Chapter 5

It was while at the court of Madrid at this time that Jean of Braganza, afterward King of Portugal, invited the artist to visit him at his hunting-lodge, and Rubens set out with several of his followers, as was usual with travellers of note in those days. Before he reached the lodge Jean, hearing of so many attendants, and dismayed at the expense of entertaining them, departed suddenly for Lisbon. He wrote Rubens a courteous letter telling him that _state business_ detained him and begged him to accept some money to defray the expenses so far incurred on the journey. Rubens replied in like courteous manner and returned the money, saying that they had brought twenty times the amount with which to pay their expenses.

An interesting story is related of their return. Overtaken by dark night in the open country they took shelter in a monastery. The next morning Rubens, with an eye always quick to see rare and interesting things, scanned the place carefully looking for something which might interest him. He was about to give up the search as hopeless, when he discovered in a dark corner a grand picture. It represented in more than mortal fashion the beautiful things that a dead young man, painted in the foreground, had renounced. Rubens called the prior to him and begged to know the name of the artist of so masterly a work. The prior, an old, bowed man, refused saying, "He died to the world long ago. I cannot disclose his name." Then the artist said, "It is Peter Paul Rubens who begs to know." The prior started, for even in the remoteness of the isolated monastery the fame of that name had gone, and fell in a dead faint at the artist's feet. The attendants lifted the prior gently but he had ceased to live. Through the ashy pallor they saw the features of the young man in the picture yonder. They instinctively turned to look that they might more carefully compare the faces, and lo! like some cloud-vision, the picture had disappeared. Then they knew that the dead monk there had painted the canvas from the depth of his own experience.

From Madrid, Rubens was sent to England in the interest of Spain. Here he was most kindly received by Charles I., who made him a knight and presented him with his own jeweled sword and a diamond ring. He also gave him a hat-band set with precious stones which was valued at two thousand pounds sterling. From London he went to Cambridge where the ancient university conferred on him its highest degree. In London he painted almost constantly. Among other commissions he was given that of decorating the dining room in Whitehall palace with nine pictures representing the life of James I. To make the person or events of this king's life attractive must have been an immense task even for so supreme a genius as Rubens.

As he sat painting one day a courtier entered and exclaimed, "Ah, his Majesty's Ambassador occasionally amuses himself with painting." "On the contrary," responded Rubens who was always proud of his art, "the painter occasionally amuses himself by trying to be a courtier."

The influence of Rubens' visit to London must be counted rather as artistic than political. It really was the beginning of that desire for collecting pictures and other things of the sort which has ever since distinguished the English nobility. On the Continent the price of pictures rose on account of England's demand. For Charles I., Rubens bought the entire collection of the Duke of Mantua which he knew so well.

Rubens was tired of the almost fruitless mission at various courts and was glad to give up the business of an ambassador and return to Antwerp and to the life of a private gentleman. We must not forget that all these years Rubens was painting a great number of pictures in his ripest style. There was hardly a class of subjects or size of canvas which he could not skillfully use, although he always maintained that he could do his best work on large surfaces. There were religious pictures of Madonnas and saints all crowded with numerous figures and filled with vigorous human action. There were portraits such as those of his wives, of Elizabeth of France, or "_The Girl with a Straw Hat_," which rank among the best of the world. There were wonderful animal pictures--hunting scenes, the excitement of which even to-day makes the cheek glow. There were historical scenes mingled with allegory. There were most beautiful children whose fat and agile bodies and whose laughing faces make us want to hug them. There were enchanting angels, and there were huge fauns and satyrs. There were placid landscapes where, it may be, the artist's soul, teeming with the life of all time, took its rest and recreation sporting with the nymphs of the woodland streams or with the frisky dryads of the trees.

In 1630, at the age of fifty-three, he married his second wife, Helen Fourmont, only sixteen years old. Like his first wife she was very beautiful, as his numerous portraits indicate. Five children came to them and the felicity of his early years with Isabella Brandt continued with his second wife.

The health of our painter gradually gave way. For many years he had suffered intensely from repeated attacks of gout. As he aged, these became more and more frequent and severe. Often the disease, working in his fingers, kept him from painting. "_The Death of St. Peter_" was painted for Cologne Cathedral in 1635. It seems as if in his last years his heart turned affectionately to the city of his boyhood home and he would thus commemorate it. Another picture belongs to these last years. It was a family picture which he called "_St. George_." It represented four generations of the painter's family and included both his first and his second wife. He himself figured as the Saint, clad in shining armor and triumphant over his late enemy, the deadly dragon. Rubens was too great to be conceited, but he stood at the end of a most successful life. If ever a man had conquered the dragon of disappointment, that lies crouching at the door of every life, Rubens had. He did well to represent himself as St. George. In both of these last pictures the painter shows at his very strongest.

He died May 30th, 1640, and was buried in the church beside his mother and his first wife. All the city attended his funeral, for in three capacities they mourned their illustrious citizen--as an artist, as a diplomat and scholar, and as a man of noble character. Two years after his death the picture "_St. George_" was hung above his tomb where it is found to-day.

He left great wealth which was largely represented by his collection of pictures and jewels. There were three hundred and nineteen paintings, all masterpieces. The collection sold for what would be in our money about half a million dollars. This is a large sum at any time but in Rubens' day it was well nigh fabulous.

Rubens has left us more than fifteen hundred pictures bearing his name. That any man could leave so many can be accounted for only by reckoning many of them as largely executed by his pupils. He used to make small sketches in color and hand them over to his pupils for enlargement. He was always at hand to make corrections and, at the end, to give the finishing touches. He used to charge for his pictures according to the time he used in painting them, and he valued his time at fifty dollars a day.

He shows none of the mystical visionary feeling of the Spaniards even in his religious pictures. He was too much in love with life for that, and so, sometimes, we are offended by stout Flemish Saints and Madonnas too healthy to accord with our notions of their abstemious lives. In his pictures there is spirited action, almost excess of life, and rich unfading color in which the reds largely prevail. His lights are fine but the deep, expressive shadows that made Rembrandt famous are entirely lacking. The softly flowing way in which the color leaves his brush is, perhaps, the most inimitable part of his art. On this account someone has said, who evidently has great reverence for both Velazquez and Rubens, that we will see another Velazquez before another Rubens.

Considering the qualities of his art, the number of his pictures, his scholarship, his eminence as a diplomat and his pure and honorable life, we must place Rubens among the very greatest men who ever wielded a brush.

QUOTATIONS ABOUT RUBENS.

Rubens was _par excellence_ the painter of the group that included the heroes of the Dutch Republic; and, like many of his contemporaries, whilst excelling in his own line, he was, in other respects also, a great man, in a time of and among great men.--CHAS. W. KETT.

I cannot sufficiently admire his personal appearance nor praise his uprightness, his virtue, his erudition and wonderful knowledge of antiquities, his skill and celerity of pencil, and the charm of his manner.--A CONTEMPORARY.

His eye is the most marvellous prism that has ever been given us of the light and color of objects, of true and magnificent ideas.--EUGENE FROMENTIN.

SUBJECTS FOR LANGUAGE WORK.

1. A Day in Rubens' Studio.

2. An Evening with Rubens.

3. Rubens at the Monastery.

4. A Day with Rubens in London.

5. Rubens as a Diplomat.

6. Antwerp, the Home City of Rubens.

7. Rubens and His Friends.

8. The Women Rubens Loved.

9. My Favorite Picture by Rubens.

10. The Masters of Rubens.

ALBRECHT DURER AND HIS CITY

"Of a truth this man would have surpassed us all if he had had the master-pieces of art constantly before him." --RAPHAEL.

"Hardly any master has scattered with so lavish a hand all that the soul has conceived of fervid feeling or pathos, all that thought has grasped of what is strong or sublime, all that the imagination has conceived of poetic wealth; in no one has the depth and power of the German genius been so gloriously revealed as in him." --LUBKE.

"He was content to be a precious corner-stone in the edifice of German Art, the future grandeur of which he could only foresee." --RICHARD FORD HEATH.

ALBRECHT DURER.

1471-1528.

In our study of the great artists so far, we have found that each glorified some particular city and that, whatever other treasures that city may have had in the past, it is the recollections of its great artist that hallow it most deeply today. Thus, to think of Antwerp is to think instantly of Rubens. Leyden and Amsterdam as quickly recall to our minds the name of Rembrandt. Seville without Murillo would lose its chief charm, while Urbino _is_ Raphael and, without the revered name of the painter, would seldom draw the visitor to its secluded precincts.

To the quaintest of European cities the name of Albrecht Durer instinctively carries us--to Nuremberg.

"That ancient, free, imperial town, Forever fair and young."

Were we to study Durer without first viewing his venerable city which he so deeply loved all his life that no promise of gain from gorgeous Venetian court or from wealthy Antwerp burgers could detain him long from home, we should leave untouched a delightful subject and one deeply inwoven in the life and thought of the artist. Were we to omit a brief consideration of his time and the way the German mind looked at things and naturally represented them in words and in pictures, we should come away from Durer impressed only with his great homely figures and faces and wondering why, in every list of the great artists of the world, Durer's name should stand so high.

Having these things in mind, it will not then seem so far away to speak of Nuremberg and Luther before we rehearse the things which make up the life of Albrecht Durer.

Nuremberg does not boast a very early date, for she began her existence just after the year one thousand when men, finding out surely that the end of the world was not come, took as it were a new lease of life. The thing she does boast is that her character as a mediæval town has been almost perfectly preserved up to the present day.

There were many things which made Nuremberg an important city in early times. She was conveniently located for traders who shipped vast amounts of merchandise from Venice to the great trade centers in the Netherlands. For many years she was a favorite city of the Emperor and here were kept the crown jewels which were displayed with great pomp once a year.

The country immediately about Nuremberg was sandy but carefully cultivated. There were also large banks of clay very useful to the citizens in the manufacture of pottery. Like the salt of Venice, it was a natural source of wealth to the citizens. Very early we find a paper mill here, and here, too, were set up some of the earliest printing presses. Perhaps the most interesting of the early wares of this enterprising city were the watches. The first made in the world were manufactured here and from their shape they were called "Nuremberg Eggs." We have a story that Charles V. had a watchmaker brought in a sedan chair all the way from Nuremberg that he might have his watch repaired. Here was manufactured the first gun-lock, and here was invented the valued metallic compound known as brass.

From all these sources the citizens grew rich, but their wealth did not make them forget their city. A little more than fifty years before Durer's birth, the Emperor being very much in need of money, they bought their freedom. For this they paid what would be, in our money, about a million of dollars. It was a goodly price, but they gave it freely. Then they destroyed the house where their governor or Burgrave had lived and they were henceforth ruled by a council selected from their own number.

The city lies on both sides of the river Pegnitz which divides it into two almost equal parts. The northern side is named from its great church, St. Sebald's, and the southern for that of St. Lawrence. Originally the city was enclosed by splendid ramparts. Three hundred and sixty-five towers broke the monotony of the extensive walls. Of these one hundred are still standing today. In days gone by, a moat thirty-five feet wide encircled the wall, but since peace has taken the place of war and security has come instead of hourly danger, the moat has been drained and thrifty kitchen gardens fill the space.

Within the city are some of the most beautiful buildings both private and public. Here, too, sculpture, which the Germans cultivated before they did painting, has left rare monuments. Among these last we must notice the wonderful shrine of St. Sebald in the church of the same name. For thirteen years Peter Vischer and his five sons labored on this work. Long it was to toil and vexing were the questions which arose in the progress of the work; but the result was a master-piece which stands alone among the art works of the world. Nor can we forget the foamy ciborium of the Church of St Lawrence. For sixty-five feet this miracle of snowy marble rises in the air, growing more lacey at every step until, in its terminal portions, so delicate does it become that it seems like the very clouds in fleeciness.

Church doorways are carved with beautiful and fantastic forms by men whose names were long ago forgotten. Common dwellings are adorned with picturesque dormer windows. Even the narrow crooked streets hold their share of beauty, for here are fountains so exquisite in their workmanship that their like is not to be found elsewhere. Here it is the Beautiful Fountain, gay with sculptures of heroes and saints, and there it is the Little Gooseman's Fountain where humor is added to beauty. Through all the years stands the little man with a goose under either arm, patiently receiving his daily drenching. Still two other fountains known to fame send up their crystal waters to greet the light.

If we seek for more modern things we are also rewarded, for here in Durer Square stands Rauch's great statue of the artist, copied from Durer's portrait of himself in Vienna. We note the custom house, one of the oldest buildings, the town hall and the burg or castle, which for many years was the favorite residence of the Emperor.

Here, too, are many fine old houses which used to belong to noblemen of the city. It is not these residences that we seek, however, if we are visiting Nuremberg. We ask rather for the house of Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet, of John Palm, the fearless patriot, who gave his life for the privilege of beating Napoleon, and above all we seek that quaint house where Durer lived and worked. In choosing these as objects of our special attention we feel like Charles I., who said, when he compelled a reluctant courtier to hold Durer's ladder, "Man can make a nobleman, but only God can make an artist."

In our search for interesting things in old Nuremberg, we come suddenly upon a house bearing a tablet on which are these words, "Pilate's House." At first we are mystified, for was not Pilate's house in Jerusalem? But at once we recall that this is the house of the pious Jacob Ketzet who twice visited the Holy Land that he might measure exactly the distance from Pilate's house to Calvary. When he was satisfied with his measurements he returned to Nuremberg and commissioned the great sculptor, Adam Kraft, to carve "stations," as he called them, between his home and St. John's Cemetery to the northwest of the city. These "stations," which are merely stone pillars on which are carved in relief scenes from the sufferings of our Lord just before his death, are still standing, and if we go to Durer's grave, as I am sure we should wish to do, we shall pass them on our way.

The Nurembergers have long taken pride in the quaint appearance of their city, so that many of the newer houses are built in the old style with their gables to the street. As we note the patriotic spirit of the people and recount the beauties of the old city, we feel that Durer was warranted "in the deep love and affection that I have borne that venerable city, my fatherland," as he expressed it.

As to the time when Durer came into the world, it was truly a wonderful age in which to live! Less than twenty-five years after his birth, Columbus found a vast new world. People were already much agitated over the evil practices in the old established church. Durer knew and loved Luther and Melancthon but he was quite as much attached to the scholarly Erasmus, who wished not to break away from the old church, but merely to correct its abuses. In short Durer belonged to the Conservative class which found it possible to accept the food in the new doctrines and retain the pure from the old without revolution. Such were the citizens of Nuremberg and thus did the ancient city as easily accept the new doctrines as she did the morning sunshine pouring in at her storied windows. Thus, too, were preserved the ancient buildings and institutions, which, through the wisdom of her citizens, were not called upon to withstand sieges and other military attacks.

Durer was above everything a true representative of the German people, and so we ought to take note of some of the qualities of the German mind. As Goethe, their greatest poet, says, one of their strongest characteristics is that of wishing to learn and to do rather than to enjoy. The Germans love truth and they do not stop short in their imaginings when they wish to drive it home. So in German art, the toiling man or woman is often accompanied by angels and demons, the equal of which were never pictured by any other people. The greatest extremes of beauty and ugliness have these people given in their art. In either extreme, however, thoughts on the deepest questions of human life are at the foundation.

On a summer's day in 1455, there wandered into the far-famed city of Nuremberg a young goldsmith from Hungary. The ramparts of the city with their towers and gateways, the splendid buildings enclosed, were like miracles to the youth. It was a fête day in celebration of the marriage of the son of a prominent citizen, Pirkheimer by name. Albrecht Durer, for that was the youth's name, long studied the gay throng, little thinking how in the future the name of his son and that of the bridegroom there would together be known to fame, the one as the greatest artist, the other as the most learned man of Nuremberg. The wandering youth was the father of our artist and the bridegroom was the father of Wilibald Pirkheimer, Durer's life long friend and companion.

The young goldsmith loved the city at once and, encouraged by the business activity of the place, he made it his permanent abode. He found employment with Hieronymus Holper, and soon married his master's comely daughter, Barbara. They resided in a little house which was a sort of appendage to the great house of Pirkheimer. A few months after a much longed for son came to bless the Pirkheimers, a little boy was born in the goldsmith's house whom they named, for his father, Albrecht Durer. As the years went by, seventeen other children came to the Durer home. Three only of all these children grew to maturity.

With such a family to support we can easily imagine that the father's life was a hard one. He was a pious and industrious man whom his illustrious son never tires of praising. In one place he says of him, "He had a great reputation with many who knew him, for he led an honorable Christian life, was a patient man, gentle, in peace with everyone and always thankful to God. He had no desire for worldly pleasures, was of few words, did not go into society and was a God-fearing man. Thus my dear father was most anxious to bring up his children to honor God. His highest wish was that his children should be pleasing to God and man; therefore he used to tell us every day that we should love God and be true to our neighbors."

Durer sorrowed deeply when his father died in 1502. On his death-bed he commended the mother to her son. Durer was faithful to his trust and cared tenderly for his mother until her death, several years later. Never did boy or man more faithfully keep the command, "Honor thy father and mother," than did our artist.

For many reasons Albrecht seemed to be his father's favorite child. We find him, in spite of numerous other cares, taking great pains with the boy's education. He taught him to read and write well and must have given him instruction in Latin. These were years when thirst for learning was abroad in the land. Free Latin schools were established to meet the needs. Durer's father was filled with this spirit and he communicated it to his son.