Stories of the German Artists

STORIES OF THE GERMAN ARTISTS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/storiesofgermanaOOsing_0 THE CONVERSION OF ST. MAURICE 'oju the painting by Matthias Griinewald at Munich) The border to the title-page is a reduction from the title-page (a copy after Hans Holbein) to the De Arte Supputandi of Bishop Cuthbert Tonstall, anno 1522. All rights reserved PREFACE The existence of a book like Sandrart's Teutsche Akademie made it possible for me to carry out the present volume on the lines mapped out for the whole series. Sandrart, however, is no Vasari, and it would not have been advisable merely to furnish a translation of Sandrart alone. After once having given the reader an impression of quasi contemporary criticism as it is to be found in Sandrart, I have considered it necessary, in most cases, to add such facts and corrections as had been left for later ages to discover. But although Sandrart, the main source of the present book, lived more than a hundred years after the great epoch of German art, his accounts may be accepted as in a way contemporary. For he always endeavoured, and was sometimes able, to interview old men whose teachers had seen and spoken with the great artists, and whose vivacious accounts Sandrart thus had by word of mouth. The plan of the book has imposed restrictions upon the present writer. If minor men are a 2 VI PREFACE treated more at length than some artists of prime importance, it is, of course, merely because the " sources " contained more information about the one class than about the other. It is necessary to call to mind the title of the volume, which runs, "Stories of the German Artists," and not "History of German Art." 1 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE [. THE EARLY MASTERS OK THE SCHOOL OF COLOGNE I II. MARTIN SCHONGAUER 39 III. ALBRECHT DURER 5 IV. HANS P.URGKMAIR, HANS BALDUMG, AND MATTHIAS GRUNEWALD . .112 V. ALBRECHT ALTDORFER AND THE NUREMBERG M LITTLE MASTERS" 1 33 VI. THE TWO CRANACHS 159 VII. THE TWO HOLBEINS 1 67 VIII. ADAM ELSHEIMER ...... 207 IX. ANTON RAPHAEL MENGS 2l8 X. DANIEL CHODOWIECK1 268 XI. ANTON GRAFF ...... 290 APPENDIX 3°9 INDEX 3 11 vii ILLUSTRATIONS COLOURED PLATES The Conversion of St. Maurice (from the faintingby Matthias Griinewald at Munich) Frontispiece PAGE The Holy Family (from the painting by Martin Schongauer at Vienna) . .To face 40 Portrait of the Emperor Maximilian {from the painting by Albrecht Diirer at Vienna) . 84 Adoration of the Trinity (from the paint- at ing by Albrecht Diirer Vienna) . „ 92 Head of St. Catherine (from the painting by Lucas Cranach at Dresden) . „ 162 Portrait of the Duchess of Milan (from the painting by Holbein in the National Gallery) ,,202 Tobit and the Angel (from the painting by Adam Elsheimer in the National Gallery) „ 214 Cupid sharpening his Arrow (from the painting by Anton Raphael Mengs at Dresden) 2 5 8 ix X ILLUSTRATIONS PLAIN PLATES PAGE Madonna in the Rose Bower. {Stephen Lochner) To face 16 Madonna with Violets. (Stephen Lochner) „ 22 Christ on the Cross. (Master of the Life of Mary) ..'...„ 24 The Descent from the Cross. (Master of St. Bartholomew) . • » 34 Madonna in the Rose Bower. (Martin 6 Schongauer) . >> 4 St. Eustace. (Dilrer) » 66 68 Adoration of the Magi. (Dilrer) . „ Martyrdom of 10,000 Christians. (Dilrer) 78 The Four Apostles. (Dilrer) . „ 104 Pieta. (Hans Burgkmair) . „ 114 Susanna. (Altdorfer) ,,134 St. George and the Dragon. (Altdorfer). „ 138 Portrait of Herz. (Pencz) . „ 146 The Prodigal Son. (Sebald Beham) . „ 154 The Rest on the Flight. (Lucas Cranack) „ 160 The of Paris. Judgment (Lucas Cranach) „ 164 Portrait of Erasmus. (Holbein) . „ 172 ILLUSTRATIONS xi PAGE The St. Sebastian Altar. {Holbein the Elder) To face 192 The Meyer Madonna. {Holbein) 198 Jupiter and Mercury. {Elsheimer) . 210 Madonna. {Mengs) n 238 Portrait of the Artist. {Mengs) 248 Portrait of the Artist. {Chodowiecki) 274 Portrait of the Artist. {Anton Graff) . 3°4 Errata in Plate Inscriptions. ' ' Facing page 22, for Dusseklorf ' read Cologne (Seminary).' 1 34. for ' Master of St. Bartholomew read ' Master of the Life of Mary.' ' ' 46, for Dusseldorf ' read St. Martin's Church, Colman' ' ,, 146, for ' Herz read ' Veit Hirsehvogel.' ,, 192, for ' Holbein the Elder, The St. Sebastian Altar, Munich,' read ' Matthias Griinewald, The Isenheim Altar, Colniar.' 1 274, for ' Portrait of the Artist read ' Portrait of Dr. M. Levin.' ; STORIES OF THE GERMAN ARTISTS CHAPTER I THE EARLY MASTERS OF THE SCHOOL OF COLOGNE The historian of modern Italian art can follow his subject back as far as the thirteenth century, and in his researches about its very birth he en- counters definite personalities, names that have the ring and touch of something real about them. We possess a good deal of precise information about Cimabue, for example, and can follow him on his way from Florence to Rome and Assisi pretty sure records of his birth and death, his works and his pupils, have been handed down to us. When we come down to the next gene- ration, we find very little that is hazy, or left to conjecture only, about a man like Giotto di Bondone. How differently do matters lie as soon as we A 2 STORIES OF GERMAN ARTISTS cross the Alps and direct our research towards the primitive stages of German art ! It is, of course, scarcely a matter of surprise that here every new departure should have occurred at least a full century later. The art of the brush is known to the true mediaeval ages only in two forms—as practised by the illuminator of manu- scripts, and, again, by the mural decorator. Each of these practitioners was dependent, a minor agent who scarcely could claim to be considered the bearer of a separate and self - reliant art. The independence of painting rested upon the introduction of the easel picture, and this occurred north of the Alps in the course of the fourteenth century; but how slight was the recognition achieved when the novelty had come ! No less a man than Dante mentioned and celebrated Cimabue. Who ever mentioned, let alone im- mortalised, the painters of the Cologne School ? It is an astonishing fact that from the earliest times down to the beginning of the sixteenth century the name of only one single artist among them all has been handed down to us in connec- tion with his work, and even this we do not owe to contemporary writers, but to a much later man—a man, indeed, who was among the first to claim for the artist that degree of atten- THE EARLY MASTERS 3 tion and esteem which he has since so plentifully received—to Albrecht Dtirer. There are many circumstances which apprise us of the low estimation in which art was held during the evanescence of the Middle Ages, but none enforces the point upon us with greater effectiveness than this. Truly, indeed, the man whom later ages have looked up to almost as to a special kind of being, and about whose work more hubbub has been raised than about any other profession almost, was then held for a mere craftsman, an artisan like every one else. And though he may have done as charming work as he whom we now style Master Wilhelm, or as beautiful and important work as he whom we now style the Master of the Life of the Virgin, or as strangely uncommon and startling produc- tions as the Master of the St. Thomas Altar- piece, yet he was no more deemed worthy of being cherished in the memory of ages to come as an individual than the good fellow who tailored well-fitting clothes, or he who joined tables and chairs well, or he who perhaps excelled as a pastry-cook. Knowing this to have been the condition of that a affairs, we will not be surprised to learn story of early German art must present an alto- 4 STORIES OF GERMAN ARTISTS gether different appearance from that of its Italian counterpart. It is a difficult and, at the very outset, not exactly a satisfactory thing, for history to begin with conjectures, intangible things, and supposititious names. Until one or two generations ago the story of German art began virtually with the sixteenth-century men. Recent research, labouring in the face of unpar- alleled difficulties, has done much, miraculously much, to throw a light upon the work and the men prior to the year 1500. The Schools of Tyrol, of Nuremberg, of Suabia, Switzerland, and the Middle Rhine, have been investigated. Many a separate personality begins to loom up out of the haze in distinct and clear outlines—distinct and clear as to everything except his name and the facts of his life ; in other words, clear as to his artistic intentions and achievements. But all of this concerns as yet the special student only. There are only two features or items prior to Dtirer and his contemporaries which can claim the interest of the general public so far—they are Martin Schongauer and the School of Cologne. The popularity of the School of Cologne is of itself a proof of the fact that it is the most important school among the German Primitives. That this should have come to be the case is neither THE EARLY MASTERS 5 a matter of chance nor one for wonder. Until the year 1450 or thereabouts, Cologne was dis- tinctly the metropolis of Germany. Its vicinity to the Netherlands, the Burgundian realm, and to France will have gone for much to effect this end.

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