Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) by S. Spooner (pdf to ebook reader .TXT) 📕

woman holding some utensils. The folding doors on one side shows a

study, and a man making a pen by candle light; and on the other, a

school, with boys writing, and sitting at different tables. The whole

is lighted in an agreeable and surprising manner; every object is

expressed with beauty and astonishing force. Nor does the subject appear

too crowded, for it was one of his peculiar talents to show, in a small

compass, more than other painters could do in a much larger space. His

pictures are generally confined to a few figures, and sometimes to a

single one, and when he attempted larger compositions, he was generally

less successful. The works of this artist are not numerous, from the

immense labor and time he bestowed upon a single one; and from this

circumstance, and the estimation in which they are held by the curious

collectors, they have ever commanded enormous prices. They were always

particularly admired in France, in the days of Napoleon, there were no

less than seventeen of his pictures gathered into the Louvre, most of

which were, after his downfall, restored to their original proprietors,

among which was the famous Dropsical Woman, from the collection of the

King of Sardinia. At Turin, are several pictures by Douw, the most

famous of which is the one just named--the Dropsical Woman, attended by

her physician, who is examining an urinal. This picture is wonderfully

true to nature, and each particular hair and pore of the skin is

represented. In the gallery at Florence is one of his pictures,

representing an interior by candle-light, with a mountebank, surrounded

by a number of clowns, which is exquisitely finished. The great fame of

Gerhard Douw, and the eager desire for his works, have given rise to

numerous counterfeits. We may safely say that there is not an original

picture by this artist in the United States. Douw died, very rich, in

1674.

ALBERT DURER.

This extraordinary artist was born at Nuremberg in 1471. His father was

a skillful goldsmith, from Hungary, and taught his son the first

rudiments of design, intending him for his own profession; but his early

and decided inclination for the arts and sciences induced him to permit

young Durer to follow the bent of his genius. He received his first

instruction in painting and engraving from Martin Hapse. When he had

reached the age of fourteen, it was his father's intention to have

placed him under the instruction of Martin Schoen, of Colmar, the most

distinguished artist of his time in Germany, but the death of the latter

happening about that time, he became a pupil of Michael Wolgemut, in

1486, the first artist then in Nuremberg, with whom he studied

diligently four years. He also cultivated the study of perspective, the

mathematics, and architecture, in all of which he acquired a profound

knowledge. Having finished his studies, he commenced his travels in

1490, and spent four years in traveling through Germany, the

Netherlands, and the adjacent counties and provinces. On his return to

Nuremberg, in 1494, he ventured to exhibit his works to the public,

which immediately attracted great attention. His first work was a piece

of the Three Graces, represented by as many female figures, with a globe

over their heads. He soon after executed one of his masterpieces, a

drawing of Orpheus. About this time, to please his father, as it is

said, he married the daughter of Hans Fritz, a celebrated mechanic, who

proved a fierce Xantippe, and embittered, and some say shortened his

life. In 1506, he went to Venice to improve himself, where his abilities

excited envy and admiration. Here he painted the Martyrdom of St.

Bartholomew for the church of S. Marco, which was afterwards purchased

by the Emperor Rodolphus, and removed to Prague. He also went to

Bologna, and returned home in 1507. This journey to Italy had no effect

whatever upon his style, though doubtless he obtained much information

that was valuable to him, for at this period commenced the proper era of

his greatness.

DURER'S WORKS AS A PAINTER.

Though Durer was most famous as an engraver, yet he executed many large

paintings, which occupy a distinguished place in the royal collections

of Germany, and other European countries. In the imperial collection at

Munich are some of the most celebrated, as Adam and Eve, the Adoration

of the Magi, the Crucifixion--a grand composition--the Crowning of the

Virgin, the Battle between Alexander and Darius, and many other great

works. Durer painted the Wise Men's Offering, two pictures of the

Passion of Christ, and an Assumption of the Virgin, for a monastery of

Frankfort, which proved a source of income to the monks, from the

presents they received for exhibiting them. The people of Nuremberg

still preserve, in the Town Hall, his portraits of Charlemagne and some

Emperors of the House of Austria, with the Twelve Apostles, whose

drapery is remarkable for being modern German, instead of Oriental. He

sent his own portrait to Raffaelle, painted on canvas, without any

coloring or touch of the pencil, only heightened with shades and white,

yet exhibiting such strength and elegance that the great artist to whom

it was presented expressed the greatest surprise at the sight of it.

This piece, after the death of Raffaelle, fell into the possession of

Giulio Romano, who placed it among the curiosities of the palace of

Mantua. Besides the pictures already mentioned, there is by him an Ecce

Homo at Venice, his own portrait, and two pictures representing St.

James and St. Philip, and an Adam and Eve in the Florentine Gallery.

There are also some of his works in the Louvre, and in the royal

collections in England. As a painter, it has been observed of Durer that

he studied nature only in her unadorned state, without attending to

those graces which study and art might have afforded him; but his

imagination was lively, his composition grand, and his pencil delicate.

He finished his works with exact neatness, and he was particularly

excellent in his Madonnas, though he encumbered them with heavy

draperies. He surpassed all the painters of his own country, yet he did

not avoid their defects--such as dryness and formality of outline, the

want of a just degradation of the tints, an expression without

agreeableness, and draperies broad in the folds, but stiff in the forms.

He was no observer of the propriety of costume, and paid so little

attention to it that he appears to have preferred to drape his saints

and heroes of antiquity in the costume of his own time and country.

Fuseli observes that "the coloring of Durer went beyond his age, and in

his easel pictures it as far excelled the oil color of Raffaelle in

juice, and breadth, and handling, as Raffaelle excelled him in every

other quality."

DURER'S WORKS AS AN ENGRAVER.

Durer derived most of his fame from his engravings, and he is allowed to

have surpassed every artist of his time in this branch of art. Born in

the infancy of the art, he carried engraving to a perfection that has

hardly been surpassed. When we consider that, without any models worthy

of imitation, he brought engraving to such great perfection, we are

astonished at his genius, and his own resources. Although engraving has

had the advantage and experience of more than three centuries, it would

perhaps be difficult to select a specimen of executive excellence

surpassing his print of St. Jerome, engraved in 1514. He had a perfect

command of the graver, and his works are executed with remarkable

neatness and clearness of stroke; if we do not find in his plates that

boldness and freedom desirable in large historical works, we find in

them everything that can be wished in works more minute and finished, as

were his. To him is attributed the invention of etching; and if he was

not the inventor, he was the first who excelled in the art. He also

invented the method of printing wood-cuts in chiaro-scuro, or with two

blocks. His great mathematical knowledge enabled him to form a regular

system of rules for drawing and painting with geometrical precision. He

had the power of catching the exact expression of the features, and of

delineating all the passions. Although he was well acquainted with the

anatomy of the human figure, and occasionally designed it correctly, his

contours are neither graceful nor pleasing, and his prints are never

entirely divested of the stiff and formal taste that prevailed at the

time, both in his figures and drapery. Such was his reputation, both at

home and abroad, that Marc' Antonio Raimondi counterfeited his Passion

of Christ, and the Life of the Virgin at Venice, and sold them for the

genuine works of Durer. The latter, hearing of the fraud, was so

exasperated that he set out for Venice, where he complained to the

government of the wrong that had been done him by the plagiarist, but he

could obtain no other satisfaction than a decree prohibiting Raimondi

from affixing Durer's monogram or signatures to these copies in future.

Vasari says that when the prints of Durer were first brought into Italy,

they incited the painters there to elevate themselves in that branch of

art, and to make his works their models.

DURER'S FAME AND DEATH.

The fame of Durer spread far and wide in his life-time. The Emperor

Maximillian I. had a great esteem for him, and appointed him his court

painter, with a liberal pension, and conferred on him letters of

nobility; Charles V., his successor, confirmed him in his office,

bestowing upon him at the same time the painter's coat of arms, viz.,

three escutcheons, argent, in a deep azure field. Ferdinand, King of

Hungary, also bestowed upon him marked favors and liberality. Durer was

in favor with high and low. All the artists and learned men of his time

honored and loved him, and his early death in 1528 was universally

lamented.

DURER'S HABITS AND LITERARY WORKS.

Durer always lived in a frugal manner, without the least ostentation for

the distinguished favors heaped upon him. He applied himself to his

profession with the most constant and untiring industry, which, together

with his great knowledge, great facility of mechanical execution, and a

remarkable talent for imitation, enabled him to rise to such

distinction, and to exert so powerful an influence on German art for a

great length of time. He was the first artist in Germany who practiced

and taught the rules of perspective, and of the proportions of the human

figure, according to mathematical principles. His treatise on

proportions is said to have resulted from his studies of his picture of

Adam and Eve. His principal works are _De Symmetria partium in rectis

formis humanorum corporum_, printed at Nuremberg in 1532; and _De

Verieitate Figurarum, et flexuris partium, et Gestibus Imaginum_; 1534.

These works were written in German, and after Durer's death translated

into Latin. The figures illustrating the subjects were executed by

Durer, on wood, in an admirable manner. Durer had also much merit as a

miscellaneous writer, and labored to purify and elevate the German

language, in which he was assisted by his friend, W. Pirkheimer. His

works were published in a collected form at Arnheim, in 1603, folio, in

Latin and in French. J. J. Roth wrote a life of Durer, published at

Leipsic in 1791.

LUDOLPH BACKHUYSEN.

This eminent painter was born in 1631. His father intended him for the

mercantile profession, but nature for a marine painter. His passion for

art induced him to neglect his employer's business, with whom his father

had placed him, and to spend his time in drawing, and in frequenting the

studios of the painters at Amsterdam. His fondness for shipping led him

frequently to the port of the city, where he made admirable drawings of

the vessels with a pen, which were much sought after by the collectors,

and were purchased at liberal prices. Several of his drawings were sold

at 100 florins each. This success induced him to paint marine subjects.

His first essays were successful, and his pictures universally admired.

While painting, he would not admit his most intimate friends to his

studio, lest his fancy might be disturbed. He hired fishermen to take

him out to sea in the most tremendous gales, and on landing, he would

run impatiently to his palette to secure the grand impressions of the

views he had just witnessed. He has represented that element in its most

terrible agitation, with a fidelity that intimidates the beholder. His

pictures on these subjects have raised his reputation even higher than

that of W. van de Velde; although the works of the later, which

represent the sea at rest, or in light breezes, are much superior, and

indeed inimitable. His pictures are distinguished for their admirable

perspective, correct drawing, neatness and freedom of touch, and

remarkable facility of execution. For the burgomasters of Amsterdam, he

painted a large picture with a multitude of vessels, and a view of the

city in the distance; for which they gave