DÜRER, ALBRECHT

Dürer, Albrecht: translation

(1471-1528)

   Albrecht Dürer stands out from among the Northern artists of his era not only for his mastery but also for the fact that he viewed art as much more than a manual craft and for his own self-image as innovator. While little documentation exists to reconstruct the careers of many of his contemporaries, Dürer left written records of his activities, including a diary and letters. Dürer was the son of a Hungarian goldsmith after whom he was named and who settled in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1455. After receiving training from his father, Dürer entered the studio of Michael Wolgemut (1486) to complete his studies. The

   Self-Portrait in silverpoint he created two years earlier, at the age of 13 (Vienna, Albertina), demonstrates that he was a child prodigy. This would be the first among several self-portraits, each presenting the artist in a novel manner. In the 1493 self-portrait in the Louvre, Paris, Dürer presented himself as the bridegroom, the eryngium flower in his right hand then considered an aphrodisiac. The tasseled headdress Dürer wears refers to the customary binding of tassels by bride and groom to express fidelity. The prickly eryngium, a symbol of Christ's Passion, coupled with the inscription above that states that Dürer's affairs are ordained on high, asserts a divine source for his artistic genius. The 1500 self-portrait (Munich, Alte Pinakothek) goes a step further as Dürer presents himself as a frontal Christ-like figure to denote that art comes from the hand of a creator. His art philosophy parallels that of Leonardo da Vinci, who also likened the creative genius of artists to that of God, the creator of the universe. With this, Dürer paved the way for the humanistic world of the Renaissance to enter the North.

   In 1492, Dürer set out to Colmar to work with the engraver Martin Schongauer.By the time he arrived, Schongauer was dead, so Dürer instead worked with the engraver's brother Georg in Basel. There he received a number of commissions for engravings, a field in which he greatly excelled. Among the works he executed were the woodcut frontispiece for the Epistolae Beati Hieronymi (published in 1492 by Nicolaus Kesler), which shows a St. Jerome and his lion, and illustrations for an unpublished edition of the comedies of Terence (Basel, Kupferstichkabinett; some question the attribution to Dürer).

   In 1494, Dürer returned to Nuremberg to marry Agnes Frey, the daughter of a respected coppersmith—a union arranged by his father. Through his childhood friend, Willibald Pirckheimer, he became acquainted with the city's leading humanists who came to respect not only his artistic but also intellectual abilities. To perfect his skills, Dürer began drawing from Andrea Mantegna's mythological engravings. One of these drawings, the Death of Orpheus (1494; Hamburg, Kunsthalle) shows the artist's desire to surpass the Italian master by adding greater contrasts of light and dark, movement, and drama than in the original work. A trip to Venice in 1494 provided further opportunities to study the works of the Italians. The result was a richness of texture and tonality never before seen in prints. Examples include Dürer's Hercules at the Crossroads (c. 1497-1498) and Four Witches (c. 1497), both works exhibiting classicized figures with convincing details of anatomy and areas darkened with heavy crosshatchings to enhance their nude forms. Dürer's famed woodcuts of the Apocalypse (1497-1498) are a tour de force of dramatic intensity and action.

   By 1496, Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, was granting commissions to Dürer, including the Dresden Altarpiece (c. 1496; Dresden, Kunstsammlungen), a work depicting the Madonna adoring the sleeping Christ Child in a three-quarter format, flanked by architecture, and set against a landscape in the manner of Giovanni Bellini. He also painted for the Elector the Adoration of the Magi (1504), a work inspired by Leonardo's (1481; both Florence, Uffizi) of the same subject. Dürer took a second trip to Italy in 1505-1507, where he informed his friend Pirckheimer in a letter that he was taking lessons in one-point linear perspective. In Venice he painted the RozenkranzMadonna (1505-1506; Prague; National Gallery) for the Church of San Bartolomeo, commissioned by the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the association of German merchants in Venice. While there, he had the opportunity to meet Giovanni Bellini, who by now was very old, as Dürer's letters to Pirckheimer reveal.

   Of the paintings Dürer created after his Italian trip, the Adoration of the Holy Trinity (1508-1511; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) is the most impressive. Painted for the chapel in an almshouse in Nuremberg founded by Matthew Landauer, from whom Dürer received the commission, the work borrows from St. Augustine's City of God where individuals from all ranks of society, here Landauer included, come together to adore the Trinity. Dürer also began work on a theoretical treatise on art soon after his return from Italy, a work he completed in 1523. He also entered in the service of Emperor Maximilian I. Dürer's last major painting commission was the Four Apostles (1526; Munich, Alte Pinakothek) for the town council of Nuremberg. The last of his years the artist devoted to his writing efforts. In 1525, he published The Teaching of Measurements with Rule and Compass and, in 1527, he issued an essay on The Art of Fortification while also working on his Four Books on Human Proportions. Pirckheimer had this last text published in 1528, after Dürer's death.

   Dürer's influence on art was vast. Not only did he influence German masters but also Flemish, French, Spanish, and Italian artists.

DüRER, Albrecht: translation

Albrecht Dürer, a native of Nuremberg and the son of a goldsmith, emerged as the greatest of the German artists who worked in the period leading up to the Reformation. His fame stretched far beyond Germany and far beyond his own lifetime. It was Dürer more than any other artist who interpreted and in­troduced the ideas and techniques of the Italian Renaissance to northern Europe. He was also a consummate businessman who took full advantage of the print medium, selling his prints throughout Europe.

What we know of him and his life is largely taken from his own copious writings, a family chronicle, letters, diaries, and treatises, all of which illustrate the extraordinary breadth of his interests. Dürer was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut of Nuremberg when he was fourteen, and it was in Wolgemut's workshop that he learned the art of the woodcut. Nuremberg was a center of printing, and this craft would serve the young artist well. After his apprentice­ship, he traveled on his traditional Wanderjahre to Colmar and Basel, but unlike many young artists of his time, he also twice visited Italy. He would have become aware of Italian art through prints, which were by his lifetime widely available in the north.

Setting up his workshop in Nuremberg around 1500, Dürer painted three self-portraits that give one a glimpse into his character. We see the handsome young Dürer on the occasion of his engagement, holding a sprig of eryngium, and another portrait of a splendidly dressed young Dürer in clothes of the latest fashion, probably bought in Italy. But one portrait in particular shows his aware­ness of the great gift he possessed, the self-portrait of 1500 in imitation of Christ. He saw his talent as a gift from God.

Dürer's intelligence and belief in his own worth shine out in these early portraits and in his writings. He was a simple and devout man with a friendly disposition, though possibly a little vain as to his looks, who enjoyed his fame yet never seemed to regard it as his due.This general understanding of the worth of the individual led Dürer to form strong connections with the German humanists, particularly his old friend Willibald Pirckheimer,* who had encour­aged his visits to Italy, but also Conrad Celtis, librarian to Emperor Maximilian I, and others.

Dürer's greatest artistic achievements were undoubtedly in the print medium, a medium that he preferred to painting in oils. His subject matter initially was largely religious, such as the Large Passion and Apocalypse series, both of 1498, but his insatiable curiosity is also evident throughout his career, whether it was aroused by the sight of a walrus, a monstrous pig, or a simple piece of turf. He also led the way in botanical illustrations with exquisite watercolors of birds and animals. Most of Dürer's earliest prints are woodcuts, made with an almost incredible delicacy and skill, but he was equally a master of engraving.

During his second Italian visit, he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for the German merchants in Venice, the Rosenkrantz Madonna (Feast of the Rose Garlands): he commented to Pirckheimer that he might have earned more money if he "had not undertaken to paint the German picture" but instead had sold his prints. These prints, which he took with him wherever he traveled, and his success in selling them made him a wealthy man and enabled him to buy a house in Nuremberg; the house still stands today beneath the castle walls.

Probably his most admired engravings are the three known as the Master Prints that date from the years 1513-14: Knight, Death, and the Devil; St. Je­rome in His Study: and Melancolia I. These are complex works, the first two symbolizing the contrast between the militant Christian and the contemplative Christian; the third print is by far the most enigmatic and is also the most Italianate, seeming to refer to the predicament of the Melancholy Humor, per­sonified as a winged woman, which was believed to control the personality of the artist, awaiting inspiration.

Dürer had great admiration for Martin Luther* and was apprehensive of the dangers that surrounded Luther, as was vividly illustrated in the outburst in his diary for 17 May 1521, on hearing the news of Luther's supposed arrest, news that turned out to be erroneous. In 1520 he wrote of receiving a book by Luther, sent him by the elector of Saxony, and had asked a friend to send him anything written by Luther "in German," at the same time encouraging Frederick the Wise to take Luther under his protection. Another man to whom he looked for moral and spiritual guidance was the Dutch scholar and theologian Desiderius Erasmus.*

Dürer's synthesis of Christian thought and the Italian Renaissance is perhaps best shown in his pair of paintings known as the Four Apostles, made for the town hall in Nuremberg and not for a church. The four were St. John the Evan­gelist with St. Peter (a symbol of Rome) behind him in the left panel, while St. Paul stands in front of St. Mark in the right panel. These four figures with their monumental, Italianate forms also symbolize the four temperaments, sanguine and phlegmatic on the left, melancholic and choleric on the right. Below the feet of the Apostles are translations by Martin Luther of passages from their writings. This was Dürer's last great painting, completed in 1526, two years before his death.

E. Panofsky, The Life and Art of Albrecht Durer, 1971. R. Wittkower and M. Wittkower, Born under Saturn, 1963.