Who Said if a Man Devotes Himself to Art Much Evil Is Avoid They Happens Otherwise One Is Idle

"If a man devotes himself to art, much evil is avoided that happens otherwise if 1 is idle."

1 of 8

"What beauty is, I know not, though it adheres to many things."

2 of 8

"Why has God given me such magnificent talent? It is a expletive as well as a cracking blessing."

three of viii

"I hold that the perfection of form and dazzler is contained in the sum of all men."

4 of viii

"No single man tin can exist taken as a model for a perfect figure, for no human being lives on world who is endowed with the whole of dazzler."

5 of 8

"As I grew older, I realized that it was much better to insist on the 18-carat forms of nature, for simplicity is the greatest adornment of art."

6 of 8

"And since geometry is the correct foundation of all painting, I have decided to teach its rudiments and principles to all youngsters eager for art."

vii of viii

"Sane judgment abhors null so much as a movie perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence."

8 of 8

Summary of Albrecht Dürer

It's fair to say that without Albrecht Dürer, printmaking as we know it within art history and contemporary art, would not be. Despite living approximately 500 years ago, he remains i of the most famous and important printmakers in art history, in particular bringing woodcuts printed in big editions into the realm of art and the art history catechism.

Fifty-fifty though Albrecht Dürer's fame was largely built on his prints and graphic style, his financial income was secured with commissions of paintings of religious subjects and portraits, and these works remain held in high esteem for their draughtsmanship and use of colour. He was, and remains, the virtually famous artist of the Northern Renaissance who successfully integrated an elaborately-detailed Northern style with Italian Renaissance's ideals of balance, coherence, and monumentality.

Accomplishments

Until the 1500s, the art of Renaissance Italy (focused on proportion, perspective and representations of 'man' in his environment) had remained almost entirely independent from late medieval art in the northward of Europe (focused on naturalistic studies). Dürer combined these two modes of art making, and was the first non-Italian artist to apply contemporary philosophy, medical, and theological ideas to his paintings.
Dürer felt it was important to produce artistic allegories for new conceptions of the human. For example, his famous series of prints, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), St. Jerome in His Study (1514), and Melencolia I (1514), represent the three spheres of human activity: the active, wistful, and intellectual.
Later in his life Dürer became increasingly engaged in scientific topics, publishing treatises including his 4 Books on Measurement (1525), Treatise on Fortification (1527) and Four Books on Human being Proportion (1528), for which he created illustrations. He believed that geometry was essential for producing harmonic artworks, and thus that information technology should be taught to all young artists, aslope other mathematical rigors.
Despite his decidedly Renaissance interest in Humanism and mathematics, Dürer continued to produce extremely detailed studies of the natural world, peculiarly animals - be they newly discovered in Europe (such as the mythical rhinoceros and lion) or common native creatures (such as the hare, owl, or cat).
Dürer was well aware of his own artistic genius, which as tortured and enlivened him. He painted a number of aggrandizing cocky-portraits, and would frequently appear as a graphic symbol in his painted commissions. He was one of the kickoff artist celebrities, with copycats, followers, and fans; in a model that continues to this day.

Biography of Albrecht Dürer

Dürer was born in the city of Nuremberg on March 21st 1471 to Albrecht and Barbara Dürer as the third child of the two, who would keep to have at least 14, and perhaps as many equally xviii children. His father, a successful goldsmith, had moved to Nuremberg from Ajtós almost Gyula in Hungary in 1455. He changed his surname from the Hungarian Ajtósi to its German translation Türer, significant doormaker. Due to the local pronunciation, the family name somewhen became established every bit Dürer.

Of import Art by Albrecht Dürer

Progression of Fine art

1498

The Iv Horsemen of the Apocalypse

This is the 3rd woodcut in Dürer's terrifying Apocalypse series, which contains altogether fifteen scenes from the Volume of Revelations. It depicts the four Apocalyptic Riders as they are described in the Sometime Testament. From left to correct we see Expiry, Famine, War and Plague on their horses, trampling on a group of helpless people. An angel oversees the scene, with dramatic clouds and rays of light in the background.

In the Bible the iii riders are mainly distinguished by their horses' colors. Dürer, having to make do with the black and white that the woodcut medium dictates, instead prominently depicts their weapons - bow, sword, a set of balances and a trident - as identifying attributes. Death is furthermore distinguishable as an old haggard human with a beard on an emaciated horse. The four figures are riding next to each other but are in slightly overlapping positions, cogent their order of appearance in the text. Death every bit the last to enter the scene brings with him Hell, depicted in the form of a broad-mouthed monster, who swallows a man wearing a bishop's miter and crown. The clergy and dignity are devastated by the Apocalypse simply every bit the rest of order. Their gimmicky habiliment makes it piece of cake for the 16^thursday-century viewer to imagine their own suffering alee.

Apocalyptic scenes became particularly popular in the years leading upwardly to 1500, which was predicted by many to be the fourth dimension of the Second Coming of Christ. Dürer's Apocalypse serial was published in 1498 as a drove of 15 folios, each verso showing the illustration and the recto containing a descriptive text in German language or Latin. In 1511 the woodcuts besides became available to buy as single-sheet works. Today the prints still survive in large numbers, which indicates that they were produced on a big calibration, probably to encounter their increasing need and popularity, and circulated widely.

Dürer masterfully captures the panic and chaos of the cease of times by filling almost the entire folio with painstaking detail. The diagonal shape formed by the riders placed on top of the minutely thin horizontal lines that create the night background gives the scene a sense of forrad-thrusting dynamic. This work, also as the accompanying illustrations of this series, shows the creative person's unrivalled ability to achieve in the so often crude unwieldy woodcut medium the same kind of fine dynamism and depth of expression as in a drawing.

Woodcut - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1500

Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe

This painting of the artist as Christ could exist considered an audacious, blasphemous statement, but is nearly likely an expression of organized religion alongside a confidence in the artist'south competency as creator. Information technology shows Albrecht Dürer the creative person, his talents bestowed onto him by God. Set confronting a plain background, the creative person is straight facing the viewer. His correct hand is lifted to his breast with ii fingers spread apart, reminiscent of a gesture of blessing. His curly pilus falls to his shoulders and his monogram is emblazoned prominently to his right. To his left stands an inscription in Latin that translates every bit "Thus I, Albrecht Dürer from Nuremberg, painted myself with enduring colors at the age of 28 years."

During the Renaissance era the convention for portraits was to show the sitter in three-quarter view, mostly set within a realistic groundwork. By choosing a frontal view and a dark non-descript backdrop, Dürer evokes religious images of the Middle Ages, especially devotional images of Christ Pantokrator. With his blessing gesture, long dark dark-brown hair (Dürer was night blond) and idealized features, the artist here clearly depicts himself as Christ. And given the Apocalyptic year of the work, the painting would therefore have been a strong expression of the artist's self-awareness as a devout Christian. Dürer was highly concerned with his public image, repeatedly inserting self-portraits into his works. The self-portrait from 1500 was sold or given past Dürer to the City Council of Nuremberg where information technology was on public display until the early 19^th century.

Mixed media on panel - Alte Pinakothek, Munich

1502

Young Hare

The incredible detail and care in this written report of a small wild animal is a predecessor to the detailed scientific illustrations it has influenced and endures equally an extremely authentic and sensitive depiction of 1 of nature'south mutual creatures. It shows a hare in three-quarter view, its hind legs folded underneath its body, with the forepart legs slightly extended forwards. Although the work usually bears the title Young Hare, the animal tin can be identified as a mature wild hare.

Dürer'south nature pieces are famously detailed. Young Hare is, however, not just a scientific study of an animal. The work contains an innate tension, created by the contrast between the subject and its depiction: a hare is a notoriously restless creature, fleeing when approached besides closely. The creative person has captured the hare in a fleeting moment of stillness. The slight plough of its ear and the centre that's fixing the viewer, however, indicate that the animal has noticed us. Its hind legs are bent, gear up to jump.

Whether the artist sketched a hare in the wild and completed the terminal piece with a dead specimen, or he kept a live animal in his studio is a question nevertheless to be solved. The left centre reflects what seems to exist a window. This has been taken every bit a clue that Dürer kept and painted the hare indoors. Adding a crossbar to the student of an eye is a recurring characteristic of Dürer's work and could simply be a technical method to create vitality in the eye. It could also be another testament to Dürer's meticulous attending to detail, of him capturing the reflection of his workshop window in his subject area's eye. The prominent monogram and appointment point that the artist perceived the drawing as a complete work in its own right rather than a sketch.

Watercolor and gouache on paper - Albertina, Vienna

1504

Adam and Eve (the Autumn of Man)

Dürer'south depiction of 'the fall', the moment in Christian mythology where the first two humans - Adam and Eve - disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of Knowledge, remains unique in its assuming depiction of 'human being' and of nature. This engraving was fabricated shortly subsequently the immature artist returned from Italy, and is more most his ain interest in the Renaissance, combined with a pride in his own home, than the story in the volume of Genesis. In Adam and Eve (the Fall of Man) the figures are based on classical nudes, and the ideal human proportions and poses every bit proposed by Greco-Roman artists and architects of the time. The wild foliage behind the couple bears resemblance to German forests, which the creative person would have been familiar with and thus he literally places Italian figures inside his local surround. Adam holds a modest branch with a sign hanging from it, which boldly proclaims the artist's proper name - written as '"Albert Dürer of Nuremberg" (reinforcing his German pride) in Latin (the classical language).

A parrot is perched on the end of the co-operative. The sound that parrots make was then interpreted as 'Ave Maria', and thus the birds were symbols of the Holy Virgin Mary, who is signified here as the woman who later compensates for Eve'southward original sin in Catholicism. Likewise as the ophidian, which is literally the devil according to the Bible, each animate being has a item symbolism. The rabbit, cat, and elk, represent the four 'humors'. According to Aboriginal Greek and Roman doctors and philosophers, there are 4 singled-out bodily fluids in each person, and that an excess or deficiency in any 1 of these humors straight correlates with personality and health. In Dürer'south Garden of Eden, the elk represents black bile, and a melancholic personality; the ox phlegm and a phlegmatic ane; the rabbit blood and sanguinity, and the cat yellow bile, and the choleric. Once again, the artist ironically uses the Biblical story of the fall of 'man', the failure and expulsion, to illustrate man beings' scientific and philosophical successes and ideals.

Engraving - Museum of Fine art, Boston

1506

The Feast of the Rosary

Dürer'southward visit to Venice in 1506 culminated in the creation of the Banquet of the Rosary, one of his most pregnant large-scale paintings. It shows the Virgin Mary surrounded by a large group of male person figures and putti. She is beingness crowned with a wreath of roses by 2 cherubim whilst holding the Christ child on her lap. Saint Dominic stands to her correct and two figures, idea to be Pope Julius Two and Emperor Maximilian I, kneel at the front. Several more figures surroundings the throne. They are mostly believed to be members of the German community in Venice. Among them is Dürer himself, who is shown holding a piece of paper that reads EXEQUIT CUINQUE MESTRI SPATIO ALBERTUS DURER GERMANUS MDVI (It took 5 months Albrecht Dürer the German language 1506).

The Feast of the Rosary is 1 of the nearly impressive results of the cultural relations between sixteenth-century Venice and the artistic centers north of the Alps. Information technology skillfully combines characteristics of Northern-European art such equally the highly detailed limerick and the landscape in the background, with Venetian elements like the Sacra Conversazione motif and musical angels, which can be found in works by Giovanni Bellini such equally his San Zaccaria Altarpiece (1505). Dürer used distinctly Venetian pigments in this work, including large quantities of lapis lazuli. North of the Alps azurite was much more commonly used and Dürer never used lapis in any of his Nuremberg works. By combining materials, techniques and pictorial elements from both Northern and Italian schools of painting, fusing the Venetian obsession with color and lite with the German conventions of a religious altarpiece, he successfully bridges the gap between both Northern and Italian schools of painting.

Commissioned past a group of German language merchants for the church building of San Bartolomeo in Rialto, the presence of Venetian elements in a German-made artwork takes on more significance as it permit patrons prove their loyalty to the country of Venice while at the same time expressing their patriotism. Dürer'south own interest to surpass his Venetian contemporaries by adopting their methods, skills, and qualities and taking them to a higher level, certainly played a large role as well. Being an established artist in his home, just having not quite found the same fame in Italia, he strove to prove his value to the Italian market. He himself was clearly satisfied with his piece of work, writing to Pirckheimer that he had "silenced all those painters, who had said, I was skillful at engraving but at painting did not know how to handle colors."

Oil on Panel - National Gallery, Prague

1508

Praying Hands

Praying Hands is likely one of the world's near reproduced images, and has go an international symbol for piety and for Christianity, up until and including the present day. Using press technologies Dürer could never accept dreamed of when he made this drawing more than 500 years ago, the image has appeared on bibles, t. shirts, needlepoint, and fifty-fifty on Andy Warhol's tombstone. This sketch is made with ink and pencil on blue paper that the artist made himself and was produced not equally a standalone work, but merely a preliminary drawing towards an altarpiece commissioned past Jacob Heller in 1507. The altarpiece depicted the coronation of the Virgin Mary for a church in Frankfurt. These easily are drawn towards those of an apostle kneeling next to Mary'due south tomb. The altarpiece was destroyed in a fire in 1729, although Jobst Harrich made a close copy in the 1600s, which is on brandish in Albertina Museum in Vienna.

Effectually the 1930s, a fable arose most the easily in this sketch, postulating that they were the hands of the artist's brother, worn from difficult work and immortalized in this drawing. However, it is much more likely that the artist modeled the drawing on his own hands, and similar easily can exist seen throughout his oeuvre.

These floating, praying hands are extremely significant in the history of religious symbolism and remain so popular due to the fashion they might belong to near anyone - with the rough shirtsleeves suggesting a worker or everyday man, as opposed to an of import priest or scholar. Even though the creative person did not intend for this to be a standalone work of art, it is an excellent and enduring instance of the combination of theological, humanist, and naturalistic interests in Dürer's work.

Ink and pencil on paper - Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

1514

Melencolia I

This print is a very early on depiction of affective, or depression, is an integral prototype both in the production of the myth of the "suffering artist" and in the progression of artists depictions of their own mental health and anguish. Melencolia I forms part of a group of three plates called Meisterstiche (Master Engravings) from 1514, the other two titled St. Jerome in His Study and Knight, Decease and the Devil. In this composition, a winged female effigy is deep in contemplation, absent-mindedly holding a compass in her correct hand. She wears a wreath and is surrounded by numerous objects, all of which have a particular symbolic meaning. A sorry-looking putto sits behind her; an emaciated dog rests by her anxiety. A flying bat in the sky holds up a imprint that states the title. Melencolia I is an archaic spelling of Melancholia, or profound and unnatural sadness.

Art historian Erwin Panofsky famously described this work every bit Dürer's "spiritual cocky-portrait", a reflection of the artist'south own affective or depression. In the Renaissance, melancholy was also believed to be closely linked to creative genius. The many objects depicted in the engraving underpin the notion that they were employed past Dürer to express his own artistic state of mind. The carelessly scattered and unused tools symbolize geometry, ane of the vii liberal arts and probable the virtually significant to Dürer as an engraver, and the failure to utilise them. The hourglass, a well-known symbol for the transience of life, the ladder with no clear beginning or end, and the empty scales speak of apathy and aimlessness. The polyhedron seems to play on the famous Renaissance artistic concept of linear perspective, throwing it into confusion.

Both the personification of Melancholia and the putto have wings, but are firmly grounded on earth, their thoughts too heavy to let them wing. Fifty-fifty the dog seems too sparse and weak to get up. The image radiates defeat and paralysis, anarchy and helplessness. The obvious skill with which this engraving was executed, nonetheless, stands in sharp dissimilarity to the artistic ineptitude the painting symbolizes and this work established Dürer as one of the greatest engravers of his time.

Engraving - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1515

The Rhino

Always since its beginning publication in 1515, Dürer's Rhinoceros has remained i of his most popular artworks. The woodcut shows the artist'south estimation of an Indian Rhinoceros depicted from the side standing on a minor patch of soil. The date, the title RHINOCERUS, and Dürer'south monogram signature are located above the animal'southward head on the right. An inscription on the top reads in translation: 'On ane May 1513 [this should read 1515] was brought from Republic of india to the bully and powerful king Emanuel of Portugal at Lisbon a alive brute called a rhinoceros. His form is hither represented. It has the colour of a speckled tortoise and it is covered with thick scales. It is like an elephant in size, but lower on its legs and virtually invulnerable. It has a strong precipitous horn on its nose which information technology sharpens on stones. The stupid brute is the elephant'due south mortiferous enemy. The elephant is very frightened of it every bit, when they meet, information technology runs with its head down between its front legs and gores the stomach of the elephant and throttles it, and the elephant cannot fend it off. Because the animal is and so well armed, in that location is nothing that the elephant tin can do to it. Information technology is as well said that the rhinoceros is fast, lively and cunning.'

The rhinoceros depicted in the work was a gift from Sultan Muzafar II of Gujarat to the governor of Portuguese India. The latter sent information technology to Rex Manuel I in Lisbon, who in turn gifted in to Pope Leo X in Rome. The animal was loaded onto a transport but, after a cursory stop at Marseille where it was admired by King Francis I of French republic, the rhino drowned when the ship sank in a storm.

Dürer never got the chance to see the animal himself. Its advent was merely available to him through written accounts and it is no surprise that Dürer's piece of work does not prove a realistic representation of a rhinoceros. The animal is shown with thick plates that resemble a suit of armor. The surface is covered in a pattern of circular marks. In addition to the horn on its nose, at that place is a second horn between its shoulders. Its legs are scaly, almost like that of a reptile.

As the first rhinoceros to get in in Europe live since the tertiary century ACE, the emergence of this almost mythical creature was seen in the context of the Renaissance every bit part of a rediscovery of artifact and roused huge interest. Dürer's woodcut delineation of the animal became popular throughout Europe. Choosing the woodcut technique over the more than laborious and toll-intensive copper engraving allowed for a quicker and easier reproduction.

The showtime version of the impress from 1515 was followed by altogether viii editions over the following iii centuries. Afterwards editions include an extended text. The paradigm was repeatedly included in scientific texts. Information technology likewise inspired subsequent artworks, from a console in the west doors of Pisa Cathedral to Jean Goujon'south obelisk outside the Church building of the Sepulchre in Paris (1549) and Salvador Dalí's sculpture Rinoceronte vestido con puntillasvon (1956).

Woodcut - The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

1519

Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I

In this oil painting of 1519 the emperor Maximilian I is shown in half-length and three-quarter view in front of a light-green background. He is turned towards his correct and in his left hand he holds a pomegranate, a symbol of affluence besides as of his empire, with the seeds representing his subjects. The emperor is clothed in a fur-trimmed robe with a black dress underneath. His blackness lid is broad-brimmed and adorned with a brooch. The coat of artillery of the Habsburg family unit together with the symbol of the Club of the Golden Fleece is depicted in the upper left corner of the painting. An inscription in majuscule letters above the emperor relates his titles and virtues.

The Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I, whom he met in 1512 during a royal visit to Nuremberg, was among his most prestigious patrons. In 1518 Maximilian visited the imperial city of Augsburg where information technology is believed that the influential banker Jacob Fugger the Elder commissioned Dürer to paint the emperor's portrait. Before executing the work in oil, he sketched a pencil drawing, now in the Albertina in Vienna, annotating information technology: "Is the emperor Maximilian that I Albrecht Dürer portrayed in Augsburg, up in the loftier palace, in his small room, Monday 28 June 1518".

Maximilian I made no secret of the fact that he used artistic commissions as a tool for self-promotion. He was highly concerned with his image as a ruler and the commemoration of his life and achievements. In Dürer'due south portrait the emperor is shown in expensive dress, the heavy fur neckband of his robe taking upward a large part of the picture. His grey hair denotes his historic period and wisdom and the pomegranate lies heavy in his hand, reminding the viewer of his responsibility equally a ruler. The expression on his face up is stern and determined. Rather than having the concatenation of the Order of the Golden Fleece displayed around his neck, equally was usually custom, the fleece is dangling off his family's coat of arms, engraining the status farther into his lineage. Information technology has to be kept in mind that the portrait was painted after the emperor's death. The piece of work, therefore, became one of the final pieces in Maximilian's series of artistic propaganda. Dürer later on adapted the painting into a woodcut, which would take been widely circulated and was eventually accepted every bit the best-known portrait of the emperor.

Oil on panel - Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

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Content compiled and written by Alexandra Rivett-Carnac

Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors

"Albrecht Dürer Artist Overview and Assay". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Alexandra Rivett-Carnac
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
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First published on 03 October 2018. Updated and modified regularly
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Source: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/durer-albrecht/