DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52444#0097
DRY-POINTS, AND ETCHINGS.
cession to the spirit of the age, he introduced death (in the form of the skull
and bone) and the devil, thus giving to the subject the moralizing air which
alone could make it palatable to his countrymen. This is also Anton Springer’s
conclusion (“ Diirer,” p. 32). In connection with these additions, the composi-
tion might be interpreted as hinting at the frailty of female beauty, which fades
before death and leads to sin, and in this manner it would be brought, like
“ The Promenade,” into relationship with the idea which inspired the “ Dance
of Death.” It is not at all necessary to assume that the artist did this grudg-
ingly, since he remained thoroughly Northern and German at heart, despite the
Italian influences to which he had been subjected. Thode (Jahrbuch, HI, p.
118, where the Bartsch numbers given are all wrong, however) finds remi-
niscences of the Venus of the Uffizi (the “Venus de’ Medici”; see the photograph,
Supplementary Illustrations, No. I) in one of the figures of the group. It is diffi-
cult to follow him in this, as the comparison will show. Nevertheless, the
“ Four Naked Women ” evidently points to the influence of the antique received
by Diirer, not directly, probably, but through the medium of that mysterious
factor in his development, Jacopo de’ Barbari. Looking at the “Four Naked
Women,” one is struck by its relationship to the Italian’s “ Victory and
Fame,” B 18, Kristeller 26 (see Supplementary Illustrations, No. IV), not only in
the conception of the female figure, but even in the technical qualities as shown
in the modeling of the flesh. And Jacopo’s “ Victory ” again impresses one as
inspired by a back view of the “ Capitoline Venus” (see Supplementary Illus-
trations, No. III). Jacopo cannot, indeed, have seen this very statue, but there
are many repetitions of the same type, one of which may have come under his
observation. It will be well to confess that there is always much temptation to
trace fanciful resemblances of this sort. Still, the general similarity in the con-
ception, and the special similarity in the arrangement of the hair of the “ Capi-
toline Venus ” and of Jacopo’s “ Victory ” (which in Diirer’s figure has naturally
undergone still further change), seem to lend some coloring to the suggestion
made. Absolute copying, as a matter of course, is quite out of the question.
In all these cases reminiscences only are involved,— reminiscences kept vivid
by a desire to enter into the spirit of antiquity.
If the sequence of the plates here adopted is correct, this is the third attempt
of Diirer to treat the naked female figure, a problem which occupied his atten-
tion for many years. In the first plate, “The Penance of St. John Chrysos-
tom” (No. 7), the treatment is conventional. The second, “The Little For-
tune” (No. 9), is evidently a study from nature. The figures in the present
plate are also naturalistically treated, even in the heads. In the plates which
follow we have again idealization.
15
cession to the spirit of the age, he introduced death (in the form of the skull
and bone) and the devil, thus giving to the subject the moralizing air which
alone could make it palatable to his countrymen. This is also Anton Springer’s
conclusion (“ Diirer,” p. 32). In connection with these additions, the composi-
tion might be interpreted as hinting at the frailty of female beauty, which fades
before death and leads to sin, and in this manner it would be brought, like
“ The Promenade,” into relationship with the idea which inspired the “ Dance
of Death.” It is not at all necessary to assume that the artist did this grudg-
ingly, since he remained thoroughly Northern and German at heart, despite the
Italian influences to which he had been subjected. Thode (Jahrbuch, HI, p.
118, where the Bartsch numbers given are all wrong, however) finds remi-
niscences of the Venus of the Uffizi (the “Venus de’ Medici”; see the photograph,
Supplementary Illustrations, No. I) in one of the figures of the group. It is diffi-
cult to follow him in this, as the comparison will show. Nevertheless, the
“ Four Naked Women ” evidently points to the influence of the antique received
by Diirer, not directly, probably, but through the medium of that mysterious
factor in his development, Jacopo de’ Barbari. Looking at the “Four Naked
Women,” one is struck by its relationship to the Italian’s “ Victory and
Fame,” B 18, Kristeller 26 (see Supplementary Illustrations, No. IV), not only in
the conception of the female figure, but even in the technical qualities as shown
in the modeling of the flesh. And Jacopo’s “ Victory ” again impresses one as
inspired by a back view of the “ Capitoline Venus” (see Supplementary Illus-
trations, No. III). Jacopo cannot, indeed, have seen this very statue, but there
are many repetitions of the same type, one of which may have come under his
observation. It will be well to confess that there is always much temptation to
trace fanciful resemblances of this sort. Still, the general similarity in the con-
ception, and the special similarity in the arrangement of the hair of the “ Capi-
toline Venus ” and of Jacopo’s “ Victory ” (which in Diirer’s figure has naturally
undergone still further change), seem to lend some coloring to the suggestion
made. Absolute copying, as a matter of course, is quite out of the question.
In all these cases reminiscences only are involved,— reminiscences kept vivid
by a desire to enter into the spirit of antiquity.
If the sequence of the plates here adopted is correct, this is the third attempt
of Diirer to treat the naked female figure, a problem which occupied his atten-
tion for many years. In the first plate, “The Penance of St. John Chrysos-
tom” (No. 7), the treatment is conventional. The second, “The Little For-
tune” (No. 9), is evidently a study from nature. The figures in the present
plate are also naturalistically treated, even in the heads. In the plates which
follow we have again idealization.
15