Albert Durer
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T. Sturge Moore >> Albert Durer
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FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 15: Thus far the original is in bad Italian.]
[Footnote 16: The retainers of Konz Schott, a neighbouring baron, at one
time a conspicuous enemy of Nuernberg.]
[Footnote 17: These words are in Italian in the original.]
[Footnote 18: Prof. Thausing suggests that this "other _Quadro_" is the
"Christ among the Doctors" in the Barberini Gallery at Rome--a picture
containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The
inscription states it to have been _opus quinque dierum_. At Brunswick
there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are
likewise in existence. In Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna of 1508 in the
Borghese Gallery at Rome, the head of St. Onuphrius is taken from the
model who sat for the front Pharisee on the left in Duerer's picture.]
[Footnote 19: A Nuernberg prison.]
CHAPTER IV
DUeRER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS
I
Duerer had hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise
Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant
_Adoration of the Magi_ in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of
Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron,
as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and
criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly
generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of
Duerer's relations with his clients; they show him appealing always to
the judgment of artists against the ignorant buyer, and giving more than
he bargained to give, though thereby he eats up his legitimate profits;
lastly, they show him vowing never again to enter upon work so
unprofitable, but to give all his time to the creation of engravings and
woodcuts. The first is written to Michael Behaim, who died in 1511, and
had commissioned him to make a design for a woodcut of his coat of arms.
DEAR MASTER MICHAEL BEHAIM,--I send you back the coat of arms again.
Pray let it stay as it is. No one could improve it for you, for I made
it artistically and with care. Those who see it and understand such
matters will tell you so. If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up
backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT DUeRER.
[Illustration: Photograph J. Lowy--THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY,
1511--From the painting at Vienna]
The other letters concern the lost _Coronation of the Virgin_, the
centre panel of an altar-piece of which the wings are still at
Frankfurt, of which town Jacob Heller, who commissioned it, was a
burgher. They were to be studio work, and are supposed to be chiefly due
to Duerer's brother Hans. There is, however, one picture extant which
gives an idea of the execution of the missing centre panel, the _Holy
Trinity and All Saints_ at Vienna; which, in spite of his vow never to
do such work again, was commenced shortly after the _Coronation_, and
for a Nuremberg patron. How much he was paid for it is not known; but it
cannot have been a really adequate sum, as towards the end of his life
he writes to the Nuremberg Council, "I have not received from people in
this town work worth five hundred florins, truly a trifling and
ridiculous sum, and not the fifth part of that has been profit." The
preceding picture, referred to in the first letters, is the _Martyrdom
of the Ten Thousand by Sapor II_. All three pictures were signed, like
the _Feast of the Rose Garlands_ by little finely-dressed portraits of
the painter.
NUeRNBERG, _August_ 28, 1507.
I did not want to receive any money in advance on it till I began to
paint it, which, if God will, shall be the next thing after the Prince's
work;[20] for I prefer not to begin too many things at once and then I
do not become wearied. The Prince too will not be kept waiting, as he
would be if I were to paint his and your pictures at the same time, as I
had intended. At all events have confidence in me, for, so far as God
permits, I will yet according to my power make something that not many
men can equal.
Now many good nights to you. Given at Nuernberg on Augustine's day, 1507.
ALBRECHT DUeRER.
* * * * *
NUeRNBERG, March 19, _1508_.
Dear Herr Jacob Heller. In a fortnight I shall be ready with Duke
Friedrich's work; after that I shall begin yours, and, as my custom is,
I will not paint any other picture till it is finished. I will be sure
carefully to paint the middle panel with my own hand; apart from that,
the outer sides of the wings are already sketched in--they will be in
stone colour; I have also had the ground laid. So much for news.
I wish you could see my gracious Lord's picture; I think it would please
you. I have worked at it straight on for a year and gained very little
by it; for I only get 280 Rhenish gulden for it, and I have spent all
that in the time.
* * * * *
NUeRNBERG, _August 24, 1508_.
Now I commend myself to you. I want you also to know that in all my days
I have never begun any work that pleased me better than this picture of
yours which I am painting. Till I finish it I will not do any other
work; I am only sorry that the winter will so soon come upon me. The
days grow so short that one cannot do much.
I have still one thing to ask you; it is about the _MADONNA_[21] that
you saw at my house; if you know of any one near you who wants a picture
pray offer it to him. If a proper frame was put to it, it would be a
beautiful picture, and you know that it is nicely done. I will let you
have it cheap. I would not take less than fifty florins to paint one
like it. As it stands finished in the house it might be damaged for me,
so I would give you full power to sell it for me cheap for thirty
florins--indeed, rather than that it should not be sold I would even let
it go for twenty-five florins. I have certainly lost much food over it.
* * * * *
Nuernberg, _November_ 4, 1508.
I am justly surprised at what you say in it about my last letter: seeing
that you can accuse me of not holding to my promises to you. From such a
slander each and everyone exempts me, for I bear myself, I trust, so as
to take my stand amongst other straightforward men. Besides I know well
what I have written and promised to you, and you know that in my
cousin's house I refused to promise you to make a good thing, because I
cannot. But to this I did pledge myself, that I would make something for
you that not many men can. Now I have given such exceeding pains to your
picture, that I was led to send you the aforesaid letter. I know that
when the picture is finished all artists will be well pleased with it.
It will not be valued at less than 300 florins. I would not paint
another like it for three times the price agreed, for I neglect myself
for it, suffer loss, and earn anything but thanks from you.
You further reproach me with having promised you that I would paint your
picture with the greatest possible care that ever I could. That I
certainly never said, or if I did I was out of my senses, for in my
whole lifetime I should scarcely finish it. With such extraordinary care
I can hardly finish a face in half a year; now your picture contains
fully 100 faces, not reckoning the drapery and landscape and other
things in it. Besides, who ever heard of making such a work for an
altar-piece? no one could see it. But I think it was thus that I wrote
to you--that I would paint the picture with great or more than ordinary
pains because of the time which you waited for me.
You need not look about for a purchaser for my Madonna, for the Bishop
of Breslau has given me seventy-two florins for it, so I have sold it
well. I commend myself to you. Given at Nuernberg in the year 1508, on
the Sunday after All Saints' Day.
ALBRECHT DUeRER.
* * * * *
NUeRNBERG, _March_ 21, 1509.
I only care for praise from those who are competent to judge; and if
Martin Hess praises it to you, that may give you the more confidence.
You might also inquire from some of your friends who have seen it; they
will tell you how it is done. And if you do not like the picture when
you see it, I will keep it myself, for I have been begged to sell it and
make you another. But be that far from me! I will right honourably hold
with you to that which I have promised, taking you, as I do, for an
upright man.
* * * * *
NUeRNBERG, _July_ 10, 1509.
As you go on to say that if you had not bargained with me for the
picture you would never do so now, and that I may keep it--I return you
this answer: to retain your friendship, if I had to suffer loss by the
picture, I would have done so, but now since you regret the whole
business and provoke me to keep the picture I will do so, and that
gladly, for I know how to get 100 florins more for it than you would
have given me. In future I would not take 400 florins to paint another
such as this.
ALBRECHT DUeRER.
NUeRNBERG, _July_ 24, 1509. DEAR HERR HELLER, I have read the letter
which you addressed to me. You write that you did not mean to decline
taking the picture from me. To that I can only say that I don't
understand what you do mean. When you write that if you had not ordered
the picture you would not make the bargain again, and that I may keep it
as long as I like and so on--I can only think that you have repented of
the whole business, so I gave you my answer in my last letter.
But, at Hans Imhof's persuasion, and having regard to the fact that you
ordered the picture of me, and also because I should prefer it to find a
place at Frankfurt rather than anywhere else, I have consented to send
it to you for 100 florins less than it might well have brought me.
I am reckoning that I shall thus render you a pleasing service;
otherwise I know well how I could draw far greater pecuniary advantage
from it, but your friendship is dearer to me than any such trifling sum
of money. I trust however that you would not wish me to suffer loss over
it when you are better off than I. Make therefore your own arrangements
and commands. Given at Nuernberg on Wine-Tuesday before James'.
ALBRECHT DUeRER.
NUeRNBERG, _August 26_, 1509. First my willing service to you, dear Herr
Jacob Heller. In accordance with your last letter I am sending the
picture well packed and seen to in all needful points. I have handed it
over to Hans Imhof and he has paid me another 100 florins. Yet believe
me, on my honour, I am still out of pocket over it besides losing the
time which I have bestowed upon it. Here in Nuernberg they were ready to
give 300 florins for it, which extra 100 florins would have done very
nicely for me had I not preferred to please and serve you by sending you
the picture. For I value the keeping of your friendship at more than 100
florins. I would also rather have this painting at Frankfurt than
anywhere else in all Germany.
If you think that I have behaved unfairly in not leaving the payment to
your own free-will, you must bear in mind that this would not have
happened if you had not written by Hans Imhof that I might keep the
picture as long as I liked. I should otherwise gladly have left it to
you even if thereby I had suffered a greater loss still. My impression
of you is that, supposing I had promised to make you something for about
ten florins and it cost me twenty, you yourself would not wish me to
lose by it. So pray be content with the fact that I took 100 florins
less from you than I might have got for the picture--for I tell you that
they wanted to take it from me, so to speak, by force.
I have painted it with great care, as you will see, using none but the
best colours I could get. It is painted with good ultramarine under, and
over, and over that again, some five or six times; and then after it was
finished I painted it again twice over so that it may last a long time.
If it is kept clean I know it will remain bright and fresh 500 years,
for it is not done as men are wont to paint. So have it kept clean and
don't let it be touched or sprinkled with holy water. I feel sure it
will not be criticised, or only for the purpose of annoying me; and I
answer for it it will please you well. No one shall ever compel me to
paint a picture again with so much labour. Herr Georg Tausy himself
besought me to paint him a Madonna in a landscape with the same care and
of the same size as this picture, and he would give me 400 florins for
it. That I flatly refused to do, for it would have made a beggar of me.
Of ordinary pictures I will in a year paint a pile which no one would
believe it possible for one man to do in the time. But very careful
nicety does not pay. So henceforth I shall stick to my engraving, and
had I done so before I should to-day have been a richer man by
1000 florins.
I may tell you also that, at my own expense, I have had for the middle
panel a new frame made which has cost me more than six florins. The old
one I have broken off, for the joiner had made it roughly; but I have
not had the other fastened on, for you wished it not to be. It would be
a very good thing to have the rims screwed on so that the picture may
not be shaken.
If anyone wants to see it, let it hang forward two or three finger
breadths, for then the light is good to see it by. And when I come over
to you, say in one, two, or three years' time, if the picture is
properly dry, it must be taken down and I will varnish it over anew with
some excellent varnish, which no one else can make; it will then last
100 years longer than it would before. But don't let anybody else
varnish it, for all other varnishes are yellow, and the picture would be
ruined for you. And if a thing, on which I have spent more than a year's
work, were ruined it would be grief to me. When you have it set up be
present yourself to see that it gets no harm. Deal carefully with it,
for you will hear from your own and from foreign painters how it
is done.
Give my greeting to your painter Martin Hess. My wife asks you for a
_Trinkgeld_, but that is as you please, I screw you no higher, &c. And
now I hold myself commended to you. Read by the sense, for I write in
haste. Given at Nuernberg on Sunday after Bartholomew's, 1509.
ALBRECHT DUeRER.
NUeRNBERG, _October 12_, 1509.
DEAR HERR JACOB HELLER, I am glad to hear that my picture pleases you,
so that my labour has not been bestowed in vain. I am also happy that
you are content about the payment--and that rightly, for I could have
got 100 florins more for it than you have given me. But I preferred to
let you have it, hoping, as I do, thereby to retain you as my friend
down in your parts.
My wife thanks you very much for the present you have made her; she will
wear it in your honour. My young brother also thanks you for the two
florins _Trinkgeld_ you sent him. And now I too thank you myself for all
the honour &c. In reply to your question how the picture should be
adorned I send you a slight design of what I should do if it were mine,
but you must do what you like. Now, many happy times to you. Given on
Friday before Gall's, 1509. ALBRECHT DUeRER.
Duerer must have commenced the All Saints picture almost immediately
after having finished Heller's _Coronation of the Virgin_. Perhaps he
had practically accepted the commission from Matthsus Landauer before he
wrote to Heller that he would never again undertake a picture with so
much work and labour in it, for he afterwards was as good as his word.
This new work was for the chapel of an almshouse founded by Landauer and
Erasmus Schiltkrot for twelve old men citizens of Nuremberg. The
original frame designed by Duerer is now in the Germanic Museum, though a
copy has replaced the picture. After the completion of the _Trinity and
All Saints_, Duerer apparently carried out his threat and gave up
painting for a dozen years, devoting his energies more especially to a
magnificent series of engravings on copper. He also completed his series
of wood engravings and published them with text, and produced a number
of single cuts, many of them among his very best, like the _Assumption
of the Magdalen_, and the _St. Christopher_, here reproduced.
[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER Woodcut, B. 103]
[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MAGDALEN Woodcut, B. 121]
II
In 1514 his mother died. He has recounted her death twice over, as he
did that of his father already cited; for the single surviving leaf of
the "other book" happens to contain this also. In the briefer
chronicle he says:
Two years after my Father's death (i.e., 1504) I took my Mother into my
house, for she had nothing more to live upon. So she dwelt with me till
the year 1513, as they reckon it; when, early one Tuesday morning, she
was taken suddenly and deadly ill, and thus she lay a whole year long.
And a whole year after the day she was first taken ill, she received the
holy sacraments and christianly passed away two hours before
nightfall--it was on a Tuesday, the 17th day of May in the year 1514. I
said the prayers for her myself. God Almighty be gracious to her.
The account in the "other book" is more circumstantial:
Now you must know that, in the year 1513, on a Tuesday before Rogation
week, my poor afflicted Mother, whom two years after my Father's death,
as she was quite poor, I took into my house, and after she had lived
nine years with me, was one morning suddenly taken so deadly ill that we
broke into her chamber; otherwise, as she could not open, we had not
been able to come to her. So we carried her into a room downstairs and
she received both sacraments, for every one thought she would die,
because ever since my Father's death she had never been in good health.
Her most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always
upbraided me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great
anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went out or in
her saying was always, "Go in the name of Christ." She constantly gave
us holy admonitions with deep earnestness and she always had great
thought for our souls' health. I cannot enough praise her good works and
the compassion she showed to all, as well as her high character.
This my pious Mother bare and brought up eighteen children; she often
had the plague and many other severe and strange illnesses, and she
suffered great poverty, scorn, contempt, mocking words, terrors, and
great adversities. Yet she bore no malice.
In 1514 (as they reckon it), on a Tuesday--it was the 17th day of
May--two hours before nightfall and more than a year after the
above-mentioned day in which she was taken ill, my Mother, Barbara
Duerer, christianly passed away, with all the sacraments, absolved by
papal power from pain and sin. But she first--gave me her blessing and
wished me the peace of God, exhorting me very beautifully to keep myself
from sin. She asked also to drink S. John's blessing, which she
then did.
She feared Death much, but she said that to come before God she feared
not. Also she died hard, and I marked that she saw something dreadful,
for she asked for the holy-water, although, for a long time, she had not
spoken. Immediately afterwards her eyes closed over. I saw also how
Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and how she closed mouth
and eyes and departed with pain. I repeated to her the prayers. I felt
so grieved for her that I cannot express it. God be merciful to her.
To speak of God was ever her greatest delight, and gladly she beheld the
honour of God. She was in her sixty-third year when she died and I have
buried her honourably according to my means.
[Illustration: "1514, on Oculi Sunday (March 19). This is Albrecht
Duerer's mother; she was 63 years of age." After her death he added in
ink, "And departed this life in the year 1514 on Tuesday Holy Cross Day
(May 16) at two o'clock in the night" Charcoal-drawing. Royal Print
Room, Berlin]
God, the Lord, grant me that I too may attain a happy end, and that God
with his heavenly host, my Father, Mother, relations, and friends may
come to my death. And may God Almighty give unto us eternal life. Amen.
And in her death she looked much sweeter than when she was still alive.
III
Such was the home life of this great artist; and from homes presenting
variations on this type proceeded probably all the giants of the
Renaissance, whose work we think so surpasses in effort, in scope, and
in efficiency, all that has been achieved since. This Christianity was
unreformed; it existed side by side with dissolute monasteries and
worldly cynical prelates, surrounded by sordid hucksters and brutal
soldiery. Turn to Erasmus' portrait of Dean Colet, and we see that it
existed in London, among the burghers, even in the household of a Lord
Mayor. We are almost forced on the reflection that nothing that has
succeeded to it has produced men equal to those who sprang immediately
out of it.
However much and however justly the assurance of Christian assertion in
the realm of theory may be condemned, the success of the Christian life,
wherever it has approached a conscientious realisation, stands out among
the multitudinous forms of its corruption; and those who catch sight of
it are almost bound to exclaim in the spirit of Shakespeare's:
"How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world."
I have heard a Royal Academician remark how even the poorest copies and
reproductions of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture retain something of
the charm and dignity of the original: whereas the quality of modern
work is quickly lost in a reduction or even in a cast. I believe this
may be best explained by the fact that the chief research of the Greek
artist was to establish a beautiful proportion between the parts and the
whole; and that fidelity to nature, dexterity of execution, the
symbolism of the given subject, and even the finish of the surfaces,
were always when necessary sacrificed to this. Whereas in modern work,
even when the proportions of the whole are considered, which is rarely
the case, they are almost without exception treated as secondary to one
or more of these other qualities. Is it not possible that Jesus in his
life laid down a proportion, similar to that of Greek masterpieces for
the body, between the efforts and intentions which create the soul and
pour forth its influence?--a proportion which, when it has been once
thoroughly apprehended, may be subtly varied to suit new circumstances,
and produce a similar harmony in spheres of activity with which Jesus
himself had not even a distant connection? We often find that the rudest
copies from copies of his actual life are like the biscuit china Venus
of Milo sold by the Italian pedlar, which still dimly reflects the main
beauties of the marble in the Louvre.
IV
In 1512 Kaiser Maximilian came to Nuremberg, and soon afterward Duerer
began working for him. The employment he found for the greatest artist
north of the Alps was sufficiently ludicrous; and perhaps Duerer showed
that he felt this, by treating the major portion as studio work; though,
no doubt, the impatience of his imperial patron in a measure
necessitated the employment of many aids.
It is difficult to do justice to the fine qualities of Maximilian.
Perhaps he was not really so eccentric as he seems. The oddity of his
doings and sayings may be perhaps more properly attributed to his having
been a thorough German. The genial men of that nation, even to-day and
since it has come more into line in point of culture with France and
England, are apt to have a something ludicrous or fantastic clinging to
them; even Goethe did not wholly escape. Maximilian was strong in body
and in mind, and brimming over with life and interest. We are told that
when a young man he climbed the tower of Ulm Cathedral by the help of
the iron rings that served to hold the torches by which it was
illuminated on high days and holidays. Again we read: "A secretary had
embezzled 3000 gulden. Maximilian sent for him and asked what should be
done to a confidential servant who had robbed his master. The secretary
recommended the gallows. 'Nay, nay,' the Emperor said, and tapped him on
the shoulder, 'I cannot spare you yet'"; an anecdote which reveals more
good sense and a larger humanity than either monarchs or others are apt
to have at hand on such vexing occasions. Thausing says admirably, "A
happy imagination and a great idea of his exalted position made up to
him for any want of success in his many wars and political
negotiations," and elsewhere calls him the last of the "nomadic
emperors," who spent their lives travelling from palace to palace and
from city to city, beseeching, cajoling, or threatening their subjects
into obedience. He himself said, "I am a king of kings. If I give an
order to the princes of the empire, they obey if they please, if they do
not please they disobey." He was even then called "the last of the
knights," because he had an amateurish passion for a chivalry that was
already gone, and was constantly attempting to revive its costumes and
ordinances. Then, like certain of the Pharaohs of Egypt, he was pleased
to read of, and see illustrated by brush and graver, victories he had
never won, and events in which he had not shone. He himself dictated or
planned out those wonderful lives or allegories of a life which might
have been his. It was on such a work of futile self-glorification that
he now wished to employ Duerer.
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