Stories of the German artists

Preface

The existence of a book like Sandrart's Teutsche Akademie made it possible for me to carry out the present volume on the lines mapped out for the whole series. Sandrart, however, is no Vasari, and it would not have been advisable merely to furnish a translation of Sandrart alone. After once having given the reader an impression of quasi contemporary criticism as it is to be found in Sandrart, I have considered it necessary, in most cases, to add such facts and corrections as had been left for later ages to discover. But although Sandrart, the main source of the present book, lived more than a hundred years after the great epoch of German art, his accounts may be accepted as in a way contemporary. For he always endeavoured, and was sometimes able, to interview old men whose teachers had seen and spoken with the great artists, and whose vivacious accounts Sandrart thus had by word of mouth.

The plan of the book has imposed restrictions

upon the present writer. If minor men are

a 2

VI

PREFACE treated more at length than some artists of prime importance, it is, of course, merely because the " sources " contained more information about the one class than about the other. It is necessary to call to mind the title of the volume, which runs, "Stories of the German Artists," and not "History of German Art."

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

[. THE EARLY MASTERS OK THE SCHOOL OF

COLOGNE I

Chapter I The Early Masters Of The School Of Cologne

The historian of modern Italian art can follow his subject back as far as the thirteenth century, and in his researches about its very birth he encounters definite personalities, names that have the ring and touch of something real about them. We possess a good deal of precise information about Cimabue, for example, and can follow him on his way from Florence to Rome and Assisi ; pretty sure records of his birth and death, his works and his pupils, have been handed down to us. When we come down to the next generation, we find very little that is hazy, or left to conjecture only, about a man like Giotto di Bondone.

How differently do matters lie as soon as we

A cross the Alps and direct our research towards the primitive stages of German art ! It is, of course, scarcely a matter of surprise that here every new departure should have occurred at least a full century later. The art of the brush is known to the true mediaeval ages only in two forms — as practised by the illuminator of manuscripts, and, again, by the mural decorator. Each of these practitioners was dependent, a minor agent who scarcely could claim to be considered the bearer of a separate and self - reliant art. The independence of painting rested upon the introduction of the easel picture, and this occurred north of the Alps in the course of the fourteenth century; but how slight was the recognition achieved when the novelty had come ! No less a man than Dante mentioned and celebrated Cimabue. Who ever mentioned, let alone immortalised, the painters of the Cologne School ? It is an astonishing fact that from the earliest times down to the beginning of the sixteenth century the name of only one single artist among them all has been handed down to us in connection with his work, and even this we do not owe to contemporary writers, but to a much later man — a man, indeed, who was among the first to claim for the artist that degree of attention and esteem which he has since so plentifully received — to Albrecht Dtirer.

There are many circumstances which apprise us of the low estimation in which art was held during the evanescence of the Middle Ages, but none enforces the point upon us with greater effectiveness than this. Truly, indeed, the man whom later ages have looked up to almost as to a special kind of being, and about whose work more hubbub has been raised than about any other profession almost, was then held for a mere craftsman, an artisan like every one else. And though he may have done as charming work as he whom we now style Master Wilhelm, or as beautiful and important work as he whom we now style the Master of the Life of the Virgin, or as strangely uncommon and startling productions as the Master of the St. Thomas Altar-piece, yet he was no more deemed worthy of being cherished in the memory of ages to come as an individual than the good fellow who tailored well-fitting clothes, or he who joined tables and chairs well, or he who perhaps excelled as a pastry-cook.

Knowing this to have been the condition of affairs, we will not be surprised to learn that a story of early German art must present an altogether different appearance from that of its Italian counterpart. It is a difficult and, at the very outset, not exactly a satisfactory thing, for history to begin with conjectures, intangible things, and supposititious names. Until one or two generations ago the story of German art began virtually with the sixteenth-century men. Recent research, labouring in the face of unparalleled difficulties, has done much, miraculously much, to throw a light upon the work and the men prior to the year 1500. The Schools of Tyrol, of Nuremberg, of Suabia, Switzerland, and the Middle Rhine, have been investigated. Many a separate personality begins to loom up out of the haze in distinct and clear outlines — distinct and clear as to everything except his name and the facts of his life ; in other words, clear as to his artistic intentions and achievements. But all of this concerns as yet the special student only. There are only two features or items prior to Dtirer and his contemporaries which can claim the interest of the general public so far — they are Martin Schongauer and the School of Cologne.

The popularity of the School of Cologne is of itself a proof of the fact that it is the most important school among the German Primitives. That this should have come to be the case is neither a matter of chance nor one for wonder. Until the year 1450 or thereabouts, Cologne was distinctly the metropolis of Germany. Its vicinity to the Netherlands, the Burgundian realm, and to France will have gone for much to effect this end. Above all, its commanding position upon the great thoroughfare, the Rhine, will have gained for it a position which insured importance and wealth. Though the fine arts were despised, as we have seen, they were even at that time a luxury, and they depended upon superfluity of money for their very existence then as they do now. Cologne assumed at that early age a position which was occupied much later by a town that had in a similar way become exceptionally rich through commerce — I mean London. It became the great attractor of talent ever since it was become the great market. For, strange to say, as far as we have been able to ascertain, not one of the many masters that form the School of Cologne — certainly none of the most important ones — was a native of the town. The earliest came from Suabia and the Upper Rhine ; later ones from Westphalia, the Middle Rhine, then from the Dutch and the Flemish Lowlands. Each brought some home features with him, yet each seems to have accommodated his style at once to the spirit that prevailed at Cologne ; and though we can trace their schooling every time, we should never think of merely classing them with the schools they originally came from. They all have a distinct Cologne character, protean as it is, about them. Thus we are, after all, very well justified in speaking of the School of Cologne.

In passing the principal members of the School in review before the reader, there will be scarcely any biographical facts to be submitted, and scarcely more of contemporary or even early notices. In the main the account will have to consist of an enumeration of the principal works of each artist, and a brief indication of the peculiarities of his style, to be left as objective as possible.

Master Wilhelm of Herle and Hermann Wynrich of Wesel are the names of two early painters of Cologne that are met with in the records. In the Chronicle of Limburg we find, sub anno 1380: "About this time there lived a painter at Cologne, whose name was Wilhelm. He was the best painter in all countries of the German tongue, and he was esteemed by the masters, for he painted every man of any kind, just as if he were alive."

From Guild-books, and other contemporary documents, we learn that there was a master painter Wilhelm living at Cologne about that time. His name was Wilhelm von Herle, and he bought, with his wife Jutta, one of the houses opposite the Augustine convent in the year 1358. During the years 1370 and 1 37 1 his name recurs several times in connection with pecuniary transactions, and he must by that time have been pretty well off, for he buys annuities for himself and his wife, the said Jutta. About this time we also find several records of payments to him for work executed on behalf of the city. Particularly on the 14th of August 1370, he is paid nine marks for illuminating the book in which oaths were registered. This very frontispiece, however — probably representing a " Crucifixion " — has been torn out of the book by some ruthless hand, which is exceedingly deplorable, since it would be, if we still possessed it, at least one example of this master's art, the authenticity of which would be above suspicion. He is not mentioned again before the year 1378, but this time as having died, and the occasion refers to the disposal of his property among his heirs. It is divided between his widow Jutta and his sister Christina, share and share alike. In the course of various transfers it appears that presently Jutta invests part of the property again in an annuity, and this annuity is registered in her favour and in that of Hermann Wynrich of Wesel, Master Wilhelm's principal scholar and prop of his studio, whom, according to the guild custom of the times, the widow Jutta had married. In August of the year 1378 they established each other as sole heirs in the case of either's demise. Purchases of annuities and of houses, some of them effected in Jutta's name along with his own, prove that Hermann thrived as a painter. Jutta had died by midsummer 1395 ; sne na<^ borne neither of her two husbands any children. Hermann was married a second time within two years of his first wife's death. He prospered and accumulated more wealth. He was chosen into the Municipal Council in 1397, 1400, 1403, 1 410, and 141 3, in which last-named year he must have died, leaving a widow and four children.

Such are the scanty records which have been handed down to us concerning the everyday life of these men. It has become customary to ascribe to the elder of the two a number of paintings, clearly the best of the School, and clearly by one and the same hand. The only grounds for this were that it is natural to connect the best work of the time with that name whom contemporary accounts call the most renowned painter. Thus it happens that to this day this set of pictures is ascribed in gallery catalogues to Master Wilhelm of Cologne. Later criticism has sought to establish that the paintings in question more likely belong to the end of the century, that is, to a period subsequent to Master Wilhelm's death. Consequently it is claimed that Hermann Wynrich of Wesel is their author, if indeed they may be ascribed to either of the two. But even this is a matter of conjecture.

The principal picture of the set, perhaps, is a "Madonna with the Pea-blossom" at the Cologne Museum. It is a moderate-sized triptych, showing in the centre the Madonna, a half-length, holding a pea-blossom in her left hand, and supporting the Christ-child on her right arm. The child itself is almost naked, and it holds a golden rosary in its left, while it raises its right hand to its mother's face. The interior wings show St. Catherine and St. Barbara, the exterior the mocking of Christ. "The interior panels are exquisitely finished, and the power of coloration is equal to that of oil painting, io STORIES OF GERMAN ARTISTS

with an extremely soft sfumato. The type of the heads displays a refined, longish oval, round open eyes, a small mouth, and a long chin. The draughtsmanship of the heads is by no means correct, yet they display uncommon charm, and the expression is one of unsullied simplicity and purity."

" In sweet chaste modesty the Virgin looks down, as if some one had just exclaimed : * Happy mother ! ' and she had not found a word to reply, flurried as she was with her secret joy. The reply is contained in the gesture of the Christ-child." There is an attempt to emphasize the purely human element in the scene, to characterise the mutual love between mother and child, and further, there lies the truly human worship of fair womankind embodied in the painting. The mainspring of this work, and all that are grouped with it, is a joyous but peaceful youthfulness, a certain sanguine ardour and admiration for loveliness. We scarcely ever find any dramatic grasp, and the bitter sides of life do not seem to exist for this master or these masters, for even the solemn and tragic incidents of the Passion are touched with a light hand that desires not to harp upon what is saddening.

There is a similar picture at the Germanic

THE EARLY MASTERS n

Museum in Nuremberg, not quite as fascinating as the Cologne example, however, and the same holds good of a "St. Veronica with the Sudarium," now in the Museum at Munich.

The largest and, from one point of view, most important work of this group is a large altar-piece now in a chapel of the cathedral at Cologne, which was painted originally for the Franciscan Nunnery dedicated to St. Clara. This nunnery was founded at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and soon became a sort of place of refuge for the noblest dames and virgins of Cologne and its vicinity. In the year 1327 certain relics of St. Constance, St. Ursula, and her martyrs were unearthed and housed here, which gave additional splendour to the place.

The altar-piece is divided into twenty-four compartments, separated by Gothic carvings, and in them the life of the Saviour is told. It was in its time an ideal representative of what painting originally purported to be, the literature of the unlettered, a book of information for those unable to read. Even a person of our own time, contemplating this large altar-piece, will be struck by a certain kind of vivacity that the scenes display, almost as much as by the apparent imperfections in drawing and limitations of colouring, which are, of course, part and parcel of the early period during which the pictures were completed. There are little genre-traits, if one may call them so, to be detected in almost every panel. The little Christ-child apparently enjoys its bath in an altogether human manner, the contemplation of which is likely to distract pious beholders, who look solely for elevation. Again, when it is presented in the temple, it gaily leaves the priest with the swaddling clothes in his hand, and runs across the altar-table to its mother. In short, everywhere there is some feature taken directly from the life, more convincing and captivating than anything which merely originated in the imagination of some painter ever could be. It has been conjectured with great plausibility that these and similar scenes of the Passion and the Life of our Saviour bear a distinct relation to the common performances of mysteries and miracle plays. These shows were during the Middle Ages even a more important feature of daily life than the theatre is to us nowadays, and it is therefore only natural that they should have exercised some influence upon the art of the times. Even such a creation as Schongauer's famous " Bearing of the Cross " no doubt rests, as far as the composition goes, upon some representation that the artist had witnessed. The sets of Passion pictures follow the arrangement and order of the scenes in the mysteries, and it is a most natural explanation of the realistic features in the paintings, if we agree to deduce them from the religious stage representations. They must have suggested many a thing to the painter which he, during the mere process of designing a biblical picture, would never have hit upon.

Within the last year or two the paintings of the group just discussed have been receiving extraordinary attention at the hands of the student. It has been discovered that at the beginning of the nineteenth century these works were sorely tampered with and extensively repainted. When these modern coatings were removed from the panels of the St. Clara altar-piece, quite a different kind of type and draughtsmanship appeared. The main lines of the design remain the same, even after the removal of the later repaintings, but the character of the work corresponds more to what we would expect of an earlier period, and so perhaps, after all, we may be justified in looking upon Master Wilhelm as the author.

Master Wynrich seems to have had no pupil who carried on his style ; it was taken up about a generation later by a stranger who came to be the most important painter Cologne ever possessed, and who was clearly held for such already early in the sixteenth century. On his journey to the Netherlands Diirer passed through Cologne, and there he enters a notice in his diary such as does not reappear on any other one of all its many pages : " Paid two white pence for the unlocking of the altar-shrine which Master Stephen painted at Cologne." In those days paintings were placed to be seen, not hidden from view with the object of mulcting the traveller for a tip. We may well conclude that the picture must have been something quite extraordinary to have been guarded like a treasure which is too choice to be ordinarily on view. To this notice of Durer's we owe the possibility of ascribing the painting, which was kept in the chapel of the Town Hall, to a known painter. Other authors, such as Georg Braun in his " Description of Cologne," which appeared in 1572, and Gelenius in his De Magnitate Colonic (1645), testify to the regard in which this work was held ; of all paintings in the town they mention only it, and say that it is one of the treasures which artists especially admire. One Quadt von Kinckelbach published a book on the " Glory of the German Nation" in 1609, and there we find a curious passage relative to Diirer's seeing the picture. He writes : " Nineteen years ago I worked for a goldsmith, who was an old, able artificer and a man well versed in things. He told me about a time when, as he understood from old, wellinformed people, Albrecht Diirer came, in passing down (the Rhine), to an important and right worthy city, which it is not opportune to name this time, where, perhaps more out of service to (emperor) Maximilian than out of love of art, a masterly and uncommonly beautiful piece was shown him, and he was asked what he thought of it. Albrecht Diirer was hardly able to give utterance to his thoughts from wonder and astonishment at what he saw. Whereupon these men said to him : ' This fellow died in a hospital here' (intending a hidden fling at Diirer, as being one of those artists who seem to think so mighty much of themselves, and yet do not achieve more than wasting away in an almshouse in the end). 4 Ah ! ' replied Diirer, ' be sure to boast of that; indeed, it will contribute much to your honour that you should refer disparagingly, and even contemptuously, to this man, who could have shed lustre upon your very name.' "

From the archives of Cologne we have gleaned that Stephen Lochner, for this was his name, bought a house in October 27th of the year 1442, along with his wife Lysbeth. Two years later he sold it and bought a better one near St. Alban's Church. But after that fortune does not seem to favour him any longer; he is compelled to mortgage his property in 1448. He had attained the rights of citizenship in the previous year. If his worldly affairs did not thrive, that did not injure his reputation^ for in 1447 he was elected into the Council, and a second time in the year 1450, about Christmas time. Within the following twelvemonth he died. The plague was raging at Cologne at that time, more especially in the quarter of the town in which he lived. Possibly it attacked him and he was transported to the hospital. This would account for the jibe about the hospital of the worthy councillors whom Diirer answered so pertinently. It is highly probable that he had been ailing for some time, and this would explain why, in spite of the esteem which he met with, he was unable

MADONNA IN THE K0>

(Dusseldorf)

to achieve a fortune. The conjecture as to his illness is based upon a statement of his inability to travel, which is contained in a letter written upon the 1 6th of August 145 1, by the Council of Cologne to the Burgomaster at Meersburg on the Bodensee. The gist of this interesting document, shorn of its queer verbiage, is something like this: "We, the Council of Cologne, send best greetings to the Burgomaster and Council of Meersburg, wishing them everything good that we can. Wise, honourable, and especially good friends ! Our citizen, Master Stephen the painter yclept Lochner, legitimate son of George Lochner and Alheid Lochnerin of sacred memory, your citizens deceased, has informed us that various goods and property have descended upon him by inheritance from his aforesaid parents in your town, which he would like to claim, but begs that grace may be granted him, since he is not yet able to go upon a journey. Therefore we beg of your honours and your kindness that the said inheritance, descending to him from the aforesaid parents, may be kept undivided and unmoved until the time, which shall be the very earliest possible, that he can travel and come to claim it."

From this document we learn that Stephen's

B family name was Lochner, and that he was a Suabian hailing from Meersburg, not far from Constance. We may also assume with a good deal of probability that he died comparatively young, seeing that his death occurred in the very same year as that of his parents.

Stephen Lochner's main creation, the so-called " Dombild," which to-day forms one of the principal treasures of the cathedral at Cologne, was painted to order by him for the chapel of the Town Hall. This chapel was consecrated in the year 1426, and about this time Stephen will probably have completed his picture. In it he had to introduce all the elements of the legend, which accounts for some of the patron saints of the town. On Twelfth Night, in the year 1268, the nobility in the neighbourhood of Cologne conspired with the Archbishop, and ventured an attack upon the city at night while everybody was asleep. Thereupon there was a great scare, the streets were filled with distracted people, and there was a wild helter-skelter. The enemy appeared to be on the verge of gaining their point, when, lo ! a spectral army appeared upon the top of the walls of the town. It was St. Ursula, with her eleven thousand virgins and the Three Magi ; the enemy fled before the apparition. The citizens, on their part, claim to have seen distinctly how the assembled saints blessed the city.

Besides these, St. Gereon and his three hundred knights are patron saints of Cologne, whereas the chapel itself was dedicated to the Holy Virgin. Lochner relegates the two saints with their retinue to the wings, and introduces the Magi as adoring the Mother and Child in the centre-piece. The shutters on the outside show an " Annunciation." There is only one German master of the fifteenth century who can show up anything that will bear comparison with this formidable and delicious altar-piece : it is Martin Schongauer. The happy observation has been made that the two painters diverge upon the matter of their conception of Mary. Schongauer reveals to us, above all, the Mother of God ; Stephen Lochner, the Virgin. In the work of the one she betrays depth of feeling, greatness of soul destined to suffer and to bear up in grief ; in the work of the other she is the demure, fresh, and innocent handmaid of God.

As such she reappears in a " Madonna with the Violet" (now in the Episcopal Museum at Cologne) and in the exquisite " Madonna with the Christ-child " in a rose arbour, attended by glorifying

2o STORIES OF GERMAN ARTISTS angels, now in the Museum at Cologne. This latter shows Lochner's brilliant — one may say, sparkling — coloration to perfection. Up to now the tendency of the School was towards a very light, mild, roseate, as one might call it, scheme of colours. Lochner introduces vivid and full colours. It is as if he had received his inspiration in this respect from the precious caskets for relics, studded with sparkling gems and richly enamelled, of which Cologne possessed untold beautiful specimens. Indeed Lochner has a peculiar fondness for goldsmith's work ; he delights in rich costumes, and decks his saints out with various rich jewellery, which he paints with special care.

One other important work attributed to Lochner must be mentioned, the "Last Judgment," now in the Cologne Museum. The Saviour is seated in the middle, on high ; to the left and right of him Mary and St. John kneel on promontories. Out of the gulf between them there issues a stream of departed souls, who are received on the right side of Jesus by angels that lead them into the gate of Paradise and Heaven, on the left by multi-shaped devils that torment them and drive them on towards Beelzebub and the fiery gates of Hell. Many of the details of the scene, the approval which the angels express as well as some of the incidents of the tortures inflicted on the opposite side, verge upon the comical, or at least seem to us to do so. But that is a characteristic of the times, and it must be remembered that pictures were then to a great extent meant to serve as books — books, indeed, for the most illiterate, for a set of folk which nowadays it would be probably difficult to come across within civilised countries. We may still meet with unbounded ignorance and with stupidity, no doubt. Yet, upon the whole, the human brain, by sheer compulsion and force of circumstances, must have come to work more easily in course of these centuries. Presentations which carry with them some elements of exaggeration and quaintness that cannot fail to excite our risibility must, five hundred years ago, have been barely forceful enough to do more than just cause duller powers of conception to grasp them.

A man like Lochner did not neglect the story, and did not hesitate to introduce many incidents that would bring the advantage of bliss, or the terrors of damnation, home to the people. Yet this part of his work did not engage him as much as the purely artistic side. In his flesh colour, he, a Suabian, approaches most of all to another famous Suabian, his junior by one or two generations, Hans Holbein the younger. The type of St. John, on the other hand, reminds one very strongly of the type of a youthful, manly face which Diirer delighted in.

The death of Stephen Lochner signalises a break in the tradition of the Cologne School. He has some followers who continue in the path he has laid out for them. But they are not men of the first rank, and they cannot compare with their model. The next important Cologne painter, however — as far as we have been able to establish a chronology — departs altogether from Lo diner's manner, and his work presents an altogether different appearance. At first sight, indeed, they appear to have scarcely any point in common, and it seems astounding that so important a painter as Lochner should have utterly lost his influence within less than a generation's time. For the Master of the Life of Mary must have had some, if not all, of his schooling before Lochner died. But he had it in the Netherlands, and his manner follows that of Rogier van der Weijden, and more particularly that of Dirk Bouts.

With the death of Lochner another new

MADONNA WITH VIOI.KTS (DusseMo-f)

feature is introduced in the story of the art of the Colognese School ; namely, all biographical data of every kind cease. From Lochner down to Barthel Bruyn, who flourished exactly a hundred years later, we have not been able to identify a single painter among the men whose work has been successfully sifted and classified. We are thus compelled to take the principal achievement of each man, and, until good luck will have it that some document is discovered which gives us the information we require, we must designate him by means of his principal work.