"How I shall shiver for the sun," Albrecht Durer wrote to a friend during h is stay in Italy, "here I am lord, at home a parasite." The world of Nuremberg to which he returned with reticence is revealed in a series of woodcuts and engravings from the 15th and 16th centuries. Germany was barely touched by the Renaissance sun that burned in the south. In contrast to the freedom of the Italian artists, the Germans were still rigidly bound by the guild system. More important, they continued to develop the Northern, Medieval traditions, sloof to the revolution that had taken place across the Alps.

The "flamboyant," late medieval style, is illustrated in the engravings of a Crozier and Madonna and Child, by the master from Colmar, Schongauer. All the capacity of engraving for detail and subtlety is put to use. In these works the artist characteristically stresses linear qualities and tactile values, concentrating on bringing out textures while limiting the plastically felt surfaces. Along with the engravings of Schongauer are woodcuts, some of which are from the Wolgemut school. The art of letter printing which was developed in Germany during the middle of the 15th century had been used for some time in the making of block prints.

The works produced by this process were generally simple in character, suited to the medieval tastes of the artists. Temptation against Faith, an anonymous woodcut done in 1475 illustrates the typically stiff and expressionless style. A later, 16th century work, the Great Tournament, is wondrously lacking in perspective. The figures in the foreground display neither emphasis nor discrimination.

It was from this background, represented by Wolgemut in the woodcut and Schongauer in engraving, that the great transition figure of Albrecht Durer emerged. But the beauty of this exhibit is the opportunity to see the Germanic elements in his art, as well as his foreign innovations. It is clearly brought out, that Durer was both the culmination of the medieval tradition as well as the herald of a new interest in classical forms. The ideals of plasticity proportionality, perspective and clarity that were absorbed from the south combined in Durer with a linear style and interest in detail.

The North, unlike Italy had no classical roots to return to; at the same time its medieval experience had been more thorough, so that it was able to absorb the classical past more easily through the intermediary of Italian Quatrocento art than by reference to classical forms themselves. The result was a new style rather than merely a duplicate of the old, a style that continued to develop Northern characteristics. This is shown by the Coat of Arms of the German Empire and City of Nuremberg, done by Durer in 1521. Following the classical example the figures are worked out with regard to proportion and anatomical exactness, yet they are unmistakably teutonic. In his treatment of St. Jerome and the Lion, a subject which occupied him several times, Durer shows the influence of changing spatial concepts until his 1522 representation seems to be little more than an exercise in perspective. But there is a parallel concern in this series for palpable representation. In the very famous engraving St. Jerome in His Study, light and line are used to bring out tactile values.

The Northern tradition of Van Eyck, making art a mirror of nature, also continued in Durer. In the series of "Madonnas" done between 1495 and 1511 there is the crispness and detail, that are associated with Durer's greatest powers of draughtsmanship. His capacity for fantasy as well as natural representation, a legacy of the gothic cathedrals, is evident in the drawings on apocalyptical themes (see cut). General religious discontent in Germany fed the imagination of the people. They felt particularly close to apocalyptical events which many suspected would occur in their own time. We notice too in St. Michael's fight against the Dragon, emphasis and organization despite the profusion of detail. The movement and angularity of this work conveys another side of Durer, his daemonic power.

A skillful grouping and juxtaposition of pictures in this exhibit helps reveal many other aspects of the complex character of Durer and his times. Perhaps the representation of Schongauer and Wolgemut are not as rewarding as they might be, but on the whole the Museum has provided a collection of great interest to students of the later middle ages and the northern renaissance, as well as to those just interested in some of the finer examples of Durer's craft.

[Due to an error Sunday night, only disjointed sections of Mr. Rubin's review of the Nuremberg exhibition were printed in yesterday morning's CRIMSON. The review is here printed as originally planned.]