Dürer Artist-Biographies

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Title: Durer

Artist-Biographies

Author: M. F. Sweetser

Release Date: June 13, 2010 [EBook #32787]

Language: English

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ARTIST-BIOGRAPHIES.

DÜRER.

BOSTON:

HOUGHTON, OSGOOD, AND COMPANY.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge.

1879.

Copyright.

By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.

1877.

FRANKLIN PRESS:

RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY,

BOSTON.

ARTIST-BIOGRAPHIES.

PUBLISHERS’ ANNOUNCEMENT.

The growth of a popular interest in art and its history has been very rapid during the last decade of American life, and is still in progress. This interest is especially directed towards the lives of artists themselves; and a general demand exists for a uniform series of biographies of those most eminent, which shall possess the qualities of reliability, compactness, and cheapness.

To answer this demand the present series has been projected. The publishers have intrusted its preparation to Mr. M. F. Sweetser, whose qualities of thoroughness in research and fidelity in statement have been proved in other fields of authorship. It is believed that by the omission of much critical and discursive matter commonly found in art biographies, an account of an artist’s life may be presented, which is at once truthful and attractive, within the limits prescribed for these volumes.

The series will be published at the rate of one or two volumes each month, at 50 cents each volume, and will contain the lives of the most famous artists of mediæval and modern times. It will include the lives of many of the following:—

PREFACE.

This little volume presents an account of the life of one of the noblest and most versatile artists of Germany, with a passing glance at the activities of Northern Europe at the era of the Reformation. The weird and wonderful paintings of Dürer are herein concisely described, as well as the most famous and characteristic of his engravings and carvings; and his quaint literary works are enumerated. It has also been thought advisable to devote considerable space to details about Nuremberg, the scene of the artist’s greatest labors; and to reproduce numerous extracts from his fascinating Venetian letters and Lowland journals.

The modern theory as to Dürer’s wife and his home has been accepted in this work, after a long and careful examination of the arguments on both sides. It is pleasant thus to be able to aid in the rehabilitation of the much-slandered Agnes, and to have an oppressive cloud of sorrow removed from the memory of the great painter.

The chief authorities used in the preparation of this new memoir are the recent works of Dr. Thausing and Mr. W. B. Scott, with the series of articles now current in The Portfolio, written by Professor Colvin. Mrs. Heaton’s biography has also been studied with care; and other details have been gathered from modern works of travel and art-criticism, as well as from The Art Journal, La Gazette des Beaux Arts, and other periodicals of a similar character.

M. F. Sweetser.

CONTENTS.

ALBERT DÜRER.

CHAPTER I.

The Activities of Nuremberg.—The Dürer Family.—Early Years of Albert.—His Studies with Wohlgemuth.—The Wander-Jahre.

The free imperial city of Nuremberg, in the heart of Franconia, was one of the chief centres of the active life of the Middle Ages, and shared with Augsburg the great trans-continental traffic between Venice and the Levant and Northern Europe. Its municipal liberties were jealously guarded by venerable guilds and by eminent magistrates drawn from the families of the merchant-princes, forming a government somewhat similar to the Venetian Council. The profits of a commercial prosperity second only to that of the Italian ports had greatly enriched the thrifty burghers, aided by the busy manufacturing establishments which made the city the Birmingham of the Middle Ages. Public and private munificence exerted itself in the erection and adornment of new and splendid buildings; and the preparation of works of art and utility was stimulated on all sides. It was the era of the discovery of America, the revival of classic learning, and the growth of free thought in matters pertaining to religion. So far had the inventions of the artisans contributed to the comfort of the people, that Pope Pius II. said that A Nuremberg citizen is better lodged than the King of Scots; and so widely were they exported to foreign realms, that the proud proverb arose that

"Nuremberg’s hand

Goes through every land."

Nuremberg still stands, a vast mediæval relic, in the midst of the whirl and activity of modern Germany, rich and thriving, but almost unchanged in its antique beauty. The narrow streets in which Dürer walked are flanked, as then, by quaint gable-roofed houses, timber-fronted, with mullioned windows and arching portals. In the faded and venerable palaces of the fifteenth century live the descendants of the old patrician families, cherishing the memories and archives of the past; and the stately Gothic churches are still rich in religious architecture, and in angular old Byzantine pictures and delicate German carvings. On the hill the castle rears its ponderous ramparts, which have stood for immemorial ages; and the high towers along the city walls have not yet bowed their brave crests to the spirit of the century of boulevards and railroads.

With two essentials of civilization, paper and printing-presses, Nuremberg supplied herself at an early day. The first paper-mill in Germany was established here in 1390; and its workmen were obliged to take an oath never to make paper for themselves, nor to reveal the process of manufacture. They went out on a strike when the mill was enlarged, but the authorities imprisoned them until they became docile once more. Koberger’s printing-house contained twenty-four presses, and employed over a hundred men, printing not only Bibles and breviaries, but also chronicles, homilies, poems, and scientific works. As the Aldine Press attracted many authors and scholars to Venice, so Koberger’s teeming press led several German literati to settle at Nuremberg. For the four first years of Dürer’s life, the wonderful mathematician and astronomer Regiomontanus dwelt here, and had no less than twenty-one books printed by Koberger. His numerous inventions and instruments awakened the deepest interest in the Nuremberg craftsmen, and stimulated a fruitful spirit of inquiry for many years.

The clockmakers of Nuremberg were famous for their ingenious productions. Watches were invented here in the year 1500, and were long known as Nuremberg eggs. The modern composition of brass was formed by Erasmus Ebner; wire-drawing machinery also was a Nuremberg device; the air-gun was invented by Hobsinger; the clarionet, by Denner; and the church-organs made here were the best in Germany. There were also many expert metal-workers and braziers; and fifty master-goldsmiths dwelt in the town, making elegant and highly artistic works, images, seals, and medals, which were famous throughout Europe. The most exquisite flowers and insects, and other delicate objects, were reproduced in filagree silver; and the first maiolica works in Northern Europe were also founded here.

Isolated, like the ducal cities of Italy, from the desolating wars of the great powers of Europe, and like them also growing rapidly in wealth and cultivation, Nuremberg afforded a secure refuge for Art and its children. In Dürer’s day the great churches of St. Sebald, St. Lawrence, and Our Lady were finished; Peter Vischer executed the exquisite and unrivalled bronze Shrine of St. Sebald; and Adam Kraft completed the fairy-like Sacrament-house, sixty feet high, and delicate as a tree covered with hoar-frost. Intimate with these two renowned artificers was Lindenast, the red smith, who worked skilfully in beaten copper; and their studies were conducted in company with Vischer’s five sons, who, with their wives and children, all dwelt happily at their father’s house. Vischer lived till a year after Dürer’s death, but there is no intimation that the two artists ever met. Another eminent craftsman was the unruly Veit Stoss, the marvellous wood-carver, many of whose works remain to this day; and there was also Hans Beheim, the sculptor, an honorable, pious, and God-fearing man; and Bullman, who was very learned in astronomy, and was the first to set the Theoria Planetarum in motion by clockwork;