Durer Albrecht (1471-1528) -
german artist
Albrecht Durer. Self-portrait at 26, 1498
Born May 21, 1471 in Nuremberg. At first, the young man was taught jewelry by his father, and in 1486 he entered the painting workshop of M. Wolgemut, where he adopted the principles of late Gothic. The works made by Dürer during the years of study wanderings along the upper Rhine (1490-1494) are typical of the German art of the 15th century, which combined the features of the Gothic and the Renaissance.
Visits to Italy (1494-1495 and 1505-1507) and the Netherlands (1520-1521) increased Durer's interest in science. He studied nature in depth and developed the doctrine of proportions. In addition to a huge number of pictorial works, Dürer left a great theoretical legacy (Guide to Measurement, 1525; Instruction for the Fortification of Cities, 1527; Four Books on Human Proportions, 1528). The artist works a lot on the landscape (“View of Trient”, watercolor, 1495; “House by the Pond”, watercolor, circa 1495-1497).
His compositions are clear, logical and precise.
("Dresden Altar", about 1496;
the Paumgartner altarpiece, 1502-1504;
"Adoration of the Trinity", 1511). In The Adoration of the Magi (1504), he uses the coloristic achievements of the Venetian school. But unlike the emotional Italians, Dürer is gothically harsh and detailed.
In the series of woodcuts "Apocalypse" (1498), he turned to the theme of the end of the world, anticipating a time of change. In subsequent cycles - "Great Passions" (about 1497-1511), "The Life of Mary" (about 1502-1511), "Small Passions" (1509-1511), "Saint Eustathius" and "Nemesis "(1500-1503) - Dürer's skill reaches perfection. But the so-called workshop engravings of 1513-1514 are rightfully considered the pinnacle of his work. (“The Horseman, Death and the Devil”, 1513; “Melancholia”, “Saint Jerome”, both 1514).
Durer devoted a lot of time to the study of the nude figure, his interest in anatomy was of a scientific nature and was embodied in copper engravings.
("Adam" and "Eve", 1504).
He also uses traditional motifs of folk life in engravings (“Three Peasants”, about 1497; “Dancing Peasants”, 1514). Just as attentively, Dürer approaches the portrait (“Portrait of a Father”, 1490; “Portrait of a Woman”, 1506; “Portrait of a Mother”, 1514; “Portrait of a Young Man”, 1521; “Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam ", 1526).
In 1526, the artist creates the last work - a pictorial composition-diptych
"Four Apostles"
Dürer won an honorary position in his hometown, fame in Germany and abroad. He was friends with the most prominent scientists, received orders from the emperor, princes and wealthy burghers.
Paintings by Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer - Nursing Madonna
Madonna and Child holding half a pear
Madonna and Child (Haller Madonna), c. 1498, Oil on wood, 50 x 39 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Albrecht Dürer__“The Feast of the Rose Wreaths” or “The Feast of the Rosary” / fragment / (German Rosenkranzfest)_ 1506
Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Christians
Adoration of the Holy Trinity
Adoration of the Magi, 1504, Oil on wood, 100 x 114 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mother of Sorrows
Portrait of Johann Kleberger
Portrait of a Venetian
Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I
Portrait of a man on a green background.
Portrait of Elsbeth Tucher
Woman's head.
Virgin and Child before an Archway
Portrait of a girl with braided hair
Portrait of Barbara Dürer
Portrait Of A Man With Baret And Scroll
Portrait of a Young Fürleger with Loose Hair, 1497, Oil on canvas, 56 x 43 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt
Portrait of an unknown person in a red robe (St. Sebastian)
Durer Albrecht (1471-1528) -
german artist
Albrecht Durer. Self-portrait at 26, 1498
Born May 21, 1471 in Nuremberg. At first, the young man was taught jewelry by his father, and in 1486 he entered the painting workshop of M. Wolgemut, where he adopted the principles of late Gothic. The works made by Dürer during the years of study wanderings along the upper Rhine (1490-1494) are typical of the German art of the 15th century, which combined the features of the Gothic and the Renaissance.
Visits to Italy (1494-1495 and 1505-1507) and the Netherlands (1520-1521) increased Durer's interest in science. He studied nature in depth and developed the doctrine of proportions. In addition to a huge number of pictorial works, Dürer left a great theoretical legacy (Guide to Measurement, 1525; Instruction for the Fortification of Cities, 1527; Four Books on Human Proportions, 1528). The artist works a lot on the landscape (“View of Trient”, watercolor, 1495; “House by the Pond”, watercolor, circa 1495-1497).
His compositions are clear, logical and precise.
("Dresden Altar", about 1496;
the Paumgartner altarpiece, 1502-1504;
"Adoration of the Trinity", 1511). In The Adoration of the Magi (1504), he uses the coloristic achievements of the Venetian school. But unlike the emotional Italians, Dürer is gothically harsh and detailed.
In the series of woodcuts "Apocalypse" (1498), he turned to the theme of the end of the world, anticipating a time of change. In subsequent cycles - "Great Passions" (about 1497-1511), "The Life of Mary" (about 1502-1511), "Small Passions" (1509-1511), "Saint Eustathius" and "Nemesis "(1500-1503) - Dürer's skill reaches perfection. But the so-called workshop engravings of 1513-1514 are rightfully considered the pinnacle of his work. (“The Horseman, Death and the Devil”, 1513; “Melancholia”, “Saint Jerome”, both 1514).
Durer devoted a lot of time to the study of the nude figure, his interest in anatomy was of a scientific nature and was embodied in copper engravings.
("Adam" and "Eve", 1504).
He also uses traditional motifs of folk life in engravings (“Three Peasants”, about 1497; “Dancing Peasants”, 1514). Just as attentively, Dürer approaches the portrait (“Portrait of a Father”, 1490; “Portrait of a Woman”, 1506; “Portrait of a Mother”, 1514; “Portrait of a Young Man”, 1521; “Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam ", 1526).
In 1526, the artist creates the last work - a pictorial composition-diptych
"Four Apostles"
Dürer won an honorary position in his hometown, fame in Germany and abroad. He was friends with the most prominent scientists, received orders from the emperor, princes and wealthy burghers.
Paintings by Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer - Nursing Madonna
Madonna and Child holding half a pear
Madonna and Child (Haller Madonna), c. 1498, Oil on wood, 50 x 39 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Albrecht Dürer__“The Feast of the Rose Wreaths” or “The Feast of the Rosary” / fragment / (German Rosenkranzfest)_ 1506
Martyrdom of Ten Thousand Christians
Adoration of the Holy Trinity
Adoration of the Magi, 1504, Oil on wood, 100 x 114 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mother of Sorrows
Portrait of Johann Kleberger
Portrait of a Venetian
Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I
Portrait of a man on a green background.
Portrait of Elsbeth Tucher
Woman's head.
Virgin and Child before an Archway
Portrait of a girl with braided hair
Portrait of Barbara Dürer
Portrait Of A Man With Baret And Scroll
Portrait of a Young Fürleger with Loose Hair, 1497, Oil on canvas, 56 x 43 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt
Portrait of an unknown person in a red robe (St. Sebastian)
Albrecht Dürer, a German Renaissance painter, was born in Nuremberg in the family of a Hungarian silversmith. He studied first with his father, then with the Nuremberg painter M. Wolgemut (1486 - 1490). Mandatory for the artist of those times, the "years of wandering" (1490 - 1494) he spent in the cities of the upper Rhine (Basel, Colmar, Strasbourg), where he entered the circle of humanists and book printers. Returning to Nuremberg, he soon set off on a new journey, this time to Northern Italy (1494-1495, Venice and Padua). Durer visited Venice again in 1505-1507. In 1520-1521 he visited the Netherlands (Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and other cities). He worked mainly in Nuremberg.
Dürer is the first person in German art of a purely Renaissance warehouse, both in terms of the features of his work and the breadth of interests. In painting, he turned to a variety of genres and themes: he painted altar compositions and paintings on gospel subjects traditional for German artistic culture, and created a large number of portraits. He also owns magnificent landscapes filled with watercolors, images of plants, animals and birds. His range is even wider in engraving, where mythological scenes and images, everyday scenes, and allegories are added to all of the above. The master's graphic heritage is huge - about 900 sheets.
The main value of Dürer's artistic universe is man. With heightened attention, the master indulged in live observation of various human characters and shapes, inquisitive study of the structure of the human body. The special theoretical work "Four Books on the Proportions of Man" (1528) is devoted to the last task, equipped with many drawings, analytical diagrams and drawings. Other theoretical treatises of the artist are also known. Scientific comprehension of the world is the most important side of Dürer's creative credo.
The first of the Renaissance painters, Dürer realized that the character of a person, his spiritual essence and physical appearance, the artist can better understand and study, comprehending his own personality. None of the masters of Dürer's time has so many self-portraits. And in general, we can say that as an independent artistic task, this kind of portrait genre arose thanks to Dürer. Even as a child, he began to draw himself, then came to the creation of his picturesque images. Three self-portraits, painted over the course of just seven years, reveal the formation of a creative personality: the human nature of the creator himself is changing, and the principles of its embodiment in art are also changing. On the "Self-portrait at twenty-two" (1493, Paris, Louvre), the viewer sees a young man, meticulously peering into himself, absorbed in the difficult task of self-knowledge.
Five years later (1498, Madrid, Prado), a completely different person appears before us - self-confident, elegant, handsome, aware of his beauty and his creative possibilities. The deaf neutral background of the previous portrait was replaced by another - a window to the outside world. The master is also no longer absorbed in introspection, but is completely open to communication.
In the next "Self-portrait" (1500, Munich, Alte Pinakothek), the artist does not show himself in a three-quarter turn, but strictly in front. The gaze with some relentless exactingness is turned to the viewer. The absolutely correct face, framed by wavy strands of long hair, resembles the canonical face of Christ. The juxtaposition is clearly deliberate and highly significant. It contains a new attitude of the artist to his creative mission, a confident look at his own "I". The color range of all self-portraits is very stingy and restrained. It is built on shades of brown, black and white. The task of the greatest portrait similarity clearly prevails over the desire to intensify the colorful expressiveness of the image. It is worth paying attention to such a detail. In the last two self-portraits, not only the date of execution of the painting and the artist's monogram appear, but also a detailed author's inscription - a fact that, on the one hand, testifies to the increased creative self-awareness of the master.
Along with portraits, Dürer also painted traditional Northern European altar paintings. By order of the Paumgartner patrician family, a triptych was painted for one of the churches in Nuremberg. On the central part of it is depicted "Nativity" (c. 1500, Munich, Alte Pinakothek). The composition whimsically combines the features of even medieval ideas with the new Renaissance principles of constructing space. So, small figures of the family of the altar customers go back to medieval iconographic schemes, incommensurable in scale with the main characters of the picture - kneeling Mary and Joseph, touching the Baby. The scene takes place in the ruins of a majestic old building, the perspective of which is decided in strict accordance with its scientific laws. The rich tones of the clothes of the main figures, as well as the light tones of the landscape in depth, testify to a certain influence of the works of Italian masters, whom Dürer met during his first trip to Italy.
A more Renaissance impression as a holistic spectacle is produced by the Adoration of the Magi (1504, Florence, Uffizi). The clear composition, the figures freely located in space, the clear lines of the steps of the stone porch on which Mary sits go into the depths - everything conveys to the central group a sense of calm dignity and grandeur, characteristic of the works of the Italian Renaissance. In the color scheme of the painting, saturated tones of the colorful range predominate, although with a bright blue sky above the landscape, the feeling of sunlight is clearly lacking.
Only the second, almost a year, stay in Venice radically enriched Dürer's colorful palette. She became brighter and more harmonious. In the paintings there was a feeling of air and sunlight.
In the works made in Venice in 1505-1506, the artist freely solves a wide variety of genre and compositional tasks - from a bust portrait ("Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman", 1505, Vienna, Museum of the History of Art) to a large multi-figure altar painting ("Feast of the Rosary" , 1506, Prague, National Gallery). The Feast of the Rosary (more precisely, it should be called the "Feast of the Rose Wreaths") is a work performed for one of the Venetian churches. The master turned to a rather rare theme, which makes it possible to combine legendary figures and real faces in one picture space. He created a kind of group portrait of his contemporaries, where among those depicted one can see Emperor Maximilian, the Pope of Rome, and the artist himself. The feast, at which the Mother of God and the Child are handed out pink wreaths to those who came to bow to her, takes place in the open air against the backdrop of beautiful nature with dense green trees drawing against a clear blue sky, with snow-capped mountains rising in the distance - a memory of the Alps. Everything is magnificent in this picture: its strong compositional construction, the amazing variety of faces and expressions, the colorful and textured richness of the costumes. No wonder the work received well-deserved recognition from the leading artists of Venice of that time, led by Giovanni Bellini.
Dürer's paintings, executed in the first years after his return to his homeland, testify that the impulse received from the art of the Italian Renaissance continues to be preserved. The artist is trying to find the mathematical laws by which the perfect human body is built. Along with numerous drawings, diagrams and drawings dedicated to solving this problem, two paintings appear that make up one indissoluble whole - "Adam" and "Eve" (1507, Madrid, Prado). Ideally beautiful and at the same time very vivid images of the first people appear before the viewer. And despite the fact that the master does not forget to portray the indispensable third participant in the scene - the Serpent-tempter, the artist is attracted not by the moralizing meaning of the legend, but by the human body as the most perfect creation of the Lord.
In the 1510s, Dürer began to dominate graphic sheets. He creates several series of woodcuts and famous copper engravings - Knight, Death and the Devil, Saint Jerome and Melancholy (1513-1514). They reflected the philosophical reflections of the master about the meaning of being, about time and about himself, about Germany, shaken by the storm of the Reformation and peasant uprisings, about the complexity of ideological and spiritual collisions. The true content of some of these sheets still continues to be unraveled by researchers. They contain a sophisticated allegoricalness of images, a certain set of symbols for the main worldview categories.
the last period of creativity, after a trip to the Netherlands, Dürer takes up painting with new energy. Several remarkable portraits capture the characteristic appearance of the people of this turbulent era: "Portrait of a Young Man" (1521, Dresden, Art Gallery), "Portrait of an Unknown Man" (1524, Madrid, Prado), "Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuer" (1526, Berlin, State Museums) .
Durer (Durer) Albrecht, German painter, draftsman, engraver, art theorist. The founder of the art of the German Renaissance, Dürer studied jewelry with his father, a native of Hungary, painting - in the workshop of the Nuremberg artist M. Wolgemut (1486–1489), from whom he adopted the principles of the Dutch and German late Gothic art, got acquainted with the drawings and engravings of the early Italian masters Renaissance (including A. Mantegna). In the same years, Dürer experienced a strong influence of M. Schongauer. In 1490–1494, during the journeys along the Rhine, which were obligatory for a guild apprentice, Dürer made several easel engravings in the spirit of late Gothic, illustrations for S. Brant’s “Ship of Fools”, etc. The impact on Dürer of humanistic teachings, which increased as a result of his first trip to Italy (1494–1495), manifested itself in the artist’s desire to master the scientific methods of understanding the world, to an in-depth study of nature, in which his attention was attracted as the most seemingly insignificant phenomena (“Grass Bush”, 1503, Albertina collection, Vienna), as well as the complex problems of connection in nature between color and the light-air environment (“The House by the Pond”, watercolor, circa 1495–1497, British Museum, London). Dürer asserted a new Renaissance understanding of personality in portraits of this period (self-portrait, 1498, Prado).
The mood of the pre-reformation era, the eve of powerful social and religious battles, Dürer expressed in a series of woodcuts “Apocalypse” (1498), in the artistic language of which the techniques of German late Gothic and Italian Renaissance art organically merged. The second trip to Italy (1505–1507) further strengthened Dürer’s desire for clarity of images, orderliness of compositional constructions (“Feast of the Rosary”, 1506, National Gallery, Prague; “Portrait of a Young Woman”, Museum of Art, Vienna), a careful study of the proportions of the naked human body (“Adam and Eve”, 1507, Prado, Madrid). At the same time, Dürer did not lose (especially in graphics) the vigilance of observation, subjective expressiveness, vitality and expressiveness of images characteristic of late Gothic art (cycles of woodcuts “Great Passions”, about 1497-1511, “Life of Mary”, about 1502-1511, "Small Passions", 1509-1511). The amazing accuracy of the graphic language, the finest development of light-air relations, the clarity of line and volume, the most complex philosophical underlying basis of the content distinguish three “masterful engravings” on copper: “The Horseman, Death and the Devil” (1513) - an image of unshakable adherence to duty, steadfastness in the face of the trials of fate; “Melancholy” (1514) Feast of the Rosary 1506, National Gallery, Prague as the embodiment of the internal conflict of the restless creative spirit of man; "Saint Jerome" (1514) - the glorification of humanistic inquisitive research thought. By this time, Durer had won an honorary position in his native Nuremberg, gained fame abroad, especially in Italy and the Netherlands (where he traveled in 1520-1521). Dürer was friends with the most prominent humanists in Europe. Among his customers were wealthy burghers, German princes and Emperor Maximilian I himself, for whom, among other major German artists, he made pen drawings for a prayer book (1515).
In a series of portraits of the 1520s (J. Muffel, 1526, I. Holzschuer, 1526, both in the art gallery, Berlin-Dahlem, etc.), Dürer recreated the type of a man of the Renaissance era, imbued with a proud consciousness of the self-worth of his own personality, charged with intense spiritual energy and practical purposefulness. An interesting self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer at the age of 26 in gloves. The hands of the model lying on the pedestal are a well-known technique for creating the illusion of closeness between the person being portrayed and the viewer. Dürer may have learned this visual trick from works such as Leonard's Mona Lisa, which he saw during his trip to Italy. The landscape that is visible through the open window is a feature characteristic of northern artists such as Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin. Dürer revolutionized Northern European art by combining the experience of Netherlandish and Italian painting. The versatility of aspirations was also manifested in Dürer's theoretical works (“A Guide to Measurement ...”, 1525; “Four Books on Human Proportions”, 1528). Dürer's artistic quest was completed by the painting “The Four Apostles” (1526, Alte Pinakothek, Munich), which embodies four character-temperaments of people connected by a common humanistic ideal of independent thought, willpower, stamina in the struggle for justice and truth.
Albrecht Dürer was born on May 21, 1471 in Nuremberg.. The Durer family had 18 children (Albrecht was born third). His father was a goldsmith, and therefore, from early childhood, Dürer helped his father in jewelry. Albrecht quickly showed his talent as an artist, and his father resigned himself to the fact that the child would not be a jeweler. Therefore, Dürer was given as an apprentice to Michael Wolgemuth (a local artist).
Wolgemut was known not only as a good artist, but also as an excellent master of engraving, which was fully mastered by his student.
End of Dürer's studies
In 1490 Albrecht Dürer's studies ended., and he painted his first painting this year - "". The young artist spent the next 4 years traveling around Europe to see how people live, to gain new impressions.In 1492, Dürer ended up in Colmar, where the famous painter Martin Schongauer lived at that time. But Dürer did not have to meet Martin, since he died a year before Albrecht's arrival. But Dürer met one of the Schongauer brothers, who invited him to Basel. It was in Basel that Dürer got acquainted with many famous works, besides, Schongauer's brother had his own jewelry workshop, so they found a common language.
In 1493 Dürer came to Strasbourg. It was there that Albrecht received a letter from his father, who agreed on the marriage of his son "in absentia". Such marriages happened quite often at that time.
Dürer's marriage to Agnes
On July 7, Dürer married the daughter of the famous physician Agnes Frey. The fact that the marriage was not very happy is not surprising, but they lived together until their death. In 1495, Dürer even painted a portrait of his wife - "my Agnes". The wife was interested in completely different things, but not in the arts and culture, so they did not always find compromises. They didn't have children.
Dürer truly became famous upon his arrival from Italy in 1494, where he stayed for six months. The first success brought him wood and copper engravings, which came out in a huge number of copies. Soon Dürer became known outside of Germany.
Having left for Italy again, in 1505, Dürer was received with honors, including the 75-year-old Giovanni Bellini. In Venice, Albrecht Dürer performed for the German Church San Bartolomeo altarpiece called "The Feast of the Rosary".
Glory Durer grew every year. His work was recognized and highly respected. In 1507 he returned to his homeland, and in 1509 he bought a huge house, which has survived to this day. It now houses the Dürer Museum.
In 1512, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I visited Nuremberg in winter. By this time, Albrecht Dürer had painted two portraits of Maximilian's predecessors on the throne. The emperor liked these portraits very much, and he immediately ordered his portrait from Dürer, but could not pay him off. Therefore, he ordered the Nuremberg treasury to pay a solid bonus to the artist every year.
After the death of Maximilian in 1519, Dürer was no longer paid the prize. Having set off on a journey in 1520 to the new emperor Charles V, Durer tried to restore justice, and he succeeded.
Already at the very end of his trip, Dürer fell ill with malaria, from which he died in 1528 in Nuremberg on April 6.
