DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52444#0089
DRY-POINTS, AND ETCHINGS.
chorite in the desert; died about 420 at a monastery near Bethlehem, which he
had founded with funds furnished by Paula, a wealthy lady of his following. He
was one of the favorite saints of Diirer’s and later times, and therefore often
taken as a subject by artists. The lion accompanies him, because, according to
the legend, he drew a thorn from the paw of the animal, which ever afterwards
was his companion.
7 THE PENANCE OF ST.JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.— B 63;
H 723 ; R 7; M 4.— Monogram.
A wonderfully fine impression, pure black ink, slightly glossy, abso-
lutely clean wiped.
The impression here exhibited shows the ideal of the printing of the time,—
pure black ink, absolutely clean wiped, the blacks vigorous yet open, the lines
full but not too full, nor wiped out; in other words, every line telling at its full
value, without any help whatever from smudging or tinting. There is a glorious
impression in the Rothschild Collection at Paris, another very beautiful one in
the Berlin Cabinet, and a fine one in the Gray Collection, Boston.
Retberg, before 1495; Heller, 1486-1500. Middleton, as previously noted,
places it before “The Offer of Love” (see No. 4), which involves an impos-
sibility. The workmanship is, indeed, still very simple, but of a regularity and
skill, especially in the modeling of the flesh, which advances it considerably
beyond “ The Offer of Love.” The formation of the monogram also bears
evidence in favor of the later position. Thausing (I, p, 228) thinks that we
probably have here Diirer’s earliest engraved study from the nude female figure.
“What difficulties the artist experienced in doing this figure,” he says, “can be
clearly seen even in the finished engraving. We can note the cutting away of
a piece of the rock on which she is sitting; the evident shortening of the figure,
as revealed by the existence, above the head, of the original outline, and of the
parting of the hair, which has been turned into a hollow in the rock; and we
can even make out the old contour of the shoulder and the top of the arm,
though the correction is meant to be hidden by the deep shading. These signs
of uncertainty in drawing the human form, which appear to be, in some degree,
owing to Venetian influences, are worth noticing, because they form rare excep-
tions to his later method.” The idea is simply preposterous. Imagine a sit-
ting figure, with the head placed where, according to Thausing, it was originally
engraved by Diirer, and then consider the proportions of the upper and the
lower parts of the body. And again, the notion that an artist like Diirer, even
in his younger years, should engrave such a monstrous figure, and then correct
7
chorite in the desert; died about 420 at a monastery near Bethlehem, which he
had founded with funds furnished by Paula, a wealthy lady of his following. He
was one of the favorite saints of Diirer’s and later times, and therefore often
taken as a subject by artists. The lion accompanies him, because, according to
the legend, he drew a thorn from the paw of the animal, which ever afterwards
was his companion.
7 THE PENANCE OF ST.JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.— B 63;
H 723 ; R 7; M 4.— Monogram.
A wonderfully fine impression, pure black ink, slightly glossy, abso-
lutely clean wiped.
The impression here exhibited shows the ideal of the printing of the time,—
pure black ink, absolutely clean wiped, the blacks vigorous yet open, the lines
full but not too full, nor wiped out; in other words, every line telling at its full
value, without any help whatever from smudging or tinting. There is a glorious
impression in the Rothschild Collection at Paris, another very beautiful one in
the Berlin Cabinet, and a fine one in the Gray Collection, Boston.
Retberg, before 1495; Heller, 1486-1500. Middleton, as previously noted,
places it before “The Offer of Love” (see No. 4), which involves an impos-
sibility. The workmanship is, indeed, still very simple, but of a regularity and
skill, especially in the modeling of the flesh, which advances it considerably
beyond “ The Offer of Love.” The formation of the monogram also bears
evidence in favor of the later position. Thausing (I, p, 228) thinks that we
probably have here Diirer’s earliest engraved study from the nude female figure.
“What difficulties the artist experienced in doing this figure,” he says, “can be
clearly seen even in the finished engraving. We can note the cutting away of
a piece of the rock on which she is sitting; the evident shortening of the figure,
as revealed by the existence, above the head, of the original outline, and of the
parting of the hair, which has been turned into a hollow in the rock; and we
can even make out the old contour of the shoulder and the top of the arm,
though the correction is meant to be hidden by the deep shading. These signs
of uncertainty in drawing the human form, which appear to be, in some degree,
owing to Venetian influences, are worth noticing, because they form rare excep-
tions to his later method.” The idea is simply preposterous. Imagine a sit-
ting figure, with the head placed where, according to Thausing, it was originally
engraved by Diirer, and then consider the proportions of the upper and the
lower parts of the body. And again, the notion that an artist like Diirer, even
in his younger years, should engrave such a monstrous figure, and then correct
7