Chapter VIII
In Germany in the Sixteenth Century
We must now retrace our brief history to Germany, where, under the immediate direction and control of such well-known artists as Albrecht Dürer of Nürnberg (b. 1471, d. 1528) and Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg (b. 1472, d. 1531), as well as of Lucas Cranach, a Franconian (b. 1472, d. 1553), and, afterwards, of Hans Holbein of Augsburg (b. 1497, d. 1543), the art of wood-engraving in its grandest and purest form arrived at its first culmination. This was in a great measure due to the liberal patronage of the Emperor Maximilian, who, possessing a great love of art, esteemed all painters, architects, designers, and engravers as highly as his warriors. He was fond of magnificence in a truly imperial way, and the superb series of wood-engravings—the noblest the world has ever seen—known as 'The Triumphs of Maximilian,' were the outcome of this generous tendency. Of these celebrated works, which were not completed when the Emperor died in 1519, we must speak in their proper place.
It was to the genius of Albrecht Dürer and the engravers who translated his drawings into woodcuts that the art received its new vigour. Up to this time wood-engraving in Germany had been the work of craftsmen who were little better than mechanics; but when Dürer and Burgkmair, who knew the capabilities of the art, made drawings on the wood expressly for the engravers to reproduce in exact lines, there was a quick improvement which went on increasing in excellence for more than half a century. After the death of Holbein and his immediate successors, the art faded into insignificance in Germany for many years.
The first important work of the early life of Albrecht Dürer was a series of fifteen large drawings on wood representing allegorical Scenes from the Apocalypse. They are mystical, indeed almost incomprehensible; at the same time we are obliged to notice the tremendous vigour and the wonderful power of invention in the man who designed them. But his attempt to embody the supernatural led him into the most extravagant conceptions. 'In attempting to bring such themes within the power of expression which art possesses,' writes Mr. Woodbery, 'he strove to give speech to the unutterable.' Yet the genius of the true artist was apparent through all his work. The most celebrated of the Apocalypse designs is the fourth in the book, 'The Opening of the First Four Seals,' a wonderfully grand conception of the Four Horsemen going forth to conquer; Death on the pale horse below, and 'Hell following him.' (Revelation vi. 8.) King, burgher, peasant and priest, have all fallen beneath him. Although we are expressly told that Dürer himself printed this work in 1498, it by no means follows that he engraved the woodcuts; they are greatly in advance of any previous work of the kind, and this may be attributed to the fact that the artist who designed them knew the best capabilities of the art. If he and the unknown engraver had learned the advantages of lowering the face of the wood when delicate lines were required, and the present methods of overlaying the cuts to produce greater intensity of colour, some of the engravings of Dürer's time would be models of excellence.
The series of the Apocalypse was succeeded by three others in which the human interest is far greater. These were what the artist himself called 'The Larger Passion of Our Lord,' a series of eleven large cuts, with a vignette on the title-page; 'The Life of the Virgin,' a series of twenty cuts; and 'The Smaller Passion of Our Lord,' a series of thirty-six cuts of less size, with a well-known vignette of 'Christ Mocked' on the title-page. These works mark an important era in the history of wood-engraving and clearly led onwards to its future development. They were all published between 1510 and 1512, and so great was their popularity that the celebrated Italian engraver, Marc Antonio Raimondi, reproduced the whole of 'The Smaller Passion' in copper-plate—much, as may be imagined, to Dürer's annoyance.
In the 'Larger Passion of Our Lord' we find representations of the Last Supper, Christ on the Mount of Olives, the Betrayal, the Scourging, Christ Mocked, Christ Bearing his Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and other subjects from the New Testament; and so deeply did the highly-wrought artist feel the awful importance of his subject that he repeated some of these events in at least five different series. In all of them his characters are dressed in the uncouth habiliments of German peasants, and we see bits of German villages; but in this respect he only followed the example of the great Italian painters, who clothed the most sacred figures in the costumes of their own towns, and, when possible, gave an Italian landscape for a background to their pictures of the Holy Land.
The series of twenty large engravings called 'The Life of the Virgin' was published and sold by Dürer himself in book form at about the same time (1510), and was equally well received by the German people, who were at that time in a state of religious ferment consequent on the preachings of Martin Luther, and Dürer was one of his prominent disciples.
But it was the series of thirty-seven smaller woodcuts, known as 'The Lesser Passion,' that was most popular; in some measure, perhaps, because the prints are of a more handy size. All the subjects of 'The Larger Passion' are repeated, with variations, in this series, and twenty-five others from the Life of Christ are added. By a happy chance, thirty-five of the original woodcuts of this series are preserved in the British Museum. In the year 1840 they were reprinted, by permission of the trustees, under the care of Mr. Henry Cole. The wood was found to be much worm-eaten, but all injury was deftly repaired by Mr. Thurston Thompson, and a small edition of the work was issued[6] with an exhaustive introduction by Mr. Cole.
The most admired of all the works of Dürer are the large plates known as 'The Knight, Death, and the Devil,' 'The Conversion of St. Eustace,' 'Melencolia,' 'St. Jerome in his Chamber,' and several others which he engraved or etched on copper with his own hands and which he himself published. Fine impressions of these marvellous works are now as eagerly sought for as celebrated Rembrandt etchings.
Dürer made also many drawings on wood which were engraved and printed under his immediate supervision, and issued in separate sheets. Of one of the most beautiful, of these, 'The Virgin crowned by two Angels,' we are able to give an impression which is an exact facsimile (reduced) of a print of the year 1518. Nothing of its kind can exceed the brilliancy of the original, the engraving is as nearly perfect as possible, and were it not for the hardness of the lines in the faces and other objects where softness is required, no craftsman of the present day could surpass its excellence as a product of the printing-press. Many other separate large wood-engravings, after Dürer's drawings, appeared between the years 1510 and 1518, such as 'The Holy Family with the three Rabbits,' 'St. Jerome in his Chamber,' 'The Flight into Egypt,' 'Beheading of St. John the Baptist,' and, among other strange subjects, a representation of a Rhinoceros. Dürer also designed a frontispiece to his own book of poems, published in 1510.
Three magnificent books illustrated with woodcuts of great size, the 'Theuerdank,' the 'Werskunig,' and the 'Freydal,' appeared in Germany early in the sixteenth century. The first is an epic relating to the Emperor Maximilian's journey to Burgundy on matrimonial affairs; it was published in 1517. Hans Schaufelein drew the designs for a hundred and eighteen cuts, measuring 6½ inches by 5½ inches each. The second is in honour of the Emperor's journeys in distant lands, and the third to celebrate his deeds of prowess. There are 237 designs, chiefly by Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg, in the 'Werskunig'; the blocks are still preserved; they remained unused till long after the Emperor's death, and were not published till 1775. The 'Freydal' has never been completed, though the designs are still in existence.