Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer, sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Dürer established his reputation and influence across Europe in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in contact 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's vast body of work includes engravings, his preferred technique in his later prints, altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits, watercolours and books.From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

The life and work of Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Durer was born in Nuremberg. At the age of 15 he was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut, the book illustrator and painter. He then travelled to Italy where he produced his first notable painting in 1500, a self-portrait. As well as producing woodcuts and engraving she was concerned with tackling many of the key Renaissance questions such as perspective and proportion. In 1505 he moved to Venice where he remained for two years experimenting with technique and produced ‘The Feast of the Rose-Garlands’. He specialised in line engravings, which involved cutting into the surface of metal, frequently copper, with a burin, resulting in images very rich in texture. Works such as ‘St. Jerome in his Study’ (1514) and ‘Agony in the Garden'(1515) were produced in this way.

He worked in many different media including dry point and printmaking. He was an expert in matters of proportion even writing four books on the subject. Yet despite his scholarly approach to his work and also his uncertain stance on religion he was a deeply instinctive artist and is regarded as one of the first great draughtsmen of Germany.