Citation link:
https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/duerer_society1903/0014
and undismayed by the prospect of temporal death, he rides straight on along the road which will
eventually leave the dark valley and lead up to the bright city on the hill. This notion of the
Christian Knight, to which Erasmus gave the greatest vogue by the publication of his “ Enchiridion
Militis Christiani,” had been current long before in the mystical literature and popular theology of the
fifteenth century. It had already inspired some rude woodcut illustrations, and Diirer was not so
much expressing an original thought of his own as giving the first adequate artistic form to a
conception universally familiar in his generation. This point has been illustrated in a very interesting
manner by Dr. Paul Weber in his “Beitrage zu Diirer’s Weltanschauung,” 1900, pp. 13-44. The
S on the tablet doubtless stands for “Salus.” Diirer often dated his memoranda in this fashion,
especially at this very period: see Lange and Fuhse, p. 296 “Salus 1512,” p. 307 “Salus 1513”
(twice), and p. 310. S has also been interpreted as “ Sanguinicus,” on the theory that Diirer was
illustrating one of the temperaments or complexions, but that interpretation is attended by many
difficulties.
In designing the “Christian Knight,” Diirer made use of an old coloured drawing of 1498,
which is now in the Albertina. A much reduced collotype of this subject is given here for
comparison with the engraving. Diirer has written at the top, “Dz ist dy rustung zw der zeit im
tewtzschlant gewest” (‘This is the armour as it was at that time in Germany’). The drawing of the
horse, however, was subjected to careful revision, and three preliminary studies for the engraving, in
which the proportions are based on mathematical calculation, are preserved in the Ambrosiana and the
Uffizi. In these, the dog is already present, but there is no indication of the other figures
in the composition.
WOODCUTS.
XXL
DURER. The Book-plate of Wilibald Pirkheimer. B. app. 52.
From an impression in the British Museum,
WO angels support the helm and crest of Pirkheimer, and escutcheons with the arms
of Pirkheimer, a birch-tree, and those of Rieter, a crowned siren or mermaid. Attached
to the top of the print is a label, printed from a separate block, containing the Hebrew,
Greek and Latin equivalents of the text, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom.” This label is wanting in late impressions.
The woodcut is unsigned, and Bartsch hesitated to attribute it to Diirer. There can be little
doubt, however, that it was designed by him, for, apart from the probability that Pirkheimer would
apply to Diirer for a book-plate, the style and execution of the cut are thoroughly in keeping with
Diirer’s work of the same period. Pirkheimer married Crescentia Rieter in 1497 ; she died on May
17th, 1504. The book-plate is to be compared especially with the dedication woodcut of fhe
“Quatuor Libri Amorum” of Conrad Celtis, published in 1502 (P. 217). Diirer probably designed
the two woodcuts about 1500; the genii, the boughs, the riband-cornucopias are closely alike
in both.
11
eventually leave the dark valley and lead up to the bright city on the hill. This notion of the
Christian Knight, to which Erasmus gave the greatest vogue by the publication of his “ Enchiridion
Militis Christiani,” had been current long before in the mystical literature and popular theology of the
fifteenth century. It had already inspired some rude woodcut illustrations, and Diirer was not so
much expressing an original thought of his own as giving the first adequate artistic form to a
conception universally familiar in his generation. This point has been illustrated in a very interesting
manner by Dr. Paul Weber in his “Beitrage zu Diirer’s Weltanschauung,” 1900, pp. 13-44. The
S on the tablet doubtless stands for “Salus.” Diirer often dated his memoranda in this fashion,
especially at this very period: see Lange and Fuhse, p. 296 “Salus 1512,” p. 307 “Salus 1513”
(twice), and p. 310. S has also been interpreted as “ Sanguinicus,” on the theory that Diirer was
illustrating one of the temperaments or complexions, but that interpretation is attended by many
difficulties.
In designing the “Christian Knight,” Diirer made use of an old coloured drawing of 1498,
which is now in the Albertina. A much reduced collotype of this subject is given here for
comparison with the engraving. Diirer has written at the top, “Dz ist dy rustung zw der zeit im
tewtzschlant gewest” (‘This is the armour as it was at that time in Germany’). The drawing of the
horse, however, was subjected to careful revision, and three preliminary studies for the engraving, in
which the proportions are based on mathematical calculation, are preserved in the Ambrosiana and the
Uffizi. In these, the dog is already present, but there is no indication of the other figures
in the composition.
WOODCUTS.
XXL
DURER. The Book-plate of Wilibald Pirkheimer. B. app. 52.
From an impression in the British Museum,
WO angels support the helm and crest of Pirkheimer, and escutcheons with the arms
of Pirkheimer, a birch-tree, and those of Rieter, a crowned siren or mermaid. Attached
to the top of the print is a label, printed from a separate block, containing the Hebrew,
Greek and Latin equivalents of the text, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom.” This label is wanting in late impressions.
The woodcut is unsigned, and Bartsch hesitated to attribute it to Diirer. There can be little
doubt, however, that it was designed by him, for, apart from the probability that Pirkheimer would
apply to Diirer for a book-plate, the style and execution of the cut are thoroughly in keeping with
Diirer’s work of the same period. Pirkheimer married Crescentia Rieter in 1497 ; she died on May
17th, 1504. The book-plate is to be compared especially with the dedication woodcut of fhe
“Quatuor Libri Amorum” of Conrad Celtis, published in 1502 (P. 217). Diirer probably designed
the two woodcuts about 1500; the genii, the boughs, the riband-cornucopias are closely alike
in both.
11