work of any great artist, he painted the most extraordinary
fore-shortened pictures; and fore-shortening was a technicality in art
then uncommon. He also was the first to paint church cupolas.
Fore-shortening produces some peculiar as well as great results, and
being a feature of art with which people were not then familiar,
Correggio's work did not go uncriticised. Indeed one artist, gazing up
into one of the cupolas where Correggio's fore-shortened figures were
placed, remarked that to him it appeared a "hash of frogs."
But when Titian saw that cupola, he said: "Reverse the cupola, fill it
with gold, and even then that will not be its money's worth."
Correggio did not receive very large sums for his work, and since he
was married and took good care of his family, he must have had some
source of income besides his brush. He received some interesting
rewards for his paintings. For example, for "St. Jerome," called "Il
Giorno," he was given "400 gold imperials, some cartloads of faggots
and measures of wheat, and a fat pig." That picture is in the Parma
Gallery, and all the cupolas which he painted are in Parma churches.
Some of his pictures are signed; "Leito," a synonym for his name,
"Allegri." This indicates his style of art.
There is an interesting story told of how Correggio stood entranced
before a picture of Raphael's, and after long study of it he
exclaimed: "I too, am a painter!" showing at once his appreciation of
Raphael's greatness and satisfaction at his own genius.
Doubtless a good share of Correggio's comfortable living came from the
lady he married, since she was considered a rich woman for those times
and in that locality. Her name was Girolama Merlini, and she lived in
Mantua, the place where the Montagues and Capulets lived of whom
Shakespeare wrote the most wonderful love story ever imagined. This
young woman was only sixteen years old when Correggio met and loved
her, and very beautiful and later on he painted a picture,
"Zingarella," for which his wife is said to have been the model. It
seems to have been a stroke of economy and enterprise for painters to
marry, since we read of so many who made fame and fortune through the
beauty of their wives.
They were very happy together, Correggio and his wife, and they had
four children. Their happiness was not for long, because Correggio
seems to have been but thirty-four years old when she died, nor did he
live to be old. There is a most curious tale of his death which is
probably not true, but it is worth telling since many have believed
it. He is supposed to have died in Correggio, of pleurisy, but the
story is that he had made a picture for one who had some grudge
against him, and who in order to irritate him paid him in copper,
fifty scudi. This was a considerable burden, and in order to save
expense and time, it is said that Correggio undertook to carry it home
alone. It was a very hot day, and he became so overheated and
exhausted with his heavy load that he took ill and died, and he may be
said literally to have been killed by "too much money," if this were
true. Vasari, a biographer to be generally believed, says it is a
fact.
Correggio said that he always had his "thoughts at the end of his
pencil," and there are those who impudently declare that is the only
place he _did_ have them, but that is a carping criticism, because he
was a very great artist, his greatest power being the presentation of
soft blendings of light and shade. There seem to have been few unusual
events in Correggio's life; very little that helps us to judge the
man, but there is a general opinion that he was a kind and devoted
father and husband, as well as a good citizen. With little demand upon
his moral character, he did his work, did it well, and his work alone
gave him place and fame.
He became the head of a school of painting and had many imitators, but
we hear little of his pupils, except that one of them was his own son,
Pompino, who lived to be very old, and in his turn was successful as
an artist.
Correggio was buried with honours in the Arrivabene Chapel, in the
Franciscan church at Correggio.
PLATE--THE HOLY NIGHT
This painting is not characteristic of Correggio's work, but
nevertheless it is very beautiful. The brilliant warm light which
comes from the Infant Jesus in His mother's arms is reflected upon the
faces of those gathered about, and even illuminates the angelic group
hovering above him. The slight landscape forming the background is
also suggestive, and the conditions of the birth are indicated by the
ass which may be seen in the middle distance. The faces of all are
joyous yet full of wonderment, the whole scene intimate and human.
The picture is also called the "Adoration of the Shepherds," and that
title best tells the story. See the shepherdess shading her face with
one hand and offering two turtle-doves with the other. The ass in the
distance is the one on which Mary rode to Bethlehem, and Joseph is
caring for it. Even the cold light of the dawning day is softened by
the beauty of the group below. This picture is in the Royal Gallery in
Dresden.
PLATE--THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE
The Infant Jesus sits upon His mother's lap, and places the ring upon
St. Catherine's finger, while Mary's hand helps to guide that of her
Child. This action brings the three hands close together and adds to
the beauty of the composition. All of the faces are full of pleasure
and kindliness, while that of St. Sebastian fairly glows with happy
emotion. The light is concentrated upon the body of the Child and is
reflected upon the faces of the women. This painting hangs in the
Louvre.
Other great Correggio pictures are the "School of Cupid," which is
more characteristic of his work; "Antiope," "Leda," "Danae," and "Ecce
Homo."
XII
PAUL GUSTAVE DORE
_French School_
1833-1883
This artist died in Paris twenty-five years ago, but there is little
as yet to be told of his life history. He was educated in Paris at the
Lycée Charlemagne, having gone there from Strasburg, where he was
born.
He was a painter of fantastic and grotesque subjects, and as far as we
know, he began his career when a boy. He made sketches before his
eighth year which attracted much attention, and he earned considerable
money while still at school. He was at that time engaged to illustrate
for journals, at a good round sum, and before he left the Lycée he had
made hundreds of drawings, somewhat after the satirical fashion of
Hogarth.
His work is very characteristic and once seen is likely to be always
recognised.
He first worked for the _Journal Pour Rire_, but then he undertook to
illustrate the work of Rabelais, the great satirist, whose text just
suited Doré's pencil. After Rabelais he illustrated Balzac, also the
"Wandering Jew," "Don Quixote," and Dante's "Divine Comedy."
He undertook to do things which he could not do well, simply for the
money there was in the commissions. He had but a poor idea of colour
and his work was coarse, but it had such marked peculiarities that it
became famous. He did a little sculpture as well, and even that showed
his eccentricities of thought.
PLATE--MOSES BREAKING THE TABLETS OF THE LAW
This is one of the illustrations of the Doré Bible, published in
1865-66. The story is well known of how Moses went up into the Mount
of the Lord to receive the laws for the Israelites, which were written
upon tables of stone. Upon his descent from the Mount he found that
his followers had set up a golden calf, which they were worshipping;
and in his wrath Moses broke the tablets on which the Law was
inscribed. The power shown in his attitude, the affrighted faces of
the cowering Jews, the thunder and lightning as an expression of the
wrath of the Almighty are all painted in Doré's best manner.
XIII
ALBRECHT DÜRER
(Pronounced Dooer-rer')
_Nuremberg School_
1471-1528
_Pupil of Wolgemuth and Schongauer_
Albrecht Dürer by nationality was a Hungarian, but he was born in the
city of Nuremberg. His father had come from the little Hungarian town
of Eytas to Nuremberg that he might practise the craft of a
goldsmith. Notwithstanding his Hungarian origin, the name is German
and the family "bearing," or sign, is the open door. This device
suggests that the name was first formed from "Thurer," which means
"carpenter," maker of doors.
The father became the goldworker for a master goldsmith of Nuremberg
named Hieronymus Holper, and very soon the new employee had fallen in
love with his master's daughter. The daughter was very young and very
beautiful; her name was Barbara, and as Herr Dürer was quite forty
years of age, while she was but fifteen, the match seemed most
unlikely, but they married and had eighteen children! The great
painter was one of them.
Albrecht loved his parents most tenderly, and from first to last we
hear no word of disagreement among any members of that immense
household. Young Albrecht was especially the companion of his father,
being brilliant, generous, and hard-working in a family where everyone
needed to do his best to help along. This love and companionship never
ceased until death, and after his parents died Albrecht wrote in a
touching manner of their death, describing his love for them, and
their many virtues. He was an author and a poet as well as a painter,
and only Leonardo da Vinci matched him for greatness and
versatility. We may know what Dürer's father looked like, since the
son made two portraits of him; one is to be seen in the Uffizi Gallery
at Florence and the other belongs to the Duke of Northumberland's
collection. The latter portrait has been reproduced in an engraving,
so that it is familiar to most people.
In the days when the great artist was growing up, Nuremberg was the
centre of all intellectuality and art in the North. The city of
Augsburg also followed art fashions, but it was far less important
than Nuremberg, because in the latter city every sort of art-craft was
followed in sincerity and with great originality.
In those days, the craft of the goldsmith was closely allied with the
profession of the painter, because the smith had to create his own
designs, and that called for much talent. Thus it was but a step from
designing in precious metals to the use of colour, and to
engraving. In making wood engravings, however, the drudgery of it was
left almost entirely to workmen, not artists. Nuremberg was also the
seat of musical learning. Wagner makes this fact pathetic, comical,
and altogether charming in his "Mastersingers of Nuremberg."
Till Dürer's time, however, there had been little painting that could
be regarded as art, and when he came to study it there was but little
opportunity in his own land, but Dürer was destined to bring art to
Nuremberg. If he went elsewhere to study, it was only for a little
time, because he was above all things patriotic and dearly loved his
home.
With seventeen brothers and sisters, young Dürer's problem was a
serious one. His father not only meant him to become a goldsmith like
himself--a craft in which there was much money to be made at a time
when people dressed with great ornamentation and used gold to decorate
with--it was highly necessary with so large a family that he should
learn to do that which could make him helpful to his father. Hence the
young boy entered his father's shop. If he had not been handicapped
with so many to help to maintain, he would have laid up a considerable
fortune, because from the very beginning he was master of all that he
undertook; doing the least thing better than any other did it, putting
conscience and painstaking into all.
"My father took special delight in me," the son said, "seeing that I
was industrious in working and learning, he put me to school; and when
I had learned to read and write, he took me home from my school and
taught me the goldsmith's trade."
The family were good and kind; excellent neighbours, deeply religious,
and little Albrecht certainly was comely. He was beautiful as a little
child, and as a man was very handsome, with long light hair sweeping
his shoulders, and gentle eyes. He was very tall, stately, and full of
dignity.
In his father's shop he made little clay figures which were afterward
moulded in metal; also he learned to carve wood and ivory, and he
added the touch of originality to all that he did. He was the Leonardo
da Vinci of Germany, an intellectual man, a poet, painter, sculptor,
engraver, and engineer. He approached everything that he did from an
intellectual point of view, looking for the reasons of things.
After a while in his father's shop, he found mere craftsmanship
irksome, and he begged to be allowed to enter a studio. This was a
great disappointment to the father, even a distress, because he could
see no very quick nor large returns in money for an artist, and he
sorely needed the help of his son; but being kind and reasonable, he
consented Albrecht was apprenticed to the only artist of any repute
then in Nuremberg, Wolgemuth.
To his studio Albrecht went, at the age of fifteen, and if he did not
learn much more of painting, under that artist's direction, than his
own genius had already taught him, he learned the drudgery of his
work; how to grind colours and to mix them, and he studied wood
engraving also.
In Wolgemuth's studio he remained for the three years of his
apprenticeship, and then he fled to better things. For a time he
followed the methods of another German artist, Schongauer, but finally
he went forth to try his luck alone. He wandered from place to place,
practising all his trades, goldsmithing, engraving, whatever would
support him, yet always and everywhere painting.
It is thought that he may have gone as far as Italy, but it is not
certain whether he went there in his first wanderings or later
on. However, he was soon recalled home, for his father had found a
suitable wife for him. She was the daughter of a rich citizen and her
name was Agnes Frey. She was pretty as well as rich, but had she been
neither Albrecht would have returned at his father's bidding. There
was never any resistance to the fine and proper things of life on
Albrecht Dürer's part. He was the well balanced, reasonable man from
youth up.
There have been extraordinary tales told of the artist's wife. She has
been called hateful and spiteful as Xantippe, the wife of Socrates,
but we think this is calumny. The stories came about in this way:
Dürer had a life-long friend, Wilibald Pirkheimer, who in his old age
became the most malicious and quarrelsome of old fellows. He lived
longer than Dürer did, and Dürer's wife also outlived her
husband. Pirkheimer wanted a set of antlers which had belonged to
Dürer and which he thought the wife should give him after Dürer was
dead, but Agnes thought otherwise and would not give them up. Then,
full of rage, the old man wrote the most outrageous letters about poor
Agnes, saying that she was a shrew and had compelled Dürer to work
himself to death; that she was a miser and had led the artist an awful
dance through life. This is the only evidence against her, and that so
sane and sensible a man as the artist lived with her all his life and
cherished her, is evidence enough that Pirkheimer didn't tell the
truth. When Dürer died he was in good circumstances and instead of
being overworked, he for many years had done no "pot-boiling," but had
followed investigations along lines that pleased him. After his death,
the widow treated his brothers and sisters generously, giving them
properties of Dürer's and being of much help to them. During the
artist's life he and she had travelled everywhere together and had
appeared to love each other tenderly; hence we may conclude that the
old Pirkheimer was simply a disgruntled, gouty old man without a good
word for anybody.
If Dürer's father and mother had eighteen children, Albrecht and Agnes
struck a balance, for they had none. Whether or not Dürer went to
Italy before his marriage in 1494, certain it is that he was in
Venice, the home of Titian, in 1506. Titian was six years younger than
Dürer, who was then about thirty-five years old. It is said that he
started for Italy in 1505 and that he went the whole of the way, over
the Alps, through forests and streams, on horseback. Who knows but it
was during that very journey, while travelling alone, often finding
himself in lonely ways, and full of the speculative thoughts that were
characteristic of him, that he did not think first of his subject,
"Knight, Death, and the Devil," which helped make his fame. In that
picture we have a knight, helmeted, carrying his lance, mounted upon
his horse, riding in a lonely forest, with death upon a "pale horse"
by his side, holding an hour glass to remind the knight of the
fleeting of time. Behind comes the devil, with trident and horn,
represented as a frightful and disgusting beast, which follows
hot-foot after the lonely knight, who looks neither to right nor left,
but persistently goes his way.
Titian's teacher, Bellini, was still living, and he was one of Dürer's
greatest admirers. Especially did he believe that he could paint the
finest hair of any artist in the world. One day, while studying
Dürer's work, and being especially fascinated by the hair of one of
his figures, the old man took Dürer's brush and tried to reproduce as
beautiful a tress. Presently he put down the brush in despair, but the
younger artist took it up, still wet with the same colours, and in a
few brilliant strokes produced a lovely lock of woman's hair.
While luxuriating in Venetian heat, Dürer wrote home to his friend
Pirkheimer: "Oh, how I shall freeze after this sunshine!" He was a
lover of warm, beautiful colour, gay and tender life. Most of all he
loved the fatherland, and all the honours paid him and all the
invitations pressed upon him could not keep him long from
Nuremberg. The journey homeward was not uneventful because he was
taken ill, and had to stop at a house on his way, where he was cared
for till he was strong enough to proceed. Before he went his way he
painted upon the wall of that house a fine picture, to show his
gratitude for the kind treatment he had received. Imagine a people so
settled in their homes that it would be worth while for an artist who
came along to leave a picture upon the walls to-day--we should have
moved to a new house or a new flat almost before Dürer could have
washed his brushes and turned the corner.
Back in Nuremberg, he settled down into the life of a responsible
citizen, lived in a fine new house, in time became a member of the
council, and his studio was a veritable workshop. Studios were quite
different from those of to-day. Then the pupils turned to and ground
colours, did much of their own manufacturing, engaged at first in such
commonplace occupations, which were nevertheless teaching them the
foundation of their art, while they watched the work of the
master. Such a studio as Dürer's must have been full of young men
coming and going, not all working at the art of painting, but
engraving, preparing materials for such work, designing, and executing
many other details of art work.
After this time Dürer made his smallest picture, which is hardly more
than an inch in diameter. On that tiny surface he painted the whole
story of the crucifixion, and it is now in the Dresden Gallery. To
those of us who see little mentality in the faces of the Italian
subjects, the German art of Dürer, often ugly in the choice of models,
and so exact as to bring out unpleasing details, is nevertheless the
greater; because in all cases, the faces have sincere expressions. They
exhibit human purposes and emotions which we can understand, and
despise or love as the case may be.
They say that his Madonna is generally a "much-dressed round-faced
German mother, holding a merry little German boy." That may be true;
but at any rate, she is every inch a mother and he a well-beloved
little boy, which is considerably more than can be said of some
Italian performances.
Dürer made a painting of "Praying Hands," a queer subject for a
picture, but those hands are nothing _but_ praying hands. The story of
them is touching. It is said that for several years Dürer had won a
prize for which a friend of his had also competed, and upon losing the
prize the last time he tried for it, the friend raised his hands and
prayed for the power to accept his failure with resignation and
humility. Dürer, looking at him, was impressed with the eloquence of
the gesture; thus the "Praying Hands" was conceived.
Dürer was also called the _Father of Picture Books_, because he
designed so many woodcuts that he first made possible the illustration
of stories.
He printed his own illustrations in his own house, and was well paid
for it. The Emperor Maximillian visited Nuremberg, and wishing to
honour Dürer, commanded him to make a triumphal arch.
"It was not to be fashioned in stone like the arches given to the
victorious Roman Emperors; but instead it was to be composed of
engravings. Dürer made for this purpose ninety-two separate blocks of
woodcuts. On these were represented Maximillian's genealogical tree
and the principal events of his life. All these were arranged in the
form of an arch, 9 feet wide and 10-1/2 feet high. It took Dürer three
years to do this work, and he was never well paid," so says one who
has compiled many incidents of his life.
"While the artist worked, the Emperor often visited his studio; and as
Dürer's pet cats often visited it at the same time, the expression
arose, 'a cat may look at a King!'"
On the occasion of one of these kingly visits, Maximillian tried to do
a little art-work on his own account. Taking a piece of charcoal he
tried to sketch, but the charcoal kept breaking and he asked Dürer why
it did so.
"That is my sceptre; your Majesty has other and greater work to do,"
was the tactful reply. It is a question with us to-day whether the
King ever did a greater work than Albrecht Dürer, king of painters,
was doing.
After this, Maximillian gave Dürer a pension, but when the Emperor
died the artist found it necessary to apply to the monarch who came
after him, in order to have the gift confirmed. This was the occasion
for his journey to the Low Countries, and he took his wife Agnes with
him. In the Netherlands he was received with much honour and was
invited to become court painter; and what was more, his pension was
fixed upon him for life. The great work of his life was his
illustration of the Apocalypse. For this he made sixteen extraordinary
woodcuts, of great size.
On his journey to see Charles V., Maximillian's successor, Dürer kept
a diary in which he noted the minutest details of all that happened to
him. He told of the coronation of Charles; of hearing about a whale
that had been cast upon the shore; of his disappointment that it had
been removed before he had reached the place. He wrote with great
indignation about the supposed kidnapping of Martin Luther, while he
was on his way home from the Diet of Worms.
While Dürer was in the Low Countries, a fever came upon him, and when
he returned home, it still followed him. Indeed, although he lived for
seven years after his return, he was never well again. Among his
effects there was a sketch made to indicate to his physician the seat
of his illness.
Dürer did not paint great frescoes upon walls as did Raphael, Michael
Angelo, and all great Italian artists; but instead he painted on wood,
canvas, and in oils.
In all the civilised world Dürer was honoured equally with the great
Italian painters of his time. He was a man of much conscientiousness,
dignity, and tenderness. He was devoted to his home and country, and
regarded the problems of life intellectually. When he came to die, his
end was so unexpected that those dearest to him could not reach his
bedside. He was buried in St. John's cemetery in Nuremberg. After his
death, Martin Luther wrote as follows to their mutual friend, Eoban
Hesse:
"As for Dürer; assuredly affection bids us mourn for one who was the
best of men, yet you may well hold him happy that he has made so good
an end, and that Christ has taken him from the midst of this time of
troubles, and from yet greater troubles in store, lest he, that
deserved to behold nothing but the best, should be compelled to behold
the worst. Therefore may he rest in peace with his fathers, Amen."
PLATE--THE NATIVITY