were possible for me

to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet

unborn, for I know that I might be improved. Ah! _how often in my_ sleep

do I behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof

never appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake even the remembrance of

them leaveth me!" Why was he not sent to Rome to see the ceiling of the

Sistina and Raphael's Stanze? Perchance it was these that he saw in

his dreams?

CHAPTER VI

DUeRER'S JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS

It is even more the case with Duerer's journal written in the Netherlands

than with the letters from Venice that, like life itself, it is full of

repetitions and over-insistence on what is insignificant. I quote the

most interesting passages, and as there is never a good reason for doing

again what has already been well done; I am happy to quote Sir Martin

Conway's excellent notes, having found occasion to add only one. Duerer

set out on July 12, 1520, with his wife and her maid Susanna. It was

probably this Susanna who three years later married Georg Penz, one of

"the three godless painters." Duerer took a great many prints and

woodcuts, books both to sell and to give as presents; and besides he

took a sketch book in which he made silver-point sketches and portraits.

A good number of its pages have come down to us, and a great many of the

portraits he mentions having taken were done in it, and then cut out to

give to the sitter. All these drawings are on the same sized paper. We

reproduce one of them here (see page 156). Besides this sketch-book he

evidently had a memorandum-book in which he recorded what he did, what

he spent, whom he saw, and occasionally what he felt or what he wished.

The original is lost, but an old copy of it is in the Bamberg Library.

_July_ 12.--On Thursday after Kilian's, I, Albrecht Duerer, at my own

charges and costs, took myself and my wife (and maid Susanna) away to

the Netherlands. And the same day, after passing through Erlangen, we

put up for the night at Baiersdorf and spent there 3 pounds less

6 pfennigs.

July 13.--Next day, Friday, we came to Forchheim, and there I paid 22

pf. for the convoy.

Thence I journeyed to Bamberg, where I presented the Bishop (Georg III.

Schenk von Limburg[24]) with a Madonna painting, a Life of our Lady, an

Apocalypse, and a Horin's worth of engravings. He invited me as his

guest, gave me a Toll-pass[25] and three letters of introduction, and

paid my bill at the inn, where I had spent about a florin.

I paid six florins in gold to the boatman who took me from Bamberg to

Frankfurt.

Master Lukas Benedict and Hans,[26] the painter, sent me wine.

* * * * *

ANTWERP, _August_ 2-26, 1520.

At Antwerp I went to Jobst Plankfelt's[27] inn, and the same evening at

Fuggers' Factor,[28] Bernhard Stecher invite and gave us a costly meal.

My wife, however, dined at the inn. I paid the driver three gold florins

for bringing us three, and one st. I paid for carrying the goods.

_August_ 4.--On Saturday after the feast of St. Peter in Chains my host

took me to see the Burgomaster's (Arnold van Liere) house at Antwerp. It

is newly built and beyond measure large, and very well ordered, with

spacious and exceedingly beautiful chambers, a tower splendidly

ornamented, a very large garden--altogether a noble house, the like of

which I have nowhere seen in all Germany. The house also is reached from

both sides by a very long street, which has been quite newly built

according to the Burgomaster's liking and at his charges.

I paid three st. to the messenger, two pf. for bread, two pf. for ink.

August 5.--On Sunday, it was St. Oswald's Day, the painters invited me

to the hall of their guild, with my wife and maid. All their service was

of silver, and they had other splendid ornaments and very costly meats.

All their wives also were there. And as I was being led to the table the

company stood on both sides as if they were leading some great lord. And

there were amongst them men of very high position, who all behaved most

respectfully towards me with deep courtesy, and promised to do

everything in their power agreeable to me that they knew of. And as I

was sitting there in such honour the Syndic (Adrian Horebouts) of

Antwerp came, with two servants, and presented me with four cans of wine

in the name of the Town Councillors of Antwerp, and they had bidden him

say that they wished thereby to show their respect for me and to assure

me of their good will. Wherefore I returned them my humble thanks and

offered my humble service. After that came Master Peeter (Frans), the

town-carpenter, and presented me with two cans of wine, with the offer

of his willing services. So when we had spent a long and merry time

together till late in the night, they accompanied us home with lanterns

in great honour. And they begged me to be ever assured and confident of

their good will, and promised that in whatever I did they would be

all-helpful to me. So I thanked them and laid me down to sleep.

The Treasurer (Lorenz Sterk) also gave me a child's head (painted) on

linen, and a wooden weapon from Calicut, and one of the light wood

reeds. Tomasin, too, has given me a plaited hat of alder bark. I dined

once with the Portuguese, and have given a brother of Tomasin's three

fl. worth of engravings.

Herr Erasmus[29] has given me a small Spanish _mantilla_ and three men's

portraits.

I took the portrait of Herr Niklas Kratzer,[30] an astronomer. He lives

with the King of England, and has been very helpful and useful to me in

many matters. He is a German, a native of Munich. I also made the

portrait of Tomasin's daughter, Mistress Zutta by name. Hans

Pfaffroth[31] gave me one Philips fl. for taking his portrait in

charcoal. I have dined once more with Tomasin. My host's brother-in-law

entertained me and my wife once. I changed two light florins for

twenty-four st. for living expenses, and I gave one st. _t&k&d_ to a man

who let me see an altar-piece.

[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on a white ground, in the Berlin

Print Room]

_August_ 19.--On the Sunday after our dear Lady's Assumption I saw the

great Procession from the Church of our Lady at Antwerp, when the whole

town of every craft and rank was assembled, each dressed in his best

according to his rank. And all ranks and guilds had their signs, by

which they might be known. In the intervals great costly pole-candles

were borne, and their long old Frankish trumpets of silver. There were

also in the German fashion many pipers and drummers. All the instruments

were loudly and noisily blown and beaten.

I saw the procession pass along the street, the people being arranged in

rows, each man some distance from his neighbour, but the rows close one

behind another. There were the Goldsmiths, the Painters, the Masons, the

Broderers, the Sculptors, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Sailors, the

Fishermen, the Butchers, the Leatherers, the Clothmakers, the Bakers,

the Tailors, the Cordwainers--indeed, workmen of all kinds, and many

craftsmen and dealers who work for their livelihood. Likewise the

shopkeepers and merchants and their assistants of all kinds were there.

After these came the shooters with guns, bows, and cross-bows, and the

horsemen and foot-soldiers also. Then followed the watch of the Lords

Magistrates. Then came a fine troop all in red, nobly and splendidly

clad. Before them, however, went all the religious Orders and the

members of some Foundations very devoutly, all in their different robes.

A very large company of widows also took part in this procession. They

support themselves with their own hands and observe a special rule. They

were all dressed from head to foot in white linen garments, made

expressly for the occasion, very sorrowful to see. Among them I saw some

very stately persons. Last of all came the Chapter of our Lady's Church,

with all their clergy, scholars, and treasurers. Twenty persons bore the

image of the Virgin Mary with the Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest

manner, to the honour of the Lord God.

In this procession very many delightful things were shown, most

splendidly got up. Waggons were drawn along with masques upon ships and

other structures. Behind them came the company of the Prophets in their

order, and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the

Three Holy Kings riding on great camels and on other rare beasts, very

well arranged; also how our Lady fled to Egypt--very devout--and many

other things, which for shortness I omit. At the end came a great Dragon

which St. Margaret and her maidens led by a girdle; she was especially

beautiful. Behind her came St. George with his squire, a very goodly

knight in armour. In this host also rode boys and maidens most finely

and splendidly dressed in the costumes of many lands, representing

various Saints. From beginning to end the procession lasted more than

two hours before it was gone past our house. And so many things were

there that I could never write them all in a book, so I let it

well alone.

* * * * *

BRUSSELS _August_ 26-_September_ 3, 1520.

In the golden chamber in the Townhall at Brussels I saw the four

paintings which the great Master Roger van der Weyden[32] made. And I

saw out behind the King's house at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth,

and Beast-garden[33]; anything more beautiful and pleasing to me and

more like a Paradise I have never seen. Erasmus is the name of the

little man who wrote out my supplication at Herr Jacob de Bannisis'

house. At Brussels is a very splendid Townhall, large, and covered with

beautiful carved stonework, and it has a noble open tower. I took a

portrait at night by candlelight of Master Konrad of Brussels, who was

my host; I drew at the same time Doctor Lamparter's son in charcoal,

also the hostess.

I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land

of gold (Mexico), a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all

of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armour of the

people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and

darts, very strange clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects

of human use, much better worth seeing than prodigies. These things were

all so precious that they are valued at 100,000 florins. All the days of

my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these

things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled

at the subtle _Ingenia_ of men in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot

express all that I thought there.

At Brussels I saw many other beautiful things besides, and especially I

saw a fish bone there, as vast as if it had been built up of squared

stones. It was a fathom long and very thick, it weighs up to 15 cwt.,

and its form resembles that drawn here. It stood up behind on the fish's

head. I was also in the Count of Nassau's house,[34] which is very

splendidly built and as beautifully adorned. I have again dined with my

Lords (of Nuernberg).

When I was in the Nassau house in the chapel there, I saw the good

picture[35] that Master Hugo van der Goes painted, and I saw the two

fine large halls and the treasures everywhere in the house, also the

great bed wherein fifty men can lie. And I _saw_ the great stone which

the storm cast down in the field near the Lord of Nassau. The house

stands high, and from it there is a most beautiful view, at which one

cannot but wonder: and I do not believe that in all the German lands the

like of it exists.

Master Bernard van Orley, the painter, invited me and prepared so costly

a meal that I do not think ten fl. will pay for it. Lady Margaret's

Treasurer (Jan de Marnix), whom I drew, and the King's Steward, Jehan de

Metenye by name, and the Town-Treasurer named Van Busleyden invited

themselves to it, to get me good company. I gave Master Bernard a

_Passion_ engraved in copper, and he gave me in return a black Spanish

bag worth three fl. I have also given Erasmus of Rotterdam a _Passion_

engraved in copper.

I have once more taken Erasmus of Rotterdam's portrait[36] I gave Lorenz

Sterk a sitting _Jerome_ and the _Melancholy_, and took a portrait of my

hostess' godmother. Six people whose portraits I drew at Brussels have

given me nothing. I paid three st. for two buffalo horns, and one st.

for two Eulenspiegels.[37]

ANTWERP, _September 6-October 4_, 1520.

I have paid one st for the printed "Entry into Antwerp," telling how the

King was received with a splendid triumph--the gates very costly

adorned--and with plays, great joy, and graceful maidens whose like I

have seldom seen.[38] I changed one fl. for expenses. I saw at Antwerp

the bones of the giant. His leg above the knee is 5-1/2 ft. long and

beyond measure heavy and very thick; so with his shoulder blades--a

single one is broader than a strong man's back--and his other limbs. The

man was 18 ft. high, had ruled at Antwerp and done wondrous great feats,

as is more fully written about him in an old book,[39] which the Lords

of the Town possess.

[Illustration: ERASMUS From a reproduction of the drawing in the "Leon

Bonnat" collection, Bayonne _Face p._ 148]

The studio (school) of Raphael of Urbino has quite broken up since his

death,[40] but one of his scholars, Tommaso Vincidor of Bologna[41] by

name, a good painter, desired to see me. So he came to me and has given

me an antique gold ring with a very well cut stone. It is worth five

fl., but already I have been offered the double for it. I gave him six

fl. worth of my best prints for it. I bought a piece of calico for three

st.; I paid the messenger one st.; three st. I spent in company.

I have presented a whole set of all my works to Lady Margaret, the

Emperor's daughter, and have drawn her two pictures on parchment with

the greatest pains and care. All this I set at as much as thirty fl. And

I have had to draw the design of a house for her physician the doctor,

according to which he intends to build one; and for drawing that I would

not care to take less than ten fl. I have given the servant one st., and

paid one st. for brick-colour.

* * * * *

October 1.--On Monday after Michaelmas, 1520, I gave Thomas of Bologna a

whole set of prints to send for me to Rome to another painter who should

send me Raphael's work[42] in return. I dined once with my wife. I paid

three st. for the little tracts. The Bolognese has made my portrait;[43]

he means to take it with him to Rome.

* * * * *

AACHEN, _October 7-26, 1520_.

_October_ 7.--At Aachen I saw the well-proportioned pillars,[44] with

their good capitals of green and red porphyry (_Gassenstein_) which

Charles the Great had brought from Rome thither and there set up. They

are correctly made according to Vitruvius' writings.

_October_ 23.--On October 23 King Karl was crowned at Aachen. There I

saw all manner of lordly splendour, more magnificent than anything that

those who live in our parts have seen--all, as it has been described.

* * * * *

KOeLN, _October 26--November 14, 1520_.

I bought a tract of Luther's for five white pf., and the "Condemnation

of Luther," the pious man, for one white pf.; also a rosary for one

white pf. and a girdle for two white pf., a pound of candles for

one white pf.

_November_ 12.--I have made the nun's portrait. I gave the nun seven

white pf. and three half-sheet engravings. My confirmation[45] from the

Emperor came to my Lords of Nuernberg for me on Monday after Martin's, in

the year 1520, after great trouble and labour.

ANTWERP, _November_ %--_December_ 3, 1520.

At Zierikzee, in Zeeland, a whale has been stranded by a high tide and a

gale of wind. It is much more than 100 fathoms long, and no man living

in Zeeland has seen one even a third as long as this is. The fish cannot

get off the land; the people would gladly see it gone, as they fear the

great stink, for it is so large that they say it could not be cut in

pieces and the blubber boiled down in half a year.

ZEELAND, _December_ 3-14, 1520.

_December_ 8.--I went to Middelburg. There, in the Abbey, is a great

picture painted by Jan de Mabuse--not so good in the modelling

(_Hauptstreichen_) as in the colouring. I went next to the Veere, where

lie ships from all lands; it is a very fine little town.

At Arnemuiden, where I landed before, a great misfortune befel me. As we

were pushing ashore and getting out our rope, a great ship bumped hard

against us, as we were in the act of landing, and in the crush I had let

every one get out before me, so that only I, Georg Kotzler,[46] two old

wives, and the skipper with a small boy were left in the ship. When now

the other ship bumped against us, and I with those named was still in

the ship and could not get out, the strong rope broke; and thereupon, in

the same moment, a storm of wind arose, which drove our ship back with

force. Then we all cried for help, but no one would risk himself for us.

And the wind carried us away out to sea. Thereupon the skipper tore his

hair and cried aloud, for all his men had landed and the ship was

unmanned. Then were we in fear and danger, for the wind was strong and

only six persons in the ship. So I spoke to the skipper that he should

take courage (_er sollt ein Herz fahen_) and have hope in God, and that

he should consider what was to be done. So he said that if he could haul

up the small sail he would try if we could come again to land. So we

toiled all together and got it feebly about half-way up, and went on

again towards the land. And when the people on shore, who had already

given us up, saw how we helped ourselves, they came to our aid and we

got to land.

Middelburg is a good town; it has a very beautiful Townhall with a fine

tower. There is much art shown in all things here. In the Abbey the

stalls are very costly and beautiful, and there is a splendid gallery of

stone; and there is a fine Parish Church. The town was besides excellent

for sketching (_koestlich au konterfeyen_). Zeeland is fine and wonderful

to see because of the water, for it stands higher than the land. I made

a portrait of my host at Arnemuiden. Master Hugo and Alexander Imhof and

Friedrich the Hirschvogels' servant gave me, each of them, an Indian

cocoa-nut which they had won at play, and the host gave me a

sprouting bulb.

_December_ 9--Early on Monday we started again by ship and went by the

Veere and Zierikzee and tried to get sight of the great fish,[47] but

the tide had carried him off again.

ANTWERP, _December_ 14--_April_ 6, 1521

I have eaten alone thus often.

I took portraits of Gerhard Bombelli and the daughter of Sebastian the

Procurator.

_February_ 10.--On Carnival Sunday the goldsmiths invited me to dinner

early with my wife. Amongst their assembled guests were many notable

men. They had prepared a most splendid meal, and did me exceeding great

honour. And in the evening the old Bailiff of the town[48] invited me

and gave a splendid meal, and did me great honour. Many strange masquers

came there. I have drawn the portrait in charcoal of Florent Nepotis,

Lady Margaret's organist. On Monday night Herr Lopez invited me to the

great banquet on Shrove-Tuesday, which lasted till two o'clock, and was

very costly. Herr Lorenz Sterk gave me a Spanish fur. To the

above-mentioned feast very many came in costly masks, and especially

Tomasin and Brandan. I won two fl. at play.

I dined once with the Frenchman, twice with the Hirschvogels' Fritz, and

once with Master Peter Aegidius[49] the Secretary, when Erasmus of

Rotterdam also dined with us.

I have twice more drawn with the metal-point the portrait of the

beautiful maiden for Gerhard.

I made Tomasin a design, drawn and tinted in half colours, after which

he intends to have his house painted.

I bought the five silk girdles, which I mean to give away, for three fl.

sixteen st.; also a border (_Borte_) for twenty st. These six borders I

sent to the wives of Caspar Nuetzel, Hans Imhof, Straeub, the two

Spenglers, and Loeffelholz,[50] and to each a good pair of gloves. To

Pirkheimer I sent a large cap, a costly inkstand of buffalo horn, a

silver Emperor, one pound of pistachios, and three sugar canes. To

Caspar Nuetzel I sent a great elk's foot, ten large fir cones, and cones

of the stone-pine. To Jacob Muffel I sent a scarlet breastcloth of one

ell; to Hans Imhof's child an embroidered scarlet cap and stone-pine

nuts; to Kramer's wife four ells of silk worth four fl.; to Lochinger's

wife one ell of silk worth one fl.; to the two Spenglers a bag and three

fine horns each; to Herr Hieronymus Holzschuher a very large horn.

BRUGES AND GHENT, _April_ 6-11, 1521.

I saw the chapel[51] there which Roger painted, and some pictures by a

great old master. I gave one st. to the man who showed us them. Then I

bought three ivory combs for thirty st. They took me next to St. Jacob's

and showed me the precious pictures by Roger and Hugo,[52]

who were both great masters. Then I saw in our Lady's Church the

alabaster[53] Madonna, sculptured by Michael Angelo of Rome. After that

they took me to many more churches and showed me all the good pictures,

of which there is an abundance there; and when I had seen the Jan van

Eyck[54] and all the other works, we came at last to the painters'

chapel, in which there are good things. Then they prepared a banquet for

me, and I went with them from it to their guild-hall, where many

honourable men were gathered together, both goldsmiths, painters and

merchants, and they made me sup with them. They gave me presents, sought

to make my acquaintance, and did me great honour. The two brothers,

Jacob and Peter Mostaert, the councillors, gave me twelve cans of wine;

and the whole assembly, more than sixty persons, accompanied me home

with many torches. I also saw at their shooting court the great fish-tub

on which they eat; it is 19 feet long, 7 feet high, and 7 feet wide. So

early on Tuesday we went away, but before that I drew with the

metal-point the portrait of Jan Prost, and gave his wife ten st.

at parting.

* * * * *

On my arrival at Ghent the Dean of the Painters came to me and brought

with him the first masters in painting; they showed me great honour,

received me most courteously, offered me their goodwill and service, and

supped with me. On Wednesday they took me early to the Belfry of St.

John, whence I looked over the great wonderful town, yet in which even I

had just been taken for something great. Then I saw Jan van Eycks

picture;[55] it is a most precious painting, full of thought (_ein

ueberkoestlich hochverstaendig Gemuehl_), and the Eve, Mary, and God the

Father are specially good. Next I saw the lions and drew one with the

metal-point.[56] And I saw at the place where men are beheaded on the

bridge, the two statues erected (in 1371) as a sign that there a son

beheaded his father.[57] Ghent is a fine and remarkable town; four great

waters flow through it. I gave the sacristan (at St. Bavon's) and the

lions' keepers three st. _trinkgeld_. I saw many wonderful things in

Ghent besides, and the painters with their Dean did not leave me alone,

but they ate with me morning and evening and paid for everything, and

were very friendly to me. I gave away five st. at the inn at leaving.

ANTWERP, _April_ 11-_May_ 17, 1521.

In the third week after Easter (April 21-27) a violent fever seized me,

with great weakness, nausea, and headache. And before, when I was in

Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from

any man, and this sickness remains with me. I paid six st. for cases.

The monk has bound two books for me in return for the art-wares which I

gave him. I bought a piece of arras to make two mantles for my

mother-in-law and my wife, for ten fl. eight st. I paid the doctor eight

st., and three st. to the apothecary. I also changed one fl. for

expenses, and spent three st. in company. Paid the doctor ten st. I

again paid the doctor six st. During my illness Rodrigo has sent me many

sweetmeats. I gave the lad four st. _trinkgeld_.

[Illustration: Drawing in silver-point on prepared ground, from the

Netherlands sketch-book, in the Imperial Library, Vienna]

On Friday (May 17) before Whit Sunday in the year 1521, came tidings to

me at Antwerp, that Martin Luther had been so treacherously taken

prisoner; for he trusted the Emperor Karl, who had granted him his

herald and imperial safe conduct. But as soon as the herald had conveyed

him to an unfriendly place near Eisenach he rode away, saying that he no

longer needed him. Straightway there appeared ten knights, and they

treacherously carried off the pious man, betrayed into their hands, a

man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, a follower of the true Christian

faith. And whether he yet lives I know not, or whether they have put him

to death; if so, he has suffered for the truth of Christ and because he

rebuked the unchristian Papacy, which strives with its heavy load of

human laws against the redemption of Christ. And if he has suffered it

is that we may again be robbed and stripped of the truth of our blood

and sweat, that the same may be shamefully and scandalously squandered

by idle-going folk, while the poor and the sick therefore die of hunger.

But this is above all most grievous to me, that, may be, God will suffer

us to remain still longer under their false, blind doctrine, invented

and drawn up by the men alone whom they call Fathers, by whom also the

precious Word of God is in many places wrongly expounded or

utterly ignored.

Oh God of heaven, pity us! Oh Lord Jesus Christ, pray for Thy people!

Deliver us at the fit time. Call together Thy far-scattered sheep by Thy

voice in the Scripture, called Thy godly Word. Help us to know this Thy

voice and to follow no other deceiving cry of human error, so that we,

Lord Jesus Christ, may not fall away from Thee. Call together again the

sheep of Thy pasture, who are still in part found in the Roman Church,

and with them also the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who

have been scattered by the oppression and avarice of the Pope and by

false appearance of holiness. Oh God, redeem Thy poor people constrained

by heavy ban and edict, which it nowise willingly obeys, continually to

sin against its conscience if it disobeys them. Never, oh God, hast Thou

so horribly burdened a people with human laws as us poor folk under the

Roman Chair, who daily long to be free Christians, ransomed by Thy

blood. Oh highest, heavenly Father, pour into our hearts, through Thy

Son, Jesus Christ, such a light, that by it we may know what messenger

we are bound to obey, so that with good conscience we may lay aside the

burdens of others and serve Thee, eternal, heavenly Father, with happy

and joyful hearts.

And if we have lost this man, who has written more clearly than any that

has lived for 140 years, and to whom Thou hast given such a spirit of

the Gospel, we pray Thee, oh heavenly Father, that Thou wouldst again

give Thy Holy Spirit to one, that he may gather anew everywhere together

Thy Holy Christian Church, that we may again live free and in Christian

manner, and so, by our good works, all unbelievers, as Turks, Heathen,

and Calicuts, may of themselves turn to us and embrace the Christian

faith. But, ere Thou judgest, oh Lord, Thou wiliest that, as Thy Son,

Jesus Christ, was fain to die by the hands of the priests, and to rise

from the dead and after to ascend up to heaven, so too in like manner it

should be with Thy follower Martin Luther, whose life the Pope

compasseth with his money, treacherously towards God. Him wilt thou

quicken again. And as Thou, oh my Lord, ordainedst thereafter that

Jerusalem should for that sin be destroyed, so wilt thou also destroy

this self-assumed authority of the Roman Chair. Oh Lord, give us then

the new beautified Jerusalem, which descendeth out of heaven, whereof

the Apocalypse writes, the holy, pure Gospel, which is not obscured by

human doctrine.

Every man who reads Martin Luther's books may see how clear and

transparent is his doctrine, because he sets forth the holy Gospel.

Wherefore his books are to be held in great honour, and not to be burnt;

unless indeed his adversaries, who ever strive against the truth and

would make gods out of men, were also cast into the fire, they and all

their opinions with them, and afterwards a new edition of Luther's works

were prepared. Oh God, if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound to

us the holy Gospel with such clearness? What, oh God, might he not still

have written for us in ten or twenty years!

Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this man,

inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened

man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the

wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear,

thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the

truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou an aged little

man (_ein altes Maenniken_), and myself have heard thee say that thou

givest thyself but two years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to

accomplish somewhat. Lay out the same well for the good of the Gospel

and of the true Christian faith, and make thyself heard. So, as Christ

says, shall the Gates of Hell (the Roman Chair) in no wise prevail

against thee. And if here below thou wert to be like thy master Christ

and sufferedst infamy at the hands of the liars of this time, and didst

die a little the sooner, then wouldst thou the sooner pass from death

unto life and be glorified in Christ. For if thou drinkest of the cup

which He drank of, with Him shalt thou reign and judge with justice

those who have dealt unrighteously. Oh Erasmus, cleave to this that God

Himself may be thy praise, even as it is written of David. For thou

mayest, yea verily thou mayest overthrow Goliath. Because God stands by

the Holy Christian Church, even as He only upholds the Roman Church,

according to His godly will. May He help us to everlasting salvation,

who is God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, one eternal God. Amen.

Oh ye Christian men, pray God for help, for His judgment draweth nigh

and His justice shall appear. Then shall we behold the innocent blood

which the Pope, Priests, Bishops, and Monks have shed, judged and

condemned (_Apocal._). These are the slain who lie beneath the Altar of

God and cry for vengeance, to whom the voice of God answereth: Await the

full number of the innocent slain, then will I judge.

* * * * *

ANTWERP, _May_ 17--_June_ 7, 1521.

Master Gerhard,[58] the illuminator, has a daughter about eighteen years

old named Susanna. She has illuminated a _Salvator_ on a little sheet,

for which I gave her one fl. It is very wonderful that a woman can do so

much. I lost six st. at play. I saw the great Procession at Antwerp on

Holy Trinity day. Master Konrad gave me a fine pair of knives, so I gave

his little old man a _Life of our Lady_ in return. I have made a

portrait in charcoal of Master Jan,[59] goldsmith of Brussels, also one

of his wife. I have been paid two fl. for prints. Master Jan, the

Brussels goldsmith, paid me three Philips fl. for what I did for him,

the drawing for the seal and the two portraits. I gave the Veronica,

which I painted in oils, and the _Adam and Eve_ which Franz did, to Jan,

the goldsmith, in exchange for a jacinth and an agate, on which a

Lucretia is engraved. Each of us valued his portion at fourteen fl.

Further, I gave him a whole set of engravings for a ring and six stones.

Each valued his portion at seven fl. I bought two pairs of shoes for

fourteen st., and two small boxes for two st. I changed two Philips fl.

for expenses. I drew three _Leadings-forth_[60] and two Mounts of

Olives on five half-sheets. I took three portraits in black and white on

grey paper. I also sketched in black and white on grey paper two

Netherland costumes. I painted for the Englishman his coat of arms, and

he gave me one fl. I have also at one time and another done many

drawings and other things to serve different people, and for the more

part of my work have received nothing. Andreas of Krakau paid me one

Philips fl. for a shield and a child's head. Changed one il. for

expenses. I paid two fl. for sweeping-brushes. I saw the great

procession at Antwerp on Corpus Christi day; it was very splendid. I

gave four st. as trinkgeld. I paid the doctor six st. and one st. for a

box. I have dined five times with Tomasin. I paid ten st. at the

apothecary's, and gave his wife fourteen st. for the clyster and

himself.... To the monk who confessed my wife I gave eight st.

* * * * *

MECHLIN, _June 7 and 8, 1521_.

* * * * *

At Mechlin I lodged with Master Heinrich, the painter, at the sign of

the Golden Head.[61] And the painters and sculptors bade me as guest at

my inn and did me great honour in their gathering. I went also to

Poppenreuter[62] the gunmaker's house, and found wonderful things there.

And I went to Lady Margaret's and showed her my _Emperor,_[63] and would

have presented it to her, but she so disliked it that I took it

away with me.

And on Friday Lady Margaret showed me all her beautiful things. Amongst

them I saw about forty small oil pictures, the like of which for

precision and excellence I have never beheld. There also I saw more good

works by Jan (de Mabuse), and Jacob Walch.[64] I asked my Lady for

Jacob's little book, but she said she had already promised it to her

painter.[65] Then I saw many other costly things and a precious

library.[66]

ANTWERP, _June_ 8--_July_ 3, 1521.

Master Lukas, who engraves in copper, asked me as his guest. He is a

little man, born at Leyden in Holland; he was at Antwerp.

I have drawn with the metal-point the portrait of Master Lukas van

Leyden.[67]

The man with the three rings has overreached me by half. I did not

understand the matter. I bought a red cap for my god-child[68]for

eighteen st. Lost twelve st. at play. Drank two st.

Cornelius Grapheus, the Secretary, gave me Luther's "Babylonian

Captivity,"[69] in return for which I gave him my three Large Books.

[Illustration: LUCAS VAN DER LEYDEN Drawing in charcoal formerly in the

collection at Warwick Castle.]

I reckoned up with Jobst and found myself thirty-one fl. in his debt,

which I paid him; therein were charged and deducted the two portrait

heads which I painted in oils, for which he gave five pounds of borax

Netherlands weight. In all my doings, spendings, sales, and other

dealings, in all my connections with high and low, I have suffered loss

in the Netherlands; and Lady Margaret in particular gave me nothing for

what I made and presented to her. And this settlement with Jobst was

made on St. Peter and Paul's day.

On our Lady's Visitation, as I was just about to leave Antwerp, the King

of Denmark sent to me to come to him at once, and take his portrait,

which I did in charcoal. I also did that of his servant Anton, and I was

made to dine with the King, and he behaved graciously towards me. I have

entrusted my bale to Leonhard Tucher and given over my white cloth to

him. The carrier with whom I bargained did not take me; I fell out with

him. Gerhard gave me some Italian seeds. I gave the new carrier

(_Vicarius_) the great turtle shell, the fish-shield, the long pipe, the

long weapon, the fish-fins, and the two little casks of lemons and

capers to take home for me, on the day of our Lady's Visitation, 1521.

BRUSSELS, _July_ 3-12, 1521.

I noticed how the people of Antwerp marvelled greatly when they saw the

King of Denmark, to find him such a manly, handsome man and come hither

through his enemy's land with only two attendants. I saw, too, how the

Emperor rode forth from Brussels to meet him, and received him

honourably with great pomp. Then I saw the noble, costly banquet, which

the Emperor and Lady Margaret held next day in his honour.

Thomas Bologna has given me an Italian work of art; I have also bought a

work for one st.

A few days later when the Duerers arrived at Cologne the journal breaks

off abruptly, as the last few leaves are missing: but there is every

reason to suppose that they got back safely to Nuremberg two or three

weeks later.

This journal shows us how the influence of a greater centre of

civilisation strengthened the spirit of the Renascence in Duerer: it is

marked by his having again taken up the paint brushes to do the best

sort of work, by a new out-break of the collector's acquisitiveness,

lastly by the tone of such a passage as that wherein the procession on

the Sunday after our Lady's Assumption (p. 145) is spoken of with

admiration. "Twenty persons bore the image of the Virgin Mary with the

Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest manner, to the honour of the Lord

God." Such a spectacle has a very different significance to his mind

from that of another procession in honour of the Virgin, depicted in a

woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer, which presents a large space in front of

a temporary church; in the midst is a gaudy statue of the Virgin set

upon a pillar, around whose base seven or eight persons of both sexes,

whom one might suppose from their attitudes to be drunk, are seen

writhing, while a procession headed by huge cierges and a cardinal's hat

on a pole encircles the whole building; those in the procession carrying

offerings or else candles, two men being naked save for scanty hair

shirts. On the margin of the copy now at Coburg Duerer has written:

"1523, this Spectre, contrary to Holy Scripture, has set itself up at

Regensburg and has been dressed out by the Bishop. God help us that we

should not so dishonour His precious mother but (honour her?) in Christ

Jesus. Amen." Indeed, it would be difficult to distinguish between the

kind of honour done the Virgin in many of Duerer's pictures and etchings

and that done her in the Antwerp procession; but both are infinitely

removed from the degradation of emotion produced by an orgy of

superstition such as that depicted in Ostendorfer's print, which is

truly nearer akin to the scenes that occasionally occur in Salvation

Army or Methodist revivals, and is even more repugnant to the spirit of

the Renascence than to that of the Reformation as Luther and Duerer

conceived of it. It is well to remind ourselves, by reading such a

passage and by gazing at Duerer's Virgins enthroned and crowned with

stars, that the attitude of later Protestants in regard to the worship

of the Virgin was in no sense shared by Duerer. And we touch the very

pulse of the Renaissance in the phrase, "Being a painter, I looked about

me a little more boldly,"--by which Duerer explains that the beautiful

maidens, almost naked, who figured in the mythological groups along the

route of Charles V.'s triumphal entry into Antwerp received a very

different reward, in his attentive gaze, to that which was meted to them

by the young, austere, and unreformed Charles. One might almost be

listening to Vasari when Duerer says: "I saw out behind the King's house

at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth and Beast-garden; anything more

beautiful and pleasing to me and more like Paradise I have never seen."

Duerer's admiration for Luther was like Michael Angelo's for Savonarola,

and he never doubted that fiery indignation was directed against the

abuse of wealth, force, and beauty, not against their use; though

perhaps both the Italian and the German reformer occasionally

confused the two.

III

Duress journey was successful in that he obtained from Charles V. what

he sought--the confirmation of his privilegium.

CHARLES, by God's grace, Roman Emperor Elect, etc.

Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved,

Whereas the most illustrious Prince, Emperor Maximilian, our dear lord

and grandfather of praiseworthy memory, appointed and assigned unto our

and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Duerer the sum of 100

florins Rhenish every year of his life to be paid from and out of our

and the Empire's customary town contributions, which you are bound to

render yearly into our Imperial Treasury; and whereas we, as Roman

Emperor, have graciously agreed thereto, and have granted anew this life

pension unto him according to the terms of the above letter; we

therefore earnestly command you, and it is our will, that you render and

give unto the said Albrecht Duerer henceforward every year of his life,

from and out of the said town contributions and in return for his proper

quittance, the said life pension of 100 florins Rhenish, together with

whatever part of it stands over unpaid since the Emperor Maximilian's

grant; etc.

Given at our and the Holy Empire's town Koeln on the fourth day of the

month November (1520), etc.

(Signed) KARL.

(Signed) ALBRECHT, Cardinal, Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor.

Besides, he got back to Nuremberg without falling in with highwaymen,

though the following little letter shows us that in this he was

fortunate.

Dear Master Wolf Stromer,--My most gracious lord of Salzburg has sent

me a letter by the hand of his glass-painter. I shall be glad to do

anything I can to help him. He is to buy glass and materials here. He

tells me that near Freistadtlein he was robbed and had twenty florins

taken from him. He has asked me to send him to you, for his gracious

lord told him if he wanted anything to let you know. I send him,

therefore, to your Wisdom with my apprentice. Your Wisdom's,

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

No doubt he had enriched his mind and cheered his heart in the company

of prosperous, go-ahead, and earnest men; but as he says, "when I was in

Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from

any man, and this sickness remains with me" (see p. 156). And, alas! it

was to remain with him till he died of it. So that his journey cannot be

considered as altogether fortunate.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 24: He was one of the leading Humanists of the time. The

Madonna referred to was still at Bamberg, at the beginning of the

present century.]

[Footnote 25: Owing to the existence of some rudimentary form of

Zollverein, Duerer's pass not only freed him of dues in the Bamberg

district but as far down the Rhine as Koeln.]

[Footnote 26: Hans Wolf, successor to Hans Wolfgang Katzheimer.]

[Footnote 27: There is a portrait drawing of Jobst Plankfelt by Duerer in

the Staedel collection at Frankfurt.]

[Footnote 28: That is the head of the Fuggers' branch house at Antwerp.]

[Footnote 29: Erasmus of Rotterdam, the famous Humanist.]

[Footnote 30: Holbein also painted a portrait of this man in 1528. The

picture is in the Louvre.]

[Footnote 31: A pen-and-ink likeness of him by Duerer is in the

possession of the painter Bendemann, of Duesseldorf. It bears the

inscription in Duerer's hand, "1520. _Hans Pfaffroth van Dantzgen ein

Starkmann_."]

[Footnote 32: These were four pictures painted upon linen. They

represented _The justice of Trajan, Pope Gregory praying for the

Heathen_, and two incidents in the story of Erkenbald. The pictures were

burnt in 1695, but their compositions are reproduced in the well-known

Burgundian tapestries at Bern. See Pinchart, in the _Bulletins de

l'Academie de Bruxelles_, 2nd Series, XVII.: also Kinkel, _Die brusseler

Rathhausbilder_, &c., Zurich, 1867.]

[Footnote 33: A rapid sketch made by Duerer in this place is in the

Academy at Vienna. It is dated 1520, and inscribed, "that is the

pleasure and beast-garden at Brussels, seen down behind out of

the Palace."]

[Footnote 34: A reproduction of an old view of this house will be found

in _L'Art_, 1884, I. p. 188.]

[Footnote 35: This picture was painted on four panels and represented

the Seven Sacraments and a Crucifix. It is now lost. A similar picture

is in the Antwerp Gallery, ascribed to Roger van der Weyden.]

[Footnote 36: This is perhaps the drawing in the Bounat collection at

Paris; it has been photographed by Braun (see illus. opposite).]

[Footnote 37: It is believed that Duerer here refers to an edition of the

satirical tale edited by Thomas Murner, and published at Strassburg

in 1519.]

[Footnote 38: "He afterwards particularly described to Melanchthon the

splendid spectacles he had beheld, and how in what were plainly

mythological groups, the most beautiful maidens figured almost naked,

and covered only with a thin transparent veil. The young Emperor did not

hocour them with a single glance, but Duerer himself was very glad to get

near, not less for the purpose of seeing the tableaux than to have the

opportunity of observing closely the perfect figures of the young

girls." As he himself says, "Being a painter, I looked about me a little

more boldly."--See Thausing's "Life of Duerer," vol. ii., p. 181.]

[Footnote 39: _Het oud register van diversche mandementen_, a

fifteenth-century folio manuscript, still preserved in the Antwerp

archives.]

[Footnote 40: On April 6, 1520.]

[Footnote 41: Tommaso was sent to Flanders in 1520 by Pope Leo X. to

oversee the manufacture of the "second series" of tapestries. The

painter does not seem to have returned to Italy.]

[Footnote 42: Engravings by Marcantonio from Raphael's designs.]

[Footnote 43: The picture is lost, but an engraving of it made by And.

Stock in 1629 is well-known.]

[Footnote 44: The fine monoliths brought from Ravenna and still to be

seen in Aachen Cathedral.]

[Footnote 45: The confirmation of his pension; _see_ p. 166.]

[Footnote 46: Member of a Nuernberg family.]

[Footnote 47: The object of the whole expedition was doubtless, that

Duerer might see and sketch the whale. In the British Museum is a study

of a walrus by Duerer, dated 1521, and inscribed, "The animal whose head

I have drawn here was taken in the Netherlandish sea, and was twelve

Brabant ells long and had four feet."]

[Footnote 48: Gerhard van de Werve.]

[Footnote 49: Pupil and afterwards friend of Erasmus.]

[Footnote 50: These people were Duerer's principal Nuernberg friends.]

[Footnote 51: It is assumed by commentators that _Chapel_ means

_Altar-piece_, and it is guessed that the particular altar-piece is the

one in the Berlin Museum which Charles V. is reported to have carried

about with him, and which belonged to the Miraflores Convent. The

guesses are worthless.]

[Footnote 52: In St. Jacob's was the _Entombment_ by Hugo van der Goes.]

[Footnote 53: It is in white marble. It was sculpted about 1501-6. Some

critics have refused to accept it as a genuine work. Duerer ought to have

been in a position to know the truth.]

[Footnote 54: At this time there were plenty of his pictures at Bruges.

Duerer doubtless saw his Madonna in St. Donatien's, now in the Academy of

the same town.]

[Footnote 55: The famous altar-piece painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck,

of which the central part is still in its original place and the wings

are divided, two of their panels being at Brussels and the rest

at Berlin.]

[Footnote 56: This drawing from Duerer's sketch-book is in the Court

Library at Vienna (see pl. opposite).]

[Footnote 57: The story is recounted in _Flandria illustrata_ (A.

Sanderi, Colon., 1641, i. 149.)]

[Footnote 58: Gerhard Horeboul of Ghent. Charles V.'s 'Book of Hours' in

the Vienna library is his work. He also had a hand in the Grimani

Breviary. After 1521 he went to England and entered the service of Henry

VIII. His daughter Susanna was likewise in the service of the English

King. She married and died in England.]

[Footnote 59: Perhaps Jan van den Perre, afterwards goldsmith to Charles

V.]

[Footnote 60: That is to say, drawings representing _Christ bearing HIS

CROSS_. _Mount of Olives_ means the Agony _in the_ Garden.]

[Footnote 61: The inn-keeper of the _Golden Head_ is known to have been

a painter. His name was Heinrich Keldermann.]

[Footnote 62: Though born at Koeln, he was called Hans von Nuernberg. He

was cannon-founder and gun-maker to Charles V.]

[Footnote 63: Doubtless Duerer's portrait of Maximilian, now in the

Gallery at Vienna, dated 1519. (_see_ p. 215).]

[Footnote 64: Jacopo de' Barbari.]

[Footnote 65: Bernard van Orley.]

[Footnote 66: The catalogue of this library exists in the inventory of

the Archduchess' possessions.]

[Footnote 67: This is in the Musee Wicar at Lille; another portrait of

Lukas van Leyden by Duerer was in the Earl of Warwick's collection (_see_

opposite).]

[Footnote 68: Hieronymus Imhof.]

[Footnote 69: A quarto tract by Luther, printed in 1520 (without place

or date), entitled _Von der Babylonischen gefenglnuss der Kirchen_.]

CHAPTER VII

DUeRER'S LAST YEARS

Duerer came back home with health broken: yet it is to this period that

the magnificent portraits at Berlin of Nuremberg Councillors belong, and

certainly his hand and eye had never been more sure than when he

produced them. The hall of the Rathhaus was decorated under his

direction and from his designs, the actual painting being, it is

supposed, chiefly the work of George Penz, who with his fellow prentices

became famous in 1524 as one of "the three godless painters."

We now come to a letter dated

NUeRNBERG, _December_ 5, 1523, Sunday after Andrew's

My dear and gracious Master Frey--I have received the little book you

sent to Master (Ulrich) Varnbueler and me; when he has finished reading

it I will read it too. As to the monkey-dance you want me to draw for

you, I have drawn this one here, unskilfully enough, for it is a long

time since I saw any monkeys; so pray put up with it. Convey my willing

service to Herr Zwingli (the reformer), Hans Leu (a Protestant painter),

Hans Urich, and my other good masters. ALBRECHT DUeRER. Divide these five

little prints amongst you: I have nothing else new.

This Master Felix Frey was a reformer at Zurich: he was probably not

closely related to Hans Frey, Duerer's father-in-law, whose death is thus

recorded in Duerer's book:

In the year 1523 (as they reckon it), on our dear Lady's Day, when she

was offered in the Temple, early, before the morning chimes, Hans Frey,

my dear father-in-law, passed away. He had lain ill for almost six years

and suffered quite incredible adversities in this world. He received the

Sacraments before he died. God Almighty be gracious to him.

Next we have letters from and to Niklas Kratzer, Astronomer to Henry

VIII. He had been present when Duerer drew Erasmus' portrait at Antwerp.

Duerer had also made a drawing of Kratzer, and later on Holbein was to

paint his masterpiece in the Louvre from the Oxford professor.

To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht Duerer, burgher of Nuernberg,

my dear Master and Friend. LONDON, _October_ 24, 1524. Honourable,

dear Sir,

I am very glad to hear of your good health and that of your wife. I have

had Hans Pomer staying with me in England. Now that you are all

evangelical in Nuernberg I must write to you. God grant you grace to

persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but God is stronger, and

is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want

you, dear Herr Albrecht Duerer, to make a drawing for me of the

instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure

distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp. Or perhaps

Herr Pirkheimer would send me the design of it--he would be doing me a

great favour. I want also to know how much a set of impressions of all

your prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at Nuernberg

relating to my art. I hear that our friend Hans, the astronomer, is

dead. Would you write and tell me what instruments and the like he has

left, and also where our Stabius' prints and wood-blocks are to be

found? Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I hope to make him a map of

England, which is a great country, and was unknown to Ptolemy. He would

like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no

more than a small part of it. You cannot write to me any longer through

Hans Pomer. Pray send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S.

Koloman.[70]I have nothing more to say that would interest you, so God

bless you. Given at London, October 24. Your servant, NIKLAS KRATZEH.

Greet your wife heartily for me.

To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his

Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend.

NUeRNBERG, Monday after Barbara's (_December_ 5), 1524.

First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received

and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are

going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer

about the instrument you wanted to have. He is having one made for you,

and is going to send it to you with a letter. The things Herr Hans left

when he died have all been scattered; as I was away at the time of his

death I cannot find out where they are gone to. The same has happened to

Stabius' things; they were all taken to Austria, and I can tell you no

more about them. I should like to know whether you have yet begun to

translate Euclid into German, as you told me, if you had time, you

would do.

We have to stand in disgrace and danger for the sake of the Christian

faith, for they abuse us as heretics; but may God grant us His grace and

strengthen us in His word, for we must obey Him rather than men. It is

better to lose life and goods than that God should cast us, body and

soul, into hell-fire. Therefore, may He confirm us in that which is

good, and enlighten our adversaries, poor, miserable, blind creatures,

that they may not perish in their errors.

Now God bless you! I send you two likenesses, printed from copper, which

you will know well. At present I have no good news to write you, but

much evil. However, only God's will cometh to pass. Your Wisdom's,

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

Another letter to Duerer from Cornelius Grapheus at Antwerp gives us some

help towards understanding how the Reformation affected Duerer and

his friends.

To Master Albrecht Duerer, unrivalled chief in the art of painting, my

friend and most beloved brother in Christ, at Nuernberg; or in his

absence to Wilibald Pirkheimer.

I wrote a good long letter to you, some time ago, in the name of our

common friend Thomas Bombelli, but we have received no answer from you.

We are, therefore, the more anxious to hear even three words from you,

that we may know how you are and what is going on in your parts, for

there is no doubt that great events are happening. Thomas Bombelli sends

you his heartiest greeting. I beg you, as I did in my last letter, to

greet Wilibald Pirkheimer a score of times for me. Of my own condition I

will tell you nothing. The bearers of this letter will be able to

acquaint you with everything. They are very good men and most sincere

Christians. I commend, them to you and my friend Pirkheimer as if they

were myself; for they, themselves the best of men, merit the highest

recommendation to the best of men. Farewell, dearest Albrecht. Amongst

us there is a great and daily increasing persecution on account of the

Gospel. Our brethren, the bearers, will tell you all about it more

openly. Again farewell.

Wholly yours,

CORNELIUS GRAPHEUS.

ANTWERP, _February_ 23, 1524.

The events which made Duerer an ardent Evangelical and Reformer in a

coarser paste proved a leaven of anarchy and subversion. Young,

hot-headed nobles like Ulrich Von Hutten became iconoclastic, were

foremost at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a

part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they

were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the

unrest, discontent, and appetite for change took forms if not more

offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a

foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French

Revolution. And in the towns men like "the three godless painters" made

the burghers shake in their shoes for the social order which kept them

rich and respected and others poor and servile. It is strange that all

three should have come from Duerer's workshop. Probably they were the

most talented prentices of the craft, since the great master chose them:

besides, painting was an occupation which allowed of a certain

intellectual development. They may have often listened with hungry ears

to disputes between Pirkheimer and Duerer, and envied the good luck,

grace and gift which had enabled the latter to bridge over a gulf as

great as that which separated them from him, between him and Pirkheimer

or Vambueler. All this and much more we can by taking thought imagine to

our satisfaction; but the point which we would most desire to

satisfactorily conjecture we are utterly in the dark about. Though his

prentices were tried, Duerer appeared neither for nor against them; nor

can we help ourselves to understand a fact so strange by any other

mention of his attitude. He had a year or two previously married his

servant, (perhaps the girl that his wife took with her to the

Netherlands), to Georg Penz, who went the farthest in his scepticism,

recanted soonest, and possessed least talent of the three. But this

fact, which is not quite assured, narrows the grounds of conjecture but

little; we still face an almost boundless blank. It is difficult to

imagine that Duerer was quite as shocked as the Town Council by a man who

said "he had some idea that there was a God, but did not know rightly

what conception to form of him," who was so unfortunate as to think

"nothing" of Christ, and could not believe in the Holy Gospel or in the

word of God; and who failed to recognise "a master of himself, his goods

and everything belonging to him" in the Council of Nuremberg.

Now-a-days, when we think of the licence of assertion that has obtained

on these questions, we are inclined to admire the honesty and

intellectual clarity of such a confession. And Duerer, who resolved the

similar question of authority as to "things beautiful" in a manner much

the same as this, may, we can at least hope, have viewed his prentices

with more of pity than of anger. All the three "godless painters" were

banished from reformed Nuremberg; but Georg, whose confession had been

most godless, recanted and was allowed to return. The others, Sebald and

Barthel Beham, managed to perpetuate their names as "little masters"

without the approbation of the Town Councillors, and are to-day less

forgotten than those who condemned them. Hieronymus Andreae, the most

skilful and famous of Duerer's wood engravers, caused the Council the

same kind of alarm and concern. He took part with the peasants in their

rebellion; but rebellion against a known authority was more pardonable

than that against the unknown, or else his services were of greater

value. At any rate he was pardoned not once but many times, being

apparently an obstreperous character.

III

If we can form no conjecture as to Duerer's relations with his heretical

aids, we have evidence as to his relations with their judges; for in

1524 he wrote to the Town Council thus:

Prudent, honourable and wise, most gracious Masters,--During long years,

by hardworking pains and labour under Gods blessing, I have saved out of

my earnings as much as 1000 florins Rhenish, which I should now be glad

to invest for my support.

I know, indeed, that your Honours are not often wont at the present time

to grant interest at the rate of one florin for twenty; and I have been

told that before now other applications of a like kind have been

refused. It is not, therefore, without scruple that I address your

Honours in this matter. Yet my necessities impel me to prefer this

request to your Honours, and I am encouraged to do so above all by the

particularly gracious favour which I have always received from your

Honourable Wisdoms, as well as by the following considerations.

Your Wisdoms know how I have always hitherto shown myself dutiful,

willing, and zealous in all matters that concerned your Wisdoms and the

common weal of the town. You know, moreover, how, before now, I have

served many individual members of the Council, as well as of the

community here, gratuitously rather than for pay, when they stood in

need of my help, art, and labour. I can also write with truth that,

during the thirty years I have stayed at home, I have not received from

people in this town work worth 500 florins--truly a trifling and

ridiculous sum--and not a fifth part of that has been profit. I have, on

the contrary, earned and attained all my property (which, God knows, has

grown irksome to me) from Princes, Lords, and other foreign persons, so

that I only spend in this town what I have earned from foreigners.

Doubtless, also, your Honours remember that at one time Emperor

Maximilian, of most praiseworthy memory, in return for the manifold

services which I had performed for him, year after year, of his own

impulse and imperial charity wanted to make me free of taxes in this

town. At the instance, however, of some of the elder Councillors, who

treated with me in the matter in the name of the Council, I willingly

resigned that privilege, in order to honour the said Councillors and to

maintain their privileges, usages, and rights.

Again, nineteen years ago, the government of Venice offered to appoint

me to an office and to give me a salary of 200 ducats a year. So, too,

only a short time ago when I was in the Netherlands, the Council of

Antwerp would have given me 300 Philipsgulden a year, kept me there free

of taxes, and honoured me with a well-built house; and besides I should

have been paid in addition at both places for all the work I might have

done for the gentry. But I declined all this, because of the particular

love and affection which I bear to your honourable Wisdoms and to my

fatherland, this honourable town, preferring, as I did, to live under

your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather than to be rich and held in honour

in other places.

It is, therefore, my most submissive prayer to your Honours, that you

will be pleased graciously to take these facts into consideration, and

to receive from me on my account these 1000 florins, paying me 50

florins a year as interest. I could, indeed, place them well with other

respectable parties here and elsewhere, but I should prefer to see them

in the hands of your Wisdoms. I and my wife will then, now that we are

both growing daily older, feebler, and more helpless, possess the

certainty of a fitting household for our needs; and we shall experience

thereby, as formerly, your honourable Wisdoms' favour and goodwill. To

merit this from your Honours with all my powers I shall ever be

found willing.

Your Wisdoms' willing, obedient burgher,

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

Duerer obtained the desired five per cent. on his savings annually until

his death, and afterwards his widow received four per cent. until

her death.

In 1526 the grateful artist finished and dedicated to his

fellow-townsmen his most important picture, representing the four

temperaments in the persons of St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St.

Mark; he wrote thus to the Council:

Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters,--I have been intending, for a

long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation

of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance; but I have been

prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my

works, for I felt that with such I could not well stand before your

Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I

have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none

more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.

Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent

prayer that you will favourably and graciously receive it, and will be

and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.

Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.

Your Wisdoms' humble

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

The gift was accepted, and the Council voted Duerer 100 florins, his wife

10, and his apprentice 2. Underneath the two panels which form the

picture, the following was inscribed; the texts being from

Luther's Bible:

All worldly rulers in these dangerous times should give good heed that

they receive not human misguidance for the Word of God, for God will

have nothing added to His Word nor taken away from it. Hear, therefore,

these four excellent men, Peter, John, Paul, and Mark, their warning.

Peter says in his Second Epistle in the second chapter: There were false

prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers

among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying

the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way

of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they

with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long

time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

John in his First Epistle in the fourth chapter writes thus: Beloved,

believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:

because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye

the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is

come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that

Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that

spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and

even now already is it in the world.

In the Second Epistle to Timothy in the third chapter St. Paul writes:

This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For

men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,

blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural

affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,

despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers

of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but

denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are

they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with

sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come

to the knowledge of the truth.

St. Mark writes in his Gospel in the twelfth chapter: He said unto them

in His doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long

clothing, and love salutations in the market-places, and the chief seats

in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts; which devour

widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall

receive greater damnation.

These rather tremendous texts may make one fear that the "three godless

painters" had found little pity in their master; but most sincere

Christians are better than their creeds, and more charitable than the

old-world imprecations, admonitions, and denunciations, with which they

soothe their Cerberus of an old Adam, who is not allowed to use his

teeth to the full extent that their formidable nature would seem to

warrant. For have they not been told above all things to love their

enemies, and do good to those whom they would naturally hate, by a

master whom they really love and strive to imitate?

Duerer's last years were given more and more to writing down his ideas

for the sake of those who, coming after him, would, he was persuaded, go

on far before him in the race for perfection. In 1525 he published his

first book--"Instruction in the Measurement with the Compass, and Rules

of Lines, Surfaces, and Solid Bodies, drawn up by Albert Duerer, and

printed, for the use of all lovers of art, with appropriate diagrams."

It contains a course of applied geometry in connection with Euclid's

Elements. Duerer states from the very commencement that "his book will be

of no use to any one who understands the geometry of the 'very acute'

Euclid; for it has been written only for the young, and for those who

have had no one to instruct them accurately." Thausing tells us his work

shows certain resemblances to that of Luca Pacioli, a companion of

Leonardo's, who may have been the "man who is willing to teach me the

secrets of the art of perspective," and whom Duerer in 1506 travelled

from Venice to Bologna to see; it is even possible that he saw Leonardo

himself in the latter town. In 1527 he issued an essay on the "Art of

Fortification," which the development of artillery was then

transforming; and authorities on this very special science tell us that

Duerer is the true author of the ideas on which the "new Prussian system"

was founded. It was dread of the unchristian Turk who was then besieging

Vienna which called forth from Duerer this excursion. He dedicated it in

the following terms:

To the most illustrious, mighty prince and lord, Lord Ferdinand, King of

Hungary and Bohemia, Infant of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Duke of

Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and Tirol, his Roman

Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, Regent in the Holy Empire, my

most gracious Sire.

Most illustrious mighty King, most gracious Sire,--During the lifetime

of the most illustrious and mighty Emperor Maximilian of praiseworthy

memory, your Majesty's Lord and Grandsire, I experienced grace and

favour from his Imperial Majesty; wherefore I consider myself no less

bound to serve your Majesty according to my small powers. As it

happeneth that your Majesty has commanded some towns and places to be

fortified, I am induced to make known what little I know about these

matters, if perchance it may please your Majesty to gather somewhat

therefrom. For though my theory may not be accepted in every point,

still I believe something will arise from it, here and there, useful not

to your Majesty only, but to all other Princes, Lords, and Towns, that

would gladly protect themselves against violence and unjust oppression.

I therefore humbly pray your Majesty graciously to accept from me this

evidence of my gratitude, and to be my most gracious lord,

Your Royal Majesty's most humble

ALBRECHT DUeRER.

It seems that at any rate the Kronenburg Gate and Roseneck bastion of

Strasburg were actually constructed in accordance with Duerer's method.

When, on April 6, 1528, Duerer died suddenly, two volumes of his great

work on "Human Proportions" were ready for the press, and enough raw

material, notes, drawings, &c., to enable his friend Pirkheimer to

prepare and issue the remaining two with them. Of the misunderstanding

of this the most important of Duerer's writings I shall say nothing here,

as I have devoted a separate chapter to it.

It seems probable that the "wondrous sickness which overcame me in

Zeeland, such as I never heard of from any man, and which sickness

remains with me" of the Netherlands Journal (p. 156) was an intermittent

fever. There exists at Bremen a sketch of Duerer, nude down to the waist,

and pointing with his finger to a spot between the pit of the stomach

and the groin, which spot he has coloured yellow; and from its size,

with the other descriptions of his malady, the skilful have arrived at

the above diagnosis. The words on the sketch, "The yellow spot to which

my finger points is where it pains me," seem to indicate that he had

made it to send to some skilled physician. Thausing suggests either

Master Jacob or Master Braun, whom he had met at Antwerp, and deduces

from the length of his hair and the apparent vigour of his body, that

the drawing was made soon after the disease was contracted. All doubt as

to its nature would be removed, could it be made certain that by the

words, "I have sent to your Grace early this year before I became ill,"

in a letter to the Elector Albert dated September 4, 1523, Duerer meant

to imply that at a certain period he became ill every year; but of

course it is impossible to be sure of this.

If not rich, Duerer died comfortably off. Thausing tells us that his

"widow entered into possession of his whole fortune;" a fourth part

belonged, according to Nuremberg law, to his brothers, but she was not

bound to render it to them before her death. On June 9, 1530, however,

she "of her own desire, and on account of the friendly feeling which she

entertained for them for her husband's sake, and as her dear

brothers-in-law," made over both to Andreas Duerer, goldsmith, and to

Caspar Altmulsteiner, on behalf of Hans Duerer, then in the service of

the King of Poland, a sum of 553 florins, three pounds, eleven pfennigs,

and gave them a mortgage for the remaining sum of 608 florins, two

pounds, twenty-four pfennigs on the corner house in the Zistelgasse, now

called the Duerer House; for the property had been valued at 6848

florins, seven pounds, twenty-four pfennigs. Johann Neudoerffer, who

lived opposite the Duerers, has recorded the fact that Duerer's brother

Endres inherited all his expensive colours, his copper plates and wood

blocks, as well as any impressions there were, and all his drawings

beside. And a year before her death, Agnes Duerer gave the interest on

the 1000 florins invested in the town to found a scholarship for

theological students at the University of Wittenberg; about which

Melanchthon wrote to von Dietrich that he thanked God for this aid to

study, and that he had praised this good deed of the widow Duerer before

Luther and others. And yet Pirkheimer, in his spleen at having lost the

chance of procuring some stags' antlers which had belonged to his

friend, and which he coveted, could write of Agues Duerer: "She watched

him day and night and drove him to work ... that he might earn money

and leave it her when he died. For she always thought she was on the

borders of ruin--as for the matter of that she does still--though

Albrecht left her property worth as much as six thousand florins. But

there! nothing was enough; and, in fact, she alone is the cause of his

death!" We know that what with the four Apostles and his books Duerer's

last years were not spent on remunerative labours; nor does the

Netherlands Journal contain any hint that his wife tried to restrict the

employment either of his time or money. His journey into Zeeland was a

pure extravagance; for the sale of a copper engraving or woodcut of a

whale would have taken some time to make up for such an expense, and, as

it turned out, no whale was seen or drawn; and there is no hint that

Frau Duerer made reproach or complaint. On the other hand, Pirkheimer's

words probably had some slight basis; and as Duerer's sickness increased

upon him, while at the same time he applied himself less and less to

making money, the anxious Frau may have become fretful or even nagging

at times; and Pirkheimer, whose companionship was probably a cause of

extravagances to Duerer, may have been scolded by Agnes, or heard his

friend excuse himself from taking part in some convivial meeting, on the

plea that his wife found he was spending out of proportion to his

takings at the moment.

VII

We have the testimony of a good number of Duerer's friends as to the

value of his character; and first let us quote from Pirkheimer--writing

immediately after Duerer's death and before' the loss of the coveted

antlers had vexed him--to a common friend Ulrich, probably Ulrich

Varnbueler.

What can be more grievous for a man than to have continually to mourn,

not only children and relations whom death steals from him, but friends

also, and among them those whom he loved best? And though I have often

had to mourn the loss of relations, still I do not know that any death

ever caused me such grief as fills me now at the sudden departure of our

good and dear Albrecht Duerer. Nor is this without reason, for of all men

not united to me by ties of blood, I have never loved or esteemed any

like him for his countless virtues and rare uprightness. And because I

know, my dear Ulrich, that this blow has struck both you and me alike, I

have not been afraid to give vent to my grief before you of all others,

so that together we may pay the fitting tribute of tears to such a

friend. He is gone, good Ulrich; our Albrecht is gone! Oh, inexorable

decree of fate! Oh, miserable lot of man! Oh, pitiless severity of

death! Such a man, yea, such a man, is torn from us, while so many

useless and worthless men enjoy lasting happiness, and live only

too long!

Thausing insists on the fact that in this letter there is no mention of

Duerer's death having been caused by his wife's behaviour; but as the

relation of Ulrich to the deceased seems to have been well-nigh as

intimate as his own, there may have been no need to mention a fact

painfully present to both their minds. On the other hand, it is at least

as probable that the idea was not present even to the mind of the

writer, who, in a style less studiously commonplace, inscribed on

Duerer's tomb:

Me. AL. DU.

QVICQVID ALBERTI DVRERI MORTALE FVIT, SVB HOC CONDITVR TVMVLO. EMIGRAVIT

VIII IDVS APRILIS MDXXVIII.

(To the memory of Albrecht Duerer. All that was mortal of Albrecht Duerer

is laid beneath this mound. He departed on April 6, 1528.)

Luther wrote to Eoban Hesse:

As to Duerer, it is natural and right to weep for so excellent a man;

still you should rather think him blessed, as one whom Christ has taken

in the fulness of His wisdom, and by a happy death, from these most

troublous times, and perhaps from times even more troublous which are to

come, lest one who was worthy to look upon nothing but excellence should

be forced to behold things most vile. May he rest in peace. Amen.

Erasmus had some months before written and printed in a treatise on the

right pronunciation of Latin and Greek an eulogy of Duerer. It is not

known whether a copy had reached him before his death; in any case to

most people it came like a funeral oration from the greatest scholar on

the greatest artist north of the Alps. Thausing quotes the following

passage from it:

I have known Duerer's name for a long time as that of the first celebrity

in the art of painting. Some call him the Apelles of our time. But I

think that did Apelles live now, he, as an honourable man, would give

the palm to Duerer. Apelles, it is true, made use of few and unobtrusive

colours, but still he used colours; while Duerer,--admirable as he is,

too, in other respects,--what can he not express with a single

colour--that is to say, with black lines? He can give the effect of

light and shade, brightness, foreground and background. Moreover, he

reproduces _not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also observes

the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the position of

it_. He can also transfer by enchantment, so to say, upon the canvas,

things which it seems not possible to represent, such as fire, sunbeams,

storms, lightning, and mist; he can portray every passion, show us the

whole soul of a man shining through his outward form; nay, even make us

hear his very speech. All this he brings so happily before the eye with

those black lines, that the picture would lose by being clothed in

colour. Is it not more worthy of admiration to achieve without the

winning charm of colour what Apelles only realised with its assistance?

Melanchthon wrote in a letter to Camerarius:

"It grieves me to see Germany deprived of such an artist and such a

man."

And we learn from his son-in-law, Caspar Penker, that he often spoke of

Duerer with affection and respect; he writes:

Melanchthon was often, and many hours together, in Pirkheimer's company,

at the time when they were advising together about the churches and

schools at Nuernberg; and Duerer, the painter, used _also_ to be invited

to dinner with them. Duerer was a man of great shrewdness, and

Melanchthon used to say of him that though he excelled in the art of

painting, it was the least of his accomplishments. Disputes often arose

between Pirkheimer and Duerer on these occasions about the matters

recently discussed, and Pirkheimer used vehemently to oppose Duerer.

Duerer was an excessively subtle disputant, and refuted his adversary's

arguments, just as if he had come fully prepared for the discussion.

Thereupon Pirkheimer, who was rather a choleric man and liable to very

severe attacks of the gout, fired up and burst forth again and again

into such words as these, "What you say cannot be painted." "Nay!"

rejoined Duerer, "but what you advance cannot be put into words or even

figured to the mind." I remember hearing Melanchthon often tell this

story, and in relating it he confessed his astonishment at the ingenuity

and power manifested by a painter in arguing with a man of

Pirkheimer's renown.

Such scenes no doubt took place during the years after Duerer's return

from the Netherlands. Melanchthon also wrote in a letter to George

von Anhalt:

I remember how that great man, distinguished alike by his intellect and

his virtue, Albrecht Duerer the painter, said that as a youth he had

loved bright pictures full of figures, and when considering his own

productions had always admired those with the greatest variety in them.

But as an older man, he had begun to observe nature and reproduce it in

its native forms, and had learned that this simplicity was the greatest

ornament of art. Being unable completely to attain to this ideal, he

said that he was no longer an admirer of his works as heretofore, but

often sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought over his want

of power.

And in another letter he remembers that Duerer would say that in his

youth he had found great pleasure in representing monstrous and unusual

figures, but that in his later years he endeavoured to observe nature,

and to imitate her as closely as possible; experience, however, had

taught him how difficult it was not to err. And Thausing continues:

"Melanchthon speaks even more frequently of how Duerer was pleased with

pictures he had just finished, but when he saw them after a time, was

ashamed of them; and those he had painted with the greatest care

displeased him so much at the end of three years that he could scarcely

look at them without great pain."

And this on his appreciation of Luther's writings:

Albrecht Duerer, painter of Nuernberg, a shrewd man, once said that there

was this difference between the writings of Luther and other

theologians. After reading three or four paragraphs of the first page of

one of Luther's works he could grasp the problem to be worked out in the

whole. This clearness and order of arrangement was, he observed, the

glory of Luther's writings. He used, on the contrary, to say of other

writers that, after reading a whole book through, he had to consider

attentively what idea it was that the author intended to convey.

Lastly, Camerarius, the professor of Greek and Latin in the new school

of Nuremberg, in his Latin translation of Duerer's book on "Human

Proportions," writes thus:

It is not my present purpose to talk about art. My purpose was to speak

somewhat, as needs must be, of the artificer, the author of this book.

He, I trust, has become known by his virtue and his deserts, not only to

his own country, but to foreign nations also. Full well I know that his

praises need not our trumpetings to the world, since by his excellent

works he is exalted and honoured with undying glory. Yet, as we were

publishing his writings, and an opportunity arose of committing to print

the life and habits of a remarkable man and a very dear friend of ours,

we have judged it expedient to put together some few scraps of

information, learnt partly from the conversations of others and partly

from our own intercourse with him. This will give some indication of his

singular skill and genius as artist and man, and cannot fail of

affording pleasure to the reader. We have heard that our Albrecht was of

Hungarian extraction, but that his forefathers emigrated to Germany. We

can, therefore, have but little to say of his origin and birth. Though

they were honourable, there can be no question but that they gained more

glory from him than he from them.

Nature bestowed on him a body remarkable in build and stature, and not

unworthy of the noble mind it contained; that in this, too, Nature's

Justice, extolled by Hippocrates, might not be forgotten--that Justice,

which, while it assigns a grotesque form to the ape's grotesque soul, is

wont also to clothe noble minds in bodies worthy of them. His head was

intelligent,[71] his eyes flashing, his nose nobly formed, and, as the

Greeks say, tetragonon. His neck was rather long, his chest broad, his

body not too stout, his thighs muscular, his legs firm and steady. But

his fingers--you would vow you had never seen anything more elegant.

His conversation was marked by so much sweetness and wit, that nothing

displeased his hearers so much as the end of it. Letters, it is true, he

had not cultivated, but the great sciences of Physics and Mathematics,

which are perpetuated by letters, he had almost entirely mastered. He

not only understood principles and knew how to apply them in practice,

but he was able to set them forth in words. This is proved by his

geometrical treatises, wherein I see nothing omitted, except what he

judged to be beyond the scope of his work. An ardent zeal impelled him

towards the attainment of all virtue in conduct and life, the display of

which caused him to be deservedly held a most excellent man. Yet he was

not of a melancholy severity nor of a repulsive gravity; nay, whatever

conduced to pleasantness and cheerfulness, and was not inconsistent

with honour and rectitude, he cultivated all his life and approved even

in his old age. The works he has left on Gymnastic and Music are of such

character.

But Nature had specially designed him for a painter, and therefore he

embraced the study of that art with all his energies, and was ever

desirous of observing the works and principles of the famous painters of

every land, and of imitating whatever he approved in them. Moreover,

with respect to those studies, he experienced the generosity and won the

favour of the greatest kings and princes, and even of Maximilian himself

and his grandson the Emperor Charles; and he was rewarded by them with

no contemptible salary. But after his hand had, so to speak, attained

its maturity, his sublime and virtue-loving genius became best

discoverable in his works, for his subjects were fine and his treatment

of them noble. You may judge the truth of these statements from his

extant prints in honour of Maximilian, and his memorable astronomical

diagrams, not to mention other works, not one of which but a painter of

any nation or day would be proud to call his own. The nature of a man is

never more certainly and definitely shown than in the works he produces

as the fruit of his art.... What single painter has there ever been who

did not reveal his character in his works? Instead of instances from

ancient history, I shall content myself with examples from our own time.

No one can fail to see that many painters have sought a vulgar celebrity

by immodest pictures. It is not credible that those artists can be

virtuous, whose minds and fingers composed such works. We have also seen

pictures minutely finished and fairly well coloured, wherein, it is

true, the master showed a certain talent and industry; but art was

wanting. Albrecht, therefore, shall we most justly admire as an earnest

guardian of piety and modesty, and as one who showed, by the magnitude

of his pictures, that he was conscious of his own powers, although none

even of his lesser works is to be despised. You will not find in them a

single line carelessly or wrongly drawn, not a single superfluous dot.

What shall I say of the steadiness and exactitude of his hand? You might

swear that rule, square, or compasses had been employed to draw lines,

which he, in fact, drew with the brush, or very often with pencil or

pen, unaided by artificial means, to the great marvel of those who

watched him. Why should I tell how his hand so closely followed the

ideas of his mind that, in a moment, he often dashed upon paper, or, as

painters say, composed, sketches of every kind of thing with pencil or

pen? I see I shall not be believed by my readers when I relate, that

sometimes he would draw separately, not only the different parts of a

composition, but even the different parts of bodies, which, when joined

together, agreed with one another so well that nothing could have fitted

better. In fact this consummate artist's mind endowed with all knowledge

and understanding of the truth and of the agreement of the parts one

with another, governed and guided his hand and bade it trust to itself

without any other aids. With like accuracy he held the brush, wherewith

he drew the smallest things on canvas or wood without sketching them in

beforehand, so that, far from giving ground for blame, they always won

the highest praise. And this was a subject of greatest wonder to most

distinguished painters, who, from their own great experience, could

understand the difficulty of the thing.

I cannot forbear to tell, in this place, the story of what happened

between him and Giovanni Bellini. Bellini had the highest reputation as

a painter at Venice, and indeed throughout all Italy. When Albrecht was

there he easily became intimate with him, and both artists naturally

began to show one another specimens of their skill. Albrecht frankly

admired and made much of all Bellini's works. Bellini also candidly

expressed his admiration of various features of Albrecht's skill, and

particularly the fineness and delicacy with which he drew hairs. It

chanced one day that they were talking about art, and when their

conversation was done Bellini said: "Will you be so kind, Albrecht, as

to gratify a friend in a small matter?" "You shall soon see," says

Albrecht, "if you will ask of me anything I can do for you." Then says

Bellini: "I want you to make me a present of one of the brushes with

which you draw hairs." Duerer at once produced several, just like other

brushes, and, in fact, of the kind Bellini himself used, and told him to

choose those he liked best, or to take them all if he would. But

Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these,

but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they

must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep

such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I

use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch

me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long

wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the most regular order

and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and afterwards confessed to

many that no human being could have convinced him by report of the truth

of that which he had seen with his own eyes.

A similar tribute was given him, with conspicuous candour, by Andrea

Mantegna, who became famous at Mantua by reducing painting to some

severity of law--a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up

broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It

is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not

trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is

held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. While Andrea

was lying ill at Mantua he heard that Albrecht was in Italy, and had him

summoned to his side at once, in order that he might fortify his

(Albrecht's) facility and certainty of hand with scientific knowledge

and principles. For Andrea often lamented in conversation with his

friends that Albrecht's facility in drawing had not been granted to him

nor his learning to Albrecht. On receiving the message Albrecht, leaving

all other engagements, prepared for the journey without delay. But

before he could reach Mantua Andrea was dead, and Duerer used to say that

this was the saddest event in all his life; for, high as Albrecht stood,

his great and lofty mind was ever striving after something yet

above him.

Almost with awe have we gazed upon the bearded face of the man, drawn by

himself, in the manner we have described, with the brush on the canvas

and without any previous sketch. The locks of the beard are almost a

cubit long, and so exquisitely and cleverly drawn, at such regular

distances and in so exact a manner, that the better any one understands

art, the more he would admire it, and the more certain would he deem it

that in fashioning these locks the hand had employed artificial aid.

Further, there is nothing foul, nothing disgraceful in his work. The

thoughts of his most pure mind shunned all such things. Artist worthy of

success! How like, too, are his portraits! How unerring! How true!

All these perfections he attained by reducing mere practice to art and

method, in a way new at least to German painters. With Albrecht all was

ready, certain, and at hand, because he had brought painting into the

fixed track of rule and recalled it to scientific principles; without

which, as Cicero said, though some things may be well done by help of

nature, yet they cannot always be ready to hand, because they are done

by chance. He first worked his principles out for his own use;

afterwards with his generous and open nature he attempted to explain

them in books, written to the illustrious and most learned Wilibald

Pirkheimer. And he dedicated them to him in a most elegant letter which

we have not translated, because we felt it to be beyond our power to

render it into Latin without, so to speak, disfiguring its natural

countenance. But before he could complete and publish the books, as he

had hoped, he was carried off by death--a death, calm indeed and

enviable, but in our view premature. If there was anything at all in

that man which could seem like a fault, it was his excessive industry,

which often made unfair demands upon him.

Death, as we have said, removed him from the publication of the work

which he had begun, but his friends completed the task from his own

manuscript. About this, in the next place, and about our own version, we

shall say a few words. The work, being founded on a sort of geometrical

system, is unpolished and devoid of literary style; so it seems rather

rugged. But that is easily forgiven in consideration of the excellence

of the matter. He requested me himself, only a few days before his

death, to translate it into Latin while he should correct it; and I

willingly turned my attention and studies to the work. But death, which

takes everything, took from him his power of supervision and correction.

His friends subsequently, after publishing the work, prevailed on me, by

their claims rather than their requests, to undertake the Latin

translation, and to complete after his death the task Duerer had laid

upon me in his life.

If I find that my industry and devotion in this matter meet with my

readers' approval, I shall be encouraged to translate into Latin the

rest of Albrecht's treatise on painting, a work at once more finished

and more laborious than the present. Moreover, his writings on other

subjects will also be looked for, his Geometries and Tichismatics, in

which he explained the fortification of towns according to the system of

the present day. These, however, appear to be all the subjects on which

he wrote books. As to the promise, which I hear certain persons are

making in conversation or in writing, to publish a book by Duerer on the

symmetry of the parts of the horse, I cannot but wonder from what

source they will obtain after his death what he never completed during

his life. Although I am well aware that Albrecht had begun to

investigate the law of truth in this matter too, and had made a certain

number of measurements, I also know that he lost all he had done through

the treachery of certain persons, by whose means it came about that the

author's notes were stolen, so that he never cared to begin the work

afresh. He had a suspicion, or rather a certainty, as to the source

whence came the drones who had invaded his store; but the great man

preferred to hide his knowledge, to his own loss and pain, rather than

to lose sight of generosity and kindness in the pursuit of his enemies.

We shall not, therefore, suffer anything that may appear to be

attributed to Albrecht's authorship, unworthy as it must evidently be of

so great an artist.

A few years ago some tracts also appeared in German, containing rules,

in general faulty and inappropriate, about the same matter. On these I

do not care now to waste words, though the author, unless I am much

mistaken, has not once repented of his publication. But these rules

above-mentioned, which are easily proved to be Albrecht's, not only

because he prepared them himself for publication, but also because of

their own excellence, you will, I think, obtain considerably better here

than from other sources. Not that they are more finished in point of

erudition and learning in the present book than elsewhere, but because

those who interpret them in the author's own workshop, among the

expansions and corrections of his autograph manuscripts and the

variations of his different copies, stand in the light about many

points, which must of necessity seem obscure to others, however learned

they may be.

This will be seen in the case of the book on Geometry, which a learned

man has in hand and will shortly publish in a more elaborate form, and

with more explanation of certain points than it possesses at present.

For it will be increased by no less than twenty-six [Greek: schemata]

(figures) and countless corrections or improvements of earlier editions.

The author himself on rereading had thus improved and amplified what had

already been issued. As though he foresaw that he would publish no more,

he had directed his future editors as to what was to be done about the

letterpress and figures; and we shall take care that it is published at

the earliest possible date in the German language, in which the author

wrote it. It is only to be expected that this will be welcome to the

public, who will thus return thanks for the author's burning desire to

do something by his discoveries for the public good, and for our own

labour and eagerness in publishing to all nations what appears to be

written only for one.

Though these testimonies may often seem either trifling, or obscured by

the pedantic affectation of the writers, they, like the signatures of

well-respected men, endorse the impression produced by Duerer's works and

writings. As we study the character of Duerer's creative gift in relation

to his works, several of the phrases used by Erasmus, Camerarius, and

Melanchthon should take added significance, being probably remembered

from conversations with the great artist himself.[72] Duerer, like

Luther, was depressed and distressed at the course the Reformation had

run; but, like Erasmus, though regretting and disparaging the present,

he looked forward to the future, and knew "that he would be surpassed,"

and had no morbid inclination to see the end and final failure of human

effort in his own exhaustion.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 70: B. 106, published in 1513. The block is in the Court

Library at Vienna. Thawing says it was designed by Burgkmair or

Springinklee.]

[Footnote 71: "_Caput argutum_". The phrase is from Virgil's description

of the thorough-bred horse (_Georg. iii_). The above passage is

introduced (with modifications) into Melchior Adam's _Vitae Germ.

Philos._ (p.66). where this sentence runs: "The deep-thinking,

serene-souled artist was seen unmistakably in his _arched_ and _lofty_

brow and in the fiery glance of his eye."]

[Footnote 72: In the foregoing quotations the sentences which seem to me

most reminiscent of Duerer's ideas are printed in italics.]

PART III

DUeRER AS A CREATOR

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

DUeRER'S PICTURES

Duerer's paintings have suffered more by the malignity of fortune than

any of his other works. Several have disappeared entirely, and several

are but wrecks of what they once were. Others are, as he tells us,

"ordinary pictures," of which "I will in a year paint a pile which no

one would believe it possible for one man to do in the time," and are

perhaps more the work of assistants than of the master. Others, again,

have since been repainted, more or less disastrously. Yet enough remain

to show us that Duerer was not a painter born, in the sense that Titian

and Correggio or Rembrandt and Rubens are; nay, not even in the sense

that a Jan Van Eyck or a Mantegna is. Mantegna is certainly the painter

with whom Duerer has most affinity, and whose method of employing pigment

is least removed from his; but Mantegna is a born colourist--a man whose

eye for colour is like a musician's ear for melody--while Duerer is at

best with difficulty able to avoid glaring discords, and, if we are to

judge by the "ordinary pictures," did not avoid them. Again, Mantegna is

not so dependent on line as Duerer--nearly the whole of whose surface is

produced by hatching with the brush point. These facts may, perhaps,

account for the large portion of Duerer's time devoted to engraving. As

an engraver he early found a style for himself, which he continued to

develop to the end of his life. As a painter he was for ever

experimenting, influenced now by Jacopo de' Barbari, again by Bellini

and the pictures he saw at Venice, and yet again by those he saw in the

Netherlands. As Velasquez, after each of his journeys to Italy, returns

to attempt a mythological picture in the grand style, so Duerer turns to

painting after his return from Venice or from the Netherlands; and his

pictures divide themselves into three groups: those painted after or

during his _Wanderjahre_ and before he went to Venice in 1505, those

painted there and during the next five years after his return, and those

painted in the Netherlands or commenced immediately on his

return thence.

The mediums of oil and tempera lend themselves to the production of

broad-coloured surfaces that merge imperceptibly into one another. There

are men the fundamental unit of whose picture language is a blot or

shape; as children or as savages, they would find these most capable of

expressing what they saw. There are others for whom the scratch or line

is the fundamental unit, for whom every object is most naturally

expressed by an outline. There are, of course, men who present us with

every possible blend of these two fundamental forms of picture language.

The mediums of oils and tempera are especially adapted to the

requirements of those who see things rather as a diaper of shapes than

as a map of lines; while for these last the point of pen, burin, or

etching-needle offers the most congenial implement. Duerer was very

greatly more inclined to express objects by a map of lines than as a

diaper of coloured shapes; and for this reason I say that he was not a

painter born. If this be true, as a painter he must have been at a

disadvantage. In this preponderance of the draughtsman qualities he

resembles many artists of the Florentine school, as also in his

theoretic pre-occupation with perspective, proportion, architecture, and

technical methods. We are impressed by a coldness of approach, an

austerity, a dignity not altogether justified by the occasion, but as it

were carried over from some precedent hour of spiritual elevation; the

prophet's demeanour in between the days of visitation, a little too

consciously careful not to compromise the divinity which informs him no

longer. This tendency to fall back on manner greatly acquired indeed,

but no longer consonant with the actual mood, which is really too vacant

of import to parade such importance, is often a fault of natures whose

native means of expression is the thin line, the geometer's precision,

the architect's foresight in measurement. And by allowing for it I think

we can explain the contradiction apparent between the critics' continual

insistence on what they call Duerer's great thoughts, and the sparsity of

intellectual creativeness which strikes one in turning over his

engravings, so many are there of which either the occasion or the

conception are altogether trivial when compared with the grandiose

aspect of the composition or the impeccable mechanical performance.

Duerer's literary remains sufficiently prove his mind to have been

constantly exercised upon and around great thoughts, and their influence

may be felt in the austerity and intensity of his noblest portraits and

other creations. But "great thoughts" in respect of works of art either

means the communication of a profound emotion by the creation of a

suitable arabesque for a deeply significant subject, as in the flowing

masses of Michael Angelo's _Creation of Man_, or it means the pictorial

enhancing of the telling incidents of a dramatic situation such as we

find it in Rembrandt's treatment of the Crucifixion, Deposition, or

Entombment. Now it seems to me the paucity of successes on these lines

in one who nevertheless occasionally entirely succeeds, is what is most

striking in Duerer. Perhaps when dealing with the graphic arts one should

rather speak of great character than great thoughts; yet Duerer, while

constantly impressing us as a great character, seems to be one who was

all too rarely wholly himself. The abundant felicity in expression of

Rembrandt or Shakespeare is altogether wanting. The imperial imposition

of mood which Michael Angelo affects is perhaps never quite certainly

his, even in the _Melancholy_. Yet we feel that not only has he a

capacity of the same order as those men, but that he is spiritually akin

to them, despite his coldness, despite his ostentation.

But not only is Duerer praised for "great thoughts," but he is praised

for realism, and sometimes accused of having delighted in ugliness; or,

as it is more cautiously expressed, of having preferred truth to grace.

This is a point which I consider may better be discussed in respect to

his drawings than his pictures, which nearly always have some obvious

conventional or traditional character, so that the word realism cannot

be applied to them. Even in his portraits his signature or an

inscription is often added in such a manner as insists that this is a

painting, a panel;--not a view through a window, or an attempt to

deceive the eye with a make-believe reality.

III

The altar-piece, consisting of a centre, the Virgin Mary adoring her

baby son in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, and two wings, St. Anthony

and St. Sebastian, though the earliest of Duerer's pictures which has

survived, is perhaps the most beautiful of them all, at least as far as

the two wings are concerned. The centre has been considerably damaged by

repainting, and was probably, owing to the greater complication of

motives in it, never quite so successful. Whether at Venice or

elsewhere, it would seem almost necessary that the young painter had

seen and been impressed by pictures by Gentile Bellini and Andrea

Mantegna, both of whom have painted in the same thin tempera on fine

canvas, obtaining similar beauties of colour and surface. It is hardly

possible to imagine one who had seen none but German or Flemish pictures

painting the St. Sebastian. The treatment of the still life in the

foreground is in itself almost a proof of this. Perhaps this thin, flat

tempera treatment was that most suited to Duerer's native bias, and we

should regret his having been tempted to overcome the more brilliant and

exacting medium of oils. In any case he more than once reverted to it in

portraits and studies, while the majority of the pictures painted before

he went to Venice in 1506 have more or less kinship with it. The

supposed portrait of Frederic the Wise is another masterpiece in this

kind, and the _Hercules slaying the birds of the Stymphalian Lake_ in

the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, 1500, was probably another. For though

now considerably damaged by restorations and dirt, it suggests far

greater pleasures than it actually imparts. The contrast between

"The sea-worn face sad as mortality,

Divine with yearning after fellowship,"

and the blond richly curling hair blown back from it, is extremely fine

and entirely suited to the treatment; as is also the similar contrast

between the richly inlaid bow, shield, and arrows, and the broad and

flowing modulation of the energetic limbs and back.

The Paumgartner altar-piece, 1499, stands out from the "ordinary

pictures" belonging to this early period. It consists of a charming and

gay Nativity in the centre, and two knights in armour on the wings,

probably portraits of the donors, Stephan and Lucas Paumgartner,

figuring as warlike saints. Stephan, a personal friend of Duerer's,

figured again as St. George in the _Trinity and All Saints_ picture

painted in 1511. There were originally two panels with female saints

beyond these again, but no trace of them remains. Now that the landscape

backgrounds have been removed from the side panels, there is no reason

to suppose that any one but Duerer had a hand in these works. But in

writing to Heller, he tells him that it was unheard of to put so much

work into an altar-piece as he was then putting into his _Coronation of

the Virgin_, and we may feel certain that Duerer regarded this picture as

in the altar-piece category. The two knights are represented against

black grounds, and their silhouettes form a very fine arabesque, which

the streamers of their lances, artificially arranged, complete and

emphasise. This black ground points probably to the influence of Jacopo

de' Barbari, whom Duerer had met and been mystified by. (See p. 63.)

[Illustration: ST. GEORGE AND ST. EUSTACE Side panels in oils of the

Paumgartner Altar-piece in the Alt Pinakothek, Munich]

No doubt there was much in such a background that appealed to the

draughtsman in Duerer. It insisted on the outline which had probably been

the starting-point of his conception. Nothing could be less

painter-like, or make the modelling of figures more difficult, as Duerer,

perhaps, realised when he later on painted the _Adam and Eve_ at Madrid.

These two warriors are, however, most successful and imposing, and

immeasurably enhanced now that the spurious backgrounds, artfully

concocted out of Duerer's own prints by an ingenious improver of his

betters, have been removed. This person had also tinkered the centre

picture, painting out two heraldic groups of donors, far smaller in

scale than the actual personages of the scene, but very useful in the

composition, as giving a more ample base to the masses of broken and

fretted quality; useful also now as an additional proof of how free from

the fetters of an impertinent logic of realism Duerer ever was. These

little kneeling donors and their coats of arms emphasise the surface,

and are delightful in their naivety, while they serve to render the gay,

almost gaudy panel more homely, and give it a place and a function in

the world. For they help us to realise that it answered a demand, and

was not the uncalled-for and slightly frigid excursion of the aesthetic

imagination which it must otherwise appear. In the same way the

brilliant _Adoration of the Magi_ (dated 1504) in the Uffizi, also

somewhat gaudy and frigid, could we but see it where it originally hung

in Luther's church at Wittenberg, might invest itself with some charm

that one vainly seeks in it now. The failure in emotion might seem more

natural if we saw the wise Elector discussing his new purchase; we might

have felt what Duerer meant when a year later he wrote from Venice: "I am

a gentleman here and only a hanger-on at home." The expectation and

prophecy of his success in those who surround a painter,--even if it be

chiefly expressed by bitter rivalry, or the craft by which one greedy

purchaser tries to over-reach another, even if he has to be careful not

to eat at some tables for fear of being poisoned by a host whose

ambition his present performance may have dashed--even expressed in this

truly Venetian manner, the expectation and prophecy of his success in

those about him make it easier for a painter to soar, and may touch his

work with an indefinable glow that the approval of honest and astute

electors or solid burghers may have been utterly powerless to impart.

At Venice, perhaps the occasion for his journey thither, Duerer undertook

a more important work than any he had yet attempted. _The Feast of the

Rose Garlands_ was painted for the high altar of the church of San

Bartolommeo, belonging to the German Merchants' Exchange, and close to

their Pondaco.[73] In it we find a very considerable influence of Italy

in general, and Giovanni Bellini in particular; it is a splendid and

pompous parade piece, and probably the portraits of the German merchants

which it contained were the part of the work which was most successful,

as it was certainly that most congenial to Duerer's genius. The _Christ

among the Doctors_, dated 1506, and now in the Barberini Palace at Rome,

might seem to have been painted chiefly to justify Giovanni Bellini's

astonishment at the calligraphical painting of hair. It is one of those

pictures of which a literary description would please more than the work

itself. Though the contrast between the sweet childish face and those of

the old worldly scribes is well conceived, it is in reality so violent

as to be grotesque, and the play of hands produces the effect of a

diagram explanatory of a conjuring trick, or a deaf and dumb alphabet,

instead of conveying the inner sense of the scene represented after

Rossetti's fashion, who so often succeeded in making hands speak.

Another work, which dates from Venice, is the little _Crucifixion_ (at

Dresden.) Perhaps the landscape and suffering body are just sufficiently

touched with acute emotion to make the arabesque of the two floating

ends of the loin-cloth appear a little out of place; for in spite of the

delicacy and all but tenderness which Duerer has for once attained to in

the workmanship, one's satisfaction seems let and hindered.

Shortly after his return from Venice, Duerer completed two life-size

panels representing Adam and Eve; there are drawings for them dated

during his stay at Venice, but as a work of art they are far less

interesting than the engraving of the same subject completed three years

earlier. The treatment, even the conception, has been inadequately

influenced by the proposed scale of the work. Probably they were like

the earlier Hercules, done to please the artist himself rather than some

patron; they are an effort to prove that he could do something which was

after all too hard for him. Not only had he set himself the problem

which the Greeks and Michael Angelo, and Raphael with their aid alone,

had solved, of finding proportions suitable to express harmoniously the

infinite capacity for complex motion combined with that constancy of

intention which gives dignity to men and women alone among animals; but

the technical problems involved in representing life-size nude figures

against a plain black ground were indeed an unconscious confession that

Duerer did not understand paint. There is a copy of these panels,

recently attributed to Baldung Grien, in the Pitti. Animals and birds

have been added from drawings made by Duerer, but the picture is still

farther from success, though Grien may not improbably have executed it

with Duerer at his elbow. Duerer made one more attempt at representing a

life-size nude, the _Lucretia_, finished in 1518, at a period when his

powers seem to have been clouded, for the few pictures which belong to

it are all inferior. However, studies for the figure exist dated 1508,

so we may suppose it was a project brought back from Venice. His

ill-success with this subject may remind us of Shakespeare's long

pedantic exercise in rhyme on the same theme. The pictorial motive of

Duerer's work is beautiful and worthy of a Greek: indeed it is identical

with that of Watts' _Psyche_, of which the version in private hands is

very superior to that in the Tate Gallery. The position of the bed, the

idea of the draperies all are parallel. No doubt the lonely feather shed

from Love's wing at which Psyche gazes is both more of a poet's and of

a painter's invention than the cold steel of Lucretia's dagger. And in

spite of his wide knowledge of Greek and Italian art, our English master

could scarcely have produced a work of such classic dignity with the

more violent motive of the dagger, which seems to call for "The torch

that flames with many a lurid flake," or at least the torpid glow of

smouldering embers, to light it in such a manner as would make a really

pictorial treatment possible. No doubt Duerer has been misled by a too

tyrannous notion as to what ought to be the physical build of so chaste

a matron, and in his anxiety to make chastity self-evident, has

forgotten to explain the need for it by such a degree of attractiveness

as might tempt a tyrant to be dangerous. Just as Shakespeare, in

attempting to exhaust every possible motive which the situation

comports, has forgotten that for a character that can move us a

selection is needed. Another elaborate piece of frigid invention is the

_Massacre of the Ten Thousand Saints in the reign of Sapor II. of

Persia_, in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, dated 1508. However, in this

case no doubt Duerer could plead that the subject was not of his own

choice, for he was commissioned by the Elector, Frederic the Wise, whose

wisdom probably did not extend to a knowledge of what subjects lend

themselves to pictorial treatment. Still, making every allowance for

these facts, it cannot be admitted that Duerer did the best possible with

his subject. Probably it did not move him, and neither does he us. Peter

Breughel and Albrecht Altdorfer would certainly have done far better so

far as the conception of the picture is concerned, though neither of

them had so much skill to waste on its realisation. Nevertheless, this

tour _de force_ is the picture of Duerer's most pleasing in surface and

colour, with the exception of the Wings _of the Dresden Altar-piece_. It

contains beautiful groups and figures, and is extremely well executed;

so that it may amuse and delight the eye for a long time while the

significance of the subject is forgotten.

[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF TEN THOUSAND SAINTS UNDER SAPOR II. OF

PERSIA--Oil picture. "Iste faciebat anno domini 1508 Albertus Duerer

Alemanus"]

We now turn to the third and fourth of the half-dozen pictures of Duerer,

which stand out from all the rest by their elaboration and importance.

The _Coronation of the Virgin (see_ p. 97), painted as the centre panel

of the altar-piece commissioned by Jacob Heller at Frankfort, was

unfortunately burnt with the palace at Munich on the night of April 9,

1674; the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria having forced or cajoled the

Dominicans, to whose church Heller had left it, to sell it to him. It is

now represented by a copy made by Paul Juvenal in its original position,

where the almost ruined portraits of Heller and his wife are supposed to

have been partly Duerer's, though the other panels are obviously the work

of assistants. This work exists for us in a series of magnificent brush

drawings in black and white line on grey paper, rather than in the copy,

and we can in a measure imagine its appearance by the perfectly-

preserved _Trinity and All Saints_ commenced immediately after

it for Matthew Landauer, and now in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna.

Nothing can surpass this last picture in elaboration and finish; the

colour, if not beautiful, is rich and luminous; and though it is

separate faces and draperies which chiefly delight the eye, the

composition of the whole is an adequate adaptation of the traditional

treatment for such themes which had been handed down through the middle

ages. It invites comparison rather with the similar subjects painted by

Fra Angelico than with the _Disputa_ of Raphael, to which German critics

compare it; however, it possesses as little of Angelico's sweet

blissfulness as the Dominican painter possessed of Duerer's accuracy of

hand and searching intensity of visual realisation. Both painters are

interested in individuals, and, representing crowds of faces, make every

one a portrait; both evince a dramatic sense of propriety in gesture,

both revel in bright, clear colours, especially azure; but as the light

in Duerer's masterpiece has a rosy hotness, which ill bears comparison

with the virginal pearliness of Angelico's heaven, so the costumes and

the figures of the Florentine are doll-like, when compared with the

unmistakable quality of the stuffs in which the fully-resurrected bodies

of Duerer's saints rumple and rustle. The wings of his angels are at

least those of birds, though coloured to fancy, while Angelico's are of

pasteboard tinsel and paint. But in spite of the comparative genuineness

of his upholstery, as a vision of heaven there can be no hesitation in

preferring that of the Florentine.

In a frame designed by Duerer and carved under his supervision, this

monument to thoroughness and skill was ensconced in a little chapel

dedicated to All Saints, which in style approaches our Tudor buildings.

There the frame remained till lately with a poor copy of the picture and

an inscription in old German to this effect: ('Matthew Landauer

completed the dedication of this chapel of the twelve brethren, together

with the foundation attached to it, and this picture, in the year 1511

after the birth of Christ,')

Duerer signed his picture with the same Latin formula as that of the

_Coronation_:

"Albrecht Duerer of Nuremberg did this the year from when the Virgin

brought forth 1511."

VII

Of all Duerer's paintings of the Madonna, there is only one which, by its

superb design, deserves special notice among his masterpieces. This

_Madonna with the Iris_ exists in two versions, both unfinished; one the

property of Sir Frederick Cook, the other at Prague, in the Rudolphium.

This latter Mr. Campbell Dodgson considers to be a poor copy. The panel

is badly cracked, and weeds and long grasses have been added, apparently

with a view to masking the cracks. Judging from a photograph alone, many

of these additions seem so appropriately placed and freely sketched that

I feel it at least to be possibly a work by the master himself. On the

other hand, Sir Frederick's picture is so sleepy and clumsy in handling,

that though it is unfinished, and perhaps in part damaged by some

restorer, I feel great hesitation in regarding it as Duerer's handiwork.

In both cases the magnificent design is his, and that alone in either is

fully representative of him. Mr. Campbell Dodgson ventures to criticise

the profusion of drapery as excessive, but my feeling, I must confess,

endorses Duerer's in this, rather than that of his learned critic. To me

this profusion, and the grandeur it gives as a mass in the design, is of

the very essence of what is most peculiarly creative in Duerer's

imagination.

The last picture of which it is necessary to speak is that of the _Four

Apostles_ or the _Four Preachers_, as they have been more appropriately

called; it was perhaps the last he painted, and is in many respects the

most successful. It is the only one by which the comparison with

Raphael, so dear to German critics, seems at all warranted: there is

certainly some kinship between Duerer's St. John and St. Paul and

apostolic figures in the cartoons or on the Vatican walls. The German

artist's manner is less rhetorical, but his conception is hardly less

grandiose; and his taste does not so closely border on over-emphasis,

but neither is it so conscious or so fluent. Technically it seems to me

that the chief influence is a recollection of the large canvases of Jan

and Hubert Van Eyck and Hubert Van der Goes which Duerer had admired in

the Netherlands; these had strengthened and directed the bias of his

self-culture towards simple masses on a large scale.[74] He may very

well have sought to combine what he learnt from them with hints he found

in the engravings after Raphael which he obtained in Antwerp. His

increasing sickness may probably account for the fact that the white

mantle of St. Paul is the only portion quite finished. The assertion of

the writing-master, Johann Neudoerffer, who in his youth had known Duerer,

that the four figures are typical of the four temperaments, the

sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic,--into which

categories an amateurish psychology arbitrarily divided human

characters,--is as likely to be correct as it is certain that it adds

nothing to the power and beauty of the presentation. Though Duerer in his

work on human proportions describes the physical build of these

different types, we do not know exactly what degree of precision he

imagined it possible to attain in discerning them, or to what extent

their names were merely convenient handles for certain types which he

had chosen aesthetically. To us to-day this classification is merely a

trace of an obsolete pedantry, which it would be a vain curiosity to

attempt to follow with the object of identifying its imaginary bases.

The four preachers have all the air of being striking likenesses of

actual people which it is possible for work so broadly and grandly

conceived to have. These panels are interesting, even more than by their

actual success, as showing us what a scholar Duerer was to the end; how

he learned from every defeat as well as every victory, and constantly

approached a conception and a rendering of human beauty which seems

intimately connected with man's fullest intellectual and spiritual

freedom--a conception and rendering of human beauty which Raphael

himself had to learn from the Greeks and Michael Angelo. The work has

suffered, it is supposed, from restorers, and also from the Munich

monarch, Maximilian, who had the tremendous texts (see page 177) which

Duerer had inscribed beneath the two panels sawn off in order to spare

the feelings of the Jesuits, who were dominant at his court, for their

conception of religion did not consist with terrors to come for those

who, abuse their trust as governors and directors of mankind.

Lastly, mention must be made of Duerer's monochrome masterpiece, The Road

to Calvary 15.27 (see illus.), in the collection of Sir Frederick Cook.

A poor copy of this work is at Dresden, a better one at Bergamo. The

effect of it, and several elaborate water-colour designs of the same

class, is akin to the peculiar richness of chased metal work; glinting

light hovers over crowds of little figures.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 73: The original, now in the Monastery of Strahow-Prague, is

very much damaged, and in part repainted. There are copies in the

Imperial Gallery at Vienna (No. 1508), and in the possession of A. W.

Miller, Esq., of Sevenoaks. It is to be regretted that the Duerer Society

published a photogravure of this latter work, which, though till then

unknown, is far less interesting than the original, of which they only

gave a reproduction in the text, an exhaustive history of its fortunes

from the learned pen of Mr. Cambell Dodgson. This picture, which is so

frequently referred to in the letters from Venice, contains portraits of

the Emperor Maximilian and Pope Julius II., though neither of them from

life, and in the background those of Duerer and Pirkheimer.]

[Footnote 74: See what Melanchthon says, p. 187.]

CHAPTER II

DUeRER'S PORTRAITS

If Duerer's pictures are as a whole the least satisfactory section of his

work, in his portraits he makes us abundant amends for the time he might

otherwise have been reproached for wasting to obtain a vain mastery over

brushes and pigment.

Unfortunately it is probable that many even of these have been lost or

destroyed, while of his most interesting sitters we have nothing but

drawings. He did not paint his friend, the boisterous and learned

Pirkheimer; and what would we not give for a painted portrait of

Erasmus, or a portrait of Kratzer, the astronomer royal, to compare with

the two masterpieces by Holbein in the Louvre? Even the posthumous

portrait of his Imperial patron Maximilian is less interesting than the

drawings from which it was done, the eccentric sitter not having the

time to spare for so sensible a monument.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST Pen drawing in dark brown ink at

Erlangen (This drawing has been cut down for reproduction)]

However, Duerer had one sitter who was perhaps the most beautiful of all

the sons of men, whose features combined in an equal measure nobleness

of character, intellectual intensity and physical beauty; and, finding

him also most patient and accessible, he painted him frequently. The two

earliest portraits of himself are the drawings which show him at the

ages of thirteen and nineteen(?) respectively (see illustration). Then,

as a young man with a sprouting chin, we have the picture till recently

at Leipzig of which Goethe's enthusiastic description has already been

quoted (p. 62). It is probable that neither Titian nor Holbein could

have shown at so early an age a portrait so admirably conceived and

executed. It is a masterpiece, even now that the inevitable improvements

which those who lack all relish of genius rarely lack the opportunity,

never the inclination, to add to a masterpiece, have confused the

drawing of the eyes, and reduced the bloom and delicacy that the

features traced by a master hand, even when they become an almost

complete wreck, often retain; for time and fortune are not so

conscientiously destructive as the imbecility of the incapable. Next we

have a portrait of Duerer when only five years older, in perfect

preservation,--that in the Prado at Madrid. This charming picture must

certainly have drawn a sonnet from the Shakespeare who wrote _Love's

Labour Lost_, could he have seen it. For it presents a young dandy, the

delicacy and sensitiveness of whose features seem to demand and warrant

the butterfly-like display of the white and black costume hemmed with

gold, and of a cap worthy to crown those flowing honey-coloured locks.

There is a good copy of this delightful work in the Uffizi, where, in a

congregation of self-painted artists, it does all but justice to the

most beautiful of them all. For fineness of touch the original has never

been surpassed by any hand of European or even Chinese master. Next

there are the dapper little full-length portraits which Duerer inserted

in his chief paintings. He stands beside his friend Pirkheimer at the

back of the adoring crowd in the _Feast of the Roses_, and again in the

midst of the mountain slope, where on all sides of them the ten thousand

saints suffer martyrdom. Duerer stands alone beside an inscription in a

gentle pastoral landscape beneath the vision of the Virgin's Assumption

seen over the heads of the Apostles, who gaze up in rapture; and again

he is alone beside a broad peaceful river beneath the vision of the Holy

Trinity and All Saints. I know of no parallel to these little portraits.

Rembrandt and Botticelli and many others have introduced portraits of

themselves into religious pictures, but always in disguise, as a

personage in the crowd or an actor in the scene. Only the master who was

really most exceptional for his good looks, has had the kindness, in

spite of every incongruity, to present himself before us on all

important occasions, like the court beauty in whom it is charity rather

than vanity to appear in public. It is expected that the very beautiful

be gracious thus. Emerson tells us that two centuries ago the Town

Council of Montpelier passed a law to constrain two beautiful sisters to

sit for a certain time on their balcony every other day, that all might

enjoy the sight of what was most beautiful in their town. It was one of

the most gracious traits of Jeanne d'Arc's character that she liked to

wear beautiful clothes, because it pleased the poor people to see her

thus. And Palm Sunday commemorates another historical example of such

grace and truth. Duerer's face had a striking resemblance to the

traditional type for Jesus, adding to it just that element of individual

peculiarity, the absence of which makes it ever liable to appear a

little vacant and unconvincing. The perception of this would seem to

have dictated the general arrangement of Duerer's crowning portrait of

himself, that at Munich dated 1500 (see illus.), "Before which" (Mr.

Ricketts writes in his recently published volume on the Prado) "one

forgets all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect

realisation of one of the world's greatest men is equal to the

occasion." The most exhaustive visual power and executive capacity meet

in this picture, which would seem to have traversed the many perils to

which it has been exposed without really suffering so much as their

enumeration makes one expect. Thausing tells us:

The following is the story of the picture's wanderings, as told at

Nuremberg. It was lent by the magistrates, after they had taken the

precaution of placing a seal and strings on the back of the panel, to

the painter and engraver Kuegner, to copy. He, however, carefully sawed

the panel in half (layer-wise) and glued to the authentic back his

miserable copy, which now hangs in the Town Hall. The original he sold,

and it eventually came into the possession of King Ludwig I., before

Nuremberg belonged to Bavaria.

[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl_ "I, Albert Duerer of Nuremberg, painted my

own portrait here in the proper colours at the age of twenty-eight"

Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]

He suggests that the colour was once bright and varied, and that by

varnish and glazes it has been reduced to its present harmonious

condition. The hair is certainly much darker than the other portraits

would have led one to expect, and the almost walnut brown of the general

colour scheme is unique in Duerer's work. However, if some such

transmogrification has been effected, it is marvellous that it should

have obliterated so little of the inimitable handiwork of the master.

Thausing considered the date (1500), monogram and inscription on the

back to be forgeries, and it certainly looks as if it ought to come

nearer to the portrait in the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ (1506) than

to that at Madrid (1498). A genuine scalloped tablet is faintly visible

under the dark glazes which cover the background; and this, no doubt,

bears the original inscription and date. What may not have happened to a

picture after or before it left the artist's studio? Critics are too

quick to determine that such changes have been introduced by others. In

this case we must remember how experimental Duerer was, even with regard

to his engravings on metal. He tries iron plates and etching, and

finally settles on a method of commencing with etching and finishing

with the burin; and this was in a medium in which he soon found himself

at home. But with painting he was vastly more experimental, and never

satisfied with his results, as he told Melanchthon (see p. 187). Then we

must remember that this picture probably was during Duerer's lifetime, if

not in his own possession, at least never out of his reach; and no doubt

he was aware that it was the grandest and most perfectly finished of all

his portraits--therefore, as he came more and more, especially after his

visit to the Netherlands, to desire and seek after simplicity, he may

himself have added the dark glazes. If the original inscription

contained a dedication to Pirkheimer or some other notable Nuremberger,

there was every reason for the artist who stole the picture to

obliterate this and add a new one: or this may have been done when it

became the property of the town, for those who sold it may have wished

that it should not be known that it might have been an heirloom in their

family. Infinite are the possibilities, those only decide in such cases

who have a personal motive for doing so; "la rage de conclure" (as

Flaubert saw) is the pitfall of those who are vain of their knowledge.

[Illustration: OSWOLT KREL Oil portrait in the Alt Pinakothek at Munich]

[Illustration: _By permission_ of the "_Burlington_ Magazine" ALBERT

DUeRER THE ELDER, 1497 National Gallery]

III

Though fearing that it will appear but tedious, I will now attempt

briefly to describe in succession the remaining master portraits which

we owe to Duerer, and the effect that each produces. It is by these works

and not by his creative pictures that his ranks among the greatest names

of painting. These might be compared with the very finest portraits by

Raphael and Holbein, and the precedence would remain a question of

personal predilection; since nothing reasoned, no distinguishable

superiority over Duerer in vision or execution could be urged for either.

Rather, if mere capacity were regarded, he must have the palm; nor did

either of his compeers light upon a happier subject than was Duerer's

when he represented himself; nor did they achieve nobler designs. In

effect upon our emotions and sensations, these portraits may compete

with the masterpieces of Titian and Rembrandt, though the method of

expression is in their case too different to render comparison possible.

Whatever in the glow of light, in the power of shadow, to envelop and

enhance the features portrayed, is theirs and not his, his superiority

of searching insight, united with its equivalent of unique facility in

definition, seems more than to outweigh. Before he left for Venice,

besides the renderings of himself already mentioned, Duerer had painted

his father twice, in 1494 and in 1497. The latter was the pair to and

compeer of his own portrait at Madrid,; and, hitherto unknown, was lent

last year by Lord Northampton to the Royal Academy, and has since

been bought for the National Gallery. This beautiful work is unique even

among the works of the master, and is not so much the worse for

repainting as some make out. The majority of Duerer's portraits stand

alone. In each the Esthetic problem has been approached and solved in a

strikingly different manner. This picture and its fellow, the portrait

of the painter at Madrid, the _Oswolt Krel_, the portrait of a lady seen

against the sea at Berlin, the _Wolgemut_, and Duerer's own portrait at

Munich, though seen by the same absorbing eyes, are rendered each in

quite a different manner. No man has ever been better gifted for

portraying a likeness than Duerer; but the absence of a native

comprehension of pigment made him ever restless, and it might be

possible to maintain that each of these pictures presented us with a

differing strategy to enforce pigment, to subserve the purposes of a

draughtsman. Still this would seem to imply a greater sacrifice of ease

and directness than those brilliant masterpieces can be charged with.

They none of them lack beauty of colour, of surface, or of handling,

though each so unlike the other. In this portrait of his father, Duerer

has developed a shaken brushline, admirably adapted to suggest the

wrinkled features of an old man, but in complete contrast to the rapid

sweep of the caligraphic work in the _Oswolt Krel_; and it is to be

noticed how in both pictures the touch seems to have been invented to

facilitate the rendering of the peculiar curves and lines of the

sitter's features, and further variations of it developed to express the

draperies and other component parts of the picture. It is this

inventiveness in handling which most distinguishes Duerer from painters

like Raphael and Holbein, and makes his work comparable with the

masterpieces of Rembrandt and Titian, in spite of the extreme

opposition in aspect between their work and his.

The noble portrait of a middle-aged man, No. 557c, in the Royal Gallery

at Berlin, (supposed to represent Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony,

Duerer's first patron), gives us a master portrait, in which the

technical treatment is comparable to that of the early triptych at

Dresden, and which is a monument of sober power and distinction, though

again very difficult to compare with the other splendid portraits by the

same hand which hang beside or near it in that Gallery.

The vivid _Oswolt Krel_ at Munich shows the peculiarity of Duerer's

caligraphic touch better than perhaps any other of his portraits. The

finish is not carried so far as in the Madrid portrait of himself, where

even the texture of the gloves has been softened by touches of the

thumb, and the absence of these extra refinements leaves it the most

spontaneous and vigorously bold of all Duerer's paintings. The

concentrated energy of the sitter's features demanded such a treatment;

he seems to burn with the inconsiderate atheism of a Marlowe. Young, and

less surprised than indignant to be alone awake in a sleepy and bigoted

world, he seems convinced of a mission to chastise, _even_ to scandalise

his easy-going neighbours. Let us hope he met with better luck than the

Marlowes, Shelleys, and Rimbauds, whose tragedies we have read; for one

can but regret, as one meets his glance so much fiercer than need be,

that he is not known to history.

[Illustration: Oil Portrait of a Lady seen against the Sea In the Berlin

Gallery]

[Illustration: Oil portrait, dated 1506, at Hampton Court]

The fine portrait of Hans Tucher, 1499, in the Grand Ducal Museum at

Weimar should, judging from a photograph alone, be mentioned here. It

has obvious affinities with the _Oswolt Krel_, but the caligraphic

method is again modified in harmony with the character of the

sitter's features. The companion piece, representing Felicitas Tucherin,

would seem at some period to have been restored to the insignificance

and obscurity that belonged to the sitter before Duerer painted her.

The portraits which Duerer painted at Venice, or soon after his return,

betray the influence of other masterpieces on his own. Mr. Ricketts has

pointed to that of Antonello da Messina in the portraits of young men at

Vienna (1505) and at Hampton Court (1506). The former of these has an

allegorical sketch of Avarice, painted on the back in a thick impasto,

such as seems almost a presage of after developments of the Venetian

school, and may possibly show the influence of some early experiment by

Giorgione which Duerer wished to show that he could imitate if he liked.

The latter represents a personage who appears on the left of the _Feast

of Rose Wreaths_ in exactly the same cap and with the same fastening to

his jerkin, crossing his white shirt (see illustration opposite).

Not improbably Duerer may have painted separate portraits of nearly all

the members of the German Guild at Venice who appear in the _Rose

Garlands_. In any case much of his work during his stay there has

disappeared. It was here that he painted that beautiful head of a woman

(No. 557 G in the Berlin Gallery) with soft, almost Leonardesque

shadows, seen against the luminous hazy sea and sky, which remains

absolutely unique in method and effect among his works, and makes one

ask oneself unanswerable questions as to what might not have been the

result if he could but have brought himself to accept the offered

citizenship and salary, and stop on at Venice. A Duerer, not only

secluded from Luther and his troubling denunciations, but living to see

Titian and Giorgione's early masterpieces, perhaps forming friendships

with them, and later visiting Rome, standing in the Sistine Chapel,

seated in the Stanze between the School of Athens and the Disputa! I at

least cannot console myself for these missed opportunities, as so many

of his critics and biographers have done, by saying that doubtless had

he stayed he would have been spoiled like those second-class German and

Dutch painters, for whom the siren art of Italy proved a baneful

influence. One could almost weep to think of what has been probably lost

to the world because Duerer could not bring himself to stay on at Venice.

It _was_ here he painted the tiny panel representing the head of a girl

in gay apparel dated 1507 (in the Berlin Gallery), that makes one think,

even more than do Holbein's _Venus_ and _Lais_ at Basle, of the triumphs

that were reserved for Italians in the treatment of similar subjects.

After his return the influence of Venetian methods gradually waned, till

we find in the masterly and refined portrait of _Wolgemut_ (1516) (see

illustration); something of a return to the caligraphic method so

noticeable in the _Oswolt Krel_. About the same time Duerer recommenced

painting in tempera in a manner resembling the early Dresden _Madonna_

and the _Hercules_, as we see by the rather unpleasant heads of Apostles

in the Uffizi and the tine one of an old man in a vermilion cap in the

Louvre, &c. &c.

[Illustration: _Bruckmann_--"Albrecht Duerer took this likeness of his

master, Michael Wolgemut, in the year 1516, and he was 82 years of age,

and lived to the year 1519, and then departed on Saint Andrew's Day,

very early before sunrise"--Oil-painting. Alt Pinakothek, Munich]

[Illustration: HANS IMHOF (?)--From the painting in the Royal Gallery

at Madrid--(By permission _of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co., Dornach

(Alsace), Paris and New York_)]

On his arrival at Antwerp in 1521 Duerer commenced the third and last

group of master-portraits; foremost is the superb head and bust at

Madrid, supposed to represent Hans Imhof, a patrician of Duerer's native

town and his banker while at Antwerp; of the same date are the

triumphant renderings of the grave and youthful Bernard van Orley (at

Dresden) and that of a middle-aged man--lost for the National Gallery,

and now in the possession of Mrs. Gardner, of Boston. All three were

probably painted at Antwerp.

It may be that the portrait of Imhof and the report of the honours and

commissions showered on their painter while in the Netherlands, woke the

Nuremberg Councillors up, for we have portraits of three of them dated

1526--Jacob Muffel, Hieronymus Holzschuher, (both in the Royal Gallery,

Berlin,) and the eccentric and unpleasing medallion representing

Johannes Kleeberger, at Vienna. With the exception of this last, this

group is composed of masterpieces absolutely unrivalled for intensity

and dignity of power. Van Eyck painted with inhuman indifference a few

ugly grotesque but otherwise uninteresting people. All but a very few of

Holbein's best portraits pale before these instances of searching

insight; and, north of the Alps at least, there are no others which can

be compared to them. The _Hans Imhof_ shows a shrewd and forbidding

schemer for gain on a large scale--a face which produces the impression

of a trap or closed strong box, but, being so alert and intelligent,

seems to demand some sort of commiseration for the constraint put upon

its humanity in the creation of a master, a tyrant over himself first

and afterwards over an ever-widening circle of others. The unknown

master who is represented in Mrs. Gardner's beautiful picture is less

forbidding, though not less patently a moulder of destiny. _Jacob

Muffel_ has a more open face, a more serene gaze; but his mouth too has

the firmness acquired by those who live always in the presence of

enemies, or are at least aware that "a little folding of the hands" may

be fatal to all their most cherished purposes. The last of these masters

of themselves and of their fortunes in hazardous and change-fraught

times is _Hieronymus Holzschuher_, Duerer's friend. Only less felicitous

because less harmonious in colour than the three former, this vivacious

portrait of a ruddy, jovial, and white-haired patrician seen against a

bright blue background might produce the effect of a Father Christmas,

were it not for the resolute mouth and the puissant side-glance of the

eyes. Bernard van Orley, the only youthful person immortalised in this

group, has a gentle, responsible air which his features are a little too

heavy to enhance.

I have now mentioned the chief of his portraits, which are the best of

his painting, and by which he ranks for the directness and power of his

workmanship and of his visual analysis in the company of the very

greatest. Raphael and Holbein have alone produced portraits which, as

they can be compared to Duerer's, might also be held to rival them;

Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reynolds have done as

splendidly, but the material they used and the aims they set themselves

were too different to make a comparison serviceable. These men are

pre-eminent among those who have produced portraits which, while

unsurpassed for technical excellences, present to us individuals whose

beauty or the character it expresses are equally exceptional.

[Illustration: "JAKOB MUFFEL" Oil portrait in the Berlin Gallery]

CHAPTER III

DUeRER'S DRAWINGS

Perhaps Duerer is more felicitous as a draughtsman than in any other

branch of art. The power of nearly all first-rate artists is more wholly

live and effective in their drawings than in elaborated works. Duerer

himself says:

An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great

power and art in small things, roughly and rudely done, than many

another in his great work. Powerful artists alone will understand that

in this strange saying I speak truth. For this reason a man may often

draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day, or cut

it with his graver on a small block of wood, and it shall be fuller of

art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole

year's careful labour.

But it is possible to go far beyond this and say not only "another's

great work," but his own great work.

In the first chapter of this work I said that the standard in works of

art is not truth but sincerity; that if the artist tells us what he

feels to be beautiful, it does not matter how much or how little

comparison it will bear with the actual objects represented. And from

this fact, that sincerity not truth is of prime importance in matters of

expression, results the strange truth that Duerer says will be

recognised by powerful artists alone (see page 227). Any one who

recognises how often the sketches and roughs of artists, especially of

those who are in a peculiar degree creators, excel their finished works

in those points which are the distinctive excellences of such men, will

grant this at once. Only to turn to the sketch (inscribed _Memento Mei

1505_) of _Death_ on horseback with a scythe, or the pen-portrait of

Duerer leaning on his hand, will be enough to convince those who alone

can be convinced on these points. For any who need to explain to

themselves the character of such sketches--as the authoress of a recent

little book on Duerer does that of the pen drawing "in which the boy's

chin rests on his hand" by telling us that "it is unfinished and was

evidently discarded as a failure,"--any who must be at such pains in a

case of this sort is one of those who can never understand wherein the

great power of a work of art resides. Such people may get great pleasure

from works of art; only I am content to remain convinced that the

pleasure they get has no kind of kinship with that which I myself

obtain, or that which the greatest artists most constantly seek to give.

This marvellous portrait of himself as a lad of from seventeen to

nineteen years of age is just one of those things "roughly and rudely

done," of which Duerer speaks. There is probably no parallel to it for

mastery or power among works produced by artists so youthful.

[Illustration: Study of a hound for the copper engraving "St. Eustache."

B. 57 Brush drawing at Windsor]

There is often some virtue in spontaneity which is difficult to define;

perhaps it bears more convincing witness to the artist's integrity than

slower and longer labours, from which it is difficult to ward all

duplicity of intention. The finishing-touch is too often a Judas' kiss.

"Blessed are the pure in heart" is absolutely true in art. (Of course,

I do not use purity in the narrow sense which is confined to avoidance

of certain sensual subjects and seductive intentions.) It is only

poverty of imagination which taboos subject-matter, and lack of charity

that believes there are themes which cannot be treated with any but

ignoble intentions. But the virtue in a spontaneous drawing is akin to

that single devotion to whatever is best, which true purity is; as the

refinement of economy which results in the finished work is akin to that

delicate repugnance to all waste, which is true chastity. A sketch by

Rembrandt of a naked servant girl on a bed is as "simple as the infancy

of truth"--as single in intention. A Greek statue of a raimentless

Apollo is pre-eminently chaste. But it does not follow that Rembrandt

was in his life eminently pure, or the Greek sculptor signal for

chastity. Drawings rapidly executed have often a lyrical, rapturous,

exultant purity, and are for that reason, to those whose eyes are

blinded neither by prejudice nor by misfortune, as captivating as are

healthy, gleeful children to those whose hearts are free. And while the

joy that a child's glee gives is for a time, that which a drawing gives

may well be for ever.

We say a "spirited sketch" as we say "a spirited horse"; but works of

art are instinct with a vast variety of spirits and exert manifold

influences. It is a poverty of language which has confined the use of

this word to one of the most obvious and least estimable. It can be

never too much insisted on that a work of art is something that exerts

an influence, and that its whole merit lies in the quality and degree of

the influence exerted; for those who are not moved by it, it is no more

than a written sentence to one who cannot read.

Many people in turning over a collection of Duerer's drawings would be

constantly crying, "How marvellously realistic!" and would glow with

enthusiasm and smile with gratitude for the perception which these words

expressed. Others would say "merely realistic"; and the words would

convey, if not disapprobation for something shocking, at least

indifference. In both cases the word "realistic" would, I take it, mean

that the objects which the pen, brush, or charcoal strokes represented

were described with great particularity. And in the first case delight

would have been felt at recognising the fulness of detailed information

conveyed about the objects drawn--that each drawing represented not a

generalisation, but an individual. In the other case the mind would have

been repelled by the infatuated insistence on insignificant or

negligible details, the absence of their classification and

subordination to ideas. The first of these two frames of mind is that of

Paul Pry, who is delighted to see, to touch, or behold, for whom

everything is a discovery; and there are members of this class of

temperament who in middle life continue to make the same discoveries

every day with zest and a wonder equal to that which they felt when

children. The second of these frames of mind is that of the man with a

system or in search of a system, who desires to control, or, if he

cannot do that, at least to be taken into the confidence of the

controller, or to gain a position from which he can oversee him, and

approve or disapprove. Now neither of these judgments is in itself

aesthetic, or implies a comprehension of Duerer as an artist.

[Illustration: ME-ENTO MEI, 1505. From the drawing in the British

Museum]

The man who cries out: "Just look how that is done!" "Who could have

believed a single line could have expressed so much?" judges as an

artist, a craftsman. The man who, like Jean Francois Millet, exclaims:

"How fine! How grand! How delicate! How beautiful!" judges as a creator.

He sees that "it is good." An artist--a creator--may possess either or

even both the two former temperaments; but as an artist he must be

governed by the latter two, either singly or combined. Duerer, doubtless,

had a considerable share in all four of these points of view. He

delighted in objects as such, in the new and the strange as new and

strange, in the intricate as intricate, in the powerful as powerful. And

above all in his drawings does he manifest this direct and childish

interest and curiosity. He was also in search of a system, of an

intellectual key or plan of things; and in the many drawings he devoted

to explaining or developing his ideas of proportion, of perspective, of

architecture, he shows this bias strongly. But nearly every drawing by

him, or attributed to him, manifests the third of these temperaments.

The never-ceasing economy and daring of the invention displayed in his

touch, or, as he would have said, "in his hand," is almost as signal as

his perfect assurance and composure. And when one reflects that he was

not, like Rembrandt, an artist who made great or habitual use of the

spaces of shade and light, but that his workmanship is almost entirely

confined to the expressive power of lines, wonder is only increased. Of

the fourth character that creates and estimates value, though in certain

works Duerer rises to supreme heights, though in almost all his important

works he appeases expectation, yet often where he could surely have done

much better he seems to have been content not to exert his rarest

gifts, but rather to play with or parade those that are secondary. Not

only is this so in drawings like the _Dance of Monkeys_ at Basle, done

to content his friend the reformer Felix Frey (see page 168), and in the

borders designed to amuse Maximilian during the hours that custom

ordained he should pretend to give to prayer; but there are drawings

which were not apparently thrown as sops to the idleness of others, but

done to content some half-vacant mood of his own (see Lippmann, 41, 83,

394, 4.20, 333).

In such drawings the economy and daring of the strokes is always

admirable, can only be compared to that in drawings by Rembrandt and

Hokusai; but the occasion is often idle, or treated with a condescension

which well-nigh amounts to indifference. There is no impressiveness of

allure, no intention in the proportions or disposition on the paper such

as Erasmus justly praised in the engravings on copper, probably

recollecting something which Duerer himself had said (see page 186).

Yet in his portrait heads the right proportions are nearly always found;

and in many cases I believe it is no one but the artist himself who has

cut down such drawings after they were completed, to find a more

harmonious or impressive proportion (see illustration opposite). And

often these drawings are as perfect in the harmony between the means

employed and the aspect chosen, and in the proportion between the head

and the framing line and the spaces it encloses, as Holbein himself

could have made them; while they far surpass his best in brilliancy and

intensity.

[Illustration: Drawing in black chalk heightened with white on reddish

ground Formerly in the collection at Warwick Castle]

[Illustration: Silver-point drawing on prepared grey ground, in the

collection of Frederick Locker, Esq.]

III

Something must be said of Duerer's employment of the water-colours,

pen-and-ink, silver-point, charcoal, chalk, &c., with which he made his

drawings. He is a complete master of each and all these mediums, in so

far as the line or stroke may be regarded as the fundamental unit; he is

equally effective with the broad, soft line of chalk (see illustration,

page I.), or the broad broken charcoal line (see illustration, page

II.), as with the fine pen stroke (see illustration, page III.), the

delicate silver-point (see illustration, page IV.), or the supple and

tapering stroke produced by the camel's hair brush (see illustration,

page V.). But when one comes to broad washes, large masses of light and

shade, the expression of atmosphere, of bloom, of light, he is wanting

in proportion as these effects become vague, cloudy, indefinite,

mist-like. His success lies rather in the definite reflections on

polished surfaces; he never reproduces for us the bloom on peach or

flesh or petal. He does not revel, like Rembrandt, in the veils and

mysteries of lucent atmosphere or muffling shadow. The emotions for

which such things produce the most harmonious surroundings he hardly

ever attempts to appeal to; he is mournful and compassionate, or

indignant, for the sufferings, of his Man of Sorrows; not tender,

romantic, or awesome. Only with the tapering tenuity and delicate spring

of the pure line will he sometimes attain to an infantile or virginal

freshness that is akin to the tenderness of the bloom on flowers, or the

light of dawn on an autumn morning.[75]

In the same way, when he is tragic, it is not with thick clouds rent in

the fury of their flight, or with the light from shaken torches cast and

scattered like spume-flakes from the angry waves; nor is it with the

accumulated night that gives intense significance to a single tranquil

ray. Only by a Rembrandt, to whom these means are daily present, could a

subject like the _Massacre of the Ten Thousand_ have been treated with

dramatic propriety; unless, indeed, Michael Angelo, in a grey dawn,

should have twisted and wrung with manifold pain a tribe of giants,

stark, and herded in some leafless primeval valley. With Duerer the

occasion was merely one on which to coldly invent variations, as though

this human suffering was a motive for _an_ arabesque. Yet even from the

days when he copied Andrea Mantegna's struggling sea-monsters, or when

he drew the stern matured warrior angels of his Apocalypse fighting,

with their historied faces like men hardened by deceptions practised

upon them, like men who have forbidden salt tears and clenched their

teeth and closed their hearts, who see, who hate; even from these early

days, the energy of his line was capable of all this, and his

spontaneous sense of arabesque could become menacing and explosive.

There are two or three drawings of angry, crying cupids (Lipp., 153 and

446, see illustration opposite), prepared for some intended picture of

the Crucifixion, where he has made the motive of the winged infants

head, usually associated with bliss and scattered rose-leaves, become

terrible and stormy. And the _Agony in the Garden_, etched on iron,

contains a tree tortured by the wind (see illustration), as marvellous

for rhythm, power, and invention as the blast-whipped brambles and naked

bushes that crest a scarped brow above the jealous husband who stabs his

wife, in Titian's fresco at Padua. Again, the unspeakable tragedy of the

stooping figure of Jesus, who is being dragged by His hair up the steps

to Annas' throne, in the _Little Passion_, is rendered by lines instinct

with the highest dramatic power. These are a draughtsman's creations;

though they are less abundant in Duerer's work than one could wish, still

only the greatest produce such effects; only Michael Angelo, Titian, and

Rembrandt can be said to have equalled or surpassed Duerer in this kind,

rarely though it be that he competes with them.

[Illustration: CHERUB FOR A CRUCIFIXION Black chalk drawing heightened

with white on a blue-grey paper In the collection of Herr Doctor

Blasius, Brunswick]

It is for the intense energy of his line, combined with its unique

assurance, that Duerer is most remarkable. The same amount of detail, the

same correctness in the articulation and relation between stem and leaf,

arm and hand, or what not, might be attained by an insipid workmanship

with lifeless lines, in patient drudgery. It is this fact that those who

praise art merely as an imitation constantly forget. There is often as

much invention in the way details are expressed by the strokes of pen or

brush, as there could be in the grouping of a crowd; the deftness, the

economy of the touches, counts for more in the inspiriting effect than

the truth of the imitation. A photograph from nature never conveys this,

the chief and most fundamental merit of art. Reynolds says:

Rembrandt, in older to take advantage of an accident, appears often to

have used the pallet-knife to lay his colours on the canvas instead of

the pencil. Whether it is the knife or any other instrument, _it

suffices, if it is something that does not follow exactly the will.

Accident, in the hands of_ an artist _who knows horn to take the

advantage of its hints, will often produce bold and capricious beauties

of handling_, and facility such as he would not have thought of or

ventured with his pencil, under the regular restraint of his hand.[76]

In such a sketch as the _Memento Mei_, 1505, (_Death_ riding on

horseback,) all those who have sense for such things will perceive how

the rough paper, combined with the broken charcoal line, lends itself to

qualities of a precisely similar nature to those described by Reynolds

as obtained by Rembrandt's use of the pallet-knife. Yet, just as, in the

use of charcoal, the "something that does not follow exactly the will"

is infinitely more subtle than in the use of the palette-knife to

represent rocks or stumps of trees, so in the pen or silver-point line

this element, though reduced and refined till it is hardly perceptible,

still exists, and Duerer takes "the advantage of its hints." And not only

does he do' this, but he foresees their occurrence, and relies on them

to render such things as crumpled skin, as in the sketches for Adam's

hand holding the apple. (Lipp. 234). The operation is so rapid, so

instantaneous, that it must be called an instinct, or at least a habit

become second nature, while in the instance chosen by Reynolds, it is

obvious and can be imagined step by step; but in every case it is this

capacity to take advantage of the accident, and foresee and calculate

upon its probable occurrences, that makes the handling of any material

inventive, bold, and inimitable. It is in these qualities that an artist

is the scholar of the materials he employs, and goes to school to the

capacities of his own hand, being taught both by their failure to obey

his will here, and by their facility in rendering his subtlest

intentions there. And when he has mastered all they have to teach him,

he can make their awkwardness and defects expressive; as stammerers

sometimes take advantage of their impediment so that in itself it

becomes an element of eloquence, of charm, or even of explicitness;

while the extra attention rendered enables them to fetch about and dare

to express things that the fluent would feel to be impossible and

never attempt.

[Illustration: APOLLO AND DIANA--Pen drawing in the British Museum,

supposed to show the influence of the Belvedere Apollo]

Lastly, it is in his drawings, perhaps, even more than in his copper

engravings, that Duerer proves himself a master of "the art of seeing

nature," as Reynolds phrased it; and the following sentence makes clear

what is meant, for he says of painting "perhaps it ought to be as far

removed from the vulgar idea of imitation, as the refined, civilised

state in which we live is removed from a gross state of nature";[77] and

again: "If we suppose a view of nature, represented with all the truth

of the camera obscura, and the same scene represented by a great artist,

how little and how mean will the one appear in comparison of the other,

where no superiority is supposed from the choice of the subject."[78]

Not only is outward nature infinitely varied, infinitely composite; but

human nature--receptive and creative--is so too, and after we have gazed

at an object for a few moments, we no longer see it the same as it was

revealed to our first glance. Not only has its appearance changed for

us, but the effect that it produces on our emotions and intelligence is

no longer the same. Each successful mind, according to its degree of

culture, arrives finally at a perception of every class of objects

presented to it which is most in agreement with its own nature--that is,

calls forth or nourishes its most cherished energies and efforts, while

harmonising with its choicest memories. All objects in regard to which

it cannot arrive at such a result oppress, depress, or even torment it.

At least this is the case with our highest and most creative moods; but

every man of parts has a vast range of moods, descending from this to

the almost vacant contemplation of a cow--the innocence of whose eye,

which perceives what is before it without transmuting it by recollection

or creative effort, must appear almost ideal to the up-to-date critic

who has recently revealed the innocent confusion of his mind in a

ponderous tome on nineteenth-century art. The art of seeing nature,

then, consists in being able to recognise how an object appears in

harmony with any given mood; and the artist must employ his materials to

suggest that appearance with the least expenditure of painful effort.

The highest art sees all things in harmony with man's most elevated

moods; the lowest sees nature much as Dutch painters and cows do. Now we

can understand what Goethe means when he says that "Albrecht Duerer

enjoyed the advantages of a profound realistic perception, and an

affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions." The man who

continued to feel, after he had become a Lutheran, the beauty of the art

that honoured the Virgin, the man who cannot help laughing at the most

"lying, thievish rascals" whenever they talk to him because "they know

that their knavery is no secret, but 'they don't mind,'" is

affectionate; he is amused by monkeys and the rhinoceros; he can bear

with Pirkheimer's bad temper; he looks out of kindly eyes that allow

their perception of strangeness or oddity to redeem the impression that

might otherwise have been produced by vice, or uncouthness, or

sullen frowns.

I have supposed that a realistic perception was one which saw things

with great particularity; and the words "a profound realistic

perception" to Goethe's mind probably conveyed the idea of such a

perception, in profound accord with human nature, that is where the

human recognition, delight and acceptance followed the perception even

to the smallest details, without growing weary or failing to find at

least a hope of significance in them. If this was what the great critic

meant, those who turn over a collection of Duerer's drawings will feel

that they are profoundly realistic (realistic in a profoundly human

sense), and that their author enjoyed an affectionate human sympathy

with all present conditions; and by these two qualities is infinitely

distinguished from all possessors of so-called innocent eyes, whether

quadruped or biped.

It is well to notice wherein this notion of Goethe's differs from the

conventional notions which make up everybody's criticism. For instance,

"In all his pictures he confined himself to facts," says Sir Martin

Conway,[79] and then immediately qualifies this by adding, "He painted

events as truly as his imagination could conceive them." We may safely

say that no painter of the first rank has ever confined himself to

facts. Nor can we take the second sentence as it stands. Any one who

looks at the _Trinity_ in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna will see at

once that the artist who painted it did not shut his eyes and try to

conjure up a vision of the scene to be represented; the ordering of the

picture shows plainly throughout that a foregone conventional

arrangement, joined with the convenience of the methods of

representation to be employed, dictated nearly the whole composition,

and that the details, costumes, &c., were gradually added, being chosen

to enhance the congruity or variety of what was already given. Perhaps

it was never a prime object with Duerer to conceive the event, it was

rather the picture that he attempted to conceive; it is Rembrandt who

attempts to conceive events, not Duerer. He is very far from being a

realist in this sense: though certain of his etchings possess a

considerable degree of such realism, it is not what characterises him as

a creator or inventor. But a "profound realistic perception" almost

unequalled he did possess; what he saw he painted not as he saw it, not

where he saw it, but as it appeared to him to really be. So he painted

real girls, plain, ugly or pretty as the case might be, for angels, and

put them in the sky; but for their wings he would draw on his fancy.

Often the folds of a piece of drapery so delighted him that they are

continued for their own sake and float out where there is no wind to

support them, or he would develop their intricacies beyond every

possibility of conceivable train or other superfluity of real garments;

and it is this necessity to be richer and more magnificent than

probability permits which brings us to the creator in Duerer; not only

had he a profound realistic perception of what the world was like, but

he had an imagination that suggested to him that many things could be

played with, embroidered upon, made handsomer, richer or more

impressive. When Goethe adds that "he was retarded by a gloomy fantasy

devoid of form or foundation," we perceive that the great critic is

speaking petulantly or without sufficient knowledge. Duerer's gloomy

fantasy, the grotesque element in his pictures and prints, was not his

own creation, it is not peculiar to him, he accepted it from tradition

and custom (see Plate "Descent into Hell"). What is really

characteristic of him is the richness displayed in devils' scales and

wings, in curling hair or crumpled drapery, or flame, or smoke, or

cloud, or halo; and, still more particularly, his is the energy of line

or fertility of invention with which all these are displayed, and the

dignity or austerity which results from the general proportion of the

masses and main lines of his composition.

For the illustration of this volume I have chosen a larger proportion of

drawings than of any other class of work; both because Duerer's drawings

are less widely known than his engravings on metal, and because, though

his fame may perhaps rest almost equally on these latter, and they may

rightly be considered more unique in character, yet his drawings show

the splendid creativeness of his handling of materials in greater

variety. One engraving on copper is like another in the essential

problem that it offered to the craftsman to resolve; but every different

medium in which Duerer made drawings, and every variety of surface on

which he drew, offered a different problem, and perhaps no other artist

can compare with him in the great variety of such problems which he has

solved with felicity. And this power of his to modify his method with

changing conditions is, as we have seen, from the technical side the

highest and greatest quality that an artist can possess. It only fails

him when he has to deal with oil paintings, and even there he shows a

corresponding sense of the nature of the problems involved, if he shows

less felicity on the whole in solving them; and perhaps could he have

stayed at Venice and have had the results of Giorgione's and Titian's

experiments to suggest the right road, we should have been scarcely able

to perceive that he was less gifted as a painter than as draughtsman. As

it is, he has given us water-colour sketches in which the blot is used

to render the foliage of trees in a manner till then unprecedented.

(Lipp. 132, &c.) He can rival Watteau in the use of soft chalk, Leonardo

in the use of the pen, and Van Eyck in the use of the brush point; and

there are examples of every intermediate treatment to form a chain

across the gulf that separates these widely differing modes of graphic

expression. There can be no need to point the application of these

remarks to the individual drawings here reproduced; those who are

capable of recognising it will do so without difficulty.

[Illustration: AN OLD CASTLE Body-dour drawing at Bremen]

In conclusion, Duerer appears as a draughtsman of unrivalled powers. And

when one looks on his drawings as what they most truly were, his

preparation for the tasks set him by the conditions of his life, there

is room for nothing but unmixed admiration. It is only when one asks

whether those tasks might not have been more worthy of such high gifts

that one is conscious of deficiency or misfortune. And can one help

asking whether the Emperor Max might not have given Duerer his Bible or

his Virgil to illustrate, instead of demanding to have the borders of

his "Book of Hours" rendered amusing with fantastic and curious

arabesques; whether Duerer's learned friends, instead of requiring from

him recondite or ceremonious allegories, might not have demanded

title-pages of classic propriety; or whether the imperial bent of his

own imagination might not have rendered their demands malleable, and bid

them call for a series of woodcuts, engravings or drawings, which could

rival Rembrandt's etchings in significance of subject-matter and

imaginative treatment, as they rival them in executive power? In his

portraits--the large majority of which have come down to us only as

drawings, the majority of which were never anything else--the demand

made upon him was worthy; but even here Holbein, a man of lesser gift

and power, has perhaps succeeded in leaving a more dignified, a more

satisfying series; one containing, if not so many masterpieces, fewer on

which an accidental or trivial subject or mood has left its impress.

Yet, in spite of this, it is Duerer's, not Rembrandt's, not Holbein's

character, that impresses us as most serious, most worthy to be held as

a model. It is before his portrait of himself that Mr. Ricketts "forgets

all other portraits whatsoever, in the sense that this perfect

realisation of one of the world's greatest men is worthy of the

occasion." So that we feel bound to attribute our dissatisfaction to

something in his circumstances having hindered and hampered the flow of

what was finest in his nature into his work. From Venice he wrote: "I am

a gentleman here, but only a hanger-on at home." Germany was a better

home for a great character, a great personality, than for a great

artist: Duerer the artist was never quite at home there, never a

gentleman among his peers. The good and solid burghers rated him as a

good and solid burgher, worth so much per annum; never as endowed with

the rank of his unique gift. It was only at Venice and Antwerp that he

was welcomed as the Albert Duerer whom we to-day know, love, and honour.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 75: See the exquisite landscape in the collection of Mr. C. S.

Ricketts and Mr. C. H. Shannon, reproduced in the sixth folio of the

Duerer Society, 1903. Mr. Campbell Dodgson describes the drawing as in a

measure spoilt by retouching, but what convinces him that these

retouches are not by Duerer? The pen-work seems to be at once too clever

and too careless to have been added by another hand to preserve a

fading drawing.]

[Footnote 76: XII. Discourse.]

[Footnote 77: XIII, Discourse.]

[Footnote 78: Ibid.]

[Footnote 79: Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer, p. I 50.]

CHAPTER IV

DUeRER'S METAL ENGRAVINGS

For the artist or designer the chief difference between the engraving

done on a wood block and that done on metal lies in the thickness of the

line. The engraved line in a wood block is in relief, that on a metal

plate is entrenched; the ink in the one case is applied to the crest of

a ridge, in the other it fills a groove into which the surface of the

paper is squeezed. Though lines almost as fine as those possible on

metal have been achieved by wood engravers, in doing this they force the

nature of their medium, whereas on a copper plate fine lines come

naturally. Perhaps no section of Duerer's work reveals his unique powers

so thoroughly as his engravings on metal. They were entirely his own

work both in design and execution; and no expenditure of pains or

patience seems to have limited his intentions, or to have hindered his

execution or rendered it less vital. And perhaps it is this fact which

witnesses with our spirit and bids us recognise the master: rather than

the comprehension of natural forms which he evinces, subtle and vigorous

though it be; or than the symbols and types which he composed from such

forms for the traditional and novel ideas of his day. And this

unweariable assiduity of his is continually employed in the discovery

of very noble arabesques of line and patterns in black and white, more

varied than the grain in satin wood or the clustering and dispersion of

the stars. Intensity of application, constancy of purpose, when revealed

to us by beautifully variegated surfaces, the result of human toil, may

well impress us, may rightly impress us, more than quaint and antiquated

notions about the four temperaments, or about witches and their

sabbaths, or about virtues and vices embodied in misconceptions of the

characters of pagan divinities, and in legends about them which scholars

had just begun to translate with great difficulty and very ill. It is

the astonishing assurance of the central human will for perfection that

awes us; this perception that flinches at no difficulty, this perception

of how greatly beauty deserves to be embodied in human creations and

given permanence to.

In the encomium which Erasmus wrote of Albert Duerer he dealt, as one

sees by the passage quoted (p. 186), with Duerer's engraved work almost

exclusively. Perhaps the great humanist had seen no paintings by Duerer,

and very likely had heard Duerer himself disparage them, as Melanchthon

tells us was his wont (p. 187). We know that Duerer gave Erasmus some of

his engravings, and we may feel sure that he was questioned pretty

closely as to what were the aims of his art, and wherein he seemed to

himself to have best succeeded. The sentence I underlined (on p. 186)

gives us probably some reflection of Duerer's reply. We must remember

that Erasmus, from his classical knowledge as to how Apelles was

praised, was full of the idea that art was an imitation, and may

probably have refused to understand what Duerer may very likely have told

him in modification of this view; or he may by citing his Greek and

Latin sources have prevented the reverent Duerer from being outspoken on

the point. But though most of his praise seems mere literary

commonplace, the sentence underlined strikes us as having

another source.

"He reproduces not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also

observes the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the

position of it." How one would like to have heard Duerer, as Erasmus may

probably have heard him, explain the principles on which he composed! No

doubt there is no very radical difference between his sense of

composition and that of other great artists. But to hear one so

preoccupied with explaining his processes to himself discourse on this

difficult subject would be great gain. For though there are doubtless no

absolute rules, and the appeal is always to a refined sense for

proportion,--yet to hear a creator speak of such things is to have this

sense, as it were, washed and rendered delicate once more. We can but

regret that Erasmus has not saved us something fuller than this hint. In

the same way, how tempting is the criticism that Camerarius gives of

Mantegna,--we feel that Duerer's own is behind it; but as it stands it is

disjointed and absurd, like some of the incomplete and confused parables

which give us a glimpse of how much more was lost than was preserved by

the reporters of the sayings of Jesus. It is the same thing with the

reported sayings of Michael Angelo, and indeed of all other great men.

It is impossible to accept "his hand was not trained to follow the

perception and nimbleness of his mind" as Duerer's dictum on Mantegna;

but how suggestive is the allusion to "broken and scattered statues set

up as examples of art," for artists to form themselves upon! Yet the

fact that Duerer missed coming into contact not only with Mantegna but

with Titian, Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, is indeed the saddest

fact in regard to his life. We can well believe that he felt it in

Mantegna's case. Ah! Why could he not bring himself to accept the

overtures made to him, and become a citizen of Venice?

III

The subjects of these engravings are even generally trivial or

antiquated, either in themselves or by the way they are approached.

Perhaps alone among them the figure of Jesus, as it is drawn in the

various series on copper and wood illustrating the Passion, is conceived

in a manner which touches us to-day with the directness of a revelation;

and even this cannot be compared to the same figure in Rembrandt

etchings and drawings, either for essential adequacy, or for various and

convincing application. No, we must consent to let the expression "great

thoughts" drop out of our appreciation of Duerer's works, and be replaced

by the "great character" latent in them.

However, one among Duerer's engravings on copper stands out from among

the rest, and indeed from all his works. In the _Melancholy_ the

composition is not more dignified in its spacing and proportion; the

arabesque of line is not richer or sweeter, the variations from black to

white are not more handsome, than in some half dozen of his other

engravings. No, by its conception alone the _Melancholy_ attains to its

unique impressiveness. And it is the impressiveness of an image, not the

impressiveness of an idea or situation, as in the case of the _Knight,

Death, and the Devil_, by which almost as much bad literature has been

inspired. There is nothing to choose between the workmanship of the two

plates; both are absolutely impeccable, and outside the work of Duerer

himself, unrivalled. The _Melancholy_ is the only creation by a German

which appears to me to invite and sustain comparison with the works of

the greatest Italian. In it we have the impressiveness that belongs only

to the image, the thing conceived for mental vision, and addressed to

the eye exclusively. If there was an allegory, or if the plate formed

(as has been imagined) one of a series representative of the four

temperaments, the eye and the visual imagination are addressed with such

force and felicity that the inquiries which attempt to answer these

questions must for ever appear impertinent. They may add some languid

interest to the contemplation which is sated with admiring the

impeccable mastery of the Knight; for that plate always seems to me the

mere illustration of a literary idea, a sheer statement of items which

require to be connected by some story, and some of which have the crude

obviousness of folk-lore symbols, without their racy and genial naivety.

They have not been fused in the rapture of some unique mood, not

focussed by the intensity of an emotion. With the _Melancholy_ all is

different; perhaps among all his works only Duerer's most haunting

portrait of himself has an equal or even similar power to bind us in its

spell. For this reason I attempt the following comparison between the

_Sibyls_ of the Sistine Chapel and the _Melancholy_ a comparison which I

do not suppose to have any other value or force than that of a stimulant

to the imagination which the works themselves address.

[Illustration: MELANCHOLIA Copper engraving, B. 74]

The impetuosity of his Southern blood drives Michael Angelo to betray

his intention of impressing in the pose and build of his Sibyls. Large

and exceptional women, "limbed" and thewed as gods are, with an habitual

command of gesture, they lift down or open their books or unwind their

scrolls like those accustomed to be the cynosure of many eyes, who have

lived before crowds of inferiors, a spectacle of dignity from their

childhood upwards. On the other hand, the pose and build of the

_Melancholy_ must have been those of many a matron in Nuremberg. It is

not till we come to the face that we find traits that correspond with

the obvious symbolism of the wings and wreath, or the serious richness

of the black and white effect of the composition; but that face holds

our attention as not even the Sibylla Delphica cannot by beauty, not by

conscious inspiration, but by the spell of unanswerable thought, by the

power to brood, by the patience that can and dare go unresolved for many

years. Everything is begun about her; she cannot see unto the end; she

is powerful, she is capable in many works, she has borne children, she

rests from her labours, and her thought wanders, sleeps or dreams. The

spirit of the North, with its industry, its cool-headed calculation, its

abundance in contrivance, its elaboration of duty and accumulation of

possessions--there she sits, absorbed, unsatisfied. Impetuosity and the

frank avowal of intention are themselves an expression of the will to

create that which is desirable; they can but form the habit of every

artist under happy circumstances. They proceed on the expectation of

immediate effectiveness, they belong to power in action; while, if

beauty be not impetuous, she is frank, and adds to the avowal of her

intention the promise of its fulfilment. The work of art and the artist

are essentially open; they promise intimacy, and fulfil that promise

with entirety when successful. Nor is anything so impressive as intimacy

which implies a perfect sincerity, a complete revelation, a gift without

reserve, increase without let. But the circumstances of the artist never

are happy: even Michael Angelo's were not. An intense brooding

melancholy arises from the repressed and baffled desire to create; and

in some measure this gloom of failure underlying their success is a

necessary character of all lovely and spiritual creations in this world.

Now Michael Angelo's works, because of their Southern impetuosity and

volubility, are not so instinct with this divine sorrow, this immobility

of the soul face to face with evil, as is Duerer's _Melancholy_. He

inspires and exhilarates us more, but takes us out of ourselves rather

than leads us home.

Here is Duerer's success: let and hindered as it really is, he makes us

feel the inalienable constancy of rational desire, watching adverse

circumstance as one beast of prey watches another. She keeps hold on the

bird she has caught, the ideal that perhaps she will never fully enjoy.

Michael Angelo pictures for us freedom from trammels, the freedom that

action, thought and ecstasy give, the freedom that is granted to beauty

by all who recognise it; Duerer shows us the constancy that bridges the

intervals between such free hours, that gives continuity to man's

necessarily spasmodic effort. Thus he typifies for us the Northern

genius: as Michael Angelo's athletes might typify by their naked beauty

and the unexplained impressiveness of their gestures, the genius of the

sudden South--sudden in action, sudden in thought, suddenly mature,

suddenly asleep--as day changes to night and night to day the more

rapidly as the tropics are approached.

[Illustration: Detail enlarged from the "Agony in the Garden." Etching on

Iron, B. 19 _Between_ pp. 250 & 251]

[Illustration: ANGEL WITH THE SUDARIUM Engraving in Iron, 1516. B. 26

_Between_ pp. 250 & 251]

Instances of the highest imaginative power are rare in Duerer's work. The

_Melancholy_ has had a world-wide success. The _Knight, Death and the

Devil_ has one almost equal, but which is based on the facility with

which it is associated with certain ideas dear to Christian culture,

rather than on the creation of the mood in which these ideas arise. It

does not move us until we know that it is an illustration of Erasmus's

Christian Knight. Then all its dignity and mastery and the supremacy of

the gifts employed on it are brought into touch with the idea, and each

admirer operates, according to his imaginativeness, something of the

transformation which Duerer had let slip or cool down before

realising it.

Among the prints with lesser reputations are several which attain a far

higher success. There is the iron plate of the _Agony in the Garden,_ B.

19, already mentioned (p. 235), in which the storm-tortured tree and the

broken light and shade are full of dramatic power (see illustration),

the _Angel with the Sudarium_, B. 26, where the arabesque of the folds

of drapery and cloud unite with the daring invention of the central

figure to create a mood entirely consonant with the subject. There is

the woman carried off by a man on an unicorn, in which the turbulence of

the subject is expressed with unrivalled force by the rich and beautiful

arabesque and black and white pattern.

B. Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, of the _Little Passion_, on

copper, are all of them noteworthy successes of more or less the same

kind; and in these, too, we come upon that racy sense for narration

which can enhance dramatic import by emphasising some seemingly trivial

circumstance, as in the gouty stiffness of one of Christ's scourgers in

the _Flagellation_, or the abnormal ugliness of the man who with such

perfect gravity holds the basin while Pilate _washes his hands:_ while

in the _Crown of Thorns_ and _Descent into Hades_ we have peculiarly

fine and suitable black and white patterns, and in the _Peter and John

at the Beautiful Gate_[80] and the _Ecce Homo_ figures of monumental

dignity in tiny gems of glowing engraver's work. The repose and serenity

of the lovely little _St. Antony_;[81] the subsidence of commotion in

the noonday victory of the little _St. George on foot_, B. 53--perhaps

the most perfect diamond in the whole brilliant chain of little plates,

or the staid naivety of the enchanting _Apollo and Diana_, B. 68;[82]

who shall prefer among these things? Every time we go through them we

choose out another until we return to the most popular and slightly

obvious _St. George on Horseback_, B. 54. Next come the dainty series of

little plates in honour of Our Lady the Mother of God, commencing before

Duerer made a rule of dating his plates; before 1503 and continuing till

after 1520, in which the last are the least worthy. Among these the

Virgin embracing her Child at the foot of a tree, B. 34, dated 1513; The

Virgin standing on the crescent moon, her baby in one arm, her sceptre

in the other hand and the stars of her crown blown sideways as she bows

her head, B. 32, dated 1516, and the stately and monumental Virgin

seated by a wall, B. 40, dated 1514, are at present my favourites. And

to these succeeded the noble army of Apostles and Martyrs of which the

more part are dated from 1521 to 1526, though two, B. 48 and 50, fall as

early as 1514.

[Illustration: THE SMALL HORSE--Copper Engraving, B. 96]

Then amongst the most perfect larger plates I cannot refrain from

mentioning the _St. Jerome_, B. 60, with its homely seclusion as of

Duerer's own best parlour in summer time which not even the presence of a

lion can disturb; the idyllic and captivating _St. Hubert_, B. 57; the

august and tranquil _Cannon_, B. 99: and lastly, perhaps, in the little

_Horse_, B. 96, we come upon a theme and motive of the kind best suited

to Duerer's peculiar powers, in which he produces an effect really

comparable to those of the old Greek masters, about whose lost works he

was so eager for scraps of information, and whose fame haunted him even

into his slumbers, so that he dreamed of them and of those who should

"give a future to their past." This delightful work may illustrate an

allegory now grown dark or some misconception of a Grecian story; but

though the relation between the items that compose it should remain for

ever unexplained, its beauty, like that of some Greek sculpture that has

been admired under many names, continues its spell, and speaks of how

the simplicity, austerity and noble proportions of classical art were

potent with the spirit of the great Nuremberg artist, and occasionally

had free way with him, in spite of all there was in his circumstances

and origins to impede or divert them. (See also the spirited drawing,

Lipp. 366.)

It would be idle to attempt to say something about every masterpiece in

Duerer's splendidly copious work on metal plates. There is perhaps not

one of these engravings that is not vital upon one side or another,

amazingly few that are not vital upon many. One other work, however,

which has been much criticised and generally misunderstood, it may be as

well to examine at more length, especially as it illustrates what was

often Duerer's practice in regard to his theories about proportion, with

which my next Part will deal. I speak of the _Great Fortune_ or

_Nemesis_ (B. 77). His practice at other times is illustrated by the

splendid _Adam and Eve_ (B. 1), over the production of which the nature

of the canon he suggested was perhaps first thoroughly worked out. But

before this and afterwards too he no doubt frequently followed the

advice he gives in the following passage.

To him that setteth himself to draw figures according to this book, not

being well taught beforehand, the matter will at first become hard. Let

him then put a man before him, who agreeth, as nearly as may be, _with

the proportions he desireth_; and let him draw him in outline according

to his knowledge and power. And a man is held to have done well if he

attain accurately to copy a figure according to the life, so that his

drawing resembleth the figure and is like unto nature. _And in

particular if the thing copied as beautiful; then is the copy held to be

artistic_, and, as it deserveth, it is highly praised.

Duerer himself would seem to have very often followed his own advice in

this. The _Great Fortune_ or Nemesis is a case in point. The remarks of

critics on this superb engraving are very strange and wide. Professor

Thausing said, "Embodied in this powerful female form, the Northern

worship of nature here makes its first conscious and triumphant

appearance in the history of art." With the work of the great Jan Van

Eyck in one's mind's eye, of course this will appear one of those

little lapses of memory so convenient to German national sentiment.

"Everything that, according to our aesthetic formalism based on the

antique, we should consider beautiful, is sacrificed to truth." (I have

already pointed out that this use of the word "truth" in matters of art

constitutes a fallacy)[83] "And yet our taste must bow before the

imperishable fidelity to nature displayed in these forms, the fulness of

life that animates these limbs." Of course, "imperishable fidelity to

nature" and "taste that bows before it" are merely the figures of a

clumsy rhetoric. But the idea they imply is one of the most common of

vulgar errors in regard to works of art. In the first place one must

remind our enthusiastic German that it is an engraving and not a woman

that we are discussing; and that this engraving is extremely beautiful

in arabesque and black and white pattern, rich, rhythmical and

harmonious; and that there is no reason why our taste should be violated

in having to bow submissively before such beauties as these, which it is

a pleasure to worship. Now we come to the subject as presented to the

intelligence, after the quick receptive eye has been satiated with

beauty. Our German guide exclaims, "Not misled by cold definite rules of

proportion, he gave himself up to unrestrained realism in the

presentation of the female form." Our first remark is, that though the

treatment of this female form may perhaps be called realistic, this

adjective cannot be made to apply to the figure as a whole. This

massively built matron is winged; she stands on a small globe suspended

in the heavens, which have opened and are furled up like a garment in a

manner entirely conventional. She carries a scarf which behaves as no

fabric known to me would behave even under such exceptional and

thrilling circumstances.

Dr. Carl Giehlow has recently suggested that this splendid engraving

illustrates the following Latin verses by Poliziano:

Est dea, quse vacuo sublimis in aere pendens

It nimbo succincta latus, sed candida pallam,

Sed radiata comam, ac stridentibus insonat alis.

Haec spes immodicas premit, haec infesta superbis

Imminet, huic celsas hominum contundere mentes

Incessusque datum et nimios turbare paratus.

Quam veteres Nemesin genitam de nocte silenti

Oceano discere patri. Stant sidera fronti.

Frena manu pateramque gerit, semperque verendum

Ridet et insanis obstat contraria coeptis.

Improba vota domans ac summis ima revolvens

Miscet et alterna nostros vice temperat actus.

Atque hue atque illuc ventorum turbine fertur.

There is a goddess, who, aloft in the empty air, advances girdled about

with a cloud, but with a shining white cloak and a glory in her hair,

and makes a rushing with her wings. She it is who crushes extravagant

hopes, who threatens the proud, to whom is given to beat down the

haughty spirit and the haughty step, and to confound over-great

possessions. Her the men of old called Nemesis, born to Ocean from the

womb of silent Night. Stars stand upon her forehead. In her hand she

bears bridles and a chalice, and smiles for ever with an awful smile,

and stands resisting mad designs. Turning to nought the prayers of the

wicked and setting the low above the high she puts one in the other's

place and rules the scenes of life with alternation. And she is borne

hither and thither on the wings of the whirlwind.

If this suggestion is a good one it shows us that Duerer was no more

consistently literal than he was realistic. The most striking features

of his illustration are just those to which his text offers no

counterpart, i.e., the nudity and physical maturity of his goddess.

Neither has he girdled her about with cloud nor stood stars upon her

forehead. I must confess that I find it hard to believe that there was

any close connection present to his mind between his engraving and

these verses.

In a former chapter I have spoken of the fashion in female dress then

prevalent; how it underlined whatever is most essential in the physical

attributes of womanhood, and how probably something of good taste is

shown in this fashion (see pp. 92 and 93). What I there said will

explain Duerer's choice in this matter; and also that what Thausing felt

bow in him was not taste, but his prejudices in regard to womanly

attractiveness, and his misconception as to where the beauty of an

engraving should be looked for and in what it consists. These same

prejudices and misconceptions render Mrs. Heaton (as is only natural in

one of the weaker sex) very bold. She says, "A large naked winged woman,

whose ugliness is perfectly repulsive." This object, I must confess,

appears to me, a coarse male, "welcome to contemplation of the mind and

eye." The splendid Venus in Titian's _Sacred and Profane Love_, or his

_Ariadne_ at Madrid; or Raphael's _Galatea_; or Michael Angelo's _Eve_

(on the Sistine vault) are all of them doubtless far more akin to the

_Aphrodite_ of Praxiteles, or to her who crouches in the Louvre, than is

this _Nemesis_; but we must not forget that they are works on a scale

more comparable with a marble statue; and that in works of which the

scale is more similar to that of our engraving, Greek taste was often

far more with Duerer than with Thausing. This is an important point,

though one which is rarely appreciated. However, there is no reason why

we should condemn "misled by cold definite rules of taste" even such

pictures as Rembrandt's _Bathing Woman_ in the Louvre, though here the

proportions of the work are heroic. Oil painting was an art not

practised by the Greeks, and this medium lends itself to beauties which

their materials put entirely out of reach. Besides, Rembrandt appealed

to an audience who had been educated by Christian ideals to appreciate a

pathos produced by the juxtaposition of the fact with the ideal, and of

the creature with the creator, to appeal to which a Greek would have had

to be far more circumspect in his address--even if he had, through an

exceptional docility and receptiveness of character, come under its

influence himself. These considerations when apprehended will, I

believe, suffice to dispel both prejudice and misconception in regard to

this matter; and we shall find in Professor Thausing's remarks relative

to the treatment of the "female form divine" in this engraving no

additional reason for considering it a comparatively early work. And we

shall only smile when he tells us "The _Nemesis_ to a certain _degree_

(sic) marks the extreme _point_ (sic) reached by Duerer in his unbiased

study of the nude. His further progress became more and more influenced

by his researches into the proportions of the human body." The bias will

appear to us of rather more recent date, and we shall be ready to

consider with an open mind how far Duerer's practice was influenced for

good or evil by his researches into the proportions of the human body.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 80: See page 258.]

[Footnote 81: See page 260.]

[Footnote 82: See Frontispiece.]

[Footnote 83: See page 19.]

CHAPTER V

DUeRER'S WOODCUTS

It is now generally accepted that Duerer did not himself engrave on wood.

In his earliest blocks he shows a greater respect for the limitations of

this means of expression than later on. The earliest wood blocks, though

no doubt they aimed at being facsimiles, were not such in fact; but the

engraver took certain liberties for his own convenience, and probably

did not attempt to render what Duerer calls "the hand" of the designer.

"The hand" was equivalent to what modern artists call "the touch," and

meant the peculiar character recognisable in the vast majority of the

strokes or marks which each artist uses in drawing or painting. Duerer

affected extremely curved and rapid strokes, Mantegna the deliberate

straight line, Rembrandt the straight stroke used so as to seem a

continual improvisation; though indeed he varies the character of his

touch more continually and more vastly than any other master, yet in his

drawings and etchings the majority of the strokes are straight. Already

in the woodcuts provided by Michael Wolgemut, Duerer's master, to

illustrate books, there is a general attempt to render cross hatching:

and the eyes and hair, though still those of an engraver, are

frequently modified to some extent in deference to the character given

by the draughtsman. Still, no one with practical experience would

consider these woodcuts as adequate facsimiles: which makes the question

of their attribution to Wolgemut, or his partner and step-son,

Pleydenwurff, of still less interest and importance than it is on all

other grounds. So conscious an exception as the soul of the accurate

Albert Duerer was, could not be expected to endure a partner in his

creations, especially one whose character was revealed chiefly by the

clumsy compromises convenient to lack of skill. Doubtless the demand for

"his hand" was a new factor in the education of the engraver, as

constant and as imperturbable as the action of a copious stream, which,

having its source in lonely heights, wears a channel through the hardest

rock, the most sullen soils. It may have been the pitiless tyranny of

the master's will for perfection which drove Hieronymus Andreae, "the

most famous of Duerer's wood engravers," into religious and even civil

rebellion, joining hands with levelling fanatics and taking active part

in the Peasant War. Duerer probably would have commanded too much

reverence and affection for these rebellions to be directed against him;

but an insupportably heavy yoke is not rendered lighter because it is

imposed by a loved hand,--though every other burden and restraint may in

such a case be shaken off and resented before that which is the real

cause of oppression. Duerer's wood cutters had no doubt to resign any

indolence, any impatience, or whatever else it might be that had

otherwise stamped a personal character on their work; and all

remonstrance must have been shamed by the evident fact that the young

master spared himself not a whit more. The perseverance and docility

which made such engraving possible was perhaps the greatest aid that

Duerer drew from German character; it was not only an aid, but an example

to and restraint upon that haughty spirit of his that restively ever

again vows never to take so much pains over another picture to be so

poorly paid (see page 103); that complains of failure and discouragement

after years of repeatedly more world-wide successes (see page 187).

These are not German traits, but it may have been the German blood he

inherited from his mother and the example of his friends,

fellow-workers, and helpers, which enabled him to get the better of such

petulant and gloomy outbursts, and return to the day of small things

with the will to continue and endure.

The difference introduced by the engravers becoming more and more

capable of rendering Duerer's hand is well illustrated by comparing the

frontispiece to the _Apocalypse_, added about 1511, with the other cuts

which had appeared in 1498. Doubtless Duerer's hand had changed its

character considerably during this period of constant and rapid

development, and it requires tact and knowledge to separate the

differences due to the creator from those due to the engraver. Duerer's

drawings differed as widely from the earlier drawings as does the

engraving from the earlier blocks. But, as we may see by early drawings

done as preliminary studies for engravings, the method of his pen

strokes had changed less than the character of the forms they rendered;

the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than

the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by

1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the

stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap

and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface

of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the

radiance of the Virgin's glory). Holbein, later on, was to obtain a yet

more wonderful fidelity from Lutzelburger, the engraver of his _Dunce

of Death_.

Still it were misleading to suppose that Duerer's disregard for the

facilities and limitations of wood-cutting went the lengths that the

demands made upon modern skill have gone. Not only has the line been

reproduced, but it has been drawn not with a full pen or brush, but in

pencil or with watered ink; and the delicate tones thus produced have

been demanded of and rendered by human skill. Duerer always uses a clear

definite stroke; and in thus limiting himself he shows an appreciation

of the medium to be used in reproducing his drawing, and recognises its

limits to a large extent, though this is the only limitation he accepts.

Less and less does he consider the possibilities which engraving offers

for the use of a white line on black Doing his drawing with a black

line, he contents himself with the qualities that the resources and

facilities of the full pen line give: and his design is for a drawing

which can be cut on wood, not for something that first really exists in

the print; the prints are copies of his drawings. His drawings were not

prepared to receive additions in the course of cutting, such as could

only be rendered by the engraver. Faithfulness was the only virtue he

required of Hieronymus Andreae. Yet even in such drawings as Duerer's no

doubt were, there would have been some qualities, some defects perhaps,

that the print does not possess. For a print, from the mode of inking,

has a breadth and unity which the drawing never can have. Even in

drawings made with full flowing brush or pen, there will be

modulations in the strength of the ink, or occasioned by the surface of

the wood or paper, in every stroke, by which the, sensitive artist in

the heat of work cannot help being influenced, and which will lead him

to give a bloom, a delicacy, to his drawing, such as a print can never

possess. And, on the other hand, the unity of the print can never be

quite realised in the drawing, however much the artist may strive to

attain it, because the conditions must change, however slightly, for

strokes produced in succession; while in a print all are produced

together, and variations, if variations there are, occur over wide

spaces and not between stroke and stroke. It is considerations, of this

kind that in the last resort determine the quality of works of art. The

artist is taught, though often unconsciously, by the means he employs,

but the diligent man who is not by nature an artist never can learn

these things: he can Imitate the manner and form, never the grace, the

bloom, and the life.

[Illustration: THE APOCALYPSE, 1498 St. Michael fighting the Dragon,

Woodcut, B. 72 From the impression in the British Museum Face p. 262]

Duerer's first important issue of woodcuts was the _Apocalypse_. A great

deal has been written in praise of this production as a political

pamphlet against the corrupt Papacy. It was undoubtedly the most

important series of woodcuts that had ever appeared, by the size, number

and elaboration of the designs. It also undoubtedly attacks

ecclesiastical corruption, but not ecclesiastical only. Whether to Duerer

and his friends it appeared even chiefly directed against prelates, or

even against those who sat in high places; whether the popes, bishops

and figures typical of the Church seemed to him to illustrate the moral

in any pre-eminent degree, may be doubted. Still more doubtful is it

whether there was any objection to papacy or priesthood as institutions

connected with these figures in his mind. Unworthy popes, unworthy

bishops, and an unworthy Rome were censured: but not popes, bishops, or

Rome as the capital see of the Church. Duerer's work as a whole shows no

distaste for saints, the Virgin, or bishops and popes; he had no

objection, no scruple apparently, to introducing the notorious Julius

II. into his _Feast of the_ Rosary, some ten years later. There has

perhaps been a tendency to read the intention of these designs too much

in the light of after events: and by so doing a great slur is cast on

Duerer's consistency; for, had these designs the significance read into

them, he must be supposed an altogether convinced enemy of the Church;

and the tremendous salaams which he afterwards made to her in far more

important works ought, to logical minds, to appear horribly insincere.

Viewed as works of art, one reads about the cut of the four riders upon

horses, "For simple grandeur this justly famous design has never been

surpassed." One's sense of proportion receives such a shock as gives one

the sensation of being utterly outcast, in a world where such a precious

dictum can pass without remark as a sample of the discrimination of the

chief authority on the life and art of Albert Duerer. Neither simple nor

grand is an adjective applicable to this print in the sense in which we

apply it to the chief masterpieces of antiquity and of the Renaissance.

To say even that Duerer never surpassed this design is to utter what to

me at least seems the most palpable absurdity. There is an immense

advance in design, in conception and in mastery of every kind shown over

the best prints of the _Apocalypse_ and _Great Passion_, in the

prints added to the latter series ten years later, and still more in the

_Life of the Virgin_. And still finer results are arrived at in single

cuts of later date, and in the _Little Passion_. If we want to see what

Duerer's woodcuts at their finest are for breadth and dignity of

composition, for richness and fertility of arabesque and black and white

pattern, for vigour and subtlety of form, for boldness and vivacity of

workmanship, we must turn to the _Samson_ (1497?) (B. 2), the Man's

_Bath_ (14-?), (B. 128), among the earlier blocks published before the

_Apocalypse_, then to those designed in or about the year 1511. The

golden period for Duerer's woodcuts, the date of the publication of his

most magnificent series, the _Life of the Virgin_ and several delightful

separate prints. Among these we find it hard to choose, but if some must

be mentioned let it be the _St. Joachim's Offering Rejected by the High

Priest_ (B. 77), the _Meeting at the Golden Gate_ (B. 79) (see

illustration), the _Marriage of the Virgin_ (B. 82), the _Visitation_

(B. 84), the _Nativity_ (B. 85) (see illustration), the _Presentation_

(B. _55_), the _Flight into Egypt_ (B. 89).

[Illustration: Detail enlarged from "Nativity."--"Life of the Virgin"

Woodcut, B. 85]

[Illustration: Enlarged detail from "The Embrace of St. Joachim and St.

Anne at the Golden Gate."--"Life of the Virgin," Woodcut, B. 79]

In the glorious masterpieces of this series Duerer has found the true

balance of his powers. The dignity and charm of the decorative effect of

these cuts has never been surpassed; and to the racy narrative vivacity

of such groups and figures as those isolated and enlarged in our

illustration there is added an idyllic charm of which perhaps the best

examples are the _Visitation_ and the _Flight into Egypt_. This

sweetness of allure is still more pervasive in the separate cuts that

bear this golden date, 1511, that is in the _St. Christopher_ (B. 103),

and the _St. Jerome_ (B. 114). And the _Adoration of the Magi_ (B. 3) is

much finer than the one included in the _Life of the Virgin_. This

idyllic charm had already been touched _upon before_ in the _Assumption

of the Magdalen_ (B. 121) (15?), and in the _St. Antony_ and _St. Paul_

and the _Baptist_ and _St. Onuphrius of_ 1504. It is not felt to lie

very deep in the conception of the subject, for all are treated in an

obviously conventional manner, the touches of racy realism being

confined to subordinate incidents and details. Neither the subjects nor

the mood of the artist lend themselves to the dramatic impressiveness of

such cuts as the _Blowing of the Sixth Trumpet_ or the _St. Michael

overwhelming the Dragon of the Apocalypse_ (_see_ page 262), where the

inspiration appears to be Gothic, perhaps developed under the influence

of Mantegna's _Combat between Sea Monsters_, of which Duerer early made

an elaborate pen-and-ink copy. We find an aftermath of the same

inspiration in the engraving on iron, dated 1516, representing a man

riding astride of an unicorn carrying off a shrieking woman. Such stormy

and strenuous lowerings of the imagination break in upon Duerer's

habitual mood as St. Peter's thunders into Milton's "Lycidas," of which

the general felicitous mingling of a conventional pedantry with idyllic

charm and racy touches of realistic effect is very similar to the

general effect of the golden group we have been describing. Among all

the work that finds its climax in the beautiful creations of 1511, only

in a few prints of the _Little Passion_, published in 1511, do we find

any dramatic power or creativeness of essential conception. I may

mention the _Christ Scourging the Money-changers in the Temple_, the

_Agony in the Garden_, and Judas' _Kiss_, where, though the general

effect be rather confused, the central figure is full of appropriate

power. _Christ haled by the hair before_ _Annas_ (the most wonderful

of all), Christ before _Pilate_, Christ _Mocked_, the _Ecce Homo_ (a

most beautiful composition), the Veronica's napkin incident, _Christ_

being nailed _to the Cross_ (a masterpiece), the _Deposition_, the

_Entombment_:--several others of the series have idyllic charm or

touches of narrative force which link them with the general group, but

these alone stand out and in some ways surpass it. After this date Duerer

seems in a great measure to have relinquished wood for metal engraving;

however, most of his occasional resumptions of the process were marked

by the production of masterpieces, if we put on one side the workshop

monsters produced for Maximilian--and even in these, in details, Duerer's

full force is recognisable. I may mention the _Madonna_ crowned and

_worshipped by a concert of Angels_, 1518 (B. 101), which, though a

little cold, like all the work of that period, is still a masterpiece;

and then, after the inspiriting visit to Antwerp, we have the

magnificent portrait of Ulrich Varnbueler, 1522 (B. 155), the _Last

Supper_, 1523 (B. 53) (see illustration here), and the glorious piece of

decoration representing Duerer's Arms, 1523 (B. 160) (see illustration).

I have reproduced less of Duerer's wood engravings than would be

necessary to represent their importance and beauty, because most, being

large and bold, are greatly impoverished by reduction; besides, they are

nearly all well known through comparatively cheap reproductions. I have

enlarged two details to give an idea of Duerer's workmanship when

employed upon racy realism (see illustration, page 264), and when

employed in endowing a single figure with supreme grace and dignity (see

illustration, page 265).

[Illustration: Christ haled before Annas From the "Little

Passion"--_Between_ pp. 266 & 267]

[Illustration: DUeRER'S ARMORIAL BEARINGS Woodcut, B. 160]

CHAPTER VI

DUeRER'S INFLUENCES AND VERSES

Before closing this part of my book something must be said of Duerer's

influence on other artists. It is one of the foibles of modern criticism

to please itself by tracing influences, a process of the same nature as

that of tracing resemblances to ferns and other growths on a frosted

pane. No one would deny that resemblances are there; it is to

distinguish them and estimate their significance without yielding to

fancifulness, which is the well-nigh hopeless task. It is often

forgotten that similar circumstances produce similar effects, and that

coincidences from this cause are very rife. Then, too, it is forgotten

that the influence that produces rivalry is stronger, more important,

and less easily estimated, than that which is expressed by imitation or

plagiarism; besides, it affects more original and fertile natures. The

stimulus of a great creative personality often is more potent where

discernible resemblances are few and vague, than where they are many and

obvious. In Duerer's day the study and imitation of antique art which had

brought about the Renascence in Italy was the fashion that in successive

waves was passing over Europe and moulding the future. He himself felt

it, and welcomed it now as an authority not to be gainsaid, and again

as an example to be competed against and surpassed. This fashion, this

trend of opinion and hope, was the significance behind the effect

produced on him by Jacopo de' Barbari, whose charming but ineffectual

originality succeeded merely in creating an eddy in that stream. It was

the tide behind him which so powerfully stirred and stimulated Duerer.

The resemblances traceable between certain still life studies by the two

men, or even in figures of their engravings, is insignificant compared

with the fact that through Jacopo Duerer probably first felt the energy

and true direction of the great tidal waves which were then rolling

forth from Italy. Even Mantegna's influence was probably less the effect

of a personal affinity than that through him a power streamed direct

from the antique dawn. This great and master influence of those days was

more one of hope, indefinite, incomprehensible, visionary, than one of

knowledge and assured discovery. Raphael may have received it from

Duerer, as well as Duerer from Bellini. Figures and incidents from Duerer's

engravings are supposed to have been adapted in certain works, if not of

his own hand at least proceeding from his immediate pupils. For Raphael,

Duerer was a proof of the excellence of human nature in respect to the

arts, even when it could not form itself on the immediate study and

contemplation of antiques, and thus added to the zest and expectation

with which he improved himself in that direction. These great men did

not distinguish clearly between pregnancy due to their own efforts, that

of their contemporaries and immediate predecessors, and that due to

their more mystic passion for antiquity. Michael Angelo, Titian, and

Correggio were destined to be the signets by which this great power was

to be most often and clearly stamped on the work of future artists.

From the unhappy location of his life Duerer was debarred from any such

obvious and overwhelming effect on after generations. The influences

which helped to shape him were no doubt at work on all the more eminent

artists, his fellow-countrymen; on Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Burgkmair,

Lucas Cranach, or Baldung Grien, to mention only the elect. What the

stimulus of his achievements, of his renown, meant for these men we have

no means of computing; yet we may feel sure that it was vastly more

important and significant than any actual traces of imitation or

plagiarism from his works, which can with difficulty and for the more

part very doubtfully be brought home to them;--vastly more important and

significant too we may be sure than his effect upon his pupils and other

more or less obscure painters, engravers, and block designers, in whose

work actual imitation or adaption of his creations is more certain and

more abundant. His pictures, plates, and woodcuts were copied both in

Italy and in the North, both as exercises for the self-improvement of

artists and to supply a demand for even secondhand reflections of his

genius and skill. He was not destined to lend the impress of his

splendid personality to the tide of fashion like the great Italians;

their influence was to supersede his even in the North.

This is obvious: but who shall compare or estimate the accession of

force which the tide as a whole gained from him, or that more latent

power which begins to be disengaged from the reserve and lack of proper

issue from which he evidently suffered, now that the great tide of the

Renaissance has spent its mighty onrush and become merged in the

constant movement of life--that power by which he moves us to

commiserate his circumstances and to feel after the more and better,

which we cannot doubt that he might have given us had he been more

happily situated?

[Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER Woodcut, p. 53]

Only to compare the value of Michael Angelo's sonnets with that of the

doggerel rhymes which Duerer produced, may give us some idea of the

portentous inferiority in Duerer's surroundings to those of the great

Italian. Both borrow the general idea of the subject, treatment, and

form of their poems from the fashion around them. But that fashion in

Michael Angelo's case called for elevated subject, intimate and

imaginative treatment, and adequacy of form, whereas none of these were

called for from Albrecht Duerer; and if his friends laughed at the

rudeness of his verses, it was not that they themselves conceived of

anything more adequate in these respects, only something more scholarly,

more pedantic. Michael Angelo's verse was often crabbed and rude, but

the scholarship and pedantry of Italy forbore to laugh at that rudeness,

because a more adequate standard made them recognise its vital power and

noble passion as of higher importance to true success. Still, in the

following rhymes, Duerer shows himself a true child of the Renascence, at

least in intention; and was proud of a desire for universal excellence.

When I received this from Lazarus Spengler, I made him the following

poem in reply (Mrs. Heaton's translation):

In Nuernberg it is known full well

A man of letters now doth dwell,

One of our Lord's most useful men,

He is so clever with his pen,

And others knows so well to hit,

And make ridiculous with wit;

And he has made a jest of me,

Because I made some poetry,

And of True Wisdom something wrote,

But as he likes my verses not,

He makes a laughing stock of me,

And says I'm like the Cobbler, he

Who criticised Apelles' art.

With this he tries to make me smart,

Because he thinks it is for me

To paint, and not write poetry.

But I have undertaken this

(And will not stop for him or his),

To learn whatever thing I can,

For which will blame me no wise man.

For he who only learns one thing,

And to naught else his mind doth bring,

To him, as to the notary,

It haps, who lived here as do we,

In this our town. To him was known

To write one form and one alone.

Two men came to him with a need

That he should draw them up a deed;

And he proceeded very well,

Until their names he came to spell:

Gotz was the first name that perplexed,

And Rosenstammen was the next.

The Notary was much astonished,

And thus his clients he admonished,

"Dear friends," he said, "you must be wrong,

These names don't to my form belong;

Franz and Fritz[84] I know full well,

But of no others have heard tell."

And so he drove away his clients,

And people mocked his little science.

To me that it may hap not so,

Something of all things I will know.

Not only writing will I do,

But learn to practise physic too;

Till men surprised will say, "Beshrew me,

What good this painter's medicines do me!"

Therefore hear and I will tell

Some wise receipts to keep you well.

A little drop of alkali,

Is good to put into the eye;

He who finds it hard to hear,

Should mandel-oil put in his ear;

And he who would from gout be free,

Not wine but water drink should he;

He who would live to be a hundred,

Will see my counsel has not blundered.

Therefore I will still make rhymes

Though my friend may laugh at times.

So the Painter with hairy beard

Says to the Writer who mocked and jeered.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 84: Equivalent to our John Doe and Richard Roe.]

PART IV

DUeRER'S IDEAS

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

THE IDEA OF A CANON OF PROPORTION FOR THE HUMAN FIGURE

Duerer often painted the Virgin's head as a mere exercise or example in

those proportion studies with which we must presently deal.

Sir W. M. CONWAY, in "Duerer's Literary Remains," p. 151.

As soon as he comes to speak of the very essence of artistic work, he

forgets theories and imitations of the antique; he knows nothing of

composition from fragments of Nature, of measurements and speculations.

No longer trusting to such aids as these, but launching himself boldly

on the broad stream of Nature, he believes that he shall attain to a

higher harmony in his work.

THAUSING'S "Albert Duerer," vol. ii., p. 318.

The idea of a canon for human proportions has proved a great

stumbling-block for so-called classical or academic artists. It is

usually taken to mean an absolutely right or harmonious proportion, any

deviation from which cannot fail to result in a diminution of beauty.

According to their thoroughness, the devotees of this idea seek to

arrive at such a scale of proportions for a varying number of different

ages in either sex; often even modifying this again for diverse types,

as tall or short, fat or lean, dark or blonde, but allowing no excessive

variation for these causes; so that abnormally tall people and dwarfs

are not considered. This is, I take it, what the great artist Albert

Duerer is generally taken to have been aiming at in his books on

proportion. It will not be difficult, I think, to show that Duerer had

quite a different idea of what a canon of proportion should be, and how

it should be applied. And certainly, had it been possible to study Greek

practice more closely, and in a larger number of examples, when this

idea (supposed to be drawn from that source) was chiefly mooted, a very

different notion of the canon of proportion would have been forced on

the most academical of theorists. Duerer's great superiority over such

academical masters is, that his idea of a canon of proportion and its

use agrees far better with what was apparently Greek practice.

Any one who has followed at all the interesting attempts made by

Professor Furtwaengler and others to group together, by attention to the

measurements of the different parts of the figure, works belonging to

the different masters, schools, and centres, will have perceived that he

is led to assume a traditional canon of proportion from which a master

deviates slightly in the direction of some bias of his own mind towards

closer knit or more slim figures; such variations being in the earlier

stages very slight. Again, it is supposed that from the canon followed

by a master, different pupils may branch off in opposite directions

according to the leanings of their personal sentiment for beauty. The

conception of these ramifications has at least created the hope that

critics may follow them through a great number of complications, since

a master may modify his canon--after certain pupils have already struck

out for themselves, and new pupils may start from his modified canon;

and so on into an infinite criss-cross of branches, as any sculptor may

be influenced to modify his canon by his fellows or by the masters of

other schools whose work he comes across later. In any case, this main

fact arises, that the canon appears as what the artist deviated from,

not what he abided by: and any one who has any feeling for the infinite

nicety of the results obtained by Greek sculptors will easily apprehend

that each masterpiece established a new and slightly different canon,

and was then in the position to be in its turn again deviated from, as

Flaubert says:

"The conception of every work of art carries within it its own rule and

method, which must be found out before it can be achieved."

"Chayue ceuvre a faire a sa poetique en soi, qu'il faut trouver."

The same thing is asserted by literary critics to have been the cause of

the repetition of subjects in Greek tragedy, and to have resulted in the

infinite niceties of their forms, which are never the same and never

radically new.

The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded stood,

before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the

spectator's mind; it stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly

seen, at the end of a long dark vista. Then came the poet, embodying

outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment

capriciously thrown in. Stroke upon stroke, the drama proceeded; the

light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the

riveted gaze of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were

spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of

immortal beauty.

This passage from Matthew Arnold's deservedly famous preface well

emphasises one advantage that a tradition of subject and treatment gave

to the Greek poet as to the Greek sculptor: the economy of means it made

possible, "not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown

in,"--since every deviation from, every addition to, the traditional

story and treatment, was immediately appreciated by an audience

thoroughly conversant with that tradition, and often with several

previous masterpieces treating it. By merely leaving out an incident, or

omitting to appeal to a sentiment, a Greek tragedian could flood his

whole work with a new significance. So that the temptation to be

eccentric, the temptation to hit too hard or at random because he was

not sure of exactly where the mind stood that he would impress, did not

exist in anything like the same degree for him as it did for Shakespeare

and Michael Angelo as it does for romantic and origina natures to-day.

The absence of a sufficient body of traditional culture belonging to

every educated person tends always to force the artist to commence by

teaching the alphabet to his public. As Coleridge so justly remarked in

the case of Wordsworth: "He had, like all great artists, to create the

taste by which he was to be relished, to teach the art by which he was

to be seen and judged." All great artists no doubt have to do this, but

the modern artist is in the position of the Israelite who was bidden not

only to make bricks, but to find himself in stubble and straw, as

compared with a Greek who could appeal to traditional conceptions with

certainty. Dr. Verrall is no doubt right when he says:

Every one knows, even if the full significance of the fact is not always

sufficiently estimated, that the tragedians of Athens did not tell their

story at all as the telling of a story is conceived by a modern

dramatist, whose audience, when the curtain goes up, know nothing which

is not in the play-bill.

This ignorant public, this uncultivated and unmanured field with which

every modern artist has to commence, is the greatest let to the creator.

What wonder that he should so often prefer to make a gaudy show with

yellow weeds, when he perceives that there is hardly time in one man's

life to produce a respectable crop of wheat from such a wilderness?

"The story of an Athenian tragedy is never completely told; it is

implied, or, to repeat the expression used above, it is illustrated by a

selected scene or scenes. And the further we go back the truer this is,"

continues Dr. Verrall; and the same was doubtless true of sculpture and

painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance or advantage

of this fact to the artist. For religious art, for art that appeals to

the sum and total of a man's experience of beauty in life, a public

cultivated in this sense is a necessity. Giotto and Fra Angelico enjoyed

this almost to the same degree as AEschylus or Phidias; Michael Angelo

and the great artists of the Renascence generally enjoyed it in a very

great degree, and reaped an advantage comparable to that which Euripides

and his contemporaries and immediate successors enjoyed. The tradition

enabled such an artist to impress by means of subtleties, niceties, and

refinements, instead of forcing him to attempt always to more or less

seduce, astonish or overawe; strong measures which grow almost

necessarily into bad habits, and end by perverting the taste they

created. This, it has often been remarked, was the case even with

Michael Angelo, even with Shakespeare. Yet nowadays, to enable a man to

remark this, exceptional culture is required.

III

This idea of the use of a canon may be illustrated in many ways; for,

like all notions which resume actual experiences, it will be found

applicable in many spheres. Thus, on the subject of verse, the eternal

quarrel between the poet and the pedant is, that for the first the rules

of prosody and rhyme are only useful in so far as they make the licenses

he takes appreciable at their just value; while for the pedant such

licenses ever anew seem to imply ignorance of the rule or incapacity to

follow it,--an absurd mistake, since the power to create and impress has

little to do with the means employed; and if a man builds up for himself

a barrier of foregone conclusions about the exact manner in which alone

he will allow himself to be deeply impressed, it is very certain he will

have few save painful impressions. Or take another illustration--an

artist the other day told me that he had noticed that one could almost

always trace a faintly ruled vertical line on the paper which the

greatest of all modern draughtsmen used. Ingres, then, with all his

freedom, vivacity, and accuracy of control over the point he employed to

draw with, still found it useful to have a straight line ruled on his

paper as a student does, and may often even have resorted to the

plumb-line. It enabled his eye to test the subtlest deviations in the

other lines with which he was creating the balance, swing or stability

of a figure. Rules of art are, like this straight line, dead and

powerless in themselves: they help both creator and lover to follow and

appreciate the infinite freedom and subtlety of the living work. The

same thing might be illustrated with regard to manners; a fine standard

of social address and receptivity must be established before the

varieties and subtleties of those whose genius creates beautiful

relations can be appreciated at their full value in their full variety.

This dead law must be buried in everybody's mind and heart before they

can rise to that conscious freedom which is opposite to the freedom of

the wild animals, who never know why they do, nor appreciate how it is

done; neither are they able to rejoice in the address of others; much

less can they relish the infinite refinements of exhilarating

apprehension, which make of laughter, tears, speech, silence, nearness

and distance, a music which holds the enraptured soul in ecstasy; which

created and constantly renews the hope of Heaven. And what blacker

minister of a more sterile hell than the social pedant who only knows

the rule, and mistakes grace and delicacy, frankness and generosity, for

more or less grave infractions of it? But the happy critic, free from

any personal knowledge of what creation means, or what aids are likely

to forward it, is for ever in such a hurry to correct great creators

like Leonardo, Duerer, or Hokusai, that he fails to understand them; and

when he has caught them saying, "This is how anger or despair is

expressed," calmly smiles in his superiority and says,

"He had a scientific law for putting a battle on to canvas, one

condition of which was that 'there must not be a level spot which is

not trampled with gore.' But Leonardo did no harm; his canon was based

on literary rather than artistic interests."

Analogies with scientific laws have served art and art criticism a very

bad turn of late years. Nothing can be more useful to an artist than

knowledge of how the emotions are expressed by the contortion of the

features; but nobody in his senses could ever imagine that a rule for

the expression of anger was rigid throughout and must never be departed

from; every one approaching such a rule with a view to practice instead

of criticism must immediately perceive that its only use is to be

departed from in various degrees. Leonardo's advice for the painting of

a battle-piece is excellent if it is understood in the sense in which it

was meant,--"everything is what it is and not another thing," as Bishop

Butler put it. Be sure and make your battle a battle indeed. It is time

we should realise that what the great artists wrote about art is likely

to be as sensible as are the works they created. How absurd it is for

some one who can neither carve nor paint, much less create, to imagine

he easily grasps the rules of art better than a great master! To such

people let us repeat again and again Hamlet's impatient: "Oh, mend it

altogether!"

Now it will easily be seen that the causes which shape an art tradition

may often be independent of, and foreign to, the will that creates

beautiful objects. Religious superstition or formalism may often hem the

artist in, and hamper his will in every direction; though it is not

wholly accidental that the Greeks had a religion the spirit of which

tended always to defeat the conservatism and bigotry of its priests. So

that their formalism, instead of frustrating or warping the growth of

their art tradition, merely served as a check that may well seem to have

been exactly proportioned to its need; preventing the weakness or

rankness of over rapid growth such as detracts from the art of the

Renascence, and at the same time causing no vital injury. The spirit of

the race deserved and created and was again in turn recreated by

its religion.

Since it is generally recognised that too much freedom is not good for

growing life, I think that almost everybody must at this stage have

become aware of how immensely stupid the academical idea of a canon

appears besides this idea. How suitable both to life and the desire for

perfection the Greek practice was! How theologically dense the

unprogressive inflexibility of the academical practitioner! And now let

us hear Duerer.

But first I will quote from Sir Martin Conway the explanation of what

Duerer means by the phrase, "Words of Difference."

These are what he calls the "Words of Difference": large, long, small,

stout, broad, thick, narrow, thin, young, old, fat, lean, pretty, ugly,

hard, soft, and so forth; in fact any word descriptive of a quality

"whereby a thing may be differentiated from the thing (normal figure)

first made."

Or, as Duerer says in another place, "difference such as maketh a thing

fair or foul."

But further, it lieth in each man's choice whether or how far he shall

make use of all the above written "Words of Difference." For a man may

choose whether he will learn to labour with art, wherein is the truth,

or without art in a freedom by which everything he doth is corrupted,

and his toil becometh a scorn to look upon to such as understand.

Wherefore it is needful for every one that he use discreetness in such

of his works as shall come to the light Whence it ariseth that he who

would make anything aright must in no wise abate aught (that is

essential) from Nature, neither must he lay what is intolerable upon

her. Howbeit some will (by going to an opposite extreme) make

alterations (from Nature) so slight that they can scarce be perceived.

Such are of no account if they cannot be perceived; to alter over much

also answereth not. A right mean (in such alterations) is best. But in

this book I have departed from this right mean in order that it might be

so much the better traced in small things. Let not him who wishes to

proceed to some great thing imitate this my swiftness, but let him set

more slowly (gradually) about his work, that it be not brutish but

artistic to look upon. For figures which differ from the mean are not

good to look upon _when_ they are wrongly and unmasterly employed.

It is not to be wondered at that a skilful master beholdeth manifold

differences of figure, all of which he might make if he had time enough,

but which, for lack of time, he is forced to pass by. For such chances

come very often to artists, and their imaginations also are full of

figures which it were possible for them to make. Wherefore, if to live

many hundred years were granted unto a man who had skill in the use of

such art and were thereto accustomed, he would (through the power which

God hath granted unto men) have wherewith daily to mould and make many

new figures of men and other creatures, which none had before seen nor

imagined. God, therefore, in such and other ways granteth great power

unto artistic men.

Although there be such talking of differences, still it is well known

that all things that a man doth differ of their own nature one from

another. Consequently, there liveth no artist so sure of hand as to be

able to make two things exactly alike the one to the other, so that they

may not be distinguished. For of all our works none is quite and

altogether like another, and this we can in no wise avoid.

We see that if we take two prints from an engraved copper-plate, or cast

two images in a mould, very many points may immediately be found whereby

they may be distinguished one from another. If, then, it cometh thus to

pass in things made by processes the least liable to error, much more

will it happen in other things which are made by the free hand.

This, however, is _not the kind of Difference_ whereof I here treat; for

I am speaking of a difference (from the mean) which a man specially

intendeth, and which standeth in his will, of which I have spoken once

and again....

This is not the aforesaid Difference which we cannot sever from our

work, but, such a difference as maketh a thing fair or foul, and which

may be set forth by the "Word of Difference" dealt with above in this

Book. If a man produce "different" figures of this kind in his work, it

will be judged in every man's mind according to his own opinion, and

these judgments seldom agree one with another.... Yet let every man

beware that he make nothing impossible and inadmissible in Nature,

unless indeed he would make some fantasy, in which it is allowed to

mingle creatures of all kinds together....

Any one who leads this carefully cannot fail to see that it is not only

that Duerer is not "desirous of laying down rules applicable to all

cases," or even of "proposing a definite canon for the relative

proportions of the human body," as Thausing indeed points out (p. 305,

v. 11): but that he does not conceive the proportions he gives as even

approximately capable of these functions; and considers it indeed the

very nature and special use of a canon of proportions to be wilfully

deviated from, pointing out that, though the deviations of which he is

speaking are slight and subtle, they are not to be confused with the

accidental ones that can but appear even in work done by mechanical

processes. Rather they are such variation as a man "specially intendeth,

and which standeth in his will;" and again, "such a difference as maketh

a thing fair or foul;" for the use of these normal proportions is that

they may enable an artist to deviate from the normal without the

proportions he chooses having the air of monstrosities or mistakes or

negligences. He does not insist that either of the scales he gives is

the best that could be, even for this purpose, but that they are

sufficiently good to be used; and he would have marvelled at the wonder

that has been caused in innocent critical minds that in his own work he

adhered to them so little. He never intended them to be adhered to.

It may be objected that Duerer certainly sometimes thought of a Canon of

Proportion as a perfect rule, because he wrote on a MS. page as

follows:--

Vitruvius, the ancient architect, whom the Romans employed upon great

buildings, says that whosoever desires to build should study the

perfection of the human figure, for in it are discovered the most secret

mysteries of proportion. So, before I say anything about architecture, I

will state how a well-formed man should be made, and then about a woman,

a child and a horse. Any object may be proportioned out (_literally_,

measured) in a similar way. Therefore, hear first of all what Vitruvius

says about the human figure, which he learnt from the greatest masters,

painters and founders, who were highly famed. They said that the human

figure is as follows.

That the face from the chin upward to where the hair begins is the

tenth part of a man, and that an out-stretched hand is the same

length, &c.

[Illustration: "This is my appearance in the eighteenth year of my age"

Charcoal-drawing in the Academy, Vienna _Face p._288]

And again in another place, as Sir Martin Conway points out, he gives a

religious basis to this notion,[85] "the Creator fashioned men once for

all as they must be, and I hold that the perfection of form and beauty

is contained in the sum of all men." In an obvious sense these passages

certainly run counter to those which I have quoted (pp. 285-207): but I

would like to point out that these are dogmatic assertions about

something that if it were true could never be proved by experience (see

also pp. 64, 254), those former are Duerer's advice with a view to

practice. Men frequently carry about a considerable amount of dogmatic

opinion, which has so little connection with actual experience that it

is never brought to the test without being noticeably incommoded by it.

Yet it is not absolutely necessary to consider Duerer as inconsistent in

regard to this matter, even to this degree.

The beauty of form which he held had been Adam's, and which was now

parcelled out among his vast progeny in various amounts as a consequence

of his fall--this beauty of form doubtless Duerer considered it part of

an artist's business to recollect and reveal in his work. This beauty is

an ideal, and his canon (or rather canons) were intended as means to

help the artist to approach towards the realisation of that ideal. It is

obvious also that a man occupied in comparing the proportions of those

whom he considers to be exceptionally beautiful will develop and feed

his power of imagining beautifully proportioned figures. It would be

futile to deny that this is very much what took place in the evolution

of Greek statues, or that such works are perhaps of all others the most

central and satisfying to the human spirit. The sentences that precede

that quoted by Sir Martin are Greek in tendency.

A good figure cannot be made without industry and care; it should

therefore be well considered before it is begun, so that it be correctly

made. For the lines of its form cannot be traced by compass or rule, but

must be drawn by the hand from point to point, so that it is easy to go

wrong in them. And for such figures great attention should be paid to

human proportions, and all their kinds should be investigated. _I hold

that the more nearly and accurately a figure is made to resemble a man,

so much the better the work will be._ If the best parts chosen from many

well-formed men are united in one figure, it will be worthy of praise.

But some are of another opinion, and discuss how men ought to be made. I

will not argue with them about that. I hold Nature for Master in such

matters, and the fancy of men for delusion.

And then follows the passage quoted by Sir Martin Conway (see p. 289).

It is obvious that, joined with the two preceding sentences, this

passage can in no way be made to serve the academical practitioner, as

it seems to when taken alone. In the same way, the sentence printed in

italics in the above quotation, if isolated, would certainly seem to

serve the scientific practitioners and their slavish realism, though in

connection with those that follow this is no longer possible. Duerer

regards nature as providing raw material for a creation which may not

tally exactly with any individual natural object. This was the Greek

artists' idea of the serviceableness of nature, as revealed both by

their practice and by such traditions as that concerning Zeuxis and his

five beautiful models for the figure of Venus. But Duerer does not

confine the use of his canons even to this aim, but clearly perceived

their utility in regard to quite other aims, as is shown by the passage

beginning, "It is not to be wondered at," &c. (see p. 286), in which the

imagination of figures not merely intended to embody beautiful or newly

assorted proportions is clearly considered; and if we review Duerer's

actual work we shall see how much oftener he created figures for

picturesque or dramatic effect than he did to embody beautiful

proportions in them, though he evidently also considered the last

purpose as of the first importance, as we see when he goes on to say:

Let any one who thinks I alter the human form too much or too little

take care to avoid my error and follow nature. There are many different

kinds of men in various lands: whoso travels far will find this to be

so, and see it before his eyes. We are considering about the most

beautiful human figure conceivable, but (only) the Maker of the world

knows how that should be. Even if we succeed well we do but approach

towards it from afar. For we ourselves have differences of perception,

and the vulgar who follow only their own taste usually err. Therefore I

do not advise any one to follow me, for I only do what I can, and that

is not enough even to satisfy myself.

The extreme complexity of Duerer's ideas and their application was a

natural result of their having been born of his experience. For

excellence is extremely various, and widely scattered through the world.

The simplicity of a true work of art results merely from some excellence

having been singled out from all foreign circumstances, and presented as

vividly as it was intensely apprehended. This excellence may be one of

proportion or one of many other kinds. Now, a figure conceived by an

artist, whether he value it for its choicely assorted proportions or for

picturesque or dramatic effect, may need to be developed before it is

serviceable in an elaborate work of art.

Artists who work rapidly, and, whose pictures are dominated by passing

moods, have always been in the habit of taking great licences with

proportion, and, indeed, with all matters of fact. Duerer's aim is to

endow the artist who elaborates his work slowly with a similar freedom.

This energy and power in rapid work it is the ever-renewed despair of

artists to feel themselves losing in the process of elaboration. And one

of the reasons for this is that in larger or more elaborate work, the

statement, being more ample, is expected to be also more comprehensive

and exhaustive; for the time required begets after-thoughts as to the

real nature of the object viewed apart from the mood, which is the only

excuse for the work; and so some of the artist's attention is drawn away

to facts and aspects which it would have been the success of his work to

have ignored. Duerer's object was to help a man to carry out his

essential intention, and that alone, in a carefully elaborated picture;

the problems faced were precisely similar to those so successfully coped

with in Greek statues. In the first place, he would have pointed out

that all sketches will not bear elaboration if their merit depends on

extreme licence, for instance. Next, that a man who had a standard of

proportion could see wherein the deviations of his sketched figure were

essential to the effect he wished it to produce, and wherein they were

unessential. Then, if he drew the normal figure large, he would be able

to deviate from it in exactly the right places and to the right degree

to reproduce the desired effect. But to do this he must also have a

general notion of how deviations from a normal proportion could be made

consistent throughout all the measurements involved not that he would in

every case want to make them consistent. Now, there is a class of

artists for whom all these suggestions of Duerer's must for ever remain

useless, for all science of production is impossible for those whose

only success lies in improvisation; such improvisations, however

dazzling or however delightful they may be, are, nevertheless, the class

of art-works furthest removed in spirit and in method from Greek

statuary. I do not say that they need be inferior; I say that they are

opposite in method. And, had circumstances permitted, or Duerer's dowry

of great gifts been more complete than it was, and enabled him to become

as great a creator of pictures as he is a great draughtsman and

portrait-painter, no doubt his pictures would have resembled Greek

statues both in their effect and their method, however different they

might have been in subject and in range. To talk about "beauty" being

sacrificed to "truth," with Prof. Thausing; or the ideal of the North

being "strength" in works of art as in life, with Sir Martin Conway;--is

to confuse the issue and deceive oneself. To have mistaken the proper

end of art, beauty, by thinking it was "truth" or "strength," is to have

failed to labour in the right direction; that is all-who-ever may

condone the failure.

Again, Sir Martin Conway tells us:

The laws of perspective can be deduced with certainty from mathematical

first principles, the canon of proportions' could only be constructed

empirically as the result of repeated observations. Nevertheless, once

constructed, it can certainly be used as Duerer suggested. Its use has

practically been superseded by the study of anatomy.

This last phrase shows us in a flash how far the writer when he wrote it

was from apprehending Duerer's meaning. How could the study of anatomy

ever do for an artist what Duerer was trying to do? No doubt Sir Martin

had Michael Angelo in his mind's eye; and it is true that he studied

anatomy, and that his influence has been, on the whole, paramount with

artists attempting subjects of this kind ever since. Whether Michael

Angelo studied proportion or not, his practice exemplifies Duerer's

meaning splendidly. No anatomical research could have led him to

construct figures nine to twelve, or even fifteen to twenty, heads

high--to do which, as his work developed, more and more became his

practice, especially in designs and sketches for compositions. To arrive

at such proportions he followed his imaginative instinct. He found that

these monstrous deviations from the normal (which, of course, in a

general sense he recognised, whether he gave any study to rendering it

precise or not) produced the effect on his mind that he wished to

produce on the minds of others--an effect that was emotional and

peculiar to his habitual moods. We know that his constitution gave him

the staying-power, while his fiery Titanic spirit gave him the energy,

to carry out and perfect his mighty frescoes and statues at the same

heat that the creative hour yields other men for the production of a

sketch alone. This giant son of Time was able to live for days and weeks

together in a state of mind two or three consecutive hours of which

exhaust the average master even. Considering the rapidity and intensity

of his mental process, it is a miracle that, in so many works and to so

great a degree, he respected the too much and too little of human

reason, and allowed himself to be governed by what the Greeks called a

sense of measure, instead of yielding to his native impetuosity and

becoming an a-thousand-fold-greater-Blake; and illustrating, to the

delight of active and short-winded intelligences, and the stupefaction

of slow and dull ones, the futility of eccentricity and the frivolity of

passion when unseconded by constancy of character and labour. For

futile, in the arts, is whatever the sense of beauty must condemn,

however well-intentioned; and frivolous is the passion that forgets the

end it would attain, and becomes merely a private rhapsody, however

astonishing its developments; slowly but surely it will be seen that

such fireworks do not vitally concern us. The proportions of many of

Michael Angelo's figures are as far removed from any possible normal

standard as what Duerer calls "this my swiftness," in the abnormally tall

and stout figures among the diagrams illustrating his book.

And this is where Duerer's idea comes nearer to Greek practice. For by

letting the striking rather than the subtle govern his departures from

the mean, Michael Angelo found himself always bound to go beyond

himself; as the palate which once has entertained strong stimulants

demands that the dose be continually strengthened. Now this is in entire

conformity with the impatience which was perhaps his greatest weakness;

just as Duerer's too methodical approach is in conformity with that

acquiescence in the insufficiency of his conditions which made him in

his weak moments swear never again to undertake those better classes of

work which were less adequately paid, or made him content to display

mere manual dexterity rather than do nothing on his days of darkness,

suffering and depression: we may add, which made him choose to live at

Nuremberg and refuse a better income and more suitable surroundings

at Venice.

It is obviously the more hopeful way to create a beautiful figure first

and discover a mathematical way of reproducing its most essential

proportions afterwards; and no doubt this is what Duerer intended should

be done; and in consequence he felt a need, and sought to supply it, for

mechanical means to simplify, shorten and render more sure that part of

the process which must necessarily partake something of the nature of

drudgery, if great finish is to be combined with splendid design. The

romantic, impulsive _improvisatore_ does not feel this need, considers

it bound to defeat its own aim; and, given his own gifts, he is right.

But none the less, there are the Greek statues elaborated with a

thoroughness which, if it ever dims or veils the creative intention,

does so in a degree so slight as to seem amply compensated by the sense

of ease maintained in spite of the innumerable difficulties overcome;

there are besides a score or more of Duerer's copper engravings with

their imperturbable adequacy of minute painstaking, never for a moment

sleepy or mechanical or lifeless. The one aim need not excommunicate the

other even in the same individual; far less need this be so in different

artists, with diverse temperaments, diverse aptitudes.

VII

The application of this idea does not end with the simple proportions of

measurement between the limbs and parts of the figure; it is also

concerned with what is called the modelling, and the treatment of

surfaces such as the draperies, the hair, the fleshy portions and those

beneath which the bony structure comes to prominence; in painting it may

be applied to the chiaroscuro and colour. Reynolds' remarks on the

Venetians in his Eighth Discourse well illustrate this fact. He says:

It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed that the masses of

light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or a

yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be

kept _almost_ entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support

and set off these warm colours; and, for this purpose, a small

_proportion_ of cold colours will be sufficient.

If this conduct be reversed, let the light be cold, and the surrounding

colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine

painters; and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of

Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid or harmonious.[86]

Here we see a great colourist attempting to establish a canon for

colour. Had he lived at an earlier period, before expression had become

generally a subject of criticism, he would have described his discovery

in less guarded and elastic language, such as is now applied to

scientific laws. And then he might have been as excusably misunderstood

as Leonardo and Duerer have been; as it is, the misunderstanding dealt

out to him is quite without excuse.

Rembrandt, not only exemplifies the impressiveness of great deviations

in structural proportions in much the same degree as Michael Angelo,

using what the Greeks and Duerer would doubtless have considered a

dangerous liberty, however much they might have felt bound to admire the

results obtained; not only does he do this when, for instance, he

represents Jesus now as a giant, now as almost a dwarf, according to the

imaginative impression which he chooses to create; but he follows a

similar process in his black and white pattern. For among his works

there are etchings, which, though often supposed to have been left

unfinished, are discerned by those with a sense for beauties of this

class to be marvellously complete, stimulating, and satisfying, and in

the nicest harmony with the other impressions produced by the mental

point of view from which the subject is viewed, as also by the main

lines and proportions of the composition, and to yield the visual

delight most suitable to the occasion. Duerer and the Greeks are at one

with Michael Angelo and Rembrandt in condemning by their practice all

purely mechanical application of ideas or methods to the production of

works of creative art, such as is exemplified by artists of more limited

aims and powers; by academical practitioners, by theoretical scientists

calling themselves impressionists, luminarists, naturalists, or any

other name. For artists whose temperaments are impeded by some unhappy

slowness, or difficulty in concentrating themselves, methods of

procedure similar to those elaborated by Duerer in his books on

proportion, properly understood, must be a real aid and benefit; as

those who are essentially improvisors may help themselves and supply

their deficiencies by methods similar to those which Reynolds describes

as practised by Gainsborough.

"He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table, composed of

broken stones, dried herbs and pieces of broken glass, which he

magnified and improved into rocks, trees and water" (Fourteenth

Discourse).

This process resembles that of tracing faces or scenes from the life of

gnomes in glowing caverns among coals of fire on a winter's eve; it is

resorted to in one form or another by all creative artists, but it is

peculiarly useful to men like Gainsborough, whose art tends always to

become an improvisation, whatever strenuous discipline they may have

subjected themselves to in their days of ardent youth.

VIII

Perhaps Duerer's actual standards for the normal, his actual methods for

creating self-consistent variations from it, are not likely to prove of

much use, even when artists shall be sufficiently educated to understand

them; nevertheless, the principle which informs them has been latent in

the work of all great creators; is marvellously fulfilled indeed, in

Greek statuary. The work of Antoine Louis Barye, that great and

little-understood master--as far as I am able to judge, the only modern

artist who has made science serve him instead of being seduced by

her--exemplifies this central idea of Duerer's almost as fully as the

Greek masterpieces. The future of art appears to me to lie in the hands

of those artists who shall be able to grapple with the new means offered

them by the advance of science, as he did, and be as little or even less

seduced than he was by the foolish idea that art can become science

without ceasing to be art, which has handicapped and defeated the

efforts of so many industrious and talented men of late years. So truly

is this the case that the improvisor appears to many as the only true

artist, and his uncontrolled caprices as the farthest reach of human

constructive power.

In any case, no artist is unhappy if a docile and hopeful disposition

enables him to see in the masterpieces of Greek sculpture the reward of

an easy balance of both temperaments and methods, the improvisor's and

the elaborator's, under felicitous circumstances, by men better endowed

than himself. And this though never history and archaeology shall be in

a position to give him information sufficient to determine that his

faith is wholly warranted.

A golden age is a golden dream, that sheds

A golden light on waking hours, on toil,

On leisure, and on finished works.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 85: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 166.]

[Footnote 86: See also III Discourse where he defends Duerer against

Bacon.]

CHAPTER II

THE IMPORTANCE OF DOCILITY

I now intend to re-arrange what seem the most interesting of the

sentences on the theory of art which are found in Duerer's MSS. and books

on proportion. He did not give them the final form or order which he

intended, and it seems to me that to arrange the more important

according to the subjects they treat of will be the simplest way of

arriving at general conceptions as to their tendency and value. We shall

thus bring together repetitions of the same thought and contradictory

answers to the same question; and after each series of sentences, I

myself shall discuss the points raised, illustrating my remarks from

modern writers whose opinion in these matters seems to me deserving of

most attention. I have heard it said by the late Mr. Arthur Strong that

Duerer's art is always didactic; and Duerer as a writer on art certainly

has ever before his mind this one object, to teach others, or, as I

should prefer to phrase it, to help others to learn. For he himself is

continually confessing that he cannot yet answer his own questions, and

it seems to me that the best teacher is always he who most desires to

increase his knowledge, not indeed to hoard it as some do and make of

it a personal possession; intellectual misers, for ever gnashing their

teeth over the reputations or the pretensions of others. No, but one who

desires knowledge for its own sake and welcomes it in others with as

much satisfaction as he gains it for himself. Docility, i.e.,

teachableness, let me point out once more, seems to be the necessary

midwife of genius, without the aid of which it often labours in vain, or

brings forth strange incongruous and misshapen births.

Sad is the condition of a brilliant and fiery spirit shut up in a man's

brain without the humble assistance of this lively, meek and patient

virtue! What unrelieved and insupportable throes of agony must be borne

by such a spirit, and how often does such labour end in misanthropy or

madness! The records of the lives of exceptionally-gifted men tell us

only too clearly what pains those are, and how frequently they have been

borne. So I fancy I cannot do better than choose out for my first

section sentences which praise or advocate the effort to learn, or

attempt to enlighten those who make such an effort on the choice of

teachers and disciplines.

I shall not hesitate to transpose sentences even when they appear in

connected passages, in order, as I hope, to bring out more clearly their

connection. For Duerer was not a writer by profession, and his thoughts

were often more abundant than he knew how to deal with.

Before starting, however, I must prefix to my quotations some account of

the four MS. books in the British Museum from which they are principally

taken. Rough drafts in Pirkheimer's handwriting were found among them,

but of Duerer's work Sir Martin Conway tells us:

The volumes contain upwards of seven hundred leaves and scraps of paper

of various kinds, covered at different dates with more or less elaborate

outline drawings, and more or less corrected drafts for works published

or planned by Duerer. Interspersed among them are geometrical and

other sketches.

He was in the habit of correcting and re-copying, again and again, what

he had written. Sometimes he would jot down a sentence alongside of

matter to which it had no relation. This sentence he would afterwards

introduce in its right connection. There are in these volumes no less

than four drafts of the beginning of a Dedication to Pirkheimer of the

Books of Human Proportions. Two other drafts of this same dedication are

among the Dresden MSS. The opening sentences of the Introduction to the

same work were likewise, as will be seen, the subject of

frequent revision.

These drafts, notes and sketches date from 1508 to 1523. Some collector

had had them cut out, gummed together, and bound without the slightest

regard to order, or even to the sequence of consecutive passages. In

January 1890 the volumes were taken to pieces and rearranged by Miss

Lina Eckenstein, who had previously made the admirable translations of

them for Sir Martin Conway's "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," from

which my quotations are taken.

The contents of the volumes as rearranged may be roughly described as

follows:

Volume 1. Drawings of whole figures and portions of the body,

illustrating Duerer's theories of Proportion. Drawings of a solid

octogon. Six coloured drawings of crystals. The description of the

Ionic order of architecture. Drawings of columns with measurements. A

scale for Human Proportions. A table of contents for a work on Geometry.

Notes on perspective, curves, folds, &c. The different kinds of temple

after Vitruvius. Mathematical diagrams, &c.

Volume II. Draft of a dedicatory letter to King Ferdinand (see page

180). Drafts and drawings for "The Art of Fortification." Drawing of a

shield with a rearing horse. Mantles of Netherlandish women and nuns. A

Latin inscription for his own portrait. Notes on "Proportion," and on

the feast of the Rosenkranz. Scale for Human Proportions. An alphabet.

Draft of a dedication for the books on Proportion. Sketch of a skeleton.

Studies of architecture. Venetian houses and roofs. Sketches of a

church, a house, a tower, a drapery, &c.

Volume III. Drafts of a projected work on Painting and on the study of

Proportion. Drafts for the dedication, the preface, and for a work on

Esthetics. Drawings of a male body, a female body, and a piece of

drapery. Notes and drawings for the proportions of heads, hands, feet,

outline curves, a child, a woman, &c.

Volume IV. Proportions of a man, a fat woman, the head of the average

woman, the young woman, &c. Short Profession of Faith (see page 130).

Scale for Human Proportions, &c. Fragments of the Preface of Essay on

Aesthetics, &c. Grimacing and distorted faces. Use of measurements. On

the characters of faces, thick, thin, broad, narrow, &c. Sketches of a

dragon and of an angel for Maximilian's Triumphal Procession. List of

Luther's works (see page 130). Drawings of human bodies proportioned

to squares.

[Illustration: "UNA VILANA WENDISCH" Pen drawing with wash background

in the collection of Mrs. Seymour _face_ p. 304]

See the description in "Duerer's Schriftlicher Nachlass" (Lange und

Fuhse), page 263, from which the above abstract is made.

Sir Martin Conway continues:

In these volumes Duerer is seen, sometimes writing under the influence of

impetuous impulse, sometimes with leisurely care, allowing his pen to

embroider the script with graceful marginal flourishes.

At what period of his career Duerer first conceived the idea of writing a

comprehensive work upon the theory and practice of art is unknown. It

was certainly before the year 1512. The following list of chapters may

perhaps be an early sketch of the plan.

Ten things are contained in the little book.

The first, the proportions of a young child.

The second, proportions of a grown man.

The third, proportions of a woman.

The fourth, proportions of a horse.

The fifth, something about architecture.

The sixth, about an apparatus through which it can be

shown that 'all things may be traced.

The seventh, about light and shade.

The eighth, about colours, how to paint like nature.

The ninth, about the ordering (composition) of the

picture.

The tenth, about free painting, which alone is made by

Imagination without any other help.

III

Glad enough should we be to attain unto great knowledge without toil,

for nature has implanted in us the desire of knowing all things,

thereby to discern a truth of all things. But our dull wit cannot come

unto such perfectness of all art, truth, and wisdom. Yet are we not,

therefore, shut out altogether from all arts. If we want to sharpen our

reason by learning and to practise ourselves therein, having once found

the right path we may, step by step, seek, learn, comprehend, and

finally reach and attain unto something true. Wherefore, he that

understandeth how to learn somewhat in his leisure time, whereby he may

most certainly be enabled to honour God, and to do what is useful both

for himself and others, that man doeth well; and we know that in this

wise he will gain much experience in art and will be able to make known

its truth for our good. It is right, therefore, for one man to teach

another. He that joyfully doeth so, upon him shall much be bestowed by

God, from whom we receive all things. He hath highest praise.

One finds some who know nothing and learn nothing. They despise

learning, and say that much evil cometh of the arts, and that some are

wholly vile. I, on the contrary, hold that no art is evil, but that all

are good. A sword is a sword which may be used either for murder or for

justice. Similarly the arts are in themselves good. What God hath

formed, that is good, misuse it how ye will.

Thou findest arts of all kinds; choose then for thyself that which is

like to be of greatest service to thee. Learn it; let not the difficulty

thereof vex thee till thou hast accomplished somewhat wherewith thou

mayest be satisfied.

It is very necessary for a man to know some one thing by reason of the

usefulness which ariseth therefrom. Wherefore we should all gladly

learn, for the more we know so much the more do we resemble the likeness

of God, who verily knoweth all things.

The more, therefore, a man learneth, so much the better doth he become,

and so much the more love doth he win for the arts and for things

exalted. Wherefore a man ought not to play the wanton, but should learn

in season.

Is the artistic man pious and by nature good? He escheweth the evil and

chooseth the good; and hereunto serve the arts, for they give the

discernment of good and evil.

Some may learn somewhat of all arts, but that is not given to every man.

Nevertheless, there is no rational man so dull but that he may learn the

one thing towards which his fancy draweth him most strongly. Hence no

man is excused from learning something.

Let no man put too much confidence in himself, for many (pairs of eyes)

see better than one. Though it is possible for a man to comprehend more

than a thousand (men), still that cometh but rarely to pass.

Many fall into error because they follow their own taste alone;

therefore let each look to it that his inclination blind not his

judgment. For every mother is well pleased with her own child, and thus

also it ariseth that many painters paint figures resembling themselves.

He that worketh in ignorance worketh more painfully than he that worketh

with understanding; therefore let all learn to understand aright.

Now I know that in our German nation, at the present time, are many

painters who stand in need of instruction, for they lack all real art,

yet they nevertheless have many large works to do. Forasmuch then as

they are so numerous, it is very needful for them to learn to better

their work.

Willingly will I impart my teaching, hereafter written, to the man who

knoweth little and would gladly learn; but I will not be cumbered with

the proud, who, according to their own estimate of themselves, know all

things, and are best, and despise all else. From true artists, however,

such as can show their meaning with the hand, I desire to learn humbly

and with much thankfulness.

A thing thou beholdest is easier of belief than that thou hearest, but

whatever is both heard and seen we grasp more firmly and lay hold on

more securely. I will therefore do the work in both ways, that thus I

may be better understood.

Whosoever will, therefore, let him hear and see what I say, do, and

teach, for I hope it may be of service and not for a hindrance to the

better arts, nor lead thee to neglect better things.

I hear moreover of no writer in modern times by whom aught hath been

written and made known which I might read for my improvement. For some

hide their art in great secrecy, and others write about things whereof

they know nothing, so that their words are nowise better than mere

noise, as he that knoweth somewhat is swift to discover. I therefore

will write down with God's help the little that I know. Though many will

scorn it I am not troubled, for I well know that it is easier to cast

blame on a thing than to make anything better. Moreover, I will expound

my meaning as clearly and plainly as I can; and, were it possible, I

would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of

cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver or gold. I

further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they

write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great

length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the

great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something burning

and ye all add to it with skilful furthering, a blaze may in time arise

therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world.

I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same

touchstone as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the

world prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world

esteemeth beautiful that will we also hold for beautiful, and ourselves

strive to produce the like.

No one need blindly follow this theory of mine as though it were quite

perfect, for human nature has not yet so far degenerated that another

man cannot discover something better. So each may use my teaching as

long as it seems good to him, or until he finds something better. Where

he is not willing to accept it, he may well hold that this doctrine is

not written for him, but for others who are willing.

That must be a strangely dull head which never trusts itself to find out

anything fresh, but only travels along the old path, simply following

others and not daring to reflect for itself. For it beseems each

understanding, in following another, not to despair of itself

discovering something better. If that is done, there remaineth no doubt

but that in time this art will again reach the perfection it attained

amongst the ancients.

Much will hereafter be written about subjects and refinements of

painting. Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will

write both well and better about this art, and will teach it better than

I; for I myself hold my art at a very mean value, for I know what my

faults are. Let every man therefore strive to better these my errors

according to his powers. Would to God it were possible for me to see the

work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I

know that I might be improved upon. Ah! how often in my sleep do I

behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof never

appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake, even the remembrance of

them leaveth me.

Compare also the passages already quoted,(pp. 15,16,26).

"What an admirable temper!" is the exclamation which expresses our first

feeling on reading the foregoing sentences. It renews the spirit of a

man merely to peruse such things. Scales fall from our eyes, and we see

what we most essentially are, with pleasure, as good children gleefully

recognise their goodness: and at the same time we are filled with

contrition that we should have ever forgotten it. And this that we most

essentially are rational beings, lovers of goodness, children of

hope,--how directly Duerer appeals to it: "Nature has implanted in us the

desire of knowing all things." It reminds one of Ben Jonson's:--

It is a false quarrel against nature, that she helps understanding but

in a few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if

they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run,

&c., which, if they lose it, is through their own sluggishness, and by

that means they become her prodigies, not her children.

There is something refreshing and inspiriting in the mere conviction of

our teachableness; and when the same author, referring to Plato's

travels in search of knowledge, says, "He laboured, so must we," we do

not find the comparison humiliating either to Plato or ourselves. For

"without a way there is no going," and every man of superior mould says

to us with more or less of benignity, "I am the way: follow me." Such

means or ways of attainment have been followed by all whose success is

known to us, and are followed now by all "finely touched and gifted

men." I might quote in illustration of these assertions the whole of

Reynolds' Sixth Discourse, so marvellous for its acute and delicate

discrimination; but I will content myself with a few leading passages:

We cannot suppose that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation

of others.

It is a common observation that no art was ever invented and carried to

perfection at the same time.

The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who

resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will soon be reduced to

the poorest of all imitations, he will be obliged to imitate himself,

and to repeat what he has often before repeated.

The truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's

thoughts an encumbrance to him, can have no very great strength of mind

or genius of his own to be destroyed: so that not much harm will be done

at the worst.

Of course, this last phrase will not apply universally; we must remember

that the man who sets out to become an artist, or claims to be one by

native gift, has made apparent that he is the possessor of no mean

ambition. The humblest may see a way of improvement in their betters,

and obey the command, "Follow me." Every man is not called to follow

great artists, but only those who are peculiarly fitted to tread the

difficult paths that climb Olympus-hill. Yet to all men alike the great

artist in life, he who wedded failure to divinity, says, "Learn of me

that I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to

your souls."

He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never

proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of his

imitation. He professes only to follow; and he that follows must

necessarily be behind.

It is of course impossible to surpass perfection, but it is possible to

be made one with it.

To find excellences, however dispersed, to discover beauties, however

concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded,

can be the work only of him who, having a mind always alive to his art,

has extended his views to all ages and to all schools; and has acquired

from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself a

well-digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is

referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of

that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from

every school; selects both from what is great and what is little; brings

home knowledge from the east and from the west; making the universe

tributary towards furnishing his mind, and enriching his works with

originality and variety of inventions.

In this tine passage we get back to our central idea in regard to the

sense of proportion "making the universe tributary towards furnishing

his mind"; while in the "discovery of beauties" the complete artist

"selects both from what is great and what is little," from the clouds of

heaven and from the dunghills of the farmyard.

Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters for ever. Study,

as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, and on the principles

on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those

masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to

imitate, and at the same time as rivals with whom you are to contend.

For "no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any

other terms."

Yes, an artist is a child who chooses his parents, nor is he limited to

only two. Religion tells all men they have a Father, who is God;

philosophy and tradition repeat, "man has a mother, who is Nature."

These sayings are platitudes; their application is so obvious that it is

now generally forgotten. If God is a Father, it is the soul that chooses

Him; if Nature is a mother, it is the man who chooses to regard her as

such, since to the greater number it is well known she seems but a

stepmother, and a cruel one at that. Elective affinities, chosen

kindred!--"tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you who you

are" (what you are worth). How many artist waifs one sees nowadays! lost

souls, who choose to be nobody's children, and think they can teach

themselves all they need to know.

I think the very striking agreement between artists so totally different

in every respect except eminence, docility and anxiety to further art,

as Duerer and Reynolds, ought to impress our minds very deeply: even

though, as is certainly the case, the way they point out has been very

greatly abandoned of late years, and public institutions in this and

other countries proceed to further art on quite other lines; even though

critics are almost unanimous in knowing better both the end and the way

than the great masters who had not the advantage of a dash of science in

their hydromel to make it sparkle, but instead made it yet richer and

thicker by stirring up with it piety and religion. I think this

"cock-tail and sherry-cobbler" art criticism of to-day is very

deleterious to the digestion, and that the piety and enthusiasm which

Duerer and Reynolds worked into their art were more wholesome, and better

supplied the needs and deficiencies of artistic temperaments.

CHAPTER III

THE LOST TRADITION

Many centuries ago the great art of painting was held in high honour by

mighty kings, and they made excellent artists rich and held them worthy,

accounting such inventiveness a creating power like God's. For the

imagination of a good painter is full of figures, and were it possible

for him to live for ever, he would always have from his inward ideas,

whereof Plato speaks, something new to set forth by the work of

his hand.

Many hundred years ago there were still some famous painters, such as

those named Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Polycleitus, Parrhasius,

Lysippus, Protogenes, and the rest, some of whom wrote about their art

and very artfully described it and gave it plainly to light: but their

praise-worthy books are, so far, unknown to us, and perhaps have been

altogether lost by war, driving forth of the peoples, and alterations of

laws and beliefs--a loss much to be regretted by every wise man. It

often came to pass that noble "Ingenia" were destroyed by barbarous

oppressors of art; for if they saw figures traced in a few lines they

thought it nought but vain, devilish sorcery. And in destroying them

they attempted to honour God by something displeasing to Him; and to use

the language of men, God was angry with all destroyers of the works of

great mastership, which is only attained by much toil, labour, and

expenditure of time, and is bestowed by God alone. Often do I sorrow

because I must be robbed of the aforesaid masters' books of art; but the

enemies of art despise these things.

Pliny writeth that the old painters and sculptors--such as Apelles,

Protogenes, and the rest--told very artistically in writing how a

well-built man's figure might be measured out. Now it may well have come

to pass that these noble books were misunderstood and destroyed as

idolatrous in the early days of the Church. For they would have said

Jupiter should have such proportions, Apollo such others; Venus shall be

thus, Hercules thus; and so with all the rest. Had it, however, been my

fate to be there at the time, I would have said: "Oh dear, holy lords

and fathers, do not so lamentably destroy the nobly discovered arts,

which have been gotten by great toil and labour, only because of the

abuses made of them. For art is very hard, and we might and would use it

for the great honour and glory of God. For, even as the ancients used

the fairest figure of a man to represent their false god Apollo, we will

employ the same for Christ the Lord, who is fairest of all the earth;

and as they figured Venus as the loveliest of women, so will we in like

manner set down the same beauteous form for the most pure Virgin Mary,

the mother of God; and of Hercules will we make Samson, and thus will we

do with all the rest, for such books shall we get never more."

Wherefore, though that which is lost ariseth not again, yet a man may

strive after new lore; and for these reasons I have been moved to make

known my ideas here following, in order that others may ponder the

matter further, and may thus come to a new and better way and

foundation.

I certainly do not deny that, if the books of the ancients who wrote

about the art of painting still lay before our eyes, my design might be

open to the false interpretation that I thought to find out something

better than what was known unto them. These books, however, have been

totally lost in the lapse of time; so I cannot be justly blamed for

publishing my opinions and discoveries in writing, for that is exactly

what the ancients did. If other competent men are thereby induced to do

the like, our descendants have something which they may add to and

improve upon, and thus the art of painting may in time advance and reach

its perfection.

Whether we should exercise our intellects or logical sense alone upon

the records and remains of past ages, or whether they may not be better

employed for the exercise and edification of the imaginative faculties,

would seem to be a question which, though they did not perhaps in set

terms put to themselves, modern historians have very summarily answered;

and I think answered wrongly. The records of the past, the records even

of yesterday, are necessarily extremely incomplete; to make them at all

significant something must be added by the historian. The 'perception'

of probability is never exact; it varies with the mind between man and

man; in the same man even before and after different experiences, &c.

But even if the perception of the highest probability were practically

exact, it would never suffice; for, as Aristotle says, "it is probable

that many things should happen contrary to probability." From these

facts it follows that the man who has the most exhaustive knowledge of

what has actually survived, and what has been recorded, will not

necessarily form the truest judgment on a question of history; it might

always happen that the intuition of some unscholarly person was nearer

the truth; still no man could ever decide between the two, nor would any

sane man think it worth his while to take sides with either of them;

such questions are most useful when they are left open. This is the case

because the imagination is thus left freer to use such knowledge as it

has for the edification of the character; and that model for our example

or warning which the imagination constructs may always possibly be the

truth. According to the balance in it of apparent probability, with

edifying power it will beget conviction. Such a conviction may be doomed

to be superseded sooner or later; its value lies in its potency while it

lasts. The temper in which we look at our historical heritage is of more

importance to us now than the exactitude of our vision; for this latter

can never be proved, while the former approves itself by the fruit it

bears within us. It is better, more fruitful, to feel with Duerer about

the art of Ancient Greece than to know all that can be known of it

to-day and feel a great deal less. "Character calls forth character,"

said Goethe; we may add, "even from the grave." Now that the physical

miracle of the Resurrection has come to seem so unimportant and

uninteresting to educated men, it might be a wise economy to connect its

poetry with this experience, that great and creative characters can

raise men better worth knowing than Lazarus from the dead. Nietsche

thought that Shakespeare had brought Brutus back to life, (though he

knew very little of Roman history), and that Brutus was the Roman best

worth knowing. "Of all peoples, the Greeks dreamt the dream of life the

best," Goethe said; and again, "For all other arts we have to make some

allowance; to Greek art alone we are for ever debtors." To feel the

truth of these sayings with a passion similar to that shown in the

passages quoted above from Duerer, must surely be a great help to an

artist. Such a passion is an end in itself, or rather is the only means

by which we can win spiritual freedom from some of the heavier fetters

that modern life lays upon us. It freed Goethe even from Germany.

CHAPTER IV

BEAUTY

How is beauty to be judged?--upon that we have to deliberate.

A man by skill may bring it into every single thing, for in some things

we recognise that as beautiful which elsewhere would lack beauty.

Good and better in respect of beauty are not easy to discern; for it

would be quite possible to make two different figures, one stout, the

other thin, which should differ one from the other in every proportion,

and yet we scarce might be able to judge which of the two excelled in

beauty. What beauty is I know not, though it dependeth upon many things.

I shall here apply to what is to be called beautiful the same touchstone

as that by which we decide what is right. For as what all the world

prizeth as right we hold to be right, so what all the world esteemeth

beautiful that we will also hold for beautiful, and ourselves strive to

produce the like.

There are many causes and varieties of beauty; he that can prove them is

so much the more to be trusted.

The accord of one thing with another is beautiful, therefore want of

harmony is not beautiful. A real harmony linketh together things unlike.

Use is a part of beauty, whatever therefore is useless unto men is

without beauty.

The more imperfection is excluded so much the more doth beauty abide in

the work.

Guard thyself from superfluity.

But beauty is so put together in men and so uncertain is our judgment

about it, that we may perhaps find two men both beautiful and fair to

look upon, and yet neither resembleth the other, in measure or kind, in

any single point or part; and so blind is our perception that we shall

not understand whether of the two is the more beautiful, and if we give

an opinion on the matter it shall lack certainty.

Negro faces are seldom beautiful because of their very flat noses and

thick lips; moreover, their shinbone is too prominent, and the knee and

foot too long, not so good to look upon as those of the whites; and so

also is it with their hand. Howbeit, I have seen some amongst them whose

whole bodies have been so well-built and handsome that I never beheld

finer figures, nor can I conceive how they might be bettered, so

excellent were their arms and all their limbs.

Seeing that man is the worthiest of all creatures, it follows that, in

all pictures, the human figure is most frequently employed as a centre

of interest. Every animal in the world regards nothing but his own kind,

and the same nature is also in men, as every man may perceive

in himself.

[Illustration: Charcoal-drawing heightened with white on a green

prepared ground, in the Berlin Print Room _Face p_. 320]

Further, in order that he may arrive at a good canon whereby to bring

somewhat of beauty into our work, there-unto it were best for thee, it

bethinks me, to form thy canon from many living men. Howbeit seek only

such men as are held beautiful, and from such draw with all diligence.

For one who hath understanding may, from men of many different kinds,

gather something good together through all the limbs of the body. But

seldom is a man found who hath all his limbs good, for every man lacks

something.

No single man can be taken as a model of a perfect figure, for no man

liveth on earth who uniteth in himself all manner of beauties.... There

liveth also no man upon earth who could give a final judgment upon what

the perfect figure of a man is; God only knoweth that.

And although we cannot speak of the greatest beauty of a living

creature, yet we find in the visible creation a beauty so far surpassing

our understanding that no one of us can fully bring it into his work.

If we were to ask how we are to make a beautiful figure, some would give

answer: According to human judgment (i.e., common taste). Others would

not agree thereto, neither should I without a good reason. Who will give

us certainty in this matter?[87]

I have already given what I believe to be the best answer to these

questions as to what beauty is and how it is to be judged. Beauty is

beauty as good is good (_see_ pp. 7, 8), or yellow, yellow; indeed, to

the second question, Matthew Arnold has given the only possible

answer--the relative value of beauties is "as the judicious would

determine," and the judicious are, in matters of art "finely touched and

gifted men." This criterion obviously cannot be easily or hastily

applied, nor could one ever be quite sure that in any given case it had

been applied to any given effect. But for practical needs we see that it

suffices to cast a slur on facile popularity, and vindicate over and

over again those who had been despised and rejected. What the true

artist desires to bring into his pictures is the power to move

finely-touched and gifted men. Not only are such by very much the

minority, but the more part of them being, by their capacity to be moved

and touched, easily wounded, have developed a natural armour of reserve,

of moroseness, of prejudice, of combativeness, of pedantry, which makes

them as difficult to address as wombats, or bears, or tortoises, or

porcupines, or polecats, or elephants. It is interesting to witness how

Duerer's self-contradictions show him to be aware of the great complexity

of these difficulties, as also to see how very near he comes to the true

answer. At one time he tells us:

"When men demand a work of a master, he is to be praised in so far as he

succeeds in satisfying their likings ..."[88]

At another he tells us:

"The art of painting cannot be truly judged save by such as are

themselves good painters; from others verily is it hidden even as a

strange tongue."[89]

Every "finely touched and gifted man" is not an artist; but every true

artist must, in some measure, be a finely touched and gifted man. There

is no necessity to limit the public addressed to those who themselves

produce: yet those who "can prove what they say with their hand" bring

credentials superior to those offered by any others,--although even

their judgment is not sure, as they may well represent a minority of

the true court of appeal which can never be brought together.

No doubt there is a judgment and a scale of values accepted as final by

each generation that gives any considerable attention to these

questions. AEsthetic appear to be exactly similar to religious

convictions. Those who are subject to them probably pass through many

successively, even though they all their lives hold to a certain fashion

which enables them to assert some obvious unity, like those who, in

religion, belong always to one sect. Yet if they were in a position to

analyse their emotions and leanings, no doubt very fundamental

contradictions would be discovered to disconcert them. Conviction and

enthusiasm in the arts and religion would seem to be the frame of mind

natural to those who assimilate, and are rendered productive by what

they study and admire. Convictions may never be wholly justifiable in

theory, but in practice when results are considered, it would seem that

no other frame of mind should escape censure.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 87: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 244.]

[Footnote 88: "Literary Remains of Albrecht Duerer," p. 245.]

[Footnote 89: _Idem_. p. 177.]

CHAPTER V

NATURE

We regard a form and figure out of nature with more pleasure than

another, though the thing in itself is not necessarily altogether

better or worse.

Life in nature showeth forth the truth of these things (the words of

difference--i.e., the character of bodily habit to which they refer),

wherefore regard it well, order thyself thereby and depart not from

nature in thine opinions, neither imagine of thyself to invent aught

better, else shalt thou be led astray, for art standeth firmly fixed in

nature, and whoso can rend her forth thence he only possesseth her. If

thou acquirest her, she will remove many faults for thee from thy work.

Neither must the figure be made youthful before and old behind, or

contrariwise; for that unto which nature is opposed is bad. Hence it

followeth that each figure should be of one kind alone throughout,

either young or old, or middle-aged, or lean or fat, or soft or hard.

The more closely thy work abideth by life in its form, so much the

better will it appear; and this is true. Wherefore never more imagine

that thou either canst or shalt make anything better than God hath given

power to His creatures to do. For thy power is weakness compared to

God's creating hand. (_See_ continuation of passage, p. 10.)

Compare also passages quoted (pp. 289-291).

In these and other passages Duerer speaks about "nature," and enjoins on

the artist respect for and conformity to "nature" in a manner which

reminds us of that still current in dictums about art. Indeed, it seems

probable that Duerer's use of this term was almost as confused as that of

a modern art-critic. There are two senses in which the word nature is

employed, the confusion of which is ten times more confounded than any

of the others, and deserves, indeed, utter damnation, so prolific of

evil is it. We call the objects of sensory perception "nature"--whatever

is seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted is a part of nature. And yet we

constantly speak of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting

monstrous and unnatural things. And a monstrous and unnatural thing is

not merely one which is rare, but even more decidedly one of which we

disapprove. So that the second use of the term conveys some sense of

exceptionality, but far more of lack of conformity to human desires and

expectations. Now, many things which do not exist are perfectly natural

in this second sense: fairy-lands, heavens, &c. We perfectly understand

what is meant by a natural and an unnatural imagination, we perceive

readily all kind of degrees between the monstrous and the natural in

pure fiction. Now, this second use of the term nature is the only one

which is of any vital importance to our judgments upon works of art; yet

current judgments are more often than not based wholly on the first

sense, which means merely all objects perceived by the senses; and this,

draped in the authority and phrases belonging to judgments based on the

second and really pertinent sense.

Whole schools of painting and criticism have arisen and flourish whose

only reason for existence is the extreme facility with which this

confusion is made in European languages. It sounds so plausible that

some have censured Michael Angelo for bad drawing because men are not

from 9 to 15 or 16 heads high, and have not muscles so developed as the

gods and Titans of his creation. And others have objected to the angels,

the anatomical ambiguity of their wing articulations. To say that a

sketch or picture is out of tone or drawing damns, in many circles

to-day; in spite of the fact that the most famous masterpieces, if

judged by the same standard, would be equally offensive. This absurdity,

even where its grosser developments are avoided, breeds abundant

contradictions and confusion in the mouths of those who plume themselves

on culture and discernment. I hope not to have been too saucy,

therefore, in pointing out this pitfall to my readers in regard to these

sentences which I thought it worth while to quote from Duerer, merely

because if I did not do so I foresaw that they would be quoted

against me.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHOICE OF AN ARTIST

In the great earnestness with which the difficulties that beset art and

the artist impressed him, Duerer intended to write a _Vade Mecum_ for

those who should come after him. He has left among his MS. papers many

plans, rough drafts, and notes for some such work, the form of which no

doubt changed from time to time. The one which gives us the most

comprehensive idea of his intentions is perhaps the following.

Ihs. Maria

By the grace and help of God I have here set down all that I have learnt

in practice, which is likely to be of use in painting, for the service

of all students who would gladly learn. That, perchance, by my help they

may advance still further in the higher understanding of such art, as he

who seeketh may well do, if he is inclined thereto; for my reason

sufficeth not to lay the foundations of this great, far-reaching,

infinite art of true painting.

Item.--In order that thou mayest thoroughly and rightly comprehend what

is, or is called, an "artistic painter," I will inform thee and recount

to thee. If the world often goeth without an "artistic painter," whilst

for two or three hundred years none such appeareth, it is because those

who might have become such devote not themselves to art. Observe then

the three essential qualities following, which belong to the true artist

in painting. These are the three main points in the whole book.

I. The First Division of the book is the Prologue, and it compriseth

three parts (A, B, and C).

A. The first part of the Prologue telleth us how the lad should be

taught, and how attention should be paid to the tendency of his

temperament. It falleth into six parts:

1. That note should be taken of the birth of the child, in what Sign it

occurreth; with some explanations. (Pray God for a lucky hour!)

2. That his form and stature should be considered; with some

explanations.

3. How he ought to be nurtured in learning from the first; with some

explanations.

4. That the child should be observed, whether he learneth best when

kindly praised or when chidden; with explanations.

5. That the child be kept eager to learn and be not vexed.

6. If the child worketh too hard, so that he might fall under the hand

of melancholy, that he be enticed therefrom by merry music to the

pleasuring of his blood.

B. The second part of the Preface showeth how the lad should be brought

up in the fear of God and in reverence, that so he may attain grace,

whereby he may be much strengthened in intelligent art. It falleth into

six parts:

1. That the lad be brought up in the fear of God and be taught to pray

to God for the grace of quick perception (_ubtilitet_) and to

honour God.

2. That he be kept moderate in eating and drinking, and also in

sleeping.

3. That he dwell in a pleasant house, so that he be distracted by no

manner of hindrance.

4. That he be kept from women and live not loosely with them; that he

not so much as see or touch one; and that he guard himself from all

impurity. Nothing weakens the understanding more than impurity.

5. That he know how to read and write well, and be also instructed in

Latin, so far as to understand certain writings.

6. That such an one have sufficient means to devote himself without

anxiety (to his art), and that his health be attended to with medicines

when needful.

C. The third part of the Prologue teacheth us of the great usefulness,

joy, and delight which spring from painting. It falleth into six parts:

1. It is a useful art when it is of godly sort, and is employed for holy

edification.

2. It is useful, and much evil is thereby avoided, if a man devote

himself thereto who else had wasted his time.

3. It is useful when no one thinks so, for a man will have great joy if

he occupy himself with that which is so rich in joys.

4. It is useful because a man gaineth great and lasting memory thereby

if he applieth it aright.

5. It is useful because God is thereby honoured when it is seen that He

hath bestowed such genius upon one of His creatures in whom is such

art. All men will be gracious unto thee by reason of thine art.

6. The sixth use is that if thou art poor thou mayest by such art come

unto great wealth and riches.

II. The Second Division of the book treateth of Painting itself; it also

is threefold.

A. The first part is of the freedom of painting; in six ways.

B. The second part is of the proportions of men and buildings, and what

is needful for painting; in six ways.[90]

1. Of the proportions of men.

2. Of the proportions of horses.

3. Of the proportions of buildings.

4. Of perspective.

5. Of light and shade.

6. Of colours, how they are to be made to resemble nature.

C. The third part is of all that a man conceives as subject for

painting.

III. The Third Division of the book is the Conclusion; it also hath

three parts.

A. The first part shows in what place such an artist should dwell to

practise his art; in six ways.

B. The second part shows how such a wonderful artist should charge

highly for his art, and that no money is too much for it, seeing that it

is divine and true; in six ways.

The third part speaks of praise and thanksgiving which he should render

unto God for His grace, and which others should render on his behalf;

in six ways.

III

It is in the variety and completeness of his intentions that we perceive

Duerer's kinship with the Renascence; he comprehends the whole of life in

his idea of art training.

In his persuasion of the fundamental necessity of morality he is akin to

the best of the Reformation. It is in the union of these two perceptions

that his resemblance to Michael Angelo lies. There is a rigour, an

austerity which emanates from their work, such as is not found in the

work of Titian or Rembrandt or Leonardo or Rubens or any other mighty

artist of ripe epochs. Yet we find both of them illustrating the

licentious legends of antiquity, turning from the Virgin to Amymone and

Leda, from Christ to Apollo and Hercules. By their action and example

neither joins either the Reformation or the Renascence in so far as

these movements may be considered antagonistic; nor did they find it

inconsistent to acknowledge their debt to Greece and Rome, even while

accepting the gift of Jesus' example as freely as it was offered.

Not only does Duerer insist on the necessity of a certain consonancy

between the surrounding influences and the artist's capacity, which

should be both called forth and relieved by the interchange of rivalry

with instruction, of seclusion with music or society, but the process

which Jesus made the central one of his religion is put forward as

essential; he must form himself on a precedent example. I have already

quoted from Reynolds at length on this point.

I will merely add here some notes from another MS. fragment of Duerer's

bearing on the same points.

He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.

Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than

compulsion is.

If a man is to become a really great painter he must be educated thereto

from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good

artists until he attain a free hand.

To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing

whatsoever that may be chosen.

It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce, to

measure the human figure, before learning anything else.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 90: The following list comes from another sheet of the MS.

(in. 70), but was dearly intended for this place. It is jotted down on a

thick piece of paper, on which there are also geometrical designs.]

CHAPTER VII

TECHNICAL PRECEPTS

If thou wishest to model well in painting, so as to deceive the

eyesight, thou must be right cunning in thy colours, and must know how

to keep them distinct, in painting, one from another. For example, thou

paintest two coats of mantles, one white the other red; thou must deal

differently with them in shading. There is light and shadow on all

things, wherever the surface foldeth or bendeth away from the eye. If

this were not so, everything would look flat, and then one could

distinguish nothing save only a chequerwork of colours.

If then thou art shading the white mantle, it must not be shaded with so

dark a colour as the red, for it would be impossible for a white thing

to yield so dark a shadow as a red. Neither could they be compared one

with another, save that in total absence of daylight everything is

black, seeing that colour cannot be recognised in darkness. Though,

therefore, in such a case, the theory allows one, without blame, to use

pure black for the shadows of a white object, yet this can seldom

come to pass.

Moreover, when thou paintest anything in one colour--be it red, blue,

brown, or any mixed colour--beware lest thou make it so bright in the

lights that it departs from its own kind. For example, an uneducated man

regardeth thy picture wherein is a red coat. "Look, good friend," saith

he, "in one part the coat is of a fair red and in another it is white

or pale in colour." That same is to be blamed, neither hast thou done it

aright. In such a case a red object must be painted red all over and yet

preserve the appearance of solidity; and so with all colours. The same

must be done with the shadows, lest it be said that a fair red is soiled

with black Wherefore be careful that thou shade each colour with a

similar colour. Thus I hold that a yellow, to retain its kind, must be

shaded with a yellow, darker toned than the principal colour. If thou

shade it with green or blue, it remaineth no longer in keeping, and is

no longer yellow, but becometh thereby a shot colour, like the colour of

silk stuffs woven of threads of two colours, as brown and blue, brown

and green, dark yellow and green, chestnut-brown and dark yellow, blue

and seal red, seal red and brown, and the many other colours one sees.

If a man hath such as these to paint, where the surface breaketh and

bendeth away the colours divide themselves so that they can be

distinguished one from another, and thus must thou paint them. But where

the surface lieth flat one colour alone appeareth. Howbeit, if thou art

painting such a silk and shadest it with one colour (as a brown with a

blue) thou must none the less shade the blue with a deeper blue where it

is needful. If often cometh to pass that such silks appear brown in the

shadows, as if one colour stood before the other. If thy model beareth

such a garment, thou must shade the brown with a deeper brown and not

with blue. Howbeit, happen what may, every colour must in shading keep

to its own class.

The great genius Hokusai, who has obtained for popular art in Japan a

success comparable to that of the best classic masterpieces of that

country and to the drawings and etchings of Rembrandt, a master of an

altogether kindred nature, wrote a little treatise on the difference of

aim noticeable in European and Japanese art. From the few Dutch pictures

which he had been able to examine, he concluded that European art

attempted to deceive the eye, whereas Japanese art laboured to express

life, to suggest movement, and to harmonise colour. What is meant is

easily grasped when we set before the mind's eye a picture, by Teniers

and a page of Hokusai's "Mangwa." On the other hand, if one chose a

sketch by Rembrandt to represent Dutch art, the difference could no

longer be apparent. If the aim of European art had ever in serious

examples been to deceive the eye, our painting would rank with

legerdemain and Maskelyne's famous box trick; for it is to be doubted if

it could ever so well have attained its end as even a second-rate

conjurer can. I have cited a passage in which Reynolds confronts the

work of great artists with the illusions of the camera obscura (see p.

237). The adept musical performer who reproduces the noises of a

farmyard is the true parallel to the lesser Dutch artists; he deceives

the ear far better than they deceive the eye. For every picture has a

surface which, unless very carefully lighted, must immediately destroy

the illusion, even if it were otherwise perfect. Nevertheless, Duerer in

the foregoing passage seems to accept Hokusai's verdict that the aim of

his painting is to deceive the eye; forgetful of all that he has

elsewhere written about the necessity of beauty, the necessity of

composition, the superiority of rough sketches over finished works.

When a painter has conceived in his heart a vision of beauty, whether he

suggests it with a few strokes of the pen or elaborates it as thoroughly

as Jan Van Eyck did, he wishes it to be taken as a report of something

seen. This is as different from wishing to deceive the eye as for some

one to say "and then a dog barked," instead of imitating the barking of

a dog. A circumstantial description in words and a picture by Van Eyck

or Veronese are equally intended to pass as reports of something

visually conceived or actually seen. Pictures would have to be made

peep-shows of before they could veritably deceive; and Jan Van Beers, a

modern Dutchman, actually turned some of his paintings into peep-shows.

Duerer in the following passage is speaking of the separate details or

objects which go to make up a picture, not of the picture as a whole; he

never tried to make peep-shows; his signature or an inscription is often

used to give the very surface that must destroy the peep-show illusion a

definite decorative value. The rest of his remarks have become

commonplaces; nor has he written at such length as to give them their

true limitations and intersubordination. They will be easily understood

by those who remember that art is concerned with producing the illusion

of a true report of something seen, not that of an actual vision. Such a

report may be slight and brief; it may be stammered by emotion; it may

have been confused or tortured to any degree by the mental condition of

him who delivers it: if it produces the conviction of his sincerity, it

achieves the only illusion with which art is concerned, and its value

will depend on its beauty and the beauty of the means employed to

deliver it.

CHAPTER VIII

IN CONCLUSION

After turning over Duerer prints and drawings, after meditating on his

writings, we feel that we are in the presence of one of those forces

which are constant and equal, which continue and remain like the growth

of the body, the return of seasons, the succession of moods. This is

always among the greatest charms of central characters: they are mild

and even, their action is like that of the tides, not that of storms.

"If only you had my meekness," Duerer wrote to Pirkheimer (set: p. 85),

half in jest doubtless, but with profound truth:--though the word

meekness does not indeed cover the whole of what we feel made Duerer's

most radical advantage over his friend; at other times we might call it

naivety, that sincerity of great and simple natures which can never be

outflanked or surprised. Sometimes it might be called pride, for it has

certainly a great deal of self-assurance behind it, the self-assurance

of trees, of flowers, of dumb animals and little children, who never

dream that an apology for being where and what they are can be expected

of them. Such natures when they come home to us come to stop; we may go

out, we may pay no heed to them, we may forget them, but they abide in

the memory, and some day they take hold of us with all the more force

because this new impression will exactly tally with the former one; we

shall blush for our inconstancy, our indifference, our imbecility, which

have led us to neglect such a pregnant communion. Not only persons but

works of art produce this effect, and they are those with whom it is the

greatest benefit to live.

It is true that, compared with Giotto, Rembrandt, or Michael Angelo,

Duerer does not appear comprehensive enough. It is with him as with

Milton; we wish to add others to his great gifts, above all to take him

out from his surroundings, to free him from the accidents of place and

time. In one sense he is poorer than Milton: we cannot go to him as to a

source of emotional exhilaration. If he ever proves himself able so to

stir us, it is too occasionally to be a reason why we frequent him as it

may be one why we frequent Milton. Nevertheless, the greater characters

of control which are his in an unmatched degree, his constancy, his

resource and deliberate effectiveness, joined to that blandness, that

sunshine, which seems so often to replace emotion and thought in works

of image-shaping art, are of priceless beneficence, and with them we

would abide. Intellectual passion may seem indeed sometimes to dissipate

this sunshine and control without making good their loss. Such cases

enable us to feel that the latter are more essential: and it is these

latter qualities which Duerer possessed in such fulness. In return for

our contemplation, they build up within us the dignity of man and render

it radiant and serene. Those who have felt their influence longest and

most constantly will believe that they may well warrant the modern

prophet who wrote:

The idea of beauty and of human nature perfect on all its sides, which

is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, though it

has not yet had the success that the idea of conquering the obvious

faults of our animality and of a human nature perfect on the moral

side--which is the dominant idea of religion--has been enabled to have;

and it is destined, adding to itself the religious idea of a devout

energy, to transform and govern the other.

INDEX

Aachen

Adam (Melchor)

Aeschylus

Albertina

Altdorfer (Albrecht)

Anabaptists

Andreae (Hieronymus)

Angelico (Fra Beato)

Antwerpo

Apelles

Aristotle

Arnold (Matthew)

Augsburg

Balccarres (Lord)

Bamberg (Library)

Barbari (Jacopo dei)

Barberini (Gallery)

Barye (Antoine Louis)

Basle

Baudelaire (Charles)

Bavaria

Beers (Jan van)

Beham (Barthel and Sebald)

Behaim

Bellini (Gentile)

Bellini (Giovanni)

Berlin

Blake (William)

Bologna

Bonnat (Leon)

Borgia (Cesare)

Borgia (Alexander), see Pope

Botticelli

Bremen

Breslau (Bishop of)

Breughel (Peter)

British Museum.

Browning (Robert)

Brussels

Brutus

Burgkmair (Hans)

Butler (Bishop)

Caietan (Cardinal)

Calvin

Camerarius (Kunz Kamerer)

Carpaccio

Celtes (Conrad)

Charles V. (Emperor)

Cicero

Coleridge

Colet (Dean)

Colmar

Cologne (Koeln)

Conway (Sir Martin)

Cook (Sir Francis)

Correggio

Cranach (Lucas)

Dante

Danube

Dodgson (Campbell)

Dolce (Ludovico)

Dresden

Duerer (Albert the Elder)

Duerer (Agnes, nee Frey)

Duerer, Andreas

Brothers and Sisters

Father-in-law, Hans Frey

Forefathers

Duerer, Hans

Duerer's House,

Mother (Barbara Helper)

Duerer (Quotations from),

Duerer's

Books:

Art of Fortification,

Human Proportions,

Measurement with Compass.

Drawings:

Adam's hand,

Christ bearing His Cross,

Dance of monkeys,

Himself,

Lion,

Lucas van Leyden,

Memento Mei,

Mein Angnes,

Mount of Olives,

Nepotis (Florent),

Pfaffroth (Hans),

Plankfelt (Jobst),

Sea-monsters,

Women's Bath,

Walrus.

Engravings on Metal:

Agony in the Garden,

Great Fortune,

Jerome (St.),

Knight (The),

Melancholy,

Passion.

Pictures:

Adam and Eve,

Adoration of Magi,

Avarice,

Christ among Doctors,

Coronation of Virgin,

Crucifixion,

Dresden Altar Piece,

Feast of Bose Garlands,

Hercules,

Lucretia,

Madonna with Iris,

Martyrdom of Ten Thousand,

Paumgartner, Altar Piece,

Preachers (The Pour),

Road to Calvary,

Trinity and All Saints.

Portraits:

Of himself, Leipzig, Madrid, Munich,

Holzschuher (Hieronymus),

Imhof, Hans (?),

Kleeberger (Johannes)

Krel (Oswolt),

Maximilian,

Muffel (Jacob),

Orley (Bernard van),

Unknown (Vienna),

Unknown (Hampton Court),

Unknown (Boston)

Unknown Woman (Berlin),

Unknown Girl (Berlin),

Wolgemut.

Woodcuts:

Apocalypse,

Assumption of Magdalen,

St. Christopher,

Gate of Honour,

Jerome (St.),

Life of the Virgin,

Last Supper,

Little Passion.

Ebner

Eck (Dr.)

Eckenstein (Miss)

Emerson

Erasmus

Euclid

Euripides

Eusebius

Eyck (Jan van)

FLAUBERT (Gustave)

Florentine

Frankfort

Frederick the Wise (Elector of Saxony)

Frey (Hans)

Frey (Felix),

Fronde,

Fugger,

Furtwaengler,

Gainsborough,

Ghent,

Giehlom (Dr. Carl),

Giorgjone,

Giotto,

Goes (Hugo vander)

Goethe,

Gospel of

St. Luke,

St. Matthew,

St. John,

Grapheus (Cornelius),

Greece, Greeks, Greek,

Grien (Baldung),

Heaton (Mrs.),

_Heller (Jacob)_.

Henry VIII,

Hess (Eoban),

Hess (Martin),

Hippocrates,

Hokusai,

Holbein,

Holzselraher,

Homer,

Humanists,

Hungary,

Hutten (Ulrich von),

Imhof (Hans),

Innsbruck,

Jeanne D'Arc,

Jesus,

John (St.),

Jonson (Ben),

Juggernaut,

Keats (John),

Kolb (Anton),

Kratzer (Nicholas),

Kress (Christopher),

Lady Margaret (Governess of the Netherlands),

Landauer (Matthew),

Leipzig,

Leonardo da Vinci,

Link (Wenzel),

Lippmann,

London,

Longfellow,

Lotto (Lorenzo),

Louvre,

Lucas van Leyden,

Luther,

Lutzelburger,

Mabuse (Jan de),

Macbeth,

Machiavelli.

Madrid,

Mantegna (Andrea),

Mantua,

Manuel,

Marcantonio,

Mark (St.),

Marlowe,

Maximilian I.,

Melanchthon,

Mexico,

Michael Angelo,

Miller (A.W., Esq.),

Millet (Jean Francois),

Miltitz,

Milton,

Montaigne,

_Monthly Review_,

Montpelier (Town Council),

More,

Morley (Lord and Lady),

Moses,

Muffel (Jacob),

Munich,

Nassau,

Neudoerffer,

Nietzsche,

Nuetzel (Caspar),

Orley (Bernard van)

Ostendorfer (Michael)

Pacioli (Luca)

Padua

Parrhasius

Paul (St.)

Paumgartner (Stephan)

Peasants' War

Penz (Georg)

Peter (St,)

Phidias

Pirkheimer (Charitas)

(Philip)

(Willibald)

Pitti (Gallery)

Plato

Pleydenwurf

Pliny

Polizemo

Polycleitus

Pope

Adrian IV.

(Alexander VI.)

(Julius II.)

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