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Though these testimonies may often seem either trifling, or obscured by the pedantic affectation of the writers, they, like the signatures of well-respected men, endorse the impression produced by Duerer's works and writings.
We have the testimony of a good number of Duerer's friends as to the value of his character; and first let us quote from Pirkheimer writing immediately after Duerer's death and before' the loss of the coveted antlers had vexed him to a common friend Ulrich, probably Ulrich Varnbueler.
There has perhaps been a tendency to read the intention of these designs too much in the light of after events: and by so doing a great slur is cast on Duerer's consistency; for, had these designs the significance read into them, he must be supposed an altogether convinced enemy of the Church; and the tremendous salaams which he afterwards made to her in far more important works ought, to logical minds, to appear horribly insincere.
And by allowing for it I think we can explain the contradiction apparent between the critics' continual insistence on what they call Duerer's great thoughts, and the sparsity of intellectual creativeness which strikes one in turning over his engravings, so many are there of which either the occasion or the conception are altogether trivial when compared with the grandiose aspect of the composition or the impeccable mechanical performance.
Something must be said of Duerer's employment of the water-colours, pen-and-ink, silver-point, charcoal, chalk, &c., with which he made his drawings. But when one comes to broad washes, large masses of light and shade, the expression of atmosphere, of bloom, of light, he is wanting in proportion as these effects become vague, cloudy, indefinite, mist-like.
Not only the girl was watching him; Lorchen's father also had his eyes on him. Thick-set and short, bald-headed a big head with a short nose sunburned skull with a fringe of hair that had been fair and hung in thick curls like Duerer's St.
Duerer's most steady resource seems to have been the sale of prints; it is these that his wife had sold in his absence, and in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands there is constant mention of such sales.
We have come already to the White Horse. Another hundred years and all will be over." Compare this with Duerer's: "Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both well and better about this art than I." "Would to God that it were possible for me to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might be improved."
Pirkheimer, one year Duerer's senior, was a gross fat man early in life, enjoying the clinking of goblets, the music of fork and knife, and the effrontery of obscene jests.
If Duerer's pictures are as a whole the least satisfactory section of his work, in his portraits he makes us abundant amends for the time he might otherwise have been reproached for wasting to obtain a vain mastery over brushes and pigment. Unfortunately it is probable that many even of these have been lost or destroyed, while of his most interesting sitters we have nothing but drawings.
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