Landscapes. Émile Michel
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Название: Landscapes

Автор: Émile Michel

Издательство: Parkstone International Publishing

Жанр: Иностранные языки

Серия: Temporis

isbn: 978-1-78042-881-9, 978-1-78310-784-1

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СКАЧАТЬ Dürer, and he had the gift of communicating this charm to us. In a sketch which is very carefully studied, we have a medley of plants on the banks of a peaceful river. Everything is mingled in that disorder so dear to nature. The stalks and leaves are all intertwined, some of them stiff and straight, others flexible and easily bent. Dürer excelled in making the most of this chaos, which to another artist might have seemed hopeless. Without appearing to emphasise, and with marvellous ease and dexterity, he gives to each plant its own special characteristic, its bright or dull tissue, its delicate veining, its capricious twists and turns. The outline of the plants seems at first to be of extreme simplicity, but when analysed it is most complex. Light and shade have full play, changing the perspective, and emphasising the prominent parts. The sapling rushes tremblingly up, rising from the roots, plunged in the transparent water, right up to the top of the pointed stems. It is the infinite richness of nature itself, with its eternal life and youth, which a wonderful artist reveals to us here. This study of a simple tuft of grasses, which we might have passed without noticing, captivates us, owing to the naturalness and grace which the artist has put into it.

      Dürer, like Leonardo, excelled in lending interest to trifling things, but in his studies of landscape he understood, better than Leonardo, how to represent the whole. He always treats these studies with the required delicacy and breadth. He brings out clearly the chief characteristics of the subjects that have tempted him, and makes of these so many special themes, which so appeal to the imagination that they remain engraved in our memory. He evidently liked this wild and rocky country with its melancholy and absolutely modern poetry, for he sketched at least two other studies while there. The first of these bears the name of Valley of Kalkreuth, the place where it was executed, and this title is in his own handwriting. The sketch entitled Altes Schloss is perhaps still more expressive, as it is more finished and all the details lend themselves to the general impression. It represents an old castle, in the midst of the woods, perched on a peak bristling with dark pine trees, whose outlines stand out strongly against the light sky. A more striking picture could not be conceived, nor one that appeals more strongly to the imagination, than that of this feudal Burg, separated from the rest of the world, and whose high walls must have contained so many mysterious lives.

      Albrecht Dürer, The Water Mill, c.1498.

      Watercolour and gouache on paper, 25.1 × 36.7 cm.

      Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

      Such as they are, Dürer’s landscape drawings are a revelation. They defy all comparison with the works of his predecessors or of his contemporaries. In order to appreciate their worth, they must be compared with the interpretations which had hitherto been given of nature, and we must go to Rembrandt to find such talent combined with such sincerity.

      For some inexplicable reason, after his second visit to Venice in 1507, Dürer’s landscape studies became more rare. He was probably absorbed by the numerous commissions he received, for he scarcely ever found time for sketching the country around Nuremberg. He studied the subjects that appealed to him with great conscientiousness, and always put his best work into them. One of his pictures depicts a mountainous district. Another represents a pool of water at sunset, with a fisherman’s cottage with rushes, reeds and aquatic plants all around it.

      Dürer’s life was a busy one to the very end. Although he had almost entirely given up landscape, despite that at the commencement of his career it had given him such pleasure, he always intended to return to it. At the end of his Treatise on Proportion, published in 1527, a year before his death, he announced his intention of devoting himself, before anything else, to the study of the art of landscape painting, if God spared his life. It is to be regretted that he was not able to do this, as it would be most interesting to know what the great artist’s ideas were on this subject. Entirely alone, and independently of all rules, he had learnt to see nature as it is, to comprehend it, and to express its sovereign charm.

      Adam Elsheimer, Flight into Egypt, 1609.

      Oil on copper, 31 × 41 cm.

      Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

      Dürer’s landscape sketches from nature, therefore, constitute an exception, not only in his own work, but in the history of the whole German school. It is not surprising that they exercised no influence over the development of that school. In the first place, they were unknown, as they were either hidden away in his own portfolios or scattered about in various collections. But had they been accessible they would not have been appreciated at their true value. Landscape painting in those days was treated in an extremely conventional way, and Dürer’s absolute sincerity, coupled with his impeccable science, would have been considered too great a novelty. As a landscapist, therefore, Dürer stands alone in German art, and in order to appreciate his worth we have only to consider the work of his contemporaries and pupils.

      In Germany, after Dürer, we have to wait for nearly a century before finding, in Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), a landscapist of any great value. Elsheimer went to Rome at the age of twenty-two, and there was especially influenced. Curious to search out new paths, he delighted in discovering the most solitary and picturesque spots where nature had freely put forth her wealth of beauty. Plants with large leaves are generally to be found in the foreground of his pictures; hop, ivy and wild vines climb up the trunks of the trees and fall in thick garlands from the branches. The artist’s kindliness won for him the friendship of his numerous fellow artists of the foreign colony in Rome. This, no doubt, accounts for the reputation he won and the important place his compatriots continue to attribute to him in the history of art, for certainly his own talent does not suffice to account for the rank assigned to him. His name is, nevertheless, the only one we can give as a landscapist of the German school down to the Romanticism of the nineteenth century. This school seems to have foundered completely during the period of the religious wars and the internal strife which so long disturbed the tranquillity of the whole of Germany.

      Chapter 3 Dutch Landscapists

      Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn), Landscape with an Obelisk (detail), 1638.

      Oil on wood, 55 × 71.5 cm.

      Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

      Paul Bril, Stag Hunt, c.1590–1595.

      Oil on canvas, 105 × 137 cm.

      Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      Joachim Wtewael, Perseus and Andromeda, 1611.

      Oil on canvas, 180 × 150 cm.

      Musée du Louvre, Paris.

      The School of Utrecht and the “Italianisers”

      With the genius of the Van Eycks, oil painting, as we have seen, first flourished in Northern countries with incomparable brilliancy. We cannot, however, either before or immediately after them, speak of a Dutch School distinct from the early Flemish School. During the first years of the seventeenth century there were marked differences between the artistic aims of Flanders and of the Netherlands. The entire country had risen against the foreign tyranny and was endeavouring to shake off the Spanish yoke. The struggle in the Southern provinces was neither as intense nor as stubborn as in those of the North. Whilst the former accepted the government to which for long afterwards they were subject, the others would not agree to any arrangement and would not lay down their arms until they had secured their complete independence. With this СКАЧАТЬ