Page:Dürer (1910).djvu/93

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DÜRER
75

within, full of traceries, lacework, gargoyles, and grotesques without.

I have read that it used to be said in Italy: All the cities of Germany were blind, with the exception of Nuremberg, which was one-eyed. True! True also of Dürer and German Art.

In 1526, two years before his death, Dürer presented a panel to his native city, now cut in two, robbed of its Protestant inscription, and hanging in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. Dürer's last great work!

It is as though he felt that the divine service of his life was drawing to its close. His life and Art I have likened to a Gothic Cathedral; his last works were as the closed wings of a gigantic altar-piece, before which he leaves posterity gazing overawed.

The life-size figures of this great work represent the four Apostles: St. John in flaming red, with St. Peter, St. Mark in white, with St. Paul.