THE OLD MASTERS IN ITALY AND GERMANY.*
M. LOUIS VIARDOT is a veteran in Art literature. Thirty years ago he published his notices of the principal Spanish painters to serve as a text for engravings of the Aguado Gallery, and followed up that, his first work on art, with other books on the galleries of Italy, Spain, England, Belgium, Russia, and Germany. He is always pleasant to read, and Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. have done well to publish this beautifully-illustrated version of the author's agreeable volume Les Alerveilles de la Peinture. This- volume is confined almost entirely to the consideration of Italian Art, the paintings of other lands being reserved for treatment in a later instalment of the work. The dawn of the Renaissance in Italy is graphically described in a passage which we commend to. the earnest attention of the Chief Commissioner of Works, the Metropolitan Board °Works, and the Corporation of the City of London :— "By a result scarcely perhaps to be expected, even the agitation of the period fostered an increased growth of the sciences, and also especi- ally of art. The republics, the free cities, the small states, all the frag- ments of divided Italy, in everything disputed pre-eminence with each other. Each wished to triumph over its rival by the importance of its establishments and the beauty of the works of its artists. Again, the leaders whom the greater number of these States had chosen, or those who had raised themselves to be masters, considering themselves each to be a new Pericles, and forestalling the Medici, wished while they flattered the vanity of their fellow-citizens, at the same time to occupy their attention and to satisfy their wishes. We can understandf what this double sentiment, this double want, must have produced. From it there resulted vast cathedrals, sumptuous monasteries. palaces, and townhalls. From the same cause sprang up a universal taste, a spirit of emulation, a passionate ardour, all the stimulating qualities of a noble labour performed publicly which, while it seeks, is at the same time rewarded by, the public approval. When in 12941 Florence decreed the erection of her cathedral, the podesta of the seignory was enjoined 'to trace the plan of it with the most sumptuous magnificence, so that the industry and power of man shall never invent or undertake anything vaster or more beautiful ; inasmuch as no one ought to put his hand to the works of the community with a less design than to make them correspond with the lofty spirit which binds the souls of all the citizens into one single, united, identical will.'" Florence of the thirteenth century ! wert thou richer or mightier than London of the nineteenth? Or are the souls of our citizens not to be bound into one single will by a lofty spirit? Which But our business now is with painting, and nothing but the peculiar circumstances which have recently attracted attention to- the lEdileship of London would excuse this long digression at the outset of our remarks. Cimabue was born in 1240, and ten years- before Giunta of Pisa had executed works in the church of Assisi, which showed how far he had improved on his Byzantine instructors. In the sister art of sculpture a native of the same town, Niccolb Pisan°, in 1231 had, from the study of an old sarcophagus that contained the remains of Countess Matilda's- mother, been enabled to make the beautiful urn-of St. Dominic at Bologna, and so earn the cognomen "doll' Urno." These, and men simple as themselves, sowed the seed that bore such glorious fruit_ The hard, dry, ungraceful nudes of Giunta lead off in a splendid procession that includes the priceless works of Giotto, Leonardo de Vinci, Michael Angelo, and Raphael, with all the magnificence and power that found expression at the hands of Titian and the whole Venetian school, to say nothing of other schools. The book before us is arranged with a simplicity that is quite refreshing. After three chapters of introduction and general history of the art, comes a chapter that occupies four-fifths of the book, and which gives in turn a succinct account of each school and its eminent masters Theyare the Florentine, Roman, Lombard, Venetian, Bolognese, * Wonders of Italian Art. By Louis Viardot. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston. 1870.
History of the Life of Albrecht Ditrer of Niirnberg, with a Translation of his Letters and Journal, and some Account of his Works. By Mrs. Charles Heaton. London Macmillan and Co.
Albert Heiser: his Life and Works, including Autoblographioal Papers and Complete Catalogues By William B. Scott. London: Longmatus, Green, and Co, 1869.
and Neapolitan. The illustrations, as we have already hinted, are most interesting and instructive.
German art, like that of Italy, says M. Viardot, was founded on the Greek art of the Eastern Empire, but asserted its independence as early as the fourteenth century by throwing off the religious symbolism of the painters of Byzantium and looking only to nature for models. Early German pictures are called Byzantine because, the artists, unacquainted with oil-painting, employed the Byzan- tine process of painting in distemper on a gold background, with encaustics to brighten and preserve the colours. The difference between the art practised at that time north of the Alps and that of the annnier south was great indeed. The grave, earnest, uncouth German was realistic in the highest degree. The medias- Tit] religion of central Europe was manifested not only in Gothic architecture, but in German painting and engraving. The grace and polish in art which the Italians inherited from the pagan civilization of classic times were wanting to the Germans. Raphael d'Urbino and Albert Diirer were contemporaries. How great the contrast between them ! Yet the sweet, saintly faces of Raphael's Madonnas were gaily painted from the artist's mistresses, while Dieter's life was imbue1 throughout with a solemn spirit of devout religion. It is somewhat strange that English literature should have been so long without a biography of Diirer. As if to make up for lost time, we have now two writers rushing into the arena with handsome contributions to the subject. Mr. Scott's is a very good book, very apt and terse ; but Mrs. Heaton's is a better, more comprehensive, not to say exhaustive, in matter, and more sumptuous in dress and illustration. Perhaps Mr. Scott's life of the artist will be more read than that of his fair competitor, just because it is the shorter of the two. The lady's volume seems to give a new significance to the maxim, "Life is short, but Art is long." Both writers seem to have used nearly the same mate- rials, and excellent materials they are. Diirer's journal and letters afford a glimpse into the social life of the Niirnbergers of 1500 quite fresh and rare.
Just four hundred years save two have elapsed since Albrecht Diirer was born in the flourishing free town of Nurnberg. His grandfather came from Hungary, and like his son, the painter's father, worked as a goldsmith. The latter, having worked for one Joseph Haller some thirteen years, took to wife his employer's daughter Barbara, "a fair and handy maiden of fifteen," who in the course of five-and-twenty years bore him eighteen children, of whom Albert was the third, having one sister and one brother his seniors. The touching simplicity of the following extract from the painter's journal, relating to the old man's death, will com- mend itself to every reader :—
" After a time, my father fell ill with a kind of dysentery no one could cure. Soon he clearly saw death before him, and with great patience waited to go, recommending my mother to me, and a godly life -to all of us. He received the sacraments, and died a true Christian on -the eve of St. Matthew (September 21) at midnight, in 1502, as I have -written more at length in another book." [Of this other book, a leaf only is found. It is marked page nineteen, and is the very piece record- ing at greater length this pathetic death-bed. It says :—] "The old nurse helped him to rise and put the close cap upon his head again, which had become wet by the heavy sweat. He wanted something to .drink, and she gave him Rhine wine, of which he tasted some, and then wished to lie down again. He thanked her for her aid, but no sooner lay back upon his pillows than his last agony began. Then the old woman trimmed the lamp, and set herself to read aloud S. Bernard's -dying song, but she only reached the third verse, and, behold, his soul had gone. God be good to him ! Amen. Then the little maid, when she saw that he was dying, ran quickly up to my chamber and waked me. I went down fast, but he was gone. and I grieved much that I had not been 'found worthy to be beside him at his end.'"
The letters which Albert wrote home from Venice and other places, especially those to his friend and patron, Wilibald Pirckheimer, are marked by a quaint and naive humour that is perfectly charming. The rich, accomplished, and luxurious Pirckheimer commissioned his artist friend to buy jewelry and carpets for him at Venice. The letters of Diirer about these com- missions throw a curious light upon the then value of such articles, and upon the state of Venice in her best days as a commercial emporium. The history of these letters is not a little curious. They were first printed in a literary journal edited by You Murr in 1781, and were then in possession of the Haller family from, whom they subsequently passed by sale to the town of Nurnberg, where they are still preserved in, the library. The Hailers obtained them through a discovery made during the repair of a house that had belouged to the Imhof family, where, with other family papers, they were found walled up that being the only effectual mode of preserving valuable documents in perilous times like the period of the Thirty Years' War.
Mrs. Heaton gives a very long list of Miter's works, with a running commentary well worth perusal. Five chapters are severally devoted to the artist's "Engravings on Wood ;" "Works for the Emperor Maximilian ;" "Engravings on Copper ;" "Paint- ings, Drawings, and Plastic Works ;" " Literary Works." Whether Diirer cut his own wood-blocks or only made designs for others to execute is a question still undetermined. It is probable that the earliest works were cut by himself, when he had plenty of leisure, and was too anxious for success to trust the work to others. When more fully employed, he would be com- pelled to have recourse to assistauts for the mechanical part of engraving. Mrs. Heaton's book also contains some beautiful reproductions of Diirer's prints, notably portraits of the artist himself and of Pirckheimer, a marvellous contrast. The youthful portrait drawn by the artist from a looking-glass at the age of thirteen, in Mr. Scott's volume, is a pretty addition to the other portraits.
Of the other prints in the larger volume we best like "The Descent of the Four Horses," in which the treading of the air is rendered with curious felicity ; "The Knight, Death, and Devil," from the contemplation of which De la Motte FouquU conceived his famous story of Sintram ; "The Prodigal Son," a scene of inimitable squalor and desolation ; and "Melancholia," a deeply tragic poem in one page.
Mr. Scott does not agree with Fouque in his interpretation of the print "The Knight, Death and Devil," which, he says, admits of a more prosaic explanation. His less costly volume has, of course, fewer prints than the more ambitious work, and as they are, with one exception, different from those given by Mrs. Heaton, many amateurs will be glad to have both the biographies. M. Charles Blanc has said of Miter, "Were we to look upon him only as a writer, his name would be illustrious." The implied compliment must refer to the artist's scientific works—his treatises on "Mensu- ration," "Fortification," and on " Human Proportions." His verse is mere doggrel, and the pleasant, homely letters of which so much profitable use has been made were not written in the character of author or with a view to publication. Altogether, the figure of Albert Diirer comes out of these volumes in grand proportions, not unworthy of Rauch's fine statue facing Oliver Strasse, in quaint old Nfirnberg. He was simple, manly, and laborious, full of thought and invention, and of great manual skill,—a true compeer of the great men of his time ; of Columbus, Copernicus, Erasmus, Luther, Melancthon, and a host of others who gave to our present civiliza- tion its first great impulse, and reawakened the spirit of enterprise among mankind by discoveries such as that of a new hemisphere and of the sublime order of our planetary system.
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