THE TOMB OF MAXIMILIAN
ART has been always, more or less, dependent upon the patronage of the
rich and great. And the warm interest evinced in the Arts and Crafts by
the Emperor Maximilian, the “last of the Knights,” did not a little to
provoke that outburst of artistic excellence which distinguished
Nuremberg at this time; where the names of Dürer, Vischer, and Krafft
shine out pre-eminent among many lesser lights. Maximilian was in many
ways the epitome of his age, the personification of the Renaissance.
Soldier and man of letters, administrator and theologian, athlete and
scholar, he yet found time to encourage artists and to devise and
commission innumerable works of art. He was, in fact, as Albert Dürer
found to his cost, more ready to give commissions than to pay for them
when performed. At Nuremberg he frequently employed Veit Stoss; he had a
considerable share in the production of the _Weisskunig_ and the
_Theuerdank_, a poem describing allegorically the private life and
ideals of the Emperor, which was polished and completed by his secretary
Melchior Pfinzing, Provost of St. Sebald’s Church. He conceived and
commissioned amongst other works Albert Dürer’s colossal wood-engraving,
the _Triumphal Arch_, which was designed, as usual, for the
glorification of this greatest of princes. Wherever he happened to be,
at Augsburg, Innsbruck, Nuremberg or Prague, in the course of the
conduct of one of his innumerable wars or of a tourney, whilst
administering justice, repressing the chivalrous brigandage of petty
lords or bleeding a Bamberg banker, his eye was always quick to perceive
the merit of any craftsman. Chroniclers repeatedly record his morning
rides in a town, and describe the visits which he would pay to the
houses of half-a-dozen craftsmen in a day, buying and ordering costly
works of art.
He came to visit also the home of that already celebrated yet always
modest and unpretending Founder, Peter Vischer, “to whom Princes
esteemed it an honour to do honour.” Maximilian had before now shown a
practical interest in bronze work, and had incidentally displayed his
appreciation of Vischer. For when he was starting a Foundry at Mühlau,
near Innsbruck, he had had it in contemplation to appoint the
“geschickligisten und berichtisten Rotschmied”—the most skilful and
famous coppersmith of Nuremberg—Peter Vischer to wit, to superintend the
establishment thereof. But Peter had declined the honour, and Stefan
Godl from Nuremberg was appointed in his stead.
Now the teeming brain of Maximilian—for whom no plan for his own
exaltation was too grandiose, and no project for the advancement of his
fame was to be despised—conceived the idea of building for himself a
lordly tomb, wherein, after he had been gathered to his forefathers, he
might rest, surrounded by the forms of those who had gone to his making.
To-day twenty-eight bronze over life-size figures of ancient heroes
stand round and guard the Emperor’s cenotaph at Innsbruck. Two of these
are most markedly superior to the rest as works of art; and these two
come from the foundry of Peter Vischer. They are the statues of King
Arthur, the very perfect flower of chivalry (Ill. 15), and of Theodoric,
King of the Goths. (Ill. 14.) Documentary evidence reveals the fact that
in the year 1513 Peter Vischer the elder received from the imperial
chest one thousand florins for “zwei grosse messene Pillder” (two large
bronze figures). But apart from the teaching of the archives their
resemblance to the other works of this foundry leaves no doubt as to the
origin of these noble figures. In feeling, in poetry, in grace, as well
as in the minute and exquisite finish of the detail, they are indeed
worthy of the blossom period of the house of Vischer. Both figures are
eloquent of the artist’s joy in production, and not of the tradesman’s
mere delight in a commission. Not that the Vischers were at all to seek
on the business side of their craft; they worked, as the modern dealer
would express it, with punctuality, cheapness and despatch. In artistic
excellence, as well as in these other important qualities, they far
surpassed the labours of the Mühlau Founder, who had secured the
commission for all, or almost all, the other statues for the tomb of
Maximilian. The Emperor himself, it is recorded, recognized this fact;
for he remarked (April 16, 1513), “Für die 3,000 fl. auf welche das bis
dahin gegossene einzige Bild Sesselschreiber zu stehen komme, in
Nürnberg sechs Bilder hätte giessen lassen können.” (For the 3,000
florins to which the one statue hitherto cast by Sesselschreiber
amounts, six statues might have been cast at Nuremberg.)
[Illustration: STEIN PHOTO.] [TOMB OF MAXIMILIAN, INNSBRUCK
14. THEODORIC, KING OF THE GOTHS]
[Illustration: STEIN PHOTO.] [TOMB OF MAXIMILIAN, INNSBRUCK
15. KING ARTHUR]
Both the statues that hail from Nuremberg are extremely beautiful, but
they are noticeably different in style. They differ so much in that
unconscious revelation of the artist’s hand, which distinguishes every
piece of human work, that I am strongly inclined to accept Dr. Seeger’s
view, that whilst Peter Vischer the father wrought Theodoric, King of
the Goths, it is to his son and namesake, Peter Vischer the younger,
that we owe the statue of King Arthur. Theodoric leans on his sword and
shield in a pose that is beautiful and imaginative, it is true, but in
the execution slightly forced. This figure is weaker and more
conventional, less full of life and vigour than that of the King Arthur.
Seeger fancies that we can trace in it something of the uneasiness felt
by the old craftsman when essaying a new style, and that there is
discernible here the slight hesitation and misgiving of one who fears
that he is attempting what is beyond his strength.
Certainly we get no such impression when we turn to the splendid
strenuous figure of Arthur. This _is_ the Arthur whom we know, in all
the splendour of his manhood, bold and free, the noblest flower of
chivalry; Arthur, the very perfect knight, pure, serene in the
confidence of his own faith and right, brooking no challenge and no
wrong. Here Beauty and Strength have kissed one another; and the spring
of this youthful figure, nimble and light of limb, betrays itself even
through the hard, straight lines of the heavy, rich armour it bears. It
is the type of the noble Teuton of all time, drawn by an artist who had
studied the nude and Italian plastic art, and was full of the vigour and
confidence of his own youthful ideal. For this bronze surely conveys
that conviction of agility for a moment at rest, which you may derive
from the sight of a Greek marble or the lithe figure of a modern
athlete. And is there not also here something “of that marvellous
gesture of moving himself within the” bronze, which Vasari so finely
attributed to the St. George of Donatello?
There may perhaps be in this figure a touch of exaggeration which is so
splendidly absent from that supreme triumph of the Renaissance; it is
certainly more virile and it may be more brutal; but it is enough to
claim for Vischer that in this noble creation he challenges comparison
with “the Master of those who know.” Doubtless, indeed, both his Arthur
and his St. Peter of the Sebaldusgrab owe not a little to the
masterpiece of Donatello.
But the beauty of the figure and pose of King Arthur is not all. It need
not blind us to the exquisite ornamentation of the armour, which, unlike
that of Theodoric, is rich with the richness of the North Italian
Renaissance. The dragons thereon are full of life, and the chain of the
Order of the Golden Fleece, and all the other minute details of the
decoration, are as notable for the fecundity of invention as for the
skill in execution which they display.
These two heroic figures were completed by the Vischer family as early
as the year 1513, but they did not reach the place for which they had
been destined till some ten years later, for the Emperor kept them at
Augsburg. And even after they had arrived at Innsbruck and been set in
position there, they were not left in peace. A great danger threatened
Theodoric in 1548, for it did not square with Charles V.’s conception of
the order of the Universe that the king of the Goths should be found
among the ancestors of the Hapsburgs. He therefore gave orders that his
statue should either be recast or at least be renamed. Fortunately
neither of these things got itself done.
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