Part 26 (1/2)

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 G.o.d 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 Durer's kins.h.i.+p 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 t.i.tian or Rembrandt or Leonardo or Rubens or any other mighty artist of ripe epochs. Yet we find both of them ill.u.s.trating 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 Durer 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 Durer'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