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| PC1970.1
Heinrich Aldegrever (German 1502-c1558) Death
of Dives
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PC1970.17
Hans Sebald Beham (German 1500-50) Two
Couples and a Buffoon
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| PC1970.16
Hans Sebald Beham (German 1500-50) The
Year’s End
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PC1970.69 Georg Pencz (German 1500-50) Abraham
Entertaining Angels
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| Following
the death of Dürer in 1528, the influence of classical form swept
through Germany, and artists began to abandon the ideals of Dürer
for the classical form. However, as Arthur Hind believes, in the twenty
to thirty years after Dürer’s death, a small group of artists successfully
balanced the two influences.1 These artists, because of the small scale
of their engravings, were called as a group, the "little masters".
The subjects of their engravings included Roman history and mythology, allegorical themes, Latin quotations, new secular themes, and unconventional interpretations of traditional ideas. The appeal of these miniatures grew with the rise of collector’s cabinets (kunstkammers) and the adoption of Italian niello into German art. Several artists did engravings on a very small scale, but only three Nuremberg artists are widely accepted to be "little masters": Hans Sebald Beham (1500-1550), his brother Barthel Beham (1502-1540), and Georg Pencz (ca. 1500-1550). In addition to these masters, a few artists working in other cities are included in this group: Jacob Binck, Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-1555), Master IB and Albrecht Altdorfer, the precursor of the movement.2 Georg Pencz and Hans Sebald Beham, the Nuremberg artists, filled the void left by Dürer. They were, in fact, the most productive printers in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. They were also the most radical artists in Germany. Along with Hans’ brother Barthel, they were accused of radical religious views that bordered on atheism, and the group was banned from Nuremburg in 1525. Georg Pencz returned and continued to work in Nuremberg, even becoming city painter in 1532. Hans Beham returned but ran into some problems in 1528 when he was found guilty of plagiarizing some unpublished work of Dürer’s on the proportion of horses.4 He moved to Frankfurt, eventually working for Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg. Abraham Entertaining Angels (WFU 121) is one from a series that Pencz created based on the story of Abraham. This particular scene, based on Genesis 18:1-15, recounts how angels visited Abraham and Sarah to tell them that Sarah would have a son. Following the typological tradition, this specific scene prefigures several events in the New Testament. The bread that Abraham serves his guests reflects on the occasion of the Last Supper, and the news the angels bring to Sarah points to the annunciation of Mary. Hans Beham’s prints are genre scenes. Two Couples and a Buffoon (WFU 34) reflects a popular theme in northern art, the "folly of love". In traditional prints, a fool and the couple would be shown. The fool’s purpose would be to express the idea of the man as a victim of both his own lust and the woman’s sexual desires. He would point at the couple and to implore the viewer to notice the situation and take heed. Beham creates his own version by having the fool look at one of the couples and point at the viewer instead. Beham adds this quirk as a joke for the careful viewer who is familiar with the traditional prints on the theme. The Year’s End (WFU 35) is the final print in Beham’s series known as the Peasant Festival, or the Twelve Months. This series has much in common with the peasant series of Pieter Brueghal, in that they are representations of the months of the year as well as German peasant life. This print ends the year with personifications of the sun and moon, who play music for the exiting German peasant couple. This print points to the fact that the whole process of a new year is about to begin again. Heinrich Aldegrever, the only representative of the "little masters" from another city, shows the influence of the Nuremberg artists. In fact, his monogram is very much like Dürer’s. Death of Dives (WFU 18) comes from Aldegrever’s series, the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, done one year before his death. This is also a biblical cycle, taken from Luke 16. It includes five scenes, telling of Dives, the rich man, Lazarus, the leper, and both’s judgment after death. This print, the third in the series, depicts the miser upon his death bed. Instead of attending to the scripture being read to him, or noticing his wife and children beside him, he is concerned only with the demon who is stealing his money. This type of theme has ties to the popular book, Ars Moriendi, in which people were shown the correct way to die.5 Rebecca Friend (1994) 1.
Hind, 1963, 81.
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