DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0053
durer’s childhood and youth.
35
III.]
The remaining fifteen Items are of the same type and need
not be catalogued here. Durer then continues:—
“ All these, my brothers and sisters, my dear Father’s children, are
now dead, some in their childhood, others as they were growing up;
only we three brothers still live, so long as God will, namely: I,
Albrecht, and my brother Andreas, and my brother Hans, the third of
the name, my father’s children.
“This Albrecht Durer the elder passed his life in great toil and
stern, hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned
with his hand for himself, his wife, and his children; so that he had
little enough. He underwent moreover manifold afflictions, trials, and
adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he
lived an honourable, Christian life, was a man patient of spirit, mild and
peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had
little need of company and worldly pleasures; he was also of few words
and was a God-fearing man.”
The finest record that Durer has left us of his father is the
portrait he painted just before leaving home for his Wanderjahre\
It shows a man very, very grave. The face is pathetic with the
deep furrows ploughed in by seventy years of labour and sorrow.
Every trace of passion is gone from him and he is now utterly
resigned to whatever the days may bring. Yet, as he stands
there, so quietly, for his son to paint him, there is just a trace of
pleasure and pride lurking in the kind old face. Could he have
certainly known what the future had in store for his favourite
boy, how well that knowledge might have compensated for all
the losses and trials he had suffered.
“This my dear Father,” continues Albrecht, “was very careful with
his children to bring them up in the fear of God : for it was his highest
wish to train them well that they might be pleasing in the sight both of
God and man. Wherefore his daily speech to us was that we should
love God and deal truly with our neighbours.
“ And my Father took special pleasure in me because he saw that I
was diligent in striving to learn. So he sent me to the school, and
when I had learnt to read and write he took me away from it, and
taught me the goldsmith’s craft. But when I could work neatly my
liking drew me rather to painting than to goldsmith’s work, so I laid it
before my father; but he was not well pleased, regretting the time lost
while I had been learning to be a goldsmith. Still he let it be as 1
wished, and in i486 (reckoned from the birth of Christ) on S. Andrew’s
day (30 Nov.) my Father bound me apprentice to Michael Wolgemut,
to serve him three years long. During that time God gave me diligence
so that I learnt well, but I had much to suffer from his lads.”
1 The original is at Sion House. There is a good copy at Munich.
3—2
35
III.]
The remaining fifteen Items are of the same type and need
not be catalogued here. Durer then continues:—
“ All these, my brothers and sisters, my dear Father’s children, are
now dead, some in their childhood, others as they were growing up;
only we three brothers still live, so long as God will, namely: I,
Albrecht, and my brother Andreas, and my brother Hans, the third of
the name, my father’s children.
“This Albrecht Durer the elder passed his life in great toil and
stern, hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned
with his hand for himself, his wife, and his children; so that he had
little enough. He underwent moreover manifold afflictions, trials, and
adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he
lived an honourable, Christian life, was a man patient of spirit, mild and
peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had
little need of company and worldly pleasures; he was also of few words
and was a God-fearing man.”
The finest record that Durer has left us of his father is the
portrait he painted just before leaving home for his Wanderjahre\
It shows a man very, very grave. The face is pathetic with the
deep furrows ploughed in by seventy years of labour and sorrow.
Every trace of passion is gone from him and he is now utterly
resigned to whatever the days may bring. Yet, as he stands
there, so quietly, for his son to paint him, there is just a trace of
pleasure and pride lurking in the kind old face. Could he have
certainly known what the future had in store for his favourite
boy, how well that knowledge might have compensated for all
the losses and trials he had suffered.
“This my dear Father,” continues Albrecht, “was very careful with
his children to bring them up in the fear of God : for it was his highest
wish to train them well that they might be pleasing in the sight both of
God and man. Wherefore his daily speech to us was that we should
love God and deal truly with our neighbours.
“ And my Father took special pleasure in me because he saw that I
was diligent in striving to learn. So he sent me to the school, and
when I had learnt to read and write he took me away from it, and
taught me the goldsmith’s craft. But when I could work neatly my
liking drew me rather to painting than to goldsmith’s work, so I laid it
before my father; but he was not well pleased, regretting the time lost
while I had been learning to be a goldsmith. Still he let it be as 1
wished, and in i486 (reckoned from the birth of Christ) on S. Andrew’s
day (30 Nov.) my Father bound me apprentice to Michael Wolgemut,
to serve him three years long. During that time God gave me diligence
so that I learnt well, but I had much to suffer from his lads.”
1 The original is at Sion House. There is a good copy at Munich.
3—2