Chapter II: Part I: Vol. 35 (second period). pp. 311-321. Part II. Vol. 36 (second (1)

period). pp. 25-34. Paris. 1887.

PETRARCH; HIS LIFE AND TIMES. _By H. C. Hollway-Calthrop._ 24 illustrations. London: Methuen & Co. 1907.

BROAD MANNER PLATES (c. 1470-1480)

SANDRO BOTTICELLI. _By Herbert P. Horne._ 43 plates. London: George Bell & Sons. 1908. pp. 288-291.

THE TAROCCHI PRINTS (c. 1467)

DIE TAROCCHI; ZWEI ITALIENISCHE KUPFERSTICHFOLGEN AUS DEM XV. JAHRHUNDERT. _Edited by Paul Kristeller._ 100 reproductions on 50 plates. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer. 1910. (Graphische Gesellschaft. Extraordinary Publication 2.)

DER VENEZIANISCHE KUPFERSTICH IM XV. JAHRHUNDERT. _By Paul Kristeller._ 6 illustrations. Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für vervielfältigende Kunst, Vol. 30, No. 1. Vienna. 1907.

ORIGINE DES CARTES À JOUER. _By R. Merlin._ About 600 reproductions. Paris: L’auteur. 1869.

THE TAROCCHI PRINTS. _By Emil H. Richter._ 13 illustrations. The Print-Collector’s Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 37-89. Boston. 1916.

CATALOGUE OF PLAYING AND OTHER CARDS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. _By William Hughes Willshire._ 78 reproductions on 24 plates. London: The Trustees. 1876.

POLLAIUOLO, ANTONIO (1432-1498)

FLORENTINE PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE. _By Bernhard Berenson._ New York: Putnam’s Sons. 1899. pp. 47-57.

ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO. _By Maud Cruttwell._ 51 illustrations. London: Duckworth and Company. 1907.

NOTE SU MANTEGNA E POLLAIUOLO. _By Arthur Mayger Hind._ 2 illustrations. L’Arte, Vol. 9, pp. 303-305. Rome. 1906.

GERMAN ENGRAVING: THE MASTER OF THE AMSTERDAM CABINET AND ALBRECHT DÜRER

With the exception of Martin Schongauer, none of Dürer’s immediate predecessors better repays a thorough study, or exerts a more potent fascination, than the MASTER OF THE AMSTERDAM CABINET. The earlier writers, from Duchesne to Dutuit, were united in their opinion that this engraver was a Netherlander; but Max Lehrs, following the track opened up by Harzen, has proved conclusively that the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet (so called because the largest collection of his engravings--eighty subjects out of the eighty-nine which are known--is preserved in the Royal Print Rooms in Amsterdam) was not a Netherlander but a South German, a native of Rhenish Suabia--the very artist, in fact, who designed the illustrations of the Planets and their influences and the various arts and occupations of men, for the so-called “Medieval House Book” in the collection of Prince von Waldburg-Wolfegg.

In subject-matter he owes little to his predecessors, and in technique he is an isolated phenomenon. _St. Martin and the Beggar_ and _St. Michael and the Dragon_ show that he was acquainted with the work of Martin Schongauer; the _Ecstasy of St. Mary Magdalen_ is obviously based upon a similar engraving by the Master E. S. of 1466; but for the most part he stands alone. He seems to have worked entirely in dry-point upon some soft metal--lead or pewter, perhaps--and the ink which he used, of a soft grayish tint, combines with the breadth and softness of the lines to impart to his prints much of the character of drawings in silver-point.

The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet has treated a wide range of subjects, his preference being for scenes of everyday life. His prints show appreciation of the beauties of landscape, his skill in the treatment of wide spaces is masterly, and there is a beauty and sweetness in the expression of his faces which makes him a worthy rival of Martin Schongauer himself. He has left us no purely ornamental designs, such as might serve in the decoration of vessels used in the church, and we may infer, from the character of his engravings, that he was a painter, who used the dry-point as a diversion, rather than a professional engraver, pursuing his craft as a means of livelihood. In power of composition he can hardly rank with Martin Schongauer, and in range of intellect he falls short of the heights reached by Albrecht Dürer; but his very limitations, perhaps, render him a more companionable personage, and his modernity makes an immediate appeal to us all.

The _Ecstasy of St. Mary Magdalen_ is one of his earliest plates and is a free translation of the same subject by the Master E. S. It would seem as though his dry-point was the immediate original of Dürer’s woodcut. The position of the Magdalen’s hands is the same in both compositions, but Dürer has added a landscape which, admirable though it be, detracts from the main interest of his print.

The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, in a second rendering, herewith reproduced, has eliminated all superfluous or distracting details and imparted a surprising degree of grace and purity to the lovely design. Anything like a chronological arrangement of the master’s work would be difficult, but one may safely assume that this beautiful engraving belongs to the latest and most mature period of his art, to which period we also may assign the _Two Lovers_.

As a rule, his least successful engravings are those dealing with religious themes. At times, however, as in the _Crucifixion_, he rises to heights of dramatic intensity, and Dürer may be indebted more than we realize to this rendering of the divine tragedy. _Aristotle and Phyllis_ and _Solomon’s Idolatry_ are satirical illustrations of the follies of sages in love. Both plates are illumined by a truly modern sense of humor, while the arrangement of the figures within the spaces to be filled is admirable.

Such subjects as _The Three Living and the Three Dead Kings_ and _Young Man and Death_ are variations upon a theme which was uppermost in the minds of many men at this time, when the _Ars Moriendi_ and the _Dance of Death_ were constant reminders of man’s mortality. In agreeable contrast is the dry-point of _Two Lovers_--a little masterpiece--one of his most charming designs. “The sweet shyness of the maiden, the tender glances of the lover and the soft pressure of their hands are rendered with an inimitable grace, and the work is altogether of such exceptional quality that we may count this delightful picture as one of the rarest gems of German engraving in the fifteenth century.”[7]

[7] The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet. By Max Lehrs. International Chalcographical Society, 1893 and 1894. p. 7.

The _Stag Hunt_ is filled with the spirit of outdoor life, the exhilaration of the chase, and the joy of the hounds in pursuing their quarry. No other engraver of the fifteenth century has left us any such truthful rendering of a hunting scene, and the life-enhancing quality of this little dry-point makes even Dürer’s rendering of animal forms seem cold and relatively lifeless.

The master’s knowledge of the anatomy of the horse, and his treatment of that noble beast, unfortunately fall far short of his rendering of the dogs and stags in the _Stag Hunt_. The figure of _St. George_ is sufficiently graceful and convincing, but the horse (seemingly of the rocking-horse variety) can hardly be proclaimed a complete success. In spite of this obvious defect it is one of the artist’s finest plates, remarkable for its exceptional force and animation. The unique proof, of which the British Museum is the fortunate possessor, is in splendid condition and rich in burr.

And now, with some trepidation of spirit, we approach ALBRECHT DÜRER and his engraved work. His many-sidedness foredooms to failure any attempt at an adequate and comprehensive treatment. His compositions, as Max Allihn justly says, may fittingly be likened to the Sphinx of the old legend; for “they attack everyone who, either as critic, historian or harmless wanderer, ventures in the realm of art, and propose to him their unsolvable riddles.”

Of his own work Dürer says: “What beauty may be I know not. Art is hidden in nature and whosoever can tear it out has it,” and his life-long quest of knowledge, his truly German reverence for fact, hangs like a millstone around his neck. “Of a truth,” writes Raphael, “this man would have surpassed us all if he had had the masterpieces of art constantly before him,” Raphael himself--“Raphael the Divine”--hardly paralyzed æsthetic criticism for a longer period than has Dürer, and in studying his engravings, if the student would see them for what they are, as works of art, and not through the enchanted, oftentimes stupefying, maze of metaphysics, he must be prepared for the gibes and verbal brick-bats of his contemporaries, who hold in reverence all that has the sanction of long-continued repetition by authority after authority.

“If you see it in a book it’s true; if you see it in a German book it’s very true,” applies with only too telling a force to a considerable share of Dürer speculation. For better or worse I cannot but think that Dürer’s prime intention in his engravings was an artistic one, though obviously this intention was often overlaid with a desire to supply an existing demand and to introduce, into otherwise simple compositions, traditional moralistic motives which should render his engravings more marketable at the fairs, where mostly they were sold. So many and so fascinating are the facets of Dürer’s personality, so interesting is he as a man in whose mind meet, and sometimes blend, the ideas of the Middle Ages with those almost of our own time, that if we are to study, even in the briefest and most cursory fashion, his engraved work, we must perforce confine ourselves strictly to the artistic content of his plates and not be seduced into the by-ways of speculation which lead anywhere--or, more often, nowhere.

Earliest of his authenticated engravings, without monogram and without date, crude in handling, possibly suggested by the work of some earlier master, and in all probability executed before his first journey to Venice (that is to say, before or in the year 1490) is the _Ravisher_, susceptible of as many and as varied interpretations as there are authorities; from a man using violence, to the struggle for existence. It has even been connected in some way with a belief in witchcraft! The _Holy Family with the Dragonfly_, to which Koehler gives second place in his chronological arrangement of Dürer’s engravings, shows an astonishing advance in technique and in composition. It is undated, but the monogram is in its early form. The galley and the two gondolas, in the distant water to the right, would seem to indicate that it was engraved in or about the year 1494, upon Dürer’s return from Venice, and it is probably his first plate after his return to Nuremberg. There is a sweetness and an attractiveness in the face of the Virgin which points to an acquaintance with Schongauer’s engraving, the _Virgin with a Parrot_. The poise of the head and the flowing hair lend color to this supposition.

To how great an extent not only the engravings, but the theories, of Jacopo de’ Barbari may have influenced Dürer in such plates as _St. Jerome in Penitence_, the _Carrying Off of Amymone_, _Hercules_, or the _Four Naked Women_, is difficult to determine. It may have been considerable, though, at times, one cannot help wondering whether the theory of proportion of the human body, of which Jacopo spoke to Dürer, but concerning which he refused (or was unable) to give him further detailed particulars, may not have been more or less of a “bluff,” since there is no record of Jacopo having committed the results of his studies to writing, and in his engravings there is little evidence of any logical theory of proportion. That a potent influence was at work shaping Dürer’s development is clear, and the figure of _St. Jerome_ undoubtedly owes a good deal to Jacopo. The landscape is all Dürer’s own, the first of a long series finely conceived and admirably executed. The long, sweeping lines in the foreground recall the manner of Jacopo de’ Barbari, but otherwise the engraving owes little technically to that artist.

_The Virgin and Child with the Monkey_ is the most brilliant of Dürer’s engravings in his earlier period. In the opinion of many students it is, likewise, the most beautiful and dignified, not only in the figures of the Virgin and Child, but also in the breadth and richness of the landscape. The loveliness of the background was early recognized, and several Italian engravers, including Giulio Campagnola, availed themselves of it. When Dürer’s drawings and water-colors are more generally known, he will be acclaimed one of the masters of landscape. There is a freshness, a breeziness, an “out-of-doors” quality in his water-color of the _Weierhaus_ which will surprise those who hitherto have known him only through his engraved work, wherein the landscape undergoes a certain formalizing process.

The _Virgin and Child with the Monkey_ is so beautiful in simplicity of handling, so delightful in arrangement of black and white, that it is hard to reconcile oneself to the comparatively coarse line work, the insensitiveness to beauty of form, the disregard of anatomy, shown in _Four Naked Women_ of 1497--Dürer’s first dated plate--especially the woman standing to the left, who combines the slackness of Jacopo de’ Barbari at his worst with the heaviness and puffiness possible only to a Northerner unacquainted with the classic ideals of the Italian Renaissance.

Speculation is again rife as to the meaning, if it has a meaning, of the skull and bone on the ground, and the devil emerging from the flames at the left. The engraving seems to be a straightforward, naturalistic study of the nude, with these accessories thrown in to give the subject a moralizing air which would make it palatable to the artist’s contemporaries. There could hardly be a greater contrast to this frankly hideous treatment of the human form than _Hercules_ (called also the _Effects of Jealousy_, the _Great Satyr_, etc.). In this plate we are able, as in few others--the one notable exception being the _Adam and Eve_ of 1504--to follow out, step by step, Dürer’s upbuilding of the composition. The figures are, in this case, idealized according to the canons of classical beauty, rather than realistically rendered. Incidentally, the landscape is quite the most beautiful which appears in any of Dürer’s engravings. Its spaciousness instantly commands our admiration, and the gradation from light to dark, to indicate differing planes in the trees, is managed in a masterly manner.

Beginning with the _Death of Orpheus_, engraved by some anonymous North Italian master working in the Fine Manner of the Tarocchi Cards, the next step is Dürer’s pen drawing, dated 1494. The figures of Orpheus and of the two Thracian Mænads remain unchanged, as does also the little child running towards the left. Dürer has, however, changed the lute into a lyre, as being more suited to Orpheus, and has added the beautiful group of trees which reappears, little changed, in his engraving of _Hercules_. There is a drawing of the Mantegna School which Dürer may, or may not, have seen; but the face of Orpheus in his drawing shows certain unmistakable Mantegna characteristics, far removed from the North Italian Fine Manner print. From Mantegna’s engraving, the _Battle of the Sea-Gods_ (right-hand portion), Dürer has borrowed the figure of the reclining woman to the left and the Satyr. That he was acquainted with this engraving by Mantegna is attested by a drawing of 1494. The man standing to the right, with legs spread wide apart, wearing a fantastic helmet in the shape of a cock, recalls the work of Pollaiuolo, by whom there exists a similar drawing, now in Berlin. From these various elements Dürer builds up his composition. Its full meaning he alone knew. It has remained an unsolved riddle from his time to our own.

The _Carrying Off of Amymone_ belongs to this same period. Here Dürer has again used the motive taken from Mantegna’s engraving, the _Battle of the Sea Gods_; but in this instance he follows his original much more closely. Dürer alludes to this print in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands as _The Sea Wonder_ (_Das Meerwunder_); and although the interpretations given to it are many and various, its true meaning, as in the case of the Hercules, remains a matter of conjecture.

By 1503, the year to which belongs the _Coat-of-Arms with the Skull_, and also, in all probability, the magnificent _Coat-of-Arms with the Cock_, Dürer seems to have overcome successfully all technical difficulties and is absolute master of his medium. From this time onwards, although his manner undergoes certain modifications in the direction of fuller color and of a more accurate rendering of texture, his language is adequate for anything he may wish to say, and he is free to address himself to the solution of scientific problems, such as are involved in the elucidation of his canon of human proportion, or the still deeper questions which stirred so profoundly the speculative minds of his time.

With the exception of _Hercules_, _Adam and Eve_ is the only engraving by Dürer of which trial proofs, properly so-called, exist, whereby we can study Dürer’s method. First the outlines were lightly laid in; then the background was carried forward and substantially completed. In the first trial proof Adam’s right leg alone is finished; but in the second trial proof he is completed to the waist. This method of procedure is significant, in view of the endless controversies, based upon an incomplete study of Dürer’s technique, regarding the use of preliminary etching in many plates of his middle and later period.

In _Adam and Eve_ Dürer has summed up the knowledge obtained by actual observation and by a series of drawings and studies extending over a number of years, and combined with it his theoretical working out of the proportions of the human figure, male and female. In no other plate has he lavished such loving care upon the representation of the human form. The flesh is, so to speak, caressed with the burin, as though, once and for all, the artist wished to prove to his contemporaries that the graver sufficed for the rendering of the most beautiful, the most subtle and scientific problems. That Dürer himself was satisfied with the result of his labors at this time is made manifest by the detailed inscription, ALBERTUS DURER NORICUS FACIEBAT, on the tablet, followed by his monogram and the date 1504. This plate proclaimed him indisputably the greatest master of the burin of his time; and along the lines which he laid down for himself it remains unsurpassed until our own day.

_Adam and Eve_ is followed by a group of prints which, though interesting in treatment and charming in subject, such as the _Nativity_, _Apollo and Diana_, and the first four plates of the _Small Passion_, reveal nothing new in Dürer’s development as an artist or a man. In the year 1510, however, is made his first experiment in dry-point. Of the very small plate of _St. Veronica with the Sudarium_ two impressions only have come down to us, neither of them showing much burr. The _Man of Sorrows_, dated 1512, likewise must have been very delicately scratched upon the copper, all existing impressions being pale and delicate in tone. Whether Dürer’s desire was to produce engravings which should entail less labor and be more quickly executed than was possible by the slower and more laborious method of the burin, or whether, as seems much more likely, he was influenced by an acquaintanceship with the dry-point work of the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, cannot be asserted with any degree of assurance. Dürer’s third dry-point, the _St. Jerome by the Willow Tree_ (like the _Man of Sorrows_ dated 1512), is treated in so much bolder and more painter-like a manner, is so rich in burr and so satisfying as a composition, that one can hardly account for such remarkable development unaided by any outside influence or stimulation. The British Museum’s impression of the first state, before the monogram,--the richest impression known--yields nothing in color effect even to Rembrandt. Thausing is inclined to think that Rembrandt must have been inspired by this plate to himself take up the dry-point--an interesting speculation and one which would do honor to both of these great masters.

The _Holy Family_, though without monogram and undated, belongs so unmistakably, from internal evidence, to this period, that we may safely assign it to the year 1512. The background and landscape to the left are indicated in outline only. Did Dürer intend to carry the plate further? We can never know. It is his fourth and, unfortunately, his last dry-point. There is a beauty in _St. Jerome by the Willow Tree_ and in this Holy Family which leads us to read in these two masterpieces certain Italian influences. There is the largeness of conception of the Venetian School, and both _St. Jerome_ and _St. Joseph_ show strong traces of such a master as Giovanni Bellini.

With the brief space at our disposal, what shall we say of the crowning works of those two wonderful years, 1513-1514--_Knight, Death and the Devil_, _Melancholia_, and _St. Jerome in his Study_? Are they three of a proposed series of the four temperaments? Should they be considered as parts of a group--or is each masterpiece complete in itself? One thing at least they have in common: they are truly “Stimmungsbilder”--that is, the lighting is so arranged, in each composition, as directly to affect the mind and the mood of the beholder, and “the sombre gloom of the _Knight, Death and the Devil_, the weird, unearthly glitter of the _Melancholia_, with its uncertain, glinting lights, the soft, tranquil sunshine of the _St. Jerome_, are all in accordance with their several subjects. These, whether or not originally intended to represent ‘classes of men’ or ‘moods,’ certainly call up the latter in the mind of the beholder--the steady courage of the valiant fighter for the right, undismayed by darkness and dangers; the brooding, leading well-nigh to despair, over the vain efforts of human science to lift the veil of the eternal secret; and the calm content of the mind at peace with itself and the world around it.”[8]

[8] A Chronological Catalogue of the Engravings, Dry-Points and Etchings of Albert Dürer, as exhibited at the Grolier Club. By Sylvester R. Koehler. New York; The Grolier Club. 1897. p. 65.

Dürer, unfortunately, sheds no light upon the inner and deeper meaning of the _Knight, Death and the Devil_. He speaks of it simply as “A Horseman.” The many and various titles invented for it since his time carry us very little further forward than where we began. The letter S, which precedes the date, the dog which trots upon the further side of the horse, even the blades of grass under the hoof of the right hind leg of the horse, have all been matters of speculation and controversy, and we choose the part of wisdom if, disregarding the swirling currents of metaphysical interpretation, we enjoy this masterpiece of engraving for its æsthetic content primarily, and for its potential meanings afterwards.

_Melancholia_ favors an even wider range of speculation than the _Knight, Death and the Devil_. This woman, who wears a laurel wreath and who, seated in gloomy meditation, supports her cheek in her left hand, while all the materials for human labor, for art, and for science lie scattered about her--does she symbolize human Reason in despair at the limits imposed upon her power? Or does the plate have a more personal and intimate meaning, reflecting Dürer’s deep grief at the death of his mother--the mother to whom he so often refers in his letters, always with heartfelt affection?

The so-called “magic square” lends color to the latter interpretation. Dürer’s mother died on May 17, 1514. The figures in the diagonally opposite corners of the square can be read as follows, 16 + 1 and 13 + 4, making 17, the day of the month; as do the figures in the center read crosswise, 10 + 7 and 11 + 6, and also the middle figures at the sides read across, 5 + 12 and 8 + 9. The two middle figures in the top line, 3 + 2, give 5, the month in question, and the two middle figures in the bottom line give the year, 1514.

Artistically the plate suffers from the multiplicity of objects introduced, and the loving care which Dürer has lavished upon them. He has wished to tell his story--whatever it may be--with absolute completeness in every particular, and in so doing he has weakened and confused the effect of his plate. It were idle to speculate upon what might have happened had so sensitive a master as Martin Schongauer possessed adequate technical skill for the interpretation of such a subject. What a masterpiece of masterpieces might have resulted if he had subjected it to that process of simplification and elimination of which he was so splendid an exponent! However this may be, _Melancholia_ has been, and probably will continue to be, one of the signal triumphs in the history of engraving. We may never solve the riddles which she propounds; but is she less fascinating for being only partially understood?

_St. Jerome in his Cell_, all things considered, may be accounted Dürer’s high-water mark. There is a unity and harmony about this plate which is lacking in _Melancholia_. Nothing could be finer than the lighting; and, judged merely as a “picture,” it is altogether satisfying from every point of view. The accessories, even the animals in the foreground, take their just places in the composition. It is surprising that, although the plate is “finished” with minute and loving care, there is not the faintest evidence of labor apparent anywhere about it; but this is only one of its many and superlative merits. The light streaming in through the window at the left and bathing in its soft effulgence the Saint, intent upon his task, and the entire room in which he sits, has been for centuries the admiration of every art lover.

To this year, 1514, also belongs the _Virgin Seated Beside a Wall_, a plate in which the variety of texture has been carried further than in any other engraving by Dürer. The flesh is simply treated, in line for the most part; but the undergarment, the fur-trimmed wrapper, and the scarf which covers the head of the Virgin, hanging down the back and thrown over the knee, are all carefully differentiated. Again, the various planes in the landscape leading up to the fortified city are beautifully handled, as is also the wall to the right. It is hard to say what technical problems remained for Dürer to solve after such a little masterpiece as this.

His growing fame meanwhile had attracted the attention of the Emperor Maximilian, “the last of the Knights,” who in February, 1512, visited Nuremberg. Dürer is commissioned to design the _Triumphal Arch_, the _Triumphal Car_, and similar monumental records of the Emperor’s prowess; not to speak of such orders as the decoration of the Emperor’s Prayer-Book, etc. Such distraction absorbed the greater part of the artist’s time and energies, and there was left little opportunity for the development of his work along the lines he had hitherto followed. It may be that we owe to this fact, and to the quick mode of producing a print such a process offers, the six etchings on iron which bear dates from 1515 to 1518. But, whatever the reason, we are glad that he etched these plates. Discarding, for the moment, the elaborate and detailed method of line work of his engravings on copper, he adopts a more open system, such as would “come well” in the biting--closer work than in his woodcuts, but perfectly adapted to that which he wished to say.

There is a tense and passionate quality in _Christ in the Garden_ which places this etched plate among the noteworthy works even of Dürer, while the wind-torn tree to the left of Christ gives the needed touch of the supernatural to the composition. The _Carrying Off of Proserpine_--the spirited drawing for which is now in the J. Pierpont Morgan collection--is the working out, with allegorical accessories, of a study of a warrior carrying off a woman. The last of his plates, the _Cannon_, of 1518, with its charming landscape, was doubtless executed to supply, promptly, a popular demand. It represents a large field piece bearing the Arms of Nuremberg, and the five strangely costumed men to the right, gazing upon the “Nuremberg Field Serpent,” obviously have some relation to the fear of the Turk, then strong in Germany.

In 1519 we have the first of Dürer’s engraved portraits--_Albert of Brandenburg, “The Little Cardinal”_ to distinguish it from the larger plate of 1523. Opinions as to Dürer’s importance as a portrait engraver vary considerably. Some students feel that in these later works the engraver has become so engrossed in the delight of his craft that he has failed to concentrate his attention upon the countenance and character of the sitter, bestowing excessive care upon the accessories and the minor accidents of surface textures--wrinkles and similar unimportant matters. On the other hand, such an authority as Koehler maintains that the _Albert of Brandenburg_, preeminent for delicacy and noble simplicity among these portrait engravings by Dürer, “will always be ranked among the best portraits engraved anywhere and at any time.”

_Frederic the Wise, Elector of Saxony_, was one of the earliest patrons of Dürer, founder of the University of Wittenberg and a supporter of the Reformation, although he never openly embraced the doctrines of Martin Luther. Dürer’s drawing in silver-point gives a straightforward and characterful presentation of the man, and, in this instance, translation into the terms of engraving has nowise lessened the directness of appeal.

_Erasmus of Rotterdam_ bears the latest date (1526) which we find upon any engraving by Dürer, and it well may be his last plate. Here the elaboration and finish bestowed upon the accessories certainly detract from the portrait interest. Erasmus was polite enough, when he saw this engraving, to excuse its unlikeness to himself by remarking that doubtless he had changed much during the five years which had intervened between Dürer’s drawing of 1521 and the completion of the plate. Technically, however, it is a masterpiece, a worthy close to the career of undoubtedly the greatest engraver Germany has produced.

GERMAN ENGRAVING: THE MASTER OF THE AMSTERDAM CABINET AND ALBRECHT DÜRER

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MASTER OF THE AMSTERDAM CABINET (flourished c. 1467-c. 1500)

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CHRONOLOGICAL CATALOGUE OF THE ENGRAVINGS, DRY-POINTS AND ETCHINGS OF ALBERT DÜRER, AS EXHIBITED AT THE GROLIER CLUB. _By Sylvester R. Koehler._ 9 reproductions on 7 plates. New York: The Grolier Club. 1897.

DÜRER; DES MEISTERS GEMÄLDE, KUPFERSTICHE UND HOLZSCHNITTE. _Edited by Valentin Scherer._ 473 reproductions. Stuttgart and Leipzig: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. (Klassiker der Kunst. Vol. 4.)

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ALBRECHT DÜRER; KUPFERSTICHE IN GETREUEN NACHBILDUNGEN. _Edited by Jaro Springer._ 70 plates. Munich: Holbein-Verlag. 1914.

ALBERT DÜRER; HIS LIFE AND WORKS. _By Moritz Thausing. Translated from the German. Edited by Frederick A. Eaton._ 2 volumes. 58 illustrations. London: John Murray. 1882.

DÜRER SOCIETY. [PORTFOLIOS] WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES BY CAMPBELL DODGSON AND OTHERS. Series 1-10 (1898-1908). 311 reproductions. Index of Series 1-10. London. 1898-1908.

----. Publication No. 12. 24 reproductions. London. 1911.

ITALIAN ENGRAVING: MANTEGNA TO MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI

Andrea Mantegna is, both by his art and his influence, the most significant figure in early Italian engraving. His method or viewpoint is a determining feature in much of the best work which was produced during the last quarter of the fifteenth century, until the influence of Raphael, transmitted through Marcantonio, with a technical mode based upon the manner of Albrecht Dürer, completely changed the current of Italian engraving, seducing it from what might have developed into an original creative art, and condemned it to perpetual servitude as the handmaid of painting.

Andrea Mantegna, born in 1431, at Vicenza, and consequently Pollaiuolo’s senior by one year, was adopted, at the age of ten, by Squarcione, in Padua. Squarcione appears to have been less a painter than a contractor, undertaking commissions to be executed by artists in his employ. He was likewise a dealer in antiquities, and in his shop the young Mantegna must have met many of the leading humanists who had made Padua famous as a seat of classical learning. From them he drew in and absorbed that passion for imperial Rome which was to color his life and his art. His dream was of forms more beautiful than those of everyday life, built of some substance finer and less perishable than the flesh of frail humanity; and as years went by his work takes on, in increasing measure, a grander and more majestic aspect. Fortunate for us is it that in his mature period, when his style was fully formed, he himself was impelled, by influences of which later we shall speak, to take up the graving tool and with it produce the seven imperishable masterpieces which, beyond peradventure, we may claim as his authentic work.

The _Virgin and Child_, the earliest of his engravings, can hardly have been executed before 1475, and maybe not until after 1480, when Mantegna had reached his fiftieth year. Mr. Hind points out that there is a simplicity and directness about it which recalls quite early work, similarly conceived, such as the _Adoration of the Kings_ of 1454; but the reasons which he advances are of equal weight in assigning it to a later date, and I am convinced that the intensity of mother-love expressed in the poise and face of the Virgin betokens a deeper feeling, a broader humanity, than one normally would expect in a youth of twenty-three, even though he be illumined with that flame of genius which burned so brightly in Mantegna.

Technically, the plate plainly shows the hand of an engraver not yet master of his medium. It is marked with all the characteristics which we associate with Mantegna’s work: the strong outline, ploughed with repeated strokes of a rather blunt instrument into a plate of unbeaten copper or some yet softer metal; the diagonal shade lines widely spaced; and the light strokes blending all into a harmonious whole. In an impression of the first state, in the British Museum, there is a tone, similar to sulphur-tint, over portions of the plate, noticeably in the faces of the mother and child. How it was produced is still a matter of conjecture, but that it adds much to the beauty of the print is beyond question.

The _Bacchanalian Group with Silenus_ and the _Bacchanalian Group with a Wine-Press_ (which, like the _Battle of the Sea-Gods_, may be joined together so as to form one long, horizontal composition) show greater skill on the part of the engraver. Mantegna’s increasing passion for the antique is reflected in the standing figure to the left, who with his left hand reaches up towards the wreath with which he is about to be crowned, while resting his right hand upon a horn of plenty. This figure is obviously inspired by the Apollo Belvedere, while the standing faun, at the extreme right, filled with the sheer delight of mere animal existence, is a delightful creation in Mantegna’s happiest mood.

The two plates of the _Battle of the Sea-Gods_ may be assigned, on technical grounds, to about the same period as the two Bacchanals. The drawing which Durer made of the right-hand portion, as also of the _Bacchanalian Group with Silenus_, both dated 1494, conclusively prove that these engravings antedate the completion of the _Triumph of Cæsar_. Though Mantegna borrowed his material from the antique, he has so shaped it to his ends, so stamped upon it the impress of his own personality, as to make of it not an echo of classic art, but an original creation of compelling force and charm. “These are not the mighty gods of Olympus but the inferior deities of Nature, of the Earth and the Sea, who acknowledge none of the higher obligations and who display unchecked their wanton elemental nature, giving a loose rein to all the exuberance of their joy in living.... These creatures of the sea frolic about in the water, turbulent and wanton as the waves.... The combat with those harmless-looking weapons is probably not meant to be in earnest; a vent for their superfluous energy is all they seek.”[9]

[9] Andrea Mantegna. By Paul Kristeller. London; Longman’s Green & Co. 1901. p. 395.

To a somewhat later period belongs the _Entombment_. There is nothing of the meek spirit of the Redeemer in this passionate plate. The hard, lapidary landscape is in accord with the figures, which might, not unfittingly, find a place upon some triumphal arch. Three crosses crown the distant hill. At the right stands St. John, a magnificent figure, giving utterance to his unspeakable grief, while the Virgin, sinking in a swoon, is supported by one of the holy women.

Here is none of that tenderness which we associate with the divine tragedy, none of that grace and beauty which inheres in the work of many of the Italian painters of the Renaissance. All is stark and harsh. It is not food for babes, but it is superb.

_The Risen Christ Between Saints Andrew and Longinus_ is Mantegna’s last engraving. Christ towers above the two subsidiary figures, with a form and bearing which would better befit a Roman Emperor returning in triumph. In this plate, above all others, Mantegna’s technique shines forth as not only adequate, but as beyond question the best--perhaps the only one--to convey his message. Translated into another mode, one feels that it would lose much of its appeal. It has been suggested that the engraving was made as a project for a group of statuary--perhaps for the high altar of S. Andrea, in Mantua, raised above the most precious relic possessed by the city, the Blood of Christ, brought to Mantua by Longinus--a supposition borne out by the statuesque impressiveness of the group and by the fact that Christ gazes downwards, as though from a height.

Although 1480 is the earliest date to which we can assign the first of Mantegna’s original engravings, there were in existence, at least five years before that time, engravings by other hands after designs by the master, and it may have been either to protect himself from unauthorized and fraudulent copyists, or as an artistic protest against the incapacity of his translators, that Mantegna was compelled to take up the graver. There has come down to us a letter, dated September 15, 1475, addressed by Simone di Ardizone, of Reggio, to the Marquis Lodovico, of Mantua, complaining to the prince of Mantegna’s behavior towards him. His story was that “Mantegna, upon his arrival in Mantua, made him splendid offers, and treated him with great friendliness. Actuated by feelings of compassion, however, towards his old friend, Zoan Andrea, a painter in Mantua, from whom prints (_stampe_), drawings, and medals had been stolen, and wishing to help in the restoration of the plates, he had worked with his friend for four months. As soon as this came to Mantegna’s knowledge he proceeded to threats, and one evening Ardizone and Zoan Andrea had been assaulted by ten or more armed men and left for dead in the square.”

The letter is “proof that, in Mantua, in the year 1475, two professional engravers, one of whom clearly designates himself as such, were at work.... It is clear that Mantegna had a very special interest in the engravings and drawings which had been stolen from Zoan Andrea, and which Ardizone, ‘out of compassion,’ helped to restore, since he sought by force to impede the engraver’s work. His anger can also be explained by the supposition that Zoan Andrea’s engravings were facsimiles of his own drawings which the former had succeeded in obtaining possession of and had used as designs for his engravings; and that being unable to win Ardizone’s assistance in his work Mantegna thought himself obliged to protest, by violent means, against this infringement of his artistic rights.”[10]

[10] Andrea Mantegna By Paul Kristeller. London. 1901. pp. 381-384.

It is probable that to this drastic and effectual method of protecting against piracy his own artistic property we owe the two renderings, both incomplete, of the _Triumph of Cæsar_. One may well be the series upon which Zoan Andrea and Ardizone were working when Mantegna brought their labors to an untimely close; whereas the second series, although authorized by Mantegna himself, may have seemed to him, not without just cause, so to misinterpret his original drawings as to impel him to abandon the project and, in future, engrave his own designs. The _Triumph_ series naturally remained incomplete, since, like every great artist, Mantegna would hardly feel disposed to repeat, in another medium, a subject which he had already treated. Of the _Triumph_ plates, the _Elephants_ approximates most closely Mantegna’s undoubted work; but the drawing lacks distinction, and there is a feeling of “tightness” throughout the whole plate, which makes it impossible to attribute the engraving to Mantegna’s own hand. The plate which immediately follows--_Soldiers Carrying Trophies_--was left unfinished. The subject is repeated in the reverse sense and with the addition of a pilaster to the right. This pilaster is probably Mantegna’s original design for the upright members dividing the nine portions of the painted _Triumphs_, since the procession is supposed to pass upon the further side of a row of columns, the figures and animals being so arranged as to extend over one picture to the next, with a sufficient space between them for the introduction of the pilaster.

The _Adoration of the Magi_, which for some reason likewise remained unfinished, is taken directly from the central portion of the triptych in the Uffizi. The engraving, aside from its intrinsic beauty, is of especial interest as affording an example of the method adopted by Mantegna and his School. The structural lines are deeply incised, in many cases by repeated strokes of the graver. The diagonal shading is then added and the plate carried forward and completed, bit by bit. This engraving, at one time accounted an original work by the master himself, has received of recent years more than its merited share of harsh criticism. It obviously falls far short, in beauty, of Mantegna’s painting; but, for all that, it preserves many of the essential qualities of its immediate original, and one cannot but admire the manner in which an engraver, certainly not of the first rank, has captured the spirit of humility and adoration, eloquent in every line of the king at the left, humbly bending to receive the benediction of the Christ Child.

By an engraver of the Mantegna School, perhaps ZOAN ANDREA, working in Mantegna’s manner and after his design for the _Parnassus_ in the Louvre, is _Four Women Dancing_--one of the most charming and graceful prints of the period. It differs in many particulars from the painting (assigned to the year 1497) and almost certainly translates Mantegna’s drawing, rather than the painting itself.

To GIOVANNI ANTONIO DA BRESCIA, of whose life, apart from what we may learn from a study of his work, we know substantially nothing, may be attributed the _Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth and_ _John_, based upon a design by Mantegna, of about 1500, and probably engraved at a date prior to Mantegna’s death, September 13, 1506. At a later period, Giovanni came under the influence of Marcantonio Raimondi, whose style he imperfectly assimilated.

In the British Museum there is a unique impression of a _Profile Bust of a Young Woman_, which has been ascribed, with some show of reason, to LEONARDO DA VINCI. Its intrinsic beauty might lend some color to this attribution, were it not that, even in its re-worked condition, the texture and flow of the young woman’s abundant tresses, the treatment of the flowing ribbons, and the delicate shading in the face and upon the garment, betray the hand of the trained engraver.

NICOLETTO ROSEX DA MODENA was working from about 1490 to 1515. He engraved almost a hundred plates, the majority of them being presumably from his own designs, though in the _Adoration of the Shepherds_ the influence of Schongauer is markedly apparent, and in _Fortune_ and _St. Sebastian_ the inspiration of Mantegna is clearly to be seen.

The group of trees in the _Fate of the Evil Tongue_ is borrowed from Dürer’s print of _Hercules_, while the _Turkish Family_ and the _Four Naked Women_--the last-named being dated 1500--are copies of Dürer’s engravings. Vedriani, writing of Nicoletto as a painter, speaks of him as “chiefly distinguished in perspective,” and among the most charming of his plates in which this quality is seen is _Orpheus_. The bare tree is suggestive of Martin Schongauer, while the birds and beasts, including a dog, a peacock, a weasel, a monkey playing with a tortoise, a squirrel, a snake, a piping bird, two rabbits, a fox, and a stag, not to speak of the ducks and swans in the water, though not copied from northern originals, have all the charm and life-like quality which we find in the work of German engravers such as The Master of St. John the Baptist and The Master E. S. of 1466.

Concerning JACOPO DE’ BARBARI there is a wealth of biographical material, in contrast with the meagerness of our knowledge concerning the earlier Italian engravers. Born at Venice, between 1440 and 1450, he is known to have worked between 1500 and 1508 for the Emperor and various other princes in different towns of Germany. He was at Nuremberg in 1505, and in 1510 he was in the service of the Archduchess Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands, while, in the inventory of the Regent’s pictures of 1515-1516, he is referred to as dead.

Not one of the thirty engravings by Jacopo is signed with his name, initials, or any form of monogram, nor does any of them bear a date. His emblem is the caduceus, which appears on the greater number of his prints; and those upon which it is lacking can readily be identified by his individual style. This style undergoes certain modifications with the passing years. In the early period, the shading, for the most part, is in parallel lines, which follow the contour of the figure, the figure itself being long and sinuous. In his middle and later period he indulged more freely in cross-hatching, and the faces are modelled with greater delicacy.

Stress has been laid upon the influence exerted by Jacopo upon Dürer’s engraving; but with the exception of the _Apollo and Diana_ this influence is theoretical rather than artistic. Dürer, in one of the manuscript sketches, dated 1523, for his book _The Theory of Human Proportions_, writes: “Howbeit, I can find none such who hath written aught about how to form a canon of human proportion, save one man--Jacopo by name, born at Venice, and a charming painter. He showed me the figures of a man and a woman, which he had drawn according to a canon of proportions, so that, at that time, I would rather have seen what he meant than be shown a new kingdom.... Then, however, I was still young and had not heard of such things before. Howbeit, I was very fond of art, so I set myself to discover how such a canon might be wrought out.” Dürer undoubtedly refers to the period of his first visit to Venice, and it is, accordingly, in Dürer’s earliest plates that we see most clearly the influence of the older master on his technical method. Dürer soon outstripped Jacopo in everything that pertains to the technical side of engraving and worked out for himself a method which, for his purpose, was substantially perfect.

In such plates as _Judith_ and _St. Catherine_, Jacopo’s love for long, flowing lines finds its fullest expression. There is a grace about these single figures which is not without appealing charm, though obviously they leave something to be desired on the score of solidity and structure.

GIROLAMO MOCETTO, born in Murano before 1458, was living at Venice in 1514, where he died after 1531. According to Vasari, Mocetto was, at some time, an assistant to Giovanni Bellini, whose influence may be traced in his work. His engravings are unpleasing in style and often clumsy in draughtsmanship. He owes such merit as he may possess to the originals which he interpreted. There is a compelling power in _Judith_, after Mantegna’s design, which atones for even so shapeless a member as Judith’s right hand. The grandeur of the plate is, however, derived from Mantegna. Mocetto has done little more than traduce it; but, even so, the engraving is noteworthy, inasmuch as it preserves for us a noble composition, of which otherwise we might remain in ignorance. The _Baptism of Christ_ is adapted, with some modifications, from Giovanni Bellini’s painting executed between 1500 and 1510. In the engraving, the landscape, which differs radically from that in Bellini’s painting, may possibly be original with Mocetto, though it recalls the work of Cima, whose _Baptism_, in S. Giovanni in Bragora, Venice, was painted in 1494.

BENEDETTO MONTAGNA was, like Mocetto, painter as well as engraver. His earliest engravings are executed in a large, open manner, which can be seen to advantage in the _Sacrifice of Abraham_. The outline is strongly defined and the shading chiefly in parallel lines. Where cross-hatching is used, it is laid generally at right angles. Later, Montagna modifies his style and adopts the finer system of cross-hatching perfected by Dürer, whose influence, especially in the backgrounds, is clearly to be traced, and whose _Nativity_, of the year 1504, Montagna copied in reverse. _St. Jerome Beneath an Arch of Rock_ belongs to this later period, and the plate is probably based upon a painting by Bartolommeo Montagna, the engraver’s father.

GIULIO CAMPAGNOLA, born at Padua about 1482, is known to have been working in Venice in 1507 and is assumed to have died shortly after 1514. According to contemporary accounts, he was a youth of marvellously precocious and varied gifts and promise. To his musical and literary accomplishments, he added those of painter, miniaturist, engraver, and sculptor.

His engravings betray markedly the influence of Giorgione, and his manner of engraving may have been an attempt to imitate the rich softness of that master’s painting. He worked out and perfected a technical system all his own. In his earliest manner he works in pure line, as in his copies of Dürer’s engravings and in such plates as the _Old Shepherd_ and _St. Jerome_.

In the _Young Shepherd_, the _Astrologer_, and _Christ and the Woman of Samaria_, the composition is first engraved in simple, open lines, with little cross-hatching. The plate is then carried forward and completed by a system of delicate flicks, so disposed as to produce a harmonious result, obliterating substantially all trace of the preliminary line work. In the third group, to which two prints belong--_Naked Woman Reclining_ and _The Stag_--no lines at all are used, and the plate is carried out, from first to last, in flick work.

Only one of Campagnola’s plates is dated--the _Astrologer_, of 1509. In this he shows himself ripe, both as artist and as craftsman. To an earlier period would seem to belong the _Ganymede_, in which the landscape is a faithful copy of Dürer’s engraving of the _Virgin and Child with a Monkey_. The place which, in the original engraving, was occupied by the Virgin, is now filled by a clump of trees.

_St. John the Baptist_ is, all things considered, Campagnola’s masterpiece. The figure is unquestionably based upon a drawing by Mantegna, and has all the largeness and grandeur of style which characterizes the work of that master. The landscape background may be original with the engraver but it clearly shows the influence of Giorgione. In this superb plate Campagnola’s method of combining line work with delicate flick work can be studied at its best. The _Young Shepherd_, known in two states--the first in pure line, the second completed with flick work--is as charming and graceful as _St. John the Baptist_ is monumental. It justly deserves the reputation and popularity which it enjoys among print lovers.