  DÜRER'S LAST YEARSIDÜrer came back home with health broken: yet it is to this period that the magnificent portraits at Berlin of Nuremberg Councillors belong, and certainly his hand and eye had never been more sure than when he produced them. The hall of the Rathhaus was decorated under his direction and from his designs, the actual painting being, it is supposed, chiefly the work of George Penz, who with his fellow prentices became famous in 1524 as one of "the three godless painters." We now come to a letter dated NÜRNBERG, December 5, 1523, Sunday after Andrew's My dear and gracious Master Frey--I have received the little book you sent to Master (Ulrich) VarnbÜler and me; when he has finished reading it I will read it too. As to the monkey-dance you want me to draw for you, I have drawn this one here, unskilfully enough, for it is a long time since I saw any monkeys; so pray put up with it. Convey my willing service to Herr Zwingli (the reformer), Hans Leu (a Protestant painter), Hans Urich, and my other good masters. ALBRECHT DÜRER. Divide these five little prints amongst you: I have nothing else new. This Master Felix Frey was a reformer at Zurich: he was probably not closely related to Hans Frey, DÜrer's father-in-law, whose death is thus recorded in DÜrer's book: In the year 1523 (as they reckon it), on our dear Lady's Day, when she was offered in the Temple, early, before the morning chimes, Hans Frey, my dear father-in-law, passed away. He had lain ill for almost six years and suffered quite incredible adversities in this world. He received the Sacraments before he died. God Almighty be gracious to him. Next we have letters from and to Niklas Kratzer, Astronomer to Henry VIII. He had been present when DÜrer drew Erasmus' portrait at Antwerp. DÜrer had also made a drawing of Kratzer, and later on Holbein was to paint his masterpiece in the Louvre from the Oxford professor. To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht DÜrer, burgher of NÜrnberg, my dear Master and Friend. LONDON, October 24, 1524. Honourable, dear Sir, I am very glad to hear of your good health and that of your wife. I have had Hans Pomer staying with me in England. Now that you are all evangelical in NÜrnberg I must write to you. God grant you grace to persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but God is stronger, and is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want you, dear Herr Albrecht DÜrer, to make a drawing for me of the instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp. Or perhaps Herr Pirkheimer would send me the design of it--he would be doing me a great favour. I want also to know how much a set of impressions of all your prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at NÜrnberg relating to my art. I hear that our friend Hans, the astronomer, is dead. Would you write and tell me what instruments and the like he has left, and also where our Stabius' prints and wood-blocks are to be found? Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I hope to make him a map of England, which is a great country, and was unknown to Ptolemy. He would like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no more than a small part of it. You cannot write to me any longer through Hans Pomer. Pray send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S. Koloman. To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend. NÜRNBERG, Monday after Barbara's (December 5), 1524. First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer about the instrument you wanted to have. He is having one made for you, and is going to send it to you with a letter. The things Herr Hans left when he died have all been scattered; as I was away at the time of his death I cannot find out where they are gone to. The same has happened to Stabius' things; they were all taken to Austria, and I can tell you no more about them. I should like to know whether you have yet begun to translate Euclid into German, as you told me, if you had time, you would do. We have to stand in disgrace and danger for the sake of the Christian faith, for they abuse us as heretics; but may God grant us His grace and strengthen us in His word, for we must obey Him rather than men. It is better to lose life and goods than that God should cast us, body and soul, into hell-fire. Therefore, may He confirm us in that which is good, and enlighten our adversaries, poor, miserable, blind creatures, that they may not perish in their errors. Now God bless you! I send you two likenesses, printed from copper, which you will know well. At present I have no good news to write you, but much evil. However, only God's will cometh to pass. Your Wisdom's, ALBRECHT DÜRER. Another letter to DÜrer from Cornelius Grapheus at Antwerp gives us some help towards understanding how the Reformation affected DÜrer and his friends. To Master Albrecht DÜrer, unrivalled chief in the art of painting, my friend and most beloved brother in Christ, at NÜrnberg; or in his absence to Wilibald Pirkheimer. I wrote a good long letter to you, some time ago, in the name of our common friend Thomas Bombelli, but we have received no answer from you. We are, therefore, the more anxious to hear even three words from you, that we may know how you are and what is going on in your parts, for there is no doubt that great events are happening. Thomas Bombelli sends you his heartiest greeting. I beg you, as I did in my last letter, to greet Wilibald Pirkheimer a score of times for me. Of my own condition I will tell you nothing. The bearers of this letter will be able to acquaint you with everything. They are very good men and most sincere Christians. I commend, them to you and my friend Pirkheimer as if they were myself; for they, themselves the best of men, merit the highest recommendation to the best of men. Farewell, dearest Albrecht. Amongst us there is a great and daily increasing persecution on account of the Gospel. Our brethren, the bearers, will tell you all about it more openly. Again farewell. Wholly yours, CORNELIUS GRAPHEUS. ANTWERP, February 23, 1524. IIThe events which made DÜrer an ardent Evangelical and Reformer in a coarser paste proved a leaven of anarchy and subversion. Young, hot-headed nobles like Ulrich Von Hutten became iconoclastic, were foremost at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the unrest, discontent, and appetite for change took forms if not more offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French Revolution. And in the towns men like "the three godless painters" made the burghers shake in their shoes for the social order which kept them rich and respected and others poor and servile. It is strange that all three should have come from DÜrer's workshop. Probably they were the most talented prentices of the craft, since the great master chose them: besides, painting was an occupation which allowed of a certain intellectual development. They may have often listened with hungry ears to disputes between Pirkheimer and DÜrer, and envied the good luck, grace and gift which had enabled the latter to bridge over a gulf as great as that which separated them from him, between him and Pirkheimer or VambÜler. All this and much more we can by taking thought imagine to our satisfaction; but the point which we would most desire to satisfactorily conjecture we are utterly in the dark about. Though his prentices were tried, DÜrer appeared neither for nor against them; nor can we help ourselves to understand a fact so strange by any other mention of his attitude. He had a year or two previously married his servant, (perhaps the girl that his wife took with her to the Netherlands), to Georg Penz, who went the farthest in his scepticism, recanted soonest, and possessed least talent of the three. But this fact, which is not quite assured, narrows the grounds of conjecture but little; we still face an almost boundless blank. It is difficult to imagine that DÜrer was quite as shocked as the Town Council by a man who said "he had some idea that there was a God, but did not know rightly what conception to form of him," who was so unfortunate as to think "nothing" of Christ, and could not believe in the Holy Gospel or in the word of God; and who failed to recognise "a master of himself, his goods and everything belonging to him" in the Council of Nuremberg. Now-a-days, when we think of the licence of assertion that has obtained on these questions, we are inclined to admire the honesty and intellectual clarity of such a confession. And DÜrer, who resolved the similar question of authority as to "things beautiful" in a manner much the same as this, may, we can at least hope, have viewed his prentices with more of pity than of anger. All the three "godless painters" were banished from reformed Nuremberg; but Georg, whose confession had been most godless, recanted and was allowed to return. The others, Sebald and Barthel Beham, managed to perpetuate their names as "little masters" without the approbation of the Town Councillors, and are to-day less forgotten than those who condemned them. Hieronymus Andreae, the most skilful and famous of DÜrer's wood engravers, caused the Council the same kind of alarm and concern. He took part with the peasants in their rebellion; but rebellion against a known authority was more pardonable than that against the unknown, or else his services were of greater value. At any rate he was pardoned not once but many times, being apparently an obstreperous character. IIIIf we can form no conjecture as to DÜrer's relations with his heretical aids, we have evidence as to his relations with their judges; for in 1524 he wrote to the Town Council thus: Prudent, honourable and wise, most gracious Masters,--During long years, by hardworking pains and labour under Gods blessing, I have saved out of my earnings as much as 1000 florins Rhenish, which I should now be glad to invest for my support. I know, indeed, that your Honours are not often wont at the present time to grant interest at the rate of one florin for twenty; and I have been told that before now other applications of a like kind have been refused. It is not, therefore, without scruple that I address your Honours in this matter. Yet my necessities impel me to prefer this request to your Honours, and I am encouraged to do so above all by the particularly gracious favour which I have always received from your Honourable Wisdoms, as well as by the following considerations. Your Wisdoms know how I have always hitherto shown myself dutiful, willing, and zealous in all matters that concerned your Wisdoms and the common weal of the town. You know, moreover, how, before now, I have served many individual members of the Council, as well as of the community here, gratuitously rather than for pay, when they stood in need of my help, art, and labour. I can also write with truth that, during the thirty years I have stayed at home, I have not received from people in this town work worth 500 florins--truly a trifling and ridiculous sum--and not a fifth part of that has been profit. I have, on the contrary, earned and attained all my property (which, God knows, has grown irksome to me) from Princes, Lords, and other foreign persons, so that I only spend in this town what I have earned from foreigners. Doubtless, also, your Honours remember that at one time Emperor Maximilian, of most praiseworthy memory, in return for the manifold services which I had performed for him, year after year, of his own impulse and imperial charity wanted to make me free of taxes in this town. At the instance, however, of some of the elder Councillors, who treated with me in the matter in the name of the Council, I willingly resigned that privilege, in order to honour the said Councillors and to maintain their privileges, usages, and rights. Again, nineteen years ago, the government of Venice offered to appoint me to an office and to give me a salary of 200 ducats a year. So, too, only a short time ago when I was in the Netherlands, the Council of Antwerp would have given me 300 Philipsgulden a year, kept me there free of taxes, and honoured me with a well-built house; and besides I should have been paid in addition at both places for all the work I might have done for the gentry. But I declined all this, because of the particular love and affection which I bear to your honourable Wisdoms and to my fatherland, this honourable town, preferring, as I did, to live under your Wisdoms in a moderate way rather than to be rich and held in honour in other places. It is, therefore, my most submissive prayer to your Honours, that you will be pleased graciously to take these facts into consideration, and to receive from me on my account these 1000 florins, paying me 50 florins a year as interest. I could, indeed, place them well with other respectable parties here and elsewhere, but I should prefer to see them in the hands of your Wisdoms. I and my wife will then, now that we are both growing daily older, feebler, and more helpless, possess the certainty of a fitting household for our needs; and we shall experience thereby, as formerly, your honourable Wisdoms' favour and goodwill. To merit this from your Honours with all my powers I shall ever be found willing. Your Wisdoms' willing, obedient burgher, ALBRECHT DÜRER. DÜrer obtained the desired five per cent. on his savings annually until his death, and afterwards his widow received four per cent. until her death. In 1526 the grateful artist finished and dedicated to his fellow-townsmen his most important picture, representing the four temperaments in the persons of St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Mark; he wrote thus to the Council: Prudent, honourable, wise, dear Masters,--I have been intending, for a long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance; but I have been prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my works, for I felt that with such I could not well stand before your Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms. Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent prayer that you will favourably and graciously receive it, and will be and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters. Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility. Your Wisdoms' humble ALBRECHT DÜRER. The gift was accepted, and the Council voted DÜrer 100 florins, his wife 10, and his apprentice 2. Underneath the two panels which form the picture, the following was inscribed; the texts being from Luther's Bible: All worldly rulers in these dangerous times should give good heed that they receive not human misguidance for the Word of God, for God will have nothing added to His Word nor taken away from it. Hear, therefore, these four excellent men, Peter, John, Paul, and Mark, their warning. Peter says in his Second Epistle in the second chapter: There were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. John in his First Epistle in the fourth chapter writes thus: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. In the Second Epistle to Timothy in the third chapter St. Paul writes: This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. St. Mark writes in his Gospel in the twelfth chapter: He said unto them in His doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the market-places, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts; which devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation. These rather tremendous texts may make one fear that the "three godless painters" had found little pity in their master; but most sincere Christians are better than their creeds, and more charitable than the old-world imprecations, admonitions, and denunciations, with which they soothe their Cerberus of an old Adam, who is not allowed to use his teeth to the full extent that their formidable nature would seem to warrant. For have they not been told above all things to love their enemies, and do good to those whom they would naturally hate, by a master whom they really love and strive to imitate? IVDÜrer's last years were given more and more to writing down his ideas for the sake of those who, coming after him, would, he was persuaded, go on far before him in the race for perfection. In 1525 he published his first book--"Instruction in the Measurement with the Compass, and Rules of Lines, Surfaces, and Solid Bodies, drawn up by Albert DÜrer, and printed, for the use of all lovers of art, with appropriate diagrams." It contains a course of applied geometry in connection with Euclid's Elements. DÜrer states from the very commencement that "his book will be of no use to any one who understands the geometry of the 'very acute' Euclid; for it has been written only for the young, and for those who have had no one to instruct them accurately." Thausing tells us his work shows certain resemblances to that of Luca Pacioli, a companion of Leonardo's, who may have been the "man who is willing to teach me the secrets of the art of perspective," and whom DÜrer in 1506 travelled from Venice to Bologna to see; it is even possible that he saw Leonardo himself in the latter town. In 1527 he issued an essay on the "Art of Fortification," which the development of artillery was then transforming; and authorities on this very special science tell us that DÜrer is the true author of the ideas on which the "new Prussian system" was founded. It was dread of the unchristian Turk who was then besieging Vienna which called forth from DÜrer this excursion. He dedicated it in the following terms: To the most illustrious, mighty prince and lord, Lord Ferdinand, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Infant of Spain, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy and Brabant, Count of Hapsburg, Flanders, and Tirol, his Roman Imperial Majesty, our most gracious Lord, Regent in the Holy Empire, my most gracious Sire. Most illustrious mighty King, most gracious Sire,--During the lifetime of the most illustrious and mighty Emperor Maximilian of praiseworthy memory, your Majesty's Lord and Grandsire, I experienced grace and favour from his Imperial Majesty; wherefore I consider myself no less bound to serve your Majesty according to my small powers. As it happeneth that your Majesty has commanded some towns and places to be fortified, I am induced to make known what little I know about these matters, if perchance it may please your Majesty to gather somewhat therefrom. For though my theory may not be accepted in every point, still I believe something will arise from it, here and there, useful not to your Majesty only, but to all other Princes, Lords, and Towns, that would gladly protect themselves against violence and unjust oppression. I therefore humbly pray your Majesty graciously to accept from me this evidence of my gratitude, and to be my most gracious lord, Your Royal Majesty's most humble ALBRECHT DÜRER. It seems that at any rate the Kronenburg Gate and Roseneck bastion of Strasburg were actually constructed in accordance with DÜrer's method. When, on April 6, 1528, DÜrer died suddenly, two volumes of his great work on "Human Proportions" were ready for the press, and enough raw material, notes, drawings,&c., to enable his friend Pirkheimer to prepare and issue the remaining two with them. Of the misunderstanding of this the most important of DÜrer's writings I shall say nothing here, as I have devoted a separate chapter to it. VIt seems probable that the "wondrous sickness which overcame me in Zeeland, such as I never heard of from any man, and which sickness remains with me" of the Netherlands Journal (p. 156) was an intermittent fever. There exists at Bremen a sketch of DÜrer, nude down to the waist, and pointing with his finger to a spot between the pit of the stomach and the groin, which spot he has coloured yellow; and from its size, with the other descriptions of his malady, the skilful have arrived at the above diagnosis. The words on the sketch, "The yellow spot to which my finger points is where it pains me," seem to indicate that he had made it to send to some skilled physician. Thausing suggests either Master Jacob or Master Braun, whom he had met at Antwerp, and deduces from the length of his hair and the apparent vigour of his body, that the drawing was made soon after the disease was contracted. All doubt as to its nature would be removed, could it be made certain that by the words, "I have sent to your Grace early this year before I became ill," in a letter to the Elector Albert dated September 4, 1523, DÜrer meant to imply that at a certain period he became ill every year; but of course it is impossible to be sure of this. VIIf not rich, DÜrer died comfortably off. Thausing tells us that his "widow entered into possession of his whole fortune;" a fourth part belonged, according to Nuremberg law, to his brothers, but she was not bound to render it to them before her death. On June 9, 1530, however, she "of her own desire, and on account of the friendly feeling which she entertained for them for her husband's sake, and as her dear brothers-in-law," made over both to Andreas DÜrer, goldsmith, and to Caspar Altmulsteiner, on behalf of Hans DÜrer, then in the service of the King of Poland, a sum of 553 florins, three pounds, eleven pfennigs, and gave them a mortgage for the remaining sum of 608 florins, two pounds, twenty-four pfennigs on the corner house in the Zistelgasse, now called the DÜrer House; for the property had been valued at 6848 florins, seven pounds, twenty-four pfennigs. Johann NeudÖrffer, who lived opposite the DÜrers, has recorded the fact that DÜrer's brother Endres inherited all his expensive colours, his copper plates and wood blocks, as well as any impressions there were, and all his drawings beside. And a year before her death, Agnes DÜrer gave the interest on the 1000 florins invested in the town to found a scholarship for theological students at the University of Wittenberg; about which Melanchthon wrote to von Dietrich that he thanked God for this aid to study, and that he had praised this good deed of the widow DÜrer before Luther and others. And yet Pirkheimer, in his spleen at having lost the chance of procuring some stags' antlers which had belonged to his friend, and which he coveted, could write of Agues DÜrer: "She watched him day and night and drove him to work ... that he might earn money and leave it her when he died. For she always thought she was on the borders of ruin--as for the matter of that she does still--though Albrecht left her property worth as much as six thousand florins. But there! nothing was enough; and, in fact, she alone is the cause of his death!" We know that what with the four Apostles and his books DÜrer's last years were not spent on remunerative labours; nor does the Netherlands Journal contain any hint that his wife tried to restrict the employment either of his time or money. His journey into Zeeland was a pure extravagance; for the sale of a copper engraving or woodcut of a whale would have taken some time to make up for such an expense, and, as it turned out, no whale was seen or drawn; and there is no hint that Frau DÜrer made reproach or complaint. On the other hand, Pirkheimer's words probably had some slight basis; and as DÜrer's sickness increased upon him, while at the same time he applied himself less and less to making money, the anxious Frau may have become fretful or even nagging at times; and Pirkheimer, whose companionship was probably a cause of extravagances to DÜrer, may have been scolded by Agnes, or heard his friend excuse himself from taking part in some convivial meeting, on the plea that his wife found he was spending out of proportion to his takings at the moment. VIIWe have the testimony of a good number of DÜrer's friends as to the value of his character; and first let us quote from Pirkheimer--writing immediately after DÜrer's death and before' the loss of the coveted antlers had vexed him--to a common friend Ulrich, probably Ulrich VarnbÜler. What can be more grievous for a man than to have continually to mourn, not only children and relations whom death steals from him, but friends also, and among them those whom he loved best? And though I have often had to mourn the loss of relations, still I do not know that any death ever caused me such grief as fills me now at the sudden departure of our good and dear Albrecht DÜrer. Nor is this without reason, for of all men not united to me by ties of blood, I have never loved or esteemed any like him for his countless virtues and rare uprightness. And because I know, my dear Ulrich, that this blow has struck both you and me alike, I have not been afraid to give vent to my grief before you of all others, so that together we may pay the fitting tribute of tears to such a friend. He is gone, good Ulrich; our Albrecht is gone! Oh, inexorable decree of fate! Oh, miserable lot of man! Oh, pitiless severity of death! Such a man, yea, such a man, is torn from us, while so many useless and worthless men enjoy lasting happiness, and live only too long! Thausing insists on the fact that in this letter there is no mention of DÜrer's death having been caused by his wife's behaviour; but as the relation of Ulrich to the deceased seems to have been well-nigh as intimate as his own, there may have been no need to mention a fact painfully present to both their minds. On the other hand, it is at least as probable that the idea was not present even to the mind of the writer, who, in a style less studiously commonplace, inscribed on DÜrer's tomb: Me. AL. DU. QVICQVID ALBERTI DVRERI MORTALE FVIT, SVB HOC CONDITVR TVMVLO. EMIGRAVIT VIII IDVS APRILIS MDXXVIII. (To the memory of Albrecht DÜrer. All that was mortal of Albrecht DÜrer is laid beneath this mound. He departed on April 6, 1528.) Luther wrote to Eoban Hesse: As to DÜrer, it is natural and right to weep for so excellent a man; still you should rather think him blessed, as one whom Christ has taken in the fulness of His wisdom, and by a happy death, from these most troublous times, and perhaps from times even more troublous which are to come, lest one who was worthy to look upon nothing but excellence should be forced to behold things most vile. May he rest in peace. Amen. Erasmus had some months before written and printed in a treatise on the right pronunciation of Latin and Greek an eulogy of DÜrer. It is not known whether a copy had reached him before his death; in any case to most people it came like a funeral oration from the greatest scholar on the greatest artist north of the Alps. Thausing quotes the following passage from it: I have known DÜrer's name for a long time as that of the first celebrity in the art of painting. Some call him the Apelles of our time. But I think that did Apelles live now, he, as an honourable man, would give the palm to DÜrer. Apelles, it is true, made use of few and unobtrusive colours, but still he used colours; while DÜrer,--admirable as he is, too, in other respects,--what can he not express with a single colour--that is to say, with black lines? He can give the effect of light and shade, brightness, foreground and background. Moreover, he reproduces not merely the natural aspect of a thing, but also observes the laws of perfect symmetry and harmony with regard to the position of it. He can also transfer by enchantment, so to say, upon the canvas, things which it seems not possible to represent, such as fire, sunbeams, storms, lightning, and mist; he can portray every passion, show us the whole soul of a man shining through his outward form; nay, even make us hear his very speech. All this he brings so happily before the eye with those black lines, that the picture would lose by being clothed in colour. Is it not more worthy of admiration to achieve without the winning charm of colour what Apelles only realised with its assistance? Melanchthon wrote in a letter to Camerarius: "It grieves me to see Germany deprived of such an artist and such a man." And we learn from his son-in-law, Caspar Penker, that he often spoke of DÜrer with affection and respect; he writes: Melanchthon was often, and many hours together, in Pirkheimer's company, at the time when they were advising together about the churches and schools at NÜrnberg; and DÜrer, the painter, used also to be invited to dinner with them. DÜrer was a man of great shrewdness, and Melanchthon used to say of him that though he excelled in the art of painting, it was the least of his accomplishments. Disputes often arose between Pirkheimer and DÜrer on these occasions about the matters recently discussed, and Pirkheimer used vehemently to oppose DÜrer. DÜrer was an excessively subtle disputant, and refuted his adversary's arguments, just as if he had come fully prepared for the discussion. Thereupon Pirkheimer, who was rather a choleric man and liable to very severe attacks of the gout, fired up and burst forth again and again into such words as these, "What you say cannot be painted." "Nay!" rejoined DÜrer, "but what you advance cannot be put into words or even figured to the mind." I remember hearing Melanchthon often tell this story, and in relating it he confessed his astonishment at the ingenuity and power manifested by a painter in arguing with a man of Pirkheimer's renown. Such scenes no doubt took place during the years after DÜrer's return from the Netherlands. Melanchthon also wrote in a letter to George von Anhalt: I remember how that great man, distinguished alike by his intellect and his virtue, Albrecht DÜrer the painter, said that as a youth he had loved bright pictures full of figures, and when considering his own productions had always admired those with the greatest variety in them. But as an older man, he had begun to observe nature and reproduce it in its native forms, and had learned that this simplicity was the greatest ornament of art. Being unable completely to attain to this ideal, he said that he was no longer an admirer of his works as heretofore, but often sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought over his want of power. And in another letter he remembers that DÜrer would say that in his youth he had found great pleasure in representing monstrous and unusual figures, but that in his later years he endeavoured to observe nature, and to imitate her as closely as possible; experience, however, had taught him how difficult it was not to err. And Thausing continues: "Melanchthon speaks even more frequently of how DÜrer was pleased with pictures he had just finished, but when he saw them after a time, was ashamed of them; and those he had painted with the greatest care displeased him so much at the end of three years that he could scarcely look at them without great pain." And this on his appreciation of Luther's writings: Albrecht DÜrer, painter of NÜrnberg, a shrewd man, once said that there was this difference between the writings of Luther and other theologians. After reading three or four paragraphs of the first page of one of Luther's works he could grasp the problem to be worked out in the whole. This clearness and order of arrangement was, he observed, the glory of Luther's writings. He used, on the contrary, to say of other writers that, after reading a whole book through, he had to consider attentively what idea it was that the author intended to convey. Lastly, Camerarius, the professor of Greek and Latin in the new school of Nuremberg, in his Latin translation of DÜrer's book on "Human Proportions," writes thus: It is not my present purpose to talk about art. My purpose was to speak somewhat, as needs must be, of the artificer, the author of this book. He, I trust, has become known by his virtue and his deserts, not only to his own country, but to foreign nations also. Full well I know that his praises need not our trumpetings to the world, since by his excellent works he is exalted and honoured with undying glory. Yet, as we were publishing his writings, and an opportunity arose of committing to print the life and habits of a remarkable man and a very dear friend of ours, we have judged it expedient to put together some few scraps of information, learnt partly from the conversations of others and partly from our own intercourse with him. This will give some indication of his singular skill and genius as artist and man, and cannot fail of affording pleasure to the reader. We have heard that our Albrecht was of Hungarian extraction, but that his forefathers emigrated to Germany. We can, therefore, have but little to say of his origin and birth. Though they were honourable, there can be no question but that they gained more glory from him than he from them. Nature bestowed on him a body remarkable in build and stature, and not unworthy of the noble mind it contained; that in this, too, Nature's Justice, extolled by Hippocrates, might not be forgotten--that Justice, which, while it assigns a grotesque form to the ape's grotesque soul, is wont also to clothe noble minds in bodies worthy of them. His head was intelligent, His conversation was marked by so much sweetness and wit, that nothing displeased his hearers so much as the end of it. Letters, it is true, he had not cultivated, but the great sciences of Physics and Mathematics, which are perpetuated by letters, he had almost entirely mastered. He not only understood principles and knew how to apply them in practice, but he was able to set them forth in words. This is proved by his geometrical treatises, wherein I see nothing omitted, except what he judged to be beyond the scope of his work. An ardent zeal impelled him towards the attainment of all virtue in conduct and life, the display of which caused him to be deservedly held a most excellent man. Yet he was not of a melancholy severity nor of a repulsive gravity; nay, whatever conduced to pleasantness and cheerfulness, and was not inconsistent with honour and rectitude, he cultivated all his life and approved even in his old age. The works he has left on Gymnastic and Music are of such character. But Nature had specially designed him for a painter, and therefore he embraced the study of that art with all his energies, and was ever desirous of observing the works and principles of the famous painters of every land, and of imitating whatever he approved in them. Moreover, with respect to those studies, he experienced the generosity and won the favour of the greatest kings and princes, and even of Maximilian himself and his grandson the Emperor Charles; and he was rewarded by them with no contemptible salary. But after his hand had, so to speak, attained its maturity, his sublime and virtue-loving genius became best discoverable in his works, for his subjects were fine and his treatment of them noble. You may judge the truth of these statements from his extant prints in honour of Maximilian, and his memorable astronomical diagrams, not to mention other works, not one of which but a painter of any nation or day would be proud to call his own. The nature of a man is never more certainly and definitely shown than in the works he produces as the fruit of his art.... What single painter has there ever been who did not reveal his character in his works? Instead of instances from ancient history, I shall content myself with examples from our own time. No one can fail to see that many painters have sought a vulgar celebrity by immodest pictures. It is not credible that those artists can be virtuous, whose minds and fingers composed such works. We have also seen pictures minutely finished and fairly well coloured, wherein, it is true, the master showed a certain talent and industry; but art was wanting. Albrecht, therefore, shall we most justly admire as an earnest guardian of piety and modesty, and as one who showed, by the magnitude of his pictures, that he was conscious of his own powers, although none even of his lesser works is to be despised. You will not find in them a single line carelessly or wrongly drawn, not a single superfluous dot. What shall I say of the steadiness and exactitude of his hand? You might swear that rule, square, or compasses had been employed to draw lines, which he, in fact, drew with the brush, or very often with pencil or pen, unaided by artificial means, to the great marvel of those who watched him. Why should I tell how his hand so closely followed the ideas of his mind that, in a moment, he often dashed upon paper, or, as painters say, composed, sketches of every kind of thing with pencil or pen? I see I shall not be believed by my readers when I relate, that sometimes he would draw separately, not only the different parts of a composition, but even the different parts of bodies, which, when joined together, agreed with one another so well that nothing could have fitted better. In fact this consummate artist's mind endowed with all knowledge and understanding of the truth and of the agreement of the parts one with another, governed and guided his hand and bade it trust to itself without any other aids. With like accuracy he held the brush, wherewith he drew the smallest things on canvas or wood without sketching them in beforehand, so that, far from giving ground for blame, they always won the highest praise. And this was a subject of greatest wonder to most distinguished painters, who, from their own great experience, could understand the difficulty of the thing. I cannot forbear to tell, in this place, the story of what happened between him and Giovanni Bellini. Bellini had the highest reputation as a painter at Venice, and indeed throughout all Italy. When Albrecht was there he easily became intimate with him, and both artists naturally began to show one another specimens of their skill. Albrecht frankly admired and made much of all Bellini's works. Bellini also candidly expressed his admiration of various features of Albrecht's skill, and particularly the fineness and delicacy with which he drew hairs. It chanced one day that they were talking about art, and when their conversation was done Bellini said: "Will you be so kind, Albrecht, as to gratify a friend in a small matter?" "You shall soon see," says Albrecht, "if you will ask of me anything I can do for you." Then says Bellini: "I want you to make me a present of one of the brushes with which you draw hairs." DÜrer at once produced several, just like other brushes, and, in fact, of the kind Bellini himself used, and told him to choose those he liked best, or to take them all if he would. But Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these, but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the most regular order and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and afterwards confessed to many that no human being could have convinced him by report of the truth of that which he had seen with his own eyes. A similar tribute was given him, with conspicuous candour, by Andrea Mantegna, who became famous at Mantua by reducing painting to some severity of law--a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. While Andrea was lying ill at Mantua he heard that Albrecht was in Italy, and had him summoned to his side at once, in order that he might fortify his (Albrecht's) facility and certainty of hand with scientific knowledge and principles. For Andrea often lamented in conversation with his friends that Albrecht's facility in drawing had not been granted to him nor his learning to Albrecht. On receiving the message Albrecht, leaving all other engagements, prepared for the journey without delay. But before he could reach Mantua Andrea was dead, and DÜrer used to say that this was the saddest event in all his life; for, high as Albrecht stood, his great and lofty mind was ever striving after something yet above him. Almost with awe have we gazed upon the bearded face of the man, drawn by himself, in the manner we have described, with the brush on the canvas and without any previous sketch. The locks of the beard are almost a cubit long, and so exquisitely and cleverly drawn, at such regular distances and in so exact a manner, that the better any one understands art, the more he would admire it, and the more certain would he deem it that in fashioning these locks the hand had employed artificial aid. Further, there is nothing foul, nothing disgraceful in his work. The thoughts of his most pure mind shunned all such things. Artist worthy of success! How like, too, are his portraits! How unerring! How true! All these perfections he attained by reducing mere practice to art and method, in a way new at least to German painters. With Albrecht all was ready, certain, and at hand, because he had brought painting into the fixed track of rule and recalled it to scientific principles; without which, as Cicero said, though some things may be well done by help of nature, yet they cannot always be ready to hand, because they are done by chance. He first worked his principles out for his own use; afterwards with his generous and open nature he attempted to explain them in books, written to the illustrious and most learned Wilibald Pirkheimer. And he dedicated them to him in a most elegant letter which we have not translated, because we felt it to be beyond our power to render it into Latin without, so to speak, disfiguring its natural countenance. But before he could complete and publish the books, as he had hoped, he was carried off by death--a death, calm indeed and enviable, but in our view premature. If there was anything at all in that man which could seem like a fault, it was his excessive industry, which often made unfair demands upon him. Death, as we have said, removed him from the publication of the work which he had begun, but his friends completed the task from his own manuscript. About this, in the next place, and about our own version, we shall say a few words. The work, being founded on a sort of geometrical system, is unpolished and devoid of literary style; so it seems rather rugged. But that is easily forgiven in consideration of the excellence of the matter. He requested me himself, only a few days before his death, to translate it into Latin while he should correct it; and I willingly turned my attention and studies to the work. But death, which takes everything, took from him his power of supervision and correction. His friends subsequently, after publishing the work, prevailed on me, by their claims rather than their requests, to undertake the Latin translation, and to complete after his death the task DÜrer had laid upon me in his life. If I find that my industry and devotion in this matter meet with my readers' approval, I shall be encouraged to translate into Latin the rest of Albrecht's treatise on painting, a work at once more finished and more laborious than the present. Moreover, his writings on other subjects will also be looked for, his Geometries and Tichismatics, in which he explained the fortification of towns according to the system of the present day. These, however, appear to be all the subjects on which he wrote books. As to the promise, which I hear certain persons are making in conversation or in writing, to publish a book by DÜrer on the symmetry of the parts of the horse, I cannot but wonder from what source they will obtain after his death what he never completed during his life. Although I am well aware that Albrecht had begun to investigate the law of truth in this matter too, and had made a certain number of measurements, I also know that he lost all he had done through the treachery of certain persons, by whose means it came about that the author's notes were stolen, so that he never cared to begin the work afresh. He had a suspicion, or rather a certainty, as to the source whence came the drones who had invaded his store; but the great man preferred to hide his knowledge, to his own loss and pain, rather than to lose sight of generosity and kindness in the pursuit of his enemies. We shall not, therefore, suffer anything that may appear to be attributed to Albrecht's authorship, unworthy as it must evidently be of so great an artist. A few years ago some tracts also appeared in German, containing rules, in general faulty and inappropriate, about the same matter. On these I do not care now to waste words, though the author, unless I am much mistaken, has not once repented of his publication. But these rules above-mentioned, which are easily proved to be Albrecht's, not only because he prepared them himself for publication, but also because of their own excellence, you will, I think, obtain considerably better here than from other sources. Not that they are more finished in point of erudition and learning in the present book than elsewhere, but because those who interpret them in the author's own workshop, among the expansions and corrections of his autograph manuscripts and the variations of his different copies, stand in the light about many points, which must of necessity seem obscure to others, however learned they may be. This will be seen in the case of the book on Geometry, which a learned man has in hand and will shortly publish in a more elaborate form, and with more explanation of certain points than it possesses at present. For it will be increased by no less than twenty-six [Greek: schÊmata] (figures) and countless corrections or improvements of earlier editions. The author himself on rereading had thus improved and amplified what had already been issued. As though he foresaw that he would publish no more, he had directed his future editors as to what was to be done about the letterpress and figures; and we shall take care that it is published at the earliest possible date in the German language, in which the author wrote it. It is only to be expected that this will be welcome to the public, who will thus return thanks for the author's burning desire to do something by his discoveries for the public good, and for our own labour and eagerness in publishing to all nations what appears to be written only for one. Though these testimonies may often seem either trifling, or obscured by the pedantic affectation of the writers, they, like the signatures of well-respected men, endorse the impression produced by DÜrer's works and writings. As we study the character of DÜrer's creative gift in relation to his works, several of the phrases used by Erasmus, Camerarius, and Melanchthon should take added significance, being probably remembered from conversations with the great artist himself. FOOTNOTES:
|
|
