Birth Year : 1471
Death Year : 1528
Country : Germany
Albrecht Dürer, the most gifted painter and engraver of the German
Renaissance and Reformation period, was born in Nuremberg. He learned the
techniques of engraving in the workshop of his father, a goldsmith, before
being apprenticed in 1486 to the realistic Flemish painter Michael Wolgemuth.
Dürer's earliest recognized work was a self-portrait painted at the
age of thirteen. It was the first in a series that continued throughout
his life, indicative of an introspective self-analysis. By 1493, after
a trip to Colmar where he admired the paintings and engravings of Martin
Schongauer, his self-portraits indicated a questioning and deeply thoughtful
spirit. Dürer went to Venice for the first time in 1494 bringing back
with him copies of Mantegna's works and many watercolor and pencil sketches
of nature.
The Renaissance ideal of the complete man - the artist as scholar and
gentleman - appealed to Dürer who had begun his lifelong search for
new ideas, theories, and techniques, and for the solution to the problem
of combining realism with abstract concepts. Upon his return to Nuremberg,
where he remained for ten years, he devoted himself largely to the making
of woodcuts and engravings, refining the woodcut to a degree hitherto unknown
and raising it to the highest form of graphic art. His prints were distributed
all over Europe and when he returned to Italy in 1505, he was received
with respect and admiration. Dürer worked and studied in Venice and
Bologna for two years, then returned to Nuremberg where he remained until
1520 when he made a trip to the Low Countries to study the older Flemish
masters.
Dürer's paintings are beautifully composed, masterfully lit, and
rhythmically strong. He sought a fusion between the spirit of the Renaissance
and that of the Reformation in serious, moral, and often symbolic subjects.
During his later years he devoted considerable time to writing and illustrating
a book on theories of art based on Piero della Francesca's earlier work
with perspective. In his final period, as he became more firmly certain
of the truth of the idea of the Reformation, his work grew more and more
austere in manner and subject. "The Four Apostles", called his "testament,"
was painted in 1526 and this powerfully classical work seems to reconcile
the northern Reformation with Italian classical painting.
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Albrecht
Durer
Praying
Hands
Albrecht
Durer
Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Albrecht
Durer
Tall
Grass
Albrecht
Durer
Young
Hare
Albrecht
Durer
Praying
Hands
Books about Albrecht Durer |
