Albrecht Dürer [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Before discussing the art of Dürer, a few words should be said concerning old German art and the views current among the friends of fine arts on this subject. There is no denying that frequently a certain aversion and even antagonism to old German works of art prevail even among the most fervent lovers of art. The reason therefore will be readily discerned if we realize that German art is measured mostly by Italian standards. A comparison with Italian art must necessarily be unfavourable for old German art. Italian art is characterized by the harmony and beauty of the form, and the balanced tranquility of the composition of the most agitated subjects. Nothing of this can be found in the coeval art of Germany. The composition is mostly intricate, confused, and details and forms are crude, even coarse. It seems as though the artists were bent on picturing ungainly shapes. Their world is completely different from that of Italy, there is such a wide gap between the forms painted and the means applied by artists in the two countries that the very objective, the intention of the works of art, appears to have been a different one. What did the German artist wish to express by his work? What effect did he wish to elicit in the spectator? Formulating the question thus and seeking the answer along this line, we might achieve a greater understanding for the old German paintings. Partisans of Italian art would maintain that the works born under the blue canopy of the Italian sky can dispense with elucidations, they speak for themselves. Masaccio, Fra Angélico, Piero della Francesca, Mantegna — to mention only some highlights of the Italian quattrocento (15 th century) — immediately appeal to the eye as well as to the mind, they are a source of genuine delight, lifting the spectator to the higher, more poetic level of the artist's world of dreams. Still, we venture to claim that our artistic perception and our senses can be trained to appreciate old German art. All one has to do is to look for its intrinsic contents, for something novel and specific as compared to Italian art. Is it worth the trouble? Indeed, it is. It broadens the scope of our artistic, aesthetic horizon, enriching it at the same time. Beside the beauty of old Italian art, we discover the existence of new traits of beautv, though — we admit — sometimes inferior to outstanding Italian masterpieces, yet perhaps more intriguing than they. Even granting this, we find the key to enjoying the new kind of beauty, as we learn to delight in the unusual tunes of artistic expression which, though more discordant than the soft, lyric cantilene of Italian art, form an integral part of the representative works of old European art.