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Graphic artist, painter and theoretician who formed an important link
between Northern and Southern European art and who is regarded as the
founder of German High Renaissance.As the son of a Nuremberg goldsmith,
Dürer had mastered all manner of art and craft techniques at an early age.
When he was fifteen, he started a four year apprenticeship with the
painter and graphic artist Michael Wolgemut who, at that time, had quite a
reputation. He worked in Wolgemut’s atelier on altar paintings, designs
for stained-glass artists and woodcuts for illustrations in books. In
1490, as was tradition, the young artist set out on a long journey. He
stayed in Basel for a long time and carried out book illustration
assignments and mastered the sophisticated techniques of copper engraving
and etching. Four years later he returned home and married Agnes Fey. The
marriage, which his father had arranged, was a childless one. He soon left,
this time to avoid the plague, and headed for Italy. There he learned to
compose, discovered the wonders of perspective and the use of colours by
the thriving Italian renaissance painters. He became a personal friend of
the Bellini brothers. Upon his return to the town of his birth he set up
his own atelier and started selling his own engravings and etchings.
Entirely in keeping with the Renaissance he was a keen student of science
in his capacity of ‘homo universalis’ and wrote theoretical essays on the
arts. He moved in circles of progressive humanist scholars and was a
leading citizen in the influential free imperial city of Nuremberg. Holy
Roman Emperor Maximiliaan enlisted Dürer into his service and paid him a
substantial annual allowance. His last major trip took him to the
Netherlands. Upon his return to Nuremberg he painted his most influential
portraits and wrote theoretical works on the science of measurement,
perspective and proportion. His death in 1528 marked the end of a very
productive life during which he was acknowledged as the greatest German
artist of his time. As a link between Northern and Southern Europe he was
also the founder of the German High Renaissance.
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Hände eines Apostel
(1508)
In 1507, Dürer was
commissioned by the wealthy merchant, Jacob Heller, to paint a
triptych for the altar of the Dominican church in Frankfurt, based on
the theme of the ascension of Mary. The ‘Heller altar’ was soon so
famous that Elector Maximilian of Bavaria had the central panel added
to his own art collection. The panel was lost in a fire in 1729, but
well over twenty preliminary sketches have been preserved. Of these,
the ‘praying hands of an apostle’ is the most famous. |
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