Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Durer Paintings

By Darren Hartley


Echoes of Italian art are apparent in most of Durer paintings, drawings and graphics. Italian influences were slower to show in his graphics than in his drawings and paintings. Albrecht Durer was the central figure in the German Renaissance and one of the most outstanding personalities in the history of art.

One of the 1496 versatile Durer paintings was a portrait of Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony at the time, who became one of Albrecht's patrons. Albrecht started as an apprentice in the workshop of Michael Wolgemut, a Nuremberg artist between 1486 through 1489. Travelling became a passion starting in 1490.

In the 1950s, Albrecht made a journey to the Netherlands where he met many famous Netherland painters, including Quentin Massys, Joos van Cleve and Lucys van Leyden. He met Erasmus, a humanist scholar in Antwerp. It was then that he sketched his portrait, another sampling of Durer paintings of that period.

Several self-portraits comprised Durer paintings. They gave the greatest insight into the Albrecht's character and beliefs. Among these self-portraits are Self-Portrait at 22, Self-Portrait at 26 and Self-Portrait at 28. They were respectively completed in 1493, 1498 and 1500. It was in Venice that he knew and admired above all else, the aged Giovanni Bellini, an old Italian master.

Durer paintings consisting of three engravings in 1513-1514 comprised Albrecht's greatest achievement in printmaking. These masterpieces were Knight, Death and the Devil, St. Jerome in His Study and Melencolia I. Albrecht worked for Emperor Maximilian after completing these engravings. In celebration of the Emperor's achievements, he was commissioned to design a huge print entitled The Triumphal Arch.

Durer paintings consisted of magnificent altarpieces and powerful portraits. Albrecht's drawings and watercolours are impressive for their diversity in subject matter and for the variety of media in which they were produced. Albrecht truly had a major influence on the development of European art.




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