Panofsky Duerer

The Life and Jlrt of
ALBRECHT DURER
BY ERWIN PANOFSKY
\
,
- PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 1955
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
COPYRIGHT 1943, @ 1955, BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
REPRODUCTIONS BY THE MERIDEN GRAVURE COMPANY
DESIGNED BY P, J, CONKWRIGHT
SECOND EDITION, REVISED, 1945
THIRD EDITION, 1948
FOURTH EDITION, 1955
Second Printing, 1965
Third Printing, 1967
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK WAS AIDED BY A GRANT
FROM THE AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES
FROM A FUND PROVIDED BY
THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK
To Walter W. S. Cook,
u!braham F!exner,
Charles Rufus J)(orty
. i
Preface
F
oR reasons best known to itself, the Princeton University Press has proposed to
make my book on Albrecht Durer, last issued in 1948, available in what may be
called a portable edition: a single volume containing the Text (including the
Bibliography and the previous Prefaces) as well as the Illustrations, but not the Handlist
of Works. I have accepted this proposal the more readily as the remarkable improvement
of the offset process, largely due to the ingenuity and patience of Mr. E. H. Hugo of the
Meriden Gravure Company, now makes possible the successful duplication of the original
illustrations.
The very nature of this process precluded major alterations;* but this restriction, it is
hoped, will increase rather than impair the usefulness of the present volume. Since neither
the pagination of the text nor the numeration of the pictures has been changed, references
to the earlier editions are equivalent to references to the new one and vice versa. And
that the text still bristles with Handlist numbers (Arabic numerals in parentheses), even
though the Handlist itself has disappeared, may be helpful to those who wish for more
specific information than the present volume provides.
This new edition, then, differs from its more ambitious predecessors in size and appear-
ance rather than in purpose: it is still the same book, addressed to the student as well as
the "general reader." And with the interests of the former in mind, the Princeton Uni-
versity Press has agreed to the addition of an Appendix fp. 299) containing some correc-
tions and amplifications; so that, if the original editions may serve as a completive adjunct
to the present volume, the present volume may serve as a corrective postscript to the original
editions.
Princeton, N.J.
November 1, 1954
E. P.
* Such changes as were made will be found in the follpwing places: p. 24, line 4 from the foot of the
page; p. 44, line 14 s.; p. 7 5, beginning of first paragraph; p. Sg, line 5 s. of the section beginning with
"The year .1 503" ; p. go, line 2; p. 91, opening of the section beginning with "Diirer did not do much paint
ing"; p. 146, last lines of the second paragraph; same page, last sentence of the third paragraph; p. 147,
last line of the second paragraph; same page, line 14 ss. from the foot of the page; p. 157, line 6; p. 170,
line 10 ss. from the foot of the page; p. 192, line 15 s.; p. 215, line 1.
IX
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
T
HE text of the present publication was mainly developed from the Norman Wait
Harris Lectures delivered at Northwestern University in 1938. It is therefore ad-
dressed to a "mixed audience" rather than to scholars. Time-honored truths and
errors are intermixed with new ones; what might be held indispensable in a comprehensive
monograph is at times suppressed, and emphasis is placed on what may seem trivial to the
specialist.
However, in order to make the book somewhat useful to the more serious student two
additions have been made. Appended to the text is a Selected Bibliography (pp. 287-2),
and in Volume II is found a Handlist of the Works of Durer, including Ascribed Works and
Important Copies, followed by a Concordance of the Engravings, Woodcuts, Drawings and
Book Illuminations. This Handlist-consistently referred to in the text-is not a "critical
catalogue" but a mere inventory which, it is hoped, will help the English-speaking reader to
find his way through the vast and bewildering mass of material which, rightly or wrongly, is
associated with the name of Albrecht Durer. It will refer him to catalogues and corpuses
where illustrations and more specialized information may be found, and indicates, as far as
possible, the connections which exist between two or more works, particularly between draw-
ings on the one hand and prints and paintings on the other. As a rule, bibliographical refer-
ences are given only if not yet included in the catalogues and corpuses referred to, and
explanatory remarks have been restricted to a minimum. The writer has mostly contented
himself with expressing his personal opinion as to date and authenticity. Only where he
hoped to make some contribution to the argument, or where he felt that the case needed
restating, has he embarked upon a brief discussion. The Handlist thus serves a threefold
purpose: first, to help the reader to locate illustrations not found in this book; second, to
make him aware of the genesis and affiliations of the works discussed in the text; third, to
call his attention to works not mentioned in the text at all.
The writer has to apologize, first, for having repeated in his last chapter several para-
graphs already published, in more or, less identical form, in a recent but not easily accessible
study entitled The Codex Huygens and Leonardo da Vinci's Art Theory (Studies of the
Warburg Institute, xm), London, 1940; second, for not having discussed Durer's Treatise
on the. Theory of Fortification the subject of which is plainly beyond his compass; third, for
having incorporated in the section on the engraving Melencolia I (pp. 156-171) the more
important results of the as yet unpubljshed second edition of his and his friend Dr. Saxl's
previous book on the subject (Bibliography, no. 166). Its publication having been prevented
by the War, he could not help anticipating it to some extent, but he wants to make it perfectly
clear that half of the credit, if any, goes to Dr. Saxl and his associates. He furthermore wishes
to thank all those who, in one way or another, have assisted him in the preparation of these
Xl
Xll
PREFACE
present volumes, particularly Mr. F. Lugt and Miss Agnes Mongan for information as to
the present location of drawings; Messrs. H. H. Arnasson, Q. Beckley O.P., H. Bober,
E. F. Detterer, H. A. Mayor, M. Meiss, R. Offner, H. P. Rossiter, G. SchOnberger, D. A.
Stauffer, H. Swarzenski and Miss K. Serrell for various suggestions, general helpfulness, and
assistance in procuring photographs; Messrs. George H. Forsyth, Jr. and Richard Stillwell
for the design of Text Illustrations 1 and 2; and, first of all, Miss Margot Cutter for her
understanding help in revising the English and for preparing the Indices of Vol. II. The
writer's especial gratitude is due to the American Council of Learned Societies and the
Carnegie Corporation whose financial help made this publication possible, and to Mr. Lessing
J. Rosenwald and Miss Elizabeth Mongan who not only allowed most of the reproductions
of prints and illustrated books to be made from the admirable originals in the Alverthorpe
Gallery but also placed at the writer's disposal the skill of their excellent photographer,
Mr. W. Auerbach.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
THE second edition of this book appears so soon that the writer had no time to change his
mind on any major point. He has therefore limited himself to minor corrections and adjust-
ments on the one hand and to a few Addenda on the other.
The corrections and adjustments have not been especially indicated, but the writer wishes
to mention those-apart from simple typographical errors-which were suggested by others:
Vol. I, p. 25, 1. 16 from bottom: the fact that the material of the drawing L. 658 (653) cannot be sepia
was pointed out in W. Stechow's Review of this book in Art Bulletin, XXVI, 1944, pp. 197-199 (hereafter
referred to as "Stechow").
Vol. I, p. 64: the error in the original text ill. 1 (handle of the burin upside down) was kindly brought
to the writer's attention by a letter from Mr. Kalman Kubinyi.
Vol. I, p. 66, second paragraph: the identity of the "praying-cricket" in the engraving B. 44 (151) was
doubted by Dr. R. Bernheimer, and his doubts were subsequently confirmed by the Museum of Natural
History in New York.
Vol. I, p. 109, last lines: the fact that the "Feast of the Rose Garlands" (38) is no longer in the Mon-
astery of Strahow was pointed out by Stechow.
Vol. II, p. 8, no. 13: the possible connection between the inscription on the Bearing of The Cross in
Richmond and Diirer's theoretical views was pointed out by Stechow.
Vol. II, p. 93, no. 907: the writer's opinion of this drawing became still more favorable upon inspection
of a large-scale photograph kindly shown to him by Mrs. E. Tietze-Conrat.
Vol. II, p. 109, nos. 1062 and 1063: F. Winkler's statement to the effect that the drawing T. 381
( 1062) was done with the pen-unaccountably overlooked by the writer-was brought to his notice by
Stechow.
Vol. II, p. 119, no. 1198: the fact that the attribution of the drawing L. 92 (u98) to Jacques de Gheyn
had been rejected by J. Q. van Regteren Altena was pointed out by Stechow.
The Addenda consist, first, of two fortunately not very important Handlist items origi-
nally overlooked by the writer; second, of some supplementary remarks elicited by such
contributions as have been published after the first edition of this book had gone to press. For
PREFACE
X Ill
typographical reasons these Addenda are printed in an Appendix at the end of the Handlist
( vol. II, p. 164) to which reference has been made in the proper places.
The writer wishes to express his gratitude to Messrs. Bernheimer, Kubinyi and Ste-
chow, as well as to Mrs. Tietze-Conrat; and to repeat his thanks to all those who have
assisted him in the preparation of the first edition.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
THE third edition follows the same principles as does the second.
Remarks referring to the few Handlist items not yet included in the previous editions,
or elicited by such books and articles as were published or became accessible to the writer
after the second edition had gone to press, are printed in another Appendix ( vol. II, P 167) *
It should be noted, however, that the writer, in spite of the generous assistance of his good
friends H. Bober, E. Breitenbach and F. Saxl, was still unable to keep up with the literature
since 1939/40; in several cases he had to quote apparently noteworthy publications from
indirect sources without having been able to see them in the flesh.
Other additions and corrections have been incorporated without special indication; but
only six of these amount to material changes, and only four to modest material contributions.
By way of rectification, the writer is now inclined to accept the inscribed date-1527-
rather than the conjectural one-1521-for the Head of a Bearded Child in the Louvre
( vol. II, p. 18, no. 84), to be more optimistic as to the quality of the Fugger Portrait in
Munich ( vol. II, p. 14, no. 55), and to admit the basic of the Portrait of Endres
Durer in Budapest ( vol. I, p. 91 and vol. II, p. 19, no. 89) 'while dating it in 1504 instead of
about 1515; he was able, thanks to detailed information kindly supplied by Drs. M. Pfister-
Burkhalter and W. Rotzler in Basel, to dispel the confusion surrounding the number of
woodcuts preserved, and impressions from cut woodblocks lost, within the series of the
Terence Illustrations in Basel (vol. II, p. 52 s., no. a); he has corrected the erroneous
substitution of Pseudo-Anacreon for Pseudo-Theocritus in his remarks on the drawing Cupid
the Honey T hz'ef ( vol. I, p. 172 and vol. II, p. 93, no. 908); and he now suggests Aulus
Gellius rather than Aelian as the source of the drawing Androclus and the Lion ( vol. II,
p. 92,no.899). . . .
By way of amplification, the writer proposes to interpret the
tion the replicas of the Bearing of the Cross ( vol. II, p. 8, no. 13) m connectiOn With the
still .more puzzling inscription on the Self-Portrait in Munich ( vol. II, p. 14, no. 50); he
*The :correction of the caption of fig. 3 (vol. II, p. ix) was suggested by n:. 0. Benesch who kindly
called the writer's attention to his article in the Wiener Jahrbuch fur Kunstgeschtchte, VII, 1930, where the
author of the picture is identified as the "Younger Master of the Schotten Altarpiece" (p. 189 s., fig. a).
Though this master was an Austrian by birth he received his training in and helped mtro
duce the Franconian style into his homeland (Benesch, l.c., p. 177 _ss.) ;_a work of hts can thus still serve
to illustrate the characteristics of the "Wolgemut manner" as descnbed m vol. I, P 17.
XIV PREFACE
conjectures that the intriguingly unattached woodcut Cain Slaying Abel ( vol. II, p. 31,
no. 221) was intended for a broad-sheet the text of which would have consisted, as in three
analogous cases ( vol. II, pp. 35 and 42, nos. 27 5, 352, 353), of a poem by Diirer himself;
and he adduces some documentary evidence in connection with the drawing Androclus and
the Lion ( vol. II, p. 92, no. 899) and with the much-debated Stag-Beetle ( vol. II, p. 131, no.
1359).
Losses and changes caused by the war are still unknown, except for the destruction of the
manuscript formerly in the Landesbibliothek in Dresden which contained the following
drawings: Handlist nos. 571,661, 701,839 (fig. 312), 947,952, 1082, 1122, 1126, 1131,
1182, 1183, 1262, 1307, 1316, 1326, 1404, 1444, 1445 1446, 1459. 1460, 1461, 1462,
1463, 1464, 1510, 1530, 1550, 1568, 1569, 1602, 1603, 1612, 1616, 1617, 1618, 1619,
162o, 1621, 1623, 1631, 1632, 1635, 1636, 164o, 1641, 1643, 1647, 1649, 165o, 1654,
1655 (fig. 322), 1656, 1656a, 1663, 1664, 1686, 1689, 1701, 1702, 1705, 1707, 1708.
As for the illustrations, attempts have been made to replace some of the least satisfactory
photographs by better ones but have been successful-through the good offices of Messrs.
E. Breitenbach, E. Hanfstaengl, C. H. Smyth, H. Swarzenski, and John Walker III, to all
of whom the writer wishes to express his gratitude-in only a limited number of cases. He
is, however; pleased to announce that his, the Princeton University Press's and the Meriden
Company's united efforts have finally succeeded in substituting, in fig. 68, the right picture
of Katharina Fiirlegerin for the wrong one.
t '
PREFACES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Contents
IX
XVll
INTRODUCTION 3
I. APPRENTICESHIP AND EARLY YEARS OF TRAVEL, 1484-1495 15
II. FIVE YEARS OF INTENSE PRODUCTIVITY, 1495-1500 39
III. FIVE YEARS OF RATIONAL SYNTHESIS, 1500-1505 80
IV. THE SECOND TRIP TO ITALY AND THE CULMINATION OF PAINTING, 1505-1510/11 107
V. REORIENTATION IN THE GRAPHIC ARTS; THE CULMINATION OF ENGRAVING,
1507/111514 132
VI. DURER'S ACTIVITY FOR MAXIMILIAN I; THE "DECORATIVE STYLE," 1512/13-
1518/19 172
VII. THE CRISIS OF 1519; THE JOURNEY TO THE NETHERLANDS, 1520-1521; THE
LAST WORKS, 1521-1528 198
VIII. DURER AS A THEORIST OF ART
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX
INDICES
In the List of Illustrations the following abbreviations are used:
B., followed by a numeral, and B. app., followed by a numeral
(B. or B. app. 10), refers to the numbers in Adam Bartsch,
Le Pemtre Vienna, vol. VII, 1808, p. 30 ss. and .
173 ss. respectively. p
L., by a. .CL. 1 o), refers to the numbers on the
Ltppmann, Zeichnungen von Albrecht
Durer tn .Nachbzldungen, Berlin, 1883-1929 (vols. VI and
VII; F. Wmkler, ed.).
M., followed by a numeral (M. to), refers to the numbers in
Durer-Katalog, Ein Handbuch uber Albrecht
Durers Sttche, Radierungen, H olzschnitte, deren Zustiinde
. Ausgaben und Wasserzeichen, Vienna, 1932. '
Pass.: followed by a numeral (Pass. 110), refers to the numbers
m J. D. Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, Leipzig, vol. III, t86
2
,
p. 156 ss. and p. 177 ss.
W., followed a (W. 10), refers to the numbers on
th: plates Fnednch Winkler, Die Zeichnungen Albrecht
Durers, Berlm, 1933 ss.
The in refer to the Handlist as printed in
Albrecht Durer, Pnnceton, 194
3
,
1945
,
194
8, Vol. II.
p
I
List of Illustrations*
FRONTISPIECE. Durer, Self-Portrait as Man of Sorrows, 1522, Bremen, Kunsthalle.
Drawing L. 131 (635), 408 by 290 mm.
-........J Durer, Self-Portrait of 1484, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 448 (996),
275 by 196 mm.
2. Albrecht Durer the Elder, Self-Portrait, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 589
( 1016), 284 by 212 mm.
3 "Younger Master of the Schotten Altarpiece," Martyrdom of St. Dymphna,
Present Location Unknown.
4 Master of the Augustiner Altarpiece, The Vision of St. Bernard, Nuremberg,
Germanisches National-Museum, 1487.
5 Hans Pleydenwurff, Detail from the Adoration of the Magi, Nuremberg,
Lorenzkirche.
6. Durer, The Wire-Drawing Mill, probably 1489, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
Drawing L. 4 ( 1367), 286 by 426 mm.
7 Durer, The Cemetery of St. John's, probably 1489, Bremen, Kunsthalle.
Drawing L. 104 (1369), 290 by 423 mm.
8. Michael Wolgemut (Shop), "Portugalia," Woodcut from the "Nuremberg
Chronicle," published 1493.
9 Michael Wolgemut, Dance of the Dead. Woodcut from the "Nuremberg
Chronicle," published 1493
10. Michael Wolgemut (Shop; Design by Durer'?), Circe and Odysseus. Woodcut
from the "Nuremberg Chronicle" (435, k, 3), published 1493.
11. St. Potentiana Giving Alms to the Poor. Woodcut from the "Lives of the
Saints," Nuremberg (Koberger), 1488.
12. The Second and Fourth Works of Charity. Woodcut from "Bruder Claus"
(435, a, 2, 4), Nuremberg (Ayrer), 1488.
13. Durer, Cavalcade, 1489, Bremen, Kunsthalle. Drawing L. 100 (1244), 201
by309mm.
*Because of the war some of the paintings and drawings here illustrated had to be reproduced
from fairly unsatisfactory photographs. The prints, however, could be reproduced, with very few excep
tions, from the originals in the Alverthorpe Gallery at Jenkintown (Pennsylvania), the Metropolitan
Museum in New York, the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
To these institutions and their staffs the writer wishes to express his sincere gratitude.
In order to correct the misleading impression produced by the changing scale of reduction the actual
measurements of Diirer's prints and drawings have been indicated in the customary fashion (height
preceding width).
XVll
XV Ill
15.
16.
17
18.
1g.
20.
21.
22.
24.

27.
28.
\30.
32.
The Housebook Master, The Three Living and the Three Dead. Dry Point.
Martin Schongauer, The Bearing of the Cross. Engraving.
The House book Master, The Bearing of the Dry Point.
Martin Schongauer, The Nativity. Engraving.
The Housebook Master, The Holy Family. Dry Point.
Martin Schongauer, Griffon. Engraving.
The House book Master, Dog Scratching Itself. Dry Point.
Martin Schongauer, Apprentices Romping. Engraving.
The Housebook Master, Children Romping. Dry Point.
Durer, The Holy Family, probably 14g1, Erlangen, Universitiitsbibliothek.
Drawing L. 430 (723), 204 by 208 mm.
Durer, The Holy Family, probably 14g2jg3, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
Drawing L. 615 (725), 2go by 214 mm.
Durer, Self-Portrait of about 14g1, Erlangen, Universitatsbibliothek. Draw-
ing L. 42g (gg7), 204 by 2o8 mm.
Durer, Self-Portrait of 14g3, New York, Robert Lehman Coli. (formerly
Lemberg, Lubomirski Museum). Drawing L. 613 (gg8), 276 by 202 mm.
The House book Master, Death and Youth. Dry Point.
Durer, Young Couple Taking a Walk, 14g2jg3, Hamburg, Kunsthalle.
Drawing L. 620 (1245), 258 by 1g1 mm.
Durer, Frolickers Threatened by Death (called "The Pleasures of the
World"), probably 14g3/g4, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum. Drawing L. 644
(874), 211 by 330 mm.
Durer, Self-Portrait of 14g3, Paris, Louvre (48).
Durer, Portrait of His Father, 14go, Florence, Uffizi (52).
Durer, St. Jerome in His Study, 14g2. Woodcut Pass. 246 (414), 165 by
115 mm. (here reproduced from a restrike, Metropolitan Museum, New
York).
33 Anonymous Basel Master, St. Ambrose in His Study, 14g2. Woodcut M. 220
(438).
34 Durer, Madonna in Half Length, probably 14g4, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz
Museum. Drawing L. 658 (653), 217 by 171 mm.
35 Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leyden, Epitaph of a Canon (Detail), 1464, Strass-
burg Cathedral.
36. Durer, Portrait of Terence (Auto-Tracing), 14g2, Basel, Oeffentliche Kunst-
sammlung. Uncut Woodblock (436, a, 1), 88 by 142 mm.
37 Durer, Illustration of Terence, "Andria" (Auto-Tracing), 14g2, Basel, Oef-
fentliche Kunstsammlung. Uncut Woodblock (436, a, 3), 86 by 142 mm.
38: Durer, Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha. Woodcut from "Ritter vom
Turn," Basel, 14g3, fol. E3v (436, c, 17), 108 by 108 mm.
3g
43
44
45
47
so.
SI.
53
54-
Durer, The Death of the Hard-Hearted Lady. Woodcut from "Ritter vom
Turn," Basel, 14g3, fol. B6 (436, c, g), 108 by 108 mm.
Diirer, Fool Addressing Geese and Swine. Woodcut from Sebastian Brant,
"Das Narrenschyff," Basel, 14g4, fol. c3v (436, b), 117 by 86 mm.
Durer, Fool Putting Out His Neighbor's Fire Instead of His Own. Woodcut
from Sebastian Brant, "Das Narrenschyff," Basel, 14g4, fol. i8v (436, b),
117 by 86mm.
Durer, The Folly of Astrology. Woodcut from Sebastian Brant, "Das Narren-
schyff," Basel, 14g4, fol. h v (436, b), 117 by 86 mm.
Durer, Rustic Couple, about 14g7. Engraving B. 83 (1go), 10g by 77 mm.
Michael Wolgemut (Shop), Philosophy. Woodcut, Copied from the "Ta-
rocchi" Series.
Durer, Nude Girl (probably a "Bathers' Attendant"), 14g3, Bayonne,
Musee Bonnat. Drawing L. 345 ( 1177), 272 by 147 mm.
Durer, Philosophy, 14g4 or 14g5, London, British Museum. Drawing L. 215
(g77), Copied from the "Tarocchi" Series, 1g2 by gg mm.
Diirer, Battle of Sea Gods, 14g4, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 455 (go3),
2g2 by 382 mm.
Andrea Mantegna, Battle of Sea Gods. Engraving.
Durer, The Death of Orpheus, 14g4, Hamburg,..,Kunsthalle. Drawing L. 15g
(g28), 28g by 225 mm.
Anonymous Ferrarese ( '?) Master, The Death of Orpheus. Engraving.
The Death of Orpheus. Woodcut from the "Moralizedpvid," Bruges (Colard
Mansion), 1484.
Andrea Mantegna, The Death of Orpheus. Vault Painting in Mantua,
Palazzo Ducale (Camera degli Sposi).
Durer, Two Groups from.a "Rape of the Sabine Women," 14g5, Bayonne,
Musee Bonnat. Drawing L. 347 (g31), 283 by 423 mm.
Antonio Pollaiuolo, "The Ten Nudes" (Titus Manlius Torquatus'?). En-
gravmg.
55 Durer, Various Sketches from Italian Models, about 14g5, Florence, Uffizi.
Drawing L. 633 (146g), 370 by 255 mm.
56. Durer, Nude Woman Seen from the Back, 14g5, Paris, Louvre. Drawing L.
624 (1178), 320 by 210 mm.
57 Durer, The Rape of Europa; Apollo; Alchemist; Three Lions' Heads, about
1495, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 456 (gog), 2go by 415 mm.
58. Durer, Young Woman in Oriental Dress (probably a Circassian Slave Girl),
14g4/gs, Basel, Oeffentliche Kunstsammlung. Drawing L.62g (1256), 273
by 1g7 mm.
XIX
XX
59 Durer, Lady in Venetian Dress Contrasted with a Nuremberg "Hausfrau,"
probably 1495, Frankfort, Stadelsches Kunstinstitut. Drawing L. 187
(128o), 247 by 16o rom.
6o.
62.
66.
68.
70.
71.
72.
73
74
75
76.
77
Durer, Lobster, 1495, Berlin, Kupferstichkahinett. Drawing L. 622 ( 1332 ),
247 by 429 rom.
Durer, Pass in the Alps, 1495, Escorial. Drawing W. 100 (1379), approx-
imately 205 by 295 mm.
Durer, View of Nuremberg from the West, 1495-97, Bremen, Kunsthalle.
Drawing L. 103 ( 1385), 163 by 344 rom.
Durer, Alpine Landscape ("Wehlsch Pirg"), probably 1495, Oxford, Ashmo-
lean Museum. Drawing L. 392 ( 1384), 210 by 312 rom.
Durer, Madonna ("Dresden Altarpiece," Center), 1496/97, Dresden, Gemal-
degalerie (4). Wings (Sts. Anthony and Sebastian) added about 1503/04.
Durer, Portrait of Frederick the Wise, probably 1496, Berlin, Deutsches
Museum (54). .
Durer, Portrait of His Father (Replica), 1497, London, National Gallery
(53).
Durer, Portrait of Katharina ( '?) Furlegerin with Loose Hair (Copy), 1497,
Frankfort, Stadelsches Kunstinstitut ( 72).
Durer, Portrait of Katharina ( '?) Furlegerin with Her Hair Done Up
(Copy), 1497, Lutzschena, Freiherr Speck von Sternburg Coli. (71).
Durer, The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, about 1498. Woodcut B. 117
(337), 387 by 285 mm.
Geertgen tot Sint Jans, The Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist,
Vienna, Gemaldegalerie.
Durer, The Bath House ("Das Mannerbad"), probably 1496. Woodcut B.
128 (348), 391 by 28o rom.
Durer, The Martyrdom of St. Catharine, about 1498/99. Woodcut B. 120
(340), 393 by 283 rom.
The Seven Trumpets. Miniature from an East Flemish Manuscript of the
Early Fifteenth Century, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS Neerl. 3
The Vision of the Seven Candlesticks. Woodcut from the Quentell-Koberger
Bible, Cologne, about 1479 a:nd Nuremberg, 1483.
The Four Horsemen. Woodcut from the Gruninger Bible, Strassburg, 1485.
Durer, The Vision of the Seven Candlesticks (Apocalypse), probably 1498.
Woodcut B. 62 (282), 395 by 284 rom.
Durer, St. John before God and the Elders (Apocalypse), probably about
1496. Woodcut B. 63 (283), 393 by 281 rom.
Durer, The Four Horsemen (Apocalypse), probably 1497/98. Woodcut B. 64
(284), 394 by 281 mm.
79
. Durer, The Four Angels Holding the Winds (Apocalypse), probably
1497/98. Woodcut B. 66 (286), 395 by 282 rom.
So. Durer, The Seven Trumrcts (Apocalypse), probably about 1496. Woodcut
B. 68 (288), 393 by 281 mm.
81. Durer, St. Michael Fighting the Dragon (Apocalypse), probably 1497.
Woodcut B. 72 (292), 394 by 283 rom.
82. Detail from fig. 71 (original size).
88. Durer, "Ecce Homo" (Large Passion), 1498/99 Woodcut B. 9 (229), 391
by 282 rom.
89. Durer, The Bearing of the Cross (Large Passion), 1498/99 Woodcut B. 10
(230), 389 by 281 rom.
go. Durer, The Lamentation of Christ (Large Passion), 1498/99 Woodcut B.
13 (233), 387 by 275 rom.
91. Durer, The Lamentation of Christ, about 1500. Munich, Alte Pinakothek
( 16).
92. Durer, Holy Family, known as "The Virgin with the Dragonfly," probably
1495 Engraving B. 44 (151), 236 by 186 rom.
93 Durer, Young Woman Attacked by Death (called "Der Gewalttatige"),
probably 1495 Engraving B. 92 ( 199), 114 by 102,mm.
94 Durer, The Prodigal Son Amid the Swine, probably 14. Engraving B. 28
( 135), 248 by 190 rom.
95 Durer, Bathing Women, 1496, Bremen, Kunsthalle. Drawing L. 101 ( 1180 ),
231 by 226 rom.
96. Durer, The Fall of Man, 1496/97, Paris, Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Masson
Coll.). Drawing L. 657 (457), 233 by 144 rom.
97 . Durer, "The Four Witches," 1497. Engraving B. 75 (182), 190 by 131 rom.
98. Durer, The Temptation of the Idler (called "The Dream of the Doctor"),
about 1497/98. Engraving B. 76 (183), 188 by 119 mm.
99 , Durer, Young Couple Threatened by Death (called "Der Spaziergang"),
probably 1498. Engraving B. 94 (201), 192 by 120 rom.
100. Durer, The Penance of St. John Chrysostom, about 1497. Engraving B. 63
(17o), 180 by 119 rom.
101. Durer, "Sol Justitiae," 1498/99 Engraving B. 79 (186), 107 by 78 mm.
102. Durer, The Virgin with the Monkey, about 1498. Engraving B. 42 (149),
191 by 123 rom.
XXI
XXll
103.
104
105.
106.
107.
108.
"' 109.
"" 110.
Ill.
112.
116.
117.
118.
120.
121.
122.
123.
124.
Anonymous North Netherlandish Master, Allegory of Envy and Sloth, about
1490, Antwerp, Musee Royal.
"Sol," Capital from the Palace of the Doges in Venice.
The Prodigal Son Amid the Swine. Woodcut from "Speculum Humanae Sal-
vationis," Basel (Riebel), 1476.
Jacopo de' Barbari, "Cleopatra" (The Dream of Olympias'?). Engraving.
Durer, The Sea Monster, about 1498. Engraving B. 71 (178), 246 by 187
mm.
Durer, Combat of Virtue and Pleasure in the Presence of Hercules ("Der
f:Iercules"), 1498/99. Engraving B. 73 ( 180 ), 318 by 223 mm.
Durer, Self-Portrait of 1498, Madrid, Prado (49).
Durer, Self-Portrait of ISOO, Munich, Alte Pinakothek (so).
Durer, The Nativity between Sts. George and Eustace (The Paumgartner
Altarpiece), I502-o4, Munich, Alte Pinakothek (5).
Durer, Job, His Wife and Two Musicians (called "The Jabach Altarpiece"),
1503/04, Frankfort, Stadelsches Kunstinstitut and Cologne, Wallraf-Rich-
artz Museum (6).
Durer, The Adoration of the Magi, 1504, Florence, Uffizi ( 11 ).
Diirer, St. Eustace, about 1501. Engraving B. 57 ( 164), 355 by 259 mm.
Durer, Nemesis (called "Das Grosse Gluck"), ISOI/02. Engraving B. 77
( 184), 329 by 224 mm.
Durer, The Nativity ("Weihnachten"), 1504. Engraving B. 2 ( 109), 185
by 120 mm.
Durer, The Fall of Man ("Adam und Eva"), 1504. Engraving B. 1 (108),
252 by 194 mm.
Durer, Aesculapius or, perhaps more probably, "Apollo Medicus" (Con-
structed), about ISOI, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett. Drawing L. 181 (1598),
325 by 205 mm.
Durer, Apollo and Diana (the Apollo Constructed), ISOI-03, London, Brit-
ish Museum. Drawing L. 233 (1599), 285 by 202 mm.
Workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Apollo Belvedere, Drawing in the
"Codex Escurialensis," Escorial.
Durer, Centauress Nursing Her Young, 1504/os, Veste Coburg. Drawing L.
732 (904), 228 by 211 mm.
Durer, Family of Centaurs, IS04/os, Basel, Dr. T. Christ Coll. Drawing L.
720 (905), 109 by 78 mm.
Durer, Musical Satyr and Nymph with Baby ("The Centaur's Family"),
1505. Engraving B. 69 (176), 116 by 71 mm.
Durer, Apollo and Diana, probably 1505. Engraving B. 68 (175), 116 by
73mm.
12
5. Durer, The Small Horse, 1505. Engraving B. 96 (203), 165 by 108 mm.
12
6. Durer, The Large Horse, 150 5. Engraving B. 97 ( 204), 167 by 119 mm.
129. Detail from fig. 97 (twice enlarged).
130. Detail from fig. 98 (twice enlarged).
131. Detail from fig. 108 (one and a hal{ times enlarged).
132. Detail from fig. 11 7 (one and a half times enlarged) .
I33 Detail from fig. 107 (original size).
I34 Detail from fig. 114 (original size).
135 Durer, Madonna with a Multitude of Animals, about 1503, Vienna, Albertina.
Drawing L. 460 (658), 321 by 243 mm.
1
35a. Durer, The Great Piece of Turf, 1503, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 472
(1422), 410 by 315 mm.
136. Durer, Portrait of a Smiling Woman, 1503, Bremen, Kunsthalle. Drawing L.
710 ( 1105), 308 by 210 mm.
137 Durer, Parrot, IS02/03, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Drawing L. 639
(1343), 192 by214mm.
138. Durer, Horse in Profile (Study in Equine Proportions), 1503, Cologne,
Wallraf-Richartz Museum. Drawing L. 714 (1672), 215 by 260 mm.
139 Durer, Portrait of Willibald Pirckheimer, 1503, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
Drawing L. 376 (1037), 281 by 208 mm.
140. Durer, Head of the Dead Christ, 1503, London, British Museum. Drawing L.
231 (621), 36o by 210 mm. ,
141. Durer, Joachim and Ann Meeting at the Golden Gate (Life of the Virgin),
1504. Woodcut B. 79 (299), 298 by 210 mm.
142. Durer, "Sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt" (Life of the Virgin), probably
ISOI/02. Woodcut B. 90 (310), 295 by 210 mm.
143. Durer, The Betrothal of the Virgin (Life of the Virgin), probably 1504/os.
Woodcut B. 82 (302), 293 by 208 mm.
144. Durer, The Presentation of Christ (Life of the Virgin), probably 1505.
Woodcut B. 88 (3o8), 293 by 209 mm.
145. Durer, The Flagellation of Christ, 1502 ( '?), Veste Coburg. Drawing L. 706
(573), 285 by 198 mm.
146 .. Durer (Workshop), The Descent from the Cross (Green Passion), 1504,
Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 488 (532), 300 by 190 mm.
147. Durer, Crowned Death on a Thin Horse, 1505, London, British Museum.
Drawing L. 91 (876), 210 by 266 mm.
148. Durer, "The Feast of the Rose Garlands," 1506, Prague, Museum Rudolphi-
num [formerly Strahow Monastery] (38).
xxiii
XXIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
149 and ISO. Durer, Details from the "Feast of the Rose Garlands," ISo6, Prague,
State Gallery [formerly Strahow Monastery] (38) ..
1SL Durer, Portrait of an Architect, probably Master Hieronymus of Augsburg,
1So6, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett. Drawing L. 10 (738), 386 by 263 mm.
IS2 Durer, The Pluviale of the Pope in the "Feast of the Rose Garlands," 1so6,
Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 494 (7S9), 427 by 288 mm.
IS3 Durer, The Hands of St. Dominic in the "Feast of the Rose Garlands," ISo6,
Vienna, Albertina. Drawing W. 389 (747), 247 by I84 mm.
IS4 Durer, The Virgin with the Siskin, IS06, Berlin, Deutsches Museum (27).
ISS Durer, Head of the Twelve Year Old Christ, ISo6, Vienna, Albertina. Draw-
i n ~ L. 499 (547), 27S by 21I mm.
IS6. Durer, Christ Among the Doctors, ISo6, Lugano, Thyssen Coil. [formerly
Rome, Palazzo Barberini] ( I2).
1S7 The Brotherhood of the Rosary. German Woodcut of I485.
IS8. Michele da Verona('?), The Madonna with the Little St. John, New York,
Metropolitan Museum.
I 59 Durer, Portrait of a Milanese ( '?) Girl, I 5os, Vienna, Gemaldegalerie ( Ioo ).
I6o. Durer, Portrait of a Young Woman (erroneously called "Agnes Durer"),
IS06/o], Berlin, Deutsches Museum ( IOI).
I6I. Durer, Eve (Constructed), ISo6, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing W. 423 (464),
262 by I65 mm.
I62. Durer, Eve (Constructed), 1So6, London, British Museum. Drawing L. 242
(468), 280 by 89 mm.
I63. Durer, Nude Woman Seen from the Back, ISo6, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
Drawing L. I38 ( 1I88), 283 by 224 mm.
164 and I6S. Durer, The Fall of Man, ISO], Madrid, Prado (I).
I66. Durer, The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, ISo8, Vienna, Gemaldegalerie
(47)
I67. Anonymous Nuremberg Master, The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin
(The Imhof Altarpiece of I4S6), Breslau, Stadtisches Museum.
168. Durer, The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin (Copy by Jobst Harrich
after the Central Panel of the Heller Altarpiece of 1509), Frankfort, Stadtge-
schichtliches Museum (8).
I69. Raphael, The Coronation of the Virgin, Rome, Pinacoteca Vaticana.
I]O. Durer, Portrait of Matthaeus Landauer (see fig. I72), IS II, Frankfort,
Stadelsches Kunstinstitut. Drawing L. 75 (I02]), 272 by I89 mm.
I]I. Durer, Head of an Apostle in the Heller Altarpiece, I so8, Vienna, Albertina.
Drawing L. soB (490), 317 by 212 mm.
I]2. Durer, The Adoration of the Trinity (The Landauer Altarpiece), ISll,
Vienna, Gemaldegalerie ( 23).
173 The Adoration of the Trinity ("The City of God"), Metal Cut from "Heures
a l'Usaige de Rome," Paris (Pigouchet for Vostre), 1498.
I74 Durer, The Adoration of the Trinity, 1508, Chantilly, Musee Conde. Draw-
ing L. 334 (644), 39I by 263 mm.
175 Durer (Designed by), Frame of the Adoration of the Trinity, 1511, Nurem-
berg, Germanisches National-Museum.
176. Durer, The Emperors Charlemagne and Sigismund, 1 S 10, formerly Lemberg,
Lubomirski Museum. Drawing L. 785 (10o8), I77 by 206 mm.
177. Durer, The Emperors Charlemagne and Sigismund, 15I2/I3, Vienna, Gemal-
degalerie (51 and 6s).
I]8. Durer, The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin (Life of the Virgin),
15IO. Woodcut B. 94 (3I4), 290 by 207 mm.
179. Durer, The Harrowing of Hell (Large Passion), ISIO. Woodcut B. I4 (234),
392 by 280 mm.
180. Durer, St. John on Patmos (Apocalypse, Frontispiece), 1511 (the Lettering
already I498). Woodcut B. 6o (28o ), 185 by 184 mm.
I8I. Durer, The Virgin on the Crescent (Life of the Virgin, Frontispiece), 1511
(Proof Impression, Alverthorpe Gallery, Jenkintown, Pa.).* Woodcut B. 76
(296), 202 by 195 mm.
182. Durer, The Man of Sorrows Mocked by a Soldier (Large Passion, Frontis-
piece), 1511 (Proof Impression of an undescribed State, Alverthorpe Gallery,
Jenkintown, Pa.).* Woodcut B. 4 (224), I98 by I9S mm.
183. Durer, The Mass of St. Gregory, 1511. Woodcut B. ,1:23 (343), 295 by 205
mm.,
184. Durer, The Adoration of the Magi, lSI 1. Woodcut B. 3 (223), 291 by 218
mm.
185. Durer, The Trinity, ISl 1. Woodcut B. 122 (342), 392 by 284 mm.
186. Durer, The Lamentation of Christ (Engraved Passion), 1507. Engraving B.
14 (121), 11Sby]1 mm.
187. Durer, The Betrayal of Christ (Engraved Passion), 1508. Engraving B. 5
(112), 118 by 75 mm.
188. Durer, Christ Before Pilate (Engraved Passion), 1512. Engraving B. 11
,( 118), 117 by 7 5 mm.
189 .. Durer, The Bearing of the Cross (Engraved Passion), 1512. Engraving B. 12
. (119), 117 by 74 mm.
190. Dui:er, Christ Before Pilate (Small Passion), 1509-1 L Woodcut B. 36
(256), 128 by 97 mm.
*cf. footnote, p. 200.
XXV
XXVI
I93
I94
I95
Ig6.
I97
Ig8.
I99
200.
201.
202.
203
204
205.
206.
207
208.
209.
2IO.
2Il.
212.
2I3-
Durer, The Bearing of the Cross (Small Passion), I509. Woodcut B. 37
(257), I27 by 97 mm.
Durer, The Nativity (Small Passion), I50911. Woodcut B. 20 (240), I27
by 98 mm.
Durer, The Resurrection of Christ (Small Passion), I509Il. Woodcut B.
45 (265), I27 by 98 mm.
Durer, The Fall of Man (Small Passion), IS I o-IL Woodcut B. I 7 ( 23 7),
I27by97 mm.
Durer, The Fall of Man, I5IO, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. SI8 (459),
295 by 220 mm.
Durer, The Crucifixion, I508. Engraving B. 24 (I3I), I33 by 98 mm.
Mathis Neithardt Gothardt (called Matthias Grunewald), The Crucifixion,
Rotterdam, Boymans Museum (Koenigs Coll.).
Andrea Mantegna, The Deposition of Christ. Engraving.
Durer, Portrait of Conrat Verkell ('?), ISo8, London, British Museum.
Drawing L. 750 (I043), 295 by 2I6 mm.
Mathis Neithardt Gothardt (called Matthias Grunewald), Portrait of a Man.
Stockholm, National Museum.
Durer, The Holy Family, probably I5I2. Dry Point B. 43 (ISO), 2IO by
I82 mm.
Durer, St. Jerome by a Pollard Willow, I5I2. Dry Point B. 59 (I66), 21I
by I83 mm.
Detail from fig. 202 (about one and a half times enlarged).
Durer, Knight, Death and Devil, 1513. Engraving B. 98 (205), 246 by I90
mm.
Durer, St. Jerome in His Cell, 15I4. Engraving B. 6o ( 167), 247 by 188 mm.
Durer, "Melencolia I," I5I4 (First State, Alverthorpe Gallery, Jenkintown,
Pa.). Engraving B. 74 (I8I), 239 by 168 mm.
"Acedia." Detail from a Franconian Woodcut of about 1490.
The Melancholic (lower left) and Other Patients. Miniature (illustrating
the Treatment by Cauterization) from an Italian Manuscript of the Thir-
teenth Century, Erfurt, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. Amplonianus Q. 185.
The Melancholies. Woodcut from the First German Calendar, Augsburg
(Blaubirer), 1481.
The Children of Saturn (with Two Melancholies in the Upper Corners).
Miniature from a German of the Third Quarter of the Fifteenth
Century, Erfurt, Stadtisches Museum.
2I4 The Four Humors. German Woodcut of the Third Quarter of the Fifteenth
215
216.
2I7
2I8.
Century.
Durer, Allegory of Philosophy, I502. Woodcut B. I30 (350), 2I7 by 147 mm.
"Luxuria." Relief at Amiens Cathedral (about I225).
The Sanguines. Woodcut from the First German Calendar, Augsburg (Blau-
birer ), 1481.
"Art." Detail from a Miniature in a French Manuscript of about 1376, The
Hague, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, MS 1o.D.1.
2I9 "Typus Woodcut from Gregorius Reisch, "Margarita Philo-
sophica," Strassburg ( Gruninger), I 504.
220.
221.
222.
223
224
225
226.
227.
228.
229.
230.
231.
232.
233
Saturn with a Compass. Detail from a German Miniature of the Last Third
of the Fifteenth Century, Tubingen, Universitatsbibliothek, Cod. M.d.2.
Jacob de Gheyn, Saturn with a Compass as Representative of the Melancholy
Humor. Engraving.
Durer, Portrait of His Mother, 15I4, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett. Drawing
L. 40 (1052), 421 by 303 mm.
Durer, The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1511, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
Drawing L. 443 (517), 277 by 207 mm.
Durer, The Holy Family in a Trellis, IS 12, New York, Robert Lehman Coll.
(formerly Lemberg, Lubomirski Museum). Drawing L. 787 (730), 267 by
199mm.
Durer (and Others), The Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I, 1515. Woodcut
B. 138 (358), about 305 by 285 em. (as reproduced here, after the reprint by
A. Bartsch, without the inscriptions at the bottom).
Detail from fig. 225.
Hieroglyphic Allegory of Maximilian I (Copy after Durer's Design for the
Aedicula Crowning the "Triumphal Arch"), about 15I3, Vienna, National-
bibliothek, Cod. 3255. Drawing (946).
Detail from fig. 22 5
Durer, Portrait of Maximilian I, I5I9, Woodcut B. 154 (368), 414 by
319 mm.
Lucas van Leyden, Portrait of Maximilian I, I520. Etching (the face en-
graved with the burin).
Durer; First Project for the "Great Triumphal Car" of Maximilian I (Sec-
tion), I512/13, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 528 (950), over-all dimen-
sions 162 by 46o mm.
First Section of the "Small Triumphal Car" of Maximilian I (called
"The Burgundian Marriage"), 1518ji9. Woodcut M. 253 (429), 380 by
424 mm.
Durer, The Virgin as Queen of the Angels (called "Maria im Rosenhaag"),
15I8. Woodcut B. 10I (321), 30I by 2I2 mm.
XXVll
XXVlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
234-237. Durer, Four Pages from the Prayer-Book of Maximilian I, 1515, Munich,
Staatsbibliothek. Drawings T. 634 (965), fols. 25v, 46, 39v, so, each 28o
by 193 mm.
238. Durer, Detail from fol. 53v of the Prayer-Book of Maximilian I.
239 Durer, Detail from the Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I.
240. Page from Boccaccio, "De Claris Mulieribus," Ulm (J. Zainer), 1473.
241. Page from Euclid, "Elementa," Venice (Zamberti), 1510 (the initial, the title
lines and the paragraph signs printed in red).
242. Durer, "The Desperate Man," probably 1514/15. Etching B. 70 (177),
191 by 139 mm.
243 Durer, The Abduction of Proserpine, 1516. Etching B. 72 ( 179), 308 by 213
mm.
244. Durer, The Agony in the Garden, 1515. Etching B. 19 ( 126), 221 by 156 mm.
245 Durer, The Sudarium, 1516. Etching B. 26 (133), 185 by 134 mm.
246. Durer, The Wire-Drawing Mill, probably 1515/18, Bayonne, Musee Bonnat.
Drawing L. 349 (1405), 151 by 228 mm.
247 Durer, St. Anthony, 1519. Engraving B. 58 ( 165), 98 by 141 mm.
248. Durer, Portrait of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (called "The Small Car-
dinal''), 1519. Engraving B. 102 (209), 148 by 97 mm.
249 Durer, The Virgin Crowned by Two Angels, 1518. Engraving B. 39 (146),
148 by 100 mm.
250. Diirer, The Virgin Nursing, 1519. Engraving B. 36 (143), 115 by 73 mm.
251. Diirer, The Virgin with the Swaddled Infant, 1520. Engraving B. 38 (145),
144 by 97 mm.
252. Diirer, St. Jerome, Lisbon, 1521, National Museum (41).
253 Diirer, Head of a Woman, about 1520, Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale (1o2).
254. Diirer, Head of a Woman, 1520, London, British Museum. Drawing L. 270
(1164), 326 by 226 mm.
255 Durer, St. Jerome in His Cell, probably about 1520, Berlin, Kupferstich-
kabinett. Drawing L. 175 (816), 202 by 125 mm.
256. Diirer, Turkish Woman (from the Pen and Ink Sketch-Book), about 1520,
Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Dr a wing L. 8 57 ( 12 57), 181 by 107 mm.
257 Diirer, Captain Felix Hungersperg (from the Pen and Ink Sketch-Book),
1520, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 561 ( 1025), 160 by 105 mm.
258. Diirer, Portrait of a Lady of Brussels (from the Pen and Ink Sketch-Book),
1520, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 564 ( ll12), 16o by 105 mm.
259. Diirer, Portrait of Bernhart von Resten (or Breslen '?), 1521, Dresden,
Gemaldegalerie ( 64).
26o. Diirer, Portrait of a Gentleman, 1524, Madrid, Prado (85).
i
I
261. Diirer, Portrait of a Young Man, 1520, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett. Draw-
ing L. 53 (1071), 365 by 258 mm.
262. Diirer, Portrait of His Wife, 1521, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett. Drawing L.
64 (1050), 407 by 271 mm.
263. Diirer, Portrait of Caspar Sturm; a River Landscape (from the Silver Point
Sketch-Book), 1520, Chantilly, Musee Conde. Drawing L. 340 (1484), 127
by 189mm.
264. Diirer, Big Dog in Repose (from the Silver Point Sketch-Book), 1520,
London, British Museum. Drawing L. 286 (1486), 123 by 175 mm.
265. Diirer, Two Female Figures, That on the Left after the Statuette of a Bur-
gundian Princess (from the Silver Point Sketch-Book), 1520 or 1521, London,
British Museum. Drawing L. 285 (1487), 123 by 175 mm.
266. Diirer, Woman of Bergen-op-Zoom and Young Woman of Ter Goes (from
the Silver Point Sketch-Book), 1520, Chantilly, Musee Conde. Drawing
L. 341 (1493), 129 by 190 mm.
267. Durer, The Choir of the "Groote Kerk" at Bergen-op-Zoom (from the Silver
Point Sketch-Book), 1520, Frankfort, Stadelsches Kunstinstitut. Drawing L.
853 (1494), 132 by 182 mm.
268. Durer, Lion in Two Positions (from the Silver Point Sketch-Book), 1521,
Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett. Drawing L. 6o ( 1497), 122 by 171 mm.
269. Durer, Portrait of His Wife and a Girl in Cologne Headgear (from the Silver
Point Sketch-Book), 1521, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 424 (1499), 129
by 19omm.
270. Durer, Table with Pitcher; Two Pitchers; Sketch of a Horse (from the Silver
Point Sketch-Book), 1520 or 1521, London, British' Museum. Drawing L.
855 (15o5), 115 by 167 mm.
271. Durer, Antwerp Harbor, 1520, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 566 (14o8),
213 by 283 mm.
272. Durer, Head of a Walrus, 1521, London, British Museum. Drawing L. 290
(1365), 2o6 by 315 mm.
273. Durer, The Agony in the Garden, 1521, Frankfort, Stadelsches Kunstinstitut.
Drawing L. 199 (562), 208 by 294 mm.
274. Durer, The Adoration of the Magi, 1524, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L.
584 {513), 215 by 294 mm.
275 . . Durer, The Bearing of the Cross, 1520, Florence, Uffizi. Drawing L. 842
(579), 210 by 285 mm.
276. -Durer, The Deposition of Christ, 1521, Nuremberg, Germanisches National-
Museum. Drawing L. 86 (612), 210 by 289 mm.
277. Durer, The Last $upper, probably 1523, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 579
(554), 227 by 329 mm.
XXIX
XXX
278. Durer, The Last Supper, 1523. Woodcut B. 53 (273), 213 by 301 mm.
279 Durer, Crucifixion, 1521, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 574 (588), 323
by 223 mm.
28o. Durer, "The Great Crucifixion," 1523. Unfinished Engraving Pass. 109
(216), being the Second Plate of the Engraving M. 25 (218), 320 by225 mm.
281. Durer, Christ on the Cross, 1523, Paris, Louvre. Drawing L. 328 (534),
413 by 300 mm.
282. Durer, The Magdalen Embracing the Cross, 1523, Paris, Louvre. Drawing
L. 383 (536), 295 by 206 mm.
283. Durer, St. John Under the Cross, 1523, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 582
(538), 419 by 300 mm.
284. Durer, The Virgin Mary and Two Holy Women Under the Cross, 1521, Paris,
Madame Tuffier Coll. [formerly Paris, Defer-Dumesnil Coll.]. Drawing L.
381 (535), 424 by 310 mm.
285. Durer, Madonna with Fifteen Saints, Musical Angels and Donatrix, 1521,
Paris, Louvre. Drawing L. 324 (762), 312 by 445 mm.
286. Durer, Madonna with Ten Saints, Musical Angels and Donatrix, 1521, Bay-
onne, Musee Bonnat. Drawing L. 364 (763), 315 by 444 mm.
287. Durer, Madonna with Eight Saints and Musical Angels, 1522, Bayonne,
Musee Bonnat. Drawing L. 363 (764), 402 by 308 mm.
288. Durer, Madonna with Eight Saints and Musical Angels, 1522, Bayonne,
Musee Bonnat. Drawing L. 362 (765), 262 by 228 mm. (cut down on top).
289. Durer, St. Barbara, 1521, Paris, Louvre. Drawing L. 326 (769), 417 by
286mm.
290. Durer, St. Simon, 1523. Engraving B. 49 ( 156 ), 118 by 7 5 mm.
291. Durer, St. Philip, 1523 (released 1526). Engraving B. 46 (153), 122 by
76mm.
292. Durer, St. John the Evangelist (see fig. 294), 1525, Bayonne, Musee Bonnat.
Drawing L. 368 (826), 405 by 253 mm.
293. Durer, St. Philip, 1523, Vienna, Albertina. Drawing L. 58o (843), 318 by
213 mm.
294 and 295. Durer, Sts. John the Evangelist, Peter, Mark and Paul (called "The
Four Apostles"), 1526. Munich, Alte Pinakothek (43).
296. The "Four Apostles" with Sts. Peter and Mark eliminated and the Hands and
Attributes of St. Paul reconstructed according to figs. 291 and 293
297 Giovanni Bellini, Four Saints (Wings of a Triptych), Venice, Frari Church.
298. Superimposition of the Head of St. Philip (fig. 293) upon the Head of St.
Paul (fig. 295), accounting for the "Pentimenti" in the latter.
299 Quentin Massys, Portrait of a Man, 1513, Paris, Musee Jacquemart-Andre.
300. Durer, Portrait of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (called "The Large
Cardinal"), 1523. Engraving B. 103 (210), 174 by 127 mm.
301. Durer, Portrait of Ulrich Varnbuler, 1522. Woodcut B. 155 (369), 430 by
323 mm.
302. Durer, Portrait of Frederick the Wise, 1524. Engraving B. 104 (211), 193
by 127 mm.
303. Durer, Portrait of Willibald Pirckheimer, 1524. Engraving B. 106 (213),
181 by 115 mm.
304. Durer, Portrait of Ulrich Starck, 1527, London, British Museum. Drawing L.
296 ( 1041), 410 by 296 mm.
305. Durer, Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1526. Engraving B. 107 (214),
249 by 193 mm.
306. Durer, Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher, 1526, Berlin, Deutsches Mu-
seum (57).
307. Durer, Portrait of Jacob Muffel, 1526, Berlin, Deutsches Museum (62).
308. Durer, The Virgin with the Pear, 1526, Florence, Uffizi (31 ).
309. Durer, Portrait of Johannes Kleberger, 1526, Vienna, Gemaldegalerie (58).
310. Durer, Draftsman Drawing a Portrait, 1525. Woodcut B. 146 (361), 131
by 149 mm.
311. Durer, Draftsman Drawing a Lute, 1525. Woodcut B. 147 (362), 131
by 183 mm.
312. Durer, Two Heads Divided into Facets and St. Peter, 1519, Dresden, Sachs-
ische Landesbibliothek. Drawing T. 732 (839), 115 by 190 mm.
313. Durer, Three Heads, 1519/20, London, British Mm1eum. Detail from the
drawing L. 276 ( 1653), over-all dimensions 173 by 140 mm.
314. Durer, Monument Celebrating a Victory over The Peasants. Woodcut from
the "Underweysung der Messung ... ,"Nuremberg, 1525.
315. Leonardo da Vinci, Designs for Fountains. Windsor Castle, Royal Library.
316. Durer, Nude Woman (Construction), about 1500, Berlin, Kupferstichkab-
inett. Drawing L. 38 ( 1633), 307 by 208 mm.
317. Durer, Nude Woman in Profile (Study in Human Proportions), 1507 (cor-
rected 1509), Dresden, Sachsische Landesbibliothek. Drawing ( 1641 ), 295
by 203mm.
318. J?urer, Nude Man in Front View and Profile (Auto-Tracing, Study for the
First Book of the "Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion), about 1523,
Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Museum of Art. Drawing (1624 a), 286 by 178 mm.
319. 'Durer, Nude Man in Front View and Profile, Distorted by Projection on a
Circular Curve. Woodcut from the Third Book of the "Vier Bucher von Men-
schlicher Proportion" (here reproduced from the Latin Edition, 2nd volume,
Nuremberg, 15'34).
XXXI
XXXll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
320. Diirer, Four Caricatured Profiles, 1513, formerly Paris, Defer-Dumesnil Coll.
Drawing L. 378 ( 1124), 210 by 200 mm.
321. Diirer, Four Caricatured Profiles. Woodcut from the Third Book of the "Vier
Biicher von Menschlicher Proportion," Nuremberg, 1528.
322. Diirer, Man in Movement, Composed of Stereometrical Solids, with Cross-
Sections at Ten Levels, probably 1519. Dresden, Sachsische Landesbibliothek.
Drawing (1655), 292 by 2oomm.
323. Milanese Master of about 1570 (Aurelio Luini '?), Geometrical Schematiza-
tion of Human Movement. Drawing from "Codex Huygens" (New York,
Pierpont Morgan Library, M.A. 1139).
324. Diirer, Geometrical Schematization of Human Movement. Woodcut from the
Fourth Book of the "Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion," Nuremberg,
1528.
325. Diirer, Horse-Tamer, 1525, Bayonne, Musee Bonnat. Drawing L. 366
(1174), 238 by 205 mm.
THE LIFE AND ART OF
ALBRECHT DURER
I.
Introduction
T
HE evolution of art in Western Europe,,might be compared
to a great fugue in which the leading theme was taken up, with variations, by the
different countries. The Gothic style was created in France; the Renaissance and
Baroque originated in Italy and were perfected in cooperation with the Netherlands; Rococo
and nineteenth century Impressionism are French; and eighteenth century Classicism and
Romanticism are basically English.
In this great fugue the voice of Germany is missing. She has never brought forth one of
the universally accepted styles the names of which serve as headings for the of the
History of Art. German psychology is marked by a curious dichotomy clearly reflected in
Luther's doctrine of "Christian Liberty," as well as in Kant's distinction between an "intel-
ligible character" which is free even in a state of material slavery anci an "empirical char-
acter" which is predetermined even in a state of material freedom. The Germans, so easily
regimented in political and military life, were prone to extreme subjectivity and individual-
ism in religion, in metaphysical thought and, above all, in art. "I have to take into considera-
tion," Di.irer says, "the German mentality. Whosoever wants to build something insists on
employing a new pattern the like of which has never been seen before."
Owing to this individualism German art was never able to achieve that standardization,
or harmonious synthesis of conflicting elements, which is the prerequisite of universally
recognized styles. But thanks to this very same quality Germany exerted an international
influence by producing specific iconographical types and works of art which were
accepted and imitated, not as specimens of a collective style but as personal "inventions."
For instance; many of the "Andachtsbilder" ("devotional images") later to spread
throughout Europe are German creations. Devised for private worship, they consist of single
figures strongly appealing to the sentiments of the beholder, or of groups knit by an interplay
of mutual emotions; detached as they are from any scenic or historical context, these images
are suitable for lasting subjective contemplation. They show the isolated Christ with the
Cross on His shoulders instead of the Bearing of the Cross; St. John leaning on the Bosom
of the Lord instead of the Last Supper; the Virgin in Childbed instead of the Nativity; the
Virgin on the Crescent instead of an illustration of Apocalypse XII; and, above all, the
Pi eta instead of the Lamentation of Christ: a lonely Madonna tragically transformed after
the pattern of the grieving mothers in the Slaughter of the Innocent .
. ,.l\.gain in Germany, in the fifteenth century, book printing, engraving and woodcuts for
the time enabled the individual i:o disseminate his ideas all over the world,. It was by
means of the graphic arts that Germany finally attained the rank of a Great Power in the
of art, and this chiefly through the activity of one man who, though famous as
painter, became an international figure only in his capacity of engraver and woodcut designer:
3
4
INTRODUCTION
Albrecht Diirer. His prints set a new standard of graphic perfection for more than a century,
and served as models for countless other prints, as well as for paintings, sculptures, enamels,
tapestries, plaques and faiences, and this not only in Germany, but also in Italy, in France,
in the Low Countries, in Russia, in Spain and indirectly even in Persia.
Albrecht Durer was born in Nuremberg on May 21, 1471, the third child of a hard-
working and not particularly prosperous goldsmith, also called Albrecht. His father had
been born in a small place in Hungary the name of which ("Ajtas") seems to be connected
with the Hungarian word ("Ajt6") for "door," in German "Tur" or "Dur." He had come
to Nuremberg in 1455 and twelve years later had married the daughter of his master
Hieronymus Holper, a girl named Barbara, who was to bear him eighteen children within
twenty-four years.
According to custom, young Durer, too, was intended for the goldsmith's trade, and after
a few years' schooling he became his father's apprentice. This early apprenticeship is more
important than is generally assumed, for it was from his father that the young Durer learned
two things which were to prove essential in his future development.
In the first place he acquired a thorough familiarity with the tools and materials of the
goldsmith's craft, especially with the graver or burin. To engrave a design on a copper plate
is not different in principle from engraving an ornament or a monogram on a silver spoon or
on a gold box, except that the design on the copper plate is intended to be multiplied by
printing. As a matter of fact the greatest engravers of the fifteenth century were originally
not painters or book illuminators but goldsmiths who applied their old technique-almost
as old as art itself-to the new purpose of producing impressions on paper instead of designs
on metal. Engraving in this sense was not practiced in Nuremberg before Durer, and we can
easily understand how much it meant to him to have been taught the use of the burin in his
very boyhood.
In the second place, Albrecht Durer the Elder had had his own training in the Nether-
lands, "with the great masters," as Durer himself expressed it in his little book of family
records. Thus he served as an intermediary between his son and the very fathers of modern
European painting. Young Durer was brought up in the worship and, to some measure in the
tradition of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden and must have longed to
himself with this tradition at its very source.
in a medieval or a Renaissance goldsmith's workshop draftsmanship played a much more
important role than in a modern one where the production is limited to jewelry and plate.
Yet it remained naturally subordinated to the more mechanical work, and Durer, gradually
becoming conscious of his innate gift, asked and finally received permission to enter the
workshop of a painter. On November 30, 1486, having attained a respectable proficiency in
his trade, he was apprenticed to the foremost painter of Nuremberg, Michael Wolge-
mut, With whom he was to stay more than three years. Wolgemut's workshop, like that of
other painters in those days, was a rather large commercial enterprise, with many assistants
who treated the apprentices somewhat roughly. Durer looked back upon these years with
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH
5
mixed feelings, but he never ceased to respect Wolgemut himself, whom he portrayed with
affection and sympathy as late as 1516, three years before the old master's death (7o). While
apprenticed to him, Durer received instruction in all the branches of his art. He learned to
handle the pen and the brush, to copy and draw from life, to do landscapes in gouache and
water color, and to paint with oils. Moreover, woodcuts for illustrated books were produced
in Wolgemut's workshop during Durer's apprenticeship, and the most important of these
books were printed on the presses of his godfather, Anton Koberger, the greatest publisher in'.
Germany. Thus he had occasion to become familiar with a graphic medium that was to play
an outstanding part in his future career, and this not only in the house of his master but also
in the workshops of those designers and cutters who were directly employed by Koberger and
other publishers without belonging to the Wolgemut shop.
In addition to what Durer could learn from Nuremberg artists, he was naturally subject
to whatever outside influences might reach him through drawings and particularly through
prints. Chief among these were the engravings of Martin Schongauer, the great master of
Colmar in Alsace, and the dry points of the Housebook Master, who practiced his spirited
and entirely original art chiefly in the Middle Rhenish region. It is perhaps the lure of this
strange genius that accounts for the bewildering course of Durer's "bachelor's journey."
As was customary with young artists, Durer was sent away as soon as he had finished
his apprenticeship, that is after Easter (April 11 seems that he was supposed to
go to Colmar to work under We learn from an account based on Durer's own
records that he actually appeared there, but that he was too late. Schongauer had died on
. .
February 2, 1491,"'and it was not until the beginning of the following year that Durer reached
Colmar "peragrata Germania," having traveled through the whole o(.G_ermany. Thus
more than a year and a half of traveling rem.,ains for and rise much
speculation and controversy. The mo?t reasonable assumption is that it was the fascination
of the Housebook Master which prevented Durer from finding Schongauer alive. Instead of
going southwest he seems to have gone northwest and to have reached the Rhine, not in the
neighborhood of Strassburg and Colmar but in the neighborhood of Frankfort and Mayence.
Whether he saw the Housebook Master in person we shall probably never know. If so, he
did not stay with him very long, for there is some reason to believe, both on stylistic and
documentary grounds, that he proceeded northward for a visit to Holland whence the
Housebook Master had probably come. Then he turned round and went straight up the
Rhine, arriving in Colmar early in 1492.
?ere he was hospitably received by Schongauer's surviving brothers, the goldsmiths
Caspar and Paul and the painter Ludwig, and benefited, as far as he could, from the tradition
which the great master had left behind him. However, there was little for Durer to do in the
declining workshop at Colmar. The three brothers recommended him, therefore, to their
fourth brother, Georg, who lived as a wealthy and highly respected goldsmith in the city of
Basel, and he received the young painter with that "benevolence and humanity" which was
apparently characteristic of the whole Schongauer family.
6
INTRODUCTION
Basel, where Durer arrived late in the spring or early in the summer of 1492, was one
of the foremost European centers of bookmaking and Durer, the house guest of the distin
guished Georg Schongauer and the godson of Anton Koberger, had every opportunity to
establish contacts with the great publishers. As early as August 8, 1492, Nicolaus Kessler
published an edition of the Letters of St. Jerome, the title page of which bears a portrait of
the Saint by Durer; so great was the success of this woodcut that three other publishers,
Amerbach, Furter and Bergmann von Olpe, asked him to work for them. Young though he
was, he introduced a new style into the book illustration of Basel, and his relationship with
Amerbach developed into a lasting friendship.
In the fall of 1493 Durer left Basel and went to Strassburg. His sojourn in this city is
documented, first, by the entries in an old inventory where we find mention of two portraits,
now lost, of "an old man and his wife, the former having been his master at Strassburg
in 1494"; second, by two woodcuts in Griininger's (or Pruss's'?) Opus speciale Missarum,
published at Strassburg on November 13, 1493 It was apparently from Strassburg that
Durer was "ordered home" to Nuremberg where he arrived after Whitsuntide (May 18)
1494 Here he married a nice, modest girl named Agnes Frey, thus falling in with the plans
of his parents and hers. The final arrangements, providing for a dowry of two hundred florins,
were made after Durer's return, but it is probable that the "negotiations" (to use his own
term) had been under way for some time. His Self-Portrait of 1493, now in the Louvre
(48), seems to have reference to a prospective marriage; the inscription reads: "Myn sach
dy gat als es oben schtat" ("My affairs will go as ordained on high"), and the Eryngium
in his hand is a symbol of "luck in love," more specifically, of a successful match. The
wedding took place on July 7, 1494 But the promise of the Eryngium was not to be fulfilled.
The character of Durer's wife has long been a subject of agitated debate. In her youth
she was fairly good-looking and harmless, but in her later years she turned into a somewhat
forbidding lady. According to some she was a peaceful and good wife who suffered from the
neglect of her famous husband ; according to others she was a real termagant who did every
thing in her power to make his life miserable and practically brought about his death by
forcing him to work incessantly to increase their income. Both parties agree that the childless
marriage was not happy, and of this indeed there are many indications. Aside from certain
references in one of Durer's letters, which, even as jokes, reveal a definite lack of marital
tenderness, his Diary of the Journey into the Netherlands in 1520-21 casts a somewhat
unflattering light on his attitude toward his wife. It was the only journey which the couple
undertook together, but it is doubtful whether he dined with her more than a score of times
during a sojourn of almost a year. Every time he had dinner with one of his many friends
he recorded the fact in his notebook by making a little stroke after the name of the person
in question. But whenever he started a list of "dinners with his wife" (which he did at
periodical intervals) the rows of strokes never seemed to get beyond the first; and when they
had their meals in the inn where they were staying, Durer dined "by himself" or with his
host, while his wife and the maid ate "in the upper kitchen."
MARRIAGE; FRIENDSHIPS
7
This fact, however trivial it may seem, is symptomatic of what was really wrong with
Durer's married life. Agnes Frey thought that the man she had married was a painter in the
late medieval sense, an honest craftsman who produced pictures as a tailor made coats and
suits; but to her misfortune her husband discovered that art was both a divine gift and an
intellectual achievement requiring humanistic learnif1g, a knowledge. oLmathematics and-
the general attainments of a ..U.J:iberah:ulture.'' Durer simply outgrew the intellectual level
of his wife, and neither of 'them can be blamed for feeling uncomfortable.
He loved the company of scholars and scientists, associated with bishops, patricians, noble
men and princes on terms of almost perfect equality, and generally preferred to domesticity
the atmosphere of what might be called clubs ("Stuben"), studios and libraries. She could
not understand why he left her alone in the house and went off to discuss mythology or
mathematics with his learned friends, and why he spent hours on end composing treatises on
the theory of human proportions or on descriptive geometry instead of doing what she would
call practical work. He lived in a world apart from hers which filled her with misgivings,
resentment and jealousy.
Her most intense dislike she reserved for Willibald Pirckheimer, Durer's best friend, who
in later years was to write (though not to dispatch) that famous letter in which he practically
accused her of having killed her husband by her greed and pious nastiness. Pirckheimer was
one year older than Durer, and his lifelong friendship with the painter was in itself an
anomaly, or at least a novelty. Durer was born and brought up in the humble and restricted
circumstances of a lower middle class family. Pirckheimer, on the other hand, was the scion
of one of the oldest and richest patrician families of Nuremberg. He had been reared in all
the arts and sports of chivalry and had studied law and the humanities at the fashionable
universities of Padua and Pavia, thereby becoming a political and military leader of his
community and a great scholar as well. One of the most learned men in an extremely learned
period, he was a huge man of enormous vitality and violent temper, witty, superior, and far
from virtuous. His wife having died after seven and a half years of marriage, he stanchly
refused to renounce the advantages of his bereavement. Surrounded by numerous sisters and
daughters (his only son was an illegitimate child), he lived as a widower up to his death in
1530, his later years being somewhat beclouded by failing health, family troubles and the
political and religious turmoil of the Reformation.
The relationship between this full-blooded humanist and Durer was one of complete
confidence and intimacy, bred out of affection, fostered by a close community of interests and
spiced.with good masculine chaff. Pirckheimer initiated his friend into the Greek and Roman
classics and kept him informed of the developments in contemporary philosophy and arche
ology,; he patiently assisted him in his literary labors and would suggest amusing or cryptic
subjects for prints. Durer in turn provided illustrations for Pirckheimer's writings, hunted
around for him in shops and artists' studios, and illuminated the books in his library, not to
mentionsuch favors as portraits, bookplates and emblematic designs. Both criticized each
other's weaknesses as frankly and good-naturedly as they themselves were teased by their
- - ~
\
8
INTRODUCTION
mutual intimates. Small wonder that Agnes looked upon these friendships with an aversion
fully reciprocated by Pirckheimer.
One instance which reveals the lack of affection between Durer and his wife is the fact
that he left her almost immediately after their honeymoon. In the autumn of 1494 he set
out for a trip to Venice and possibly to some other places such as Padua, Mantua and Cre-
mona. That he actually made such a trip is proved, not only by drawings of landscapes,
costumes, animals and works of art which presuppose Durer's presence in the Tyrol and
North Italy and demonstrably antedate his later journey through these parts, but also by
his own testimony: in a letter from Venice, written on February 7, 1506, he mentions certain
works of art which did not please him any more though he had liked them very much "eleven
years ago." But even if external evidence were lacking, the very evolution of Durer's style
would bear witness to the fact that he had been in Italy, though certainly not in Rome, long
before he "revisited it"-to borrow a phrase from a contemporary writer-in 1505.
It has been said that Durer fled from a plague which had broken out in Nuremberg in
the summer of 1494. But while this epidemic may account for his leaving town (though not
for his leaving his wife), it does not justify his going so far. To Durer, the lure of Italy was
twofold: he would see Pirckheimer who was then a student at Pavia, and he would breathe
the air of a southern world where classical Antiquity had been reborn. After Durer had blazed
the trail it became almost a matter of course for Northern artists and art-lovers to go to Italy.
However, in the fifteenth century the Mecca and Medina of German painters were still
Bruges and Ghent. Aside from some borderline cases such as Michael Pacher who worked in
the southern part of the Tyrol and was half German and half Italian by direct tradition, the
art of the Italian Quattrocento had not exerted any appreciable influence in the North. In
France there were of course Foucquet and his followers; but in the Netherlands only some
ornamental details, such as classicizing garlands, medallions and putti, were timidly taken
over toward the very end of the century, and in the Germany which Durer left the only
reflection of the Italian Renaissance was to be found in a few copies in pen or woodcut of
Italian drawings and prints. Yet these scattered messages, together with what Durer
could learn in the humanistic circles normally inaccessible to young German painters, sufficed
to show him a "new kingdom" beyond the Alps, and he set out to conquer it. Durer's first
trip to Italy, brief though it was, may be called the beginning of the Renaissance in the
Northern Countries. He became at once possessed with a passionate wish that was to become
one of the persistent purposes of his life; he felt that somehow the German artists should
participate in the "regrowth" ("Wiedererwachsung") of all 'the arts brought about by the
Italians "in the last one hundred and fifty years after they had been in hiding for a millen-
nium."
After his return from Italy in the spring of 1495 Durer settled down to about ten years of
an incredible productivity which even an illness in 1503 did not interrupt. Besides numerous
paintings he produced, between 1495 and 1500 alone, more than sixty engravings and wood-
cuts which, printed on his own presses, brought him at once international fame. In 1502 he
TWO TRIPS TO ITALY; MATURITY
9
lost his father to whom he had been much attached, and two years later he took his mother
into his house, where she lived up to her death in 1514.
In the summer or fall of 1505 Durer set out for a second trip to Italy, the direct cause, it
seems, being again an outbreak of the plague. He broke his journey in Augsburg, and his
friendly relations with the prominent members of Augsburg society may have been instru-
mental in securing for him, upon his arrival in Venice, the most honorable commission for
which a German painter could hope: the execution of an altarpiece for the altar of Our Lady
in the national church of the German colony, S. Bartolommeo.
Durer stayed abroad about a year and a half, busily working at this and other paintings,
and gleaning information in the field of art theory wherever he could. By the middle of
October 1506 he announced his intention to come home as soon as he would have returned
from Bologna where he expected to receive instruction in the "secret art of perspective," but
his actual departure was delayed until January 1507. Since his first letter from Venice-that
is, the first one preserved-is dated January 6, 1506 some scholars believe that he might have
used the last months of 1505 for a trip to Florence, but this conjecture is not yet supported
by sufficient evidence; a stay in Padua, on the other hand, is attested by his portrait in a
fresco, ascribed to Giulio Campagnola, in the "Scuola del Carmine."
Much honored by his German friends and by the Venetian nobility, and much envied by
his Italian fellow-artists (except for old Giovanni Bellini with whom he lived on terms of
mutual friendship and esteem), Durer finally reappeared in Nuremberg in February 1507,
more than ever convinced of his mission and full of envious admiration for the social position
and encyclopedic culture attained by the Italian artists during the fifteenth century. "How
shall I long for the sun in the cold," he had written to Pirckheimer; "here I am a gentleman,
at home I am a parasite." t
Not long after his return he bought a stately house, settled down to study languages and
mathematics, made the first draft of a great treatise on the theory of art, the gradual elabora-
tion of which was to occupy him up to his death, and in a touching attempt at real universality,
he even tried to write verse. Thus he developed more and more into an "erudite" artist,
capable of collaborating with scholars and scientists and fully participating in the intellectual
movements of his period. It was not only because of his competence as a painter and drafts-
man but also because of his humanistic qualities that he was employed by the Emperor
Maximilian I, the relationship beginning 1512 and developing in a way equally honorable
both to t h ~ artist and to the Emperor.
Apart from short occasional trips (in 1517, for instance, he went to Bamberg; in the
following year he visited Augsburg where he portrayed Jacob Fugger the Rich, the Emperor
Maximilian and several notables attending the Diet; and it is possible, though by no means
certain, that he was in Frankfort in 1508) nothing interrupted Durer's quiet and laborious
life until the untimely death of the Emperor on January 12, 1519. On September 6, 1515,.
he had favored Durer with a pension of a hundred florins a year which, though it came in
rather irregularly, was not to be despised. To obtain its continuation Durer determined at once
z-
L -
10
INTRODUCTION
to see the Emperor's successor, Charles V, even if he would have to go to Spain or to England
to meet him. These panic-stricken projects did not materialize, and instead Durer accom-
panied his friend Pirckheimer on a brief excursion to Switzerland whence they returned at
the beginning of July. The next year, however, Charles V went to the Netherlands and
Aix-la-Chapelle where Durer could approach him much more easily. It was for this reason,
or at least with this excuse, that he set out for his last major voyage. He left Nuremberg on
July 12, 1520, accompanied by his wife and by a maid, and stayed a whole year, returning in
July 1521.
He came home, intellectually refreshed by innumerable new experiences, successful in
his business with the new Emperor, and overwhelmed with honors, but physically a broken
man. Insatiably interested in every curious thing produced by man or nature, he had ventured
into the mosquito swamps of Zeeland to look at a whale which had been washed ashore. The
whale had disappeared before Durer could see it, but he contracted a -malarial fever which
slowly and irresistibly undermined his health. He spent the rest of his life in Nuremberg (a
trip to Livonia, allegedly undertaken after his journey to the Netherlands, is wholly improb-
able), and remained indefatigably at work up to the very end. He died on April 6, 1528,
leaving behind him more than six dozen paintings, more than a hundred engravings, about
two hundred a:nd fifty woodcuts, more than a thousand drawings, and three printed books
on geometry, fortification and the theory of human proportions, the last of which appeared
about six months after his death. His tomb can still be seen in the "Johannes-Friedhof" in
Nuremberg. Embossed on a simple plaque of bronze is one of the most moving epitaphs ever
composed, a last tribute of Pirckheimer's unfaltering friendship: "Quicquid Alberti Dureri
mortale fuit, sub hoc conditur tumulo"-"Whatever was mortal of Albrecht Durer is cov-
ered by this tomb."
"'
As WITH MOST GREAT MEN the image of Durer has changed according to the periods and
minds in which it has been reflected.
As to his per:;;onal character there could be little diversity of opinion. He lived and lives .
in everybody's memory as a man at once good and human. Of rather delicate health,
handsome and more than a little vain of his good looks, he was the most loyal of citizens, the
most faithful of Christians, the most conscientious of craftsmen and the best of friends. His
simple habits and meticulous accuracy in money matters did not interfere with his natural
generosity; with his love for good company and with his innocent passion for collecting. For,
in queer little animals, in rare plants and stones, in tortoise-shells and quaintly shaped nuts,
in fans and spears manufactured by American natives he admir,ed Him Who had created
"wondrous things" and had endowed the people in far-off lands with "subtle ingenia."
Sure of his genius, yet he remained simple and affable and was ready to befriend his fellow
artist wherever he could. He loved recognition and was made happy by every token of kind-
ness and esteem because he was humble and honest; for only pride will spurn the admiration
of others and only hypocrisy will pretend to do so. His sense of humor and genuine modesty
.
I
\
LATER LIFE; DEATH; JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY 11
prevented him from being either resentful or overbearing. When his friends made their
standing joke about his well-kept beard, or when a sarcastic man of letters ridiculed his
awkward attempts at poetry, he would reply in jocular vein and remain on the best of terms
with his critics. When Pirckheimer was boastful of his exploits in scholarship or diplomacy
Durer would answer, amicably including himself in his reproof: "How good we feel, both
of us, I with my picture and you cum voster wisdom. When we are pra:sed we turn up our
noses and believe it all. But there might stand a nasty mocker behind us abd scoff at us."
As to the character of Durer's art there was and is less unanimity of opinion. His greatness
was instantaneously recognized and never questioned, but the distinctive qualities of this
greatness were variously defined. His Italian contemporaries dbjected to his handling of
color, to his anachronisms in settings and costume and to his lack of true "classical" spirit,
but they admired him as a supreme technician in the field of woodcut and engraving and
praised his teeming the awakening ofa regional patriotism in
-n:orthern Italy he became, for Lomazzo, the "grand Druid" of art; and in Bologna he was
credited with more important contributions to the Renaissance than Raphael and Michelan-
:.::-gero. To Joachim Sandrart, the Vasari of the Northern Baroque (who devised a tenth Muse
named Teutillis, exclusively engaged in superintending the art of the Germans), Durer was
mainly an "industrious" man, but also undeniably a great inventor and faithful observer of the
"true rules of art." To the young Goethe he meant vigor and unyielding, "woodcarved"
manliness while the Goethe of the "Venetian Epigrams" objected to the "brain-confusing"
phantasmagorias of the Apocalypse; and the Goethe of the "Weimarer Kunstfreunde" ad-
mired the humor and all-embracing universality of the Prayer-Book of Maximilian I.
Wilhelm Heinse-opposing and opposed by Goethe in more than one respect-reiterated
the opinion of the Italian Renaissance in more violent terms; "Durer could never wholly out-
grow the goldsmith's apprentice from Nuremberg; in his works there is a diligence approach-
ing anxiety which never permitted him to attain to broad vision and sublimity ... ; Proserpine
abducted by Pluto on a billy-goat, Diana clubbing a Nymph in the arms of a Satyr-all this
reveals his misguided imagination though he is otherwise a competent master of power and
strength." The German Romanticists, finally, liked to think of Durer as a meek and pious
soul wholly devoted to the interpretation of Christian subjects and "contented with a quiet
and dependent life, never forgetting that an artist is nothing but a workman of God."
One of these Romanticists, however, Carl Gustav Carus, sensed an altogether different
quality in Durer's disposition. Basing his interpretation on the engraving Melencolia I, he
discovered a Faustian element in a restless craving for_a perfection never to
and an acute awarenessofproblems never to be resolved. Carus's statements are
not free from exaggerations and positive errors (he went so far as to identify the "Melencolia"
with Dr. Faustus in person); yet they do justice to what is perhaps the most significant aspect
of Durer's personality.
The very fact that the most productive artist of a country previously averse to theorizing
in t?e field of art should have felt the urge to undertake scientific treatises on perspective,
12
INTRODUCTION
human proportions, etc., reveals a tension between conflicting psychological impulses. Durer
was the most patient observer of realistic details and was enamored of the most "objective"
of all techniques, line engraving in copper; yet he was a visionary, "full of inward figures,"
to quote his own characteristic words. Convinced that the power of artistic creation was a
"mystery," not to be taught, not to be learned, not to be accounted for except by the. grace
of God and "influences from above," he yet craved rational principles. He felt that w1thout
"Kunst"-that is, knowledge-art was a haphazard mixture of thoughtless imitation,
irrational fancy and blindly accepted practice ("Brauch"). He frankly admitted that the
German artists of his period, however excellent in technique and natural talent, lacked the
indispensable complement of what he called the "right foundations" ("rechter Grund"), and
he spent half his life trying to cure this deficiency. Yet he untiringly repeated that theoretical
rules were incapable of doing justice to the "infinite complexity of God's creation," and that
their value was sorely limited, not only by the inequality of individual gifts and tastes but
also by the finiteness of human reason as such: "For, the lie is inherent in our very cognition."
The famous studies from life where every hair in the fur of a little hare and every grass
and herb in a piece of turf are studied and rendered with a devotion closely akin to religious
worship are by the same man who, precisely in the same years, subjected the human body to
a system of lines and circles no less rigid than a construction in Euclid. While Durer's imagi-
nation seethed with the phantasmagorias of the Apocalypse he strove to rival the Italians in
female nudes as gracefully sensuous and well-proportioned as he could possibly make them.
While he pondered over the projection of regular and semi-regular solids and contrived an
apparatus to achieve correct perspective images by mechanical methods he executed etchings
in which space seems to dissolve into a welter of unearthly shapes.
To ascribe this interior tension solely to the impact of the Italian on the
mind of a German artist trained in the Late Gothic tradition would be too simple. Even if
it were true that a humble reverence for particulars, combined with the mystical conception
of "inspiration from above," were exclusivelY: "Northern" (in reality the "inspired genius"
was a discovery of the Florentine Neo-Platonists), and that, conversely, the search for uni-
versals and the tendency toward rationalization were exclusively Italian: even then it would
be more correct to say that Durer's yearning for Italy was caused by an innate conflict in his
mind than that the conflict in his mind was caused by the influence of Italy. The contact with
artists like Barbari and Bellini, Pollaiuolo and Mantegna, Lorenzo di Credi and Raphael,
and with thinkers like Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci is not responsible for the dual nature
of Durer's genius; it merely made it conscious and articulate. "
r Perhaps there is no more characteristic manifestation of. Durer's than a water
color drawing in which he tried to record a nightmarish dream which had left him "trembling
all over" when This drawing ( 1410) shows huge streams of water pouring from the
sky, and it is explained by the following text: "In the year 1525, after Whitsun tide, in the
night between Wednesday and Thursday, I saw this vision in my sleep, how many big waters
fell from the firmament. And the first hit the earth about four miles from myself with great
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
violence and with enormous noise, and drowned the whole land. So frightened was I thereby
that I woke before the other waters fell. And these were huge. Some of them fell far away,
some closer, and they came from such a height that they seemed to fall with equal speed .... "
Even in the grip of a nightmare Durer could not help observing the exact number of miles
which seemed to separate him from the imaginary event, and to draw logical conclusions
from the apparent speed of the falling waters to the distance whence they cam::.J
THE ACTIVITIEs OF ARTISTS are generally divided into three periods, early, middle and late. 0-
This scheme, however rudimentary, is not only based on an analogy to where
we distinguish between youth, maturity and old age, but has some justification in history.
However great an artist may be, he will normally begin by absorbing the tradition prevailing
at the time of his youth, and by taking a definite attitude toward it. During his second phase,
formerly often called his "best period," he will develop a entirely his own and, if he
is strong enough, create a tradition himself. In the lastphase, finally, he may either continue
with the style of his maturity in a more or less mechanical way and thereby cease to be
productive, or else-and this applies to the greatest only-he will outgrow the tradition
established by himself. In both cases this "late period" will mean a certain isolation, and
it depends on the artist's stature whether this is a "splendid" or a pathetic one.
Minor personalities will end as the mannerists of their own "classic" style and will be left
behind by younger artists-great masters will do the opposite; while followers and imitators
will continue to work, with suitable concessions to a changing taste, along the lines laid down
by the great master in his middle period, the great master himself will venture into entirely
new regions inaccessible to any of his contemporaries. He, tso, will therefore cease to have an
immediate following and often forfeit his former popularity, not because he is "outmoded"
but because he has overstepped the limits of contemporary understanding. The latest works of
Rembrandt, Titian, Michelangelo and Beethoven are cases in point.
When applying this tripartite scheme to the evolution of Durer we are not wholly satis-
fied. In his case, too, we may distinguish between the customary three phases. We may
classify the works produced up to Durer's second pilgrimage to Italy in 1505 as "early," the
works produced between 1505 and his departure for the Netherlands in 1520 as "middle
period," and the works produced between 1520 and 1528 as "late." Such a division is,
however, not entirely adequate to the specific character of Durer's c:euvre. The influence
exerted in his "middle period" does riot predominate so distinctly over that of his "early"
and "'late'' productions as is the rule with other great masters; the imitators, especially in
foreign countries, even preferred his early woodcuts and engravings to his "classic" ones.
Durer's last works, on the other hand, though clearly distinguished from the preceding ones
by a new rigor and austerity, are not so incommensurable and inaccessible as is the "ultima
maniera" of Titian, Rembrandt or Michelangelo. It is also characteristic of Durer that he
did not hesitate to execute paintings or engravings on the basis of drawings made many years
before. When Rubens or Titian "repeated" earlier compositions in their late years the style
14
INTRODUCTION
thereof was changed as thoroughly as the style of Diabelli in Beethoven's variations. Durer
used a drawing of 1498 for an engraving of 1513, or a landscape study of about 1495 for an
engraving of 1519 without any appreciable change.
Thus Durer's evolution seems to differ from that of other great artists by a peculiar
invariability or constancy. Nevertheless, his development passed through numerous changes
too rapid to coincide with the three major periods, yet too distinct to be neglected. Durer's
evolution, though it seems to be steadier than that of other great masters, is governed by a
principle of oscillation which leads to a cycle of what may be called short periods; and the
alternation of these short periods overlaps the sequence of the customary three phases. The
constant struggle between reason and intuition, generalizing formalism and particularizing
realism, humanistic self-reliance and medieval humility was bound to produce a certain
rhythm comparable to the succession of tension, action and regression in all natural life, or
to the effect of two interfering waves of light or sound in physics. A mutual of
conflicting impulses produced a "maximum," and each "maximum" was preceded and fol-
lowed by phases of tension or release.
It is according to the sequence of these short periods, which, except for the first and the
last, have a tendency to comprise about five years each, that Durer's works will be presented
in the following chapters.
I Apprenticeship and Early Years of Travel,
1
484-
1
495
T
HE first phase of Durer's development-by definition a preliminary one-begins
with his apprenticeship under his father. The works which bear witness to his
activity in this brief period are only three in number, but they could not be more
varied in subject matter and medium.
One of these precious documents is a chalk drawing of a young Lady Falconer (1270),
not very different from what was typical in the South German schools of the 'eighties, yet
distinguished by a fine, eager susceptivity for lively movement and juvenile gracefulness.
The second is a pen drawing dated 1485 (649). Already signed with Durer's initials, it
aims at monumentality where the drawing of the young huntress is cheerfully informal. The
composition, consisting of a Madonna symmetrically flanked by musical angels, may reflect
an altarpiece or possibly a mural of Durer's native region. But the poses of the angels are
again somewhat easier and more fluently rendered than was customary in Nuremberg; in fact
they seem to announce the youthful artist's predisposition for the suppler style of Rhenish
masters such as Martin Schongauer.
The third work, a drawing in silver point, is probably the earliest but certainly the most
important of the group. It is the well-known Self-Portrait of 1484, "made out of a mirror," as
Durer's.later inscription states (996, fig. 1). The features of the man are distinctly recog-
nizable in those of the boy: the slightly Mongolian eyes well-defined cheekbones (per-
haps inherited from Hungarian forefathers), the high-bridged, rather protruding nose and
the small, sensitive, bud-like mouth. The drawing is remarkable in many other ways. It is
unusual that a boy of thirteen should have made his own portrait at all, particularly in a
period when the self-portrait was not yet an accepted genre of painting. It is surprising that
this boy should have been able to solve the technical problem of such an undertaking as well
as he did. And it is even more extraordinary that he should have chosen to use silver point, a
most exacting medium which permits neither corrections nor emphasis by mere pressure, and
thus demands an unusual degree of assurance, precision and sensibility.
The technique of silver point originated, it seems, in the workshops of book illuminators
rather than in those of painters, and was brought to perfection in Flanders where it was
especially employed for careful copies and for studies from life. It was apparently not in favor
with the Nuremberg painters of the fifteenth century who used pen and ink even for portrait
drawing. But Durer's father, we remember, had spent his early years "with the great masters"
of the Netherlands. Is it to his instruction that we owe the astonishing performance of his
young
16 APPRENTICESHIP AND EARLY TRAVEL
Proof of this assumption is furnished by another portrait drawing, also in silver point and
very similar to Durer's precocious masterpiece in general arrangement ( 1016, fig. 2). There
can be no doubt that this drawing represents Durer's father. His identity can be firmly estab-
lished, not only by the silver statuette which he proudly carries as an attribute of his pro-
fession, but also by his unmistakable resemblance to the two portraits painted by his son,
especially the one of 1490 in the Uffizi (52, fig. 31). The authorship of the drawing, how-
ever, is still controversial. It has been attributed to Albrecht Durer the Younger, but this
assumption must be discarded for reasons both stylistic and, if one may say so, iconographical.
The portrait of the father is sober and reticent where that of the son is eloquently spirited,
and it suffers from a profusion of detail not entirely subordinated to a unified pattern. But it
excels in a technical delicacy and in an almost metallic precision compared to which the work
of the boy looks experimental and rough.
Even if this contrast in style and interpretation were less fundamental, the portrait of
Albrecht Durer the Elder could not be ascribed to his ingenious son. An artist portraying
himself in three-quarter profile and in half length is confronted by two problems: first, how
to render his right hand (which, of course, appears as his left in the portrait); second, how
to render his own eyes. His right hand eludes observation because it is engaged in handling
the pencil or pen, and his eyes cannot look at the mirror and at the drawing at the same time.
It is precisely in these two respects that the two drawings here under discussion reveal em- ''
barrassment. In both cases the left hand (that is, in reality, the right) is carefully kept out
of sight by the other forearm, and the eyes have a curious, slightly squinting stare which
indicates that the irises and pupils were not portrayed from life but were filled in later.
Thus the portrait drawing of Albrecht Durer the Elder resembles that of Albrecht Durer
the Younger, not because they are both by the same artist, but because they are both self-
portraits and were made in competition, so to speak. In portraying himself "out of a
mirror" the son chose the same medium and the same pose that his father had used; and he
used the same trick to hide the "working hand" and drew in the irises and pupils after the rest
was finished. No doubt his work surpassed that of his father in freshness and intensity, but
he could not yet compete with him in technical perfection. A silver point drawing of an
Armored Knight (St. George'?), strikingly similar to the portrait of Albrecht Durer the
Eld,er in style and technique ( 1233), must therefore also be ascribed to the father and not
to the son.
MICHAEL WoLGEMUT, whose workshop young Durer entered in 1486, shares the misfortune
of many other artists who happened to be the early masters of a genius: their works tend to
be contemplated only to enhance the greatness of their pupils instead of being measured by
their own standards. "Secondo la natura di quei tempi," as Vasari would say, Wolgemut'
was a highly respectable and even important figure in German fifteenth century art. In 1473
he had married the widow, and inherited the workshop, of Hans Pleydenwurff, presumably
his former employer. Wolgemut developed the shop into an enterprise of wide repute receiv-
I
THE NUREMBERG TRADITION
ing commissions not only from Nuremberg but also from fairly distant communities. So
much work was turned out that it is hard to single out the master's personal contribution from
that of his collaborators. So far as we can see, he was decidedly progressive. The style of
Hans Pleydenwurff, like that of his anonymous contemporary, the "Landauer Master," was
rooted in the tradition of Rogier van der Weyden and Dirk Bouts and aimed at quiet dignity,
at spaciousness and realism in the treatment of landscapes and interiors, and at coloristic
refinement. Wolgemut tried to keep abreast of the tendencies which came to the fore in the
last quarter of the century; engravings by Martin Schongauer and others, as well as Italian
prints and drawings, were demonstrably copied and employed in his workshop. In deference
to the spirit of what has been called the "Late Gothic Baroque" he endeavored to enrich and
to enliven the traditional schemes of composition-at times to such an extent that figures and
backgrounds merge into' a single, somewhat confused but highly ornamental pattern. Wolge-
mut and his followers were interested in dramatic. force rather than in "beauty," and sharp-
ened the characterization of human nature to a degree little short of caricature. They compli-
cated and intensified the movements of their figures with no regard for dignity or even clarity,
and liked to develop the draperies into tangly masses of angular ridges and hollows con-
trasting with violently curvilinear contours (fig. 3).
This cramped and agitated style was not, however, the only one which could impress
itself on Durer's mind during his stay with Wolgemut. The qualities of the earlier tradition
-those of Hans Pleydenwurff and the "Landauer Master" -survived in a more delicate and,
so to speak, attenuated form, in such important works as the altarpiece of the "Augustiner-
kirche" (formerly mistakenly called the "Peringsdorffer altarpiece") which was completed in
1487, the second year of Durer's apprenticeship. Its panels are uneven in quality (those
signed with the problematic monogram R.F. are definitely' not the most important ones),
but some of them belong to the most sensitive and moving creations of German fifteenth
century art, for instance the St. Luke painting the Virgin, or the Crucified Christ descending
from the Cross to embrace St. Bernard (fig. 4). Such a subject would have presented no prob-
lem to high medieval art; but a master committed to the principles of Flemish realism must
be admired for having endowed the dead body of a human being with the dignity of a hieratic
image miraculously enlivened.
Whether this altarpiece was produced by a comparatively independent group of artists
within the W olgemut shop or in an altogether different workshop, and whether Wilhelm
Pleydenwurff, Wolgemut's stepson and associate in various enterprises, had any part in it,
are open But that Durer saw the Pseudo-Peringsdorffer aitarpiece in statu nascendi
is certain: one of its panels-St. Vitus HeaHng a Man Poss.essed-shows a boyish face
strikingly similar to Durer's self-portrait of 1484; the intensely absorbed St. Luke, too,
looks, curiously enough, as Durer was to look a few years later. Whoever painted this
enigmatical altarpiece must have observed young Albrecht with affection and understanding.
Thus Durer's training in painting was by no means one-sided. The Portrait of his father
in the Uffizi, done at the end of his apprenticeship (52, fig. 31), combines Wolgemut's
APPRENTICESHIP AND EARLY TRAVEL
"siveness and energy of outline with a reticence in color and a quiet insight into human
lOCI I " " d" .
character more reminiscent of Pleydenwurff. Also denved from the conservattv_e tra 1t10n
Durer's amazing landscape studies in water color and gouache, such as the Lznden Trees,
are ) T b
the "Johanneskirchhof" and the Wz"re-drawing Mill (1367-1369, figs. 6, 7 hey nng
t mind the enticing details found in the backgrounds of pictures by Pleydenwurff (fig. 5),
"Landauer Master" and the Master of the Pseudo-Peringsdorffer altarpiece (see the
effect of the house near the water in the St. Bernard panel) ; such details must indeed
have been preceded by studies from nature quite similar to Durer's in style and technique.
However, Durer's most fundamental experience during his years with Wolgemut was his
initiation into a field quite new to him, and one in which Wolgemut achieved lasting distinc
tion: the making of woodcuts.
A woodcut is a relief print. A block of wood, sawed along the grain, is covered with a white
ground on which the composition can be drawn in ink. Then the block is a way
that wood is removed on either side of what is intended to appear as a dark hne In the tmpres
sion. It is to the remaining crests or ridges that the ink is applied in order to be transferred
to the paper. Woodcut lines have thus a minimum width beyond which the crests or ridges
cannot be narrowed without breaking, and they are separated by intervals which cannot be
diminished indefinitely.
The earliest woodcuts, dating from the first quarter of the fifteenth century, show, there
fore, nothing but a skeleton of sturdy lines with ample blank spaces in between; when they
were illuminated with water colors, a very. common practice, the effect was comparable to
that of stained-glass windows. It was but gradually and, as it were, reluctantly, that hatching
began to rival hand coloring and ultimately replaced it, so that the printed pattern itself
gave some illusion of the third dimension. Cheap and adaptable to many purposes, these
earliest woodcuts-mostly simplified replicas of paintings, miniatures and even sculptures
-were tacked to walls, pasted on furniture, boxes and book covers, or mounted on panels
so as to serve as sma:ll, inexpensive icons or altarpieces.
At times the pictures were explained by text carved on the same block, and an extension
of this principle led to the so-called "block-books" which made their first appearance about
1
455 and were to linger on to the end of the century. But the really important step was taken
when the impressions ceased to be made by hand and the use of presses set in; this permitted
the development of linear patterns so dense and intricate that they would have been hope
lessly blurred if printed by hand. This innovation occurred when woodcuts began to he used
for the illustration of books printed with movable letters. The first instance on record is
Boner's Edelstein of 1461; but by 1470/7 5 the making of woodcuts for printed books had
become an organized practice, and the use of presses was soon extended to single prints.
In many cases the cuts continued to be mere transcriptions of the hand-painted miniatures
found in the manuscripts about to be published, as is the case with the popular Augsburg
Calendars, with Bamler's "Alexander" of 1473, with Quentell's Cologne Bible of about
I479 and with Colard Mansion's Ovide Moralise of 1484, to mention only a few well-
THE WOODCUT IN NUREMBERG: WOLGEMUT
known examples. In the 'eighties, however, the designing of woodcuts for illustrated books
developed into an independent profession. Yet the style of the cuts remained a comparatively
simple and purely graphic one, with most of the shading obtained by short, straight lines in
parallel series; the publishers would often divide the editions into two classes: copies "de
luxe" with hand-colored woodcuts and ordinary ones with woodcuts in black and white. The
illustrators acted, so far as we know, as employees of the publishers, whereby the work tended
to be divided between designers, cutters and, in larger enterprises, copyists ("Formzeichner")
who had to adapt the compositions from sketches and studies and transfer them to the blocks.
It is to Wolgemut that credit is due for having emancipated the art of woodcut designing
from the domination of publishers and for having vindicated for painters what had been a
domain of professional "illustrators." Instead of being employed by a printer he associated
himself with his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, enlisted the financial support of two
capitalists named Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, and then proceeded to
employ a printer; this printer, by the way, was none other than Anton Koberger, the god-
father of Durer. As a result of this arrangement there appeared two justly famous publica-
tions, the Schatzbehalter of 1491 and Hartmann Schedel's "Nuremberg Chronicle" of 1493,
in which the accent of responsibility, the relative importance of the illustrations as compared
to the text, and the character of the woodcuts as such were basically changed. Not only did
the woodcuts in these two volumes surpass most previous efforts in number and size-the
"Chronicle" contains no less than 645 (or, according to a more recent count, even 6 52) differ-
ent cuts, some of them as large as about 10 by 15 inches-they also opened up a new vision
of the representational and expressive possibilities of the medium. Some of the woodcuts, for
instance the scenes from Genesis or the Dance of the Dead (fig. g), attain genuine monu-
mentality. Yet their style, in spite of considerable differences in quality, is always definitely
"pictorial." The illusion of depth is intensified by bold foreshortenings, strong contrasts in
size, suggestions of aerial perspective and a dramatic use of "repoussoirs" (fig. 8). Cast
shadows and reflections in water or crystal are freely employed, and the modelling, with
frequent cross-hatchings, is so rich that the addition of color spoils rather than improves the
effect. Moreover-and this is the most striking encroachment on the domain of metal engrav-
ing and painting-phenomena like smoke and flames, and the texture of such materials as
metal, glass and velvet are rendered by making the lines merge into frayed masses of black.
Where the woodcuts were copied from such emphatically "graphic" models as the topo-
graphical illustrations in Breydenbach's "Pilgrimage to the Holy Land," or in Foresti's
Chronicarum, a fundamental change in style makes Wolgemut's intentions
all the more evident.
Sticklers for stylistic purity may object to his illusionistic devices as though to a sin
against the spirit of the woodcut and against the aesthetic requirements of book illustration.
It cannot be denied that the contemporary woodcut designers in Italy (and, in most instances,
in France )were more intensely conscious of the essentially graphic quality of the medium and
of the problem of achieving an aesthetic harmony between the picture and the letterpress.
20
Not only such typographical masterpieces as the Hypnerotomachia Polyphili, Lorenzo
Rossi's De Claris Mulieribus, or the Naples "Aesop" of 1485, but also the more modest Italian
books show an economy and purity of style which makes the illustration "fit the page" as a
gobelin fits the wall. Renouncing pictorial ambitions in favor of a decorative effect, these
woodcuts form a varied yet transparent pattern of clean-cut lines and unbroken surfaces in
black and white which harmonizes to perfection with the aesthetic character of the letter-
press. In comparison, the woodcuts in Wolgemut's "Chronicle" seem to lack discipline and
taste; but just for this reason they are richer in force and potentialities. The I tal ian books
were illustrated by professional specialists-the "Nuremberg Chronicle" and the Schatzbe-
halter were an adventure of artists accustomed to express themselves in what is called a
"major art." In embarking upon this adventure Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff immeasurably,
though perhaps unduly, widened the scope and raised the ambitions of what had been a
secondary medium, and thereby paved the way for Durer and Holbein. True, these two mas-
ters had to discipline the excessively pictorial style of Wolgemut's woodcuts, and Holbein
even tried to temper the German manner with the transparency of the French and Italian.
But the act of pruning presupposes the tree, and the tree was growing in Wolgemut's garden
while Durer served his apprenticeship.
For, though the Schatzbehalter and "Nuremberg Chronicle" did not appear until 1491
and 1493 respectively, .we know that the preparations, at least for the "Chronicle," were
well under way long before the final contract was signed (December 29, 1491). In this docu-
ment mention is made of woodblocks already cut; Wolgemut's masterly "Visierung" for
the title page bears the date 1490, and preliminary negotiations between the two painters and
the two capitalists started as early as 1487/88. Several woodcuts in the "Chronicle" appear
indeed to be earlier than those in the Schatzbehalter. The "Chronicle" came out at a later
date only because it contains a much greater number of illustrations.
It is even possible and, I think, not improbable that young Durer was allowed to partici-
pate, in a small way, in the work on the "Chronicle." Its 645-or 652-woodcuts had natu-
rally tD be allotted to a great number of workers, whereas the illustrations of the Schatzbe-
halter are much more homogeneous in style and execution. Setting aside some incidental
details such as plants and ornaments, Durer's ingenious though inexperienced hand, which
could not yet have learned to make a difference between an ordinary pen drawing and a
woodcut design, might possibly be recognized in a few illustrations of small size and unortho-
dox treatment. Chief among these is the representation of the beautiful sorceress Circe and
her lovers (435, k, 3; fig. 10 ), the only mythological scene in the "Chronicle." It is distin-
guished by a peculiar imaginative charm and by a style of drawing which obviously presented
difficulties to the cutter; the heroine herself is reminiscent of the Lady Falconer already men-
tioned (1270).
As will be remembered, there was at work in Nuremberg at the time another group of
woodcut designers not connected with the Wolgemut shop but directly employed by Koberger
and other publishers. Though many of these were probably native artists who could not alto-
THE WOODCUT IN NUREMBERG: "ALIEN" CUTTERS 21
gether free themselves from local traditions the leader must come from "abroad";
style is not derived from Nuremberg sources and is so closely akm to that of the m
the "Ulm Terence" of 1486 (printed by Conrad Dinckmut) that a direct connectwn cannot
be questioned.
This "Ulmian style," which first appeared in Koberger's "Lives of the Saints" of 1488
and suddenly vanished after two or three years, is very different from that of W olgemut.
Where the woodcuts in the Schatzbehalter and in the "Chronicle" are succulently pictorial in
treatment, comprehensive in interpretation and often monumental in size and spirit, those
in Koberger's "Lives of the Saints" (fig. 11), Ayrer's "Bruder Claus" (fig. 12) or Wagner's
"Pfarrer vom Kalenberg" are strictly graphic in style, epigrammatically concise in their
narrative and small in format. The modelling is frequently reduced to a minimum, and inci-
dentals such as trees, hills and houses are indicated by shorthand abbreviations. As in the
"Ulm Terence," details like windows, doors, shoes, etc. are turned into opaque black spots
which produce a startling silhouette effect when placed within the comparatively large blank
areas; the smallish figures move rapidly yet stiffly, not unlike marionettes (435, a-c).
Owing to his and his master's friendly relations with Koberger, Durer of course had
access to the workshops of these "alien" illustrators. That their style made a lasting
impression on him would be unquestionable even if his St. Jerome of 1492 (414, fig. 32) were
the one and only woodcut produced during his bachelor's journey. Whether he actually partici-
pated in their work is, however, a different question. That an apprentice, even a gifted one,
should have taken a really important part in the work of book illustrators not connected with
his own employer is ipso facto improbable. Only occasional and modest contributions would
seem to be possible, and these might be expected to show a less "professional" touch and a
more marked influence of Wolgemut's pictorial tendencies is the case with the general run
of woodcuts in the "Ulmian" style. The imaginative representation of Hell in Wagner's
Allerhailsamste W arnung (435, e, 3) and the title page of Stuchs's Gersonis Opera (435, h)
seem to be the most convincing attributions to Durer.
While Durer's active participation in the woodcut production of 1488-1490 remains a
matter of some pen drawings of this period are of unquestionable authenticity: an
impassioned Crucifixion (586 ), a Group of Lansquenets ( 1220 ), a vigorous Battle of Horse-
men ( 1221 ), and a sprightly Cavalcade of fashionable young people setting out for a ride
(124-<i, fig. 13); all are dated 1489 except for the Crucifixion which is no doubt the latest
work in the group.
Some of these drawings, particularly the Cavalcade, which may be compared with such
prints' as the one illustrated in fig. 14, already reveal the influence of that perplexing genius
who was to divert Durer's bachelor's journey from its prescribed course: the House book
Master, .as he is now named from the "Hausbuch" of Wolfegg Castle, a miscellaneous
manuscript containing information about numerous "subjects useful and curious," or the
Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, as he used to be called after the most complete collection
of his prints.
22
The Housebook Master and Schongauer were the greatest "Peintres Graveurs" of their
generation, but they were antipodes in every respect. Schongauer, having started his career
in a goldsmith's workshop, was a supreme engraver who also made paintings. The House book
Master, having emerged from the studios of Dutch illuminators, was a supreme painter and
draftsman who also made prints. These prints were not formal engravings, but-for the first
time in the history of art-dry points. They were produced, not by the patient calligraphical
action of a burin on copper but by the rapid flicks and scratches of any sharp instrument on
lead.
This contrast in technique is symptomatic of a contrast in imagination and feeling. Schon-
gauer began with the rich and almost coloristic style of the Virgin with the Parrot 01 the
Man of Sorrows between the Vz'rgin Mary and St. John, and ended with the ascetic precision
and simplicity of the later Annunciation or the Wise Virgin in Half Length. The Housebook
Master developed from small, unpretentious impromptus with few figures and little or no
scenery such as the Family of Savages on a Stag-reverting, as it were, to the very beginnings
of the engraver's art-to such elaborately pictorial compositions as the Circumcision of Christ
or the Adoration of the Magi.
Schongauer's engravings are final statements, impeccably finished, perfectly balanced, and
pervaded by an atmosphere of impregnable dignity. The Housebook Master's dry points are
spirited improvisations, now sketchy, now crammed with picturesque detail, adventurous in
composition, and expressive even at the expense of grace and propriety. Where Schongauer's
St. Joseph remains within the traditional pattern of a somewhat pathetic but decorous old
man (fig. 17), the House book Master makes him lurk behind a grassy bench and throw
apples from his hiding place (fig. 18). Where Schongauer interprets the Bearing of the Cross
(fig. 15) as a scene of such sustained grandeur that the composition was used again, with
suitable changes, by Guido Reni in his mural in San Gregorio Magno, the House book Master
shows the fallen Christ flat on the ground and pitifully crushed by the weight of the cross
(fig. 16). Where Schongauer's St. Michael conquers the Devil with the same effortless poise .
as the Virtues on the portal of Strassburg Cathedral conquer the Vices, the Housebook Mas-
ter's homely St. Michael has a hard time with his antagonist who has got a firm hold of one of
the Archangel's wings.
The Housebook Master is perhaps the earliest artist who can justly be called a humorist.
When he depicted, on a page of the "House book," the varied activities of the men and women
born under the planet Mercury, the celestial Virgin (one of the two "mansions" of this
planet) looks at a mirror and arranges her hair; the wife of the sculptor, who, like all artisans,
is a child of Mercury, offers a goblet to the journeyman while her husband looks on with
marital and professional jealousy; and the painter, busily working at an altarpiece, is agree-
ably interrupted by the caresses of a lovely girl. Schongauer, too, attempted some engravings
in a lighter vein, but no one is moved to laughter by his Swine Family or by his Fighting
Apprentices (fig. 21). The Housebook Master's children are irresistibly funny (fig. 22);
and his Dog scratching Himself fills the beholder with both amusement and sympathy because
SCHONGAUER AND THE HOUSEBOOK MASTER
theartist was able to reexperience the blissful trance of a creature who, however humble, is
man's brother in God (fig. 20).
Contrary to the mere satirist, the humorist does not presume to be superior to the objects
of his amusement. He sympathetically understands what he seems to ridicule, be it a hideous
old woman, or a couple of ill-bred children, or a dumb beast; for he knows that sub specie
aeternitatis there may be no great difference between what our finite judgment distinguishes
as low and lofty, ugly and beautiful, stupid and wise. Satire, one might say, is bred out of
bitterness and pride, humor out of love and humility; and there is truth in Jean Paul's
untranslatable phrase: "sie verstand keinen Spass, folglich auch keinen Ernst."
The opposite is true of the Housebook Master. The man who could share the raptures of
a dog scratching himself could also share the bashful happiness of young lovers and the pathos
of a desolate beggar. The man who did not shrink from depicting Christ's humanity in an
undignified manner also found an emotional approach to His divinity. The man who under-
stood children also understood death. The theme of Death and Youth was very common in
late medieval art, but it is only in a dry point by the Housebook Master that Death appears
as a mystery, awesome yet kindly, threatening yet alluring, merciless yet full of pity (fig. 27).
Small wonder that this master attracted Diirer even from a distance and that his influence
immeasurably deepened when Diirer had left his native environment. Many of the drawings
produced in the first years after his departure are unthinkable without the House book Master;
for instance the Elevation of the Magdalen at Veste Coburg (861), the Holy Family in
Berlin (725, fig. 24), and another Holy Family in Erlangen (723, fig. 23).
The drawing of the Holy Family in Berlin, the more accomplished of the two, surprises
however by an unusually "modern" treatment of space which is suggested by way of division
rather than of addition. Depth is not interpreted as an agglomeration of single units arrayed
behind each other, but as a continuous expanse parcelled out by undulating rivulets and rows
of trees arranged so as to follow the course of imaginary vanishing lines.
This method had been developed by Dutch painters rather than by Flemish and German
ones, and had been brought to perfection by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, one of whose pictures
(the St. John the Baptist in the Museum of Berlin) is very close to Durer's Holy Family
with respect to the treatment of scenery. Now, according to Karel van Mander, it was precisely
Geertgen tot Sint Jans whose works had been admired by Durer when he saw them "in Haar-
lem"; and since this cannot have occurred during Durer's journey in 1520-1521, every day of
which is accounted for, we must either discard van Mander's story altogether or assume that
Durer had been in Holland in 1490/91. In general van Mander is not the most reliable of
biographers, but the stylistic peculiarities of the Holy Family drawing lend some support to
his Nor is this drawing the only early work by Durer which seems to reveal a
first-hand: knowledge of Dutch fifteenth century painting. A element has often been
sensed in the Dresden altarpiece of 1496/97 (4, fig. 64); the gesture of the St. John in the
Strassburg Canon Page of 1493 (441) is distinctly North Netherlandish in character; the
Apocalypse seems to be connected, in a mysterious way, with the tradition of early East
24
Flemish book illumination; and, most astounding of all, the peculiar distribution of the
groups, and the diagonal organization of the landscape found in the woodcut The Martyrdom
of the Ten Thousand (337, fig. 69, about 1498) almost repeat-in reverse-the composi
tional pattern of one of the most impressive pictures by Geertgen tot Sint J ans: the Burmng
of the Relics of St. John the Baptist, now in Vienna and formerly in Haarlem (fig. 70).
Be that as it may, before Durer finally found his way to Colmar he had already been
subject to experiences almost too varied and intense for one so young. The remarkable Self
Portrait on the back of the Holy Family drawing in Erlangen (997, fig. 25) reflects his high
strung and excited state of mind: gloomy yet ardent, passionate yet observing, perplexed by
conflicting impressions and emotions yet hungry for more. But Durer, even in his fervid
youth, was conscious of the dangers of genius. "His only fault," to quote a man who knew
him well, "was a unique and infinite diligence, often too harsh a judge of his own self."
Instead of indulging in spirited improvisations after the fashion of the Housebook Master
he felt the necessity of disciplining himself to faultless craftsmanship and patient study. Even
in technical matters he did not permit himself to follow the Housebook Master's example;
not until he had become the greatest master of orthodox line engraving did he experiment
with the treacherously facile technique of dry point.
Thus he plunged into a study of Schongauer as though he had felt the need of an antidote.
We know that he failed to find the great master alive and hurried on to Basel. But the
drawings of 1492/93 bear witness to his absorbing interest in Schongauer's drawings and
prints. Suffice it to mention the Execution of a Youth (1259), the magnificent Wise Virgin
(645) and the charming "Promenade," where the young lover, in fashionable Basel costume,
bears an unmistakable resemblance to Durer himself (1245, jig. 28). Moreover the influence
of the Master B.M., Schongauer's principal follower in the field of engraving, has recently
been traced in several instances.
Other drawings of this period, such as the "Pleasures of the World" where frolicsome
young people disport themselves on a pleasure-ground while Death, unseen, threatens their
happiness (874, jig. 29), bear witness to Durer's inventive imagination. Still others show him
as an untiring observer of reality. He devoured it as insatiably as he did the creations of his
predecessors. He drew his first female nude ( 1177, jig. 45), heads, hands, animals, draperies
and inanimate objects, in short everything accessible to his keen eye and already infallible
pen. Reclining on a couch or on two chairs, he would portray his own left leg in two positions
( 1219). He would punch and crumple a pillow into six different shapes and make a careful
record of each variation ( 1442). The back of the sheet, however, he used for a seventh
variation on the pillow theme, a study of his own ]eft hand holding a flower, and a new Self
Portrait (998, fig. 26).
This drawing, now in the Robert Lehman Collection at New York, is dated 1493, only
about two years after the earlier Self-Portrait in Erlangen. But the difference in attitude is
enormous. Where the Durer of the Erlangen drawing had gazed at the universe with the
brooding passion of a bewildered youth, and where the Durer of the "Promenade" had
"PERAGRATA GERMANIA"
strutted about as a carefree, long-legged beau, proud of his first successes in art and love, the
Durer of 1493 casts a quiet, scrutinizing glance at the beholder and has the self-assurance of
a young master.
The studies of 1493 were freely used for the painted Self-Portrait with the Eryngium in
the Louvre (48, fig. 30). This picture, completed in the same year and presumably sent home
in connection with Durer's prospective engagement, may be said to synthesize the drawing
in Lemberg with that in Erlangen. Durer looks, of course, older than in the drawing of 1491,
but, curiously enough, appreciably younger than in that of 1493, and this not only physically
but also psychologically. The precocious maturity and aloofness of expression characteristic
of the later drawing appears to be tempered with sentiment, while the somber intensity of the
earlier one appears to have calmed down to an almost lyrical mood.
Technically, the painting in the Louvre is distinguished by a freedom of touch and by a
tender, iridescent quality of color not to be found in Durer's other works. Probably painted
in Strassburg, it seems to be imbued with some of the sensuous refinement a l ~ a y s character-
istic of Alsatian art.
However, two works likewise attributable to the Strassburg period reflect impressions of
a different nature. One of these is a little miniature representing the Salvator Mundi in the
guise of an Infant Jesus in half length; it bears the date 1493 and was probably sent out as a
Christmas and New Year's greeting at the end of that year (628). The other is a drawing of
the Madonna and Child, also in half length, which may be dated in the spring of 1494 (653,
fig. 34). In both cases Durer endeavored to give a quasi-sculptural effect; the figures emerge
from behind a breast-molding and are surrounded by a stone-carved frame. In the Madonna
drawing the illusion of a plastic work is further strengthened by the use of a new medium:
it is a pure brush drawing in ink or bister, with bold washes suggesting the depth of a
vigorous high-relief. Strassburg was the very place where Durer, always appreciative of
sculpture, could admire a greater profusion of eminent works than anywhere else. In par-
ticular he could not fail to be impressed by the only Northern sculptor after Claus Sluter
who can be called a peer of the great Italians: Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leyden, the founder
of a tradition still flourishing in Durer's times throughout Alsace. His Epitaph of a Canon
in Strassburg Cathedral, dated 1464 (fig. 35), can serve as an example of what Durer had
in mind when making his brush drawing. It must have been a work like this that inspired
him with the idea of a half-length Madonna in high-relief, emerging from a gothic niche and
holding on the parapet a child whose healthy vitality defies the limitations of the picture
plane ..
THAT_A JOURNEYMAN HAD TO WORK FOR HIS LIVING is obvious, and that Durer's talent for
woodcut designing was discovered as early as 1492 is a matter of record. Yet, since only one
woodcut prior to his return to Nuremberg can be ascribed to him on documentary grounds,
the attribution of others has given rise to a controversy comparable only to the notorious
quarrel about the iota in the word homoiousios.
The unquestionable piece of evidence is a woodblock, fully signed with the inscription
"Albrecht Durer von Normergk," which was used for the title:: page, already mentioned,
of Nicolaus Kessler's Epistolare beati Hieronymi, published in Basel on August 8, 1492
(414, fig. 32). It shows St. Jerome in his study, nursing the paw of an apprehensive, poodle-
like lion. The composition appears to be derived from a woodcut in Koberger's "Lives of
the Saints" (fol. CLXxnn) which in turn harks back to early Flemish models dating from
the first half of the century. But Durer, retracing, as it were, the steps of the development,
more nearly approaches those archaic archetypes than is the case with the woodcut of 1488.
The objects displayed in still-life fashion are selected according to the examples set by
Jan van Eyck, the Master of Flemalle and their immediate followers, and the compact,
block-like appearance and long-nosed facial type of the Saint himself may have reminded
the Basel public of Conrad Witz, the greatest painter of the city's past, who may be called
the German Master of Flemalle. The unusual idea of juxtaposing St. Jerome's Latin trans-
lation of Genesis I, 1 with the corresponding passages of the Hebrew original and of Sep-
tuagint might have been suggested by the scholarly adviser who must have supplied the
models for the Greek and Hebrew lettering. The graphic style, however, is Durer's own.
The succinctness of the "Ulmian" style, clearly discernible in the treatment of the city
prospect, has been fused with Wolgemut's illusionism which can be observed in the free
use of cross-hatchings, in bold chiaroscuro effects (the shadows in the alcove), and in the
effort to characterize the tactile value of the velvet cushion. Most of this was evidently too
much for the cutter, but he did not entirely destroy Durer's most personal achievement:
the dynamic quality of the lines remain, and they manage to impart the semblance of life
even to such inanimate objects as bedspreads and curtains.
The first edition of Kessler's Epistolare, published in 1489 by the same publisher and
identical with that of 1492 in every other respect, had not yet been equipped with an
illustrated title page; Durer's woodcut, on the other was copied, not only for a third
Basel edition of St. Jerome's Letters which appeared in 1497, but also for three later
editions published in Lyons in 1507, 1508 and 1513. Moreover an experienced local
master, who had to supply the title woodcut for the "Opera" of St. Ambrose published by
Amerbach in the latter part of 1492, borrowed extensively from Durer's St. Jerome (438,
fig. 33)
This tends to show, first, that Durer, in spite of his youth, must have made an extraor-
dinary impression on Kessler who had apparently not thought of providing his new edition
of the Epistolare with a title woodcut before the young man from Nuremberg made his
appearance; second, that Durer's St. Jerome proved to be a most exceptional success. It is
hardly conceivable under these circumstances that Durer designed no other woodcuts until
he had established himself in his native town. This would be as unlikely as if a brilliant young
pianist, after a sensational debut, were not heard of again for four or five years. To quote
Gustav Pauli, the question is not so much: "Are there any woodcuts produced by Durer
DURER IN BASEL 27
between the St. Jerome and, say, the Apocalypse'?" as: "Which are the woodcuts produced
by Durer between the St. Jerome and the Apocalypse'?"
These woodcuts must of course fulfill a number of conditions. First, they must originate
from Basel or Strassburg, and they must fall in the years between 1492 and 1494; second,
their style must be different from that of the rest of the contemporary production in these
cities, emerging with Durer's arrival and vanishing with his departure, exception being made
for woodcuts showing his influence (such as, for instance, the illustrations of the Revelationes
of Methodius, published by Michael Furter in 1500); third, they must fit into Durer's
development. Not only must they be compatible with the St. Jerome and other authenticated
works of the same period, they also must contain stylistic elements and motifs which reappear
in Durer's later works and which can be accounted for by his earlier education. While an-
nouncing, to some extent, the woodcuts and engravings of 1496-1498, they must reflect that
peculiar combination of influences which is characteristic of Durer's previous career: the
styles of the Housebook Master and Schongauer, superimposed upon a Nuremberg training
in woodcut designing which implied a familiarity with both the pictorial breadth of the
Wolgemut workshop and the epigrammatic crispness of the "Ulmian" group.
Setting aside a few isolated cases of dubious authenticity or minor artistic importance
(such as the woodcuts in the Strassburg Missal mentioned in the Introduction), such contri-
butions by Durer are found in three publications prepared at Basel in 1492/93
The first of these is a sumptuously illustrated edition of the Comedies of Terence planned
by Johannes Amerbach, the publisher of that St. Ambrose edition whose title page so clearly
revealed the influence of Durer's St. Jerome. This "Basel Terence" was never to appear
because it was unexpectedly anticipated by a rival publication which came out at Lyons in
1493. However, almost one hundred fifty illustrations had prepared, and one hundred
thirty-nine of these have come down to us: most of them in the form of pen drawings on
white-grounded woodblocks not even touched by the cutter's knife; a few in the form of
blocks already cut (after Durer's departure); and some in the form of prints from blocks
already cut but lost (436, a).
To determine Durer's personal share in this vast enterprise is exceedingly difficult. The
illustrative task required great numbers of nearly identical settings and figurines which had to
be repeated, reversed, or turned from front to back and vice versa with only minor variations
in poses and gestures; this was obviously done, as in Walt Disney's studio, by a number of
subordinate.draftsmen. The cutting of the finished blocks, probably carved long after Durer's
departure from Basel, is of an exceptionally poor quality which all but obscures the style of
the original designs. The original designs themselves, finally, cannot be compared with
ordinarypen drawings on account of the conditions of their execution. They had to be drawn
on whitened wood instead of on paper; they had to be free from corrections in order to. avoid
misunderstandings on the part of the cutter; and the modelling had to consist of relatively
schematic lines. Even where the ultimate design on wood was done by the himself
it presupposed an elaborate preparatory drawing from which it was copied in a more or less
mechanical way, its dry and impersonal effect being sharpened by the fact that the designer
had constantly to bear in mind what the cutter could and could not do in his medium. Thus
even "original" designs on uncut woodblocks can be evaluated only as self-copies-or, rather,
are automatically put at a disadvantage when compared with free pen
drawings by the same master; Bruegel's Mopsus and Nisa block in the Metropolitan Museum
has been doubted because of its difference from his other drawings although much more
could be expected from Antwerp cutters about 1560 than from Basel cutters in 1492.
Thus the term cannot be applied to the Terence pictures without reserva
tions. However, the style of the cycle can neither be derived from indigenou_s sources
nor from any other definite tradition, least of all from the Ulm Terence of 1486. It pre
supposes that special blend of Schongauer and the Housebook Master with and
the style which is peculiar to the early works of Durer. He must be considered
as the leading spirit of a group of draftsmen whom he supplied with a certain _nun:ber of
basic patterns which were traced, copied, varied, and transferred to the blocks m different
combinations. In addition, he seems to have carried out a limited number of designs on the
blocks themselves, partly in order to establish standards for his collaborators and partly in
order to replace exceptionally unsatisfactory pieces, as was his custom when he supervised, at
a much later date, the execution of Maximilian's Triumphal Arch (figs. 36 and 37, the
elegant young "Pamphilus" in fig. 37 significantly recurring in a page of the Apocalypse).
Apart from its (rather limited) artistic value the Terence cycle is of interest in that it
sheds further light on Durer's early contact with humanistic circles. It is well known that
we still possess about a dozen Carolingian and early medieval Terence manuscripts whose
illustrations were directly revived from a classical archetype, the latest specimen dating from
the end of the twelfth century. It was only after an interruption of more than two hundred
years that the illustration of the Comedies was resumed, and this on an entirely modern basis.
Neither the "Terence des Dues" of 1407/08, nor the "Terence of Martin Gouge," nor the
Ulm Terence of 1486 show any trace of classical influence. The Basel cycle is the first modest
attempt at reinstating the classical tradition, not only in the format of the pictures and the
relative scale of the figures, but also in several specific motifs. Durer must have been given
an opportunity to use a Carolingian manuscript and thereby to participate in a distinctly
humanistic experiment. Also the Roman theater shown in the only full-page woodcut is
almost archeologically correct as compared to that in the "Strassburg Terence" of 1496.
The second publication illustrated in part by Durer is Marquart von Steyn's Ritter vom
Turn von den Exempeln der Gottsforcht undErberkeit, printed by Michael Furter in 1493
(436, c). The Chevalier de la Tour-Landry, who in 1370/71 had composed the French
oricrinal "pour l'enseignement de ses filles," was a kindly, frank and very human father. He
suc:eeded in improving the mind and morals of his daughters by interspersing the better
known examples of well-deserved misfortunes (e.g. the Fall of Man, Samson and Delilah,
or the fate of Sodom and Gomorrha) with such amusing stories as the one of the garrulous
woman who talked so much in Church that the Devil, while trying to take down her remarks
TERENCE, RITTER VOM TURN, NARRENSCHIFF 29
on a piece of parchment, had to stretch it repeatedly with his teeth; or the one of the vain
lady who, when looking at the mirror once too often, beheld the hindquarters of the Evil
One instead of her own pretty face.
Of the forty-five woodcuts in the "Ritter vom Turn" (which were already carefully
copied two years after their appearance) about four-fifths can be ascribed to Durer. To
point out only one or two details: the draperies in the St. Jerome woodcut are as closely akin
as possible to the bedspread and curtains in the Death of the Hard-Hearted Lady who is
licked on her deathbed by two little black dogs because she spoiled her pets but was cruel to
the poor; the admirable figure of her despairing husband, too, can hardly be credited to any
artist but Durer (fig. 39). The landscapes bear throughout the imprint of Durer, and the
two cities in the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha (fig. 38) are almost identical in style
and structure to the castles in such woodcuts as the Bath-House (348, fig. 71), Samson
rending the Lion (222) and the Martyrdom of St. Catharine (34-o, fig. 72), while, on the
other hand, their similarity with the buildings in such Wolgemut prints as "Portugalia"
(fig. 8) bears witness to their Nuremberg ancestry. Similarly the "brimstone and fire" in the
same woodcut, while unthinkable without the illusionism of the Last Judgment in the
"Nuremberg Chronicle," announce such interpretations of flames and explosions as are later
to be found in the Apocalypse and, again, in the Martyrdom of St. Catharine.
In the "Ritter vom Turn" the woodcuts attributable to Durer show a slight disparity in
style which is accounted for by the individualities of the cutters. One of these is obviously
the same skillful but somewhat mechanical craftsman who cut the St. Jerome. Other wood-
cuts are rather mediocre from a technical point of view. A few, however, are cut with so much
understanding for the intentions of the designer and with so intense a feeling for plastic values
that Durer himself has b!!en credited with the cutting-whicp is, at least, a plausible con-
jecture. The publication proceeding according to schedule, Durer would have wished to set
a standard for the cutting as well as for the design.
An analogous situation obtains with the third work in which early Durer woodcuts can be
found: the Narrenschyff by Sebastian Brant (436, b), printed at Basel in 1494 by the
interesting gentleman-publisher Johann Bergmann von Olpe, who had also participated, in a
somewhat mysterious way, in the publication of the "Ritter vom Turn." In the "Narren-
schiff," too, we can observe the contrast between the smooth regularity of the "St. Jerome
cutter" and the vitality of the other artisan who has been identified with Durer himself.
However, in the "Ritter vom Turn" the woodcuts not designed by Durer amount to a fairly
small fraction of the whole series, and even this fraction reveals his influence, so that the
general iinpression is a fairly homogeneous one. In the "Narrenschiff," on the other hand,
a pout two-thirds of the whole cycle (which comprises well over a hundred different pictures)
have no 'appreciable connection with Durer and are inferior in design as well as in cutting.
It is only on some of these inferior woodcuts that the date 1494 is found. They were appar-
ently produced after Durer had departed from Basel, and. can thus be considered indirect
evidence for the assumption that he had been responsible for the others.
30
Like the "Ritter vom Turn," the "Narrenschiff" is a moralizing treatise, profoundly
prosaic in spite of what purports to be poetic form. Bu.t where the de la Tour
observes the foolishness of the world with the mellow w1sdom of a gracwus old gentleman,
Sebastian Brant assails it in the spirit of that famous character who said to his wife: "The
whole world is crazy except me and thee, and even thee is a little queer." To. Brant, the
capital sins are not much worse than such harmless vices as book and fa1th m
astrology, or such likable weaknesses as procrastination or overconfidence m the mercy of
God even the man who helps his neighbor before helping himself is a "fool."
iJowever, the very universality of Brant's self-righteous surliness makes his book a
remarkably complete mirror of human life, and the picturesqueness of h.is a
blessing for the illustrator. He could develop Brant's chief example of
(the "fool's" attempt to put out his neighbor's fire while his own house ablaze) mto an
impressive conflagration (fig. 41); from a comparison between the trustmg soul and the
"mind of geese and sows" he could develop a lovely study in rustic genre (fig. 40)
These two woodcuts also serve to illustrate some points of contact between the more
accomplished illustrations of the "Narrenschiff" and authenticated wo:ks Durer.
flames in the conflagration scene bring to mind the instances already met?-twned m connectwn
with the Destruction of Sod om and Gomorrha in the "Ritter vom Turn"; moreover the sheet
of flame bursting forth from the rear end of the house on the left anticipates the bursts of.
hell-fire seen in the Babylonian Whore (293) and the Angel with the Key of the Bottomless
Pit (295); and the stream of water poured from a bucket by the Helpful Fool breaks up
little lozenges as does the water "cast out from the mouth of the serpent" in the Apocalyptzc
Woman (291). The farmyard scene distinctly foreshadows the engraving The Prodigal Son
( 135, fig. 94; note the recurrence of the primitive trough fashioned from a tree-trunk cut '
in half), while the curves of the geese's necks announce, si parva lice! comp.onere
magnis, the seven-headed dragon in the Beast with two Horns like a Lamb (294). 1s not
possible here to accumulate further analogies. Suffice it to mention only one more
which is of particular interest in that it combines the anticipation of a later work Wlth the
reminiscence of a slightly earlier one: the woodcut satirizing the Adherents of Astrology
(fig. 42). The Fool is a forerunner of the peasantin an engraving of about 1497 (190, fig.
43), while the costume of his companion almost duplicates the garment of the young lady
in the pen drawing "The Promenade" already mentioned as a significant work of 1492
(1245 fig. 28).
IN SPITE OF THE HUMANISTIC ATMOSPHERE OF BAsEL it was in Nuremberg that Durer awoke
to Renaissance art. In Nuremberg, as everywhere in Germany, the general response to the
revival of Antiquity was literary and scholastic rather than visual and aesthetic. Italy the
discovery of a piece of classical sculpture called forth enthusiasti: upon 1ts
sive power, beauty and lifelikeness; in Germany it provoked of a anti-
quarian nature. Inscriptions held more interest than images, ::,tnd 1mages were apprecmted as
FIRST CONTACT WITH THE RENAISSANCE
31
iconographical puzzles and sources of historical information, rather than as works of art.
Yet Pirckheimer owned an important collection of Greek and Roman coins (which he himself
used mainly for a treatise on the comparative buying power of classical and modern cur-
rencies), and Hartmann Schedel, author of the "Nuremberg Chronicle," though insensitive
to the value of form, collected and copied pictures no less assiduously than texts. He possessed
a whole book of "Antiquities" with drawings of classical monuments executed partly by
himself and partly by a pupil of Wolgemut's, and it was probably through him that the
local artists first became familiar with original specimens of the Quattrocento style. The
"Chronicle" contains several topographical illustrations copied from Italian models, and
even a portrait of Mohammed patterned after Pisanello's medal of the Byzantine Emperor
Johannes VII Palaeologus.
When Durer returned from his bachelor's journey he found Wolgemut's workshop
engaged in the preparation of a series of woodcuts intended for a publication which never
appeared; it comprised, besides assorted allegorical subjects of medieval origin, copies of a
Venetian edition of Petrarch's "Triumphs" and of a set of engraved Italian playing cards,
known as "Tarocchi," which mirrored, in a playful way, the hierarchical order of the uni-
verse, including of philosophical concepts, the Virtues, the Arts, the Muses,
the Planets, the Estates of Men, etc. Durei: too, became interested in this kaleidoscopic
encyclopedia and copied the Italian prints after his own fashion (976-995). A comparison
between his copies and those produced in the Wolgemut workshop is truly revealing. To give
only one instance: in the Wolgemut woodcut the Minerva serving as a personification of
Philosophy looks like a "supporter" in Late Gothic heraldry rather than like a classical
goddess. The figure is set against a rich Northern landscape not unlike those in the "Nurem-
berg Chronicle." The perpendicular spear, intended to form the sharpest possible contrast
with the elastic curve of the figure, is placed aslant whereas the curve itself is flattened into
a sagging vertical. The resiliency of the posture is destroyed by the omission of one foot and
by the awkward alteration of the other. The modelling of the legs is obscured by heavy
drapery, and the fluttering skirt-so typical of Quattrocento taste-was made to trail on
the ground (fig. 44). Durer's copy, precisely contemporary with the Wolgemut cut, shows
the keenest understanding for Renaissance characteristics (fig. 46). He respected the statu-
esque isolation of the figure, and not only retained but actually strengthened its dynamic
quality. He verticalized the shield as well as the spear. He enlivened the contours, he inten-
sified the of the ribbons (which are entirely omitted in the Wolgemu't woodcut),
and he dramatized the expression of the tossed-back head.
To upon the work of an anonymous Ferrarese engraver of about 146o might
seem c?mparatlvely easy. But even when confronted with a genius Diirer was able to vitalize
what. he irpitated. In 1494 he copied several mythological engravings by Mantegna; two
drawmgs, one after the Battle of Sea Gods, the other after the Bacchanal with Si!enus, have
come to us (902, 903), and the existence of a third one (after the Bacchanal by the Vat)
can be mferred from reminiscences in Durer's later work. In these copies the contours are
32
directly traced from the originals; only the modelling is entered in free hand. Yet, even
while copying the outlines as mechanically as possible, Durer involuntarily strengthened their
graphic energy, and to achieve the modelling he replaced Mantegna's schematic parallels by
a pattern of curves and violent, comma-shaped hooks which endow the forms with vibrant
life (figs. 47 and 48).
A drawing likewise dated 1494 and equally Mantegnesque in character represents the
Death of Orpheus according to the Ovidian version. It shows how the great singer was killed
by the women of Thrace for having introduced into their land the vice of pederasty (928,
fig. 49). Earlier illustrations of this incident in Northern art depict the punishment as well
as the sin (which Durer merely indicated by a straightforward inscription). But where a
picture like the woodcut from Colard Mansion's Ovide Moralise of 1484 (fig. 51) strikes
us as almost comical for want of expressiveness and dramatic concentration, Durer's drawing,
executed only ten years later, has the force of a classic tragedy. The woodcut, illustrating as
it does a complicated moral allegory superimposed on a story of passion and cruelty, shows
Orpheus twice: embracing a "damoiseau," and stiffly lying on the ground, with the serpent
already gnawing his head, and his lyre floating in the river Hehrus. The Thracian women,
however, attired in the .dress of Bruges bourgeoises, lamely continue to throw stones at his
corpse. In Durer's drawing the scene is interpreted according to the classical formula which
had been revived by Mantegna in a fresco in the Camera degli Sposi at Mantua-the very
place where Politian's Favola d'Orfeo had had its "world premiere" a few years before (fig.
52). The women are clad in billowing draperies which accentuate the vigorous beauty of
their bodies, and they burst upon their victim with the fury of genuine maenads. Orpheus,
alive and suffering, struggles in vain to protect himself, his kneeling form displaying that
beautiful contrapposto which classical art had employed for the countless heroes and warriors
dying in battle. His book of music, suspended on a tree after the fashion of rustic ex votos
in Greek and Roman bucolfcs, recalls the song of one who will not sing again: "hie arguta
sacra pendebit fistula pinu." The prototype of Durer's drawing has come down to us only in
a Ferrarese engraving of rather inferior quality (fig. so), and it is possible-though not too
probable-that Durer had access to a more satisfactory model. But even an original drawing
or engraving by Mantegna could not have shown so passionate an animation in outline and
modelling, so deep a horror in the face of the sufferer, and so much individual character in the
gnarled trunks and bristly foliage of the trees.
Whether these Mantegnesque drawings of 1494 were made before or after Durer's depar-
ture for Italy is an open question. Their style seems more Italianate than that of the "Taroc-
chi" copies, and the expression "puseran" in the inscription of the Orpheus drawing is a'
garbled form of the Italian word "buggerone." On the other hand it is difficult to imagine
that an impatient tourist would have spent so much of his time at a drafting board, making
meticulous copies of prints which were available in other places. Be that as it may,.
the very uncertainty in this respect is highly significant. It shows to what extent Durer had
absorbed the spirit of Italian art before he ever set foot on Italian soil.
"RINASCIMENTO DELL' ANTICHITA"
33
Much has been done to explode the old theory according to which the Renaissance came
in with a bang, so to speak. It has been shown that the classical heritage survived throughout
the Middle Ages in a thousand ways, and that the efflorescence of the Medicean age resulted
from a gradual evolution and not from a sudden awakening. In one however, the
Italian Quattrocento did bring about a fundamental change in attitude and still deserves the
name "rinascimento dell'antichita." In the Middle Ages classical Antiquity had been looked
upon with a strange ambiguity of feeling. On the one hand, there was a sense of unbroken
continuity which seemed to link the medieval Empire to Caesar and Augustus, medieval
theology to Aristotle, medieval music to Pythagoras and medieval grammar to Donatus. On
the other hand, an insurmountable gap was seen between the Christian present and the pagan
past. Thus the monuments of classical philosophy, science, poetry and art continued to be
,known and to be used, but they were not yet thought of as manifestations of a coherent
cultural system, irretrievably removed from the present, yet alive in itself and capable of
being accepted and emulated in its entirety.
One of the most significant aspects of this situation is the fact that the high Middle Ages,
though neither blind to the charm of classical art nor indifferent to the fascination of classical
myths and history, had been unable or unwilling to retain the unity of classical subject
matter and classical form. With very few and, historically speaking, irrelevant exceptions,
we find classical motifs invested with non-classical meanings and classical themes presented
in non-classical disguise. The statues of Roman goddesses could serve as models for Christian
Madonnas, but Aeneas and Dido, Apollo and Daphne, Orpheus and the Maenads would be
depicted as courtly knights and ladies or, as in the case of the Ovide Moralise woodcuts, as
bourgeois dandies and housewives. It was precisely in this respect that the progressive masters
of the Italian Quattrocento broke away from medieval traditions. They reintegrated classical
form with classical subject matter and thereby reinstated the emotional qualities of classical
art. In it, mythological or legendary scenes were pervaded by what may be called an animal-
istic conception of human nature. Beauty was the poise and strength of a perfect animal, pain
was a reaction against physical injury, and love was either an enjoyment of sensual pleasure
or a suffering from unappeased sensual appetites. When medieval art transformed gods and
heroes into princes and burghers, it changed not only their appearance but also their behav.ior
and their feelings. Beauty and ugliness, lust and pain, cruelty and fear, love and jealousy
came to conform to the contemporary codes of morals, taste and manners. Conversely, when
the Renaissance discarded the modish dresses in favor of classical nudity or semi-nudity
it unveiled not only the nature of the human body but also the nature of human emotions;
it stripped man not only of his clothes but al,so of his protective cover of conventionality.
Two drawings following the Mantegna copies of 1494 bear witness to Durer's preoccu-
pation with this of Renaissance art.
One of these is a copy after Pollaiuolo showing the abduction of two women by two
naked athletes (931, fig. 53, dated 1495). There is reason to believe that the two groups
belong to a lost composition which showed the Rape of the Sabine Women and was part
\
34
f t. 0 s series of scenes from Roman legend and history. Certain it is that the
0
a con mu u . ll h
Of the abductors or rather abductor (for, the second figure 1s pract1ca Y t e
strenuous pose ' .
h fi t drawn from the back and then reversed), derives from the classical type
same as t e rs ' 1 h
of Hercules carrying the Erymanthean Boar which also served as a model severa ot er
fi by Pollaiuolo for instance his Hercules Kt'lling the Hydra in the Uffiz1.
gures , ) h t
The history of the other drawing, the Abduction of Europa (909, fig. , 1s some_w. a
analogous to that of the Death of Orpheus. In both case.s Durer dealt w1th an
subject which, after a process of "moralization" in late medieval art, had be :evltal-
ized "all'antica," and in both cases he employed a North Italian compositiOn by
classical monuments as well as by the poetry of Politian. For, as the Mantegnesque mter-
pretations of the Death of Orpheus are predicated upon Politian's "Favola d'Orf.eo," so
the prototype of Durer's Abduction of Europa, containing as it motifs. and
details not present in Ovid's "Metamorphoses," presupposes a fam1hanty With two del1ght
ful stanzas from Politian's "Giostra": "Here behold Jove transformed into a beautiful
by the power of love. He dashes away with his sweet, terrified load, her lovely golden ha1r
fluttering in the wind which blows back her gown. With one hand she grasps the ho:n of
the bull while the other clings to his back; she draws up her feet as if wer.e afra1d of
the sea, and thus crouching down with pain and fear, she cries for help m vam. For
sweet companions remained on the flowery shore, each of them crying 'Europa, come back ;
the whole seashore resounds with 'Europa come back'; and the bull swims on [or=.
round] and kisses her feet." Durer's drawing, bringing .to this. sensuous descnptwn,
differs in feeling from medieval representations of the subJect m. the same. as
his Death of Orpheus differs from the woodcut in Colard MansiOns Ovide
All this throws light on Durer's peculiar position in relation to classical art. It 1s almost
a miracle that an artist educated in the tradition of Wolgemut, the and
Schongauer could capture the spirit of Antiquity. But even he could not gam access
to its material remains. So far as we know he never copied a classical statue or rel.Ief, but
approached the originals only through the intermediary of Italian prints and drawmgs. In
these, the style of Greek and Roman sculpture was transformed to .fit the of the
fifteenth century, and this applies not only to the free interpretatiOns of creative mas:ers
like Mantegna and Pollaiuolo, but even to reproductions of a deliberately archeological
character such as the drawings in the "Codex Escurz'alensis": the stony surface of the
was changed so as to suggest flesh and skin; the forms appeared to be surrounded With a
kind of atmosphere; and the unseeing eyes acquired a human glance (fig. 120) The role 1
of such Italian intermediaries is well exemplified by a figure found on the nght half of the
same sheet of paper which had been used for the Abduction of Europa: One of the sketches
scattered about this part of the page shows a standing youth charactenzed a.s an by
his attributes, but evidently derived from the "Praxitelian" statue of Cup1d Bendmg the .
Bow of Hercules. A replica of this statue can still be seen in Venice, and it has been
that Durer copied it directly. But the addition of such typical Quattrocento accessones as
DEPENDENCE ON ITALIAN INTERMEDIARIES
35
the laurel wreath, the modish boots, the coquettish tunic and the fluttering ribbons is proof
of the fact that Durer copied an Italian "reconstruction" and not the mutilated original.
Thus it appears that Durer could read the classical texts only in contemporary trans-
lations. But as a great poet, while unable to understand Euripides's Greek, may understand
Euripides's meaning better than any philologist, so Durer's interpretations, two steps removed
from the originals, could be more classical in spirit than were his direct Italian sources. In
the Orpheus drawing the maenads are more perfectly modelled beneath their draperies than
is the case in the Italian engraving, and the modern lute is carefully replaced by the orthodox
lyre. Even in the copy after Pollaiuolo the abductors reflect their classical archetype more
adequately than do the nudes in Pollaiuolo's own works. In these, Herculean vigor is
tempered with Quattrocento elegance of proportions, outline and movement (fig, 54), but
Durer recaptured some of the hero's original sturdiness. He used, in fact, this very drawing
for an engraving and a painting both of which illustrate incidents from the myth of
Hercules (105 and 18o, fig. 108).
The graceful "Praxitelian" Apollo shows that Durer, though fascinated by classical
pathos and violence, was not impervious to classical beauty: We know by his own testimony
that it was a Venetian painter, Jacopo de' Barbari, who showed him two figures, male and
female, which were constructed by geometrical methods, and that this experience caused him
to embark upon his lifelong search for the secret of human movement and proportions.
The meeting may have taken place in 1494-1495 when Durer was in Venice, or else in 1500
when Barbari went to Germany. But it was certainly in Barbari's town that Durer became
conscious of Barbari's problem. On a sketch-leaf containing several Italian motifs ( 1469,
fig. SS) is seen a naked youth whose elastic contrapposto movement announces the balanced
pose of Durer's later Apollos and Adams; and a study frorfi"life, dated 1495, shows a nude
woman, poised with the help of a long staff, from whom was to descend a long line of
Venuses, Fortunes, Lucretias and Eves, many of them less lovely than their ancestress
(1178, fig. 56). A comparison of this regal Venetian nude with the awkward German girl
of 1493 ( 1177, fig. 45) eloquently illustrates what two brief years could mean in Durer's
early development.
However, there was more for Durer to draw than what he himself called "nackete
Bilder.'' The sketch-leaf mentioned in the preceding paragraph and the right half of the
Europa drawing are actual cards of things which were of interest to him: a rider
on a horse armored so as to resemble a monstrous unicorn; a reclining infant; a Turk's
head, laterto be used for the wicked Emperors in the Martyrdom of St. John the Evangelist
( 281) and in the Martyrdom of St. Catharine (340, fig. 72); a lion's head in three different
views.;.-an alchemist in oriental dress.
The fantastically caparisoned horse and the reclining infant seem to reveal the influence
. of Leonardo da Vinci (a somewhat similar child occurs in an elaborate drawing after
Lorenzo di Credi, 626). The Turk and the alchemist, on the other hand, testify to Durer's
interest in the orientals and semi-orientals who played a greater role in Venice than in any
other corner of the Western world. Durer not only portrayed them from life but also from
pictures and drawings by Gentile Bellini which abound in these picturesque characters.
This painter must have received the young German with benevolent courtesy; for he per-
mitted Durer to copy a group of Turks employed by himself for a picture still in the
making (1254) and gave him access to a profile portrait of Caterina Cornaro, Ex-Queen
of Cyprus (1045).
The portrait of this rotund and resplendent lady-who was, perhaps, the object of a
still enigmatical Allegory also datable about 1495 (938)-caught Durer's fancy not only
as a work of art but also from a sartorial point of view. Durer was always intensely
interested in costumes, so much so that his drawings in this special field would make a very
handsome little volume. He drew the fashions worn by different classes and ages in Germany
and Flanders (at times with a workmanlike analysis of their technical construction); he
went out of his way to copy illustrations of the costumes in Ireland and Livonia; quite late
in life he supplied his bootmaker with an elaborate "engineering drawing" for a pair of
shoes ( 1300). Small wonder that the garments of the Venetian ladies delighted him no
less than the ladies themselves.
He portrayed Circassian slave-girls ( 12 56, fig. 58) and native courtesans; in one case
he carefully depicted the back of a dress as well as the front ( 1278, later appropriately used
for the Babylonian Whore in the Apocalypse, 293); he made a model, gorgeously attired,
pose as St. Catharine (852); and in one truly remarkable drawing he illustrated the funda-
mental difference between the Southern and the Northern fashion by representing a
Venetian gentz'ldonna side by side with a Nuremberg Hausfrau (128o, fig. 59). Everything
wide and loose in the Italian dress is narrow and tight in the German one, the bodice as
well as the sleeves and shoes. The Venetian skirt is cut on what may be called architectural
lines; the figure seems to rise from a solid horizontal base, and the simple parallel folds
give an effect not unlike that of a fluted column. The German skirt is arranged so as to
create a picturesque contrast between crumpled and flattened areas, and the figure seems
to taper from the waist downward. The Italian costume accentuates the horizontals (note
the. belt and the very form of the necklace), uncovers the shoulder joints and emphasizes
the elbows by little puffs. The German costume does precisely the opposite. The very idea
of this juxtaposition might have been suggested by Heinrich Wolffiin. Durer contrasted the
two figures as a modern art historian would contrast a Renaissance palazzo with a Late Gothic '
town house; there is, in fact, another Durer sketch, probably made on the occasion of his
second trip to Venice (1682), where an analogous comparison is drawn between the
groundplans of two central-plan buildings, one medieval and the other Leonardesque. In sum,
the costumes are interpreted, not only as curiosities but also as documents of style.
Another of Durer's lasting enthusiasms was his passion for animals. Contrary to the.
professional animalier, he had no preference for any definite species, but looked with equal
interest and understanding upon all creatures great or small, majestic or clownish, beautiful
COSTUME; ANIMALS; LANDSCAPE
37
or loathsome. So far as we know, no other artist has ever thought of a subject such as
Durer's Virgin with a Multitude of Animals (658, fig. 135).
While traveling, Diirer was of course particularly attracted by unusual animals, and in
Venice, the city of St. Mark, he naturally looked around for lions. But even in Venice, it
seems, live lions were not readily available. The lion's heads on the Europa drawing were
certainly not drawn from life but from a sculpture such as the Leoncz'ni near St. Mark's;
Diirer added impressive whiskers and treated the hair in naturalistic fashion, but gave himself
away by the patently sculptural stylization of the ears and eyebrows. In another drawing,
or rather miniature (1327), Durer tried even harder to suggest a living animal. He placed
the lion in what he supposed to be its natural habitat, the mouth of a cave framing its head
like a dusky halo, and made its pose as lively and fierce as he could. But just this pose
betrays the source of Durer's inspiration: his lion is, in fact, the Lion of St. Mark, its paws
still poised as though they were holding the Gospel book.
Not until he came to Ghent in 1521 did Durer have occasion to see a lion in the flesh
(1497/98, fig. 268). But what he could study in Venice were the weird creatures of the
sea, doubly exciting to a man brought up in one of the most "landlubbery" spots of the
continent. It was with obvious enthusiasm that he made large-scale water colors of a giant
sea crab ( 1354) and of a magnificent lobster ( 1332, fig. 6o); its fiendish eye and hungry
claws-seemingly leading a vicious life of their own-must have made him feel as though
a grotesque devil had stepped out of an engraving by Schongauer or a picture by Bosch.
One of the most far-reaching effects of Durer's trip to the South, finally, was an essential
change in his attitude toward landscape. His early studies, made during his apprenticeship
with W olgemut, fall, roughly speaking, into two classes: either they represent individual
"motifs" such as a complex of buildings, a group of rocks, or a cluster of trees ( 1368,
1370-1372); or they portray some definite locality such as the Wire-drawing Mill ( 1367,
fig. 6), or the Cemetery of St. John's (1369, fig. 7). In the latter case the artist's lack of
training in perspective is apt to result in a kind of lopsidedness, the space tending to slope
toward the lower left-hand corner of the picture, and the predominance of what may be
called a topographical interest leads to a certain dryness and uniformity in treatment. The
factual data are stated rather than interpreted according to a compositional idea. All the
details, whether distant or clo[le, are rendered with almost equal emphasis and precision,
and the objective colors of buildings, trees and meadows are scarcely affected by the action
of light and air.
In comparison with these early attempts the water color drawings which Durer brought
back from his passage through the Alps-most of them executed on his way home in 1495-
are advanced not only in perspective but also, which is more important, in conception. Even
when Durer limited himself to representing a single "motif" such as the Castle of Trent
( 1376) the details are coordinated into a comprehensive and coherent pattern; sharply
defined by an indented diagonal outline, the complex of buildings seems to contrast with,
and yet to grow out of, the heavy masses of almost amorphous terrain-"non murato rna
nato," to quote Vasari's phrase-and the whole scene appears to be suffused with a luminous
atmosphere.
Technically, this means a broader and more differentiated handling of the medium and
a closer observation of coloristic phenomena. In principle, it means a new approach to the
problem of landscape as such. The whole begins to be more relevant than the parts, and
every individual object, whether man-made or natural, is thought of as partaking of the
universal life of nature. As the Castle of Trent is no longer a record but a "picture," so
the representation of Trent as a whole ( 137 5) is no longer a topographical inventory but
a "view." In the magnificent drawing entitled "Wehlsch Pirg," that is: South-Tyrolian
Mountains (1384, fig. 63), the very anonymity of which is highly significant, Durer
achieved a panoramic or even cosmic interpretation of scenery. The drawing has no "subject"
except the breathing movement of the earth as such; it heralds, as far as possible within
the limits of a much earlier style, the visions of Bruegel, Hercules Seghers and Rembrandt.
Upon his return Durer looked at his native Franconia with new eyes. Color, hitherto
merely recorded as an essentially unchangeable characteristic of certain objects, came to be
interpreted as a phenomenon variable according to luminary and atmospheric conditions, and
it looked for a brief time as if Durer might develop into a plein-airiste. One of the landscape
studies of this period shows a Pond in the Woods, its water modulating from leaden gray
to vivid blue with sunbeams of a violent orange breaking through purple clouds ( 1387);
' .
another a House on an Island ("Weiherhaus") mirroring its red roof and green willows
in a lake opalescent with the reflection of a sky at eventide ( 1386). Even the careful studies
of Quarries made in preparation for prints reveal not only Durer's customary interest in
form and texture but also a surprising sensitivity for the subtle nuances of brown and gray
( 1391-1396). The City of Nuremberg emerges from flat grasslands and winding dirt roads
no less mysteriously than the Castle of Trent from its verdant hills (1385, fig. 62); and
toward the end of the century, with the color scheme changing from varicolored transparency
to severer and opaquer harmonies of olive-green and brown, we find such masterpieces of
perspective energy and panoramic breadth as the views of the hamlet Kalchreut and its
surroundings (1397 and 1398).
I I Five Years of Intense Productivity,
T
HE period from 1495 to about 1500 is the first and perhaps the most distinctive
"maximum" phase in Durer's career. Established as an independent master and
reaping the harvest of his varied experiences, he produced about a dozen paintings,
more than twenty-five engravings, seven large-sized single woodcuts, the greater part of
the Large Passion, and the whole Apocalypse. Stylistically, these works represent a first
synthesis between the Flemish and German traditions and the maniera moderna of the
Italians and lay the foundations of a Northern Renaissance. Iconographically, they comprise,
besides Biblical themes, theological and philosophical allegories, satirical subjects, "actu-
alities," and genre scenes; and their expressive qualities range from balanced formality to
trenchant realism and visionary fury.
Durer's first commissions for paintings came from Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony.
He had visited Nuremberg in April 1496, was at once impressed by Durer's genius, and
remained his admiring patron as long as he lived. In 1496 he ordered, simultaneously, his
own portrait and two altarpieces for the "Schlosskirche" in Wittenberg, which had been
in course of erection since about 1490. One of these, consisting of a central panel with a
Madonna in half length, and two wings with Sts. Anthony and Sebastian (the wings,
however, added about 1504), is now in Dresden and is known as the "Dresden Altarpiece."
The other was a polyptych composed of seven small panels (now also in Dresden) repre-
senting the Sorrows of the Virgin and of a central panel (now in Munich) representing a
Mater Dolorosa.
Both of these commissions were carried out without delay. The Mater Dolorosa polyptych
(3), designed by Durer, was executed by an assistant, with the master's personal participa-
tion limited to certain portions of the main panel. The Madonna in Dresden (4, fig. 64),
however, is Durer's work alone. It is carefully painted in size colors on canvas, a medium
which was popular in the Netherlands and in North Italy rather than in Nuremberg, and
the influence of these two schools can also be observed in style and iconography. While the
type of theVirgin is vaguely Boutsian, and while she adores the Infant Jesus exactly as in
Dutch'and Flemish Nativities (note also the St. Joseph busily at work in an adjoining
room), the metallic hardness of the modelling, the treatment of the still-life features in the
foreground and the perspective-though not the architecture-of the cheerless interior are
reminiscent of Squarcione and Mantegna. The expression of the Virgin is stern, almost hag
gard. The Infant, very small in comparison with His mother, is fast asleep; but His stiff
posture and pale color suggest a little corpse rather than a living child, an impression
strengthened by the motif of the asperge held over Him by an angel. This strange suggestion
39
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I
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40
INTENSE PRODUCTIVITY, 1495-1500
of twilight between life and death was certainly deliberate on Durer's part. In many theo-
logical texts relating to the Passion of Christ a tragic comparison was drawn between the
sleep of childhood and the sleep of death, and the corporate (that is, the cloth spread over
the altar for the Host to rest upon) is still interpreted both as a symbol of Christ's swaddling-
cloth and of His shroud. This idea is expressed in Michelangelo's Madonna of the Steps,
as well as in Raphael's Virgin with the Veil and its numerous derivations; and a madonna
type which may have been the direct source of Durer's composition had been developed in
Venice and conclusively formulated by Giovanni Bellini. It shows the Virgin with her hands
joined in prayer, and the Infant Jesus lying asleep across her lap, the whole arrangement
deliberately reminiscent of a Piela. The iconography of the Dresden altarpiece can thus be
understood as a synthesis of a Bellinesque invention with the tradition of the Low Countries
and Germany.
of Frederick the Wise, now in Berlin (54, fig. 65), is, like the "Dresden
Altarpiece," painted in size colors on canvas. The medium itself produces a more subdued
coloristic effect than oils, but here the impression of austerity results not so much from the
quality as from the choice of the colors. The Elector is clad in deep black with a few gold
ornaments and a very small touch of green in the embroidery of the shirt, and this dark figure
is set off against a light chamois background. In comparison with the Self-Portrait of 1493,
the picture is simplified both in color and in composition. But just by virtue of this simpli-
fication it attains a higher degree of reality and of dramatic power. The figure, reduced to
sheer volume, seems to hold sway over a province of three-dimensional space; it revolves
around an axis instead of clinging to the frontal plane, from which it is separated by a
heavy breast-molding; it is sufficiently removed from the background to cast a shadow
upon it, and there is ample space on either side. The general effect is strongly Mantegnesque,
a characteristic apparent not only in the style and in the treatment of such details as the
hair, but in the psychological interpretation as well. The portrait has a somberly heroic
quality, the imperious glance of the Elector commanding rather than courting the attention
of the beholder.
The three portraits of the following year, 1497, have come down to us only in copies
or replicas, but some of these are adequate enough to have been considered originals.
(;.....,_ A Portrait of Durer's father (best replica in London, 53, fig. 66 ), affording an interesting
co'ffiparison with that of 1490, shows Durer's newly acquired capacity for suggesting space
- without actually depicting it. The figure is turned slightly toward the spectator so that it.
seems to detach itself both from the frontal plane and from the background; but the resulting
slight asymmetry is counterbalanced by the fact that the hands (joined in front of the belly)
. and the face are placed on the central axis of the panel. The head, with the fine, high fore-
\' head no longer hidden by the cap, emerges proudly from a simple pyramidal mass which
is enlivened, however, by a studied contrast between the rising lines of the lapels and the
descending curves of the wide sleeves. The general impression is therefore one of composure
without stiffness. The comparatively rigid posture suggests, _not archaic constraint but rather
EARLIEST PAINTINGS
potential energy disciplined by unassuming self-possession. It is not surprising that even
Jacopo de' Barbari, who elsewhere exerted a certain amount of influence on Durer was
sufficiently by this portrait to use it as a model for his St. Oswald of :500.
smce precisely those points which have been mentioned escaped him, his version
stnkes us as flatter and at the same time overcharged.
of 1497 represent a pretty girl of eighteen, probably one
Furlegenn. So great is the contrast between the two compositions that it has been
questwned whether the same girl is represented in both pictures. The best replicas however
1 . ' '
not on Y agree In size and scale, but show the same coat-of-arms; and the distinctive features
of the fa.ce. are clearly identical. Both portraits present a young lady whose outstanding
charactenstics are a very small, intriguingly sensual and slightly ironical mouth with a
rather full lower lip and a "Cupid's bow," a dimpled chin, a remarkably wide-bridged nose
and, above all, .an enormous mass of hair which filled her, it seems, with justifiable pride.
The. differences are due to a sharp contrast in interpretation. In one picture (best
m 72, fig. 67) the figure of the girl is foiled by a plain dark background;
she IS In an.austerely simple.dress, casts down her eyes and joins her hands in prayer;
her beautiful hau, bound only With a fillet, flows down in a shining cascade. In the other
(best replica in Lutzschena, 71, fig. 68) she is shown seated by a window which opens upon
a landscape; she is dressed "for the dance" (as we know from a costume study by
Durer sown hand, 1284); her hair is braided and arranged in complicated tresses; and she
looks at the beholder with a whimsical smile. Attached to the molding of the window is a
statuette of an elderly scholar whose oriental dress, combined with his place in the embrasure
a window, immediately suggests the well-known story of Virgil and the beautiful but
vutuou.s daughter of the Roman Emperor. Moreover shl significantly holds two flowers
symbolic of love: the Eryngium, already known to us from Durer's Self-Portrait of
1493
,
and an Abrotanum, the amorous implications of which are even more explicit.
In fact the two p.ortraits reflect the personality of the young lady in two opposite aspects
same ones whiCh we shall encounter, with different connotations but with the same
Iconographical in engraving "Hercules" ( 180, fig. 108). One of them depicts
her gmse.of Vutue, or "Castitas" (it is significant that two copies of this
show the hau covered With a long veil of almost imperceptible thinness which, even
absent the original, bears witness to the contemporary interpretation of the subject;
m the copy m Budapest a prayer book is added for good measure). The other represents her as
Love, or (within of honor and modesty). She was thus rep-
as qualities a combmatwn of which would constitute a maximum of
many gul of marriageable age.
For the "Po.rtrait of Katharina Furlegerin as Voluptas," as we may call it, Durer had
adopted a Flemish scheme of composition: the sitter is placed in the corner of a room
ll f h" . ' one
wa o w Ich pierced by a window overlooking an open landscape (compare Dirk Bouts's
London portrait of 1462). In the Self-Portrait of 1498 in the Prado (49, fig. 10
9
) this
Flemish scheme is reconciled with the requirements of Italian monumentality, as is also the
case with the apparently contemporary Madonna in the Thyssen Collection at Lugano (25,
painted on a panel the back of which had already been used for a Flight of Loth and his
Daughters from Sodom and Gomorrha). Durer's pose is more informal than in any of the
earlier portraits; the hands are joined with a certain show of "good manners," and the right
arm is bent in an elegant curve instead of forming an angle as in the portraits of Frederick
the Wise and the "Furlegerin." But this almost nonchalant figure keeps the beholder in his
place. Its tall, slim haughtiness is enhanced by a heavy, strictly frontalized architecture, the
window no longer cut in the foreshortened side wall but in the rear wall which runs parallel
to the picture plane; and heavy moldings, forming a frame within the frame, lend dignity to
the proudly erect head.
This elaborate mise en scene serves the same end as do the careful arrangement of the hair
and beard, the modish and expensive-looking dress, and the gentlemanly gloves of soft gray
leather. Unlike the "engagement portrait" in the Louvre, the Prado picture was painted
without any ulterior purpose and is thus perhaps the first independent self-portrait ever pro-
duced. It was, in a sense, a challenge to the world at large, claiming for the artist the status
of a "homo liberalis atque humanus," or, to use Durer's own word, of a "gentilhuomo." In
Italy, this claim had long been granted-in Germany, it had yet to be raised. But it could be
raised only by an artist become "self-conscious"-in every possible sense of the word-
through his providential encounter with the Italian rz'nascimento. There is undeniably an
element of vanity and pride in Durer's attitude, quite natural in an artist who had already
won the confidence of great men and achieved international fame at the age of twenty-six.
But this personal element is outweighed by the gravity of a more than personal problem-
the problem of the "modern" artist as such; just as the somewhat showy colors and patterns
of Durer's dress are overshadowed by the hypnotic force of his unsmiling eyes.
In the portraits of 1499 the modified Flemish scheme employed for the Self-Portrait in
the Prado was developed in apparently opposite directions. In the three Tucher Portraits in
Weimar and Cassel (69, 74, 75) the landscape prospect is widened to about one-third of the
total width of the panel, so that one side of the figure stands out against the open space. In
the Munich Portrait of Oswolt Krell (59) it is narrowed down to a strip about one-fifth the
width of the panel. Yet these four pictures have one thing in common: the landscape is no
longer seen through a window cut into a massive wall, but appears behind a thin curtain of
woven material; instead of "looking out" from a closed room, we are out in the open where
a portion of the view is screened off, but still forms part of one homogeneous space.
In the Tucher Portraits the curtain is of embroidered brocade; in the Krell Portrait it is
solid red. In this respect the Krell Portrait announces a portrait, also in Munich, which bears
the date 1500 and was formerly held to represent the younger brother of the artist, Hanns
Durer ( 76). In it, Durer reverted to the plain dark background of his earlier portraits, but
employed it as he had the red curtain in the Krell picture: the face detaches itself almost
SELF-PORTRAITS OF 1498 AND 1500
43
violently from the dark background, with the contour of the brow and cheek emphatically
stressed and intensified.
The plain dark background is also employed in Durer's most famous Self-Portrait, which
is preserved in the same museum and was painted in the same year (5o, fig. 110 ). In every
other respect, however, these two pictures form the sharpest contrast imaginable. The Self-
Portrait of 1500 is the only portrait by Durer in which the figure is both rigidly frontalized
-
and verticalized. The effect of this hieratic arrangement is paralleled only by half-length
images of Christ, and this resemblance is strengthened by the position of the hand which
occupies the same place as the blessing right of the Salvator Mundi. It is indeed unquestion-
able that Durer deliberately styled himself into the likeness of the Saviour. He not only
adopted the compositional scheme of His image, but idealized his own features so as to make
them conform to those traditionally attributed to Christ: he softened the characteristic con-
tours of his nose and cheekbones and enlarged the size and altered the shape of his small and
somewhat slanting eyes ..
How could so pious and humble an artist as Durer resort to a procedure which many less
religious men would have considered blasphemous'? To understand his intentions we must
remember two things. First, that at Durer's time the doctrine of the "Imitatio Christi"-
"noch Christo z'leben," to quote his own words-was interpreted more literally than nowa-
days and could be illustrated accordingly; an individual person could be depicted with the
Cross on his shoulders (894). Second, that for Durer the modern conception of art as a matter
of genius had assumed a deeply religious significance which implied a mystical identification / .
of the artist with God. To his way of thinking the creative power of a good painter derives
from, and to some measure is part of, the creative power of,God, much as an anointed king
rules "Dei gratia" and as the Pope acts as the "Vicar of Christ." "God," to quote one of
Durer's earliest and most characteristic statements on art, "is honored when it appears that
He has given such insight [ Vernunft] to a creature in whom such art resides."
From this point of view the reproach of self-glorification is less justified in connection
with Durer's Self-Portrait in the guise of Christ than it is in connection with his Self-Portrait
in the guise of a gentilhuomo. It is no longer a challenge, but a confession and a sermon. It
states, not what the artist claims to be, but what he must humbly endeavor to become: a
entrusted with a gift which implies both the triumph and the tragedy of the "Eritis sicut
Deus." He has to subordinate his private self to an ideal he has to strive for c-
"insight" a1though he knows that "ultimate truth will not enter the mind of man"; and he
has to go on in spite of the fact that "the best is not within our reach." The Munich Self-
Portrait marks that crucial point in Durer's career when the craving for "insight" began to be
so all-absorbing that he turned from an intuitive to an intellectual approach to art, and tried
to penetrate into the rational principles of nature. At this stage of his development his concept
of the "Christ-like" artist seemed to be best prefigured in the impersonal clarity and calm
of a hieratic image such as the Salvator Mundi.
..
44
WHEN ERASMUS OF RoTTERDAM devoted two pages of his charming dialogue De recta Latini
Graecique sermonis pronuntiatione to what he calls a "monument to the memory of Albrecht
Durer" he borrowed most of his praise from Pliny's eulogy on Apelles. He made, however,
one significant change. He extolled Durer, and even rated him above the ancient master, for
having accomplished by black lines on white paper what the great Apelles had been able to
do only with the aid of color: "I admit that Apelles was the prince of his art, upon whom no
reproach could be cast by other painters except that he did not know when to take his hand off
the panel-a splendid kind of blame. But Apelles was assisted by colors, even though they
were fewer and less ambitious-still by colors. But Durer, though admirable also in other
respects, what does he not express in monochromes, th.at is, in black lines'? Light, shade,
splendor, eminences, depressions; and, though derived from the position of one single thing,
more than one aspect offers itself to the eye of the beholder. He observes accurately propor-
tions and harmonies. Nay, he even depicts that which cannot be depicted: fire, rays of light,
thunder, sheet lightning, lightning, or, as they say, the 'clouds on a wall' [which means,
according to Erasmus' own definition, "something most similar to nothing or a dream"];
all the sensations and emotions; in fine, the whole mind of man as it reflects itself in the
behavior of the body, and almost the voice itself. These things he places before the eye
in the most pertinent lines-black ones, yet so that if you should spread on pigments you
would injure the work. And is it not more wonderful to accomplish without the blandish-
ment of colors what Apelles accomplished with their aid'?"
In thus immortalizing Durer as an engraver and woodcut designer rather than as a painter,
Erasmus expressed an opinion shared by almost all of 'his contemporaries and endorsed by
posterity. Durer himself complained of the fact that the Italiansappreciated and copied his
prints while criticizing his use of color. But shortly after he practically bade farewell to paint
ing himself: "From now on I shall concentrate on engraving. Had I done so all the time I
should today be richer by a thousand guilders."
That Durer explained his preference for media as a matter of economic
expediency is not surprising. The production of prints, involving little outside help and prac-
tically no material expense, may well have been more profitable than the tedious and com-
plicated process of painting where the cost of lapis lazuli alone would devour a considerable
fraction of a reasonable fee. Yet there was another and more fundamental justification for '
Durer's attitude. He felt surer of his public, and surer of himself, as a graphic artist than as a
painter, and this for two good reasons. First, lines had more meaning for him than colors; he
thought in terms of lines as Chopin thought in terms of the piano and not of strings or wind
instruments, and as Keats thought in terms of verse and not of prose. Second, and perhaps no
less important, the graphic media were the most appropriate means of expression for a mind
dominated by the idea of "originality."
The postulate of originality-and, conversely, the condemnation of plagiarism-is a
fairly modern phenomenon which presupposes the interpretation of art and other intellectual
achievements as a matter of individual "genius." The Middle Ages conceived of the indi-
i
I
I
THE "APELLES OF BLACK LINES"
45
vidual not as an originator but as a link within the chain of tradition, and they acted and
judged accordingly in every field of human endeavor. A scholastic philosopher did not pride
himself on the originality of his thoughts but tried to eliminate apparent contradictions in
the writings of his predecessors by redefining their premises. A medieval artist developed the
types handed down by his forerunners without attempting to break the current of tradition
by the short-circuit of either a new "invention" or a direct observation from nature. Our
first question in connection with a Renaissance or Baroque drawing, is: "Is it an original
drawing for a painting or print, or a mere copy after a painting or print'?" A medieval draw-
ing, if we can apply this term at all, is as a rule both a reflection of one work of art and a
potential basis for another.
Durer, in this respect ahead of even the Italians, was one of the first artists to insist that
the chief requirement of a good master was i:o "pour out new things which had never before
in. the of any other man." He looked down upon those who "imitated" his compo- f'.
s1t10ns m theu work and made fun of the Venetian painters who, too unimaginative to invent _
"new stories," contented themselves with "painting the same old subjects over and again." L __
Now, in Durer's time a major painting was undertaken only on commission. That a
picture not falling into the class of standardized devotional images should be designed with no
definite end in view was an idea which developed only when art had come to be interpreted
as a means of "expressing the artist's personality." A German painter, therefore, of the late
or early sixteenth century was normally restricted in subject matter to the accepted
rehgwus themes on the one hand, and to portraits on the other. Patrons who would order a
Durer's Hercules Killing the Stymphalian Birds (105) were very rare, and this
p1cture 1s the only mythological subject ever treated by Durer in painting. The magic -- i
of the mult1plymg arts, however, permitted the artist to take the initiative: instead of
waiting for a commission he could turn out, in a great many impressions, works of his own
original invention. As almost every one could afford to buy a print, these impressions found
a like the copies of a printed book; and though the graphic artist (not unlike the
wnter) had to conform, to some extent, to the taste of the "public," this taste in turn proved
amenable to education by the graphic artist. Thus the graphic media became a vehicle
of self-expression long before self-expression had been accepted as a principle of what is r,
called the major arts. r I,,-
Even in the of religious representations the engraver and woodcut designer was
freer than the pamter; he could select subjects unsuitable for altarpieces, such as the Apoca-
and could be unconventional in his interpretation of others. In the secular field his
hberty was altogether He could represent whatever interested him and, he hoped,
or less pubhc. He could show objects picturesque or curious; he could plunge
mto and mto the news of day; he could contrive unusual variations on historical
or mythological themes and could thmk up brand-new inventions of a symbolic or allegorical
.. Small Durer was partial to the graphic media and that he played a t _
more s1gmficant role m the1r development than he did in that of painting. It can be said
without exaggeration that the history of painting would remain unchanged had Durer never
- ~ ) touched a brush and a palette, but that the first five years of his independent work as an
engraver and woodcut designer sufficed to revolutionize the graphic arts.
Except for two incidental works of semi-scientific character-one of them, The Syphilitic
(403), adorning a broad-sheet published by Dr. Ulsenius in 1496, the other, entitled "Caput
Physicum" (444), illustrating a psychological treatise by Ludovicus Pruthenius printed in
1498 by Koberger-the woodcuts produced by Durer before 1500 are all "ganze Bogen"
("whole sheets"), printed from blocks about 15 by 11.5 inches in size. Like the ships of a
great merchant these giant woodcuts carried their cargo and their flag-Durer's famous jD\-
all over the world. They had a threefold right to bear his initials. They were issued on his
own responsibility; they were invented and designed by him; and most, if not all of them,
were even cut by his own hand.
While working for the publishers of Basel and Strassburg, Durer did not normally cut
his woodcut designs himself. He was then a mere cogwheel in a machine which functioned
according to the principle of division of labor, and his natural talent as well as his previous
training qualified him for the job of "cartoonist" rather than for that of cutter. His pre-
Italian style was new in that it was based on an unusual fusion of diverse traditions and
elements; but none of these was in itself a novelty to German craftsmen; they found them-
selves confronted with a somewhat difficult yet by no means insurmountable task. It is clear,
then, that Durer, if indeed he did carve some of the Basel blocks himself, could limit this kind
of work to comparatively rare occasions; he undertook it in order to familiarize himself with
the technical process, and in order to demonstrate his intentions to the professional cutters,
but not as a part of his regular duties.
Similarly, Durer handled the cutting knife only rarely in his later years, particularly
after his second journey to Italy, but now for directly opposite reasons. Busy, not only with
paintings and engravings but also with theoretical work and with the enterprises of Max-
imilian I, Pirckheimer and other humanists, he had to resort to a division of labor again, but
now with himself in command of the machine. Having shouldered such tasks as the Triumphal
Arch, the Triumphal Procession and the illustration of his own treatises, he had once more
to limit his personal contribution to working drawings or even to mere sketches to be carried
out by assistants. But now, as far as the cutting was concerned, he could rely on a new gen-
eration of craftsmen. These might be members of his own workshop, or they might have ~ e t
up an independent business devoted exclusively to the manufacture of woodblocks-this
latter as in the case of Hieronymus Andreae, called "Formschneyder," who, from about r
1515, did most of Durer's "woodcutting" in the purely technical sense. But in any case, they
had all grown up under the master's influence and had learned completely to adjust their
technique to the requirements of a "Durer style"-soon more or less adopted by all the other
woodcut designers in Germany-the fundamentals of which had been developed in the half-
decade from 1495 to 1500.
REFORM OF WOODCUT
47
During these truly formative years Durer must have done most of the cutting himself.
Had he entrusted the blocks of the Apocalypse to cutters previously employed by W olgemut
or Koberger, he would have had to dismiss them as speedily as Michelangelo did those unfor-
tunate Florentine Quattrocento painters who were supposed to assist him with his work at
the Sistine Chapel. No one else could, at that time, translate his conceptions into an entirely
adequate language. The two "incidental" woodcuts which have been mentioned (403 and
444) give us an idea of what happened to two Durer designs of 1496 and 1498 respectively
when handed over to a professional Nuremberg cutter; and a brilliant analysis by William
M. Ivins, Jr., has revealed the basic technical difference which exists between two woodblocks
of 1497/98 ( 222 and 340) and several of after 1510, the latter ones produced by professional
cutters.
What, then, are the characteristics of the new woodcut style which appeared in the Apoca-
lypse and in the other "whole sheets" of 1496-99 '?
The uppermost consideration in Durer's mind was, naturally, to impart to his woodcuts
the plastic force and emotional vitality which fascinated him in the "nackete Bilder" of the
Italians, and yet to retain, and even to strengthen, the richness and variety which had distin-
guished the illustrations of the "Nuremberg Chronicle" and the Schatzbehalter. To accom-
plish this he had to redefine the very function of the medium.
In the woodcuts of Durer's German predecessors, there had been two different kinds of
lines which can be termed "descriptive" on the one hand, and "optical" on the other. The
"descriptive" lines, or contours, had served mainly to define the forms without contributing
to the characterization of light, shade and surface texture. The "optical" lines, or hatchings,
had served mainly to suggest light, shade and surface texture without contributing to the
definition of form. Where these separate functions had happened to coincide, as in the repre-
sentation of hair, fur or foliage, the result had often been utter confusion; and neither the
contours nor the hatchings had had much plastic or emotional significance, the former being
too monotonous in thickness and movement to go beyond a mere delimitation of areas, the
latter being either too schematized or too chaotic to express organic structure.
Irt Durer's post-Italian woodcuts this functional disparity was eliminated. The hatchings
were no longer permitted to appear as schematic series of stiff, indifferent strokes or to fuse
into indistinct masses, nor were the contours confined to the function of mere boundaries.
Both were subjected to the discipline of what may be called "dynamic calligraphy," and were
thereby reduced to a common aesthetic denominator. Both Wolgemut and Durer tried to
appropriate in their woodcuts some of the qualities of copper-plate engravings; but while
Wolgemut endeavored to achieve their illusionistic rendering of surface textures, Durer
emulqted their purely graphic qualities. He taught woodcut lines, hatchings and contours
alike, to behave like the prolonged, elastic failles produced by Schongauer's burin. They were
made variable in length and width, they learned to move in curves significant both from an
'
ornamental and representational point of view, and, above all, they acquired the capacity for
swelling and tapering so as to .express organic tension and relaxation. Thus hatchings as well
as contours were transformed into flexible and expressive "modelling lines," with equal
emphasis on the concepts of "line" and of "modelling."
As a result, the woodcut medium became an adequate vehicle for the dynamic tendencies
of the Italian Renaissance where all things, whether alive or inanimate, were interpreted as
organic entities molded and stirred by inherent forces. Durer had to renounce, of course, the
aspiration for pictorial effects. But the very principle which prevented his woodcuts from
attaining illusionism endowed them, almost paradoxically, with new and powerful chiaro-
scuro values. For, since the functional difference which formerly existed between contours and
hatchings had been eliminated, the contours, originally merely "descriptive," assumed a
luminary significance in proportion as the hatchings, originally merely "optical," fulfilled a
plastic function. In other words, the relationship between paper and printer's ink came to be
sublimated into a relationship between light and shade: every black line, in addition to being
"black" and to indicating form and volume, came to signify "darkness"; and the blank paper
came, accordingly, to signify "light."
This transformation of black lines and white intervals into negative and positive symbols
of the same entity, namely, light, opened up entirely new possibilities. Where a lighted form
had to be singled out from a blank area, it was, of course, bounded by a black line; but where
a shaded form, even if it happened to be part of the same piece of drapery, had to be separated
from a dark environment, the black contour was replaced by a white one (a remarkable antici-
pation of what is known as "white-line engraving"); and where a lighted form had to stand
out from a dark background, the contour was omitted altogether-absorbed or swallowed up
by the surrounding darkness. Suffice it to adduce the cut-work coats and trappers in the Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse (284, fig. 78) and Samson rending the Lion (222), or the
magnificent fruit tree in the Knight on Horseback and Lansquenet (35 1).
Thus the primitive contrast between black and white came to express a gliding scale of
chiaroscuro values-gliding in so far as the relation of luminary intensity was bound to be
affected by the factor of quantity. "More black" meant "deeper darkness"; not only the
greater or lesser density, but also the tapering and swelling of the black lines gave the impres-
sion of more or less impenetrable shade, and this, by way of contrast, strengthened or softened
the brilliancy of the adjacent whites. What applied to the relation between single elements
also applied to the relation between larger complexes, so that the whole woodcut began to
glitter and to glow with varying degrees of luminosity-not in spite but because of the fact
that the profusion and confusion of the earlier style had been restricted to a purely linear ,,
mode of presentation.
Motifs such as the mane of Samson's lion ( 222), the plants in the Holy Family with the
Three Hares (322) or the trees in the Knight on Horseback and Lansquenet (351) are
like fireworks in black and white. Set out against long parallel strokes which indicate a
darkening sky (a borrowing from line engraving inconceivable in any woodcut before
Durer), or contrasted with a system of concentric curves standing for a stretch of terrain,
j.
DEVELOPMENT IN THE EARLY WOODCUTS
49
blank paper seems to be magically transformed into luminous clouds, blazing flames, or wide
landscapes suffused with sunshine.
The new style did not, of course, emerge like Athena from the head of Zeus. The modest
book illustrations of 1492/93, in attempting to synthesize the Nuremberg and the "Ulmian"
technique, had paved the way, to some extent, for what was to be accomplished in the large
woodcuts of the following lustrum, and within the latter a definite development can be
observed.
One of the earliest, if not the earliest, of the "whole sheets" produced after Durer's
return from Italy is the Bath House (.348, fig. 71). It is the only woodcut of this period
in which the light comes from the right (which shows the lack of established working habits),
and its iconographical counterpart, a drawing of Bathing Women (1180, fig. 95), bears
the date 1496. Here the characterization of surface text1,1re is still somewhat reminiscent
of Wolgemut's illusionism, as is particularly evident in the group of buildings near the left
margin. An attempt is made to bring out the qualities of weather-beaten wood, latticed
windows, mellowed masonry and thatched roofs. The fortified castle in the Martyrdom of
St. Catharine (fig. 72 ), executed but two or three years later, is reduced to a complex of
forms described in terms of strictly graphic lines (figs. 82 and 83).
Analogous comparisons can be drawn ad libitum and can serve to establish a relative
chronology, not only of the single woodcuts but also of the individual pages within the
Apocalypse. The buildings in the woodcut St. John before God and the Elders (283, fig. 77),
for instance, are obviously more like those in the Bath House than like those in the Martyr-
dom of St. Catharine; this print must thus belong to the earlier pages of the Apocalypse. Simi-
larly, we note that the elaborate Venetian dress which appears in both the Martyrdom of
St. Catharine and the Babylonian Whore (293) is impressionistic sprezzatura
in the latter case and with systematic precision in the former. Again the inference is that
the Babylonian Whore is about two years earlier than the Martyrdom of St. Catharine, and
this assumption is confirmed by the treatment of the "fire from heaven," where pictorial
illusionism has given way to a simple but surprisingly effective contrast between black
and white.
The peculiarities of the woodcut medium influenced subject matter and content as well
as "style." Unless they served some ulterior purpose (as did book illustrations, emblems,
heraldry or such exceptional enterprises as the Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I), woodcuts
were, on the whole, more "popular" in character than engravings, not only because they were
less laborious to produce and therefore cheaper to acquire, but for internal reasons as well.
Their-technique called for the summary statement of essentials rather than for the particu-
'" larizing elaboration of details. It suppressed individual variations of modelling and texture
in favor of a simplified linear pattern, and sacrificed tonal differences to powerful contrasts
of light and dark. Woodcuts were thus ill suited for a display of "art for art's sake" where
connoisseurs might revel in pictorial refinements or in the consummate beauty of the nude.
They did not invite minute examination and leisurely enjoyment. But the very succinctness
50
and directness of their style produced a and instantaneous reaction,
and the non-realistic quality of the medium was favorable to excursions into a domain
essentially inaccessible to copper-plate engraving: the realm of the fantastic and the visionary.
Durer never lost sight of these inherent potentialities and limitations; he even became
increasingly aware of them. Qf his "independent" woodcuts only to secular
None of these is thin 1497:- ortnem, briefly
rep;eseiit simple and rather commonplace genre subjects already familiar to earlier fifteenth
century art: the Knight on Horseback and the Lansquenet (351 ), and the BathHouse (348,
fig. 71). The former is a monumental restatement of motifs in which Durer had been inter-
ested from the very beginning of his career (see the drawings 874 and 1244) and it would
be difficult to find for it an interpretation other than factual. That the latter, too, has scarcely
any cryptic allegorical meaning may be inferred from the fact that bathing scenes of this
kind were very popular in late medieval and Renaissance genre art. Even the "onlooker,"
who has been identified with Plato's silly youth looking in on the Dionysian mysteries but
never initiated into them, is a standard feature of these representations. It occurs also in
that- drawing of 14--already mentioned in connection with the Bath House woodcut-
where six women and two children appear more seriously engaged in the good work of
cleanliness than the fun-loving men (fig. 95).
Only one woodcut, not very much later than the Bath House, deals with a definitely
humanistic subject. It is entitled "Ercules" and represents the combat between Hercules
and Cacus (347). The interpretation is, ho'wever, characteristically not based on original
classical sources but on a medieval compendium known as the "Mythographus III," probably
supplemented by suggestions from Durer's learned friends. This accounts for the unusual
features of the narrative. Since the "Mythographus III" relates the Cacus incident before
all the other labors of Hercules, the hero is not yet clad in the lion's skin which he was to
wear throughout his later life-the lion still happily loitering in the background-but in
the skin of a deer or calf. The defeated Cacus, dressed in what Durer then believed to be
classical armor, is represented in the form of "Siamese Twins," owing to the boldly literal
interpretation of the epithet duplex which may mean "deceitful" (as in our word "du-
plicity"), as well as "double" or "bipartite." The unhappy girl pursued by a Fury of grimly
Mantegnesque appearance, finally, is Cacus's sister Caca. She had-we are not told how
and why-"betrayed her brother to Hercules" and thereby brought about the former's death.
Whether or not she foresaw the result of her action, she was thus guilty of fratricide and had
to be punished by the avenging goddess especially appointed for the prosecution of this
crime, the "Erinys fraterna."
All the other large-sized woodcuts produced before 1500, then, represent religious
subjects; but only four of them were intended to appear as single prints: the Samson, the
Holy Family with the Three Hares, the Martyrdom of St. Catharine, and the Martyrdom
of the Ten Thousand (337), where Italian reminiscences had been incorporated into a
framework derived, as we remember, from Geertgen tot Sint J ans (figs. 69 and 70). The rest
\.
THE APOCALYPSE 51
-twenty-two in number-belong to two coherent series or, to quote Durer's own words,
"large books"-the Apocalypse and the Large Passion. The Apocalypse is made up of fifteen
woodcuts, the first of which represents the Martyrdom of St. John the Evangelist. It was first
published in two parallel editions, one with German and the other with Latin text, both of
which appeared in 1498; a reprint of the Latin edition, with a new frontispiece, appeared in
1511 (280-295) -)
The of Apocalypse .was novel in two respects. First, it- was the earliest
book designed and published by an artist as exclusively his own undertaking. The
berg Chronicle," too, had been printed at the initiative of Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff,
but they had obtained the support of two capitalists, and these as well as the printer, Anton
Koberger, had been credited with the publication in the colophon. Diirer, however, signed
himself not only as the artist but also as the publisher, and even had the text been set and
printed in Koberger's shop, which is not certain, this fact was not made known to the public.
Second, the Apocalypse was a new type of illustrated book as such. Setting aside the
Carolingian manuscripts to which we shall shortly revert, the illustrated copies of the
Revelation had been, roughly speaking, of three kinds. Either a number of self-contained
and fairly large pictures, preferably full-page, had been distributed throughout the volume,
as in the Bamberg Apocalypse, the Beatus manuscripts and several other instances; or, a
series of comparatively small illustrations had inserted into the script or letterpress,
as in the big Dutch Bibles of the early fifteenth century and their remote descendants the
' -
printed Bibles of the 'seventies and 'eighties; or else, each page had been divided into two
or, occasionally, more tiers of pictures explained by brief captions and internal inscriptions,
as in the majority of French, English, Flemish and Germazt manuscripts of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries. The gradual disintegration of this last type, with more and
more text invading the area of the pictures, had ultimately resulted in the Block-Book
Apocalypses of the middle of the fifteenth century.
Durer, however, wanted to bring out a book containing the complete text and, at the
same time, a continuous yet brief series of pictures neither interrupted by text, nor
in the text, nor, of course, interspersed with text. He therefore reserved the front of his
huge for woodcuts free from inscriptions and printed the text on the back. This
arrangement is reminiscent of the aforesaid Carolingian manuscripts, but in these the principle
is not observed consistently and is applied in an altogether different spirit. The closely
related Apocalypses in Valenciennes and Paris (Bibliotheque Nationale, Nouv. Acqu. 1132)
show a consistent alternation of pictures on the recto and text on the verso, but the pictures
are not- always full-page illustrations and actually honeycombed with inscriptions. The
closely .related Apocalypses in Treves and Cambrai, on the other hand, have full-page
illustrations free from script, but there is a sudden shift from leaves with pictures on the
verso and text on the recto to leaves with pictures on the recto and text on the verso. And
in all four cases the narrative, comprising from thirty-eight to seventy-four pictures, is as
prolix as Durer's is concise.
In only one instance do we find anything like a genuine anticipation of Durer's general
scheme. This is the remarkable East Flemish manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale
(MS. Neerl. 3, fig. 73), where the content of the whole Revelation is crammed into a limited
number of pictures (twenty-two as against Durer's fourteen) ; where the illustrations occupy
the whole page and are of similar format, though naturally not quite of the same size as
Durer's woodcuts; where the text is invariably given on the back of the pages and n:ver
encroaches upon the pictures; and where, within the limits of the style of about 1400 a
similar spirit of grandeur and pathos holds sway. Whether or not Durer had occasion' to
th.is. or a similar manuscript (which is by no means impossible, especially if he actually
VIsit the Low Countries as a journeyman), it is, as a "book," the nearest approach to
his Apocalypse.
There is, however, apart from everything else, one very significant difference in structure.
In the Paris manuscr!pt text !s not only abbreviated but so arranged that each chapter
faces the correspondmg IllustratiOn and forms a kind of text-and-picture unit with the
( by the ':ay, is also true of an unauthorized reprint of Durer's Apocalypse
published m by Greff). Durer printed the text without interruption so that
the back of his last woodcut IS blank. He did not want the reader to compare an individual
picture with an individual passage of writing, but rather to absorb the whole text and the
whole sequence of pictures as two self-contained and continuous versions of the same nar-
rative.
To achieve this end, Durer applied two principles: concentration and dramatization.\
On the one he condensed the entire content of the Revelation into fourteen woodcuts, . \
each a and composition; incidents enlarged upon in other cycles
were abbreviated or entu'ely omitted, and repetitions were strictly avoided. The "mountains
and moved out of their places" of Chapter vi, 14 and the "falling star" of Chapter \
IX, 1, for mstance, were omitted because similar events were represented in the illustration
of Chapter viii, 8 VIII, 10 respectively (288); the content of Chapters vn,
9
, 10 and
13 XIX, 1-4 was mcorporated into the illustration of Chapter XIV, 1 and 3 in order to
avoid the recurrence of great multitudes worshipping the Lamb (287). On the other hand
Durer did everything in his power to transform mere situations or phenomena into
action. When the text speaks of "a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is
before God," the horns (cornua; Luther's translation has "Ecken") appear as Cherubs'
heads emitting blasts of air ( 289) ; when mention is made of the "hundred and fourt and
four wh.o were "sealed in their foreheads," Durer does not merely show a
of p.eople with. a cross but illustrates the act of signing them, performed by an angel
of his own free_mventwn (286, fig. 79); when white robes "are given" to'the "souls of them
that were slain for the word of God" and clamor for more speed in the administratio f
. . no
JUStice, we see the impatient martyrs resurrected, brought before the altar by angels, reaching
for the garments, and actually donning them (285); and when the seven-headed beast is
seen by the visionary with one of its heads "as it were wounded to death," one of its necks
THE A PO CAL YPSE 53
collapses like a dying snake (294). The Four Horsemen who, according to the text, "go
out" singly and do not come into direct contact with mankind appear as a closed squadron
charging upon a crowd of helpless victims (284); the "great mountain burning with fire"
is "cast into the sea" by two gigantic hands emerging from clouds ( 288, fig. So) ; and the
stars that fall from heaven "even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs" seem to behave like
living creatures, each writhing like a starfish rather than a star, and provided with a quivering
tail (285). Furthermore, the Evangelist, who is more or less ubiquitous in other illustrations
of the Apocalypse, is included only where he plays an active part in the drama. He appears
not as a mere "seer" but as one who directly participates in the action: where he goes to his
knees before the Son of Man and listens to His voice (282, fig. 76), where he is spoken
to by the Elders ( 283, figs. 77 and 287), where he devours the book ( 290), and where he is
shown the Heavenly Jerusalem (295). The undramatic episode of the letters to the Seven
Churches remained, of course, unillustrated.
In thus departing from the written text, Durer could draw, to some extent, upon a repre-
sentational tradition which, though with altogether different intentions, had paved the way
for a livelier interpretation of the textual data. The Block-Book Apocalypse and its hand-
painted predecessors had already depicted the actual clothing of the impatient martyrs, and
the whole fifteenth century had shown a growing tendency to unite the Four Horsemen within
a coherent picture space instead of representing them on four separate pages or, at least, in
four separate sections. The Quentell Bible of about 1479 and its derivatives, the Koberger
Bible of 1483 and the Gruninger Bible of 1485 (the former illustrated with reprints of
Quentell's original blocks, the latter with rough but fairly inventive copies in reverse), even
include a little group of human victims (fig. 75).
There are many other indications that Durer carefully consulted the woodcuts of his
modest predecessors. What may be cailed the "raw material" of his compositions largely
furnished by the illustrations of the Quentell-Koberger Bible on the one hand, and of the
Gruninger Bible on the other. A brief tabulation may serve to facilitate a comparison which
sheds an interesting light on Durer's methods.
MARTYRDOM OF ST. JoHN THE EvANGELIST (281). The motifs of the henchmen
were in part suggested by the Quentell-Koberger and, even more particularly, by the
Gruninger Bible.
THE VIsiON OF THE SEVEN CANDLESTICKs (282, fig. 76). The general scheme of
was directly taken over from the Quentell-Koberger Bible (fig. 74).
THE FouR HoRSEMEN (284, fig. 78). In addition to the fact that the four riders
. in a unified picture space and that their human victims are included, it should
be tnentioned that the Quentell-Koberger Bible shows a kneeling woman in the same
place where an analogous figure, however much improved, occurs in the Durer woodcut.
THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH SEALS (285). While the idea of represent-
ing the actual act of clothing (and possibly the division of the composition into two
54
zones) was suggested by the Block-Book Apocalypse, the motif of the angel standing
behind the altar and handing out the garments is derived from the Gruninger Bible.
THE FouR ANGELS HoLDING THE WINDS (286, fig. 79). The swords carried by
the Angels-not required by the text and absent from the earlier tradition-appear in
both the Quentell-Koberger and the Gruninger Bibles. The Angel at the upper left is a
variation in reverse on the Angel at the upper right in the Quentell-Koberger woodcut.
The idea of uniting the Four Angels into a solid block placed in the left foreground,
with all the other figures pushed back into the center plane, may have been suggested by
Michael Pacher some of whose works Durer may have seen while crossing the Alps; a
similar distribution of masses can be observed, for instance, in the Miracle of Loaves and
Fishes in the St. Wolfgang altarpiece.
THE SEvEN TRUMPETS (288, fig. 8o). The eagle saying "We, We, We" and
swooping down upon the earth-instead of quietly displaying his wings-occurs in
almost identical fashion in the Gruninger Bible while he is absent from the Quentell-
Koberger Bible; the motif of the foundering ships was likewise suggested by the
Gruninger woodcut. The falling star, on the other hand, is included only in the Ouentell
Koberger Bible. The burning mountain appears in both versions, but the idea of having
it tossed into the sea by two huge hands is Durer's.
ST. JoHN DEvOURING THE BooK (290). The "Mighty Angel" is an improved ver-
sion of the figure in the Quentell-Koberger Bible, except for the fact that Durer's inter-.
pretation of the metaphor "and his feet as pillars of fire" is more literal: the earlier
woodcut shows human feet protruding from under the bases of the "pillars" while
Durer eliminates the feet altogether.
THE APOCALYPTIC WoMAN (291). The general arrangement of the composition is
derived from the Quentell-Koberger Bible. The motif of the Child carried heavenward
by two angels was, however, revised after the pattern of funerary monuments and prayer
books ("Commendatio animarum"), where the soul of the deceased, in the guise of an
infant, is carried upward in a cloth.
ST. MicHAEL FIGHTING THE DRAGON (292, fig. 81). The posture of St. Michael
was suggested by the Quentell-Koberger Bible.
THE BABYLONIAN WHORE (293). The general composition of the main group, the
posture of the Whore, and the presence of an angel were suggested by the Quentell- .
Koberger Bible.
THE BEAST WITH Two HoRNs LIKE A LAMB (294). The posture and physiognomi-
cal appearance of the Beast were suggested by the Gruninger Bible, rather than by the
Quentell-Koberger Bible.
THE ANGEL WITH THE KEY OF THE BoTTOMLEss PIT (295). The main group was,
in a very general way, suggested by the Quentell-Koberger Bible.
1
THE A PO CAL YPSE
55
In remodelling the schemes and motifs suggested by these old-fashioned woodcuts, Durer
drew upon the experiences of his bachelor's journey and of his visit to Italy. It has already
been mentioned that Durer's new woodcut technique owes much to Schongauer's engravings.
)
With regard to the Apocalypse, these served not only to improve Durer's grammar but to
enrich his vocabulary. It need hardly be pointed out that the Seven Candlesticks in the initial
vision are diversified and, in part, modernized variations on the magnificent candelabrum in
Schongauer's Death of the Virgin. The figure of the, Evangelist in the same woodcut, kneeling
so as to show his nude soles to the beholder, also reveals the influence of this engraving, and
so great was the fascination of this realistic detail that Durer repeated it four times in later
years: in the Heller altarpiece (8, 496, fig. 168); in the two woodcuts representing the Death
and the Assumption of the Virgin (313 and 314, fig. 178); and in the Last Judgment in the
Small Passion (272). The facial type of the Son of Man in the Vision of the Seven Candle-
sticks is no less Schongauerian than the aerial apparition in the "War in Heaven"; with its
fantastic fringe of devils' tails and wings it evidently presupposes the Temptation of St.
Anthony. The child seen in the lower left-hand corner of the Opening of the Fifth and Sixth
Seals, finally, is almost identical with Schongauer's Infant Jesus as "Salvator Mundi."
The mother of this child, however, is of different ancestry. Her horror-stricken face, the
mouth wide open with a cry of anguish, is unthinkable without such models as the mourning
old woman in Mantegna's Deposition of Christ (fig. 198)-models which in turn reflect the
frozen pathos of classical tragic masks. Another reflection of Mantegna's style can be dis-
covered in the background of the same woodcut where the posture of the dying Orpheus
(928, fig. 49) is repeated in the figure of an elderly man vainly trying to protect himself
from the downpour of stars. Other reminiscences of the trip to Venice are found in the
Italianate architecture and the Turk's head in the Martyr_dom of St. John (281, for the
Turk's head see the drawing 1469, fig. 55), in the fantastic helmet of the warrior in the group
of people listening to the Beast with two Horns like a Lamb (294, the helmet recurring later
in the engraving "Hercules"), and in the Venetian costume of the Babylonian Whore (293,
see the drawing 1278).
All these details are, however, of minor importance as compared to the influence of the
Italian Renaissance as a new method of approach. It was thanks to Mantegna, or rather to
classical models transmitted through him and his followers, that Durer was able to "realize"
the visions of St. John without destroying their phantasmagoric quality.
A vision is a supernatural event, or rather a sequence of supernatural events, experienced
by a person: "being in the Spirit" or, as one would say today, in a trance. Its content is thus
both miraculous and imaginary. It is miraculous in so far as the laws of ordinary physical
." life are temporarily suspended; it is imaginary in so far as this suspension is not supposed to
take place in actuality as is the case, for instance, of the miracles accepted by the Church, but
only within the consciousness of the visionary. To "realize" a vision in a work of art-that
is, to make it convincing without the aid of conventional signs or inscriptions-the artist has
to fulfill two seemingly contradictory requirements. On the one hand, he must be an accom-
s6
plished master of "naturalism," for only where we behold a world evidently controlled by
what is known as the laws of nature can we become aware of that temporary suspension of
these laws which is the essence of a "miracle"; on the other hand, he must be capable of
transplanting the miraculous event from the level of factuality to that of an imaginary
experience.
In Durer's Apocalypse the second of these conditions. was partly fulfilled by his new
woodcut style, the "dematerializing" quality of which has already been mentioned, and partly
by compositional devices intended to stress the plane surface. In most of the woodcuts the
design is dominated by a vertical axis (frequently crossed by a horizontal dividing line) on
which are aligned a number of objects located in different spatial planes. Diagonals play an
important part, and the forms are arranged so as to balance and connect on the flat sheet no
less emphatically than in space; occasionally, for instance in the Avenging Angels and the
Apocalyptic Woman, adoring angels are added only for reasons of symmetry.
To fulfill the requirement of "naturalism," however, Durer's Northern training, which
gave him a sufficient command of space, volume and color, had to be complemented by further
study of the kinetics of the human body and the phraseology of human emotions. Without
Mantegna, or rather without the classical tradition deliberately revived by him and those
who shared his views, Diirer could not have made convincing the swift strength of the
Avenging Angels, the statuesque beauty of the Angels holding the Winds, the agony of human
beings in despair, and the cold fury of the Four Horsemen. Their phalanx is patterned after
a classical type which had survived in Consular Diptychs and Carolingian miniatures, but
had been in abeyance for many centuries thereafter; and the group formed by the rider with
the "pair of balances" and the woman collapsing before the feet of his horse-a splendid
substitute for the analogous figure in the Quentell-Koberger Bible-is reminiscent of one of
the reliefs at the Arch of Constantine.
To illustrate this almost paradoxical contrast between a "naturalistic" rendering of
visible things and a non-naturalistic mode of presentation, let us consider one specific case:
the Vision of the Seven Candlesticks (282, fig. 76). In general arrangement it remains par-
ticularly faithful to the woodcuts in the Quentell-Koberger and Griininger Bibles (fig. 74),
but it is infinitely more advanced in the rendering of spatial depth and realistic detail. The
enormous candlesticks-enormous because they must catch the visionary's eye before he sees
the Son of Man-are all diversified; each of them is an individual masterpiece of goldsmith's
work, and the flames of the candles flicker in a supernatural breeze; they are shown in per-
spective instead of in geometrical elevation, and they are arranged behind instead of above
one another. They are placed on realistic cumuli, and these seem to carry, not only the candle-
sticks but also the figure of the visionary. In the earlier print he had been kneeling before an
apparition which appears to him within a conventionalized mandorla-in Durer's woodcut
he is included in his own vision.
However, just these innovations fill the beholder with a sense of fantastic unreality. The
same clouds which serve as a kind of platform for the candlesticks and the figure of St. John
THE A PO CAL YPSE
57
develop into what resembles vertical columns of smoke, weightless and unrestrained by the
rules of perspective. The three-dimensionality of space is stressed and denied at the same time
(with the strict symmetry of the whole composition and the abstract transparency of the
woodcut lines lending support to a non-naturalistic and the very fact that the
Evangelist-a mortal like ourselves-appears to !Je transported bodily into a supernaturaL ... ,
realm invites us to share, and not merely to witness, his visionary experience. \
Analogous observations can be made on every page of the Apocalypse. \Vherever earthly
1
scenery occurs it is developed into those panoramic landscapes which Diirer had learned to
master on his journey through the Alps. Even the flood "cast out" by the Dragon in his pursuit
of the Apocalyptic Woman spreads out into a veritable river. The goblet of the Babylonian
Whore, the jewelry worn by sacred as well as secular personages, the crowns of the seven-
headed monster, the tracery of the "altars before God" and such sturdy pieces of carpentry
as the Gates of Heaven and the lid of the Bottomless Pit are depicted with the same work-
manlike respect for technical details as the Seven Candlesticks. And in the representation of
living things, whether angels, humans or animals, the principle of variety, which had gov
erned the capitals, window-traceries and baldaquins of Gothic cathedrals, came to be coupled
with the Renaissance achievement of organic mobility.
The heads of the Dragon, particularly where he appears together with the Beast with two
Horns like a Lamb, are varied in relative position, physiognomy, and movement so as to
express the operation of the seven capital sins, the proudly erect lion's head in the center
standing for "Superbia" (the root and mother of the other vices), the stupid face with little
snail's horns for "Acedia," the head with the beak and narrow-set eyes for "Invidia," etc.
The behavior of the Four Angels holding the Winds is diversified so as to create a rhythmical
crescendo, while corresponding to the character of their anfagonists. Gentle Zephyr can be
quieted by a beautifully statuesque angel who raises his left hand with a gesture of mild
persuasion and carries his sword like an attribute rather than a weapon; the neighbor of
this angel, confronting "Auster," makes a more emphatic gesture with his right arm and lifts
his sword with a firm and somewhat menacing grasp; the angel at the upper right addresses
Eurus with his arms outstretched, his left emphatically raised and his sword almost ready
for use; "Boreas," the wildest of the winds, can be tamed only by actual battle. The very
pace of the Four Horsemen is differentiated so as to create the illusion of increasing speed.
The group of the three leading riders, though patterned after classical models, differs from
these in that the horses do not move in unison. The Rider with the Balance tries to catch up
with the Rider with the Sword, and he in turn with him who "has a bow." As they proceed the
victims fall like wheat before the reaper, and Death, equipped with a pitchfork instead of with
the customary scythe-a gatherer and not a killer-lags far behind on an emaciated jade
whose hobbling gait is no less inescapable than the thunderous gallop of the three other horses.
And yet, the more authentic the earthly scenery, the more phantasmagoric such events as
the "War in Heaven" or the apparition of the Twenty-Four Elders; the more lifelike and
individualized the details of the Dragon, the more monstrous the whole; the more natural and
ss
effective the gestures of the Angels holding the Winds, the more exorbitant the spectacle; and
the more real the Four Horsemen and their mounts, the more inevitable the impression that
the terrible squadron appears out of nothingness. In short, every increase in verisimilitude and
animation strengthens rather than weakens the visionary effect.
It is for this reason that Durer could frequently omit the figure of St. John where medieval
illustrators had deemed it indispensable. Their non-naturalistic style, not even admitting of a
clear distinction between a miracle and a natural event, could hardly distinguish a vision from
a miracle without including the visionary. It is for the same reason that he dared to illustrate
the bold imagery of the Apocalypse more literally than any of his predecessors. When the
text says that the eyes of the Son of Man were "as a flame of fire," Durer could show actual
flames bursting from the face of the Lord because the "dematerializing" power of his lines
reduced flames, flesh, and hair to the same degree of incorporeality. St. John could actually
"eat up" the book (which is merely presented to him in most of the medieval and in all of
the fifteenth century representations) because it almost seems to evaporate under his fiery
breath. The virtue of the woodcut medium, as reinterpreted by Durer, enabled him to act
upon Aristotle's advice to the dramatist: "What is impossible yet probable should be pre-
ferred to what is probable but unconvincing."
It would be futile to attempt a chronology of the Apocalypse series according to which
all the woodcuts would follow each other as neatly as the cars of a railroad train; the prepara-
tion of the whole work did not take more than about two years, and Durer certainly worked
at more than one composition at a time. Yet a definite development is recognizable. Not unlike
Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, Durer's compositions gradually grew in "scale"
and monumentality at the expense of richness and variety, and they show an increasing
freedom, boldness, and economy in the expl0itation of the medium. When Durer composed
the Seven Trumpets (288, fig. So), St. John before God and the Elders (283, fig. 77) and
the Worship of the Lamb (287), he was still apt to crowd too much into the given space so
that the individual motifs appear comparatively small in relation to the format of the page.
Essentials and accidentals tend to merge into a complicated network of forms whose message
has to be decoded instead of being grasped at first glance. The modelling, not yet completely
systematized, still shows the traces of the Wolgemut tradition and does not yet attain the
transparency and thrifty precision of the later pages. Suffice it to refer to the fuzzy coat of the
Lamb in the Worship of the Lamb, to the fluffy wings of the Eagle and the Angels in the
Seven Trumpets, and to the treatment of hair, brocade and velvet throughout. Where the
Evangelist occurs he appears very young, with silky curls, his soft-cheeked face invariably
turned to full profile and wearing an expression of childlike bashfulness. The woodcut of the
Seven Trumpets shows the most crowded composition of all and is the only one where letter-
press encroaches upon the area of the picture; it evidently marks the very beginning of the
whole enterprise:
This early group is easily distinguished from a late one comprising St. John devouring
the Book (290), the Martyrdom of St. John (281) and the Vision of the Seven Candlesticks
I I
THE A PO CAL YPSE
59
( 282, fig. 76). These three compositions represent the utmost of scale, concentra-
tion on essentials and graphic economy. The type of the Evangelist, too, is thoroughly
changed. Instead of a diffident boy we see a passionate ascetic, his hair dishevelled, his bony,
fanatical face distorted with emotion or frozen in an ecstatic stupor (figs. 84 and 85).
Apparently, like most prefaces and "introductories," the first two pages of the whole series
were undertaken last.
Given the end and the beginning of the development, we can divide the rest of the
woodcuts into two classes, one being the sequel of the early group, the other announcing the
late one. The latter class, including the Four Horsemen (284, jig.- 78), the Opening of the
fifth and sixth Seals (285), and the Four Angels holding the Winds (286, fig. 79), is marked
by the culmination of those Mantegnesque influences the importance of which has already
been stressed. The other class, forming the transition between this "Mantegnesque" group
and the three earliest woodcuts, comprises the rest of the series: the Heavenly Jerusalem
(295, with the Evangelist still reminiscent of the earlier type), the Babylonian Whore
(293), the Beast with two Horns like a Lamb (294), the Apocalyptic Woman (291, the
development of the Seven-headed Monster in these three woodcuts epitomizing, so to speak,
the tendency of the whole evolution), and St. Michael fighting the Dragon (292, fig. 81,
leading over to the "Mantegnesque" group). The woodcut of the Avenging Angels ( 289),
finally, holds an exceptional position in that the timid style of the scenes in heaven forms a
sharp contrast with the impetuous force of the action on earth. Apparently Durer had
designed this composition at an earlier date and, dissatisfied with the lower zone, remodelled
the combat scene into a magnificent synthesis of Gothic ornamentalism (with the two fore-
most Angels forming a regular swastika) and Mantegna's,.maniera antica. .
Like Leonardo's Last Supper, Durer's Apocalypse belongs among what may be called the \
inescapable works of art. Summarizing, yet surpassing an age-old tradition, these works '1
command an authority which no later artist could or can ignore, except perhaps by way of a I
deliberate opposition which in itself is another form of dependence. Durer's compositions/
were copied, not only in Germany but also in Italy, in France and in Russia, and not only in
woodcuts and engravings but also in paintings, reliefs, tapestries and enamels. Their indirect
influence, transmitted by a master like Holbein, as well as by such modest craftsmen as the
illustrators of the Luther Bibles, reached even the monasteries of Mount Athos.
The impression made by the Large Passion, though no less profound, was less sensational;
first, b,ecalise it lacked the appeal of the novel and the fantastic; second, because it did not
reach the public as an integrated whole.- Four of the eleven woodcuts-the Last Supper,
the B.etrayal of Christ, the Harrowing of Hell and the Resurrection-were not executed
until 1516; it was not until the following year that the Frontispiece was added, and
that the whole series, explained in Latin verse by Benedictus Chelidonius (recte Benedict
Schwalbe); was published in book form. The woodcuts completed before 1500, seven in
number, were thus originally sold and circulated as single prints.
6o INTENSE PRODUCTIVITY, 1495-1500
Three of these seven woodcuts-the Agony in the Garden (226), the Flagellation (228),
and the Deposition ( 232 )-appear to have been executed as early as about 1497. Stylistically
they seem to be rather less developed than the "Mantegnesque" woodcuts of the Apocalypse,
and their composition suffers from a youthful redundance which is particularly noticeable in
the Flagellation and the Deposition. The Crucifixion ( 231) is slightly more advanced and
may be dated 1497/98; and the three remaining woodcuts, the "Ecce Homo" (229), the
Bearing of the Cross (230), and the Lamentation (233) may be said to take up the thread of
evolution at exactly that point which had been reached when the Apocalypse was finished.
The "Ecce Homo" (fig. 88), for instance, resembles the Martyrdom of St. John (281)
in that a crowd plays an important part in both, and that the 'pagan rulers are represented as
Turks, an interesting survival of the medieval tendency so to confuse Islamic and classical
paganism that a Roman tomb could be called "la sepouture d'un sarazin." But while the
crowd in the Martyrdom of St. John is separated from the main incident by the mechanical
device of a parapet, the "Ecce Homo" woodcut finds for the same problem a purely optical
solution.
The palace of Pilate (flamboyant Gothic in style but characterized as a "heathen" build-
ing by the statue of a goat-footed Satyr) is shown in sharp foreshortening so that an oblique
lane is formed between the people and the group of Christ, Pilate, and a servant who appear
on the palace porch. It has often been observed that this foreshortening is incorrect from a
perspective point of view: the four steps of the porch converge in one vanishing point, and the
horizontal joints of the palace wall in another. But just this "fault," though detrimental to ,
the fornJal harmony of the composition, serves to emphasize its significance. Instead of "first
determining space and then placing the figures therein," as an Italian theorist puts it, Durer,
not yet conversant with a consistent method of perspective construction, first devised the
figures and subsequently added the features determining space. Thus it was natural for the
architecture to reflect the antithetical character of the incident rather than the unity of space.
The discrepancies between the two vanishing points-that of the steps located right in the
center of the crowd, that of the palace wall at the level of the head of Christ and far out of
the picture-are visually symbolic of the contrast between the Saviour and the hostile "multi-
tude," just as, in the Martyrdom of St. John, the larger scale of the Roman Emperor is
visually symbolic of his social position.
The composition of the Bearing of the Cross (230, fig. 89) is, in a general way, reminiscent
of Schongauer's famous engraving (fig. 15). In both, the procession files in from the rear,
reaching the center of the stage with the figure of Christ; Christ Himself is represented on
His knees, supporting the weight of His body with His left arm. But while Schongauer's
caravan proceeds relentlessly in spite of the delay, the van disappearing toward the right in
the same way as the rear approaches from the left, Durer abruptly checks its progress. The
Roman captain, again dressed up as a Turk, turns round on his horse, and a huge Italianate
lansquenet faces about toward the fallen Christ, his vertical halberd giving the effect of a full
stop at the end of a sentence. This lansquenet, though important from a formal point of view,
'i_
THE LARGE PASSION; LAMENTATION OF 1500 61
is yet excluded from the main incident: the miracle of the There is a gap between
him and Christ while Christ and St. Veronica form a close-knit group, framed by the stem
and one arm of the cross. By this device the Christ and Veronica group is separated from the
crowd which pours from the gate of the city; but this crowd is, in turn, divided by the other
arm of the cross: the friends of Christ-Simon of Cy..rene, St. John the Evangelist and the
Holy Women-are set apart from the Roman soldiers, one of whom brutally stabs the neck
of Christ with the handle of a battle axe.
In spite of this complicated scheme the figure of Christ easily dominates the scene. He
maintains a central position both in a geometrical and in a dynamic sense, and His posture is,
from the point of view of the period, conspicuous by its very modernity. In Schongauer's
engraving Christ had been represented in profile, His body forming an undulating curve.
Only His head had been turned to full face, and His right arm had not been visible. In
Durer's woodcut He does not glide gently to His knees but breaks down under His terrible
load: a fluent Gothic pose is replaced by a violent contrapposto. While the legs are shown in
profile, the chest is turned toward the beholder, and the head is turned sharply back. The
right arm of Christ is raised and bent at an acute angle, the hand clasping the beam of the
cross, and with His left He tries to support Himself. This attitude is almost identical with
that of the dying Orpheus in the drawing of 1494 (928, fig. 49). Unconsciously reestablishing
the Early Christian identification of Christ with Orpheus, Durer kept to his principle of
"employing the forms of heathen deities for representations of the Virgin Mary and Christ."
But it is significant that the fallen Christ merely suffers while Orpheus dies. Where Durer
wanted to conjure up the image of actual death he invented other postures, distorted or
weirdly rigid; the classical contrapposto was, to his way of thinking, too beautiful to horrify.
We can easily see why this reinterpretation of the Bearing of the Cross appealed to the
greatest master of the Italian High Renaissance: Raphael. His "Spasimo di Sicilia" (now in
the Prado) is clearly influenced by Durer's woodcut, though every detail has been changed
in accordance with the standards of Raphael's late style. Thus a classical motif, revived by
Mantegna, was repatriated by Raphael after having been Christianized by Durer; and it is
perhaps to this Northern admixture that Raphael's "Spasimo" owes its prophetically "Ba-
roque" character.
The woodcut of the Lamentation ( 233, fig. go), finally, is important not only for itself
but because of its connection with the two large paintings in Munich ( 16, fig. 91) and
Nuremberg ( 17). The dead Christ lies on the lap of St. John. The Magdalen throws up her
hands in a pathetic gesture of complaint handed down from Antiquity by Byzantine and
Early Renaissance art; another woman, half kneeling, half bending, takes up the right hand
of Chdst; a third, crouching aside with her back turned upon the others, represses her grief
by desperately clasping her knee; the Virgin however towers above them all, wringing her
hands but otherwise motionless like a statue, upright and lonely.
In the Munich painting, ordered by the goldsmith Albrecht Glimm and traditionally
dated 1500, Durer deliberately abandoned the central idea of this composition. Convinced
that an altarpiece required richness, quiet monumentality and composure rather than suc-
cinctness, dramatic movement and emotional pathos, he included the figures of Nicodemus
and Joseph of Arimathea, avoided the isolation of the Virgin, which had created a harsh gap
in the formal structure of the woodcut, and disciplined the whole composition to the shape of
a pyramid culminating in the figure of St. John. Furthermore, two of the figures (the woman
with the blue mantle obviously derived from the Virgin Mary in the woodcut) were made to
hold big ointment jars, so that expressive gesticulation was replaced by more conventional
attitudes; only an old woman in the background is allowed to give vent to her despair by a
dramatic gesture. The figure of the Virgin, formerly rigid and lonely, is now the nucleus of
the whole group, tenderly surrounded by her friends and wringing her hands with gentle
resignation. The body of Christ is reversed and a woman in worldly dress, probably the
Magdalen, takes up His arm with both of her hands.
Except for some portions probably executed by assistants, this picture must be ascribed
to Durer himself. The transformation of the earlier composition is so thorough and consistent
that it can only be credited to the master. This is not true of the painting in Nuremberg and it
must be attributed to an imitator who tried to combine the distinctive features of the woodcut
with those of the panel in Munich. From the woodcut, he retained not only the posture of
the dead Christ but also the general scheme of composition with an isolated woman crouching
on the left and a rigidly erect one dominating the center (though shifted slightly off axis).
From the painting he borrowed the figures of the Virgin Mary and Joseph of Arimathea. But
the woman on the left, originally clasping her knee in silent despair, was made to throw up
her arms (in compensation for which the figure originally distinguished by this dramatic
gesture was omitted entirely), and the figure towering above the others is no longer a tragic
mother, wringing her hands, but an indifferent mourner with an ointJIIent jar. As a result the
picture lacks both the architectonic unity of the painting and the dramatic power of the
woodcut. The woman on the left seems merely to have lost all connection with the other
figures instead of suggesting isolation. The arm of Christ, no longer supported by one of the
women, seems to dangle in mid-air. And the dominating figure with the ointment jar has not
only lost contact with the main group (because the woman throwing up her hands had been
eliminated), but also reveals a disappointing contrast between compositional emphasis and
dramatic insignificance.
IN VENTURING INTO THE FIELD OF ENGRAVING, Durer took up a technique not only unfamiliar
in his native Nuremberg but also diametrically opposed to the older and indigenous craft of
the woodcutter. While a woodcut is a relief print an engraving is an intaglio print, the
printer's ink being held by grooves or channels incised into a highly polished copper plate.
When the edges of the grooves have been smoothed, the ink is rubbed in, the surface is wiped
clean and the impression is made on moistened paper under very high pressure.
The engraver, like the woodcutter, works from a careful "working drawing" which pre-
establishes practically every line intended to appear in the finished product. But there can be
REFORM OF ENGRAVING
no further division of labor. The acts of transferring the design to the plate and of producing
the final result inevitably merge into one because the design laid down in the "working
drawing" can be conveyed to the plate only by actually incising it. The process of incision
itself is divided into two distinct stages. First, the engraver defines the contours; secondly, he
fills in the details, working, however, not here and there as he pleases but undertaking and
bringing to completion a limited area of not more than one or two square inches at a time,
while the rest of the plate remains covered for protection. Thus he works much as a surgeon
operates on a small portion of a body swathed in aseptic cloth. His work proceeds piecemeal,
as it were, and proof prints show that an "unfinished" plate is sharply divided into different
sections, some completely elaborated, others containing only empty contours. The lines them-
selves differ from those in a woodcut in that their widths and intervals can be narrowed down
to the fraction of a millimeter without any loss in distinctness and transparency. An engrav-
ing tends therefore to be as analytical, particularized and concrete as a woodcut tends to be
synoptic, abbreviatory and abstract.
In view of this difference in approach, it is clear that the development of engraving was
bound to take a course exactly opposite to that of woodcut. The earliest woodcuts showed;
we remember, no more than a robust linear "skeleton" without any modelling. It remained
for the following generations to add flesh and epidermis, so to speak; we have seen how they
achieved an increasing degree of realistic concreteness, and how this process culminated in the
full-fledged illusionism of Wolgemut and his associates. Conversely, the earliest engravings-
intended to suggest the actual quality of hand-painted illuminations instead of roughly
reproducing their compositional schemes-exhibit an elaborate, silvery modelling obtained
by an accumulation of tiny, parallel hatchings which closely resemble the brush strokes in
contemporary miniatm:es en grisaille. It was for the generations to discipline this
amorphous tonality to a purely graphic mode of expression. The development of woodcut
during the fifteenth century had tended from the abstract toward the concrete; the develop-
ment of engraving tended from the concrete toward the abstract. Where the woodcutters had
tried gradually to enrich linear rigidity by three-dimensional space and volume, the engravers
tried to replace diffused softness by a system of sharply defined "tailles."
The need for some such transformation was felt all the more strongly as the aesthetic
unity of the earliest engravings had been marred by a conflict between the character of the
modelling and that of the outlines. The tool of the engraver, the burin, is a small, sharp-
pointed chisel (the point being obtained by obliquely grinding a four-edged piece of steel)
is. set into a handle shaped like a mushroom. With this handle resting in the palm of
the right hand, the instrument is moved in a diagonal direction, producing straight parallel
which, if the plate lies straight in front of the artist, will tend to run from its lower
right-hand corner toward its upper left. The modelling of the earliest engravings was accom-
plished by making these strokes so short, so thin and so numerous that they were submerged in
a non-linear mass. Engraved contours, however, can never be non-linear. Since they do not
consist of straight lines, but of more or less complicated curves, they cannot be obtained by
the action of the burin alone but presuppose the counteraction of the plate. The latter is
placed on a small cushion filled with sand and can thus be rotated at the same time that the
burin is pushed forward (see text ill. 1).
1. The Burin and Its Use
Contours produced by a burin, therefore, have four essential characteristics: first, they
are inherently linear, or, to use an expression derived from the very process here under dis
cussion, "incisive"; second, they are inherently continuous; third, they are inherently elastic <
in that they are not of uniform thickness throughout but swell and taper between two infini '
tesimally small points; fourth, and perhaps most important, they are inherently subject
to a quasi-mathematical principle. In contrast to the free-moving lines drawn with a pen or
a pencil, and not unlike the pattern produced by a figure-skater, they are determined by the
interaction of two simple impulses, one straight, the other circular. It is to this inward
geometry, if we may say so, that burin engraving owes a specific character and a specific
beauty, which set it apart from any other medium. There are things which cannot be done
with a burin however hard the artist may try-for instance, every kind of "impressionistic"
effect (which may account for the fact that the technique was almost entirely discarded in
the nineteenth century and was revived, to some extent, during the last two decades). There
are other things which are enforced by the burin however little the artist may aim at them-
for instance, that ornamental stylization of hair or fur, and that intensification of curvature
which can be observed wherever an engraving can be compared with its preparatory drawing.
A tendency to accentuate the graphic quality of the modelling and thereby to bring it into
harmony with the contours can already be seen in the later works of the first great engraver,
FUSION OF BURIN AND DRY POINT TECHNIQUE
the Master of the Playing Cards. The hair-thin strokes began to gain in length, energy and
distinctness so as to emerge as linear entities. Cross-hatchings were used in some instances, and
at times the modelling lines even tended to curve so as to,indicate the forms by graphic rather
than pictorial means and to conform with the contours. The followers of the Master of the
Playing Cards, particularly the Master E.S., proceeded along similar lines, and the develop
ment was brought to a glorious close by Martin Schongauer. In his engravings, which for the
first time fully deserve the name of "line engravings," he gradually accomplished an almost
perfect unification and systematization of the burin style. Except for the characterization of
human flesh, which is rendered in a somewhat loose and arbitrary fashion even in his latest
engravings, the forms are circumscribed as well as modelled by those prolonged, curvilinear
"tailles" which, we remember, served as models for Durer's new woodcut style. The lines,
whatever they may express, form a pattern of crystalline transparency and precision. While
apprehending the objects (frequently chosen so as to harmonize with the peculiar strictness
of the medium-hence Schongauer's predilection for bare or metallic-looking trees such as
palms or dragon-trees), we constantly reexperience the movement of the graver as it furrows
the revolving plate; and when following the swinging contours with our eye we may have a
sensation not unlike that of steering a motor car over a winding highroad.
Durer as an engraver thus found himself confronted with a problem altogether different
from that which faced him as a woodcut designer. In his woodcuts he had to discipline the
non-graphic exuberance of Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff; as an engraver he felt the need for
loosening the over-graphic rigidity of Schongauer. This accounts for the fact that his earliest
efforts in this medium show an attempt to galvanize the technique of orthodox line engraving
by the very unorthodox spirit of dry point. Dry point is by nature as flexible and capricious
as line engraving is strict and methodical. Instead of being woduced by the regulated move-
ments of the burin and the plate, the pattern is arbitrarily scraped into the metal by any sharp
instrument. It consists therefore, not of smooth, continuous "tailles" but of unsystematic
flicks and scratches, long or short, hair-thin or sturdy, straight or ragged as the case may be.
The metal is not entirely removed, as by the line engraver's burin, but most of it is merely
moved to the side; and if these dislodged particles are allowed to remain they give, when
printed, a certain roughness and fuzziness to the lines and produce those patches of cloudy
or velvety black which are technically known as "bur."
Durer's earliest engravings, then, while executed with the burin, were intended to fuse
the style of Schongauer with that of the Housebook Master. The first of them, the Great
C : o u r i ~ r (188), was obviously made by way of experiment and does not yet carry Durer's
signature. A mere copy of a drawing owned by Durer, but executed by one Wolfgang Pewrer,
~ other:nise unknown (1235), it is of somewhat limited value as a document of Durer's per
sonal style. Yet it throws light on his tendencies in that it reveals a nervous impetuosity
thoroughly different from Schongauer's patient exactness. The second engraving, still
unsigned, is an Allegory of Death (199, fig. 93). Death is represented in the guise of a
hideously emaciated, naked man with dishevelled hair, stringy beard, a lustful mouth and
66 INTENSE PRODUCTIVITY, 1495-1500
cruel eyes, ravishing a young woman. Themes of this lurid kind were not uncommon in
German fifteenth century art. But Durer's passion and sincerity surpasses all the efforts of
his predecessors-except one: the Housebook Master. The latter's influence is evident, not
only from the spirit of the work (though the young Durer lacked of course the older master's
mellow humanity), but also from a treatment still stormier than in the Great Courier, and
from such details as the bench, the plants and the empty scroll. Even the rather unusual
format is paralleled by several prints of the Housebook Master.
The third of Durer's early engravings, the "Virgin with the Dragonfly" (probably less
correctly relabelled as the Holy Family with the Praying-Cricket), already has a .ce:-
tain air of authority (151, fig. 92). Almost twice the size of the Allegory of Death, 1t 1s
proudly signed with Durer's initials-though the "A" is still somewhat Gothic in shape and
the "d" is not as yet capitalized-and it sums up a whole series of earlier drawings (650,
651, 723-725, figs. 23 and 24). All of these show the influence of the Housebook Master.
But Durer had been in Italy in the meantime; and this is evident, setting aside the dubious
argument of the praying-cricket which is frequent in the south of Europe but rare in Germany,
from a formal balance and almost hieratic solemnity utterly foreign to the drawings on which
the composition is based. It includes the figure of God the Father, and this figure, the face
of the Virgin Mary and the big, vertical folds descending from her knee constitute a central
axis bisecting exactly the picture plane. The atmosphere of the scene is dignified rather than
intimate, and the handling of the medium shows an effort at what may be called a well-
groomed appearance. Compared with the Allegory of Death, the with the
indicates a reaction against spirited nonchalance in favor of orderlmess and systematizatiOn.
However, no sooner had Durer achieved what seemed to be a perfect synthesis between
the Housebook Master and Schongauer than he realized that no further progress could be ;
made in this direction. He felt that the technique of burin engraving had to be developed
according to its own inherent principles instead of being forced into a union with a style
engendered by another medium. Unless violence was to be done to the spirit of the burin, the
lines had to retain their schematic and almost predetermined character. But Durer came to
discover how the illusion of spatial depth, plastic modelling, textural concreteness and even
luminosity could be strengthened, not only by breaking the rules, as it were, but also by
applying them with greater subtlety. The curvature of the "tailles," though subject to what
we have called a "secret geometry," could be so differentiated as to indicate the most complex
combinations of concavities and convexities. Their widths and intervals could be so modified
as to disclose those fleeting variations of light and shade which define the surface texture of
things. Not until the beginning of the following century did Durer learn to exploit fully these
possibilities and to discover such added refinements as the use of "double cross-hatchings"
(achieved by superimposing a system of diagonals on the system of "simple cross-hatchings"),
or the breaking up of a "taille" into a sequence of infinitesimal strokes or points which, while
following the course prescribed by the push of the burin and the turning of the plate, suggest
DEVELOPMENT IN THE EARLY ENGRAVINGS
tiny specks of dust lit up with sunshine. But once the "Virgin with the Dragonfly" had been
finished, Durer never ceased to "render unto the burin the things which are the burin's."
Compared with the "Virgin with the Dragonfly" of about 1495, the Virgin with the
Monkey of about 1498 (the monkey, symbol of lewdness, greed and gluttony, was commonly
associated with the Synagogue and more especially with Eve and could thus serve, by way of
contrast, to enhance the virtue of the Virgin Mary who represents the New Covenant and, as
"Eva nova," redresses the sin of our ancestress) marks a great advance in the realization of
space, volume and texture (149, fig. 102). The figures detach themselves more clearly from
the background. Trees are given as sharply defined solids instead of as indistinct masses of
light and dark. The group of the Virgin and Child, derived from Leonardesque sources trans-
mitted through Lorenzo di Credi, has the plastic power of a sculpture in the round. The little
"Weiherhaus," transcribed from a water color study which has come down to us (1386), is
as convincingly rendered as the furry coat of the monkey, the velvet of the Virgin's sleeve,
the seasoned wood of the bench, the fluffy clouds set out against the dark sky, and the shining
surface of the water. But all of these "naturalistic" effects are obtained by much more legiti-
mate methods than had been the case with the "Virgin with the Dragonfly." No arbitrary
elements are allowed to encroach upon the horizontal parallels indicating the sky behind the
clouds; the modelling of the log to which the planks of the bench are fastened is not effected
by short strokes of different direction but by uniform "tailles" whose curvature corresponds to
the cylindrical form of the log; their variations in length and width suffice to suggest the
tactile quality of bark and moldy wood. It is truly revealing to draw a comparison in tech-
nique between the big tubular fold in the drapery of the wUh the Dragonfly" and the
analogous motif in the Virgin with the Monkey (figs. 127 and 128). In the earlier print, long
straight diagonals intermingle with short horizontal hatchings, and the transition from the
shaded portions to the lighted ones is awkwardly indicated by an amassment of irregular
scratches. In the Virgin with the Monkey the convex and concave parts of the drapery are
modelled by two systems of parallel curves perfectly "in gear" with one another, and the
deep shadow gathered in the hollow on the right of the tubular fold is rendered by prolonged
verticals which turn into concentric curves in order to mark the Virgin's knee.
In one respect, in spite of a considerable progress beyond the "Virgin with the
Dragonfly," can a certain lack of system be observed. Durer was still reluctant to apply a
strictly graphic method to so tender and delicate a substance as human flesh. How he, in con-
trast to Schongauer, succeeded in overcoming this reluctance may be illustrated by the treat-
ment of one characteristic detail, the female breast. There is a kind of a priori correspondence
between its spherical shape )nd the circular form of burin lines; the object itself seems, in
this to invite or almost to demand the simplest and most geometrical kind of graphic
treatment; Yet Durer was comparatively slow in realizing this preestablished harmony. In
the earliest engravings in which female nudes occur-the Small Fortune ( 185), the Penance
of St. John Chrysostom ( 170, fig. 100 ), and most particularly in the so-called "Four Witches,"
dated 1497 ( 182, fig. 97), the modelling lines of the breast are, if anything, less systematic
68
than the others. A gradual progress toward systematization can be observed in the "D_ream
of the Doctor" ( 183, fig. 98, about 1497 /98) and, to an d.egree, m the
"Sea Monster" ( 178, fig. 107, about 1498). But not until 1498/99 dtd Durer htt upon what
now appears to be the natural solution. In the engraving Hercules. fig. 108). the
ling is rendered by two systems of absolutely concentric and eqmdtstant curves
one another like degrees of latitude and longitude on a terrestrial globe. Once establtshed, thts
system remained essentially unaltered. When Diirer, in the Fall of Man of 1504 ( 108, fig.
117), wished to impart to the skin of Eve a silken softness which her had not
possessed, it was sufficient for him to use a finer grade of "net," so to speak, to dtss.olve some
of the lines into stipples, and to add a third series of curves which divide the sphencal rhom-
boids into spherical triangles (see figs. 129-132).
Similar observations could, of course, be multiplied ad infinitum. The detail here under
discussion is merely an indication of a general and consistent progress. For, however skeptical
modern art historians have become of the concept of "progress," the technical treatment of
line engravings produced by one artist does show continued development. Burin is
a matter of unhampered self-expression but requires disciplined dexterity like fencmg, tenms,
or, to take up our previous simile, figure-skating. An artist gains proficiency not by alternate
unexpected relapses and inspired anticipations but "learns" step by step, each new. feat
once acquired is not easily forgotten. Thus, what would be presumptuous m the domat.n of
any other medium-namely, to determine a precise chronological sequence on the basts of
mere progress in "skill"-is quite feasible where Durer's earlier engravings are concerned.
As has already been mentioned, the iconography of these earlier engravings is more
diversified than that of the contemporary woodcuts. Of these, we recall, no more than three
were of a secular character, and even the inclusion of the Syphilitic (403) and the "Caput r
Physicum" (444) brings this number to only five, less than one-sixth of the total production.
With the engravings of the same period the situation is reversed. Only six or seven out of
almost thirty are devoted to religious subjects, and most of these are selected and interpreted .
so as to fascinate the art lover no less than edify the devout.
The subject matter of the secular engravings is of the widest variety. First, we find a
considerable number of what may be called genre scenes pure and simple, dictated only by
the artist's interest in the life and habits of people characteristically different from his own
social group and therefore appearing as either strange or quaint or "glamorous." These include
another version of the Courier theme ( 187); Peasants ( 190, fig. 43); a Young Lady convers-
ing with a Halberdier (189); Five Lansquenets-two of them Italianate in
commanded by a beturbaried captain on horseback ( 195); a Famtly of Turks or
Gypsies (192); and an Oriental Ruler Enthroned (219). In a second of
the characterization of a curious milieu is sharpened by an anecdotal or satmcal element. Thts
is true of the representation of an elderly man buying the favors of a young woinan, a varia-
tion on the "Ill-assorted Couple" motif which, because of certain unusual features, has been
interpreted by some as the Biblical story of Judah and Tamar (200); and of the illustra-
SECULAR ENGRAVINGS 6g
tion of a tale from the "Ritter vom Turn" where a magpie infotms a husband that his wife has
secretly eaten an eel which he had planned to enjoy himself ( 191). Third, there is one print
inspired by a "news story" and therefore dated with more than usual precision: the Monstrous
Sow of Landser, representing an eight-footed pig which had been born on March 1, 1496
( 202). According to an age-old belief, such freaks or "terata" were caused to appear by God
whenever He saw fit to warn the world of portentous events; even Luther, the arch-enemy of
judicial astrology, believed in their prophetic significance. Thus the miraculous sow of
Landser had been immediately publicized and interpreted in an illustrated broad-sheet by
Sebastian Brant, the author of the "Narrenschiff," and it was from this broad-sheet that
Durer borrowed the view of the little hamlet which appears in the background of his engrav-
ing. But he refrained from any explanatory inscription and, characteristically, paid no atten-
tion to the crude and lifeless picture of the pig itself: instead of exploiting the supernatural
implications of the incident, he tried to reconstruct the little monster with the sympathetic
objectivity of a zoographer.
The fourth and most.important class of secular engravings prior to 1500 deals with
subjects of an allegorical or symbolical character, and it is in this field that Durer could fully
gratify his passion for "originality." The engraving known as "The Promenade" (201, fig.
99) is the only one in which he followed traditional iconography. It resumes the theme of
Love and Death already treated in one of Durer's most impressive early drawings (874, fig.
29). But the moralistic contrast between thoughtless joie de vivre and the specter of destruc-
tion has given way to a softly elegiac feeling prophetic of the later evocations of the "Tomb
in Arcadia." A pair of happy lovers has stopped on a stroll through blossoming country; the
young man points out to the girl the beauty of the scenery, but both his gesture and the
splendor of the sunlit landscape are belied by the tragic grivity of his eyes which rest upon
the face of his companion with an expression not unlike that of Death in the Housebook
Master's unforgettable dry point Death and the Youth (fig. 27). For, in contrast with the
unsuspecting frolickers in the earlier drawing, the young lover has sensed the awful presence
that lurkls behind the tree, invisible to the eye but overshadowing the :-oul of man when he
rejoices in an hour of bliss.
With all its psychological subtlety this composition is, as such, neither novel nor "human-
istic." The other allegorical or symbolical engravings of these years possess both of these
attributes to such a degree that their interpretation presented-and, in part, presents-a
rather difficult problem. Assisted by his learned friends, Durer deliberately sought to invent
such themes as "had never been in any one's mind before," and which, in addition, would
afford an excuse for presenting to the Northern public nudes atl'antica. For, while Durer's
trip to Venice had given him occasion to witness that reintegration of classical form and
classical subject matter which we considered one of the most characteristic achievements of
the Italian Renaissance, and while such drawings as the Death of Orpheus or the Abduction
of Europa reveal a perfect understanding of this process, it took him a surprisingly long time
to avow the new gospel in public. When it came to prints, to all and published
"over his signature," he felt at first obliged to change the subject wherever he wished to
employ a classical motif. We have seen how the Orpheus pose was used for the Fallen Christ
and for the victim of an Apocalyptic catastrophe; and we shall see how his studies in human
proportions, originally developed with an eye on classical or classicizing themes, were ulti-
mately incorporated in the engraving of Adam and Eve. Not until about 1505 did he issue
such prints as the Family of Satyrs or Apollo and Diana (figs. 123 and 124). Before that time
classical nudity seemed to require a safe-conduct under which it could pass the barriers
of medieval prejudices; it seemed acceptable only when made subservient to an idea of non-
classical and preferably moralistic character.
In the earliest engraving of this kind, the "Small Fortune" of about 1496 (185), a
Mantegnesque Muse, restudied after a Nuremberg model and thereby deprived of much of
her original gracefulness, was transformed into the goddess Fortuna by placing her on a
sphere where she maintains a precarious balance with the aid of a staff. But this "Fortuna"
was equipped with a definitely non-classical attribute: she holds an Eryngym, a flower whose
amorous connotations have been mentioned on two previous occasions (48 and 71). The
meaning of the composition was thereby tinged with the suggestiveness of such fifteenth
century works as the so-called Love Spell in the Stadtisches Museum at Leipzig, or the popu-
lar prints and plaques which wistfully depict the dangers-and the charms-of carnal
pleasures. In transferring the attribute of the Eryngium to the goddess Fortuna, Durer found
a humanistic way of saying that love is both omnipotent and fickle.
A moralistic program is more elaborately stated in the two following engravings: the
so-called "Four Witches," dated 1497, and the slightly later print still commonly quoted as
"The Dream of the Doctor."
In style and composition the "Four Witches" ( 182, fig. 97) shows an even stranger com-
bination of Northern and Italianate features than does the "Small Fortune." The upper ,
halves of the two lateral figures were taken over from a drawing representing a bath house
scene ( 118o, fig. 95) already mentioned in connection with the woodcut that forms what may
be called its masculine counterpart. The postures were, however, changed so as to fit into the
classical scheme of the Three Graces with which Durer must have become familiar through
an Italian source. As the "Small Fortune" was based on a Mantegnesque figure restudied
from nature, so the "Four Witches" is derived from a classical group remodelled after the
observations laid down in the Bath House drawing, with a fourth figure squeezed in with
obvious difficulty.
Whether Jacopo de' Barbari's engraving Victory and Fame also exerted some influence on
Durer's composition, as the present writer assumes, or whether the reverse is true, remains
debatable so long as the exact date of Barbari's print cannot be determined. It is, however,
significant that another North Italian engraver, Nicoletta da Modena, had only to change
the inscription and the accessories in order to transform Durer's "Four Witches" into a
Judgment of Paris, the iconography of which was always closely connected with that of the
Three Graces.
I
I
"FOUR WITCHES"; "DREAM OF THE DOCTOR"
A skull and bone lying on the ground and the Devil himself lurking in the background
amidst a burst of smoke and fire make it very clear that something fiendish is going on, and the
gestures of the older women, suggestive of objectionable practices, serve to corroborate this
impression. The exact nature of the action remains obscure, however, and the meaning of the
three letters "O.G.H." which are inscribed on the ornamented globe hung from the ceiling
(hardly a natural fruit, and most certainly not a mandrake berry, as has been conjectured)
is still enigmatical. Such readings as "0 Gott hute" ("May God forbid"), "Origo generis
humani," "Obsidium generis humani," etc. are arbitrary and could be multiplied ad infinitum
(for instance by "Orcus, Gehenna, Hades"), while two more recent conjectures, viz., "Oef-
fentliches Gast-Haus" and "Ordo Gratiarum Horarumque," can be shown to be plainly
absurd. Perhaps old Moritz Thausing was not far wrong in hinting at the Malleus Malefi-
carum, that terrible handbook of witch-hunting which had appeared in 1487 and long enjoyed
a sinister popularity. In it an incident is related which may give an idea of the witch stories
then current in Germany. A young gentlewoman expecting a child had hired a midwife who
was soon suspected of being a witch. She was turned out of the house and took a horrible
revenge. Accompanied by two other women she broke into the lady's chamber, and this unholy
triad destroyed the child in the mother's womb by "touching her belly and pronouncing an
evil imprecation." To this, the action in Durer's engraving corresponds exactly, except for
the fact that the young lady shows a singular lack of emotion. She seems to be an accomplice
rather than a victim, and may in fact be a young witch wanting to get rid of a "Devil's
child." But whatever the subject may be, certain it is that a prodigious display of female
nudity, intended as "modern" in the sense of the Italian Renaissance, was turned into a
warning against sin.
The same is true of the so-called "Dream of the Docto/; ( 183, fig. 98). An elderly man
is asleep on a bench by an enormous, apparently well heated stove (with fruits drying on the
tiles), his body comfortably resting on thick pillows. As in numerous other late medieval
"moralities," this man who slumbers while he ought to work or pray (fig. 103) personifies
the vice of "Acedia," or Sloth. So popular was this interpretation of what may be called the
"sleep of the unjust" that a pillow alone sufficed to indicate the sin of laziness-"Idling i ~ the
pillow of tqe Devil," as the proverb says. The tradition of those allegories of Acedia is sum-
marized in some lines in Sebastian Brant's "Narrenschiff" which might well serve as a caption
for Durer's engraving:
"Eyn trager mensch ist nyemans nutz
Denn das er sie eyn wynterbzttz
V nd das man jn losz schloffen gnu g.
Sytzen bym ofen ist syn jug ...
Der bosz vyndt nymbt der tragkeyt war
v nd sag! gar bald syn so men dar.
Tragkejt ist vrsach alter siind
Macht murmelen Israhel die kynd.
72
Dauid dett eebruch vnd dottschlag
Dar vmb das er trag miissig lag."
("A sluggard is no use except to be a hibernating dormouse and to be allowed a full
of sleep. To sit by the stove is his delight .... But the Evil One takes advantage of lazmess
and soon sows his seeds therein. Laziness is the root of all sin. It caused the children of Israel
to grumble. David committed adultery and murder because he lolled in idleness.")
This description, whose picturesqueness defies translation into a modern language, not )'
only accounts for the stove and the whole atmosphere of wintry somnolence: but also for
the Devil, who in Durer's engraving prompts the sluggard by means of a pau of bellows;
moreover it sheds light upon the remaining features of the composition. In stating that
"laziness is the root of all sin," and in referring to David's adultery as a result of idleness,
Sebastian Brant alludes to the belief that "sloth begets lewdness and makes the idler subject
to the temptations of Luxury," to quote from the Somme le Roi, one of the most popular
treatises on moral theology. To express this idea Durer again resorted to humanistic symbols.
The visions instigated by the Devil materialize in the shape of the classical Venus (possibly
patterned after the sensuously languid beauties of Jacopo de' Barbari); she is unmis.takably
identified by the presence of a Cupid who tries to climb upon a pair of stilts, perhaps m order
to suggest that lewdness in an elderly man is no less futile than it is sinful.
However, while modernizing the medieval concept of "The Idler subject to Temptation"
Durer medievalized, to some extent, the classical concept of Venus. She beckons to the sinner
with her right hand, and on her left she wears a ring-a most unusual attribute (especially
in a figure otherwise entirely nude), which does not occur in any other work of Durer's except
in portraits and, naturally, in representations of St. Catharine. This attribute, in combination
with the smallish sphere on the ground, would call to the mind of every well-read beholder
a legend which, in different versions, was told and retold from the twelfth century.up to the
times of Heinrich Heine and Prosper Merimee. According to the German versiOn, some
fashionable Roman youngsters, not yet converted to Christianity, were playing ball, or rather
boccia, when one of them threw the ball out of bounds. Rolling along, it led the youth to a
dilapidated pagan temple, where he beheld a statue of Venus so inconceivably beautiful that
he was at once bewitched. But none other than the Devil was hidden in the image; it beck-
oned to the youth and induced him to put his ring on its finger, thereby concluding a formal
engagement. The sequel is more or less obvious: the young man begins to worry about his
extraordinary commitment, tries to retrieve his ring in vain, falls severely ill, and is finally
saved by a Christian priest who forces the Devil to restore the ring and to leave the statue.
The youth adopts the Christian faith while the statue is consecrated by the Pope and placed
on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo. Thus the correct title of the "Dream of the Doctor" should
read: The Temptation of the Idler.
The next engraving here to be considered, and the first in which all the whites are set out
against a uniform dark background, shows the abduction of a nude girl from her bathing place
"SEA MONSTER"; "HERCULES"
73
( 178, fig. 107). The abductor is a fabulous being, half man, half fish, embellished by a long
white beard and little antlers, and carrying a tortoise shell and a jawbone for weapons. The
companions of his victim seek the shore in terror; her mother wrings her hands; her father,
dressed in oriental garb, runs toward the edge of the water with futile gestures of despair. The
maiden herself, apparently much less perturbed than her entourage, reclines on the fish-tail of
her abductor, displaying her beauty in a pose all' antic a and limiting the expression of her grief
to a low sob or moan.
No doubt a certain similarity in theme, in general arrangement and in such details as the
frightened girls in the background exists between this engraving and the Europa drawing of
about 1495 (909, fig. 57). It is thus doubly tempting to explain the print by an analogous
classical myth. But neither the legend of the Argive princess Amymone nor the Ovidian tale
of Achelous and Perimela agrees with the factual evidence; and Durer himself, who elsewhere
by no means avoided mythological nomenclature, calls the engraving simply "Das Meer-
wunder" ("The Sea Monster"). The inference is that it does not represent a definite mytho-
logical incident but one of those anonymous atrocity stories which, though ultimately of
classical origin, were currently reported as having taken place in recent times and in a familiar
environment. Poggio Bracciolini, for instance, relates a tale wherein the horrifying story
of a Triton, told in Pausanias's description of Tanagra, is transferred to the fifteenth century
and to the coast of Dalmatia. A monster, half human, half piscine, with little horns and a
flowing beard, was in the habit of abducting children and young girls enjoying themselves on
the beach, until it was killed by five determined washerwomen. Its "wooden form" (it is not
known exactly whether a image or the monster itself in a state of extreme desiccation)
was on display in Ferrara-'-Poggio had seen it with his own eyes-and silenced every sceptic.
This tale fits in with Durer's engraving to a remarkable de;5ree, and there is every reason
to believe that it, or a similar yarn, is responsible for the iconography of the "Meerwunder."
Durer may have divined the classical core beneath the veneer of modern pseudo-reality, and
the subject may have conveyed to him and to his public the idea of "unregenerated sen-
suality," as did the Centaurs and Satyrs found in the decoration of medieval cloisters and
church fac;ades; but it seems fruitless to scan the classics in search of a specific appellation.
That Durer did not hesitate to give his works definite mythological titles when he intended
to represent definite mythological subjects is demonstrated by the engraving to which he
refers as "Der Hercules" (18o, fig. 108). Technically still more advanced than the Sea
Monster and hardly executed before 1498/99, it terminates the series of secular prints here
under discussion and sums up the results of Durer's Italian experiences. The militant lady
with the the terrified putto and the group of trees in the center are taken over from the
J;>eath of Orpheus (928, fig. 49); the arm of the Satyr and the naked girl on his lap from the
;opy of Mantegna's Battle of Sea Gods (903, fig. 47); and the hero himself from the
Abduction after Pollaiuolo (931, fig. 53).
The title"Der Hercules" proved puzzling rather than helpful so long as one attempted
to identify the subject of the engraving with one of the hero's recognized "labors." It repre-
74
sents, however, not an act of physical bravery but a moral dilemma. According to a parable
first recorded by Xenophon, the youthful Hercules, not yet resolved about his future, encoun-
tered two attractive and eloquent though very different ladies. One of these, Pleasure, lascivi-
ously dressed and carefully made up, tried to lure him into a life of luxury and self-
indulgence; the other, Virtue, simple and honest, described the moral satisfaction to be
gained by hardships and gallantry. Hercules, of course, decided for Virtue, and forth he went
to kill his first lion.
Before Durer, this allegory-conspicuously absent from medieval imagery but much in
favor with the artists of the Renaissance-had been represented in very undramatic fashion.
Hercules was shown between the two personifications who were characterized by their appear-
ance and by the scenic background rather than by their actions; they addressed themselves
exclusively to the hero, paying no attention to each other. In a German woodcut of 1497 they
appear in a dream to Hercules, who, clad in armor, lies on the ground like Paris in the
illustrations of medieval versions of the Trojan cycle. Pleasure displays her nude body
amidst blooming roses but is threatened by Death and hellfire; and Virtue, here identified
with Poverty, is an emaciated old woman with a water jug, clothed in rags and standing on a
thorny rock, but illuminated by the heavenly stars. A Florentine painter of the same period,
more humanistic in spirit, depicted Hercules in orthodox classical fashion; barefooted Virtue,
in nun's garments, recommends a narrow, stony path full of anchorites and philosophers,
while Pleasure, affecting gilded boots and an elaborate hairdress (as prescribed by Philo-
stratus the Elder), points to a wide and easy road alive with fashionable youngsters of both
sexes; the narrow, stony path, needless to say, leads to a lovely temple, the wide and easy
road to Hell.
In employing one of the maenads in the Death of Orpheus for Virtue and the voluptuous
female in Mantegna's Battle of Sea Gods for Pleasure, Durer not only sharpened the char-
acterization of both contestants (with Pleasure literally reclining in "the lap of luxury,"
viz., of a Satyr), but also transformed their theoretical dispute into an actual fight. Turning
away from the tradition of "Syncrises" or debating pictures, he employed Mantegna's pagan
pathos for revitalizing those "Psychomachia" illustrations where Vices and Virtues had been
shown in single combat or in pitched battle. He was, however, careful to retain the accessories
characteristic of the more conventional representations of Hercules at the Crossroads. As in
these, the landscape background of his engraving is treated as a paysage moralise where the
forbidding Castle of Virtue is contrasted with a pleasant little town surrounded by water,
trees and a rich countryside; and the hairdress of the two women differs from that of their
prototypes so as to conform to the accepted rule: the hair of Virtue is covered with a modest
kerchief, and Pleasure wears those complicated plaits and tresses ("comas discriminatis variis
nodis alligata," to quote the Philostratus translation of 1501) which were apparently re
garded as a ne plus ultra of feminine appeal, and have already been mentioned in connection
with the portrait of "Katharina Furlegerin as V oluptas" ( 71, fig. 68).
While the identity of the two female personifications cannot be and has not been doubted,
the role played by the hero has given rise to discussion. It has been said that Durer, instead
)
"HERCULES"
75
of glorifying the real Hercules, intended to ridicule a spurious one. This Pseudo-Hercules,
described by Lucian as "Hercules Gallicus," was allegedly worshipped by the Gauls as a
god of irresistible eloquence and was thus closely akin to Mercury, the god of oratory and
sophistry. Durer himself depicted him, in a much later illustration of the Lucian text (936),
under the guise of an authentic Hermes type. It has been argued that the hero of our engrav-
ing, though looking like a "genuine" Hercules, was nevertheless identical with this ambiguous
divinity because of his fantastic headgear (the cock being at once a reference to Mercury, to
whom he was sacred, and to the "Galli"), and because of such other unusual features as the
laurel wreath ("the orator's decoration"), the open mouth (which would stigmatize him as a
hero of words rather than of deeds), the pointed beard, etc. His attitude, furthermore, sup-
posedly betrays his unwillingness to commit himself or even, still worse, his intention to avert
the blows of Virtue while ostensibly attacking her foes. It has even been suggested that the
frightened infant alludes to a vice imputed not only to the modern "Galli" but also to the
classical Hercules (in this case, however, the genuine one).
. This writer still believes that Durer did not mean to cast aspersions on the character of
h1s hero. The cock denoted courage, victory and vigilance (as in the device of Emperor
Rudolf II with the motto Cura vi gila) no less than blustering noisiness. A symbol of con-
tests and battles, he is a usual feature of the Panathenaic Amphorae (in one instance
even in connection with Herakles Kallinikos) ; he was perched on the helmet of the Athena of
Elis (the vizor of a German sixteenth century helmet is even shaped into the likeness of a
rooster's head); and he was considered the only creature capable of striking fear into the heart
of the lion. A headgear crowned by a cock is thus by no means unsuitable for a young hero
and future killer of lions, not to mention the fact that a similar helmet already occurs in the
Apocalypse where it is merely intended to distinguish a warrior from a group of civilians
(294). The laurel wreath forms an obvious contrast with t h ~ wreath of vine leaves worn by
the Satyr; the open mouth betrays surprise and anger rather than talkativeness; and the
noncommittal attitude follows logically from the rewritten scenario. The very concept of a
"choice" implies a preliminary state of indecision. Where the two rival personifications had
limited themselves to speeches and had concentrated their efforts on the hero, the latter had
remained a passive listener; where they come to blows, he must maintain an attitude
of "non-belligerency." Without as yet participating in the fight he is, to quote from
a Hercules play written by a good friend of Durer's (the same Benedict Schwalbe, or
Chelidonius, who was to write the text to the Life of the Virgin and the two woodcut
Passions) a "supporting witness" of Virtue. That there exists, finally, a "vicious rela-
tion" between the frightened child and Hercules is incompatible both with the infant's
age and with the fact that he belongs, not to the hero but to the lascivious couple on the left.
Looking back at them with panic-stricken eyes, he runs away from their plight as he did
from that of Orpheus in the original drawing.
As for the beard, an altogether different explanation presents itself. It is quite true that
the pointed beard is characteristic of the archaic "Hermes Sphenopogon" who was the indirect
model of the Mercury in the "Tarocchi" and also of Durer's later "Hercules Gallicus." But it
is equally true that Durer, where he did wish to depict either of these two (981 and 936),
represented them beardless. On the other hand, the beard of our Hercules shows a very definite
similarity with that sported by Durer himself when the engraving was made. A comparison
with the Self-Portrait of 1498 in the Prado (49, fig. 109) reveals some further physiognom-
ical analogies (e.g. the nose) and thus suggests the possibility that Durer may have
wished to cast himself in the role of a hero whose experience at the Crossroads was more ;
often used for personal confessions and admonitions than any other mythological subject.
Thus all the details which seem to support a satirical interpretation of the engraving are no
less susceptible of a "serious" one. And it is the latter which is more in harmony with Durer's
psychology. He could be facetious and, on occasion, magnificently coarse; but he was never
given to subtle irony and sly insinuations.
Of the religious engravings two have already been discussed: the "Virgin with the Drag-
onfly" and the Virgin with the Monkey. Apart from the symbolism of the animals they offer
no iconographical problems. The remaining ones are no less remarkable in content than in
technique and composition. Three of them give a novel twist to themes which, though not
unique, were definitely unusual, and one presents an entirely original invention.
The earliest of these prints, probably executed shortly after the Monstrous Sow of 1496,
is the Prodigal Son amid the Swine (135, fig. 94). Illustrations of this scene are extremely
rare and, before Durer, fairly stereotyped. The text, which says that the young man was
sent "into the fields to feed swine," evoked the memory of Hellenistic pastorals, and in the
few Byzantine specimens which have come down to us the scene looks like a combination of
the reliefs adorning the side walls of Endymion sarcophagi with the "Feeding the Hogs"
page in medieval calendars: the prodigal son leans on his staff in the canonical pose of an
elegiac shepherd while an assistant knocks acorns from a tree. This scheme is still retained ,
in the only representations readily available to Durer, viz., in the closely related woodcuts ,
found in the appendices of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis editions by Bernhard Riebel
(Basel, 1476) and Peter Drach (Speyer, 1478), except that the classical shepherd's staff is re-
placed by a sturdy club, that the assistant is omitted, and that the swine feed from a trough
instead of depending on acorns (fig. 105). That Durer knew one or both of the Speculum
woodcuts is evident. But he made two important iconographical changes. On the one hand,
the scene is staged, not in the "fields" but in a farmyard, the masterly characterization of
which creates an atmosphere of genuine, yet intensely poetic rusticity. On the other hand,
this extraordinary emphasis on genre values-a dangerous thing in religious art-is balanced
by an increase in pathos: the prodigal son no longer stands by the swine with mournful com-
posure, but has gone to his knees in their very midst, wringing his hands in bitter remorse; '
and while he thus, quite literally, abases himself to the level of beasts, he raises his eyes and
his thoughts to the heaven of God. It was precisely this combination of the rustic with the
emotional that won the admiration of the world. The Italians copied and recopied the en-
graving (which even furnished the model of a Persian miniature) in all sorts of media and
RELIGIOUS ENGRAVINGS
77
Vasari wrote: "In another print Durer represented the Prodigal Son who kneels after the
fashion of a peasant, wringing his hands, and looks up to heaven, while some swine feed from
a trough; and in it there are hovels after the fashion of German villages, most beautiful."
The two following engravings are also centered around the concept of penitence. One of
them, St. Jerome beating his Breast before the Crucifix (168), offers an interesting analogy
with the Prodigal Son. In both cases a kneeling figure, placed slightly off center, is set out
against a strip of dark terrain in such a way that head and shoulder emerge as a kind of
silhouette; and as the background of the Prodigal Son is an almost independent study in
rustic genre, so the background of the St. Jerome, incorporating several careful studies from
nature ( 1392 and 1393), is an almost independent study in romantic landscape. Yet in both
cases the emotional significance of the figures is too strong to be dwarfed by the charm of the
scenery. Northern art had generally preferred to show St. Jerome in his cell, working at his
translation of the Bible or nursing the paw of his friendly lion. So far as we know, the type of
St. Jerome in penitence is of Italian origin. In Germany it was taken up with some reservation
and, as a rule, not used for a conspicuous display of nudity. It occurs neither in paintings nor
in engravings, but only in a number of woodcuts mostly dating from the last third of the
fifteenth century, and Durer himself was not to resume it in any later representation of his
favorite saint. In his engraving of about 1497, however, at the height of his enthusiasm for
the "modern" and the dramatic, he adopted it directly from North Italian sources; and the
grim vigor of his Neptunian saint must have struck his contemporaries as no less remarkable
than the despair of his Prodigal Son.
The other engraving showing a saint in penitence is of a totally different character, so
different in fact that the subject is not easily identified at ,first glance ( 170, fig. 100 ). The
greaterpart of the composition is occupied by a rocky c a v ~ at the mouth of which is seated
a naked young woman, nursing a child. Far in the background on the left is seen the diminu-
tive figure of a bearded man, also entirely nude but nimbed, who walks on all fours like an
animal. He is none other than St. John Chrysostom: while living in a cave as an anchorite,
he had allegedly seduced an Emperor's daughter, who had taken refuge in his abode; and he
did penance by crawling around for many years until he was discovered and forgiven. How
and why this disreputable story had come to be attached to the blameless name of St. John
Chrysostom is immaterial. Absent, of course, from the Acta Sanctorum and the original
"Golden Legend," it had found its way into the German versions of the latter, and Durer
could have encountered it, illustrated by woodcuts, in Gunther Zainer's "Lives of the Saints"
of 1471, as well as in Koberger's "Lives of the Saints" of 1488. But neither of these two
illustrations shows the unfortunate princess nursing her child in the wilderness. This motif,
reminiscent of ancient fairy tales and yet, perhaps, suggested by a composition by Jacopo
de' Barbari (fig. 106), was freely added by Durer who, as Vasari would say, "valle mostrare
che sapeva fare gl'ignudi." In suppressing almost entirely the dismal saint in favor of this
touching group he transformed a spurious story of "sin and punishment" into an idyll of
tender humanity and primeval innocence.
Let us conclude this chapter with an engraving which, in spite of its small size, belongs
to Durer's most impressive creations ( 186, fig. 101 ). A nimbed man with the attributes of
Justice, a pair of scales and a sword, is seated on a lion patterned after those which Durer
had sketched in Venice (gog, fig. 57, and 1327). The crossed legs also refer to the idea of
Justice; this attitude, denoting a calm and superior state of mind, was actually prescribed
to judges in ancient German law-books. But the face of the man is surrounded with a quiver-
ing halo, his eyes burst into flames like those of the Son of Man in the Vision of the Seven
Candlesticks, and his features show a fierce, yet woeful expression, strangely akin to that of
his fantastic mount. The halo and the flames bring to mind the verse: "His countenance was
as the sun shineth in his strength" ; and this was indeed the idea which Durer wished to
convey.
Astrology had established a special connection between each of the seven planets (which,
before Copernicus, included the moon and the sun) and each of the twelve signs of the zodiac.
To every planet had been allocated two zodiacal "mansions," one for the day and one for the
night, except for the moon who needed a home only for the night, and for the sun of whom
the opposite was true. His "mansion" was the Lion, the sign of July, when he is at the height
of his power, and this association was depicted in many different ways. One, peculiar to the
Islamic East, was to place the figure of Sol on the back of his Lion, and one of the few
non-Islamic specimens of this type is found where it could easily have attracted Durer's
attention: in one of the capitals of the Palace of the Doges at Venice, the most oriental city
of the Western World (fig. 104). This figure, then, is the visual model of Durer's engraving:
a Sol on his zodiacal sign, the Lion. But why was this astrological image represented with the
attributes of Justice'? The answer lies in a verse of Malachi: "But unto you that fear my
name shall the Sun of righteousness arise." On the strength of this line the Fathers of the
Church had transformed the supreme god of the Roman Empire, the "Sol Invictus" or
Never-vanquished Sun, into a "Sol Iustitiae"-thereby displacing the natural force of a
life-giving and death-dealing astral divinity by the moral power of Christ. This bold equation,
well adapted to strike the fear of judgment into the hearts of the faithful, survived for more
than a millennium; and in one of the most widely read theological handbooks of the later
Middle Ages, the Repertorium morale by Petrus Berchorius, we find a passage which must
be regarded as Durer's direct source of inspiration, all the more so because this handbook
had been printed by Koberger in 1489 and again in 1498, the very year in which the engraving
was probably conceived. The passage reads: "The Sun of Righteousness shall appear ablaze
[infiammatus] when He will judge mankind on the day of doom, and He shall be burning
and grim. For, as the sun burns the herbs and flowers in summer-time when he is in the Lion
[in leone], so Christ shall appear as a fierce and lion-like man [homo ferus et leoninus] in
the heat of the Judgment, and shall wither the sinners .... "
. Only the "imaginativa stravagante" of Durer was capable of charging the form of an
insignificant astrological image with the content of this apocalyptic visfon. His engraving
/
"sOL IUSTITIAE"
79
served as a model to several later artists. But they either used it for representations of the
planetary Sol, with every reference to the idea of Justice left out, or else for allegories of
Justice without the grandeur of a cosmological perspective. Not one was able to recapture
the concept of a Sun who is both Justice and Christ.
)
I I I Five Years of Rational Synthesis,
I500-I505
T
HE year 1500-that of the Self-Portrait in Munich-marks, with some precision,
a fundamental change in Durer's style and Weltanschauung. He began to feel that
his previous works, however much admired by all, were open to that very criticism
which he himself was to level, in later years, at German art in general: that they were "pow-
erful but unsound" ("gewaltiglich, aber unbesunnen"), revealing as they did a lack of that
"right grounding" which seemed to be the only safeguard against "errors in design" ("Falsch
heit im Gemal"). So he began to study the essential branches of Renaissance art theory: the
theory of human proportions, which had been brought to his attention by J acopo de' Barbari;
the theory of the proportions of animals, especially the horse; and, last but not least, per
spective. Within a few years, and in spite of Barbari's uncommunicativeness, he was an
accomplished master in these three disciplines.
However, that sense of balance which automatically asserted itself at every critical point
of Durer's career warned him to compensate for this trend toward rationalization. While
reducing the variety of shapes and movements to general formulae, and while subjecting the
visual experience of space to the rules of projective geometry, he became all the more deeply
engrossed in the minute details and individual differences of God's creation. Such drawings
and water colors as the famous Little Hare (1322), the Parrot (1343, fig. 137), the Grey
hound (1321), the Elk (1319), the admirable studies for the arms and hands of Adam
(1207), the Iris (1430), the Turk's Cap (1439) and, above all, the Great Piece of Turf
( 1422, fig. 135a)-all of which can be dated between 1500 and 1503-record the most micro
scopic of observations, and Durer's graphic technique developed accordingly. During these
three years he trained himself to handle the burin with a delicacy and refinement never aspired
to before, or indeed ever after. The ma:jor engravings of this period reveal twice or three times
as many lines per square inch as the earlier ones (figs. 133 and 134); a subtle veil of "double
cross-hatchings" and infinitesimal strokes or points all but conceals the linear character of the
basic pattern; the epidermis of things seems almost more important than their structure. And
yet just these engravings bear witness to the awakening of Durer's theoretical interests.
The so-called "major" engravings are: the St. Eustace and the Nemesis (more generally
known as the "Large Fortune"), probably executed about 1501 and 1501/o2 respectively.
Vasari admired them so much that he explained them as special efforts to excel Lucas van
Leyden "in quantity as well as in quality," and Durer himself thought highly of them even
twenty years later. They are, in spite of their meticulous workmanship, the largest of all his
engravings: the Nemesis (called "Temperanza" by Vasari) is approximated in size only by
the Hercules; and the St. Eustace, which is almost as large as the Apocalypse and the other
So
INTEREST IN THEORY; THE "MINUTE STYLE" 81
"whole sheet" woodcuts, is approached by none. This huge engraving ( 164, fig. 114) illus-
trates the legend of a Roman soldier of noble birth who set out for a hunt and, like St. Hubert,
encountered a stag bearing the Crucifix between his antlers and addressing his pursuer in the
name of Christ; moved by this miracle, St. Eustace became a Christian and died for his faith.
The kneeling Saint greets the stag with a gesture in which astonishment melts into adoration.
But the attention of the beholder is held less by the experience of St. Eustace than by the
landscape and the animals. Durer has never approached more closely what may be called an
Eyckian quality of scenery. An untold wealth of details, including even a flight of birds
circling around the belfry of a fortified castle, and in part visible only through a magnifying
glass, is organized into a monumental whole. The utmost solidity of substance and precision
of form are mysteriously combined with the greatest softness and richness of tone; the eye
feasts on such subtleties as the nuances of different types of foliage and the interior-like half-
light of a secluded swannery darkened by trees. The animals, too, are studied from life with an
eye to tone and texture. It is characteristic that the only extant study (1321) was done, not
with the pen but with a hair-thin brush. At the same time, however, Durer evidently wished
to render account of their "true proportions." As in a scientific handbook, the miraculous stag,
St. Eustace's horse and three of his five dogs are represented in pure profile; a fourth one is
shown in full front view, and only the fifth exhibits a more casual pose. The very size of the
horse, which occupies a whole half of the available space, bears witness to Durer's awakening
interest in the "Moss der Pferd" to which a special chapter was to have been devoted in his
never-written comprehensive treatise on the theory of art.
What Durer sought to achieve in the St. Eustace with respect to animals and to a more
intimate type of scenery, he attempted in the Nemesis (184, fig. us) with respect to the
human body and to a panoramic view. The subject, identified by Durer's own testimony, was
suggested by a Latin poem of Politian which synthesizes the classical goddess of retribution
with fickle Fortune: clad in a white mantle, she hovers in the void, tearing the air with
strident wings, driven hither and thither by the gales, and always wielding the goblet and
the bridle-symbols of favor and castigation-with a contemptuous smile. Now the poet can
easily shift his image from a state of rest to a state of movement, from a "vacuo sublimis in
aere pendens" to an "atque hue atque illuc ventorum turbine fertur." The plastic artist, on
the other hand, has to choose between them, and it is highly significant that Durer decided in
favor of a pose not only static but deliberately schematized. The huge figure (with Politian's
"white p1antle" transformed into an accessory which serves the double purpose of suggesting
a breeze in spite of the motionless posture, and of providing the lighted parts of the figure
~ w i t h a_ dark foil) is represented in geometrical side elevation like a diagram in a treatise on
anthropometry. It is, in fact, dimensioned according to the only canon of proportions which
classical Antiquity has left to posterity: that is, the canon of Vitruvius. This had come to
Durer's attention in 1500, and while the actual appearance of his ponderous goddess is studied
from life with a feeling for detail and texture still absent from the more metallic and less
particularized nudes of his earlier prints, her principal measurements agree exactly with those
RATIONAL SYNTHESIS, 1500-1505
prescribed by the Roman writer. The foot, from the heel to the tip of the conspicuously
extended big toe, is one-seventh of the total height (from the heel to the top of the
the length of the head, from top to chin, is one-eighth; the length of the face, from the chm
to the jewel in the diadem, is one-tenth; and the "cubit," from the finger-tips (if the fingers
were extended) to the well-marked bone of the elbow, one-fourth.
No doubt a conflict can be felt between the didactic and at the same time excessively
naturalistic treatment of this figure and the fantastic character of the theme. Durer never
repeated the experiment of dealing with a visionary subject in a line engraving. That he did
it in this case is illustrative of a transitional period in which his new scientific interests were
notyet harmonized with his artistic imagination.
A similar duality of purpose is evident in the interpretation of the landscape. The scenery
is transcribed from a lost drawing-probably a water color-representing the site of Chiuso,
or Klausen, in the Southern Tyrol. It has been mentioned that an influence of such Alpine
bird's-eye views can already be noted in the Apocalypse. But in a woodcut like St. Michael
fighting the Dragon the individual features of the scenery had been obliterated in favor of a
general impression of illimited expanse, and the same is true of such later instances as the
landscape in the Vienna "Adoration of the Trinity" ( 23, fig. 172). On the other hand, a direct
and literal use of studies from nature was normally restricted to individual "motifs" such as
the rock formations in the St. Jerome (168), the "Weiherhaus" in the Virgin with the
Monkey ( 149, fig. 102 ), or, later on, the city prospects in the "Feast of the Rose Garlands"
and in the engraving St. Anthony (165, fig. 247). The view in the Nemesis engraving, how-
ever, combines panoramic vastness with a stupendous amount of accurate, identifiable detail
and, more important, with perfect measurability. Like Barbari's Map of Venice, and not
unlike a modern airplane photograph, it is a superb piece of cartography rather than a land-
scape in the ordin_ary sense.
One small but symptomatic innovation has yet to be noted. Before 1500, Durer printed his
monogram directly on the paper, as nearly as possible in the center of the lower margin. In
the St. Eustace, however, the initials are made to look like an inscription on a stone or piece
of paper, and in the Nemesis they appear on a little tablet called "cartellino" by the Italians;
moreover, while the inscription of the St. Eustace.still occupies the customary place in the
center, that of the Nemesis is placed in the lower right-hand corner of the composition. The
majority of the prints produced after 1500 show variations of these two devices: initials and
numerals, foreshortened according to circumstances, seem to be carved into rocks, trees, walls
or pavements; the "cartellino" may be replaced by a little scroll; and it may seem to dangle
from a tree like an ex voto, or from a building like an innkeeper's sign. Such an artifice served
an obvious end. In affixing his monogram to one of the objects comprised within the
space instead of to the paper, Durer suggested to the beholder to interpret this paper, not as a
material sheet on which letters can be printed as on the pages of a book, but as an imaginary
projection plane through which is seen the picture space and its contents.
(
ENGRAVINGS FROM 1500 TO 1503
The incredible diligence which is characteristic of the St. Eustace and the Nemese's
(Durer himself would have spoken of the "allerhochster Fleiss so ich kann") was naturally
not bestowed upon such minor engravings as the Virgin on the Crescent ( 137 ), the two St.
Sebastians ( 162 and 163), the weird Witch-riding backward on a goat to illustrate the idea
of a topsy-turvy, or perverted, world-(174), the Putti with a Shield and a Helmet (173),
the rather indifferent Virgin wz'th the Infant Jesus and St. Ann ( 136), and the Man of Sorrows
with His Arms Outstretched ( 127). They are of coarser fiber but for this very reason not
unimportant for Durer's further development. They had retained that firm, incisive, em-
phatically "graphic" quality which could be observed in such engravings as the "Meer-
wunder" or the Hercules and had been sacrificed in the two capital prints of 15oojo1.
In simultaneously practicing these two manners, each of which had the faults of its
virtues, Durer was bound to realize that perfection could be achieved only by synthesizing
their distinctive qualities. This is precisely what he undertook to do in the two engravings of
'1503: in the Virgin nursing the Child ( 141) and, with still greater authority, in the Coat-of-
Arms of Death (2o8). This masterly engraving-preceded by the similar though less
ambitious Coat-of-Arms with the Cock (207)-shows a shield with an enormous skull, sur-
mounted by a winged helmet, both supported by a savage and a girl in festive dress who are
engaged in amorous conversation. Iconographically, this composition can be described as an
heraldic version of the "Love and Death" theme treated in the drawing called "The Pleasures
of the World" and in the engraving called "The Promenade." From a technical point of
view, ii: may be said to preserve much of the miniature-like delicacy characteristic of the
Nemesis and the St. Eustace, and yet to recapture the toughness and definiteness of line
which distinguish Durer's earlier engravings. There is no weakening in his sensibility for
texture. The smooth but brittle ivoryof the skull, the contrast between the polished steel of
the helmet and the duller metal of the shield, the soft flesh of the girl and the shaggy limbs
of the savage, the difference between feathers and pinions, the luscious foliage of the mantling
-all this is keenly observed and tangibly rendered. Yet the calligraphic swing of the contours
is so consciously stressed, and the hatchings and little points that constitute the interior
modelling are so rigidly systematized and so widely spaced, that every element, from long-
drawn curves to seemingly casual dashes, fulfills an ornamental as well as a representational
function.
Durer himself seems to have been aware of an element of finality in the engravings of
1503. Except for the isolated case of the "Four Witches" they are the first of his prints to
bear a date in addition to the signature. Henceforth all of his engravings save three were to
be dated (while the dating of woodcuts was not usual with Durer until 1509/10). In fact,
whatever further developments can be observed in his burin style can be defined in terms of
its relation to the style of 1503.
In graphic technique the two engravings of the following year brilliantly maintain the
course established by the Coat-of-Arms of Death. In design and composition they are of
prime importance in that they embody the first fintl results of Durer's studies in the two main
fields of art theory.
In the Nativity, referred to by Durer as "Weihnachten" (109, fig. 116), the figures,
though placed in the foreground, occupy less than one-twentieth of the total area. The stage
is almost more important than the actors and is a spectacle in itself. The dilapidated frame
house which shelters the adoring Virgin and the Child, its crumbling plaster exposing the
decay of the brickwork, rests on two posts of sturdy oak and on an ancient wall of Roman
esque style. It leans against the remnants of a stone building so old that it encourages the
growth of grass and little trees, while a bridge of rafters and disjointed planks connects this
ruin with a pile of sharp-edged, massive, almost Roman-looking masonry. St. Joseph fills a
pitcher from an elaborate draw-well, and a round-topped archway, its opening hinged to the
central axis of the composition, provides the effect of a "vista" in a way reminiscent of
Michael Pacher.
All of these features are not uncommon in the Nativities of the fifteenth century which
had developed a special technique of hiding symbolical meanings under the veil of "realistic"
paraphernalia. The Romanesque style and dilapidated state of the bu!ldings, and the vege
tation sprouting from ruins signify the birth of the New Dispensation amidst the decay of
the Old; the draw-well and unbroken pitcher allude at once to the purity of the Virgin, the
waters of Paradise, and the sacrament of Baptism. But in Durer's "W eihnachten" the pic-
turesque symbolism of the fifteenth century is controlled by the scientific rationalism of the
Renaissance. Between 1498/99, when woodcuts like the Martyrdom of St. John or the "Ecce
Homo" revealed a definitely medieval conception of space, and 1504 Durer had mastered the
technical rules of perspective construction and had grasped the modern principle of composi-
tion according to which the definition of space precedes the grouping of the figures. His
Nativity is not only impeccable from the point of view of projective geometry (with all the
vanishing lines correctly converging in one point, and equal magnitudes diminishing in con-
stant gradation), but also achieves a perfect unity of space as an aesthetic experience. The
values of light and dark, the relative weight of the masses, and even the accents of the narra-
tive are subtly balanced so as to harmonize with the perspective construction. '
The other engraving of 1504, the Fall of Man ( 108, fig. 117) has always been deservedly
famous for the splendor of a technique which does equal justice to the warm glow of human
skin, to the chilly slipperiness of a snake, to the metallic undulations of locks and tresses, to
the smooth, shaggy, downy or bristly quality of animals' coats, and to the twilight of a
primeval forest. The studies for the plants and animals range from careful portrayals in brush
and water color (e.g. 1319) to what may be called snapshots done with the quickest of pens
(e.g. 1346).
In addition, Durer's contemporaries would have observed certain iconographic features
which easily escape the modern beholder. They would have shared his delight in paralleling
the tense relation between Adam and Eve to that between a mouse and a cat crouching to
spring, and they would have appreciated the symbolism of what most of us would be apt to
"WEIHNACHTEN"; THE FALL OF MAN ss
dismiss as "picturesque accessories." They would have understood that the mountain ash, to
which Adam still holds, signifies the Tree of Life and that the same contrast exists between
it and the forbidden fig tree as between the wise and benevolent parrot and the diabolical
serpent; and the selection of the animals in the foreground would have reminded them of a
widespread scholastic doctrine which connects the Fall of Man with the theory of the "four
humors" or "temperaments."
According to this doctrine, which had been formulated in the twelfth century, the original
nature of man was not yet qualified and corrupted by the predominance of any one of those
mysterious fluids to which we still allude when we use such expressions as "sanguine," "phleg-
matic," "choleric," and "melancholic." Before Adam had bitten the apple, man's constitution
was perfectly balanced ("had man remained in Paradise he would not have noxious fluids in
his body," to quote St. Hildegarde of Bingen), and he was therefore both immortal and sin-
less. It was believed that only the destruction of this original equilibrium made the human
organism subject to illness and death and the human soul susceptible to vices-despair and
avarice being engendered by the black gall, pride and wrath by choler, gluttony and sloth by
phlegm, and lechery by the blood. The animals, however, were mortal and vicious from the
outset. They were by nature either melancholic or choleric or phlegmatic or sanguine-pro-
vided that the sanguine temperament, always considered as more desirable than the others,
was not identified with perfect equilibrium. For in this case no sanguine animal could be
admitted to exist, and it was assumed that man, originally sanguine pure and simple, had
become more or less severely contaminated by the three other "humors" when biting the
apple.
An educated observer of the sixteenth century, therefore, would have easily recognized
the four species of animals in Durer's engraving as representatives of the "four humors" and
their moral connotations, the elk denoting melancholic gloom, the rabbit sanguine sensuality,
the cat choleric cruelty, and the ox phlegmatic sluggishness.
Yet Durer's main concern was certainly not to show his skill in burin work and his
knowledge of "natural philosophy." As the engraving "W eihnachten" is intentionally a model
of perspective, so the Fall of Man is intentionally a model of human beauty. Durer wished to
present to a Northern public two classic specimens of the nude human body, as perfect as
possible both in proportions and in pose.
In the Nemesis engraving he had done no more than fuse the dimensions transmitted by
Vitruvius with observations from life into a forthright and simple statement of facts. Apart
from th,e measurements, the figure had not been "idealized" in any way. Its modelling is over-
charged with details; its face retains the features of an individual model (perhaps Crescentia
rather than Agnes Durer) ; its contours are, to say the least, unbeautiful; and its
pose is that by comparison the lilting sway of any Gothic statue seems to have captured
more of classical gracefulness. Fully aware of the problem, Durer had at once begun to work
out a geometrical construction which would serve the threefold purpose of establishing the
proportions, preferably in accordance with Vitruvius; of determining as many contours as pos-
86
sible; and of providing the framework for a classical contrapposto attitude as typified by such
famous statues as the Apollo Belvedere and the Medici Venus. Here the weight of the body
(which is presented in full front view, with the head more or less turned to profile) rests on
the "standing leg" while the foot of the "free leg," touching the ground only with the toes,
steps outward; the pelvis is balanced against the thorax in such a way that the hip of the
standing leg is slightly raised whereas the corresponding shoulder is slightly lowered. Durer
had long been fascinated by this attitude (see 1178 and 457 figs. s6 and 96 ), and had tried
to capture it in such engravings as the Small Fortune, the "Four Witches," and, above all,
in the "Dream of the Doctor." From 1500, he endeavored to systematize both the pose and
the proportions of such figures "mit dem zirckel und richtscheyt" ("with the compass and
the ruler").
The constructed drawings preceding the Adam and Eve engraving indicate that Durer
originally planned to present the "perfect male" and the "perfect female" in two separate
engravings, no less classical in iconography than in formal appearance. The men-derived
from classical models which had come to Durer's attention through Italian intermediaries-
are characterized as warriors (1601), Sols, or Apollos (1596-16oo, fig. 118) and are, with
only one exception, proportioned according to the canon of Vitruvius; the women-
revised versions of a Venus type already employed in the "Dream of the Doctor"-appear as
allegorical figures with divers attributes, some of them perhaps suggesting a lunar divinity to
parallel the solar ones ( 1627-1637 ). A critical point was reached in the most advanced of the
Sol or Apollo drawings ( 1599, fig. 119). It showed originally only the figure of the Sun-god,
standing right in the center of the sheet and holding a scepter and a solar disk. A little later,
and probably under the influence of an engraving by Barbari in which Diana, goddess of the
moon, is shown driven away by a triumphant Apollo, Durer made several changes, the most l_
important of which was the addition of a seated woman, seen from the back. She is pictured
trying to shield her face from the sun-a gesture by which she, too, is uniquely determined as
Luna or Diana. But, since she sits on the farther edge of a strip of land instead of disappear-
ing behind the celestial globe (as is the case in Barbari's engraving), her action implies a dis-
location of her neck, of whiflh Durer was quickly aware. He left the head unfinished and
tried to solve the problem by twisting the whole figure around so that she faced the beholder;
the contours of this new Diana can be discovered on the right of the fully modelled one. But
Durer soon felt that the composition, developed as it was from a figure designed to stand by
itself, could not be saved. He decided not to use it for an engraving, as he had planned to do
(witness the reversed inscription "Apolo" on the solar disk), and put it aside after having
made a record of the main figure; he traced its contours on a new sheet, but improved its
iconography py substituting Barbari's bow and arrow for the original scepter ( 16oo).
yet Durer did not renounce the new idea of juxtaposing male and female nudity in one
engraving. But he decided to develop the previous drawings into two entirely different com-
positions, one of them interpreting human beauty in terms of static form, the other in terms
of dynamic movement.
THE FALL OF MAN; APOLLO AND DIANA
The first of these compositions is the Fall of Man. It sums up the studies in regulated
proportions and constructed equilibrium. The earlier Aesculapii, Sols, and Apollos, slightly
remodelled after the pattern of the Apollo in Barbari's engraving, were synthesized into an
Adam while the studies in female proportions were similarly summarized in the figure of
Eve. Both figures, superbly modelled, were aligned on one standing plane and set out against
the penumbral darkness of a thicket. In choosing this background, however, Durer paid a
belated tribute to Antonio Pollaiuolo in whose so-called "Ten Nudes" (fig. 54) a similar
problem had been solved in analogous fashion. The Northern master acknowledged his debt
by a direct "quotation" which, at the same time, amounts to a subtle challenge. Like
Pollaiuolo, Durer signed his engraving on an unusually large "cartellino" which hangs from
a tree. It bears, for the first time in Durer's career, an inscription in Latin, and this inscription
is worded so as to oppose to the pride of the Florentine the pride of the citizen of Nuremberg:
as Pollaiuolo had written "oPvs ANTON II POLLAIOLI FLORENTTINI" so Durer wrote "ALBERTVS
DVRER NORicvs FACIEBAT." His satisfaction with his work is understandable; he had indeed
contrived to "better the instruction." While Pollaiuolo's engraving, with all its emphasis on
anatomical structure, yet gives the effect of an entangled Gothic ornament, Durer's Fall of
Man has a quality which can be defined only as "statuesque."
The other composition derived from the same group of previous drawings reverts to the
Apollo and Diana theme ( 17 5, fig. 124). But instead of presenting two paradigms of formal-
ized beauty, it dramatizes the contrast between masculine vigor in action and feminine love-
liness in repose. Diana-developed from the cursorily sketched figure in the drawing dis-
cussed above-sits quietly on the ground, petting her doe. Apollo, however, strains every
nerve to bend his bow, his muscles tense with the effort of a violent torsion. Herculean rather
than Apollonian, his mighty form fills the space of the composition to the very limit; and
even beyond, for, while his left foot fits, by a hair's breadth, into the lower left-hand corner
of the engraving, his head, his bow, and his arrow do not find room enough within its margins.
As has already been mentioned, the engraving Apollo and Diana is one of the two first
prints in which classical subject matter appears reunited with classical form. The other, dated
1505, is the Family of Satyrs ( 176, fig. 123) which had developed from one of Durer's most
enticing drawings, a hasty sketch inspired by Philostratus's description of a family of Centaurs
(904, fig.121; cf. 905. fig. 122). To judge from the exact identity in style and measurements,
this charming scene, staged in a forest still denser than that in the Adam and Eve engraving,
was conceived as a companion piece of the Apollo and Diana composition. Taken together, the
two prints appeal indeed to two of the most potent impulses in the psychology of the Renais-
sance: t<} the nostalgias for the Olympian and for the idyllic.
'" The same year, 1505, brought two representations of horses which bear, strange to say,
precisely the
1
same relation to the St. Eustace as the Apollo and Diana print and the Fall of
Man to theN emesis. In one of the two engravings, known as the Large Horse, the mount of
St. Eustace was improved upon (just as the Apollo had been) with an eye to volume, muscular
development, and a general impression of supernormal strength; in the other, called the
88
Small Horse, it was subject (as the figures of Adam and Eve had been) to a thorough ideali-
zation with respect to proportions, posture, and breeding. .
The Large Horse (204, fig. 126) has received its name, not from the size of the
rint-which is not very much larger than its counterpart-but from the relative scale of the
Its powerful form, modelled with long sweeping "tailles," is viewed from the back
in a violent foreshortening. This type of foreshortening is, as such, apt to strengthen
impression of volume, the object hurling itself in the beholder's face, so to speak. In
particular case it has the further effect of emphasizing the magnificent :urves of. the horses
croup, belly, and shoulder, and of enormously increasing its apparent size. For, If the form
of the animal, foreshortened to about half its natural length, yet fills the space a.lmost
margin to margin, how truly colossal must it be in actuality! The very fact Its real size
can only be supposed gives free play to our imagination so as make us what :Ve
see and the fact that the spear-feet of the animal are placed higher than Its fore-feet makes Its
ap;earance almost overpowering. Small wonder that when he wanted to
sent the Conversion of St. Paul in a space of similar proportwns, freely Durer s
Large Horse in order to achieve a maximum of both naturalism and monumentality.
Opposite principles of composition obtain in the Small Horse (203, fig. In. the
Large Horse the foreshortened animal had been contrasted with a relatively flat and stnctly
frontal architecture in comparison with which it appeared all the more In the
Horse the animal is presented in pure side elevation (so as to its
and is set out against a heavy and sharply receding barrel vault m companson With which. It
looks all the more slender and elegant. The Large Horse stands motionless and. Its
head with the patient apathy of a subdued giant; the Small Horse nervously raises Its off
foreleg and tosses its fine, long-nosed head with a whinny.
This contrast in formal appearance perhaps extends also to the iconography. The Large
Horse and its realistically attired master-a grinning halberdier in heavy riding boots-:an,
hardly be interpreted mythologically or allegorically, except for the fact that :he .classical
column surmounted by a nude idol may allude to the presence of Northern m Italy.
The Small Horse, on the other hand, controlled as it is by a "classical" warnor whose
gear and footwings identify him as either Perseus or Mercury, may well meant :o sigmfy
"Animal Sensuality restrained by the Higher Powers of the Intellect. In and
Renaissance symbolism the horse stands for violent, irrational and qmte specifically
for "Lussuria"; and the flame bursting forth from a vase conspicuously placed above the
group is no less common a symbol of "illuminating reason." . .
This interpretation is admittedly conjectural. One thing, however, Is certam: the Small
Horse is of Italian breed. It is patterned after a Leonardesque model which Durer had
recorded in two drawings, both dated 1503 (1671 and 1672, fig. 138). The Small Horse
differs from these drawings in that it does not raise itsnear hind leg in answer to the movement
of the off foreleg (it was not until 1513 that Durer did justice to the rhythmical as well. as to
the plastic beauty of Leonardo's conception), and it is relatively shorter. The bodies of
THE TWO "HORSES"; THE YEAR 1503
Durer's horses-measured from the breast to the root of the tail, and from the standing line
t'o the upper edge of the croup-are always inscribed in a square and not in a rectangle. But
all the other features of the Small Horse-its interior proportions, its modelling, and above
all, its narrow, "pig-snouted" head with the short lower jaw and the large, lustrous eyes-
are as unmistakably Leonardesque as the graceful movement of its foreleg and its whole
thoroughbred personality. The helmet of its master, too, presupposes Durer's familiarity
with such Leonardo drawings as the so-called "Hannibal" in the British Museum.
In the engraving St. George on Horseback ( 161, so called in contradistinction to the con-
temporary St. George on Foot, 160) Durer sought to combine the monumentality of the
Large Horse with the elegance of the Small. The charger of the Saint is shown in a fore-
shortening marked enough to strengthen the impression of power and volume, yet not so
violent as to obscure the objective proportions; it fills the picture space from margin to margin
but is not contrasted with a background deliberately reduced in scale. That this engraving is
slightly later than the two other "Horses" is proved by the "cartellino" which bears the date
1505 corrected to 1508. The only possible explanation of this anomaly (paralleled only by
the double date of the engraving St. Philip, 153) lies in the assumption that the St. George
was almost, but not entirely, finished in 1505 and could not be released until after Durer's
return from his sojourn in Venice.
THE YEAR 1503-that of the two drawings which served as a basis for the Small Horse-
plays a peculiar role in Durer's development.
In the first place it brought a technical innovation. Just when Durer's burin style had
reached that state of perfection to which he himself testified by adding dates to his signature,
he discovered-perhaps under the influence of Grunewald witqwhom he seems to have come
in contact as early as 1502-1503-a completely different graphic medium, and one most
emphatically opposed to line engraving, namely, charcoal. Blunt and crumbly, easy to handle
but incapable of refinement, it invited speed and required large formats. It permitted the
sweep and firmness of linear contours to be reconciled with the "rilievo" and "sfumato" of a
non-linear modelling and was best suited for large portraits or studies from life where indi-
vidual heads had to be rendered in a kind of alfresco manner, reduced to essentials, but in the
fullness of their personality. Charcoal was to remain Durer's favorite medium for this specific
purpose, but no less than eight large-sized portraits and studies of heads bear or bore the date
1503, apart from those which may be lost. The virtues of the medium are eloquently illus-
trated by a P?rtrait of Pirckheimer (1037, fig. 139). Vigorous black strokes determine the
basic features and accentuate such details as the shadows in, the ear, the pupils, the hair, and
the band of the snood or fillet then worn under the headgear; the numerals of the date (which,
characteristically, form an integral part of the compositional scheme) are similarly empha-
sized. The modelling, on the other hand, varies from the opaqueness of the large shadow on
the beret to the transparency of light gray touches sparingly distributed over the face. As for
the face itself, Durer has ennobled his friend without flattering him. The fleshiness of Pirck-
heimer's countenance and the deformity of his nose are by no means minimized. Yet the full
profile view, but seldom paralleled in other portraits prior to 1521, with some of
the dignity of a Roman Emperor; the drawing, preceded. by a silver pomt sketch
Greek inscription is not for Victorian eyes ( 1036), may m fact have been made a
medal in mind. The heaviness of the lower part of the face is offs.et by the beret
lends relief to the volume and height of the brow. There is both will power and keen In-
telligence on the taurine forehead. And the full mouth bespeaks not only sensualism but
also Erasmian irony.
In the second place, the year 1503 was marked by a series of strange and sinister events
which left their imprint on Diirer's imagination. A comet appeared, and what Diirer calls
"the greatest portent I have ever seen" filled Nuremberg with terror: a "blood rain" n.ow
known to be caused by a harmless alga, palm ella prodigiosa) fell on many people, stammg
their clothes with the sign of the cross. Diirer recorded one of these mysterious marks-not
only a cross, but a whole Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St. John-which he had seen
on the shirt of a terrified servant-girl (587). Soon enough these evil omens were followed by
the outbreak of epidemic diseases-then all grouped under the name of "the plague"-which
flared up here and there and reached dangerous proportions in various parts of Germany. In
Nuremberg, it seems, the situation did not grow serious until the early summer of 1505, but
many persons had already fallen sick in 1503, and among them Durer himself. The
Arms of Death (2o8), hard to reconcile with the spirit of a period which produced the Lzttle
Hare and the engraving Adam and Eve, must be interpreted against this background of
horror and fear, and two of the large charcoal studies of 1503 bear an even more direct impli-
cation. One is the portrait of a man, his features distorted with pain and his mouth half open
in a stifled groan (1120). If it does not actually represent a stricken person, it certainly
reflects the atmosphere of "the disease." The other is a head of the Dead Christ, presented
in a ghastly foreshortening and truly gruesome by the lack of irises and pupils ( 621, fig. 140_) .,
The reminiscence of other works of art (such as Marco Zoppo's H'ead of St. John the Baptzst
in Pesaro) seems to merge with Durer's own agonized features into a frightful vision which
may indeed have come to him in a feverish dream; for, in this case we know by own
testimony that the drawing was made "during his illness." An actual Self-Portrait, m three-
quarter length and entirely nude (999), was probably executed afterwards: The
convalescent painter looks at his emaciated body and still haggard face with th: same mixture
of fatigue, apprehension, and dispassionate curiosity with which a farmer might take stock
of his crops after a bad storm.
In the third place, the year 1503 is a milestone in the development of Durer's relations
with Leonardo da Vinci. Up until this time Leonardesque motifs had come to Durer's atten-
tion through the intermediary of minor artists such as Lorenzo di Credi. In 1503, however,
he must have gained access to Leonardo's inventions either in the original or at least in direct
copies. To this the two drawings discussed in connection with the Small H_ witne_ss.
But Leonardo's influence was not restricted to hippology. In two portraits m silver pomt
(1o6o and 1105, fig. 136) Durer attempted to render a fleeting smile, and one of the studies
in charcoal, presently used for a Virgin Mary, shows, in addition, a mildness of posture and
THE YEAR 1503; "PAUMGARTNER ALTAR"
91
expression and a sfumato treatment of lighting which strike us as Leonardesque ( 717). The
Vienna Madonna in half length (26), also dated 1503, and the Portrait of Endres Durer in
Budapest (89), datable 1504, shine with the same sweet smile, and in the Adoration of the
Magi in the Uffizi of 1504 (11, fig. 113), the head of the standing King, pictured in full
profile in spite of the frontal pose of the figure, gently inclined, with no perceptible break
between the long, straight nose and the forehead, and almost femininely soft in temperament
and modelling, would readily fit into Leonardo's Last Supper.
DuRER DID NOT Do MucH PAINTING BETWEEN 1500 AND 1505. The two Lamentations (16, ;:-
17, fig. 91 ), Hercules killing the Stymphalian Birds of 1500, already mentioned in connection
with the Abduction after Pollaiuolo ( 105), mark the end of the preceding phase rather than
the beginning of the one; and, except for the Vienna Madonna, the Budapest portrait
just mentioned, and the Munich Self-Portrait already discussed (50, fig. 110 ), only three
works attributable to Durer himself reached completion before he left again for Italy. These
are the Paumgiirtner altarpiece in Munich, the two panels representing the story of Job in
Frankfort and Cologne, and the Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi.
The Paumgiirtner altarpiece (5, fig. 111 ), probably ted between 1502 and 1504,
has not been preserved in its entirety. The fixed wings, which showed Sts. Barbara and
Catharine, are lost (see, however, the drawings 851 and 854), and of the Annunciation in
grisaille that was seen on the exterior of the movable shutters only the figure of the
Virgin Mary remains. The loss of the Angel is not too serious, for the picture of the Virgin
shows that the Annunciation was painted by a rather indifferent workshop assistant. The L:-
paintings of the interior, however, were executed by Durer himself.
The central panel shows the Nativity, the wings (accordi9g to a trustworthy tradition),
the brothers Lucas and Stephan Paumgiirtner in the guise of St. George and St. Eustace
respectively. This scheme is Netherlandish rather than German. Where the wings of German
altarpieces showed Saints in full length, the center was, as a rule, occupied by a wood-carved
relief and not by a painting; where the center was occupied by a painting, the wings showed,
as a rule, scenic representations, often arranged in two stories, and not Saints in full length.
The closest parallels to the scheme of the Paumgiirtner altarpiece are found in such works as
Dirk Bouts's triptych in Munich and, most particularly, in the Portinari altarpiece by Hugo
van der Goes; the influence of this tradition can also be felt in the two shepherds, the one
ascending the step being a variation on a motif recurrent both in Hugo van der Goes and
Geertgen totSint Jans. There is, however, this difference: in the Netherlandish instances the
Sairtts ate placed in a realistic landscape which expands the scenery of the central panel
into a continuous picture space; Durer, while staging the Nativity in a picturesque court-
yard, sets out the Saints against a neutral black background. This arrangement, unquestion-
ably detrimental to the aesthetic unity of the work, is illustrative of the fact that the
Paumgiirtner altarpiece presents a neat solution of two entirely different artistic, or rather
art-theoretical problems-in fact, the same problems which are dealt with in the engraving
"Weihnachten" on the one hand, and in the engraving The Fall of Man on the other. Like the
_ "Weihnachten" print the central panel shows the picturesque setting of fifteenth century
92
RATIONAL SYNTHESIS, 1500-150 5
Nativities remodelled according to the rules of geometrical perspective. We have, again, the
Romanesque wall, the ruined masonry overgrown with luxuriant vegetation and the round-
topped arches placed at right angles to one another; and while the "disguised symbolism"
of the well and pitcher has been abandoned, Durer reverted to the tradition established by the
Master of Flemalle in equipping St. Joseph with a lantern (time-honored symbol of the
"splendor materialis" drowned out by the "splendor divinus" of the new-born Saviour, to
quote from St. Bridget), and in symbolizing the birth of Christ, the "Sol Justitiae," by the
rising sun. Like the Fall of Man, however, the wings exhibit "classic" examples of proportion
and equilibrium, the firm and somewhat heavy, though far from lifeless pose of the St. Eustace
forming a striking contrast with the Italianate elegance of the St. George. Potential mobility
is juxtaposed with actual mobility, and it is evident that the elastic posture of the St. George
derives from the same Sol and Apollo drawings which were employed for the Adam in the
Fall of Man (a by-product of this process is the engraving The Standard Bearer, 194). It
was in order to display fully the plastic perfection of these two Saints that Durer decided to
sacrifice pictorial unity to a clean-cut distinction between an exemplary presentation of space
and an exemplary presentation of human figures.
This dichotomy was abolished in the Adoration of the Magi in the Uffiz.i, dated 1504
( 11, fig. 113). In it, perfect specimens of humanity are placed right in the middle of a perfect
space where the now familiar motifs, with special emphasis on the carefully constructed
arches, are used for the enhancement of the figures. The group of the Virgin and Child, dis-
played in full profile and organized into a pyramidal shape, is amplified, as it were, by the
slanting roof of the stable and by a tall piece of masonry which, from a formal point of view,
fulfills a function similar to that of the cloth of honor in the enthroned Madonnas by Jan
van Eyck or Memlinc. Another piece of masonry lends distinction to the central figure whose
Leonardesque character has already been mentioned; and the Moorish King, magnificently
framed by two sharply foreshortened arches, is set out against the brightest part of the land-
scape. In posture, finally, his dusky figure is derived from the same ancestry as the St. George
in the Paumgartner altarpiece, that is to say, from the preparatory studies for the Fall of
Man, and it bears a particular resemblance to the Standard Bearer.
The Adoration of the Magi was ordered by Durer's faithful patron, the Elector Frederick
the Wise, and was originally placed in the "Schlosskirche" at Wittenberg. So also were two
panels in Frankfort and Cologne representing the Story of Job and known as the "J a bach
altarpiece" (6, fig. 112). Since they roughly agree with the Adoration of the Magi in period
and measurements, it has even been suggested that the three pictures may have formed a
triptych with the Adoration in the center, the Story of Job appearing on the exterior of the-
wings, and Sts. Joseph, Joachim, Simeon, and Lazarus (now in Munich, but generally sup-
posed to have been painted on the back of the Job panels) flanking the Adoration scene when
the shutters were opened. Such a disposition is open to question and the present writer even
believes it possible that the two "Jabach wings" may originally have formed one single panel.
ADORATION OF THE MAGI; "JABACH ALTAR"
93
But whatever the arrangement, Frederick the Wise certainly had a very personal motive in
selecting, for illustration, the Story of Job.
Since the beginning of Christian writing the story of Job, the patient sufferer, had been
interpreted as a prefiguration of the Passion of Christ. But later on the man whom God had
afflicted wi:h ineffable sorrow and "smitten with sore boils," and who had yet been "accepted"
and cured m the end, was worshipped and invoked by those who suffered from what all
anci.ent medicine called "melancholy" or from such diseases as leprosy, ulcers, or scabies. In
Vemce, always menaced by epidemics, "San Giobbe" attained the rank of a local saint and
liked him with St. Sebastian, protector from the plague from
Chnstian times. It was m this capacity of a healer that Job was honored by Frederick the
A typical valetudinarian, the Elector was more than normally afraid of those epidemics
which had haunted Germany since 1503, and there is little doubt that his preoccupation with
the plague and other contagious diseases accounts for the choice of the subject. To make
assurance doubly sure, he gave, about the same time, two other commissions which would
the purpose. First, Durer's Dresden Madonna of 1496/97 (4) was
w1?gs wh1ch show St. Sebastian and, opposite to him, St. Anthony, the patron
samt_ erysipelas ("St. Anthony's fire") as well as against the new scourge of Europe,
syphilis. Second, a large-sized triptych was ordered on the exterior of which appears another
St. Sebastian, this time paired off with his most recent competitor in the healing profession,
St. Roch (7).
Diirer, however, must have known, or divined, the older and deeper meaning of Job, for
Job's unforgettable pose-the knees drawn up, the heavy-laden head supported by one hand,
the other lethargically resting in the lap-was to recur, not only in the engraving Me/en-
eolia I, but also in the title page of the Small Passion (236), -Here Christ, forever suffering
for the sins of the world, is obviously portrayed as a "new Job"; and the "Man of Sorrows"
in the title woodcut of the Large Passion, where the same idea is expressed by a figure more
gracefully posed (224. fig. 182), is very reminiscent of the Job in Carpaccio's Meditation of
the Passion in the Metropolitan Museum, which Durer may have seen in Venice more than
once.
From a purely narrative point of view, however, Durer kept well within the framework
of iconography. While Job's sheep and servants are burnt by the "fire of
God," and his camels are carried away by the Chaldeans, a flute player and a drummer-
who bears an unmistakable resemblance to Durer himself-try to comfort him by their tunes.
But his, traditionally uncooperative wife adds insult to injury by pouring a bucket of water
over h\s neck.
M_usic"" was known as a cure for spiritual distress from times immemorial. David "took an
harp" when "the evil spirit of God was upon Saul"; the psychiatrists had applied musical
therapy to "melancholy" ever since Theophrastus and Asclepiades; and when Hugo van der
Goes had an attack of depressive mania his kindly abbot called at once for music. Thus the
later Middle Ages imagined that Job, the archetype of all melancholies, was comforted by
94
"minstrels"-which, by the way, accounts for the gaudy garments of Durer's musicians.
Having no money to reward them "aftyr his will," he gave them "the brode Scabbes of his
sore body" which promptly turned into gold. But when the minstrels showed their treasure
to Job's wife she.became so angry that she resorted to violence. In a Flemish picture of about
1485 she is already seen threatening Job with a bucket of water, and Durer was certainly
acquainted with this version of the story. He omitted the rewarding scene-as represented,
for instance, by Lucas van Leyden-and replaced the mere threat by definite action. But
that he had the story of the rewarded "minstrels" in mind is proved not only by the fore-
runners but also by the free imitations of the "Jabach Altarpiece." In a Nuremberg miniature
of 1535 Job's wife stands between the musicians and her praying husband, scolding the latter
while pointing to the former; and in a provincial Saxonian altarpiece of about the same date
the wife pours the water while Job rewards the players. Durer's interpretation sharpens the
contrast between the spitefulness of his wife and the friendly spirit of the strangers and at
the same time monumentalizes the grandiose impassiveness of Job. The patient hero pays no
more attention to the well-meant efforts of the "minstrels" than to the cruel action of his wife.
The triptych with Sts. Sebastian and Roch, which has been mentioned in connection with
the Job altarpiece, is now in OberSt. Veit in Austria (7). On the interior the Calvary is
represented between the Bearing of the Cross and the "Noli me tangere." But it was ordered
too late-probably by the end of 1504 or the beginning of 150 5-to be executed by Durer
himself. This thankless task fell to Hans Schauffelein who acted as Durer's lieutenant during
the latter's sojourn in Italy. For the wings, which might have been assigned to assistants even
if Durer had stayed in Nuremberg, careful working drawings in pen and brush on bluish-
grounded paper, washed with black and heightened with white, had been prepared before
Durer's departure (479-482 ). These "Visierungen" were carried out with comparatively
slight variations, the most important change being the substitution of a "Noli me tangere"
for an isolated figure of the Resurrected Christ. But with respect to the Calvary, which Durer
may have wished to reserve for himself, there were only a few sketches for the upper part of
the composition (477 and 599), and Schauffelein had to cope with the problem to the best of
his very limited abilities.
The Ober St. Veit altarpiece was not the only painted work which remained unfinished
when Durer left in 1505. A rather overly sweet Salvatof Mundi in the Metropolitan Mu-
seum, revealing the influence of Barbari and possibly Leonardo da Vinci ( 18), and two small
panels in Bremen showing Sts. John the Baptist and Onuphrius (42), are still uncompleted.
The stately Madonna with the Iris (now in the National Gallery at London), finally, was ap-
parently begun shortly before Durer's departure, was carried further and nearly finished by
the more talented younger members of his workshop during his absence, and was completed,
signed and sold in 15o8 (28). The Iris (sword-lily, "Schwertlilie," formerly called gladiolus
in Latin) stands for the "sword that shall pierce through" the Virgin's soul while the vine
on the right is an even more direct allusion to the Passion. Together, these plants express the
same idea as the angels bringing in the instruments of torture while Christ still plays at the
OTHER PAINTINGS; "PLAIN WOODCUTS"
95
feet of His mother, or the Crucifix overshadowing the Adoration of the Magi in Rogier van
der Weyden's Columba altarpiece in Munich.
As HAS BEEN STATED in the preceding chapter, any answer to the notorious question of
whether or not Durer usually cut his own woodblocks must be qualified. We have seen that
did not normally do the actual cutting while working as a journeyman for the big pub-
lishers of Basel and Strassburg; that he did do it when creating the new woodcut style of the
Apocalypse and the other "whole sheets" of 1496-98; and that he ceased to do it after his
journey to Italy when he could rely on a staff trained to carry out his personal inten-
tiOns and, finally, on the establishment of Hieronymus Andreae which could produce a
woodblock from any given design as a modern firm of engravers makes a "halftone cut" from
a photograph.
The period between 1500 and 1505, now, is a transitional one. As Durer's workshop
expanded as he devoted more time to theoretical studies, he naturally tried to rid himself
as far as posstble of the purely mechanical work. He was gradually training his assistants to
do more and more of the cutting, but the quality of their work was still somewhat uneven.
Whe:e he attached special importance to the result he would exert rigid control and perhaps
occasiOnally do some of the "knife work" himself by way of example. At other times he would
leave more scope to his collaborators and occasionally not even supply them with an elaborate
working drawing.
Thus the woodcuts produced in these five years fall, roughly speaking, into two classes.
On the one hand, we have the major achievement of this period: the Life of the Virgin, cut
under Durer's closest supervision and, in some cases, with his personal participation (
2
96-
315). On the other hand, we have a group of woodcuts executed under what modern states-
men .would call the master's limited liability: a bookplate for Pirckheimer, elegant in design
but Imperfectly cut (395); a few book illustrations and broad-sheets made to oblige the
humanist Conrad Celtes (350 [jig. 215], 388,412,417,418, most of them based on
shght sketches only) ; and eleven representations of religious subjects so unambitious and in
part, so deficient in technique that Durer himself referred to them as "plain" or "homei "
("schlechtes I:Iolzwerk"). It was not until about 1510 that both the magnifice:Ce
of Durer s personal cuttmg style and the homespun simplicity of this "schlechtes Holzwerk"
were superseded by the standardized perfection of professional craftsmanship.
. The ':oodcuts of the second class are "minor" ones, not only in that they are less delicate
m and less elaborate in composition, but also in that they are smaller in size. As
to use Durer's own descriptive expression, they are but half as large as the
of the Life of the Virgin. But these in turn are only "halbe Bogen " that
1
to
_ .. . .. , s say,
large as. the Apocalypse and the other woodcuts prior to 15oo. This
d1mmutwn m SIZe IS concomitant to a change in style analogous to that which could be
observed in such engravings as the St. Eustace and the Nemesis. After 15oo, Durer's wood-
cuts, too, developed toward the delicate and subtle, with denser modelling and an unheard-of
96
h
detai'l The Life of the Virgin-for obviously the refinements of this new style
emp asis on . .
do not appear in the "schlechtes Holzwerk"-does not relapse into the pict.onallsm of
"Nuremberg Chronicle"; on the contrary, the lines are handled with a feelmg for
purity surpassing even the standards of the earlier woodcuts (see fiq. 86). But such. details as
the trees and shrubs in the Fliqht into Eqypt (309), the still-life motifs in the Bzrth of :he
Virqin (3oo), or the dimly lighted interior in the Betrothal (302, fiq. 143), a passiOn
for the luminary, the intimate, and the particular which fundamentally differs
spirit of the Apocalypse and the Large Passion. Without doing violence to the potentialities
of the medium, the subtlety of these woodcuts rivals, to some extent, that the temporary
engravings; while the technique of the Italian woodcutters sufficed for a fairly copy
of the Apocalypse (published by Alexandra Paganini in Venice in 15.15/1?), Life of the
Virgin could be copied only by a master engraver such as Marcantonio Raimondi ..
The series of the "plain woodcuts" consists of the Calvary (279), two versiOns. of .the
Holy Family theme-the Holy Family with Five Anqels (319) .and Holy zn a
vaulted Hall (
320
)-and eight portrayals of Saints, presented either smgly or m groups of
two or three: St. Christopher (324), St. Francis (330), St. Georqe (331), The
(
341
), Sts. Anthony and Paul in the Desert (327), Sts. John the Baptist and Onuphrzus
c
332
), Sts. Stephen, Sixtus and Lawrence (328), and Sts. Nicholas, Ulrich and
(338, probably cut about 1508 on the basis of a drawing of about The t:rm senes.
was used advisedly, for, though the eleven woodcuts were released as smgle there IS
little doubt that they were originally intended for a "Salus Animae': (a devotiOnal book not
unlike the more popular "Hortulus Animae" which is in turn a vanant of the regular
of Hours). A small-sized "Salus Animae" de luxe, illustrated by .members of Durer s
workshop, had been printed by the Nuremberg publisher Holzel m (448), and
it is very probable that Durer himself planned a similar publication of larger size-th: wood-
cuts, by the way, have exactly the same dimensions as Durer's contemporary book Illustra-
tions-but somewhat more popular in character. Because of his departure to Italy and other
circumstances unknown to us this plan was never to materialize.
The Life of the Virqin also remained unfinished because of Durer's departure to
Seventeen of the twenty woodcuts were completed before he left, but the Death of t.he
and the Assumption were not added until1510. In 1511 the whole series
a brand-new Frontispiece, and was published in book form, each picture bemg m
elegant Latin distichs, by the same Benedictus Chelidonius who has.already been mentwned
in connection with the Large Passion and with the Hercules engravmg.
The very choice of the theme is significant. As the grand style and imperious temper of
the years before
1
5
00
required and presupposed such subjects as the Apocalypse .and the
Passion of Christ, so the serene and delicate spirit of the following half-decade reqUired and
presupposed a narrative neither tragic nor phantasmagorical-a narrative which
justify the presence of peasants and burghers, shepherds landscapes. and .ammals
and childlike little angels, and where all kinds of architecture, from homely mtenors and
1'
THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN
97
rustic farmyards to fantastic temples and palaces, afforded opportunity for a display of
Durer's newly acquired skill in perspective.
Like the delightful water color drawing known as The Virqin with a Multitude of
Animals-with the wicked fox tied to a tree stump, a little griffon dog attacked by a stag
beetle, and St. Joseph engaged in wistful conversation with the stork (658, fig. 135)-the
Life of the Virgin is pervaded by an atmosphere of intimate warmth, tenderness and even
humor. But the professional interest of the artist was focused on the problem of three-
dimensional space. As in the engraving "W eihnachten" and as in the Paumgiirtner altarpiece,
but with more variety and with emphasis on interiors as well as exteriors, Durer wished to
demonstrate how groups and figures could be coordinated within a correctly constructed and
consistently lighted space without impairing either the human values of the narrative or the
rules of "scientific" design. It is worth noting that architectural motifs are "featured" in no
less thirteen of the seventeen woodcuts completed before Durer's departure, and that in
four of these the whole picture space is viewed through an enormous archway, which brings
to mind Alberti's definition of a perspective image as "that which is seen through a window."
The so-called Glorification of the Virqin (315), which concludes the Life of the Virgin as
published in 15ll, is by almost universal agreement of slightly earlier date than the rest of
the series. Not only is it signed by a simple monogram while all the other woodcuts show the
initials painted on a "cartellino" or incised into a stone, but its architecture reveals a primitive
delight in overcomplication and perspective tours de force, coupled with an extravagance in
proportions which later on gave way to a less ostentatious but more effective treatment of the
setting. Enormously elongated columns (their maximum diameter being only one-fifteenth of
their total height), surmounted by Gothicizing capitals, support a would-be classical epistyle.
Walls are pierced not only by archways but also by irregular oP'enings, and the whole compo-
sition, with about a dozen figures crowded into a dense group which is itself almost submerged
by picturesque detail, betrays a certain horror vacui.
This woodcut was very,probably not intended for the place which it now occupies. Both
from a formal and from an iconographical point of view, it would be more appropriate as an
opening page than as a postscript to the glorious finale of the Assumption. But even assuming
that the "Glorification" was originally intended to open the series and was not relegated to
its present place until1511, when the new title page was devised, even then its iconography
would not entirely agree with its funCtion.
The Virgin Mary-the Infant Jesus standing on her knee and reading from a Gospel book
presented to Him by an Angel while another Angel plays the harp-is surrounded by a group
composed of St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, St. Anthony, St. Augustine, St. Jerome with his
lion, St .. Paul, and, most prominent of all, St. Catharine. This group of Saints and Angels,
united in the worship of Christ, has gathered in a room characterized as the "Thalamus Vir-
ginis" ("the Nuptial Chamber of the Virgin"). It contains a bed and a conspicuous candle-
stick and through an opening in the wall, above which is a figure of Moses, can be seen a
gloomy back room with what seems to be the tabernacle of the Old Law. A gayer note is
98
struck in the foreground where four winged putti disport themselves, one playing a flute, a
second trying to catch a rabbit, the third and fourth, placed in the lower corners of com
position, supporting empty shields. These shields were obviously intended to be filled wtth
coats-of-arms of the respective owners, the coat of the husband to be entered, of course, m
the dexter shield, and that of the wife in the sinister one; the latter is furthermore of smaller
size, and-very humorously-is being struck by a putto with a pair of keys, time-honored
symbol of feminine sovereignty in household matters (in German law this limited independ
ence of the wife is still called "Schli.isselgewalt" or "Schli.isselrecht"). This motif, combine?
with the facts that the rabbit is the most common symbol of fertility, that the peonies in the
vase beneath the Madonna were ranked in beauty with lilies and roses and were held to possess
the power of dispelling evil spirits and curing disease, and that St. Catharine was the patron
ess of virgins and brides (hence the bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley, a symbol of virtuous purity
often associated with the Virgin Mary herself), suggests that the "Glorification" woodcut
was originally conceived, not as an integral part of the Life of the Virgin but as an inde
pendent devotional print, to be given to young couples on their wedding day.
Similar questions are raised by the woodcut known as "The Sojourn of the Holy Family
in Egypt'' (310, fig. 142). Though already signed on a "cartellino," it is stylistically closer to
the "Glorification of the Virgin" than to the other woodcuts. The group of Angels worship
ping the Virgin Mary (who spins while rocking the cradle with her left foot) i.s still
overcrowded; the handling of space, with the vanishing point emphatically shifted to one stde,
is still what may be called outre without being altogether convincing; and the playful putti
collecting the chips and splinters from St. Joseph's carpenter's work are almost interchange
able with those in the "Glorification."
The charming idyll of the aged artisan surrounded by little "Cupids" doing their best
to keep the workshop clean was suggested by Philostratus's description of Daedalus. It is not
by accident that the explanatory poem of Benedictus Chelidonius refers to precisely this
mythological hero of craftsmanship to glorify St. Joseph's activity in Egypt: as a new Daeda
lus, he says, the husband of the Virgin practiced and taught wonderful arts and crafts where
nothing like it had. been known before. But we must remember that these verses were written
about ten years after the woodcut was made; they were written by a man presumably familiar
with Durer's literary source; and they were written not so much to explain the actual meaning
of the woodcut as to justify its present place within the Life of the Virgin, directly after the
Flight into Egypt (309). In reality neither the Gospels nor the Apocrypha enlarge upon St.
Joseph's Daedalian exploits in the land of the Pharaohs, and there is nothing in the woodcut
to indicate that the scene is laid outside the normal and permanent habitat of the Holy .
Family. The setting consists of the now familiar combination of ruined Romanesque masonry
with wooden sheds and rustic implements of every description, and one important detail makes
it almost certain that the woodcut was not always intended for its present place. This is the
apparition of God the Father and the Dove, a motif restricted to scenes which permit a
Trinitarian interpretation. It occurs in the Annunciation and in the Nativity where the Trinity
99
is manifested by the conception and birth of the Christ Incarnate; in the Baptism, where Its
manifestation is revealed to St. John; in representations of the dead or dying Christ ( espe
cially the Crucifixion), where Its manifestation comes to an end; and in the Resurrection or
Ascension, where the original situation is reestablished. Aside from these "historical" scenes,
God the Father and the Dove are found only in images of a universal and doctrinal rather
than a particular and historical character. Rogier van der vVeyden could use this motif in his
Vienna Madot;na, and Durer could employ it for the "Virgin zvith the Dragonfly" (fig. 92) or
for the Holy Family wz'th Five Angels (319), but it could not possibly appear in a special
and even secondary episode within the life of the Virgin. It must be concluded, therefore, that
the woodcut now figuring as "The Sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt" was originally a
Holy Family pure and simple. Like the "Glorification of the Virgin," and independently
thereof, it seems to have been composed as a single woodcut before the plan of a coherent
"Marienleben" series was formed. That these two woodcuts have exactly the same format,
and that this format was subsequently retained for the rest of the series, is not surprising in
view of Durer's custom of standardizing the dimensions of his woodblocks. The giant wood-
cuts of I496-98, too, are all identical in size, whether they were released as single prints or
belong to the.series of the Apocalypse and the Large Passion, and the Mass of St. Gregory
of IS I1 (343) agrees exactly with the measurements of the Life of the Virgin without having
the slightest connection with it.
The fifteen other woodcuts constituting the Life of the Virgin as far as completed before
Durer's departure-beginning with the Rejection of Joachim's Offen'ng and ending with the
Leave-Taking of Christ-were executed, in rapid succession, between 1502/03 and 1505.
Their chronology is a much discussed problem, but again it advisable to divide the
material into a few groups presumably succeeding one another than to attempt a "linear"
chronology.
Only two woodcuts can pe dated precisely: the Adoration of the Magi (307) presupposes
a drawing of 1503 (7I7), and the Meeting of Joachim and Ann at the Golden Gate (299,
fig. I4I) carries the date I 504. Again the presence of a date-most exceptipnal for a woodcut
of this time-may be interpreted as an expression of satisfaction, which was, indeed, fully
justified by the remarkable'progress made within a single year. The Adoration of the Magi
still bears certain resemblances to the two earlier woodcuts which have just been discussed.
The architecttue, almost as complicated and honeycombed as in the "Glorification of the
Virgin," is rendered in the same violent and lopsided foreshortening as in the "Sojourn of the
Holy Fat1zily in Egypt." Sharp contrasts of light and dark, combined with a still somewhat
crowded tornposition, give a certain mottled effect. The rather small figures .still tend to cling
to the picture plane, and the interpretation of the exotic and resplendent scene of homage is
as gently humorous as that of family life in a carpenter's courtyard: the ass, in contrast with
the humans, casts a pious glance on the miraculous apparitions in the sky; the younger King,
while offering a goblet with his right hand, good-naturedly encourages his black companion
100
with his left (with a kind of "double back-hand gesture" still reminiscent of the Terence
illustrations) and wears a riding hood over his royal crown.
In contrast, the Meeting of the Golden Gate is distinguished by a balance and dignity
surpassing even the composure of the Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi. The mottled
appearance has given way to a subtle differentiation of light and dark. All traces of horror
vacui have disappeared; the composition is built up from large rather than from small ele-
ments; and such details as windows, doors, and arcades are integrated into a unified whole.
The impression of three-dimensionality is no longer achieved by force, but by an effective
rationalization: a clear distinction between foreground, middle distance, and background has
been made, and the whole picture space is viewed through the "Golden Gate" itself. Deco-
rated with a border of interlaced branches, in which are set small statues of Moses, three
Prophets, David and Gideon, this Gate fulfills the double purpose of frame and "repous-
soir." A new feeling for intervals is also evident in the arrangement of the groups and figures;
they are treated as plastic units surrounded by space. And, most important of all, the move-
ments of the hero and the heroine, with Joachim's gentle firmness lending support to the
enraptured exhaustion of St. Ann, have a distinction entirely new in Northern art; Gothic
fluency and classical equilibrium are fused into a new ideal of Christian nobility.
With the Adoration of the Magi and the Meeting at the Golden Gate as nuclei, two
groups of woodcuts can be formed: a "primitive" and a "classic" one.
The "primitive" group comprises the Nativity (305), which is very close to the Adoration
of the Magi in composition, technique and "eccentric" perspective; the Presentation of the
Virgin (301 ), which may be a little later than these two; and the Annunciation (303), which
may be a little earlier. This woodcut is the first in which the picture space is seen through an
archway as in the Meeting at the Golden Gate. However, in the later composition we look
into an open space in relation to which the archway has the function of a "diaphragm,"
emphatically overlapping not only the buildings in the middle distance but also the figures
in the foreground. In the Annunciation the archway is simply substituted for the front wall
of an interior the.width of which does not exceed the diameter of the opening so that no over-
lappings can occur. The circular relief of Judith with the head of Holofernes can be explained
by the Speculum Humanae Salvationis where Judith's deed is described as a prefiguration of
the Virgin's victory over the Devil. The allusion is all the more obvious as the defeated,
badger-faced Devil is shown in the lo.wer left-hand corner, chained in a dungeon beneath a
little flight of stairs.
The "classic" group includes the Visitation (304), the Flight into Egypt {309), Joachim
and the Angel (298), and Christ taking Leave from His Mother (312), with the two former
woodcuts apparently preceding, and the two latter ones apparently following the dated
Meeting at the Golden Gate. The Flight into Egypt reveals the influence of Schongauer's
famous engraving (whence Durer borrowed the "Dragon tree," henceforth an almost
pulsory item in renderings of the subject), but it is enriched by such unusual and charming
details as the ox patiently following the Holy Family on their voyage; and here for the first
II
THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN 101
time is a "forest interior" achieved in woodcut instead of in engraving. In the woodcut
Joachim and the Angel the ;woodland mystery of the Flight into Egypt is synthesized with
the dignity and beauty achieved in the Meeting at the Golden Gate; and the Leave-Taking
of Christ is so classically perfect in poses and gestures that it was believed to presuppose
Durer's second trip to Italy. This can be disproved by the fact that the composition is included
in the series of copies by Marcantonio Raimondi which was released in 1 so6, and there is no
positive indication of a later date. Architectural motifs no less Italianate than the ribbed
cupola, the flat pediment, and the windows surmounted by conchs already occur in the
Martyrdom of St. John and in the Angel with the Key of the Bottomless Pit (here, too, the
cupola denoting the idea of "Jerusalem"); and the beautiful posture of Christ has a prece-
dent in that of the "Leonardesque" Kihg in the Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi. Yet the
doubts as to the date are understandable, for Diirer-and German art in general-seldom
approached the Renaissance ideal of "dignitas hominis" more closely than in the image of a
Saviour at once perfectly human and remote. That His figure is framed by two impressive
verticals-the tree and the doorpost-not only lends majesty to His appearance but also
expresses His unapproachability. It is not by accident that Diirer changed the traditional
iconography of the scene-Christ taking His mother by the hand-in favor of a scheme
derived from that of the "Noli me tangere."
Between the "primitive" and the "classic". gro1.W may be placed two woodcuts distin-
guished by the fact that the main incident is pushfd into the background while the fore-
ground is :filled with groups and :figures of a genre character: Christ among the Doctors (311)
and the Birth of the Virgin (300 ). They also pave the way for the "classic" group in that the
blacks and whites already tend toward greater homogeneity, and in that the frontal arch,
which occurs in both cases, already fulfills the function of a "diaphragm," as in the Meeting
at the Golden Gate.
The "classic" group is followed, on the other hand, by four woodcuts where the ideal of
formalized perfection was sacrificed to sovereign freedom and, ultimately, to a union of free-
dom with grandeur. Figures and groups are neither displayed in "lone splendour" nor scat-
tered about the picture space, but are distributed according to what may be called a sym
phonic principle. In the Rejection of Joachim's Offering (297) the :five principal characters
-the mournful St. Ann, the humiliated Joachim, the High Priest and his assistant, and
Joachim's more fortunate counterpart, a brutish father proud of his little boy-are set out
against an anonymous crowd like a quintet of woodwinds against an accompaniment of
strings. Iq the Presentation of Christ (308, fig. 144) a similar scheme is employed, but the
whole scene is enacted on the second plane of the stage, the left-hand corner of the foreground
being by a gigantic column aoout which an equally gigantic onlooker clasps his arms.
In the Circumcision (306), which in more than one respect harks back to the little panel in
Dresden (3, a), the place of this column is filled by an enormous candle-bearer. "Faisant le
vide autour delui," he holds the balance to the figure of the Virgin Mary which is placed in
the opposite corner. Comparable to a niche, the opening of which is flanked by pilasters, a
102
semicircular wall of humanity connects these two figures, and it is in the apex of this human
niche that the throne of the priest is placed. But while the Infant Jesus, Whom the priest
holds on his lap, is right in the center of the composition, the group of figures performing the
ritual is not arranged symmetrically: they form a compact block, separated from the candle-
bearer by a yawning gap and boldly thrown across space in a diagonal direction. On the other
hand, in the Betrothal of the Virgin (302, fig. 143) strict symmetry prevails, and the figures
are compressed into a relief space bounded by the picture plane on the one hand and by the
front of the Temple on the other. Yet we have the impression of a dense crowd, not only
because the figures stand three or four deep as in an altarpiece by Stoss or Riemenschneider
but also because they seem to overflow the lateral boundaries of the composition: the outer-
most figures extend, so to speak, in part beyond the margins, and the impression of continuity
is further strengthened by the fact that the gorgeously bonneted lady behind the Virgin seems
to approach the center from the right whereas the man next to St. Joseph looks to the left.
That the lady with the bonnet is relegated to a second plane, while the man next to St.
Joseph, though placed in the foreground, turns his back upon the beholder not only makes for
variety and the illusion of depth but also ensures the predominance of the central group.
The scene of these four woodcuts, like that of some of the earlier ones, is laid in or before
the Temple of Jerusalem which, according to a tradition established at the beginning of the
fifteenth century, had to be rendered as a monument at once ancient, singular, and vaguely
oriental. With an admirable feeling for aesthetic and historical values the fathers of Northern
painting, the Master of Flemalle and, more consistently, the brothers van Eyck, had therefore
chosen to represent the Temple of Jerusalem not as a contemporary building in flamboyant
Gothic style but as an architecture of-generally speaking-"Romanesque" appearance.
They felt, quite rightly, that the "Romanesque," gloomy and heavy, yet thoroughly fantastic
with its profusion of historiated capitals, ornate pavements, and crawling decoration in flat
relief, was not only "old" but also closer to Eastern art than the Gothic, and they would have
justly disapproved of its misleading modern name. Durer kept, in a general way, to this
tradition; that is to say, he preferred round arches, circular windows, flat reliefs, and ribless
vaults to more specifically Gothic features. But he also freely used flamboyant forms, and,
more important, did not hesitate to intersperse this hybrid architecture with Italian Renais-
sance elements, then still associated with the idea of an ancient and pre-Christian civilization.
He also sought by structural complications and sophisticated lighting to enhance the impres-
sion of strangeness and exotic oddity, and endowed the architecture with a symbolical signifi-
cance relative to both the locale and the subject.
All this could already be observed in such woodcuts as the "Glorification," the Annun-
ciation, or the Meeting at the Golden Gate. As further instances we may adduce the
Presentation of the Virgin (301 ), where the arch connecting the Temple with another
building is adorned by "mythological" reliefs and is surmounted by a statue apparently
intended to represent Apollo the Dragon-Killer; and the woodcut Christ among the Doctors
(311 ), where a flamboyant Gothic throne, placed in a more or less "Romanesque" interior, is
overhung by two garlands of purest North Italian Renaissance style.
In the four latest woodcuts, however, the architectural setting is not only "strange" and
fanciful but also full of awesome grandeur and age-old mystery. In the Rejection of Joachim
a half-drawn curtain and an enormous arch, piercing an ancient brick wall with crumbling
plaster, disclose as well as conceal the Holy of Holies, a dimly lighted room of majestic
proportions and a kind of fallacious simplicity; for, while it is prismatic in shape and covered
with a plain quadripartite vault, it has mysterious annexes and recesses too gloomy for the
eye to penetrate, and the tables of the Law lurk menacingly behind a second arch in the back-
ground.
The Betrothal of the Virgin shows an interesting variation of the "diaphragm" scheme
employed in the Meeting at the Golden Gate. Uboth cases the door of the Temple is depicted
as a frontal archway exactly fitting into the margins of the woodcut. But in the Betrothal
the action takes place before and not behind the arch: instead of separating the entire picture
space from the beholder it separates two spheres, or worlds, within the picture itself. This
function is reflected by the symbolism of the decoration. The "Golden Gate" had been adorned
exclusively by the Prophets and Heroes of the Old Testament. The door in the Betrothal,
however, has a twofold message. Its inner molding shows a combat between armed men on
unicorns and women on lions, an obvious allusion to the conquest of sensuality by innocence;
but it is surmounted by an owl-time-honored symbol of the night, a lightless state of mind,
and, therefore, of the Synagogue. One symbol refers to the chastity of the marriage just being
concluded in front of the Temple, the other to the benightedness of the Jewish religion, the
rites of which are practiced within. The interior is fantastic as well as forbidding. Sturdy
columns, forming a deambulatory like that of a choir, surround'the Ark of the Covenant above
which is hung a big conical canopy; but from the background emerges a towering Tora Shrine
in severe Renaissance style. The whole room is illuminated only by what little light streams
in through the door and by the gleam of a solitary candle; for, it is not by chance that the only
visible window-accepted 'symbol of "illuminating grace"-is "blind."
The Circumcision is staged in a well-lit anteroom of simple stateliness which communi-
cates with a gloomy, groin-vaulted chamber. The dividing wall, pierced by a round-topped
door and a circular opening, is partly covered by curtains and partly overspun by stone-
carved ornament which opposes to the sternness of the "Romanesque" the graceful luxuriance
of a flamboyant Gothic best exemplified by decorative sculpture and engraving in Alsace.
Ensconced in it are four figures which, like the reliefs in the Betrothal of the Virgin, com-
memorate the Jewish past while heralding the Christian future: Judith, the greatest heroine
of H e b r ~ \ V hjstory and, at the same time, a prefiguration of the Virgin; Moses, the giver of the
Old Law to be replaced yet respected by the New; and, in the center, the Lion of Judah and
a nude Infant who is, of course, none other than the Messiah. But more important (at least
for the modern art historian) than this elaborate symbolism of light-versus-dark, and "old"-
versus-"new" is the experience of space as such. The perspective construction of the Circum-
104
cision has an unusually strong subjective appeal. The fact that the vanishing point is shifted
to the side gives an impression of unstudied reality; and that it is not located on an "ideal"
level but on the eye level of the big candle-bearer in the extreme foreground corresponds to
our natural inclination to identify our own stature with that of the figure closest to the picture
plane. Moreover the barrel-vaulted ceiling is so emphatically cut off by the margins that it
seems to transcend, not only the frame but also the very front plane of the composition. As a
result we feel ourselves included within the picture space and seem almost to take part in the
events unfolding therein.
The same is true, perhaps to an even greater degree, of the Presentation of Christ. Here
Durer represents a huge classical structure of columns and architraves obviously taken over
from an Italian prototype such as the Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba by Piero
della Francesca. But while he appropriated the classical features-except for the fact that
he decorated the capitals with vines-he destroyed their classical meaning. First, he abolished
the coffers so that the whole construction stands free in a larger and wholly inconceivable
room, the dark atmosphere of which seems to flow down through the hollow spaces. Second,
he avoided showing a second column on the right so that the room appears to us, again, as
arbitrarily presented and entered, and as limitless in its lateral extension. Third, he made the
orthogonal architrave project beyond the picture plane, and we are so near to the big column
to which it belongs that it seems to extend over our very heads. Thus the illusion of being
included within the pictorial space is even more insistent than in the c a ~ ~ of the Circumcision;
were we to draw the perspective to natural scale it would be found that the distance between
the beholder and the big column is less than the interval between one column and another,
which means that he is actually in the room.
In 150 5 a French priest by the name of Jean Pelerin (in Latin, Johannes Viator) pub-
lished a treatise on perspective illustrated by numerous schematic woodcuts. In 1509 it came
out in a second edition in which is inserted a skeletonized copy of Durer's Presenta!z'on as a
further example. But he was unable to understand the anachronistic beauty of a composition
anticipating, in a way, the conceptions of such Dutch seventeenth century painters as Gerrit
Houckgeest and Emanuel de Witte. In an attempt to amend it according to what he under-
stood to be the rules of classical harmony, he closed the hollow spaces in the ceiling and not
only added the "missing" column on the right but also removed the whole construction from
the frontal plane.
THE scENE oF THE LEAVE-TAKING OF CHRIST, which concludes the "Marienleben" as
far as it was completed by the time of Durer's departure, is very seldom found in earlier
Lives of the Virgin. Where it occurs, however, it serves as a transition to the Passion, either
preceding the Entry into Jerusalem, as in an early fifteenth century panel in Berlin, or
inserted between the Entry into Jerusalem and the Last Supper, as in a somewhat related
picture in Cologne. There is some reason to believe that Durer, too, originally planned to
continue the Life of the Virgin with a new cycle of the Passion of Christ. In the first place,
THE GREEN PASSION 105
the Small Passion of 1509-1511 . still reflects a program where the Passion proper was pre-
ceded by scenes of the Infancy; as in the panel in Berlin, the Leave-Taking of Christ is
inserted before the Entry into Jerusalem ( 241/42). In the second place, a drawing of 1502,
representing the Flagellation of Christ, seems to have a direct connection with the original
project (573, fig. 145). Since all the figures appear to be left-handed, the drawing must have
been made i11 preparation for a print; and since its size and style preclude the possibility of
an engraving this print must have been a woodcut. Such a woodcut, on the other hand, cannot
have been intended for the "Salus Animae" series, which is only half as large as the drawing
and has no room for a Flagellation scene; nor is it probable that this subject would have been
chosen for a single print. It appears, then, that the drawing of 1502 was made for one of the
woodcuts originally intended to follow the Life of the Virgin, and this conjecture is corrobo-
rated by the fact that it agrees with this series not only in its dimensions but also in that it
shows the characteristic motif of the "diaphragm arch."
That Durer ultimately abandoned the plan for continuation may be accounted for by the
fact that he had been commissioned with another Passion cycle which had to be prepared
while the Life of the Virgin was still in the making. This is the much debated "Green
Passion," so called because the eleven (originally twelve) drawings of which it consists
(523-533) are executed on green-grounded paper. Comprising the sequence of events from
the Betrayal to the Deposition-with the Agony in the Garden lost but transmitted through
indirect sources (556)-the series is dated 1504, and its style agrees in fact with that of the
"classic group" within the Life of the Virgin (fig. 146). The drawings were hardly carried
out by Durer himself, but he must have supervised their execution, and the invention is
unquestionably his. Four original sketches in pen, slightly squatter in format, have come down
to us (566, 569, 570, 575).
1
What was the purpose of this "Green Passion" which is much too elaborate to have been
produced without a very definite reason'? Like the studies for the Ober St. Veit altarpiece
(479-482) the drawings are most carefully executed in pen and brush, enhanced by black
washes and white heightenings. These and other similar examples (e.g. the drawings for the
Fugger Tombs in Augsburg, 1537-1539) show that this technique, more final and affirmative
in the characterization of lighting and modelling than others, was used for entire composi-
tions almost exclusively where other artists, whether members of Durer's own workshop or
"outsiders," had to be supplied with models to be followed as closely as possible. Such draw-
ings, then, served as what was known as "Visierungen," and this may also have been the pur-
pose of, the ''Green Passion." The twelve drawings may have been intended to serve as models
for paintings commissioned under the condition that Durer would provide the design but
- would. not be responsible for the manual execution. Series of this kind, each panel about one
yard high; are commonly, though not quite correctly, known as "Kreuz-Stationen" ("Stations
of the Cross"), and were very popular in the sixteenth century. Each nave pier of a church
was adorned with one scene of the Passion; and since the "Schlosskirche" in Wittenberg, com-
pleted shortly after 1500 and still in want of interior decoration, happens to have precisely
106
six bays we may venture the hypothesis that the twelve panels prepared by
Passion" were intended for this very church. We know that Durer was the favonte pamter
of Frederick the Wise, and that the "Schlosskirche" in Wittenberg was full of other \works
commissioned from his workshop at exactly the same time.
The last of these was, we remember, the OberSt. Veit altarpiece (7). Its central panel
shows the Calvary, and the same subject is represented in another "Visierung" on green-
grounded paper, similar to the "Green Passion" in period and technique though
executed by the same hand or hands (598). This drawing, too, may have been made m
preparation for an altarpiece for Wittenberg, soon to be superseded by the more sumptuous
and timely project executed by Schiiuffelein.
Howsoever that may be, these plans, like so many others, were interrupted by Durer's
sudden departure for Italy. But before he left he commemorated, in one of the greatest
charcoal drawings ever made, the sinister force which drove him away. It shows Death as a
king, or, to speak more exactly, as the King of Plague (876, fig. 147). with a royal
crown, he rides on an emaciated horse, stooping and without room enough w1thm the frame to
straighten up. His mount has a cowbell strung around its neck-a weird reminder of the
death knell, the "belle clynking biforn a cors" when "caried to his grave," and the. sign.al "to
bring out the dead"; and its gait is a ghastly caricature of what Durer had m the
representations of horses by Leonardo da Vinci: as in the drawings of 1503, the pde
Death lifts its near foreleg and simultaneously puts forward its off hind leg; but the rhythmic
beauty of its movement is distorted into a crawl as slow and deadly as the advance of a lava
stream.
.I.
(
IV The Second Trip to Italy and the Culmination of
Painting, I505-I5IO/II
travels from Nuremberg to Venice passes through the rich and beauti-
ful c1ty of Augsburg. Durer stopped there not only on his voyage in the sum-
mer or fall of 1505 but also on his return trip in February 1507. We learn
from a letter of his host, a patrician gentleman named Conrad Fuchs von Ebenhofen,
that the first of these sojourns lasted considerably longer than the second, and it has even
been supposed that Durer's J?iginal intention had been to stay in Augsburg for the whole
duration of the plague. One of his letters from Venice, however, seems to indicate that a trip
to Italy had been planned, and was already discussed in his family circle, before he left
Nuremberg: "I should have to take him with me to Venice," he writes referring to his
brother Banns, "and this would have been a good thing for me as well as for him, also
because of the language; but she [that is, their mother] was afraid the sky might crash down
on him." Yet the lengthy "stopover" at Augsburg may have had some importance for the
realization of what was to be the main achievement of Durer's sojourn in Venice: the altar-
piece known as the "Feast of the Rose Garlands."
The use and maintenance of the national church of the Germans in Venice, S. Bartolom-
meo, was shared by two separate fraternities or clubs, who also operated the social and
commercial center of the German colony, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. One of these clubs
comprised the merchants from Nuremberg, the other those fronfdifferent parts of Germany;
and within the latter the Augsburg element had achieved more and more prominence, reaching
a climax with the meteoric rise of the house of Fugger. It is significant that no one disputed
with this family the privilege of renting the most desirable chambers-nos. 1 and 2-in the
Fondaco dei Tedeschi when it had been rebuilt after the fire of January 27, 1505. As we
know by Durer's own testimony, the "Feast of the Rose Garlands"-to be placed in the left
chapel of S. Bartolommeo-was ordered by "the Germans," that is to say, not only by his
townsmen but by the Nuremberg and Augsburg groups in conjunction. It is a fair assumption
that the associations formed during his stay with the hospitable Conrad Fuchs went a long
way to prepare the ground for this joint donation; but the attempts at identifying actual
members of the Fugger clan in the panel itself cannot be called convincing.
We do not know exactly when Durer reached his destination, but it was probably well
before the end of 1505. The young beginner who had visited Venice eleven years before was
now a worldrenowned master whose inventions were copied and imitated everywhere. Also
he was no longer poor. Pirckheimer had lent him some money, he had sold or bartered five of
six panels apparently brought along for this purpose, and the commission of "the Germans"
was not only honorable but also fairly lucrative, in spite of protestations to the contrary
107
108
SECOND TRIP TO ITALY; CLIMAX OF PAINTING
which should not be taken more seriously when uttered by a painter than when voiced by a
banker or industrialist. Thus he did not walk about the city as an unknown and insignificant
tourist but plunged into its colorful and stimulating life as a distinguished guest. He became
acquainted with "intelligent scholars, good lute-players, flutisJs, connoisseurs of painting and
many noble minds" who honored and befriended him. He even ventured to take dancing
lessons (which, however, he gave up after the second attempt) and dressed more fashionably
than ever. He bought-and proudly reported the fact to Pirckheimer-a French mantle, a
brown coat, an overcoat ("Husseck"), and a woolen cloth for which he paid eight ducats and
which was unfortunately destroyed by fire on the following day. He could afford to lend
money to impecunious friends, some of whom bolted or inconveniently died without having
repaid him, and tried to satisfy, though not always successfully, Pirckheimer's rather exacting
wishes concerning new Greek editions, oriental rugs, crane's feathers, jewelry, precious stones,
and pictures which might be interesting from an antiquarian or iconographic point of view;
in this latter respect he was, characteristically, much disappointed: "Concerning 'stories,' "
he writes, "I do not see that the Italians produce anything particularly amusing in relation
to your studies; it is always the same old stuff; you yourself know more than they paint."
The tone and flavor of Durer's communications to Pirckheimer are very delightful. His
letters express the relief of a man who had been torn between a disgruntled wife and a tired,
over-pious mother ("lost among the women," as he writes of his brother Hanns); they reflect
the warmth and splendor of an environment where the "poor painter" could blossom forth
into a "gentleman"; and they bear witness to a friendship too deep and manly to require a
show of affection. Only once, when Durer had reason to believe that Pirckheimer was hurt
by an unduly long silence, do we read such phrases as: "Thus I humbly beg of you to forgive
me, for I have no other friend on earth but you." Normally, the content of the letters is conr
fined to factual narration, gossip, indecent jokes and good-natured banter. But whether Durer
harps on Pirckheimer's pride in his achievements as an orator and statesman, or facetiously
contrasts his huge physique and senatorial dignity with his philanderings, or teases him about
his weakness for pretty German girls and handsome Italian lansquenets, we always feel how
much he loved the other's very faults, and how little he begrudged him his successes. When
Pirckheimer had outlined a refutation of certain claims raised by the Margrave of Branden-
burg and Ansbach-Bayreuth-a refutation which involved a hundred different headings-
Durer addressed him as "Most learned sir, experienced in wisdom, expert in many languages,
fast unmasker of any falsehood which may be uttered, and speedy discoverer of rightful
truth." Heals? praised his friend's prodigious memory, but finally expressed the fear that the
Margrave might not grant him audience long enough: "For 100 articles, each of 100 words,
will take 9 days, 7 hours and 52 minutes, not counting the suspiri." And another mock-
eulogistic passage, mostly written in a Maccharonian mixture of Venetian Italian and Latin,
is so amusing and characteristic of the atmosphere in which the two men lived that it deserves
to be quoted in full: "Grandisimo primo homo de mundo. W oster serfi tor, ell schcia vo Alberto
Durer disi salus suum mangnifico miser Willibaldo Pircamer. My fede el aldi wolentire cum
LETTERS TO PIRCKHEIMER 109
grando pisir woster sanita e grondo hanor. El my maraweio, como ell possibile star vno homo
cusy wu contra than to [sic] milytes; non altro modo nysy vna gracia
di Dio. Quando my leser woster litera de questi strania fysa de cacza my habe thanto pawra
el para my vno grando kosa. Aber ich halt, dz dy Schottischen ewch awch gefurcht hand, wan
Ir secht awch wild vnd sunderlich im heiltum, wen ir den schritt hypferle gand." "Greatest
and first man of the world! Your servant and slave Albrecht Durer greets his magnificent
Mr. Willibald Pirckheimer. My word, I have heard gladly and with pleasure of your health
and great honor, and I am marveling how it was possible for a man like you to hold your own
against so many soldiers of the most cunning Thrasybulus, which indeed you could not have
done, save by a peculiar grace of God. When I read your letter about this strange adventure
I was very frightened, and it seems a big thing to me. But I believe that Schott's men were also
afraid of you. For you, too, look wild, and particularly at the Feast of the Imperial Insignia
when you are dancing the Hopping Step."
To understand this amusing piece of chaff one has to know, first, that Nuremberg was at
war with a robber baron by the name of Kunz Schott vom Rothenberg; second, tha,t Pirck-
heimer had to face this really dangerous enemy (who, on another occasion, cut off the right
hand of a Nuremberg Senator, saying: "Now you will not write me letters any more") on a
diplomatic mission; third, that the name "Kunz" is an abbreviation of the name "Konrad"
or "Kuonrat," which means "a man who combines boldness with wisdom" and can therefore
be equated with the classical name of Thrasybulus.
When it came to self-praise Durer was fortunately able to reciprocate in kind, always-
as we remember-ready to make fun of his own boastfulness as gracefully as of Pirckheimer's.
He was sought after by one and all and had his full share of the two inevitable concomitants
of success: honors and professional jealousies. His fellow-painters were apt to criticize his use
of color and his lack of understanding for the classical style (" ... they imitate my work in
churches and wherever they get hold of it; then they blame it and say it was not 'antik-
isch Art'"), and he was even warned not to share their meals lest they might try to poison
him. But many other Italians, particularly the gentiluomini, liked and admired him so
much that he had "to hide himself at times" in order to get some peace and privacy. Old
Giovanni Bellini, the dean of the Venetian school, and in Durer's own estimation "still the
best in the art of painting," praised him in front of a distinguished gathering, visited his
studio and expressed the wish to acquire one of his pictures; and if we can believe what
Durer wrote to the Senate of Nuremberg in 1524 he was even offered a well-paid permanent
position as :Painter to the Signoria. When the "Feast of the Rose Garlands" was completed
it wasadmired by the whole Venetian aristocracy, including the Doge and the Patriarch, and
finally .evtn by Durer's colleagues. "And as you are so pleased with yourself," he wrote to
Pirckheirner, "so I herewith announce that there is no better image of the Virgin in the
country."
The "Feast of the Rose Garlands," now transferred from the Premonstrants' monastery
at Strahow to the Museum in Prague, was indeed an effective means to "silence those who said
110 SECOND TRIP TO ITALY; CLIMAX OF PAINTING
that I was good as an engraver but did not know how to handle the colors in painting" (38,
figs. 148-1so). Having been subject to several restorations-the first in 1663, the last in
1839-41-the panel is today no more than a ruin. Large sections, amounting to about half
of the whole surface and unfortunately including the heads of nearly all the principal
figures, had already been destroyed and completely repainted in the seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries and were brought into their present shape by the restorer of 1839-41, one
Johann Gruss. However, those portions which were then in good condition-carefully charted
by the excellent G. F. Waagen-are still intact and are, in point of fact, in a better state of
preservation than numerous museum pictures which, owing to the greater and more dangerous
skill of our modern restorers, give the impression of a uniformly perfect condition. And these
portions, such for instance as some of the portrait heads in the more distant planes, a consid-
erable part of the landscape and the delicious pluviale of the Pope, are of a coloristic splendor
never attained by Durer before or after. In one propitious moment he succeeded in synthe-
sizing the force and accuracy of his design with the rich glow of Venetian color.
Durer, for the first time including a real self-portrait in a monumental altarpiece, signed
the picture with the proud inscription: "Exegit quinquemestri spatia Albertus Durer Ger-
man us." This statement is, however, somewhat at variance with what we learn from his letters
according to which he began the work on February 7, 1So6, and finished it some time between
August 18 and September 8 of that year. Since this amounts to at least six months and a half,
we have to assume that Durer discounted the time spent on preparatory studies and even on
the underdrawing on the panel itself; evidently he added up the days devoted to actual
brushwork.
The theme of the composition was suggested by the cult of the rosary which had grown
to unusual proportions during the latter half of the fifteenth century. A rosary is known to,
all, first, as a peculiar form of prayer where decades of Hail Marys alternate with single Our
Fathers (the total number amounting to 1 so Hail Marys and 1 S Our Fathers in the "com-
plete" rosary, and to so Hail Marys and S Our Fathers in the "ordinary" one) ; second, as a
string of beads that allows one to keep count of these invocations since each Hail Mary is
represented by a smaller and each Our Father by a larger bead. The rite of the rosary was a
Dominican form of devotion. Ascribing its invention to St. Dominic himself, the order encour-
aged it wherever possible and popularized an attractive symbolical interpretation of the still
enigmatical name: the string of beads was said to represent an actual wreath of white and red
roses, the white roses (corresponding to the smaller beads and to the Hail Marys) denoting
the Joyful Mysteries of the Virgin, the red ones (corresponding to the larger beads and to the
Our Fathers) the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Passion; and the hoop which holds the blossoms
together (corresponding ~ o the thread and to the Creed with which the recitation of the rosary
begins and ends) was said to signify the Christian Faith. Thus the rosary seemed to express
the idea of a Christian community united by orthodox beliefs, victorious in its fight against all
forms of heresy, worshipping Christ and the Virgin Mary with equal devotion and-very
Dominican-comprising the clerical and lay element alike. In 1474 this idea received concrete
THE "FEAST OF THE ROSE GARLANDS"
111
expression in the Confraternity of the Rosary-founded by the same Jacob Sprenger who
wrote the horrible Malleus Maleficarum-and it was in connection with this foundation that
a special iconographic scheme, the "Rosenkranzbild," was evolved. Designed to illustrate the
idea of a universal brotherhood of Christianity, it shows clergy and laymen, women and men,
the noble and the poor offering-or receiving-garlands of white and red roses, the whole
composition often surrounded by a larger garland of roses where ten medallions, shaped like
cinquefoils, depict the five Joyful and the five Sorrowful Mysteries (fig. 1S7) The main
scene is dominated by the Madonna enthroned and crowned by two flying angels. On her
right is the clergy (including a nun), headed either by the Pope or by a mere Cardinal, but
always with St. Dominic in the foreground. On her left are laymen of all ranks and both
sexes, led by the German Emperor in knightly armor. The garlands are offered by or bestowed
on either group, but the clergy are in direct relation to Christ Himself whereas the laymen,
one step removed from the grace Divine, have access only to the Virgin Mary.
Whether or not a chapter of Sprenger's confraternity existed in Venice as early as 1S06,
there is no doubt that Durer's altarpiece for S. Bartolommeo follows the pattern of these
"Rosenkranzbilder." It should be called the Brotherhood of the Rosary, rather than the
"Feast of the Rose Garlands"; for, an actual "feast" of the rosary was not instituted until
1S73 when Gregory XIII wished to commemorate the victory of Lepanto. Durer retained all
the principal features of the earlier scheme, even the motif of the two crowning angels. But
he transformed it no less thoroughly than he had, about ten years before, the Apocalypse
series in the Quentell-Koberger and Gruninger Bibles.
The scene is no longer enacted before a neutral background but is staged in a luminous
landscape based,upon accurate studies from life; and the stereotyped representatives of the
Christian community, clerics as well as laymen, are replac<;d. by individualized portraits.
Careful preparatory studies are preserved in large numbers (736-7s9, figs. 1S1-1S3), and
Durer spared no effort to achieve the semblance of reality even where the people to be por-
trayed were not available in person. For the portrait of the Pope (Julius II) he selected a
model that more or less agreed with what he knew of the Pontiff's appearance (741). The
face of the Emperor (Maximilian I) was executed on the basis of a Milanese drawing, prob-
ably made on the occasion of his marriage to Bianca Sforza ( 1031); but the sensitive hands
were studied from life ( 74S). The identity of the others-presumably all members of the
Germany colony in Venice-cannot be established with certainty; we do not even know the
name of Durer's companion. Only the architect near the right margin, whose nervous, un-
worldly features and sovereign indifference to a well-groomed appearance form a strange
contrast with the stately environment, can be identified as Master Hieronymus, the builder
."
0
f the new Fondaco dei Tedeschi; the drawing from life which has come down to us ( 738,
fig. 1 S ~ ) i;,a masterpiece of penetrating characterization.
While thus surpassing the earlier "Rosenkranzbilder" in naturalism and individualization,
Durer also endeavored to strengthen the impression of movement. The rose garlands-all
received, n o ~ offered, by the worshippers-are actually placed upon their heads, and this action
112
is represented with as much liveliness and variety as possible. The Virgin Mary crowns the
Emperor with ceremonial dignity while the Infant Jesus turns to the Pope with the impetuous
enthusiasm of a child greeting his grandfather. Saint Dominic, removed from his customary
place in the foreground, was granted the privilege of participating in the distribution of
garlands and fittingly places a wreath on the head of a young Cardinal. Four chubby little
Cherubs, of the Venetian kind with only a globular head, a pair of arms and a pair of wings,
approach in flight with a further supply of garlands. Two Cherubs of the same informal type
fulfill the office of crowning the Virgin, and two others hold up behind her a cloth of honor;
it is not insignificant that Durer dispensed with the massive throne of the conventional
"Rosenkranzbilder" and resorted to a cheerful improvisation-particularly in favor in the
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries-which suggests movement, sun, and air.
But however "real" the figures, and however sprightly the behavior of the little angels;
the composition as a whole is solemnly monumental and marks, in fact, the transition from
a Quattrocento to a Cinquecento interpretation of the Renaissance style. As we have seen,
the Emperor in the earlier "Rosary pictures" was clad in armor. Durer, however, used this
armored figure for a simple knight and pushed it back into the second plane, arraying the
Emperor in a magnificent mantle of fur-trimmed velvet which in volume and outline corre-
sponds to the brocaded pluviale of the Pope. This, combined with the fact that the figure of
St. Dominic had been removed from its traditional place in front of the ecclesiastics, enabled
Durer to fill the entire foreground of the composition with two majestic, perfectly symmetrical
figures. Together with the enthroned Madonna and with a Musical Angel placed at her feet,
they form an almost perfect pyramid which both contrasts with and supports the mobile
throngs of donors and Cherubs, much as a "cantus firmus" serves as a basis for a vivid, com-
plicated fugue.
The balanced grandeur of this composition would not have been attainable to Durer
without the study and complete understanding of the style of Giovanni Bellini whom he so
frankly admired, and to whom he paid tribute by including the beautiful Musical Angel,
almost a hallmark of the old master's Sacre Conversazioni. And yet one may sense in the
"Feast of the Rose. Garlands" a spirit which had already been present in Northern art in
certain earlier periods but had disappeared in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The
paintings of Jan van Eyck, the Master of Flemalle, Conrad Witz, or Stephan Lochner, and,
still earlier, the sculptures of those anonymous masters who had adorned the Cathedrals of
Reims and Amiens, Bamberg and Naumburg, had already been conceived in a spirit of dig-
nified and simple monumentality closer to the tendencies of the High Renaissance than was
the style of Durer's immediate predecessors, Michael Wolgemut, the Housebook Master, and
Schongauer. Thus it is perhaps not by accident that a curious similarity exists between
Durer's "Feast of the Rose Garlands" and Stephan Lochner's Adoration of the Magi in the
Cathedral of Cologne. If allowance is made for the difference entailed by an interval of more
than sixty years, this famed altarpiece may be said to anticipate much of what strikes us as
new in Durer's composition: the symmetrical, yet by no means schematic arrangement of the

THE VIRGIN WITH THE SISKIN 113
whole; the quiet dignity and comparative heaviness' of the individual figures; the magnificent
contrast between a solemn pyramidal group in the center and lively throngs of worshippers
unfolding in the second plane; and even the detail of a cloth of honor spread out by two
angels.
This does not mean that Durer, while composing the "Feast of the Rose Garlands,"
must have remembered this particular picture-though he may well have seen it on his
bachelor's journey. But it is well to bear in mind that in many parts of Europe the efflorescence
of a High Renaissance style was preceded, and in part accompanied, by a reversion to the
great masters of the past who had more nearly approached the ideal of Cinquecento grandeur
than had the late fifteenth century artists. Jan Gossart and Quentin Massys-not to mention
a deliberate and almost professional archaist like Colin de Coter-reverted to Jan van Eyck
and the Master of during their formative years; young Michelangelo copied the
works of Masaccio and even of Giotto because they seemed to be more congenial to his new
concept of monumentality than those of Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Ghirlandaio. And
it is therefore understandable that Durer's first painting to deserve the title of a High
Renaissance work reveals both the manifest influence of Giovanni Bellini and a recollection,
perhaps unconscious, of Stephan Lochner.
While Durer was still working at the "Feast of the Rose Garlands" he undertook two
other religious paintings: the Vitgin with the Siskin in the Deutsches Museum at Berlin, and
Chtist among the Doctors, now in the Thyssen Collection near Lugano.
The Virgin with the Siskin (27, fig. 154) has greatly suffered at the hands of restorers and
appears now somewhat glaring and flashy. Originally it must have resembled the "Feast of

the Rose Garlands" as much in color as in composition. The posture of the Infant Jesus and
(
the gestures of the Virgin Mary had of course to be adjusted,to the scheme of a Madonna in
half length. But in every other respect the composition looks almost like a "detail" from the
larger panel, including such motifs as the cloth of honor symmetrically flanked by open land-
scape and the Venetian Cherubs crowning the Virgin (the crown, however, is replaced by a
wreath of natural flowers). From an iconographical point of view the most remarkable
feature is not the siskin perched on the left arm of the Infant Jesus but the presence of the
little St. John who approaches the group from the right in order to present the Virgin with
a while an angel carries his cross-staff for him. The inclusion of this figure
in a representation of the Madonna was an utter novelty in Northern art which, if we except
the group of Mother and Child alone, knew only the triad of the Holy Family and the com-
plete circle of the Holy Kinship, but not the "Virgin with the Infant Jesus and the Little St.
John.")'his theme was Central Italian rather than Venetian; but that compositions not unlike
. Durer's Virgin with the Siskin existed in Venice and the "Terra Ferma" as well is demon-
-strated hy"'such pictures as the Madonna in the Metropolitan Museum formerly ascribed to
Antonello da Messina (now mostly to Michele da Verona) where the little St. John, sim-
ilarly emerging from the lower corner of the composition and seen in lost profile, proffers a
cross-staff to the Virgin and the Infant Jesus (fig. 158). Durer, however, surpassed this and
114
similar "prototypes" by enlivening the entire composition and by endowing the little St. John
with a Leonardesque or even Raphaelesque vitality which had been foreign to the earlier
Venetian and Venetianizing schools. The result left a lasting impression on Titian, for a
direct descendant of Durer's little St. John, similarly placed, similarly posed and even sim-
ilarly dressed, occurs in the Virgin 'LV"ith the Cherries in Vienna, not to mention the question-
able Virgin with St. Anthony in the Uffizi. It is not impossible that young Titian was among
those "many painters much superior to Jacopo de' Barbari" whom Durer mentions in his letter
of February 7, ISo6.
The Christ among the Doctors (12, fig. IS6) is probably the picture which Durer de- .
scribes, in another letter, as " a quar [that is quadro, a painting] the like of which I have
never done before." If this identification is correct, the work must have been finished before
September 23, IS06; and if we can trust the inscription on the panel itself, it would have
been executed within five days ("Opus quinque dierum"); but again we have to assume that
Durer counted neither the underdrawing nor the careful preparatory studies (S47-SSO, fig.
ISS).
That the artist himself considered this painting as something new and extraordinary is .
not surprising. In spite of its careful preparation it was executed in an almost impromptu
fashion, a thin coat of color being applied in broad and fluid strokes utterly different from
Durer's normally meticulous brushwork. The composition is no less unusual than the tech-
nique, especially when compared to Durer's previous interpretations of the subject. In these,
that is to say, in one of the seven small panels in Dresden (3, c) and in a woodcut from the
Life of the Virgin (311 ), the scene had been laid in an elaborate interior, and Christ had
been seated in the rabbinical chair with a voluminous book before Him. In the panel of ISo6
we have only figures in half-length set out against a neutral background. Books are handled
only by three of the six old men Whose faces, wicked, tense, self-righteous, sceptical, or tired,
surround the innocent beauty of the youthful Christ with the threatening nearness of a
nightmare. Christ Himself, standing in the center of the hostile group, no longer argues by
the book; rather He extemporizes with a characteristic gesture frequently found in Italian
representations of teaching or debating scholars: He enumerates the points of His argument,
touching the thumb of His left hand with the index finger of His right. Only one of the
Doctors-he alone whose face is a real caricature-takes an active part in the debate. Turned
to full profile, he hisses his objections straight in the ear of Christ, and his gnarled fingers
challengingly touch Christ's hands; so that the center of the composition is occupied by a
group of four hands, intensely illustrative of a contrast between youth and old age, gentle
firmness and contentious spite, and at the same time forming a kind of complicated ornament.
The emphasis on manual gesticulation, and even the specific gesture of arguing by count-
ing fingers is unquestionably Italian, as is also the compositional form as a whole. The idea of
presenting a dramatic incident by half-length figures so that the whole effect is concentrated
on the expressive quality of hands and faces had been sanctioned by Mantegna (see his
Presentation of Christ in Berlin) and had gained favor in all the North Italian schools, par-
I.
CHRIST AMONG THE DOCTORS
ticularly in Venice and Milan. The only parallels in Northern art are found in two late pic-
tures by Jerome Bosch, particularly in the Christ before Pilate in Princeton, N.J., and these
may well have been inspired, however superficially, by Leonardo da Vinci whose influence
was felt in the Netherlands as early as the first decade of the sixteenth century.
Durer's Christ among the Doctors, too, reveals the influence of Leonardo. The very idea
of a direct contrast between extreme beauty and extreme ugliness agrees with a prescription
in Leonardo's "Trattato della Pittura," and the face of the wicked old scholar can hardly be
imagined without some knowledge of Leonardo's so-called "caricatures." That these, and
other drawings of a scientific kind, had come to Durer's knowledge during his sojourn in
Venice can also be inferred from the development of his theoretical studies. The only question
is to what extent Durer's composition as a whole depends on a prototype created by Leonardo.
We know that Isabella d'Este, in a letter of May 14, IS04, had asked Leonardo to paint
for her a Christ "at the age of twelve at which he debated in the Temple." This request was
literally carried out in a composition, transmitted through several copies, which shows the
youthful Christ as an isolated figure, holding the orb in His left hand and blessing with His
right. It is tempting to assume that, "later or earlier," this isolated figure "was made the
center of a group of Doctors whose general disposition we know from Luini's free version in
the National Gallery," and that the same "lost cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci" was "repro-
duced" in Durer's panel of IS06. There is, however, no other evidence for the assumption
that Leonardo ever composed a Christ among the Doctors save the Luini composition and its
variants; and this composition does not seem very authentic. The "debating gesture" of
Luini's Christ, with the index finger of His right touching the stiffly extended middle finger
of His left, is strangely lifeless, as though the artist had been unable to overcome the formal v
rigidity of the original Salvator Mundi (it should be noted that the gesture of Durer's Christ
is much more like that of the Thomas Aquinas and the Duns Scotus by Joos van Ghent);
and t ~ disposition of the four Doctors shows a pedestrian symmetry, and an anxiety not to
interfere with the main figure, which smacks of Luini rather than of Leonardo da Vinci. It is
of course possible that Luini was incapable of doing justice to a "lost cartoon" by Leonardo;
but it is equally possible that there was no such cartoon and that Luini added the four Doctors
of his own accord, keeping as closely as possible to Leonardo's isolated image of the youthful
Saviour and modelling the faces of the Doctors upon such Leonardo drawings (in part of
much earlier date) as he thought suitable. In this case Durer's panel would not be a "Gothic
version" of a lost cartoon by Leonardo, but Luini's composition would be a Leonardesque
readaptatioi1 of a panel by Durer. If Titian did not scruple to accept Durer's interpretation
of an Italian theme, Luini had much less reason for reluctance in this respect. It should also
'"be borne in mind that even Isabella d'Este's isolated Christ was no more than a fond hope
as late as May IS06, and that Durer's Christ among the Doctors never left Italy until it was
sold in 1934.
It may quite justifiably, however, be described as "Gothic." Italianate though it is in
some respects, in principle it is much farther from Renaissance ideals than either the "Feast
116 SECOND TRIP TO !TAL Y; CLIMAX OF PAINTING
of the Rose Garlands" or the Virgin with the Siskin. As the twenty fingers of Christ and the
wicked Doctor give the impression of entangled roots or tendrils rather than of articulated
human hands, so the whole composition is not built up from clearly defined and fully devel-
oped plastic units but from fragmentary shapes, floating in space, crowding one another, and
yet arranging themselves into a kind of ornamental pattern: a magic ring with the four hands
in the center. Durer's Christ among the Doctors shares more of its essential qualities with.
the Christ before Pilate by Bosch than with the smooth composition by Luini-except for the
fact that with Durer the goodness of Christ (and goodness in general) is a positive quality
which can take visible shape in beauty, whereas in Bosch's nocturnal world, goodness is
nothing but the absence of evil, expressible only by a vacant mask.
In addition to these three religious paintings several portraits were produced during
Durer's stay in Venice. The earliest of these, preserved in the Gemaldegalerie at Vienna, is
dated 1505. It shows a young girl, dressed after the Milanese rather than the Venetian,
fashion, whose sweet-natured face is made even more attractive by the faintest suggestion of
a squint ( 1 oo, fig. 159). The panel is not quite finished, and since it must have been executed
at the very beginning of Durer's sojourn it cannot be expected to show a very far-reaching
influence of the Venetian style. Yet there can be sensed a certain breadth and fluidity which
had been absent from Durer's earlier portraits. Details tend to be suppressed in favor of a
comprehensive view. The vision of the whole begins to precede the realization of the parts;
the sensuous quality of hair and skin is more acutely felt; and the light begins to caress the
forms instead of merely clarifying them.
A portrait in Hampton Court, dated 1506 and representing the same young man who,
somewhat incongruously, appears among the clergy in the "Feast of the Rose Garlands"
(fourth figure from the right, perhaps identical with one Burcardus de Burcardis of Speyer), "
is almost reminiscent of Vincenzo Catena's portrayals of fair-complexioned, fluffy-haired
youths ( 77), and the same is true of the Vienna portrait of another young man, probably also
a member of the German colony, who apparently did not live up to Durer's financial expecta-
tions; the artist took his revenge by painting a Giorgionesque personification of avarice on the
back of the panel (So, dated 1507).
A climax of "Venetianizing" tendencies is reached in the Portrait of a Lady, sometimes
erroneously identified as Agnes Durer, in Berlin ( 101, fig. 160 ). Its very colors-dark green,
soft brown, and dull old gold, set out against two shades of pale, grayish blue-are subdued
in favor of tonal unity. Even if allowance is made for the effects of reckless cleaning and for
the possibility that the light, atmospheric background is not the original one, the fact remains
that no other portrait by Durer shows so little emphasis on line and anatomical details, and
so much on light and shade. The modelling is obtained by contrasting a large area of moderate
light with an approximately equally large one of transparent shadow, and the very fact that
this shadow extends over, and thereby unifies, two physically different units, viz., the cheek
and the throat, bears witness to the recognition of light as something independent of the
structural data, diffused in space and no longer subservient to the task of modelling.
ViNETIAN PORTRAITS 117
Except for a Portrait of a Young Man in Genoa which bears the date 1506 but is too
damaged to be evaluated ( 78), there remains one of the most enigmatical paintings ever
produced by Durer, a portrait dated 1507 and preserved in the Deutsches Museum at Berlin
( 79). Painted on vellum instead of on wood, it has a less formal character than the five others,
and the impression that it may have been a personal gift or souvenir rather than a portrait
made to order is further strengthened by its unconventionality in composition and interpreta-
tion. The youthful sitter is not represented in three-quarter profile, as was the accepted rule
(and is the case with all the other painted portraits by Durer except for his Self-Portrait of
1500), but appears in full face. The head is, however, slightly inclined to the right, and the
eyes, their serious look forming a piquant contrast with the faintly amused expression of the
mouth, avoid the glance of the beholder. But the most intriguing feature of the portrait is its
androgynous quality. It is variously listed as "Portrait of a Girl" and "Portrait of a Boy,"
and neither of these opinions is without foundation. The deep decollete and the small, soft,
smiling mouth give a definitely feminine impression, whereas the hair, the lack of ornament
on the border of the doublet, the flatness of the chest, and the beret suggest a pretty and girlish
boy dressed up as a "page." This writer favors the second alternative and is even inclined to
believe that the very same boy, with his pointed chin, soft mouth and finely pencilled, slightly
raised eyebrows, served as a model for the youthful Christ among the Doctors, where he
appears with longer hair and, of course, in more idealized fashion (see particularly fig. 155);
his facial type recurs, shortly after Durer's return, in a drawing of 1508 (1062/63). That
Durer was not unsusceptible to the charm of handsome boys is more or less implied by a
facetious letter of his and Pirckheimer's mutual friend, the merry Canon Lorenz Beheim of
Bamberg; he writes, on March 19, 1507, and characteristically inserting some Italian phrases
into his Latin text: "Concerning our Albrecht, I do not think that much begging is necessary
if he is willing of his own accord [sci!., to favor Beheim with a drawing]. After all, I do not
anything big and elaborate, only a drawing which tastes a little of Antiquity as I
it to him in my last letter. The obstacle is his pointed beard [ barba bechina] which
doubtless has to be waved and curled every single day. But his boy, I know, loathes his beard
[Mail gerzone suo abhorret, scio, !a barba sua]; thus he had better be careful to shave."
DURER REVISITED VENICE AS AN ACCOMPLISHED MASTER, fully OCCupied With productive
work. His sketch-books were no longer filled with drawings of strange costumes and characters,
studies of animals and copies of Italian works of art, as they had been in 1494/95 Venetian
life now hdd no surprise for him, and he knew the language of Renaissance art too well to
botherabout its vocabulary. Occasionally, he would still copy a Venetian painting (1061),
he toGk some interest in ( 1681-1683); but what he really wished to carry
home was' theoretical knowledge rather than material for practical work. Having thus far
approached the problems of perspective, human proportions, etc., from a purely empirical
point of view, he now felt the need of penetrating into the underlying principles. He bought
the 1505 edition of Euclid containing both the Elementa and the Optica (a partial transla-
tion of which is found among his autographs in the British Museum), and it has already
been mentioned that he undertook a special trip to Bologna in order to be taught the "secret
art" of perspective. He came into contact with the ideas of Leone Battista Alberti and
Leonardo da Vinci and must have gained access to some of the latter's studies in human pro
portions, physiognomy and, possibly, anatomy. All this made him realize that the theory
of art might be understood as a scientific pursuit sui iuris, instead of being subsidiary to
practical work, and left him with a burning desire to spread this gospel in Germany. While
his first journey to Italy immediately and fundamentally affected his artistic production, the
chief result of the second was to make him conscious of his mission as a theorist.
This does not mean, of course, that the second journey to Italy was without influence on
Durer's evolution as an artist; only, this influence amounted not so much to a lasting
reorientation as to a temporary strengthening of coloristic and luminaristic tendencies. These
tendencies are also manifested in the technique of Durer's Venetian drawings. Most of these
are large-scale studies of single figures, heads, hands, and draperies made in preparation for
the three religious compositions, the "Feast of the Rose Garlands," the Virgin with the Siskin
and Christ among the Doctors, and all but one or two of them are executed in a new and
characteristic medium: dark brush, heightened with white, applied on that blue Venetian
paper which does not owe its color to a grounding process but is dyed in the grain. In a purely
optical way this technique is reminiscent of that employed in the "Green Passion" or in the
preparatory studies for the Ober St. Veit altarpiece (479-482), where apparently similar
effects had been obtained by the use of pen, dark washes, and white heightenings on paper
covered with a colored ground. In both cases the drawing surface serves as a "middle tone"
from which the shadows and highlights stand out. However, apart from the fact that brush
strokes are less strictly linear than pen lines and that paper dyed in the grain gives a more
spatial effect than paper covered with a colored ground, most of those earlier drawings had not
been studies but "Visierungen." Comparatively small in scale, they had not been made from
life but had summarized previous sketches and studies into complete and final compositions
destined to be translated into paintings in a more or less mechanical way. They had been
patterns, not records. That Durer now used a similar and even more "pictorial" technique
for large-scale studies from nature betrays his wish, not to preestablish the distribution of
valeurs in the finished product but to interpret the first-hand experience of reality in terms of
light and color. With all their uncompromising linearism these drawings have, in fact, a lus-
trous and chromatic quality which makes them appear as equivalents, rather than as anticipa
tions, of paintings. The study for the Infant Jesus in the Virgin with the Siskin (627) is a
particularly characteristic example.
In one of the few drawings in which he employed a different technique Durer ventured
still farther into the field of "pictorialism"-farther than at any other time in his career. The
study for the pluviale of the Pope in the "Feast of the Rose Garlands" ( 7 59, fig. 152) is a
pure water color in purple and dulled yellow, done for the sole purpose of catching the effect
of gold-and-violet brocade. Durer's costume studies of other periods, for instance the seem
VENETIAN DRAWINGS
119
ingly comparable ones made in preparation of the Portrait of Charlemagne in Nuremberg
(10091013, dated 1510), enter the colors into firm outlines and put them down as soberly
and objectively as the cut of a garment or the pattern of an embroidery. The pluviale draw-
ing, broad and practically without contours, renders account of a coloristic experience instead
of tabulating pigments. Compared with the other costume studies it almost seems to antici-
pate the seventeenth century.
Studies from the nude called, naturally, for a different treatment. But a comparison
between the Giorgionesque Nude viewed from the Back of 1506 (u88, fig. 163) and such
earlier instances as the "Four Witches," the Nemesis and even the Fall of Man shows in
creased luminosity even within the limits of a basically "plastic" style. Since the highlights are
indicated by white heightenings, and the shadows by dark hatchings, the colored paper as such
stands ipso facto for a light of medium intensity. It was thus possible to reduce the size of
deeply shaded areas without weakening the plastic effect, and yet to make them exceedingly
dark without destroying the impression that the whole form is bathed in light. This is precisely
what was done in the drawing here under discussion. Some of the shadows are very opaque,
but these opaque portions are reduced to small patches and narrow strips surrounded by much
larger areas of direct or reflected light (note particularly the almost uninterrupted reflex
running from the right shoulder to the right foot). A luminous medium diffused in space
literally seems to have "flooded" the form much as the rising tide will flood a slightly uneven
beach. Obviously this kind of treatment creates a stronger feeling of unity or continuity.
Where the form of the "Four Witches," the Nemesis, or the Eve of 1504 seems to be built
up from several numerable units separately modelled, the drawing of 1506 presents a unified
undulating surface. And this new continuity of modelling is matched by a new continuity of
outline: the contour is no longer composed of single convex 6r concave segments but forms a
tight uninterrupted curve soaring like a slender vase or a jet of water.
fj.Durer himself w:s conscious of this change, as three nudes devised in prepa
ration for a new verswn of the Adam and Eve theme clearly md1cate. The numerous drawings
preceding the Fall of Man of 1504 had been so constructed that not only the dimensions and
postures but also, wherever possible, the outlines were determined by geometrical methods;
large sections of the contour were made up of a series of arcs drawn with the compass. In the
later drawings, dated 15o6like the Nude viewed from the Back, the construction, employing
straight lines but no longer circular arcs, determines only the proportions and the poses; the
contour unfolds in a flowing line of unrestricted freedom (464-469, figs. 161 and 162).
THE PROJECT in connection with which these constructed drawings were made was carried
out immeaiately after Durer's return to Nuremberg. It took shape in two life-sized paintings,
_dated 1507, which for a time belonged to Queen Christina of Sweden and are now in the
Prado ( 1, figs. 164/165) while copies are preserved in the Altertumsmuseum at Mayence and
in the Pitti Gallery at Florence. Like the engraving of 1504 these panels are intended to pre-
sent specimens of humanity as perfect as possible. But Durer's ideas of beauty had changed
significantly during the intervening three years. Both figures are considerably more slender,
their height amounting to about nine heads instead of to eight. The contours are smooth and
fluent, and no great emphasis is placed on anatomical details. The Adam of 1507 no longer
moves with a firm, aggressive step but exhibits an unsteady, swaying pose in keeping with
the halting gesture of his right hand and with the almost affected way in which he holds a
very thin branch between the thumb and index finger of his left; he wears his hair in long,
fluttering locks instead of in short, wiry curls; and his mouth is opened with a yearning sigh
-a motif probably borrowed from Andrea Rizzo's marble Adam on the Palace of the Doges.
The figure of Eve differs even more markedly from Durer's previous standards of beauty.
Delicately built and softly modelled, she leans over to her partner with the cautious tread
and tense expression of one listening at a door. The almost furtive glance of her eyes and
the curious gesture of her right hand betray a certain nervousness, and her posture, with the '
left leg slightly bent and stepping over behind the other one, is of that pirouetting kind which
is seen in numerous St. Martins and St. Georges of the later fifteenth century.
In short, the Adam and the Eve of 1507 look more "Gothic" than their predecessors of
1504 (fig. 117). This is not as paradoxical as it may seem. Durer apparently felt that the
Gothic taste agreed, in a sense, with what he had been striving for in Venice. Like his own
drawings of 1506, Gothic figures are marked by a tendency toward continuous, elastic con-
tours, arbitrarily elongated proportions and swaying, weedy movements, as opposed to a"
pronounced articulation in outline and anatomy, a standardized canon of "normal" measure-
ments, and a stability of posture based on the equilibrium of separate units. Gothic taste pre-
fers the soft and lyrical moods to the hard and dramatic (or epic) ones, and generally tends
to "feminize" the beauty of the male while the opposite is true of classical and classicistic art. o
Small wonder, then, that Durer's Venetian experiences led him back to a Gothicizing mode of
expression. He had been trying to overcome an "additive" method of composition in favor of
unity or continuity, and this endeavor had led him, who always remained a designer rather
than a painter, from a unification in terms of lighting to unification in terms of form and
contour. Thus we can see how his Venetian style could merge with Gothic reminiscences, and
how both these factors could act as an antidote to the classicistic ideals to which he had paid
homage in his engraving of 1504.
Compared to this engraving, where the Eve, with her heavy step and square chest, is as
masculine as the Adam of 1507 is feminine, the Prado panels may be termed an anticipation
of Mannerism; for Mannerism-first represented in Italy by such masters as Pontormo,
Rosso, Beccafumi and Parmiggianino and in Germany by Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung
Grien and many other masters of the "second generation"-resulted from a recrudescence of
Gothic tendencies within the framework of an already classical style. Its champions harked
back to the past in order to escape from a normative perfection of which they were tired or
which t,hey failed to understand. The Italians frequently drew from Northern sources in this
process, and the Northerners twisted Durer's formulas so as to serve a, generally speaking,
non-Durerian purpose. In the case of the two Prado panels, however, Durer himself con-
ADAM AND EVE; LUCRETIA 121
formed, though for altogether different reasons, to the Mannerist principle. The Eve in
particular is closer to Cranach's helical nudes than any other figure ever devised by Durer.
But with him this proto-Mannerism remained an episode. His Lucretia in Munich, finished
and signed as late as 1518 but composed and partly carried out as early as 1508 (106),
already shows a marked reaction toward the statuesque solidity and calm of the preceding
period.
That the new version of the Adam and Eve theme appeared in two paintings and not in
another engraving was no accident. The stay in Venice had interrupted Durer's activities as
an engraver and woodcut designer with the single, and not unquestionable, exception of six
Patterns for Embroideries, copied in woodcut after engravings mysteriously connected with
Leonardo da Vinci (360); and he had formed a taste for brushwork which was to last for
several years. In addition to the two Prado panels and to the unfinished Lucretia already
mentioned, he produced no less than three major altarpieces, the last of which was finished
and delivered in 1511.
The first of these is a shutterless retable representing the Martyrdom of the Ten Thou-
sand, now in the Gemaldegalerie at Vienna (47, fig. 166). Commissioned, once more, by the
Elector Frederick the Wise, it was begun almost immediately after Durer's return and was
completed in April or May 15o8.
Why Frederick the Wise should have insisted on a subject which for all we know could
not particularly appeal to his artistic tastes can be inferred from the iconography of the
picture itself. Almost exactly ten years before Durer had represented the Martyrdom of the
Ten Thousand in a large woodcut (337, fig. 69), and many features of this earlier composi-
tion-reversed, which shows that Durer worked not from the woodcut itself but from pre-
paratory drawings-recur both in the picture of 1508 and in,alarge-sized sketch which must
have been executed very shortly after Durer's return in 1507 (868). We recognize, for
instance, the group of oriental dignitaries in the foreground; the group of martyrs flogged
white tied in a circle around a tree (a motif probably d,erived from a series of reliefs by Pietro
da Rho in Cremona); theprocession of martyrs driven up a hill in order to be thrown into the
thorns; and the group of those who are forced over the edge of a cliff, their postures illustrat-
ing, in almost cinematographic fashion, the successive phases of one fatal plunge from the
moment of losing balance to the somersault in mid-air.
But. there is one important iconographical change. In the woodcut great emphasis had
been on the atrocious torture of the alleged leader of the Ten Thousand, Bishop
whose eyes are bored out with a carpenter's drill. In the new version this group is
omittep, and instead we perceive, analogously placed, what looks like a reenactment of
v Calva_rY,: jn the drawing of 1507 we have a regular "Erection of the Cross," and in the
painting two of the martyrs are crucified, quite like the Thieves, on rough-hewn crosses while
a regular cross, still on the ground between them, awaits a Christ-like victim patiently stand-
ing in the second plane. It is quite understandable that Karel van Mander described the Vienna
panel as "a Crucifixion with many other tortures, stonings, slayings and so on."
122
Thus what appealed to the religious feeling of the Elector-already a friend of Staupitz
and a protector of Luther-was not so much the martyrdom of the Ten Thousand in itself
as the analogy between this martyrdom and the Passion of Christ. Like Christ, they were
greeted with a sneering "Avete, Reges Iudaeorum" and crucified after unspeakable tortures;
like Christ, they invoked God from their crosses at the canonical hours, and finally expired
amidst an earthquake. In visually stressing this analogy, Durer transformed a purely narra-
tive renderingof tortures and slaughter into a symbol of the "Imitatio Christi" or, to use the
ancient term, the "Schola Crucis" -into an illustration of St. Augustine's glorious sentence:
"Tota vita Christiani hominis, si secundum Evangelium vivat, crux est" ("The whole life of
the Christian, if he live according to the Gospels, is the Cross").
As was his custom since the "Feast of the Rose Garlands," Durer included his own por-
trait in the picture, this time resplendent in the "French mantle" which he had purchased at
Venice. In the preparatory drawing he is still alone, but in the painting he is accompanied by
an elderly humanist most probably identical with Conrad Celtes who had died a few months
before the work was finished, and whom Durer as well as the Elector had good personal rea-"'
sons to commemorate. But more important than this particular addition is the expansion
of the composition as a whole. The distribution of the groups around the flogging-tree is still
reminiscent of the woodcut. But the whole configuration which had made up the composition
of the earlier work has been pushed into the background, so to speak. The woodcut looks like 0
a "clipping" from the painting; or, to put it more appropriately, the composition of the
painting resulted from an enlargement of the woodcut. The woodcut was still used, but it was
used as a mere nucleus which was developed both laterally and in depth. Durer had learned
to think in terms of volume and perspectivf!, rather than in terms of lines and two-dimensional
patterns. The groups, with all their crowded appearance, are conceived as something displac-
ing and surrounded by space; and rule that quantities seem to diminish in the inverse
ratio of their distance from the eye is so conspicuously observed that Pelerin-Viator-the same
who embellished his Treatise on Perspective by a skeletonized copy of Durer's Presentation
of Christ-saw fit to include a similar copy of the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand in order
to exemplify that very rule:
"Les quantitezjet les distances
Ont concordables differences."
After the Martyrdom had been completed Durer began to work on a more sumptuous
enterprise, a folding triptych ordered, perhaps as early as 1503, by Jacob Heller, a merchant of
Frankfort, for the Dominican Church of his town (8, fig. 168). The central panel-the only
part which Durer undertook to paint entirely with his own hand-represented the Assumption
and Coronation of the Virgin, while the interior of the wings show the portraits of the donor
and his wife (nee Katharina von Melem) and, above these, the martyrdoms of their patron
Saints, Sts. James and Catharine. On the exterior are painted en grisaille (in "stone color"
as Durer puts it) the Adoration of the Magi and, below, two pairs of Saints, namely, Sts.
MARTYRDOM OF THE 10,000; "HELLER ALTAR" 123
Peter and Paul, and Sts. Thomas Aquinas and Christopher. The presence of Sts. Peter, Paul,
and Christopher needs no explanation; that of St. Thomas Aquinas can be accounted for by
the fact that he was the titular Saint of the altar which Durer's triptych was to adorn.
The work was ill fated from the start. There was much bickering about the time of deliv-
ery and, more serious, the price. The discussion with the wealthy employer-who fortunately
saved Durer's nine letters so that they could be copied in the seventeenth century-became so
heated that the artist offered to cancel the whole matter and to sell the altarpiece, more advan-
tageously, to someone else. Ultimately the differences were straightened out. Instead of the
130 florins originally stipulated Durer received 200, plus a gratuity of two florins for his
brother and a present for his wife. The triptych was dispatched to Frankfort by the end of
August 1509, but Diirer still felt insufficiently rewarded. Even after Heller had yielded to
his demands he had received So florins less than for the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand; he
had spent more than 25 florins on ultramarine alone; and he felt that he had wasted his
time with what he terms "painstaking drudgery" ("fleissig Kleiblen"). In fact about twenty
careful studies for the center piece alone have been preserved, all of them executed in the
"Venetian" technique except for the fact that Durer had to use green-grounded paper
of paper dyed in the grain ( 483-502, fig. 171). The last act of the tragedy took place almost
exactly two hundred years after the master's death. In 1615 the Dominicans had sold the
central panel-the only part painted by Durer himself-to Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria,
and it was destroyed by fire in Munich in 1729. Compared with this loss the disappearance
of one of the wings-the left half of the Adoration of the Magi-is of minor importance.
Fortunately, a local painter named Jobst Harrich had made a copy of the central panel
shortly before the original was sold, so at least its composition has come down to us. This
composition, familiar though it looks to modern eyes, presents a rather complicated icono-
problem in that it is neither an Assumption nor a Coronation of the Virgin but a
novel combination of both. The Apostles are seen surrounding the empty tomb of the Virgin.
Two or three are petrified with wonderment, one-probably Thomas-bends down to exam-
ine her cast-off shroud, arid the others point upward or gaze at the sky where she is crowned
by the Trinity.
In fact Durer's conception resulted from a fusion of three different iconographical types.
The first of these is the Assumption of the Virgin as interpreted by his local predecessors, for
instance the Master of the Imhof altarpiece of 1456 (now in Breslau) and Michael Wol-
gemut (altarpiece in the "Jacobskirche" at Straubing). These presentations differ from earlier
ones, and anticipate Durer's Heller altarpiece, in two important points: the Apostles are not
lined up in relief-like fashion but form a spatial group around the empty tomb, and the Virgin
vis not floating upwards in a mandorla but is praying on her knees while she receives a
scepter from Christ and a crown from an angel (fig. 167); in a "Dureresque" redaction of
this traditional scheme Christ even joins the angel in placing the crown on the Virgin's head
(520). Yet this scene is not yet the ceremonial and final "Coronation" where the Virgin is
formally inaugurated as the "Regina coeli," but a reunion of the "Sponsa" of the Song of
124
Songs with her mystical bridegroom. It is significant that, in the Imhof altarpiece, she is
greeted by Christ with a direct quotation from the Song of Songs which suggests approach
rather than presence: "Veni electa mea."
Durer replaced this preliminary reception scene, which forms a transition between the
Virgin's temporal existence on earth and her eternal existence in heaven, by the Coronation
proper, employing a formula peculiar to the fifteenth century which is best represented by
Dirk Bouts (Vienna, Kunstakademie) and Michael Pacher (Munich, Alte Pinakothek). The
Virgin kneels before God the Father and Christ who jointly perform the ceremony while the
Dove of the Holy Ghost hovers above the crown. The dignity of the Queen of Heaven is thus
bestowed by the whole Trinity-a concept presupposed but not expressed in representations
prior to about 14oo-and Durer went out of his way to emphasize the solemnity of the
occasion; in contrast with an almost universally accepted rule, and even with his own general
custom (see the Coronation woodcut of 1510 and the Trinity of 1511, figs. 178 and 185), he
presented Christ with a papal tiara without, however, attiring him in full papal garb.
Wrapped in the mantle of the Passion which exposes the wound in His breast, He yet
officiates as the Eternal Priest: "Thou art a priest for ever" (Ps. ex, 4).
This Coronation type, then, is the second element which enters into the iconography of o
the Heller altarpiece. Its inclusion seems almost natural in view of the fact that the motif
of the Virgin praying on her knees and invested with a scepter and a crown had already been
adopted in the Nuremberg Assumptions of the fifteenth century. And yet Durer would hardly
have dared to combine the scene at the tomb with the formal Coronation-a miracle on earth
with a ceremony in Heaven not meant to be observed by mortal eyes-had he not gone to
Italy in 1505. For, a few years before, Raphael had taken this very step in his famous Vatican
altarpiece (fig. 169), fusing, however, the wonderstruck Apostles-including St. Thomas
with the Virgin's girdle-not with the modern Coronation by the Trinity, but with the more
archaic Coronation by Christ alone, with the Virgin sharing His royal seat. This type, still
prevalent in Italy, originated in the Gothic cathedrals of France; and Raphael's altarpiece,
though substituting the scene at the tomb for the Death or Burial originally associated with
the formal Coronation, is still reminiscent of a Gothic tympanum, not only in the iconography
of the Coronation scene but also in general composition. Christ and the Virgin are enthroned
together; the Apostles are aligned in "isocephalic" fashion; and the whole composition is
sharply divided into two zones, a horizontal band of massive clouds dividing the scene on
earth from the scene in Heaven.
There is little doubt that Durer knew a work directly or indirectly reflecting this compo
sition. But in blending it with the Northern tradition, he dynamized the former while monu-
mentalizing the latter. Like Raphael, he made a clear distinction between the celestial and
the terrestrial spheres. But unlike him-and in this respect a follower of his Nuremberg
predecessors-he strove to connect the two worlds by a stream of synchronized movement.
His Apostles are not arranged in a row but in a semicircle which opens toward the back, so
that the celestial apparition seems to soar from their very midst. Their heads form a curve
..
THE "HELLER ALTAR" 125
instead of a horizontal line, and the shape of the group in Heaven corresponds to that of the
terrestrial scenery as a cogwheel is geared with another: its contour is convex while the gar
land of heads is concave, it shows projections where the silhouette below shows indentations,
and it is indented where the horizon is overlapped by heads or trees.
This formal correspondence is illustrative of an emotional interrelation. In Raphael's
painting the melting glances and restrained gestures of the Apostles emphasize rather than
bridge the gap between Heaven and earth, and the group of Christ and the Virgin retains the
timeless isolation of a sacred image. The passionate piety of Durer's Apostles seems to take
H ~ a v e n by storm, and the very fact that the figure of the Virgin is still on a lower level than
those of God the Father and Christ, and still needs the support of many little angels, serves
to keep her in contact with the terrestrial world. At the very moment of her Coronation she is
not yet absorbed by Eternity; she carries with her some of the impulse of her ascent and all
the emotions of the Disciples.
1
While Raphael's composition resulted from a combination of two motifs-the Corona
tion of the Virgin and the group of Apostles originally belonging in the Assumption-Durer's
amounts to an integration of two concepts, a static ritual and a dynamic rise. The Coronation
is thus presented not only as it occurs in Heaven but also, or even more, as it reflects itself in
the consciousness of those remaining on earth. It is interpreted as a "vision" experienced by
mortal men and therefore capable of being shared by the beholder.
The third of the three altarpieces executed between 1507 and 1511 is the "Adoration of
the Trinity" in Vienna (23, fig. 172). It was destined for the chapel of the "Zwolfbruder
haus," a home for twelve aged and indigent Nuremberg citizens which had been founded in
1501 by two devout and wealthy merchants, Matthaeus Landauer and Erasmus Schiltkrot.
Not much is heard or seen of Schiltkrot after this, but Landauer devoted the rest of his life
.;ttlmost exclusively to his Foundation. He went to live there himself in 1510, and his fine old
face survives, not only in the altarpiece itself but also in the stained-glass windows of the
chapel and in one of Durer's most inwardly expressive portrait drawings (1027, fig. 170).
The chapel was ready for decoration in 1508, and Durer was asked not only to paint the altar
piece but also to design its frame (now in the Germanisches Museum at Nuremberg) and to
provide the sketches for the windows (now in the Schlossmuseum at Berlin). The composition
of the altarpiece, including the frame, was essentially established in a drawing of 1508
(644, fig. 174), but its actual execution had to wait until the impatient Jacob Heller .was
satisfied. It was completed and put in place in 1511, and we learn from the inscription on
the fra!Jle that this event marked the consummation of Landauer's enterprise: "Mathes
Landauer hat entlich volbracht das gotteshaus der tzwelf bruder samt der stiftung und dieser
othafell. nac.,h xpi gepurd Mcccccxr Jor."
The chapel of the "Zwolfbruderhaus" was dedicated to the Trinity and All Saints, and
this determined the program of the altarpiece. The beholder is faced with a dazzling appari
tion in the sky. God the Father in Imperial garb, and above Him the Dove, holds before Him
the crucified Christ while angels spread His mantle behind Him like a pair of gigantic wings;
126
other angels bring the instruments of the Passion. Vast multitudes, floating on clouds, adore
this "Throne of Mercy," and the earth lies deep below: a shining landscape devoid of life
except for the figure of the artist himself. He stands, alone and very small, in the lower
right-hand corner of the picture, holding a tablet with his signature. The worshippers are
divided into two zones, one on the same level as the Trinity, the other below it; and in both
zones two groups can be distinguished, one on the left and one on the right.
The iconography of the higher zone can easily be explained by the idea of "All Saints."
The two groups are led by the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist respectively, the former,
as always, occupying the place on the right of God; and the retinue of the Virgin includes,
besides a score of others, the well-known figures of Sts. Barbara, Agnes, Catharine, and
Dorothy. The cortege of St. John consists exclusively of characters of the pre-Christian era,
namely, Moses, David, a prophet clad in an ermine-lined coat (like Jan van Eyck's Zechariah
in the Ghent altarpiece), the fifteen other prophets and a number of austerely attired women
who must be prophetesses and sibyls. But those who believed in Christ before His appearance
on earth are mentioned in all the texts connected with the Feast of All Saints and have their
rightful place opposite those who "saw Him after He came":
"Da questa parte, onde il fiore e maturo
Di tutte le sue foglie, sono assisi
Quei che credettero in Cristo venturo.
Dall' altra parte, onde so no intercisi
Di vuoti i semicircoli, si stanno
Quei ch' a Cristo venuto ebber li visi."
There are, in fact, manuscripts and editions (such as Caxton's) of the Golden Legend where
an analogous representation of Christians and precursors, united in the worship of the triune
God, serves to illustrate the chapter on "All Saints," and in the Breviary of Ercole I of
Ferrara it opens the section known as Commune Sanctorum.
The lower zone of Durer's Heaven is, however, occupied by men and women who cannot
possibly be considered as Saints. In spite of their celestial status they form a mere Christian
community which, as in the "Feast of the Rose Garlands," consists of ecclesiastics on the one
hand and of laymen of all ranks-including even a peasant with his flail-on the other.
Several members of this community bear the features of members of the Landauer and Haller
families, and old Matthaeus Landauer himself appears near the left margin, his touching
humility outshining the graciousness of a sponsoring Cardinal. But it should be noted that
some of the most exalted dignities are represented twice; there are possibly two Emperors
and certainly two Popes.
It has been observed that a similarity, too close to be accidental, exists between this altar-
piece and an earlier composition which occurs in several printed Books of Hours of Paris
provenance, the best and apparently first instance being the metal cut in Philippe Pigouchet's

THE "ADORATION OF THE TRINITY" 127
Heures a l'Usaige de Rome of 1498 (fig. 173). Belonging to the section "De Sanctissima
Trinitate" (which in turn opens the "Suffragia plurimorum Sanctorum et Sanctarum" !), this
composition illustrates, like Durer's, the Adoration of the Trinity, and it also agrees with the
Landauer altarpiece in that the community of worshippers is divided into the same two zones
or hierarchies, the now familiar assembly of "All Saints" (including the believers of the
pre-Christian era), and the equally familiar groups of clergy and laity. But it differs from
Durer's painting in that the less exalted congregation-headed by one Pope and one Emperor
only, as was the usual thing-is not yet admitted to the heavenly realm. Its members kneel
on the ground in front of a Gothic chapel which, piercing the band of clouds that separates
the terrestrial sphere from the celestial one, symbolizes the visible Church. Durer, then,
obliterated the sharp distinction between the Saints in Heaven and the men and women on
earth; he fused them into one "kingdom not of this world."
To understand this difference between Durer's altarpiece and what appears to be its
prototype we must consider the theological concepts involved in the light of Augustinian
doctrines. It was St. Augustine who had formulated the dogma of the Trinity in stating that
wherever the Christian speaks of "God" he means "neither the Father nor the Son nor the
Holy Ghost, but the one and only and true God, the Trinity Itself"; and it was he who had
written the constitution and traced the past and future history of the Christian community
which he calls the "City (or State) of God." The iconography of these concepts is therefore
inextricably connected with St. Augustine's teachings, especially after a vigorous revival of
Augustinianism had set in towards the end of the thirteenth century, and an illustrative
tradition had developed, from about 1350, in the manuscripts of the De Civitate Dei. The
influence of this tradition makes itself felt, not only in representations of the "All Saints"
theme proper-which are, in part, literally copied from miniatures illustrating the last Book
of St. Augustine's treatise-but also wherever late-medieval art tried to express the idea of a
kingdom "whose every citizen is immortal." This is true of modest Spanish retables as well
as of the Ghent altarpiece and of Stephan Lochner's and Rogier van der Weyden's interpreta-
tions of Paradise; and it applies also to the metal cuts in the Paris Books of Hours. These
ancestors of Durer's "Allerheiligenbild" are, at the same time, descendants of the miniatures
in the "Cite de Dieu" manuscripts.
The City or State of God draws its origin, its form and its beatitude from the Holy
Trinity. Founded by Abel, it is reigned over by Christ, while the "terrena civitas," the city
or state of earth, was founded by Cain and is ruled by the Devil. Yet-and this is stated in
the first sentence of St. Augustine's treatise-the City of God exists partly in Heaven
and partly on earth. Throughout human history or, to use the Saint's own words, "while it
wanders through this course of time among the sinners," it includes both angels and living
beings, and has therefore a temporal as well as an eternal aspect. The City of God is
thus not coextensive with the visible Church, but is at once larger and smaller. It is smaller
in that thevisible Church, being in part a terrestrial institution, is in a greater or lesser degree
defiled by the spirit of the "terrena civitas" and contains a certain amount of evil with the
good. It is larger in that it extends both beyond the limits of the material universe and beyond
the limits of the Christian era. It has earthly as well as heavenly citizens, the former com-
prising those Christian men and women who have received remission of sins through the Blood
of Christ and justification of the Holy Spirit, the latter comprising the Angels who have
always been true to God and, in addition, the Saints and those blessed few who "believed in
Christ even before He came."
Throughout human history, then, the two Cities are intermingled ("invicem permixtae")
so as to become, at times, almost indistinguishable. But this confusion will end with the Last
Judgment. Then those who "are not inscribed in the Book of Life" will be committed to the
Eternal Fire (of the nature and place of which St. Augustine admits ignorance); the rightful
earthly citizens of the City of God, however, will "attain what the Holy Angels have never
lost," that is to say unforsakable immortality and everlasting incapacity for sin. They will be
permanently united with the Angels, Saints, and Prophets and will rest and rejoice before o
the face of the triune God. At the same time the form of the material universe will be de-
stroyed by fire as it was once destroyed by the Flood, and its substance, purified from "the
qualities which pertain to corruptible bodies," will be used for the creation of a "new heaven"
and a "new earth" so that a perfected material world "may correspond to men perfected also
in the flesh."
When trying to express these grand conceptions in visible form the illustrators of the
De Civitate Dei could base themselves on a well-established tradition as far as the Last
Judgment is concerned. It appears, in the usual form, at the beginning of the Twentieth Book.
To illustrate the concept of the Two Cities and to visualize the ultimate glory of the City of
God, the artists had to resort to invention or at least to adaptation. The final beatitude of the
Elect is depicted in a composition which naturally belongs to the Last, or Twenty-Second,
Book. The triune God, either in the guise of a single figure or of the explicit Trinity (which
difference is unimportant from a theological point of view), is seen presiding over what
has been not inappropriately termed "LaCour Celeste.'' It is composed of the Virgin Mary,
for whom a special place of honor is frequently reserved on the right of God, "All Saints"
St. John the Baptist, the Apostles, Martyrs, Fathers, Confessors and ordinary
Samts, and the personages of the Old Testament among whom Moses and David are particu-
larly conspicuous.
The same "Court" also appears in the representation of the Two Cities which invariably
opens the cycle of the "Cite de Dieu" illustrations. But here, where the artists had to depict
City of as it exists before the the assembly of Saints and Prophets
IS enclosed Withm the walls of a real city bmlt on terrestrial ground. This city reaches into
Heaven where, again, the triune God and the Virgin appear in their glory; but it rests on the
earth, and aspect is often emphasized by the presence of ordinary human beings
to be admitted at the gates. The "terrena civitas" is depicted in front of-or, reading
the a plane surface, below-the City of God. It is a lively town, teeming with
human activities both good and bad; it shares the earth with the City of God, but it is cut off
THE "ADORATION OF THE TRINITY" 129
from Heaven; and while the "Civitas Dei" is governed by the Trinity the walls of the
"terrena civitas" are surrounded by dancing devils.
It is now possible to determine the meaning of Durer's Landauer altarpiece as opposed
to that of the metal cuts in the printed French Horae which may be said to synthesize the
tradition of the "Cite de Dieu" illustrations with the more recent iconography of the "Rosary
pictures." Like Durer's painting, these metal cuts divide the citizens of the City of God into
two classes; but unlike it, they interpret this division as a dichotomy not yet resolved. The
upper section, patterned after the fashion of the "Cour Celeste," depicts the heavenly citizens
of the City of God. The lower zone, arranged according to the scheme of the "Rosary pic-
tures," depicts the Christian community as it exists on earth. The members of this terrestrial
community still need the visible Church-whose threshold can be crossed by human feet
while its tower literally penetrates to Heaven-as a vehicle of Salvation. They have to wait
for the day of Judgment when the City of God will be extricated from what St. Augustine
calls "hie temporum cursus," and when its earthly citizens, united with the celestial ones,
will be allowed "to rest and to see, to see and to love, to love and to praise."
This ultimate consummation is anticipated in Durer's Landauer altarpiece. Those who
are neither Saints nor Prophets have already been accepted among the beatified. They live
in a lower zone of Heaven-for even Paradise cannot exist without a hierarchy-but they
live in Heaven; and, as Dante paraphrases the words of St. Augustine:
"The principle of blessedness is this:
To keep ourselves within the Will divine,
So that, as we are ranked from grade to grade
Through all the realm, we all are satisfier/.''
The earthly citizens of the City of God, then, are proleptically transformed into heavenly
ones, and it was probably for this reason that Durer duplicated some of their most prominent
representatives. The terrestrial community will not tolerate more than one Pope; the celestial
one-in which the idea of the "Vicar of Christ" has lost its meaning-will include as many
as are worthy.
In short, where the metal cuts represent the City of God as it exists in time, Durer repre-
sents it as it will exist after time has come to an end; and this accounts for the fact that the
frame shows the Last Judgment. It is not only a "serious admonition to the beholder," but
forms an integral part of the iconography of the whole altarpiece. As in the illuminated
manuscripts of the "Cite de Dieu" a picture of the Last Judgment had to precede the final
glory of the :cour Celeste," so Durer's frame serves as a prelude to that which is fulfilled
in the painting itself (fig. 17 5). Its aesthetic function-that of a "gateway" through which
we enter the pictorial space-is thus in perfect harmony with its doctrinal content. The donor
and his family had a traditional right to be placed "cum benedictis.'' Durer had no claim to
this proleptic beatification. But he was permitted to present himself as the only inhabitant of
a virgin world with the sun just rising above the horizon-the "terra nova" renewed after the
Judgment.
We may safely continue to call the Landauer altarpiece "The Adoration of the Trinity."
But a more precise and exhaustive appellation may be found in the title of the last chapter
of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei: "De aeterna felicitate Civitatis Dei Sabbatoque per-
petuo" ("The eternal Bliss of the City of God and the perpetual Sabbath").
This shifting of the scene from earth to Heaven created a situation similar to those which
Durer had depicted in the Apocalypse, and unquestionably he harked back to his earlier
work in composing the Landauer altarpiece. In the woodcuts St. John before God and the
Elders (fig. 77), and, most particularly, St. Michael fighting the Dragon (fig. 81 ), we find a
similar combination of a preternatural apparition in the sky and a resplendent landscape
seen in bird's-eye view below; and the hanging draperies of the Pope, the Emperor, and the
King in the altarpiece, comparable to the fringe of a gigantic curtain, form a pattern not
unlike the fringe of monstrous heads and tails in the Fight with the Dragon. Needless to say,
the woodcuts appear almost two-dimensional in comparison with the painting. As could be
observed in the adaptation of the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand of about 1498 for Fred-
erick the Wise's altarpiece of 1 so8 the realization of both space and volume by far transcends
the possibilities of Durer's earlier period. What had been a planar display of-comparatively
speaking-semi-corporeal shapes is now a perspective arrangement of weighty figures emphat-
ically modelled and beautifully posed, yet forming part of a numberless multitude. The
figures in the foreground are followed by crowds which seem to emerge from the depths of
space, and the gap between the Pope and the Emperor discloses a surging sea of humanity. The
very narrowness of this gap creates the sensation of being drawn into a gorge, and this sensa-
tion is strengthened by the fact that the most prominent figures are no longer arranged
symmetrically as in the preliminary drawing, but face each other on two parallel diagonals:
in contrast with the Emperor and his companions, the Pope and the Cardinal turn their back
upon the beholder-which also serves to stress their still somewhat closer connection with
God.
In spite, or rather just because, of this emphasis on three-dimensionality, the effect of the
whole is even more "visionary" than that of the Apocalypse. The very volume and weight
of the figures makes the beholder aware of their miraculous suspension, and the very force
of the perspective effect compels him to realize his own fantastic situation in relation to the
spectacle. The picture has, most fittingly, two perspective "horizons," that of the earthly
scenery and that of the heavenly apparition, the former being identical with the natural
horizon of the landscape, the latter being determined by the eye level of the Pope and the
Emperor. When the spectator tries to adapt his visual processes to these data-as he is forced
to do by the irresistible power of the perspective realization, combined with the fact that he
is arrested before a stationary altarpiece instead of handling a movable print-he can identify
his own level of vision either with the earthly or with the heavenly "horizon." Whichever he
does, he will have a visionary experience. If he adopts the earthly "horizon" he will retain,
)
THE "ADORATION OF THE TRINITY"
aesthetically, his normal position on the ground and will experience what may be called a
vision by preternatural_perception. If he adopts the heavenly "horizon" he will be trans-
ported, aesthetically, to the sky where, to quote Wolffiin, "the miraculous seems near and the
ordinary far away," and will thus experience what may be called a vision by preternatural
locomotion. Since in Durer's altarpiece the importance of the terrestrial scenery is deliberately
suppressed-much more so than in the preparatory drawing-this second possibility will
suggest itself more forcefully and will generally be accepted. There is only one work of
painting approximately contemporary with the Landauer altarpiece which conveys a similar
impression: Raphael's Sistine Madonna.
V Reorientation in the Graphic Arts; the Culmination
of Engraving, I507/II-I5I4
F
ROM the point of view of those Venetian painters who claimed that Durer "did not
know how to handle color" the paintings produced between 1507 and 1511 are retro-
gressive. While the Adam and Eve in the Prado is still vaguely Bellinesque in style,
a gradual hardening of form and lessening of coloristic refinement can be observed in the three
great altarpieces. The "Adoration of the Trinity" is almost metallic in comparison with the
"Feast of the Rose Garlands" (note, for instance, the treatment of the papal pluvialia in these
two pictures), and its colors offer the variegated aspect of a bright and cheerful peasant's
garden. In the windows of the "Allerheiligenkapelle"-where, it is true, the very medium
suggested a planar and linear mode of expression-and in some related workshop drawings
(640, 641, 873) we may detect a tendency to revert not only to the spirit but to the style
of the Apocalypse.
In the following years-again a "maximum" period-Durer lost interest in painting
altogether. No picture was produced between 1513 and 1516, and the two painted works of
1 S 12 are merely the aftermath of the preceding phase. One of them is a Madonna in half
length generally referred to as the Virgin 'l.oith the Pear (Vienna, Gemaldegalerie, 29), where
a Virgin Mary reminiscent of the sweet, smiling maidens of Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leyden
is combined with an almost Michelangelesque Infant Jesus freely developed from a drawing
of 1506 (736). The other is a pair of portraits representing the Emperors Charlemagne
and Sigismund (Nuremberg, Germanisches Museum, 51 and 65), the general composition
of which had already been established in a "Visierung" of 1510 ( 1008).
In one of his Venetian letters, we remember, Durer made fun of Pirckheimer's saltatorial
exploits on the occasion of the "Feast of the Imperial Insignia." This merry Feast, called
"Heiltumsfest" or simply "Heiltum," was celebrated in Nuremberg about Easter time when
the crown jewels of the German Emperors (now happily restored to the "Schatzkammer" in
Vienna after their transference to the Germanisches Museum) were exposed to public view.
They had been in the custody of the city since 1424 and were normally kept in the "Spital-
kirche." During the festivities, however, they were exhibited on the Market Square during
the day and locked up in one of the adjacent houses, the "Schopperhaus," at night. Here a
special room was set aside for the purpose, and it was as decoration for this room that Durer
was asked to portray the august personages who had figured most prominently in the history (
of the insignia: Charlemagne, who was supposed to have been their original owner, and
Emperor Sigismund, who had entrusted them to the city of Nuremberg.
In the drawing of 151 o (fig. 176) both Emperors appear in three-quarter profile, but the
superiority of Charlemagne is emphasized by a difference in scale as well as in costume. The
PORTRAITS OF CHARLEMAGNE AND SIGISMUND 133
stooping figure of Sigismund-portrayed with the aid of a contemporary likeness preserved
to us in mediocre copies-is dwarfed by four shields which occupy much of the available
space; he is clad in simple garments and wears a humanist's wreath instead of an Imperial
crown. The figure of Charlemagne, erect and with the space above him filled only by the
shields of France and Germany, looks considerably taller, and his appearance conforms to a
legendary or fairy-tale-like conception of grandeur. He has a long, snowy beard, a huge
Gothic crown, a broad collar of ermine, a mantle of heavy brocade and an imposing scepter.
However, Durer was too much of a scholar to be satisfied with this romantic image. He made
a careful study, in the same year, of the historic objects preserved in the "Spitalkirche" and
rendered them in water color drawings which might well serve as illustrations for an anti-
quarian treatise (1010-1013). Even the actual length of the Imperial sword, which was too
long to be shown in the drawing, was indicated by a piece of string attached to the paper
( 1 o 11). On the basis of these meticulous studies the figure was revised in a drawing where the
legendary Charlemagne is replaced by an "historical" one, beardless and clad in the correct
Coronation garb ( 1009).
The panels themselves (fig. 177) were completed early in 1513. Well over life size and
executed with the greatest possible accuracy, they delight the beholder, not by pictorial blan-
dishments but by the very profusion of precise and glittering detail. In interpretation, they
represent a compromise between popular imagination and archeological correctness. Charle-
magne was equipped with the authentic insignia, but in person he appeared again, as simple
people liked to think of him: as a kind of secular God the Father with a long white beard and
flowing locks. Since he now wore the low octagonal crown and the Imperial sword which were
believed to have been worn by him in life, his former attributes, the Gothic crown and the
scepter, could be transferred to Sigismund. But while a certain external equality was thus
established between the two rulers, the inward superiority of Charlemagne became all the
more evident. Tall, erect, and-the most important change from the "Visierung"-rigidly
frontalized, he overshadows his humble successor the more the latter's appearance lays claim
to imperial dignity.
WHILE DuRER THE PAINTER thus drifted away from the ideals of "pictorialism" and ulti-
mately. abandoned brushwork for a period of more than three years, his evolution as an
engraver and woodcut designer, which had been interrupted by his stay in Venice, took a
diametrically opposite course. His graphic works became luminaristic and tonal in proportion
as his paintings became linear and polychromatic; and his most famed, and indeed most
accomplished engravings were made at a time-in 1513 and 1514-when the production of
paintipgs l;ad ceased altogether. It is as though Durer's activities in a medium which was more
properly and exclusively his than brushwork had been stimulated and redirected by the very
same impulses which had ceased to be fruitful in the domain of painting.
The post-Venetian woodcuts and engravings differ from the pre-Venetian ones in the
same way that ordinary pen and ink drawings differ from drawings on colored paper height-
134
NEW GRAPHIC STYLE; CLIMAX OF ENGRAVING
ened with white: they give what may be called a clair-obscur effect. This term is borrowed
from those woodcuts which are printed from two blocks in two different tones. The outlines
and the deepest shadows are cut upon the "key block" which is inked with black or the darkest
tone desired. The lighter shadows are cut upon a "tint block" which supplies the middle tone,
and the highlights are cut into both blocks so that, when printed, the white paper will show.
The principle of these clair-obscur woodcuts is indeed the same as that of drawings on colored
paper heightened with white. In both cases the lights and shadows are set out against a neutral
tone in relation to which they appear as positive and negative values-with the only
differe_nce that the woodcuts express this middle tone by printer's ink and suggest the lights
by white paper, whereas the drawings suggest the middle tone by colored paper and express
the lights by heightenings.
To achieve an analogous effect in ordinary woodcuts and engravings Durer had to create
by linear means a value equivalent to the colored paper in white-heightened drawings, and to
the "tint block" in clair-obscur prints. He had to stipulate that, as a solidly colored surface
of medium darkness is accepted as a middle tone in relation to darker and lighter areas, so
a system of parallel hatchings of medium density be accepted as a middle tone in relation to
hatchings of greater density-particularly cross-hatchings-and to the blank paper. The (
introduction of this "graphic middle tone" constitutes in fact the main difference between
the prints produced before and after Durer's second trip to Venice. As we remember, an
aesthetic transformation of material paper into incorporeal light had already been accom-
plished in _his earlier woodcuts and engravings. But in these the scale of luminary values
extended simply from "light" to "dark." In the post-Venetian prints it runs, simultaneously,
fro " t 1" "1" h " h
m neu ra to Ig t on t e one hand, and from "neutral" to "dark" on the other. The
of extending, as it does, in two directions, thus seems both wider and more subtly
What had been an aggregate of contrasting spots or patches became a con-
tmuum of modulated "tones," as though a polyphonic system had been replaced by an
harmonic one.
From a purely technical point of view this brought about two significant changes. First,
the hatchings had to be made more uniform in direction and thickness and, more important,
they had to achieve a similar independence of the plastic form as had, for instance, the
shadows in the Berlin portrait of a Venetian lady. Second, the distribution of luminary values
had to be altered. While in the earlier prints comparatively small areas of black seem to be
superimposed on : basic surface of white, in the later ones the impression is of comparatively
small areas of white reserved from a basic surface of gray.
. Let us compare, for instance, the Ascension and Coronation of the Virgin (314, fig. 178)
With any woodcut of the pre-Venetian period such as St. Michael Fighting the Dragon (292,
fig. 81) or, to narrow down the chronological difference as far as possible, the Presentation
of Christ (308, fig. 144). In the print of 1510 we perceive at once a tonal unity entirely
absent from the earlier woodcuts. Every luminary value can be appraised in relation to the
gray of large, frontal surfaces whose straight, protracted hatchings establish what we have
"cLAIROBSCUR" PRINCIPLE IN LINE PRINTS
135
called the "graphic middle tone." The deep shadows thus strils:e us as much darker, and the
high lights, particularly the quivering haloes cut out of the nocturnal sky, as much lighter
than in the earlier prints. The individual figures and objects are modelled by lines more
regularly spaced, more protracted, and organized into more extensive areas; and the most
startling innovation is the suppression of plastic relief in favor of tonality wherever solid
bodies lie in a shadow of medium depth. In such cases straight horizontal hatchings similar
to those employed for the shading of architectural backdrops or the nocturnal sky are run
across such rounded forms as the right knee of God the Father, the right leg of the Virgin
Mary, or the drapery of the Apostle with the open book. As a result, the forms so treated
contribute to the compositional pattern as tonal values rather than as plastic volumes.
ExcEPT FOR A DECORATIVE BORDER first used for a book by Pirckheimer which appeared in
1513 (4o8) and a St. Jerome in his Cave of 1512 (333), all the woodcuts here to be consid-
ered were executed between 1508/09 and 1511. Setting aside a few broad-sheets and book
illustrations ( 221, 27 5, 352, 353), they can be classified under three headings. First, the
Small Passion, published in 1511. Second, a number of single woodcuts, all of them either
"half sheets" or "quarter sheets" except for the large Trinity of 1511 (342). Here and in
other cases the prints are single compositions in the full sense of the term; but the much-
imitated Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist (345) has a counterpart in Salome Bringing
the Head of St. John to Herodias (346); and three subjects, namely St. Jerome in his Cell
(334), the Mass of St. Gregory (343) and David in Penitence (339, commonly known as
"Der Bussende," the royal penitent bearing Durer's own features) still seem to reflect the
program of the unfinished "Salus Animae." The third group includes the woodcuts added to
what Durer calls "Die drei grossen Bucher," that is, the Apocalypse, the Large Passion and
the Life of the Virgin. As we remember, Durer-signing himself as the publisher-brought
out these "Three Large Books" in 1511, the Apocalypse in a new Latin edition, the two others
-with Chelidonius's versified explanations printed so as to face the corresponding pictures-
for the first time. The Apocalypse needed only a Frontispiece to be combined with the beauti-
ful title already extant ( 280). The Large Passion and the Life of the Virgin were also
provided with Frontispieces (224 and 296); but in addition they still lacked pages,
all of which were executed in 1510. To the Large Passion were added: the Last Supper
(225), the Betrayal of Christ (227), the Harrowing of Hell (234), and the Resurrection
(235); to the Life of the Virgin: the Death of the Virgin (313), and her Assumption and
CoronaNon (314) .
It is not possible here to analyze all these woodcuts individually and to show how the
clair-obscur principle prevails throughout. Suffice it to mention some further good examples
of straight horizontal hatchings running across convex forms-for instance, several figures in
the Last Supper, the Baptist and the companion of Salome in the Martyrdom of St. John,
the Eve in the Harrowing of Hell (fig. 87)-and to point out the amazing flexibility of
new style. Now, it serves to sharpen the terror and confusion of the Betrayal; now, it len:ds
color to the weird yet somehow humorous inferno of the Harrowing of Hell (fig. 179) which
delighted such Mannerists as Beccafumi and Bronzino; and then again it enhances the serene
dignity of an Adoration of the Magi (223, fig. 184) where the compositional ideas of the Life
of the Virgin appear to be revised according to the standards of the High Renaissance.
One phenomenon, however, deserves some special consideration: a curious revival of the
"visionary" within the framework of the new woodcut style.
The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin, added to the Life of the Virgin in 1510
(fig. 178), is evidently derived from the Heller altarpiece of 1508/9 (fig. 168). Yet the dif-
ferences are no less important than the similarities. In the first place, the woodcut is less hier-
atic in character and attempts to impress the beholder by sentiment and concrete associations
rather than by solemnity. Christ no longer wears the papal tiara, and His posture is both
simpler and more moving than in the painting; He bestows the crown with His left hand so
that His arm no longer overlaps His chest, and His head is not quietly turned to full profile
but is thrown back with a pathetic expression of suffering. Furthermore the scene is enriched
by all those paraphernalia essential to a "real" funeral in the popular mind; there are books,
censers, asperges, and processional crosses, and in the foreground is seen a bier which had
been present in some of the more archaic representations (for instance in the drawing no.
520 ), but was significantly absent from the Heller altarpiece.
In the second place, the Apostles are no longer aligned on two diagonals symmetrically
divergent from the center, but on two parallel lines, with a canyon of space in between; in
this respect the woodcut of 1510 bears the same relation to the painting of 1508/9 as the
"Adoration of the Trinity" of 1511 (fig. 172) to its preparatory drawing, likewise of 1508
(fig. 174)
In the third place, the luminary values are reversed so that the relation between the
woodcut and the painting may be compared to that between a photographic negative and the
positive print. In the panel the Coronation group and the Apostles with the landscape form
two comparatively dark areas separated by a bright strip of sky. In the woodcut we have two
comparatively bright areas separated by a dark strip of forest. The Coronation group detaches
itself as a luminous apparition from a "middle tone" background, and this is bordered by a
white band of clouds which offers the strongest possible contrast to the gloom of the terrestrial
scenery. The introduction of this contrast is a conscious reversion on Durer's part to the
Nemesis engraving (fig. 115) where a similar fringe of bright clouds overhangs a darkening
landscape. However, while the Nemesis is silhouetted against the clear sky, the Coronation
group stands out from a mass of gray which, like a miraculous curtain, seems to obliterate
the physical sky as well as the things on earth. We are not transported to dizzy heights, for
the perspective conditions are entirely normal. Instead of the landscape being represented in
bird's-eye view, the visual horizon coincides with that of the Apostles. But for this very reason
the effect is all the more mysterious. The scene in Heaven, with the band of clouds coming
down so as to overlap the visual horizon, is brought so near to the beholder that the celestial
VISIONARY WOODCUTS OF 1510/11 137
apparition seems to descend upon the earth; it fills him with wonderment, not so much by
defying the objective laws of nature as by abolishing the subjective distinction between
hallucination and reality.
Similar principles of composition and interpretation can be observed in the last woodcut
of the Large Passion, commonly quoted as the Resurrection of Christ (235). In reality it fuses
the Resurrection with the Ascension just as the Assumption of the Virgin had been fused with
the scene of her Coronation; and the miracle is made visible and credible by analogous meth-
ods. According to a scheme developed in Italy, but contrary to the Northern to
which Durer adhered in his two other prints ( 124 and 265), Christ is not represented standing
on the ground or on the lid of the sarcophagus, much less in the very act of stepping out of the
tomb; He is miraculously suspended above the grave. As in the Coronation woodcut, the
figure is set out against a "neutral" background bordered by a band of radiant clouds which
cuts into the gloom of a nocturnal scenery. The apparition descends even farther than in the
Coronation, and again we have the impression that a magic curtain is lowered so as to invade
our field of vision and to transfigure rather than overthrow the natural world.
In the Mass of St. Gregory of 1511 (343, fig. 183), where the Man of Sorrows and the
instruments of torture appear to the Saint while he is celebrating Mass, the miraculous event
is depicted in an entirely different and perhaps still bolder manner: the natural space is not
encroached upon or disrupted by a supernatural force, it simply dissolves. The scene
is, of course, supposed to take place in the Basilica of St. Peter. But Durer had the audacity to
abolish every indication of an architectural setting. No walls, no piers, no windows or vaults
are depicted. They are wiped out by an impenetrable darkness-as though Mass were read by
night in the open air-from which emerge white clouds and two adoring angels. Floating in
this amorphous darkness, yet endowed with the semblance of fyll reality, are seen such heavy
objects as the hammer, the tongs, the dice, the bust of Judas and his purse. The column, the
ladder with the spear and reed, and the cross (on which is perched the cock of St. Peter)
stand or lean on the altar as palpably as the candlesticks and the chalice; and the retable is
transformed into a stone sarcophagus from which arises the figure of Christ. The visionary
effect is achieved, not by a mere interpenetration of the natural world with the supernatural,
but by what a spiritualist would call the "dematerialization" of tangible objects coupled with
the "materialization" of imaginary ones.
The last step is taken in the Frontispieces of the "Three Large Books," all executed in
1511. Each of them shows a scene of miraculous or mystical character which takes place on
terrestrial ground. But the ground itself is lifted into a transcendental environment, thereby
a spectacle which the beholder can interpret only as a vision experienced by himself.
The Frontispiece of the Life of the Virgin (296, fig. 181) shows a combination of the
"Virgin of.:"Humility" (the Virgin Mary sitting on the ground) with the "Apocalyptic
Woman" (the Virgin Mary "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet"). A fusion
of these two images-one realistic and humble, the other visionary and sublime-is not
unusual in earlier art and was in fact inherent in the concept of the "Virgin of Humility" as
such-a concept based on that very "coincidence of opposites" which Dante expressed in
the Prayer of St. Bernard:
"Virgine Madre, figlia del tuo Figlio,
Umile ed alta piu che creatura .. . "
("Virgin and mother, daughter of thy Son,
Humble and lofty more than any being . .. ").
However, if we compare Durer's woodcut with one of these earlier representations, for
instance with a beautiful Flemallesque panel in the Muller Collection at Brussels, we perceive
that Durer reversed the relationship between the natural and supernatural elements. In the
Brussels picture the Virgin is seated on a pillow placed on the ground, and the crescent,
debased to the rank of a mere attribute, is rendered as a tangible object lying beside her on
the lawn. In Durer's woodcut also the Virgin is depicted on a pillow which rests on a plot of
grass. But instead of the crescent lying on the ground the whole group, including the pillow
and the piece of ground, is inscribed within the crescent, and the crescent is in turn suspended
in a starry sky. A fragment of the earth has been bodily moved into Heaven, and the beholder
has to accompany it into a sphere of visionary unreality.
In the Frontispiece of the Apocalypse ( 280, fig. 180) St. John the Evangelist is seen on
the island of Patmos. Accompanied by his eagle and seated by a grassy ledge on which he has
deposited his inkpot and pen box, he sees and describes the "Apocalyptic Woman" who here
appears, not as the "Virgin of Humility" but as a half-length figure radiantly appearing in
the sky. But again the whole scene is transposed into a supernatural sphere; St. John the
Evangelist, the eagle, and the grassy ledge with inkpot and pen box are miraculously poised
in the void, supported only by a band of clouds. St. John on Patmos appears as a vision to
the beholder at the very moment when the "Apocalyptic Woman" appears as a vision to St.
John on Patmos.
The Frontispiece of the Large Passion, finally, shows what, at first glance, seems to be an \
incident of the Passion itself ( 224, fig. 182). Christ, crowned with thorns, is seated on a
bench of stone, wringing His hands with grief and despair; two scourges lie on the ground,
and before Him is kneeling a soldier who offers Him a reed with sneering reverence. The
scene thus seems to be identical with the Mocking of Christ as described in Matthew, xxvn,
29. But that Durer did not intend to illustrate any specific event of the life of Christ on
earth is demonstrated by the five wounds in His body and by the band of clouds which, as in
the Frontispiece of the Apocalypse, removes the scene from the terrestrial realm. It is not a
portrayal of the Christ Incarnate mocked by the soldiers of Pilate, but becomes for us a vision
of the Eternal Christ Who has completed His Passion on earth and yet continues to be .
tortured by the sins of mankind. The woodcut makes us "see" the sufferings still inflicted upon
Christ by our own wickedness; and the idea of a "Perpetual Passion"-definitely unorthodox,
FRONTISPIECES OF THE "LARGE BOOKS"
139
but widely accepted by popular feeling in Durer's time-is also brought home to the beholder
by the verses with which he is apostrophized by Christ Himself:
"These cruel wounds I bear for thee, 0 man,
And cure thy mortal sickness with my blood.
I take away thy sores with mine, thy death
With mine-a God Who changed to man for thee.
But thou, ingrate, still stabb'st my wounds with sins;
I still take floggings for thy guilty acts.
It should have been enough to suffer once
From hostile Jews; now, friend, let there be peace!"
Thus interpreted, the Frontispieces of the "Three Large Books" are cognate not only
with one another but also with the most monumental woodcut of the period here under
discussion, the large Trinity of 1511 (342, fig. 185). This shows the modern and more
emotional version of the "Throne of Mercy"-with God the Father holding the broken body
of Christ instead of the Crucifix-which is best represented by a lost but often copied and
widely imitated composition by the Master of Flemalle. But Durer "visionized" the tradi-
tional scheme just as he had the St. John on Patmos, the Mocking of Christ, and the "Virgin
of Humility." Crowds of Angels approach from either side, carrying the instruments of
torture, supporting the arms of the dead Christ and spreading out the papal pluviale of God
the Father into the likeness of the tent or baldaquin which is frequently seen in earlier repre-
sentations; and this whole group is mysteriously suspended before a somber sky lit up by
milky clouds and by the electric flashes of the halos. In the "Adoration of the Trinity" in
Vienna God the Father is at least enthroned on a rainbow. H e r ~ He floats in the void; and to
make the apparition even more incommensurable it is elevated beyond the sphere of the Four
Winds, that is, according to pre-Copernican cosmology, beyond the limits of the physical
universe. Once more Durer conjured up a vision to be experienced by a beholder "transported"
both in the literal and the figurative sense of the word.
Small wonder that this subjective approach to the most sacred and transcendent concept
of Christianity impressed the following generations even more deeply than Durer's contem-
poraries .. His composition was to live on-to mention only a few of many instances-in
Cigoli's Trinity in Sta. Croce in Florence, in Tintoretto's mystical Lamentation in the Palace
of the Dages, and, above all, in Greco's Throne of Mercy in the Prado.
'
THE SMALL PAsSION ( 236-272) can best be considered together with what may be called its
more sophisticated counterpart, the Engraved Passion ( 110-125). Both series were prepared
and e x e ~ ~ t e d more or less simultaneously (the Small Passion published in 1511, with two
woodcuts dated 1509 and two 1510; the Engraved Passion published 1513, with the dates
of the individual prints ranging from 1507 to 1512). And both are in part retrospective. In
three pages of the Engraved Passion-the Agony in the Garden ( 111 ), the Betrayal of Christ
( ) nd Christ before Pilate ( 114)-Durer reverted to the "Green Passion" (556,
112 a . . .
2 !s66, 525/570). The Small Passion, on the other hand, can be associated ':Ith the
Virgin. Three scenes-the Annunciation, the' Nativity and the Leave-Takmg of Chnst
-occur in both series, and it has already been mentioned that this duplication may reflect an
original program according to which the Life of the Virgin was to be followed by the Passion
of Christ. But the relationship is not restricted to the subject alone. The Annunciation (239)
and the Leave-Taking of Christ (241) are variations on the corresponding woodcuts in the
Life of the Virgin (303 and 312) rather than new inventions, and in the case ofthe Nativity
( 240) an even closer connection can be established.
This> woodcut (fig. 192) differs from the rest of the Small Passion, first, in that the
figures are much smaller in scale; second, in that the design is more minute, particularly in
such details as draperies and foliage; third, in that the scene is staged on a platform seen
di sotto in su, with the additional anomaly that the vanishing point of this platform and the
adjoining steps does not coincide with that of the roof. It has tightly been felt that the s.mall-
ness of the figures and the tendency toward particularization are reminiscent of the Ltfe of
the Virgin, and it has even been proposed to date the woodcut about 1504 rather than
1509. But this hypothesis does not explain the unusual features of the perspective and is. at
variance with the technical treatment. What seems more likely is that Durer reused a drawmg
originally made at the time of, and probably in connection with, the Life of the Virgin. Since
the latter is more than twice as large as the Small Passion, the composition had to be cut down
at the margins (witness the truncation of the building as well as of the St. Joseph) and, in
addition, to be reduced in scale. Thereby the figures became much smaller than those in the
other woodcuts, and the curious, almost Tintorettesque substructure in worm's-eye perspective
was added in order to push the figures back into space and thus account for their diminution
in size.
With respect to period, then, and in view of their somewhat retrospective tendency, the
Small and Engraved Passions can be regarded as parallels. But here the similarity ends. From
every other point of view the two series offer a contrast eloquently illustrative of the
between their respective media.
The very format of the Engraved Passion differs from that of the Small Passion by what
may be called an aristocratic slenderness of proportion: it is about 45 by 3 inches as against
about 5 by 4 No textual interpretatiQn was deemed necessary, for the engraved series was not
conceived as an edifying book, but rather as a "collector's item," to be relished by the art-
lover instead of read by the devout. In fact there were collectors in the sixteenth century who
had the engravings treated so as to suggest the appearance of precious miniatures. In defiance
of Erasmus's judicious remark: "If you would spread on pigments you would injure the
work," the prints were occasionally illuminated with color, heightened with gold and silver,
and even mounted on leaves of vellum the borders of which were decorated with hand-painted
flowers and little animals, as was the custom of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century
book illuminators.
SMALL PASSION AND ENGRAVED PASSION
The engraved series is preceded by a Frontispiece-a Man of Sorrows according to St.
Bridget-and is concluded by Sts. Peter and John Heating the Lame. piece was app:nded
in 1513, either because Durer wished to round out the number of prmts to a full sixteen
which could be printed on a "whole sheet" without waste, or because he planned to follow up
the Passion of Christ with the Acts of the Apostles; it is, characteristically, absent from most
of the copies bound in the sixteenth century. The Passion proper comprises only fourteen
decisive incidents, beginning with the Agony in the Garden and ending with the Resurrection.
In the woodcut series, the drama of the Passion, paraphrased by Chelidonius in varying
classical meters, unfolds in a much wider perspective. Ushered in by a Frontispiece which
again brings home the idea of the "Perpetual Passion" ( 236), the sequence opens with the
Fall of Man and the Expulsion from Paradise. The Passion proper is preceded by the
Annunciation, theN ativity and the Leave-Taking of Christ; and the Resurrection is followed
by four of the "Appearances" (Christ appearing to His Mother, to the Magdalen, to the
Disciples of Emmaus, and to St. Thomas), the Ascension, Pentecost and the Last Judgment.
All in all, there are, including the Title Page, thirty-seven woodcuts as against sixteen
engravings, and the scenes of the Passion proper number twenty-four as against fourteen,
including as they do the Entry into Jerusalem, the Expulsion of the Money-Lenders, the
Last Supper, the Washing of the Feet, Christ before Annas, the Mocking of Christ, Christ
before Herod, St. Veronica with the Sudarium, theN ailing to the Cross and the Descent from
the Cross.
The program of the Engraved Passion is thus less comprehensive than that of the Small.
But in spite of its brevity the engraved series has something sumptuous about it. Every scene
is carefully worked out with architecture and furnishil}gs, bizarre physiognomies, pic-
turesque costumes and fanciful armor, and emphasis is placed on the refinements of lighting
and surface texture. The Engraved Passion stresses spiritual suffering rather than physical
torture and never loses sight of the preterhuman dignity of Christ. The shrillest note is struck
in the Agony in the Garden-a scene of purely mental anguish-while the Crucifixion is per-
vaded by a spirit of resignation and peace. The opposite is true of the Small Passion. It
emphasizes the human side of the tragedy, from the magnificent wrath of the Expulsion of
the Money-Lenders to the quiet sadness of the Washing of the Feet and the cruel violence
of the Derision; and while the narrative as a whole has the redundancy of a popular Mystery
Play the individual incidents are told concisely and directly. The treatment is forceful at
the delicacy. Picturesqueness and psychological refinements have been suppressed
in favor of strong and simple emotions.
The engraved version of Pilate Washing His Hands (fig. 188), for instance, is so rich
in detailS' and so subtle in interpretation that it demands unhurried and sensitive contempla-
tion. The eye of the beholder will delight in the contrast between the threatening darkness
of the architecture and the brilliance of a beautiful landscape; his attention is likely to be
arrested by the obsequious Jew who still harangues the Governor, and parti:ularl?' by the
negroid servant who, grotesquely arrayed and illumined by the strongest hght, Is placed
right in the center of the composition. It may take him some time to perceive the figure of
Christ as He is led away by two soldiers, and still more to discover that Pilate does not listen
to his interlocutor. Deaf to what he hears and blind to what he sees, the Governor seems to be .
shut within himself, tragic and lonely like the Saul in Rembrandt's late picture in The Hague.
The language of the woodcut (fig. 190) is much more direct. The eye is caught at once by the
tall figure of Christ. No picturesque servant detracts from the basic antithesis between Him
Who is dragged to His death and him who is left behind with the burden of his thoughts.
There is a 'strange void around the figure of Pilate; his loneliness is not expressed obliquely
by his not listening to an interlocutor, but, more directly, by the absence of anyone who
would dare speak to him.
Similar differences can be observed throughout. In the engraved Lamentation (fig. 186)
the mourners sigh; in the Lamentation in woodcut they cry out-not to mention the more
pitiful aspect of the dead Christ-and the Magdalen kisses His feet. The engraved Deposi-
tion is a masterpiece of intricate foreshortening, and the felt hat of the wealthy burgher
viewed from the back may have attracted more comment among the experts than anything "'
else. In the strictly frontalized composition of the woodcut nothing disturbs the atmosphere
of silent grief.
In the engraved Resurrection the figure of Christ is not only patterned after the Apollo
Belvedere-this is the rule with Diirer's renderings of this scene, and certainly intentionally
so-but it is also made to stand on the sarcophagus as on a pedestal, exalted and remote like
a beautiful statue. In the woodcut (fig. 193) He steps into the midst of the soldiers so that
His foot comes in actual contact with one of theirs; but in the distance is seen the rising sun,
a symbol of the Resurrection so deep and wide that it bridges the gap between the spiritual
and the natural world, and even between Christianity and Paganism. To quote once more
from Chelidonius:
"This is the day on which the Lord of Lords
Began to build the world; sacred by ageless
Religion to the King of Heav'n and Phoebus.
This is the day when the all-seeing sun,
Slain on the cross, so as to set in night
And hide in death, splendidly rose again."
The most significant contrast exists between the two interpretations of the Bearing of
the C r o s s ~ In the engraving (fig. 189) Diirer reverted to a formula prevailing in Byzantine,
Italian and ltalianate art, but very rarely retained by Northern artists of the fifteenth
century: instead of breaking down under the weight of the Cross, Christ walks proudly
erect. His figure dominates a pyramidal group comprising, besides Himself, a bestial soldier
on His left and the kneeling Veronica on His right. This group is brought into relief by con
centrated light; but just the figure of Christ is left in darkness, except for those parts-His
SMALL PASSION AND ENGRAVED PASSION
143
face, the drapery across His shoulder, and His raised right arm-which are the most im-
portant, not only in that they mark the apex of the pyramid, but also in that they establish
a connection between His figure and that of St. Veronica. The emphasis is not on physical
action and physical suffering but on the spiritual relationship between the Saviour and the
believer, a relationship all the more subtle as the face of the kneeling Saint remains almost
invisible. In the woodcut (fig. 191) the interest is divided between this silent dialogue and
violent action. Here Diirer retained the more usual type of composition which he had used
in the Large Passion (fig. 89), repeating even the motif of the callous soldier who stabs
the neck of Christ with a stick. But the figure of Christ no longer displays the beautiful pose
of the classical Orpheus. He goes to his knees with a terrific impact; His right arm stiffens
in an attempt to break His fall; His left hand clutches the lower part of the cross, instead
of being raised with an elegant contrapposto; His head hangs from His shoulder as from a
rack. It is only by excruciating effort that His glance catches the eye of St. Veronica, so that
her very piety adds to His suffering.
Some of the scenes represented in the Small Passion but absent from the engraved series,
such as the Mocking of Christ, the Nailing to the Cross or Christ before Annas, show a similar
emphasis on torture and brutality, and the Descent from the Cross verges on the horrible.
The broken body of Christ, head downward, lies across the shoulders of a lansquenet like
the carcass of a slaughtered animal; its upper part is almost obliterated by a harsh fore-
shortening, the face is wholly invisible, and the helpless hands and dishevelled hair convey
a sense of almost unbearable misery.
In other woodcuts, however, we find a feeling of tenderness and human warmth which
is. abserit from the Engraved Passion and dear to those of whom it has been said that "theirs
is the kingdom of heaven." Nothing can be gentler and sadder, yet fuller of promise than
the transfigured Christ appearing to the Magdalen, His face in the shadow of the broad-
brimmed gardener's hat, the blade of His spade shining before the sky, and-again-the
"sun of righteousness" rising behind Him. Nothing can be simpler, yet more solemn than
the gesture with which He breaks the bread for the disciples of Emmaus so that "their
eyes were opened and they knew Him."
This atmosphere of sympathy and human kindness is felt most intensely in the Fall of
Man (fig. 194). Like the engraving of 1504 (fig. 117) this woodcut must be interpreted
in the light of the theory according to which the sin of Adam subjected mankind to the
domination of the "four humors" and thus dragged it down to the level of animals. This
theory, ~ s we remember, existed in two versions. According to the one, man had originally
no "temperament" at all, whereas every animal had one of the well-known four. According
to the other, man was originally "sanguine," whereas the animals were either "choler-ic,"
' . K
"phlegmatic," or "melancholy." In the engraving, Durer had accepted the first of. these
variants; he had set out the impersonal, or rather pre-personal, perfection of Adam and Eve
against the characteristic qualities of four species of animals. In the woodcut he kept to
the second version. Only three beasts are depicted, and they symbolize the non-sanguine
144
temperaments, the lion standing for ".choleric" wrath, the bison for "melancholic" gloom and
inertia, and the particularly conspicuous badger, notorious for his laziness, for "phlegmatic"
sloth. The "sanguine" temperament is represented by Adam and Eve themselves; they
illustrate its most characteristic feature, the capacity and inclination for love (see fig. 217).
While yielding to temptation, they are clasped in an embrace of, as yet, paradisiacal in-
nocence. Their happiness is not to last; but their endearments contribute to the scene a
delightful note of affection and tenderness and foreshadow a companionship which, how-
ever much changed by the fateful event, will be their and their offspring's heritage for good
or worse. In fact it was possible for Durer to employ the same preparatory drawing (459,
fig. 195) both for the Fall of Man and for the Expulsion from Paradise (238). "\
This almost idyllic interpretation of mankind's tragedy appealed to other Northerners,
including the youthful Hans Holbein. Other artists borrowed from other pages of the Small
Passion, and still others preferred the engraved series. Here, as always, the character of a
given work may be judged by the character of those who were influenced by it.
The Engraved Passion, for instance, appealed to Andrea del Sarto, especially in his
earlier period. In his Sermon of St. John the Baptist in the Scalzi Cloister at Florence of 1515
he took over, quite literally, the monumentally impassive bystander seen in the foreground
of the engraved "Ecce Homo"; he was attracted by the strange outfit of the figure as by some-
thing "bizarre" or even exotic, but he also understood its simple, almost Masacciesque
grandeur and its compositional significance. Like Durer, he used it as a massive pier or pylon
which would consolidate the right-hand corner of the composition and would serve as a
"repoussoir" for a group of people farther back; and he retained its diagonal relation to the
main figure. But while Durer's Christ appears not only on a higher level but also in a more
distant plane, Sarto's St. John is pushed forward so as to be "in line" with the borrowed
onlooker, and the latter's weight is balanced by two figures standing in the left-hand corner
of the picture.
The Small Passion, on the other hand, had its deepest effect on artists who were con-
cerned with expression rather than with formal equilibrium. Jacopo da Pontormo's mag-
nificent insanity seized upon and exaggerated Durer's Gothicism as Sarto's reasonableness
appropriated and emphasized his classical tendencies. Pontormo's frescoes in the Certosa
di Val d'Ema draw from all the printed series of the Passion; but the emphasis is definitely
on the woodcuts. In the Lamentation only some details are reminiscent of the engraved
version while the composition as a whole appears to be inspired by the woodcut in the Large
Passion; in the fresco of Christ before Pilate Pontormo fuses motifs from the :Eilgraved and
the Small Passions into an indissolvable unity; and in the Resurrection he out-Durers Durer
in combining the contorted postures of the soldiers in the woodcut from the Small Passion
(fig. 193) with an ultra-Gothic Christ floating upward like a wisp of smoke.
The greatest posthumous triumph, however, was reserved to the woodcut Christ driving
the Money-Lenders from the Temple (243). The figure of the irate Lord falling upon the
I..
'
TURNING POINT IN 1508 .
145
desecrators with a bunch of heavy ropes was copied by young Rembrandt at a time-1635-
when he strove for drama rather than sentiment. Then Durer did for him what Pollaiuolo
and Mantegna had done for Durer.
THE SAME INNOVATIONs in style and technique that could be observed in the woodcut field
distinguish the engravings of 1507-1512 from their pre-Venetian forerunners. They, too,
changed from a "black-on-white" style to a "white-and-black-on-gray," or clair-obscur,
style; and apparently this new principle was applied to engravings even before it was
extended to woodcuts. Durer resumed burin work as early as 1507 whereas the earliest date
on a post-Venetian woodcut is 1509; and it is possible that the very idea of obtaining clair-
obscur effects by graphic methods was first suggested by the "Green Passion" which in
several instances furnished models for the engraved series.
However, the style of the one engraving of 1507, the Lamentation of Christ (fig. 186),
does not yet differ appreciably from that of 1504/05. The full force of a stylistic and
technical reorientation is felt in the engravings of 1508, two of them-the Agony in the
Garden (111) and the Betrayal of Christ (fig. 187)-belonging to the Engraved Passion
while two others-a Crucifixion (131, fig. 196) and a Virgin on the Crescent (138)-are
single prints. With the exception of the Virgin on the Crescent all these engravings of 1508
are "nocturnes," which was usual in representations of the Betrayal, but rare in renderings
of the Gethsemane scene and the Crucifixion, and altogether a novelty in prints. This very
fact bears witness to Durer's wish to put the style of his engravings, too, on a clair-obscur
basis. The later pages of the Engraved Passion include three more "nocturnes": the Cruci-
fixion ( 120 ), the Resurrection ( 124), and, what is almost unprecedented, the Bearing of
the Cross (119, fig. 189). All the other engravings of the series, except for the Lamentation
of 1507, are at least composed in such a way that the figures detach themselves from a
darkish background, whether the scene is laid indoors or in the open air.
The first example of this new style appears to be the Agony in the Garden which bears
all the earmarks of a new departure including the tendency toward overstatement. Its tech-
nique is loose, rough, impatient, in parts reminiscent of dry point rather than orthodox burin
work. An explosive radiance emanates from the Angel and the cloud whence he emerges, so
that the figure of Christ is lit up as by the glare of a floodlight; and this violence in treatment
and lighting is matched by an emotional pathos still absent from the composition of 1504
which served as a basis for the engraving (556). The earlier composition already shows Christ
throwing up both His hands in utter despair. But in the engraving the pathos of this gesture
is immeasurably enhanced. The tense figure, lengthened in proportions and enlarged in scale,
forms a sharp contrast with the recumbent form of St. Peter which :fills the previously empty
foreground; it is placed much higher and is brought into almost direct contact with the cross
proffered by the Angel. The arms of Christ are no longer encased in tight sleeves but emerge
naked-as with a scream, if one may say s o ~ f r o m ample drapery. And, most important of
all, His figure is no longer foiled by rocks but stands out against the vastness of the dark sky.
The two other "nocturnes" of 1 soB are smoother in technique and less outre in lighting,
but they also glow with a passion more intense and somber than other interpretations of the
same subjects. Like the Agony in the Garden, the Betrayal is developed from a composition
which forms part of the "Green Passion" of 1504 (523/ 566). But several significant changes
serve to shift the emphasis from the commotion of the arrest to the tragedy of the betrayal.
The number of figures is greatly reduced. Physical violence is limited to the duel between
Malchus and St. Peter-who, in addition, is invested with a Mithras-like monumentality. \
Christ is no longer seized by the arms, pulled by His coat and prodded in the back as in the
earlier version; much less is He already bound and dragged away as in the large woodcut of
1510 (227). Unconscious of the noose which threatens His neck, He bends His head and
closes His eyes to receive the kiss as though He and Judas were alone in the universe.
The most striking feature of the Crucifixion of 1 so8-the general arrangement of which
can be traced back to the painted Crucifixion in Dresden (3, f)-is the expressive figure of
St. John. Turned to full profile, he raises his arms and wrings his hands with a loud cry of
anguish, his face a tragic mask of classical Antiquity melted with the heat of Christian
passion. The model of this figure is in Mantegna's engraved Deposition where a St. John
similarly placed, similarly posed, and crying out with similar despair, is seen near the right
margin of the composition (fig. 198). But Mantegna's pathos is hard and stony compared to
Durer's. Mantegna's St.John clasps his arms against his breast instead of thrusting them out;
he stands motionless instead of pressing forward; he holds his head erect instead of tossing it
back. Above all, he appears in a Deposition staged in broad daylight and not in a nocturnal
Crucifixion. In all these respects Durer's engraving-significantly different from the
Crucifixion of 1511 which graces the Engraved Passion-reminds us of that Mathis Gothart
Nithart, whom we shall probably continue to know as Matthias Grunewald.
Grunewald was a Christian mystic-no secular representation by him is known-where
Durer, with all his piety, was essentially a humanist. He was a poet in spite of his proficiency
in hydraulic engineering, where Durer was a "scientist" in spite of his fervid imagination.
He thought in terms of light and color where Durer thought, primarily, in terms of line and
form. He was, in short, both the consummator of the German Gothic and a prophet of the
Baroque where Durer was the founder of a Northern Renaissance. Thus the same Crucifixion
which appeared pictorial and vibrant with emotion when compared to Mantegna's Deposition
seems statuesque and calm when compared to Grunewald's "Small Crucifix" in the Koenigs
Collection (fig. 197). But for a Durer engraving of 1508 it is exceptional (also in that the
arms of Christ are wrenched upward more cruelly than in any other Crucifixion by Durer)
-just as exceptional as the somber Betrayal of Christ and the spasmodically lighted Agony
in the Garden. We feel that here more than anywhere Durer approached the precincts of
Grunewald's witchery.
Further evidence of this rapprochement between Durer and Grunewald is furnished by an
extraordinary charcoal drawing which, with a certain grim humor, portrays a sharp-eyed,
hook-nosed man with an enormous double chin not unlike the dewlap of an animal ( 1043,
INFLUENCE OF GRUNEWALD'?
147
fig. 199). That it is by Durer cannot be questioned in view of a magnificent firmness and sweep
of line which brings to mind the charcoal portraits of 1503, and of the perfectly authentic,
though somewhat enigmatical inscription "Hye conrat verkell altag." Yet it is understandable
that it should have been ascribed to Grunewald. For, while the structural forms are determined
by firm and definitely graphic lines, the flesh shows a certain flabbiness-resulting from a
profusion of fleeting, blurry shadows and reflected lights-which is peculiar to Grunewald's
studies of heads. Moreover, the face is marked by an asymmetrical distortion which is as
characteristic of Grunewald as it is normally foreign to Durer (see fig. 200).
Like the Agony in the Garden, the Betrayal and the single Crucifixion, this drawing bears
the date 1508; and this year-the year which marks that basic change in Durer's graphic style
-is, curiously enough, one which may have brought him into a new and more momentous
contact with Grunewald's art.
The Heller altarpiece, we remember, was a triptych with movable shutters. But for some
reason, perhaps in order to scret:n off the light which came from the rear, it was subsequently
provided with fixed wings as well. Each of these wings was composed of two panels en
grisaille, placed one above the other so as to match the composition of the shutters; and the
two panels which have come down to us-a St. Lawrence and a St. Cyriacus-fully confirm
Joachim Sandrart's assertion that the painter commissioned with this addition to Durer's
most sumptuous altarpiece was none other than Grunewald. Grunewald was then residing in
Seligenstadt (about fifteen miles east of Frankfort), but he was also active in Mayence
(about twenty miles west of Frankfort), as well as in Frankfort itself.
These four panels were probably not executed until 1512 when Grunewald stayed with
the Dominicans at Frankfort for a time. We do not know whether Durer was ever consulted
about the matter, nor can we be sure that he himself had to Frankfort to see Jacob
Heller while he was working for him. However, one of his letters to Heller does contain a
few passages which may be construed as a reference to such a visit; and if this visit really took
place it could have been only in September or October 1508. Thus it is not impossible, though
far from demonstrable, that Diirer had another occasion to be impressed by Grunewald's
artistic personality precisely at a time when the content of his prints seems to reveal the
impact of a strong emotional experience, and when their style suddenly changed toward
luminarism and tonality. It is tempting to think that this crisis was precipitated by a new
encounter with his antipode.
However that may be, the change in Durer's graphic style took place in 1508, and the
engravingsoriginally led the woodcuts. But in the further course of evolution the "spirit of
the burin" proved to be somewhat recalcitrant. As we have seen, the very nature of line
engraving-calls for analy.tical precision, curvilinear calligraphy, and emphasis on plastic
modelling. As it plows into the revolving copper plate, the graver of necessity produces
incisive lines which tend to be marshalled in brderly fashion, which stress the undulation of
the contours, and which enclasp, as it were, the plastic forms with circular arcs. This innate
character of the medium offers a natural resistance to luminaristic tendencies, and of this
Durer was fully aware. The Agony in the Garden, where he had sacrificed the graphic system
at the altar of pictorialism, is an exception, explicable only by the enthusiasm of a new depar-
ture. In general, Durer tried to reconcile his new luminarism with the demands of orthodox
line engraving, but he refused a compromise at the expense of intensity. He wanted to
achieve, at the same time, a maximum of both pictorial and graphic values, and the result was
what a musician would call "over-orchestration." The engravings produced between 1508 and
1512 are marvelously rich but somewhat labored. They are crowded with sharply delineated
details-so much so, in fact, that the structure of the whole is at times obscured-and yet an
attempt is made at suggesting something like atmosphere. The plastic volumes are heavily and
rigidly modelled, so that even human flesh seems to assume a marmoreal or metallic hardness,
and yet an equally strong emphasis is placed on the surface texture of different materials. The
contrasts between light and dark are stressed to such an extent that the lights begin to flicker
or to glare while the shadows tend to turn opaque. The network of lines, strokes and dots
appears too dense in some places and too loose in others and at times verges on confusion. ~
Durer was great enough to force these conflicting elements into a unity exciting just by virtue '
of its interior tensions. But he was also great enough to see that he could proceed no further
in the same direction. He felt that his style of engraving needed what in political life would
be called a "purge."
This "purge" took place in 1512 when the conflict between pictorial and graphic principles
had reached a climax in such engravings as the Bearing of the Cross. In an effort to find an
outlet for those tendencies which had proved to be incongruous with the "spirit of the burin,"
Durer resorted to a technique which he had strenuously avoided for almost twenty years: he
took up dry point.
As will be remembered the dry point artist is free from all the restrictions which are
imposed upon the line engraver. Dry point permits, and even demands, improvisation and
irregularity where line engraving requires meticulosity and systematization. It is conducive
to strong contrasts between slight scratches which, when accumulated, may give an almost
impressionistic effect and vigorous slashes which, if the bur is not polished away, will produce
deep, soft shadows. In short, it lends itself most willingly to those pictorial tendencies in
which the burin can only indulge at the expense of its innate principles and virtues. Thus we
can understand why Durer, after having strained the medium of Schongauer to the very
limits of its possibilities, had recourse to the medium of the Housebook Master.
Durer's dry points are only three in number. Two of them, a Man of Sorrows and the
St. Jerome by a Pollard Willow, are dated 1512. The third, a Holy Family, is not quite
finished and neither dated nor signed (ultimately Durer tried to destroy the plate altogether
by an angry stroke across the face of the Virgin), but was almost certainly executed in the
same year.
The Man of Sorrows ( 128) seems to be the earliest of these three prints. It is simple in
composition, small in size-Durer may have used one of the plates prepared for the Engraved
Passion-and somewhat timid in treatment. Durer still hesitated to apply much pressure to
THE THREE DRY POINTS OF 1512 149
the tool; and the bur was polished away as in a regular line engraving. The print is delicate
and full of tender feeling but, even in good impressions, a little pale.
In the St. Jerome ( 166, fig. 202) the possibilities of the new medium are fully exploited. -
The lighted objects, particularly the lion, the face and arms of the Saint, and the Cardinal's
robe spread over his improvised desk, stand out from a rocky landscape, the elements of which
are interpreted in terms of tonal values rather than of plastic form. In the earlier proofs
Durer even resorted to a somewhat unorthodox device to strengthen the impression of tonality.
After having inked and wiped the plate he put on a thin film of printer's ink wherever he
wished to obtain a kind of wash effect ("Plattenton"). But above all he had learned to take
advantage of those contrasts between delicacy and vigor which are the royal prerogative of
dry point. The face and body of the Saint are modelled with fine little touches, and the
volume of his crucifix seems almost to dissolve within the surrounding brightness. But such
details as the stubbly branches of the polled willow, the cavities of the rocks, and the shaded
parts of the fluffy lion's coat are accentuated by slashing strokes which produce plenty of bur
(compare fig. 203 with fig. 204). In good impressions-which are, of course, extremely rare
because of the tendency of the bur to wear off very quickly-the effect of these deep, downy
blacks amidst volatile whites and grays heralds what Rembrandt was to do in such pure dry
points as the Clump of Trees with a Vista of 1652.
The Holy Family (150, fig. 201) is, perhaps not by accident, somewhat reminiscent of
the "Virgin with the Dragonfly" (fig. 92), which in turn was influenced by Durer's only
forerunner in the use of dry point, the Housebook Master. In both cases the Virgin Mary is
seated on a grassy bench while St. Joseph, sitting on the ground behind it, is only half visible.
But he is neither playful nor sleepy. Dignified and grave, he looks like a gloomy Prophet
instead of playing his more usual pathetic or even slightfy ludicrous role. He is indeed
interpreted as a seer of tragedy, for he-and not the smiling Virgin-perceives the three
mysterious figures which have emerged behind the group of Mother and Child. They are St.
John the Evangelist, Nicodemus, and the Magdalen with her ointment jar-the witnesses
of the Passion. They fill the whole upper right-hand corner of the composition while the
upper left-hand corner is empty except for the unfinished landscape; and this almost Baroque
diagonal is echoed and emphasized by a piece of masonry which rises by steps from left to
right, its lowest section being taller than the huddled figure of St. Joseph while its tallest
section is lower than the tight, columnar group of the "witnesses."
The graphic technique of this print is as bold and free as its design and iconography. Bur
and ";plattenton" are used freely, but parts such as the heads of St. John and Nicodemus are
. so attenuated in volume that they give a truly plein-air effect. In the face of St. John not only
the phlst!c modelling but also the outlines are subdued in favor of a gentle play of light and
shade, and the face of the Virgin, built up from innumerable tiny flicks and scratches, has
practically no contours at all. Here Durer approaches, for once, the Leonardesque ideal of
sfumato; his Virgin, in fact, brings to mind Leonardo's St. Ann in the Louvre.
From this brief orgy of luminarism Durer emerged with what may be called his second
"classic" burin style. As the engravings of 1503/04 had achieved perfection by tempering the
miniature-like refinement of the St. Eustace and the Nemesis with the coarser but more
ingenuous spirit of his earlier manner, so the engravings of 1513/14 regained perfection by
disciplining the conflicting tendencies of the Engraved Passion and its relatives to a purely
graphic mode of expression. This does not mean that Durer renounced the clair-obscur, or
tonal, principle which he had adopted in 1508. It is, on the contrary, within the limits of this
principle that he reinstated that economy, clarity, and uniform density which had distin-
guished the Coat-of-Arms with the Skull or the Fall of Man.
This tendency to obviate the dangers of the preceding phase without forfeiting its accom
plishments is already evident in an engraving like the Sudariv.m of 1513 (132) which, like
the Coat-of-Arms with the Skull of 1503, is definitely heraldic in character. Two adolescent
Angels, balanced with almost perfect symmetry, yet subtly differentiated in pose and gesture, "7
display the kerchief with the imprint of the Holy Face which-clearly built up from the
elements of Durer's own physiognomy-fastens its eyes on the beholder with hypnotic
intensity. The Angels, apparently supported by the billowing folds of their surplices rather
than by their half-closed wings, hover in the void, and this void is indicated by horizontal
hatchings which spread a veil of gray over the entire background. But this emphatic clair-
obscur effect no longer seems to endanger the strictly graphic character. Durer achieved a
greater uniformity of the lines in thickness and spacing so that he could exploit their tonal
significance without either weakening or overstating their calligraphic effect. Even the deepest
shadows remain transparent, and even the highest lights are not too harsh because the accents
of light and dark are more subtly graded, more evenly distributed and more carefully bal-
anced against each other than in the engravings of 15o8-1512.
The acme of perfection-perfection inasmuch as Durer succeeded in fusing widely diver-
gent tendencies without a sacrifice of either harmony, as in the preceding years, or concreteness
and variety, as in later years-was reached in 1514. Compared with the vivid Virgin with the
Pear of 1511 ( 148) on the one hand, and with the stony Virgin with the Swaddled Infant
of 1520 ( 145,/ig. 251) on the other, the Virgin by theW all ( 147) represents indeed a perfect
coincidence of apparent opposites. Regal and virginal, yet humble and motherly, the Virgin
Mary is depicted in an environment in which a sense of sheltered intimacy blends with the
freedom of the open spaces. The utmost precision of design is combined with an incomparable
softness of texture. The lines and strokes, while fulfilling the difficult and varied tasks of
modelling form, of indicating direction (as the converging hatchings of the foreshortened
walls and the parallel hatchings of the sloping roof), of suggesting luminary values, and of
characterizing surface qualities (as in the woolen stuff and silken lining of the Virgin's
mantle), yet maintain what may be called their graphic integrity. The deepest shadows, like
the ones above the Virgin's right knee and beneath her neat "Hausfrau's" purse, are so small
in compass and so softly embedded amidst other areas of varying darkness that they do not
KNIGHT, DEATH AND DEVIL
impair the impression of perfect transparency and homogeneity. The whole engraving, though
far from being lusterless, shimmers with the soft, cool tones of mat silver.
IN THE YEARs 1513 and 1514 the production of woodcuts and paintings ceased altogether,
but in addition to the four engravings already mentioned (Sts. John and Peter Healing the
Lame, the Sudarium, the Virgin with the Pear, and the Virgin by theW all) Durer produced
nine others. Six of these are small in size and unambitious in content: the Virgin by the Tree,
a Virgin on the Crescent, and the Bag-Piper (142, 140, and 198, all of them of the same
format as the Engraved Passion and probably engraved on plates prepared in this connec-
tion); the Couple of Peasants Dancing ( 197); and the first two of a series of Apostles which
was never completed, St. Paul (157) and St. Thomas (155). The three r;maining engrav-
ings, however, are not only exceptionally large in size-about 7 by 10 inches-and meticu-
lously careful in execution, but also complex and significant in iconography. They are Durer's
most famous engravings and, not unjustly, known as his "Meisterstiche": the Knight, Death
and Devz'l, the St. Jerome in His Study, and the Melencolia I, the former of 1513, the two
others of 1514.
These three "Master Engravings," though approximately equal in format, have no ap-
preciable compositional relationship with one another and can thus hardly be considered as
"companion pieces" in any technical sense. Yet they form a spiritual unity in that they sym-
bolize three ways of life which correspond, as Friedrich Lippmann pointed out, to the scholas-
tic classification of the virtues as moral, theological and intellectual. The Knight, Death and
Devil typifies the life of the Christian in the practical world of decision and action; the St.
Jerome the life of the Saint in the spiritual world of sacred contemplation; and the Melen
eolia I the life of the secular genius in the rational and imaginative worlds of science and art.
Durer's awareness of the fact that the first of ti1ese three prints, the Knight, Death and
Devil (205, fig. 207), was an important enterprise is again manifested by the special form of
the signature. The figure 1513 is preceded by an "S.," an abbreviation of the word "Salus"
which occurs, identically'placed, in the date lines of Durer's first drafts for an Introduction to
his Treatise on Human Proportions, composed in 1512 and 1513.
In the Diary of his journey to the Netherlands Durer refers to the engraving simply as the
"Reuter" ("the Horseman"). But in the same Diary we find a passage which furnishes a clue
to its interpretation. Grieved and incensed by the unfounded rumors of Luther's assassination,
Durer jotted down, amidst the records of his daily work and expenses, a magnificent outburst
against the Papists which culminates in a passionate appeal to Erasmus of Rotterdam: "0
E r a s m ~ Roderodame, where wilt thou take thy stand'? Look, of what avail is the unjust
.. tyranny of worldly might and the powers of darkness'? Hark, thou Knight of Christ [ du
Ritte; Ch;'isti], ride forth at the side of Christ our Lord, protect the truth, obtain the crown
of the Martyrs!" No doubt the phrase "du Ritter Christi" alludes to Erasmus's youthful
treatise Enchiridion militis Christiani ("Handbook of the Christian Soldier") which had been
composed in 1501 and was first published in 1504. But that Durer promoted the Erasmian
"soldier" (miles, not eques) to a "knight" riding forth on horseback shows that his mind
involuntarily associated him with the hero of his own engraving.
The comparison between the Christian facing a hostile world and the soldier preparing
himself for battle can be traced back to St. Paul who speaks of the spiritual weapons of "our
warfare" (II Cor., x, 3) and urges the faithful to arm themselves with the "armor of God,"
the "breastplate of righteousness," the "shield of faith," and the "helmet of salvation"
(Ephes., vi, 11-17; see also I Thess., v, 8). It remained popular in medieval writing and also
found its way into fifteenth century woodcuts. In these the Christian Soldier is generally
depicted singly while the personifications of Death and Devil are found in representations of
a closely related theme, that of the Christian Pilgrim. The two ideas intermingled, however,
and a complete fusion of Soldier's March and Pilgrim's Progress, with the time-honored simile
of the ladder serving as a common denominator, is seen in woodcuts and etchings of the six-
teenth century where the miles Christianus climbs the ladder which leads to God, hampered -"7
but not discouraged by the strings of Death, Luxury, Disease, and Poverty.
In Erasmus's Enchiridion these traditional concepts are interpreted in the spirit of
humanism. He clothes his thoughts in the of beautiful Latin; he takes his examples
from Greek and Roman literature as well as from Scripture, "for we must love the classics
for the sake of Christ"; and he rejects the "theologians" in favor of the "sources." But above
all he humanizes the idea of Christianity as such. He preaches purity and piety, but not
monasticism and intolerance; and he spurns sin not only as something forbidden by God but
even more as something incompatible with the "dignity of man."
This book could not supply an artist with suggestions for iconographical details. But it
could reveal to him the idea of a Christian faith so virile, clear, serene and strong that the
dangers and temptations of the world simply cease to be real: "In order that you may not be
deterred from the path of virtue because it seems rough and dreary, because you may have to
renounce the comforts of the world, and because you must constantly fight three unfair ene-
mies, the flesh, the devil and the world, this third rule shall be proposed to you: All those
spooks and phantoms [ terricula et phantasmal a] which come upon you as in the very gorges of
Hades must be deemed for nought after the example of Virgil's Aeneas."
This is precisely what Durer expressed in his engraving: unlike all other representations
of similar subjects, the enemies of man do not appear to be real. They are not foes to be con-
quered but, indeed, "spooks and phantoms" to be ignored. The Rider passes them as thougP,
they were not there and quietly pursues his course, "fixing his eyes steadily and intensely on
the thing itself," to quote Erasmus again. How did Durer contrive to create this
It has long been observed that the equestrian figure-almost a symbol of Durer's art and
mentality-is composed of two disparate elements: one German, Late Gothic, and "natural-
istic"; the other Italian, High Renaissance, and stylized in accordance with a "classic" canon
of pose and proportions. The armored knight was taken over from a costume study of 1498
(1227) which was, however, adapted to the new purpose by minor yet. significant changes.
The simple sergeant's face of the original model was replaced by a stern mask of concentrated
KNIGHT, DEATH AND DEVIL
153
energy and almost sardonic self-assurance, and the perspective of the helmet was altered in
favor of a di sotto in sit effect which strengthens the impression of tallness and superiority.
The horse, on the other hand, is patterned after one (or more) of Leonardo's studies for the
monument of Francesco Sforza. Its proportions are remodelled according to a canon of
Durer's own invention (see the drawings 1674-1676), but its gait retains more of the Italian
rhythm than is the case in the Small Horse of 1505 (fig. 125) or the drawing Death on
Horseback of the same year (fig. 147). In contrast with these earlier instances not only the
nearforeleg but also the off hind leg are raised and bent, and the movement of the latter was
even intensified by a last-minute correction still recognizable in the engraving.
This monumental Horseman-his general appearance somewhat reminiscent of Burgk-
mair's well-known equestrian portrait of Maximilian I in a woodcut of 1 5o8, which was in
turn derived from Durer's Small Horse-is set out against a background of forbidding rocks
and bare trees with his ultimate goal, the unconquerable "fortress of Virtue," still far off at
the end of a steep, winding road. From the gloom of this "rough and dreary" scenery
there emerge the figures of Death and the Devil. As in the drawing of 1505, Death wears
a regal crown and is mounted on a meager, listless jade with a cowbell; but he is even
ghastlier in that he is not depicted as' an actual skeleton but as a decaying corpse
with sad eyes, no lips and no nose, his head and neck encircled by snakes. He sidles up to the
Rider and tries in vain to frighten him by holding up an hourglass while the swine-snouted
Devil sneaks up behind him with a pickaxe. The Rider, on the other hand, is accompanied by
a handsome, long-haired retriever whose presence completes the allegory. As the armored man
personifies Christian faith, so the eager and quick-scented dog denotes three less fundamental
yet no less necessary virtues: untiring zeal, learning and truthful reasoning. In the capacity
of "zealous endeavor" he accompanies the Christian Pilgrim on his journey through life; as a
symbol of "sacred letters" he occurs in a treatise on hieroglyphs which Durer illustrated
precisely in 1512/13 (see the drawing 970 and our fig. 228); and as "Veritas" he helps the
huntress "Logica" to catch the hare "Problema."
It has been contended that all these additions were harmful to the aesthetic effect of
Durer's engraving. His original intention, it was argued, was "to represent a horse with a
man thereon," and he would have done better to refrain from justifying this intention by an
iconographical program: "No one can doubt for a moment that the accompanying figures are
merely tacked on, and that the whole is a compromise." But the attempt at reinstating the
original beauty of the composition by "blacking out" the whole background defeats its own
purpose ... It shows that the "many odds and ends" are indispensable, not only from the point
of view of subject matter but also from the point of view .of form and content. It is quite true
that Durer.,. was anxious to find a subject which would permit him to demonstrate the final
results of his studies in the anatomy, movements, and proportions of the horse. But he would
not have been a great qrtist had he conceived of this problem in terms of detachable
accessories. Once he had discovered his theme in the idea of the Christian Knight the visual
of the perfect horseman merged with the mental image of the perfect miles Christianus
into an artistic concept, that is to say, an integral unity. The iconography of the Christian
154
Knight took shape according to the pattern of a carefully equestrian
while, conversely, this formal pattern assumed, as such, an express1ve or even symbohc
significance.
Based as it is on accumulated research and observation, Durer's equestrian group bears
all the earmarks of a scientific paradigm. The horse is represented in full profile so as to show
off its perfect proportions; it is emphatically modelled so as to. reveal its perfect anatomy;
and it moves with the regulated step of the riding-school so as to give a demonstration of
perfect rhythm. With the background obliterated, Durer's engraving thus looks like a stiff
and over-elaborated imitation of an equestrian statue a la Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio and
Leonardo da Vinci. With the background retained, the compositional structure of the
main group is not only enhanced by what may be called a visual counterpoint-note
the use of foreshortened forms versus full profile, of diagonals versus horizontals and ---::>
verticals-but also endowed with a definite meaning. Contrasted with the twilight and the
specters of a Northern forest, the very articulateness and plastic tangibility of this moving
monument suggests an existence more solid and real than that of Death and the Devil who
appear as little more than shadows of the wilderness. Contrasted with their futile attempts to
attract the Rider's attention, the very fact that man, horse, and dog are represented in pure
profile convinces us that none of them is even aware of the presence of danger and thus
expresses the idea of imperturbability. And contrasted with the jerky obsequiousness of the
Devil and the pitiful weakness of Death and his worn-out horse, the measured gait of the
powerful charger conveys the idea of unconquerable progress.
Thus it is just by combining a highly formalized equestrian group with a fantastically
haunted wilderness that Durer was able to do justice to the Erasmian ideal of a Christian
fortitude which reduces the enemies of mankind to "spooks and phantoms." If his engraving
needed a caption this caption could be found in the Biblical motto which Erasmus suggests to
the miles Christian us: "Non est fas respicere" ("Look not behind thee").
While the Christian Knight goes out into the cold, dark and perilous maze of the world,
the Christian Scholar and Thinker, as typified in Durer's St. Jerome (167, 208), lives in
the warm, bright and peaceful seclusion of a well-ordered study. The room is a real cell,
separated from an adjoining one by a partition which cuts right into one of the round-topped,
mullioned windows piercing the south wall of a cloister. It is a very simple room, yet thor-
oughly pleasant, provided not only with the necessities but also with the small comforts. of a
devout and scholarly life. When Lucas Cranach portrayed the Cardinal Albrecht of Branden-
burg in the guise of Durer's St. Jerome (paintings in Darmstadt and Sarasota) he felt obliged
to enrich the milieu by such luxuries as velvet covers, colorful animals and hot-house fruit;
but these additions all but destroy the atmosphere of the original setting. This atmosphere
can only be described by two untranslatable German words, "gemutlich" and "stimmungs-
voll." Such words as "snug" or "cozy" may express the feeling of intimacy, warmth
and protectedness which pervades St. Jerome's sanctum, suffused as it is with a mellow sun-
light in which even the skull on the window-sill looks friendly rather than terrifying. But
ST. JEROME IN HIS STUDY
155
they do not adequately suggest what may be called i!s spiritual climate. The threshold of the
room is blocked by St. Jerome's lion who, dozing with contented boredom, yet keep_s a drowsily
suspicious eye on possible intrusions from the outer world. A little dog is fast asleep, one of its
feet in friendly contact with the lion's paw. The Saint himself is working at the far end of
the room, which in itself gives the impression of remoteness and peace. His little desk is
placed on a large table which otherwise holds nothing but an inkpot and a crucifix. Engrossed
in his writing, he is blissfully alone with his thoughts, with his animals, and with his God.
It is, however, not only by the magic of light and by the empathic realization of human
and animal nature that Durer transformed the cell of St. Jerome into a place of enchanted
beatitude. He also exploited the psychological possibilities of a method which, one would
think, is almost inimical to psychological expression, namely, exact geometrical perspective.
The construction of the picture space, impeccably correct from a mathematical point of view,
is characterized, first, by the extreme shortness of t'he perspective distance which, if the room
were drawn to natural scale, would amount to only about four feet; second, by the lowness
of the horizon which is determined by the eye level of the seated Saint; third, by the eccentric
position of the vanishing point which is little more than half a centimeter from the right
margin. The shortness of the distance, combined with the lowness of the horizon, strengthens
the feeling of intimacy. The beholder finds himself placed quite close to the threshold of the
study proper on one of the steps which lead up to it. Unnoticed by the busy Saint, and not
intruding upon his privacy, we yet share his living space and feel like unseen friendly visitors
rather than distant observers. The eccentricity of the vanishing point, on the other hand,
prevents the small room from looking cramped and box-like because the north wall is not
visible; it gives greater prominence to the play of light on the embrasures of the windows;
and it suggests the experience of casually entering a private room rather than of facing an
artificially arranged stage.
And yet everything in this informal and unpretentious room is subject to a mathematical
principle. The apparently irreducible impression of order and security which is the very
signature of Durer's St. Jerome can be accounted for, at least in part, by the fact that the
position of the objects freely distributed about the room is no less firmly determined by
elementary perspective construction than if they were attached to the walls. They are either
placed frontally like the writing table of St. Jerome, the animals, the books, and the skull
on the window sill; or orthogonally like the "cartellino" with Durer's signature; or at an
angle of precisely forty-five degrees like the little bench on the Saint's left. Even the slippers
beneath the window-seat are arranged so that one is almost parallel and the other exactly at
right angles to the picture plane.
This regularity might seem dry or even pedantic were it not softened, or indeed con-
cealed, by the delightful gambol of light and shade. Space and light constitute a perfect
balance of stability and oscillation. Yet even the most pictorial effects are obtained by rigor-
ously graphic methods. From a technical point of view the St. Jerome-in this respect superior
to the Knight, Death and Devil in the same sense and to the same degree that 'the Virgin by
the Wall (147) is superior to the Virgin by the Tree of 1513 (142)-is a ne plus ultra of
consistency, clearness and, above all, economy. A maximum of effect is achieved with a mini-
mum of effort and complication, as can be seen, for instance, in the shadows cast upon the
window embrasures by the latticed windows (fig. 205). The phenomenon is as pictorial and
subtle as the treatment is graphic and simple: the "hull's eyes" themselves are rendered by
outlines without hatchings, and their shadows by short horizontal hatchings without outlines.
That is all.
The St. Jerome differs from the Knight, Death and Devil in that it opposes the ideal of
the "vita contemplativa" to that of the "vita activa." But it differs much more emphatically
from the Melencolia I ( 181, fig. 209) in that it opposes a life in the service of God to what'::')
may be called a life in competition with God-the peaceful bliss of divine wisdom to the
tragic unrest of human creation. While the St. Jerome and the Knight, Death and Devil
illustrate two opposite methods of reaching a common objective, the St. Jerome and the
Melencolia I express two antithetical ideals. That Durer conceived of these two prints as spir-
itual "counterparts" within the triad of the "Meisterstiche" can be concluded from the fact
that he was in the habit of giving them away together and that collectors looked at and dis-
cussed them side by side. No less than six copies were disposed of as pairs while only one
copy of the Melencolia I was given away singly and no impression of the, Knight, Death and
Devil changed hands together with either of the two other prints.
The two compositionsoffer, indeed, a contrast too perfect to be accidental. While the St.
Jerome is comfortably installed at his writing desk, the winged Mehincholia sits in a crouch-
ing position, not unlike that of the Job in the "Jabach altarpiece" (fig. 112), on a low slab
of stone by an unfinished building. While he is secluded in his warm, sunlit study she is placed
in a chilly and lonely spot notfar from the sea, dimly illuminated by the light of the moon-
as can be inferred from the cast-shadow of the hourglass on the wall-and by the lurid gleam
of a comet which is encirCled by a lunar rainbow. While he shares his cell with his contented,
well-fed animals, she is accompanied by a morose little putto who, perched on a disused grind-
stone, scribbles something on a slate, and by a half-starved, shh;ering hound. And while he is
serenely absorbed in his theological work, she has lapsed into a state of gloomy inaction.
Neglectful of her attire, with dishevelled hair, she rests her head on her hand and with the
other mechanically holds a compass, her forearm resting on a closed book. Her eyes are raised
in a lowering stare.
The state of mind of this unhappy genius is reflected by her paraphernalia whose bewilder-
ing disorder offers, again, an eloquent contrast to the neat and arrangement of St.
Jerome's belongings. Attached to the unfinished building are a pair of scales, an hourglass,
and a bell under which a so-called magic square is let into the wall.; leaning against the
masonry is a wooden ladder which seems to emphasize the incompleteness of the edifice. The
ground is littered with tools and objects mostly pertaining to the crafts of architecture and
carpentry. In addition to the grindstone already mentioned, we find: a plane, a saw, a ruler,
a pair of pincers, some crooked nails, a molder's form, a hammer, a small melting pot (per-
I
I
"MELENCOLIA I"
157
haps for melting lead) with a pair of tongs to hold the burning coals, an inkpot with a pen-
box; and, half hidde? beneath the skirt of the Melancholia, an instrument- which can be
identified-on the basis of a woodcut by Hans Doring-as the mouth of a pair of bellows.
Two objects seem to be not so much tools as symbols or emblems of the scientific principle
which underlies the arts of architecture and carpentry: a turned sphere of wood and a trun-
cated rhombo-hedron of stone. Like the hourglass, the pair of scales, the magic square, and the
compass, these symbols or emblems bear witness to the fact that the terrestrial craftsman, like
the "Architect of the Universe," applies in his work the rules of mathematics, that is, in the
language of Plato and the Book of Wisdom, of "measure, number and weight."
In usage, melancholy means, to quote from the Oxford Dictionary, "mental
depressiOn, lack of cheerfulness; tendency to low spirits and brooding; depressing influence of
a place, etc." However, when Durer composed his engraving the expression could not yet have
been used as of a transient mood, much less of the gloomy emanation of a locality. In order
understand the "Melencolia !"\inscribed on wings of a squeaking bat-we must,
recall to mmd that theory of the \four humors'\ which has already been touched upon
m connection with Durer's interpretations of the Fall of Man./This theory, fully developed
the end of classical Antiquity, was based on the that both the body and the
mmd of man were conditioned by four basic fluids which in turn were supposed to be coessen- -
tial with the four elements, the four winds (or directions of space), the four seasons, the four
times of day, and the four phases of life.'9wler, or yellow gall, was associated with the
element of iixe and was believed to share the latter's qualities of heat and dryness. It was thus
held C<?rrespond to thehot and dry Eurus, to summer, to midday, and to the age of manly
matunty.PJ1legm, on the other hand, was supposed to be moist and cold like water and was
connected with the wind Auster, with winter, with night, and,with old

and warm, equated with,.e.i.ri!nd was likened to the pleasant Zephyr, to spring, to morning,
to youth. The m_elancholy humor, finally-the name deriving from Greek fLE A.atva
black gall-was supposed to be coessential with earth and to be dry and cold; it
related to the rough Boreas, to autumn, evening, and an age of about sixty. Durer himself
has this cosmological scheme in one of his woodcuts for Conrad Celtes (350, fig.
":hich from original tradition only in that the melancholy humor is identified
w:rth wmter mstead of With autumn, and the phlegmatic with autumn instead of with winter
-;-:-an understandable concession to the climatic difference between Germany and ancient
Greece.
In a.n ideal or absolutely healthy human being these four humors would be perfectly
balanced so that none would predominate over the others. But such a human being would be
a_!ld free from sin, and we kno"f<that both theseadvantageswere irretrievably-for-
feited the Man. In one of the four humors prevails o\'er the
others m every Individual, and this determmes his or her entire personality. Apart from the
fact that each of the asserts itself, quite generally, according the course of the year,
the day and the human life-we still speak of "sanguine youth" or "the melancholy. of
autumn"-every man, woman and child is constitutionally either a sanguine, or a choleric, or
a melancholic, or a phlegmatic. These four types differ from one another in every possible
respect. Each of them is marked by a peculiar physical habitus-slender or stout, tender or
tough, robust or delicate; by the color of hair, eyes and skin (the word "complexion" derives, ~
in fact, from the Latin word for "humoral mixture" or "temperament"); by a susceptibility
to specific diseases; and, above all, by characteristic moral and intellectual qualities. The
phlegmatic is inclined to other vices-and, conversely, is capable of other virtues-than the
choleric; he behaves differently toward his fellow-men, he is suited to a different set of pro-
fessions, and he has a different philosophy of life.
As long as the predominance of any one humor keeps within reasonable bounds the mind
and body of the individual is merely qualified in this peculiar way. But if his humor gets out
of control-either by an excessive increase in quantity which may occur for a variety of
reasons, or by a deterioration in quality which may be caused by inflammation, chill or
"adustion"-he ceases to be a normal or "natural" phlegmatic, melancholic, etc. He falls
sick and may ultimately die; we still speak of "melancholy" and "cholera" as mental or
physical diseases.
Obviously the four humors or temperaments could not be considered as equally desirable.
The sanguine temperament, associated with air, spring, morning and youth, was, and in some
measure still is, regarded as the most auspicious one. Favored with a well-knit body and a
ruddy complexion, the sanguine seemed to surpass all other types in natural cheerfulness,
sociability, generosity and talents of all description; even his faults, a certain weakness for
wine, good food and love, were of 'the amiable and pardonable kind. Blood is, after all, a
nobler and healthier fluid than the two kinds of gall or phlegm. We remember that certain
theorists considered the sanguine temperament as the original, or perfectly balanced, condi-
tion of man; and even after this ideal equilibrium had been destroyed by the sin of Adam the
predominance of the blood was much preferred to any of the other alternatives.
As the sanguine condition was greeted as the most fortunate, so the melancholic was hated
and feared as the worst. When excessively augmented, inflamed, or otherwise disturbed, the
black gall causes the most dreaded of all diseases, insanity; this disease can befall anybody,
but the melancholies by nature are its most likely prey. And even without a downright patho-
logical disturbance the natural or constitutional melancholies-generally considered as
pessime complexionati ("the most ill-mixtured")-are both unfortunate and disagreeable.
Thin and swarthy, the melancholic is -"awkward, miserly, spiteful, greedy, malicious,
cowardly, faithless, irreverent and drowsy." He is "surly, sad, forgetful, lazy and sluggish";
he shuns the company of his fellow-men and despises the opposite sex; and his only redeeming
feature-and even this is frequently omitted from the texts-is a certain inclination for
solitary study. )
Before Durer, pictorial representations of melancholy were chiefly found, first, in tech-
nical treatises on medicine; second, in popular books or broad-sheets which dealt with the
theory of the four humors, especially in manuscript or printed Calendars. In the medical
"MELENCOLIA I"
159
books melancholy was discussed as a disease, and the main purpose of the illustrations was to
show different methods of treatment-how melancholy derangement could be cured by music,
or by flogging, or by cauterization (fig. 211) ,, In the popular broad-sheets, Calendars and
"Complexbiichlein," on the other hand, the Melancholic was depicted not as a pathological
case but as a type of human nature. He appeared within a series of four figures or scenes
intended to bring out the more or less desirable but, each in its way, perfectly "normal"
features of the Four Temperaments.
We have said "four figures or scenes" because the representations of the Four Tempera-
ments fall, roughly speaking, into two classes, one of a purely descriptive, the other of a
scenic or dramatic character.
In illustrations of the descriptive type (which ultimately derive from Hellenistic cycles
representing the Four Ages of Man) each temperament is typified by one figure only. These
four figures-usually on foot, but occasionally on horseback-are differentiated according
to age, social status, and profession. In the woodcut illustrated in fig. 214, for instance, the
sanguine temperament is represented by a youthful, fashionable falconer who walks on a
band of clouds and stars which indicates his congeniality with the element- of air. The
Phlegmatic-always hard to characterize because, as was already observed by Galen, his
humor does not make for "characteristic" qualities-appears as a fattish burgher who stands
in a pool of water, holding a rosary. The Choleric is a warlike man of about forty briskly
walking through fire; to show his irascible temper he brandishes a sword and a stool. The
Melancholic, finally, is depicted as an elderly, cheerless miser standing on the solid ground.
Leaning against a locked desk the top of which is all but covered with coins, he gloomily
rests his head on his right hand while with his left he grasps the purse hanging from his belt.
In illustrations of the scenic or dramatic type the four temperaments are typified by
couples. As a rule, there is some indication of the elements, but the figures themselves are not
differentiated as to age, social standing and occupation. They reveal their temperament only
by their behavior, and it is interesting to note that they do this by reenacting scenes originally
used for the characterization of vices. During the high Middle Ages the types of human
behavior had been studied and depicted not for their own sake but with reference to the
system of moral theology. They were not illustrated in secular monographs but, under the
guise of Vices, in the reliefs of such Cathedrals. as Chartres, Paris, and Amiens, or in the minia-
tures of such moral treatises as the Somme le Roi. Toward the end of the Middle Ages these
moralistic patterns were gradually converted into characterological specimens, the accent on
good a r i ~ evil being lessened and ultimately abolished. Many a trait in Chaucer's "Canterbury
Tales" derives from the negative examples adduced in sermons of the twelfth and thirteenth
J:enturies, ~ p d many a "Fool" in Sebastian Brant's Narrenschyff had originally been-and to
the surly author's mind still was-a reprehensible sinner. Thus, when a fifteenth century artist
sought models which he might use for a dramatic instead of a merely descriptive representa-
tion of the Four Temperaments he had nothing to turn to except the traditional types of the
Vices.
160
In this way the dramatic interpretation of the sanguine temperament, as found in several
illuminated manuscripts and printed Calendars, reverts to the high medieval picture of
Luxury. As in the Luxuria relief at Ami ens Cathedral, the Sanguines are depicted as a couple
clasped in a fervent embrace (figs. 216 and 217). Similarly the choleric temperament is
exemplified by a man striking and kicking a woman, which is merely a transformation of
what at Amiens Cathedral had been a representation of Discord. Now, as the main charac-
teristic of the melancholy man in popular medieval writing was glumness and drowsiness, his
type was modelled upon the pattern of Sloth or "Acedia." This pattern-freely employed, as
we remember, in Durer's "Dream of the Doctor" (fig. g8)- is based on the idea of the sinful
sleep, the pictures showing a farmer asleep by his plow, a burgher asleep by a crucifix to which
he ought to pray, a woman asleep by her distaff; the last of these three types (figs. 103 and
210) was so popular that Sebastian Brant adopted it for his "Fulheit" (Laziness)-with
the kind-hearted amendment that the lazy spinner burns her leg in her sleep.
Consequently the dramatic representations of Melancholy show a woman asleep by her
distaff combined with a man asleep at a table or even in bed (fig. 212); at times the man has
a book over which he has dozed off, and in some later instances the slothful couple is joined by
a hermit, a humble representative of study and solitude.
Blasphemous toward Durer as it may sound-these homespun images must be counted
among the ancestry of his famous engraving. Primitive though they are, they supplied its basic
compositional formula, as well as the general idea of gloomy inertia. In both cases a woman,
prominently placed in the foreground, is accompanied in a diagonal grouping by a less imp6r-
tant representative of the opposite sex, and in both cases the essential characteristic of the
main figure is her inaction. Needless to say, however, the differences outweigh the similarities.
In the miniatures and woodcuts of the fifteenth century the secondary figure is as sleepy and
slothful as the principal one, while Durer's engraving shows a deliberate contrast between the
inaction of the Melancholia and the strenuous efforts of the scribbling putto. And, more
important, the Melancholia is idle and the women in the earlier illustrations have abandoned
their distaffs for entirely opposite reasons. These lowly creatures have gone to sleep out of
(
sheer laziness. The Melancholia, on the contrary, is what may be called super-awake; her
, fixed stare is one of intent though fruitless searching. She is inactive not because she is too
{ lazy to work but because work has become meaningless to her; her energy is paralyzed not by
sleep but by thought.
In Durer's engraving the whole conception of melancholy is thus shifted to a plane wholly
beyond the compass of his predecessors. Instead of a sluggish housewife we have a superior
being-superior, not only by virtue of her wings but also by virtue of her intelligence and
imagination-surrounded by the tools and symbols of creative endeavor and scientific
research. And here we perceive a second and more delicate thread of tradition which went into
the fabric of Durer's composition.
From the middle of the twelfth century, with the "Portail Royal" of Chartres as the first
known example, we find, in ever increasing numbers, personifications of the Arts. Their circle
''
"MELENCOLIA I"
was originally limited to the aristocratic Seven Liberal Arts enume.rated by Martianus
Capella, but it was soon enlarged by a less definite number of "Mechanical Arts" so as to
illustrate the Aristotelianizing definition of art as "every productive effort based on a rational
principle." The composition of these images followed a constant formula. A female figure,
typifying one of the arts-or, on occasion, art in general-and at times accompanied by
assistants or subsidiary personifications, is surrounded by the attributes of her activity, hold-
ing the most characteristic ones herself. A fourteenth century miniature-one of the rare
examples of "Art in General" (fig. 218)-fairly bristles with all kinds of scientific and
technical implements, and when these implements came to be scattered in three-dimensional
space instead of being displayed on a plane surface the general effect began to approach that
of Durer's Melencolia I.
In one specific instance a definite iconographic connection can be established. In the 1504
and 1508 editions of Gregor Reisch's Margarita Philosophica, one of the most widely read
encyclopedic treatises of the period, we find a woodcut entitled "Typus Geometriae" which
includes nearly all the devices appearing in Durer's Melencolia I (fig. 219). It synthesizes,
so to speak, the type of the Liberal Arts with that of the Technical, for it is intended to show
that almost all the crafts and many branches of philosophy" depend on geometrical
operations.
Geometry, depicted as a richly attired lady, is engaged in measuring a sphere with her
compass. She sits at a table on which are drafting instruments, an inkpot and models of stereo-
metrical bodies. An unfinished building, with an ashlar still in the prongs of a crane, is checked
over by an assistant while two others work at a drafting board and make a topographical sur-
vey. Scattered about the ground are a hammer, a ruler and two molder's forms; and clouds, the
moon and stars, announcing the celestial phenomena in engraving, are observed by
means of quadrants and astrolabes. Not only meteorology and astronomy-a further allusion
to the latter, by the way, is the peacock's feather on the hat of Geometry, the peacock's
plumage being an ancient symbol of the starry firmament-but also all the technical arts are
thus interpreted as applications of geometry; and to this Durer's conception conforms. His
.Underweysung der Messung is dedicated, "not only to painters but also to goldsmiths,
sculptors, stonemasons, carpenters and all those who make use of geometry"; and in a draft
probably written just about 1513-15 the "plane and the turning lathe"-the operation of
both being based on a geometrical principle-are mentioned together just as the plane and
the turned sphere are juxtaposed in the Melencolia I. In fact, the whole array of implements
in the'engraving can be summed up under the heading "Typus Geometriae," the book, the
inkpot and the compass standing for pure geometry; the magic square, the hourglass with the
bell, pair of scales for measurementin space and time ("Geo ponderat," "geometry
weighs," to quote from an old mnemonic verse) ; the instruments for applied
geometry; and the truncated rhomboid for descriptive geometry, particularly stereography
and perspective.
Thus Durer's engraving represents a fusion of two iconographic formulae hitherto dis
tinct: the "Melancholici" of popular Calendars and "Complexbuchlein," and the
Geometriae" of philosophical treatises and encyclopedic decorations. The result was an m
tellectualization of melancholy on the one hand, and a humanization of geometry on the
other. The former Melancholies had been unfortunate misers and sluggards, despised for
their unsociability and general incompetence. The former Geometries had been
personifications of a noble science, devoid of human emotions and quite of
Durer imagined a being endowed with the intellectual power and techmcal accomplishments
of an "Art," yet despairing under the cloud of a "black humor." He depicted a
(gone melancholy or, to put it the other way, a Melancholy gifted with all that 1s 1mphed
in the word geometry-in short, a "Melancholia artificialis" or Artist's Melancholy.
Thus almost all the motifs employed in Durer's engraving can be accounted for by
well-established textual and representational traditions pertaining to "melancholy" on the
one hand, and to "geometry" on the other. But Durer, while fully aware of their emblematic
significance, also invested them with an expressive, or psychological, meaning.
That the conventional tools and symbols of the "geometrical" professions are arranged,
or rather disarranged, so as to convey a feeling of discomfort and stagnation has already
been mentioned. The comet and the rainbow, causing the scenery to phosphoresce in an
uneasy twilight, not only serve to signify astronomy but also have a weird, ill-boding ema
nation of their own. Both the bat and the dog were traditionally associated with melancholy,
the former ( vespertilio in Latin) because he emerges at dusk and lives in lonely, dark and
decaying places; the latter because he, more than other animals, is subject to de
jection and even to madness, and because he looks the more woebegone the more mtelhgent
he is ("the most sagacious dogs are those who carry a melancholy face before themselves," to
quote an author of the early sixteenth century who obviously thought of what we call blood
hounds). But in Durer's engraving the bat and the dog are not merely but,
more, living creatures, one squeaking with evident ill-will, the other up Wlth
general misery.
What is true of the accessories is no less true of the main figure. Her book and compass
belong, of course, to the typical attributes of Geometry; but that she does not make use of
(either reveals her torpid dejection. That she rests her head on her hand is in. keeping wit? a
tradition which can be traced back to ancient Egyptian art. As an expresswn of broodmg
thought, fatigue or sorrow this attitude is found in hundreds and thousands of figures and
had become a standing attribute of melancholy and "Acedia" (figs. 210-214); and even
that her hand is clenched to a fist is not as unusual as it may seem. The pugillum clausum
was a typical symbol of avarice-we still speak of "tight-fistedness," and Dante says that
misers will be resurrected "col pugno chiuso"-and it was supposed that if this melancholy j
vice assumed the proportions of real insanity the patients would never unclench /)
because they imagined themselves holding a treasure or even the whole world m the1r fist. J
But in Durer's engraving the motif has a totally different meaning. In medieval miniatures
"MELENCOLIA I"
the Melancholic displays his clenched fist as a symptomatic attribute, much as St. Bartholo
mew displays his knife, or the Magdalen her ointment jar (fig. 211). Durer, in making the
fist support the head, the center of thought and imagination, transforms a characterological
or even medical symptom into an expressive gesture. His Melancl;wlia is neither a miser nor
a mental case, but a thinking being in perplexity. She does not hold on to an object which
does not exist, but to a problem which cannot be solved.
One of the chief characteristics of the traditional melancholic is his swarthy, "earthlike"
complexion which under certain circumstances can deepen to actual blackness. This facies
nigra was still in Milton's mind when he described his "divinest Melancholy" as one
"Whose saintly "visage is too bright
To Mt the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid wisdom's hue."
Durer, almost as subtle as Milton, substituted a luminary effect for the material discolora
tion of the skin. The face of his Melancholia-like that of Michelangelo's "Pensieroso"-is
overcast by a deep shadow. It is not so much a dark as a darkened face, made all the more
impressive by its contrast with the startling white of the eyes.
The wreath which she wears on her head is primarily a palliative against the dangers of
the humor melanchoNcus. To counteract the bad effects of "dryness" it was recommended to
put on one's head "the leaves of plants having a watery nature," and it is precisely of such
plants that the wreath is composed; it consists of waterranunculus-which also occurs in
the "Aqua" section of Durer's cosmological woodcut for Celtes (fig. 215)-and watercress.
But the very idea of a wreath-normally a symbol of joy or superiority, as in many portraits
of humanists or in Durer's own representations of the Emperor Sigismund (fig. 176), a Wise
Virgin (645), Hercules (fig. 108) and the poet Terence (fig. 36)-is here belied by the
gloom of the general atmosphere. Again a mere emblem is used as a vehicle of psychological
expression.
Perhaps we have no right to assume that practically every detail in the Melencolia I
has a special "meaning." But the selection of two inconspicuous plants which have nothing
in common except their "watery" nature-Copernicus ,still believed that the seeds of water
cress caused "unhealthy humidity" because the plant grows in humid places-can hardly
be anaccident. Moreover, we know by Durer's own testimony that in the context of this
engraving even the most conventional and commonplace_ accessories of a "Hausfrau's"
costume meant to have an emblematical significance. Attached to the belt of the Melan
cholia are a putse and a bunch of keys. Compared with the neat and orderly appearance of
these objects in an engraving like the Virgin by the Wall ( 14 7), they, too, express the dis-
traught condition of their owner, for the keys are disarranged and the purse trails on the
ground with its leather strips twisted and partly unfastened. But in addition to revealing that
"careless desolation" which still marks the "melancholic" of the Elizabethan stage, they
signify two definite concepts. On one of Durer's sketches for the Melencolia I ( 1201) we find
the following note: "Schlussel betewt gewalt, pewtell betewt reichtum" ("Key denotes
power, purse denotes wealth").
The purse is still a common symbol of wealth, particularly' in its less enjoyable aspects
of parsimony and avarice, and the papal "power of the keys" is still as proverbial in English
as the matrimonial "Schlusselgewalt"-already mentioned in connection with Durer's
Glorification of the Virgin (315)-is in German. The purse is therefore a frequent attribute
of the miserly Melancholic (figs. 213 and 214), and the keys, too, can be connected with
the concept of melancholy. As we shall shortly see, the melancholy humor was associated
with the planet Saturn who, as the oldest and highest of the planetary divinities, was held
to wield as well as to bestow "power," and was in fact occasionally represented with a key
or bunch of keys.
However, since Durer's Melancholia is no ordinary Melancholy, but, as we expressed it,
the "Melancholia Artificialis" or Artist's Melancholy, we may well ask whether there might
not be a special connection between the qualities of power and wealth and professional
artistic activity. This seems indeed to be the case. In his theoretical writings Durer not only
insists that wealth is, or at least should be, the well-deserved reward of the artist (his earliest
draft, composed about 1512, emphatically closes with the sentence: "If you were poor, you
may achieve great prosperity through such art"), he also uses the German word for power,
"Gewalt," as a specific term denoting that consummate mastery which is the final goal of
every artist and can be attained only by passionate study and the grace of God: "And the
true artists recognize at once whether or not a work is powerful [gewaltsam], and a great
love will grow in those who understand"; or: "God gives much power [viet Gewalts] to
ingenious men."
Now this consummate mastery results, according to Durer-and to all other thinkers of
(the Renaissance-from a perfect coordination of two accomplishments: theoretical insight,
/particularly a thorough command of geometry ("Kunst" in the original sense of "knowl-
edge"), and practical skill ("Brauch"). "These two must be together," Durer says, "for the
one without the other is of no avail."
This explains not only the deranged and neglected condition of the Melancholia's keys
and purse, which indicates a temporary absence of wealth and power rather than their
presence, but also the significant contrast between her torpid inaction and the bustling activ-
ity of the putto. The mature and learned Melancholia typifies Theoretical Insight which
(thinks but cannot act. The ignorant infant, making meaningless scrawls on his slate and
almost conveying the impression of blindness, typifies Practical Skill which acts but cannot
think (whereby it should be noted that Durer's expression for theoretical insight, "Kunst,"
is of the feminine gender whereas his term for practical skill, "Brauch," is masculine).
Theory and practice are thus not "together," as Durer demands, but thoroughly disunited;
and the result is impotence and gloom.
"MELENCOLIA I"
Three questions remain to be answered. First, with what right could Durer substitute a
spiritual tragedy for what had been the sluggishness and obtuseness of an inferior tempera-
ment'? Second, on what grounds could he associate, or even identify, the idea of melancholy
with that of geometry'? Third, what is the meaning of the number "I" which follows the
word "Melencolia" '?
The answer to the first question lies in the fact that the whole concept of melancholy had
been revised, or rather reversed, by Marsilio Ficino, the leading spirit of the Neo-Platonic
"Academy" at Florence, and that this new doctrine, developed in Ficino's "Letters" and
conclusively formulated in his treatise De Vita Triplici, had met with great success in Ger-
many as well as in Italy. The "Letters" had been published by Koberger, and the first two
Books of the three "Libri de Vita" had even been translated into German. Of these develop-
ments Durer was certainly aware, for he quotes the "Platonic ideas" as early as 1512.
Marsilio Ficino, himself a man of delicate health and melancholy disposition, tried to
alleviate the real and imaginary tribulations of his humor by the time-honored devices of
exercise, regular hours, a careful diet and music (Durer, by the way, also recommends the
"cheerful tunes of the lute" in case "a young painter should overwork, from which his melan-
choly might exceed"). But he found greater consolation in an Aristotelian discourse which,
though occasionally quoted by scholastic philosophers, had thus far failed to change the gen-
eral dislike and fear of melancholy. According to this brilliant analysis of what may be called
the psycho-physiology of human greatness (Problema/a, xxx, 1), the "melancholies by
nature''-as opposed to the downright insane-are marked by a peculiar excitability which
either over-stimulates or cripples their thoughts and emotions and may, if not controlled,
cause raving madness imbecilit!; they walk, as it were, on a narrow ridge between two)
abysses. But they walk, JUSt for th1s reason, way above the 'level of ordinary ,mortals. If they
succeed.in keeping their equilibrium so that "their very anomaly behaves somehow in a
well-balanced and beautiful way," as Aristotle admirably puts it, they may still be subject 'l
to depression and overexcitement, but they outrank all other men: "All truly outstanding 1
men: whether distinguished in philosophy, in statecraft, in poetry or in the arts, are melan-1
chol!cs-some of them even to such an extent that they suffer from ailments induced by the
black gall."
The Florentine Neo-Platonists were quick to perceive that this Aristotelian doctrine
supplied a scientific basis for Plato's theory of "divine frenzy." The action of the melan-
choly humor, which Aristotle had likened to that of strong wine, seemed to explain, or at
least to concur with, those mysterious ecstasies which "petrify and almost kill the body while
the soul." Thus the expression furor melancholicus came to be synonymous
W,Ithfurp.r divinus. What had been a calamity and, in its mildest form, a handicap became
a privilege still dangerous but all the more exalted: the privilege of genius. Once this idea-
utterly foreign to the Middle Ages where men could become saints but not "divine" philoso-
phers or poets-had been reborn under the joint auspices of Aristotle and Plato, the hitherto
disparaged melancholy became surrounded with the halo of the sublime. Outstanding
166 NEW GRAPHIC STYLE; CLIMAX OF ENGRAVING
achievements automatically included the reputation of melancholy-even of Raphael it
was said that he was "malinconico come tutti gli huomini di questa eccelenza"-and soon
the Aristotelian tenet that all great men were melancholies was twisted into the assertion
that all melancholies were great men: "Malencolia significa ingegno" ("Melancholy sig-
nifies genius"), to quote from a treatise which tries to demonstrate the excellence of painting
by the fact that the better class of painters were just as melancholy as poets or philosophers.
Small wonder that persons with social ambitions were as anxious to "learn how to be melan-
choly," as Ben Jonson's Stephen puts it, as they are today to learn tennis or bridge. A climax
of refinement is reached in Shakespeare's Jaques who uses the mask of a melancholic by
fashion and snobbery to hide the fact that he is a genuine one.
This humanistic glorification of melancholy entailed, and even implied, another phe-
nomenon: the humanistic ennoblement of the planet Saturn. As physical bodies, the seven
planets were held to be determined by the same four combinations of qualities as the terres-
trial elements; as sidereal personalities, on the other hand, they had retained the characters
and powers of the classical gods after whom they were named. They, too, could thus be
correlated with the four temperaments, and a complete system of coordination is already
found in Arabic sources of the ninth century. The sanguine temperament was associated with
friendly Venus, who was considered as moist and warm like air, or, even more frequently,
with the equally well-tempered and benevolent Jupiter; the choleric with the fiery Mars;
the phlegmatic with the Moon whom Shakespeare still calls the "watery star"; and the
melancholic-as has already been mentioned in passing-with Saturn, the ancient god of the
earth. We still use the expression "saturnine" almost as a synonym of "melancholy"-much
as we do with the expressions "jovial" and "sanguine''-and in the German woodcut previ-
ously mentioned as a specimen of "descriptive" illustrations of the Four Temperaments (fig.
214) the unflattering characterization of the Melancholic concludes with the line; "Saturnus
und herbst habent die schulde" ("Saturn and autumn are guilty of this").
Once established, this "consonance" between melancholy and Saturn was never ques-
tioned. Every human being, mineral, plant or animal supposed to have a melancholy nature-
among them, for instance, the dog and the bat-ipso facto "belonged" to Saturn, too. The
very posture of sadness, with the head resting on the hand, is melancholy as well as Satur-
nian; and as the black gall was considered the most ignoble of humors, so the "Saturn us
impius" was held to be the most unfortunate of celestial influences. As the highest of the
planets, as the oldest of the Olympians, and as the former ruler' of the Golden Age, he could
give power and riches. But as a dry and icy star, and as a cruel father-god dethroned, castrated
and imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, he was associated with old age, disablement,
sorrow, all kinds of misery, and death. Even under favorable circumstances those born under
him could be wealthy and mighty only at the cost of generosity and goodness of heart, and
wise only at the cost of happiness. Normally, they were hard-working peasants or laborers
in stone and wood-for Saturn had been a god of the earth-privy-cleaners, grave-diggers,
cripples, beggars, and criminals (fig. 213).
"MELENCOLIA 1"
The Florentine Neo-Platonists, however, discovered that Plotinus and his followers had
thought as highly of Saturn as Aristotle had thought of melancholy. Since that which is
higher is more "exalted" than that which is lower, and since that which begets is closer to the
source of all things than that which is begotten, Saturn was thought superior to Jupiter, let
alone the rest of the planets. He symbolized the "Mind" of the world where Jupiter merely
symbolized its "Soul"; he had thought out what Jupiter had merely learned to govern; he
stood, in short, for profound contemplation as opposed to mere practical action. Thus inter-
preted, the domination of Saturn was willingly accepted by those "whose minds are bent
to contemplate and to investigate the highest and most secret things." They hailed him as
their celestial patron just as they reconciled themselves to melancholy as their terrestrial
condition. The most illustrious members of the Florentine circle-among them, besides
Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Lorenzo the Magnificent-referred to themselves, only
half playfully, as "Saturnians," and they discovered to their immense satisfaction that Plato,
too, had been born under the sign of Saturn.
This philosophical rehabilitation of Saturn could not weaken the popular belief that he
was the most malignant of planets; and Ficino himself, whose horoscope showed "Saturnum
in Aquario ascendentem," lived under a permanent cloud of anxiety. He took, and advised
his fellow-scholars to take, all possible precautions. He even used and recommended astro-
logical talismans which might counteract the influence of Saturn by invoking the power of
Jupiter, and this, by the way, explains the magic square in Durer's Melencolia I. It can be
identified as the sixteen-celled mensula J ovis; engraved upon a slab of tin, it will "turn evil
into good" and "dispel all worries and fear." However, all said and done, Ficino bravely
submitted to his Saturnian destiny: "Not only those who take refuge to Jupiter, but also those
who wholeheartedly and sincerely concentrate on that which is signified
by Saturn, will escape from the latter's pernicious influences and only enjoy his benefits ....
To the spirits that dwell in the spheres of the sublime Saturn himself is a benevolent father
[juvans pater, that is, Jupiter]."
It is this new and most humanistic conception of the melancholy and "saturnine" genius
that found expression in Durer's engraving. But what, to turn to the second of our questions,
is the specific connection between the ideas of melancholy and Saturn on the one hand, and
of geometry and the geometrical arts on the other'?
It has been mentioned tl,lat Saturn, as god of the earth, was associated with work in
stone and wood; in one of the earliest pictorial surveys of what may be called the Saturnian
profdsions, the murals in the "Salone" at Padua, we already encounter the stonemason and
the carpenter, here still conceived as lowly manual laborers. But as god of agriculture Saturn
had alsoto supervise the "measurements and quantities of things" and particularly the "par-
tition of land." This is precisely the original meaning of the Greek word rwp,erp{a, and
it is not surprising to come upon several manuscripts of the fifteenth century where the rustic
attributes of Saturn are supplemented by a compass (fig. 220). Jacob de Gheyn was to
monumentalize this concept of a Saturn-Geometrician in one of his most impressive engrav-
168 NEW GRAPHIC STYLE; CLIMAX OF ENGRAVING
ings (fig. 221 ). One or two of those fifteenth century manuscripts add the explanation:
"Saturn the planet sends us the spirits that teach us geometry"; and in a Calendar published
in Nuremberg exactly one year after the Melencolia I we read the phrase: "Saturnus ...
bezaichet aus den Kunsten die Geometrei" ("Of the arts, Saturn denotes geometry").
In addition to this astrological connection between geometry and Saturn there existed,
however, a much subtler psychological connection between geometry and melancholy-a con
nection brilliantly expounded by the great scholastic philosopher Henry of Ghent who had
been greeted as a kindred spirit by Pico della Mirandola, and whose analysis of melancholy
was extensively quoted and endorsed in the latter's Apologia de Descensu Christi ad lnferos.
There exist, to summarize this argument, two kinds of thinkers. On the one hand, there are the
philosophical minds which find no difficulty in understanding such purely metaphysical
notions as the ideas of an angel or of extramundane nothingness. On the other hand, there are
those "in whom the imaginative power predominates over the cognitive one." They "will
accept a demonstration only to that extent as their imagination can keep step with it ....
Their intellect cannot transcend the limits of imagination ... and can only get hold of space
[ magnitudo] or of that which has a location and position in space .... Whatever they think
is a quantity, or is located in quantity as is the case with the point. Therefore such men are
melancholy, and become excellent mathematicians but very bad metaphysicians, for they
cannot extend their thought beyond location and space which are the foundations of
rna thema tics."
Melancholies, then, are gifted for geometry-for, Henry's own definition restricts the
field of "mathematics" to a science of situs et magnitudo-because they think in terms of
concrete mental images and not of abstract philosophical concepts; conversely, people gifted
for geometry are bound to be melancholy because the consciousness of a sphere beyond their
reach makes them suffer from a feeling of spiritual confinement and insufficiency.
This is precisely what Durer's Melancholia seems to experience. Winged, yet cowering
on the ground-wreathed, yet beclouded by shadows-equipped with the tools of art and
science, yet brooding in idleness, she gives the impression of a creative being reduced to
despair by an awareness of insurmountable barriers which separate her from a higher realm
of thought. Was it perhaps in order to emphasize this idea of a first, or lowest, degree of
achievement that Durer added the number "I" to the inscription'? This numeral can hardly
refer to the other temperaments, for it is difficult to imagine that Durer should have planned
three more engravings of a similar kind, and no less difficult to find a series of the Four
Humors which would begin with Melancholy. The nqmber "I" may thus imply an ideal
scale of values, rather than an actual sequence of prints, and this conjecture can be corrobo-
rated, if not proved, by what seems to be the most important literary source of Durer's com-
position: Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim's De Occulta Philosophia.
As published in 1531, this famous book appears to be an item from the study of Dr.
Faustus, fairly confused in plan and full of cabalistic charms, astrological and geomantic
tables and other magical devices. The original version of 1509/Io, however, which had been
I
I
'\
"MELENCOLIA I"
169
dedicated to a friend of Pirckheimer's, the Abbot Trithemius of Wurzburg, and was cir
culated among the German humanists in manuscript form, was a much shorter and more
"reasonable" book. It is only about one-third as long as the printed version, and the already
noticeable emphasis on magic does not yet obscure a clear and, in its way, consistent system
of natural philosophy. The author, largely basing himself on Marsilio Ficino, sets forth the
Neo-Platonic doctrine of cosmic forces whose flux and reflux unifies and enlivens the universe,
and he tries to show how the operation of these forces enables man not only to practice
legitimate magic-as opposed to necromancy and commerce with the Devil-but also to
achieve his greatest spiritual and intellectual triumphs. Of these man is capable through
direct "inspiration" from above (it is worth noting that Durer, too, refers to "obere Eingies
sungen"); and this inspiration can come to him in three forms-through prophetic dreams,
through intense contemplation, and through the furor melancholicus induced by Saturn.
In the original version of Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia this theory of melancholy
genius-later arbitrarily tucked away in the First Book of the printed edition-is expounded
near the end of the last Book and thus marks the climax of his whole work. That it is derived
from Ficino's Libri de Vita Triplici goes without saying; whole sentences are taken over
almost verbatim. But Agrippa differs from Ficino in one important point, and in so doing
reveals himself as the intermediary between Ficino and Durer.
Ficino had little interest in politics and no interest whatever in art. He conceived of
geniuses primarily in terms of "studiosi" and "literati," and according to him the creative,
Saturnian melancholy is a prerogative of theologians, poets and philosophers. It is only the
purely metaphysical and therefore highest of our faculties, the intuitive "mind" (mens),
which is susceptible to the inspiring influences of Saturn. Discursive "reason" (ratio), which
controls the sphere of moral and political action, belongs to Jupiter; and "imagination"
(imaginatio), which guides the hands of artists and craftsmen, to Mars or to Sol. According
to Agrippa of Nettesheim, however, the furor melancholicus, that is, the Saturnian inspira
tion, can stimulate each of these three faculties to an extraordinary or even "superhuman"
activity.
Agrippa thUs distinguishes among three kinds of geniuses, all of whom act under the
impulse of Saturn and his furor melancholicus. Those in whom "imagination" is stronger
than the "mind" or "reason" will turn out to be wonderful artists and craftsmen such as
painters or architects; and if they should be blessed with the gift of prophecy their predic-
tions will be restricted to physical phenomena ("elementorum turbationes temporumque
vicissitudines") such as "storms, earthquakes or floods, epidemics, famines, and other catas-
trophes of this kind." He in whom discursive "reason" predominates will become an ingenious
scientist; physician or statesman, and his predictions, if any, will refer to political events.
Those finally in whom the intuitive "mind" outweighs the other faculties will know the
secrets of the realm divine and excel in all that is implied in the word theology; if prophetic,
they 'will foresee religious crises such as the appearance of a new prophet or a new creed.
170
In the light of this system Durer's Melancholia, the "Artist's Melancholy," can in fact
be classified as "Melencolia I." Moving as she does in the sphere of "imagination"-which
is, by definition, the sphere of spatial quantities-she typifies the first, or least exalted, form
of human ingenuity. She can invent and build, and she can think, to quote Henry of Ghent,
"as long as her imagination keeps step with her thought"; but she has no access to the meta-
physical world. Even if she were to venture into the realm of prophecy she would be limited
to the domain of physical phenomena; the ominous apparitions in the firmament, in addition
to denoting the science of astronomy, may also allude to Agrippa's '.'elementorum turbationes
temporumque vicissitudines," and the fact that some of the trees in the background are sur-
rounded by water may suggest those "floods" which he explicitly mentions among the natural
catastrophes foreseen by the "imaginative" melancholic-and which, incidentally, were
believed to be caused by Saturn or Saturnian comets. Thus Durer's Melancholia belongs in
fact to those who "cannot extend their thought beyond the limits of space." Hers is the
inertia of a being which renounces what it could reach because it cannot reach for what
it longs.
The influence of Durer's Melencolia I-the first representation in which the concept
of melancholy was transplanted from the plane of scientific and pseudo-scientific folklore
to the level of art--extended all over the European continent and lasted for more than three
centuries. Its composition was simplified or made even more complicated, and its content was
either reconciled with earlier traditions-as is the case with most of the variations produced
by Northern artists of the sixteenth century-or reinterpreted according to the taste and
mental habits of the day. It was mythologized by Vasari and emblematically transformed
by Cesare Ripa; it was emotionalized by such Baroque artists as Guercino, Domenico Feti
Benedetto Castiglione or Nicolas Chaperon who frequently fused it with the then fashionabl;
allegories of Transience and tried to gratify the popular enthusiasm for ruins; it was senti-
mentalized in English eighteenth century art; it was romanticized by J. E. Steinle and
Caspar David Friedrich; and it inspired poetic and literary paraphrases-such as the famous
one in City of Dreadful Night-as well as paintings, drawings and prints.
. In spite of this umversal appeal, it has always been felt that Durer's engraving has an
en:,me?tly personal connotation. _It has been suggested that its somber mood might reflect
Durer s sorrow at the death of h1s mother who had passed away on May 17, 1514; an:d it
has even been supposed that the numerical elements of this date-17, 5, 15, 14-are in
some way referred to in the magic square which consists of 16 cells, and where (therefore)
each row of four figures adds up to 34 However, even if the numerological treatment
of the date were less arbitrary than it is, even if the Mensula Jovis, like all the other "Seals
of the Planets," could not be traced back to Arabic sources of the ninth or tenth centur d
'f y, an
even 1 1ts presence in Durer's engraving could not be accounted for by good internal
then this would be hard to believe. Durer respected his "poor and
mother : as a son, he felt sorry for her hard life, and he admired her patience
m many a pamfullllness, great poverty, derision, contempt, sneering words, anxieties and
i-
!
"MELENCOLIA I" 171
other troubles on end." But his real love belonged to his father, and no personal grief would
have occasioned an engraving so esoteric and, at the same time, so programmatic in char-
acter. Instead of saying that the death of Durer's mother caused him to create the Me/en-
eolia I, one might rather contend that only an artist pregnant with the Melancolia I could
have interpreted the face of an old woman-her squint bringing to mind Shakespeare's
Paulina, "one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was
fulfilled"-in such a manner as Durer did when he portrayed his mother two months before
her death (1052, fig. 222).
In fact the Melencolia I reflects the whole of Durer's personality rather than a single
experience, however moving. In a drawing of about 1512/13, apparently made for the
purpose of consulting a doctor ( 1000 ), Durer represented himself in the nude, his finger
pointing to a mark on the left side of his abdomen. The inscription reads: "Where the yellow
spot is, to which I point with my finger, there it hurts"; and the sore spot is obviously the
spleen, supposedly the very kernel of melancholy disease. Melanchthon, on the other hand,
extols the "melancholia generosissima Dureri" ("Durer's most noble melancholy"), thus
classifying him as a melancholic in the sense of the new doctrine of genius.
Durer himself, then, was, or at least thought he was, a melancholic in every possible sense
of the word. He knew the "inspirations from above," and he knew the feeling of "power-
lessness" and dejection. But, more important still, he was also an artist-geometrician, and one
who suffered from the very limitations of the discipline he loved. In his younger days, when
he prepared the engraving "Adam and Eve," he had hoped to capture absolute beauty by
means of a ruler and a compass. Shortly before he composed the Melencolia I he was forced
to admit: "But what absolute beauty is, I know not. Nobody knows it except God." Some
years later, he wrote: "As for geometry, it may prove of some things; but with
respect to others we must resign ourselves to the opinion and judgment of men." And: "The
lie is in our understanding, and darkness is so firmly entrenched in our mind that even our
groping will fail"-a phrase which might well serve as a motto for the Melencolia I.
Thus Durer's most perplexing engraving is, at the same time, the objective statement of
a general philosophy and the subjective confession of an individual man. It fuses, and trans-
forms, two great representational and literary traditions, that of Melancholy as one of the
four humors and that of Geometry as one of the Seven Liberal Arts. It typifies the artist of
the Renaissance who respects practical skill, but longs all the more fervently for mathe-
matical theory-who feels "inspired" by celestial influences and eternal ideas, but suffers
all the more deeply from his human frailty and intellectual finiteness. It epitomizes the Nco-
Platonic theory of Saturnian genius as revised by Agrippa of Nettesheim. But irt doing all
this it i&in a sense a spiritual self-portrait of Albrecht Durer.
VI Durer's Activity for Maximilian I; the
"Decorative Style," I512/13-15I8/I9
/
T
HE second decade of the sixteenth century represents the most "humanistic" phase
J:?urer's life. As he had found hims.elf as a creative artist .in the period.
mg m the Apocalypse, so he found himself as a scholar, thmker and wnter m the
period culminating in the Melencolia I.
It has already been mentioned that Durer, during his second stay in Venice, had been
drawn into the orbit of those Italians who had built up a theory of art as a scientific and
philosophical discipline. Immediately upon his return he began to work along these new
lines of his own accord and sketched a program for a comprehensive Treatise on Painting,
the more technical sections of which were ultimately to develop into his Vier Bucher von
Menschlicher Proportion and Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel un Richtscheyt.
But it was not until 1512/13 that he began to formulate his thoughts in writing. In the
synopses and drafts of those years he appears before us, unexpectedly, as a philosopher
and scientist. We find him struggling with a linguistic medium before employed for
similar purposes, hampered by the lack of a fixed terminology, but-and perhaps for this
very reason-achieving a stupendous force and originality of expression. He reveals, too, an
ever-increasing familiarity with the historical, medical, psychological and metaphysical
ideas of his time, especially with those Neo-Platonic doctrines which were to find expression
in the Melencolia I, and which, it seems, are also illustrated in a of magnificent alle-
gorical drawings executed in 1514 and the two following years (939-941 ).
In addition to geometrical research and "aesthetic" speculation Durer engaged in
pursuits of a poetic and antiquarian character. In order to "acquire something which he
had not learned before," he tried his hand at secular and religious verse, and he began
to approach classical subjects in the same scholarly spirit which is apparent in his over-
conscientious drawings of the Imperial Insignia (1010-1013). He had, of course, always
derived inspiration from the Mythographers or from Philostratus whose Imagines had sug-
gested such charming inventions as the industrious putti in the "Sojourn of the Holy Family
in Egypt" (310, fig. 142) or the Family of Centaurs (904, fig. 121). But here the texts had
merely touched off the fuse of Durer's inventive fantasy which had produced spirited para-
phrases rather than literal illustrations. The drawings of 1514, such as Cupid the Honey-
Thief (908), Arion (901), or Hercules Gallicus (936), carefully executed in pen and water
color, attempt to reconstruct their subjects from the descriptions of Lucian and Pseudo-
Theocritus much as modern archeologists have tried to reconstruct the murals by Polygnotus
from the descriptions of Pausanias.
172
ANTIQUARIAN AND EMBLEMATlC SPIRIT
173
This intellectualization of Durer's artistic production, 'Which accounts, by the way, for
the coolness with which this period of his activity has been received until quite recently, finds
its most characteristic expression in the rise of what may be called an "emblematic" spirit.
"Emblems" are images which refuse to be accepted as representations of mere things but
demand to be interpreted as vehicles, of concepts; they are tolerated by most modern critics,
as a rule, only if incorporated in a work so rich in "atmosphere" that it can, after all, be
"enjoyed" without a detailed explanation (as in the Melencolia I).
The most powerful, if not the only, source of this emblematic spirit-amusingly illus-
trated by a design of two columns in which the contrast between the sanguine and the
melancholy temperament is literally reduced to an arrangement of "odds and ends" (1532)
-was a treatise on the Egyptian hieroglyphs entitled Hieroglyphica. This book was com-
posed in the second or fourth century A.D. by one Horus Apollo whose real name is still
unknown to us, and was allegedly translated from the Egyptian into Greek by one Philippus.
It is entirely worthless from a scientific point of view, for the true meaning of the hieroglyphs
was not disclosed until after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799. But in 1419, when
Horus Apollo's treatise became known in Italy, it struck the humanistic mind with the
force of a revelation. Egypt, the home of sacred mysteries, had always held a strange fascina-
tion for the erudite and would-be erudite, and the humanists greeted with enthusiasm a new
ideographic language which could express a whole sentence by a series of images and was both
international and esoteric, "understandable all over the world, but to the initiated only."
This new language, soon enriched by the vocabulary of medieval herbaries, bestiaries
and lapidaries, and of absorbing any number of further, freely invented characters,
was later codified in what is still known as "emblem literature." But long before Andrea
Alciati and the host of his followers had published their emblem books, and even before the
original text of the Hieroglyphica had been printed in 1505, Horus Apollo's concoction had
left its mark on Italian medals and funeral monuments, on the woodcuts in Francesco
Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Polyphili, and on the paintings and drawings by Mantegna,
Pinturicchio, Giovanni' Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci.
A Latin translation of the Hieroglyphica (by Filippo Fasanini) was not printed until
1517. But about five years before Pirckheimer had undertaken a translation of his own, and
it fell to Durer to illustrate it. Only a few pages of the original manuscript have been
recovered thus far (966-973); but a complete copy has come down to us (974/75), and
even one of the surviving pages (971) suffices to illustrate both the haphazard methods of
Hor1,1s Apollo and the philological faithfulness of Durer. A dog draped with a stole, for
instance, signifies "a prince or judge"; a man devouring an hourglass denotes "the horo-
scope" ;.,a man seated stands for "the guardian of a temple"; and a pail of water together
with a fire means "ignorance" because it is by fire and water that "everything is cleansed."
)tis not by accident that Pirckheimer and Durer undertook this task in 1512/13, for in
1512 Durer had been asked to participate in the artistic enterprises of the Emperor Maxi-
milian I, and in these the influence of Horus Apollo looms large, both in letter and spirit.
174
WORK FOR MAXIMILIAN; "DECORATIVE STYLE"
There was, indeed, nothing better suited to the Emperor's tastes than the hieroglyphs-the
latest fashion, yet supposedly derived from hoariest Antiquity; entertaining to look at, yet
fraught with meaning; and mysteriously esoteric, yet perfectly rational once you had the key.
Still more important, Maximilian loved to think of himself as a direct descendant of Osiris
and Hercules Aegyptiacus, whom the imperial genealogists listed between Hector of Troy
and Noah.
Maximilian I is known to all as the "Last Knight," but this sobriquet only
one facet of his complex and charming personality. Affable though enormously proud of his
ancestry and personal achievements, courageous though not strong-minded, impulsive, gener-
ous and constantly short of money, the Emperor was a great gentleman and a genuinely
patriarchal ruler (many great princes have endowed hospitals and homes for the aged, but
few would have thought of decreeing, on their death-bed, that every inmate was to receive
with his meals a medicinal potion "boiled with honey, juniper-berries and honey-suckle so
that it might be pleasing to the taste"); but he was by no means a retrospective medievalist.
He was enamored of the pageants, tournaments and chivalrous orders of a feudal past; he
dreamed of a new crusade against the infidels; he ordered and collected copies of medieval
romances; and he loved to imagine himself in the roles of King Arthur or Sir Galahad. But
he was also the founder of the first purely humanistic Faculty; and his most vivid though
perhaps no less romantic ambition was to realize the modern ideal of the "Huomo uni-
versale." He was a dilettante, not only on a monumental scale but also, paradoxically, with
the thoroughness of a perfectionist (so that he achieved real authority in certain fields, par-
ticularly in "mechanized warfare"). From statecraft and generalship to veterinary surgery,
fishing and cookery; from classical archeology, art criticism, music and poetry to carpentry,
ordnance, printing, mining and fashion designing-there was nothing on earth in which he
was not actively interested and tried to outdo the professionals. The W eisskunig-a some-
what wishful autobiographical novel the punning title of which designates a "white" and a
"wise" king-containing about 225 woodcuts by Burgkmair and Leonhard Beck, was to
have recorded for public display his deeds and accomplishments; but its original task re-
mained unfulfilled, for the woodcuts were never published in the Emperor's lifetime, and
only a posthumous edition was made in 177 5
The W eisskunig is typical of Maximilian's undertakings in the field of "official" art.
More often than not the works begun at his command failed to materialize or were completed
in a makeshift or even incongruous fashion, and almost all of them were products of the
printing press.
Whether a prince bent on ensuring his lasting fame (and Maximilian frankly admitted
that he wanted to do just this, for "he who does not provide for his memory during his life
will have no memory after his death and will be forgotten with the sound of his death-
knell") commissions his artists with buildings, statues and murals, or merely with illustrated
books and annotated woodcuts is, of course, primarily a question of money. But the fact that
most of Maximilian's enterprises existed, if at all, only "on paper" is also characteristic of
/-
THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH
175
the German Renaissance as such. It illustrates the rather than visual taste of an
intelligentsia which felt more at home in the realm of words and ideas than in the world of
forms and colors. It reflects the propagandistic spirit of the Reformation period where
pamphlets and illustrated broad-sheets had become almost as important as the press and the
radio today. It bears witness, further, to the peculiar predicament of a humanistic movement
which could neither rely on the resources of cosmopolitan centers like Rome and Venice, nor
on the protection of an aristocracy which produced an unlimited supply of erudite and art-
loving princes and Cardinals. German humanism had to invade the very homes of the better
classes, nobility and higher bourgeoisie alike, and this is precisely what Maximilian expected
from his enterprises in the field of art. They must be understood, not as self-sufficient "things
of beauty" but rather as vehicles of a high-class advertising campaign.
The most ambitious of these enterprises, and one of the few which were actually com-
pleted according to schedule, was the mammoth woodcut known as the Triumphal Arch
(358, figs. 225, 226, 228). Printed from 192-not 92-separate blocks, it measures, includ-
ing the beautifully lettered explanations at the bottom, about 1 1. 5 by 9 7 5 feet, and it
required the cooperative effort of four different agencies. Johannes Stabius, the Emperor's
astronomer, poet and historiographer, devised the program and wrote the explanations (with
the intention of expanding them, later on, into several tomes). Jorg Kolderer, an architect of
Innsbruck in the Tyrol, provided the design of the architectural framework. The firm of
Hieronymus Andreae, called Formschneyder, took care of the cutting. And Durer, employing
the members of his workshop and assisted by Pirckheimer in iconographical matters, acted
as designer-in-chief.
When Durer applied for payment in a letter of July 15, 1515, he emphasized, quite
rightly, that the "ornate work" could not have been brought to a successful end without his
strenuous efforts (the cutting, by the way, was not completed until two years later). But his
personal contributions are not greatly in evidence. As far as the "stories" (scenic representa-
tions) are concerned, he seems merely to have furnished slight sketches and to have super-
vised their execution in a general way. Only where the work of his collaborators left too much
to be desired would he supply an actual working drawing, and such portions as the Redis-
covery of the Holy Coat of Treves or the Betrothal of Philip the Fair and Joan of Castille
are easily distinguished from the indifferent work of secondary artists. He designed, however,
much of the orname
1
nt, and two authentic sketches for details have come down to us (948 and
949). The upper part of the decorative framework of the central portal, the four large col-
umns (excepting the pedestals of the outer, and the standard-bearers in the pedestals of the
inner pair, but including the two figures attached to the shafts and the four statues placed in
the niches of the crowning tabernacles), the griffons perched on these tabernacles, the drum-
mers above the inner pair of griffons, and the second story of the lateral gables-all these
details canbe ascribed to Durer himself. He did not bother to make two separate drawings
where motifs had to be repeated symmetrically but furnished only the designs for one half of
the woodcut and left it to assistants to reverse them and to change minor details and, of
course, the lighting, accordingly.
Stabius solemnly protests that the Triumphal Arch had "the same shape as, of yore, the
Arcus Triumphales erected to the Roman Emperors in the City of Rome." The structure
shows, indeed, three portals or doorways: the "Portal of Fame," the "Portal of Honor and
Power"-often "traversed by his Majesty's Imperial mind," to quote Stabius's
ally ironical phrase-and the "Portal of Nobility"; and each of these doorways is flanked by
heavily projecting columns. But in every other respect the structure differs from a classical
Triumphal Arch much as the Castle of Heidelberg differs from the Palace of Diocletian in
Spalato. The large columns do not support an epistyle and an attica-in fact, no continuous
horizontal division occurs in the whole composition-but develop into tabernacles of different
size and shape surmounted by griffons. The walls above the side portals outgrow not only the
large columns but even the tabernacles; they develop into richly decorated gables culminating
in roundels with the insignia of the Golden Fleece. The central doorway is surmounted by a
veritable tower crowned by an octagonal cupola; and attached to either side of the structure
are narrow cylindrical turrets not unlike those which flank the transepts or west fac;ades of
Romanesque churches.
The iconography of this fantastic structure employs all known devices of glorification,
from the simple recording of historical events to cryptic emblematical allusions. Military
exploits and major political incidents, including dynastic marriages, are represented in the
twenty-four panels above the side portals. The more personal accomplishments of the
Emperor-his activities as a patron of the arts and crafts, his prowess as a huntsman and
linguist, the rediscovery of the Holy Coat of Treves, the foundation, or rather renewal, of the
Order of St. George, etc.-are depicted on the cylindrical turrets. The vertical strips of
masonry which connect these turrets with the bulk of the structure, the first story of the
lateral gables, and the pedestals of the outer columns are filled with portraits in half-length;
they show, on the right-hand side, Maximilian's relatives by birth or marriage (with the gable
strip reserved to Royalty), and, on the left, the Roman and German-Roman Emperors from
Julius Caesar to Rudolf I, with Alphonso of Spain, Richard Coeur de Lion and William I of
Holland thrown in for good measure. Attached to the shafts of the outer columns are the
statues of St. Arnolf, Bishop of Metz and legendary founder of the Carolingian dynasty, and
of St. Leopold, the only Hapsburg ever canonized and foremost patron Saint of Austria; the
tabernacles on top of the columns contain the effigies of four Hapsburgs who had attained the
rank of King or Emperor of Germany: Rudolf I, Albrecht I, Albrecht II, and Frederick III,
Maximilian's father. The front of the central tower is adorned with the Emperor's family
tree, flanked by the coats-of-arms of the Austrian branch on the left-hand side, and of the
Spanish branch on the right. The tree is rooted in the mythical past, which is personified by
the figures of Francia, Sigambria and Troy (because the Merovingian dynasty was believed
to descend from Hector), but it actually starts with Clovis, the first Christian King of the
Franks. It ends, of course, with Maximilian himself, enthroned and worshipped by twenty
THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH
177
two Victories; his lamented son Philip the Fair, after a sketch by Durer (947); and his
daughter Margaret of Austria, the future Governor of the Netherlands.
The crowning jewel of the whole is the aedicula in front of the cupola wherein is seen the
"Mysterium der aegyptischen Buchstaben'' ("Mystery of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs"). The
Emperor is depicted sitting on what looks like a sheaf of corn, and he is surrounded by so
fantastic an array of animals and other symbols that the meaning of the representation would
be wholly incomprehensible had we not Stabius's explanation and several autographic drafts
by Willibald Pirckheimer, one of which served as a basis for Durer's preliminary sketch (a
copy of the latter, 946, is illustrated in fig. 227). From this evidence it appears that the
picture is a carefully worded eulogy actually "written" in hieroglyphs, so that every single
phrase in Pirckheimer's Latin and Stabius's German text is directly and unequivocally
expressed by a visual symbol. It may be decoded as follows: "Maximilian [the Emperor him
self]-a prince [dog draped with stole] of great piety [star on the Emperor's crown], most
magnanimous, powerful and [lion], ennobled by imperishable and eternal fame
[basilisk on the Emperor's crown], descending from ancient lineage [the sheaf of papyrus on
which he is seated], Roman Emperor [eagle or, in the woodcut, eagles embroidered in the
cloth of honor], endowed with all the gifts of nature and possessed of art and learning [dew
descending from the sky] and master of a great part of the terrestrial globe [snake encircling
the scepter ]-has with warlike virtue and great discretion [bull] won a shining victory
[falcon on the orb] over the mighty king here indicated [cock on a serpent, meaning the King
of France], and thereby watchfully protected himself [crane raising its foot] from the
stratagems of said enemy, which has been deemed impossible [feet walking through water by
themselves] by all mankind."
Had Pirckheimer had his way, the "Mystery of the Egyptian Letters" would have
included several other symbols such as the balance of Justice and the club of Hercules; as
it is, the only symbols not taken from Horus Apollo's Hieroglyphica are the Roman eagle
and the cock, the punning emblem of France ("Gallia"). No such restrictions prevail in the
architectural ornament, which more than anything else bears the imprint of Durer's personal
genius. Here the symbolism of the "Egyptian" hieroglyphs freely mingles with that of
medieval heraldry and classical mythology, and art is fantastically fused with reality:
snails the size of a pumpkin round the corners of pedestals, lifelike dogs gracefully balance on
cornices, and dragons emerge from the wall to threaten the carved birds in a capital.
Many of these delicious details have been explained by Stabius himself. He tells us, for
instance, that the two Archdukes in the pedestals of the central portal-one armored, the
other not, and each accompanied by an analogously attired standard-bearer-personify strict
-discipline and order, on the one hand, and impartial justice, on the other. Sirens hung by their
necks (on 'the columns above the Archdukes) denote "the ordinary adversities of the world
which yet have done no damage to this noble Arch of Honor and, God willing, will never be
able to do so;" The "monstrous, misshapen, pale and miserly" Harpies (on the bases of the
inner pair of large columns) are meant to indicate that "his Majesty has not permitted them
to spoil his riches and his generous pleasures." The numerous Cupids, children of Venus to
whom the myrtle was sacred, refer to deeds worthy of an "ovation" whereby the victor wore
a wreath of myrtle instead of a wreath of laurel. The torches and candelabra serve "to illu-
minate the honor and fame of his Majesty and to throw light on the truth." The griffons on
the inner pair of large columns hold the insignia of the Golden Fleece: the one on the left, the
cross of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Burgundy; the one on the right, the flint and steel of
which the collar of the Order is composed so as to illustrate the motto "Ante ferit quam micat"
("First strike, then shine!"). The griffon on the outer right-hand column holds a scroll with
the motto of the Order of Temperance ("Halt Mass!"), while his companion on the left
bears Maximilian's personal device, the pomegranate. A common symbol of fertility and
unity, it had been adopted by the Emperor in his youth because it struck him as an image of
his own self: "Though the pomegranate lacks a particularly handsome skin and a particularly
lovely smell, yet its interior is full of noble munificence and shapely seeds."
"Much could be written about the many other ornaments," Stabius concludes, "but may
every beholder explain and interpret them himself." Following this advice, the beholder soon
discovers that almost every detail of this luxuriant and seemingly capricious decoration has
an emblematic significance. Some of the motifs are "classical," as, for example, the empty
thrones surmounted by garlands-a well-known symbol of immortality; the trophies of wars
and hunts (the dead herons hung from a hook which are seen on and near the pedestals of
the large columns) ; and the "Aquilifer" and "Draconifer" above the inner pair of griffons.
Others are heraldic, for instance: the heralds on the central tower; the insignia of the Order
of Temperance-the German successor of the Spanish Order of the Jar ("Orden de la J arra")
-which are suspended on the columns with the H.arpies; or Maximilian's pomegranates
which are in evidence in several places. Still other motifs belong in the province of ordinary
animal and floral symbolism, for instance: the snails which stand for sloth, but also for
patience; the fettered monkeys which symbolize the suppression of the baser instincts; the
elephants which stand for chastity; the grapes and cornucopias which signify joy and abun-
dance; the fairly ubiquitous lilies-of-the-valley which denote virtuous purity; and the pea
blossoms and peasecods beneath the Harpies which suggest luck in love and fertility.
The most unusual features, however, can be traced back to Horus Apollo's Hieroglyphica,
and it is perhaps not by accident that these are all designed by Durer himself. That the inscrip-
tions in the second story of the left-hand gable is inscribed on a lion's skin needs no explana-
tion. But that the corresponding inscription, which praises his family connections, is inscribed
on a deer's skin can be accounted for by the fact that Horus Apollo adduces the deer as the
hieroglyph of "longevity." The goats on either side of these inscriptions signify "a man quick
of hearing," and Durer took particular pains to emphasize this idea by enormous ears. The
crane, already known to us as a symbol of watchfulness (because he was believed to hold in
his raised foot a little stone which would fall down and wake him should he go to sleep),
recurs on the garland of lilies-of-the-valley which is hung across the central portal; and on the
tabernacles to which this garland is being fastened by two bearded servants-"the Northern
TRIUMPHAL .ARCH AND TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION
179
colleagues of Michelangelo's Slaves in the Sistine Chapel," as Wolffiin calls them-are seen
two dogs, also already mentioned as symbols of intelligence and, more specifically, of "sacred
letters" (see the drawing 970). The capitals of the inner pair of large columns are made up
of lion's heads and ibises, the hieroglyphs of "vigilance" and "wisdom."
Durer's Triumphal Arch has not gained favor with the critics of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries; it is indeed objectionable both from a classicizing and from an expres-
sionistic point of view. But we should cease to measure the Triumphal Arch by the standards
of Roman architecture, on the one hand, and of Durer's Apocalypse, on the other. A typical
instance 'of Northern Mannerism, and therefore, in a sense, an anticipation of modern Sur-
realism without its Freudian connotations, it may be compared to those intricate specimens of
cabinet-making (like the "Pommerscher Kunstschrank" in the Schlossmuseum at Berlin)
which are "not beautiful but miraculous," as Vasari would say, manufactured from all sorts
of precious materials, redundant with inlays, colonnettes and carved figures, and full of hid-
den drawers which may guard their secret until a great-great-grandson of the original owner
happens to touch the right spring. The Triumphal Arch cannot be subjected to the categories
of "appreciationists." It demands to be read like a book, to be decoded like a cryptogram, and
yet to be enjoyed like a collection of quaint and sparkling jewelry.
The Triumphal Arch had, of course, to be supplemented by a Triumphal Procession. A
detailed program, conceived by the Emperor himself, was worked out in 1512 by his Secre-
tary, Marx Treitz-Saurwein, and some preparatory work was done in the following years.
The woodcuts, however, about half of them designed by Burgkmair, the others by Leonard
Beck, Altdorfer, Wolf Huber, Schauffelein, Springinklee and Durer, were not produced until
1516/18. In 1519 the work was interrupted by Maximilian's death so that the number of
woodcuts actually executed falls short of that required by,.tbe program; but even so they
measure almost sixty yards when arranged in a continuous sequence. What was available was
published in 1526 by order and at the expense of the Archduke Ferdinand, the brother and
future successor of Charles V.
In this posthumous edition the cortege, announced by a nude "Herald" on a gigantic
griffon, unfolds in regal though somewhat incondite splendor. Pipers and drummers, pre-
ceded by a horse-borne litter with the "Title Tablet," introduce the representatives of
falconry and all other kinds of huntsmanship. Then comes the Court_.!_including the holders
of the "Five Courtly Offices," musicians, fools, masqueraders, fencers, and jousters-and
after this two endless cavalcades bearing the banners of the Austrian and Burgundian prov-
inces the latter ushered in by "Burgundian Flute-Players" and appropriately
follo\\'ed by a chariot celebrating the wedding of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy. Next
.. come _the :.'Wars" in the shape of curious man-driven automobiles, on which are depicted the
Emperor's battles, conquests and peace-treaties, followed by a chariot laden with trophies.
This precedes a chariot with the marriage of Philip the Fair to Joan of Castille, a number
of horse-borne litters with the effigies of Maximilian's great predecessors "in bearings, titles
and possessions," a group of prisoners, and an excited crowd of people carrying statues of
180
Victory. Then we behold a formation of "Imperial Heralds and Trumpeters," but t h ~ expec
tations roused by their fanfares are not fulfilled. They are merely followed by a Kmg and
Queen (Philip the Fair and Joan of Castille'?) and a Princess (Margaret of Austria'?) on
horseback, a group of "Worthy Servants," and a charming piece of Renaissance primitivism,
viz., a horde of Indians ("Kalekutisch Leut") complete with elephant, parrots, exotic arms
and fantastic costumes and headdresses. The whole procession is concluded by the baggage
train which still struggles through the woods while all the others have already reached the
open country.
We have, then, a Triumphal Procession without a trz'umphator, an anomaly for which
Durer, or rather Pirckheimer, was, in a sense, to blame. The program required, of course, an
"Imperial Chariot," to be preceded by the "Imperial Heralds and Trumpeters" and to be
followed by the Electors, the Counts, and the lesser Nobility. It was to show "the Emperor
in his Imperial garb and majesty and, according to rank, his first Empress, further King
Philip and his Queen, and King Philip's children; and Duke Charles shall have a crown on
his head." This piece de resistance had naturally been entrusted to Durer, and he had made
a preliminary sketch in pen and ink, exactly corresponding to the above description, as early
as 1512/13. But then Pirckheimer took the matter in hand and decided that the "Imperial
Chariot" must not be represented in purely descriptive fashion but should be elaborated
into a full-dress allegory. This complicated the procedure enormously ("it took much time
to arrange all the pertinent Virtues in suitable order," to quote a letter of Pirckheimer to
Maximilian), and it was not until March 1518 that a final "Visierung" in color could be
submitted and approved. Before it was carried out in woodcut the Emperor died; and since
the whole enterprise seemed doomed to failure Durer retained the drawing for himself. As
revised by Pirckheimer, the composition had in fact grown into a self-contained and learned
eulogy no longer fitting in with Marx Treitz-Saurwein's operatic pageant. Thus the Tri
umphal Charz'ot of Maximilian I, known as "The Great Triumphal Car," was published in
1522 as an independent work "invented, designed and printed by Albrecht Durer."
In the drawing of 1512/13 (950, fig. 231) the triumphal chariot is rich and costly, "as
befits an Imperial conveyance," but light and almost graceful in appearance and compara-
tively restrained in ornament. It is drawn by four pairs of horses, and allegorical motifs are
restricted to eagles, griffons, lions and musical angels supporting the canopy.
All this is changed in the drawing of 1518 (951) and in the woodcut of 1522 (359), the
latter differing from the former chiefly by the addition of Pirckheimer's explanations, which
accompany the progress of the vehicle like a basso ostinato, and by the fact that the some
what shorter chariot no longer has room for the Emperor's family; after his death it seemed
fitting to interpret his "triumph," not as a dynastic manifesto but as a personal apotheosis.
In these two later versions the allegorical spirit tuns to an extreme. There are eight pairs
of horses instead of four, and the animals are of a heavier breed. Each of them is led by the
personification of a statesmanlike or soldierly virtue "so that it might not walk or run in any
other manner than is consistent with the quality of this virtue." The first two horses, for in-
THE TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION
181
stance, are led by Experience and Adroitness ("Sollertia"), and trot along with quiet dignity.
The second pair, stimulated by Magnanimity and Audacity, shows spirit and temper; and
the fourth pair-one horse rearing, the other trotting-reflects the contrast between Velocity
and Firmness. The chariot itself is a weighty monstrosity, not only fraught with emblems
of all kinds but also "moralized" in that its very wheels signify "dignity," "glory," "mag
nificence" and "honor" while the bridles denote "nobility" and "power." Its body and mud
guards are adorned with dragons, eagles, lions and the now familiar griffons carrying the
flint and steel of the Golden Fleece. Its canopy illustrates the idea of the "Roi Soleil" by
the phrase "Quod in celis sol hoc in terra Caesar est" whereby, as Pirckheimer puts it, "a
sun has been depicted for the word sol, and an eagle for the word Caesar." A personification
of Reason acts as charioteer, and the lordly figure of Maximilian is not only crowned by a
Victory whose pinions are inscribed with the names of conquered nations, but is also sur
rounded by the four Cardinal Virtues: Justice, Temperance, Prudence and Fortitude. Signifi-
cantly placed on the four corners ( cardines) of the car, they hold a chain of wreaths every
link of which denotes a derivative virtue; and Gravity, Perseverance, Security and Con
fidence lend a helping hand in propelling the chariot.
Several other designs intended for the Triumphal Procession-six Riders, two of them
bearing standards and four the trophies of Maximilian's wars (953-962), and, possibly, a
group of costume studies (1287-1290)-were never executed at all; the program called,
in fact, for "trophies on chariots" and not for trophies carried by horsemen. Thus Durer's
contribution to the woodcut series as published in 1526 is limited to one item: the two-block
woodcut representing the Wedding of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, commonly quoted
as "The Small Triumphal Car" or "The Burgundian Marriage" (429, fig. 232). Rich and
magniloquent, yet less confusing and obscure than the Triumphal Arch and the "Great Tri
umphal Car," this composition shakes off, to some extent, the shackles of courtly ceremonial
and scholastic erudition. It is pervaded by a contagious spirit of youth, vigor and joy, and a
perfect harmony has been achieved between the splendor and cheerfulness of the subject
and the sweep and flourish of its graphic presentation.
Standing on the canopied platform of a six-wheeled vehicle with wedding-bells attached
to its "running-boards" are seen the royal couple, holding a shield with the coat-of-arms of
the bride. On a lower platform are three women each joyfully waving-one, a goblet, the
second a banner, and the third the gigantic model of a wedding-ring. The canopy is sup
ported by chubby Cupids standing on slender balusters and carrying nuptial torches in their
free hands, and the motif of the pomegranate is in evidence throughout; real pomegranates
are arranged in a big vase on the main platform, carved pomegranates adorn the frame of
~ the car; and embroidered pomegranates appear on a curtain against which is set out a kind of
tableau Vivant picturing the meeting of the bride with Maximilian's ambassadors. The car
is driven by a lovely Victory who with her left hand brandishes a laurel wreath while with
her right she bridles four superb horses caparisoned with the emblems of the Golden Fleece,
rearing and neighing, their tails magnificently billowing in an imaginary breeze.
However, even the "Burgundian Marriage" has not really endeared itself to posterity.
Of all Durer's efforts to please his imperial patron only one has aroused real enthusiasm:
his forty-five marginal drawings in the "Prayer-Book of Maximilian I" (965, figs. 234-238).
This Prayer-Book was compiled, arranged and, in certain sections, even worded according
to Maximilian's wishes, and was probably intended for the members of the Order of St.
George which he had revived in connection with his lifelong dream of a new Crusade. It was
printed by Johannes Schi:insperger of Augsburg, and we learn from the colophon that the
printing, or rather the composition, was finished on December 30, 1513. About three months
before, the Emperor had already asked for ten copies on vellum but had been put off with
a mere sample page.
Five copies of the Prayer-Book have come down to us; but they do not constitute a real
"edition." None of them is entirely identical with any one of the others, and none of them
is really complete; the Calendar, which gave rise to controversy among Maximilian's advisers
and was not approved by the Pope until after the Emperor's death, was never even set up
in type. Some quires were reset and appear in different states, and none of the known copies
has a complete set of initials. The copies of 1513 must therefore be regarded as proof-
impressions subject to changes and additions before the final publication could be issued.
This is also true of the copy generally referred to as the Prayer-Book of Maximilian 1-
now divided between the Staatsbibliothek in Munich and the Museum at Besanc;on-where
a superficial impression of completeness and unity was subsequently achieved by the in-
sertion of painted initials, some of them covering printed ones while others fill what had been
blank spaces. This copy had been given to Durer to be adorned with marginal drawings. He
had about completed the decoration of the first ten quires--except for quire no. 1 which
was left without ornaments-in 1515 when he interrupted his work for reasons not altogether
clear. The copy was passed on to several other painters who were told to continue, as far
as they could, after the pattern set by Durer; and these masters, including Lucas Cranach,
Burgkmair, Hans Baldung Grien, Jorg Breu, and, according to some, Albrecht Altdorfer,
decorated the rest of the volume to the best of their abilities. As a whole, the decoration still
gives a somewhat fragmentary impression, and even some of Durer's own pages are evidently
unfinished.
Durer's forty-five drawings-all in the Munich part of the book-are, like those of his
followers, pure pen drawings executed with colored ink, Durer's personal choice being red,
olive-green and violet. Unlike certain later drawings by Virgil Solis where hair is indicated
by brown lines, flesh by pink lines, foliage by green ones, and so on, these colors served no
naturalistic purpose. With Durer, who never used more than one pigment at a time, their
function is a purely decorative one. Beside the Prayer-Book's powerful Gothic letterpress
a linear design in black would have looked weak and meager-as every colorless reproduction
confirms: the thin black lines tend to be completely overshadowed by the heavy black masses.
Colored lines, on the other hand, equally thin and juxtaposed with the same black masses,
escape into an aesthetic sphere of their own. They no longer try to compete with the letter-
THE PRA YERBOOK
press-no more than humming-birds try to compete with an elephant; to retain the simile,
they skim and flutter around it so that the beholder enjoys a contrast between different
qualities instead of witnessing a conflict between unequal forces.
What was the purpose of these marginal Most recent writers on the subject
are inclined to believe that they were meant to remain precisely what they are, that is to say,
to adorn one special copy of the Prayer-Book intended for the private use of the Emperor.
This view, attractive though it is from a romantic point of view, is however incompatible with
the fact that the "Imperial copy" is just as unfinished and incomplete a piece of bookmaking
as are the four others. It is improbable that Maximilian would have set aside for his personal
use a Prayer-Book unevenly printed, lacking the greater part of its initials and not yet
provided with the Calendar which, from a liturgical point of view, was the most important
part of the volume. There remains, then, the earlier hypothesis that the alleged "Imp,erial
copy" was in reality a mere working copy, that is to say, that the drawings therein were
intended, not to be enjoyed by the Emperor as precious originals, but to serve as a basis for
woodcuts.
To this assumption it has been objected, first, that a black-and-white reproduction of the
drawings would destroy their decorative charm; second, that the pages of the Munich-
Besanc;on copy are carefully ruled with pinkish lines drawn in with the pen after the printing
of the text. This, it was argued, shows that the intention was to imitate a manuscript whose
pages were ruled before the scribes began their work (such rulings being obviously useless in
a printed book), and this illusion would have been nullified had woodcuts been substituted
for thedrawings.
At first glance these two objections seem to be well taken; but how-if both the drawings
and the rulings were to be reproduced, not in black-and-whitlbut in their original colors, and
if, therefore, every copy of the final edition, and not only the "Imperial copy" in Munich and
Besanc;on, had been intended to simulate a hand-written and hand-decorated
The type with which the Prayer-Book is printed-apparently designed for the purpose by
Vincenz Rocker, one of Maximilian's secretaries-is in itself of a deliberately archaic and
therefore imitative character. It imitates the bold lettre brisee script of liturgical manuscripts
written in the first half of the fifteenth century and anticipates, to some extent, the famous
Missals and Graduals later to be issued by Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp. It is, in fact, in
Maximilian's times, and particularly in Augsburg, that the interest in calligraphy took an
unmistakably retrospective turn. In 1520, for instance, a Canon of St. Ulrich's called Leon-
hard Wagner-immortalized by the silver point of Hans Holbein the Elder, and regarded by
some as the inventor of the Fraktur type-collected in one of the earliest "writing books"
one huhdred different specimens of lettering some of which are quite similar to the type of
the Prayer-Book while others are even patterned after imperial deeds of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. The very letterpress of the Prayer-Book, then, was meant to give the
impression of handwriting rather than printing-even to the addition of flourishes suggesting
the free play of the pen, some of them printed between the lines, and others attached to the
hastae of individual letters protruding from the top and bottom lines.
The inventor of these movable flourishes was the Flemish woodcutter J ost de Negker who
had come to Augsburg in 1508 or, at the latest, 1510. He is best known for his inventiveness
and skill in the field of the clair-obscur woodcut, but he was by no means the first to print
woodcuts with colored ink. When he appeared in Germany the printers had been experiment-
ing with "tint-blocks" for more than twenty-five years, and most of the pioneer work had
been done by Erhard Ratdolt of Augsburg whose liturgical books-for instance, the splendid
Missale Aquileiense of 1494-have illustrations printed in as many as five different colors.
The same Ratdolt even solved the problem of printing in gold, and a special copy on vellum
of Conrad Peutinger's Romanae vetustatis fragmenta in Augusta Vindelicorum et eius
dioecesi (Augsburg, 1505), printed in gold, black and red, is supposed to have been intended
for Maximilian himself. An Augsburg workshop, then, would have been quite capable of
reproducing both the "rulings" and the illustrations of the Prayer-Book in their original
colors, and such colored woodcuts would have imitated drawings and pen lines just as
successfully as Vincenz Rocker's Gothic type imitates script. That Durer's cutters, too, were
equal to this task is demonstrated by the ornaments beneath the griffons in the Triumphal
Arch (fig. 239) which very faithfully retain the character of such "pen-plays" as frequently
appear in the Prayer-Book (fig. 238).
Had the final edition ever materialized, the pink rulings would have been printed over
the text from one woodblock, and the red, olive-green or violet border-decorations would
have been printed on top from another one. The whole would have looked very much like a
modern facsimile edition of the originals in Munich and and it would indeed have
b.een a facsimile in the full sense of the word. Each copy, printed on vellum, would have
simul.ated .a h.and-decorated manuscript, written in what would have looked like liturgical
scnpt m an.d cinnabar, provided with what would have looked like the rulings
by. scnbes, and decorated with what would have looked like pen drawings
m colored mks. This must have been precisely what Maximilian wanted. A printed book
creating the illusion of a hand-written and hand-decorated Livre d' Heures, or, to put it
the other. w:y, an apparently hand-written and hand-decorated Livre d' Heures produced
by. the pnntmg would have symbolized to perfection the tastes and aspirations of a
pnnce engrossed m the past, yet keenly interested in every invention and device of modern
technics: of a collector of manuscripts enamored of typography.
The of Durer's Prayer-Book drawings needs no explanation. They are
buoyantly Imagmative where the big woodcuts are ponderously allegorical. Their craftsman-
ship, enhanced by the very preciousness of the material, is such that the beholder follows the
swift and n:ver-failing movement of the artist's pen with a sensation comparable to the
almost physical pleasure which we experience when observing a perfect dance, a perfect dive
or a jump on horseback. They are full of what the period of their "rediscovery," the
early nmeteenth century, considered as the most lovable qualities of "primitive" German art,
THE PRAYER-BOOK
;
sincere devoutness, naivete, and humor; and they unfold before our eyes "the whole world of
art, from the figures of the Deity to the artistic flourishes of the writing-master," to quote
from a description which, whoever its author, expresses the opinion of Goethe.
Since the text of the Prayer-Book is printed continuously, the illustration had to be con-
fined to the margins. To meet this requirement Durer synthesized the two main systems of
border decoration which were in use by the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth century: one predominating in the Northern countries-the other in Italy; one
playfully capricious-the other primly tectonic. In Northern books-not only in manuscripts
but also in such printed specimens as the "Ulm Boccaccio" of 1473-the margins are over-
spread with the unhampered growth of exuberant rinceaux, now consisting of stylized hair-
line sprays, now simulating natural branches and tendrils; now bearing only over-sized fruits
and flowers, now interspersed with animals and "drolleries"; now harboring the characters of
a Biblical story, now suddenly developing into serpents or grotesque faces (fig. 240). The
borders of Italian books, drawing from the same classical sources as the ornament of Quattro-
cento architecture and wall painting, tend to be divided into vertical and horizontal panels;
and these are preferably decorated with grotteschi, that is to say, free combinations of foliage
with artifacts, animals and human forms which are set out against a neutral dark back-
ground and which, however fantastic, invariably observe the rule of axial symmetry. The
ornaments at the top and bottom of the page are mostly arranged in more or less heraldic
fashion, and the lateral margins-not unlike the pilasters in contemporary buildings-are
filled with axialized structures, involving, besides vegetal ornament, such objects as vases,
masks, candelabra and baskets, and the figures of putti, sphinxes or fauns (fig. 241; see also
Durer's more literal imitation of this scheme in a slightly earlier Border Decoration for
Pirckheimer [ 408] ) . ,r
Axialized structures obviously derived from grotteschi appear ten or eleven times in
Durer's Prayer-Book drawings. But the very fact that the original camayeu effect is replaced by
pure line drawing exempts them even from that modicum of static rationality which had been
preserved in the Italian and classical specimens. In all but three cases Durer's constructions
do not rest on firm ground but seem to float in space (fols. 16, 24, 35v, 46 [fig. 235]) or
dangle from the top of the page instead of rising from its bottom (fols. 29v, 48v, 51 v, 55v ).
Even the most "classical" instances (fols. 45 and 56) give an airier and less tectonic impres-
sion than their models and ancestors, and in two cases we see the structure not yet finished
butin course of erection in that vivacious putti set up a complicated column on a pedestal
(fol. 19) or plant a little tree in a pot which in turn grows out of a naturalistic bough like
an enormous fruit (fol. 36).
Thus even the law of axiality is occasionally loosened (see fig. 235), and nowhere do we
find an attempt at observing what may be called the principle of existential homogeneity. In
the Roman and Italian grotteschi, treated as they are en camayeu, human or semi-human
figures are riot interpreted as living beings, but rather as statuettes, while foliage and inani-
mate objects, though never quite "impossible," are stylized after the fashion of stone or stucco
186 WORK FOR MAXIMILIAN; "DECORATIVE STYLE"
ornaments instead of appearing as "real" plants or candelabra; the whole is thus reduced to a
uniformly artificial, and therefore homogeneous level of existence. Durer, justly confident of
the unifying power of lines, combined the utter realism of living creatures, natural plants and
genuine implements with the utter abstractness of purely ornamental flourishes, with all kinds
of unexpected mutations between these two poles.
On fol. 53, for instance--one of the three examples where at least the law of gravity has
been observed-three lion's claws develop into wings out of which, as an egg from an egg-cup,
peers a gigantic mask with foliage for a cap. It serves as support for a fairly "classical"
column, on the capital of which is perched a real cock, flapping his wings and crowing at the
top of his voice. Tied around the juncture of the mask and the column is a ribbon whose
tasseled ends form a symmetrical ornament; but from its knots branch out some of those purely
linear flourishes or pen-plays which appear on almost every page of the Prayer-Book, now
moving with the freedom of a skimming bird, now developing into rapid sketches of faces,
fishes, lions and unicorns, and then again disciplined into extremely complicated, symmetrical
arabesques inimitable even by the best of Durer's followers. On fol. 24 an oval bulb, growing
out of a tangle of hanging roots, supports a graceful vase all' antic a which in turn supports a
gimlet-eyed, beaked head quite similar to one of the Dragon's heads in the Beast with Two
Horns like a Lamb (294) but further embellished by a pair of antlers; on these is perched
a heraldically frontalized yet very naturalistic eagle, and the whole is surmounted by a
decorative arrangement of branches. On fol. 35v, finally, we have a loose-knit linear ara-
besque, which develops into two caricatured masks in profile, and from these is suspended the
head of a goat or chamois with a ring through its nose from which dangles a fantastic pendant,
half watermelon, half artifact, ending in an acanthus-like ornament.
While the Italian grotteschi scheme was thus emancipated from the rule of mechanical
symmetry and, at the same time, made to assimilate abstract calligraphy as well as unstylized,
living reality, the Northern rinceaux were subject to a certain amount of discipline. As a rule
they do not start at one of the corners so as to cover two adjoining margins or even to creep
around the whole page, but respect the "tectonic" principle according to which the four mar-
gins are treated as separate "panels." They unfold usually with a certain amount of regu-
larity, and there are cases where it is difficult to tell whether we have a Germanized grotteschi
ornament or an Italianized rinceaux border. On fol. 46, for instance, the lower part of the
ensemble consists of a strictly axialized combination of a foliate mask with a classical vase;
but the tree which grows in the latter soon defies the principle of axiality and develops into an
undulating rinceau which harbors a fettered Satyr and a dead bird hung by its neck (fig.
235). Fol. 52, on the other hand, shows a naturalistic rince_aux ornament of vines and tendrils,
but from one of the branches is suspended a perfectly symmetrical mask which definitely
belongs in a grotteschi system. And whatever "existential disparity" may be felt in these and
other fantastic agglutinations is overcome by a pervasive feeling of weightlessness and fluid-
ity, a feeling which takes visible shape, as it were, in the ubiquitous flourishes.
THE PRAYER-BOOK
Obliterating as it did the borderline between imagination and reality, this decorative
system could easily assimilate the illustrative elements. The trees of a landscape in which
are placed the musicians suggested by the text of a Psalm could develop into rinceaux and
ultimately into calligraphical flourishes (fol. so, fig. 237). The figures and groups required
by special invocations could be placed on fantastic flowers or on no less fantastic pedestals
and consoles. The locks of Angels' heads could merge with the curves of an arabesque ( fol.
16), and the Devil could coil his tail around a branch which forms an integral part of the
marginal ornament (fol. 37v). But just this perfect union between the decorative, on the
one hand, and the illustrative, on the other, obscures at times the iconographic meaning of
Durer's designs. The animals incorporated in the vegetal ornament or disporting themselves
in the bas-de-pages, the human and semi-human figures perched on the branches of imaginary
trees, the vases, columns, masks and musical instruments derived from the grotteschi tradi-
tion-all these motifs may or may not have a determinable significance; and even in the case
of palpably narrative elements it is not always easy to decide to what extent these elements can
be explained by the text or liturgical custom, to what extent they depend on outside sources
(such as the Hieroglyphica) or were selected in deference to Maximilian's personal wishes,
and to what extent they sprang from the imagination of Durer himself.
An established custom of Prayer-Book illustration is followed in that the beginning of the
"Hours of the Virgin" is marked by the Annunciation ( fols. 35v, 36, the only double-page
composition in the whole volume). In a Horae B.M.V. an Annunciation "belonged" to
Matins just as a Crucifixion and a Christ in Majesty "belonged" to the Canon in a Missal.
Only, Durer "visionized" the subject after the fashion of the Frontispieces of the "Three
Large Books" (figs. I8o-182) in that not only the Angel but also the Virgin at her prie-dieu
appears to the beholder in a band of clouds; and it is implemented by the contrast between
two putti planting and climbing what seems to represent the Tree of Life, and the Devil
breaking down under a shower of heavenly fire.
Durer also conformed to accepted traditions when he accompanied the section from the
Gospel of St. John (fol. IJV) and the Psalm De Pro fund is (fol. 16v) by "author's portraits,"
viz., by a representation of St. John on Patmos and of King David playing his harp before
the Lord; and when he illustrated the "Suffrages" by full-length effigies of the Saints to
whom they are addressed. These effigies do not offer any particular iconographical problems
except for their selection and, in some cases, for the motifs in the bas-de-pages. That St.
George appears twice--on foot on fol. 9 and on horseback, with a young dragon surprisingly
surviving the death of the old one, on fol. 23v-may be accounted for by the probable destina-
tion of the Prayer-Book for the Order of St. George. St. Andrew (fol. 25) may have been
especially l}.onored because of his connection with Burgundy and the Golden Fleece, and St.
Matthias (fol. 24v) because he is the only Apostle buried in Germany, and this in the
Cathedral of Treves, so close to the heart of the Emperor.
The mostinteresting case is that of the Emperor's personal Saint, St. Maximilian, Bishop
of Lorch (fol. 25v, fig. 234). He is dressed in episcopal garb and holds his conventional
attribute, the sword; but it 'seems to have escaped notice that he does not wear a Bishop's
miter but the bicuspid crown of the Holy Roman Empire as it appears, for instance, in the
Triumphal Arch and constantly "for crest" in the coat-of-arms of German Emperors. Maxi-
milian and his Saint have, in a sense, merged into one personality; and this may also account
for the presence of a bison or bull, the hieroglyphic symbol of "warlike virtue and discretion"
("virilitas cum modestia") which, we remember, prominently figures in the "Mystery of the
Egyptian Letters" (fig. 227). St. Andrew, the patron Saint of the Emperor's Burgundian\
marriage, so to speak, is accompanied by a stag for the same reason that a stag's skin appears
in the Triumphal Arch. But it is hard to say why St. Apollonia (fol. 24) should have been
associated with a turtle and a heron devouring a fly, unless by way of a facetious contrast
between two happily edentate animals and the Saint who "suffered the painful extraction of
her teeth"; and why the bas-de-page of the St. Matthias page (fol. 24v) should show a hermit
tempted by a woman with a cup. The bas-de-page of the page with St. Ambrose (fol. 53v),
however, may have been suggested by the firm association of the "Te Deum" with Eastertide
(it is recited on work days only between Low Sunday and Pentecost) and may specifically
reflect the words "Tibi omnes angeli, tibi coeli et universae potestates, tibi cherubin et
seraphin incessabili voce proclamant: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus": the drawing shows a
paraphrase of the Entry into Jerusalem wherein the Infant Jesus as "Pantocrator"-that is, ,
as King of the Universe, holding the Orb-is substituted for the historical Christ, while
those who "spread their garments in the way" are replaced by an Angel.
A closer and more obvious connection between illustration and text exists where pictures
were suggested by a direct reference to a Biblical incident, as on fol. 33, where the rubric
"Quomodo Judei perterriti ceciderunt in terram" gave rise to a representation of the Betrayal
according to John, xvm, 3-7, with the Mater Dolorosa hovering in clouds above the tragic
scene; or where they summarize the basic content of special invocations. Quite appropriately,
the prayer "After the Elevation of the Host," evoking the idea of the Mass of St. Gregory,
was illustrated by a Man of Sorrows (fol. 10v); the prayer for the souls of the deceased
("et libera eas ab omnibus penis et angustiis et perdue eas ad requiem sempiternam"), by a
representation of Purgatory with one of the souls carried to heaven (fol. 16); the "Humble
Invocation of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity," by the Throne of Mercy (fol. 21).
Similarly, a request for the intercession of the Virgin Mary called forth the image of the
"Virgo electa" in prayer-though it is difficult to see why the bas-de-page should show a
musical putto stepping on a snail (fol. 51); the two Psalms "to be recited when one
must go to war"-viz., Psalms XCI and xxxv-were accompanied by vivid battle scenes,
with Angels celebrating Mass in Heaven ( fols. 28 and 29v); the page with a prayer "to be
remembered in the agony of death" shows Death arresting a knight while a hawk swoops
down upon a crane in the nocturnal sky; and the "Plea for Benefactors" is illustrated by a
scene of charity-a wealthy burgher giving alms to a beggar-surmounted by a pelican
(fol. 15).
Elsewhere, however, Durer did not "illustrate" in the accepted sense of the term, but
THE PRA YERBOOK 189
proceeded like a musician on a given theme. A sentence, a phrase, or even a
mere word would conjure up a visual association which could, in turn, "be fruitful and
multiply." Thus the jubilant lines of Psalm xcvm, particularly the verse "With trumpets
and sound of cornet make a joyful noise," inspired the marvellous group of a drummer and
trumpeters. Five of them are still testing their instruments with gradually increasing success,
and the sixth already plays full blast, while the idea of the trumpets and the drums is gaily
paraphrased by an elephant's head and a woodpecker in the marginal ornament (fol. 50, fig.
237). The beginning of Psalm c ("Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the
Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing") is illustrated by another trum-
peter-this time assisted by a crowing cock-and by a truly "noisy" peasants' dance (fol.
s6v ). A prayer "in recognition of one's frailty," which contains the line "qui mulierem
infirmam curasti" ("Thou Who hast healed the sick woman"), suggested a doctor examining
a urinal (fol. gv). The verse "He has sent from Heaven and saved me," in Psalm LVII,
conjured up the vision of God in Heaven as He blesses St. Michael fighting the Devil; and
the phrase "donee transeat iniquitas" ("until iniquity has passed by") in the same Psalm
was translated into an image which shows a pagan ruler, with an orb surmounted by the
heathenish crescent, literally "passing by" on a mock triumphal chariot adorned with harpies
and drawn by a goat ( fol. 26v). The "fullness of the earth" and "they that dwell therein" of
Psalm XXIV are visualized by an American Indian standing on a native, horn-carved ladle
the like of which can still be seen in many ethnological collections (fol. 41) and by a be-
turbaned Oriental leading a camel ( fol. 42v).
In a number of cases the thread of association becomes so thin that it is scarcely visible
to the naked eye, and in still others it eludes even the microscope of philological analysis
(which, however, may be the fault of the microscope). The''"naive" beholder will perhaps
admit that the image of a fox luring a flock of chickens with the tunes of a flute, contrasted
with that of a watchful soldier, may have been induced by the phrase "Protect me, so that
neither the Devil nor any human enemy may be able to harm me in body or soul" ( fol. 34 v) ;
that the comprehensive survey of animals contrasted with two musicians and a hermit (fol.
38v) may refer to those verses of Psalm vm in which man is praised as the master of all
creatures; or that the appearance of the Sudarium on fol. 56 may be accounted for by the
word testimonia in Psalm xcm, 5 "Testimonia tua credibilia facta sunt nimis" ("Thy testi-
monies are very sure"). But he will find it hard to believe that a man asleep with his book
while a dog jumps at a putto ( fol. 4 5) may symbolize the imperturbable calm expressed in
Psalm XLVI "Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed .... Be still and know
that I am God"; or that the juxtaposition of a musician and a monkey on fol. 6v may have
'"been suggested by the phrase "Recedant a me omnes immunditiae ... ut tibi laudes aeternas
dicere passim" ("May all uncleanliness recede from me ... so that I may give Thee eternal
praise") because the ape was proverbially known as immunda simia. Or again, it may seem
hardly credible that the crane and the unicorn in the unfinished border of fol. 17 may be
transcriptions of the words custodia and noctem in the phrase "A custodia matutina usque ad
. " "
WORK FOR MAXIMILIAN; DECORATIVE STYLE
noctem speret Israel in Domino" ("From the watch of the morning to nightfall let Israel
hope in the Lord," Psalm cxxx) because the crane was the .hieroglyph of. watchfulness .while
the unicorn-or at least this particular breed of unicorn whiCh reappears m the Abductzon of
Proserpine ( 179, fig. 243)-was associated with the infernal regions, darkness and night.
Five drawings-the noble border decorations of fols. 19, 46 (fig. 235) and 53, the Com-
bat Scene on fol. 55v, and the "Hausfrau" returning from the market with a cheese, a basket
of eggs and a goose perched on her head while her sturdy feet rest on what is at once a cobble-
stone pavement and the seeds of a gigantic pomegranate ( fol. 51 v )-have thus far defied any
attempt at interpretation. But the remaining ones, though not connected with the text as such,
have a clear moralistic significance. On fol. 37v we find a new, less optimistic version of the
"Knight, Death and Devil" theme, the knight in desperate flight as in the illustrations of the
Legend of the Three Living and the Three Pead, but the Devil wielding precisely the same
pickaxe as in the famous engraving of 1513. The drawing on fol. 48v, contrasting a woman
asleep by her distaff with a stern warrior characterized by the familiar symbols of the clever
dog and the watchful crane, transforms the old antithesis between Sloth and Labor, as
sented in the Somme le Roi and Sebastian Brant's "Narrenschiff," into one between Inertta
and Vigilance. And fol. 52 opposes divine contemplation, exemplified by an Angel reading a
sacred book, to the animal pleasures of a drinking Silenus and a piping Faun, while an eagle
perched on a branch-a symbol of all that is sublime in human nature-basks in the rays of a
heavenly light.
Two drawings, which have been called "surprising in a Christian Prayer-Book," express
the same idea-the victory of spiritual forces over the dangers and temptations of the world
-by way of mythological allusion.
One of them shows Hercules killing the Stymphalian Birds (fol. 39v, fig. 236); the
other, Hercules again, with the dead lion at his feet and significantly contrasted with a
drunkard too lazy and self-indulgent to fight off the attack of a spoonbill goose (fol. 47).
Hercules, the champion of Virtue and conqueror of evil in all shapes and forms, had long
been accepted as a model of the miles Christianus or even as a prefiguration of Christ Him-
self; and for Maximilian, supposedly his direct descendant, he had an eminently personal
connotation. The Emperor could as easily identify himself with a classical hero whom he
regarded as his ancestor as with the Christian Saint after whom he was named.
THE Triumphal Arch, Triumphal Procession, and Prayer-Book of Maximilian I are signifi-
cant manifestations of the "decorative" phase in Durer's stylistic development. Spatial,
plastic, textural and luminary values are deliberately suppressed in favor of a pattern
designed to fill, to diversify, to enliven, in short to "adorn" a given two-dimensional surface
rather than to suggest an autonomous three-dimensional picture space.
This "decorative style" had announced itself in Durer's pen drawings. Before his second
trip to Venice these had been modelled by short, comma-shaped strokes which, irregularly
spaced and arbitrarily intersecting both each other and longer "guiding lines," had had no
I
l
! .
I
i

CHARACTER OF THE "DECORATIVE STYLE"
pattern value of their own; and during the second lustrum of the' sixteenth century the pen
and ink medium was, to a degree, neglected in favor of those white-heightened brush drawings
on colored paper in which the lines, though longer and more systematically arranged, had
subservient to plastic and coloristic tendencies.
From about 1510, however, pen and ink returned to favor under new auspices. The pen
drawings of this period differ from the earlier ones by a peculiar transparency. The modelling
and shading is effected by long, widely spaced parallels which avoid intersection as far as
possible and form a clear and delicate linear pattern. In style and technique these drawings
are surprisingly similar to those of Raphael in his Florentine and early Roman periods, and
it is perhaps not by accident that some of the most characteristic specimens, for instance, the
preliminary sketch for the Fall of Man of 1510 (459, fig. 195), the Madonna with the Little
St. John of about 1511 (7o6) and a Virgin with Child of 1514 (67o), seem to reveal the
influence of Raphael in composition and interpretation as well as in treatment.
The primary purpose of this new technique was, of course, to reconcile the plastic char-
acter of Durer's earlier drawing style with those tonal tendencies wnich, we remember,
asserted themselves in his post-Venetian prints. In such charming drawings as the Rest on the
Flight into Egypt of 1511 (517, fig. 223) or the Holy Family in a Trellis (730, fig. 224)
the effect produced by the widely spaced, protracted parallels is much the same as that of
the "graphic middle tone" in woodcuts and engravings; and in a Holy Kinship, also of 1511,
(733)-particularly in the head of St. Joachim-it is not unlike that of the Holy Family
in dry point (fig. 201 ). Yet the "transparent" treatment of these drawings had definite
"decorative" potentialities. They lent themselves more easily to embellishment by water
color, for example: the studies for the Portrait of Charlemagne ( 1009-1013), the enticing
Siren Chandelier for Pirckheimer ( 1563), and the mythological and allegorical drawings of
1514/15 (901, 908, 936, 942). And, more important, "linearity" facilitated a
shift of emphasis from the function of lines as symbols of volume, space and tonality to their
function as elements of an ornamental pattern.
The enterprises of the Emperor could not but liberate these inherent tendencies toward
a "decorative" interpretation of line and form. The ornaments and scenic representations of
the Triumphal Arch had to be conceived in relation to an architecture to which they were
attached; the two Triumphal Chariots formed part of a procession which moved along an
ideal surface, like a painted frieze or a series of tapestries hung on a wall. The Prayer-Book
drawings were meant to decorate a given page as well as to express a given content; and in
every case Durer had to coordinate his designs with letterpress, a problem which he had
deliberately avoided even posing in the Apocalypse, the Life of the Virgin and the two
woodcut Passions, and which he had solved rather cavalierly in the few book illustrations,
title pages thus far produced. Thus he began to indulge in a magniloquent
linearism. In the Prayer-Book the stylization of such motifs as Angels' wings, grotesque
physiognomies, clouds or explosions is at times paradoxically reminiscent of the Apocalypse;
and the four "stories" which Durer contributed to the Triumphal Arch, as well as the whole
"Great Triumphal Car" have what may be described as an almost textile quality. The model-
ling tends to be submerged by ornamental patterns, and the spatial relation among the Em-
peror, the Victory and the Cardinal Virtues seen on the platform of the Imperial Chariot is not
immediately clear. The lines have something of the character of those flourishes which are
no less ubiquitous in the "Great Triumphal Car" than in the Prayer-Book and serve as a
common denominator of figures and letterpress. These woodcuts do not aim at plastic relief
and spatial depth, but rather at the sharp, unreal sparkle of embroideries in black and silver.
It is not surprising to find this "decorative style" in several other works which were
executed at about the same time and presented similar problems; for instance, in a group of
drawings for the decoration of a "silvered armor" which Maximilian had ordered from the
Augsburg armorer Koloman Colman (1448-1453); in a sketch for the Innsbruck statue of
Albrecht of Hapsburg which is in fact also a study in armory (1546); and in five woodcuts
for the never published Freydal, another autobiographical romance which glorified Maxi-
milian's proficiency in tournaments, jousts, pageants and other forms of chivalrous sport
(392, 393, 420-422). It appears again in the Celestial M<tps of 1515 (365/66) where two
drawings of 1503, derived from fifteenth-century miniatures, are subjected to a process of
archeological correction and ornamental integration, and in the wonderful Rhinoceros of the
same year (356). Pictures and descriptions of the animal which had been landed in Lisbon
on May 20, 1515, had reached Germany without delay, and both Durer and Burgkmair were
able to present it to the general public a few months after its arrival. But while Burgkmair's
woodcut attempts to be realistic in its rendition of thick, yet flexible skin, bushy hair, and
even the rope with which the forefeet are tied, Durer stylized the creature, bizarre in itself,
into a combination of scales, laminae and shells suggesting a fantastically shaped and pat-
terned suit of armor.
However, during the period here under discussion the "decorative" style was not limited
to subjects which, like all these, demanded or at least invited a "decorative" treatment. A
tendency to stress linear calligraphy and two-dimensional display at the expense of volume
and perspective can even be felt in such paintings as the curly-bearded Sts. Philip and James
of 1516 in the Uffizi (40 and 44), whereas the other pictures of this year-the moving Por-
trait of old Michael Wolgemut in Munich ( 70), the Portrait of a Clergyman in the Czernin
Gallery at Vienna (81 ), and the Virgin with the Pink in Augsburg (30 )-partly conform to
previous traditions and partly announce the developments of the following phase. The
woodcut known as the Vz'rgin Mary as Queen of the Angels (321, fig. 233, dated 1518) is
a glorious tapestry, or stained-glass window, rather than a representation of three-dimensional
bodies in a three-dimensional picture space, although the scene is staged on firm, terrestrial
ground; and a similar emphasis on sweeping lines arranged so as to form a decorative pattern
can be observed in almost all the drawings up to about 1518/19.
This is true not only of those free compositions some examples of which have already been
mentioned-a final climax being reached in a superb Madonna of 1519 (68o)-but also, to
some extent, of the large-scale portrait drawings which Durer executed in the summer of
I
ECLIPSE OF ENGRAVING
193
1518 on the occasion of the Augsburg Diet. Chief among these are the portraits of Maximilian
himself, made on June 28, 1518 "high up in the palace in his tiny little cabinet" ( 1030); of
Jacob Fugger the Rich ( 1023); of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (1002); and, probably,
of Cardinal Lang von Wellenburg of Salzburg (1028).
Three of these drawings, all of them distinguished by a peculiar looseness of texture and
mobility of line, matured into more formal works during the next two years. The Fugger
drawing served as a basis for the painting in Munich (55, probably 1520 ). The drawing of
Albrecht of Brandenburg was used for the engraving known as "The Small Cardinal" which
will be discussed in the following chapter. The drawing of Maximilian, finally, was em-
ployed, not only for the two paintings in Vienna (61) and Nuremberg (6o), but also for
a large woodcut (about the size of the Apocalypse) which, like the two paintings, was
probably not completed until after the Emperor's death (368, fig. 229).
It is largely due to this woodcut portrait by Durer that the physiognomy of Germany's
most beloved Emperor still lives in everybody's memory. The print became so popular that
three literal replicas, the third provided with an ornate frame by Hans Weiditz, were pub-
lished within a year, and in 1520 Lucas van Leyden freely repeated it in one of his best-
known prints (fig. 230). As a study in human nature, Durer's woodcut is uncompromising,
yet sympathetic in its veracity; it captures Maximilian's noble aloofness and innate benevo-
lence, but also his fatigue and deep disillusionment. As a composition, it still belongs to
Durer's "decorative style." The bust of the Emperor, slightly turned away from the beholder
but strictly symmetrized and without hands, is spread out, as it were, before a flat blank
background and is cut off sharply by the lateral margins. The forms are reduced to a system of
almost countable lines whose undulations conform to the bold sweep of the commemorative
scroll and to the play of two strings or ribbons which fulfill a similar function as do the
flourishes in the "Great Triumphal Car." In the collar of
1
the Golden Fleece the links and
the "sparks" form vivid curves suggesting the movement of living creatures, and enormous
emphasis is placed on the lozenge pattern of the lapels and on the pomegranate design of
the coat.
THE "DECORATIVE STYLE," broad, intentionally planar and somewhat oratorical, was incom-
patible with the meticulous, plastic and sober spirit of burin work. Between 1514 and 1519
Durer made only two engravings, the Virgin on the Crescent of 1516 (139) and the Virgin
Crowned by Two Angels of 1518 ( 146, fig. 249), and it was not until he had ceased to work
for Maximilian that his production in this field returned to normal. But this gap in the
sequence of engravings is filled by six works in a medium which Durer had not handled before
1515 and which he was to abandon after 1518: etching.
As i$.suggested by the very word-which is derived from the German "Aetzung," that is:
"eating"-an etching is not produced by a mechanical but by a chemical process: the lines
are not incised into the metal by a sharp instrument, but "eaten" out of it by an acid. To
produce a pattern, the metal is first covered with an insulating ground; where a line is
194
intended to appear this ground is scraped away by means of a blunt needle, and the whole is
then exposed to acid which eats into the metal only where the ground has been removed.
As the burin had originally served to engrave ornaments on goldsmith's work, so the
etching process had originally been applied to the decoration of arms and armor, which
accounts for the fact that Durer and the other fathers of etching as a graphic art-the earliest
datable instance being a genre piece by Urs Graf of 1513-still used iron instead of copper
plates. Quite possibly Durer became acquainted with the new technique through his collabora
tion with such armorers as that Koloman Colman of Augsburg whom he supplied with the de-
signs for Maximilian's "silvered armor" ( 14481453). But that he was so eager to adopt it as
a vehicle of creative expression is not only due to a taste for experimentation but also to the
fact that it was ideally suited to the artistic tendencies of these particular years. Like a burin
engraving, an etching is an intaglio print; but unlike a burin engraving, it has the freedom and
immediacy of a pen drawing. The plate is not treated piecemeal but as a whole, and it is not
rotated in the process. Etched lines are of uniform thickness-whereas the burin line widens
and narrows-and slightly fuzzy at the edges because the acid eats a little beneath the insulat-
ing ground (see fig. 206); they thus give an effect not unlike that of pen lines on somewhat
absorbent paper and suggest impulsiveness and unrestraint where burin lines are slow and
strictly regulated. The needle glides through the soft etching-ground as effortlessly and
speedily as the pen skims over the drawing sheet. Small wonder that Durer was grateful for
a graphic medium which made it possible for him to be as full of decorative brio as in the
drawings of the Prayer-Book, as passionately dynamic as in the "Burgundian Marriage," and
even as visionary as in the Apocalypse-and which, in contrast with woodcut, did not require
the intervention of secondary technicians.
What seems to be Durer's first etching is known, for want of a recognized interpretation,
as "The Desperate Man" (177, fig. 242). Undated and unsigned, it combines a somewhat
laborious technique, still reminiscent of burin work, with a crowded and haphazard composi-
tion which makes it difficult to discover a consistent representational program. According to
some, it is nothing but a medley of figures assembled at random in order to test the possibilities
of an unfamiliar medium; according to others, it records a dream; still others believe it to
represent Michelangelo surrounded, as it were, by the ideas of his works. The factual evidence
is in favor of the first alternative, with the reservation, however, that even a pot-pourri of
motifs selected or invented on the spur of the moment and almost automatically may reveal
the artist's ideas and preoccupations just as clearly as a carefully devised composition and
may therefore be equally susceptible of an "iconographical" interpretation.
Durer began his work with the profile figure near the left margin for which he used a
portrait drawing of 1514 representing his brother Endres (Andrew) at the age of thirty
(1018). He added a sparse beard which Endres may or may not have grown in the mean-
time, but then decided to reduce the volume of the cap and to retrench the contours of the
face. It is to this pentimento, which reduced the nose to a mere stump, that the features of
Endres Durer owe their resemblance to the famous profile disfigured by the blow of Pietro
EMERGENCE OF ETCHING 195
Torrigiani; and it is hard to say whether this resemblance is more than an accident. It is
certain, however, that the four other figures in the etching-a youngish man tearing his hair,
an old, emaciated face staring at the beholder with a fixed and woeful glance, an idiotically
smiling, Satyr-like youth with a stein of beer, and a corpulent woman asleep-have no con-
nection with Michelangelo. They emerged from Durer's imagination; but Durer's imagination
was always preoccupied, and especially so about 1514/15, with the theory of the four humors.
In our discussion of the Melencolia I we mentioned that the humor melancholicus, dan-
gerous even under the most favorable circumstances, was supposed to cause actual insanity
under adverse conditions. In an attempt at differentiating between the types of such in-
sanity, Avicenna had developed an almost unanimously accepted theory according to which
they vary with the natural temperament of the persons affected: a sanguine, afflicted with
a melancholic derangement, would develop a form of madness which was, so to speak, a
caricature of his normal cheerfulness and sociability; a choleric would commit insensate
acts of violence and so forth. To quote from Durer's friend Melanchthon: "If of a sanguine
nature, melancholy will produce the foolishness of those who always laugh in a ridiculous
fashion .. ; if it comes from choler, there will be terrible outbursts of raving madness . ;
if it is phlegmatic, it will cause an extraordinary apathy, and we have known ourselves an
imbecile who slept almost permanently, spoke without expression and did not show any
emotion whatsoever ... ; and if the black gall, in addition to being predominant, becomes
inflamed [that is to say, if the patient is a "natural" melancholic in addition to being afflicted
with melancholic insanity] there will be still deeper depressions and misanthropy ... "
It was, it seems, in remembrance of this doctrine that Durer decided to contrast the
of a normal, healthy individual with four others each of which represents a charac-
teristic form of humoral, and therefore also "planetary," insanity. The desperate man tearing
his hair, from whom the etching received its popular name, is the melancholz'cus ex cholera
rubra whose choleric melancholy-associated with Mars-causes him "to inflict injuries on
himself as well as on others." The haggard, mask-like face weirdly emerging from the dark
background belongs to the Saturnian melancholicus ex cholera nigra who may be called the
melancholic to the square because he is melancholy both by nature and by disease. The faun-
like youth, hilarious with delight over his drink and the sight of a nude, is the melancholicus
ex sanguine, the gay and amorous, Jovian sanguine degenerated into a grinning, harmlessly
lascivious moron. And the sleeping nude herself is the melancholica ex phlegmate who, sub-
ject to the Moon, "sleeps almost without interruption." That only this fourth form of mental
derangement is represented by a woman has a twofold reason: on the one hand, Durer wished
to stress the amorous connotations of the "sanguine" type of dementia (the combination of the
- two bringing to mind the well-known group of Jupiter and Antiope); on the other,
he acted upon a theory-unchallenged from the twelfth to the seventeenth century-accord-
ing to which "all women are by nature cold and moist, that is, phlegmatic," because "the
warmest wQman is still colder than the coldest man." In fact Luna is the only female among
the planets corresponding to the four humors.
The two etchings of 1515-a Man of Sorrows Seated (129) and the Agony in the
Garden (126, fig. 244)-exploit more fully the virtues of the medium. They give the
impression of rough and impetuous pen drawings rather than of engravings, and the Agony
in the Garden already takes advantage of the etching technique to blend the clair-obscur
effects of the preceding phase with the expressive linearism and grand pathos of the Large
Passion. The first preparatory drawing (557), ignoring, as it were, the intervening develop-
ment, recalls the large woodcut of about 1497 (226), except for the fact that the figure of
Christ is shifted to one side and that the chalice stands already on a rock instead of being
offered by the Angel. In a second drawing (558) and in the etching itself the composition is
again approximately centralized, and the figure of Christ is made to dominate the scene,
with the huddled heap of Disciples pushed far into the background. But this emphasis on
formal equilibrium and statuesque grandeur is outweighed by the emotional quality of the
performance as a whole. While the highlights, particularly the clouds and the halo of Christ,
have the brilliance of the Engraved Passion or of such woodcuts as the Resurrection (235)
and the Throne of Mercy (fig.185), the lines show an animation accessible neither to the burin
nor to the cutting-knife; and the action, restrained though it seems to be in comparison with
the engraving of 1508 (111), is all the more dramatic by virtue of suspense. The figure of
the Angel, who merely conveys a spiritual message instead of carrying a tangible object, is
reduced to a head and a pair of small wings, not unlike the Venetian "angioletti" disporting
themselves in the "Feast of the Rose Garlands" or the Virgin with the Siskin. But his great
face is no longer that of a smiling child but resembles the awesome countenance of the Angels
in the Apocalypse. It radiates a magic force which bends the bare tree into an almost human
gesture of recoil and paralyzes the very hands of Christ so that they are unable to join each
other in prayer and stay frozen in a gesture of awe.
This dark and nervous atmosphere is still intensified in the two etchings of 1516 which,
though widely disparate in subject, yet share with one another the qualities of eeriness and
haunting gloom.
One of these etchings is the Abduction of Proserpine ( 179, fig. 243). In remembrance of
a late-medieval tradition according to which Pluto, the god of the Underworld, carries off
his unwilling bride on horseback, Diirer developed the composition from a drawing in which
an anonymous horseman dashes away with a naked woman, leaving behind him a little heap
of conquered enemies (898). By eliminating the accessory figures, by arranging the terrain so
as to suggest a leap into the void, by suffusing the scenery with a lurid, flickering light, and
by transforming the horse into a fabulous unicorn evocative of the ideas of night, death and
destruction, Diirer invested a violent, but perfectly natural scene with an infernal character
unparalleled in representations of the subject except for Rembrandt's early picture in Berlin.
The other etching of 1516 is a feverish vision, with the pace of the needle accelerated to
an allegro furioso. It represents a subject which, according to a long tradition repeatedly
observed by Diirer himself, normally calls for an hieratic or even heraldic interpretation: the
Sudarium ( 133, fig. 245). As a rule, Veronica's kerchief is displayed in solemn frontality, but
CLIMAX ANI;> END OF ETCHING
197
here it is held aloft by a great Angel and billows like the sail of a ship on a stormy night.
Sharply foreshortened and in deep shadow, the imprint of the Holy Face is barely recog-
nizable, while glaring lights are gathered on the draperies of the Angel, on the clouds and on
three smaller Angels carrying the implements of torture. Space seems to have dissolved into
a darkness pervaded by a long wail of lament, and nothing seems to be left but the accusing
symbols of the Passion floating "upon the face of the deep."
The Sudarium marks the climax, and the end, of a somber excitement which represents, as
it were, the nocturnal aspect of Diirer's "decorative style." The storm subsided as suddenly
as it had broken, and with it Durer's enthusiasm for etching. No etching was produced in
1517, and in the following year there appeared, as a farewell, so to speak, a last specimen of
an altogether different character, the Landscape with the Cannon ( 206). This etching, testify-
ing to Diirer's newly acquired interest in ordnance and fortification, is based on the sketch of
a peaceful hamlet called Kirch-Ehrenbach through which he had passed on his trip to Bam-
berg in 1517 ( 1406), while the imposing "Turk" in the foreground is none other than Diirer
himself, dressed up in an oriental costume borrowed, more than twenty years before, from
Gentile Bellini (1254). It is a masterpiece of panoramic breadth, perspective coherence and
clarity, but for this very reason not an etching in the sense of Diirer's original interpretation
of this medium. It announces, to a degree, a new and final phase in his development which, in
connection with a general and basic change of style, was to reinstate the predominance of
painting and orthodox burin work.
VII The Crisis of 1519; the Journey to the Netherlands,
1520-1521; the Last Works, 1521-1528
T
His. general and basic change of style occurred in the midst of an emotional crisis
which had come to a head after the death of Maximilian I. Durer knew that the
twelfth of January 1519 meant more than the disappearance of a glamorous ruler
and the "premature loss" of, from his personal point of view, a kindly and generous though
not always solvent employer. It meant the end of an era which he himself had helped to
shape, and he was deeply disturbed. On a letter from a fellow-humanist which reached
Nuremberg about a fortnight after the Emperor's death, the faithful Pirckheimer noted, quite
irrelevantly: "Turer male stat" ("Durer is in bad shape"); and Durer's own state of mind
in the spring and early summer of 1519 seems to bear out his friend's concern. When a hard-
working, economical man plans to leave his Nuremberg home for England or Spain and
ultimately embarks on a trip to Switzerland, entirely useless from a practical point of view,
he betrays a nervous restlessness for which modern doctors might prescribe a "change of
scene," and which cannot be accounted for by the mere fear of losing a pension of one hundred
florins a year.
We know, in fact, that Durer's distress was of a spiritual rather than a practical or
physical nature. Young Jan van Score!, who had come to Nuremberg in 1519 to take advan-
tag: of Durer's advice and instruction, found him so preoccupied with the "teachings by
which Luther had begun to stir the quiet world" that he preferred to go to other parts of
Germany. But soon the master emerged with a new security of mind. The very cause of his
malaise had proved to be its remedy: he had heard the rumblings of the earthquake which
was to shake the structure of European civilization, and had found shelter in the very center
of the seismic disturbance, in the Lutheran doctrine itself. "If God helps me to see Dr.
Martinus Luther," he writes in January or February 1520 to Georg Spalatinus, Chaplain
and Librarian to Frederick the Wise, "I will diligently make his portrait and engrave it as a
lasting memory of the Christian man who has helped me out of great anxieties."
In this adherence to the cause of Protestantism Diirer never faltered; that he continued to
go to confession and to work for the Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg-as even Cranach
did-is by no means a proof to the contrary. His reaction to Luther's rumored abduction and
possible assassination in May 1521 has already been mentioned in connection with the
Knight, Death and Devil; suffice it to quote a few more sentences from this Apocalyptic
outcry which so strangely interrupts the sober flow of a traveler's journal: "0 God, if Luther
is dead, who shall henceforth so clearly expound to us the Holy Gospels'? 0 God, what might
he still have written for us in ten or twenty years! 0 all ye pious Christians, help me to weep
over this God-illumined man and beg Him to send us another enlightened one. 0 Erasme
\
CONVERSION TO LUTHERANISM 199
Roderodame, where wilt thou take thy stand'? ... Thou art but an old, little man; I have
heard that thou givest thyself no more than two years in which to accomplish something. Use
these well, for the benefit of the Gospels and the true Christian faith, and let thy voice be
heard, and then the Gates of Hell, the Roman See, as Christ has said, will not prevail against
thee .... 0 ye Christians, pray God for help, for His judgment is near and His justice will be
revealed. Then we will see bleed the innocent who have been judged and condemned by the
Pope, the priests and the monks. Apocalypsis. These are them that were slain, lying under the
altar, and they cry for vengeance, whereupon the voice of God answers and says: 'Wait for
the full number of the innocently slain; then I will judge.' "
In 1523 Durer called the cult image known as the "Beautiful Madonna of Ratisbon"
a "specter that has risen against Holy Writ and has not been laid because of worldly gain";
in 1524 he referred to himself and his friends as those who "stand in contempt and danger for
the sake of Christian faith and are sneered at as heretics"; and that he died a ''good Lutheran"
is attested by Pirckheimer.
Durer's art reflects this conversion-for it was a conversion-both in subject matter and
in style. The man who had done more than any other to familiarize the Northern world with
the true spirit of pagan Antiquity now practically abandoned secular subject matter except
for scientific illustrations, traveler's records and portraiture; and the designer-in-chief of the
Trz"umphal Arch and the Prayer-Book of Maximilian I turned his back upon the "decorative
style.''
For his own use, to please a client, or to oblige the authorities of his city, Durer would still
occasionally design an heraldic woodcut (374, 376, 381/434, 383, 433), a mural deco-
ration ( 1549-1551 ), a resplendent throne ( 1560) or a DanGeof Monkeys ( 1334), and it is in
these exceptional cases that the joyful calligraphy of the "decorative style" survived. His real
interests, however, centered more and more on religious subjects of a strictly evangelical char-
acter. The lyrical and visionary element was suppressed in favor of a scriptural virility which
ultimately tolerated only the Apostles, the Evangelists and the Passion of Christ. His style
changed from scintillating splendor and freedom to a forbidding, yet strangely impassioned
austerity; and engraving and painting-the media antipathetic to the tendencies of the
"decorative" style and all the better adapted to a non-linear, emphatically three-dimensional
mode of expression-returned to favor.
To understand the suddenness and basic nature of this change, let us compare two engrav
ings of approximately the same format, representing almost the same subject and executed no
more thana year or a year and a half apart: the Virgin Crowned by Two Angels of 1518 and
the Virgin Nursing the Infant of 1519.
The Virgin Crowned by Two Angels ( 146, fig. 249) conveys a feeling of perfect balance
and serenity. The Madonna, neither too large nor too small in relation to the frame, is com-
fortably seated before a picket fence which opens up the view onto a bright landscape under
a cloudless sky. Turned to three-quarter profile and gracefully bending forward, she casts a
200
CRISIS IN 1519; ANTWERP; LAST WORKS
quiet glance on the beholder, and her drapery enfolds her body with an harmonious flow of
curves.
To this Raphaelesque equilibrium of loveliness and solemnity, plastic and pictorial values,
the Virgin Nursing the Infant (143, fig. 250) opposes Michelangelesque monumentality and
gloom. Not unlike the Moses, the Jeremiah on the Sistine Ceiling and the "Capitani" in the
Medici Chapel, the figure of the Virgin is strictly frontalized and appears colossal within its
narrow frame, the droop of her large head contrasting with the rigid pose of her body and
evoking the idea of a Pieta rather than of a Madonna. The landscape is entirely suppressed,
and the sky, darkened by dense hatchings, serves as an almost solid background from which
the group detaches itself like a sculpture projecting from a wall. The figure of the Virgin
herself is composed of two block-like units which seem hardly connected with one another,
the lower one resembling somewhat an enormous cube. The drapery, finally-and this is per
haps the most conspicuous difference from the Virgin Crowned by Two Angels-is broken up
into folds which as nearly as possible approach the form of such abstract stereometrical solids
as prisms or pyramids. In sum, the emphasis is shifted from linear values and dynamic move
ment to schematized volume. The "decorative" style has given way to what may be called a
volumetric or-if we are careful to ignore the modern implications of this term-"cubistic"
one.
The same characteristics can be observed in all of Durer's late engravings. To limit our
selves to those produced in 1519 and 1520: in comparison with the buoyant Couple of
Peasants Dancing of 1514 (197) the Couple of Peasants of 1519 (196) offers a spectacle of
statuesque heaviness and immobility. The two Madonnas of 1520, the Virgin Crowned by
One Angel ( 144) and the Virgin with the Swaddled Infant ( 145, fig. 251) suggest, like that
of the preceding year, voluminous sculptures set out against a foil of solid gray; they even sur
pass it in abstract rigidity, the former by a posture still more stiffly erect and a drapery still
more angular than in the Virgin Crowned by Two Angels; the latter by a schematization of
organic forms which brings to mind the polyhedron in the Melencolia I, and by the very fact
that the Child is encased in His swaddling clothes not unlike a chrysalis.
The portrait of Albrecht of Brandenburg, known as the ':Small Cardinal" ( 2o9,
fig. 248), IS based on a study from life ( 1002) made on the same occasion as, and in every
the charcoal drawing which served as a basis of the woodcut portrait of
I.. It IS also dated 1519, though apparently executed fairly late in the year
because Its delivery and favorable reception is mentioned as a recent event in Durer's letter
to Spalatinus which was written in January or February 1520. But while the woodcut portrait
of Maximilian stresses the "decorative" quality of sweeping curves, sharply defined contours
and patterns, and in return subdues the plastic values of the figure itself, the
engraved portrait of Cardinal Albrecht does exactly the opposite. The bust is not spread out
over the sheet and cut off by the margins, but is a fully rounded, space-displacing body. Its
volume is made impressive, and becomes almost measurable, because it tightly fills the interval
between two planes formed by the dark curtain behind and the parapet-like strip with the
\
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SCHEMATIZATION OF VOLUME ("CUBISM") 201
inscription in front; these, having no depth in themselves, delimit a definite amount of space
between them. The moire pattern of the mantilla, clearly indicated in the study from life
and actually emphasized in the working drawing ( 1003), is entirely suppressed in favor of a
strictly plastic unity of surface, and the drapery breaks in simplified prismatic or conical
folds; even the shoulders are marked by an angle instead of by a curve.
It may seem unfair to compare an engraving with a woodcut. But, apart from the fact
that the very choice of another technique is indicative of a change in stylistic tendencies, it
can be shown that the differences between the Maximilian and the "Small Cardinal" are not
exclusively due to the medium. Lucas van Leyden, we remember, used Durer's Maximilian
woodcut for an engraving-or, to speak more exactly, for a curious crossbreed between
engraving and etching-and he, too, made certain changes which, at first glance, seem to
parallel Durer's "Small Cardinal": the frame is enlarged so that the bust is no longer cut off
by the margins, a background and a frontal parapet iue added, and the pattern of the clothes
is suppressed (fig. 230). But all these changes were made, not for the sake of a plastic, let
alone stereometrical effect, but for the sake of a luminary one. The background is not a plane
surface but an architectural setting rich in diversified valeurs and suggestive of a space suf
fused with' light; the parapet in front is a real breast-molding, hung with an embroidered
tapestry, on which the Emperor rests his forearms-a very significant concession to the Early
Flemish type of portrait painting; and the pattern of the coat and its lapels has been omitted,
not in order to strengthen the impression of abstract volume, but, on the contrary, in order to
bring out the textural difference between dull velvet and shining silk.
In the engravings thus far considered very little prominence is given to the scenery. This
applies also to the engravings of the following years, a:nd especially to Durer's late paintings.
As was already the case in theAugsburg Madonna of 1516 (3o), and, even more particularly,
in the Berlin Virgin in Prayer of 1518 (35) and the Munich Lucretia of the same year ( 106 ),
they show only single figures or compact groups set out against a neutral dark background.
There is a tendency toward strict frontality and over-plastic modelling; and in the paintings
of 1519 and 1520, suchas the "Anna Selbdritt" in the Metropolitan Museum (36), the two
Boys' Heads in the Bibliotheque Nationale (83) and, above all, the austerely monumental
Head of a Woman in the same collection (102, fig. 253), we find a similar tendency toward
stereqmetrical simplification as could be observed in the engravings of this period, except for
the fact that the medium of painting invites a reduction to rounded, or globular, rather than to
angular, or prismatic, forms.
T,he only late engraving in which the scenery plays a major part, and indeed almost dom
inates the composition, is the St. Anthony of 1519 (165, fig. 247). But here the scenery itself
is a phenomenon. It is not so much a landscape as an agglomeration of buildings,
echoing and amplifying the shape of the main figure whose huddled form, represented in full
profile, offers the aspect of an almost perfect cone. It is exclusively composed of such clean
cut stereoiJJ.etrical solids as prisms, cubes, pyramids and cylinders which coalesce and inter-
penetrate so as to bring to mind a cluster of crystals. This "cityscape" was not designed
202 CRISIS IN 1519; ANTWERP; LAST WORKS
primarily for the St. Anthony print. It was recorded on Durer's first journey to Italy and had
already been used in the "Pupila Augusta" drawing of about 1495 (938) as well as in the
"Feast of the Rose Garlands" (fig. i49). But in the drawing it had served as a mere backdrop,
closing rather than filling the picture space and cut in two by a big tree; and in the painting
it had appeared in a still farther distance, radiant and almost diaphanous in the Venetian
light. In the St. Anthony engraving, however, it is brought up to the center of the stage-
so close, in fact, that Durer felt the need of introducing a "repoussoir" in the shape of a
slender cross-staff-and it has the nearness, sharpness and palpability of an architect's model.
One might say that Durer did not devise an architectural setting for a contemplated St.
Anthony, but rather invented a St. Anthony for an architectural setting already on hand-a
setting which had been available for almost a quarter of a century but had remained undis-
covered as a "cubistic" possibility until the master had developed a "cubistic" mode of vision.
The reader has already been cautioned against interpreting the term "cubistic" according
to the usage of today. Yet modern "cubism" and Durer's have one thing in common: both are
not only a matter of aesthetic preference or "taste" but reflect a reasoned theory. There is,
however, this difference: that Durer's theory, unlike the modern one, was intended, not as a
justification for breaking away from what is commonly understood by "reality" but, on the
contrary, as an aid to clarifying and mastering it.
When Durer, after the death of Maximilian I, felt free to devote more of his time to
theoretical studies he took up his main problem, the rationalization of the human body, from
a stereometrical instead of from a planimetrical point of view; and since the irregularly
curved surfaces of a living organism are not accessible to elementary mathematical methods
he tried to reduce them, as it were, to polyhedral shapes. In a drawing of 1519-the critical
year-two human heads are thus broken up into a number of facets like a cut diamond (839,
fig. 312), and two drawings of about the same time, forming a kind of transition from theory
to practice, convey a similar impression of polyhedrality by purely "artistic" means: they
show human faces modelled exclusively by a series of straight parallel lines which meet each
other at an angle and thus produce, quite automatically, a facet-like effect ( 1131 and 1653,
fig. 313).
Now, in a sketch found on the same sheet as the first of these drawings, and in a good
many subsequent instances, a somewhat analogous method is also applied to the whole human
figure: its parts are inscribed in such stereometrical solids as cubes, obelisks, and truncated
pyramids (1653-1656, fig. 322). But the purpose of this procedure is not so much the clarifi-
cation of shape and volume as the rationalization of movement. The various solids are shifted
against one another like the parts of a mannequin; in fact one of these is com-
bined with the sketch of an actual mannequin.
The somewhat stiff and mechanical character of the poses thus produced is even more
pronounced in another method of making human movement "constructible" which was also
evolved in 1519 and further developed in the following years. It employs the technique of
parallel projection by means of which the front or rear elevation of the whole figure is directly
THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS 203
transferred into a side elevation and vice versa; it therefore presupposes that every part of
the figure moves in a plane either parallel or at right angles to the picture plane. This leads,
of course, to an almost Egyptian combination of heads in profile with chests and legs in front
view and so on (fig. 324).
These studies, too, had their effect on Durer's artistic activity, and here again a direct
transition from theory to practice can be observed in the figure of a nude woman which,
sketched on the back of the earliest "cube-man" drawing, definitely shares the latter's
marionette-like angularity though it is not "constructed" in the technical sense ( 1191 ). As
Durer's idea of dividing human heads into facets can be considered as a theoretical equiva-
lent of his tendency toward a "cubistic" schematization of form, so his interest in "cube-men,"
parallel projection and mannequins reflects itself in, or at least corresponds to, a rectangular
schematization of poses and gestures. Concrete examples of these, however, are not to be
found in his engravings and paintings which, in deference to the spirit of their media, had
come to be restricted to subjects of a purely existential, stationary character. It was to wood-
cuts and pen drawings-mostly made in preparation for woodcuts-that the late Durer
reserved the representation of "scenes," that is to.say of the figure in action.
Of the woodcuts actually executed after 1519 only five fall within this class of "scenic"
compositions: the four illustrations in the "Unterweisung der Messung" which demonstrate
the use of perspective apparatuses (361-364, figs. 310, 311 ), and the Last Supper of 1523
(273, fig. 278). But scenic pen drawings exist in fairly large numbers, and in both groups
the poses and gestures tend to be governed by that principle of rectangularity which makes
them, now abrupt, now frozen, at times almost contorted, but always-and just by virtue of
this inorganic, or rather preterorganic quality-strangely expressive.
Whether we look at the Draftsman Dra'll.l'ing a Portraft-(fig. 310), the Last Supper of
.,1523, or the two Bearings of the Cross of 1520 (580 and 579, fig. 275), we always find an
emphasis on the "basic views"-full face or profile. Often there are such strange combinations
of both as, for example, the figure of a bystander who turns his back upon the beholder while
his face and one of his legs are shown in profile, or the St. Peter in the Last Supper whose
head is turned to full profile while his body is seen in full face; the posture of the fifth
Apostle from the left in the same woodcut is so cramped, and at the same time so schematized,
that his right shoulder has been mistaken for a pillow. A climax is reached in the beautiful
Deposition of 15::?-1 (612, fig. 276) where a Virgin Mary in pure profile is contrasted with a
Magdalen in front view; where one of the bearers walks along the picture plane, so to speak,
so that his body and right leg appear in profile but his left foot and his face are turned directly
toward the beholder; and where a second bearer, stepping backwards, turns both his face and
left leg to full profile but so that they point in opposite directions. In one of the few secular
drawings of this period (1174, fig. 325, 1525) even the Horse-Tamers of Monte
Cavallo are transformed into a paradigm of, if one may say so, expressively mechanized move-
ment whicb might well have been included in the Fourth Book of Durer's Vier Bucher von
Menschlicher Proportion. Where, at the times of the "Dream of the Doctor," the "Hercules"
204
or the Fall of Man, a superimposed religious or allegorical meaning had served to make a
classical image acceptable, here a classical image serves to exemplify a mathematical theory.
The principle of rectangularity which determines the poses and movements of the individ-
ual figures also controls the general scheme of composition and, above all, the structure of
space itself. As far as possible the figures are arranged in parallel planes, squeezed in, as it
were, between the picture plane and an imaginary relief ground, and the general stream of
movement and action tends to flow, not from the foreground into depth but from side to side.
Interiors, as in the five woodcuts here under discussion, are shallow, bare and strictly frontal-
ized, and not the smallest object is permitted to budge from a position either parallel or at
right angles to the picture plane. Again Durer's renewed preoccupation with the theory of art,
in this case with perspective, is clearly reflected in his creative practice.
In sum: where Durer's late engravings and paintings show stereometrically definable
units, his late woodcuts and pen drawings show stereometrically definable compositions. In
both cases the visible phenomena are subjected to what we have called a "cubistic" principle.
But in the more plastic media Durer tended to apply this principle to isolated volumes, in the
more linear ones, however, to the picture space as a whole; and this divergent interpretation
of the same principle can be observed even in purely technical matters.
For large-sized studies from life, made in preparation for engravings and pamtmgs,
Durer preferred two new techniques-developed, significantly enough, in the years from
1519 to 1521-which have in common an accentuation of pure volume at the expense of
linear values. These are: first, broad brush, heightened with white and sometimes reinforced
by chalk, on paper washed with gray or black (766, 767, 1049, 1163, 1164 [fig. 254], 1204,
1205); and, secondly, and still more frequently, soft stump-like metal point, also heightened
with white, on green- or purple-grounded paper (characteristic examples: figs. 281-284,
289, 292, 293). His late pen drawings, made in preparation for woodcuts, and his late
woodcuts themselves, are, on the contrary, marked by an almost diagrammatic transparency
of the linear pattern. "Form-indicative" curves are virtually abandoned in favor of straight
lines, spaced at wide and generally equal intervals, parallel wherever the surfaces are frontal,
and strictly governed by the rules of perspective convergence where they are foreshortened.
Cross-hatchings are reduced to a minimum and practically disappear after 1523 (in the
Horse-Tamer of 1525 there is not a single one); even curtains and draperies, as in the Adora-
tion of the Magi of 1524 (513, fig. 274) and in one of the woodcuts in the "Unterweisung
der Messung" (fig. 310), are often modelled without them.
All this, combined with a certain rock-like quality in the interpretation of organic forms
and landscape. features, establishes a striking similarity between Durer's late pen drawings
and the graphrc works by Andrea Mantegna; in certain cases there are direct reminiscences.
The same Durer who in his youth had greeted Mantegna as a guide to pagan sensuousness and
violence now turned to him for rigid, relief-like formality.
~ u r e r ' s .late style has been called, not inappropriately, "puritanical." But this stiffening
and trghtemng of form strengthens rather than weakens the emotional impact of the content.
SCHEMATIZATION OF MOVEMENT AND SPACE 205
As in Beethoven's late fugues, Michelangelo's late drawings or Rembrandt's late pictures,
we feel that the outward receptacle had to be made as rigid and impervious as possible in
order to withstand the pressure of an inward passion by far exceeding that which, in earlier
periods, could be contained within more shapely and pliable vessels. We sense that the
"mechanical" quality of poses and gestures, the anxious respect for the frontal plane, and the
reduction of space to the barest essentials conceals and thereby betrays, like the "set face" of
a man about to kill or to die, an emotion too intense to be conveyed save by repression.
In the works of 1523, such as the Apostles in engraving and metal point (figs. 290, 291,
293) or a magnificent pen drawing of Christ in Gethsemane (565), this inner tension finds an
outlet in what may perhaps be described as a "corrugated" style. Large simplified volumes
are contrasted with complicated systems of prominences and indentations so that the whole
gives the impression of a compact massif broken up intu big tablelands, craggy rocks and
deep ravines, though even these show a remarkable tendency toward geometrical schematiza-
tion (parallel lines, right angles, isosceles triangles, etc.) ; and near the very end, in 152 5/26,
a certain softening can be observed in such broadly and fluidly treated figures as the Munich
St. John (43 and 826, figs. 294, 292) and the curiously Schongauerian Virgin with the Pear
in the Uffizi (31, fig. 308). Apart from this development, however, the principles of Durer's
late style were firmly established in 1519/20, and even the most important external event
of his later years invigorated and enriched rather than changed the further manifestations
of his genius. This event was his journey to the Netherlands.
DuRER LEFT NuREMBERG ON THURSDAY, July 12, 1520. His primary purpose was, we
,remember, to obtain the continuation of his pension from <fbarles V, who was on his way to
his coronation in Aix-la-Chapelle. But this was not the only motive of Durer's journey. He
took along his wife and a maid (named Susanna) ; he stayed in the Nether lands seven months
after his request had been granted; and he brought with him an apparently inexhaustible
supply of engravings and woodcuts-some by Hans Baldung Grien and Hans Schauffelein
besides his own-as well as several paintings which could be easily transported. His Diary
informs us at length how he disposed of his treasures by sales, barter, and as presents. The
buyers and recipients of his prints were legion, and as for pictures we learn that the Bishop of
Bamberg received, in return for three letters of recommendation and a very useful customs
permit, not only a Life of the Virgin, an Apocalypse and one florin's worth of engravings, but
also a painted Madonna; that three small paintings on canvas-possibly those in the Biblio-
theque Nationale (83 and 102, fig. 253)-were sold for four florins and five stuivers; that
another "Tuchlein," representing the Virgin Mary, fetched two guilders Rhenish; and that
a Sudari?tm, a Trinity, a Dead Christ, and a Child's Head on canvas (a second picture of the
same description is not a work of Durer's, but was given to him by a friend and subsequently
passed on to another) were given away as presents. Durer had even brought along a painted
portrait of Maximilian I, most probably the one in the Germanisches Museum; he offered
it to the Emperor's daughter, Lady Margaret, Governor of the Netherlands, but had to take
it back because she disliked it so, and ultimately traded it for a white English cloth.
It appears, then, that Durer had planned to expand his pilgrimage to Court into a large
scale sales trip. Yet, he seems to have taken business none too seriously. He would both trade
and work on an extremely informal basis. More often than not he dealt with friends and
acquaintances whom he obliged either in return for favors received, or in the hope of favors
to come; and he had no regrets if he was compensated with delicacies or curios of all kinds
instead of with money. He gladly accepted a florin or a ducat for a portrait drawing, but he
was also satisfied with a rosary of cedar wood or a hundred oysters. To one Lazarus Ravens-
burger he gave the St. Jerome and the "Three Large Books" just to make friends; and when
he received, in return, "a big fin, five snailshells, four silver and five copper medals, two dried
fishes, a white coral, four reed-arrows and a red coral," he was so touched that he drew
Ravensburger's portrait for nothing and added sixteen engravings, the Engraved Passion, and
several woodcuts. He tipped liberally; he enjoyed sightseeing and, occasionally, a little gam-
bling; he spent considerable sums on Italian prints; and he acquired a whole museum of curios
such as exotic weapons, buffalo-horns, Calecutian salt-cellars, ivory-carved skulls, precious
stones and little monkeys costing four florins in gold.
Small wonder that Durer summed up the financial result of his journey into the sentence:
"In all my work, living expenses, sales and other dealings in the Netherlands I have come
out with a deficit." But he writes without bitterness, as though he had never expected any
thing else. He evidently looked upon the whole venture as a combination of business and
pleasure, with the accent rather on the latter. True, the question of the pension had to be
settled, and expenses had to be reduced, as far as possible, by working, selling and bartering.
But what Durer really wanted and needed was the rejuvenating excitement of being abroad:
the thrill of a new environment made doubly attractive by the impending visit of Charles V
with its throng of envoys and spectators from all over the world; the experience of great
works of art and craftsmanship; the intercourse with people of all professions, ranks and
nationalities; and the recognition more willingly granted to a distinguished guest than to a
fellow-citizen, however famous.
Durer and his party traveled by land to Bamberg, and then, after a cordial reception by
the Bishop, by boat to Frankfort where his old patron, Jacob Heller, showed a belated gen-
erosity by sending him a present of wine. Hence they proceeded, again by boat, to Mayence
and-with the effectiveness of the Bishop's customs permit gradually wearing off-to
Cologne, the home of Durer's cousin Niclas, a goldsmith. After an overland trip of about five
days they arrived in Antwerp on August 3
In Antwerp the family took lodgings with the kindly and honest Jobst Planckfelt (recte
Joos Blanckvelt). Here the curious agreement by which Durer, if not invited out, had his
meals alone or with his host while the women ate in the "upper kitchen," went into effect on
August 20. Durer used Planckfelt's house as a kind of headquarters whence he made longer or
shorter excursions in all directions, leaving his wife in the care of and Mrs. Planckfelt.
As early as August 26 he went to Brussels and Malines, where Lady Margaret had established
her residence, and succeeded in making contact with several important personalities, including
SOJOURN IN THE NETHERLANDS 207
the special envoys from Nuremberg who brought the Imperial Insignia for the coronation of
Charles V; the Imperial Secretary Jacobus de Banissis to whom the "supplication" for his
pension had to be submitted; and Lady Margaret herself. He returned on September 3, stayed
about a month and, on October 4, departed for Aix-la-Chapelle where he witnessed the coro-
nation ceremony on October 23. The fate of his petition still being undecided, and the Court
repairing to Cologne, Durer decided to do likewise, especially since the Nuremberg envoys
had invited him into their carriage. On November 12 he finally received, "after great labors
and exertions," the confirmation of his pension, and was back in Antwerp on November 22,
after having passed through Julich, Zons, Neuss, Duisburg, Wesel, Emmerich, Nymwegen,
Hertogenbosch, Hoogstraaten, Baerle and several other places.
The two following excursions were mere sightseeing tours. One was the ill-fated trip
to Bergen-op-Zoom and Zeeland, the "country lower than the sea" (December 3 to 14), where
Durer enjoyed the sights A Arnemuyden, Ter Goes, Wolfersdyck, Zierikzee and Middelburg,
but missed the whale he had been so anxious to see, had a: hairbreadth escape from an accident
in Arnemuyden harbor, and suffered the first attack of that "strange disease" which was to
haunt him for the rest of his life. The other, undertaken in the company of Jean Prevost (or
Provost) of Bruges, was a more pleasurable visit to Bruges and Ghent (April6 to 11, 1521)
where Durer admired the greatest works of art in the country and was splendidly received by
artists and merchants alike;it is touching to read what he felt on the tower of St. John's in
Ghent: "On Wednesday morning they led me up St. John's tower, and there I beheld the
great wondrous city where I was deemed a great man at once."
According to the same letter of 1524 which mentions the overtures of the Venetians "nine-
teen years ago," the authorities of Antwerp came forward with an even more generous offer.
But again Durer withstood the temptation for love of his "fatherland," the "honorable City
of Nuremberg." As early as March 1521 he started to buy homecoming presents for his friends
in Nuremberg, but it was not until June that the preparations for the final departure were
completed. A farewell visit was paid to Lady Margaret on the sixth and seventh of the month.
The account with Planckfelt was settled in amicable fashion. A big chest was dispatched while
some other luggage had already been sent ahead in March and April. A carter was hired after
another had proved unsatisfactory; tarpaulins, ropes and a little yellow postboy's horn were
bought; and a friendly Vicar about to depart for Nuremberg was entrusted with Durer's most
unwieldy and most cherished possessions, to wit: "The large tortoise-shell, the buckler of
fish-skin, the long pipe, the long shield, the shark's fin and the two little vases with citronate
arid In short, everything was ready when on July 2, King Christian of Denmark,
stopping at Antwerp on his way to Brussels, sent for Durer to execute his portrait in a draw-
ing U914). The "Nero of the North" was so pleased that he kept Durer for dinner and asked
him to accompany him to Brussels so that the portrait might be carried out in oils. Durer
accepted immediately, packed up his wife, maid and belongings, and departed on the follow-
ing day. He was present when Charles V came to meet his brother-in-law before the city gates,
looked on at a banquet given by the Emperor to King Christian, and was King Christian's
personal guest when the latter reciprocated by a banquet of his own. Thus royally entertained
and, for once, well paid-he received thirty florins for the painted portrait-Durer stayed
in Brussels until July 12. On this day he left the Low Countries for good, arriving in Cologne
-via Louvain, Tongeren, Maastricht and Julich-on July 15, precisely one year and three
days after his departure from Nuremberg.
There was perhaps never a traveler so sober yet so responsive as Durer. In his Diary the
records of his work, of his impressions and of his feelings are not only interspersed but actu
ally fused with entries pertaining to petty expenses and receipts, purchases, marketing, meals
and all the other incidents of daily life. But the very fact that the rays of admiration, just as
the lightnings of wrath over Luther's alleged assassination, break through a cloud of trivial
details and insignificant figures lends to such utterances the character of candor and irrepressi-
bility. Every page of Durer's Diary bespeaks his utter naivete (as when he states that he "had
to give" his favorite buffalo-horn and cedar-wood rosary to the hospitable envoys from
Nuremberg); his healthy delight in good food and friendly consideration; his helpfulness
and readiness to recognize the merits of others; his lack of resentment (as when he writes:
"Item, the fellow with the three rings has overreached me by half-1 did not know enough
about it"); and his unlimited capacity for enthusiasm.
In Antwerp-then the wealthiest and by far the most international city of the northern
world, much more important than the older centers of Ypres, Ghent and Bruges-Durer
marveled at the enormous Cathedral, at the "rich Abbey of St. Michael," at the new house
of the Mayor van Liere-"the like of which I have never seen in German lands"-and at
the magnificent establishment of the Fuggers. He looked with wonder and pleasure at the
Town Hall, mansions, fountains and gardens of Brussels, at the fine buildings of Bergen-op-
Zoom, Nijmegen, Hertogenbosch and Middelburg, and at the "Munster" of Aix-la-Chapelle
with its imported columns of porphyry sinter from Roman aqueducts (this is the meaning
of the enigmatical term "Gossenstein"), all executed "according to the prescripts of Vitru-
vius." He admired Stephan Lochner's altarpiece in Cologne Cathedral, the paintings of Jan
van Eyck in Ghent, Bruges and Malines, the works of Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van
der Goes-"great masters both"-in Bruges and Brussels, and the Bruges Madonna by
Michelangelo; and he said of Jan Gossart's Descent from the Cross in Middelburg almost
exactly what the Venetian painters had said of his own work in 1506, namely, that it was
"better in design than in painting."
But his interest in the Ghent altarpiece was rivalled by the fascination of the famous
lions, one of which he was allowed to portray, and of the huge fish-vat that could be used
as a banquet table (or dais'?). He was no more impressed by pictures and statues than by
the big bed in Brussels which could accommodate fifty persons, by the beautiful steeds in the
Fugger stables and at the Whitsuntide horsefair at Antwerp, by the "wondrous things" in
Hans Popenreuther's cannon-foundry in Malines, by a colossal fishbone looking "as though
it were built up from ashlars," and by the remains of the Giant Brabo who had stood eighteen
feet and had ruled over Antwerp in the olden days. The longest and most vivid descriptions
SOJOURN IN THE NETHERLANDS 209
in his Diary, veritable masterpieces of graphic prose, are devoted to the Triumphal Entry of
Charles V into Antwerp (Durer had seen the decorations in. the making, was at the
event itself, and bought a printed description afterwards), and to the great procession on
Sunday after Assumption which took two hours to watch and more than two pages to describe.
And Durer's enthusiasm reached a peak over the objects recently imported from Mexico:
"Further, I have seen the things brought to the King from the new golden land: a sun, wholly
of wide a whole fathom, also a moon, wholly of silver and just as big; also two chambers
full of their implements, and two others full of their weapons, armor, shooting engines, mar
velous shields, strange garments, bedspreads and all sorts of wondrous things for many uses,
much more beautiful to behold than miracles. These things are all so costly that they have
been estimated at a hundred thousand florins; and in all my life I have seen nothing which
has gladdened my heart so much as these things. For I have seen therein wonders of art and
have marveled at the subtle ingenia ol people in far-off lands. And I know not how to express
what I have experienced thereby."
Unlike the painters of Venice, the Flemish artists were quick to honor and befriend their
German guest. Only three days after his arrival, the Painters' Guild of Antwerp arranged a
splendid banquet with ladies, gorgeous plate and "superexcellent" food: "As I was led to the
table the crowd stood on both sides as though a great Lord were ushered in ... ; and as I sat
there with honors, in came the City-Clerk of Antwerp with two servants and gave me four
carafes of wine ... , and afterwards Master Peter, the City's engineer, and gave me two
carafes of wine with his most courteous compliments ... ; and late at night they saw us home
in state with torch-lights." The goldsmiths of Antwerp gave Durer and his wife a banquet
on Shrove Tuesday, and on his excursions alone he was splendidly entertained and honored
by the painters, goldsmiths and merchants of Bruges, the painters of Ghent, and the painters
and sculptors of Malines. He did not meet, it seems, his greatest fellow-painter in Antwerp,
Quentin Massys, for he records only a visit to "Master Quentin's house" and never mentions
him again. But he made friends with a host of other artists, painters as well as sculptors, gold-
smiths, painters on glass, illuminators and medalists. Suffice it to mention Lady Margaret's
Court Sculptor, the great Conrad Meit, "the like of whom I have never seen," as Durer puts
it; Lucas van Leyden, second only to Durer himself as an engraver and woodcut designer;
.Bernard van Or ley of Brussels; Jean Prevost (already mentioned) of Bruges; Gerard Horen-
bout,_ the illuminator, whose eighteen-year-old daughter Susanna practiced her father's art
so skilfully that Durer gave her a florin for a miniature of the Salvator Mundi and remarked
in his Diary: "It is a great miracle that a mere female should do so well"; the-French stone
sculptor Jean Mone; and, above all, the "good landscape painter" (probably the first occur-
rence of this term!) Joachim Patinir of Antwerp with whom Durer became sufficiently
friendly to help him with drawings and to attend his wedding. Special importance must be
attached to Durer's contact with Tommaso Vincidot of Bologna, a pupil of Raphael, who had
been sent to Brussels in order to supervise the weaving of Raphael's cartoons for the Vatican
210
tapestries; he gave Durer an antique ring and some Italian engravings and undertook to
procure him all the prints after Raphael in exchange for a complete set of Durer's own.
However, Durer was never inclined to limit his social life to colleagues. He made the
acquaintance of musicians, doctors, astronomers, and humanists (such as Erasmus of Rotter
dam, Petrus Aegidius, Cornelius Grapheus and Adriaen Herbouts); and his closest friends
were, significantly, international men of affairs: Bernhard Stecher, the factor of the Fuggers
in Antwerp; Tommaso Bombelli, a rich silk merchant from Genoa and Paymaster General
to Lady Margaret, who had two nice brothers and attractive children; and the three eco
nomic representatives of Portugal: Joao Bradao-who may be called the senior factor-,
Francisco Pesoa (factor since 1519), and, last but not least, Rodrigo Fernandez d'Almada,
Secretary to Bradao up to 1521 and then promoted to factor himself.
The only person of consequence who, for some reason, showed a certain coolness and
even hostility to Durer was Lady Margaret. At first she was quite gracious and even promised
to support Durer's application to her nephew Charles V. Durer, in turn, did everything in
his power to please her; he showered engravings upon her and made her two drawings on
vellum so fine and meticulous that he estimated their value at thirty florins as against seven
for a complete set of his prints. But his last visit with her-in June 1521-was a sad disap-
pointment. She deigned to show him her library and her collection of paintings where Durer
noticed, among other things, several pictures by his old friend Jacopo de' Barbari (who had
died in Lady Margaret's service in 1516); a work by Jan van Eyck (probably the Arnolfini
portrait in London which was in her possession up to her death); and about forty small
panels, as "good and pure" as he had ever seen, which can be identified as a series of the
Life of Christ by Juan de Flandes, now mostly in the Royal Palace in Madrid. But she not
only refused, as we remember, to accept Durer's portrait of her father Maximilian but also
turned down his request for Barbari's sketch-book which she had promised, she said, to her
own painter. And, to quote Durer's own words, she "never gave me anything for what I
had presented to and made for her."
Except for two or three Coats-of-Arms quickly jotted down on woodblocks (381/434,
433), Durer's activity in the Netherlands was naturally restricted to paintings and drawings.
Several paintings executed during his sojourn are known to us only from the records in
his Diary: one or two "Herzogangesichter" (Duke's Heads; one cannot be sure whether
Durer refers to two pictures or to the same picture twice) which seem to have been portraits
of Frederick II of the Palatinate; two Sudaria both of which were given to Durer's Portu-
guese friends; and a portrait of his host Jobst Planckfelt which has been incorrectly identi-
fied with the beautiful Portrait of a Gentleman in the Prado (8 5, fig. 260).
Four other paintings, however, have come down to us: the Portrait of the elusive Bern
hart von Resten (or von Breslen) in Dresden (64, fig. 259); the Portrait of Lorenz Sterck,
Tax Collector of Brabant in the District of Antwerp, in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
in Boston (67); the Portrait of Jobst Planckfelt's wife in Toledo, Ohio (73); and the
St. Jerome in Meditation presented to Rodrigo Fernandez d'Almada and now preserved in
I
l
PORTRAITS PAINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS 211
the National Museum at Lisbon (41, fig. 252). All of them were executed during the spring
and summer of 1521.
Between 1500 and 1520 Durer's portraits fell, roughly speaking, in two classes which can
be distinguished, to borrow two expressions from the motion picture industry, as "ordinary
shots" and "closeups," with the "Small Cardinal" of 1519 (fig. 248) forming an inter
mediary between the two. The "ordinary shot" portraits-already exemplified by the
Portrait of Albrecht Durer the Elder of 1497 (fig. 66) and culminating in the two painted
Portraits of Maximilian I ( 6o and 61 )-represent the sitter in half length, approximately
down to the hips. The figure, with ample space on either side of the shoulders, and the
arms lowered at a comfortable angle, rises in pyramidal fashion, and the whole gives the
impression of spaciousness and totality, the sitter being interpreted as a complete "per
sonality" rather than as a mere "physiognomy." In the "close-up" portraits-that is, in the
overwhelming majority of the portraits executed between 1500 and 1520 on the one hand,
and after 1521 on the other-the emphasis is concentrated on the face. The figure is reduced
to a tightly framed bust, at times cut down so as not even to include the shoulders, and
never complemented by hands.
In the portraits of 1521, however-excepting that of Mrs. Planckfelt which is of a much
less formal character than the two others-Durer reverted to an archaic type which he
had completely abandoned from the beginning of the new century because it lacked both
the amplitude and completeness of the genuine half-length portrait and the concentration
of the bust portrait pure and simple. This was the bust portrait with hands, as typified by
the Portrait of Albrecht Durer the Elder of 1490 (fig. 31) and by the Tucher Portraits of
1499 (69, 74, 75). Enhanced by the prestige of Jan van Eyck, the Master of Fiemalle, and
Rogier van der Weyden, this "kit"cat" portrait was still in f a ' ~ o r with the Dutch and Flemish
masters when Durer visited the Netherlands; Lucas van Leyden, we remember, felt obliged
to add hands to Durer's woodcut portrait of Maximilian I (fig. 230). Thus the very
composition of Durer's portraits in Dresden and Boston, with the hands brought up
before the breast so as to fit into the narrow space of a bust portrait, bears witness to the
influence of Netherlandish art. But this influence is also felt in form, light and color; there
is a sense of texture (particularly noticeable in the rendering of fur), a tendency to suppress
linear details in favor of a broad chiaroscuro effect, and a general feeling for the submergence
of solid forms in light-filled space which brings to mind such portraits as Gossart's Carondelet
in the Louvre or even Lucas van Leyden's Portrait of an Unknown Man in the National
Gallery at London. It is not surprising that a portrait actually produced by a Flemish master
of about 1520 (88) should have been ascribed to Durer's "Antwerp phase."
The St. Jerome in Lisbon (fig. 252)-finished in March 1521 and carefully prepared
by five admirable studies, three of them after a man of ninety-three who received three
stuivers for his services as a model (817-821 )-also reveals the influence of the Flemish
environment. But in this case the situation is somewhat more complicated. The Saint is
represented in half length, his heavy figure filling almost the entire picture space. He is
212
CRISIS IN 15 19; ANTWERP; LAST WORKS
seated at a table on which are seen a little reading desk with an open volume on top and
three smaller books underneath, an ink-pot, and a skull. A crucifix is attached to a projecting
strip of the plain wall which serves as a background. Resting his head on his right hand, the
Saint casts a sad, exhorting glance at the beholder and pointingly places his left index finger
on the skull which also seems to fix us with its eyeless gaze.
Clearly the picture could have been painted only in Antwerp. The color scheme, the
emphasis on chiaroscuro values, the prominence of still-life features, and, above all, the very
type of composition-a portrayal in half length with deliberate concentration on the expres-
sion of the face and hands-all this is unthinkable without the influence of Quentin Massys
whose mission it was to revive the tradition of the "Fathers" of Flemish painting, and yet
to fuse it with the attainments of the North Italian Quattrocento, with special emphasis on
the physiognomical studies of Leonardo da Vinci.
It is, however, very doubtful whether the Massys scheme of composition, as exemplified,
for instance, by the Banker and his Wife in the Louvre, had ever been applied to the theme
of St. Jerome before Durer's appearance in Antwerp. None of the Dutch or Flemish repre-
sentations of St. Jerome in half-length antedate Durer's picture in Lisbon, and most of them
are demonstrably influenced by it. In an engraving of 1521 Lucas van Leyden borrowed
the motifs of the skull and the pointing finger conspicuously absent from his engravings of
1513 and 1516. In one of his earliest paintings (Berlin, Deutsches Museum) Marinus van
Roymerswaele repeated Durer's composition fairly faithfully, except for the fact that he
revised the pose and costume of the Saint according to Durer's woodcut of 1511 (334),
multiplied the still-life features after the fashion of Massys (which in turn harks back to the
tradition of the brothers van Eyck, Petrus Cristus, Colantonio, etc.), and, like most other
"Mannerists," preferred to show the skull without its jawbone and to display its honey-
combed os occipitis rather than its spherical dome; later on he produced about half a dozen
further variations the dates of which range from 1528 ( '?) to 1547, the date inscribed on
the Prado version-1521-having been discredited for very good reasons. In the workshop
of Joos van Cleve more or less elaborate imitations of Durer's painting, some of them rather
literal except for the accessories, were turned out wholesale, and the continued influence of
this tradition, transmitted by such masters as Jan van Hemessen (formerly Vienna, Strache
Collection) can still be felt in the seventeenth century.
Thus the painting in Lisbon, while conforming to the Antwerp tradition in treatment
and composition, is apparently Durer's own as far as the "invention" is concerned; and this
conclusion is borne out by internal evidence. It has rightly been said that the St. Jerome
of 1521 reflects the spirit of Luther while the engraving of 1514 (fig. 208) conforms to
the ideal of Erasmus of Rotterdam: where the engraving shines with the quiet glow of
scholastic contentment, the painting is a gloomy memento mori; some of its Flemish
replicas very appropriately bear the inscription "Homo bulla" ("Man is a bubble").
Yet the skull, however inconspicuously placed on the windowsill, however pleasantly
transfigured by the sunshine, and however much ignored by the busy Saint, makes its
/
DURER AND MASSYS; THE ST. JEROME 213
first appearance already in Durer's engraving of 1514; and ~ further and most important
step toward the macabre is taken in a later pen drawing in Berlin which must be considered
as a direct forerunner of the picture in Lisbon (816, fig. 255). It s!10ws St. Jerome in his cell,
still in full length as in the engraving. But he is clad in a hermit's gown-a rare arrangement,
repeated, significantly enough, only by the same Joos van Cleve whose workshop specialized
in the production of St. Jeromes a la Durer. Furthermore, instead of being engaged in
scholarly work, the Saint is lost in meditation over the skull now placed on the table before
him, his mood and posture strangely reminiscent of Michelangelo's most famous monuments
to universal grief, the Jeremiah and the "Penseroso."
From the point of view of iconography and content, then, the Lisbon picture-almost
a "close-up" of the drawing in Berlin except for the changes in costume, gestures and atti-
tude-has its logical place in Durer's development. Only the author of the Melencolia I
and the Self-Portrait of about 1491 (fig. 25) could have interpreted the peaceful scholar and
ardent penitent as a sort of Christian Saturn with all his implications of gloom and tran-
sience; when Jan van Eyck's St. Jerome-known to us through its reflections in Petrus
Cristus's panel in Detroit, in several miniatures, and even in Ghirlandaio's and Botticelli's
frescoes in Ognissanti at Florence-rests his head on his hand this gesture expresses only the
concentration of the reader and writer, and not the grief of melancholy.
Thus the history of St. Jerome of 1521 parallels in some ways that of the Christ among
the Doctors of 1506. In both cases Durer drew inspiration from the ambient air-and it
should be noted that the ultimate source of this inspiration was Leonardo da Vinci; but in
both cases he did not adopt a given prototype but condensed his impressions into an invention
of his own, sufficiently original to startle, yet sufficiently imbued with indigenous tendencies
to invite emulation. As the Christ among the Doctors was 'ridely imitated in North Italy
because it was "Leonardesque" without repeating a composition by Leonardo, so the St.
Jerome in Meditation appealed to the Flemings because it used the language of Antwerp to
deliver a message by Durer.
Apart from the studies made in connection with this picture, the drawings of the
journey to the Netherlands can be divided in two classes: those destined for others and those
made for Durer's own use. The first of these two classes comprises "Visierungen"-or, as
in the case of the two drawings on vellum given to Lady Margaret, carefully finished
souvenirs for friends and acquaintances-and large-scale portraits, about the size of the
Apocalypse if not cut down, in chalk or charcoal (only exceptionally in brush) which were
given or sold to the sitters.
La4y Margaret's unappreciated treasures are lost, but we have some other drawings
. which may give us an approximate idea of their character. These include a few small busts,
or rather studies in human physiognomy, on vellum (1132, 1192, 1193, 1238), and a real
"collector's item" which shows all sorts of interesting animals and two landscape studies care-
fully transferred from sketch-leaves to a great piece of especially prepared paper ( 147 5). A
portrait of the excellent lute-player Captain Felix Hungersperg, which Durer drew in the
214
latter's album, has at least come down to us in a propria manu replica (1026). All the
"Visierungen," however, are lost, except for some slight sketches for the Coat-of-Arms of an
unknown Englishman ( 1S17). It is only through Durer's Diary that we know of the "Visier-
ungen" supplied (for unknown purposes) to the painters of Antwerp: of the :fillets designed '
for the Antwerp Goldsmith's Guild; of fancy dresses for Shrove-Tide masquerades; of a seal
for the goldsmith Jan van de Perre; of a design for the mural decoration of Tommaso Born-
belli's house in Antwerp; of a plan for a house to be built by Lady Margaret's physician;
of a St. Nicholas for a chasuble to be donated by the "Meersche Guild" of merchants; and
of four St. Christopherson gray-grounded paper for Joachim Patinir.
Of the large-scale portrait drawings, on the other hand, more than a dozen have come
down to us; eleven or twelve in charcoal or chalk, one in brush, and one in metal point on
purple-grounded paper. They are not preparatory studies but finished works of art-indeed,
Durer used to give them away together with a wooden panel, costing six stuivers, on which
they might be mounted. Their composition follows the "bust portrait" formula employed
for paintings and prints ( 1071, fig. 261). The head is normally covered with a hat the brim of
which achieves what may be called a contrapuntal effect; and the background is blackened,
with a narrow strip at the top left blank for the signature, the date and other inscriptions-an
arrangement already found, at times, in the chalk and charcoal drawings of 1S1S18 (1040
and 106S), but now becoming a usual custom. The only exceptions are the portraits of
Agnes Durer ( 10 so, fig. 262) and Erasmus of Rotterdam ( 1 o2o), the former being the
only portrait drawing on colored paper, the other not quite :finished. Besides Erasmus, Agnes
Durer and King Christian II of Denmark already mentioned ( 1014), we can identify
Bernard van Orley (1033) and Rodrigo Fernandez d'Almada (1oos), the only individual
known by name whom Durer honored by a "big brush drawing in black and white."
An intermediary position between the drawings made for others and those made for
Durer himself is held by three medium-sized portraits in silver point which Durer probably-
though not at all certainly-kept for himself. They represent, with admirable :finesse, Lucas
van Leyden, the "tiny little man who engraves in copper" ( 1029); Sebastian Brant-at least
probably-whom Durer had not seen since the days of the "Narrenschiff," but who had come
to the Netherlands to do homage to Charles V in the name of the City of Strassburg ( 1073);
and the young negress Catharine who was in the service of Joao Bradao ( 1044). Both from
a technical and an artistic point of view these more fnformal portraits form a transition to
what is perhaps the most fascinating document of Durer's stay in the Netherlands: his little
oblong sketch-book on pinkish-grounded paper-about 7S by S inches in size-referred to by
himself as "mein Buchlein" ( 14821so8, figs. 263-270).
In his earlier days Durer had used silver point primarily for fairly large-sized portraits,
secondarily for other studies of a similar nature, and never for landscapes, which he
preferred to execute in gouache and water color. Not until about ISIS, when landscapes had
long ceased to attract him from a coloristic point of view, do we find such silver point draw-
ings as the second version of the Wire Drawing Mill (14os, fig. 246) and the View of
/
. DRAWINGS MADE IN FLANDERS; SKETCH-BOOK 215
Kirch-E hrenbach ( 1406 ), or an occasional souvenir like the little Madonna formerly in
Lemberg (676). But even then the instances were few in number; and when Durer, in
1520, decided to employ silver point for his main sketch-book he may have been influenced,
not only by practical considerations-for, silver point was, after all, the only ancient
equivalent of the modern plumbago pencil-but also by the very quality of a medium which
had been the favorite vehicle of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden and was still
more popular in. the Netherlands than in any other part of the world.
In style, however, the silver point drawings in Durer's sketch-book are as different from
those by Gerard David, Lucas van Leyden or Quentin Massys as they are from his own
earlier efforts, and perhaps even more so. With all his sensitiveness for the peculiar delicacy
of the medium, Durer strictly refrained from exploiting its pictorial possibilities at the
expense of plastic :firmness and graphic precision. He never allowed the lines to merge
into indistinct masses; he handled the silver point as though it were at once a pencil and a
burin; and it is understandable that, after his return, he should have preferred it to charcoal,
chalk and pen for portrait studies from life preparatory to medals ( 1022) or engravings
( 1004, 1021).
Where the subject was not suited to the horizontal format of Durer's "Buchlein"-
that is, practically everywhere except for buildings, panoramic views and animals in pro-
file--Durer economized on paper by using only one-half of the sheet and leaving the rest
to be used later. In one instance--the drawing of a mortar-piece presumably made in
Popenreuther's cannon-foundry-the right half of the page thus remained empty, and in
others it was :filled with sketches unrelated to the main subject except by that unde-
finable sense of balance which always distinguishes the miscellaneous sketch-leaves of great
masters from those of less accomplished artists. But more often than not the subsequent addi-
tion of a second :figure, of an architectural motif or of a landscape background resulted in
the appearance, at least, of a planned composition. Now two utter strangers such .as a girl
child in Cologne headgear and Agnes Durer dourly looking in the opposite direction (fig.
269), a casual traveling acquaintance named Marx Ulstat and the "beautiful virgin of
Antwerp," or a plump matron from Bergen and a delicate young woman from Ter Goes
(fig. 266) are thrown together into "double portraits" which shed an unexpected light on
subtle differences or sharp contrasts in age, sex and character and tantalizingly suggest
an imaginary psychological relationship. Now the square face and shoulders of the Imperial
Herald Caspar Sturm are monumentally set out against a river landscape (/ig. 263); now
Lazarq's Ravensburger contemptuously turns his back upon the tower of the "Hof van
The curiously effeminate countenance of a young man from Antwerp is softly foiled
by a city prospect dominated by the tower of St. Michael's; the bust of another gentleman
from Antwerp detaches itself from a view of the "Krahnenberg" near Andernach-on-the-
Rhine and two sketches, in different positions, of the head and forepart of a lion suggest
' .. .
a regal pair (fig. 268).
216
Durer's sketch-book records the ordinary as well as the unusual. He did justice not only
to the majesty of the Ghent lions but also to the patient, meditative watchfulness of big
dogs and to the quick intelligence of small ones (fig. 264). He sketched tiled floors, tables '
and pewter (fig. 270 ), coffers and andirons. He copied from earlier paintings and sculptures
and managed to bestow upon the statuette of a Burgundian princess, executed some fifty or
seventy-five years earlier, so much charm and vitality that no one would recognize it as an arti-
fact were the original lost (fig. 265). The buildings of Antwerp already mentioned, the Town
Hall and "Munster" of Aix-la-Chapelle, the fortified castles of the Rhine valley and the
general site of Bergen-op-Zoom were rendered with the glorious pedantry of one who was
not only a great artist but also a craftsman, an engineer and a geometrician; and a climax
was reached in the magnificent portrayal of the unfinished choir of the "Groote Kerk" at
Bergen which courted both Durer's feeling for texture and his "cubistic" inclinations (fig.
267). The masonry is not so much represented as reconstructed, brick by brick; and yet the
details are rigorously subordinated to a collective concept which fills the beholder with what
Plato calls the "legitimate delight attached to pure geometrical forms." The drawing brings
to mind the quality of such architectural etchings as Hercules Seghers's Ruin or Meryon's
Eaux-Fortes sur Paris.
In addition to the sketch-book in silver point, and setting aside a group of projects for a
new Passion series, the drawings made for Durer's own use include, first, a number of small-
sized pen drawings which seem to come from another, smaller and simpler sketch-book of
vertical format; second, some fairly large-sized single sheets in varying techniques.
With the exception of three figures in full-length-a Rowing Sailor (1261), a Woman
in Turkish Dress ( 1257, fig. 256) and one "Master Arnolt of Seligenstadt" surreptitiously
sketched while asleep on board ship ( 1 oo6 )-the pen sketch-book was apparently reserved
for studies in human physiognomy, all in half-length. It includes anonymous "characters"
such as bearded or otherwise remarkable old men, a beturbaned Oriental, handsome youths
in the guise of St. John or St. Sebastian, and women posed as Matres Dolorosae; and, in
addition, six real portraits such as the likenesses of Durer's friends, Hans Pfaffrot ( 1035,
with enumeration of the other drawings in this sketch-book), Jobst Planckfelt ( 1038) and
Felix Hungersperg (1025, fig. 257) and of a very charming Lady of Brussels (1112,
fig. 258).
The single drawings include-apart from a "Corpus Christi" Procession which may or may
not have been made in Antwerp (892)-two studies of feminine fashions in the Netherlands
so carefully executed in brush on dark-grounded paper that Durer specifically mentions them
in his Diary ( 1291 and 1292); a costume study of Irish peasants and soldiers and three
others of Livonian women of different ranks, all of them in pen and water color and pre-
sumably based on "ethnographical" material which happened to come to Durer's attention
in Antwerp ( 1293-1296) ; a wonderful half-length portrait, also in pen and water color, of
a walrus which had been captured near the Flemish coast (1365, fig. 272) and whose ex-
pression of good-natured grumpiness delighted Durer so much that he thought of including
COSTUME; ANIMALS; LANDSCAPE 217
it, in the role of St. Margaret's Dragon, in what would have been his most ambitious altar-
piece (fig. 287) ; and two city prospects in pen.
One of these is a cartographical survey rather than an "artistic" drawing; somewhat
like a bird's-eye map or such mUitary illustrations as the Siege of a Fortress of 1527 (357),
it represents what Durer himself describes as "the fountains, labyrinth and menagerie behind
the King's house in Brussels, lovelier and more delightful to me than anything I have ever
seen, not unlike a paradise" ( 1409). The other, however, marks the climax of Durer's
career as a landscapist ( 1408, fig. 271). It shows the harbor of Antwerp, the quay with its
many fishing boats unfolding in a majestic diagonal from lower left to upper right. Here
the vista is blocked by buildings picturesque as a group but perfectly crystallomorphic as
individual units, the tallest one touching the upper margin with its absurdly high pyramidal
roof: on the left is the river, with the low slopes of its opposite bank emerging in the distance.
It has apparently escaped notice that the drawing is, technically speaking, unfinished.
While the buildings farther back are detailed in the meticulous manner of the silver point
sketch-book, the house next to the right margin-and nearest to the beholder-is merely
outlined, and the whole foreground is empty although some hair-thin contours show that
Diirer had originally planned to enliven the quay by objects and, possibly, by such diminu-
tive figures as are seen in the background. Yet there is little doubt that he stopped at the
drawing, not for want of time-it would not have taken him more than an hour to "complete"
it-but because it satisfied him precisely as it is. He felt that further elaboration would
impair the effect of vastness and luminosity. Every detail entered into the wall of the
foreshortened house on the right, let alone into the foreground, would have introduced an
element of nearness, and would have made opaque and commensurable what is now trans-
lucent and mysteriously remote. r-
We have seen how Durer's first trip to Italy opened his eyes to what may be called a
comprehensive interpretation of scenery-how he learned to coordinate isolated details into
coherent patterns and finally achieved those panoramic views which we admire in the
Apocalypse and in the "Adoration of the Trinity." There had remained, however, a certain
discrepancy between the macroscopic style of these panoramas and the still microscopic
style of the landscape features incidentally appearing in most other paintings prints.
It was precisely this discrepancy which Durer tried to overcome in the-no longer col-
ored-landscapes of the second decade of the new century. In the view of Heroldsberg
(1402, dated 1510), in the second version of the Wire Drawing Mill, in the view of
(1405, fig. 246, and 1406, both about six or seven years later), and
ultimately in the Landscape with the Cannon of 1518 (2o6) he managed to give a
account of all and every detail, and yet, to quote Wolfflin, to "divert the
eye from the single objects in space to space as a whole." But even here the effect is cum-
ulative rather than integral. Through "cutting" the picture so as to suggest an expanse
beyond the and through a skillful use of overlapping forms and "repoussoirs" we
are invited and enabled to experience what Wolfflin calls the "Raumganze"; but this
218
"Raumganze" still comes about by a summation of parts. It was not until 1519/20 and
after a second look at the Alps-that is, if we are right in assuming that the exquisite ,
Landscape on a Lake ( 1407) is genuine and was made during Durer's trip to Switzerland-
that he succeeded in presenting sceneries which are to their single elements as a tree is to
its trunk, branches and leaves. Though we may say that a tree "consists" of a trunk, branches
and leaves, yet we perceive and understand the sum total of trunk, branches and leaves as
one phenomenon: tree. In the Harbor of Antwerp Durer achieved such a "total view"; and
his very last landscape drawing, the Fortifications between Rocks and the Sea of 1526/27
( 1411), is perhaps even more grandiose in its fantastic scale which makes a lighthouse look
like a fumigating pastil, its utter loneliness and its complete subordination of detail to a
leading theme. But it is scientifically sober, though wholly imaginary, where the Harbor of
Antwerp is real, yet poetic; it is oppressive where the Harbor is serenely spacious; and it
sacrifices the charm of light on the altar of sheer mass.
THE LIFE OF A CURIOUS AND BUSY VISITOR anxious both tO record his experiences and tO
please his friends left little time for independent, creative activity. Yet several plans for
future work were at least partly formulated during Durer's stay in the Netherlands, though
it is difficult to tell to what extent they materialized; for, it is often impossible to decide
whether a drawing dated 1521 was made while he was still in Antwerp or only when he
was already in Nuremberg. In one case, however, we have the benefit of an explicit entry
in Durer's Diary: "I have made," he writes in May 1521, "three Bearings of the Cross and
two Agonies in the Garden on five half-sheets."
Four of these drawings-three dated 1520 and one 1521-have fortunately come down
to us (56o, 562, 579, 58o), and three others--dated 1521 and representing the Deposition
of Christ (611, 612, 613)-are so analogous in style, technique and composition that the
whole group must be considered as a coherent series. It would seem, then, that Durer planned
a new Passion, and the style of the drawings suggests that it was to be executed in woodcut.
This assumption is confirmed by the fact that a Last Supper, based on a drawing of similar
size and character (554), was actually carried out in woodcut in 1523 (273). In the fol-
lowing year we find another, final version of the Gethsemane scene (563) and further an
Adoration of the Magi (513) which would have served as a prelude to the whole cycle.
The general characteristics of these late compositions and their curious affinity with the
style of Mantegna have already been discussed at the beginning of this chapter. They are all
"halbe Bogen," that is to say, they are-if not cut down-more or less identical in size with
the Life of the Virgin. But the sheets have been turned through an angle of ninety degrees,
and this is in itself a significant novelty. Formerly Durer had invariably treated the same
themes in vertical prints and pictures-except for the Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi,
and even here the format is squarish rather than pronouncedly oblong. Now the compositions
spread themselves out over a surface much wider than high. The tragic processions of the
Bearing of the Cross and the Deposition of Christ move steadily from right to left instead
THE OBLONG PASSION
219
of emerging from the background and turning after having reached the center of the stage.
The approach of the Magi, though not magnified by a retinue, has the slow roll of an ocean
wave-and the same could be said of the terrain in the two Agonies in the Garden. Even the
magnificent and at times slightly artificial pyramids which Durer had loved to construct in
renderings of the Lamentation-one instance as late as 1521 (6og)-were ultimately aban-
doned in favor of an apparently simple, yet intricately organized oblong (615, dated 1522).
The dead body of Christ, His legs outstretched and His right palm touching the ground
with a strange feeling of final relaxation, lies on a sloping mound of earth, His chest resting
on the knees of the cowering Magdalen; the Virgin Mary, bending low, lifts His distorted
face to her lips, and St. John the Evangelist and Joseph of Arimathea emerge from behind
the mound as half-length figures, their quiet, mournful faces aligned on a horizontal scarcely
higher than the beag of the Virgin.
The implications of this sudden change from a vertical to a horizontal form of composi-
tion are easier to apprehend intuitively than to define in words. An oblong format is more
congenial with an epic than with a dramatic or lyrical form of presentation. We do not feel
ourselves drawn with a rush into the picture, but tend rather to absorb the spectacle as
though watching a stream flowing by, or the waves of the ocean rolling on, or a distant
mountainrange spread out before us. The oblong format creates, or at least corresponds to,
a mood of objectivizing receptivity rather than subjectivizing activity, and it makes for an
experience of space wherein depth is not apprehended by breaking through the picture plane
but by a quiet, gradual advance on the whole front. It is therefore more suitable for "relief-
space" and panoramic space than for a space full of dynamic tensions or dissolving in
visionary unreality. It is difficult to imagip.e Titian's Crowning with Thorns, Raphael's
Sistine Madonna or Durer's Apocalypse in oblong format, afid no less difficult to imagine
Poussin's Rebekah and Eliezer, Leonardo's Last Supper or Rembrandt's landscapes within
a vertical frame.
. D u r ~ r ' s previous work had not included a single oblong woodcut except for the Terence
IllustratiOns and the Triumphal Procession of Maximilian, and only three oblong engravings
and etchings (unusual also in other respects), namely, the Sudarium of 1513, the Landscape
with the Cannon of 1518 and the St. Anthony of 1519. But he must have felt a certain inward
affinity between the horizontal format and what he wanted to express in his late Passion:
events of epic majesty, unfolding before the spectator rather than confronting him; staged in
a space wide and lucidly organized rather than deep or unfathomably irrational; and inviting
grave contemplation rather than lyrical or visionary excitement.
In addition, however, certain external influences can be noted. One of the Depositions
(612, fig. 276) is evidently derived from Mantegna's famous engraving representing the
same scene (fig. 198), both in general arrangement and in such details as the figure of the
carrier walking backwards; and the two Agonies in the Garden of 1520 and 1521 (56o and
562) are hardly imaginable without Mantegna's Gethsemane pictures in the National Gallery
at London and inS. Zeno in Verona. These three Mantegna compositions are oblong in shape
220
CRISIS IN 1519; ANTW:ERP; LAST WORKS
and Diirer may have sensed the inner correspondence between their format and their style.
In the later of the two Agonies (fig. 273) he even outdid Mantegna in epic horizontalism.
In the predella panel in S. Zeno one of the Disciples lies prone on the ground. This motif
apparently recalled to Durer's mind an archaic iconography of the scene-based on an
unusually literal interpretation of the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew-where Christ
Himself is shown face downward before the Angel with the chalice. This type already occurs
in a drawing from the workshop of Wolgemut, and Diirer himself had used it, more than ten
years before, for a woodcut made for though not included in the Small Passion (274). Nor
mally, however, he had avoided it, and the drawings of 1520 (579) and 1524 (563) show
Christ on his knees raising his hands as had been the case in the "Green Passion" (5 56) and
the Engraved Passion (111). It is only in the drawing of 1521 that Diirer reverted to the
long-discarded scheme, but he monumentalized the pose of Christ like that of Mantegna's
Disciple and yet instilled into it an emotional quality entirely his own. The figure has both
the pathos of a human being in agony and the grandeur of a fallen statue, with arms out
stretched in the form of the Cross. A series of repeated rocky plinths, also of Mantegnesque
cast, leads up to the prostrate figure much as the main theme in the last movement of the
Ninth Symphony is incompletely and still inarticulately announced by the orchestra to find
fulfillment in the human voice. The clouds in which appears the tiny Angel in the upper left
hand corner fade out into a fog or haze which, rendered by prolonged horizontal lines, echoes
the stratification of the ground while enveloping the scene with a haunting atmosphere of
mystery and doom.
For the two Bearings of the Cross, on the other hand (579 and 58o), the oblong format
was doubtless suggested by a tradition which, ultimately derived from such Italian models as
Andrea da Firenze's fresco in the Cappella degli Spagnuoli in Florence, had been popularized
in the North by a widely imitated composition of-generally speaking-Eyckian character.
This composition, best transmitted through a painting in Budapest and a drawing in the
Albertina in Vienna in which the figure of St. Veronica has been added, shows a many-figured
procession unfolding within a wide picture space, with the city of Jerusalem conspicuous in
the background; Christ walks erect, firmly grasping the Cross and, if St. Veronica is present,
looking back to her over His shoulder. Indirectly, this "Eyckian scheme" had been known to
Diirer from early youth through the famous engraving by Schongauer. But this engraving
shows a number of significant changes: apart from the fact that the figure of St. Veronica is
not included, it reduces the architecture to a minimum, accentuates depth at the expense of
frontality, and shows Christ breaking to His knees as was the more usual thing in the Ger-
manic countries.
It is precisely in these respects that Durer's first drawing of 1520 (fig. 275) reverts to
the "Eyckian scheme." He enriched the archaic composition by several features which he had
used in his earlier renderings of the scene; he modernized and monumentalized not only the
figure of Christ but also all the other characters of the drama-the Holy Women, the Thieves
and the merciless crowd of soldiers, burghers and sharp-faced "Pharisees"-and he condensed
THE OBLONG PASSION; LAST SUPPER OF 1523 221
into a solid yet perfectly articulated phalanx what had been a somewhat rambling caravan.
But it cannot be questioned that he, like Massys and Gossart, paid homage to the great tradi-
tion of Early Flemish painting.
In the second Bearing of the Cross (580) Diirer retained the same general arrangement
(the horseman on the right is even more reminiscent of the Albertina drawing than any single
figure in the first version). But the relief planes are multiplied; the numerous figures, formerly
maintaining a kind of plastic individuality, merge into a mighty stream which gives an im
pression of infinity; the architecture is used as a mere "back-drop"; and the figure of Christ,
magically luminous by virtue of its deliberately wide-spaced modelling, resumes the "Orpheus
pose" of the Large Passion (fig. 89). It was this second redaction which-with the cortege
still further enlarged on the basis of a somewhat later drawing (581 )-was finally, though
perhaps posthumously, carried out in a "great, artistically painted panel" formerly kept in
the Imperial "Kunstkammer" in Vienna ( 13).
The modern mind, brought up in the worship of Leonardo da Vinci, more or less auto
matically imagines a Last Supper as an oblong, symmetrical composition with the figure of
Christ as an axis. Yet Diirer's two earlier representations of the scene (225 and 244), though
symmetrical, are not oblong; and his drawing of about 1523 (554, fig. 277), though oblong,
surprisingly reverts to the ancient Eastern iconography where Christ is placed at the end of
the table instead of in the center and is often shown in profile-as in Giotto's fresco in the
, Cappella dell' Arena-instead of en face. How Diirer became familiar with this archaic
scheme and why he should have adopted it is difficult to explain. It is almost as though he
had tried to assert his originality in the face of Leonardo, whose Last Supper was so popular
in the Netherlands, and, more particularly, of Raphael, whose revised version of Leonardo's
composition, engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, must
among the prints acquired

by Durer through Tommaso Vincidor. For, with all its nonconformity Diirer's drawing
reveals the influence of those two masters-not only in the format, but also in more specific
peculiarities. Although Christ has been shifted to the left, the axis of the composition is still
emphasized by a central figure; and while the crossed legs of this central figure and the differ
entiation of the various physiognomies are reminiscent of Leonardo, the motif of a standing
Apostle in profile, bending forward and placing his left hand on the shoulder of a seated one,
and the correspondence of two seated figures at either end of the table, agree with the engrav
ing after Raphael.
Needless to say, the differences outweigh the similarities. The classic symmetry is loosened
up-the very placement of a cupboard in the farthest corner of the room would have horrified
an Italian eye. The standing figure harshly interrupts a continuity which Raphael had been
careful-to emphasize, and the poses and gestures are both more expressive and more awkward
than those In "classic" art. Diirer also retained from his earlier compositions the motif of St.
John leaning on the bosom of the Lord, which was no longer compatible with the style of
Raphael andLeonardo. In one respect, however, he departed, not only from his Italian proto
types but also from his own previous interpretations: the table (with an interesting penti
222
mento reducing its surface so as to enhance the monumentality of the figures) has been cleared
except for the empty plates and the symbols of the Eucharist, a loaf of bread and a goblet of
wine; and Christ has before Him a sacramental chalice, significantly absent from the two
earlier woodcuts.
This motif may have been suggested by a representational tradition which had tended to
emphasize the sacramental rather than the historical aspects of the scene (Durer was in
Louvain for a few hours and may have seen Dirk Bouts's famous altarpiece in St. Peter's or
at least one of its numerous repetitions by Dirk's son Aelbert); but that he adopted it at this
moment, and that he omitted the charger with the lamb which had conspicuously figured in
his two previous woodcuts, would seem to be more than an art-historical accident. may be
explained by Durer's convictions in regard to one of the basic issues of the ReformatiOn often
referred to as the "Chalice Controversy" ("Kelchstreit"). In his "Sermon on the New Testa-
ment, that is, on Holy Mass," of 1520 Luther had supported the old claim to communion
sub utraque forma, viz., the claim of the layman to receive the chalice .as well. as I_Iost;
and he had further insisted on the all-importance of the words by whtch Chnst mstttutes
His Holy Supper." From these he had inferred-heretically according to the Catholic
trine-that Holy Mass was not a "sacrifice," but a mere "testament and sacrament, wherem,
under the seal of a symbol, a promise is made of the redemption of sin." In so conspicuously
emphasizing the sacramental chalice while eliminating the sacrificial lamb, Diirer appears to
profess his adherence to Luther's point of view. We know that h.e and read whatever
Luther wrote in German; and it may have been the basic doctnnal stgmficance the
Supper which induced him to develop this one composition into a for
publication while he postponed and ultimately abandoned the executwn of h1s other Passwn
drawings. . . . .
This woodcut (273, fig. 278)-published, by a curious comctdence, m the same year as
Luther's Formula Missae-is still more "Protestant" than the preliminary drawing. The
room is without ornament or furniture except for the crude table and the box-like seats. The
figure of Christ is restored to its central position, with His head in the exact of the. rear
wall, but the perspective vanishing point is not on the same axis; the table sharply shtfted
to the left (so sharply that the figure at the end is cut in half by the margm),, an enor-
mous circular window throws its weight to the right. The surface of the table IS still further
reduced. There is nothing on it save the chalice (while the more material symbols of the Eu-
charist, the bread basket and the wine jug, have been removed to the floor) ; and to make the
Lutheran connotations even more explicit, an empty charger-not, as has been thought,
basin of the Washing of the Feet-is prominently displayed in the foreground: the ls
d fi 1 I
d to bring home the doctnne
not merely absent, its absence is almost e ant y proc atme so as
that the Lord's Supper is "not a sacrifice." .
The most telling innovation, however, is the selection of the moment as such. In h1s two
earlier woodcuts, and even in the preliminary drawing for the present one, Durer had still
LAST SUPPER OF 1523; GREAT CRUCIFIXION 223
expressed che excitement and suspense which follow the words: ''Verily, verily, I say unto
you that one of you shall betray me." Now-and, so far as we know for the first and last time
in the history of art-the scerie is depicted after the crisis has passed. Properly speaking, the
woodcut represents, not the Last Supper itself but its aftermath-a scene described exclusively
by St. John, the "favorite Evangelist of Luther": "He [Judas] then having received the sop
went immediately out: and it was night. Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now
is the son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. , . , Little children, yet a little while
I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come;
so now I say. to you. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I
have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples, if ye have love one to another. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou 'il
Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me
afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now'il I will lay down my
life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake'il Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice."
Judas, then, has left the room, and only the faithful Eleven remain, with the sacramental
symbol of their union shining from the table. Another tragic announcement is made, but one
which does not startle and condemn but exhorts and absolves: the Lord discloses, not the
unforgivable sin of the Traitor but the human frailty of him whom He has just appointed His
follower. And at the same time a "New Commandment" is given to all: "As I have loved
you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples; that
ye also love one another." It is the giving of this "New Commandment" which forms the
principal content of Durer's woodcut and after which it should be named. For a human
tragedy and the establishment of a sacred ritual it the institution of the Evan
gelical community.
ToGETHER WITH THE "OBLONG PAsSION" two other major projects occupied Durer's mind
after his return from Antwerp. One was an altarpiece showing the Madonna surrounded by
Saints, the Ancestors and Relatives of Christ and Musical Angels, and thus resembling, in a
general way, what the Italians call a "Sacra Conversazione." The other was a large-sized
engraving representing a Crucifixion with many figures. Both are grandiose compositions in
which impressions from the journey to the Netherlands mingle with reminiscences from
Italy. Both were prepared with an unusual thoroughness even for Durer; and both were never
carried out as planned;
The of the "Great Crucifixion," as we may call it for short, seems to have been
drawing of 1521 showing the crucified Christ between the Virgin Mary and St. John
(588, fig. 279). This very simple composition, without any indication of scenery, evidently
harks back to the engraving of 1511 (120) with which it has in common that the nun-like
figure of the Virgin, turned toward the Cross and joining her hands in prayer high before her
breast, is contrasted with a St. John in front view. The tendencies of Durer's late style make
themselves felt, however, in the stricter symmetry of the crucified Christ (Who, in the engrav-
ing of 1511, had been shown with His right leg bent and with His head inclined towards His
mother), in the more sharply defined position of the Virgin Mary, and in the stiffer attitude
and psychological restraint of the St. John.
This modest germ developed into one of the most complex of all Durer's compositions
(218 and 216, fig. 28o). The Virgin and St. John, still dominant but no longer isolated, ap-
pear as leaders of two choruses. Between them is seen the Magdalen on her knees embracing
the Cross. Little weeping Angels of the round-headed Venetian variety flutter about, and the
scenery, rich though not really deep, is enlivened by a fortified castle from the Rhine valley
and by the city prospect of Bergen, both faithfully copied from the silver point sketch-book
(1508 and 1491).
As a whole this composition is known only through posthumous impressions from two
copper plates the earlier of which was apparently engra, ':!d by Durer himself but was aban-
doned in a sadly unfinished state. Only the contours are incised, and behind St. John, where
the Longinus group should be-the upper part of his spear is already drawn in-there appears
a blank patch. Durer seems to have stopped working at this point in a moment of doubt or
even despair. It may have dawned upon him that he had become a victim of his virtues, that
altogether too much material-and what material-had been crowded into so small a space.
Be that as it may, the engraving was never completed. But this loss is compensated, to
some extent, by more than a dozen magnificent studies unlike anything Durer had ever done
in preparation for an engraving. They range in date from 1521 to 1523 and are all executed
in chalk or soft metal point on green-or-blue-grounded paper, one of those new techniques
which have been mentioned as characteristic of Durer's later years. Aside from several chubby
Cherubs' and Children's Heads (539-546 ), whose bulging modelling brings to mind the paint
ings on canvas in the Bibliotheque Nationale (83) and the enigmatical Child with a Long
Beard in the Louvre (84), we have the studies for the Virgin Mary and Two Holy Women
(535, fig. 284); for the Crucified Christ (534, fig. 281); for St. John the Evangelist (538,
fig. 283); and for the Magdalen (536, fig. 282). The Virgin Mary, her body concealed
beneath the folds of a long, flowing cloak-the "niederHindische Frauenmantel his auf die
Erd"-is a figure of Masacciesque grandeur, no longer bent but regally erect in the majesty
of her grief, her eyes turning away from the crucified Christ and staring into the void. Christ
Himself is almost terrifying in His somber rigidity. Bolt-upright, His head held high, and
His face expressing grim concentration rather than pain or sorrow, He seems suspended
between life and death, past suffering and yet incomprehensibly conscious. It has often been
noted that His body is fastened to the Cross with four nails instead of with three, and this
resumption of a formula almost entirely extinct from the inception of Gothic has justly been
explained by Durer's growing tendency toward hieratic symmetry-noticeable also in the
arrangement of the loin-cloth-which could already be observed in the preliminary pen
drawing of 1521. But it is not only in form but also in spirit that Durer's latest Crucifix (the
date of the study is 1523) is "Romanesque": it harks back, as it were to the fundamentalism
GREAT CRUCIFIXION; "SACRA CONVERSAZIONE"
225
of those wl:lo, even in the thirteenth century, had condemned the three-nail type of Crucifix
as a sin against the "faith in the Holy Cross and the traditions of the sainted Fathers."
Contrasted with the frozen grief of the Virgin Mary is the emotion of St. John and the
Magdalen. Both seek the Saviour with their eyes; but St. John looks up to Him with the sad
determination of one making a vow (it is no accident that his face, with the low forehead,
the strong, firm jaw and the high cheekbones, looks like an idealized version of the earlier
portraits of Luther )-the Magdalen with the spasmodic tenderness of one entranced. With
her mouth half open, unable to tear her eyes away from the crucified Christ, she touches the
cross as though it were a living thing, her hands groping upwards in an unconscious effort to
reach the unreachable. The idea of placing her behind the cross, so that she has to curl around
it, as it were, in order to see the face of Christ, may have been suggested by a composition such
as B:rn.ard. van Orley's early Crucifixion in Berlin. But with this incidental analogy in pose
the similanty ends. Durer's Magdalen is as intriguingly anachronistic as his crucified Christ:
where the latter recalls early medieval transcendentalism, the former announces the ecstasies
of the Baroque.
. At first ?lance it seems incredible that these large and careful drawings were made merely
m preparatiOn for an engraving where they had to be reduced to less than half their size.
But the studies for the Holy Women and St. John the Evangelist could not have been made
for a painting because the figures would appear on the wrong side of the Cross if not reversed
by the printing process, and we shall shortly see that the completed engravings of 1523 were
prepared by quite analogous drawings. Only some of the Children's Heads may have been
with a double objective in mind. In Durer's late period the aims of painting and engrav-
mg had become so nearly identical-both media being governed by the principle of volumetric
schematization-that the same techniques, viz., brush or metal ?<?int on dark-grounded paper,
could be used for preparatory studies no matter whether they were to serve for the one or the
other. There remained, however, one significant difference: the studies for engravings nor-
mally represent whole figures, with the heads often less carefully particularized than the
rest: whereas the studies for paintings are normally restricted to details such as drapery
motifs, faces and hands. It is thus quite conceivable that those of the Children's Heads
which do not show the expression of grief, were designed for both the "Great Crucifixion"
the "Sacra we remember, was in preparation at pre-
cisely the same time and also reqmred a considerable number of incidental little Angels.
The external history of this altarpiece is entirely obscure. We know neither its donor or
donors, nor its place of destination. Of its internal history, however, we are better informed
than of ahy other major work of Durer's. Many careful studies exist for the faces, hands and
draperies in the "Feast of the Rose Garlands," the Christ among the Doctors, and the Heller
altarpiece, but there is not a single drawing which would throw light on the development of
these compositions in their entirety. Only an already rationalized "Visierung" and a portrait
drawing of the donor can be connected with the Adoration of the Trinity, and only one
general sketch with the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand. In the case of the "Sacra Conver
226
CRISIS IN 1519 ;-ANTWERP; LAST WORKS
sazione," however, we have, in addition to a pen drawing with Musical Angels and more than
a dozen admirable studies of heads, hands and draperies ( 766-780 ), no less than six drawings
of the whole composition which permit us to observe the growth of the invention as an ento-
mologist might observe the development of a butterfly.
When Durer made the first of these drawings (760, dated 1521) he did not yet have, it
seems, a monumental altarpiece in mind but freely elaborated on his Madonnas and Holy
Families of 1518-20 (679, 68o, 687, 731). The resulting composition, like the so-called
"Glorification of the Virgin" (315), combines the theme of the Holy Family worshipped by
Saints and Angels with the Mystical Marriage of St. Catharine who kneels before the Infant
Jesus as though prepared to receive the ring, with St. James the Great and St. John the Evan-
gelist acting as witnesses. While this group of three occupies the right half of the composition,
the left is mainly filled with the bulky forms of a classicizing architecture which all but crush
an inconspicuous St. Joseph, and this deliberately "unbalanced" arrangement, coupled with
the absence of any baldaquin or cloth of honor, produces a certain informality. Only the
oblong format, reminiscent of the "Feast of the Rose Garlands" and, at the same time, con-
forming to the general tendencies of Durer's late style, and the two Bellinesque Musical
Angels, symmetrically placed in either corner of the picture, already introduce an element of
ritual solemnity.
In the second drawing-probably only a copy (761, also dated 1521)-this composition
is symmetrized and formalized as a monumental altarpiece should be, and its iconography is
changed to a "Sacra Conversazione" in the strict sense of the term. St. Catharine has given up
her prominent position, and St. Joseph has disappeared; St. John the Evangelist is replaced
by St. Sebastian, and two Virgin Martyrs, Sts. Dorothy and Agnes, have been added. These
:five Saints, with the figure of St. Catharine balanced by Angels, are semicircularly arranged
around the Madonna, the figures of Sts. James the Great and Sebastian forming two strong
vertical accents. The architecture on the left is reduced to a slender coulisse, and the throne,
now placed on a dais so that the Madonna towers over the other figures, is surmounted by
what looks like a back of rough stone but may be meant to be a cloth of honor.
However, stately though it is, this drawing is still of a preliminary character. It represents
only the introduction to the real story (to which the other, still earlier version formed a kind
of preface). The real story unfolds in four magnificent drawings which, though doubtless
developed from the preceding ones, are very different from them in several respects. First,
two of them include the figure of a donatrix, which seems to show that Durer now had a
definite commission in mind. Second, they all include the Ancestors and Kinsmen of Christ,
at least Sts. Joseph and Joachim. Third, they give only contours, spiritedly jotted down with-
out any modelling; they render account, not of the single elements but of the general compo-
sition on the surface as well as in space, and, in a measure, of the color scheme which, in two
of four cases, is indicated by notes. Yet Durer's draftsmanship was such that it is possible to
recognize in the few lines and circles which make up a human physiognomy the faces carefully
portrayed in those wonderful metal point studies on colored paper which were produced along
1
I
"SACRA CONVERSAZIONE"
227
with the hurried ensemble drawings, and this is of great help in establishing the sequence of
these; for, if certain faces portrayed in the elaborate studies are clearly recognizable in one
of the ensemble drawings but not yet in another, the latter obviously precedes the former.
This and other purely stylistic considerations make it possible to arrange the four draw-
ings, with some certainty, as follows: first, an oblong composition with fifteen Saints and a
Donatrix ( 762, undated, but datable 1521); second, an oblong composition with ten Saints
and a Donatrix ( 763, undated, and likewise datable 1521) ; third, a vertical composition with
no Donatrix and eight Saints, two of them sitting on the ground (764, dated 1522); fourth,
a vertical composition with no Donatrix and eight Saints, all of them standing ( 765, undated
but certainly also done in 1522).
The first project (762, fig. 285) is, naturally, closer to what may be called the "second
preliminary version" ( 761) than the three others. In both cases we have an oblong composi
tion with a semicircular group of Saints symmetrically flanking the Virgin and Child; and
several motifs such as the architecture on the left, the posture of St. James the Great and the
two figures at either margin (Sts. Dorothy and Agnes) are almost identical. But in iconog
raphy this version represents a greater departure from the "Sacra Conversazione" pure and
simple than any other, the ancestry and kinship of Christ including, besides Sts. Joseph and
Joachim, not only Sts. Ann, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist but also Zechariah and King
David; and what had been a decorative display, not unlike a rich tapestry, was monumen
talized into an architectonic structure. With the number of standing figures increased from
four to fourteen, the half-circle around the Madonna could be expanded and solidified so as
to give the impression of a colonnaded apse or exedra with human figures as columns. No
rival accents detract from the importance of the central group to which the other figures,
placed on different levels, lead up in steps. Next to the Virgin, standing on the dais on which
her throne is placed, are two symmetrical groups of four (with the exception of St. James,
all Kinsmen and Ancestors of Christ), their heads approximately on the level of the Madon
na's shoulders; then, standing on the ground, are two symmetrical groups of three.( all Virgin
Martyrs), their heads approximately on the level of the Madonna's knees. The outline of the
whole composition thus somewhat resembles the cross-section through a quinquepartite
basilica with the Madonna occupying the place of the nave; and while, in the preliminary
versions, two or even four Musical Angels had added their weight to the wings of the group,
now one, placed at the feet of the Virgin, accentuates the central axis.
Kneeling in front of the three female Saints on the right is seen the elderly Donatrix, and,
facing her, St. Catharine. In the preliminary versions, St. Catharine had been placed on the
left of the Virgin and had been shown on her knees. Now she was shifted to the other side
and a crouching position, turning round to the Infant Jesus in bold contrapposto.
- This change is not without importance because it calls to mind the contrast between figures
standing figures-mostly youthful females-sitting or squatting on the ground, which
exists in so many famous compositions by Memlinc, Hugo van der Goes, Gerard David and
Quentin Massys. Durer's first project, one might say, resulted from a synthesis of Giovanni
sazione," however, we have, in addition to a pen drawing with Musical Angels and more than
a dozen admirable studies of heads, hands and draperies ( 766-780 ), no less than six drawings
of the whole composition which permit us to observe the growth. of the invention as an ento-
mologist might observe the development of a butterfly.
When Diirer made the first of these drawings (760, dated 1521) he did not yet have, it
seems, a monumental altarpiece in mind but freely elaborated on his Madonnas and Holy
Families of 1518-20 (679, 68o, 687, 731). The resulting composition, like the so-called
"Glorification of the Virgin" (315), combines the theme of the Holy Family worshipped by
Saints and Angels with the Mystical Marriage of St. Catharine who kneels before the Infant
Jesus as though prepared to receive the ring, with St. James the Great and St. John the Evan-
gelist aeting as witnesses. While this group of three occupies the right half of the composition,
the left is mainly filled with the bulky forms of a classicizing architecture which all but crush
an inconspicuous St. Joseph, and this deliberately "unbalanced" arrangement, coupled with
the absence of any baldaquin or cloth of honor, produces a certain informality. Only the
oblong format, reminiscent of the "Feast of the Rose Garlands" and, at the same time, con-
forming to the general tendencies of Diirer's late style, and the two Bellinesque Musical
Angels, symmetrically placed in either corner of the picture, already introduce an element of
ritual solemnity.
In the second drawing-probably only a copy (761, also dated 1521)-this composition
is symmetrized and formalized as a monumental altarpiece should be, and its iconography is
changed to a "Sacra Conversazione" in the strict sense of the term. St. Catharine has given up
her prominent position, and St. Joseph has disappeared; St. John the Evangelist is replaced
by St. Sebastian, and two Virgin Martyrs, Sts. Dorothy and Agnes, have been added. These
five Saints, with the figure of St. Catharine balanced by Angels, are semicircularly arranged
around the Madonna, the figures of Sts. James the Great and Sebastian forming two strong
vertical accents. The architecture on the left is reduced to a slender coulisse, and the throne,
now placed on a dais so that the Madonna towers over the other figures, is surmounted by
what looks like a back of rough stone but may be meant to be a cloth of honor.
However, stately though it is, this drawing is still of a preliminary character. It represents
only the introduction to the real story (to which the other, still earlier version formed a kind
of preface). The real story unfolds in four magnificent drawings which, though doubtless
developed from the preceding ones, are very different from them in several respects. First,
two of them include the figure of a donatrix, which seems to show that Diirer now had a
definite commission in mind. Second, they all include the Ancestors and Kinsmen of Christ,
at least Sts. Joseph and Joachim. Third, they give only contours, spiritedly jotted down with-
out any modelling; they render account, not of the single elements but of the general compo-
sition on the surface as well as in space, and, in a measure, of the color scheme which, in two
of four cases, is indicated by notes. Yet Diirer's draftsmanship was such that it is possible to
recognize in the few lines and circles which make up a human physiognomy the faces carefully
portrayed in those wonderful metal point studies on colored paper which were produced along
1
{
"SACRA CONVERSAZIONE"
227
with the hurried ensemble drawings, and this is of great help in establishing the sequence of
these; for, if certain faces portrayed in the elaborate studies are clearly recognizable in one
of the ensemble drawings but not yet in another, the latter obviously precedes the former.
This and other purely stylistic considerations make it possible to arrange the four draw
ings, with some certainty, as follows: first, an oblong composition with fifteen Saints and a
Donatrix ( 762, undated, but datable 1521); second, an oblong composition with ten Saints
and a Donatrix ( 763, undated, and likewise datable 1521) ; third, a vertical composition with
no Donatrix and eight Saints, two of them sitting on the ground (764, dated 1522); fourth,
a vertical composition with no Donatrix and eight Saints, all of them standing ( 765, undated
but certainly also done in 1522).
The first project (762, fig. 285) is, naturally, closer to what may be called the "second
preliminary version" ( 761) than the three others. In both cases we have an oblong composi
tion with a semicircular group of Saints symmetrically flanking the Virgin and Child; and
several motifs such as the architecture on the left, the posture of St. James the Great and the
two figures at either margin (Sts. Dorothy and Agnes) are almost identical. But in iconog
raphy this version represents a greater departure from the "Sacra Conversazione" pure and
simple than any other, the ancestry and kinship of Christ including, besides Sts. Joseph and
Joachim, not only Sts. Ann, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist but also Zechariah and King
David; and what had been a decorative display, not unlike a rich tapestry, was monumen
talized into an architectonic structure. With the number of standing figures increased from
four to fourteen, the half-circle around the Madonna could be expanded and solidified so as
to give the i.mpression of a colonnaded apse or exedra with human figures as columns. No
rival accents detract from the importance of the central group to which the other figures,
placed on different levels, lead up in steps. Next to the Virgin, standing on the dais on which
her throne is placed, are two symmetrical groups of four (with the exception of St. James,
all Kinsmen and Ancestors of Christ), their heads approximately on the level of the Madon
na's shoulders; then, standing on the ground, are two symmetrical groups of three (all Virgin
Martyrs), their heads approximately on the level of the Madonna's knees. The outline of the
whole composition thus somewhat resembles the cross-section through a quinquepartite
basilica with the Madonna occupying the place of the nave; and while, in the preliminary
versions, two or even four Musical Angels had added their weight to the wings of the group,
now one, placed at the feet of the Virgin, accentuates the central axis.
Kneeling in front of the three female Saints on the right is seen the elderly Donatrix, and,
facing her, St. Catharine. In the preliminary versions, St. Catharine had been placed on the
left of the Virgin and had been shown on her knees. Now she was shifted to the other side
and assumes a crouching position, turning round to the Infant Jesus in bold contrapposto.
This change is not without importance because it calls to mind the contrast between figures
standing and figures-mostly youthful females-sitting or squatting on the ground, which
exists in so many famous compositions by Memlinc, Hugo van der Goes, Gerard David and
Quentin Massys. Diirer's first project, one might say, resulted from a synthesis of Giovanni
228
Bellini's great Venetian ancone and-to quote only the most famous instance-Massys's
Brussels altarpiece of 1509; and it is perhaps not by accident that its very iconography fuses
the Italian "Sacra Conversazione" with the Northern Holy Kinship.
Some of the faces can be identified with large-scale studies from life: we can recognize
the stern thoughtfulness of a young woman, whose forbidding expression contrasts somewhat
with the daring lowness of her straight decollete (768), in the St. Apollonia (second figure
from the right); the virginal sweetness of a girl with downcast eyes, a small, bud-like mouth
and a long, slender throat ( 769, fig. 289) in the St. Barbara (third figure from the left) ; and
the ecstatic abandon of a slightly androgynous being looking up like one enraptured (774) in
the St. Catharine.
In the second project ( 763, fig. 286) the physiognomical characteristics of precisely these
three figures are made even more explicit by pentimenti obviously made by Durer with the
studies from life before him, and two new individualized faces make their appearance. St.
Joseph (fourth figure from the left), originally a thin, morose man with a pointed beard, now
shows the clean-shaven, humorous face of the smiling old gentleman portrayed in a drawing
in London ( 772) ; and the features of the Angel playing the lute (one of the triad in the
lower right-hand corner) are clearly identical with those of the handsome youth who sat for a
drawing in Bremen (773). The architecture on the left has been retained, and most of the
poses and gestures are virtually unaltered. But the total number of Saints has been reduced
from fifteen to ten-with Zechariah, St. John the Baptist, St. Elizabeth and two anonymous
Virgin Martyrs left out-and two important changes in general arrangement have been made.
First, the whole half-circle of standing figures, including the throne of the Madonna, has been
removed from the front plane to the middle distance, with the foreground filled by groups of
Musical Angels in either corner-as in the "second preliminary version"-and by a little dog
and a chained fox-as in the Virgin with a Multitude of Animals (fig. 135)-in the center;
and this more spatial effect is strengthened by the fact that the St. Catharine is placed before
instead of in line with the throne of the Virgin, thus forming a sharp diagonal with the kneel-
ing Donatrix who has retained her previous position. Second, the standing figures are no longer
divided into four distinct groups mechanically corresponding to one another, but organized
into a unified throng. Geometrical symmetry has given way to dynamic symmetry, and while
the outline of the first composition could be compared to the cross section through a quinque-
partite basilica, that of the second rather evokes the idea of two waves approaching a rock
from opposite directions.
However, with all these differences the first and second projects are almost alike as com-
pared to the third and fourth. In these, the oblong format has been given up in favor of aver-
tical one (about four by three as against about three by four-and-a-half), and several other
radical changes have been made. First, the Donatrix has been omitted, which indicates a
change in patronage and strongly suggests the possibility that the new donors, no longer
included in the main picture, were to be represented, or at least alluded to, in wings. Second,
the total number of Saints has been further reduced from ten to eight, with Sts. Ann and
"sACRA CONVERSAZIONE" 229
Apollonia omitted, St. Dorothy replaced by St. Margaret, and King David by St. John the
Baptist. Third, the architecture on the left, faithfully retained from the very beginning, has
disappeared. Fourth, the basic idea of the composition has changed from a half-circle foiling,
and surmounted by, the Madonna to a full circle enveloping her. The four figures standiJ?.g
behind the Madonna are placed so high that, in contrast with all the previous redactions, her
head is on a level lower than theirs; but this demotion is more than compensated by a majestic
throne provided with enormous Baroque volutes for arms and surmounted by a high, round-
topped aedicula. The female Saints, on the other hand, are no longer in line with the throne,
but are arrayed on a curve in front of it. What had been a semicircular "apse" is now a cir-
cular enclosure, its inner space enlivened by the same two Musical Angels, now pulled
together, who had originally adorned the corners of Durer's very first preliminary drawing
(76o).
In the third project ( 764, fig. 287) this ring of figures is very complete; even in front it is
closed by St. Margaret's walrus-faced Dragon (see fig. 272). But this completeness could be
achieved only at the expense of depth and monumentality. The figures of St. Barbara and St.
Catharine-the latter now standing and turned inwards, which required a new study from
life ( 77 5 )-had to be reduced in scale more than compatible with sound perspective, and the
two other Virgin Martyrs, Sts. Margaret and Agnes, had to be shown squatting in the fore-
ground. The whole thus gives a somewhat archaic impression, with the individual units
arranged above rather than behind one another, and it has often been observed that a strong
I
similarity exists between this composition and the Fountain of Life by Hans Holbein the
Elder in Lisbon, a picture unmistakably derived from Early Flemish sources.
In the fourth and final project ( 76 5, fig. 288) St. James has changed places with St. John
the Baptist, and St. Margaret has yielded her place in the foreground to St. Catharine; other-
wise the eight figures are iconographically the same and they still suggest a full circle. But this
circle is now opened in front. The two foremost figu!es are no longer represented sitting on the
ground but standing, which ipso facto lengthens the interval between them, and the Dragon
of St. Margaret has disappeared-quite logically since his mistress had been removed to the
second plane. Thus the beholder, formerly overlooking the human H ortus conclusus in a
kind of bird's-eye view, now feels himself invited to enter it; and this impression of three-
dimensionality is enormously strengthened by the character of the two new front figures them-
selves; monumental in shape and colossal in size, they push their humbler companions into
the background and function, so to speak, as pylons guarding the entrance to depth instead of
stepping-stones suggesting a rise from below to above. Giovanni Bellini has ultimately pre-
'" vailed over Gerard David and Quentin Massys.
That'Durer never carried out what would have been the greatest of all his paintings
remains an irretrievable loss. And yet his labors were not altogether in vain; for at least the
two panels which had been intended to serve as wings for the "Sacra Conversazz'one" were
ultimately completed, though in different shape and for a different purpose.
NoT LONG AFTER HIS RETURN FROM THE NETHERLANDS, and simultaneously with the major
enterprises thus far discussed, Durer resumed the production of small-sized engravings. In
1521 he made two St. Christophers ( 158 and 159), the first of them apparently reflecting one
of the "four Christophers on gray-grounded paper" which he had designed for Joachim
Patinir, for the latter's picture in the Escorial shows a quite similar group in reverse. In 1523
a St. Bartholomew ( 154) and a St. Simon ( 156, fig. 290) were added to the series of Apostles
begun in 1514. Both these engravings are characteristic specimens of what we have called the
"corrugated" style; and, as had lately become Durer's practice, both were prepared by studies
in metal point considerably larger than the prints (537 and 786). It is apparent that one
of these was originally intended for the St. John in the "Great Crucifixion"; only after it was
superseded there by the improved redaction already known to us (fig. 283) was it used, with
suitable alterations, for the St. Simon engraving.
In the same year another Apostle print, also based on a large-sized study in metal point,
was ready for publication: the St. Philip ( 153, fig. 291; drawing no. 843, fig. 293). Since
Durer was apparently in the habit of releasing the series by pairs, we may assume that he
planned to follow it up with a St. James the Lesser; "Philippus und Jacobus," whose Feasts
fell on the same day, the first of May, were almost twins in the eyes of the and there
is in fact a somewhat mutilated study for an unnamed Apostle (814) which agrees with the
traditional type of St. James the Lesser, and which, when restored to its original proportions,
makes a perfect counterpart for the St. Philip drawing. However, this study was never carried
out, and the St. Philip engraving itself, though practically finished and already signed and
dated in 1523, was not released until three years later, with the date corrected to 1526.
It seems, then, that something prevented the publication of the St. Philip at the appointed
time, and there is evidence as to the nature of the obstacle. The St. Philip is one of the most
monumental figures ever conceived by Durer. Turned to full profile, motionlessly erect, the
horizontal of his arms contrasting with the verticals of his drapery and his cross-staff, clad in
a mantle in which the columnar folds of the Mourning Virgin of the "Great Crucifixion" are
combined with the crests and gorges characteristic of the "corrugated" style, he seems as big
and solid as the rock which rises behind him in a bold, diagonal curve. It may have been with
some such figure as this in mind that Durer said to Melanchthon: "When I was young I craved
variety and novelty; now, in my old age, I have begun to see the native countenance of nature
[naturae nativam faciem] and come to understand that this simplicity is the ultimate goal of
art"; and thatMelanchthon in turn likened Diirer's style to thegenus grande of rhetoric while
comparing Grunewald's to the genus mediocre and Cranach's to the genus humile. When
the engraving was finished Diirer himself must have felt that the inward scale of
the figure transcended the limitations of a print three by five inches in size. He decided to use
it, instead, for one of the wings of the "Sacra Conversazione," and, when this altarpiece failed
to materialize, to carry out the wings as independent panels. They were to become his artistic
testament: the "Four Apostles," completed and given to the City of Nuremberg in 1526
(43, figs. 294/295).
ENGRAVINGS OF 1521-1523; THE "FOUR APOSTLES"
{ .. One of these more than life-sized pictures represents St. John the Evangelist and, in
I background, St. Peter; the other St. Paul and, in the background, St. Mark (who was an !
!_Evangelist, but not an Apostle, so that the commonly accepted name of the work is, properlll
speaking, not quite correct). It was as St. Paul that the St. Philip made his reappearance. The
bushy head with the short, square beard was made to conform to the traditional type of St.
Paul with a bald skull, long flowing beard and aquiline nose, and was slightly turned out-
ward, fixing the beholder with an hypnotic eye. The cross-staff was replaced by a sword, and
the position of the hands was changed accordingly. But everything else remained unaltered.
Now, Durer might have made these changes in a preparatory drawing and then transferred
the latter to the panel, much as he had transformed his Rider of 1498 ( 1227) into the Knight,
Death and Devil of 1513. This, however, is not the case. From traces of dark pigment visible
beneath the ochre of the bald forehead, from a curious axial deviation of the sword, and from
a series of pentimenti in the face, the collar and the hands it becomes perfectly clear that the
changes were made on the panel itself; a superimposition of photographs enlarged or reduced
to scale reveals the fact that the original contours of the face, still recognizable beneath the
pentz"menti, exactly coincide with those of the St. Philip (fig. 298).
1 It appears, then, that the Munich St. Paul had actually been a St. Philip before he
/ assumed his present identity; and with this fact in mind some further observations can be
made. The figure of St. Paul is hard, like flint or bronze, and almost overly detailed; we can
even count the layers of leather in the soles of his sandals and can distinguish the stitches by .
which they are held together. The figure of St. John, however, is more broadly modelled and i
less particularized, and the heads of Sts. Peter and Mark are almost "pictorial" by compari-
son. It would be possible, perhaps, to explain the softer less plastic treatment of the
figures in the second plane by Durer's desire to strengthen the impression of depth. But the
stylistic difference between the two front plane figures can be explained only by the assump-
tion of a difference in time. In point of fact the drawing for the St. John (826, fig. 292) is
dated 1525, which gives a terminus ante quem non for this figure, and it has already been men-
tioned that its smoother, more fluid and more generalizing style is paralleled by the Virgin
with the Pear in the Uffizi (fig. 308) which is dated 1526.

The inference is that, while the St. John-and consequently the St. Mark and the St.
Peter-were painted in 152 5/26, the St. Paul, or rather a St. Philip subsequently to be trans-
formed into a St. Paul, had already been executed in the same year as the preparatory draw-
ing, that is to say, in 1523. A simple experiment supports this hypothesis. If we bisect both
by a vertical the figure of St. Paul-originally St. Philip-is divided into two per-
fectly balanced halves, with the masses equally distributed on either side of the dividing line.
Represented in pure profile, with the left foot about in the center of the base line, it practically
fills the whole area of the picture; and if we "black out" the St. Mark, reinstate the original
position of St. Philip's hands and restore to him his original cross-staff, it becomes evident
that the figure is, aesthetically speaking, self-sufficient. It even gains in impressiveness by the
elimination of its rather uncomfortable companion. Of the St. John the opposite is true. He
turns inward at an angle of 45 degrees. His feet are placed on a diagonal so that much floor
space is left in the lower right-hand corner, and our bisecting line divides the bulk of the figure
in such a way that the left half distinctly outweighs the right. In other words: while the St.
Paul, or rather the original St. Philip, was still intended to stand by himself, the St. John was
already conceived so as to leave room for, or even demand, another figure in the second plane.
The elimination of the St. Peter is in fact as harmful to the effect as that of the St. Mark is
advantageous (fig. 296).
The genesis of Durer's "Four Apostles" can thus be reconstructed as follows: In 1523, he
decided to use the St. Philip-and, presumably, his counterpart, St. James the Lesser-not
for engravings but for two panels of more than life size which would show pnly these two
figures in juxtaposition. The publication of the engraved St. Philip, already practically fin-
ished, was therefore held back, and an engraving of St. James the Lesser was never begun.
Instead, the St. Philip was at once carried out on what is the right-hand panel of the
"Four Apostles." In 1525-the date of the drawing for the St. John-this plan was radically
changed. Durer decided to fill the panels with four figures instead of with two-remembering,
it seems, the equally crowded wings of Giovanni Bellini's altarpiece in the Frari Church at
Venice (fig. 297)-and to recast their iconography. The contemplated St. James the Lesser
was replaced by a St. John the Evangelist and complemented by a St. Peter; the already.
extant St. Philip was converted into a St. Paul and complemented by a St. Mark. Large
studies for the heads were made in 1526 ( 830, 838, 840), and the two panels were finished in
the same year. And now, the painted St. Philip having been transformed into a St. Paul, the
engraved St. Philip could 'be released, which explains the otherwise inexplicable correction of
its date from 1523 to 1526.
What were the reasons for this change of When Durer, in a letter written shortly
before October 6, 1526, offered the "Four Apostles" as a "memorial" and "little present"
to the authorities of his city, he followed a practice not uncommon with artists who were
left with a commission on their hands and for whom such useful institutions as art dealers,
art museums and art exhibitions were not as yet available. Durer himself-not to mention
a score of others, among them as widely disparate characters as Titian and Jorg Pencz-had
tried to "give" one of his Maximilian portraits to Lady Margaret and had not concealed
his disappointment when she failed to respond. The Senate of Nuremberg accepted his
present much more graciously; Durer received, as a "return-present," one hundred guilders
Rhenish for himself, twelve for his wife, and two for his servant. But there is little doubt
that the two panels were originally intended for a different purpose. Their tall, narrow
format characterizes them as wings of a triptych, and the central panel of this triptych
would have been, in all probability, the "Sacra Conversazione." No other altarpiece was
contemplated by Durer at that time; its format, we remember, had been changed from an
oblong rectangle to a vertical one; and the proportions of this vertical rectangle ( approxi-
mately four by three) correspond exactly to those of the Munich panels which measure
204 em. by 74 em. (approximately four by one-and-a-half) each.
The original project-the Virgin with eight Saints in the center, St. Philip on the right
THE "FOUR APOSTLES"
233
and, presumably, St. James the Lesser on the left-failed to materialize, apparently because
of the political and religious conditions in Nuremberg. Under the guidance of liberal
theologians, humanists and the overwhelming majority of the patricians, the city moved
rapidly toward Lutheranism. The moment was not auspicious for the dedication of a
"Sacra Conversazione," and it is perhaps not by accident that the idea was given up in the
very year-1525-in the spring of which the City of Nuremberg had officially decided to
"give leave to the Pope." But the same developments which frustrated Durer's original plan
inspired him with another.
As is always the case with revolutionary movements, the Reformation had produced a
series of phenomena which by their radicalism repelled and in some cases alienated its
original supporters, and forced its very founder into a "counter-revolutionary" position.
Monasteries and convents were broken up by force; the peasants revolted; the poor demanded
a "redistribution of wealth"; the teachings of Luther were interpreted as a justification of
iconoclasm, communism and polygamy, and Nmemberg was especially troubled by the
activities of a theologian and schoolmaster named Johannes Denk (banished in 1524) who
wanted to discard the letter of the Bible in favor of its "inner meaning," preached a kind of
self-identification with God, considered the life and death of Christ as an example rather
than a work of redemption, and advocated anabaptism.
Pirckheimer was so disgusted with all these aberrations that he ultimately turned his
back upon Protestantism as a whole. "Things have come to a pass," he wrote in the same
letter which contains his well-known accusations against Durer's wife and also states what
had separated him from his best friend in matters of faith, "things have come to a pass that
the Popish scoundrels are made to appear virtuous by the Evangelical ones. The old crowd
has cheated us with hypocrisy and trickery; the new one proposes to do shameful and
criminal things in the open, and they pull wool over by saying that they ought
not to be judged by their works." And: "We are very good at words and sermons, but 'works'
are too strenuous, and most particularly for those who style themselves as the greatest
Evangelicals."
Durer never wavered for a moment in his loyalty to Luther. But-or, as he himself
would have said, for this very reason-he, too, was a conservative. He went out of his way to
ridicule the revolting peasants in his Treatise on Geometry of 1525 (fig. 314), and, he was
stanchly opposed to the demagogic dialectics of the Nuremberg radicals. And so it occurred
to him to use those mighty figures, which were to have flanked a picture now become mean-
ingless, as messengers of what he believed to be the truth. He not only altered and amplified
the iconography of his two panels in the manner already described, but also affixed to each
a strip or tablet with a lengthy inscription. These inscriptions begin with a warning to the
- secular powers "not to accept human seduction for the word of God," and then proceed to
quote passages from the writings of the four holy men portrayed. We hear them
inveigh, in the powerful German of Luther's "Septemberbibel," against "false prophets,"
"damnable'heresies," and the "spirit that is not of God" (II Peter, II and I John, 1v);
//
234
against the "sinners having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof" (II Timothy,
nr); and against the "scribes who love to go in long clothing and love salutations in the
market places" (Mark, xn, 38-40). To us, these passages sound anti-sectarian rather than
anti-Catholic; but they were meant to castigate radicals and Papists alike. They endorsed
the views of Luther while rejecting those of his illegitimate followers, and it is significant
that the inscriptions were sawed off-to be restored to their original place only about a
dozen years ago-when the pictures were transferred, in 1627, from Protestant Nuremberg
to Catholic Munich.
Attention has been called to the fact that one of the earliest and most ardent monastic
supporters of Luther, the friar Heinrich von Kettenbach, opens his Practica practiciert ausz
der lleylgen Bibel of 1523 with a similar admonition to accept the Bible as the one and only
guide in human affairs, and also calls Sts. Paul and John the Evangelist as witnesses for
Luther's cause. But even had Di.irer never heard of Kettenbach's treatise it would have been
a matter of course for him to substitute these two for Sts. Philip and James the Lesser. St.
Philip and St. James the Lesser had never written anything and had no special significance
for the Protestant movement. But St. John was, we remember, the "favorite Evangelist"
of Luther-no accident that one of Durer's drawings for the "Great Crucifixion" (fig. 283)
endows him with the Reformer's own features-and St. Paul was so universally accepted as
the spiritual father of Protestantism that Protestants were called "Paulines" by friend and

, ./ In selecting them as companions for Sts. John and Paul, Durer did homage to Sts. Mark',
and Peter also. But it is no accident that they remain in the background-especially with
an artist who in a panel of the Heller altarpiece (8, g) and in a woodcut of the Small
Passion (258) had treated Sts. Peter and Paul as perfect equals, and at a time when the
"Primatus Petri" was one of the most important theological issues. There is, then, a subtle
discrimination among the "Four Apostles." They are all holy men, and they convey the
same message as to the problems of the time. But they are different in character and-from
the point of view of a conservative Lutheran who was, at the same time, a natural philoso-
pher-in human and religious merit. This can be confirmed by Durer's own testimony. --"j
The inscriptions which we have mentioned were written in Durer's workshop, but not
by Durer himself. They are the work of a professional calligrapher named Johann Neudorffer
who, later in life, composed a series of short biographies of Nuremberg artists; In this little
book he informs us that the "Four Apostles" represented, a sanguine;
a choleric, a phlegmatic, and a melancholic." It is impossible to discard this
''/-man who had worked for Durer, conversed with Durer and written the inscriptions of the
--.-pictures of which he speaks in Durer's own workshop. It has been said that a great master
would not have used four holy men merely as an excuse for painting the Four Tempera-
ments. But what Di.irer did was just the opposite: he used the theory of the four tempera-
ments, whose fundamental importance for him and his age need no longer be stressed, for
the characterization of four holy men and, by implication, of four basic forms of religious
THE "FOUR APOSTLES" 235
experience. Th_(! fifteenth century had notscrupled to arrange the
humors around the face of God, tl:lereby cha,racterizing them as the four-fold of the
image Durer succeededin lendingartistic expression to what
had merely intiimited by an emblematic.symbol.
. enough about the physical and psychological criteria of the four humors and
about their association with the four seasons, the four times of day and the four ages of man
to tell which temperament "belongs" to each of our figures. man of
.and serio11s, a11d, ldndJy, must
St. symbol is the lion a man of middle age, and not only tJlis,_
;,gall-co. lo .. r ..ed. '.'_.. skin,. his g.na. sh.ing teet. h and ro_l.ling. e.yes;h. iz_e
him as the cholenc. St. Paul, a man between fifty and sixty, dommeenngjforbiddmgly
(it was he who had introduced or' asceticism the.
as a. symp,_tom. qf.atra .b.ili!"'
the melancholic. Fim1.1ly,. St. Peter, by_ far the .of. the four, has a pallici1 tired
together eyes, indicates the phlegmatic. . ... .. . -
No""', the theory of ,the four humors implied, not only a differentiation of physical and
psychological qualities but also a hierarchy of values; it appears that the figures dominant
from a compositional point of view are also the representatives of the "noblest" tempera-
ments. As we know, the sanguine disposition of St. John was always considered as the most
balanced and desirable one; it represented, according to some, the happy condition of man
before the Fall. The melancholy of St. Paul, on the ot!}er hand, had been invested by Durer's
1-r{),:r'J/I; .ft,1 l
period, and by Durer himself, with the halo of the subume. As St. Pau and St.
John are as opposed to one anotheras the rigidity and elasticity of their postures, and the
cold white and warm red of their cloaks. But both of them exemplify human nature at the
height of its powers, and religious faith at the height of its perfect
youth and dignified virility-gentle, yet unshakable devotion and stern, yet self-possessed
strength. Set out against these maxima, or optima, are attitudes which, by comparison, are
in fervor or in poise: the patient resignation of old St. Peter and the fanaticism
of the excited St. Mark. It is highly significant that Durer, when transforming his St. Philip
into a St. Paul, could not but conceive of him as a melancholic. St. Paul was the hero of a
new creed just as melancholy was the signature of a new human type which we call genius.
Looking more closely at this big, bald-headed, long-bearded face, with the white of his eyes
contrasting with the darkness of his skin, we may say that he has the features of the Melan
cholic in Di.irer's early woodcut for Conrad Celtes (fig. 215) seen through the medium of
the Melencolia I. Durer's St: Paul lives in a realm inaccessible to her, but he shares her
gloom and her profundity. To use the system of Agrippa of Nettesheim, he may be said to
exemplify the "Melancholia III."
IT HAS ALREADY BEEN MENTIONED that the "decorative" tendencies of the preceding phase
survived only where a specific task required a lighter, more ornate and less stereometrical
treatment. They appear, we remember, in heraldic woodcuts, designs for pieces of furniture
and such projects for mural decorations as the two sketches for paintings which were to
fill the scanty space above and between the tall Gothic windows of the big hall in the
Nuremberg "Rathaus" ( 1549 and 1550 ), one of them showing the Continence of Scipio, the
other combining-with an irony apparently too subtle for the authorities-an airy system of
branches and suspended grotteschi with roundels wherein are shown the notorious examples ,
of strong or wise men subdued by the power of woman: David and Bathsheba, Samson and
Delilah, Aristotle and Campaspe.
There is only one instance in which the "decorative style" was permitted to encroach
upon the domain of religious representations, and the resulting fusion of splendor and brio
with severity may well be called spectacular. This is the Annunciation in pen and water
color of 1526 (5o8). Rectangularity still prevails in the construction of the picture space
and in the disposition of the objects. But the vaulted room is deeper, higher and more
sumptuously appointed than in any other late composition by Durer. The rear wall, its
lower part hung with an ornamental tapestry, is pierced by a circular window still more
conspicuous than in the Last Supper of 1523, but not admitting any light. Before it dangles
a lamp, similarly lightless and cut in two, as it were, by the ray of light divine which breaks
into the room in a violent diagonal. On a cornice which, in contrast with the Gothic vault,
shows a pure Renaissance style, are seen the symbols of the Virgin-basin, pitcher and
candlestick; and her bench, placed against a brocaded cloth of honor and surmounted by an
enormous conic canopy, has lions' claws for feet and Baroque volutes for arms as though it
belonged on the Triumphal Chariot of Maximilian. The Angel, finally, combines the dignity
of Durer's Virgin Martyrs with the rich flutter of his earlier Victories; and the swift balance
of his movement announces, curiously enough, the famous pose of Giovanni da Bologna's
Mercury.
Whether or not this drawing was intended to suit the personal taste of a prospective
owner-its character and medium suggest that it was more than an impromptu-as a late
work by Diirer it stands alone; it is at once a new departure and a retrospective glance at
a sphere which was no longer his. The other religious representations of the 'twenties-such
as a Bishop Reading Mass (896, used for the Missal of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg),
a Temptation of St. Anthony (784), a heavily draped Apostle intended but not employed
for the unfinished series of engravings (785), and an austere Virgin Mary Reading (713)
which, like a seated Judas Thaddaeus (827), may or may not have been intended for a
representation of Pentecost-conform in style, technique and spirit to the drawings connected
with the "Oblong Passion," the "Great Crucifixion" and the "Sacra Conversazione."
In the domain of secular art Durer's activity was practically restricted to two provinces:
the illustration of his scientific books, which will be discussed in the following chapter, and
portraiture.
In portraiture, the most significant development was his discovery of the profile portrait.
Although the full profile was the most obvious and in fact the earliest scheme of portrait
MINOR LATE WORKS; LATE PORTRAITS 237
painting, it had been entirely abandoned in Northern fifteenth century art except for donors'
portraits, seals and coins: from about 1420 to the end of the century there is hardly a single
exception to the rule that the sitter was turned to three-quarters profile. Northern artists
had no wish to eternalize the individual by isolating him from any empirical context and
reducing his physiognomy to a diagram as self-contained and unchangeable as a Platonic
idea. They tried to show the sitter as a "natural" being, maintaining contact with the world
around him, subject to changes in space and time, his appearance diversified by light and
shade. In Italy, on the other hand, the profile portrait had held its place throughout the
Quattrocento, partly through the influence of classical Antiquity but also because the
Italians delighted in that very emphasis on permanence and autonomy which was foreign
to the Northern taste. In Germany and Flanders, therefore, the reemergence of the profile
portrait, like the approximately simultaneous appearance of the portrait medal, is a Renais-
sance phenomenon no less characteristic than any other form of Italianism. But before
Durer's return from the Netherlands only Burgkmair, in his woodcut portraits of Jacob
Fugger and Pope Julius II, had ventured to transfer the profile principle from medals to
prints.
Up to this time Durer had used the profile only in two exceptional cases: either in copies
from Italian paintings, as in the portraits of Caterina Cornaro of 1494/95 ( 1045) and of
an unknown gentleman of 1505 (1061); or in such drawings as were actually made with a
medal in mind, as in the two Pirckheimer portraits of 1503 ( 1036 and 1037, fig. 139) and
in the Portrait of Count Philipp zu Solms of 1518 ( 1040). Similar instances occur also in
Durer's latest years, for instance a portrait of Sultan Solyman I of 1526 (1039), which is a
copy after a picture in the style of Gentile Bellini, and a 9eautiful silver point drawing of
Frederick II of the Palatinate of 1523 ( 1022 ), which was intended to serve, and in fact did
serve, as the basis for a commemorative coin. But from 1522 we find autonomous profile
portraits along with these heteronomous ones-profile portraits which were neither copied
after Italian models nor executed solely for the benefit of medalists.
The earliest instances are two printed portraits: a woodcut of 1522 even larger than the
Maximilian-representing Ulrich Varnbuler, "Protonotarius" to the Emperor and a good
friend of Pirckheimer and Durer (369, fig. 301); and another engraving of Cardinal Al-
brecht of Brandenburg ( 210, jig. 300 ), known as the "Great Cardinal," of the following
year. The woodcut was based on a study in black and brown charcoal ( 1042) and exists, in
fact; in posthumous two-tone impressions in these two colors; the engraving was based on
one of Durer's most penetrating drawings in silver point (1004).
In general arrangement both these prints conform to the scheme of the large chalk or
charcoal drawings in that the figures are set out against a dark background, with a blank
strip for inscriptions on top-a scheme abandoned in the following years. But in every other
respect they are as different from one another as their media. The Varnbuler portrait-which,
being a woodcut, still shows a certain tendency toward the "decorative"-is dramatic in
effect, almost theatrical. The figure spreads itself out over the whole surface. The face-its
profile not as yet quite pure-is sharply turned against the breast and is framed all round by
a huge cutwork beret which all but obliterates the background, and whose vivid contour en-
croaches upon the top strip. The remaining space is largely taken up by a piece of vellum with
frayed and curling edges which bears a long cryptographic inscription.
The "Great Cardinal," on the other hand, being an engraving, stresses the plastic volume
instead of the two-dimensional pattern. There is no divergence between the head and the
breast both of which are represented in pure side elevation. As in the "Small Cardinal," the
bust rises from behind an inscribed panel. But in contrast with the earlier composition, and
in accordance with all the other late portrait engravings, this panel has depth and substance.
It is treated as a real tablet, carved and framed after the fashion of those Roman tombstones
which were as common in Germany as in Italy and France. A woodcut such as Burgkmair's
"Sterbebild" of Conrad Celtes-perhaps the earliest example of a portrait print deliberately
patterned after Roman epitaphs-may possibly have served as an intermediary. The dark
background is unobstructed except for Durer's initials and the elegant but unobtrusive
coat-of-arms of the Cardinal; and the majestic curves of his biretta-which was substituted
for the skullcap seen in the preparatory drawing in order to outbalance the heaviness of his
cheeks and chin and to lend dignity to the whole figure-touch but do not invade the
top strip.
Yet the two portraits have one thing in common: both represent men of a similar type,
thick-set, full-blooded, with bulging eyes, aquiline noses, thick, sensuous mouths and fleshy
jowls-men who are apt to look shapeless and stolid in front view or three-quarter profile,
and whose more spiritual qualities show to advantage if the massiveness of their features is
suppressed in favor of a distinctive outline. This consideration was probably uppermost in
Durer's mind when he decided to use the profile scheme in these particular cases, and it
is possible that the idea was suggested to him by a kind of a providential accident: he may
have seen Quentin Massys's famous portrait of 1513, now in the Musee Jacquemart-Andre in
Paris (fig. 299), which shows a man of very similar type-a cross-breed, as can be demon-
strated, between a "caricature" by Leonardo da Vinci and a medal of Cosima de' Medici-
ennobled and, if one may say so, intellectualized by turning his fleshy face to full profile.
However, once adopted for special reasons, the profile scheme gained favor with Durer,
also, in cases where the sitter was not naturally suited for it. It corresponded, as we can easily
see, to the mathematical leanings of his latest years which made him prefer the "fundamental
views" even in his narrative compositions. He used it for two recently discovered drawings of
1525 (1084 and loSs), for the engraving of Philip Melanchthon of 1526 (212, working
drawing 1032) whose type was certainly most different from that of Varnbuler and Albrecht
of Brandenburg, and, finally, for his last major work, the masterly drawing of the Nuremberg
patrician Ulrich Starck of 1527 ( 1041, fig. 304). This drawing was used for a rather incon-
spicuous medal, but it is doubtful whether such was its destination from the outset; and even
if this should be the case it would have outgrown its practical purpose much as Bach's "Art
of the Fugue" outgrew its theoretical one.
In two portrait engravings of 1524 Durer resumed the bust type in three-quarter profile,
LATE PORTRAITS
239
monumentalized by the addition of tablets still heavier and larger than that in the "Great
Cardinal." One of them shows the fat but somehow tragic face of Frederick the Wise, one
year before his death (211, fig. 302), and it is most instructive to compare the print with the
silver point drawing from life (1021): not only is the movement of the lines intensified to
the point of invectiveness-note, for instance, the curls of the beard, the contour of the cheek,
the lips which almost look like living animals, and the impassioned sweep of the ear-flaps
of the cap-but the engraving also contains infinitely more details than the drawing from life.
Durer's amazing visual memory cooperated with the self-propelling action of the burin to
make the elaboration of the record from nature more vital than the record itself. The other
engraving of 1524 is a portrait of Pirckheimer ( 213, fig. 303). The magnificent bulldog head
of Diirer's best friend is not so much embellished as transfigured. Mass is converted into
energy, and the heavy features of the learned, irascible giant appear illumined, as it were, by
the enormous eyes which fiare from their sockets like powerful searchlights. The Latin inscrip-
tion "Vivitur ingenio, caetera mortis erunt" ("We live by the spirit, the rest belongs to
death"), characterizes the portrait as well as the portrayed.
A portraitist who could do justice to men like Varnbuler, Frederick the Wise, Cardinal
Albrecht and Pirckheimer was bound to fail when confronted with the small, quiet, supremely
ironical face of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Durer had drawn him in Brussels in 1520. But a first
sketch, which has not been preserved, was apparently so little satisfactory that the attempt
had to be repeated; and a second, which has come down to us ( 1020 ), remained unfinished
because the sitting was interrupted by a visit of "courtly ambassadors" (perhaps the envoys
from Nuremberg) and was, characteristically, never resumed. Diirer had lost access to the
world of Erasmus, and the very fact that he could imagine hirp.as a martyr of Luther's cause
shows a pathetic misunderstanding of the man who was to defend the freedom of the human
will against the tyranny of Luther's God. Erasmus, on the other hand, looked upon the
"Apelles of Nuremberg" with respect but without personal warmth and, it is to be feared,
not without condescension. He belonged, not to Durer but to Hans Holbein.
In fact Diirer hesitated to rely on memory and on his own drawings when he decided, in
1526, to engrave a portrait of Erasmus after all (214, fig. 305). He had recourse to a paint
ing by Massys (transmitted through a copy in the Palazzo Corsini at Rome) which shows the
humanist in the quiet comfort of his study. From this composition Durer took over: the gen-
eral idea of portraying Erasmus in half-length and thoughtfully writing at his little desk; the
asymmetrical arrangement which, in the case of the Massys portrait, had been justified by the
fact that it belonged to a diptych the other half of which represented Petrus Aegidius; and
.the emphasis on genre features which are not quite in keeping with the austere monumentality
of the Gargantuan tablet (here placed in the left background). Diirer did his best to "char-
acterize" Erasmus by the paraphernalia of erudition and taste, with a charming bouquet of
violets and lilies-of-the-valley testifying to his love of beauty and, at the same time, serving
as symbols of modesty and virginal purity. But with all his efforts Diirer produced merely an
excellent portrait of a cultured, learned and god-fearing humanist; he failed to capture that
elusive blend of charm, serenity, ironic wit, complacency and formidable strength that was
Erasmus of Rotterdam. So curiously impersonal is Durer's engraving-whose Greek inscrip-
tion "the better image will his writings show" is truer than it was meant to be-that
Carlo Maratta could transform it, about a century and a half later, into an ideal portrait
of Correggio merely by changing the face and some of the attributes. Erasmus, character-
istically tempering frankness with urbanity, revealed his disappointment by pleading extenu-
ating circumstances for the artist: "That the portrait is not an altogether striking likeness,"
he wr.ote to Pirckheimer, "is no wonder. I am no longer the person I was five years ago."
The series of painted portraits-it is impossible here to mention all the portrait drawings
of this period, even such masterpieces as the Henry Parker Lord Morley of 1523 (1034) or
the Susanna of Bavaria of 1525 (1057)-is initiated a little later than that of the printed
ones. It begins with the Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman in Madrid of 1524 (85, fig.
260). Here is represented a man of imperious bearing with a small, firm mouth and piercing
eyes which, in contrast with all the other portraits by Durer, seem to be fixed on a definite
object in space. The upward sweep of a broad-brimmed hat strengthens the impression of a
domineering personality. This portrait is the only one which, after Durer's return from the
Netherlands, retains the Flemish scheme with both hands included, and also shows some of
the delight in textural and luminary values which distinguishes the works produced, three
years before, on Flemish soil. But it is harder in substance, more energetic in modelling and,
above all, it no longer gives the effect of constraint. It may be said to result from a synthesis
of Durer's Netherlandish experiences with his "stereometrical" style.
Two years later these Flemish reminiscences had again disappeared. In the Berlin por-
traits of two Nuremberg dignitaries, the reigning Mayor Jacob Muffel (62, fig. 307) and
the Senator and "Septemvir" Hieronymus Holzschuher (57, fig. 306), Durer reverted to the
"bust formula," sharpening the pseudo-sculptural effect by framing the heads almost as
tightly as in the engravings of Pirckheimer and Frederick the Wise. The figures no longer
emerge from deep, dark space but violently detach themselves from a flat, light-blue surface.
The modelling is very particularized, the emphasis is on structure and line rather than on
surface and color, and all the contours have a definitely graphic character so that they could
easily be traced with a sharp pencil.
The two panels are exactly alike in size and technique and must have been painted for
the same, presumably official, purpose. Psychologically, however, they form a strong, delib-
erate and perhaps slightly humorous contrast. In the pale face of Jacob Muffel everything-
the forehead, the mouth and most particularly the nose-is small, thin, tight and narrow, and
his eyes, with small, pointed lights giving the impression of sharpness without warmth, stare
into vacancy with a detached and disillusioned look. In the florid countenance of Holzschuher,
on the other hand, everything is open, broad and full; his dishevelled white hair and con-
tracted eyebrows bespeak a violent temper, and he fixes the beholder with a not too alarming
ferocity. One feels that he must have a beautiful baritone voice, and his and Muffel's portrait,
hanging side by side on the same wall, almost inevitably bring to mind the contrast between
Hans Sachs and Beckmesser.
I
LATE PORTRAITS; DtJRER AS "MAN OF SORROWS"
It is perhaps because of their official character that the portraits of Muffel and Holz-
schuher show no sign of that softening and broadening which could be observed in the "Four
Apostles" in Munich and in the Virgin with the Pear in the Uffizi. These qualities are, how-
ever, found in a portrait, also of 1526, which is as fascinating, exceptional and, in a way,
contradictory as the person whom it depicts (58, fig. 309, Vienna, Gemaldegalerie). The
painting is one of the most "pictorial" portraits by Durer, second only to the Berlin Portrait
of a Lady of about 1506; yet it imitates a work of sculpture. It is not merely a painting "en
buste" but an actual bust simulated by painting. The nude throat is semicircularly cut directly
beneath the pit, and projects from a plain roundel, casting a shadow upon it. This roundel is
made to appear as a slab of gray marble, but the bust is paradoxically painted in natural
colors. The general arrangement might have been suggested by Burgkmair's Portrait of Pope
Julius II, already mentioned, or by his series of Roman Emperors, and the effect of plastic
projection from a circular frame recalls somewhat the little busts in Ghiberti's "Gates of
Paradise." The face of the sitter, however, seems to belong in the period of Romanticism
rather than in the Renaissance. The features, framed by soft sideburns and a mass of curly
hair, are pure and noble but full of contradictions and melancholy, a high, clear brow and a
firmly set, authoritative mouth strangely contrasting with the delicacy of the nose and chin
and with the gloom of large, dark, lusterless eyes. The character and career of this personage
are as anachronistic and mysterious as his appearance. He was a man who called himself
Johann Kleberger although his father had borne the name of Scheuenpflug. This father, a
man of humble origin, had left Nuremberg for unknown and possibly discreditable reasons,
but the son had come back under another name and with an enormous fortune. He fell in love
with Pirckheimer's favorite daughter Felicitas, wore dowp. the furious resistance of her
father and finally married her in 1528. Then the thing happened: Kleberger left
his wife after a few days and went to France. She died one and a half years later-in Pirck-
heimer's entirely unfounded opinion from a slow poison administered by his unwelcome
son-in-law-and Kleberger spent the rest of his life in Lyons. Like another St. Francis, he
gradually gave away his whole fortune, and upon his death the poor erected a wooden statue
to "Le bon Allemand," as he was called; a replica of it can still be seen under the name of
"L'homme de la roche" ("the man of the rock").
THE ESSENCE OF DuRER's LATE PERIOD is epitomized in a drawing of 1522 (635, Frontis-
piece) . which-still more impressively than the painting for which it was used ( 21 )-defies
the distinction between portraiture and religious imagery. It represents Durer himself in the
c nude,_ 'Yith thinned, dishevelled hair and drooping shoulders, his body ravaged by his lingering
disease. But physical pain and decay are interpreted as a supreme symbol of the likeness of
man unto God. Durer carries the scourge and the whip of the Passion. He who had once styled
his person into the image of a "Beau Dieu" now likened himself to the Man of Sorrows. He
had renounced the "fables of the world," and he sensed that his days were counted.
VI I I Diirer as a Theorist of Art
L
E "ars" in Latin and "art" in English, the German word "Kunst" had originally two
different meanings the second of which is now all but extinct. On the one hand, it de-
noted "konnen," that is, man's ability purposely to produce things or effects as nature
produces such objects and creatures as stones, trees and butterflies, or such phenomena as rain-
bows, earthquakes and thunderstorms. On the other hand, it denoted "kerinen," that is,
theoretical knowledge or insight as opposed to practice. In the first, or wider, sense the word
"Kunst" could be applied to the activities of any producer of things, as the architect, the
painter, the carver, the embroiderer or the weaver; but also to the activities of any producer
of effects, as the physician or the bee-keeper. In the second, or narrower, sense-which still
survives in the expression "Die freien Kiinste," or "The Liberal Arts"-astronomy could be
called "Kunst der Stern" ("art of the stars"); the Biblical phrase "lignum scientiae boni et
mali" ("the tree of knowledge of good and evil") could be translated with "Der Baum der
Kunst des Guten und Bosen"; and when Diirer wished to express the idea that a good painter
needed both theoretical insight and practical skill he could do it, as we remember from our
discussion of the Melencolia I, by saying that he had to combine "Kunst" and "Brauch."
"Art" in the narrower sense, then, is a prerequisite of art in the wider sense, and this idea
is by no means peculiar to the Renaissance. The Middle Ages, which did not yet distinguish
between the "Fine Arts" and humbler crafts and skills, emphatically recognized the fact that
the practice of painting, sculpture, illumination, metal work, and, most particularly, carpen
try and architecture needed some sort of theoretical foundation, a "recta ratio aliquorum
faciendorum operum," as Thomas Aquinas puts it; we still possess a number of medieval
treatises on art, ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, which supply informa-
tion as to the handling of all kinds of media, the methods of draftsmanship, iconographical
types, the plans and ornaments of buildings, the elements of mechanical engineering, and,
above all, geometry. Theophilus's Schedula diversarum artium, Villard de Honnecourt's
"Album," Jean Le Begue's "Treatise" on various arts, Martin Roriczer's Biichlein von der
Fialen Gerechtigkeit, the "Painter's Manual" of Mount Athos-which, though compiled as
late as in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, yet contains a considerable amount of genuine
medieval workshop lore-and the Geometria deutsch of about 1500 are known to all.
However, these and similar treatises are to the writings of Leone Battista Alberti, Piero
della Francesca, Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Leonardo da Vinci as the pharmacopoeia is
to a work on biochemistry. As the pharmacopoeia tells the druggist how to compound and
how to use his drugs, but does not furnish any scientific explanation for their action on the
human body, so do the medieval manuals give instructions according to which a man may work,
but do not attempt to derive them from general principles or to support them by verifiable
i
'I
MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ART THEORY
243
facts. They constitute, in short, a code of rules but not a theory, much less a "science" as
envisaged by Leonardo da Vinci.
A medieval treatise on architecture, for instance, whether covering the whole field or con
centrating on a special problem, shows only what things can be done and how they should be
done; it makes no attempt to explain to the reader why they have to be done in this peculiar
way, let alone to supply him with a system of general concepts on the basis of which he may
cope with problems not yet foreseen by the writer. The reader is given praiseworthy examples
of groundplans, elevations, structural details, ornaments, etc., partly selected from existing
monuments and partly invented by the author himself; he is informed about the right way of
joining the stones in a compound pier or erecting a scaffold; and he is taught such indispen
sable methods of geometrical drawing as parallel projection, magnification and reduction,
construction of regular polygons, etc.; but he is not given a "theory of architecture."
This was precisely what a writer like Leone Battista Alberti proposed to do. Basing him-
self on Vitruvius, but varying, expanding and even correcting him in all directions, he derives
his prescriptions from general principles such as practical purpose, convenience, order, sym
metry and optical appearance. He divides the tasks of the architect in different classes which,
taken together, form a coherent and comprehensive system from city-planning to the construc-
tion of fireplaces, and he tries to corroborate his statements both by deductive, though natu
rally not always critical, reasoning and by historical evidence.
When we turn to treatises on the representational arts the difference between the medi-
eval and the modern point of view becomes still more evident. In the Middle Ages paintings
and sculptures were not thought of in relation to a natural object which they seek to imitate
but rather in relation to the formative process by which they come into being, namely, the
projection of an "idea" existing in-though by no means "created" by-the artist's mind
into a visible and tangible substance. Master Eckhart's painter paints a rose, as Dante draws
the figure of an angel, not "from life" but from the "image in his soul"; and in the excep-
tional cases in which the procedure of the imitative arts was considered with regard to their
relation to a visible model, this model was conceived, not as a natural object but as an
"exemplar" or "simile"-that is, as another work of art which served as a pattern. "An artist
conceives the form, after which he wishes to work, from some other work of art which he has
seen," says Thomas Aquinas, and thereby relieves the individual artist of the necessity of
facing nature itself.
The Renaissance, on the contrary, established and unanimously accepted what seems to
be the most obvious, and actually is the most problematic dogma of aesthetic theory: the
dogma that the work of art is the direct and faithful representation of a natural object. "And
thou must know," writes Durer, "the more accurately one approaches nature by way of
imitation, the better and more artistic thy work becomes." Treatises on sculpture and painting,
therefore, could no longer be limited to supplying generally accepted patterns and recipes but
had to equip the artist for his individual struggle with reality.
244
DURER AS A TIIEORIST OF ART
This equipment had to be twofold. Since the artist was supposed to "reproduce" the things
in nature "as they are" he had to be informed, first, as to how they are; and, second, as to
how they can be reproduced. The art theory of the Renaissance, then, was faced with two
main problems, one material and the other formal or representational. On the one hand, it
had to furnish scientific information about the natural phenomena themselves: about the
structure and function of the human body, the expression of human emotions, the character-
istics of plants and animals, the action of light and atmosphere on solid bodies, etc. On the"
other hand, it had to develop a scientific process by which the sum total of these phenomena
-that is, three-dimensional space in general and any three-dimensional object in particular
-could be correctly represented, or rather reconstructed, on a two-dimensional surface. The
first of these pursuits falls clearly within the province of what we now know as the natural
sciences; but since these were practically non-existent by the end of the Middle Ages, the
theorists of art themselves had to become the first natural scientists. Antonio Pollaiuolo dis-
sected corpses when professional physicians still lectured and were lectured to on the basis of
Galen and Avicenna; Leonardo da Vinci laid the foundations of modern anatomy, mechanics,
geology and meteorology, and Galileo owes more to him than to all the commentaries on
Aristotle's Physics. The second pursuit was of a purely mathematical character: it resulted in
that discipline which more than anything else deserves the title of a specific Renaissance
phenomenon, perspective.
Durer was the first artist who, brought up in late-medieval workshops of the North, fell
under the spell of art theory as it had evolved in Italy. It is in his development as a theorist
of art that we can study in vitro, as it were, the transition from a convenient code of instruc-
tions to a systematic and formulated body of knowledge. And it is in his contributions to this
body of knowledge, written and printed, that we can witness the birth of German scientific
prose.
The Italians had, since Dante, a language refined and flexible enough to do justice to
technical details as well as to poetic and philosophical thought. In Durer's period, the German
language had not yet reached what may be called a scholarly stage. The German of such
semi-scientific treatises as Calendars, Herbaries, booklets on health or, for that matter, the
Geometria deutsch, was of the crudest. The humanists wrote all of their books and pamphlets,
and most of their letters, in Latin, and it was only in the field of religious, not scholarly or
scientific, prose that the recalcitrant medium of the German language-made pliable, as it
were, by the heat of a fervent mystical emotion-had yielded such masterpieces as Suso's or
Master Eckhart's German Sermons; but even Master Eckhart wrote his more esoteric treatises
in Latin.
Durer, in his touching modesty, had thought of asking Pirckheimer and other humanistic
friends to perfect his language and, more particularly, to write his Prefaces for him. But the
was a dismal failure. Pirckheimer could write a very witty and straightforward German
style in his private letters; but as soon as he tried to be "literary" he waxed rhetorical. He
tried to duplicate the sonorous phrases of Ciceronian Latin in turgid sentences full of learned
DURER'S SCIENTIFIC PROSE
245
allusions and elaborate metaphors and so complicated in structure as to become, at times, all
but unintelligible-not to mention the humanistic habit of praising one's own performance at
the expense of forerunners and "envious" competitors.
Thus Durer, like Luther, had to create a German language of his own. Like Luther, he
took a more or less standardized chancery style as a basis and infused life into it, not by a
futile attempt at humanistic oratory but, on the contrary, by listening to the man in the
street-"one must look people on the mouth," as Luther picturesquely puts it-and by tap-
ping the sources of religious prose. For abstract mathematical concepts he used the graphic
expressions which had been handed down from generation to generation of artisans-for
instance: "Fischblase" ("fish's bladder") and "der neue Mondschein" ("crescent") for the
figures resulting from the intersection of two circles, "Eberzahne" ("boar's teeth") for angles
formed by circular arcs, "Ortstrich" ("corner stroke") for diagonal-and coined new terms
on similar principles, e.g., "Gabellinie" ("fork line") for hyperbola, "Brennlinie" ("burning
line") for parabola, "Schneckenlinie" ("snail line") for spiral, and so on. The "influxus
sublimiores" ("influences from above") which play such a prominent part in Nco-Platonic
literature were rendered, after the fashion of Suso and Eckhart, as "obere Eingiessungen";
and Ficino's "thesaurus penetralibus suis absconditus" was transformed, according to Luther's
free translation of Matthew, xn: 35, into "der heimliche Schatz des Herzens" ("the secret
treasure of the heart").
In the end the "poor painter" not only managed to describe complicated geometrical con-
structions more briefly, more clearly and more exhaustively than any professional mathema-
tician of his time, but also expressed historical facts and philosophical ideas in a prose style no
less "classic" than Luther's translation of the Bible. Durer writes: "Wie alt nun diese Kunst
sei, wer sie erstlich erfunden hab, in was Ehren und Wirden sfe etwan bei den Kriechen und
Romern gewest sei, wie auch ein guter Maler oder Werkmann geschickt soli sein, davon ist
jet; ohn Not zu schreiben. Wer aber das zu haben begehrt, der lese Plinium und
Vitruvium" ("But how old this art may be, who may have invented it, in what honor and
esteem it may have been held by the Greeks and Romans, and how a good painter or craftsman
should be equipped: of this there is not need to write here; whoever desires to know about
that may read Pliny and Vitruvius"). Pirckheimer had proposed the following: "Das Alles
die Alten vergangner Jahr nit unfruchtbar vermerkt, bei Kriechen sunderlich, auch Romern
mehr dann andern Nationen geachtt. Haben die Werkleut derselbigen hoch gepreist, geliebt
und belohnt, unter denen Phidias, Praxitelles, Apelles, Policletus, Parhasi_l!_s, Lisippus und
ander Fu,rtreffende diese Kunst fleissig ersucht, grundlich erfunden und endlich mit uber-
treffenden ihren Werken lieblich, wunderlich und zemal kunstlich angezeigt und an Tag
gebracht, _dodurch sie nit allein zu Aufnehmen Lobs, Reichtum, Liebung der Volker bekom-
men, sunder mehr tapfer Freiungen, unsterblich Gedachtnis der edlen achtbaren Historici
und Poeten haben erobert, sind auch Etlich zu der Spitz der zielichen Ehrung, Aufrichtung
gebildter Siiulen, erhaben" ("All this having been noticed, not unfruitfully, by the Ancients
of bygone years, it [sci!., the knowledge of proportions] was highly esteemed, especially by
the Greeks, but also by the Romans, more than by other nations. They highly praised, loved
D"ORER AS A THEORIST OF ART
and rewarded their craftsmen, among whom Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Polyclitus, Parrha-
sius, Lysippus and other outstanding men industriously investigated, soundly ascertained and
finally, by their excellent works, beautifully, marvelously and altogether artistically
pounded and manifested this art, whereby they not only acquired fame, wealth and the love
of the peoples but also attained to many brave privileges [ and to the immortal memory of
the noble, praiseworthy historici and poets, some of them having been raised to the acme
of temporal honor, the erection of carved monuments").
Durer says: "Dieweil ich nun in keinen Zweifel setz, ich werde allen Kunstliebhabenden
und denen, so zu lehren Begierd haben, hierin einen Gefallen tun, muss ich dem Neid, so
nichts ungestraft Hisst, seinen gewohnlichen Gang lassen und antworten, class gar vielleichter
sei ein Ding zu tadeln dann selbs zu erfinden" ("Since I have no doubt that I shall do a favor
to all art lovers and those who are eager to learn I must leave it to envy, which leaves
nothing uncensured, to take its usual course and only answer that it is very much easier to
blame a thing than to invent it"). Pirckheimer had suggested: "Dazu nit allein mir geborn
[Lucanus, Pharsalia, n, 383], diesen als bluhende Samen in dorngem unfruchtbarm Erdrich
erstellet von Manniglich ungeachtt belie be, mittheile ich itzund solch mein viel fleissig erfahrn,
lang, herzlich Muhe und Arbeit allen itz und kummenden Kunstnern, verhoffende, sie mir
( wiewol Unbekannten) in rechtet Gunst, Lieb und Freundschaft ewig zu verbinden. Aber
dieweil das durchdringend sterblich Vergift nachredender, gespitter Zungen allzeit bereit ist
auszefliessen, dadurch aile Werk, wie gut, nutzlich die sein, gemeinglichen verunreint und
aufgeblasen werden, bin jedoch solcher Zuversicht, dits mein Buchlein durch das unversehrt
gifttriebig Einhorn der mehren und gerechtern Urtheilern solcher todtlicher Verletzung muge
entfliehen" ("Also, not having been born for myself alone, and lest all this, like blossoming
seeds sown in thorny, sterile land, be disregarded by one and all, I now communicate this my
studiously experienced, long and whole-hearted labor and care to all artists present and future,
hoping to tie them to myself eternally-although I am unknown to them-by true good-will,
love and friendship. But while the penetrating, deadly poison of slandering, pointed tongues
is always ready to flow forth, whereby all works, however good and useful they may be, are
commonly polluted and blown up, yet I am confident that this my little book may escape such
deadly injury by the scatheless, poison-chasing unicorn of more and fairer judges").
That "envy" has a place in Durer's own version at all is his only concession to his erudite
friends; for, in a letter to another humanist-perhaps Banns Ebner-who had also tried his
hand at a Preface for the Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion the thought of envy had
been rejected altogether. Durer's letter-accompanied by many apologies for his criticism,
and bearing witness both to his good taste and intellectual honesty-reads, in part, as fol-
lows: "Sir, I beseech you kindly to formulate the Preface as indicated below: first, I desire
that no glory nor pride be sensed therein; secondly, that no mention at all be made of envy;
thirdly, that nothing be talked about but that which is contained in these Books; fourthly,
that no use be made of subject matter stolen from other books; fifthly, that I prescribe only
\
t
PERSPECTIVE
2
47
to our German youths; sixthly, that I highly praise the Italians with regard to their nudes
and, above all, to perspective."
FoR PERSPECTIVE, in the sense of a scientific theory, Durer was indeed much indebted to the
Italians. During the early and high Middle Ages the reconstruction of three-dimensional
space on a two-dimensional plane had not constituted a problem. The "picture" had been
conceived as a material surface covered with lines and colors which could be interpreted
as tokens or symbols of three-dimensional objects, and a wavy strip of green or brown had
been sufficient to indicate the ground on which the figures, trees and houses were placed.
In the course of the fourteenth century, however, the forms appearing on the surface came
to be thought of as something existing behind the surface until Leone Battista Alberti could
liken the picture to a "transparent window through which we look out into a section of the
visible world." Objects of equal size began to diminish as they moved away from the be-
holder; the walls, floors and ceilings which delimited an interior, or the ground on which
were disposed the elements of a landscape, began to "recede" toward the background; and
such lines as were at right angles to the picture plane ("orthogonals") developed into per-
spective "vanishing lines" which tended to converge toward one center.
Around 1340 (in the Northern countries about thirty years later) this center had already
assumed the character of a single "vanishing point" in which the "orthogonals" converged
with mathematical precision, at least within one unobstructed plane; and as early as about
1420-2 5 it had been observed that the horizontal lines of a cubiform building set slantwise
into space seemed to converge toward two points symmetrically located on one horizontal
("Perspectiva cornuta"). True, the "perspective" image thus developed-and, in part,
already constructible by means of a ruler or a tight cord to a pin-was not yet
unified, and it was not yet possible to determine the sequence of equidistant trans-
versals; Alberti expressly condemns a practice, apparently still in vogue about 1435, by
which the intervals between one transversal and the next were mechanically, and of course
mistakenly, diminished by one-third each. But even these problems could be solved, and
were solved by the Flemish painters of the fifteenth century, on a purely empirical basis. In
the 'fifties it was discovered that all orthogonals, and not only those located in one plane,
had to converge in one "vanishing point" which thus established the "general horizon" of
the picture; and the problem of determining the gradual diminution of equidistant trans-
versals was solved by the simple device of running an oblique line across the converging
orthogonals. Such an oblique line, it was reasoned, would cut the converging "orthogonals"
so as t6 form the common diagonal of a continuous row of small, equal squares which would
automatically determine the correct sequence of as many transversals (text ill. 2). It was
.also discovered that this diagonal would intersect the "horizon" at the same point as the
diagonals'of the adjacent rows of small squares, thus constituting a "lateral vanishing point";
that the foreshortening of the whole system became the sharper the smaller the distance
between this "lateral vanishing point" and the "central vanishing point" (that is to say, the
DURER AS A THEORIST OF ART
point of convergence of the "orthogonals"); and that, if diagonals were drawn from left to
right as well as from right to left, the two "lateral vanishing points" were equidistant from
the "central vanishing point."

,-"'
....
,.. ....
--
.... --
--
2. Empirical Perspective Construction of a "Checker-Board Floor"
These draftsmanlike methods were later codified by that Johannes Viator, or Jean
Pelerin, who has already been mentioned in connection with Durer's Presentation of Christ
(fig. 144) and Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (fig. 166), and whose De artificiali per-
spec/iva, in spite of its late date (ISOS, second edition 1509), is still a representative of the
pattern-and-recipe type of art-theoretical treatise. But they were known already by the last
third of the fifteenth century, and they were quite sufficient to ensure perfectly "correct"
perspective representations. Dirk Bouts's Last Supper of 1464-67 is already as impeccably
constructed as any painting by an I tal ian Quattrocento master, and the same is true, as we
remember, of every one of Durer's works executed after about 1500.
yet Durer undertook, in I so6, a special trip to Bologna-well over a hundred miles from
Venice-"for the sake of 'art' in secret perspective which some one wants to teach me."
After such engravings as "Weihnachten" (fig. 116) and such woodcuts as the aforemen-
tioned Presentation Durer did not need any instruction in perspective as far as its practical
application was concerned. What he was after was the theoretical foundation of a process
which he had thus far learned only empirically, and this is exactly what he tried to express
by saying that he wished to be instructed, not in perspective, but in "Kunst in heimlicher
Perspectiva"-"Kunst" meaning, as we now know, theoretical knowledge or rational under-
standing as opposed to mere practice. This knowledge was indeed a "secret" insofar as it
had not yet been divulged in any printed book; but it had been accessible to experts for almost
exactly three-quarters of a century: it was the method traditionally, and in all probability
justly, ascribed to the great architect Filippo Brunelleschi.
The procedure culminating in Dirk Bouts's Last Supper and Durer's pre-Venetian prints
had resulted from a more and more successful schematization of such patterns-foreshortened
floors and ceilings, receding walls, etc.-as had been handed down by tradition or were
perceived by direct observation. It had developed quite independently of that mathematical
analysis of the process of vision which was known as '01rnK7} or "Optica" in classical An-
PERSPECTIVE
249
tiquity, and as "Prospectiva" or "Perspectiva" in the Latin Middle Ages. This discipline-
formulated by developed by Geminus, Damianus, Heliodorus of Larissa and others,
transmitted to the western Middle Ages by the Arabs, and exhaustively treated by such
scholastic writers as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Vitellio and Peckham-attempted to
express in geometrical theorems the exact relation between the real quantities found in objects
and the apparent quantities which constitute our visual image. It was based on the assumption
that objects are perceived by straight visual rays converging in the eye-so that the visual sys-
tem can be described as a cone or pyramid having the object as its base and the eye as its apex
-and that the apparent size of any real magnitude, and thereby the configuration of the en-
tire visual image, depends on the width of the corresponding angle at the apex of said pyramid
or cone ("visual angle").
Classical "Optica" and medieval "Prospectiva," then, were no more concerned with
problems of artistic representation than the representational methods of Jan van Eyck,
Petrus Cristus or Dirk Bouts were based on the doctrines of scholastic writers. A few of these,
to wit Grosseteste and Roger Bacon, could already develop optical instruments-apparently
not unlike our refracting telescopes-by means of which "that which is near and big can be
made to appear very distant and small and vice versa, so that it is possible to read small let-
ters from an incredible distance and to count grains of sand, seeds or other diminutive ob-
jects"; but no one thought of applying the Euclidian theory of vision to the problems of
graphic representation. This was precisely what Brunelleschi proposed to do. He conceived the
truly revolutionary idea of intersecting the Euclidian pyramid by a plane inserted between
the object and the eye, and thereby "projecting" the visual image on this surface just as a
lens projects a picture on the screen or on a photographic film 9r.plate. A pictorial representa-
tion thus came to be defined as "a cross-section through the visual pyramid or cone" (''l'inter-
segazione della piramide visiva," as Leone Battista Alberti puts it, or "a plane, transparent in-
tersection of all those rays which travel from the eye to the object it sees," to translate the
formula adopted by Durer). To ensure perspective correctness one had only to evolve a
method of constructing this cross-section by means of a compass and a ruler, and this was
the essence of the new "Painter's Perspective" ( "Prospectiva pingendi" or "Prospectiva
artificialis") in contradistinction to which the old-time theory of vision came to be called
"Prospectiva naturalis."
In its original and comprehensive form-described, as far as the wntmgs of the
fifteenth century are concerned, only in the admirable De prospectiva pingendi by Piero
della Francesca which was composed between 1470 and 1490 but was not printed until
1899-this Brunelleschian construction requires two preparatory drawings, the elevation and
groundplan of the whole visual system. In each of these, the visual pyramid or cone is
represented by a triangle having its apex in a point standing for the eye while the projection
(or picture) plane is represented by a vertical intersecting this triangle. In the elevation
drawing the object has to be shown in a vertical diagram, and in the groundplan in a hori-
zontal diagram. Either diagram is connected with the point representing the eye, and the
DtiRER AS A THEORIST OF ART
points of intersection between the connecting lines and the vertical will determine the required
set of values, namely, the vertical and transversal quantities of the perspective image. The
latter can be constructed by simply combining these two sets in a third and final drawing
(text ill. 3).
GH
A'B'
c-o
E'F'
G"H
EYE
EYE
D'H'
I I I I
: I I 1
---- -J-------4' I
----!II l'l
I I
l I
-,L--------{
I \
I \
3 Systematic Perspective Construction of a Three-Dimensional Body
("Costruzione legittima")
Since this "costruzione legittima" requires two diagrams of the object, one horizontal
and one vertical, it presupposes a familiarity with the method of parallel projection by
which any required diagram can be developed from any two others, provided that they are
located in planes at right angles to each other. This method had already been practiced by
the medieval architects and had been dealt with in their treatises. But it had now to be
-i
. r
i
PERSPECTIVE 251
applied to the human body in movement instead of being restricted to buildings and archi
tectural details, and thus developed into a special branch of Renaissance art theory indis
pensable both for the study of human proportions and for the application of the "costruzione
legittima." It was extensively treated in Piero della Francesca's De prospectiva pingendi;
it was practiced by Leonardo and his pupils; and if we can believe Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo,
it was almost a speciality with other Milanese theoreticians such as Vincenzo Foppa and
Bartolommeo Suardi, called Bramantino.
Needless to say, this "costruzione legittima," born in the mind of an architect who thought
in terms of elevations and ground plans, was too unwieldy for actual use. In practice, not even
the most conscientious of painters would ever construct individual objects, let alone figures,
by first developing two diagrams and then projecting these on the picture plane. It was
deemed sufficient to build up a three-dimensional system of coordinates in foreshortening
which enabled the artist to determine the relative magnitude, though not the shape, of
any object he might wish to render. Such a system could easily be developed from a fore
shortened square correctly divided into a number of smaller squares; and to obtain this
basic square, or rather checkerboard-a problem solved by the Northern artists on purely
empirical grounds, as we have seen-was the purpose of that "abbreviated construction"
which was actually used by the Italian Quattrocento painters. It was described by Leone
Battista Alberti, and, later on, by Piero della Francesca, Pomponius Gauricus and Leonardo
da Vinci, and its practical application can be observed in drawings by Paolo Uccello and
Leonardo himself. This abbreviated method begins with the procedure already followed in
the "preBrunelleschian" period: the front line of the future basic square is divided into
an arbitrary number of equal parts, and the dividing connected with the central
"vanishing point" P. But now the sequence of the transversals is determined on
a strictly Euclidian basis, that is to say, by superimposing the now familiar profile elevation
of the visual cone or pyramid upon the system of vanishing lines: we erect a vertical-
representing the picture plane-at one of the front corners of the future basic square and
assume, on the horizontal determined by the vanishing point, a point representing the eye.
When we connect this point with the terminals and dividing points of the front line of the
future basic square, the points of intersection between the connecting lines and the vertical
will on the latter, the correct sequence of equidistant transversals (text ill. 4).
We do not know the name of Durer's "teacher" in Bologna. But whoever he was, he must
have been .both well-informed and communicative. When Diirer returned from Venice he
was acquainted with the "costruzione legittima" a written description of which could be
, as we have seen, only in the unpublished treatise by Piero della Francesca; with
Fiero's elegant method of transferring any given planimetrical figure from an unfore
shortened square into a foreshortened one; and, more important, with his fundamental defini
tion of "perspectiva artificialis" as such: "Perspective is a branch of painting which comprises
five parts: the first is the organ of sight, viz., the eye; the second is the form of the object seen;
the third is the distance between the eye and the object; the fourth are the lines which start
from the surface of the object and go to the eye; the fifth is the plane which is between the eye
and the object wherever one intends to place [that is, on which one wishes to project] the
objects." In addition, Durer shows himself informed about such methods and devices as were
A B C D E F
cU..t.:.nc..e b e.twee.-.. ..
<11\.d. proj e.c..4.c>n. pl..a.n.e.
4 Systematic, but Abbreviated Perspective Construction of a
"Checker-Board Floor" (called by Diirer "Der nahere Weg")
common to all Italian theoreticians of perspective, but had received, at least in part, the
especial attention of the Milanese theoreticians. He knew the "abbreviated construction" first
described by Alberti; parallel projection as applied to the human figure; apparatuses enabling
the artist to draw directly from nature and yet to achieve "approximate" perspective ac
curacy; and the geometrical construction of cast-shadows, a speciality of Leonardo da Vinci.
His "teacher," then, must have been a man familiar with both Fiero della Francesca and
the theorists of Milan. This applies to the two most plausible candidates thus far proposed,
the mathematician Luca Pacioli and the great architect Donato Bramante; but it may also
have been true of many a nameless painter or professor of Bologna University.
Characteristically, most of Durer's drawings dealing with problems of perspective date
from the years betweeniSio and ISIS-the period of the Melencolia I (I700-17o6). The
final presentation of the subject, however, is found at the end of the Fourth Book of his
treatise on Geometry, the Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel un Richtscheyt of
IS2S (revised edition 1S38). Here Durer teaches: first, the "costruzione legittima," illus-
trated by a cube placed on a square and lighted so as to serve, at the same time, as an example
for the construction of cast-shadows; second, the "abbreviated construction" which he
happily calls "der nahere Weg" ("the shorter route") ; third (in the revised edition only),
Fiero della Francesca's method of transferring planimetrical figures from the unforeshortened
into the foreshortened square; fourth, two (in the revised edition, four) apparatuses to en-
sure an approximative correctness by mechanical instead of mathematical means.
Two of these apparatuses (361 and 364) were already known to Alberti, Leonardo and
Bramantino. The eye of the observer is fixed by a sight, and between it and the object is
inserted either a glass plate (fig. 310) or a frame divided into small squares by a net
1.
PERSPECTIVE
253
of black thread ( "graticola" or grill, as Alberti calls it). In the first case, an approximately
correct picture can be obtained by simply copying the contours of the model as they appear
on the glass plate and then transferring them to the panel or drawing sheet by means of
tracing; in the second case the image perceived by the artist is divided into small units
whose content can easily be entered upon a paper divided into a corresponding system of
squares. The other two apparatuses-one invented by one Jacob Keser, the other apparently
by Durer himself-are nothing but improvements on the ones already described. Keser's
device (363) removes the difficulty that the distance between the eye and the glass plate
can never exceed the length of the artist's arm, which entails an undesirably sharp fore-
shortening: the human eye is replaced by the eye of a big needle, driven into the wall, to
which is fastened a piece of string with a sight at the other end; the operator can then "take
aim" at the characteristic points of the object and mark them on the glass plate with the
perspective situation determined, not by the position of his eye but by that of the needle.
The last apparatus (362) eliminates the human eye altogether: it consists, again, of a needle
driven into the wall and a piece of string, but the piece of string has a pin on one end and
a weight on the other; between the eye of the needle and the object is placed a wooden frame
within which every point can be determined by two movable threads crossing each other
at right angles. When the pin is put on a certain point of the object the place where the string
passes through the frame determines the location of that point within the future picture.
This point is fixed by adjusting the two movable threads and is at once entered upon a piece
of paper hinged to the frame; and by a repetition of this process the whole object may be
transferred gradually to the drawing sheet (fig. 311 ).
APART FROM THIS TECHNICAL INVENTION Durer added nothiEg to the science of perspective
as developed by the Italians. Yet the last section of his "Unterweisung der Messung" is
in two respects. First, it is the first literary document in which a strictly repre-
sentational problem received a strictly scientific treatment at the hands of a Northerner;
none of Durer's forerunners and few of his contemporaries had any understanding of the
fact that the rules for the construction of a perspective picture are based on the Euclidian
concept of the visual pyramid or cone, and it is a remarkable fact that the methods taught in
a treatise by one Hieronymus Rodier, published as late as 1S31 and even reprinted in 1546,
are partly purely empirical and partly downright wrong. Second, it emphasizes, by its very
place at the end of a "Course in the Art of Measurement with Compass and Ruler," that
perspective is not a technical discipline destined to remain subsidiary to painting or architec-
an branch of mathematics, capable of being developed into what is now
known as general projective geometry.
c The Preface of this "Course in the Art of Measurement," which, like the Treatise on
Human Proportions, is dedicated to Pirckheimer, is the first public statement of Durer's
lifelong conviction, to be repeated many a time and alluded to in our discussions at various
points: that -the German painters were equal to all others in practical skill ("Brauch") and
254
D'ORER AS A THEORIST OF ART
power of imagination ("Gewalt"), but that they were inferior to the Italians-who had
"rediscovered, two hundred years ago, the art revered by the Greeks and Romans and forgot
ten for a thousand years"-in a rational knowledge ("Kunst") which would prevent them
from "errors" and "wrongness" in their work. "And since geometry is the right foundation of
all painting," Durer continues, "I have decided to teach its rudiments and principles to all
youngsters eager for art .... I hope that this my undertaking will not be criticized by any
reasonable man, for ... it may benefit not only the painters but also goldsmiths, sculptors,
stonemasons, carpenters and all those who have to rely on measurement."
The "Unterweisung" is, therefore, still a book for practical use and not a treatise on
pure mathematics. Durer wanted to be understood by artists and artisans. It has already
been mentioned that he appropriated their ancient technical language and took it as a model
for his own. He liked to explain the practical implications of a given proposition even if he
had to interrupt his systematic context, as when he teaches how to use the constructed spiral
for capitals or for a foliated crozier. He refrains from learned divagations and gives only
one example-the first in German literature-of a strict mathematical proof. But on the
other hand his erudite friends kept him informed of those new ideas and problems which-
to quote from the excellent Johannes Werner to whom Durer appears to be indebted in
more than one respect-"had wandered from Greece to the Latin geometricians of this age."
Besides his first-hand knowledge of Euclid, he had established contact with the thought of
Archimedes, Hero, Sporus, Ptolemy and Apollonius; and, more important, he was, him-
self, a natural-born geometrician. He had a clear idea of the infinite (for instance when he
says that a straight line "can be prolonged unendingly or at least can be thought of in this
way" or when he distinguished between parallelism and asymptotic convergence) ; he em-
phasized the basic difference between a geometrical figure in the abstract and its concrete
realization in pen and ink (the mathematical point, he says, is not a "dot," however small,
but can be "mentally located so high or so low that we cannot even reach there physically,"
and what applies to the point applies a fortiori to lines) ; he never confused exact with ap-
proximate constructions (the former ones being correct "demonstrative," the latter ones
merely "mechanice"); and he presented his material in perfect methodical order.
The First Book, beginning with the usual definitions, deals with the problems of linear
geometry, from the straight line up to those algebraic curves which were to occupy the great
mathematicians of the seventeenth century; Durer even ventures upon the construction of
helices, conchoids ("Muschellinie," "shell line") and epicycloids ("Spinnenlinie," "spider
line"). One of the most interesting features of the First Book is the first discussion in
German of conic sections, the theory of which had just been revived on the basis of classical
sources. 'l:'here can be little doubt that Durer owes his familiarity with Apollonius's terms
and definitions (parabola, hyperbola and ellipse) to the aforesaid Johannes Werner who
lived in Nuremberg, and whose valuable Libel/us super viginti duobus elementis conicis had
appeared in 1522, three years before the "Unterweisung der Messung." But Durer ap-
proached the problem in a manner quite different from that of Werner, or, for that matter,
THEORY OF CURVES; TWO-DIMENSIONAL FIGURES
255
of any professional mathematician. Instead of investigating the mathematical properties
of the parabola, hyperbola and ellipse, he tried to construct them just as he had tried to
construct his spirals and epicycloids; and this he achieved by the ingenious application of
a method familiar to every architect and carpenter but never before applied to the solution
of a purely mathematical problem, let alone the ultra-modern problem of the conic sections:
the method of parallel projection. He represented the cone, cut as the case may be, in side
elevation and groundplan and transferred a sufficient number of points from the former
into the latter. Then the normal hyperbola-produced by a section parallel to the axis of
the cone--can be directly read off when a front elevation is developed from the two other
diagrams, while parabolas and ellipses, produced by oblique sections and therefore appearing
in a reduction in any diagram except the side elevation, must be obtained by proportionately
expanding their main axes. Crude though it is, this method, which may be called a genetic
as opposed to a descriptive one, announces, in a way, the procedure of analytical geometry
and did not fail to attract the attention of Kepler who, with a smile, refers to the only mistake
in Durer's analysis. Like any schoolboy, Durer found it hard to imagine that an ellipse
is a perfectly symmetrical figure. He was unable to get away from the idea that it should
widen in proportion with the widening of the cone, and he involuntarily twisted the con
struction until it resulted, not in an orthodox ellipse but in an "Eierlinie" ("egg line"),
narrower at the top than at the bottom (text ill. 5). Even with Durer's primitive methods
the error could have been easily avoided. That it was committed, not only illustrates a
significant conflict between abstract geometrical thought and visual imagination, but also
proves the independence of Durer's researches. After the publication of his book he invented
an ingenious compass which would have saved him from this error (1711): but, needless to
say, this instrument solves the problem of the ellipse only "mechanice," not "demonstrative."
The Second Book proceeds from one-dimensional to twoidimensional figures, with special
emphasis on the "quadratura circuli" and the construction of such regular polygons as cannot
be developed from the square and the equilateral triangle, viz., the pentagon, the enneagon,
etc. Of these, only the pentagon (which also furnishes the decagon) and the pentecaidecagon,
or fifteen-sided figure, had been treated in classical times; the pentagon because it is the
basic element of one of the "Platonic" solids, namely, the dodecahedron; and the pente-
caidecagon because it was necessary for the construction of an angle of 24 degrees, then
generally considered as the correct measurement of the obliquity of the ecliptic. In the
Middle Ages, however, the problem had gained a wider and more practical importance. Both
Islamic and Gothic decoration-and, after the invention of firearms, fortification-required
methods of constructing all kinds of regular polygons. Durer, in fact, at once proceeds to
develop these into tracery patterns and to combine them into "pavements" which anticipate
Kepler's "Congruentia figurarum harmonicarum" in the Second Book of his Harmonices
mundi libri V. The medieval constructions of these polygons were, of course, approximate;
but they were, and had to be, simple, preferably not even calling for a change in the opening
of the compass (which had no device to recapture an opening once changed) ; and it was
..
)+
5 Diirer's Construction of the Ellipse
Durer rather than Leonardo-who also tried his hand at the construction of the more compli-
cated regular polygons-who transmitted these constructions to the future.
The construction of the regular pentagon, for instance, is not described by Durer accord-
ing to Euclid. He gives, instead, the less well known but likewise exact construction of
Ptolemy and, in addition, an approximate construction "with the opening of the compass
unchanged" which, but for him, would have remained forever buried in the Geometria
TECHNICAL APPLICATIONS OF GEOMETRY
257
deutsch; and his approximate construction of the enneagon (the exact construction of which
is impossible) is not described in any written source but was taken over directly, as we happen
to know, from the tradition of the "ordinary workmen" ("tagliche Arbeiter"). Thus the
"Unterweisung der Messung," published in Latin in 1532, 1535 and 1605, served, so to
speak, as a revolving door between the temple of mathematics and the market square. While
it familiarized the coopers and cabinetmakers with Euclid and Ptolemy, it also familiarized
the professional mathematicians with what may be called "workshop geometry." It is largely
due to its influence that constructions "with the opening of the compass unchanged" became
a kind of obsession with the Italian geometricians of the later sixteenth century, and Durer's
construction of the pentagon was to stimulate the imaginations of men like Cardano, Tar-
taglia, Benedetti, Galileo, Kepler, and that Pietro Antonio Cataldi who wrote a whole mono-
graph on the "Modo di formare un pentagono ... descritto da Alberto Durero" (Bologna,
1570).
The Third Book of the "Unterweisung," on the other hand, is of purely practical char-
acter. It is intended to illustrate the application of geometry to the concrete tasks of archi-
tecture, engineering, decoration and typography. Durer was an admiring student of Vitruvius
-we still possess his German excerpts from several important chapters of the De architectura
recommends him highly in the "Unterweisung," but he was far from being dogmatic
about it. His praise of Vitruvius is directly followed by the statement, already referred to in
our Introduction, according to which the German mind always demands "new patterns the
like of which has never been seen before," and he proceeds to describe two columns not to be
found in Vitruvius and submitted to the reader without obligations: "and let anyone cull
therefrom what he likes, and do as he pleases." From a most interesting report unfortunately
not included in the "Unterweisung" (1685) we learn that J!)urer favored the classical roof,
with a slope of little more than 20 degrees, against the steep Gothic one; and his ideas about
city-planning-laid down in his Treatise on Fortification and possibly connected with one
of the earliest "slum-clearing projects" in history, the Augsburg "Fuggerei" of I5I9/2o-
reveal his familiarity with such modern theoreticians as Leone Battista Alberti and Francesco
di Giorgio Martini. But his designs for capitals, bases, sun-dials and whole structures such
as the tapering tower to be placed in the center of a market place are anything but classical.
He also describes, among other things, triumphal monuments to be composed of actual guns,
powder barrels, cannonballs and armor, yet accurately proportioned more geometrico. When
celebrating a victory over rebellious peasants, these monuments are to be composed of rustic
implements such as grain chests, milk cans, spades, pitchforks and crates; and a humorous
extension of this principle leads-"von Abenteuer wegen" ("for the sake of curiosity")-
- to an epitaph in honor of a drunkard, consisting of a beer barrel, a checkerboard, a basket
with food, etc. It should, however, be noted that these absurd contrivances met with the ap-
proval of Blonde!, and that at least one of them-a slender monument crowned by
the figure of a wretched conquered peasant (fig. 314)-may have been inspired by certain
fanciful designs of Leonardo's (fig. 315).
6a. Construction of Roman Letters
according to Sigismundus de Fantis,
Theorica et Pratica . de modo scri-
bendi . , Venice (J. Rubeus), 1514
6b. Construction of Roman Letters
according to Diirer's Underweysung
der Messung of 1525
At the end of the Third Book, Durer familiarizes the Northern countries with another
"secret" of the Renaissance, the geometrical construction of Roman letters, "litterae
antiquae," as they were called by Lorenzo Ghiberti, thereby anticipating Geoffroy Tory's
famous Champ Fleury by precisely four years. In Italy, this problem had been taken up by
Felice the friend and archeological adviser of Andrea Mantegna, and had sub
sequently been treated by such authors as Damiano da Moile: or Moyllus (about
14
8o); Luca Pacioli (published 1509); de F.anus 15 14); and-pos-
sibly-by Leonardo da Vinci. Diirer-introducmg the subJect by on to deter
mine the suitable size of inscriptions high above eye level-was not m a positiOn to Improve on
the methods of these Italian forerunners. As far as the Roman letters are concerned he had
to limit himself to the role of a middleman (text ills. 6a and 6b). The Gothic letters, how
ever-or, to use his own expression, the "Textur" type-he constructed on a principle not
to be found in any earlier source. Gismondo Fanti had dealt with them in the same fashion
as with the "antiqua" type, that is to say he had inscribed each lefter into a square, had
established its proportions by dividing the sides of the square in a certain. way, and ..had
determined its contours by combining straight lines with circular arcs (text Ill. 7a). Durer,
on the other hand, constructs his Gothic letters according to an entirely different principle.
He dispenses with circular arcs altogether, and instead of inscribing the letter a large
square, he builds it up from a number of small geometrical units .such .squares, or
trapezoids (text ill. 7b). If of anything, this cumulative method IS remm1scent of Arab1c, and
not of Italian, calligraphy.
After this excursion into the domain of the practical, the Fourth Book resumes the thread
where the Second had left it: it deals with the geometry of three-dimensional bodies or
stereometry, a field entirely disregarded during the Middle Ages. At the beginning, Diirer
discusses the five regular or "Platonic" solids, a problem brought into the limelight by the
l
I
CONSTRUCTION OF LETTERS; STEREOGRAPHY 259
7a. Construction of "Gothic" Letters
according to Sigismundus de Fantis
4
7b. Construction of "Gothic" Letters
according to Diirer
revival of Platonic studies on the one hand and by the interest in perspective on the other.
Whether or not Diirer was acquainted with the work of the two Italian specialists in this
field, Luca Pacioli and Piero della Francesca, is an open question. Certain it is that, as in
the case of the conic sections, he tackled the problem in an entirely independent way. Pacioli
discusses, besides the five "Platonic" or regular bodies, only three of the thirteen "Archi
medean" or semi-regular ones, and he illustrates them in perspective or stereographic images.
Diirer treats seven-in the revised edition of 1538 even nine-of the "Archimedean" semi
regulars, plus several bodies of his own invention (for instance, one composed of eight
dodecagons, twenty-four isosceles triangles and eight equilateral triangles), and instead of
representing the solids in perspective or stereogra:phic images, he devised the apparently origi
nal and, if one may say so, proto-topological method of developing them on the plane surface
in such a way that the facets form a coherent "net" which, when cut out of paper and
properly folded where two facets adjoin, will form an actual, three-dimensional model of the
solid in question (text ill. 8).
This section is followed by the discussion of another problem which had "wandered
from Greece to the Latin geometricians of the time," namely, the problem of doubling
the cube. This "Delian problem," as it was called, had been treated, almost simultaneously,
by a mathematician named Heinrich Schreiber or Grammateus, who gives only one solution,
and by the aforesaid Johannes Werner who, in a paraphrase of Eutocius's Commentary on
Archimedes, gives no less than eleven. That Diirer, who gives three, made use of Werner's
260
treatise is all the more probable a,s it is printed together with the Libel/us super viginti duobus
elementis conicis. Yet it can be shown by the very lettering of Durer's figures that he also
consulted Eutocius himself, with Pirckheimer dictating to him the text in a German
translation.
8. Durer's "Net" of the Cuboctahedron Truncum
As the "Delian problem" concerns the cube its discussion formed a welcome transition
to the last section of Durer's Underweysung der Messung, the chapter on perspective which,
we remember, exemplifies both the "costruzione legittima" and the "shorter route" by
construction of a lighted cube placed on a horizontal plane. To Durer, as to many of hts
contemporaries, perspective meant the crown and keystone of the majestic edifice called
Geometry.
THIS STRANGE FASCINATION which perspective had for the Renaissance mind cannot be
accounted for exclusively by a craving for verisimilitude. There was, of course, an immense
satisfaction in a method which could "deceive the eye" like Brunelleschi's vista of the
Piazza di S. Giovanni, Alberti's demons/rationes (which were certainly actual pictures and
not mere models of the geometrical process), or the feigned room and colonnade in the
house of a famous mathematician in Vienna. But it is undeniable that, from a physiological or
psychological point of view, exact perspective is not always "natural." We do not see with
one eye, but with two. Our retina is not a plane surface but a spherical one (as was recognized
in classical and medieval optics where the apparent magnitudes depend on the visual angles
and not, as in the Brunelleschian construction, on the linear distance) ; and our mind auto-
matically rectifies the visual diminutions and distortions in favor of a more "objective"
relation among the various quantities. The Renaissance theorists, or at least somt! of them,
/
THEORY OF HUMAN PROPORTIONS
knew perfectly well that the results of their perspective construction could vary widely
from actual visual experience-just as a modern photograph may distort the appearance
of things so as to make buildings seem to tumble down or a protruding foot appear four
times as large as a face. But they decided in favor of the construction, or merely advised
the artist to avoid "extremities," and none of them thought of denying or even doubting
the indispensability and fundamental rightness of perspective as such. . .
This universal enthusiasm can be accounted for by a variety of reasons. First, there was c'
0
a curious inward perspective and what may be called the general /0 l
mental attitude of process of projecting an object on a plane in such
a way that the is determined by the distance and location of a "point of
vision" symbolized, as it were, the Weltanschauung of a period which had inserted an
historical distance-quite comparable to the perspective one-between itself and the classical
past, and had assigned to the mind of man a place "in the center of the universe" just as
perspective assigned to his eye a place in the center of its graphic representation. Second,
perspective, more than any other method, satisfied the new craving for exactness and pre-
(it is chiefly with reference to it that Leonardo defended his assertion that paint-
ing, more than sculpture, music or poetry, was a "science"). Third, in a space built up
according to the rules of perspective a series of equal magnitudes receding from the picture
plane-for instance. the sequence of equidistant transversals in the aforementioned "checl,ter-
board floors"-diminishes gradually and regularly; and this diminution, expressible by a
mathematical formula, intrinsically agrees with that great principle of classical and Renais-
sance aesthetics which we shall reencounter toward the close of this chapter: "Beauty is the
harmony of the parts in relation to each other and to the whole." '
From the point of view of the Renaissance, then, fo6used perspective was not only a
guarantee of correctness but, even more, a guarantee of aesthetic perfection; it was abandoned
in periods which shared the Renaissance belief in naturalism while no longer sharing the
Renaissance enthusiasm for "beauty." In fact, the harmonious gradation of perspective dis-
tances found in Renaissance paintings and drawings expresses the same attitude as
the equally harmonious gradation from heavy rustication to a less heavy one and finally to
ordinary masonry, or from the Doric order to the Ionic and Corinthian, which can be observed
in fifteenth century palaces; while the preceding centuries preferred a uniform treatment of
the wall surface throughout the three stories. Perspective, one might say, is a mathematical
method of organizing space so as to meet the requirements of both "correctness" and "har-
mony," and is thus fundamentally akin to a discipline which sought to achieve precisely the
same thing with respect to the human and animal body: the theory of proportions.
When Jacopo de' Barbari had refused to disclose the secret of the "man and woman
which hehad constructed by means of measurement," Durer "set to work on his own and
read Vitruvius." 'fhe first results of his efforts are already known to us: apart from the
isolated case of the "Large Fortune" (fig. 115), where the Vitruvian data are exemplified
by an almost motionless figure pictured in pure profile, they are laid down in the series of
Dtl"RER AS A THEORIST OF ART
drawings which culminates in the engraving "Adam and Eve" ( 1596-1601, 1627-1639,
458). These figures are posed after classical models which had come to Durer's knowledge
through Italian intermediaries, the men-except for a heavily built Sol or Samson of about
1500 ( 1596/97 )-in the pose of the Apollo Belvedere, the women-except for a Reclining
Nude of 1501 (1639)-in that of the Medici Venus. The standing figures are constructed
as follows. The total length and general axis of the body is determined by a basic vertical
which runs from the heel of the standing leg to the top of the head and goes through the
pit of the stomach. The pelvis is inscribed in a trapezoid, and the thorax in a square (or,
in the female figures nos. 1627-1634, in a vertical rectangle), and the axes of these, meeting
at the pit of the stomach, are slightly shifted against the basic vertical. The knee of the
standing leg, and thereby the length of both thighs, is found by bisecting the line which
connects the hip-point with the lower terminal of the basic vertical. The head, if turned to
full profile, is inscribed in a square, and the contours of the shoulders, hips and loins-in some
of the female figures also those of the breasts, the waist, the abdominal muscles and the geni-
tals-are determined by circular arcs (figs. ll8, ll9, 316).
The purpose of this scheme, then, was threefold. First, it established the proportions,
and this, as far as the figures in the drawings 458, 1598-1601 and 1635-1639 are concerned,
according to the canon of Vitruvius: the length of the head is one-eighth of the total height,
that of the face (divided into three equal parts, viz., the brow, the nose and the rest) one-
tenth, and the width of the breast from shoulder to shoulder one-quarter. Second, it auto-
matically produced a "classical contrapposto pose," that is to say, a differentiation between
standing leg and free leg whereby the hip of the free leg and the shoulder above the stand-
ing leg are slightly lowered and vice versa. Third, it reduced as many contours as possible
to the simplest of geometrical curves.
To determine the historical locus of this scheme we have to bear in mind the funda-
mental difference between the classical and the medieval treatment of the problem involved.
The Greek theoreticians, beginning with Polyclitus-whose efforts are known to us only in
principle, but not in tangible details-and ending with the anonymous author whose .state-
ments are transmitted by Vitruvius, thought of the theory of human proportions as what
may be called aesthetic anthropometry. They wished to establish the proportions of the
human body regardless of its representation in a work of art. While the Egyptians had
devised a method of building up figures from a considerable number of equal squares-so
as to facilitate the process of transferring the design to the surface of a block as well as to
a wall or panel-Polyclitus and his followers took as a point of departure not a graphic
network of equal units but the organic structure of the human body itself: they tried to
establish a relationship among the various members, such as leg, head, face, hand, fingers
and so forth, toward each other and the whole. They thus elaborated a system of proportions
in the stricter sense of the term-that is, a system of relations expressible either in aliquot
fractions of the total length, as does Vitruvius, or in a series of individual equations (the
hand is to the cubit as one to two, the cubit to the foot as seven to four), as was allegedly
the case with Polyclitus. And since this system of relations expressed the measurements not
as they are in any individual person but as they "should be" according to the accumulated
experience of the great masters, it constituted what was called a "canon"-no longer a
technical device but a formula of beauty. To Vitruvius even an originally cosmological idea
assumed the character of an aesthetic principle: it is not "the" body, but the "well-made"
body ("homo bene figuratus") which will fill a square when represented with arms out-
stretched and feet together, and a circle described around the navel when represented
spread-eagled.
As may be expected from what was said at the beginning of this chapter, the medieval
writers of manuals on art abandoned these anthropometric and aesthetic aspirations. They
did not try to inform the artists as to the "perfect" proportions of the human body, but to
supply them with an easy way of drawing figures-a "maniere pour legierement ouvrier,"
as Villard de Honnecourt defines what he calls "pourtraicture." The artists were told that
they could take the length of a face and multiply it by nine to get the whole length of "a
figure," by two in order to get its width, and by two and a half to get its width in case the
figure were clothed. A human head, including the halo, could be built up from three con-
centric and equidistant circles described around the root of the nose-or, in the case of fore-
shortened heads, around the pupil or the cotner of one eye-the intervals between the circles
being determined by the length of the nose; and in the "Album" of Villard de Honnecourt
whole human figures, faces, hands and animals are constructed not only out of circles and
simple straight lines but also out of triangles, swastikas and pentagrams, this construction
determining the measurements as well as, in certain cases, the contours and the poses or
movements.
In this respect, Durer's earliest studies in human proportions are still related to the figures
of Villard de Honnecourt-so much so that the expression "studies in human proportions" is,
strictly speaking, inaccurate. They, too, are not so much dimensioned on the basis of an anthro-
pometric canon as actually constructed by means of geometrical operations which do precisely
what they did in Villard's "pourtraicture," that is, determine the measurements as well as the
contours and postures; the text belonging to one of these drawings ( 1627/28) reads, mutatis
mutandis, like the description of the pentagon construction in the "Unterweisung der Mes-
sung."
In another respect, however, the medieval procedure is very different from Durer's, even
before the latter had been rationalized on the basis of the Vitruvius canon. With Villard de
Honnecourt the geometrical concept precedes the zoomorphic form, whereas, with Durer, the
zoomorphic form precedes the geometrical concept. A pentagram and a triangle have little or
- nothing to do with the natural structure of the human body; but it is anatomically under-
standable, if not justified, to schematize the thorax and the pelvis into a rectangle and a
trapezoid, one movable against the other. Villard's figures come about by entering natural
forms intoa geometricaf scheme; Durer's geometrical scheme comes about by superimposing
a suitable construction on natural forms. In fact, it can be explained as an ex post/acto
D'URER AS A THEORIST OF ART
application of the compass and the ruler to his own studies from life, such as the Female
Nudes of 1493 ( 1177, fig. 45), 1496 ( 1180, fig. 95) and 1498 ( 1181 and 911 ), and to such
Italian drawings and engravings as reflected classical statuary (fig. 120 ). Thus Durer's
earliest constructions, perhaps already influenced by Barbari's elusive communications, con-
tain an element of naturalism and classicism utterly absent from their Gothic forerunners, and
this classical element was further strengthened by the incorporation of the Vitruvius canon;
indeed, after 15oojo1 the female figures, including the Eve in the Fall of Man, show an
unfeminine broadening and shortening of the thorax-suggested by Vitruvius's statement to
the effect that the breast of a "well-made" figure had to be as wide as one-quarter of its total
length-which had to be corrected in the drawings of 1506 (464-469, figs. 161, 162).
Nevertheless, Durer's original scheme did violence, in some measure, to nature. It denied
individual differences and hardened into geometrical curves what should be an organic undu-
lation. At a comparatively early date the number of the circular arcs determining the,contours
was restricted to three, and we have already seen that they abandoned altogether in the
drawings, just mentioned, for the painted version of the Fall of Man (figs. 164/165); later on,
Durer was to state explicitly that "the boundary lines of a human figure cannot be drawn with
a compass or ruler." However, even these-Venetian-drawings for the Fall of Man were still
practical "constructions" ready for direct transportation into a panel or engraving, and not
yet documents of a theoretical discipline which is to the medieval "pourtraicture" as the
"costruzione legittima" is to the perspective practices of Petrus Cristus or Dirk Bouts. In this
respect a fundamental change occurred in Durer's outlook only when he had come into contact
with the work of Italian theorists greater than Jacopo de' Barbari, which must have happened
shortly before he returned to Nuremberg in 1507.
These great Italian theorists were, to omit a host of less important ones, Leone Battista
Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci. They had reinstated the classical idea of "aesthetic anthro-
pometry," that is to say, they were no longer interested in constructing figures but in investi-
gating the proportions of the "homo bene figuratus" pure and simple; and both endeavored
to put this undertaking on a new and scientific basis. They actually measured classical statues
and, more important, they collected statistical data from living models.
Alberti was especially interested in perfecting the metrical system. He devised a scheme
called "Exempeda" whereby the whole length of the body was divided into six "feet"
(pedes), the "foot" into ten "inches" ( unceolae, deriveeil, as our word "inch," from
Latin uncia), and the "inch" into ten "smallest units" ( minuta). Every part of the body
could thus be expressed by three integers (as 14.7). Leonardo, on the other hand, was satis-
fied with the traditional units-Vitruvius's "head" (from the chin to the top of the skull) and
"face" (from the chin to the roots of the hair) which are one-eighth and one-tenth of the total
length, respectively, and the "face" of a medieval, probably Byzantine, canon where it
amounted to one-ninth of the total length. But he went much farther than Alberti in measur-
ing and remeasuring living models; and, more important, he developed a personal method
which rendered the metrical system irrelevant. Convinced of the intrinsic unity of the human
1
organism, he was anxious to discover "correspondences" or, to use the expressio'n of Pom-
ponius Gauricus, "ana)ogies," rather than isolated data: he compared various parts of the
body, whether or not they are related to each other from an anatomical point of view, and
expressed their relationship, preferably an identity, in statements reading about as follows:
"The width of the arm across its junction with the hand corresponds with the length of the
thumb; and with the combined width of the three middle fingers; and with the inner length
of the .small finger; and with the combined width of the four toes excluding the big toe;
and Wlth the length of the ear;" etc., etc. Ultimately, these quantities would have to be
referred, of course, either to the total length of the body or to such units as "head" or "face";
but from Leonardo's point of view it was much less important to ascertain their numerical
value than to establish their relationship.
The drawings illustrating Alberti's and Leonardo's observations are naturally very differ-
ent from Durer's early constructions. They were not intended for direct use in works of art but
merely served to visualize the measurable proportions of the human body as objectively and
completely as possible. The figures are therefore rigidly erect and are represented in three or
at least two elevations (frontal, profile and, in some instances, dorsal), aligned on a common
standing line. In order that the beholder may "read off" the dimensions with ease, the figures
are often plotted against a "uniform grating," its intervals determined by "feet," "heads"
"f " h b or aces as t e case may e; and the arm of the profile figure is either cut off or forced back
as far as humanly possible so as not to obstruct the view of the chest.
Three drawings which correspond to the above description bear witness to the fact that
Durer's epcounter with Leonardo marks the turning point in his career as a theorist of human
proportions. Two of these are obviously traced from Leonardesque models because they show,
in addition to the "uniform grating" and the characteristic _motif of the forced-back arm,
masculine types of unmistakably Leonardesque cast ( 1602 1603). The third, executed
in 1507 and revised in 1509, is an independent study of a woman in profile with her arm cut
off, but it retains the "uniform grating" and is accompanied by a long-winded text containing
no less than nine Leonardesque "analogies" ( 1641, fig. 317).
A whole group of other drawings executed between 1507 and 1509-all representing
female figures in pure profile-show Durer well launched upon his new course toward strict
anthropometry. Technically, he emancipated himself from the influence of Leonardo in a
surprisingly short time ( 1642, 1643). He gradually abandoned the search for "analogies" in
favor of directly referring each quantity to the total length, and soon rejected the idea of a
"uniform grating," which entailed a somewhat schematic distribution of one large unit over
the figure. He developed instead a more organic and flexible system according to which
the dividing horizontals-whether drawn out as actual lines or replaced by a scale placed at
the margin of the diagrams (16051613)-are no longer spaced at equal intervals but at
intervals by actual divisions of the human body, these intervals then being
expressed by ahquot fractwns of the .total length at times as meticulously calculated as
1/30, 2/19- or 1/14 + 1/15. In principle, however, the contact with Leonardo had the
266 DURER AS A THEORIST OF ART
lasting effect of breaking the spell of the "ideal proportion." Before 1506, the postures, types
and shapes of the figures had been based on accepted classical models and their proportions
had been determined by the Vitruvius canon, excepting only the above mentioned Sol or
Samson (1596/97) and several feminine figures. After his return from Venice Durer
was forever convinced that there was not one absolute beauty-not even in the Apollos
and Venuses of classical Antiquity-but many forms of relative beauty expressing or,
to put it the other way, conditioned by the diversity of breeding, vocation and natural
disposition. The anthropometrical drawings of 1507-1509 already include specimens of
extreme slenderness, extreme stoutness and a "happy medium" normally preferable to but no
longer excluding the more exaggerated possibilities. A few years later, Durer was to discover
that even the "mean" type admitted an untold number of subtle variations, and was to state
explicitly that it was impossible to capture or to define "the" beautiful; that one and the
same figure could appear more or less beautiful in different contexts; that, conversely, a
thinner or stouter figure could be equally praiseworthy each in its own way; that the artist
had to make his selection from all sorts of types according to his task, except that he had to
avoid abnormalities "unless he deliberately wanted them"; and that, therefore, the purpose
of the theory of proportions was to provide him, not with one canon but with specimens and
methods which would enable him to produce, within the widest limits of human nature and
on the basis of sheer measurement, all possible kinds of figures: figures "noble" or "rustic"-
leonine, canine or fox-like-choleric, phlegmatic, melancholy or sanguine-wrathful or
kindly-timid or cheerful-figures, even, "from whose eyes shine Saturn or Venus."
Working on these entirely original lines-not even Leonardo had thought of developing
the theory of proportions into what may be called comparative or differential anthropometry
-and, according to his own words, "investigating about two or three hundred living persons,"
Durer accumulated and organized his material so rapidly that he could contemplate a printed
publication as early as in 1512 and 1513. As we can infer from the numerous drawings dated
or datable in these two years, this publication would have been nearly identical with what
now constitutes the First Book (brought into final shape in 1523) of Durer's comprehensive
treatise on human proportions, the Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion of 1528. As
published, this First Book contains five different types of the male and female figure m e a s u r ~
ing seven, eight, nine and ten "heads" respectively; furthermore-apart from a description
of some technical procedures such as parallel projection ( 1647-1649)-the detailed measure-
ments of the head-both male and female-the hand, the foot, and the baby; all the propor-
tions are given in three dimensions and expressed in aliquot fractions of the total length.
In Durer's opinion none of these five types deserved to be called deformed or even ugly,
though he certainly would have considered the "mittelmassige" ("mean" or rather "mod-
erate") types B and C, descendants of the early Apollos, as closer approximations to the
"rechte Hubsche" ("true beauty") than the "grobe baurische" ("coarse and rustic") type A
which, as A. M. Friend has shown, is of Herculean ancestry ( 1624a, fig. 318) or the "lange
dunne" ("long and thin") types D and E. It is with the two moderate types that Durer's
THEORY OF HUMAN PROPORTIONS AND MOVEMENT
measurements of "the" head, "the" hand and "the" foot agree, and both of them still con-
form, in general, to the eight-heads canon of Vitruvius. Apart from this concession to a
classical authority, all the figures are built up on the basis of empirical data collected by the
painstaking investigation of many individuals and coordinated into "types" much as a
physicist will condense the results of a thousand experiments into a few charts where minor
deviations are smoothed out in favor of coherent curves. There is only one other non-empirical
element, likewise suggested by a classical source: the "rule" that the length of the torso
(from the pit of the throat to the hip-bone) should be to the thigh (from the hip-bone to the
knee) as the thigh is to the shin (from the knee to the ankle). We happen to know that it was
through the study of Euclid that Durer had conceived the idea of applying this magic formula
to the human body. He even invented a device-named "Teiler" ("divisor") and described
at length in the First Book of the printed treatise-which, given the distance between the
pit of the throat and the ankle and the length of the torso, would determine the locus of the
knee. But it is characteristic that this construction-necessarily erroneous because the problem,
as posed, cannot be solved by methods of elementary geometry-is applied to only five figures
out of ten, three women and two men.
In 1513 Durer abandoned the idea of a publication for both external and internal reasons.
On the one hand, he had been appointed by Maximilian I for tasks which, in conjunction with
his normal activities, left little room for theoretical work. On the other hand, he could not
help realizing that, from his own point of view, the content of the First Book had to be sup-
plemented in two directions: by a theory of movement, and by a theory of variation.
As we have seen, Durer's earlier scheme of construction had taken care of the postures of
the figures, as well as of their proportions. When he abandoned this scheme in favor of pure
"aesthetic anthropometry" the figures turned into motionless diagrams which, to quote Durer's
own words, "are of no use whatever so stiffly erect as they are," and the problem of move-
ment had to be dealt with separately. In 1512/13 Durer tried, in a tentative way, to manipu-
late these diagrams into the familiar poses of the Apollos and Adams of 1500-1504, and this
explains what is generallY. referred to as a "retrospective" group of drawings executed in those
two years ( 1616-1621 (But it was not until1519, after the Emperor's death, that he tackled
the problem methodicaliy and worked out what was to constitute the Fourth Book of the
Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion. As has already been mentioned in our discussion
of his latest style, he endeavored to make human movement constructible by means of parallel
projection. On the one hand, he devised a series of figures which systematically illustrate all
the possibilities of bending, turning and stepping in which every part of the figure, however
shifted'against the other, remains either parallel or at right angles to the picture plane so that
each figure can be conveniently rotated 90 degrees ( 1656a and fig. 324). On the other hand, he
-tried tofacilitate the construction of unrestricted postures by dissecting the whole figure into
a number of units which were inscribed into such simple stereometrical bodies as cubes,
parallelepipeds and truncated pyramids; by shifting these around in space any number of
poses could be produced in what may be called a synthetic fashion ( 1653-1656 and fig. 322).
268 DtJ"RER AS A THEORIST OF ART
The shortcomings of both these methods are all too evident. Di.irer knew, of course, that human
movement is of an organic and not of a mechanical character and that it admits of inexhaust
ible variety. But in contrast with Leonardo-whose studies in this field he copied whenever
he had an opportunity ( 1663 and 1664)-he had no chance of familiarizing himself with
human anatomy; and he could not as yet conceive of movement as a continuous process.
Leonardo, basing himself on a more advanced interpretation of infinity or continuity, had
envisaged a graphic scheme-to be developed by a late follower-by means of which human
movement could be described as a continuous succession of an infinite number of "phases"
(fig. 323). Di.irer could think of it only as an abrupt transformation of crystallized "poses."
Having established the principle, as early as 1512/13, that a geometrical theory of pro
portions could, and would, do justice to all imaginable variations of human physique and
character, Di.irer very naturally felt that the five types described in his First Book were not
sufficient; he decided to more than double the material by adding eight further types, both
male and female, as well as two new male heads. These are described in the Second Book of
the Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion which differs from the First in two respects.
First, the idea of the "rule" has been abandoned, and the influence of Vitruvius no longer
manifests itself in actual measurements but merely in the fact that some of the figures are
inscribed in a square or circle. Second, the dimensions are no longer expressed in aliquot frac
tions of the total length but are indexed according to Alberti's "Exempeda" system which
must have come to Di.irer's attention after 1523, possibly through Francesco Giorgi's De
harmonia mundi totius of 1525. Di.irer translated Alberti's pedes by "Masstabe" ("meas
ures"), unceolae by "Zahlen" ("numbers") and minuta by "Teile" ("parts"), and even
tried to outdo Alberti in accuracy by subdividing this smallest unit into three "Tri.imlein"
("particles") each of which is equivalent to about one millimeter. Materially, Alberti's
method does not differ very much from the one employed in the First Book; formally or rather
psychologically, however, it means a final disavowal of a geometrical approach in favor of an
arithmetical one. When expressing the parts of a whole in aliquot fractions, we still stress
spatial rather than numerical relations because the sequence of those fractions-1/1, 1/2,
1/3, etc.-is wholly different from that of the natural numbers. When expressing them as
multiples of a given unit (even if this unit is in turn a fraction of the whole), we do the
opposite: the results appear as a tabulation of integers which do not convey the idea of a
geometrical division but invite the arithmetical processes of addition and subtraction:
Alberti's pedes, unceolae and minuta can be added and subtracted as easily as modern
decimal fractions-which indeed they are.
By the addition of the Second Book the number of types placed at the artist's disposal was
increased from five to thirteen, or, counting the men and women separately, from ten to
twenty-six. But 5-ven this did not satisfy Di.irer's desire not to restrict the infinite complexity
of nature. In Third Book he submitted various methods which would enable the artist to
change the proportions of any basic figurefthat is, of any figure described in the First and
Second Books-ad libitum, yet on of a consistent geometrical principle. These
\.
METHODS OF VARIATION; PHYSIOGNOMY
methods consist of divers kinds of projections by which any given set of quantities can be
enlarged or reduced uniformly as well as progressively. They could be applied to any of the
three dimensions of the basic figure (for, as Di.irer says, "if I have failed it must be either in
regard to height, or to width, or to depth"), and to the whole body as well as to the single
parts, in which case the resulting relations could become "inexpressible in terms of aliquot
fractions" ("unnennbarlich in derZahl, die man messen will"), that is to say, irrational. They
could also be combined with one another, which opened up still further possibilities. The
crowning achievement is a device by which the dimensions are projected on a circular curve
from which result distortions like those produced by concave or convex mirrors (fig. 319).
Di.irer was fully aware of the fact that an indiscreet use of all these methods could easily
result in unwanted ugliness and, ultimately, in monstrosity. He warns his readers that he
had purposely exaggerated the variations in his comparatively small figures, and untiringly
admonishes them to use discretion ("Bescheidenheit") lest they might produce "intolerable"
distortions. On the other hand, however, he attributed a special educational value to ugliness
as such: the beautiful, he thought, resides in the middle' between two extremes ("neither a
pointed nor a flat head is considered beautiful, but a round one is, because it is the mean
between the two others"); therefore the artist had to know these extremes in order to avoid
them whenever he wished to achieve a beautiful shape: "Who knows and understands what
makes ugly and awkward can infer therefrom that he must keep away from it"; and: "No-
body knows what makes a good shape unless he knows before what makes a bad one."
It is for this twofold purpose-of doing justice to nature's variety and of capturing beauty
by way of defining the mean between two opposites-that Di.irer devoted a further section of
his Third Book to a geometrical analysis of human physiognomies. "Beautiful" faces had
already been illustrated by the Apollos, Adams, Eves Goddesses of 1500
1504; and the detailed measurements of such ideal, or at least perfectly normal, physiogno
mies had been established in numerous drawings (e.g. 1645/46) and had ultimately been laid
down in the First and Second Books of the Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion. In the
Third Book, now, Di.irer wishes to teach how to vary the features of the face as infinitely, and
by similar methods, as he had taught to vary the proportions of the whole body.
Di.irer's interest in abnormal physiognomies can be traced back to his first stay in Venice
which had given him an opportunity of becoming acquainted with Leonardo's so-called carica-
tures. This interest, first manifesting itself, we remember, in the Christ Among the Doctors
of 1506, soon took a direction toward scientific research. Occasionally we find physiognomical
series, one of which begins with a normal profile altering itself into a number of more or less
monstrous varieties so that the last looks like a cross between a Negro and an ape ( 1124 [fig.
320], 1125, 1129). Soon, however, Di.irer began to base his physiognomical studies upon the
principle of opposition: they illustrate the contrast between two profiles as widely disparate
as possible, for instance one with extremely large eyes, a sharp, drooping, aquiline nose and a
protruding, pointed chin, and the other with extremely narrow eyes, a blunt, turned-up pug
nose and a flat and fleshy chin ( 1126, cf. also 1139). Finally-again from 1519 (839)-
270 D'ORER AS A THEORIST OF ART
these and all other variations were reduced to geometrical principles. Each head is inscribed
in a square, and in each case the proportions, the placing of the features and the very contours
of the profile are determined by geometrical lines drawn within the square. Lines which in a
normal face are parallel will either diverge or converge; straight lines will be replaced either
by concave or convex curves; horizontals will either he raised or lowered; verticals will be
shifted either to the right or to the left; and the basic contrasts thus created can be diversified
ad infinitum. To take two pairs from the printed Treatise as an example: in one case, a profile
with all lines slanting down is opposed to a profile with all lines slanting up; in the other,
features distributed as widely as possible, with the ear pushed upwards and the skull reduced
to a minimum, are contrasted with features compressed into a small triangle, with the ear
pushed down and the skull prevailing over everything else (fig. 321). "And the more of such
ugliness is left out," to quote the conclusion of Durer's physiognomical discussion, "the more
remains of the lovely and beautiful."
THE Underweysung der Messung was respectfully quoted by Galileo and Kepler; hut Pirck-
heimer's sister Eufemia-a nun in the convent of Bergen near Neuburg on the Danube-wrote
to her brother: "There has just come to hand a book by Durer, dedicated to your name, about
painting and measurement .... We had a good time with it, hut our pain tress says she does not
need it because she can paint just as well without it." The Vier Bucher von Menschlicher
Proportion-translated into Latin by Durer's friend Joachim Camerarius as early as 1532-34
and then into many modern European languages-laid the foundations of scientific anthro-
pometry; hut Michelangelo and a host of other Italian artists and theorists, in part misin-
terpreting Durer's intentions hut on the whole not without reason, called it a futile enter-
prise and a mere waste of time.
In point of fact the usefulness of Durer's two books for the practicing artist is more than
questionable. Originally, the problems treated therein should have been dealt with, in a far
less exhaustive and theoretical way, in a few chapters of a general Treatise on Painting, or
rather on "That which Makes a True Painter, Mastering His Art." But gradually the train-
ing camp for painters had developed into the playground of a scientist-a means had become
an end in itself.
This general Treatise on Painting, conceived under the impact of Durer's experiences on
his second journey to Venice, would have comprised three principal parts, each part divided
into three sections, and each section subdivided into six chapters.
The First Part, or "Preface," would have dealt with the selection and education of the
"ideal" young painter and would have ended with a praise of painting on six different counts,
such as piety, fame, "richness in joys," glory for God, and worldly prosperity. All this, partic-
ularly the emphasis on fame and joyfulness, bears witness to the fact that Durer wished to
join forces with those Italian writers who fought the great battle for the recognition of
painting as one of the "liberal" arts; and this tendency-one of the most characteristic Ren-
aissance phenomena-can also be observed in what may be called his educational program.
CONTEMPLATED GENERAL TREATISE ON ART 271
The young painter should he selected and trained with due regard to his horoscope and
humoral disposition (which, to some extent, amounts to the same thing) ; he should he
brought up whh love rather than harshness, in quiet, agreeable surroundings, in temperance,
chastity and in the fear of God; he should learn Latin in order to understand works of litera-
ture; he should not he overworked, and he should he treated with cheerful music "in case his
melancholy should superahound because of too much exertion." Injunctions like these are, as
such, by no means original. Durer could, and probably did, appropriate them from such
medieval treatises as Conradus's De disciplina scholarium which formerly sailed under the
flag of Boethius. What is original is their application to a profession which, in the North, was
still thought of as a mere handicraft; that Durer claimed for young painters what had been
deemed the privileges of young scholars would have struck his father and old Michael
Wolgemut as something revolutionary.
In the Third Part, or "Conclusion," on the other hand, Durer would have discussed the
problems of the mature painter having achieved the highest rank in his profession: where he
should practice his art; that he should charge high fees for his work-"for no money is too
much therefor, and this is right according to divine and human law"; and that he should praise
God for his exceptional gift.
These pedagogic and sociological disquisitions, then, would have formed, as it were, a
kind of frame for the piece de resistance of the whole treatise: the Second Part, entitled
"Exposition of Paintihg." This would have set forth the practice and theory of painting
itself, rising from a discussion of manual skill ("Freiigkeit," chiefly to be acquired by copying
from good masters) to the theory of human and architectural proportions, the theory of color
and, finally, perspective.
Durer soon came to realize the unfeasihility of this over-ambitious program. He planned
to isolate the content of the second and third sections of the "Exposition of Painting," that
is to say, to confine himself to art theory pure and simple; according to this more modest plan,
his "Buchle" (little book) would have covered the following points: first, the proportions of'
a young child; second, the proportions of a mature man; third, the proportions of a mature
woman; fourth, the proportions of a horse; fifth, "something about architecture"; sixth, per-
spective; seventh, the theory of light and shade; eighth, the theory of color; ninth, compo-
sition ("Ordnung der Gemal"); tenth-a notion shortly to be explained-the production
of paintings "out of one's head ("aus der Vernunft") without all other aid."
But even this "restricted program" proved too large for Durer's conscientiousness. As
early as 1512 he decided to cut it up, so to speak, and to develop its parts into separate,
specialized treatises. The first of these-covering, or rather more than covering, points one,
c two and three of the "restricted program"-was that treatise on human proportions which,
as we have seen, was ready for publication as early as 1513 hut was ultimately incorporated,
as the First Book, in the Vz"er Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion. The second (points five,
six and seven of the "restricted program") was to deal with architecture, perspective and the
theory of light and shade, and gradually developed into the "Unterweisung der Messung."
272
DORER AS A THEORIST OF ART
The third-a book on the proportion of the horse (point four )-never went beyond the stage
of practical experiments (witness the drawings culminating in the Knight, Death and Devil,
1674-1676). And the fourth-the book on painting proper which Durer still hoped to write
in 1523 (points eight, nine and ten)-did not get beyond a paragraph to the effect that the
unity of a given color ought never to be jeopardized by the process of modelling: "Supposing
a layman looks at thy picture, which, among other things, contains a red coat, and says:
'Look here, my friend, how nicely red is the coat on one side, and on the other it has a white
color or pale spots !'-then thy work is objectionable, and thou hast not satisfied him. Thou
must paint a red thing in such a fashion that it is red throughout, and yet appears relieved,
and so with all the other colors. The same thou must observe in shading lest one might say a
beautiful red is soiled with black. Therefore be careful to shade each color with a color which
harmonizes therewith. For instance, take a yellow color: if it is to remain true to its kind
thou must shade it with a yellow darker than the principal color; wert thou to set it off with
green or blue it would depart from its kind, and would never be called yellow but turn into a
changing color as in those shot fabrics of two different colors."
We would give much for knowing what Durer thought about "composition" or "Ordnung
der Gemal" (point nine of the "restricted program"). But-recent assertions to the contrary
notwithstanding-he has not left a single line, written or printed, which would transcend
the problem of the individual figure; what he calls "Versammlung" is not the whole of a
picture but the ensemble of parts which constitute the human organism, or even a mere unit
within the human organism as in the phrase "die ganze Versammlung des Haupts" ("the
whole ensemble of the head"). Thus a whole group of categories and problems which play a
considerable role in Italian writing, such as "invention," "decorum" and the relationship
among painting, sculpture, music and poetry, are not even touched upon in Durer's literary
remams.
Durer's Underweysung der Messung.and Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion, then,
are both more and less than they were intended to be. They are less in that they are only a
fragment of a much wider program; they are more in that they are richer in content and more
scientific in method and presentation than would have been possible within the framework
of the original plan. There is, of course, an intrinsic logic in this development. Both by inclina-
tion and by conviction, Durer could not have written on color or atmosphere as he could
write on geometry, human proportions, architecture-or, for that matter, fortification. Con-
versely, if he did write on geometry, human proportions, architecture and fortification the
results were bound far to outgrow the purposes of a "Malerbuch."
However, Durer was not only a geometrical genius and a great technician, he also was a
thinker; and, no matter how specialized and at times abstruse his researches became, he never
lost sight of those fundamental problems which, later on, were to constitute the domain of
what is, not very felicitously, called Aesthetics. He first attempted to discuss these problems
in an essay, started afresh and rewritten time and again but never completed, which was to
serve as an Introduction into the treatise on human proportions prepared for publication in
"AESTHETIC" DOCTRINES
273
1512/13. When he resumed his work in later years-with particular intensity in 1523-he
decided to develop these earlier drafts into an exhaustive and self-contained chapter to be
appended to the Third Book of the Vier Bucher von Menschlicher Proportion, that is to say,
at the end of the theory of proportions propd (the Fourth Book, we remember, being devoted
to the theory of movement). It is in this "aesthetic excursus," as it is commonly referred to,
that we find the final statement of what may be called Durer's philosophy of art.
MANY POINTS OF DuRER's DOCTRINE-which is, of course, not a "system" but an organism
of living, interpenetrating and, in part, conflicting thoughts-belong to the basic tenets of
the Early and High Renaissance. Like all his Italian contemporaries and predecessors, Durer
demanded verisimilitude and was specific in his repeated exhortations to observe those
"strange lines" which delimit "the brow, the cheeks, the nose, eyes, mouth and chin with
their indentations, projections and individual shape," to elaborate on the smallest details,
and "not to omit the tiniest wrinkles and prominences" ( "Ertlein," rendered as "globuli" by
Camerarius whose splendid translation is indispensable for the understanding of Durer's
archaic German). Like them, he felt, and never ceased to feel, that the highest aim of art
was to capture the beauty of the human body; for he believed that "above all things we love
to see a beautiful human figure," and it had been for this very reason that he had decided
"first to work on human proportions and to write about other things later if God gives me
time." Like them, he was convinced that neither beauty nor even verisimilitude could be
attained without that theoretical knowledge or insight which he calls "art" in the narrower
sense; for he had realized that practice without "art" was a "deception" or a "prison" (that
is, a place both lightless and confined) while, on the other hand, "art'' could not "grow"
and would "remain hidden" without practice. Like them, fipally, he trusted geometry with
the power of dispelling "errors" and "wrongness" and of "proving things to be right,"
though he found himself compelled to admit that this power was limited and that many
things "had to be left to human opinion." When Durer says "But if thou hast no right
foundation it is impossible for thee to make something correct and good even though thou
mayst have the greatest practice and freedom of hand in the world," he is in complete
agreement with Leonardo who wrote: "Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like sailors who board a ship without rudder and compass, never having any certainty
as to whither they go." When he asserts that the hand of an artist whose "head is full of
'art' " ("sci entia plenus," as the Latin translation puts it) will be "obedient" so that "thou
. wilt n ~ t do a stroke or blow in vain ... and needst not think about it very long," he almost
literally repeats a sentence of Leone Battista Alberti: "And the mind, stimulated and
._ warmed. up by practice [ exercitatione], will apply itself quickly and adroitly to the work,
and t h ~ t hand will follow most speedily which is well guided by the unerring insight of the
mind [ ragione d' ingegno]."
In other respects, however, Durer's ideas were heretical rather than orthodox from the
point of view of the rank and file of Italian theorists. With all his longing for beauty, he
274
DtJRER f.S A THEORIST OF ART
did not accept that kind of idealism which requires the artist always to embellish or, as
Alberti literally says, to "emend" reality and "not only to give lifelikeness to all the parts
but also to add beauty because in painting loveliness is not so much desirable as necessary."
He felt, on the contrary, that the crude, the ugly, the fantastic and even the monstrous had
their legitimate place in art, and he attributed, as we shall see, a peculiar virtue to those
who can display their skill in "coarse and rustic things." Nor did he share Alberti's belief
that one objective norm of beauty could be laid down in one canon. He had come to realize
that perfect or absolute beauty (in Camerarius's translation of the Vier Bucher the expres-
sion "rechte- Hubsche" is actually rendered by "absoluta pulchritudo") transcends the
human mind and is known only to God, the "Master of all beauty," as the Book of Wisdom
has it; that it does not reside in any individual body and reveals itself to the mortal eye in
many shapes according to taste and changing conditions. In this respect he sided _with
Leonardo da Vinci who demanded, above all other things, variety ("variedt," rendered by
"Unterschied" in Durer's writings); who gave advice as to the representation of beauty,
not by way of a decree valid under all circumstances but only "in case thou wantst to make
a figure showing gracefulness"; and who contended that there was not one Beauty but as
many beauties as there were beautiful faces and competent judges: "Facial beauty can be of
equal excellence, yet divers in shape, in different persons; therefore it is of as many varieties
as the number [ scil., of faces] to which it adheres." And: "As there are different beauties,
all of equal grace, in different bodies, different judges of like intelligence will judge them
to be of great variety among themselves, each according to his predilection."
However, Durer did not approach the writings of his Italian predecessors as an eclectic
who would pick out whatever utterance seemed plausible to him, now taking sides with
Alberti, and now with Leonardo, as the case may be. Being, as it were, an "outsider" and
therefore unencumbered by an established tradition which demanded either adherence or
opposition, he was free to accept or to reject according to his personal experiences and con
victions; and the very freedom of this choice was bound to make him critical where Alberti
had been naively dogmatic, and Leonardo no less naively skeptical. Alberti believed in
absolute beauty and thought of it as a prerequisite of artistic value; Leonardo believed in
relative beauty and disregarded rather than expressly denied the contention that "in paint
ing loveliness was not so much desirable as necessary." But neither of them was worried by
the question whether and to what extent the concept of beauty had a determinable signifi-
cance in art. Alberti's position precluded such a question by definition, and Leonardo did
not even think of posing it: after having proved the relativity of beauty both on objective
and subjective grounds, he considered the case as closed. Like Raphael who, in matters of
beauty, trusted "a certain idea" which "came into his mind," and of which he "did not
know whether it contains any artistic excellence," he did not conceive of reality as a be-
wildering mass of phenomena which had to be conquered by a philosophical effort, but as
a cosmos, ordered by "necessity," which could be penetrated by simple "experience." "Good
judgment," he says, "comes from good understanding, and good understanding comes from
CRITICAL APPROACH TO "BEAUTY"
275
a principle derived from good rules, and good rules are the daughters of good experience,
the mother of all sciences
thought o{ something infinitely enigmatical, holding some
sort of-seC'ret whtch had to be "pulled out." To his way of thinking truth was "hidden" or,
still more significantly, "buried" in nature; and we can easily see that, from this point of
view, the realization that beauty was relative could not put' an end to the discussion but
merely placed it on a new basis.
In the first place, Durer explicitly stated, in sharp and deliberate contrast with the
Albertian doctrine, that there was a fundamental difference between the aesthetic value
of the object represented in a work of art, and the aesthetic value of the work of art itself:
"Therefore I leave it to anybody," he wrote about 1523, "whether he wishes to make
beautiful or ugly things, for every workman must be able to make a noble or rustic figure;
he is a great artist who can give evidence of his true power and 'art' in coarse and rustic
things." And, in 1528: "It must be noted, however, that a well-instructed and experienced
artist may show more power and insight in a coarse, rustic image of small size than another in
his great work" ("Etsi peritus exercitatusque artifex in minime subtili ac in exiguo opere
quid possit ingenium et ars magis et melius probarit quam alius in grandi et subtili").
In the second place, Durer, having resigned himself to the fact that mortals will never
attain to that Beauty which is known only to God, all the more earnestly sought to determine
the criteria of that beauty which can be known to men. After having dwelt on that rich
variety ("Unterschied") of human shapes which is the subject of the whole Third Book,
Durer concludes with the statement that some of these varieties are ugly while others are
beautiful, and therewith prepares the reader for the decisive question: "When we now ask
how to produce a beautiful figure .... " In this connection appear the famous sentences:
"I believe that there is no man alive who might think out the maximum of beauty in the
lowliest living creature, let alonein man who is a special creation of God and master of the
other creatures. This I admit that one man may contemplate and produce a figure more
beautiful can another, and may demonstrate it with good natural reasons plausible to
our understanding; but not to that extent thatit could not be still more beautiful. For this
does not enter the mind of man."
Having thus established that the original question is not answerable, or rather that it
was posed under an erroneous assumption-for, instead of asking "how to attain absolute
beauty" it should have been asked "how to attain relative beauty"-and having ironically
dealfwith those who still might claim to know "which the right measure is and none other,"
Durer deliberately proceeds to restate the problem. "Now," he says, "since we cannot attain
to the very best, shall we give up our research This beastly thought we do not
accept. For, men having good and bad before them, it behooves a reasonable human being
to concentrate on the better ("meliora capessere quamvis optima negata sint," as Camerarius
puts it). So, then, let us ask how a better figure may be made .... "
DVRER AS A THEORIST OF ART
Even with this qualification, it was not easy for Durer to define the criteria-or, as he
expresses it, the "parts"-of beauty. In the drafts of 1512/13 he had considered three such
criteria: utility or, as we would call it in the language of today, "function" ("Nutz");
na!ve approval ("Wohlgefallen"); and the rule of the happy medium ("Mittelmass" or
"recht Mittel"). Utility means that there is neither a deficiency ("Mangel") such as the
absence of a leg, a lame foot or a crippled arm, nor a superabundance ("Ueberfluss") such
as the presence of a third eye or hand. Na!ve approval means, not the individual sanction of
any one man, least of all of the painter who is too easily swayed by a personal predilection
similar to a mother's love for her own child, but a kind of consensus omnium: "What all the
world holds to be beautiful, that we shall think beautiful, too, and shall endeavor to produce
it." The rule of the happy medium, finally, means, we remember, that a round head is more
beautiful than a flat or a pointed one, that the movements must neither be "sleepy" nor rash
("frech"), etc.: "Between too much and too little there is a right mean; this thou must try
to hi! upon in all thy works."
The criterion of utility still figures prominently in Durer's later drafts and in the
"aesthetic excursus." Approval, however-even in the sense of a general consensus-was dis-
carded altogether ("But if we ask how to make a beautiful image, some will say: according
to the judgment of men; but others will not admit this, and neither will I"); and the rule of
the happy medium, though still maintained and eloquently exemplified by the physiognomical
contrasts which have been discussed, was qualified by the statement: "This does not prove
that every mean between all things is the best; I only propose to apply it to certain things, as
if one says 'this is too long or too short a face, or, with regard to parts, this is too long, too
short, too bulging or too concave a forehead.'" Durer had come to realize that, as far as
beauty is concerned, the judgment of many men could not be trusted any more than that of
one-it is only with respect to errors of fact that he remained willing to accept the verdict of
Apelles's cobbler; and he had finally discovered that the rule of the happy medium was only
the corollary of a concept which had been barely touched upon in his drafts of 1512/13, but
which was ultimately to become the leading principle of his theory of beauty.
This concept-developed by the Stoics, unquestioningly accepted by a host of followers
from Vitruvius and Cicero to Lucian and Galen, surviving in medieval Scholasticism and
ultimately established as an axiom by Alberti who does not hesitate to term it the "absolute
and primary law of nature"-was the principle called UllfLfLETp{a or app,ov{a in Greek,
"symmetria," "concinnitas" or "consensus partium" in Latin, "convenjenza," "concordanza"
or "conformita" in Italian, and "Vergleichung" or, more frequently, "Vergleichlichkeit"
in Durer's German. It meant, to quote Lucian, the "equality and harmony of all parts in
relation to the whole," or, to quote Alberti, that which is achieved if "all the members, in
size as well as in function, kind, color and other similar things concur toward one beauty."
That this principle of harmony, congruity or "symmetry" (in the original, now obsoles-
cent sense) implies the rule of the happy medium would be evident even if Galen had not
expressly said: "We will mentally experience as 'symmetrical' whatever is equally removed
.
CRITERIA OF BEAUTY
277
from either extreme." For, since the excessive greatness or smallness of any one part would
destroy the harmony of the whole, the harmony of the whole necessarily depends on the
"medial" character of the parts and vice' versa. It is therefore quite logical for Durer to
affirm, in trying to define what he means by "Vergleichlichkeit": "As everything must be
appropriate and right in itself, so the entire ensemble [die ganze V ersammlung] must
harmonize [sick wohl zusammen vergleichen] ; thus the throat must well rhyme with the
head and shall be neither too short nor too long, neither too thick nor too thin."
In one respect, however, the principle of harmony transcends that of the happy medium:
it covers not only that which can be expressed in terms of "too much" or "too little" but
also that which can be expressed only in terms of "this" or "that"; in other words, not only
quantity but also quality. Alberti is careful to define his "convenienza" as a congruity in
"size" on the one hand, and in "function, kind [specie], color etc." on the other, and he
goes on to specify the concept of "kind" by warning the artists not to represent Helena or
Iphigenia with elderly and gnarled hands, or Ganymede with a wrinkled forehead and the
thighs of a stevedore. Leonardo, basing himself on Alberti, but significantly omitting his
classical examples, repeatedly stresses the same idea: "By quality we mean that, in addition
to the correspondence of the measurements to the whole, thou must not mix the members of
young persons with those of old ones, nor those of fat people with those of lean ones; and,
further, that thou must not give feminine members to males or mix graceful members with
awkward ones."
This principle of "convenienza," "concordanza," "conformita" or "Vergleichlichkeit,"
then, covering as it did both the symmetry of proportions and the accordance of qualities,
was Durer's final refuge in his quest for the criteria of beauty. "But in all these things," he
sums up his discussion of physiognomies, "I believe the things [die vergleich-
lichen Ding, rendered by a simple convenientia in Camerarius's translation] to be the
most beautiful ones; the other, extravagant things [die andern abgeschiednen Ding-aliena
et praerupta], though causing astonishment, are not all lovely"; and almost a full page of
the "aesthetic excursus" is devoted to paraphrases of Alberti's and Leonardo's admonitions
not to mix the r,nasculine with the feminine, the fat with the lean, the "smooth, even and
full" forms of youth with the "uneven, gnarled, warped and emaciated" forms of old age.
As we have seen, Durer extended the postulate of "Vergleichlichkeit" even to the handling
of color: he requested that each color be shaded with a color which harmonizes ( "sich
vergeleich") therewith, yellow with a darker yellow, red with a darker red, etc., and thereby
rejected, for the sake of a theoretical principle, the more progressive method of modelling
with complementary colors which had been practiced in the Netherlands for more than a
century and was particularly in favor with the Antwerp School at the time of his writing.
One question, however, remained as open as before: the question of which proportions
were "harmonious" or "symmetrical." That an athletic, youthful body would not fit in with
an aged, wrinkled face or that, to quote one of Durer's more picturesque examples, "a figure
must not-be made young in front and old behind, and vice versa" is more or less obvious and,
D"URER AS A THEORIST OF ART
in fact, a common rule of nature rather than a specific requirement of beauty. But whether
one-twentieth or one-twenty-first of the total length is the more satisfactory diameter of a
knee cannot be verified by objective observation. How, then, can we "arrive at a good
proportion and thereby implant, in a measure, beauty in our Durer, clearly perceiv-
ing the difficulty, excluded two possibilities from the outset: the "good proportion" cannot
be derived from any individual person ("thou canst not take it from a single human being,
for there is nobody alive on earth who has all the beauty about him"; and, later on: "one
does not often find a person with all his members well shaped, for every one has some fault").
Nor can it be established a priori, for: "Some talk about how human beings ought to be ... ;
but I consider nature as master and human fancy as a fallacy; once for all the Creator
has made men as they should be, and I hold that the true shapeliness and beauty is inherent
in the mass of all men; to him who can properly extract this [or "can extract the right
measure": der das recht herausziehen kann] I will give more credence than to him who wants
to establish a newly thought-up proportion [ eine neu erdichtte Mass] in which human beings
have had no share."
There remains, then-as indicated by the verb "to extract" ("herausziehen")-a process
of selection which does justice to the natural data without tying down the artist to any
particular case. At the beginning, Durer's interpretation of this process was influenced, to
some extent, by an immortal anecdote quoted ad nauseam in Renaissance writing and then
justly ridiculed by men like Bernini and Francis Bacon: Zeuxis, when asked to paint a Venus
-or Helen-for the city of Croton, was said to have used the five-or seven-most beau-
tiful virgins in town as models, selecting the most beautiful part of each for the corre-
sponding part of his picture, and thus achieving the "perfect composite": "If thou wantst
to make a good figure," Durer writes in 1512, "thou must take the from some, the
breast, arms, legs, hands and feet from others, thus exploring all kinds throughout all
members; for, from many beautiful things one gathers something good in a similar way as
the honey is collected from many flowers." Later on, the still somewhat "Zeuxisian" idea of
combining the measurements of single heads, breasts and arms gave way to the more subtle
concept of collecting, comparing, averaging and tabulating the dimensions of many whole
bodies, generally believed to be beautiful. The final version of the above sentence (in the
"aesthetic excursus") thus reads as follows: "To me, the most effective method seems to
take thy measures from many living human beings; but choose people therefor who are
regarded as beautiful, and such thou must copy with all possible diligence; for, from many
different persons a knowledgeable man may collect something good throughout the parts of
their members." It is obvious that the clause "but choose people therefor ... " opens a
back door, so to speak, to the much-maligned consensus omnium: the persons from whom
the beautiful proportions are to be derived have to be approved by public opinion before
being measured just as had been the case with the virgins of Croton before being painted.
But Durer cannot be blamed for having been unable to escape from one of those circles the
seeming viciousness of which is in reality the inevitable consequence of what the philosophers
call an "organic situation."
OUTWARD SELECTION AND INWARD SYNTHESIS
279
Be that as it may, in Durer's opinion the process of selection was the best method of
avoiding both the Scylla of the "newly thought-up proportion in which human beings have
had no share" and the Charybdis of the dependence on one individual and necessarily faulty
model. Now, had this process always to be carried out by rational and purposeful
Durer's answer is: No. He thought it perfectly possible that an experienced master can solve
the task of "fusing that, which is scattered, into one," as Aristotle admirably puts it, by
an inward selection instead of an outward one-by an intuitive synthesis in the artist's
mind or eye instead of an analytical operation with compasses, rulers and statistical tables:
"It is not my opinion that an artist has to measure his figures all the time. If thou hast
learned the art of measurement and thus acquired theory and practice together ... then it
is not always necessary to measure everything all the time, for thy acquired 'art' endows
thee with a correct eye [gut A ugenmass]" ( "Quin etiam de arte oculi instructi pro regula
esse incipiunt"-"thy eyes, instructed by 'art,' will begin to operate as a rule," to quote once
more from Camerarius' s translation) .
Thus reinterpreted as a process of inward and intuitive synthesis, the principle of selec-
tion assumed a much wider and indeed fundamental importance in Durer's philosophy. Not
only did it seem to enable the competent artist to arrive at a good-not "newly thought-
up"-proportion without actually "measuring everything," and thus to capture beauty as
far as humanly possible: it also seemed to enable him to produce all kinds of valid-not
"arbitrary" or "purely private''-images without resorting to natural models, and thus
to bring forth "new creature!;" at will. This is what Durer means by that "painting out of
one's head without all other aid" which he believed to be the ultimate consummation of
his art (it was to be treated, as we have seen, in the last chapter of his never written "Buchle"
on painting) ; and this is what he thus describes in the most widely known passages of the
"aesthetic excursus": "But life in nature manifests the fruth of these things. Therefore
observe it diligently, go by it and do not depart from nature arbitrarily, imagining to find
the better by thyself, for thou wouldst be misled. For, verily, 'art' [that is, knowledge] is
embedded in nature; he who can extract it has it. If thou acquirest it, it will save thee from
much error in thy work [Dann wahrhaftig steckt die Kunst in der Natur, wer sie heraus kann
reissen, der hat sie. Oberkummst du sie, so wirdet sie dir vielFehls nehmen.in deinem Werk-
Prorsus enim in natura demersa est ars, quam si extrahere potueris, iam adeptus errores
multos vitaveris in opere tuo] . .. Therefore, never put it in thy head that thou couldst or
wouldst make something better than God has empowered His created nature to produce.
For thy might is powerless against the creation of God. Hence it follows that no man can
ever make a beautiful image out of his private [ eigen] imagination unless he have replenished
his niind by much painting from life. That can no longer be called private [ Eigens] but
has become 'art' acquired and gained by study [iiberkummen und gelernte Kunst-acquisitum
ac comparatum studio artificium], which germinates, grows and becomes fruitful of its kind.
Hence it comes that the stored-up se.cret treasure of the heart [ versammlet heimlich Schatz
des II erzens-recondz'tus in mente thesaurus] is manifested by the work and the new creature
280
which a man creates [schOpft-concipit] in his heart in the shape of a thing. This is the
reason an experienced artist needs not copy from life for every picture; for, he sufficiently
pours forth what he has stored up from the outside for a long time." And: "The mind of
artists is full of images which they might be able to produce; therefore, if a man properly
using this art and naturally disposed [genaturt] therefor, were allowed to live many hundred
years he would be capable-thanks to the power given to man by God--of pouring forth
and producing every day new shapes of men and other creatures the like of which was never
seen before nor thought of by any other man" ("Animus artificum simulacris est refertus,
quae omnia incognita prius [ ! ] cum in humanis tum alia.fum rerum effictionibus in dies
prolaturus sit, si cui forte multo rum seculorum vita et ingenium [ ! ] ac studium artis huius
ususque divinitus con tiger it").
THESE TWO JUSTLY FAMOUS PASSAGES-in which the inward selection Or intuitive synthesis
ceases to be a mere process of coordination and purification and assumes the character of a
"creative" power-grew out of the following sentences penned in 1512: "The art of painting
is hard to acquire. Therefore, who does not find himself gifted therefor should not undertake
it, for it will come from influences from above [ obere Eingiessungen, meaning, according
to common usage, the influences of the stars] .... This great art of painting has been held
in high esteem by the mighty kings many hundred years ago. They made the outstanding
artists rich and treated them with distinction because they felt that the great masters had
an equality with God, as it is written. For, a good painter is inwardly full of figures [inwendig
voller Figur], and if it were possible for him to live on forever he would always have to
pour forth something new from the inner ideas of which Plato writes."
That this passage is the nucleus of the two later ones cannot be questioned: the phrases
"full of figures," "to pour out something new" ("etwas Neus auszugiessen") and "if it were
possible for him to live on forever" recur almost word for word in the final versions. Yet
there is a remarkable difference which sheds an interesting light on Durer's development
between 1512 and 1528. In the "aesthetic excursus" the artist is no longer likened to God
but merely credited with a "power given by God." His special talents are no longer accounted
for by "influences from above" but, less astrologically, by a natural disposition ( "genaturt").
And, still more important, the mysterious fountainhead of inward images "the like of which
was never seen before"-it should be noted that the German verb "schopfen" means both
"to create" and "to draw water from a well"-is no longer thought of as a flow of notions
a priori but as an accumulation of a posteriori experiences-as a "treasure," "stored up from
without" instead of "the ideas of which Plato writes." In other words: what appears, in the
"aesthetic excursus," as a theory of selecte've inward synthesis had originally been conceived
as a theory of spontaneous inward creation and had assumed its final form only by way of a
compromise after the fact.
This compromise can be accounted for, first, by Durer's growing awareness of the fact
that the doctrine formulated in 1512 had to be moderated in order to remain compatible with
l
'
CREATIVE ORIGINALITY; INSPIRATION; "IDEAS"
the dogma of rational naturalism; second, by his conversion from a humanistic and therefore
more or less anthropocentric point of view to the uncompromisingly theocentric convictions
of Luther. To introduce the Platonic ideas led, or at least might lead, to the emancipation
of the artist from reality-as actually stated by Plotinus when he wrote: "Phidias has
formed his Zeus, not after anything visible, but in such a way as Zeus himself would appear
were he to show himself to human eyes"; and to compare or even equate the painter with
God would have seemed blasphemous from Durer's later point of view. The medieval
scholastics had not infrequently drawn an apparently similar parallel, but not in order to
exalt the artist by comparing his production with the creation of God, but to make the
creation of God more understandable by comparing it with the production of the artist;
Thomas Aquinas had been especially careful to distinguish between the genuine "ideas" in
the mind divine and the "quasi-ideas" in the mind of a sculptor or architect. It was only in
the proud thought of the Renaissance that this metaphorical comparison was twisted into
a glorification of the artist, as when Leonardo writes: "The divine nature of the painter's
science transforms the painter's mind into an image of the mind divine, since he [or "it"],
with free power, proceeds to the production [generatione] of various entities, divers animals,
plants, fruits, lands, regions and so forth."
However, with Leonardo the medium of comparison is the painter's "scientia," his
"science." He shares with God the insight into the universal principles which underlie the
individual things in nature and is thus able to "generate"-not to "create," which expression
Leonardo deliberately avoids, as though remembering the distinction laid down by Thomas
in Summa Theologiae I, 45. 5-as many specimens as he sees fit; there is, at bottom, no
contradiction between this statement of Leonardo's and his other, more famous, assertion to
the effect that "the mind of the painter must resemble a nHrror which permanently trans-
forms itself into the color of its object and fills itself with as many images as there are
things placed in front of it." With Durer, on the other hand, the medium of comparison is
not the painter's ability to reproduce all that is, but his ability to call into being something
that never was. He shares with God the power to "create"; and the very "ideas of which
Plato writes" appear in Durer's text, not as the unchangeable foundation of knowledge,
but as the inexhaustible source of novel inventions, "incognita prius."
The passage of 1512 does not only go farther in its assertion of creative originality than
the "aesthetic excursus," it also goes farther than the sources from which it is derived. It is
composed, almost verbatim, of two sentences, both Platonizing (though not Platonic) in
character, one of which is found in Seneca, and the other in Marsilio Ficino. Seneca writes
"Plenus hie figuris est, quas Plato ideas appellat" ("he .is full of figures which Plato calls
-ideas"), and Ficino: "Uncle divinis inf/.uxibus oraculisque repletus nova quaedam inusita-
taque semper excogitat" ("thus full of divine influences and oracles he always thinks out
what is new and unheard-of"). But Seneca speaks of God Himself, and Ficino of philoso-
phers, poets and prophets. It was for Durer-encouraged, perhaps, by Agrippa of Nettesheim,
who, we remember, was the most important intermediary between Ficino and Germany,
Dtl"RER AS A THEORIST OF ART
and who had already dared to include architects, painters and other "craftsmen" among
those who may become inspired by the Saturnian "furor melancholicus"-to claim for artists
what the Florentines had res.erved tor "seers" ("vates"): the quality of genius.
Marsilio Ficino had not cared for art and-as a true Platonic-could not care for art,
and the Italian artists and art theoreticians had originally not cared for Ficino; Leonardo, the
"scientist," would have been much surprised, and possibly somewhat offended, had anybody
called him a "genius." It was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that a great
sculptor and painter, named Michelangelo, could be called "divino," and some more decades
had to pass before the philosophers of Mannerism, such as Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, could
transform Ficino's theory of beauty, celestial influences and "creative" ideas into a meta-
physics of art. Diirer, however, could fuse the Neo-Platonic theory of genius with the axioms
of German mysticism-the acceptance of the irrational, the idea of a direct communion or
even fusion with the mind divine, and the respect for the irreducibly individual-into what
may be called, with all due reservations, a Proto-Romantic interpretation of art.
If carried a little farther, this interpretation would have jeopardized-and, in fact,
did jeopardize, when the time had come-the very raison d' etre of any general and scientific
theory of art, including Durer's own lifelong researches in the field of geometry and human
proportions. For, if the talent for painting was really a gift infused into a chosen few by
"influences from above" or by the grace of God; if the truly creative power of an artist
resided in the "ideas of which Plato writes"; if his chief virtue was to "pour forth" some-
thing "new" the like of which had never been in the mind of any other man:. what could be
the use of those mathematical disciplines which, to quote Federigo Zuccaro, the champion
of "inward design," are not only tedious but also "enslave the mind of the artist to mechani-
cal restrictions and deprive it of judgment, spirit and Why should it be necessary
to bother about "rules" at all since, as Giordano Bruno was to write in 1585, there are as
many rules as there are
That Diirer himself was not unaware of this danger is evident from his later attempt
at softening down the anti-naturalistic and anti-rational accent of what he had written, in
1512, under the fresh impact of Neo-Platonic doctrines and with the Melencolia I already
germinating in his mind. But even the less radical and, so to speak, de-Platonized versions
of his original statement, with the "influences from above," the "ideas" and the name of
Plato left out, oppose creativeness to imitation, originality to "demonstrable" rules, the
value of the gifted individual to the value of general, teachable principles. Even in the
"aesthetic excursus" Diirer maintains the power of the artist-well-instructed, to be sure,
but also "naturally disposed therefor"-to create a "new creature in his heart" and to "pour
forth something new"; and when discussing the problem of beauty and ugliness he could not
resist the temptation to restate the individualistic and-here for once admittedly-mystical
aspect of his convictions in a manner which he himself acknowledged to be startling and
understandable only to his peers.
-THE UNICJUENESS OF GENIUS
He had established, as we have seen, that the aesthetic value of a work of art is not con-
tingent upon the aesthetic value of its object-in other words, that a picture representing
a "coarse" or even ugly figure may be better than a picture representing a beautiful one.
From the poi,nt of view of the layman this statement was-and, to a degree, still is-
shocking enough. But Durer, with a bold metabasis eis alto genos, went a considerable step
farther. As he had separated the commonly overestimated value of the natural object from
the value of the work of art, so he separated, within the artistic sphere itself, the equally
overestimated external qualities of the work-size, medium and careful execution-from
its internal or, as we would say, "purely artistic" ones. "The right masters," he says, "will
understand this speech, that I speak the truth: tb.at a man of minor insight will not achieve
in a beautiful work what another will achieve in a plain one; this is the reason one man
sketches something with his pen on a paper ih one day and is a better artist than another
who strenuously labors at his work for a year" (about 1 523). And, in the somewhat amplified
and even more emphatic version of the "aesthetic excursus," directly following the sentence
quoted on p. 27 5, line 14: "Only the powerful artists will be able to understand this strange
speech (Haec inusitata novaque aliis facile ac soli intelligent potentes intellectu et manu),
that I speak the truth: one man may sketch something with his pen on half a sheet of paper
in one day, or may cut it into a tiny piece of wood with his little iron, and it turns out to
be better and more artistic than another's big work at which its author labors with the utmost
diligence for a whole year. And this gift is miraculous [ wunderlich]. For, God often gives
the ability to learn and the insight to make something good to one man the like of whom
nobody is found in his own days, and nobody has lived before him for a long time, and nobody
comes after him very soon."
We take it for granted that a pen-and-ink sketch by Rembrandt is worth more than a
five by seven yards canvas by Ferdinand Bol. But in Durer's time, when his own paintings
were evaluated, more or less, on the basis of the cost of the materials and the number of
working hours, his statement was, indeed, a "strange speech"; and even in Italy the time
had not yet come for the drawings of great masters to be looked upon with that mixture of
aesthetic admiration and almost sentimental affection with which we are in the habit of
approaching them. When Aretina already begged for a scrap of paper hallowed by the
pencil of Michelangelo--the first "divino" !-Vasari still collected drawings from a purely
historical point of view and put them in an enormous volume which, however much cherished,
was little more than a corollary to his biographies. In Durer's sentences we have a remarkable
anticipation of the modern point of view, and this attitude was not only stated in a theo-
retical way but also governed his practice as an artist and, if one may say so, as a collector.
He was the first to sign and date .a large percentage of his own studies and sketches even
if he had no intention of selling them or giving them away; he inscribed several of them
with notes regarding the subject and the circumstances of execution-as in the portrait
of Maximilian I (1030), made "high up in the palace in his tiny little cabinet"-and he
did the same with the drawings of other, mostly earlier artists which he systematically
acquired and preserved (see, e.g., our nos. 629, 1235, 1277). In one instance he expressly
stated that he had written the inscription "in honor of the author" who in this case was Martin
Schongauer.
To some extent all this can be accounted for by the specifically Germanic preference for
the particular as against the universal, for the curious as against the exemplary, and for
the personal as against the objective; and this explains the fact that the signing and dating
of drawings did not become the fashion in Italy even after hero-worship had been extended
to artists. It is illuminating that no European language has an equivalent for the German
words "Handriss" and "Handzeichnung" ("hand-drawing") which stress the fact that the
hand of an individual person has rested on this very piece of paper, imparting to it a senti-
mental value not unlike that of a personal souvenir or even a relic-a hand-written letter, a
hand-signed document, a hand-embroidered handkerchief. But in Durer's case this general
German propensity was merely the fertile soil on which could thrive the seeds of the Italian
doctrine of genius. This is confirmed by his "seltsame Red" which clearly indicates that he
looked upon a drawing as the most distinctive manifestation of that divine, or, as he puts it,
"miraculous," gift which raises the "great" artist above all others.
How this reverence for genius could merge in Durer's mind with what may be called the
spirit of relic-worship is illustrated by an almost pathetic incident. In 1515 Raphael had
sent him a stately sanguine drawing showing two splendidly posed and modelled nudes. Durer
first noted on it the date of receipt, and after Raphael's death in 1520 he characteristically
added the following in memoriam: "Raphael of U rhino, who was so highly esteemed by the
Pope, has made these nudes and has sent them to Nuremberg, to Albrecht Durer, in order to
show him his hand." Now, modern critics have come to realize that this drawing was never
made by Raphael himself. They have rightly ascribed it to a member of his workshop (either
Francesco Penni or, more probably, Giulio Romano) and have hence concluded that the
inscription was a forgery. This conclusion, however, is erroneous. The inscription is unques-
tionably written by Durer. He himself was mistaken, and this mistake shows more than
anything the irreconcilability of his point of view with that of his Italian fellow-painter.
For Raphael it was a matter of course to present his German colleague with the best available
specimen of a style for which he felt responsible, no matter whether the manual execution
was his or a pupil's. Durer, on the contrary, took it for granted that an Italian master, whom
he respected and loved, could only have wanted to "show him his hand"-the hand of an
individual chosen by God.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Selected Bibliography*
GENERAL INFORMATION
Bibliographies
z. H. W. Singer, Versuch einer Durer Bibliographie (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, 4I),
2nd edition, Strassburg, I928.
2. G. Pauli, Die Di.irer-Literatur der letzten drei Jahre, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, XLI,
I9I91 :p. I-34
3 H. Tietze, Di.irerliteratur und Di.irerprobleme im Jubiliiumsjahr, Wiener Jahrbuch fur Kunstge-
schichte, VII, I\)30/3I, p. 232-259.
4 E. Romer, Die neue Di.irerliteratur, in: Albrecht Durer, Festschrift der internationalen Durerfor-
schung, herausgegeben vom "Cicerone" (G. Biermann, ed.), Leipzig and Berlin, I928, p. I I2-I32
Corpuses, Editions and Catalogues of Durer's Works of Art
WORKS IN ALL KINDS OF MEDIA
5 H. Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat, Kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke Albrecht Durers; vol. I (Der
;unge Durer), Augsburg, I928; vols. II, I and 2 (Der reife Durer), Basel and Leipzig, I937 and I938,
respectively.
6. The Durer Society (C. Dodgson, G. Pauli and S.M. Peartree, eds.), London, 1898-I91 I.
*7 W. M. Conway, The Art of Albrecht Durer (Catalogue of an Exhibition in the Walker Art
Gallery}, Liverpool, I 9 I o.
8. G. Pauli, Durer-Ausstellung in der Kunsthalle zu Bremen, October, I9I I; Seine W erke in Originalen
und Reproduktionen, geordnet nach der Zeitfolge ihrer Entstehung, Bremen, 19I 1.
9 Katalog der Albrecht Durer-Ausstellung, Nuremberg, I928.
PAINTINGS, WOODCUTS AND ENGRAVINGS
10. Durer; Des Meisters Gemiilde, Kupferstiche und Holzschnitte (Klassiker der Kunst, IV), 4th edi-
tion (F. Winkler, ed.), Stuttgart and Leipzig, I928 [The previous editions (V. Scherer, ed.) are so full
of errors that their usefulness is seriously impaired].
PAINTINGS
II. B. Riehl, Die Gemiilde von Durer und Wohlgemut in Reproduktionen, Nuremberg, 1887-1896
[A supplement (T. Schiener and H. Thode, eds.), Nuremberg, 1895/96, contains only a few genuine
pieces].
PRINTS IN GENERAL
12. J. Meder, Durer-Katalog; Ein Handbuch uber Albrecht Durers Stiche, Radierungen, Holzschnitte,
deren Zust'ande, Ausgaben und Wasserzeichen, Vienna, 1932.
*This selection from several thousand books and articles concerning the life and works of Albrecht Diirer is neces
sarily and admittedly subjective and further impaired by the recent disruption of the physical and intellectual
communication "lines with Europe. It is hoped, however, that the contributions included will enable the reader both
to control and to go beyond what has been said in the text. Asterisks indicate, first, contributions which, though
published more than a generation ago-that is to say, before 191o-are still indispensable for serious research; second,
contributions which, though short or inconspicuous, have struck the writer as fundament!!lly important. References of a
more specialized character may be found in the Handlist,
288
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENGRAVINGS (INCLUDING DRY POINTS AND ETCHINGS)
I3 G. Duplessis, Oeuvre de Albert Durer, reproduit et public par Amand-Durand, Paris, I877.
I4 F. F. Leitschuh, Albrecht Durer's Samtliche Kupferstiche, Nuremberg, I 892, I900.
*IS. S. R. Koehler, A Chronological Catalogue of the Engravings, Dry-Points and Etchings of Albrecht
Durer as exhibited at the Grolier Club, New York, I897
I6. Albrecht Durers samtliche Kupferstiche in Facsimilenachbildungen (]. Springer, ed.), Munich,
I9I4.
I7. C. Dodgson, Albrecht Durer (The Masters of Engraving and Etching), London and Boston, I926
[With illustrations of all engravings, dry points and etchings].
18. H. Heyne, Albrecht Durers samtliche Kupferstiche in der Grosse der Originate, Leipzig, I928.
I9. Albrecht Durers samtliche Kupferstiche (Preface by H. Wolffiin), Munich, I936.
For reproductions of the Engraved Passion see Singer's Bibliography (quoted as no. I), pp. 22 and 30 ss.
WOODCUTS
*20, C. Dodgson, Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts in the British Museum (2 vols.),
London, I903
1
I9Il (Index by A. Lauter, Munich, I925).
2I. W. Kurth, Durers siimtliche Holzschnitte (Preface by C. Dodgson). First German edition: Munich,
I927 (reprinted I935); English edition: London, I927; an inexpensive, not very satisfactory reprint of
the latter: New York, I946.
22. Albrecht Durers siimtliche Holzschnitte (0. Fischer, ed. and pre.), Munich, I938.
For reproductions of individual woodcuts and series of woodcuts see Singer's Bibliography (quoted as
no. I), pp. 23 ss. and 30 ss.
DRAWINGS (COMPLETE CORPUSES)
*23. F. Lippmann, Zeichnungen von Albrecht Durer in Nachbildungen (7 vols., vols. VI and VII
F. Winkler, ed.), Berlin, I883-I929.
24. F. Winkler, Die Zeichnungen Albrecht Diirers (4 vols.), Berlin, I936I939
DRAWINGS (sELECTIONS)
25. H. W. Singer, The Drawings of Albrecht Durer, London, s.a. (I905).
*26. R. Bruck, Das Skizzenbuch von Albrecht Durer in der Koniglichen Oeffentlichen Bibliothek zu
Dresden, Strassburg, I905 [C. the reviews by L. Justi, Repertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft, XXVIII,
I905, p. 365 ss. and by A. Weixlgartner, Kunstgeschichtliche Anzeigen, III, I9o6, p. I7 ss.; for the
history of the manuscript and its interrelation with others, see I. Schunke, Zttr Geschichte der Dresdner'
Diirerhandschrift, Zeitschrift des /)eutschen V ereins fur K unstwissenschaft, VIII, I 94 I, p. 3 7 ss,].
27. H. Wolffiin, .dlbrecht Durers Handzeichnungen, Munich, I9I4 [Several later editions].
28. A. Reichel, Die Handzeichnungen der Albertina, II; Albrecht Durer, Vienna, I923.
29. J. Meder, Durer-Handzeichnungen (Albertina Facsimile), Vienna, I927.
30. C. Dodgson, Durer Drawings in Colour, Line and Wash , , , in the Albertina, London, I928.
3I. A. E. Brinckmann, Albrecht Durers Landschaftsaquarelle, Berlin, I934 [See also no. I II].
Editions of Durer's Writings
*32. W. M. Conway, Literary Remains of Albrecht Durer , , . with Transcripts from the British
Museum Manuscripts, Cambridge, I889.
*33 K. Lange and F. Fuhse, Durers schriftlicher Nachlass, Halle a.S., I893
34 E. Heidrich, Albrecht Durers schriftlicher Nachlass, Berlin, 1908 [Selection from the preceding
publication],
35 Albrecht Durer, Records of the Journey to Venice and the Low Countries (R. Fry, ed.), Boston,
1913
BIBLIOGRAPHY
289
*35a. E. Reicke, Willibald Pirckheimers Briefwechsel, I (Veroffentlichungen der Kommission zur
Erforschung der Geschichte der Reformation und Gegenreformation, Humanistenbriefe, IV), Munich,
I 940 [With palaeographical transcription of DUrer's letters to Pirckheimer],
For editions of the Diary of 1520-21 see nos. I8I, I84, 185 of this Bibliography.
Comprehensive Monographs
)
BIOGRAPHIES
M. Thausing, Albrecht Durer; Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Kunst, 2nd edition (2 vols.),
Leip:Ig, 1884. The same (first edition) in English: M. Thausing, Albert Durer, His Life and Works
(F. A. Eaton, tr., 2 vols.), London, 1882.
37 A. Springer, Albrecht Durer, Berlin, 1892.
38. L. Cust, Albrecht Durer; A Study of His Life and Work, London, I 897,
39 H. Knackfuss, Albrecht Durer (C. Dodgson, tr.), London, I899/I900 [Much better than the
German original].
40. L. Eckenstein, Albrecht Durer, London and New York, I902,
41. M. Hamel, Albert Durer (Les Maltres de !'Art), Paris, s.a. (I903/04).
42. T. Sturge Moore, Albert Durer, London and New York, I905,
43 F. Niichter, Albrecht Durer; His Life and a Selection of his Works (L. Williams, tr., with a
preface by Sir Martin Conway), London, 1 9I 1.
44 E. A. Waldmann, Albrecht Durer (3 vols.), Leipzig, I9I6-19I8.
45 M. ]. Friedlander, Albrecht Durer, Leipzig, I92I.
46. T. D. Barlow, Albrecht Durer; His Life and Work, being a Lecture delivered to the Print Col-
lectors' Club dn November rs, I922, London, I923
47 H. Wolffiin, Die Kunst Albrecht Durers, 5th edition, Munich, 1926; 6th edition (K. Gerstenberg,
ed.), Munich, 1943
48. P. du Colombier, Albert Durer, Paris, I927.
49 E. Flechsig, Albrecht Durer (2 vols.), Berlin, I928, 1931.
50. A. Neumeyer, Durer (L. Loussert, tr.), Paris, 1930.
5 I. W. Waetzoldt, Durer und seine Zeit, Vienna, 1935; 5th edition, Konigsberg, 1944.
COMPREHENSIVE WORKS ON DURER'S PRINTS AND DRAWINGS
52. A.M. Hind, Albrecht Durer; His Engravings and Woodcuts, New York, 19I I.
53 M. ]. Friedlander, Durer der Kupferstecher und Holzschnittzeichner, Berlin, 19I9.
*54 C. Ephrussi, Albert Durer et ses Dessins, Paris, I882.
Biographical Details; Durer's Family and Friends
*55 P. Kalkoff, Zur Lebensgeschichte Albrecht Diirers, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, XX,
1897, p. 443-463; XXVII, 1904, p. 346-362; XXVIII, I905, p. 474-485.
*56.' E. Heidrich, Durer und die Reformation, Leipzig, I909.
Die Abstammung Albrecht Diirers, Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft fur
Vervzelfaltzgende Kunst (Dze Graphzschen Kunste, supplement), LII, 1929, p. 48/49.
58. H. "L. Kehrer, Durers Selbstbildnisse und die Diirerbildnisse, Berlin, I934
59 G. Pauli, Die Bildnisse von Diirers Gattin, Zeitschrift fur Bildende Kunst, Neue Folge, XXVI
(L), I9I5, p. 69-76.
6o. H. Beenken, Beitrage zu Jorg Breu und Hans Diirer, !ahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsamm-
lungen, LVI, I935, p. 59-73
BIBLIOGRAPHY
61. F. Winkler, Hans Diirer; ein Nachwort, Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, LVII,
1936, P 65-74 [See also E. Wiegand, Der Hochaltar von Schalkhausen, Jahrbuch der Preussischen
Kunstsammlungen, LX, 1939, p. 141-149].
62. E. Reicke, Willibald Pirckheimer, Jena, I930.
*63. E. Reicke, Albrecht Diirers Gedachtnis im Briefwechsel Willibald Pirckheimers, Mitteilungen
des Vereins fur Geschichte der Stadt Nurnberg, XXVIII, I928, p. 363-406.
64. R. Kautzsch, Des Christoph Scheurl "Libellus de Laudibus Germaniae," Repertorium fur Kunst-
wissenschaft, XXI, 1898, p. 286/87.
General Problems
WORKING METHODS j PROBLEMS OF REPRESENTATION AND COMPOSITION
65. L. Justi, fiber Diirers kiinstlerisches Schaffen, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, XXVI, I903,
P 447-475
66. K. Simon, Das Erlebnis bei Diirer, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins fur Kunstwissenschaft, III,
I936, p. I4-34
67. E. Heidrich, Geschichte des Durerschen Marienbildes, Leipzig, I906.
68. W. Suida, Die Genredarstellungen Albrecht Durers (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, 27),
Strassburg, I 903.
69. S. Killermann, Durers Pflanzen-und Tierzeichnungen und ihre Bedeutung fur die Naturgeschichte
(Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, II 9), Strassburg, I 9 I o.
69a. K. Gerstenberg, Durer, Blumen und Tiere, 2nd edition, Berlin, I94I (not seen).
70. E. Waldmann, Albrecht Diirer und die Deutsche Landschaft, Pantheon, XIII, I934, p. I30-I36.
7I. V. Scherer, Die Ornamentik bei Albrecht Durer (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, 28),
Strassburg, I902,
72. K. Rapke, Die Perspektive und Architektur auf den Durerschen Handzeichnungen, Holzschnitten,
Kupferstichen und Gemalden (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, 39), Strassburg, I902.
73 E. Waldmann, Lanzen, Stangen und Fahnen als Hilfsmittel der Composition in den graphischen
Fruhwerken Albrecht Durers (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, 68), Strassburg, I906.
See also nos. I95 and I96 of this Bibliography.
DURER AND THE "REBIRTH OF ANTIQUITY"
*74 A. Warburg, Diirer und die Italienische Antike (I905), in: A. Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften,
Leipzig and Berlin, I932, vol. II, p. 443-449
75 G. Pauli, Diirer, Italien und die Antike, Vortrage der Bibliothek Warburg, I92I/22, p. 51-68.
76. E. Panofsky, Dlirers Stellung zur Antike, Jahrbuch fur Kunstgeschichte, I, I92I/22, p. 43-92
[Also published singly, Vienna, I922].
77 E. Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstofle in der neueren Kunst (Studien
der Bibliothek Warburg, XVIII), Leipzig and Berlin, I930, pp. I66-I73, I8I-I86.
78. A. Warburg, Heidnisch-Antike Weissagung in Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten (I920), in:
A. Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, Leipzig and Berlin, I932, vol. II, p. 487-558.
79 E. Panofsky and F. Saxl, Classical Mythology in Mediaeval Art, Metropolitan Museum Studies,
IV, 2, I933, p. 228-280.
So. G. F. Hartlaub, Diirers "Aberglaube," Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins fur Kunstwissenschaft,
VII, I940, P I67-I96 [See also nos. I55 and I56 of this Bibliography].
CONCERNING DURER's INFLUENCE OUTSIDE HIS LAND AND PERIOD
8 I. 0. Hagen, Das Diirerische in der Italienischen Malerei, Zeitschrift fur Bildende Kunst, LIII,
I9I8, p. 225-242.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
82. W. Friedlander, Die Entstehung des antiklassischen Stiles in der Italienischen Malerei urn 1520,
Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, XLVI, I925, p. 49-86.
83. A. Weixlgartner, Alberto Duro, in: Festschrift fur Julius Schlosser zum 6o. Geburtstage, Zurich,
Leipzig and Vienna, I927, p. I62-I86.
84. T. Hetzer, Das Deutsche Element in der ltalienischen Malerei des XVI. Jahrhunderts, Berlin,
I929
85. W. Paatz, Diirermotive in einem Florentiner Freskenzyklus, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen
lnstituts in Florenz, III, I932, p. 543-545
86. F. Baumgart, Biagio Betti und Albrecht Diirer; zur Raumvorstellung .. in der zweiten Halfte
des I6. Jahrhunderts, Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte, III, I934, p. 23I-249
87. H. Tietze, Among the Diirer Plagiarists, The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, I94I, p. 89-95.
88. J. de Vasconcellos, Albrecht Diirer e a sua Influencia na Peninsula, Renascenza Portuguesa, fasc.
IV, Oporto, I877.
89. J. Held, Durers Wirkung auf die Niederlandische Kunst seiner Zeit, The Hague, I93I
90. W. Kronig, Zur Friihzeit Jan Gossarts, Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte, III, I934, p. I63-I77.
90a. J. G. van Gelder, Jan Gossaert in Rome, I508-I509, Oud Holland, LIX, I942, P I-II (not
seen).
gob. W. Wallerand, Altarkunst des Deutschordensstaates Preussen unter Durers Einfluss, Danzig,
I 940 (not seen).
goc. St. Eucker, Das Durerbewusstsein in der deutschen Romantik, Berlin, I939 (not seen).
INFORMATION PERTAINING TO THE CHAPTERS OF THIS VOLUME
To Chapter 1: Apprenticeship and Early Years of Travel, I484I495
91. C. Glaser, Die Altdeutsche Malerei, Munich, 1924.
92. A. Schramm,Der BilderschmuckderDeutschenFruhdrucke (thus far 2I vols.), Leipzig, I920-I938.
93 M. Geisberg, Geschichte der Deutschen Graphik vor Durer (Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte,
XXXII), Berlin, 1939.
94 M. Lehrs, Geschichte und Kritischer Katalog des Deutschen, Niederlandischen und Franzosischen
Kupferstichs im XV. Jahrhundert ( 9 vols.), Vienna, I908-1934
*95 W. M. Ivins, Jr., Artistic Aspects of Fifteenth Century Printing, Papers of the Bibliographical
Society of America, XXVI, 1932, p. 1-51.
96. A. Weinberger, Nurnberger Malerei an der Wende zur Renaissance und die Anfange der
Dilrerschule (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, 2I7), Strassburg, I92I.
*97 E. H. Zimmermann, Zur NUrnberger Malerei der II. Hiilfte des XV. Jahrhunderts, Anzeiger
des Germanischen Nationalmuseums (Nuremberg), 1932 and 1933, p. 43-60.
98. C. Koch, Michael Wolgemut, Zeitschrift fur Bildende Kunst, LXIII, I929/30, p. 8I-92.
99 W. Wenke, Das Bildnis bei Michael Wolgemut, Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums
(Nuremberg), 1932 and 1933, p. 61-73.
1 ~ 0 . F. J. Stadler, Michael Wolgemut und der Nurnberger Holzschnitt im letzten Drittel des IS
J ahrhunderts (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, I 6 I), Strassburg, I 9 I 3
*101 .. V. von Loga, Die Stadteansichten in Hartman Schedels Weltchronik, Jahrbuch der Koniglich
Preussis'chen Kunstsammlungen, IX, 1888, pp. 93I07, I84-I96.
*Io2. V. von Loga, Beitrage zum Holzschnittwerk Michel Wolgemuts, Jahrbuch der Koniglich
Preussische_n Kunstsammlungen, XVI, I895, p. 224-240.
103. M. Lehrs, Martin Schongauer, Nachbildungen seiner Kupferstiche (Graphische Gesellschaft,
V. Ausserordentliche Veroffentlichung), Berlin, I9I4 [See also no. 94, vol. V].
I04. M. Geisberg, Martin Schongauer, New York, 1928.
*105. M. Lehrs, Der Meister des Amsterdamer Kabinetts (International Chalcographical Society),
Berlin, I893/94 [See also no. 94, vol. VIII].
BIBLIOGRAPHY
107. J. DUrkopp, Der Meister des Hausbuches, Oberrheinische Kunst, V, I932, p. 83-160.
Io8. E. Graf zu Solms-Laubach, Der Hausbuchmeister, Stadeljahrbuch, IX, I935/36, p. I3-96.
109. W. M. Conway, DUrer and the Housebook Master, Burlington Magazine, XVIII, I9IO/I I,
p. 317-324
IIO. J. Meder, Neue Beitrage zur DUrer-Forschung, lahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen
des Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses, XXX, I9II, p. I83-222.
III. E. Waldmann, Albrecht Durer; Die Landschaften der lugend; Zehn Aquarelle (Mareesgesell-
schaft), Munich, I92I/22,
I I2. W. Rottinger, Diirers Doppelganger (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, 235), Strassburg,
1926 [Containing an excellent bibliography up to the date of publication].
II3 E. Romer, DUrers ledige Wanderjahre, lahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XLVII,
I926, P "I I8-I36; ibidem, XLVIII, I927, PP 77-I I9, IS6-I82.
*I 14. E. Holzinger, Der Meister des NUrnberger Horologiums, Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft fur
Vervielfaltigende Kunst (Die Graphischen Kunste, supplement), L, I927, p. 9-19.
*I IS. E. Holzinger, Hat DUrer den Basler Hieronymus von I492 selbst geschnitten?, Same periodical,
Ll, 1928, p. 17-20.
I 16. M. Weinberger, Zu DUrers Lehr-und Wanderjahren, Munchner lahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst,
Neue Folge, VI, I929, p. I24-I46.
*I17. K. Bauch, DUrers Lehrjahre, Stiideljahrbuch, VII/VIII, I932, p. So-us.
I I8. 0. SchUrer, Wohin ging DUrers "ledige Wanderfahrt"?, Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte, VI,
I937 P I7I-I99
II9 F. Winkler, DUrerstudien (1, DUrers Zeichnungen von seiner ersten ltalienischen Reise), J ahr-
buch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, L, I929, p. I23-I47
I20. H. E. Pappenheim, DUrer im Etschland, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins fur Kunstwissenschaft,
III, 1936, p. 35-90.
I 2 I. A. Rusconi, Per l'identificazione degli Acquerelli Tridentini di Alberto Durero, Die Graphischen
Kiinste, Neue Folge, I, I936, p. I2I-I37
I22. E. Rupprich, Willibald Pirckheimer und die Erste Reise Durers nach Italien, Vienna, 1930 [See,
however, A. Weixlgartner, Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft fur Vervielfaltigende Kunst (Die Graphischen
Kunste, supplement), LIII, I930, p. 59; A. Wolf, Die Graphischen Kunste, Neue Folge, I, 1936, p.
I38; and E. Panofsky, Miinchner lahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, Neue Folge, VIII, 1931, p. 2].
For editions of the "Narrenschiff," the "Ritter vom Turn" and the Basel "Salus Animae" see Singer's
Bibliography (quoted as no. I), p. 23 and our Handlist, no. 436.
To Chapter II: Five Years of Intense Productivity, I495-IJOO
I23 F. von Schubert-Soldern, Zur Entwicklung der technischen und kUnstlerischen Ausdrucksmittel
in DUrers Kupferstichen, Monatshefte fur Kunstwissenschaft, V, I9I2, p. I-I4.
I24. W. Kurth, Zum graphischen Stil DUrers, Der Kunstwanderer, X, I928, p. 331-335.
*I25. W. M. Ivins, Jr., Notes on Three DUrer Woodblocks, Metropolitan Museum Studies, II, I929,
P I02-I II.
12.6. A. Friedrich, Handlung und Gestalt .des Kupferstichs und der Radierung, Essen, 1931.
*127. F. Kriegbaum, Zu den graphischen Prinzipien in DUrers frUhem Holzschnittwerk, in: Das
Siebente lahrzehnt, Adolph Goldschmidt zu seinem Siebenzigsten Geburtstag dargebracht, Berlin, I935,
p. I00-108.
I28. L. Justi, Diirers Dresdner Altar, Leipzig, 1904.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 293
I29 F. Buchner, Die Sieben Mariae; Eine Tafel aus der Werkstatt des jungen DUrer,
Miinchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, Neue Folge, XI, I934-36, p. 250-270.
130. C. Schellenberg, Durers Apokalypse, Munich, I923.
I3I. M. Dvorak, Kunstgeschichte als Geistesgeschichte, Munich, I924, p. I91-2o2 [On DUrer's
Apocalypse].
132. F. J. Stadler, Durers Apokalypse und ihr Umkreis, Munich, I929.
1 33 L. H. Heydenreich, Der Apokalypsen-Zyklus im Athosgebiet und seine Beziehungen zur
Deutschen Bibelillustration der Reformation, Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte, VIII, 1939, P I-40.
134 H. F. Schmidt, Diirers Apokalypse und die Strassburger Bibel von 1485, Zeitschrift des Deutschen
Vereins fur Kunstwissenschaft, VI, I939 p. 26I-266.
I35 E. Wind, "Hercules" and "Orpheus": Two Mock-Heroic Designs by DUrer, Journal of the
Warburg Institute, II, 1939, p. 206-2I8.
136. E. Wind, DUrer's "Mannerbad": A Dionysian Mystery, ibidem, p. 269-27I.
For editions of the Apocalypse and the Large Passion see Singer's Bibliography (quoted as no. I),
pp. 23 ss. and 25, respectively.
To Chapter III: Five Years of Rational Synthesis, IJOO-I$05
I37 L. Justi, Jacopo de' Barbari und Albrecht DUrer, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, XXI,
I898,pp. 346-374,439-458.
I 38. E. Panofsky, DUrers Darstellungen des Apollo und ihr Verhliltnis zu Barbari, J ahrbuch der
Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XLI, I920, p. 359-377
139 A. de Hevesy, Albrecht DUrer und Jacopo de Barbari, in: Albrecht Durer, Festschrift der interna-
tionalen Diirerforschung, herausgegeben vom "Cicerone" (G. Biermann, ed.), Leipzig and Berlin, I928,
p. 32-4I
I40. E. Brauer, lacopo de' Barbaris graphische Kunst (Diss. Hamburg, I93I), Hamburg, I933
I4I. H. Weizsacker, Der sogenannte Jabachsche Altar und die Dichtung des Buches Hiob, in: Kunst-
wissenschaftliche Beitriige, August Schmarsow gewidmet, Leipzig, I 907, p. I 53- I 62.
I42 M. L. Brown, The Subject Matter of DUrer's Jabach Altaf, Marsyas (A Publication by the
Students of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), New York, I, I94I, p. 55-68.
143 H. Kauffmann, Albrecht DUrers Dreikonig-Altar, W allraf-Richartz l ahrbuch, X, 1938, p.
r66-I78.
144 F. Winkler, DUrerstudien (II, DUrer und der OberSt. Veiter Altar), lahrbuch der Preussischen
Kunstsammlungen, L, 1929, p. I48-I66 [See, however, the following essay].
I45 E. Buchner, Der junge Schaufelein als Maler und Zeichner, in: Festschrift fur Max J. Fried-
lander zum 6o. Geburtstage, Leipzig, I927, p. 46-76.
I46. H. CUrlis, Die GrUne Passion, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, XXXVII, I914, p. I83-I97
I47 G. Pauli, Die GrUne Passion DUrers, Same periodical, XXXVIII, 1915, p. 97-109.
I48. J. Meder, Durers "Grune Passion" (Albertina Facsimile), Vienna, 1924.
149 J; Meder, Diirers "Grune Passion" (Monographien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, IV),
Munich, !923.
- ISO H. Beenken, DUrer-Falschungen? Eine Beweinungsscheibe in Wien und die GrUne Passion,
Repertorium'fur Kunstwissenschaft, L, I929, p. I I2-129.
I 5 I. E. Rosenthal, Diirers Buchmalereien fiir Pirckheimers Bibliothek, J ahrbuch der Preussischen
XLIX (Beiheft), I928, p. 1-54 [A supplement by the same author: ibidem, Ll,
I930, P I75-I78].
294
BIBLIOGRAPHY
152
, E. Heidrich, Zur Chronologie des Diirerschen Marienlebens, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft,
XXIX, 1906, p. 227-24I.
For Diirer's relation to Barbari see also no. 200a of this Bibliography.
For editions of the Life of the Virgin see Singer's Bibliography (quoted as no. I), p. 28 s.
For editions of the Nuremberg "Salus Animae" and "Postilla" see our Handlist, no. 448.
For the engraving The Fall of Man (Io8), the engraving The Small Horse (203), and the engraving
"Weihnachten" (I09) see also nos. I98, 203, 204, and 209 of this Bibliography.
To Chapter IV: The Second Trip to Italy and the Culmination of Painting,
I505I5fO/ii
I53 H. Beenken, Zu Diirers Italienreise im Jahre I505, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins fur Kunst-
wissenschaft, III, 1936, p. 91-126.
I 54 K. F. Suter, Diirer und Giorgione, Zeitschrift fur Bildende Kunst, LXIII, I929f3o, p. I82-I87.
155. G. F. Hartlaub, Giorgiones Geheimnis, Munich, 1925.
I 56. G. F. Hartlaub, Giorgione und der Mythus der Akademien, Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft,
XLVIII, 1927, p. 233-257.
*I57 J. Neuwirth, Albrecht Durers Rosenkranzfest, Prague, 1885.
I58. A. Giimbel, Durers Rosenkranzfest und die Fugger (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte,
234), Strassburg, 1926.
159 0. Benesch, Zu Diirers "Rosenkranzfest," Belvedere, IX, I930
1
p. 8I-84.
I6o. P. 0. Rave, Diirers Rosenkranzbild und die Berliner Museen I836/37, lahrbuch der Preussischen
Kunstsammlungen, LVIII, I937
1
p. 267-283.
I6oa. F. H. A. van der Oudendijk Pieterse, Durers "Rosenkranzfest?' en de Ikonografie der Duitse
Rosenkransgroepen .. , Antwerp, 1939, and Amsterdam, I940 [cf. review by D. van Wely, Historisch
Tijdschrift, XX, I94I, p. 275-283].
161. E. von Rothschild, Tizians "Kirschenmadonna," Belvedere XI, 1932, p. 107-II6.
I62. H. Weizsiicker, Die Kunstschatze des ehemaligen Dominikanerklosters in Frankfurt a.M., Munich,
I923, p. I4I244 [For the Heller altarpiece].
I63. E. Ziekursch, Durers Landauer Altar, Munich, I9I3.
To Chapter V: Reorientation in the Graphic Arts; The Culmination of Engraving,
I50J/III5I.f.
*I64. P. Weber, Beitrage zu Durers Weltanschauung; Eine Studie uber die drei Stiche "Ritter, Tod
und Teufel," "Melencolia'' und "Hieronymus im Gehtius" (Studien zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte,
2 3), Strassburg, I 900.
*I65. K. Giehlow, Diirers Stich "Melencolia I" und der Maximilianische Humanistenkreis, Mit-
teilungen der Gesellschaft fur Vervielfaltigende Kunst (Die Graphischen Kunste, supplement), XXVI,
I903, p. 29-4I; XXVII, I904, pp. 6-I8, 57-78.
I66. E. Panofsky and F. Saxl, Durers Kupferstich "Melencolia I"; Eine quellen-und typengeschichtliche
Untersuchung (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, II), Leipzig and Berlin, I923 [For more recent publica-
tions on the engraving M elencolia I see the references in Tietze and Tietze-Conrat (quoted as no. 5 in
this Bibliography), Dodgson (quoted as no. I 7 in this Bibliography), and in our Handlist, no. I 8 I].
To Chapter VI: Durer's Activity for Maximilian I; The "Decorative Style"
(I5I2/IJ-I5I8/I9)
I67. K. Giehlow, Die Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus in der Allegorie der Renaissance, besonders
der Ehrenpforte Kaisers Maximilian I, J ahrbuch der K unsthistorischen Sammlungen des A llerhochsten
Kaiserhauses, XXXII, I9I5, p. 1-229.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 295
I68. L. Volkmann, Bilderschriften der Renaissance; Hieroglyphik und Emblematik in ihren Bezie-
hungen und Fortwirkungen, Leipzig, I923. . .
*I6
9
. F. Dornho:ffer, tl'ber Burgkmair und Diirer, in: Beitrage zur Kunstgeschtchte, Franz Wtckhoff
gewidmet, Vienna, I903, p. I I II3I. . .
*I70. E. Chmelarz, Die Ehrenpforte des Kaisers Maximilian I, lahrbuch der Kunsthtstomchen Samm-
lungen des A llerhochsten Kaiserhauses, IV, I 886, p. 289-3 I 9. . . . . . . ..
*I7I, K. Giehlow, Urkundenexegese zur Ehrenpforte MaXJmJltans I, m: Kunstgeschtchtltche Bettrage,
Franz Wickhoff gewidmet, Vienna, I903, p. 93-I IO.
*I72. F. Schestag, Kaiser Maximilian I. Triumph, lahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des
Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses, I, I883, p. I54I8I.
*I 7 3 K. Giehlow, Diirers Entwiirfe fiir das Triumphrelief Kaiser Maximilians I. im Louvre, l ahrbuch
der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses, XXIX, I9IO, p. I4-84.
*I74 Q. von Leitner, Freydal. Des Kaisers Maximilian I Turniere und Mummereien, Vienna, I88o-
I882.
*I75 E. Weiss, Albrecht Diirers geographische, astronomische und astrologische Tafeln, lahrbuch der
Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses, VII, I 888, p. 207-220.
*I76. K. Giehlow, Beitriige zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Gebetbuches Kaisers Maximilian I, lahrbuch
der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des AllerhOchsten Kaiserhauses, XX, I899, p. 30-I12.
*I77. K. Giehlow, Kaiser Maximilians I. Gebetbuch, Vienna, I907.
I78. E. Ehlers, Bemerkungen zu den Tierdarstellungen im Gebetbuche des Kaisers Maximilian, lahr-
buch der Koniglich Preussischen K unstsammlungen, XXXVIII, I 9 I 7, P I 5 I- I 76.
I79 G. Leidinger, Albrecht Durers und Lukas Cranachs Randzeichnungen zum Gebetbuche Kaiser
Maximilians I in der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek zu Munchen, Munich, I922 [Includes only the pages
with marginal decorations].
I8o. L. Baldass, Der Kilnstlerkreis Maximilians, Vienna, I923.
To Chapter VII: The Crisis of I5I9i The Journey to the Netherlands, I5202Ii
The Last Works, I520I,S28
I8I. J. Veth and S. Miiller, Albrecht Durers Niederlandische Reise (2 vols.), Berlin and Utrecht,
I9I8.
*I82. J. Huizinga, Diirer in de Nederlanden, De Gids, LXXXIV, 2, I920, p. 470-484.
I 8 3 E. Schilling, Albrecht Durer; Niederlandisches Reiseskizzenbuch (Preface by H. Wolffiin),
Frankfort, I928.
I84. Albrecht Durer, Tagebuch der Reise in die Niederlande (Inselbiicherei, no. I 50, R. Graul ed. and
pre.), Leipzig, 1936.
I85. J. A. Goris and G. Marlier (eds. and trs.), Albrecht Durer, Journal de Voyage dans les Pays-Bas,
Brussels, I937
I86. E. Panofsky, Zwei Diirerprobleme (II, Die "Vier Apostel"), Munchner lahrbuch der Bildenden
Kunst, Neue Folge, VIII, I93I, p. I8-48.
I 87, H. Swarzenski, Diirers "Barmherzigkeit," Zeitschrift fur K unstgeschichte, II, I 933, p. I- I o.
I88. Hans Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat, Neue Beitriige zur Diirer-Forschung (IV, Das Kreuz-
tragiuigsbild aus Diirers Spiitzeit), lahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, Neue Folge,
VI, I93:i, p. I25I27.
For the "Great Crucifixion" see no. 3 of this Bibliography.
For DUrer's attitude toward the Reformation see nos. 55 and 56 of this Bibliography.
For DUrer's contact with Netherlandish artists see no. 89 of this Bibliography.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
To Chapter VIII: Durer as a Theorist of Art
189. H. Bohatta, Versuch einer Bibliographie der kunsttheoretischen W erke Albrecht Durers, Vienna,
1928 [Also in Borsenblatt fur den Deutschen Buchhandel, XCV, 1928, no. 91 (April 19), p. 439-442;
no. IIO (May 12), p. 527-531].
190. J. Schlosser, Die Kunstliteratur, Vienna, 1924, p. 231-246. Italian translation, with useful biblio-
graphical supplement: J. Schlosser, La letteratura artistica, Florence, 1935 (here p. 227-242).
I 9 I. L. Olschki, Geschichte der neusprachlichen wissenschaftlichen Literatur, vol. I, Heidelberg, I 919,
p. 4I4-end.
I 92. E. Panofsky, Dilrers Kunsttheorie, vornehmlich in ihrem Verhaltnis zu der der ltaliener, Berlin,
I9I5
I93 E. Panofsky, Idea; Ein Beitrag zur Begrijfsgeschichte der olteren Kunsttheorie (Studien der
Bibliothek Warburg, V), Leipzig and Berlin, I924, p. 64-end.
I94 H. Beenken, Durers Kunsturteil und die Struktur des Renaissance-Individualismus, in: Festschrift
Heinrich Wolfflin, Munich, I924, p. I83-I93
195. H. Kauffmann, Albrecht Durers rhythmische Kunst, Leipzig, 1924.
I96. E. Panofsky, Albrecht Diirers rhythmische Kunst, Jahrbuch fur Kunstwissenschaft, I926, p.
I 36-192.
197 E. Panofsky, The Codex Huygens and Leonardo da Vinci's Art Theory (Studies of the Warburg
Institute, XIII), London, 1940.
*I98. L. Justi, Konstruierte Figuren und Kopfe unter den Werken Albrecht Durers, Leipzig, 1902.
199. E. Panofsky, Die Entwicklung der Proportionslehre als Abbild der Stilentwicklung, Monatshefte
fur Kunstwissenschaft, XIV, 1921, p. 188-2I9.
200. J. Giesen, Dilrers Proportionsstudien im Rahmen der allgemeinen Proportionsentwicklung, Bonn,
1930
*2ooa. A. M. Friend, Jr., Durer and the Hercules Borghese-Piccolomini, Art Bulletin, XXV, 1943,
P 40-49.
201. K. Sudhoff, Diirers anatomische Zeichnungen in Dresden und Leonardo da Vinci, Archiv fur
Geschichte der Medizin, I, I9o8, p. 3I7-32I.
*202. F. Dornhoffer, Albrecht Durers Fechtbuch, lahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des
A llerhOchsten Kaiserhauses, XXVII, 1907/09, II part, p. i-lxxxi.
*203. G. Pauli, Diirers friiheste Proportionsstudie eines Pferdes, Zeitschrift fur Bildende Kunst, Neue
Folge, XXV (XLIX), 1913/14, p. 105-108.
*204. J. Kurthen, Zum Problem der Durerschen Pferdekonstruktion, Repertorium fur Kunstwissen-
schaft, XLIV, I924, p. 77-Io6.
205. W. Waetzoldt, Durers Befestigungslehre, Berlin, 1916.
205a. W. Schwemmer, Durers Befestigungslehre, Nurnberger Schau, 1941, p. 104-108 (not seen).
*206. G. Staigmiiller, Durer als Mathematiker (Programm des Koniglichen Realgymnasiums in Stutt-
gart), Stuttgart, 1891.
207. W. M. Ivins, Jr., On the Rationalization of Sight (Metropolitan Museum, Papers, no. 8), New
York, 1938 [With useful bibliography].
208. E. Panofsky, Once more the "Friedsam Annunciation and the Problem of the Ghent Altarpiece,"
Art Bulletin, XX, 1938, p. 4I9-424 [For pre-scientific perspective].
209. H. Schuritz, Die Perspektive in der Kunst Durers, Frankfort, I9I9 [See also no. 72].
210. W. Stechow, Diirers Bologneser Lehrer, Kunstchronik, Neue Folge, XXXIII, I922, p. 25 I/52.
21l. Albrecht Diirer, Of the Just Shaping of Letters from the Applied Geometry of Albrecht Durer
(The Grolier Club), New York, I9I7
2I2. Albrecht Durer, The Construction of Roman Letters (B. Rogers, ed.), Cambridge, I924.
2 I 3 E. Crous, Durer und die Schrift (Berliner Bibliophilenabend, Vereinsgabe ), Berlin, I 933
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