THE MINOR WORKS OF PETER VISCHER THE YOUNGER
SOME time during the year which followed the completion of the Eissen
Monument, Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg and
Mainz, it is recorded, sent to the old bronze-founder of Nuremberg
requesting him to let his son come to him to confer about certain
orders. Whether the young Peter went or not we do not know, nor is it
certain whether it was his tomb which the Cardinal had previously
ordered, or the great State Seal of the Archbishop, which is with some
probability ascribed to this craftsman, that was in debate. The
tomb-plate of the Cardinal was finished by 1525, and is now in the
Parish Church of Aschaffenburg, though it is at Mainz that the Cardinal
was buried. For the fashion in tombs was changing, and, in order to be
in the fashion, the Cardinal subsequently ordered a new tomb of red
marble beneath which he now lies in the Cathedral of Mainz.
“And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And ’neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands;
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse....
True peach,
Rosy and flawless.”
So the German Cardinal shared the taste of Browning’s Roman Bishop. It
was a taste that spread rapidly from Italy about this time, and brought
in its train swift ruin to the industry of the bronze craftsmen. But the
day of disaster had not yet come, and meantime the young Peter Vischer
was busy with other works. He had not yet, however, succeeded in being
admitted as a meister of the Guild of Coppersmiths, and he took the
present opportunity of submitting the Cardinal’s tomb-plate as his
masterpiece. It was rejected for some obscure reason, just as, two years
later, his splendid memorial of Frederick the Wise was rejected. Both of
these pieces are signed “Opus M. Petri Fischers. Norimberge.” In face of
the fact that they were not accepted as masterpieces we cannot interpret
the letter M. in these inscriptions as the initial of _Magistri_
(master). It must stand rather for _Minoris_—“the work of Peter Fischer
the younger.”
The present memorial takes the form of a life-size character-study of a
mighty prince of the Church, and it is set in a Renaissance framework.
It is a noble and intense piece of work which has been spoilt by the
inscription tablet which covers the body.
Unlike his father, but like most other artists of his day, Peter Vischer
the younger, as we gather from Neudörffer’s mention of him, did not
confine himself to bronze work, but dabbled in various kindred arts. We
have a noticeable instance of this in the “Allegory on the Reformation”
(1524), an aquarelle now preserved at Weimar, which once roused the
enthusiasm of Goethe, and which reveals to us his political and
religious creed. In common with Hans Sachs, Albert Dürer, and Willibald
Pirkheimer, and the great majority of Nurembergers, Peter Vischer had
thrown in his lot with the Protestant Reformers, and boldly espoused the
cause of Luther. Luther he here represents as some hero of old story who
has destroyed the palace and upset the throne of the usurper, and
scattered the base crowd of his courtiers. The Pope and the mighty
princes of the Church have been put down from their seat and the horde
of their hateful minions—Pride, Luxury, and Avarice—flee away. In their
stead Faith, Hope, and Charity are about to enthrone Justice, whilst
Luther, the humble and unworldly, shows the straight path to Christ, who
descends from the clouds to save publicans and sinners. Rome’s might, it
is implied, is broken; the German people can at last, through Luther’s
act, hold direct communion with their Redeemer once more. Only a German
Emperor, so it must have seemed to the German enthusiasts of that time,
was wanting—no Spaniard like Charles V., with his brood of alien
courtiers—to continue the work of Luther and to fulfil the national
ideal. And perhaps, as Dr. Seeger suggests, Peter Vischer the younger
looked to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, as the heaven-appointed
Kaiser—that Prince whose portrait he executed in so loving and masterly
a fashion two years later.
That love of allegory which is indicated by this drawing, and by the
artist’s addiction to poetry, was a taste he shared with Dürer and
Holbein the younger. It is further illustrated by the two inkstands
which come from his hand and, in a less degree, by the two plaquettes of
Orpheus and Eurydice we have now to consider. (Ill. 19 and 20.)
[Illustration: STEIN PHOTO.] [PLAQUETTE IN POSSESSION OF M. DREYFUS,
PARIS
19. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE]
There are, indeed, four plaquettes on this subject in existence, all
undoubtedly by the same master. But three of these are practically
identical. The other, the earliest as it would appear, is in the
possession of M. Dreyfus of Paris. It was at one time attributed to
Jacopo de’ Barbari. But this, like the other plaquettes, bears Vischer’s
mark clearly enough—two fish lying back to back pierced through by a
nail or dagger, a device found also on the two inkstands. The two nude
figures of Orpheus and Eurydice do, however, undoubtedly owe very much
to the influence of Jacopo and Sansovino on the one hand, just as they
are related to the _Adam and Eve_ of Dürer on the other. In this earlier
version of the subject it is evident that the artist has been moved by
the above-mentioned influences to study the nude, but his study is not
yet complete. For the modelling of the Orpheus is not all that could be
desired, the legs of this figure in particular being awkward and
constrained. The Eurydice is more successful, and is less hard and
angular in treatment. But, as Lübke observed, the parallelism produced
by the presentation of the two forms in the act of turning lends a
distinct harshness to the composition. For all that there is one quality
present here which we have learnt to expect from this master. He has
seized the dramatic moment when, in Vergil’s words, “a sudden madness
took hold of the unwary lover,” and, “in his desire to behold her, he
turned his eyes” upon his half-regained Eurydice. But he could not hold
her safe “within the bond of one immortal look.” Just as she emerges
from the rocks of the underworld he yields to this desire and turns. And
as he turns and looks she stops and begins, under the constraint of the
inexorable law of Proserpine, to be drawn back to the shades whence she
came. Into her face there has come a look of sorrow and sad reproach,
whilst the movement of her hands and head and hair betoken the beginning
of that inevitable return. With the gesture of her left hand Eurydice
seems almost to utter the lines of Vergil:
“Quis et me miseram et te perdidit, Orpheu, Quis tantus furor?
Jamque vale—!”
[Illustration: STEIN PHOTO.] [PLAQUETTE IN THE MUSEUM, BERLIN
20. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE]
The other version of this same subject to which Peter Vischer the
younger returned apparently in later years is still more finely
conceived and finely executed. The artist by this time, about the year
1520 let us say, had found his own soul and strength, and dared to be
more himself. The Berlin plaquette, which passed from the Nagler
collection to the Berlin Museum in 1835, is a great improvement upon the
old theme. The composition is in all respects much more rhythmical and
harmonious. Orpheus has been stepping quickly forward, playing as only
Orpheus with his lute could play, playing for life and love and
happiness, when suddenly the irresistible fear has come upon him that
she, his half-regained Eurydice, may not be following him. He has, under
the spur of that doubt, flung round his head quickly to reassure
himself. And she, even in that instant, begins to turn again towards
those shadowy regions whence his music and his faith, so far maintained,
had drawn her. Reproachful, sorrowing, in the agony of her love and her
despair, she gazes at him with one long last look. Here the artist has
turned the back-fluttering veil to a new and beautiful motive, and, like
the arrangement of the hair and the treatment of the feet, it has been
fittingly and carefully thought out to illustrate the two movements in
which the tragedy of the moment lies. The style is essentially
Italianate, and the device of the two spiked fish in the corner of the
plaquette proclaim the authorship of it. Orpheus, it will be noticed, is
not provided with the lute of antiquity but with a violin. This is not
surprising, for there was a general tendency both in Italian and German
art to furnish mythical personages with modern musical instruments.
Lübke reminds us, for instance, of the Apollo in Raphael’s “Parnassus.”
Of the other two plaquettes to which we have referred, one is to be
found in the Hamburg Museum, and the other was, till 1807, in St.
Blasien in the Black Forest, but is now preserved in the institution of
St. Paul in Carinthia. They are almost exactly the same with the Berlin
copy. But the latter has a poetical inscription above on the upper edge
which is absent from the example at St. Paul.
The inscription, which a recollection of the fondness evinced by the
young Peter for the study of poetry inclines us to attribute to his pen,
runs as follows:
ORPHEA CVM SILVIS FLVVIOS ETSAXA[TN1] MOVENTĒ
GRECIA LAETEOS FERT ADYSSE LAVIS
EVRYDICN̅̅ ILLIC VITAE REVOCASSE PRIORI
SERVASSET STIGIO SI MODO PACTA IOVI;
which, being roughly interpreted, is to the effect that Orpheus, moving,
according to the Grecian fable, rocks and woods and rivers by his music,
came to the Infernal Regions, and there had quite won back Eurydice to
life if only he had observed the conditions of the king of Hades.
The Hamburg exemplar has this inscription also, with a few literal
variations, as, for instance, the mistake of _saxo_ instead of _saxa_,
and the correction of _adiisse_ (which is necessary for the scansion of
the line) in place of _adysse_.
[Illustration: STEIN PHOTO.] [INKSTAND, ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, FORTNUM
COLLECTION, OXFORD
21. “EARTHLY LIFE”]
A restless, uncontented care of doing better, which is the hall-mark of
genius, is proclaimed in the spirit of the craftsman who thus turned
again in his maturity to improve, and, if he could, to perfect the theme
he had attempted in his youth. The same spirit is evident in the similar
development of a theme which we find in the case of two bronze inkstands
formerly in the possession of the late H. Fortnum, Esq., of Stanmore,
and now forming part of the Fortnum Collection, bequeathed by him to the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The first was picked up by the collector in
Paris; the second in Genoa. (Ill. 21 and 22.) They are mentioned by
Christoph von Murr[8] in 1778 as being in the collection of Dr.
Silberrad at Nuremberg, and are called by him “two admirable bas-reliefs
in bronze by Peter Vischer.” He further describes the second, that is,
the later, in the following terms: “It represents the reminding of the
future life. Near an urn, which might serve as an inkpot, stands a naked
female figure, about six inches high, pointing towards heaven with her
finger. In front of her a skull is lying, behind her a small shield and
dagger. A beautiful idea. Leaning against the urn is a tablet with the
inscription ‘VITAM NON MORTEM RECOGITA’” (Think on life not death).
“Under the base is the sign of the master, two fish with the initials
P.V. 1525.... Both pieces are still just as they came from the foundry,
and one must admire the accuracy and draughtsmanship which betray the
hand of one who is a master of his craft.”
Footnote 8:
“Beschreibung der vornehmsten Merkwürdigkeiten,” quoted by Seeger.
Now if this female figure above mentioned is rightly interpreted as
reminding us of the life to come, the heavenly life, we may regard it as
a later and natural variation of the allegory of earthly life
represented by the other and earlier work. There the female figure of
Life is standing with her foot upon a skull, trampling on the emblem of
Death, and is pointing to herself, gazing self-centred, as who should
say, “Enjoy life, think on me and forget the death that cometh with the
morrow.” And on the tablet at her feet recurs the legend, “VITAM NON
MORTEM RECOGITA!” She is teaching the Renaissance love of beauty and the
lesson of the joy of existence and the frank delight in the things of
this earth. Probably, then, this work was executed shortly after the
young craftsman’s sojourn in Italy, when he was filled with the joy of
life and had been studying the nude with all the enthusiasm of the early
Renaissance school. A mixture of early Renaissance and of mediæval
elements is indeed distinctly observable. For the four-cornered vase and
its lid is eminently Gothic in character. On the four under sides of the
vase we find repeated the sign of the two fish which we have learnt to
associate with Peter Vischer the younger, and on the four upper sides
the same medallion of a man’s head. Medallions, we know, Peter Vischer
the younger turned his hand to frequently after his return from Italy.
The Medusa head with the winged helmet, and the club on the base, recall
the style of Sansovino, whilst the lion’s feet on which the vase rests,
and much of the decoration, correspond with details on the Sebaldusgrab.
The pose and the rhythmic movement of the female form are beautiful in
themselves, but the neck of the figure is too thick and the body
excessively short. When, ten or fifteen years later (1525), the
craftsman with a deepened sense of the mystery and sorrow of the world
returned to this theme, he read a new meaning into that favourite motto
of his, “Think on life not death,” and he also remedied in great part
the faults of his earlier effort. The figure, indeed, remains still too
short in comparison with its breadth, but it is far slimmer than the
other; the work is much more delicate, the lines less accentuated. The
artist is now a wiser, sadder, more spiritual man. With his feeling and
his knowledge of the world, his power also and his freedom have
increased and his mastery of modelling. The influence of his brother’s
journey to Rome and of the lessons he had brought home with him, is
evident everywhere, and not least in the striving after simplicity which
has induced him to leave the base plain and not richly ornamented as was
the former one.
[Illustration: STEIN PHOTO.] [INKSTAND, ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, FORTNUM
COLLECTION, OXFORD
22. “HEAVENLY LIFE”]
The theme itself can indeed hardly be called a development but rather
the counterpart of the other. It is the answer of the spiritual side of
man to the earthly promptings of his nature. Think not on this life nor
on this death—but on the other life. In obedience to this point of view
the skull has been placed in a more prominent position. It is no longer
trampled on in the ecstasy of earthly enjoyment but recognized rather,
and triumphed over, by this upward-gazing Vita, upward pointing. Death,
it is meant, should be used, and welcomed almost, as the gate of
heavenly life. The many deaths that had darkened the doors of his own
house had, it is probable, sobered and saddened Peter Vischer’s great
son, and perhaps his own failing health or some premonition of an early
death, was by this time leading him to reflect in a chastened yet
hopeful spirit on the motto that he loved, and to interpret it afresh in
this allegorical wise: “Vitam non Mortem Recogita.” It was the motto
inscribed upon his grave in St. Rochus Church when he died but three
years later, and was laid to rest by his aged father.
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