Albert Durer Part 5

For us nowadays the pith of history seems no more to be the lives of monarchs, or the fighting of battles, or even the deliberations of councils; these things we have more and more come to regard merely as tools and engines for the creation of societies, homes, and friends. And so, though religion and religious machinery dominated the life of those days, it is not in theological disputes, neither is it in oec.u.menical councils and Popes, nor in sermons, reformers, and synods, that we find the essence of the soul's life. Rather to us, the pictures, the statues, the books, the furniture, the wardrobes, the letters, and the scandals that have been left behind, speak to us of those days; for these we value them. And we are right, the value of the Renaissance lies in these things, I say "the scandals" of those days; for a part of what comes under that head was perhaps the manifestation of a morality based on a wider experience; though its a.s.sociation with obvious vices and its opposition to the old and stale ideals gave it an illegitimate character; while the re-establishment of the more part of those ideals has perpetuated its reproach. There can be no intellectual charity if the machinery and special sentences of current morality are supposed to be final or truly adequate. Their tentative and inadequate character, which every free intelligence recognises, is what endorses the wisdom of Jesus', saying, "Judge not that ye be not judged." Ordinary honest and good citizens do not realise how much that is in every way superior to the gifts of any single one of themselves is yearly sacrificed and tortured for their preservation as a cla.s.s. On what agonies of creative and original minds is the safety of their homes based? These respectable Molochs who devour both the poor and the exceptionally gifted, and are so little better for their meal, were during the Renascence for a time gainsaid and abashed; yet even then their engines, the traditional secular and ecclesiastic policies, were a foreign enc.u.mbrance with which the human spirit was loaded, and which helped to prevent it from reaping the full result of its mighty upheaval.

To see things as they are, and above all to value them for what is most essential in them with regard to the development of our own characters;--that is, I take it, consciously or unconsciously, the main effort of the modern spirit. On the world, the flesh, and the devil, we have put new values; and it was the first a.s.sertion of these new values which caused the Renascence. Fine manners, fine clothes, and varied social interchange make the world admirable in our eyes, not at all a bogey to frighten us. Health, frankness, and abundant exercise make the flesh a pure delight in our eyes; lastly, this new-born spirit has made "a moral of the devil himself," and so for us he has lost his terror.

Rabelais was right when he laughed the old outworn values down, and declared that women were in the first place female, men in the first place male; that the written word should be a self-expression, a sincerity, not a task or a catalogue or a penance, but, like laughter and speech, essentially human, making all men brothers, doing away with artificial barriers and distinctions, making the scholar shake in time with the toper, and doubling the divine up with the losel; bidding even the lady hold her sides in company with the harlot. Eating and drinking were seen to be good in themselves; the eye and the nose and the palate were not only to be respected but courted; free love was better than married enmity. No rite, no church, no G.o.d, could annihilate these facts or restrain their influence any more than the sea could be tamed. Durer was touched with this spirit; we see it in his fine clothes, in his collector's rapacity, above all in his letters to his friend Pirkheimer--a man more typical of that Rabelaisian age than Durer and Michael Angelo, who were both of them not only modern men but men conservative of the best that had been--men in travail for the future, absorbed by the responsibility of those who create.

Pirkheimer, one year Durer's senior, was a gross fat man early in life, enjoying the clinking of goblets, the music of fork and knife, and the effrontery of obscene jests. A vain man, a soldier and a scholar, pedantic, irritable, but in earnest; a complimenter of Emperors, a leader of the reform party, a partisan of Luther's, the friend and correspondent of Erasmus, the elective brother of Durer. The man was typical; his fellows were in all lands. Durer was surprised to find how many of them there were at Venice--men who would delight Pirkheimer and delight in him. "My friend, there are so many Italians here who look exactly like you I don't know how it happens! ... men of sense and knowledge, good lute players and pipers, judges of painting, men of much n.o.ble sentiment and honest virtue; and they show me much honour and friends.h.i.+p." Something of all this was doubtless in Durer too; but in him it was refined and harmonised by the sense and serious concern, not only for the things of to-day, but for those of to-morrow and yesterday; the sense of solidarity, the pa.s.sion for permanent effect, eternal excellence. These things, in men like Pirkheimer, still more in Erasmus, and even in Rabelais and Montaigne, are not absent; but they are less stringent, less religious, than they are in a Durer or a Michael Angelo.

CHAPTER III

DuRER AT VENICE

I

There are several reasons which may possibly have led Durer to visit Venice in 1505. The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German Merchants at Venice, had been burned down the winter before, and they were in haste to complete a new one. Durer may have received a.s.surance that the commission to paint the altar-piece for the new chapel would be his did he desire it. At any rate he seems to have set to work on such a picture almost as soon as he arrived there. It is strange to think that Giorgione and t.i.tian probably began to paint the frescoes on the facade while he was still at work in the chapel, or soon after he left. The plague broke out in Nuremberg before he came away; but this is not likely to have been his princ.i.p.al motive for leaving home, as many richer men, such as his friend Pirkheimer, from whom he borrowed money for the journey, stayed where they were. Nor do Durer's letters reveal any alarm for his friend's, his mother's, his wife's, or his brother's safety. He took with him six small pictures, and probably a great number of prints, for Venice was a first-rate market.

II

The letters which follow are like a glimpse of a distant scene in a _camera obscura_, and, like life itself, they are full of repet.i.tions and over-insistence on what is insignificant or of temporary interest.

To-day they call for our patience and forbearance, and it will depend upon our imaginative activity in what degree they repay them; even as it depends upon our power of affectionate a.s.similation in what degree and kind every common day adds to our real possessions.

I have made my citations as ample as possible, so as to give the reader a just idea of their character while making them centre as far as possible round points of special interest.

_To the honourable, wise Master Wilibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of Nurberg, my kind Master_. VENICE, _January 6, 1506._

I wish you and yours many good, happy New Years. My willing service, first of all, to you dear Master Pirkheimer! Know that I am in good health; I pray G.o.d far better things than that for you. As to those pearls and precious stones which you gave me commission to buy, you must know that I can find nothing good or even worth its price. Everything is snapped up by the Germans who hang about the Riva. They always want to get four times the value for anything, for they are the falsest knaves alive. No one need look for an honest service from any of them. Some good fellows have warned me to beware of them, they cheat man and beast.

You can buy better things at a lower price at Frankfurt than at Venice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Wilibald Pirkheimer--Charcoal Drawing, Dumesnil Collection, Paris _Face p._ 80]

About the books which I was to order for you, the Imhofs have already seen after them; but if there is anything else you want, let me know and I will attend to it for you with all zeal. Would to G.o.d I could do you a right good service! gladly would I accomplish it, seeing, as I do, how much you do for me. And I pray you be patient with my debt, for indeed I think much oftener of it than you do. When G.o.d helps me home I will honourably repay you with many thanks; for I have a panel to paint for the Germans for which they are to pay me a hundred and ten Rhenish florins--it will not cost me as much as five. I shall have sc.r.a.ped it and laid on the ground and made it ready within eight days; then I shall at once begin to paint and, if G.o.d will, it shall be in its place above the altar a month after Easter.

VENICE, _February 17_, 1506.

How I wish you were here at Venice! There are so many nice men among the Italians who seek my company more and more every day--which is very pleasing to one--men of sense and knowledge, good lute-players and pipers, judges of painting, men of much n.o.ble sentiment and 'honest virtue, and they show me much honour and friends.h.i.+p. On the other hand there are also amongst them some of the most false, lying, thievish rascals; I should never have believed that such were living in the world. If one did not know them, one would think them the nicest men the earth could show. For my own part I cannot help laughing at them whenever they talk to me. They know that their knavery is no secret but they don't mind.

Amongst the Italians I have many good friends who warn me not to eat and drink with their painters. Many of them are my enemies and they copy my work in the churches and wherever they can find it; and then they revile it and say that the style is not _antique_ and so not good. But Giovanni Bellini has highly praised me before many n.o.bles. He wanted to have something of mine, and himself came to me and asked me to paint him something and he would pay well for it. And all men tell me what an upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very old, but is still the best painter of them all. And that which so well pleased me eleven years ago pleases me no longer, if I had not seen it for myself I should not have believed any one who told me. You must know too that there are many better painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo de' Barbari) is abroad (_wider darvsen Meister J._), yet Anton Kolb would swear an oath that no better painter lives than Jacob. Others sneer at him, saying if he were good he would stay here, and so forth.

I have only to-day begun to sketch in my picture, for my hands were so scabby (_grindig_) that I could do no work with them, but I have got them cured.

Now be lenient with me and don't get in a pa.s.sion so easily, but be gentle like me. I don't know why you will not learn from me. My friend!

I should like to know if any one of your loves is dead--that one close by the water for instance, or the one called [Ill.u.s.tration] or [Ill.u.s.tration] or a [Ill.u.s.tration] so that you might supply her place by another. ALBRECHT DuRER.

VENICE, February 28, 1506.

I wish you had occasion to come here, I know you would not find time hang on your hands, for there are so many nice men in this country, right good artists. I have such a throng of Italians about me that at times I have to shut myself up. The n.o.bles all wish me well, but few of the painters.

VENICE, _April_ 2, 1506.

The painters here, let me tell you, are very unfriendly to me. They have summoned me three times before the magistrates, and I have had to pay four florins to their school. You must also know that I might have gained a great deal of money if I had not undertaken to paint the German picture. There is much work in it and I cannot get it quite finished before Whitsuntide. Yet they only pay me eighty-five ducats for it. Now you know how much it costs to live, and then I have bought some things and sent some money away, so that I have not much before me now. But don't misunderstand me, I am firmly purposed not to go away hence till G.o.d enables me to repay you with thanks and to have a hundred florins over besides. I should easily earn this if I had not got the German picture to paint, for all men except the painters wish me well.

Tell my mother to speak to Wolgemut about my brother, and to ask him whether he can make use of him and give him work till I come, or whether he can put him with some one else. I should gladly have brought him with me to Venice, and that would have been useful both to me and him, and he would have learnt the language, but my mother was afraid that the sky would fall on him. Pray keep an eye on him yourself, the women are no use for that. Tell the lad, as you so well can, to be studious and honest till I come, and not to be a trouble to his mother; if I cannot arrange everything I will at all events do all that I can. Alone I certainly should not starve, but to support many is too hard for me, for no one throws his gold away.

Now I commend myself to you. Tell my mother to be ready to sell at the Crown-fair (_Heiligthumsfest_). I am arranging for my wife to have come home by then; I have written to her too about everything. I will not take any steps about buying the diamond ornament till I get your next letter.

I don't think I shall be able to come home before next autumn, when what I earned for the picture, which was to have been ready by Whitsuntide, will be quite used up in living expenses, purchases, and payments; what, however, I gain afterwards I hope to save. If you see fit don't speak of this further, and I will keep putting off my leaving from day to day and writing as though I was just coming. I am indeed very uncertain what to do next. Write to me again soon.

Given on Thursday before Palm Sunday in the year 1506. ALBRECHT DuRER, Your Servant.

VENICE, _August_ 18, 1506.

_To the first, greatest man in the world. Your servant and slave Albrecht Durer sends salutation to his Magnificent master Wilibald_ Pirkheimer. _My truth! I hear gladly and with great satisfaction of your health and great honours. I wonder how it is possible for a man like you to stand against_ so many _wisest princes,_ swaggerers _and soldiers; it must be by some special grace of G.o.d. When I read your letter about this terrible grimace, it gave me a great fright and I thought it was a most important thing,_[15] but I warrant that you frightened even Schott's men,[16] you with your fierce look and your holiday hopping step. But it is very improper for such folk to smear themselves with civet. You want to become a real silk-tail and you think that, if only you manage to please the girls, the thing is done. If you were only as taking a fellow as I am, it would not provoke me so. You have so many loves that merely to pay each one a visit you would take a month or more before you got through the list.

For one thing I return you my thanks, namely, for explaining my position in the best way to my wife; but I know that there is no lack of wisdom in you. If only you had my meekness you would have all virtues. Thank you also for all the good you have done me, if only you would not bother me about the rings! If they don't please you, break their heads off and pitch them out on to the dunghill as Peter Weisweber says. What do you mean by setting me to such dirty work? _I_ have become a _gentleman_ at Venice.

I have also heard that you can make lovely rhymes; you would be a find for our fiddlers here; they fiddle so beautifully that they can't help weeping over it themselves. Would G.o.d our Rechenmeister girl could hear them, she would cry too. At your bidding I will again lay aside my anger and bear myself even more bravely than usual.

Now let me commend myself to you; give my willing service to our Prior for me; tell him to pray G.o.d for me that I may be protected, and especially from the French sickness; I know of nothing that I now dread more than that, for well nigh every one has got it. Many men are quite eaten up and die of it.

VENICE, _September_ 8, 1506.

Most learned, approved, wise, knower of many languages, sharp to detect all encountered lies and quick to recognise plain truth! Honourable much-regarded Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer. Your humble servant Albrecht Durer wishes you all hail, great and worthy honour _in the devil's name,_ so much for the twaddle of which you are so fond. I wager that for this[17] you would think me too an orator of a hundred parts. A chamber must have more than four corners which is to contain the G.o.ds of memory.

I am not going to cram my head full of them; that I leave to you; for I believe that however many chambers there might be in the head, you would have something in each of them. The Margrave would not grant an audience long enough!--a hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred words, that takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs which I have not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the whole at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old driveller.

I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot find any broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However I still look about every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.

I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you his service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his Son, the nicest lad I ever saw.

I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh, if only you were here!

how you would like these fine Italian soldiers! How often I think of you! Would to G.o.d that you and Kunz Kamerer could see them! They have great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only touch a man with them he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey! I can do it well, I'll be an Italian soldier. The Venetians as well as the Pope and the King of France are collecting many men; what will come of it I don't know, but people ridicule our King very much.

Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me. I don't wonder at his having taken a wife. Give my greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our fair friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister girl, and thank that head-chamber of yours alone for remembering her greeting; tell her she's a nasty one.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I sent you olive-wood from Venice to Augsburg, where I directed it to be left, a full ten hundredweight. She says she would not wait for it; _whence the stink_.

My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it, it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned much praise but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could easily have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in order that I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the painters who used to say that I was good at engraving but, as to painting. I did not know how to handle my colours. Now every one says that better colouring they have never seen.

My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes me that there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out even at this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting you pretend not to be more than twenty-five years old--oh, yes! double that and I'll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who look exactly like you; I don't know how it happens!