THE PORTFOLIO MONOGRAPHS ON ARTISTIC SUBJECTS WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS ISSUED PERIODICALLY No. 31 January , 1 897 Albert Diirer’s Paintings and Drawings h LIONEL OUST London: SEELEY AND CO., LIMITED, 38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET Sold by Hatchard, 187 Piccadilly a ris: Librairie Galignani, 224 Rue de Rivoli. Berlin : A. Asher & Cc., 13 Unter den Linden New York : The Macmillan Co. Six Monographs are issued in the Year. Price 3 y. 6 d. net. THE PORTFOLIO. , R is proposed to form a Society for the Issue of Reproduce of the Works of ALBERT DURER, and of some of his Ger and Italian . Contemporaries , more especially of such Dr an, and Engravings as have not yet been adequately copied i\ conveniently accessible form. Those interested in the matter are invited to communicate z the Hon. See. pro. tern., Mr. SID M. PE ART REE, 12 Chal cot Gardens, | Haver stock Hill , J\ BY THE AUTHOR OF “ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLAY.” Second Edition. WILD ENGLAND OF TO-DAY, And the Wild Life in it. By C. J. CORNISH. 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By Edward Renton, Author of “ Heraldry in England ” &c. With numerous Illustrations of Gems and Seals from the earliest to the present time. CAN NOW BE OBTAINED FROM GEORGE BELL AND SONS, York Street, Covent Garden, London. FREDERICK HOLLYER, 9 PEMBROKE SQUARE, KENSINGK Lists of Subjects and Prices will be sent post free on applic; or Illustrated Catalogue for Twelve Stamps. Communications respecting advertisements must be addressed to Mr. JOHN HART, 6 Arundel Street, Strand, London, THE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS OF ALBRECHT DURER By LIONEL OUST Director of the National Portrait Gallery Late of the Department of Prints and Drawings , British Museum LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED, GREAT RUSSELL STREET NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1897 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES PAGE Lucas Baumgartner. From a Painting in the Munich Gallery. From a Photograph by J. A. Stein ....... Frontispiece Michel Wolgemut. From a Painting in the Munich Gallery. From a Photograph by J. A. Stein ........ 16 The Crucifixion. From a Painting in the Dresden Gallery. From a Photograph by Braun, Clement, & Cie. . . . . . .58 The Virgin with the Finch. From a Painting in the Berlin Gallery. From a Photograph by Braun, Clement, & Cie. . . . . .60 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT Decorative Design. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . .9 Boy Angel with Emblems of the Passion. From a Drawing in the British Museum 13 Albrecht Diirer’s Father. From a Drawing in the British Museum . .19 A Concert. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . . 23 Albrecht Dtirer, by himself. From a Painting in the Uffizii Gallery, Florence. From a Photograph by D. Anderson . . . . 25 View of Trent. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . .27 Weier Flaus. From a Water-colour Drawing in the British Museum . . 29 Madonna and Child, with St. Anthony and St. Sebastian. From a Painting in the Dresden Gallery. From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl . . .33 Oswald Krell. From a Painting in the Munich Gallery. From a Photograph by J. A. Stein, Nuremberg . . . . . . -35 Katharina Fiirleger. From a Painting in the Augsburg Gallery. From a Photo- graph by J. A. Stein 37 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Nativity. From a Painting in the Munich Gallery. From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl ........ 39 Horseman in Armour. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . .41 Trumpeter and Drummer. From a Painting in the Cologne Museum. From a Photograph by J. A. Stein . . . . . . .43 The Adoration of the Kings. From a Painting in the Uffizii Gallery, Florence. From a Photograph by D. Anderson . . . . .47 Death on Horseback. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . .49 The Feast of the Rose Garlands. From a Painting in the Prague Gallery. From a Photograph by J. A. Stein . . . . . . -57 Adam and Eve. From Paintings in the Pitti Gallery, Florence. From Photo- graphs by Alinari . . . . . . . .61 Christ bearing the Cross. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . 63 The Adoration of the Kings. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . 63 A Flagellant. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . . .67 The Adoration of the Trinity. From a Painting in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna. From a Photograph by J. A. Stein . . . . . .69 The Madonna with the Pink. From a Painting in the Augsburg Gallery. From a Photograph by J. A. Stein . . . . . .71 Decorative Designs. From Drawings in the British Museum . . -75 Design for Armour. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . -77 Page from the Book of Hours , designed for the Emperor Maximilian, in the Royal Library at Munich. From a Lithograph by J. N. Strixner . . 79 Design for a Spoon. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . .81 View of Aix-la-Chapelle. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . 83 A Walrus. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . . .85 Sketch of a Dog. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . .87 Portrait of Imhoff (?). From a Painting in the Madrid Gallery. From a Photograph by J. A. Stein . . . . • • • 89 Henry Parker, Lord Morley. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . 93 Head of Old Man. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . -95 Portrait of a Young Man. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . 97 Sketch for a Book-Plate. From a Drawing in the British Museum . . 99 PREFACE This monograph is supplementary to one published in November 1894, and entitled “ The Engravings of Albrecht Durer.” In neither case has it been the writer’s intention to give a critical study of Durer s work, a task, indeed, which would occupy a far greater space than these monographs allow. An appreciation or historical study of Durer s work has rather been intended ; and if this should lead any reader to a nearer acquaintance with one of the most instructive and companionable of artists, the writer’s object will have been attained. In the following pages a certain amount of repetition from the preceding monograph has been unavoidable, but it has been used as sparingly as possible. The drawings selected for reproduction are from the collection in the British Museum. ERRATA IN FORMER MONOGRAPH page 19, line 16, for within read into. ,, 49, „ 9, lor But read And. „ 64, footnote 1, reference was made in error to “Anton Springer, Albert Diirer, Berlin 1892.” The reference should have been to C. von Liitzow, Geschichte der deutschen Kupferstiches und Holzschnittes (1891), p. 108. ,, 74’ ^ ne 1 9’ ^ or nihil a read nihil humani a. THE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS OF ALBRECHT DURER CHAPTER I Introduction — German art in the Middle Ages — Influence of the Church Rise of art at Nuremberg — P leydenwurjf and JEolgemut Early Nurembei g school Diirer apprenticed to JPolgemut — I he u Schatzbehalter and JPeltchromk. Ik a former number of the Portfolio (November 1894) an attempt was made to lay before the reader a short sketch of the life of Albrecht Durer of Nuremberg, and to give a descriptive, and to some extent explanatory, account of his engravings on copper and on wood. The limits of space contained in the volumes of this series made it necessary to confine the contents of the number in question to the engra\ ed work of Albrecht Diirer, and to pass over, with little more than a mere allusion, that very large and important portion of his life-work which has survived to posterity in his paintings and drawings. The engraved work of Albrecht Durer is that which has appealed, and will probably continue to appeal, most strongly to the attention and sympathy of the art-student, especially in England. In the first place, it is accessible to everybody in every collection of engravings which has any pretensions to be complete ; and in the second place it is capable of reproduction in these days in such exact facsimile that it is haidly THE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS necessary for the student, who does not desire to be an expert, to have recourse to the originals. In these engravings moreover lie the strength and originality of Diirer’s creative powers, and by them he has exercised so powerful and fascinating an influence on the world of art and letters. It is a different matter with the paintings and drawings of Diirer. The number of paintings executed by him is very few, and they are scattered all over Europe. The genuine paintings from his brush which until recently existed in England could have been counted on the fingers of a single hand ; and it is doubtful if at the present moment more than two genuine paintings by Diirer exist in these islands. In the print- room at the British Museum, and in a few private collections, there are drawings by him sufficient to illustrate all the various stages of his artistic career. Many of these too have, by modern skill and care, been reproduced in fairly good facsimile ; but the student as well as the expert cannot but feel the necessity of examining the original drawings themselves, as no mechanical process can ever succeed in reproducing the quality and personality that is inherent in every stroke of the human hand. It follows therefore that in England at all events the paintings and drawings of Durer are less known, less appreciated, and certainly less understood than the more familiar engravings. It is the intention of the following pages to try and show the importance of Albrecht Ddrer as a painter in the art-history not only of his own country but of the whole world. German art is but little understood by the British race. Educated and nurtured as the art-student is on the perfected canons of art, as fixed by the works of the great painters of Italy, the productions of artists north of the Alps jar upon the eyes and conflict with the preconceived emotions of those who for the first time direct their minds towards them. The beauty and significance of the paintings by the great Flemish artists, Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Van der Goes, Gerard David, and others have for some time been established and vindicated in the domain of art. The works of German painters however still remain distasteful to the palate for the majority of students, although relished and valued by a OF ALBRECHT DURER few. And yet the study of German art has its fascinations, and repays a hundredfold the time which may be devoted to it. Germany has ever been, and is still, a country of craftsmen rather than artists. The works of German artists smack of the workshop and not of the open air. In a northern climate a man’s life is spent as much indoors as under the sky. In the south a house is but a shelter from the heat of the sun, or from the violence of the storm, — a store- house of a man’s family, goods, and chattels. Life is spent mainly in the open air ; and the days are but few during which the warmth necessary for human life is not acquired directly from the sun. North of the Alps the house is the centre of life. The enemy to be guarded against is the cold, and the purveyor of warmth and comfort is, for the greater part of the year, the stove. For the same reason, in the sunny south, through constant exercise in the open air, through the light- ness of clothing required to protect the body, and through the moderateness of the diet necessary for the preservation of health, the human form attains its highest perfection and beauty. The basis of Greek art is “ the human form divine,” and the same may be said of the Italian art of the Renaissance. North of the Alps mankind has to contend with the inclemency and asperities of nature, entailing a heavier diet, warmer and thicker clothing, and, for the greater part of the year, a more sedentary life. The human form tends to become stronger and hardier, squarer and thicker set, but without the ~ ^ Decorative Design. natural litheness and suppleness of the south. British Museum. Veiled as it is by the increased amount of clothing, it no longer presents itself to the artist’s eye as the most suitable object for his study. This deficiency is the great stumbling-block in northern art, and the student must begin by discarding all such ideas, as may IO THE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS already have been inculcated in his mind by a study of Greek or Italian art. During that epoch of time which is known as the Middle Ages, two important events occurred. South of the Alps and the great mountain- chain which links them to the east, the Old World died, wrecked and pillaged by disease and decay and the savage brutality of mankind. Centuries were to elapse before a sufficient clearance could be made for the rehabilitation and reconstitution of Italy and Greece, and the task is incomplete even at the present day. The Eastern Empire crumbled in the dust, and amid the ruins ot antiquity tyranny and barbarism reigned supreme. North of the Alps there were signs of a new birth ; the earth was in travail of the Modern World. The Roman Empire had by sheer physical force pushed back the rough untutored hordes of the north to the extreme boundaries of the ancient world, until, exhausted by its own efforts, it withdrew and shrunk within its gates, leaving an open field behind it, over which the pent-up forces of barbarism burst like a mountain torrent, sweeping away walls, posts, and bars, unchecked by mountains or rivers, carrying wreckage and destruction up to the very gates and altars of civilisation, even to Rome, Byzantium, and Alexandria. As the waves retired within their natural limits they carried back with them an infusion of the civilisation which they had destroyed. From this fusion of the ancient culture with the untutored simplicity of the north sprang the Modern World, with Christianity for its nurse. Art has ever been the faithful handmaid of religion, and as the northern world progressed towards civilisation the two worked together as mistress and servant. The vesture of antiquity, which was first adopted in imitation of the south, was gradually laid aside in favour of one better suited to the habits and customs of the people. The Church, the one great centre of life in the Middle Ages, found the spacious vaults and arcades of the temple or basilica ill-suited to a colder climate. As the minds of men aspired upwards in the hope of penetrating the great mystery of the Christian faith, roof and spire rose higher and higher, as permanent symbols of their thoughts. Faith in things above supplanted the ancient worship of things below, and the classic temple was replaced by the Gothic cathedral. OF ALBRECHT DURER 1 1 As the vast tracts of territory north of the Alps became gradually cultivated and inhabited by a people who were beginning to learn that the comforts of blessing and peace were far more to be desired than the spoils and gains of war and conquest, a steady flow of commerce began from the southern seas to the northern and back again. The two main arteries of commerce were the great rivers of the Rhine and the Elbe, by which the products of eastern and southern countries were transported from Venice or Genoa in the south to Bruges and Antwerp or to the great Hanse towns in the north. Along the banks of these rivers or their connecting land-ways there grew up settlements of commercial people, towns no longer centred round the castle or stronghold of the local tyrant, but aggregates of steadfast peace-loving burghers, intent on their purses and ledgers rather than on their swords and corslets. Midway in the road of commerce from south to north arose the well-known city of Nuremberg, famous in the annals of trade, whose citizens were ever to be found chaffering on the steps of the Rialto or the quays of Antwerp or Lubeck. Among people whose progress and development is as that of infancy towards mature age, the Fine Arts make but little progress. The only art which really flourished in the Middle Ages is that which is inherent in the human race for all time, — the art of the carpenter or carver. Wood and stone were the commonest and most easily procured materials. In his smoke -stained cottage, the highlander of Bavaria or Switzerland wrought bole and branch into objects of religious or domestic utility ; and, as the great cathedrals raised their heads above the adjoining towers and roofs, their pillars, vaults and spires were carved and wrought with the incidental tracery and ornament which are associated with the name of Gothic, saintly figures and symbols being frequently mixed up with the uncouth and grotesque creations of a pent-up imagination. The art of the painter was but little required. The home had no place for it, and the church, at first, but little need for it. When the painter’s art was employed it was merely as an assistant to architecture in the decoration and enlivening of the building ; to the glass-blower in filling up the great spaces occupied by the windows among the soaring pointed arches ; to the carver and sculptor in ornamenting the shrines or figures which he wrought in wood or stone ; or to the scribe in adding to the 12 THE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS beauty and value of a manuscript. Among the numerous guilds on which the commercial prosperity of mediaeval towns depended, there was no place for painters as a separate trade, they being classed with glass- blowers, goldsmiths, and sometimes even with barbers. It was not until the middle of the fourteenth century that the painters began to take a prominent position of their own. This was mainly due to a change of fashion, whereby the devout found that a shrine upon an altar could be wrought more rapidly, with a more pleasing effect, and probably at a much less cost, by painting than by the usual process of carving in wood and stone. The early painters of such pictures had but little idea of true pictorial effect. Their groups and figures represent what they had previously seen in wood and stone ; the conventionalities and deficiencies of grouping in different planes being reproduced on the panel just as they appear among the reliefs or niches of the carvings. The rigorous mysticism of the mediaeval Church kept the artist’s eyes and hands in bondage. To him Nature was as yet a sealed book, the beauty and pathos of simple humanity unknown. The sublimity of mediaeval religion in Germany was the savage sublimity of a mountain -range, clouded and rugged in its summits, dark and cruel in its approaches, the journey across which to a better land was environed by a host of dangerous and treacherous enemies. Of the serene majesty of religion, the legacy of paganism, there is no trace in early northern art. The ancient religion, from which Christianity weaned the northern tribes, was the savage and cruel superstition of Asgard, the religion of strength and violence, of giants and dragons, in which the untamed cruelty of a wild beast was blended with the imagination and ignorance of a child. Grafted on to such a stock the Christianity of mediaeval Germany inherited much that was terrible and grotesque. When however a real demand for painted shrines and panels was felt, the painters began to take a place in public life, and schools or rather workshops for painting sprang up in all the principal towns, — Prague, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Basle, Cologne, everywhere where wealth was aggregated together ; for, as in war, money is the sinews of art. A city of burghers, intent on commerce, like Nuremberg, is never a good field for the growth and ripening of art. Though their progress OF ALBRECHT DURER 13 may be slow and steady, following the march of the human race, the Fine Arts love better the untied purse-strings of a prince or noble, than Boy Angel with Emblems of the Passion. From a Drawing in the British Museum. all the tight and bulging wallets of the merchant. A Maximilian does more for Art than all the Fuggers and Imhoffs put together, even though it may actually be the gold of the merchant which passes through ■■■ THE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS the bounteous hand of the emperor into the pocket of the artist. So in Nuremberg the progress of the Fine Arts was but slow, ministering but to the demands and necessities of daily life, as occasion called for them. The records of the town contain from 1300 a.d. onwards the names of sculptors, goldsmiths, wood-engravers, and painters, much the same as are to be found in the ancient records of any city of importance. One point of interest among the names of painters is, that the artist is some- times described as “ Stone-cutter and Painter,” showing that the two arts were practised together by the same craftsman and in the same workshop. In 1 363 there is mention of one “ Berthold, Meister, Bildschnitzer und Maler,” and in 1393 one “Hans Backandey, Bildschnitzer und Maler.” It was not however until the beginning of the next century that any paintings were produced of sufficient importance and merit to take a place in the art-history of the world. Apart from its functions of decoration and ornament, painting had at this time in Nuremberg found two spheres of operation. These were the altar-piece and the epitaph. The votive -picture, enshrined above the altar, is a familiar factor in the arc of every country. The epitaph, or votive-picture attached to a monument, is peculiarly character- istic of northern art, and is nowhere so well illustrated, even at the present day, as in the great churches of St. Lawrence and St. Sebald at Nuremberg, where many of these epitaphs remain in their original situation. The great burgher -families of Nuremberg, the Imhoffs, Holzschuhers, Ebners, Tuchers, and others, on the decease of any particular member of their family, frequently caused a votive -picture to be made, which was suspended in the church to which they belonged. Sometimes it was a mere coat-of-arms, similar to the hatchments that were lately in vogue in England ; and in the two great churches at Nuremberg the visitor at this day can trace back the members of these burgher-families in this way through the heraldic emblems which cluster on the walls and pillars of the church. When in pious memory of the deceased a votive-picture was commissioned, it was usually a sacred subject with portraits of the deceased and the other members of the family below. Some of the earliest Nuremberg epitaphs are attributed to the hand of one Berthold, and they belong , to the first quarter of the fifteenth century. Whether identical or not with the Berthold of OF ALBRECHT DURER i5 1363 mentioned above, he may almost certainly be identified with the painter Berthold, who in 1423 was commissioned by the Town Council to paint the interior of the Rathhaus. It is with this Berthold that the history of painting in Nuremberg may be said to begin. One of the paintings attributed to Meister Berthold, a Madonna of the Imhoff family, in the Church of St. Lawrence at Nuremberg, has a curious affinity to the paintings of Gentile da Fabriano which exercised so much influence on painting at Venice. It is not impossible, in fact very probable, that the impulse given to painting in Germany in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was, even at that date, due to the constant traffic and commerce with the towns and republics of Italy. Not many years after the painting of the Rathhaus, the name occurs for the first time in 1451 among the citizens, who are described as painters, of Hans Pleydenwurff, followed in 1461 by that of Valentin Wolgemut. With these names the history of painting in Nuremberg may be said to start on certain ground, as a number of paintings are in existence at Nuremberg and elsewhere which can safely be attributed to the hands of one member or another of these families, or to the joint efforts of their firm. Hans Pleydenwurff had some reputation as a painter, enough to obtain a commission from a town as far off as Breslau. He died in 1472, leaving a widow, Barbara, and a son, Wilhelm. Valentin Wolgemut, of whose efforts as a painter less is known, and who lived in the same quarter of the city (St. Sebald’s) as Pleydenwurff, died about 1469, leaving a widow, Anna, and a son, Michel, then aged 35. This son, Michel Wolgemut, married Hans Pleydenwurff ’s widow in 1473, an d was m a ^ probability an assistant or partner to her former husband, a position which her son Wilhelm held towards him. From the studio or workshop of the firm of Pleydenwurff and Wolgemut appear to have issued all the principal works in painting executed in Nuremberg at that date, and their pupils and assistants were probably very numerous. The only other painters of importance in Nuremberg at that time were the Trautts from Speyer, and it may be doubted whether they worked in rivalry to, rather than in conjunction with, the firm of Pleydenwurff and Wolgemut. A number of paintings exist, some possessing considerable merit, which have hitherto passed generally under the name of Michel THE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS 1 6 Wolgemut. An attempt has been made to distinguish among these paintings the works of three or four or more different hands . 1 It is safer however to regard them all as the production of the same workshop, in which masters and assistants doubtless contributed each their respective share in the several works in hand. Many of these paintings remain in Nuremberg, some being known by the names of the families by whom they were commissioned as epitaphs or votive- offerings, such as the altar-piece in the Church of St. Jakob, the Mass of St. Gregory , the St. Catherine , the Martyrdom of St. Catherine, and other paintings in St. Lawrence, the Loffelholtz altar in St. Sebald, and numerous paintings in the German Museum. Others are to be found at Munich, Augsburg, Breslau, Heilsbronn, and elsewhere. A number of portraits also exist which are attributed to the same artists as these paintings. Many of these pictures exist in the form of wings which have formed part of an altar-piece, folding in divisions, the main central part of which was in most cases carved in stone or wood, as is the case with the great altar-piece attributed to Wolgemut at Heilsbronn. The crowded grouping and the apparently grotesque treatment of the limbs and bodies are due to the combination of painting and sculpture in the same work. As the influence of the great Flemish painters began to work its way up the Rhine and pervade the rising schools of Swabia and Franconia, a distinct improvement is visible in drawing and com- position ; and by the end of the fifteenth century works were being turned out by the Pleydenwurff and Wolgemut firm which, with their rich brocades, elegant landscape backgrounds, and greater serenity of expression, were not wholly unworthy of being classed with the paintings of Ghent and Bruges, and certainly on a level with the intermediate school at Cologne. This may be traced to the powerful influence of Martin Schongauer, the famous painter -engraver of Colmar, who received and imbibed into his art the grace and spirit of Rogier van der Weyden and the blemish painters, and at the same time maintained that genuine national style which is generally recognised as German. 1 For further information see a valuable work, Die Malerschule von N'urnberg im xiv. und xv. Jakrhundert in ihrer Eniwickelung bis auf Diirer, by Henry Thode (Frankfurt am Main. H. Keller, 1891). eJLMf- OF ALBRECHT DURER 17 In 1455, when the elder Albrecht Diirer came into Nuremberg on St. Eulogius’s Day, and found Philipp Pirkheimer’s wedding festivities being celebrated on the castle green, the painting studio of Hans Pleydenwurff had not yet been established in its well-known quarters on St. Sebald’s side, for the painter was then living in the quarter of St. Lawrence. By the time, however, of the birth of the younger Albrecht in 1471, it had been established in the street immediately under the V este , in the neighbourhood of Schedel and Schreyer the historians, Koberger the great master-printer, Walther the astronomer, and other distinguished citizens of Nuremberg. When, therefore, Diirer’s father made up his mind that it was useless to waste further time in trying to force his son into the goldsmith’s trade, and decided to humour the boy’s strongly-expressed inclination towards painting, he would naturally turn to his friends and neighbours, Michel Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, and ask them to take the boy as a pupil and assistant in their firm. “ He gave in to me,” writes his son, “ and in the year i486, on St. Andrew’s Day, he apprenticed me to Michel Wolgemut to serve him for three years.” How much personal instruction the young Diirer received from Wolgemut must remain uncertain. He was probably one of numerous pupils. It appears from his own statement that “ God lent me industry, so that I learnt well ; but I had to put up with a great deal of annoyance from his assistants.” 1 The inscription on the early drawing in the British Museum of a lady with a hawk, stating that Diirer did it “before he came to the painter, in Wolgemut’s house on the upper story in the hinderhouse, in the presence of Conrad Lomayr, deceased,” would seem to show that his instructor was not Wolgemut himself, but one of the other painters employed in the firm. At all events it would appear that the young Diirer’s chief occupation was drawing, and that the lesson-books from which he learnt were the engravings of Schongauer. The early drawings of his which have survived are all pen-drawings, done in the dry manner of an engraver, with nothing to indicate the hand of a painter in them. In the wings of the beautiful Peringsdorffer altar-piece at Nuremberg, which 1 “Doch liess er mirs nach, und da man zahlt nach Christi Geburt i486 an St. Endrestag, versproch mich mein Vater in die Lehrfahr zu Michael Wohlgemuth, drei Jahr lang ihm zu dienen. In der Zeit verliehe mir Gott Fleiss, dass ich wol lernete. Aber ich viel von seinen Knechten mich leiden musste.” B 1 8 PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS OF ALBRECHT DURER was completed in Wolgemut’s studio in 1487, no trace can be discovered of Diirer’s hand, nor is it probable that a pupil of one year’s standing would have been given a share in the completion of so important a work. On the other hand it is difficult to believe that a lad with such precocious skill as a draughtsman as Diirer should not have been employed at all on the illustrations for the two mighty volumes which were illustrated by Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff, and published by Koberger, the Schatzbehalter in 1491, and the Weltchronik , completed in 1493. They were the venture of the printer, Koberger, Diirer’s own godfather and friend, and from the great number of illustrations they must have taken some time to prepare. If Wolgemut had in his employment draughtsmen of superior excellence to the young Diirer, his staff must have been a very remarkable one. Allowing for the execution of the principal drawings by the hands of Wolgemut or Pleydenwurff them- selves, there remain numbers of minor illustrations which could be entrusted to their youthful assistants. Although Diirer left the studio more than a year before the completion of the Schatzbehalter , it is not unreasonable to suppose that he spent some of his time upon the illustrations to these works. The share of Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff in the work, as recorded in the colophon to the Weltchronik , appears to indicate that a part, at all events, of the illustrations was merely supervised by them. 1 On the termination of Diirer’s apprenticeship to Wolgemut in 1489, his father sent him abroad for four years’ Wander - jahre. Meanwhile the firm of Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff continued until the death of the latter in 1494, when it was carried on by Wolgemut alone. He is heard of again in Diirer’s life in 1506, when Diirer writes from Venice to Pirkheimer about his young brother Hans, asking him “ to speak to my mother that she may have a talk with Wolgemut, as to whether he can give him work until I come back, and then I will honourably repay him.” Wolgemut, however, lives immortal in the portrait of him drawn and painted by his former pupil in 1516, in his eighty-second year, three years before his death. “This has Albrecht Diirer drawn in counterfeit, after his master Michel 1 “Adhibitis tamen viris mathematicis pingendique arte peritissimis, Michaele Wolgemut et Wilhelmo Pleydenwurff, quorum solerti accuratissimaque animadversione turn civitatum turn illustrium virorum figure inserte sunt.” eSF” Portrait , said to be Albrecht DiireP s Father. Fro?n a Drawing in the British Museum, PAINTINGS & DRAININGS OF ALBRECHT DURER 21 Wolgemut, in the year 1516, and he was eighty- two years old,” runs the inscription on the portrait, which is continued later, “ and he lived until one reckons 1519 years, when he departed this life on St. Andrew’s Day early before sunrise.” For thirty years the rush-candle burnt in the master’s studio, while the pupil went forth into the world to be a torch and beacon to the world. Between the practised skill of a working craftsman such as Wolgemut, and the nascent imaginative art of a youth like Albrecht Diirer, there is a gulf fixed which only the distant eye of posterity can see across. There have been and will be many Wolgemuts in the world, good excellent men, talented and industrious, useful and honoured in their own homes. An artist, however, like Diirer leaves his home a raw youth, stares out upon the unknown world with inquiring eyes, and eventually bestrides that world like a Colossus. Symbols divine, Manifestations of that beauteous life Diffused unseen throughout eternal space ; Of these new-form’d art thou, oh brightest child ! Keats. CHAPTER II Purer 1 s first visit to Venice — Painting at Venice — Return to Nuremberg — Purer s remarks on painting — Early drawings and paintings — The Baumgartner a Nativity ” — The Jabach altar-piece — The “ Adoration of the Kings , ’ — Second visit to Venice . In the previous monograph an account was given of Diirer’s Wanderjahre ; how he travelled through Germany to Colmar to seek instruction in the school of Schongauer, who died before Diirer reached him ; how Diirer probably travelled along the usual trade route by Strasburg and Basle according to the direction of his godfather, Koberger ; and how almost certainly he made his way under the same auspices to Venice. Before leaving home in 1490 he left a specimen of the skill which he had acquired as a painter, in the portrait of his father, which is now in the Uffizii at Florence. Apart from this there is little to show what progress he had made as a painter in Wolgemut’s studio. Certainly his father seems to have perceived that his son was destined to attain his chief celebrity in the art of engraving, or he could not have selected the Schongauer school of goldsmith-engravers for the further development of his son’s talents. Although the portrait of his father, painted in 1490, shows much of the strenuous side of his art, which was so characteristic of Diirer s work in his later days, Diirer was but inadequately equipped with a rudimentary knowledge of painting, when he first set foot on the already tale-worn quays of Venice. The early history of painting in Venice has been hitherto but imperfectly understood. A regular sequence and connection had been presupposed between the school of Murano (the Vivarini) and the school of Padua (the Bellini). The recent investigations of Mr. Bernhard Berenson tend to show that a great misconception has existed upon this PAINTINGS & DRAININGS OF ALBRECHT DURER 23 point. 1 It would appear certain that the Vivarini school, the elder in A Concert. From a Drawing in the British Museum. date, maintained a separate and competing existence against its younger 1 Lorenzo Lotto: an Essay in Constructive Criticism , by Bernhard Berenson (Putnam’s, 1895). 24 THE PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS rivals, the Bellini, and that many of the painters who have been grouped together as pupils of the latter really belonged to the former. Painting had been introduced into Venice in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. By 1440 a flourishing workshop existed in the island of Murano, which was very similar in some of its arrangements and productions to that described above at Nuremberg. The works produced by this firm of artists were altar-pieces in compartments, the paintings usually enshrined in richly-decorated Gothic frames, the chief subjects themselves being sometimes executed in wood or stone, as well as in painting. This combination of carving and painting is in strong relation to the works of German artists at this period ; and it is a curious fact that the principal partner in the firm appears to have been a German, Johanes Alamanus as he signs himself (possibly the Bildschnitzer to the firm), the other partner, Antonio da Murano, being the first member of the Vivarini family of painters. It may have been that the northern influence was at first as strong in Venetian art as that of the south ; but that, while the form and construction of the altar-piece was derived from the carved shrines of Germany, the painter’s art added the grace and beauty of the south, which qualities gradually supplanted the more material decorative elements, and eventually obtained a complete and lasting supremacy. Very soon, however, a rival school began to raise its head in Venice, that of the Bellini. Jacopo Bellini, the father, a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano, and his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni, came under the influence of the school of Squarcione at Padua, and their connection by marriage with the greatest of North Italian painters at that date, Andrea Mantegna, bi ought a new and powerful element into Venetian art, as represented by them. The further development of the technical side of painting, which appears to have been introduced into Venice by Antonello da Messina, was quickly adopted by the Bellini, who by their admirable paintings overshadowed the elder school of the Vivarini, and paved the way for the future glories of the Venetian school. When the young Diirer first came to Venice at the end of the fifteenth century, he would thus have found two rival schools of painting in existence, that of the Vivarini, then represented by Alvise Vivarini. around 01 under whom, according to Mr. Berenson, were working such well-known painters as Jacopo de Barbari, Francesco Bonsignori, OF ALBRECHT DURER 25 Bartolommeo Montagna, Cima da Conegliano, and Lorenzo Lotto, and Albrecht Diirer, by himself. TJffizii Gallery, Florence. From a P hotograph by D. Anderson. that of the Bellini with their pupils, such as Carpaccio, Mansueti, Previtali, Sebastiano Luciani, and others. The golden age of Giorgione, 26 THE POINTINGS AND DRAWINGS Titian, and Palma was but just dawning, and the rays of their sun had not yet illuminated the earth. In view of the partially German origin of the Muranese school it is more than probable that Diirer was first brought into contact with them, since the Nuremberg merchant, Anton Kolb, to whom no doubt Diirer had been recommended by his godfather, Koberger, with whom Kolb was in correspondence, not only was on terms of friendship with Jacopo de’ Barbari, one of the leading painters of the Vivarini school, but openly declared him to be the best painter then in the world. Allusion has been made in the previous monograph to the influence exercised upon Diirer by Barbari. It is noteworthy also that there are certain points in the paintings of Diirer which find their affinity, not only in the works of Barbari, but also in those of Lotto and other members of the Vivarini school. Among these are the minute and delicate treatment of the silken hair, and the intensity and earnestness, amounting almost to painfulness, in the delineation of the human character. The influence was probably exercised by Diirer, for Lotto himself was too young to have been associated with Diirer at this date. Anyhow, assuming the influence of Barbari and Diirer to have been reciprocal, it is not unreasonable to suppose that some memory lingered in the Venetian schools of the young German artist with the serious inquiring face, the ever-curious mind, and that unrivalled precision and rapidity of draughtsmanship by a hand better trained in goldsmithry and engraving than in painting. In the actual practice of painting Diirer does not appear during this first visit to Venice to have come at once into contact with, or to have been attracted by, the new technical processes introduced from Flanders by Antonello da Messina. Although thrown into greater intercourse with the Vivarini school, he quickly became alive to the majestic power, both in conception and execution, of the great painter in the neighbouring city of Padua, Andrea Mantegna. It is evident from his remarks on his later visit that his inclination had begun to turn to the works of Mantegna and Bellini. His first visit to Venice was probably a short one. It would naturally be the furthest point of his travels, and he may not have had time to do more than look round, before he received the summons from his father to return home to Nuremberg, in view of the marriage which he had arranged for him with the daughter of Hans Frey. But this visit to Venice was very far from OF ALBRECHT DURER 27 being unfruitful, for it was now that he was introduced by Jacopo de’ Barbari to the study of Human Proportions, which occupied so much of his thoughts during the remainder of his life. Now also had his mind been opened to the wonderful perspective and the powerful tempera painting of Mantegna in addition to that artist’s tremendous engravings, of which Diirer took specimens home. Now also he was at all events introduced to View of Trent. From a Drawing in the British Museum. the new process of glazing in oils, the principle of which he may have learnt from Antonello da Messina himself. Moreover, Diirer had learnt to exercise his pen and paint-brush in the practice of rapid sketching, the first artist who may be said to have done so ; and, wherever he went, he carried his sketch-book, palette, and brushes in his wallet, and noted down all the objects of interest in nature or in the life of men, which he came across on his long and tedious journeys across the Alps. It is on these journeys, in all probability, that he made these sketches of wall-girt towns 28 PAINTINGS Cf DRAWINGS OF ALBRECHT DURER such as Innsbruck, 1 rent, and Maestricht, marble quarries, studies of trees, etc., so many of which are washed in in water-colours, some on vellum, and then highly finished with a kind of vivid-coloured gouache. One of his most important works in this last manner was the portrait of himself in gaily-coloured dress, holding the sprig of Alannstreu or eryngo, inscribed with the reverent inscription, “ Man fach die Gat, als es oben schat,” which he probably executed as a gift for his betrothed. His training as a goldsmith had taught him precision of stroke and accuracy of eye ; and the minuteness of his sketches in colour could have rivalled that of the finest Dutch painter in the seventeenth century. Landscape was one of his favourite studies, and Diirer may be said to have been the first painter to paint it for its own sake as a natural object, although the time had not yet arrived when it would be the subject of a picture in itself. At all events Diirer returned to Nuremberg a painter at heart, a rival to his old master, Wolgemut, with a knowledge and experience which the elder man had never had an opportunity of acquiring. In after-life Durer began to prepare a Treatise on Painting, or Banquet for Toung Painters , of which only fragments remain. From these can be gathered certain obiter dicta which throw light on Diirer’s views of the proper sphere of painting as an art. Durer’s friend, Joachim Camerarius, in his eulogy of his lost friend, says of Diirer, that “ 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.” These words would seem to denote a tendency to that eclecticism which was afterwards carried to such undue excess by the painters of the Bolognese school. Diirer was no servile copyist. He found in the works of Barbari, Bellini, and Mantegna things which were new to him, and he studied these to improve his own artistic and intellectual development. So in his studies from nature he copied what was strange and wonderful, — the curves of a plant and the bursting of its blossom, the shimmer of still water in a pool, or the flashing of a bird’s breast or wing, the crouching terror of a frightened hare, or the delicate texture of a butterfly’s wing, and thus laid up in his mind treasures for the Traumwerk with which he adorned and completed his engravings. Weier Haus. From a Water-coiour Drawing in the British Museum . PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS OF ALBRECHT DURER 31 In the fragments of his treatise on painting occur many passages in which he reveals his ideas of the scope and limitations of painting : — “To paint is to be able to portray on a flat surface any visible thing whatsoever, that may be chosen.” “ The imagination of a good painter is full of figures ; and were it possible for him to live for ever, he would have from his inward ideas, whereof Plato speaks, always something new to pour forth by the work of his hand.” “This art of painting is made for the eyes, for the sight is the noblest sense of man.” “ A thing thou beholdest is easier of belief than that thou hearest ; but whatever is both heard and seen we grasp more firmly and more intelligently.” “ One’s opinion of beauty is more credible in a skilful painter’s utterance than in another’s.” “Utility is part of Beauty ; and what is not useful in a man is not beautiful.’ “ The art of painting is employed in the service of the Church, and by it the sufferings of Christ and many other profitable examples are set forth. It preserved! also the likeness of men after their death.” “ The art of true, artistic, and lovely execution in painting is hard to come unto ; it needeth long time and a hand practised to perfect freedom.” “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 the remembrance of them leaveth me.” Throughout the somewhat disjointed fragments of this treatise material can be gathered enough to discover Diirer’s artistic temperament. Industry, practice, faith, candour, humility, hope are some of the qualities which he postulates in an artist, though indeed they are equally necessary in any other profession of life. So Diirer in May 1494 returned to Nuremberg, married his young bride, Agnes Frey, and took up his residence with his old father and mother, — the beloved parents, who had the lion’s share of his love, — and began for himself a career as creative artist in the old gabled home under the slope of the Veste. With a wife and the possibility of a family, and moreover with the care of his aging parents upon him, Diirer had by no means an easy life before him. His father, as Diirer has himself recorded, spent his life in great industry and hard severe work, his only object 32 PAINTINGS & DRAININGS OF ALBRECHT DURER being to earn with his own hand a Jiving for himself and family ; and in his father’s footsteps Diirer was, no doubt, determined to tread. There is nothing phenomenal in Diirer’s progress in art. He was no “ infant prodigy,” no comet to flash across the horizon and disappear in a shower of fading sparks. He was a simple, earnest, industrious artist, always working towards an ideal, which he never considered himself to have attained. It would be improbable that with his youth and in- experience he should be able at first to compete in Nuremberg with such well-known painters as his old master Wolgemut and others in the ordinary practice of their art. Engraving presented a more open field, although it was some time before his hand attained the precision of later years. Meanwhile he spent many hours in drawing from the life and from nature ; recording in his sketch-books carefully -wrought views of the picturesque objects in the neighbourhood, such as the “ Weiherhaus ” (in the British Museum), the view of “ Kalkreuth,” and the “ Drahtzieh- miihle ” (at Berlin) ; frequenting the public baths that he might study the nude in pursuance of his favourite inquiries about Human Proportion ; copying at home the Italian engravings of Mantegna and others which he had brought back from Italy, in fact laying a thoroughly true ground- work for his future artistic career. As the last work of his before leaving home in 1490 was a portrait of his father, so one of the earliest works after his return was another portrait of the same parent, painted in 1497. This portrait is now at Syon House, Isleworth. 1 Seven years had dealt kindly with the simple old man ; the face is a little thinner, the pose of the body less robust, but it is the same earnest kindly face which bade farewell to his son in 1490. Five years later, in the night next befoie St. Martin s Eve, the old man passed away, and Durer was left in charge of his old mother and his young brother Hans, in addition to his duties as a husband. Meanwhile Durer found a patron outside his native town in the person of Frederick the Wise, the enlightened Elector of Saxony, after- wards the champion of Luther and the Reformation. Durer painted a portrait of him in tempera (now at Berlin), a striking if somewhat un- 1 The Syon House portrait was formerly in the collections of the Earl of Arundel and Charles I., and was engraved by Hollar (see the Portfolio , January 1896, p. 12). Other \ ersions exist, but the Syon House portrait is more generally accepted as the original. Madonna and Child , with St. Anthony and St. Sebastian. Dresden Gallery. From a Photograph by F. Hanfstaengl. PAINTINGS 6 3> 78, 81, 88, 92, 98, 102 Planckfeldt, Jobst, 82 Pleydenwurff, 15, 17, 18 Pogner, 62 Predis, Ambrogio de, 5 5 Raimondi, Marcantonio, 49, 51 Raphael, 46, 58, 70, 85 Roggendorf, 82 Rubens, 96 Rudolph II., 46, 56, 60, 66, 70, 92, 98 Salting, Mr., 86 Sandys, Frederick, 101 Sapor, 62 Schauflein, Hans Leonhard, 46, 100 Schedel, 17 Scheurl, 30, 60 Schonspergcr, 76 Schongauer, 16, 17, 22, 94 Schreyer, 17 Sigismund, 74, 100 Sloane, Sir Hans, 98 Stabius, Joannes, 75, 76, 78 Susanna, 87 Siiss, Hans, 46, 100 Tausy, Georg, 68 Titian, 26, 46, 52, 54, 62 Trautt, I 5 Treitzsauerwein, Marx, 78 T ucher, 14, 39, 46 Varnbuler, Ulrich, 102 Vasari, 50 Vinci, Leonardo da, 56 Vincidor, Tommaso, 85 Vivarini, 22, 23, 24, 52 Walther, 17 Warwick, Earl of, 81 Weyden, Rogier van der, 8, 16 Wolgemut, Anna, 1 5 Wolgemut, ‘Michel, 15-19, 22, 28, 32, 100 Wolgemut, ^Valentin, 15 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh,