The Dawn Of The Reformation

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

The Art of Albert Durer And of Holbein The Younger

So far we have been following mainly the development of art in Italy, but that country had no monopoly of painting and sculpture during the Middle Ages. Ever since the time of the Van Eycke paintings had been produced by natives of most of the great countries of Europe—even in England, where Odo the Goldsmith was employed by King Henry III to execute wall paintings for the Palace of Westminster—but either because their work was not powerful enough to capture the imagination of Europe or, quite as probably, because they had no historians and biographers to trumpet their praises, the early artists of England, France, and Germany never acquired the fame won by their brethren of Italy and Flanders. With few exceptions their names, and in many cases their works, have been entirely lost.

Full many flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

When all has been said, however, the fact remains that Italy was the center of the world for medieval Europe, and to it came ll who were desirous of learning, culture, and advancement. In those times the painter born elsewhere made his way to Italy as naturally and inevitably as the artist of today makes his pilgrimage to Paris; and in Italy the stranger artist was treated, not as a foreigner, but as a provincial. Looking at the political divisions of Europe today, we are apt to forget that in the Middle Ages the Christian nations of Europe were considered to be one family. Just as the Pope of Rome was the religious Head of all Christendom, so in theory, if not in practice, its secular Head was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The capital of the Empire, again in theory, was Rome, though in practice the Emperor was usually not very safe outside his own kingdom in Germany.

When the Italian historian Vasari describes the great German artist Albert Durer as a ‘Fleming,’ he is making the same sort of mistake that a Londoner might make when he was uncertain whether a west countryman came from Devon or Cornwall; and just as some Londoners are so narrow-minded that they cannot imagine any preeminent greatness outside the metropolis, so Vasari in a patronizing way wrote of Durer:

Had this man, so nobly endowed by Nature, so assiduous and possessed of so many talents, been a native of Tuscany instead of Flanders, had he been able to study the treasures of Rome and Florence as we have done, he would have excelled us all, as he is now the best and most esteemed among his own countrymen.

If Vasari thought this talent had much to learn from Italy, there were Italian artists who thought they had something to learn from Durer. Giovanni Bellini, greatly admired Durer’s painting, and found his rendering of hair so marvelous that he thought the artist must have a special brush for the purpose. So when Durer visited Venice and in his polite way offered to do anything in his power for Venetian artists, Bellini begged to be given the brush with which he painted hairs. Durer picked up a handful of his brushes and told Bellini to choose any one he wished. “I mean the brush with which you draw several hairs with one stroke,’ the Venetian explained. Durer smiled and replied, ‘ I use no other than these, and to prove it you may watch me,’ Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew ‘some very long wavy tresses, such as women generally wear.’ Bellini looked on wonderfully, and afterwards confessed that had he not seen it nothing would have convinced him that such a painting was possible.

Who was Durer? Strangely enough, the artist who most fully revealed the spirit of awakening Germany was of Hungarian descent. His father, Albert Durer the Elder—whose portraits by his son hangs in the National Gallery, London—was born in Hungary. After traveling in the Netherlands for some time, he finally settled in Nuremberg, where his son was born on May 21, 1471. Albert the Younger had everything to foster the development of his gifts, his father was a goldsmith, and his grandfather also; hence their removal to Nuremberg, a city which was in constant communication with Venice and had already begun to rival it in the arts and crafts of jewelry and metalwork. It is worth noticing that young Albert’s godfather was the bookseller and expert printer Anton Koberger, and through him his godson probably became familiar with fine prints and engravings from his earliest years.

The father intended the son to succeed him his craft, but as the latter tells us in his memoirs, “I was more inclined to painting, and this I confessed to my father. My father was not pleased,’ he adds with characteristic simplicity. Nevertheless young Durer got his way, and in 1486 was apprenticed to Michael Wohgemut, a local artist then at the zenith of his fame. Wohlgemut had a large art school, which was the most important in Nuremberg, and here young Durer learnt to paint and also, possibly, to practise wood-engraving. But such a master had little to teach so brilliant a pupil, and after three years Durer the Elder wisely took his son away and sent him abroad for four years. Young Albert traveled in the south of Germany and probably paid his first visit to Venice during this period.

The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)