Part 19 (2/2)
[Illustration: Detail enlarged fro 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 iinative power are rare in Durer'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 hich 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 Erasnity and ifts eht into touch with the idea, and each ad of the transfor it
IV
A 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 storht and shade are full of drael 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 draly trivial circuers in the _Flagellation_, or the abnorravity 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 horaver's work The repose and serenity of the lovely little _St Antony_;[81] the subsidence of coe on foot_, B 53--perhaps the most perfect diamond in the whole brilliant chain of little plates, or the staid navety of the enchanting _Apollo and Diana_, B 68;[82]
who shall prefer ah them we choose out another until we return to the e on Horseback_, B 54 Next come the dainty series of little plates in honour of Our Lady the Mother of God, co his plates; before 1503 and continuing till after 1520, in which the last are the least worthy A 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 in 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 h two, B 48 and 50, fall as early as 1514
[Illustration: THE SMALL HORSE--Copper Engraving, B 96]
Then aer plates I cannot refrain fro the _St Jerome_, B 60, with its homely seclusion as of Durer'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 Durer's peculiar powers, in which he produces an effect really comparable to those of the old Greek er for scraps of information, and whose fame haunted him even into his sluive a future to their past” This delightful work rown dark or soh 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 Nure artist, and occasionally had free ith hiins to i, Lipp 366)
V
It would be idle to atte about every masterpiece in Durer's splendidly copious work on s that is not vital upon one side or another, aly few that are not vital upon many One other work, however, which has been enerally th, especially as it illustrates as often Durer's practice in regard to his theories about proportion, hich 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 hi to this book, not being well taught beforehand, the matter will at first becoreeth, as nearly as may be, _with the proportions he desireth_; and let hie 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 reseure 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
Durer himself would seem to have very often followed his own advice in this The _Great Fortune_ or Nemesis is a case in point The ree and wide Professor Thausing said, ”Embodied in this powerful female form, the Northern worshi+p 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 Ger 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 ures of a clumsy rhetoric But the idea they iard to works of art In the first place oneand not a wo 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 worshi+p Noe coence, after the quick receptive eye has been satiated with beauty Our Geruide exclaiave himself up to unrestrained realism in the presentation of the feh the treatment of this female form may perhaps be called realistic, this adjective cannot be ure as a whole This lobe 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 tocircuested 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 datuenitam de nocte silenti Oceano discere patri Stant sidera fronti
Frena erit, 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 eirdled about with a cloud, but with a shi+ning white cloak and a glory in her hair, and s She it is who crushes extravagant hopes, who threatens the proud, to whohty step, and to confound over-great possessions Her the men of old called Neht Stars stand upon her forehead In her hand she bears bridles and a chalice, and s ht 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 ind
If this suggestion is a good one it shows us that Durer was no more consistently literal than he was realistic Thefeatures of his illustration are just those to which his text offers no counterpart, ie, the nudity and physical irdled 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 hisand these verses
In a former chapter I have spoken of the fashi+on in female dress then prevalent; how it underlined whatever is most essential in the physical attributes of woood taste is shown in this fashi+on (see pp 92 and 93) What I there said will explain Durer's choice in thisfelt bow in hiard to womanly attractiveness, and hisshould 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 woliness 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 _Neet that they are works on a scale more comparable with a marble statue; and that in works of which the scale is , Greek taste was often farThis is an ih one which is rarely appreciated However, there is no reason e should condemn ”misled by cold definite rules of taste” even such pictures as Reh 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 h 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 ard to this 's remarks relative to the treat no additional reason for considering it a comparatively early work And we shall only sree_ (sic) marks the extreme _point_ (sic) reached by Durer 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 ood or evil by his researches into the proportions of the hue 258]
[Footnote 81: See page 260]