Outside each one of them was a kind of fence of pointed beams after the
manner of a chevaux-de-frise, while outside the ditch and close to the
bridge stood a barrier, by the side of which was a guard-house. Tho it
was not till 1598 that all the main gates were fitted with drawbridges,
the wooden bridges that served before that could doubtless easily be
destroyed in cases of emergency. Double-folding doors and portcullises
protected the gateways themselves. Once past there, the enemy was far
from being in the town, for the road led through extensive advanced
works, presenting, as in the case of the Laufer Thor outwork, a regular
"place d'armes." Further, the road was so engineered as not to lead in a
straight line from the outer main gates to the inner ones, but rather so
as to pursue a circuitous course. Thus the enemy in passing through from
the one to the other were exposed as long as possible to the shots and
projectiles of the defenders, who were stationed all round the walls and
towers flanking the advanced tambour. This arrangement may be traced
very clearly at the Frauen Thor to-day. The position of the round tower,
it will be observed, was an excellent one for commanding the road from
the outer to the inner gate.
At intervals of every 120 or 150 feet the interior wall is broken by
quadrilateral towers. Some eighty-three of these, including the gate
towers, can still be traced. What the number was originally we do not
know. It is the sort of subject on which chroniclers have no manner of
conscience. The Hartmann Schedel Chronicle, for instance, gives
Nuremberg 365 towers in all. The fact that there are 365 days in the
year is of course sufficient proof of this assertion! The towers, which
rise two or even three stories above the wall, communicated on both
sides with the covered way. They are now used as dwelling-houses. On
some of them there can still be seen, projecting near the roof, two
little machicoulis turrets, which served as guard-rooms for observing
the enemy, and also, by overhanging the base of the tower, enabled the
garrison to hurl down on their assailants at the foot of the wall a
hurricane of projectiles of every sort. Like the wall the towers are
built almost entirely of sandstone, but on the side facing the town they
are usually faced with brick. The shapes of the roofs vary from flat to
pointed, but the towers themselves are simple and almost austere in form
in comparison with those generally found in North Germany, where fantasy
runs riot in red brick. The Nuremberg towers were obviously intended in
the first place for use rather than for ornament.
At the end of our long perambulations of the walls it will be a grateful
relief to sit for a while at one of the "Restaurations" or restaurants
on the walls. There, beneath the shade of acacias in the daytime, or in
the evening by the white light of incandescent gas, you may sit and
watch the groups of men, women, and children all drinking from their
tall glasses of beer, and you may listen to the whirr and ting-tang of
the electric cars, where the challenge of sentinels or the cry of the
night-watchman was once the most frequent sound. Or, if you have grown
tired of the Horn- and the Schloss-zwinger, cross the ditch on the west
side of the town and make your way to the Rosenau, in the
Fürtherstrasse. The Rosenau is a garden of trees and roses not lacking
in chairs and tables, in bowers, benches, and a band. There, too, you
will see the good burgher with his family drinking beer, eating
sausages, and smoking contentedly.
[Footnote A: From "The Story of Nuremberg." Published by E.P. Dutton &
Co.]
ALBERT DÜRER[A]
BY CECIL HEADLAM
Among the most treasured of Nuremberg's relics is the low-ceilinged,
gabled house near the Thiergärtnerthor, in which Albert Dürer lived and
died, in the street now called after his name. The works of art which he
presented to the town, or with which he adorned its churches, have
unfortunately, with but few exceptions, been sold to the stranger. It is
in Vienna and Munich, in Dresden and Berlin, in Florence, in Prague, or
the British Museum, that we find splendid collections of Dürer's works.
Not at Nuremberg. But here at any rate we can see the house in which he
toiled--no genius ever took more pains--and the surroundings which
imprest his mind and influenced his inspiration.
If, in the past, Nuremberg has been only too anxious to turn his works
into cash, to-day she guards Albert Dürer's house with a care and
reverence little short of religious. She has sold, in the days of her
poverty and foolishness, the master's pictures and drawings, which are
his own best monument; but she has set up a noble monument to his memory
(by Rauch, 1840) in the Dürer Platz, and his house is opened to the
public between the hours of 8 A.M. and 1 P.M., and 2 and 6 P.M. on week
days. The Albert-Dürer-Haus Society has done admirable work in restoring
and preserving the house in its original state with the aid of Professor
Wanderer's architectural and antiquarian skill. Reproductions of
Dürer's works are also kept here.
The most superficial acquaintance with Dürer's drawings will have
prepared us for the sight of his simple, unpretentious house and its
contents. In his "Birth of the Virgin" he gives us a picture of the
German home of his day, where there were few superfluous knick-knacks,
but everything which served for daily use was well and strongly made and
of good design. Ceilings, windows, doors and door-handles, chests,
locks, candlesticks, banisters, waterpots, the very cooking utensils,
all betray the fine taste and skilled labor, the personal interest of
the man who made them. So in Dürer's house, as it is preserved to-day,
we can still see and admire the careful simplicity of domestic
furniture, which distinguishes that in the "Birth of the Virgin." The
carved coffers, the solid tables, the spacious window-seats, the
well-fitting cabinets let into the walls, the carefully wrought
metal-work we see there are not luxurious; their merit is quite other
than that. In workmanship as in design, how utterly do they put to shame
the contents of the ordinary "luxuriously furnished apartments" of the
present day!
And what manner of man was he who lived in this house that nestles
beneath the ancient castle? In the first place a singularly loveable
man, a man of sweet and gentle spirit, whose life was one of high ideals
and noble endeavor. In the second place an artist who, both for his
achievements and for his influence on art, stands in the very front rank
of artists, and of German artists is "facile princeps." At whatever
point we may study Dürer and his works we are never conscious of
disappointment. As painter, as author, as engraver, or simple citizen,
the more we know of him the more we are morally and intellectually
satisfied. Fortunately, through his letters and writings, his journals
and autobiographical memoirs we know a good deal about his personal
history and education.
Dürer's grandfather came of a farmer race in the village of Eytas in
Hungary. The grandfather turned goldsmith, and his eldest son, Albrecht
Dürer the elder, came to Nuremberg in 1455 and settled in the
Burgstrasse (No. 27). He became one of the leading goldsmiths of the
town; married and had eighteen children, of whom only three, boys, grew
up. Albrecht, or as we call him Albert Dürer, was the eldest of these.
He was born May 21, 1471, in his father's house, and Anthoni Koberger,
the printer and bookseller, the Stein of those days, stood godfather to
him. The maintenance of so large a family involved the father, skilful
artist as he was, in unremitting toil.
His father, who was delighted with Albert's industry, took him from
school as soon as he had learned to read and write and apprenticed him
to a goldsmith. "But my taste drew me toward painting rather than toward
goldsmithry. I explained this to my father, but he was not satisfied,
for he regretted the time I had lost." Benvenuto Cellini has told us how
his father, in like fashion, was eager that he should practise the
"accurst art" of music. Dürer's father, however, soon gave in and in
1486 apprenticed the boy to Michael Wolgemut. That extraordinary
beautiful, and, for a boy of that age, marvelously executed portrait of
himself at the age of thirteen (now at Vienna) must have shown the
father something of the power that lay undeveloped in his son. So "it
was arranged that I should serve him for three years. During that time
God gave me great industry so that I learned many things; but I had to
suffer much at the hands of the other apprentices."
When in 1490 his apprenticeship was completed Dürer set out on his
Wanderjahre, to learn what he could of men and things, and, more
especially, of his own trade. Martin Schongauer was dead, but under that
master's brothers Dürer studied and helped to support himself by his art
at Colmar and at Bâsle. Various wood-blocks executed by him at the
latter place are preserved there. Whether he also visited Venice now or
not is a moot point. Here or elsewhere, at any rate, he came under the
influence of the Bellini, of Mantegna, and more particularly of Jacopo
dei Barbari--the painter and engraver to whom he owed the incentive to
study the proportions of the human body--a study which henceforth became
the most absorbing interest of his life.
"I was four years absent from Nuremberg," he records, "and then my
father recalled me. After my return Hans Frey came to an understanding
with my father. He gave me his daughter Agnes and with her 200 florins,
and we were married." Dürer, who writes so lovingly of his parents,
never mentions his wife with any affection; a fact which to some extent
confirms her reputation as a Xantippe. She, too, in her way, it is
suggested, practised the art of cross-hatching. Pirkheimer, writing
after the artist's death, says that by her avariciousness and quarreling
nature she brought him to the grave before his day. She was probably a
woman of a practical and prosaic turn, to whom the dreamy, poetic,
imaginative nature of the artist-student, her husband, was intolerably
irritating. Yet as we look at his portraits of himself--and no man
except Rembrandt has painted himself so often--it is difficult to
understand how any one could have been angry with Albert Dürer. Never
did the face of man bear a more sweet, benign, and trustful expression.
In those portraits we see something of the beauty, of the strength, of
the weakness of the man so beloved in his generation. His fondness for
fine clothes and his legitimate pride in his personal beauty reveal
themselves in the rich vestments he wears and the wealth of silken
curls, so carefully waved, so wondrously painted, falling proudly over
his free neck.
[Footnote A: From "The Story of Nuremberg." Published by E.P. Dutton &
Co.]
III
OTHER BAVARIAN CITIES
MUNICH[A]
BY BAYARD TAYLOR
Art has done everything for Munich. It lies on a large flat plain
sixteen hundred feet above the sea and continually exposed to the cold
winds from the Alps. At the beginning of the present century it was but
a third-rate city, and was rarely visited by foreigners; since that time
its population and limits have been doubled and magnificent edifices in
every style of architecture erected, rendering it scarcely secondary in
this respect to any capital in Europe.[B] Every art that wealth or taste
could devise seems to have been spent in its decoration. Broad, spacious
streets and squares have been laid out, churches, halls and colleges
erected, and schools of painting and sculpture established which draw
artists from all parts of the world. All this was principally brought
about by the taste of the present king, Ludwig I., who began twenty or
thirty years ago, when he was crown-prince, to collect the best German
artists around him and form plans for the execution of his grand
design. He can boast of having done more for the arts than any other
living monarch; and if he had accomplished it all without oppressing his
people, he would deserve an immortality of fame....
We went one morning to see the collection of paintings formerly
belonging to Eugène Beauharnais, who was brother-in-law to the present
King of Bavaria, in the palace of his son, the Duke of Leuchtenberg. The
first hall contains works principally by French artists, among which are
two by Gérard--a beautiful portrait of Josephine, and the blind
Belisarius carrying his dead companion. The boy's head lies on the old
man's shoulder; but for the livid paleness of his limbs, he would seem
to be only asleep, while a deep and settled sorrow marks the venerable
features of the unfortunate emperor. In the middle of the room are six
pieces of statuary, among which Canova's world-renowned group of the
Graces at once attracts the eye. There is also a kneeling Magdalen,
lovely in her wo, by the same sculptor, and a very touching work of
Schadow representing a shepherd-boy tenderly binding his sash around a
lamb which he has accidentaly wounded with his arrow.
We have since seen in the St. Michael's Church the monument to Eugene
Beauharnais from the chisel of Thorwaldsen. The noble, manly figure of
the son of Josephine is represented in the Roman mantle, with his helmet
and sword lying on the ground by him. On one side sits History writing
on a tablet; on the other stand the two brother-angels Death and
Immortality. They lean lovingly together, with arms around each other,
but the sweet countenance of Death has a cast of sorrow as he stands
with inverted torch and a wreath of poppies among his clustering locks.
Immortality, crowned with never-fading flowers, looks upward with a
smile of triumph, and holds in one hand his blazing torch. It is a
beautiful idea, and Thorwaldsen has made the marble eloquent with
feeling.
The inside of the square formed by the arcades and the New Residence is
filled with noble old trees which in summer make a leafy roof over the
pleasant walks. In the middle stands a grotto ornamented with rough
pebbles and shells, and only needing a fountain to make it a perfect
hall of Neptune. Passing through the northern arcade, one comes into the
magnificent park called the English Garden, which extends more than four
miles along the bank of the Isar, several branches of whose milky
current wander through it and form one or two pretty cascades. It is a
beautiful alteration of forest and meadow, and has all the richness and
garden-like luxuriance of English scenery. Winding walks lead along the
Isar or through the wood of venerable oaks, and sometimes a lawn of half
a mile in length, with a picturesque temple at its farther end, comes in
sight through the trees.
The New Residence is not only one of the wonders of Munich, but of the
world. Altho commenced in 1826 and carried on constantly since that time
by a number of architects, sculptors and painters, it is not yet
finished; if art were not inexhaustible, it would be difficult to
imagine what more could be added. The north side of the Max Joseph Platz
is taken up by its front of four hundred and thirty feet, which was nine
years in building, under the direction of the architect Klenze. The
exterior is copied after the Palazzo Pitti, in Florence. The building is
of light-brown sandstone, and combines an elegance, and even splendor,
with the most chaste and classic style. The northern front, which faces
the royal garden, is now nearly finished. It has the enormous length of
eight hundred feet; in the middle is a portico of ten Ionic columns.
Instead of supporting a triangular façade, each pillar stands separate
and bears a marble statue from the chisel of Schwanthaler.
The interior of the building does not disappoint the promise of the
outside. It is open every afternoon, in the absence of the king, for the
inspection of visitors. We went early to the waiting-hall, where several
travelers were already assembled, and at four o'clock were admitted into
the newer part of the palace, containing the throne-hall, ball-room,
etc. On entering the first hall, designed for the lackeys and royal
servants, we were all obliged to thrust our feet into cloth slippers to
walk over the polished mosaic floor. The walls are of scagliola marble
and the ceilings ornamented brilliantly in fresco. The second hall, also
for servants, gives tokens of increasing splendors in the richer
decorations of the walls and the more elaborate mosaic of the floor. We
next entered the audience chamber, in which the court-marshal receives
the guests. The ceiling is of arabesque sculpture profusely painted and
gilded....
Finally we entered the Hall of the Throne. Here the encaustic decoration
so plentifully employed in the other rooms is dropt, and an effect even
more brilliant obtained by the united use of marble and gold. Picture a
long hall with a floor of polished marble, on each side twelve columns
of white marble with gilded capitals, between which stand colossal
statues of gold. At the other end is the throne of gold and crimson,
with gorgeous hangings of crimson velvet. The twelve statues in the hall
are called the "Wittelsbach Ancestors" and represent renowned members of
the house of Wittelsbach from which the present family of Bavaria is
descended. They were cast in bronze by Stiglmaier after the models of
Schwanthaler, and then completely covered with a coating of gold; so
that they resemble solid golden statues. The value of the precious metal
on each one is about three thousand dollars, as they are nine feet in
height. We visited yesterday morning the Glyptothek, the finest
collection of ancient sculpture except that in the British Museum I have
yet seen, and perhaps elsewhere unsurpassed north of the Alps. The
building, which was finished by Klenze in 1830, has an Ionic portico of
white marble, with a group of allegorical figures representing Sculpture
and the kindred arts. On each side of the portico there are three niches
in the front, containing on one side Pericles, Phidias and Vulcan; on
the other, Hadrian, Prometheus and Daedalus. The whole building forms a
hollow square and is lighted entirely from the inner side. There are in
all twelve halls, each containing the remains of a particular era in the
art, and arranged according to time; so that, beginning with the clumsy
productions of the ancient Egyptians, one passes through the different
stages of Grecian art, afterward that of Rome, and finally ends with the
works of our own times--the almost Grecian perfection of Thorwaldsen and
Canova. These halls are worthy to hold such treasures, and what more
could be said of them? The floors are of marble mosaic, the sides of
green or purple scagliola and the vaulted ceilings covered with raised
ornaments on a ground of gold. No two are alike in color and decoration,
and yet there is a unity of taste and design in the whole which renders
the variety delightful.
From the Egyptian Hall we enter one containing the oldest remains of
Grecian sculpture, before the artists won power to mold the marble to
their conceptions. Then follow the celebrated Aegina marbles, from the
temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, on the island of Aegina. They formerly
stood in the two porticoes, the one group representing the fight for the
body of Laomedon, the other the struggle for the dead Patroclus. The
parts wanting have been admirably restored by Thorwaldsen. They form
almost the only existing specimens of the Aeginetan school. Passing
through the Apollo Hall, we enter the large Hall of Bacchus, in which
the progress of the art is distinctly apparent. A satyr lying asleep on
a goatskin which he has thrown over a rock is believed to be the work of
Praxiteles. The relaxation of the figure and perfect repose of every
limb is wonderful. The countenance has traits of individuality which led
me to think it might have been a portrait, perhaps of some rude country
swain.
In the Hall of Niobe, which follows, is one of the most perfect works
that ever grew into life under a sculptor's chisel. Mutilated as it is,
without head and arms, I never saw a more expressive figure. Ilioneus,
the son of Niobe, is represented as kneeling, apparently in the moment
in which Apollo raises his arrow, and there is an imploring
supplication in his attitude which is touching in the highest degree.
His beautiful young limbs seem to shrink involuntarily from the deadly
shaft; there is an expression of prayer, almost of agony, in the
position of his body. It should be left untouched. No head could be
added which would equal that one pictures to himself while gazing upon
it.
The Pinacothek is a magnificent building of yellow sandstone, five
hundred and thirty feet long, containing thirteen hundred pictures
selected with great care from the whole private collection of the king,
which amounts to nine thousand. Above the cornice on the southern side
stand twenty-five colossal statues of celebrated painters by
Schwanthaler. As we approached, the tall bronze door was opened by a
servant in the Bavarian livery, whose size harmonized so well with the
giant proportions of the building that until I stood beside him and
could mark the contrast I did not notice his enormous frame. I saw then
that he must be near eight feet high and stout in proportion. He
reminded me of the great "Baver of Trient," in Vienna. The Pinacothek
contains the most complete collection of works by old German artists
anywhere to be found. There are in the Hall of the Spanish Masters half
a dozen of Murillo's inimitable beggar-groups.
It was a relief, after looking upon the distressingly stiff figures of
the old German school, to view these fresh, natural countenances. One
little black-eyed boy has just cut a slice out of a melon, and turns
with a full mouth to his companion, who is busy eating a bunch of
grapes. The simple, contented expression on the faces of the beggars is
admirable. I thought I detected in a beautiful child with dark curly
locks the original of his celebrated infant St. John. I was much
interested in two small juvenile works of Raphael and his own portrait.
The latter was taken, most probably, after he became known as a painter.
The calm, serious smile which we see on his portrait as a boy had
vanished, and the thin features and sunken eye told of intense mental
labor.
[Footnote A: From "Views Afoot." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.]
[Footnote B: This was written about 1848. The population of Munich is
now (1914), 595,000. Munich is rated as third in importance among German
cities.]
AUGSBURG[A]
BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN
In ancient times--that is to say, upward of three centuries ago--the
city of Augsburg was probably the most populous and consequential in the
kingdom of Bavaria. It was the principal residence of the noblesse, and
the great mart of commerce. Dukes, barons, nobles of every rank and
degree, became domiciled here. A thousand blue and white flags streamed
from the tops of castellated mansions, and fluttered along the then
almost impregnable ramparts. It was also not less remarkable for the
number and splendor of its religious establishments. Here was a
cathedral, containing twenty-four chapels; and an abbey or monastery (of
Saints Ulric and Afra) which had no rival in Bavaria for the size of its
structure and the wealth of its possessions. This latter contained a
Library, both of MSS. and printed books, of which the recent work of
Braun has luckily preserved a record; and which, but for such record,
would have been unknown to after ages. The treasures of this library are
now entirely dispersed; and Munich, the capital of Bavaria, is the grand
repository of them. Augsburg, in the first instance, was enriched by the
dilapidations of numerous monasteries; especially upon the suppression
of the order of the Jesuits. The paintings, books, and relics, of every
description, of such monasteries as were in the immediate vicinity of
this city, were taken away to adorn the town hall, churches, capitals
and libraries. Of this collection (of which no inconsiderable portion,
both for number and intrinsic value, came from the neighboring monastery
of Eichstadt), there has of course been a pruning; and many flowers have
been transplanted to Munich.