Product added to cart
- Home
- Masterpiece Reproduction
- Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Each Albrecht Dürer oil painting is hand-painted with oil on linen canvas, created by one of HandmadePiece's professional painters. Museum quality with preview before shipment. Global free shipping.
Filter
Position
Product Name
Price
Artist Name
Popular
View as Grid List
2 Items
23
35
47
All
1
Filter
Position
Product Name
Price
Artist Name
Popular
View as Grid List
2 Items
23
35
47
All
1
1471-1528 • German• Print Maker/Painter • Northern Renaissance
"One day often search through two or three hundred men without -finding amongst them more than one or two points of beauty which can be made use of. You therefore, if you desire to compose a -fine -figure, must take the head from some and the chest, arm, leg, hand, and foot from others." - Albrecht Dürer
Durer broke through many barriers and trod much new ground, and did so with unsurpassable skill in drawing, watercolor and oil painting, and printing. He also wrote treatises on art-the quotation above is from The Book of Human Proportions, written in 1513, and brings to mind the legend of the ANCIENT Greek ZEUXIS (c. 450-390 BCE), who combined the traits of many women to create his sculpture of Helen of Troy. Among Durer's earliest works, drawn in pen and ink before he was 13, are self-portraits of prodigious skill. Moreover, the artist portrayed himself as an individual, a personality-not only the practitioner of his craft, the usual rationale for a self-portrait. Durer explored his inner life, which was frequently shrouded by depression. He depicted this allegorically in an ENGRAVING titled Melencolia I and dated 1514. In one of his most startling and controversial self-portraits (of 1500), Durer presents his likeness in a way that calls to mind an ICON of Christ: nearly expressionless, with long hair, and with large, mesmerizing eyes gazing out at the viewer. His artistic and religious, or spiritual, intention in this self-portrait is one of the ongoing puzzles for art historians: Was he suggesting that the artist/creator is Godlike, or that the artist's inspiration comes from God? Was he illustrating an idea, related to the mystical doctrine professed by Saint Francis and popularized by Thomas a Kempis-Imitatio Christi, or Imitation of Christ-that to follow Christ is to become like him? Or was he mindful of theologian Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64), who proposed that looking at Christ's image and being looked at by it is reciprocity of love in which self-love becomes an act of devotion? Can Durer, or should he, be absolved of accusations of blasphemy, or of narcissism? Durer traveled widely from his home in Nuremberg. He went to Italy to see and learn, and recorded his journey with extremely beautiful WATERCOLOR impressions of the landscape. These reappear in the backgrounds of subsequent works. His effort to visit and perhaps study with SCHONGAUER was precluded by Schongauer's death. Still, Durer became the most accomplished and renowned print maker of his time, adept at both woodcut (see WOODBLOCK) and engraving. An example of the former is the action-packed Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1498). In contrast is his engraving Knight, Death, and Devil (1513), which, with untold numbers of fine lines, seems to hold the viewer, as well as the knight on his horse, in suspended animation. As was Schongauer's, Durer's father was a goldsmith. Durer had the additional benefit of a godfather who was a leading German printer. Durer became a follower of Martin Luther, whose teaching influenced Durer's work at the end of his life. This is visible in a 1523 woodcut, The Last Supper, in which the artist took a traditional subject and gave it new doctrinal meaning. For Luther the sacrament was a commemorative rather than a symbolic event, so in Durer's image the platter that previously would have held the symbolic "sacrificial lamb" is significantly empty. Representing the Lutheran belief that bread and wine do not miraculously become Christ's flesh and blood, and that the laity, not just the priest, should partake of both, a basket of bread and a pitcher of wine sit unceremoniously on the floor, and a chalice is set on the table. The style Durer used for this image is sophisticated in its lucidity, but distilled and direct compared to his earlier woodcuts. That is also in step with the unadorned directness of Reformation thinking.
Not found Albrecht Dürer? Please request a quote for any art reproduction.
Shop By
Art Style
- Renaissance 2 items
My Wish List