St. Jerome.--The Melencolia.--Death of Duerer's Mother.--Raphael.
--Etchings.--Maximilian's Arch.--Visit to Augsburg.
The copper-plate engraving of "St. Jerome in his Chamber" was executed
in 1514, and is one of Duerer's three greatest works, a marvel of
brilliancy and beauty, full of accurate detail and minute perfection.
The saint has a grand and venerable head, firmly outlined against a
white halo, and is sitting in a cheerful monastic room, lighted by the
sun streaming through two large arched windows, while he writes at his
desk, translating the Scriptures. In the foreground the lion of St.
Jerome is drowsing, alongside a fat watch-dog; a huge pumpkin hangs
from one of the oaken beams overhead; and patristic tomes and
convenient German utensils are scattered about the room.
"The Virgin on the Crescent Moon" was a copper-plate executed also in
1514, showing the graceful and charming Mary, treated with an idealism
which almost suggests Raphael. This is one of the best of the
seventeen Mary-pictures (_Marien-bilder_) which Duerer executed in
copper. Other copper-plates of 1514 represented Sts. Paul and Thomas,
the Bagpipe-Player, and a Dancing Rustic and his Wife.
"The Melencolia" is the most weirdly fascinating of Duerer's works, and
the most mysterious and variously interpreted. It represents a woman,
goddess, or devil, fully clad, and bearing keys and a purse at her
girdle, her head wreathed with spleenwort, and great wings springing
from her shoulders; the while she gazes intently, and with unutterable
melancholy, into a magic crystal globe before her. On one side a
drowsy Cupid is trying to write, near a ladder which rises from unseen
depths to unimagined heights; and on the wall are the balanced scales,
the astrological table of figures, the hour-glass running low, and the
silent bell. The floor is strewn with scientific and necromantic
instruments, and a great cube of strange form lies beyond. The
prevailing gloom of the picture is but dimly lighted by a lurid and
solitary comet, whose rays shimmer along an expanse of black ocean,
and are reflected from a firm-arched rainbow above. Across the
alternately black and blazing sky flies a horrible bat-winged
creature, bearing a scroll inscribed with the word MELENCOLIA, before
the blank negations symbolized by the disastrous portent of the comet
and the joyous sign of the rainbow.
Under the guise of this mystic black-browed woman the artist probably
typifies the profound sorrow of the human soul, checked by Divine
limitations from attaining a full knowledge of the secrets of nature
or the wisdom of heaven. The discarded implements of natural and
occult science are alike useless; and nought remains but gloomy
introspection and a consciousness of insufficiency.
Duerer describes his mother's death with mournful tenderness and
touching simplicity, saying: "Now you must know that in the year 1513,
on a Tuesday in Cross-week, my poor unhappy mother, whom I had taken
under my charge two years after my father's death, because she was
then quite poor, and who had lived with me for nine years, was taken
deathly sick on one morning early, so that we had to break open her
room; for we knew not, as she could not get up, what to do. So we bore
her down into a room, and she had the sacraments in both kinds
administered to her, for every one thought that she was going to die,
for she had been failing in health ever since my father's death. And
her custom was to go often to church; and she always punished me when
I did not act rightly, and she always took great care to keep me and
my brothers from sin; and, whether I went in or out, her constant word
was, 'In the name of Christ;' and with great diligence she constantly
gave us holy exhortations, and had great care over our souls. And her
good works, and the loving compassion that she showed to every one, I
can never sufficiently set forth to her praise. This my good mother
bore and brought up eighteen children; she has often had the
pestilence and many other dangerous and remarkable illnesses; has
suffered great poverty, scoffing, disparagement, spiteful words,
fears, and great reverses: yet she has never been revengeful. A year
after the day on which she was first taken ill ... my pious mother
departed in a Christian manner, with all sacraments, absolved by
Papal power from pain and sin. She gave me her blessing, and desired
for me God's peace, and that I should keep myself from evil. And she
desired also St. John's blessing, which she had, and she said she was
not afraid to come before God. But she died hard; and I perceived that
she saw something terrible, for she kept hold of the holy water, and
did not speak for a long time. I saw also how Death came, and gave her
two great blows on the heart; and how she shut her eyes and mouth, and
departed in great sorrow. I prayed for her, and had such great grief
for her that I can never express. God be gracious to her! Her greatest
joy was always to speak of God, and to do all to his honor and glory.
And she was sixty-three years old when she died, and I buried her
honorably according to my means. God the Lord grant that I also make a
blessed end, and that God with his heavenly hosts, and my father,
mother, and friend, be present at my end, and that the Almighty God
grant us eternal life! Amen. And in her death she looked still more
lovely than she was in her life."
In 1514 the prince of Italian painters and the noblest of German
artists exchanged pleasant civilities by correspondence, accompanied
by specimens of their labors. Duerer sent to Raphael his own portrait,
which was afterwards inherited and dearly prized by Giulio Romano.
Raphael returned several of his own studies and drawings, one of
which, showing two naked men drawn in red crayon, is now preserved in
the Albertina at Vienna. It still bears Duerer's inscription: "Raphael
of Urbino, who is so highly esteemed by the Pope, has drawn this study
from the nude, and has sent it to Albert Duerer at Nuremberg, in order
to show him his hand."
The invention of the art of etching has been generally attributed to
Duerer, though it now seems that he merely improved and perfected the
process. There are but few etchings in existence which can certainly
be ascribed to him; and the chief of these, an "Ecce Homo" and "Christ
in the Garden," date from 1515. The iron plate of the latter was found
two centuries later, in a blacksmith's shop, where it was about to be
made into horse-shoes. A third etching represents a frightfully
homely woman being carried off by a man on a unicorn, a wild and
incomprehensible composition, calculated to awaken an uncomfortable
impression in the beholder. Some of the etchings were on iron, and
others on pewter; but none were on copper, which was afterwards
universally used. The corrosive nitrous acid acted inefficiently on
the metals which he employed, and so his etchings fall short of
excellence.
In 1514 Jorg Vierling uttered disgraceful libels and threats against
Duerer, and finally attacked him in the street. He was imprisoned by
the authorities; but the kind-hearted artist interceded for him, and
he was released, after being bound over to keep the peace.
In the same year Duerer wrote to Herr Kress to see if the laureate
Stabius had done any thing about his delayed pension; saying also,
"But if Herr Stabius has done nothing in my matter, or my desire was
too difficult for him to attain, then I pray of you to be my favorable
lord to his Majesty.... Point out to his Majesty that I have served
his Majesty for three years, that I have suffered loss myself from
doing so, and that if I had not used my utmost diligence his
ornamental work would never have been finished in such a manner;
therefore I pray his Majesty to reward me with the 100 guilders." In
September an imperial decree was issued, giving Duerer his promised
pension of $200 a year out of the tax due from Nuremberg to the
Emperor. This annuity was paid to the artist until his death, with one
short intermission.
Duerer executed for the Emperor a series of most fantastic and
grotesque pen-drawings, on the borders of his prayer-book, now in the
Munich town-library. Alongside the solemn sentences of the breviary
are whimsical monkeys and pigs, Indians and men-at-arms, satyrs and
foxes, screeching devils and saints, hens and prophets, martyrs and
German crones, mingled in a weird wonderland, and not inappropriate
according to mediaeval ideas of taste. "The Great Column" is another
quaint and inexplicable engraving, which Duerer did for the Emperor in
1517, and is composed of four blocks 5-1/3 feet high. It shows two
naked angels holding a large turnip, from which springs a tall column
with two horrible female monsters at the base, and a horned satyr at
the top, holding long garlands.
The marvellous "Triumphal Arch of Maximilian" is composed of
ninety-two blocks, forming an immense woodcut ten and a half feet high
and nine feet wide. It shows three great towers, under which are the
three gates of Praise, Nobility, and Honor and Power, with the six
chained harpies of temptation, and two vigilant Archdukes in armor,
and figures holding garlands and crowns. The great genealogical tree
rises above the figures that represent France, Sycambria, and Troy,
and bears portrait-like half-figures of the twenty-six Christian
princes from whom Maximilian claimed descent, with pictures of himself
and his family. There are also twenty-four minutely delicate cuts,
showing the most remarkable events in the Emperor's life, accompanied
with rugged explanatory rhymes by the poet-laureate. Dr. von Eye says
that "the extent and difficulty of the task appear to have called
forth the powers of the artist to their highest exercise. In no work
of Duerer's do we find more beautiful drawing than there is here. Each
single piece might be taken out and prized as an independent work of
art."
The master drew these very elaborate and intricate designs between
1512 and 1515; and the enormous work of engraving them was devolved
upon Hieronymus Roesch of Nuremberg. During its progress the Emperor
frequently visited Roesch's house in the Fraueengaesslein; and it became
a town saying, that "The Emperor still drives often to Petticoat
Lane." On one of his visits, a number of the artist's pet cats ran
into his presence; whence, it is said, arose the proverb, "A cat may
look at a King."
In 1516 Duerer painted a fine portrait of Wohlgemuth, now at Munich,
showing a wrinkled old face lit up by bright eyes, and inscribed,
"This portrait has Albert Duerer painted after his master Michael
Wohlgemuth, in the year 1516, when he was 82 years old; and he lived
until the year 1519, when he died, on St. Andrew's Day, early, before
the sun had risen." About the same period he designed and partly
executed the Pieta, which is now in the St. Maurice Gallery at
Nuremberg; and carved a Virgin and Child standing on the crescent
moon, similar to the one which he had engraved three years before.
In 1518 Duerer also painted the scene of the death-bed of the Empress
Mary of Burgundy, under the title of "The Death of the Virgin," and
on the order of Von Zlatko, the Bishop of Vienna. The Emperor
Maximilian, Philip of Spain, Bishop Zlatko, and other notables, were
shown around the couch. This large and important work was in the sale
of the Fries collection in 1822, but cannot now be found, although
there is a rumor that it is on the altar of a rural church near St.
Wolfgang's Lake, in Upper Austria.
In 1518 Duerer visited Augsburg, during the session of the Diet of the
Empire, and not only sold many of his engravings, but made a number of
new sketches and portraits. His most important work on this journey
was a portrait of the Emperor, who gave an order on the town of
Nuremberg to pay 200 guldens "to the Emperor's and the Empire's dear
and faithful Albert Duerer." On this picture the master inscribed,
"This is the Emperor Maximilian, whom I, Albert Duerer, drew at
Augsburg, in his little room high up in the imperial residence, in the
year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist." About the same
time the master painted the unpleasant picture of "The Suicide of
Lucretia," now at Munich, showing an ill-formed nude woman of life
size, said to have been copied from Agnes Frey. The portrait of the
witty and learned Lazarus Spengler dates from the same year.
When Maximilian died, the Rath of Nuremberg refused to continue the
pension which he had granted to Duerer, though the artist addressed its
members as "Provident, Honorable, Wise, Gracious, and Dear Lords," and
enumerated his services to the dead Emperor. He also vainly demanded
the payment of the imperial order for 200 florins, "to be paid to him
as if to Maximilian himself, out of the town taxes due to the Emperor
on St. Martin's Day," though he offered to leave his house in pledge,
so that the town might lose nothing if the new Emperor refused to
acknowledge the validity of the claim.
At the time of the death of Maximilian the great woodcut of "The
Triumphal Arch" was unfinished, and the blocks remained in the hands
of the engraver. Duerer and Roesch published a large round cut
containing twenty-one of the historical scenes, as a memorial of the
late sovereign, and this singular production speedily went through
four editions. A few trial-impressions of the whole Arch had been
struck off before the Emperor's death, two of which are now at
Copenhagen, one in the British Museum, and one at Stockholm. In 1559
the first edition of the entire Arch was printed at Vienna, at the
request of the Archduke Ferdinand, and another edition was issued by
Bartsch in 1799.
In 1519 Duerer published an excellent wood-engraving of the late
Emperor Maximilian, with inscriptions recording his titles and the
date of his death. It showed a pleasant face, full of strength and
character. Among the painted portraits of Maximilian which are
attributed to the master, the best is in the Vienna Belvedere; and
another was in the late Northwick Collection, in England. A beautiful
portrait in water-colors is in the library of the Erlangen University.
In 1519 Duerer also prepared an exquisitely finished copper-plate
engraving of "St. Anthony," showing the meditative hermit before a
background of a quaint mediaeval city, very like Nuremberg, abounding
in irregular gable-roofs and tall castle-towers. Several admirable
copies of this work have been made.