Page 298 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

parison of handwriting, the depiction of the peo-
nies in Diirer's drawing of the Madonna with a
Multitude of Animals (Graphische Sammlung
Albertina, Vienna): the specific arrangement of
the blossoms next to one another in Diirer's draw-
ing is not to be found in Schongauer's Madonna
in a Rosegarden but is nearly identical to that in
the study discussed here. The corresponding
ensemble of a single bud with a short stem and
the two blossoms —including such astonishing
details as the top leaf, curled upward, of the blos-
som at the left —certainly presupposes knowledge
of Schongauer's study (see Koreny 1985, 210, 211
where Diirer's borrowing of this detail from
Schongauer's painting was first pointed out).
As is demonstrated by Schongauer's use of the
same study of lilies in the Annunciation from the
Orliac altarpiece (Musee d'Unterlinden, Colmar),
the Madonna in the Rosegarden, and the engrav-
ings of the Annunciation (B.2 and 6.3), Martin
Schongauer, evidently under Netherlandish influ-
ence, learned to work economically in running his
studio on the basis of detailed studies after nature
of this type. This is a manner of working that
evidently originated with the masters of Early
Netherlandish painting. There are good grounds
for presuming its use by Jan van Eyck and the
Master of Flemalle, and indirect evidence for its
employment by Rogier van der Weyden (see
Koreny 1991 for a more detailed discussion).
The discovery of this study places in a new light
all that was previously believed regarding the
observation of nature and the changed attitude of
man towards nature, the environment, and the
universe at the beginning of the Renaissance.
Albrecht Diirer's representations of animals and
plants no longer mark the beginning of artistic
study of such details in western art, but turn out
to be documents of the third generation; they are
clearly based on Schongauer's observation of
nature, which itself can be shown to be indebted
to Netherlandish prototypes.
More than a generation before Diirer, Martin
Schongauer's study of peonies anticipates the
beginnings of modern scientific representations of
nature, which until now had been dated around
1500. It compels us to change our ideas funda-
mentally. Though derived from late medieval
practice, it must be considered by far the earliest
nature study of the German Renaissance. F.K.

203

Albrecht Diirer
Nuremberg, 1471-1528
IRIS

c. 1503
pen, watercolor, and gouache on paper
2
3
77-5 X 31.3 (3O /2 X 12 /8J
no an
references: Winkler 1936-1939, 2:68-69, - ^
EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 29;