DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0166
146
durer’s literary remains.
[chap.
We have had occasion to refer more than once to Durer’s
religious opinions. It seems well, even at the risk of some
repetition, to recur again to the subject, and briefly to trace
the growth of the artist’s ideas about religion, before proceeding
to discuss his formulated ideas about art.
It is important to observe that, though Dtirer from the first
sympathized with the Reforming party, he never took up a
bigoted attitude on the question. He continued painting
Madonnas and Saints all his life, and worked with equal honesty
for both Friedrich the Wise of Saxony and Cardinal Albrecht of
Mainz. If we bear in mind that the Reformation was a revolt
and not a constructive movement, we shall find it easy
to understand Durer’s attitude towards it. All Reformers
united to defy and protest against the tyranny of the Papal
Government. The masses of the people were ready to rise
against that tyranny, because it oppressed them in the affairs of
their everyday life. But when the Reformers came to construct
a new theology, a new Church government in place of the old,
they at once fell foul of one another and broke up into parties.
It was quite possible for a man openly to revolt against the
Roman Church without perceiving that a consequence of that
attitude would be a gradual modification of his own religious
opinions.
The religion of Durer’s earliest days was the parent-worship,
with which all healthily minded children start. His affection for
his parents was the strongest affection he ever knew. Both
parents seem to have been orthodox folk of the old school. The
mother was as simple a soul as ever lived, fully occupied with her
eighteen children and her many trials and troubles, and little
likely to cumber herself about new-fangled religious notions.
In her young days, religion ran along a comfortable, well-worn
groove, and she probably accepted what she could understand
of it, and contented herself with a simple life of duty honestly
done. Durer’s words about her are worth quoting again. “ Her
most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always
scolded me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great
anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went
out or in, her saying was always ‘ Go in the name of Christ.’ She
constantly gave us holy admonitions with great earnestness, and
durer’s literary remains.
[chap.
We have had occasion to refer more than once to Durer’s
religious opinions. It seems well, even at the risk of some
repetition, to recur again to the subject, and briefly to trace
the growth of the artist’s ideas about religion, before proceeding
to discuss his formulated ideas about art.
It is important to observe that, though Dtirer from the first
sympathized with the Reforming party, he never took up a
bigoted attitude on the question. He continued painting
Madonnas and Saints all his life, and worked with equal honesty
for both Friedrich the Wise of Saxony and Cardinal Albrecht of
Mainz. If we bear in mind that the Reformation was a revolt
and not a constructive movement, we shall find it easy
to understand Durer’s attitude towards it. All Reformers
united to defy and protest against the tyranny of the Papal
Government. The masses of the people were ready to rise
against that tyranny, because it oppressed them in the affairs of
their everyday life. But when the Reformers came to construct
a new theology, a new Church government in place of the old,
they at once fell foul of one another and broke up into parties.
It was quite possible for a man openly to revolt against the
Roman Church without perceiving that a consequence of that
attitude would be a gradual modification of his own religious
opinions.
The religion of Durer’s earliest days was the parent-worship,
with which all healthily minded children start. His affection for
his parents was the strongest affection he ever knew. Both
parents seem to have been orthodox folk of the old school. The
mother was as simple a soul as ever lived, fully occupied with her
eighteen children and her many trials and troubles, and little
likely to cumber herself about new-fangled religious notions.
In her young days, religion ran along a comfortable, well-worn
groove, and she probably accepted what she could understand
of it, and contented herself with a simple life of duty honestly
done. Durer’s words about her are worth quoting again. “ Her
most frequent habit was to go much to the church. She always
scolded me well if I did not do right, and she was ever in great
anxiety about my sins and those of my brother. And if I went
out or in, her saying was always ‘ Go in the name of Christ.’ She
constantly gave us holy admonitions with great earnestness, and