Albrecht Dürer & the German Renaissance
If Dürer's father had had his way, his son would have become a goldsmith. Fortunately, that didn't happen. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) began his artistic career as apprentice to Michael Wolgemut, then the leading artist in Nürnberg, in 1486. There he learned to excel in woodcutting and engraving. Almost everyone is familiar with the sketch he made of praying hands -- it's been reproduced so often it's become a greeting-card cliché.
Dürer was not content to stay in Nürnberg. In 1490, he embarked on a series of travels that eventually took him to Italy, where he came into contact with the artists of the Renaissance. On his return to Nürnberg, he brought their ideas back with him. Dürer was thus largely responsible for pulling art north of the Alps out of the medieval world and into the new era.
A restless man, Dürer was always probing into the world about him; he produced several theoretical works on art, on architecture, and on the science of proportion. At one point he even invented a mechanical device for drawing a picture that was a first step toward the principle of the photographic camera.
Dürer was one of the first major world masters to paint an acknowledged self-portrait. In fact, he painted three; his very first known drawing is a sketch of himself at the age of 13. These paintings show clearly how he saw the artist's role, and the importance of his own mission. The last self-portrait (in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich) shows Dürer in an almost Christ-like stance, representing the artist as an elevated figure concerned with the expression of universal ideas. Other important paintings of his include the portrait of Charlemagne at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg and his Four Apostles, commissioned for the Nürnberg Rathaus.
