the tomb of maximilian
art has been always, more or less, dependent upon the patronage of the rich and great. and the warm interest evinced in the arts and crafts by the emperor maximilian, the “last of the knights,” did not a little to provoke that outburst of artistic excellence which distinguished nuremberg at this time; where the names of dürer, vischer, and krafft shine out pre-eminent among many lesser lights. maximilian was in many ways the epitome of his age, the personification of the renaissance. soldier and man of letters, administrator and theologian, athlete and scholar, he yet found time to encourage artists and to devise and commission innumerable works of art. he was, in fact, as albert dürer found to his cost, more ready to give commissions than to pay for them when performed. at nuremberg he frequently employed veit stoss; he had a considerable share in the production of the weisskunig and the theuerdank, a poem describing allegorically the private life and ideals of the emperor, which was polished and completed by his secretary 65melchior pfinzing, provost of st. sebald’s church. he conceived and commissioned amongst other works albert dürer’s colossal wood-engraving, the triumphal arch, which was designed, as usual, for the glorification of this greatest of princes. wherever he happened to be, at augsburg, innsbruck, nuremberg or prague, in the course of the conduct of one of his innumerable wars or of a tourney, whilst administering justice, repressing the chivalrous brigandage of petty lords or bleeding a bamberg banker, his eye was always quick to perceive the merit of any craftsman. chroniclers repeatedly record his morning rides in a town, and describe the visits which he would pay to the houses of half-a-dozen craftsmen in a day, buying and ordering costly works of art.
he came to visit also the home of that already celebrated yet always modest and unpretending founder, peter vischer, “to whom princes esteemed it an honour to do honour.” maximilian had before now shown a practical interest in bronze work, and had incidentally displayed his appreciation of vischer. for when he was starting a foundry at mühlau, near innsbruck, he had had it in contemplation to appoint the “geschickligisten und berichtisten rotschmied”—the most skilful and famous coppersmith of nuremberg—peter vischer to wit, to superintend the establishment thereof. but peter had declined the honour, and stefan godl from nuremberg was appointed in his stead.
66now the teeming brain of maximilian—for whom no plan for his own exaltation was too grandiose, and no project for the advancement of his fame was to be despised—conceived the idea of building for himself a lordly tomb, wherein, after he had been gathered to his forefathers, he might rest, surrounded by the forms of those who had gone to his making. to-day twenty-eight bronze over life-size figures of ancient heroes stand round and guard the emperor’s cenotaph at innsbruck. two of these are most markedly superior to the rest as works of art; and these two come from the foundry of peter vischer. they are the statues of king arthur, the very perfect flower of chivalry (ill. 15), and of theodoric, king of the goths. (ill. 14.) documentary evidence reveals the fact that in the year 1513 peter vischer the elder received from the imperial chest one thousand florins for “zwei grosse messene pillder” (two large bronze figures). but apart from the teaching of the archives their resemblance to the other works of this foundry leaves no doubt as to the origin of these noble figures. in feeling, in poetry, in grace, as well as in the minute and exquisite finish of the detail, they are indeed worthy of the blossom period of the house of vischer. both figures are eloquent of the artist’s joy in production, and not of the tradesman’s mere delight in a commission. not that the vischers were at all to seek on the business side of their craft; they worked, as the modern dealer would 67express it, with punctuality, cheapness and despatch. in artistic excellence, as well as in these other important qualities, they far surpassed the labours of the mühlau founder, who had secured the commission for all, or almost all, the other statues for the tomb of maximilian. the emperor himself, it is recorded, recognized this fact; for he remarked (april 16, 1513), “für die 3,000 fl. auf welche das bis dahin gegossene einzige bild sesselschreiber zu stehen komme, in nürnberg sechs bilder h?tte giessen lassen k?nnen.” (for the 3,000 florins to which the one statue hitherto cast by sesselschreiber amounts, six statues might have been cast at nuremberg.)
stein photo.] [tomb of maximilian, innsbruck
14. theodoric, king of the goths
stein photo.] [tomb of maximilian, innsbruck
15. king arthur
both the statues that hail from nuremberg are extremely beautiful, but they are noticeably different in style. they differ so much in that unconscious revelation of the artist’s hand, which distinguishes every piece of human work, that i am strongly inclined to accept dr. seeger’s view, that whilst peter vischer the father wrought theodoric, king of the goths, it is to his son and namesake, peter vischer the younger, that we owe the statue of king arthur. theodoric leans on his sword and shield in a pose that is beautiful and imaginative, it is true, but in the execution slightly forced. this figure is weaker and more conventional, less full of life and vigour than that of the king arthur. seeger fancies that we can trace in it something of the uneasiness felt by the old craftsman when essaying a new style, and that 70there is discernible here the slight hesitation and misgiving of one who fears that he is attempting what is beyond his strength.
certainly we get no such impression when we turn to the splendid strenuous figure of arthur. this is the arthur whom we know, in all the splendour of his manhood, bold and free, the noblest flower of chivalry; arthur, the very perfect knight, pure, serene in the confidence of his own faith and right, brooking no challenge and no wrong. here beauty and strength have kissed one another; and the spring of this youthful figure, nimble and light of limb, betrays itself even through the hard, straight lines of the heavy, rich armour it bears. it is the type of the noble teuton of all time, drawn by an artist who had studied the nude and italian plastic art, and was full of the vigour and confidence of his own youthful ideal. for this bronze surely conveys that conviction of agility for a moment at rest, which you may derive from the sight of a greek marble or the lithe figure of a modern athlete. and is there not also here something “of that marvellous gesture of moving himself within the” bronze, which vasari so finely attributed to the st. george of donatello?
there may perhaps be in this figure a touch of exaggeration which is so splendidly absent from that supreme triumph of the renaissance; it is certainly more virile and it may be more brutal; but it is enough to claim for vischer that in this noble creation he challenges comparison with “the 71master of those who know.” doubtless, indeed, both his arthur and his st. peter of the sebaldusgrab owe not a little to the masterpiece of donatello.
but the beauty of the figure and pose of king arthur is not all. it need not blind us to the exquisite ornamentation of the armour, which, unlike that of theodoric, is rich with the richness of the north italian renaissance. the dragons thereon are full of life, and the chain of the order of the golden fleece, and all the other minute details of the decoration, are as notable for the fecundity of invention as for the skill in execution which they display.
these two heroic figures were completed by the vischer family as early as the year 1513, but they did not reach the place for which they had been destined till some ten years later, for the emperor kept them at augsburg. and even after they had arrived at innsbruck and been set in position there, they were not left in peace. a great danger threatened theodoric in 1548, for it did not square with charles v.’s conception of the order of the universe that the king of the goths should be found among the ancestors of the hapsburgs. he therefore gave orders that his statue should either be recast or at least be renamed. fortunately neither of these things got itself done.