His father — after whom he was named — was a successful goldsmith of Hungarian heritage, and young Albrecht apprenticed with him before deciding on an artistic career instead. Quotation from a letter to the secretary of the Elector of Saxony, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Albrecht - Deutsch-Übersetzung - Langenscheidt Französisch-Deutsch Wörterbuch", "Duden | Dürer | Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition", Dürer's hemispheres of 1515—the first European printed star charts, "Freedom and Resistance in the Act of Engraving (or, Why Dürer Gave up on Etching),", "Hierinn sind begriffen vier Bucher von menschlicher Proportion durch Albrechten Durer von Nurerberg", Instruction sur la fortification des villes: bourgs et châteaux, https://doi.org/10.18848/2326-9960/CGP/v12i01/1-10, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Albrecht Durer, Exhibition, Albertina, Vienna, Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate, Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63, List of works designed with the golden ratio, Viewpoints: Mathematical Perspective and Fractal Geometry in Art, European Society for Mathematics and the Arts, Goudreau Museum of Mathematics in Art and Science, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albrecht_Dürer&oldid=1000566837, People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from April 2020, All articles needing additional references, Articles needing additional references from May 2017, Articles with Encyclopædia Britannica links, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with KULTURNAV identifiers, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with RKDartists identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SIKART identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with TePapa identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. In 1513 and 1514 Dürer created his three most famous engravings: Knight, Death and the Devil (1513, probably based on Erasmus's Handbook of a Christian Knight),[21] St. Jerome in His Study, and the much-debated Melencolia I (both 1514, the year Dürer's mother died). [16] De' Barbari was unwilling to explain everything he knew, so Dürer began his own studies, which would become a lifelong preoccupation. Dürer's belief in the abilities of a single artist over inspiration prompted him to assert that "one man may sketch something with his pen on half a sheet of paper in one day, or may cut it into a tiny piece of wood with his little iron, and it turns out to be better and more artistic than another's work at which its author labours with the utmost diligence for a whole year". Dürer’s graphics eventually influenced the art of the Italian Renaissance that had originally inspired his own efforts. His engravings seem to have had an intimidating effect upon his German successors, the "Little Masters" who attempted few large engravings but continued Dürer's themes in small, rather cramped compositions. After three years in Wohlgemuth’s workshop, he left for a period of travel. A supremely gifted and versatile German artist of the Renaissance period, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was born in the Franconian city of Nuremberg, one of the strongest artistic and commercial centers in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nonetheless, Dürer still believed that truth was hidden within nature, and that there were rules which ordered beauty, even though he found it difficult to define the criteria for such a code. While in Venice and perhaps also before he went to Italy, Dürer saw engravings by masters from central Italy. Dürer’s secular, allegorical, and frequently self-enamoured paintings of this period are often either adaptations of Italian models or entirely independent creations that breathe the free spirit of the new age of the Renaissance. For example, Dürer offered his last portrait of Maximilian to his daughter, Margaret of Austria, but eventually traded the picture for some white cloth after Margaret disliked the portrait and declined to accept it. Albrecht Dürer, sometimes spelt in English as Durer or Duerer, without umlaut, was a German painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Omissions? Then his restless striving finally found definite direction. Finally, Dürer discusses the Delian Problem and moves on to the 'construzione legittima', a method of depicting a cube in two dimensions through linear perspective. Arguably his best works in the first years of the workshop were his woodcut prints, mostly religious, but including secular scenes such as The Men's Bath House (ca. In all aspects Dürer’s art was becoming strongly classical. From this maturity of style comes the bold, natural, relaxed conception of the centre panel, The Adoration of the Magi, and the ingenious and unconventional realism of the side panels, one of which depicts the Drummer and Piper and the other Job and His Wife. [31] In other words, that an artist builds on a wealth of visual experiences in order to imagine beautiful things. His commissions included The Triumphal Arch, a vast work printed from 192 separate blocks, the symbolism of which is partly informed by Pirckheimer's translation of Horapollo's Hieroglyphica. One is dated 1515 and has an inscription by Dürer (or one of his heirs) affirming that Raphael sent it to him. He was also known for his woodcuts and copper engravings, notably The Apocalypse series (1498), Adam and Eve (1504), Saint Jerome in His Study (1514), and The Rhinoceros (1515). [41] The first book was mainly composed by 1512/13 and completed by 1523, showing five differently constructed types of both male and female figures, all parts of the body expressed in fractions of the total height. For those of the Cardinal, Melanchthon, and Dürer's final major work, a drawn portrait of the Nuremberg patrician Ulrich Starck, Dürer depicted the sitters in profile. In Italy, he went to Venice to study its more advanced artistic world. Dürer used predominantly unmixed, cool, sombre colours, which, despite his failure to contrast light and dark adequately, still suggest depth and atmosphere. St Jerome in the Wilderness, 1495, oil on panel, National Gallery, London. [7] Initially, it was "Türer", meaning doormaker, which is "ajtós" in Hungarian (from "ajtó", meaning door). Having secured his pension, Dürer finally returned home in July 1521, having caught an undetermined illness—perhaps malaria[29]—which afflicted him for the rest of his life, and greatly reduced his rate of work.[9]. In 1535 it was also translated into Latin as On Cities, Forts, and Castles, Designed and Strengthened by Several Manners: Presented for the Most Necessary Accommodation of War (De vrbibus, arcibus, castellisque condendis, ac muniendis rationes aliquot : praesenti bellorum necessitati accommodatissimae), published by Christian Wechel (Wecheli/Wechelus) in Paris.[43]. Koberger's most famous publication was the Nuremberg Chronicle, published in 1493 in German and Latin editions. However, unlike Alberti and Leonardo, Dürer was most troubled by understanding not just the abstract notions of beauty but also as to how an artist can create beautiful images. In all these, Dürer shows the objects as nets. Albrecht Dürer was the second of 18 children of the goldsmith Albrecht Dürer the Elder and of Barbara Holper. Dürer may even have contributed to the Nuremberg City Council's mandating Lutheran sermons and services in March 1525. Albrecht Dürer’s vast body of work includes religious pieces, portraits, and prints. Painter (1471–1528) Updated: Aug 21, 2019 Original: Apr 1, 2014. Princeton University Press, 2005 • Wolf, Norbert. "The Unconscious and Space: Venice and the work of Albrecht Dürer", in, This page was last edited on 15 January 2021, at 17:39. Also, from 1525, "the year that saw the peak and collapse of the Peasants' War, the artist can be seen to distance himself somewhat from the [Lutheran] movement...."[35], Dürer's later works have also been claimed to show Protestant sympathies. Albrecht Dürer the Younger later changed "Türer", his father's diction of the family's surname, to "Dürer", to adapt to the local Nuremberg dialect. The boy’s aptitude led to his being apprenticed from 1486 to 1489 to Nuremberg’s leading painter, Michael Wolgemut. For lists of Albrecht Dürer's works, see: Nuremberg and the masterworks (1507–1520), The evidence for this trip is not conclusive; the suggestion it happened is supported by Panofsky (in his Albrecht Dürer, 1943) and others, but it has been disputed by other scholars, including Katherine Crawford Luber (in her Albrecht Dürer and the Venetian Renaissance, 2005), According to Vasari, Dürer sent Raphael a self-portrait in watercolour, and Raphael sent back multiple drawings. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. It shows the artist’s father, the goldsmith Albrecht the Elder, at the age of 62 or 63. He made the first seven scenes of the Great Passion in the same year, and a little later, a series of eleven on the Holy Family and saints. [9], Because Dürer left autobiographical writings and was widely known by his mid-twenties, his life is well documented in several sources. Dürer wrote that this treasure "was much more beautiful to me than miracles. Neither these nor the Great Passion were published as sets until several years later, but prints were sold individually in considerable numbers. In Venice he was given a valuable commission from the emigrant German community for the church of San Bartolomeo. Albrecht Dürer Autoportrait à … [11] One author speculates that Albrecht was bisexual, if not homosexual, due to several of his works containing themes of homosexual desire, as well as the intimate nature of his correspondence with certain very close male friends.[12]. It is now thought unlikely that Dürer cut any of the woodblocks himself; this task would have been performed by a specialist craftsman. [4], Dürer died in Nuremberg at the age of 56, leaving an estate valued at 6,874 florins – a considerable sum. "[33] In a letter to Nicholas Kratzer in 1524, Dürer wrote, "because of our Christian faith we have to stand in scorn and danger, for we are reviled and called heretics". Despite complaining of his lack of a formal classical education, Dürer was greatly interested in intellectual matters and learned much from his boyhood friend Willibald Pirckheimer, whom he no doubt consulted on the content of many of his images. His father, a talented goldsmith, taught him the basics of drawing and metalworking, including the skill of engraving. In Colmar, Dürer was welcomed by Schongauer's brothers, the goldsmiths Caspar and Paul and the painter Ludwig. Albrecht Dürer died suddenly in 1528, possibly from chronic malaria, which he may have contracted on a trip to the Low Countries in 1520–21. These drafts were later used to design Lusterweibchen chandeliers, combining an antler with a wooden sculpture. [n 3]. Although the composition, with its five separate pictures, has an Italian character, Dürer’s intellect and imagination went beyond direct dependence on Italian art. Adamant Media Corporation, 2005 • Panofsky, E. The Life and Art of Albrecht Durer (Princeton Classic Editions). [6], Dürer's godfather Anton Koberger left goldsmithing to become a printer and publisher in the year of Dürer's birth. Here Dürer discusses the five Platonic solids, as well as seven Archimedean semi-regular solids, as well as several of his own invention. Dürer created large numbers of preparatory drawings, especially for his paintings and engravings, and many survive, most famously the Betende Hände (Praying Hands) from circa 1508, a study for an apostle in the Heller altarpiece. He is buried in the Johannisfriedhof cemetery. "The Four Books on Human Proportion" were published posthumously, shortly after his death in 1528. A door is featured in the coat-of-arms the family acquired. Dürer exerted a huge influence on the artists of succeeding generations, especially in printmaking, the medium through which his contemporaries mostly experienced his art, as his paintings were predominantly in private collections located in only a few cities. Through the window can be seen a tiny landscape of mountains and a distant sea, a detail that is distinctly reminiscent of contemporary Venetian and Florentine paintings. Albrecht Durer was an important influence in taking the Renaissance of Italy and transporting it across to Northern European countries such as the Netherlands and Germany. … Dürer wrote of his desire to draw Luther in his diary in 1520: "And God help me that I may go to Dr. Martin Luther; thus I intend to make a portrait of him with great care and engrave him on a copper plate to create a lasting memorial of the Christian man who helped me overcome so many difficulties. In painting, there was only a portrait of Hieronymus Holtzschuher, a Madonna and Child (1526), Salvator Mundi (1526), and two panels showing St. John with St. Peter in background and St. Paul with St. Mark in the background. Prints are highly portable and these works made Dürer famous throughout the main artistic centres of Europe within a very few years.[9]. Albrecht Dürer's large, half-timbered 16th-century house house is now a museum. However, one consequence of this shift in emphasis was that during the last years of his life, Dürer produced comparatively little as an artist. Dürer's geometric constructions include helices, conchoids and epicycloids. Schaar, Eckhard. Navel Gazing. In 1493 Dürer went to Strasbourg, where he would have experienced the sculpture of Nikolaus Gerhaert. Strong late Gothic elements dominate the visionary woodcuts of his Apocalypse series (the Revelation of St. John), published in 1498. [8] The German name "Dürer" is a translation from the Hungarian, "Ajtósi". The woodcuts series are more Gothic than the rest of his work. (2001), Campbell, Angela and Raftery, Andrew. Dürer’s years as a journeyman probably took the young artist to the Netherlands, to Alsace, and to Basel, Switzerland, where he completed his first authenticated woodcut, St. Jerome Curing the Lion. The woodcuts Samson and the Lion (c. 1497) and Hercules Conquering Cacus and many prints from the woodcut series The Life of the Virgin (c. 1500–10) have a distinct Italian flavour. Dürer's first painted self-portrait (now in the Louvre) was painted at this time, probably to be sent back to his fiancée in Nuremberg. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Albrecht a Agnes neměli žádné děti, pravděpodobně také proto, že jejich manželství bylo dohodnuté a manželé si k sobě nikdy doopravdy nenašli cestu. He also went to Venice to know the advanced arts in the country. Albrecht Dürer the Elder was the father of Albrecht Durer. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. In 1512/13 his three criteria were function ('Nutz'), naïve approval ('Wohlgefallen') and the happy medium ('Mittelmass'). Albrecht Dürer var 2. søn i en søskendeflok på 18. A lbrecht Dürer was born in the city of Nuremberg, a lively cultural and commercial center in 15th century Germany. [9], After completing his apprenticeship, Dürer followed the common German custom of taking Wanderjahre—in effect gap years—in which the apprentice learned skills from artists in other areas; Dürer was to spend about four years away. Durer was a highly talented individual who put his creative skills into several different art mediums, most notably painting and engraving.The most famous art works to have come from the career of Albrecht Durer include Knight, Death, and the Devil, Saint Jerome in his Study, Melancholia, Rhinoceros and Hare.. [40] Here Dürer favours the methods of Ptolemy over Euclid. He made watercolour sketches as he traveled over the Alps. On his return to Nuremberg in 1495, Dürer opened his own workshop (being married was a requirement for this). A purely mythological painting in the Renaissance tradition, Hercules is exceptional among Dürer’s works. Between 1507 and 1511 Dürer worked on some of his most celebrated paintings: Adam and Eve (1507), Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508, for Frederick of Saxony), Virgin with the Iris (1508), the altarpiece Assumption of the Virgin (1509, for Jacob Heller of Frankfurt), and Adoration of the Trinity (1511, for Matthaeus Landauer). These things are so precious that they have been valued at 100,000 florins". In 1502, Dürer's father died. Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. Han vendte tilbage til … In 1515, he created his woodcut of a Rhinoceros which had arrived in Lisbon from a written description and sketch by another artist, without ever seeing the animal himself. Dürer adapted the figure of Hercules from Pollaiuolo’s The Rape of Deianira for his painting Hercules and the Birds of Stymphalis. The National Gallery of Art and Sculpture Garden are temporarily closed.Learn more In the third book, Dürer gives principles by which the proportions of the figures can be modified, including the mathematical simulation of convex and concave mirrors; here Dürer also deals with human physiognomy. albrecht dÜrer (1471-1528) 'The Wing of a Blue Roller' 1512 (watercolor and gouache), Albertina Museum, Vienna. Dürer was also keenly aware of self-branding, apparent in his distinct signature. Albrecht Dürer — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Dürer. It was subsequently acquired by the Emperor Rudolf II and taken to Prague.[17]. [n 4] Further outstanding pen and ink drawings of Dürer's period of art work of 1513 were drafts for his friend Pirckheimer. However, no children resulted from the marriage, and with Albrecht the Dürer name died out. He was in communication with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 was patronized by Emperor Maximilian I. Dürer is commemorated by both the Lutheran and Episcopal Churches. Between 1512 and the final draft in 1528, Dürer's belief developed from an understanding of human creativity as spontaneous or inspired to a concept of 'selective inward synthesis'. His success in spreading his reputation across Europe through prints was undoubtedly an inspiration for major artists such as Raphael, Titian, and Parmigianino, all of whom collaborated with printmakers in order to promote and distribute their work. Bartrum, 204. His precocious skill is evidenced by a remarkable self-portrait done in 1484, when he was 13 years old, and by a Madonna with Musical Angels, done in 1485, which is already a finished work of art in the late Gothic style. In 1486 Dürer’s father arranged for his apprenticeship to the painter and woodcut illustrator Michael Wohlgemuth, whose portrait Dürer would paint in 1516. The same tradition influences the earliest woodcuts of Dürer’s Great Passion series, also from about 1498. A number of bold landscape watercolours dealing with subjects from the Alps of the southern Tirol were made on this journey and are among Dürer’s most beautiful creations. He seems clearly to be on firm ground in the penetrating half-length portraits of Oswolt Krel, in the portraits of three members of the aristocratic Tucher family of Nürnberg—all dated 1499—and in the Portrait of a Young Man of 1500. It was in Bologna that Dürer was taught (possibly by Luca Pacioli or Bramante) the principles of linear perspective, and evidently became familiar with the 'costruzione legittima' in a written description of these principles found only, at this time, in the unpublished treatise of Piero della Francesca. One of his most significant classical endeavours is his painting Altar of the Three Kings (1504), which was executed with the help of pupils. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [5][6] Albrecht Dürer the Elder (originally Albrecht Ajtósi), was a successful goldsmith who by 1455 had moved to Nuremberg from Ajtós, near Gyula in Hungary. The National Gallery of Art serves the nation by welcoming all people to explore and experience art, creativity, and our shared humanity. During 1493 or 1494 Dürer was in Strasbourg for a short time, returning again to Basel to design several book illustrations. Albrecht Dürer was a painter, printmaker, and writer generally regarded as the greatest German Renaissance artist. Depicting segments of landscape scenery cleverly chosen for their compositional values, they are painted with broad strokes, in places roughly sketched in, with an amazing harmonization of detail. Albrecht Dürer was born in the German city of Nuremberg in May 1471, one of 18 children born to Albrecht and Barbara Dürer (only three of whom survived to adulthood). Initially, the most concentrated result of his efforts was the great engraving Adam and Eve (1504), in which he sought to bring the mystery of human beauty to an intellectually calculated ideal form. Two of his younger brothers also gained some recognition: Hans as an artist and Andreas as a goldsmith. Albrecht Dürer (/ ˈ dj ʊər ər /; German: [ˈʔalbʁɛçt ˈdyːʁɐ]; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528), sometimes spelt in English as Durer or Duerer (without an umlaut), was a German painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance.Born in Nuremberg, Dürer established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. This provides rare information of the monetary value placed on prints at this time. Other paintings Dürer produced in Venice include The Virgin and Child with the Goldfinch, Christ among the Doctors (supposedly produced in just five days),[18] and a number of smaller works. From 1512, Maximilian I became Dürer's major patron. During this period he also completed two woodcut series, the Great Passion and the Life of the Virgin, both published in 1511 together with a second edition of the Apocalypse series. Albrecht Dürer May 21, 1471 - Apr 6, 1528. Dürer was the second son of the goldsmith Albrecht Dürer the Elder, who had left Hungary to settle in Nürnberg in 1455, and of Barbara Holper, who had been born there. [34] Yet Erasmus and C. Grapheus are better said to be Catholic change agents. Dürer's work on geometry is called the Four Books on Measurement (Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt or Instructions for Measuring with Compass and Ruler). He was most influenced by the Florentine Antonio Pollaiuolo, with his sinuous, energetic line studies of the human body in motion, and by the Venetian Andrea Mantegna, an artist greatly preoccupied with classical themes and with precise linear articulation of the human figure. Albrecht Dürer was not only the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance, but also a unique personality, his genius coexisting with a pure, noble character. It is possible he had begun learning this skill during his early training with his father, as it was also an essential skill of the goldsmith. Often depicting religious subjects, Dürer’s woodcuts and engravings demonstrated unprecedented technical skill, tonal variation, and compositional sophistication. 1–10, Korolija Fontana-Giusti, Gordana. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. His large house (purchased in 1509 from the heirs of the astronomer Bernhard Walther), where his workshop was located and where his widow lived until her death in 1539, remains a prominent Nuremberg landmark. In 1500 Dürer painted another self-portrait that is a flattering, Christ-like portrayal. In 1496 he executed the Prodigal Son, which the Italian Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari singled out for praise some decades later, noting its Germanic quality. The work is less proscriptively theoretical than his other works, and was soon overshadowed by the Italian theory of polygonal fortification (the trace italienne – see Bastion fort), though his designs seem to have had some influence in the eastern German lands and up into the Baltic States. In 1490 Dürer completed his earliest known painting, a portrait of his father that heralds the familiar characteristic style of the mature master. Albrecht went to Italy and visited the Alps. [4] By this time Dürer's engravings had attained great popularity and were being copied. For example, "Schneckenlinie" ("snail-line") was his term for a spiral form. Dürer's work on human proportions is called the Four Books on Human Proportion (Vier Bücher von Menschlicher Proportion) of 1528. His well-known engravings include the three Meisterstiche (master prints) Knight, Death and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514).