hermann vischer and the early german bronze work

it was in the middle of the fifteenth century, a little before the year 1450, to be precise, that there wandered into the streets of nuremberg a working man, a common coppersmith, one hermann vischer by name. he came no one knows whence. he came one can easily imagine why. like the father of albert dürer, and in the same decade, he was attracted to that beautiful, busy old town by the greed of gain, as shakespeare was drawn to london, and many another worker in other arts and crafts has been drawn to many another town. for nuremberg at this time was the shining jewel of the holy roman empire, the centre of trade and the meeting place of the arts. her geographical position and the business energy of her sons had combined to throw into her lap all the commerce of the east and south, of italy and the levant, with the northern nations.

2the days were near at hand when this proud, free city of the empire, this trading staple of the german world, was to win the still nobler title of “albert dürer’s and hans sachs’ city.” for the merchant princes of the place, the patricians as they called themselves, whilst they grew in wealth and power, waxed also in enthusiasm for the sciences and arts. they strove to make their town a german florence, and by their lavish expenditure upon the adornment of public and private buildings, both attracted foreign genius and encouraged native talent. regiomontanus on the one hand, the great mathematician, chose nuremberg for his place of residence because he found there all the peculiar instruments necessary for astronomy, and because the “perpetual journeyings of her merchants” enabled him to keep in touch with the learned of all countries. these perpetual journeyings of the merchant princes and great explorers, like behaim, reacted also upon the artists of the town; they contributed to give them a wider outlook upon life, and brought within their reach the wonderful works of italy.

the broad culture of a pirkheimer exercised an undoubted influence upon the many-sided genius of dürer, whilst the liberal atmosphere engendered by travel made the citizens of nuremberg ready to welcome in their midst foreign artists like the elder dürer, the elder vischer and veit stoss, and rendered the local artists themselves susceptible to the excellence of foreign art. not 3that the nuremberg artists lack the local note. but they readily accepted the ideas of flemish realism and again of the italian renaissance, and translated them into the terms of their own speech. albert dürer, for instance, in spite of his wide experience, always speaks in his art like his master wolgemut, in the nuremberg dialect. the intense patriotism and the deep religious feeling which formed so intimate a part of the lives of the citizens are reproduced in their art and literature, giving the greatest examples of them the added charm of locality. the religious spirit in which they worked lent a great humility to these craftsmen. sculpture and painting had indeed been applied with splendid results to the adornment of domestic and public life, results so splendid that the traveller ?neas sylvius was obliged to confess that the mansions of the burgesses seemed to have been built for princes, and that the kings of scotland would gladly be housed as luxuriously as the ordinary citizen of nuremberg. but the chief work of men like adam krafft and peter vischer was given to the beautifying of the churches. and, working as they did in a deeply religious spirit, it is noticeable that when they represent themselves in paint, bronze, wood or stone, they give themselves the humble pose of suppliants, choosing always the lowliest place, and often, like krafft in the tabernacle in the church of st. lorenz, or vischer in the sebaldusgrab in the church of st. sebald, they appear in their 4working clothes, tools in hand, in the attitude of servants.

there, in a niche of the beautiful shrine he had wrought, with his workman’s cap on his head and a large leather apron round his waist, and in his hand hammer and chisel, the signs of his calling, stands thick-set and full-bearded peter vischer, the modest, pious labourer, whose reputation had spread beyond the limits of germany, and whose bronze work, the chronicler tells us, once filled poland, bohemia, hungary, and the palaces of princes throughout the holy roman empire. (ill. 2.)

when hermann vischer came to nuremberg the bronze industry had long been pursued in germany, and it had been pursued with some success. the individuality of this indigenous art had been in early times uninfluenced by foreign inspiration. while venice had to go to constantinople for the bronze gates of st. mark’s, and rome was acknowledging the supremacy of byzantine ideals in the presence of the gates of s. paolo, in germany, as lübke points out, such works as the doors of the cathedrals of hildesheim and augsburg, the tomb-plates at magdeburg and merseburg, or the great altar at goslar, prove the existence, albeit in a very crude and undeveloped state, of a native art in bronze. the twelfth century saw the german foundries supplying many an important font or cathedral door. the work of lambert patras von dinant (1112), the fonts in 5the cathedral at osnabrück, the lions at brunswick and the doors of st. sophia at novgorod, exhibit indeed a very considerable advance both in execution and design. the increasing use of bronze for the sacred vessels and ornaments of the church extended the scope of the craftsmen, and the hey-day of the early gothic period saw no lack of tomb-plates, candelabra, and fonts from the german foundries. the workmanship of these is good but undistinguished as it is uninspired. it seldom even approaches in artistic merit the splendid tomb of konrad von hochstaden in cologne cathedral, or the later, vigorous equestrian statue of st. george in the cathedral at prague, wrought by georg and martin von clussenbach in 1373.

nuremberg, in spite of her wealth and commercial importance, had not, at the time of the coming of hermann vischer, given birth as yet to any great work of art in bronze. almost the only old piece of bronze of any importance to be seen in the churches there is the font in st. sebald’s church. and its importance lies rather in the richness with which it is wrought than in its artistic excellence (1350). this is the font in which the emperor wenzel was baptized—a baptism which cost the town the beautiful old parsonage, burnt down by the fires used to heat the water for the imperial infant. the four squat apostolic figures represented here in their straight, heavy mantles bear witness already to that striving after 6a realistic representation of the great protagonists in the sacred drama which was beginning to betray itself at this time in the works of the nameless nuremberg painters on the one hand, and, on the other, of the nuremberg sculptors, such as hans decker, the forerunner of adam krafft. it was a tendency which the nuremberg artists, like their brethren of the swabian school and the school of cologne owed to the influence of flemish art. but this was a return to nature not without its faults. the german artist, in his eager endeavour to reproduce the exact form of his models, of those, that is, whom he saw around him every day, was badly served by the figures of his countrymen. they could not give him the slim and graceful forms of the italians to copy, and he had not yet learnt from italy those theories of beauty, based on a study of the antique, which were one day to help an albert dürer to perform the true function of an artist by improving upon nature.

of hermann vischer himself and his doings we know very little. very little also of his work survives. we know that he became a burgher of his adopted town and, in 1453, rose to be a master in the guild of rotschmieds. that he gained some reputation in his day, and not at home only, is shown by the fact that four years later he cast the font for the parish church at wittenberg. several tomb-plates at meissen and bamberg are also attributed to him. these confirm us in the impression that he had no great individuality. he 7was an excellent workman without being endowed with the superlative excellence of the artist. for the font at wittenberg, which is cast in the gothic manner with small, undistinguished figures of the apostles, is a work of very little importance. in nuremberg, where he lived in a house “am sand” in the schiessgraben, there is one work which is generally attributed to hermann, although it is quite possibly from the hand of one eberhard vischer who became a master in 1459 and died in 1488, just one year later than hermann. the work to which we refer is the large bronze crucifix outside the central window of the l?ffelholz chapel of the church of st. sebald, which was presented by the starck family in 1482. it was remodelled in 1625, and on that occasion the nurembergers earned the nick-name of herrgottschw?rzer or blackeners of the lord. for the story ran that the cross was made of silver, and that the council of the town resolved that it should be painted black in order to preserve it from the roving bands of soldiers that passed through the town during the thirty years’ war. the figure on the cross is that of a hercules rather than of a christ. the feet are each nailed separately after the ancient manner.

hermann vischer was twice married. by his first wife, felicitas, he had one daughter, martha, and one son, peter, the date of whose birth is not known. by his second wife he had three sons of no importance, and he died in 1487, in the year 8which saw the birth of his second grandson, peter vischer the younger, to whom, it will be shown in the succeeding chapters, many of the finest works usually attributed to the elder peter must now probably be credited.