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I hold that the
perfection of form and beauty is contained
in the sum of all men.
-- Dürer, Four Books on Human Proportions,
1528
Dürer, Albrecht (b. May 21, 1471, Imperial
Free City of Nürnberg [Germany]--d. April 6,
1528, Nürnberg), German painter, printmaker,
draughtsman and art theorist, generally
regarded as the greatest German Renaissance
artist. His vast body of work includes
altarpieces and religious paintings, numerous
portraits and self-portraits, and copper
engravings. His woodcuts, such as the
Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more
Gothic flavour than the rest of his work.
Born in Nürnberg as the third son of the
Hungarian goldsmith Albrecht Dürer. Began as
an apprentice to his father in 1485, but his
earliest known painting, one of his many self
portraits, was made in 1484. Died in Nürnberg in 1528.
During 1513 and 1514 Albrecht Dürer created the
greatest of his copperplate engravings: the
Knight, St. Jerome in His Study, and
Melencolia I--all of approximately the same
size, about 24.5 by 19.1 cm (9.5 by 7.5
inches). The extensive, complex, and often
contradictory literature concerning these
three engravings deals largely with their
enigmatic, allusive, iconographic details.
Although repeatedly contested, it probably
must be accepted that the engravings were
intended to be interpreted together. There
is general agreement, however, that Albrecht Dürer, in these
three master engravings, wished to raise his artistic intensity to the highest
level, which he succeeded in doing. Finished form and richness of
conception and mood merge into a whole of classical perfection.
Dürer and German Portraiture Paintings
Albrecht Dürer was so great an artist, so searching and
all-encompassing a thinker, that he was
almost a Renaissance in his own right -- and
his painting was admired by contemporaries in
the North and South alike. The 16th century
saw the emergence of a new type of patron,
not the grand aristocrat but the bourgeois,
eager to purchase pictures in the newly
developed medium of woodcut printing. The
new century also brought an interest in
Humanism and science, and a market for
books, many of which were illustrated with
woodcuts. The accuracy and inner perception
of Dürer paintings represent one aspect of
German portraiture; another is seen in the
work of that master of the court portrait,
Holbein. |
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