The Nuremberg Schembartlauf and the Art of Albrecht Dürer
Another sign of the potential impact of Carnival on Dürer’s art may be found in the similarity between the Schembartläufer costume of 1493 and Dürer’s attire in his 1498 self-portrait. The first outfit, as portrayed in the Schembart manuscripts, consisted of a yellow vest-like garment with short sleeves, known as a Goller or Wams, over a long-sleeved tunic and close-fitting hose dominated by a pattern of broad black and white stripes. In his self-portrait, the artist wears a Gugel headdress and a Schecke with sleeves bearing the same conspicuous pattern of black and white stripes. The neckline of his Schecke and the braided cord across his chest expand on this contrasting colors motif. Dürer’s black and white hood does not resemble the rounded hats favored by the Schembartläufer, but its inclusion makes the striped patterning even more prominent. A brown Mantel is draped over his left shoulder, possibly recalling the yellowish outer garment of the Schembartläufer. In a style similar to that of the 1493 costume, Dürer’s Schecke has a V-shaped neckline that reveals a straight-necked Hemd underneath. Like the Schembartläufer of virtually every Carnival year, Dürer wears aristocratic leather gloves. His intention in this self-portrait may have been not only to portray himself as a gentleman, but also to depict himself as an elegantly-dressed Schembartläufer — who, as Dürer’s contemporaries would doubtless have been aware, were generally members of the Nuremberg elite.
Much scholarship has been devoted to the impact of large-scale movements such as Lutheranism, Humanism, and the Italian Renaissance on Dürer’s art, but barely any attention has been paid to the influence of the annual Schembart parade. As we have seen, his works contain numerous images possibly inspired by people and things seen during Carnival. The meaning of these images may be better appreciated by understanding their role in the topsy-turvy world of Carnival. Alternatively, some of the spectacles of Schembartlauf — such as the grotesque hybrid creatures and the Höllen — may have been influenced by Dürer, and scholars may learn much about the Nuremberg Carnival through close examination of the artist’s works. Like so many of his prints and paintings, the Schembartlauf contained numerous ambiguities and could mean different things to different people. It originated as a butchers’ dance, yet it came to be dominated by patricians; it parodied the selling of indulgences, yet it earned the hostility of some Protestant reformers;[20] it allowed people dressed as Wildmen, peasants, and monsters to run alongside elegantly-dressed young men; and many of its traditions had their origins in pagan or early medieval agricultural ceremonies, yet it had been instituted by the City Council in the fourteenth-century and was closely monitored by Nuremberg’s lawmakers. Dürer lived in a world caught between medievalism and the Renaissance, Catholicism and the Reformation, provincialism and cosmopolitanism. In some ways the Schembartlauf embodied this dual-natured society.
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REFERENCES
In one Schembartlauf, dissatisfaction with the church was expressed in the form of a participant “arrayed in a white tunic made entirely of letters of indulgence; to each letter [was] appended a red seal on a ribbon;” the man wore “a mask with a somewhat unpleasant expression” (Ibid, 107-08).
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