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SECOND PERIOD (1605-1620)
In "The Festival of the Rosary", painted in Venice for German merchants residing there, he competes, not unsuccessfully, with the Italian colourists, though it may be said that colour was not his strong point. The painting (Abbey of Strahow, Prague) is damaged, but a good copy is preserved in the Imperial Museum at Vienna. An oil painting of the same period, "Christ on the Cross", and other works that followed, e.g. "Adam and Eve" (Madrid and Florence), show that Durer's trip to Italy and the acquaintance made there with Giovanni Bellini were not without profit to his art; but Durer's nationality and the independence of his genius are always evident. Another work much admired was the so-called Heller altar-piece, destroyed in Munich in 1674 by fire. Valuable studies for this picture and an indistinct copy are still extant. One of the finest examples of German art is the "Adoration of the Trinity" or "All Saints" (1511). Placed beside the "Disputa" of Raphael or the Sistine paintings of Michaelangelo, produced in the same year, it would not suffer from the comparison. God the Father sits upon a throne and holds forth the Cross with the Crucified; above both of them, in the form of a dove, the Holy Ghost hovers. About them the saints of heaven in two companies with the Mother of God and John the Baptist at their head kneel in adoration. In the upper part of the picture, above the blessed hosts, choirs of angels surround the Holy Trinity; in the lower part, the Church Militant, led by the powerful figure of a pope and an emperor, takes part in the adoration. As an idealization of the world this multitude stands above the clouds. At the very bottom and to one side, as though left behind, is seen the humble figure of the painter. This work deserves no less praise for its perfection of finish than for its sublimity of conception. The frame, carved in renaissance style from drawings by Durer, is still preserved at Nuremberg. In the same year, 1511, Durer produced the "Virgin with the Pear", one of the finest of his Madonnas. In the years 1513-14 he executed three great copperplate engravings: these may, perhaps, be looked upon as ideal representations of a fearless knight, an unsatisfied searcher for knowledge, and a saint happy in God and are called: "The Knight with Death and the Devil"; "Melancholia"; "Saint Jerome in His Study". To these must be added various paintings, e.g. of Charlemagne, Sigmund, and Albrecht of Brandenburg; further, the marginal drawings, displaying much fancy and humour, made for Maximillian's "Prayer Book", and the "Triumphal Arch of Maximillian" belong to the same time. Later, Durer worked also on the "Triumph of Maximillian", and produced the large "Triumphal Car", for the emperor.
After his return to Antwerp he was in April seized with
great weakness, nausea, and headache, and had to have resort to medical
advice. This illness seems to have seriously impaired not only his
physical health but his creative faculties, and seems to have been intermittent.
When, however, he returned to Nuremberg and to his house by
the Thiergartner Thor, he was treated with increased respect by his fellowcitizens.
Hitherto the Councillors of Nuremberg had not shown themselves
of a very liberal or generous disposition. All the commissions
which Durer had as yet received were from princes or private individuals.
Now in I 5.21 the Council decreed that the Rathhaus at Nuremberg
should have its large hall painted after designs by Durer, those chosen
being the Calumny of Apelles and The Triumphal Car of Maximilian, as
it is seen in the great woodcut of I 5 22. Durer's industry as an engraver
now flagged. Two unimportant engravings of St. C!zristopher were
done soon after his return. He seems to have contemplated another
Passion series on wood in an oblong shape, completing some of the
drawings and one woodcut, 2X.e Last Supper, dated I 5 23. He also
seems to have intended a series of the Apostles,. which he commenced in
1314 ivith St. Ih.omas a n d S t . Pau!, to which he now added St.
Bartholomew and St. Simon in 1523, and later on, in 1526, St. Philip.
He frequently drew coats-of-arms, book-plates (ex libris), or sometimes
title-pages for his friends ; but his creative powers seem to have lapsed.
As Durer advanced in life he became more and more absorbed in the
progress of the Lutheran doctrines. He showed his hatred of sacerdotalism
and lay oppression as far back as The Apocalypse, but he gradually
began to take a deeper personal interest in the doings and writings of
Luther, Melanchthon, and Ulrich Zwinglius. Unfailing faith in the
benevolence and mercy of God seems to have been the kernel of Durer's
religious views, as they are of many an upright and industrious German
household at the present day. ,After his father's death in 1502, Durer
wrote to a friend asking for their prayers on behalf of his father's soul,
and says that it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill
from this world, for God is full of compassion. Again he says, in
defence of his art, " that what God had formed is good, whatever wrong
use men may make of it." Now that sickness had struck a warning note
in his life, his mind turned to the contemplation of another world. The
three great engravings, Death, and &e Devil, Melencolia, and
St. Jerome, were the results of his brooding over the trials and the
shortness of life. A true Humanist, Durer carried out the old Latin
adage- and trusted implicitly that by leading an upright and industrious life he
would be rewarded by God in a future life. Thus the simple, downright
honesty of Luther was in easy consonance with his own. thoughts. T o
Durer, as well as to Luther, one page of the sacred book itself was worth
all the learning of the Fathers, one simple good action to another fellowcreature
would be more efficient to secure future bliss than a thousand
indulgences bought by gold and the repeating of venal supplications.
It was in Antwerp that Durer received the news of Luther's abduction
near Eisenach, though he naturally was unaware that it was done by
Luther's friends. Durer felt that he was gone from them altogether, and
writes a lament full of genuine pathos and sorrow. " All men," he
writes in his journal, " who read Martin Luther's books can see how clear
and lucid is his doctrine, because he sets forth the Holy Gospel. For
this reason his books ought to be greatly revered and not burnt, unless
indeed his enemies, who are always fighting against the truth, and would
make men into gods, were also thrown into the fire, together with their
opinions, and then a new edition of Luther scrolls prepared. Oh God,
if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound to us the Holy Gospel
with such clearness ? What, oh God, might he not still have written
for us in ten or twenty years ! " Writing in 1520 to Georg Spalatin,
chaplain to his former patron Frederick the Wise of Saxony, Durer
says : " And pray God that I may come to Doctor Martin Luther, for
I will diligently draw his portrait and engrave it on copper for a long
memorial of the Christ-like man who has helped me out of such great
sorrows ; and I beg your Honour, when Doctor Martin composes anything
new in German, to send it to me at my expense."
Soon after Durer's return from the Netherlands, Nuremberg was
convulsed by religious troubles. Although the town was ready to
embrace the reformed doctrines, it was in a peaceful and conservative
spirit. The outbreak, however, of the Peasants' War brought great
troubles into the town, for many of the younger and more turbulent
spirits adopted the extreme doctrines of Miinzer, and raised a tumult
against the civil authority. In vain did Durer and his friends lament
these religious convulsions. Durer's own best wood-engraver, Hieronymus
Andrea+ was not only one of the ringleaders, but was actually thrown into
prison, and three of his chief pupils and assistants in copperplateengraving,
Barthel and Hans Sebald Beham and Georg Pencz, were
expelled from the town.
Ill-health, religious troubles, and the waning of his productive energy
seem to have had a rather embittering effect on Durer's nature.
Although he seems never to have been in want of money, .he now
began to show himself to be a true Nuremberger in the care which he
took of his affairs, and he was egged on no doubt by his thrifty and
anromantic wife Agnes. In I 524 he wrote a letter to the Town Council
of Nuremberg, in which he alludes sarcastically to the little encouragement
given him by his fellow-citizens. " During the thirty years I have
stayed at home, I have not received from people in this town work worth
500 florins-and not a fifth part of that has been profit." He then says
that he has saved 1,000 florins, which he asked them to receive for him,
and to pay to him and his wife five per cent. interest. This the Town
Council agreed to do, although after his death they reduced the rate of
payment to his wife to four per cent.
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