Recommendations of the Editorial team
To this day, Albrecht Dürer is considered the most influential artistic personality of the Nordic Renaissance. Dürer (1471-1528) initially became famous with portraits of patricians in his hometown of Nuremberg, but his actual revolutionary contribution certainly lay elsewhere: in drawings, watercolors and prints. He did not see them as preliminary studies, but as independent works of art. He became famous for the brown hare, which emerged from pure observation of nature.
Nuremberg, Europe and the spirit of the Renaissance
Nuremberg was Dürer’s center of life, from there he traveled to Italy, where he learned the humanism of the Renaissance and its ancient ideals of proportion. After he became court artist of Emperor Maximilian I, he began a correspondence with Erasmus of Rotterdam, which earned him the rank of cultural theorist.
A new illustrated book brings together all of Albrecht Dürer’s paintings, as well as around 500 drawings and prints.
The paintings always formed the backbone of his oeuvre. Early works such as “The Four Apostles”, the “Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher”, “Portrait of Jakob Fugger” or “Portrait of Oswolt Krel” give Dürer a psychological depth that goes beyond statues. His main religious works, “Rosary Festival”, the “Paumgartner Altar” and the “Heller Altar”, are an expression of strict composition and at the same time bright colors.
When Albrecht Dürer died on April 6, 1528 in his hometown of Nuremberg, he had long been living in seclusion. Until the end he worked on theoretical writings on proportion and measure. His death also marked the end of an era, the end of the Northern Renaissance.