Nuremberg and the German World

"How I shall shiver for the sun," Albrecht Durer wrote to a friend during his stay in Italy, "here I am lord, at home a parasite." The world of Nuremberg to which he returned with reticence is revealed in a series of woodcuts and engravings from the 15th and 16th centuries. The Germans were untouched by the Renaissance sun that burned in the South; they continued to develop the northern, medieval traditions, aloof to the the revolution that had taken place across the Alps.

The works produced by this process were generally simple in character, suited to the medieval tastes of the artists. Temptation against Faith, an anonymous woodcut done in 1475 illustrates the typically stiff and expressionless style.

It was from this background, represented by Wolgemut in the woodcut and Schongauer in engraving that the great transition figure of Albrecht Durer emerged. He is usually discussed as the father of the Northern Renaissance. But the beauty of this exhibit is the opportunity to see the Germanic elements in his art, as well as his foreign innovations. It is some of the finer examples of Durer's Renaissance. But the beauty of this style, is illustrated in the engravings are the Coat of Arms of the German

A skillful grouping and juxtaposi-clearly brought out, that Durer was both the culmination of the medieval tradition as well at the herald of a new interest in classical forms. The ideals of plasticity proportionality, perspective and clarity that were absorbed from the south combined in Durer with a linear style and interest in detail.

The North unlike Italy, as Panofsky has pointed out, had no classical roots to return to, and at the same time its medieval experience has been more thorough, so that it was able to absorb the classical past more easily through the intermediary of Italian Quatrocento art than by reference to classical forms themselves. The result was a new style rather than merely a duplicate of the old; and a style that continued to develop Northern characteristics. Examples of this are the Coat of Arms of the German Empire and City of Nuremberg, done by Durer in 1521. Following the classical example, the figures are worked out with regard to proportion and anatomical exactness, yet they are unmistakably Teutonic. In his treatment of St. Jerome and the Lion, a subject which occupied him several times, Durer shows the influence of changing spatial concepts until the representation of 1522 seems to be little more than an exercise in perspective.

A skillful grouping and juxtaposition of pictures in this exhibit helps reveal various aspects of the complex character of Durer and his times. Perhaps the representation of Schongauer and Wolgemut are not as rewarding as they might be, but on the whole the Museum has provided a collection of great interest to students of the later Middle Ages and the Northern Renaissance, as well as those just interested in some of the finer examples of Durer's craft.