Part 13 (1/2)

Pirkheimer's name is so intimately connected with Durer, and he remained throughout his life so steady and consistent a friend, that no memoir of Durer can be written, however briefly, without his name appearing. He was a man of considerable wealth and influence in Nurnberg, a member of the Imperial Council, and frequently employed in state affairs. He had it, therefore, in his power to aid Durer greatly; he did so, and Durer returned it with a grat.i.tude which ripened to affection, he declares in one of his letters that he had ”no other friend but him on earth,” and he was equally attached to Durer. The constant intercourse and kindly advices of his friend were the few happy relaxations Durer enjoyed.

Pirkheimer was a learned man, and cheerful withal, as his facetious book ”_Laus Podagrae_,” or the ”Praise of the Gout,” can testify. The house in which he resided is still pointed out in the _Egidien Platz_; it has undergone alterations, but the old doorway remains intact, through which Durer must have frequently pa.s.sed to consult his friend. ”What is more touching in the history of men of genius than that deep and constant attachment they have shown to their early patrons?” asks Mrs.

Jameson.[225-*] How many men have been immortalised by friends.h.i.+ps of this kind; how many of the greatest been rendered greater and happier thereby? When the Elector John Frederick of Saxony met with his reverses in 1547, was driven from his palace, and was imprisoned for five years, the painter Lucas Cranach, whom he had patronised in his days of prosperity, shared his adversity and his prison with him, giving up his liberty to console his prince by his cheerful society, and diverting his mind by painting pictures in his company. He thus lightened a captivity and turned a prison into a home of art and friends.h.i.+p; thus the kindness and condescension of a prince were returned in more value ”than much fine gold,” in the bitter hour of his adversity, by his humble but warm-hearted artist-friend.

That brotherly unity which ought to bind professional men of all kinds--isolated as they must be from the general world--was more of a necessity in the past time than in the present; and the artists formed a little band of friends within the walls of ancient Nurnberg, consulting with and aiding each other. The peculiarity of thought and tendency of habit which const.i.tute the vitality of the artist-mind, are altogether unappreciated by the general world; completely misunderstood, and most frequently contemned by men of a trading spirit, who look upon artists as ”eccentrics,” upon art as a ”poor business,” and judge of pictures solely by their ”market value.” These things should bind professors more strongly together. Their numbers are few; their time for socialities limited; their world a small select circle; few can sympathise with their cares or their more exquisite sensibilities; they must, therefore, be content with the few whose minds respond to theirs, and they ought not to make the narrow circle narrower, by unworthy jealousies or captious criticism. Well would it be for us all, and infinitely better for the world of art, if we practised still more

”Those gentler charities which draw Man closer with his kind, Those sweet humilities which make The music which they find.”[227-*]

Durer was essentially a man to love. His nature was kindly and open; he knew no envy, and was never known to condemn the work of another artist,--which, if bad, he would only criticise with a smile, and a ”Well! the master has done his best.” His general information was so good, that it was declared of him by a contemporary, that his power as an artist was his least qualification. His personal appearance was dignified, and his face eminently handsome.[227-] Yet, with all these means of being happy, and making others so, few men endured more misery.

In an evil hour his family made a match for him in the household of Hans Frei, whose daughter Agnes he married, and scarcely knew peace after.

She was a heartless, selfish woman, who could have no feeling in common with her husband, and who only valued his art according to the money it realised. ”She urged him to labour day and night solely to earn money, even at the cost of his life, that he might leave it to her,” says Pirkheimer, in one of his letters to Tscherte, their mutual friend the Viennese architect. All his friends she insulted and drove from the house, in order that their visits might not interfere with his labours.

His aged mother, whom he had taken into his house after his father's death, was subject to contempt and ill-treatment. His letters from Venice are sad, and show no pleasant home-thoughts. Yet he did much for the bad woman to whom he was wedded, and seems to have thought of her gratification by numerous presents. His amiable heart would not allow him to separate from her, thus he bore her ill humours for his life, and patiently endured his lot.[228-*] There were few men more adapted to make a woman happy than Durer: he had a handsome person, much fame, good friends, great talent, and the most kindly amiability; but his wife was perhaps the worst on record, on whom all this was thrown away. Yet she was of very religious habit, and preserved all the externals of propriety; but, as Pirkheimer observes, ”one would rather choose a woman who conducts herself in an agreeable manner, than a fretful, jealous, scolding wife, however devout she may be.”

Banished from the society of friends, Durer's only solace was in his art. Here only he found peace and pleasure. How earnestly and deeply he laboured, the long catalogue of his productions can prove. The truthfulness of his style is shown in his patient studies from nature, and his works are the reflex of such a habit. The figure of the burly townsman of Jerusalem who lifts his cap in acknowledgment of Joachim and Anna, as they meet at the Golden Gate, in his ill.u.s.trations of the Life of the Virgin (Fig. 243), may be cited for its homely truth, a characteristic which runs through all Durer's works, and gives them a certain _navete_. The figure is an evident study of an honest townsman of Nurnberg, and is as little like an ancient Jew as possible, though admirable as a transcript from nature. Of far higher order are the figures of the apostles, John, Peter, Mark, and Paul, which he painted in 1526, and presented to his native city.[229-*] We engrave the figure of Paul, the drapery of which is simple and majestic. A study for this drapery, made as early as 1523, is in the collection of the Archduke Charles of Austria. In these pictures, which are painted of life-size, he has exerted his utmost ability, and eschewed any peculiarities of his own which might interfere with the greatness of his design. ”These pictures are the fruit of the deepest thought which then stirred the mind of Durer, and are executed with overpowering force. Finished as they are they form the first complete work of art produced by Protestantism.[229-] What dignity and sublimity pervade those heads of such varied character![230-*] What simplicity and majesty in the lines of the drapery! what sublime and statue-like repose in their att.i.tudes! Here we no longer find any disturbing element: there are no small angular breaks in the folds, no arbitrary or fantastic features in the countenances, or even in the fall of the hair. The colouring too is very perfect, true to nature in its power and warmth. There is scarcely any trace of the bright glazing, or of those sharply defined forms seen in other works by him, but everywhere a free pure impasto.

Well might the artist now close his eyes, he had in this picture attained the summit of his art--here he stands side by side with the greatest masters known in history.”[231-*]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 243.--Figure from Durer's Life of the Virgin.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 244.--St. Paul, after Durer.]

Of the great contemporaries of Durer--whose works have given undying celebrity to the old town of their residence--we must now discourse a little. Honoured as these works still are by the Nurnbergers, they are little known out of Germany; although, as exemplars of art in general at the particular period when they were executed, they may challenge their due position anywhere. The most remarkable is the bronze shrine of St.

Sebald, the work of Peter Vischer and his five sons, which still stands in all its beauty in the elegant church dedicated to the saint. The shrine encloses, amid the most florid Gothic architecture, the oaken chest encased with silver plates, containing the body of the venerated saint; this rests on an altar decorated with ba.s.so-relievos, depicting his miracles.[231-] The architectural portion of this exquisite shrine partakes of the characteristics of the Renaissance forms engrafted on the mediaeval, by the influence of Italian art. Indeed, the latter school is visible as the leading agent throughout the entire composition. The figures of the Twelve Apostles and others placed around it, scarcely seem to belong to German art: they are quite worthy of the best Trans-alpine master. The grandeur, breadth and repose of these wonderful statues cannot be excelled. Vischer seems to have completely freed his mind from the conventionalities of his native schools: we have here none of the constrained ”crumpled draperies,” the home-studies for face and form, so strikingly present in nearly all the works of art of this era; but n.o.ble figures of the men elevated above the earthly standard by companions.h.i.+p with the Saviour, exhibiting their high destiny by a n.o.ble bearing, worthy of the solemn and glorious duties they were devoted to fulfil. We gaze on these figures as we do on the works of Giotto and Fra Angelico, until we feel human nature may lose nearly all of its debas.e.m.e.nts before the ”mortal coil” is ”shuffled off,” and that mental goodness may s.h.i.+ne through and glorify its earthly tabernacle, and give an a.s.surance in time present of the superiorities of an hereafter. Dead, indeed, must be the soul that can gaze on such works unmoved, appealing as they do to our n.o.blest aspirations, and vindicating humanity from its fallen position, by a.s.serting its innate, latent glories. Here we feel the truth of the scriptural phrase--”In his own image made He them.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 245.--Shrine of St. Sebald.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 246.--Peter Vischer's House.]

The memory of Peter Vischer is deservedly honoured by his townsmen. The street in which his house is situated, like that in which Durer's stands, has lost its original name, and is now only known as ”Peter Vischer's Stra.s.se;” but these two artists are the only ones thus distinguished.[234-*] Vischer was born in 1460, and died in 1529. He was employed by the warden of St. Sebald's, and magistrate of Nurnberg, Sebald Schreyer, to construct this work in honour of his patron saint; he began it in 1506, and finished it in 1519. Thirteen years of labour were thus devoted to its completion, for which he received seven hundred and seventy florins. ”According to tradition, Vischer was miserably paid for this great work of labour and art; and he has himself recorded in an inscription upon the monument, that 'he completed it for the praise of G.o.d Almighty alone, and the honour of St. Sebald, Prince of Heaven, by the aid of pious persons, paid by their voluntary contributions.'”[235-*] The elaboration of the entire work is marvellous; it abounds with fanciful figures, seventy-two in number, disposed among the ornaments, or acting as supporters to the general composition. Syrens hold candelabra at the angles; and the centre has an air of singular lightness and grace. It is supported at the base by huge snails. At the western end there is a small bronze statue of Vischer, which we copy (Fig. 247): he holds his chisels in his hand, and in his workman's dress, with capacious, leather ap.r.o.n, stands unaffectedly forth as a true, honest labourer, appealing only to such sympathies as are justly due to one who laboured so lovingly and so well.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 247.--Peter Vischer.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 248.--Adam Krafft's Sacramentshauslein.]

Sharing the palm with Vischer for perfect mastery in sculpture (the one as a worker in metal, the other in stone) stands Adam Krafft, whose works are still the princ.i.p.al ornaments of the city. To him were his fellow-townsmen indebted for the grand gate of the Frauenkirche, the series of sculptures on the ”Via Dolorosa,” numerous others in the churches and public buildings, but princ.i.p.ally for the ”Sacramentshauslein,” in the Church of St. Laurence (Fig. 248). This marvellous work is placed against a pillar beside the high altar, and is intended as a receptacle for the consecrated bread and wine in its service; a small gallery runs round the lower portion, in which the ”host” is kept; over this the sculpture ascends upwards in a series of tapering columns and foliage of the most light and fanciful description, until it reaches the spring of the arched roof, where the crowning pinnacle ”bows its beautiful head like the snowdrop on its stem,” in the curve of the arch, gracefully completing a work which, for originality, delicacy, and the most extraordinary elaboration of design, is a perfect marvel of stone-carving. The foliations are so flowing and delicate, that it has given rise to a popular tradition that Krafft was possessed of some secret for making stone plastic. We have nothing so delicate in this country, unless it be some of the leaflets on the Percy shrine, and screen of Beverley Minster. Krafft's leaves are as thin and delicate, as crisp and free, as if moulded from nature in plaster of Paris, while the grand curves of his ornamental adjuncts are astonis.h.i.+ng, when we reflect on the ma.s.s of stone necessarily cut away to produce these boldly-flowing enrichments.

Krafft was born at Ulm in 1430, and died 1507. His father was the printer, Ulrich Krafft. He commenced this work in the year 1496, and completed it in 1500. In it we see the perfect mastery produced by a life of labour, and in front of it he has sculptured his own effigy, kneeling, mallet in hand, and supporting his favourite work. There is a touching simplicity in this union of the artist and his labours, made in these instances all the more impressive by its utter want of pretension. There is no affectation--no studied artistic or cla.s.sical portraying; we have simply the man and his work before us, appealing by their dumb native eloquence to that homage and love, which are their due by their own inherent greatness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 249.--Adam Krafft.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 250.--The Goose-seller.]

That works based on truth and nature will always possess this power, may be proved by the admiration bestowed on a small work by a pupil of Vischer's, which is popularly loved by the Nurnbergers, and known as ”Das Gansemanchen” (Fig. 250). It forms the central figure of a small fountain beside the Frauenkirche, and represents a country boor leaning against a small pillar, with a goose under each arm, waiting a customer in the market; from the mouth of each goose a stream of water descends.

The figure is not more than eighteen inches high, and is, from the smallness of its size, compared with the greatness of its celebrity, a general disappointment to those who see it for the first time. It rivals in celebrity the work of Vischer himself, and was executed by his scholar, Pancratius Labenwolf (born 1492, died 1563); the fountain in the quadrangle of the ”Rathhaus” is also by him. The Goose-seller owes its popularity to its perfect truth and simplicity.

Another artist of this era, inferior to none in taste and delicacy of sentiment, was Veit Stoss. He was a native of Poland, born at Cracow in 1447; making Nurnberg the city of his adoption, and dying there in 1542.[240-*] The same exquisite grace and purity which characterises the works of Vischer is seen in those of Stoss. He devoted himself to sculpture in wood, and in this way is said to have furnished models to those who worked in stone, as well as to goldsmiths, and other artisans who required designs. ”The Crowning of the Virgin,” still preserved in the old castle at Nurnberg, had all the delicacy and grace of the missal paintings of Julio Clovio.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 251.--”The Nativity,” by Veit Stoss.]

There is an exquisite repose about his works, only to be gained by great masters.h.i.+p in art. At times a tenderness of sentiment singularly beautiful is apparent in these too-much-forgotten works. We engrave, as an ill.u.s.tration of this, one of the compartments of the ”Rosenkranztafel,” preserved in the same locality, and representing the ”Nativity.” The Virgin in the stable at Bethlehem, piously rejoices in the birth of the Lord, and is about to wrap the sacred infant in the folds of her own garments, having no other clothing. She has reverently laid the babe in a corner of her mantle, when, penetrated with a sense of the divinity, she clasps her hands in prayer before the Infant Saviour; while her husband Joseph, who holds the lantern beside her, feeling the same emotion, drops on one knee, and reverently lifts his hat in acknowledgment of the Immortal One.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 252.--”The Entombment,” by Adam Krafft.]