The Four Apostles
The four apostles are two related paintings ( diptych ) by the painter Albrecht Dürer from 1526 and were the last great painting work.
Description
The images on two tablets four just over life-sized figures, at whose feet is an inscription bar is located, which contains a call to the " secular regents " to respect the pure word of the Bible and to beware of religious seducers, " false prophets ". This admonition is reinforced with four quotations from the Bible, which are assigned to the four depicted. Addressee is the city council of Nuremberg, Dürer gave the tablets. The sitter 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 associated with the four ages and seasons:
- John: sanguine
- Peter: phlegmatic
- Markus: choleric
- Paul: melancholy
History
The four apostles were hung as a foundation Dürer in the manner of medieval justice pictures in the upper regiment parlor of the city of Nuremberg. The Bavarian Elector Maximilian I procured in 1627 by pressure on the Nuremberg city fathers the publication of the " Four Apostles ", had given the Dürer his native city, by letting them know the City Council that he would like to have the work and a negative response as " would take a rather high Despect ".
Since 27 August of the year 1627 in. The four apostles are in Munich and were not returned despite the efforts of Bavaria since 1806 to members of the City of Nuremberg.
The Nuremberg city council still tried to avoid by pointing out that the quotes from the Luther Bible would cause offense among the figures in the Catholic Munich publishing. This problem was solved by the elector, by sawing off the font and this picture parts left to return to Nuremberg. He disobeyed Dürer's express request, the images " should gedechtnuß to be bey gemainer Instead zubehalten and to have come into frembdte händt nit".
Only in 1922 the inscription was added again.
Comment
The image title used since 1538 The Four Apostles is actually not entirely correct, since the evangelist Mark was not an apostle.
The British essayist Sr. Wendy Beckett finds that the four apostles form a whole. " As the four temperaments in one and the same individual are present " describes the depicted 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 -colored curls that frame his well-formed face. ... Peter, the phlegmatic, carrying the keys of the kingdom with aplomb. His bald head shining, his face is expressionless, the body behind John's voluminous shape virtually hidden.
The other two portrayed Beckett writes:
Markus with the angry eyes is the choleric; he looks right out of the picture, as if to ward off a danger. He is practically hidden by the figure of the melancholic Paul, the tall Grüblers who also holds his Gospel as his sword and the viewer look suspiciously from the corner of my eye.
In Kindler's painting lexicon says of this image:
Everything is geared to the strongest contrasts, not only in form and color, but also in the characters that have been tried so as to interpret the four temperaments. If this explanation, which goes back to Neudörfer, is true, then would John, not coincidence that the head of the Melanchthon, the sanguine - the quiet reading Peter the phlegmatic - Paul the melancholic - and Mark, with rolling eyes, were from the choleric type. Dürer however, it was certainly not a human classification, but at most by a marked distinction between the men of God.
Copies
As murals adorn "The Four Apostles" a house facade in St. Wendel. This painting is part of an open- air gallery, which created the two artists Klaus Riefer and Christof Thome.