Albrecht Dürer, Ruin of a Castle on top of a Rock near a River (“Altes Schloss”), 1495.
Watercolour and gouache on paper, 15.3 × 24.9 cm.
Private collection.
Two months after his return to Nuremberg, Dürer married a young girl named Agnes Frey, with whom he received a dowry of 200 florins. He has left us several faithful portraits of her, painted at different times. Although he was only twenty-three years of age, his talent was mature. He lived a simple, frugal life, content with the moderate return he received for his hard work. He had a few orders for his pictures, and his etchings began to attract attention and to be in demand. He made use of his landscape sketches for the backgrounds of his compositions, but, whilst he subordinated these to the subjects treated, we must acknowledge that he scarcely succeeded in giving perfect cohesion to the whole picture. Except in his portraits, particularly those of himself, which are masterly, his painting is cold, thin, somewhat dry, and rarely harmonious. It is evident from his pictures that he respected tradition and was influenced by the remembrance of the masterpieces he had seen in Italy. But the direct study of nature continued to give him the satisfaction which it had always given him. In the presence of nature he was neither a slave nor an exponent of any school. He gave himself full liberty. “Man’s resources are very limited in comparison with God’s creations,” he himself said. And as he felt that his own admiration for the works of the past paralysed his creative energy, he strongly insisted, “In order to paint a good picture it was no use hoping to take anything from a human work, as no man on earth had within him entire beauty… Art is contained in nature and the Master is he who can extract it from nature.”
It was for himself and for his own satisfaction that he sketched the view from his own window of the housetops that formed the horizon to which he was accustomed. There is also a sketch of one of the picturesque views of the town near his home. In his drawing he has reproduced, with scrupulous exactness and a perfect understanding of aerial perspective, the walls of the former boundary of Nuremberg as far as the Thiergartner Gate, with a glimpse of one of the more distant parts of the town in the background. Dürer was one of the first to understand the peculiar beauty of big trees, and with loving patience he set himself to render their imposing outline, their intermingled branches and their masses of leaves. We have an example of this in his conscientious study of a Pine Tree, in the study in red chalk.
Hans Thoma, German Landscape, 1890.
Oil on canvas, 113 × 88.8 cm.
Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
Albrecht Dürer, Fisherman’s House on a Lake, near Nuremberg, c.1496.
Watercolour on paper, 21.3 × 22.5 cm. The British Museum, London.
Albrecht Dürer, The Large Turf, c.1503.
Watercolour and gouache on paper, 41 × 32 cm.
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna.
The simplest vegetation had a charm for Dürer, and he had the gift of communicating this charm to us. In a sketch which is very carefully studied, we have a medley of plants on the banks of a peaceful river. Everything is mingled in that disorder so dear to nature. The stalks and leaves are all intertwined, some of them stiff and straight, others flexible and easily bent. Dürer excelled in making the most of this chaos, which to another artist might have seemed hopeless. Without appearing to emphasise, and with marvellous ease and dexterity, he gives to each plant its own special characteristic, its bright or dull tissue, its delicate veining, its capricious twists and turns. The outline of the plants seems at first to be of extreme simplicity, but when analysed it is most complex. Light and shade have full play, changing the perspective, and emphasising the prominent parts. The sapling rushes tremblingly up, rising from the roots, plunged in the transparent water, right up to the top of the pointed stems. It is the infinite richness of nature itself, with its eternal life and youth, which a wonderful artist reveals to us here. This study of a simple tuft of grasses, which we might have passed without noticing, captivates us, owing to the naturalness and grace which the artist has put into it.
Dürer, like Leonardo, excelled in lending interest to trifling things, but in his studies of landscape he understood, better than Leonardo, how to represent the whole. He always treats these studies with the required delicacy and breadth. He brings out clearly the chief characteristics of the subjects that have tempted him, and makes of these so many special themes, which so appeal to the imagination that they remain engraved in our memory. He evidently liked this wild and rocky country with its melancholy and absolutely modern poetry, for he sketched at least two other studies while there. The first of these bears the name of Valley of Kalkreuth, the place where it was executed, and this title is in his own handwriting. The sketch entitled Altes Schloss is perhaps still more expressive, as it is more finished and all the details lend themselves to the general impression. It represents an old castle, in the midst of the woods, perched on a peak bristling with dark pine trees, whose outlines stand out strongly against the light sky. A more striking picture could not be conceived, nor one that appeals more strongly to the imagination, than that of this feudal Burg, separated from the rest of the world, and whose high walls must have contained so many mysterious lives.
Albrecht Dürer, The Water Mill, c.1498.
Watercolour and gouache on paper, 25.1 × 36.7 cm.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.
Such as they are, Dürer’s landscape drawings are a revelation. They defy all comparison with the works of his predecessors or of his contemporaries. In order to appreciate their worth, they must be compared with the interpretations which had hitherto been given of nature, and we must go to Rembrandt to find such talent combined with such sincerity.
For some inexplicable reason, after his second visit to Venice in 1507, Dürer’s landscape studies became more rare. He was probably absorbed by the numerous commissions he received, for he scarcely ever found time for sketching the country around Nuremberg. He studied the subjects that appealed to him with great conscientiousness, and always put his best work into them. One of his pictures depicts a mountainous district. Another represents a pool of water at sunset, with a fisherman’s cottage with rushes, reeds and aquatic plants all around it.
Dürer’s life was a busy one to the very end. Although he had almost entirely given up landscape, despite that at the commencement of his career it had given him such pleasure, he always intended to return to it. At the end of his Treatise on Proportion, published in 1527, a year before his death, he announced his intention of devoting himself, before anything else, to the study of the art of landscape painting, if God spared his life. It is to be regretted that he was not able to do this, as it would be most interesting to know what the great artist’s ideas were on this subject. Entirely alone, and independently of all rules, he had learnt to see nature as it is, to comprehend it, and to express its sovereign charm.
Adam Elsheimer, Flight into Egypt, 1609.
Oil on copper, 31 × 41 cm.
Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
Dürer’s landscape sketches from nature, therefore, constitute an exception, not only in his own work, but in the history of the whole German school. It is not surprising that they exercised no influence over the development of that school. In the first place, they were unknown, as they were either hidden away in his own portfolios or scattered about in various collections. But had they been accessible they would not have been appreciated at their true value. Landscape painting in those days was treated in an extremely conventional way, and Dürer’s absolute sincerity, coupled with his impeccable science, would have been considered too great a novelty. As a landscapist, therefore, Dürer stands alone in German