Page 296 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

to the metaphysical dimension. If so, the engrav- 2O1
ing could have had personal connotations and
might reflect Diirer's discomfiture when he aban- Albrecht Diirer
doned his search for absolute beauty and admitted Nuremberg, 1471-1528
that "what absolute beauty is, I know not/' J.M.M VALLEY NEAR KALCHREUTH

c. 1500
watercolor and gouache on paper
3
2
10.6 x 31.6 f4 /4 x i2 /s)
200 references: ^lore-Herrmann 1972, 135-136, fig. 11;
Koschatzky 1973, no. 32; Strauss 1974, 2:520-521,
Albrecht Diirer no. 1500/9; Anzelewsky and Mielke 1984, 21-23,
Nuremberg, 1471-1528 no. and fig. 17; Leber 1988, 128-146, figs. 72-81
WATERWHEEL IN THE ALPS Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin
1494-1495
watercolor and gouache on paper Diirer's view of the valley near Kalchreuth and
2
2
13.4 x 13.1 (5 /4 x 5 /sJ
references: Koschatzky 1973, no. 14; Strauss 1974, his Village of Kalchreuth (formerly Kunsthalle,
1:338-339, no. 1495/39; Anzelewsky and Mielke Bremen) are probably his most innovative land-
1984, 18-19, no. and fig. 14 artist, are barely begun. Especially attractive are scape watercolors. He sketched the valley from
the bluish bushes, executed with the same tech- the Schollenbacher Wald, towards the hills of the
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Preussischer nique and showing the same tonality as the olive Franconian Jura beyond Kalchreuth; the villages
Kulturbesitz, Berlin trees in the View of Arco. of Neunkirchen a Brand and Hetzles can be dis-
In some of these early watercolors, Diirer mixes cerned at the foot of the Hetzleser Berg. Diirer
Diirer's contribution to the development of land- form with light, giving an overall impression of presents a panorama, sketching it from a wooded
scape cannot be overestimated. His early water- the open air and a great sense of recession, bring- hill and indicating the tops of the trees on the
colors record the landscape around Nuremberg ing to landscape the atmospheric qualities that are slope with a few brushstrokes. The valley is
with considerable topographical accuracy. Those usually thought of as an innovation of artists of painted with earth colors, the trees indicated with
executed during his first trip to Venice in 1494- the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is dif- a few wet brushstrokes. Diirer relied on color
1495, like the present sheet, reveal new concerns ficult to determine the function of Diirer's water- effects to suggest the receding hills: the most
for landscape, even a new attitude toward the colors. They clearly could be used for finished distant ones are appropriately depicted in bluish
subject. Some are careful renderings, such as the compositions, since the background of his Neme- hues, while for those in the foreground fluid
highly finished View of Arco (Louvre, Paris), sis engraving, of about 1502, is a bird's eye view of washes are combined with pure brush drawing —
while others are simply sketched in and left Klausen, in the Tyrol, which he must have drawn for example, where the hatchings define the shape
incomplete. in 1494-1495. Some of the watercolors are of the mountains.
The Waterwheel in the Alps —one of the first thought to be the first known autonomous land- Diirer's two watercolors of Kalchreuth are
examples of plein-airisme — shows an artist sitting scapes, although that is difficult to determine, exceptional as regards both his own development
on a millstone and sketching a waterwheel. It precisely because Diirer's landscape watercolors and that of the art of the time. It has thus proven
illustrates a number of characteristic features of are unique for their time. Curiously, the Water- difficult for scholars to place them within the
Diirer's art, especially in the degree of finish wheel was copied by Hans Bol (1534-1593) and chronology of Diirer's oeuvre. Most consider
applied to specific areas. Certain sections are incorporated into a much enlarged composition them to be his last watercolor landscapes, while
defined with great precision, while others, such which is known through a drawing in Vienna and some place them as early as his return from his
as the top of the treetrunk behind the sketching a watercolor in Weimar. J.M.M. first trip to Italy, and others propose a date as late

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 295