Albrecht Dürer
) (May 21, 1471 – April 6, 1528)
was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints
established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his
twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist
of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since. His well-known works
include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513),
Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been
the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours
mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his
ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. Dürer's
introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge
of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as
one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is
reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of
mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
Durer began the Great Passion in 1496-97;
Strauss thinks it quite possible that The
Flagellation (Bartsch 8, Strauss 37),was the first print in the series.
Over the next few years, Durer added six additional woodcuts, and the
seven were sold as single sheets. Durer returned to the series c. 1510,
adding 4 more woodcuts, and published the series with a frontispiece and a
Latin text by Benedictus Chelidonius printed on the verso of the prints.
Other works in the series include The Agony in the Garden (c. 1496-97,
though possibly 1498: B. 6, S. 38), The Deposition of Christ (c. 1496-97:
B. 12, S. 39), Ecce Homo (1498: B. 9, S. 58); The Bearing of the Cross (c.
1498-99: B. 10, S. 59), The Lamentation (c. 1498-99: B. 13, S. 60), The
Crucifixion (c. 1498: B. 11, S. 61), The Last Supper (dated 1510: B. 5, S.
148); The Betrayal of Christ (dated 1510: B. 7, S. 149), The Harrowing of
Hell (dated 1510: B. 14, S. 150), The Resurrection (dated 1510: B. 15, S.
151), Christ as the Man of Sorrows Mocked by a Soldier (c. 1511: B. 4, S.
157). Although The Trinity (dated 1511: B. 122, S. 164) was not bound up
with the other sheets of the Large Passion, in size, in style, and in
subject matter, it is one with the late sheets of the series. Durer
interrupted his work on the Large Passion to work on his other great
series, The Apocaplyse (c. 1498, republished with new works 1511) the Life
of the Virgin (c. 1501-2, completed and published 1511), the Small Woodcut
Passion (c. 1508-1510, published 1511), and the Engraved Passion (c.
1506-1510). The inventiveness shown in these related series can be quickly
seen by comparing them: Durer was rarely content to simply repeat an
approach that he had already tried.
References:
Walter L. Strauss in his catalogue raisonne,
Albrecht Durer Woodcuts and Woodblocks (Abaris Books, 1980), provides a
summary of comments upon each individual work.
Albrecht Durer, "His engravings and woodcuts, by Frederick
Stokes, NY
Artist info for the period:Between 1507 and 1511 Dürer worked
on some of his most celebrated paintings: Adam and Eve (1507), The
Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508, for Frederick the Wise), Virgin with
the Iris (1508), the altarpiece Assumption of the Virgin (1509, for Jacob
Heller of Frankfurt), and Adoration of the Trinity (1511, for Matthaeus
Landauer). During this period he also completed two woodcut series, the
Great Passion and the Life of the Virgin, both published in 1511 together
with a second edition of the Apocalypse series. The post-Venetian woodcuts
show Dürer's development of chiaroscuro modelling effects,[9] creating a
mid-tone throughout the print to which the highlights and shadows can be
contrasted.
Other works from this period include the thirty-seven woodcut
subjects of the Little Passion, published first in 1511, and a set of
fifteen small engravings on the same theme in 1512. Indeed, complaining
that painting did not make enough money to justify the time spent when
compared to his prints, he produced no paintings from 1513 to 1516.
However, in 1513 and 1514 Dürer created his three most famous engravings:
The Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513, probably based on Erasmus's
treatise 'Enichiridion militis Christiani'), St. Jerome in his Study, and
the much-debated Melencolia I (both 1514).
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