Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/60

fSi ARTISTS AND AUTHORS other notable works which still exist, and which reflect the great influence upon him of the Italian school of painting, with which he had attained familiarity. His stay in Venice lasted about a year. In the fall of 1506, he returned to Nuremberg, and there remained for the next fourteen years, engaged in the practice of his art. These years were years of success and prosperity. His name and fame had spread over the whole of Europe, and the greatest artists of the day were glad to do him homage. Raphael said of him, when contemplating some of his designs, " Truly this man would have surpassed us all, if he had the masterpieces of ancient art constantly before his eyes as we have." A friendly correspondence was maintained between the immortal Italian and his German contemporary, and in his own country, all men, from the emperor to the peasant, delighted to do honor to his genius, the products of which were found alike in church and palace, and through his printed designs in the homes of the humble poor. The proud old imperial city of Nuremberg had gathered within its battle- mented walls a multitude of men who were distinguished not only for their com- mercial enterprise and wealth, but many of whom were the exponents of the lit- erary and artistic culture of the time. Among the men with whom Durer found congenial companionship were Adam Krafft, the sculptor ; Veit Stoss, whose exquisite carvings in wood may reflect in some measure in the wild luxuriance of the imagination which they display, the restless, " dare - devil " spirit with which his biographers invest him ; Peter Vischer, the bronze founder ; and last but not least, Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet, whose quaint rhymes are a source of delight to this day, and were a mighty force in the great work of the Reforma- tion, by which the fetters of mediaeval traditions and ecclesiastical abuse were thrown off by the German people. Of the personal appearance of Durer at this time, we are not left in igno- rance. A portrait of himself from his own hands has been preserved and is well known. His features reveal refinement and great intellectuality, united with grace, and his attire shows that he was not oblivious to matters of personal adorn- ment. After the fashion of the time, his hair was worn in long and graceful ringlets, which fell in heavy masses about his shoulders. The first six years which followed his return from Venice were almost wholly given to painting, and his productions give evidence of the fact that he had dis- missed from his employment the retinue of assistants and apprentices, whom he had employed in his earlier years. From this period date most of his great mas- terpieces, which are still preserved, among them the " Adam and Eve," in the Pitti Palace ; the " Ten Thousand Martyrs of Nicomedia," in the Imperial Gallery, at Vienna ; the " Adoration of the Trinity," at the Belvedere, in Vienna ; and " The Assumption of the Virgin," the original of which was destroyed by fire more than three hundred years ago, but of which a good copy is preserved at Frank- fort To this period belong the portraits of Charlemagne and of the Emperor Sigismund, which are preserved in the National German Museum at Nuremberg. But while prosecuting the work of the painter, he did not neglect the art of