DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0050
CHAPTER III.
durer’s childhood and youth.
The flood of Memoirs, Autobiographies, Reminiscences,
Histories of our own Time, and works of similar character
which issues from the press in the nineteenth century is a sign
of the individualizing tendency of the day. Men now live a
conscious life ; they desire to know their fellows, and themselves
to be known, as individuals. We do indeed hear much of the
levelling tendency of modern habits, and how the contact of man
with man rubs down the corners of character and forms all men
according to one pattern. But the town life of the middle-ages
was in a sense much more levelling. In those days of
corporate vigour the individual went for little and thought little
about himself. Kings and barons were prominent individuals,
but very few other men had the opportunity of standing forth
alone. The strength of men depended not upon their force
of individual character but upon the unity of their cooperation
•together. The very names of the great architects who built the
Cathedrals of the thirteenth century are unknown, and as for the
fabric of their lives we have not the ghost of a biography of one
of them. Artists, poets, craftsmen, all who did the work of the
world are alike hazy to our view. Their work endures, but the
memory of the workers is as a shadow of a dream. Durer’s
generation was the first to show signs of the modern spirit to
whose habits we are accustomed. Diirer himself is an early
example of it. He was one of the first artists to leave clear
accounts of his relatives and surroundings. After a certain
period of his life he made it a habit to sign and date everything
that came from his hand, were it only a hurried sketch, and he
durer’s childhood and youth.
The flood of Memoirs, Autobiographies, Reminiscences,
Histories of our own Time, and works of similar character
which issues from the press in the nineteenth century is a sign
of the individualizing tendency of the day. Men now live a
conscious life ; they desire to know their fellows, and themselves
to be known, as individuals. We do indeed hear much of the
levelling tendency of modern habits, and how the contact of man
with man rubs down the corners of character and forms all men
according to one pattern. But the town life of the middle-ages
was in a sense much more levelling. In those days of
corporate vigour the individual went for little and thought little
about himself. Kings and barons were prominent individuals,
but very few other men had the opportunity of standing forth
alone. The strength of men depended not upon their force
of individual character but upon the unity of their cooperation
•together. The very names of the great architects who built the
Cathedrals of the thirteenth century are unknown, and as for the
fabric of their lives we have not the ghost of a biography of one
of them. Artists, poets, craftsmen, all who did the work of the
world are alike hazy to our view. Their work endures, but the
memory of the workers is as a shadow of a dream. Durer’s
generation was the first to show signs of the modern spirit to
whose habits we are accustomed. Diirer himself is an early
example of it. He was one of the first artists to leave clear
accounts of his relatives and surroundings. After a certain
period of his life he made it a habit to sign and date everything
that came from his hand, were it only a hurried sketch, and he