8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 2 16.11.16 17:55 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 3 16.11.16 17:55 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 4 16.11.16 17:55 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 1 16.11.16 17:55 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 2 16.11.16 17:55 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 3 16.11.16 17:55 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 4 16.11.16 17:56 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 5 16.11.16 17:56 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 6 16.11.16 17:57 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 7 16.11.16 17:57 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 8 16.11.16 17:57 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 9 16.11.16 17:57 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 10 16.11.16 17:57 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 11 16.11.16 17:57 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 12 16.11.16 17:57 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 13 16.11.16 17:57 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 14 16.11.16 17:58 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 15 16.11.16 17:58 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 16 16.11.16 17:58 norbert wolf DÜRER prestel munich • london • new york 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 17 16.11.16 17:58 content Preface Introduction I Apprenticeship and Journeyman Years “My desire led me more to painting” 27 The Nuremberg Art Trade 34 Travels as a Journeyman: Stops along the Way 38 First Trip to Italy – But When? 50 Between Mimesis and Imagination 57 II The Sign of Genius The Apocalypse: A Book Sensation 81 The End or a New Awakening? 114 A New Apelles 117 Self-Portraits: The Self Enciphered 123 III “... how i shall freeze after the sun” The new Scholarly Nobility 135 En Route to Venice: From Augsburg to Carinthia 137 Once Again in Venice 138 The Feast of the Rose Garlands 146 From the Master’s Workshop 148 Domesticated Sexuality 156 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 18 16.11.16 17:58 IV Between Technical Merit and Presentation The “Pictures of the Emperors” 167 In the Service of Maximilian 167 Art Spiritualized 173 The Meisterstiche: Three Engravings and Four Temperaments? 174 V Masterpieces of the Late Years Uomo universale 187 The Line as Expressive Trace 188 The Sublime Portraitist 192 The Four Apostles 199 VI The Theoretician The Relativity of Beauty 211 VII “His glorious art fills every land” Posthumous Fame 221 Catalogue of Surviving Paintings 224 Literature 286 8345_Duerer_s001-019_VS_Titelei_EN.indd 19 16.11.16 17:58 Preface he Raven Ralph calls out in fear: ‘The end is near, the end is near!’” These lines by German poet Christian Morgenstern might seem more fitting as the motto Tfor an epilogue than a prologue, all the more so since here they are not even meant to hint at the all too familiar fact that prefaces, written last, generally represent a final opportunity. The quotation thrust itself upon me at a very early stage of the project, as I gathered from a bibliography that the literature on Dürer had already reached the frightening number of 10,271 titles – only up to the year 1971. No one has counted how many have been written since then. The portent of an untimely end thus confronted me from the very start of my research; in light of the flood of publica- tions, what sense could there be in writing yet another book on this “media star” of the German Renaissance? But the raven soon fell silent, for there are in fact jus- An updated survey reveals much more clearly the uni- tifiable reasons for such a project. Even in recent years, versal aspirations of the Nuremberg master, who devoted scholarly discussions about this exceptional artist have himself uncompromisingly to the ideal of the uomo not fallen silent, on the contrary, many – at times radi- universale propagated by the Italian Renaissance. For cal – new discoveries and theses have accumulated, and Dürer’s work – to different degrees, of course – encom- they have not yet been brought together in an overview. passed painting, drawing, the graphic arts, architecture, For this reason it seemed appropriate at the very least the design of glass windows, fortifications and sculp- to introduce them. In addition, even well-known facts ture, interior decoration, writing, music, and art theory, can yield unexpected perspectives when examined in the appraisal, and restoration. Representing this spectrum light of new, especially contextual questions. My goal is of creative output would be possible only for a group most definitely not to produce another Dürer biography, of authors; a single author is forced to concentrate on but rather to attempt to present and evaluate Dürer’s art specific aspects that seem to him of particular impor- from a present-day perspective. tance. This is no less true of the present book. For this Abbreviations: A: Anzelewsky 1991 (see Bibliography) AP: Alte Pinakothek cat.: catalogue of paintings in the present book, p. 224. Exh. cat.: Exhibition catalogue fig.: figure FW: paintings not included in the catalogue, p. 276. GHS: Goldberg/Heimberg/Schawe 1998 (see Bibliography) [ ] Albrecht Dürer 8345_Duerer_s020-025_Vorwort_EN.indd 20 16.11.16 17:59 reason, the focus here will be on the new interpretative with commentary. Its goal is to exclude works of doubt- approaches just mentioned, based on analyses of the ful attribution on the basis of the present state of relevant works, which help to explain the fascination knowledge, and, with the help of the surviving paint- this artist has inspired continuously to the present day. ings unquestionably by Dürer, to allow the impressive It has long been communis opinio that Dürer is the achievements of his painted oeuvre to take undimin- greatest graphic artist in the history of Western art. The ished effect. literature has always had much more difficulty in recog- The present publication would have never taken form nizing his abilities in the field of painting. Dürer’s genius without the encouragement of many colleagues and as a graphic artist and the graphic elements even in his friends. I would like to mention two in particular, Ernst paintings should not obscure the fact that he also had Rebel and Ulrich Reisser. Not only did our discussions at his disposal significant painterly options. The most never fail to cast light upon Dürer and his intellectual recent technical examinations have brilliantly verified world, but – not least – they emphatically kept my joy his virtuosity with the brush. In addition, Dürer’s theo- and enthusiasm for the subject alive. retical treatise On Colors (of 1512 –13 at the latest), un - I would also like to thank Stefanie Penck and Eckhard fortunately only fragmentary, shows just how interested Hollmann at Prestel Verlag in Munich, who supported he was in the problems of painting, both technical, in the idea of this book project from the very beginning. terms of workshop practice, as well as those of a general, And thanks are also due to all the Prestel colleagues who optical nature. In order to do justice to Dürer the supervised the book’s printing and assured that it could painter, the present book contains a painting catalogue appear in this highly ambitious form. GNM: Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum KHM: Kunsthistorisches Museum LCI: Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, Engelbert Kirschbaum SJ and Wolfgang Braunfels (eds.), 8 vols., Rome, Freiburg, Basel, Vienna, 1968 –1976 R I – III: Rupprich (see Bibliography) SMPK: Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin SMS: Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum (see Bibliography) Introduction [ ] 8345_Duerer_s020-025_Vorwort_EN.indd 21 16.11.16 17:59 Stilistisch Stilistisch Stilistisch II Kapiteltitel einzeilig Introductionzweizeilig 8345_Duerer_s020-025_Vorwort_EN.indd 22 16.11.16 17:59 ablo Picasso, the quintessential artistic genius of the twentieth century, was obsessed with artistic metamorphoses. From this perspective, he wrestled with Pthe universally famous paradigms of art history. It is well-known that his imagi- nary museum also included old German masters such as Grünewald and Lucas Cra- nach the Elder. But the fact that the Spaniard had, very early on, engaged in an intimate dialogue with a much more famous German artist has been almost completely ignored: in a 1902 self-portrait drawing (fig. 1), Picasso “mirrored” Dürer’s Prado self-portrait (cat. 12), although dispensing with the distinctive identifying feature of the “Dürer locks.”1 Profoundly influenced by German art and philosophy, Since the nineteenth century’s Romantic national the young Picasso chose to don the appearance of an revelries, Dürer’s alleged “Germanness” has been linked “old master” who was viewed with respect – but scarcely either to the cliché of the God-fearing and fervently enthusiasm – beyond the borders of the German-speak- humble artist – this is how he was depicted in 1828 by ing regions. Even today this assessment has changed lit- Joseph Wintergerst (fig. 4) – or, in complete contrast, to tle in Latin Europe. And although the reception of Dürer the Faustian disposition. In Thomas Mann’s novelDoc- in the United States and Great Britain rests upon a tor Faustus, begun during the Second World War, it is broader foundation – a lingering echo of Dürer scholars still Dürer who serves as Mephisto’s principle witness to such as the Tietzes and Erwin Panofsky, who emigrated the German soul, placed in the “characteristic national” from Nazi Germany – in these countries too it is still ambivalence between melancholic endangerment and possible to sense the same reservation described in 1971 longing for religious redemption.3 by André Chastel as the “instinctive caution” with which When Dürer introduced Italian Renaissance mod- foreign scholars approach the phenomenon of Dürer: els into his German homeland, this cultural transfer “In France, and even in the Anglo-Saxon countries, ex - inevitably – according to Hans Belting4 – resulted in a plaining the art of the Nuremberg master is gladly left to personal crisis.