Albert Durer

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The novelty of the art of printing, and the convenience to a nomadic
emperor of a monument that could be rolled up, suggested the form of
this last absurdity--a monster woodcut in 92 blocks which, when joined
together, produced a picture 9 feet by 10, representing what had at
first been intended as an imitation of a Roman triumphal arch; but so
much information about so many more or less dubious ancestors, &c., had
to be conveyed by quaint and conceited inventions, that in the end it
was rather comparable to the confusion of a Juggernaut car, which
never-the-less imposes by a barbarous wealth and magnificence of
fantastic detail. And to this was to be joined another monster,
representing on several yards of paper a triumphal procession of the
emperor, escorted by his family, and the virtues of himself and
ancestors, &c. Such is fortune's malice that Duerer, who alone or almost
alone had conceived of the simplicity of true dignity and the beauty of
choice proportions and propriety, should have been called upon by his
only royal patron to superintend a production wherein the rank and
flaccid taste of the time ran riot. The absurdity, barbarism, and
grotesque quaintness of this monument to vanity cannot be laid
exclusively at Maximilian's door; for the architecture, particularly of
the fountains, in Altdorfer's or Manuel's designs, and in those of many
others, reveals a like wantonness in delighted elaboration of the
impossible and unstructural. The scholars and pedantic posturers who
surrounded the emperor no doubt improved and abetted. Probably it was
this Juggernaut element, inherited from the Gothic gargoyle, which
Goethe censured when he said that "Duerer was retarded by a gloomy
fantasy devoid of form or foundation." Perhaps this was written at a
period when the great critic was touched with that resentment against
the Middle Ages begotten by the feeling that his own art was still
encumbered by its irrational and confused fantasy. We who certainly are
able to take a more ample view of Duerer's situation in the art of his
times, see that he is rather characterised by an effort which lay in
exactly the same direction as that of Goethe's own; and while
sympathising with the irritation expressed, can also admire the great
engraver for having freed himself in so large a degree from the
influence of fantasy "devoid of form and foundation," even as the
justest Shakespearean criticism admires the degree in which the author
of Othello freed himself from Elizabethan conceits. It is difficult to
appreciate the difference for a great artist in having the general taste
with rather than against the purer tendencies of his art. Probably the
Greeks and certain Italians owe their freedom from eccentricity, in a
very large measure, to this cause. But I intend to treat these questions
more at length in dealing with Duerer's character as an artist and
creator. It was necessary to touch on the subject here, because
Maximilian embodies the peculiar and fantastic aftergrowth, which
sprouted up in some northern minds from the old stumps remaining from
the great mediaeval forest of thoughts and sentiments which had
gradually fallen into decay. All around, even in the same minds, waved
the saplings of the New Birth when these old stumps put forth their so
fantastic second youth, seeming for a time to share in the new vigour,
though they were never to attain expansion and maturity.

V

Thausing shrewdly remarks, "This love of fame and naive delight in the
glorification of his own person are further proofs that the Emperor Max
was the true child of his age. No one was so akin to him in this respect
as the painter of his choice, Albert Duerer." This last is a reference to
those strutting, finely-dressed portraits of the artist which stand
beside the entablatures bearing his name, that of his birthplace, the
date, &c., in four out of the five most elaborate pictures which Duerer
painted. But I would like to suggest that probably this apparent
resemblance to his royal patron is not thus altogether well accounted
for. May there not have been something of Homer's invocation of his
Muse, or of that sincerity which makes Dante play such a large part in
the "Divine Comedy"?--something resembling the ninth verse of the
Apocalypse: "I John, who also am your brother and companion in
tribulation ... was in the isle that is called Patmos ... and heard
behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying...." Those little
strutting portraits of himself sprung, perhaps, out of this relation to
those about him of the man by native gift very superior, who is not made
contemptuous or inclined to emphasise his isolation, but who is ever
ready to say, "It is I, be not afraid." The man who painted and
conceived this is the man you know, whom you have admired because he
carried his fine clothes so well in your streets. Here I am even in the
midst of this massacre of saints, I have conceived it all and taken a
whole year to elaborate it; and since you see me looking so cool and
well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or
overwhelmed. Such is ever the naivety of great souls among those whose
culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among
little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a
selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a
foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust,
they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and
console, for whose sakes they will even hide whatever in them is really
unworthy of such admiration and such trust.

We do not easily realise the corporate character of life in those days.
Very much that seems to us quaint and absurd drew proper significance
from the practical solidarity that then obtained; what appears to us a
strange vanity or parade may have appeared to them respect for the
guild, the town, the country to which they belonged. Duerer signed
"Noricus,"--of Nuremberg;--and preferred its little lucrative
citizenship to those more remunerative offered by Venice and Antwerp.
"Let all the world behold how fine the artist of Nuremberg is." Just as
he says, "God gave me diligence," so it seems natural to him to
attribute a large half of his fame and glory to his native town. In many
respects the great man of those days felt less individual than an
ordinary man does now; for classes did not so merge one into the other,
and their character was more distinct and authoritative. The little
portrait of himself added to those wonderful _tours-de-force_ made them
something that belonged to Nuremberg and to Germans. Even so it would be
with some treasure cup, all gold and jewels, belonging to a village
schoolmaster, which none of his neighbours dared look at save in his
presence; for he was the son of a great baron whom his elder brothers
robbed of everything except this, and his presence among them alone made
them able to feel that it really belonged to their village, was theirs
in a fashion. These suggestions will not, I think, appear fantastic to
those who ponder on the apparently vainglorious address of much of
Duerer's work, and keep in mind such a passage from his writings as this:

"I would gladly give everything I know to the light, for the good of
cunning students who prize such art more highly than silver and gold. I
further admonish all who have any knowledge in these matters that they
write it down. Do it truly and plainly, not toilsomely and at great
length, for the sake of those who seek and are glad to learn, to the
great honour of God and your own praise. If I then set something
burning, and ye all add to it skilful furthering, a blaze may in time
arise therefrom which shall shine throughout the whole world."[22]

But still, even if such considerations may bring many to accept my
explanation of this contrast, I do not want to over-insist on it. I
think that wherever men have been superior in character, as well as in
gift or rank, to those about them, something of this spirit of the good
eldest child in a family is bound to be manifested. But just as such a
child may be veritably boastful and vain at other times,--however purely
now and then, in crises of apparent difficulty or danger, its vaunt and
strut may spring from real kindness and a considerate wish to inspire
courage in the younger and weaker;--so doubtless there was a
haughtiness, sometimes a fault, in Duerer as in Milton.

VI

But we have been led a long way from Kaiser Max and his portable
monument. The reader will re-picture how the court arrived at Nuremberg
like a troop of actors, whose performance was really their life, and was
taken quite seriously and admired heartily by the good and solid
burghers. This old comedy, often farce, entitled "The Importance of
Authority," is no longer played with such a telling make-up, or with
such showy properties as formerly, but is still as popular as ever; as
we Londoners know, since the last few years have given us perhaps an
over-dose of processions, illuminations, &c. &c. In this case the chief
actors in the show piece were men of mark of an exceptionally
entertaining character; with many of them Duerer and Pirkheimer were soon
on the best of terms.

Foremost, Johann Stabius, the companion of the Emperor for sixteen years
without intermission in war and in peace, who was associated with Duerer
to provide the written accompaniment for the monument; a literary
jack-of-all-trades of ready wit and lively presence. A contemporary
records: "The emperor took constant pleasure in the strange things which
Stabius devised, and esteemed him so highly that he instituted a new
chair of Astronomy and Mathematics for him at Vienna," in the Collegium
Poetarum et Mathematicorum founded in the year 1501, under the
presidency of Conrad Celtes.

In all probability there would have been besides the learned protonotary
of the supreme court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in
the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of
Duerer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later,
still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes,
and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the
thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to be in vain.

It may be that Duerer then met for the first time too the Imperial
architect, Johannes Tscherte, for whom he afterwards drew two armillary
spheres, to take the place of those on which he had cast ridicule; for
Pirkheimer wrote to Tscherte: "I wish you could have heard how Albert
Duerer spoke to me about your plate, in which there is not one good
stroke, and laughed at me. What honour it will do us when it makes its
appearance in Italy, and the clever painters there see it!" To which
Tscherte replied: "Albert Duerer knows me well, he is also well aware
that I love art, though I am no expert at it; let him if he likes
despise my plate, I never pretended it was a work of art." And in a
later letter he speaks "of the armillary spheres drawn by our common
friend Albert Duerer." He was one of those who helped Duerer in his
mathematical and geometrical studies; and he, like Pirkheimer, dedicated
books to him. Although the mathematics of those times are hardly
considered seriously nowadays, they then ranked with verse-making as a
polite accomplishment, and had all the charm of novelty. Duerer, no
doubt, had some gift that way, as he seems to have made a hobby of them
during many years. Besides those who came in the Imperial troop, Duerer
had many opportunities of meeting men of this kind, for such were
constantly passing through Nuremberg. Duerer has left us what are
evidently portraits of some whose names are lost: of others we have both
name and likeness, among them the English ambassador, Lord Morley.

In 1515 "Rafahel de' Urbin, who is held in such high esteem by the Pope,
he made these naked figures and sent them to Albrecht Duerer at Nuremberg
to show him his hand." This shows us that travellers through Nuremberg
sometimes brought with them something of the breath of the great
Renaissance in Italy. The drawing, which bears the above inscription in
Duerer's own handwriting on the back, is a fine one in red sanguine,
representing the same male model in two different poses, in the
Albertina. Raphael had, we are told by Lodovico Dolce, drawings,
engravings, and woodcuts of Duerer's hanging in his studio; and Vasari
tells us he said: "If Duerer had been acquainted with the antique he
would have surpassed us all." The Nuremberg master, in return for the
drawing, sent a portrait of himself to Raphael, which has unfortunately
been lost. There appears to have been quite a rage for Duerer's work in
Italy, and above all at Rome: we know that it provoked Michael Angelo to
remonstrate; probably on many lips it was merely a vaunt of superior
knowledge or taste, as rapture over the conjectural friends or aids of a
great quatrocentist is to-day. The tokens of esteem which he won from
distinguished travellers, and this drawing which reached him testifying
to the interest and friendship felt for him by the Italian whose fame
was most widespread, must have been full of encouragement, and have
compensated in some measure for the feeling he had that he was only a
hanger-on at Nuremberg, though he might still have been "a gentleman" in
Venice. Yet Nuremberg itself furnished many desirable or notable
acquaintances. There was Duerer's neighbour, the jurist, Lazarus
Spengler; later the most prominent reformer in Nuremberg, who in 1520
dedicated to him his "Exhortation and Instruction towards the leading of
a virtuous life," addressing him as "his particular and confidential
friend and brother," whom he considers, "without any flattery, to be a
man of understanding, inclined to honesty and every virtue, who has
often in our daily familiar intercourse been to me in no common degree a
pattern and an example to a more circumspect way of life;" whom,
finally, he asks to improve his little book to the best of his ability.
Duerer had before this rendered him service in designing his coat of arms
for a woodcut and furnishing a frontispiece to his translation of
Eusebius' "Life of St. Jerome." He was, moreover, a poet, author of "an
often-translated song"; he wrote verses to discourage Duerer from
spending his time in producing the doggerel rhymes which at one time he
was moved to attempt,--framing poems of didactic import, and publishing
one or two on separate sheets with a woodcut at the top, in spite of the
inappreciative reception given to them by Spengler and Pirkheimer.
Besides Spengler, there were "Christopher Kress, a soldier, a traveller,
and a town councillor;" and Caspar Nuetzel, of one of the oldest
families, and Captain-general of the town bands. Both of these went with
Duerer to the Diet at Augsburg in 1518. The martial Paumgartners were two
brothers for whom Duerer painted the early triptych at Munich (see page
204). One of them is supposed to figure as St. George in the All Saints
picture. Lastly, there were the Imhoffs, the merchant princes of
Nuremberg, as the Fuggers were at Augsburg. A son of the family married
Felicitas, Pirkheimer's favourite daughter, in 1515, and Duerer stood
godfather to their little Hieronymus in 1518. It is easy to imagine that
there was many a supper and dinner, when a thousand strange subjects
were even more strangely discussed; when Pirkheimer now made them roar
with a hazardous joke, or again dumbfounded them with Greek quotations
pompously done into German, or made their flesh creep and the
superstitions of their race stir in them by mysteriously enlarging on
his astrological lore,--for to his many weaknesses he added this, which
was then scarcely recognised as one.

VII

In spite of all his wealthy and influential friends, Duerer found it
difficult to get the emperor to indemnify him for his labours, though
the Town Council had received a royal mandate as early as 1512 from
Landau. The following is an extract:

Whereas our and the Empire's trusty Albrecht Duerer has devoted much zeal
to the drawings he has made for us at our command, and has promised
henceforth ever to do the like, whereat we have received particular
pleasure; and whereas we are informed on all hands that the said Duerer
is famous in the art of painting before all other Masters: we have
therefore felt ourself moved, to further him with our especial grace,
and we accordingly desire you with earnest solicitude, for the affection
you bear us, to make the said Duerer free of all town imposts, having
regard to our grace and to his famous art, which should fairly turn to
his profit with you, &c.

The town councillors sent some of their principal members to treat with
Duerer, and he resigned his claim "in order to honour the said
councillors and to maintain their privileges, usages, and rights." In
1515 the drawings for the "Gate of Honour" were finished, and Duerer
began to press again for pay. Stabius had promised to speak for him, but
nothing had come of it. Albrecht thought Christoph Kress could be of
more avail; so he wrote to him:

(No date, but certainly 1515). DEAR HERR KRESS, The first thing I have
to ask you is to find out from Herr Stabius whether he has done anything
in my business with his Imperial Majesty, and how it stands. Let me know
this in the next letter you write to my Lords. Should it happen that
Herr Stabius has made no move in the matter, ... Point out in particular
to his Imperial Majesty that I have served his Majesty for three years,
spending my own money in so doing, and if I had not been diligent the
ornamental work would have been nowise so successfully finished. I
therefore pray his Imperial Majesty to recompense me with the 100
florins--all which you know well how to do. You must know also that I
made many other drawings for his Majesty besides the "Triumph."

Not long after this, Maximilian, by a _Privilegium_ (dated Innsbruck,
September 6, 1515), settled an annual pension of 100 florins on
the artist.

We Maximilian, by God's grace, &c., make openly known by this letter for
ourself and our successors in the Empire, and to each and every one to
wit, that we have regarded and considered the art, skill, and
intelligence for which our and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved
Albrecht Duerer has been praised before us, and likewise the pleasing,
honest and useful services which he has often and willingly done for us
and the Holy Empire and also for our own person in many ways, and which
he still daily does and henceforward may and shall do: and that we
therefore, of set purpose, after mature deliberation, and with the full
knowledge of ourself and the Princes and Estates of the Empire, have
graciously promised and granted to this same Duerer what we herewith and
by virtue of this letter make known:

_That is to say_, that one hundred florins Rhenish shall be yielded,
given, and paid by the honourable, our and the Empire's trusty and
well-beloved Burgomaster and Council of the town of Nuernberg and their
successors unto the said Albrecht Duerer, against his quittance, all his
life long and no longer, yearly and in every year, on our behalf, out of
the customary town contributions which the said Burgomaster and Council
of the town of Nuernberg are bound to yield and pay, yearly and in every
year, into our Treasury. And whatever the said Burgomaster and Council
of the town of Nuernberg and their successors shall yield, give, and pay
to the said Albrecht Duerer, as stands written above, against his
quittance, the same sum shall be accepted and reckoned to them as paid
and yielded for the customary town contributions which they, as stands
written above, are bound to pay into our Treasury, as if they had paid
the same into our own hands and received our quittance therefor, and no
harm or detriment shall in anywise be done therefor unto them or their
successors by us or our successors in the Empire. Whereof this letter,
sealed with our affixed seal, is witness.

Given, &c.

Thus Duerer became Court painter: in return for his salary he had to
work. As soon as the "Gate of Honour" was finished, there was the "Car
of Triumph" to be taken in hand, the first sketch for it (now in the
Albertina) having already been made about 1514-15. In December 1514
Schoensperger, the Augsburg printer, printed a splendid "Book of Hours"
for Maximilian. The type was specially made for the book, and only a few
copies were printed, some on fine vellum with large margins. One copy
which Maximilian intended for his own use was sent to Duerer that he
might decorate the margins with pen-drawings in various coloured inks.
Of this work there exist forty-three pages by Duerer himself and eight by
Cranach at Munich, and at Besancon thirty-five pages by Burgkmair,
Altdorfer, Baldung Grien, and Hans Duerer. Marvellously deft and
light-handed as are Duerer's freehand arabesques, embellished by racy
sketches of which these borders consist, they are nevertheless touched
with a like unsatisfactory character with the other works undertaken for
Maximilian, and are almost as far removed from the spirit and
performance of the best period for this kind of work, as is the
_Triumphal Arch_ from that of Titus.

Duerer was also employed on another woodcut representing a long row of
saintly ancestors of this eccentric sovereign. He accompanied Caspar
Nuetzel and Lazarus Spengler, the representatives of Nuremberg, to the
Diet of Augsburg, and there made some drawings of his royal patron, on
one of which is written, "This is my dear Prince Max, whom I, Albrecht
Duerer, drew at Augsburg in his little room upstairs in the palace, in
the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist's day." (_See
opposite_.) And Melanchthon narrates that "once Max himself took the
charcoal in hand to make his mind clear to his trusty Albert, and was
vexed to find that the charcoal kept breaking short in his hand when
Duerer said; 'Most gracious emperor, I would not that your Majesty should
draw so well as I do!' by which he meant, 'I am practised in this, and
it is my province; thou, Emperor, hast harder tasks and another
calling.'"

[Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co.
Dornach._--"This is the Emperor Maximilian, whose likeness I, Albrecht
Duerer, have taken, at Augsburg, high up in the palace in his little
chamber, in the year of Grace 1518, on Monday after St. John the
Baptist's Day" Charcoal-Drawing. Albertina, Vienna]

VIII

A charming letter from Charitas Pirkheimer gives us a little sunlit
glimpse of the tone of Duerer's lighter hours.

The prudent and wise Masters Caspar Nuetzel, Lazarus Spengler, and
Albrecht Duerer, for the time being at Augsburg, our gracious Masters and
good friends.

Jesus.

As a friendly greeting, prudent, wise, gracious Masters and especially
good friends, cousins, and wellwishers, I desire every good thing for
you, from the Highest Good. I received with great pleasure your friendly
letter and its news of a kind suited to my order, or rather my trade;
and I read it with such great devotion that more than once tears ran
down my eyes over it--truly rather tears of laughter than of sorrow. I
consider it a subject for great thankfulness that, with such important
business and so much gaiety on hand, your Wisdoms do not forget me, but
find time to instruct me, poor little nun, about the monastic life
whereof you now have a clear reflection before your eyes. I conclude
from this that doubtless some good spirit drove you, my gracious and
dear Masters, to Augsburg, so that you might learn from the example of
the free Swabian spirits how to instruct and govern the poor imprisoned
sand-bares.[23]

For since our trusty Master Warden (Caspar Nuetzel), as a lover of the
Church, likes to help in a thorough reformation, he should first behold
a pattern of holy observance in the Swabian League. Let Master Lazarus
Spengler, too, inform himself well about the apostolic mode of common
life, so that at the annual audit he may be able to give us and others
counsel and guidance, how we may run through everything, that nought
remain over. And Master Albrecht Duerer, also, who is such a genius and
master at drawing, he may very carefully inspect the stately buildings,
and then if some day we want to alter our choir he will know how to give
us advice and help in making ample slide-windows (? blinds), so that our
eyes may not be quite blinded.

I shall not further trouble you, however, to bring us music to learn to
sing by notes, for our beer is now so very sour that I fear the dregs
might stick fast among the four reeds or voices, and produce such
strange sounds that the dogs would fly out of the church. But I must
humbly pray you not quite to wear out your eyes over the black and white
magpies, so as no longer to know the little grey wolves at Nuernberg. I
have heard much of the sharp-witted Swabians all my life, but it would
be well if we learnt more from them, now that they are so wisely
labouring with his Imperial Majesty to save the Apostolic life from
being done away with. It is easy to see what very different lovers of
the Church they are from our Masters here.

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