DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0054
36
durer’s literary remains.
[chap.
Of Durer’s work as a goldsmith we possess no known
specimen, but we can fortunately point to at any rate three
drawings, made by him before the time of his apprenticeship to
Wolgemut. One of these, a sketch of a woman holding a falcon,
bears, in handwriting of the day, the following inscription, “That
is also old ; Albrecht Diirer, before he went to become painter
at Wolgemut’s, made it for me in the rear house, in the presence
of the late Conrat Lomayer.” Far more important is a beautiful
silver-point portrait of himself in his 14th year. The child looks
forth upon the world out of such earnest eyes, which haunt a
face preternaturally solemn for his years. No one could look on
him and doubt but that he was richly endowed by nature. And
the marvel is how he has caught his own expression and with
what true instinct he has made his character visible. In the
third drawing, which was done in the following year and re-
presents a Virgin and child between two angels, we have
something more than instinct. The goldsmith’s apprentice
shows himself no mere dexterous child with a knack of drawing,
such as many schoolboys possess who yet could never grow to
be artists; he is already a draughtsman of a definite school, an
embryo artist with ideas of composition, and with an eye to
some extent trained by observation of the best work about
him. Small wonder that he felt himself impelled towards a
wider sphere of art; small wonder too that his father with
such evidence before him should have yielded to the boy’s
wish.
Albrecht Diirer the elder was never more mistaken than in
supposing that the time which his son had spent over a gold-
smith’s training had been wasted. Much of Durer’s skill as an
engraver in after years may well have been due to the thorough
discipline of hand which his early training had enforced upon
him.
Diirer entered upon his apprenticeship a gifted lad. He
emerged from it a promising artist, with knowledge and ex-
perience of the methods of his craft, over and above his inborn
artistic tendencies. The portrait of Albrecht Diirer the elder,
already referred to, is existing evidence of the amount of
advance he made in the studio of Wolgemut. But let us return
to Durer’s own too brief account of himself and his doings.
durer’s literary remains.
[chap.
Of Durer’s work as a goldsmith we possess no known
specimen, but we can fortunately point to at any rate three
drawings, made by him before the time of his apprenticeship to
Wolgemut. One of these, a sketch of a woman holding a falcon,
bears, in handwriting of the day, the following inscription, “That
is also old ; Albrecht Diirer, before he went to become painter
at Wolgemut’s, made it for me in the rear house, in the presence
of the late Conrat Lomayer.” Far more important is a beautiful
silver-point portrait of himself in his 14th year. The child looks
forth upon the world out of such earnest eyes, which haunt a
face preternaturally solemn for his years. No one could look on
him and doubt but that he was richly endowed by nature. And
the marvel is how he has caught his own expression and with
what true instinct he has made his character visible. In the
third drawing, which was done in the following year and re-
presents a Virgin and child between two angels, we have
something more than instinct. The goldsmith’s apprentice
shows himself no mere dexterous child with a knack of drawing,
such as many schoolboys possess who yet could never grow to
be artists; he is already a draughtsman of a definite school, an
embryo artist with ideas of composition, and with an eye to
some extent trained by observation of the best work about
him. Small wonder that he felt himself impelled towards a
wider sphere of art; small wonder too that his father with
such evidence before him should have yielded to the boy’s
wish.
Albrecht Diirer the elder was never more mistaken than in
supposing that the time which his son had spent over a gold-
smith’s training had been wasted. Much of Durer’s skill as an
engraver in after years may well have been due to the thorough
discipline of hand which his early training had enforced upon
him.
Diirer entered upon his apprenticeship a gifted lad. He
emerged from it a promising artist, with knowledge and ex-
perience of the methods of his craft, over and above his inborn
artistic tendencies. The portrait of Albrecht Diirer the elder,
already referred to, is existing evidence of the amount of
advance he made in the studio of Wolgemut. But let us return
to Durer’s own too brief account of himself and his doings.