Artist Results

record 1 of 1

Albrecht Dürer Painter, Draftsman and Printmaker German (1471 - 1528) View objects by this artist.

Dürer, Albrecht (1471-1528), the most famous artist of Reformation Germany, widely known for his paintings, drawings, prints, and theoretical writings on art, all of which had a profound influence on 16th-century artists in his own country and in the Lowlands.

Dürer was born May 21, 1471, in Nürnberg. His father, Albrecht Dürer the Elder, was a goldsmith and his son's first art teacher. From his early training, the young Dürer inherited a legacy of 15th-century German art strongly dominated by Flemish late Gothic painting. German artists had little difficulty in adapting their own Gothic tradition to the Flemish art of Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, and especially Rogier van der Weyden. The northern empirical (derived from observation rather than theory) approach to reality was their common bond. During the 16th century, stronger ties with Italy through trade, and the spread of Italian humanist ideas northward, infused the more conservative tradition of German art with new artistic ideas.

German artists found it difficult to reconcile their medieval devotional imagery—represented with rich textures, brilliant colors, and highly detailed figures—with the emphasis by Italian artists on the antique, on mythological subjects, and on idealized figures. Dürer's self-appointed task was to provide a model for his northern contemporaries by which they could combine their own empirical interest in naturalistic detail with the more theoretical aspects of Italian art. In his many letters—especially those to his lifelong friend, the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer—and in his various publications, Dürer stressed geometry and measurement as the keys to understanding the art of the Italian Renaissance and, through it, classical art. From about 1507 until his death, he made notes and drawings for his best-known treatise, the Four Books on Human Proportions (published posthumously, 1528). Artists of his day, however, more visually oriented than literary figures, looked more to Dürer's engravings and woodcuts than to his writings to guide them in their attempts to modernize their art with the classicizing nudes and idealized subjects of the Italian Renaissance.
Contributed By:
Burton L. Dunbar, M.A., Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Art and Art History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Member, Board of Directors, Midwest Art History Society. Contributor to Art Quarterly and other journals.
Source:"Dürer, Albrecht," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved

Your current search criteria is: Albrecht Dürer