Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/476

446 Painting in Feanconia. German character, with its practical steadfastness of purpose, its restless intellectual cravings, never-satisfied aspirations after spiritual truth, and vivid force of imagina- tion. Ever haunted by solemn questions relating to Death and the Life to come, Diirer feared not to look the most awful possibilities full in the face ; and in his works we may — if we will throw ourselves into the experience of their author — trace the gradual winning of certainty out of doubt — the gradual solving of the problem of the meaning of existence. Unable to free himself entirely from the fantastic element, apparently inherent in the very nature of German art, Diirer touched it with his own refinement : his quaint, unearthly figures are never vulgar — his most terrible forms are never coarse. Albrecht Diirer's earliest known portrait is that of Jiis father, bearing date 1497, in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland at Sion House. Similar pictures are in the Uffizi, Florence, the Pinakothek, Munich, and the Stadel, Frankfort. Passavant considers the last-named to be the original : Mrs. Heaton is in favour of that of Sion House. To the first part of his career, belong also a masterly series of woodcuts illustrative of the Apocalypse (the first edition of which appeared in 1498), in which great power of conception and force of design are dis- played, the fantastic element being kept in due subjection ; the Portrait of Himself (1498) ; and an Adoration of the Kings (1504), both in the Uffizi, Florence; and an extremely fine portrait of an unknown man in the Duke of Rutland's collection at Belvoir Castle. Although Diirer visited Italy and spent some time in Venice, he apparently lost nothing of his own individuality of style. His famous Virgin luith the Rose-garlands, now