Dürer, Albrecht

Albrecht Dürer was born on May 21, 1471, in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg, the third child of Albrecht Dürer the Elder and Barbara Holper. His father, originally named Albrecht Ajtósi, was a skilled goldsmith who had immigrated from Ajtós, Hungary, around 1455.

Young Albrecht's artistic precocity manifested extraordinarily early. At age thirteen (1484), he created a silverpoint self-portrait that ranks among the earliest surviving children's drawings in European art and one of the oldest extant self-portraits.

At age fifteen (1486), Dürer began his apprenticeship with Michael Wolgemut, Nuremberg's leading artist. Under Wolgemut's tutelage from 1486 to 1490, Dürer learned not only painting but also wood carving, elementary copper engraving, and the collaborative workshop practices that characterized late medieval artistic production.

In 1490, Dürer completed his apprenticeship and embarked on his Wanderjahre (journeyman years), traveling to Basel and Strasbourg, where he gained valuable experience in book illustration.

On July 7, 1494, at age twenty-three, Dürer returned to Nuremberg to marry Agnes Frey. Within three months of his marriage, Dürer departed alone for Italy—an extraordinary journey that proved transformative.

Crossing the Alps, he created watercolor landscape studies that represent among the first such works by a European artist. In Venice, Dürer encountered the advanced artistic culture of the Italian Renaissance, studying works by Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, and others.

This exposure to Italian art—with its emphasis on mathematical perspective, idealized human proportion derived from classical antiquity, and integration of humanist learning—profoundly shaped Dürer's subsequent development.

Returning to Nuremberg in 1495, Dürer established his own workshop. The late 1490s saw Dürer's breakthrough as a printmaker. In 1498, he published his Apocalypse series, fifteen full-page woodcuts that revolutionized the medium through unprecedented technical sophistication.

During this period, Dürer created masterpieces of observational art including the watercolor studies Young Hare (1502) and Great Piece of Turf (1503), both in the Albertina.

His most famous engraving, Adam and Eve (1504), demonstrates his systematic approach to proportion while displaying unprecedented technical mastery—it remains the only engraving Dürer signed with his full name.

His 1500 self-portrait is extraordinary—showing himself frontally, Christ-like, asserting the divine nature of artistic creativity and the artist's status as intellectual rather than craftsman.

In autumn 1505, Dürer returned to Venice, remaining until spring 1507. His major commission, the Feast of the Rose Garlands (1506), was ordered by Nuremberg's German merchant community. According to Czech art historian Jaroslav Pešina, it is 'probably the most superb painting that a German master has ever created.'

The painting brought Dürer recognition from Venice's artistic establishment. He particularly admired Giovanni Bellini, writing to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer that Bellini was 'very old, and still the best.'

During this period, the Italian engraver Marcantonio Raimondi copied Dürer's works, prompting Dürer to file a legal complaint—an important early case in intellectual property law.

Dürer returned to Nuremberg by mid-1507, remaining in Germany for the next thirteen years—his most productive period. In 1509, he purchased a large house on Tiergärtnerplatz (now preserved as a museum).

Between 1513 and 1514, Dürer created his three celebrated 'master engravings': Knight, Death and the Devil (1513), St. Jerome in His Study (1514), and Melencolia I (1514). These three engravings represent the pinnacle of the medium's technical possibilities.

In 1515, Dürer created his famous Rhinoceros woodcut. Though Dürer never saw a rhinoceros, his image became the standard Western representation for centuries.

From 1512, Emperor Maximilian I became Dürer's primary patron, commissioning vast projects including The Triumphal Arch (printed from 192 woodblocks).

Following Maximilian's death in 1519, Dürer departed for the Netherlands to secure pension renewal from new Emperor Charles V. This journey was extensively documented in Dürer's diary, providing rare insights into a Renaissance artist's travel experiences.

He visited Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp, meeting numerous Northern European artists. However, the journey had lasting consequences: Dürer contracted an unidentified illness (possibly chronic malaria) that would plague his final years.

Returning to Nuremberg in July 1521, Dürer found his health deteriorating. He produced fewer paintings but focused intensely on theoretical writings.

His masterpiece from these years, The Four Apostles (1526), reflects Reformation sympathies and serves as his artistic testament.

Dürer's theoretical writings appeared in his final years: Four Books on Measurement (1525), Four Books on Human Proportion (1528, posthumous), and Various Lessons on the Fortification of Cities (1527).

Dürer died suddenly on April 6, 1528, in Nuremberg at age fifty-six. He was buried in Johannisfriedhof cemetery; his epitaph reads: 'Whatever was mortal of Albrecht Dürer is covered by this tomb.'