Dürer's death

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The work Dürer's Death , or Dürer on the bier , is the sixth transparent painting of the works that were made for the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of Albrecht Dürer's death in 1828. Carl Heinrich Hermann made the design for this banner.

Image content

The work shows the Christ-like Dürer on a bier. To his left three women, based on the three Marys. To the right of him three contemporary artists, Johann Friedrich Overbeck , Christian Daniel Rauch and Bertel Thorvaldsen , who, according to the Kunstblatt 1828, which reported on the events of the festival, were unable to attend and could not take part in the celebrations. The three women bring wreaths to the bier, while the three men hold up their hands in prayer. In front of the bier are two flower pots with lilies, which indicate the divine presence, which is also highlighted by the illumination of the transparency. Through the Gothic window behind Dürer's head, which presumably complemented the mock architecture set up for the festival, the illumination of the banner probably had the effect of divine light that filled the room. The entire composition and the depiction of the dead Dürer are clearly reminiscent of the Christian art of dying ( ars moriendi ) of the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, which was used as a guide.

background

Today only copies of the 7 banners (including engravings by Johann Phillip Walther ) have survived. The 7 works were located in the Nuremberg town hall hall during the festival and were exhibited there on mock Gothic architecture. The banners show, with the exception of "Raphael and Dürer on the throne of religion", scenes from Dürer's life. “Dürer's Death” is in great contrast to the penultimate banner, “Death of Dürer's Mother”, in which his mother is lying in her own bed, while Dürer's “Dürer's Death” lies on a bier in a Gothic church and the picture in one Christian context. Most of the artists who worked on the 7 banners for the Dürerfeier can be assigned to the Nazarenes . This group of artists was strongly oriented towards old German and Italian art and took artists such as Raffael and Dürer as models. These two are also shown together in the central banner, “Raphael and Dürer at the Throne of Religion”.

With the Nazarenes a kind of myth developed around Dürer, in which Dürer was assigned a role similar to Christ. They saw his art as perfection and found it to be beautiful. According to the Nazarenes, his art came so close to nature that they compared it with God's creation process . In addition, as many people know, Dürer portrayed himself almost like a Christ in his famous self-portrait in a fur coat . In addition, statements by the artist himself led the Nazarenes to later assign him this role. So Dürer describes the artistic activity as "uniform creature according to God", whereby he also upgraded himself to a divine status.

In the overall composition of the 7 banners of the Dürer Festival in 1828, this work plays a final role in that it clearly represents the Nazarenes' image of Dürer. It is based on the old German and Italian art of dying and Dürer is raised to a divine status.

literature

  • Ernst Kris, Otto Kurz: The legend of the artist. 6th edition, Frankfurt am Main 2014 (first edition 1934).
  • Matthias Mende: The banners of the Nuremberg Dürer celebration of 1828. A contribution to the Dürer adoration of romanticism. In: Anzeiger des Germanisches Nationalmuseum. 1969, pp. 177-209.
  • Michael Thimann, Christine Hübner (ed.): Mortal gods. Raffael and Dürer in the art of German Romanticism (exhibition catalog, Göttingen, art collection of the University of Göttingen; Rome, Casa di Goethe). Petersberg 2015.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcements of the Association for the History of the City of Nuremberg Vol. 95. 2008. P. 292 , accessed on March 9, 2020 .
  2. ↑ https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/kunstblatt9_1828
  3. ↑ Georg-August-Universität Göttingen- Public Relations: April 12th, 2015 - Etchings on Dürer by Johann Philipp Walther (1798 to 1868) - Christine Hübner, Dipl. Kulturwirtin - Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Retrieved March 9, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Ernst Kris, Otto Kurz: The legend of the artist. Frankfurt am Main 2014 (6th edition; first edition 1934).