The four apostles

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The four apostles (Albrecht Dürer)
The four apostles
Albrecht Dürer , 1526
Mixed media on linden wood
204 × 74 cm
Old Pinakothek

The four apostles are two related paintings ( diptych ) by the painter Albrecht Dürer from 1526 and were his last major painting.

description

The pictures show four larger-than-life figures on two panels, at the feet of which there is an inscription bar, which contains an invitation to the " secular rulers " to respect the pure Bible word and to beware of religious seducers, " false prophets ". This admonition is underpinned by four Bible quotations, which are assigned to the four portrayed. The addressee is the city council of Nuremberg, to whom Dürer gave the tablets. The portrayed can be identified by their attributes:

  • Apostle John : open book
  • Apostle Peter : key
  • Evangelist Mark : Scroll
  • Apostle Paul : sword and closed book

At the same time, they embody the four temperaments , which in turn were assigned to the four ages and seasons:

history

Giovanni Bellini's triptych of the Madonna with four saints in the Frari Church in Venice , which Dürer got to know on his travels to Italy, provided inspiration for the “Four Apostles”.

The four apostles were hung as Dürer's foundation in the style of medieval images of justice in the upper regimental room of the city of Nuremberg. In 1627 the Bavarian Elector Maximilian I obtained the publication of the " four apostles ", which Dürer had given to his hometown, by pressure on the Nuremberg city fathers , by letting the city council know that he would like the work and a negative decision as " but rather a high Despect ”.

The four apostles have been in Munich since August 27, 1627 and, despite all efforts, have not been returned to the city of Nuremberg, which has belonged to Bavaria since 1806.

The Nuremberg city council tried to prevent the publication by pointing out that the quotations from the Luther Bible would cause offense among the characters in Catholic Munich. The elector solved this problem by sawing off the writing and sending these parts of the picture back to Nuremberg. In doing so, he disregarded Dürer's express wish to keep the pictures “ bey gemainer instead of being silently and not let them come to frembdte händt ”.

It was not until 1922 that the inscription was added again.

comment

The picture title The four apostles used since 1538 is actually not entirely correct, since the evangelist Mark was not an apostle .

British non-fiction author Sr. Wendy Beckett states that the four apostles form a whole “ just as the four temperaments are in one and the same individual. "Describes the portrayed as follows:

John is the sanguine , full of hope and inner peace. His flushed cheeks match the flaming red of his coat and the chestnut curls that frame his shapely face. ...
Peter, the phlegmatic , carries the key of the kingdom of heaven with serenity. His bald head shines, his face is expressionless, the body is practically hidden behind Johannes' voluminous figure.

Beckett writes about the other two portrayed:

Mark with the angry eyes is the choleric ; he looks to the right out of the picture, as if trying to ward off danger. He is practically obscured by the figure of the melancholic Paul, the tall brooder who holds his gospel as firmly as his sword and looks suspiciously at the viewer out of the corner of his eye.

In Kindler's painting lexicon it says about this picture:

Everything is geared towards the strongest contrasts, not only in shape and color, but above all in the characters, which one has therefore tried to interpret as the four temperaments . If this explanation, which goes back to Neudörfer, is correct, then Johannes, whose head is not reminiscent of the Melanchthon by chance, the sanguine - the calmly reading Peter the phlegmatic - Paul the melancholic - and Markus, with rolling eyes, would be the choleric type . Dürer was certainly not interested in a human classification, but at most a distinctive distinction between the men of God.

Receptions

"The four apostles" as a house facade in St. Wendel
  • As a mural, "The Four Apostles" adorn a house facade in St. Wendel . This painting is part of an open-air gallery created by the two artists Klaus Riefer and Christof Thome.
  • In the television series Pfarrer Braun , Das Erbe von Junkersdorf , Pastor Braun discovers a painting by Dürer depicting Martin Luther , which was originally placed in the middle of the two other paintings by Dürer and represents a scandal for the Catholic Church.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johann Neudörffer wrote the quotations on behalf of Dürer. The introductory reminder is followed by 2 Petr 2,1–3  LUT (Peter), 1 Joh 4,1–3  LUT (John), 2 Tim 3,1–7  LUT (Paul) and Mk 12,38–40  LUT (Mark ) ( Historical Lexicon of Bavaria , accessed October 2, 2010).
  2. ↑ Beckett: "The History of Painting"
  3. ↑ Beckett: "The History of Painting"
  4. ↑ Kindler's Painting Lexicon, p. 2554

Web links

Commons : The Four Apostles  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files