Masters of Art - Albrecht Dürer

by Dürer, Albrecht

  “He had a scientific law for putting a battle on to canvas, one condition of which was that ‘there must not be a level spot which is not trampled with gore.’ But Leonardo did no harm; his canon was based on literary rather than artistic interests.”

  Analogies with scientific laws have served art and art criticism a very bad turn of late years. Nothing can be more useful to an artist than knowledge of how the emotions are expressed by the contortion of the features; but nobody in his senses could ever imagine that a rule for the expression of anger was rigid throughout and must never be departed from; every one approaching such a rule with a view to practice instead of criticism must immediately perceive that its only use is to be departed from in various degrees. Leonardo’s advice for the painting of a battle-piece is excellent if it is understood in the sense in which it was meant,— “everything is what it is and not another thing,” as Bishop Butler put it. Be sure and make your battle a battle indeed. It is time we should realise that what the great artists wrote about art is likely to be as sensible as are the works they created. How absurd it is for some one who can neither carve nor paint, much less create, to imagine he easily grasps the rules of art better than a great master! To such people let us repeat again and again Hamlet’s impatient: “Oh, mend it altogether!”

  IV

  Now it will easily be seen that the causes which shape an art tradition may often be independent of, and foreign to, the will that creates beautiful objects. Religious superstition or formalism may often hem the artist in, and hamper his will in every direction; though it is not wholly accidental that the Greeks had a religion the spirit of which tended always to defeat the conservatism and bigotry of its priests. So that their formalism, instead of frustrating or warping the growth of their art tradition, merely served as a check that may well seem to have been exactly proportioned to its need; preventing the weakness or rankness of over rapid growth such as detracts from the art of the Renascence, and at the same time causing no vital injury. The spirit of the race deserved and created and was again in turn recreated by its religion.

  Since it is generally recognised that too much freedom is not good for growing life, I think that almost everybody must at this stage have become aware of how immensely stupid the academical idea of a canon appears besides this idea. How suitable both to life and the desire for perfection the Greek practice was! How theologically dense the unprogressive inflexibility of the academical practitioner! And now let us hear Dürer.

  But first I will quote from Sir Martin Conway the explanation of what Dürer means by the phrase, “Words of Difference.”

  These are what he calls the “Words of Difference”: large, long, small, stout, broad, thick, narrow, thin, young, old, fat, lean, pretty, ugly, hard, soft, and so forth; in fact any word descriptive of a quality “whereby a thing may be differentiated from the thing (normal figure) first made.”

  Or, as Dürer says in another place, “difference such as maketh a thing fair or foul.”

  But further, it lieth in each man’s choice whether or how far he shall make use of all the above written “Words of Difference.” For a man may choose whether he will learn to labour with art, wherein is the truth, or without art in a freedom by which everything he doth is corrupted, and his toil becometh a scorn to look upon to such as understand.

  Wherefore it is needful for every one that he use discreetness in such of his works as shall come to the light Whence it ariseth that he who would make anything aright must in no wise abate aught (that is essential) from Nature, neither must he lay what is intolerable upon her. Howbeit some will (by going to an opposite extreme) make alterations (from Nature) so slight that they can scarce be perceived. Such are of no account if they cannot be perceived; to alter over much also answereth not. A right mean (in such alterations) is best. But in this book I have departed from this right mean in order that it might be so much the better traced in small things. Let not him who wishes to proceed to some great thing imitate this my swiftness, but let him set more slowly (gradually) about his work, that it be not brutish but artistic to look upon. For figures which differ from the mean are not good to look upon when they are wrongly and unmasterly employed.

  It is not to be wondered at that a skilful master beholdeth manifold differences of figure, all of which he might make if he had time enough, but which, for lack of time, he is forced to pass by. For such chances come very often to artists, and their imaginations also are full of figures which it were possible for them to make. Wherefore, if to live many hundred years were granted unto a man who had skill in the use of such art and were thereto accustomed, he would (through the power which God hath granted unto men) have wherewith daily to mould and make many new figures of men and other creatures, which none had before seen nor imagined. God, therefore, in such and other ways granteth great power unto artistic men.

  Although there be such talking of differences, still it is well known that all things that a man doth differ of their own nature one from another. Consequently, there liveth no artist so sure of hand as to be able to make two things exactly alike the one to the other, so that they may not be distinguished. For of all our works none is quite and altogether like another, and this we can in no wise avoid.

  We see that if we take two prints from an engraved copper-plate, or cast two images in a mould, very many points may immediately be found whereby they may be distinguished one from another. If, then, it cometh thus to pass in things made by processes the least liable to error, much more will it happen in other things which are made by the free hand.

  This, however, is not the kind of Difference whereof I here treat; for I am speaking of a difference (from the mean) which a man specially intendeth, and which standeth in his will, of which I have spoken once and again....

  This is not the aforesaid Difference which we cannot sever from our work, but, such a difference as maketh a thing fair or foul, and which may be set forth by the “Word of Difference” dealt with above in this Book. If a man produce “different” figures of this kind in his work, it will be judged in every man’s mind according to his own opinion, and these judgments seldom agree one with another.... Yet let every man beware that he make nothing impossible and inadmissible in Nature, unless indeed he would make some fantasy, in which it is allowed to mingle creatures of all kinds together....

  Any one who leads this carefully cannot fail to see that it is not only that Dürer is not “desirous of laying down rules applicable to all cases,” or even of “proposing a definite canon for the relative proportions of the human body,” as Thausing indeed points out (, v. 11): but that he does not conceive the proportions he gives as even approximately capable of these functions; and considers it indeed the very nature and special use of a canon of proportions to be wilfully deviated from, pointing out that, though the deviations of which he is speaking are slight and subtle, they are not to be confused with the accidental ones that can but appear even in work done by mechanical processes. Rather they are such variation as a man “specially intendeth, and which standeth in his will;” and again, “such a difference as maketh a thing fair or foul;” for the use of these normal proportions is that they may enable an artist to deviate from the normal without the proportions he chooses having the air of monstrosities or mistakes or negligences. He does not insist that either of the scales he gives is the best that could be, even for this purpose, but that they are sufficiently good to be used; and he would have marvelled at the wonder that has been caused in innocent critical minds that in his own work he adhered to them so little. He never intended them to be adhered to.

  V

  It may be objected that Dürer certainly sometimes thought of a Canon of Proportion as a perfect rule, because he wrote on a MS. page as follows: —

  Vitruvius, the ancient architect, whom the Romans employed upon great buildings, says that whosoever desires to build should study the perfection of the human figure, for in it are discovered the most secret mysteries of proportion. So,
before I say anything about architecture, I will state how a well-formed man should be made, and then about a woman, a child and a horse. Any object may be proportioned out (literally, measured) in a similar way. Therefore, hear first of all what Vitruvius says about the human figure, which he learnt from the greatest masters, painters and founders, who were highly famed. They said that the human figure is as follows.

  That the face from the chin upward to where the hair begins is the tenth part of a man, and that an out-stretched hand is the same length, &c.

  [Illustration: “This is my appearance in the eighteenth year of my age” Charcoal-drawing in the Academy, Vienna Face p.288]

  And again in another place, as Sir Martin Conway points out, he gives a religious basis to this notion, “the Creator fashioned men once for all as they must be, and I hold that the perfection of form and beauty is contained in the sum of all men.” In an obvious sense these passages certainly run counter to those which I have quoted (p-207): but I would like to point out that these are dogmatic assertions about something that if it were true could never be proved by experience (see also p, 254), those former are Dürer’s advice with a view to practice. Men frequently carry about a considerable amount of dogmatic opinion, which has so little connection with actual experience that it is never brought to the test without being noticeably incommoded by it. Yet it is not absolutely necessary to consider Dürer as inconsistent in regard to this matter, even to this degree.

  The beauty of form which he held had been Adam’s, and which was now parcelled out among his vast progeny in various amounts as a consequence of his fall — this beauty of form doubtless Dürer considered it part of an artist’s business to recollect and reveal in his work. This beauty is an ideal, and his canon (or rather canons) were intended as means to help the artist to approach towards the realisation of that ideal. It is obvious also that a man occupied in comparing the proportions of those whom he considers to be exceptionally beautiful will develop and feed his power of imagining beautifully proportioned figures. It would be futile to deny that this is very much what took place in the evolution of Greek statues, or that such works are perhaps of all others the most central and satisfying to the human spirit. The sentences that precede that quoted by Sir Martin are Greek in tendency.

  A good figure cannot be made without industry and care; it should therefore be well considered before it is begun, so that it be correctly made. For the lines of its form cannot be traced by compass or rule, but must be drawn by the hand from point to point, so that it is easy to go wrong in them. And for such figures great attention should be paid to human proportions, and all their kinds should be investigated. I hold that the more nearly and accurately a figure is made to resemble a man, so much the better the work will be. If the best parts chosen from many well-formed men are united in one figure, it will be worthy of praise. But some are of another opinion, and discuss how men ought to be made. I will not argue with them about that. I hold Nature for Master in such matters, and the fancy of men for delusion.

  And then follows the passage quoted by Sir Martin Conway (see ). It is obvious that, joined with the two preceding sentences, this passage can in no way be made to serve the academical practitioner, as it seems to when taken alone. In the same way, the sentence printed in italics in the above quotation, if isolated, would certainly seem to serve the scientific practitioners and their slavish realism, though in connection with those that follow this is no longer possible. Dürer regards nature as providing raw material for a creation which may not tally exactly with any individual natural object. This was the Greek artists’ idea of the serviceableness of nature, as revealed both by their practice and by such traditions as that concerning Zeuxis and his five beautiful models for the figure of Venus. But Dürer does not confine the use of his canons even to this aim, but clearly perceived their utility in regard to quite other aims, as is shown by the passage beginning, “It is not to be wondered at,” &c. (see ), in which the imagination of figures not merely intended to embody beautiful or newly assorted proportions is clearly considered; and if we review Dürer’s actual work we shall see how much oftener he created figures for picturesque or dramatic effect than he did to embody beautiful proportions in them, though he evidently also considered the last purpose as of the first importance, as we see when he goes on to say:

  Let any one who thinks I alter the human form too much or too little take care to avoid my error and follow nature. There are many different kinds of men in various lands: whoso travels far will find this to be so, and see it before his eyes. We are considering about the most beautiful human figure conceivable, but (only) the Maker of the world knows how that should be. Even if we succeed well we do but approach towards it from afar. For we ourselves have differences of perception, and the vulgar who follow only their own taste usually err. Therefore I do not advise any one to follow me, for I only do what I can, and that is not enough even to satisfy myself.

  The extreme complexity of Dürer’s ideas and their application was a natural result of their having been born of his experience. For excellence is extremely various, and widely scattered through the world. The simplicity of a true work of art results merely from some excellence having been singled out from all foreign circumstances, and presented as vividly as it was intensely apprehended. This excellence may be one of proportion or one of many other kinds. Now, a figure conceived by an artist, whether he value it for its choicely assorted proportions or for picturesque or dramatic effect, may need to be developed before it is serviceable in an elaborate work of art.

  Artists who work rapidly, and, whose pictures are dominated by passing moods, have always been in the habit of taking great licences with proportion, and, indeed, with all matters of fact. Dürer’s aim is to endow the artist who elaborates his work slowly with a similar freedom. This energy and power in rapid work it is the ever-renewed despair of artists to feel themselves losing in the process of elaboration. And one of the reasons for this is that in larger or more elaborate work, the statement, being more ample, is expected to be also more comprehensive and exhaustive; for the time required begets after-thoughts as to the real nature of the object viewed apart from the mood, which is the only excuse for the work; and so some of the artist’s attention is drawn away to facts and aspects which it would have been the success of his work to have ignored. Dürer’s object was to help a man to carry out his essential intention, and that alone, in a carefully elaborated picture; the problems faced were precisely similar to those so successfully coped with in Greek statues. In the first place, he would have pointed out that all sketches will not bear elaboration if their merit depends on extreme licence, for instance. Next, that a man who had a standard of proportion could see wherein the deviations of his sketched figure were essential to the effect he wished it to produce, and wherein they were unessential. Then, if he drew the normal figure large, he would be able to deviate from it in exactly the right places and to the right degree to reproduce the desired effect. But to do this he must also have a general notion of how deviations from a normal proportion could be made consistent throughout all the measurements involved not that he would in every case want to make them consistent. Now, there is a class of artists for whom all these suggestions of Dürer’s must for ever remain useless, for all science of production is impossible for those whose only success lies in improvisation; such improvisations, however dazzling or however delightful they may be, are, nevertheless, the class of art-works furthest removed in spirit and in method from Greek statuary. I do not say that they need be inferior; I say that they are opposite in method. And, had circumstances permitted, or Dürer’s dowry of great gifts been more complete than it was, and enabled him to become as great a creator of pictures as he is a great draughtsman and portrait-painter, no doubt his pictures would have resembled Greek statues both in their effect and their method, however different they might have been in subject and in range. To talk about “beauty” being sacrificed to “truth,” with Prof.
Thausing; or the ideal of the North being “strength” in works of art as in life, with Sir Martin Conway; — is to confuse the issue and deceive oneself. To have mistaken the proper end of art, beauty, by thinking it was “truth” or “strength,” is to have failed to labour in the right direction; that is all-who-ever may condone the failure.

  VI

  Again, Sir Martin Conway tells us:

  The laws of perspective can be deduced with certainty from mathematical first principles, the canon of proportions’ could only be constructed empirically as the result of repeated observations. Nevertheless, once constructed, it can certainly be used as Dürer suggested. Its use has practically been superseded by the study of anatomy.

  This last phrase shows us in a flash how far the writer when he wrote it was from apprehending Dürer’s meaning. How could the study of anatomy ever do for an artist what Dürer was trying to do? No doubt Sir Martin had Michael Angelo in his mind’s eye; and it is true that he studied anatomy, and that his influence has been, on the whole, paramount with artists attempting subjects of this kind ever since. Whether Michael Angelo studied proportion or not, his practice exemplifies Dürer’s meaning splendidly. No anatomical research could have led him to construct figures nine to twelve, or even fifteen to twenty, heads high — to do which, as his work developed, more and more became his practice, especially in designs and sketches for compositions. To arrive at such proportions he followed his imaginative instinct. He found that these monstrous deviations from the normal (which, of course, in a general sense he recognised, whether he gave any study to rendering it precise or not) produced the effect on his mind that he wished to produce on the minds of others — an effect that was emotional and peculiar to his habitual moods. We know that his constitution gave him the staying-power, while his fiery Titanic spirit gave him the energy, to carry out and perfect his mighty frescoes and statues at the same heat that the creative hour yields other men for the production of a sketch alone. This giant son of Time was able to live for days and weeks together in a state of mind two or three consecutive hours of which exhaust the average master even. Considering the rapidity and intensity of his mental process, it is a miracle that, in so many works and to so great a degree, he respected the too much and too little of human reason, and allowed himself to be governed by what the Greeks called a sense of measure, instead of yielding to his native impetuosity and becoming an a-thousand-fold-greater-Blake; and illustrating, to the delight of active and short-winded intelligences, and the stupefaction of slow and dull ones, the futility of eccentricity and the frivolity of passion when unseconded by constancy of character and labour. For futile, in the arts, is whatever the sense of beauty must condemn, however well-intentioned; and frivolous is the passion that forgets the end it would attain, and becomes merely a private rhapsody, however astonishing its developments; slowly but surely it will be seen that such fireworks do not vitally concern us. The proportions of many of Michael Angelo’s figures are as far removed from any possible normal standard as what Dürer calls “this my swiftness,” in the abnormally tall and stout figures among the diagrams illustrating his book.