Page:Cracow - Lepszy.djvu/184

 ART FROM THE RENASCENCE propagated in Germany then by the Venetian painter Jacopo dei Barbari. Libnan, who was active at Cracow from 1494 to 1522, was probably, like his namesake in the world of letters, a Silesian. He was honoured by the title of Court Painter. In the decoration of the new Castle on the Wawel, then being built, two painters were chiefly employed, one Blasius, who came in 1526, and Hans Dürer, a brother of the famous Albrecht. A little picture of St. Jerome in the National Museum, insignificant as a work of art, marks the year 1526 as the probable date of Dürer's coming to stay at Cracow. In 1529, at the very latest, he entered the king's service and painted the walls of the royal apartments on the Wawel. The excellent portrait, in Renascence style, of Bishop Peter Tomicki, in the cloisters of the Franciscan Church has been ascribed to Dürer (illustration 79). From the king's Privy Purse Accounts of 1538 we learn that Dürer also furnished a painted model of the silver altar in Sigismund Chapel; but the actual pictures (illustration 92), which represent the story of Christ's Passion, are of higher artistic value than Dürer's authenticated works. In the treatment of his subject the painter follows, it is true, the so-called "Little Passion" of Albrecht Dürer, which of course his brother would have done; but in their workmanship, especially as regards design, the pictures are more like those of Strasburg masters, such as Hans Baldung Grien, whose relations to Cracow are testified by some of his woodcuts. Hans Dürer died at Cracow in 1538, in his own house in Castle Street.

About 1503 there appear in Cracow books, printed by Hochfeder, Haller, Ungler, and Viëtor, numerous woodcuts, partly imported from Germany, partly produced at Cracow. Some of them are from the hand of one Hans Czymerman (Carpenter), who came from Iglau in Moravia; and this origin of his is characteristically manifested in his artistic remains. He is particularly remarkable for many-sided versatility. From 1496 to 1501 he worked as painter and wood-carver at Breslau, afterwards at Cracow, where he remained till the end of his life (1532). His first greater works were the miniatures illuminating a codex in the possession of Erasmus Ciolek, Bishop of Plock.