Part 18 (1/2)
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 Nure 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 er, at Vienna With the exception of this last, this group is composed of nity of power Van Eyck painted with inhurotesque 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 co schee scale--a face which produces the i 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 hi 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 aze; but his mouth too has the firmness acquired by those who live always in the presence of ene of the hands” may be fatal to all their most cherished purposes The last of these masters of theht times is _Hieronymus Holzschuher_, Durer'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 ht produce the effect of a Father Christmas, were it not for the resolute lance of the eyes Bernard van Orley, the only youthful person ientle, 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 workmanshi+p and of his visual analysis in the coreatest Raphael and Holbein have alone produced portraits which, as they can be coht 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 tothose 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
DuRER'S DRAWINGS
I
Perhaps Durer is htsman than in any other branch of art The power of nearly all first-rate artists is s than in elaborated works Durer hi and experience can show hly and rudely done, than reat work Powerful artists alone will understand that in this strange saying I speak truth For this reason awith 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 hereon 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 prie truth that Durer 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 rant 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 Durer 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 Durer 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 reat pleasure from works of art; only I aet has no kind of kinshi+p with that which I reatest artists ive
This marvellous portrait of hie is just one of those things ”roughly and rudely done,” of which Durer speaks There is probably no parallel to it forworks 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 rity than slower and longer labours, from which it is difficult to ward all duplicity of intention The finishi+ng-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 iination which taboos subject-matter, and lack of charity that believes there are thenoble 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 Reirl on a bed is as ”sile in intention A Greek statue of a raimentless Apollo is pre-eminently chaste But it does not follow that Rembrandt was in his life enal 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 leeful children to those whose hearts are free And while the joy that a child's glee gives is for a tiives 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 e which has confined the use of this word to one of the most obvious and least estimable It can be never toothat exerts an influence, and that its whole ree 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
II
Many people in turning over a collection of Durer's drawings would be constantly crying, ”How loith enthusiasratitude for the perception which these words expressed Others would say ”merely realistic”; and the words would convey, if not disapprobation for so, 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 infor 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 frahted to see, to touch, or behold, for who 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 himents is in itself aesthetic, or implies a comprehension of Durer as an artist
[Illustration: ME-ENTO MEI, 1505 Fro 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 es as an artist, a craftsman The rand! 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 foroverned by the latter two, either singly or combined Durer, 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 systes; and in thehis 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 te of the invention displayed in his touch, or, as he would have said, ”in his hand,” is alnal as his perfect assurance and composure And when one reflects that he was not, like Rereat or habitual use of the spaces of shade and light, but that his workmanshi+p is almost entirely confined to the expressive power of lines, wonder is only increased Of the fourth character that creates and estih in certain works Durer rises to supreh in almost all his important works he appeases expectation, yet often where he could surely have done much better he seeifts, 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 reforned to a the hours that custoive 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 Lipps the econo of the strokes is always ads 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 Erass on copper, probably recollecting soe 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 his 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 fra 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 hite 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]