Early life (1471–1490) in
silverpoint by the thirteen-year-old Dürer, 1484,
Albertina, Vienna Dürer was born on 21 May 1471, the third child and second son of Albrecht Dürer the Elder and Barbara Holper, who married in 1467. He married Barbara, his master's daughter, when he himself qualified as a master. as she was born in
Sopron. The couple had eighteen children together, of which only three survived.
Hans Dürer (1490–1534), also became a painter, trained under the older Albrecht. The other surviving brother, Endres Dürer (1484–1555), took over their father's business and was a master goldsmith. The German name "Dürer" is a translation from the Hungarian, "Ajtósi". Because Dürer left autobiographical writings and was widely known by his mid-twenties, his life is well documented. After a few years of school, Dürer learned the basics of goldsmithing and drawing from his father. Though his father wanted him to continue his training as a goldsmith, he showed such a precocious talent in drawing that he was allowed to start as an apprentice to
Michael Wolgemut at the age of fifteen in 1486. A self-portrait, a drawing in
silverpoint, is dated 1484 (
Albertina, Vienna) "when I was a child", as his later inscription says. The drawing is one of the earliest surviving children's drawings of any kind, and, as Dürer's Opus One, has helped define his oeuvre as deriving from, and always linked to, himself. Wolgemut was the leading artist in Nuremberg at the time, with a large workshop producing a variety of works of art, in particular woodcuts for books. Nuremberg was then an important and prosperous city, a centre for publishing and many luxury trades. It had strong links with
Italy, especially
Venice, a relatively short distance across the
Alps.
Wanderjahre and marriage (1490–1494) '', 1493, oil, originally on
vellum,
Louvre, Paris After completing his apprenticeship, Dürer followed the common German custom of taking
Wanderjahre—in effect
gap years—in which the apprentice learned skills from other masters, their local tradition and individual styles; Dürer was to spend about four years away. He left in 1490, possibly to work under
Martin Schongauer, the leading engraver of Northern Europe, but who died shortly before Dürer's arrival at
Colmar in 1492. It is unclear where Dürer travelled in the intervening period, though it is likely that he went to
Frankfurt and the
Netherlands. In Colmar, Dürer was welcomed by Schongauer's brothers, the goldsmiths Caspar and Paul and the painter Ludwig. Later that year, Dürer travelled to
Basel to stay with another brother of Martin Schongauer, the goldsmith Georg. In 1493 Dürer went to
Strasbourg, where he would have seen the sculpture of
Nikolaus Gerhaert. His first painted self-portrait (now in the
Louvre) was painted at this time, probably to be sent back to his fiancée in Nuremberg. It has been hypothesized by many scholars that Albrecht was bisexual or homosexual, due to the recurrence of allegedly homoerotic themes in some of his works (e.g. ''The Men's Bath''), and the nature of his correspondence with close friends.
First journey to Italy (1494–1495) Within three months of his marriage, Dürer left for Italy, alone, perhaps prompted by an outbreak of
plague in Nuremberg. He made watercolour sketches as he traveled over the Alps. Some have survived and others may be deduced from accurate landscapes of real places in his later work, for example, his engraving
Nemesis. In Italy, he went to Venice to study its more advanced artistic world. Through Wolgemut's tutelage, Dürer had learned how to make prints in
drypoint and design woodcuts in the German style, based on the works of Schongauer and the
Housebook Master. Dürer probably also visited
Padua and
Mantua on this trip.
Return to Nuremberg (1495–1505) On his return to
Nuremberg in 1495, Dürer opened his own workshop (being married was a requirement for this). Over the next five years, his style increasingly integrated Italian influences into underlying Northern forms. Arguably his best works in the first years of the workshop were his woodcut prints, mostly religious, but including secular scenes such as ''The Men's Bath'' (). These were larger and more finely cut than the great majority of German woodcuts hitherto, and far more complex and balanced in composition. '', 1498,
Prado, Madrid It is now thought unlikely that Dürer cut any of the woodblocks himself; this task would have been performed by a specialist craftsman. However, his training in Wolgemut's studio, which made many carved and painted altarpieces and both designed and cut woodblocks for woodcut, evidently gave him great understanding of what the technique could be made to produce, and how to work with block cutters. Dürer either drew his design directly onto the woodblock itself, or glued a paper drawing to the block. Either way, his drawings were destroyed during the cutting of the block. His series of sixteen designs for the
Apocalypse is dated 1498, as is his engraving of
St. Michael Fighting the Dragon. He made the first seven scenes of the
Great Passion in the same year, and a little later, a series of eleven on the
Holy Family and saints. The
Seven Sorrows Polyptych, commissioned by
Frederick III of Saxony in 1496, was executed by Dürer and his assistants c. 1500. In 1502, Dürer's father died. Around 1503–1505 Dürer produced the first 17 of a set illustrating the
Life of the Virgin, which he did not finish for some years. Neither these nor the
Great Passion were published as sets until several years later, but prints were sold individually in considerable numbers. It was in Venice that he took up the material of
blue paper, which he used to execute preparatory drawing for paintings he completed there in 1505–1507. By this time Dürer's engravings had attained great popularity and were being copied. In Venice he was given a valuable commission from the emigrant German community for the church of
San Bartolomeo. This was the altar-piece known as the
Feast of the Rosary (or the
Feast of Rose Garlands). It shows
Pope Julius II and
Emperor Maximilian I, peacefully kneeling in adoration before her throne, both with their crowns taken off. It also includes portraits of members of Venice's German community and of Dürer himself on the upper right holding a designation of his authorship. Besides the
Flemish verism in the depiction of the greenery and the garments, and the use of his own hues, the altar-piece shows a strong Italian influence. It was later acquired by the Emperor
Rudolf II and taken to Prague.
Nuremberg and the masterworks (1507–1520) Dürer returned to Nuremberg by mid-1507, remaining in Germany until 1520. His reputation had spread throughout Europe and he was on friendly terms and in communication with many of the major artists including
Raphael. Between 1507 and 1511 Dürer worked on some of his most celebrated paintings:
Adam and Eve (1507),
Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508, for Frederick of Saxony),
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, 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
Little Passion woodcuts, published in 1511, and a set of fifteen small engravings on the same theme in 1512. 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. In 1513 and 1514 Dürer created his three most famous
engravings:
Knight, Death and the Devil (1513, probably based on
Erasmus's
Handbook of a Christian Knight),
St. Jerome in His Study, and the much-debated
Melencolia I (both 1514, the year Dürer's mother died). Further outstanding pen and ink drawings of Dürer's period of artwork of 1513 were drafts for his friend Pirckheimer. These drafts were later used to design
Lusterweibchen chandeliers, combining an
antler with a wooden sculpture. In 1515, Dürer created his
woodcut of a Rhinoceros which had arrived in
Lisbon from a written description and sketch by another artist, without ever seeing the animal himself. An image of the
Indian rhinoceros, the image has such force that it remains one of his best-known and was still used in some German school science text-books as late as last century. and portraits in tempera on linen in 1516. His only experiments with
etching came in this period, producing five between 1515–1516 and a sixth in 1518; a technique he may have abandoned as unsuited to his aesthetic of methodical, classical form. Albrecht Dürer, Knight, Death and Devil, 1513, NGA 6637.jpg|
Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513, Albrecht Dürer - Melencolia I - Google Art Project (427760).jpg|
Melencolia I, 1514 Albrecht Dürer - The Rhinoceros (NGA 1964.8.697).jpg|
Rhinoceros, 1515
Patronage of Maximilian I , Vienna (Inv. GG 825) From 1512,
Maximilian I became Dürer's major patron. He commissioned
The Triumphal Arch, a vast work printed from 192 separate blocks, the symbolism of which is partly informed by Pirckheimer's translation of
Horapollo's
Hieroglyphica. The design program and explanations were devised by
Johannes Stabius, the architectural design by the master builder and court-painter Jörg Kölderer and the woodcutting itself by
Hieronymous Andreae, with Dürer as designer-in-chief.
The Arch was followed by
The Triumphal Procession completed . Dürer worked with pen on the marginal images for an edition of the Emperor's printed prayer book; these were quite unknown until facsimiles were published in 1808 as part of the first book published in
lithography. Dürer's work on the book was halted for an unknown reason, and the decoration was continued by artists including
Lucas Cranach the Elder and
Hans Baldung. Dürer also made several portraits of the Emperor, including one shortly before Maximilian's death in 1519. Maximilian was a very cash-strapped prince who sometimes failed to pay, yet turned out to be Dürer's most important patron. In his court, artists and learned men were respected, which was not common at that time (later, Dürer commented that in Germany, as a non-noble, he was treated as a parasite). Pirckheimer (who he met in 1495, before entering the service of Maximilian) was also an important personage in the court and great cultural patron, who had a strong influence on Dürer as his tutor in classical knowledge and humanistic critical methodology, as well as collaborator. In Maximilian's court, Dürer also collaborated with a great number of other brilliant artists and scholars of the time who became his friends, like
Johannes Stabius,
Konrad Peutinger,
Conrad Celtes, and Hans Tscherte (an imperial architect). Dürer was proud of his ability. When the emperor tried to sketch Dürer an idea on charcoal, Dürer took the material from Maximilian's hand, finished the drawing and told him: "This is my scepter." On another occasion, Maximilian noticed that the ladder Dürer used was too short and unstable, thus told a noble to hold it for him. The noble refused, saying that it was beneath him to serve a non-noble. Maximilian then came to hold the ladder himself, and told the noble that he could make a noble out of a peasant any day, but he could not make an artist like Dürer out of a noble. ) This story and a 1849 painting depicting it by have become relevant recently. This nineteenth-century painting shows Dürer painting a mural at
St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna. Apparently, this reflects a seventeenth-century "artists' legend" about the previously mentioned encounter (in which the emperor held the ladder) – that this encounter corresponds with the period Dürer was working on the Viennese murals. In 2020, during restoration work, art connoisseurs discovered a piece of handwriting now attributed to Dürer, suggesting that the Nuremberg master had actually participated in creating the murals at St. Stephen's Cathedral. In the recent 2022 Dürer exhibition in Nuremberg (in which the drawing technique is also traced and connected to Dürer's other works), the identity of the commissioner is discussed. Now the painting of Siegert (and the legend associated with it) is used as evidence to suggest that this was Maximilian. Dürer is historically recorded to have entered the emperor's service in 1511, and the mural's date is calculated to be around 1505, but it is possible they have known and worked with each other earlier than 1511.
Cartographic and astronomical works Dürer's exploration of space led to a relationship and cooperation with the court astronomer
Johannes Stabius. Stabius also often acted as Dürer's and Maximilian's go-between for their financial problems. In 1515 Dürer and Stabius created the first world map projected on a solid geometric sphere. Also in 1515, Stabius, Dürer and the astronomer produced the first planispheres of both southern and northerns hemispheres, as well as the first printed celestial maps, which prompted the revival of interest in the field of
uranometry throughout Europe.
Journey to the Netherlands (1520–1521) '', 1521,
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga,
Lisbon. Dürer's most important painting created during his fourth and last major journey. Maximilian's death came at a time when Dürer was concerned he was losing "my sight and freedom of hand" (perhaps caused by arthritis) and increasingly affected by the writings of
Martin Luther. In July 1520 Dürer made his fourth and last major journey, to renew the Imperial pension Maximilian had given him and to secure the patronage of the new emperor,
Charles V, who was to be crowned at
Aachen. Dürer journeyed with his wife and her maid via the
Rhine to
Cologne and then to
Antwerp, where he was well received and produced numerous drawings in silverpoint, chalk and charcoal. In addition to attending the coronation, he visited Cologne (where he admired the painting of
Stefan Lochner),
Nijmegen,
's-Hertogenbosch,
Bruges (where he saw
Michelangelo's
Madonna of Bruges),
Ghent (where he saw
Jan van Eyck's
Ghent Altarpiece), and
Zeeland. Dürer took a large stock of prints with him and wrote in his diary to whom he gave, exchanged or sold them, and for how much. This provides rare information of the monetary value placed on prints at this time. Unlike paintings, their sale was very rarely documented. While providing valuable documentary evidence, Dürer's Netherlandish diary also reveals that the trip was not a profitable one. For example, Dürer offered his last portrait of Maximilian to his daughter,
Margaret of Austria, but eventually traded the picture for some white cloth after Margaret disliked the portrait and declined to accept it. During this trip he also met
Bernard van Orley,
Jan Provoost,
Gerard Horenbout,
Jean Mone,
Joachim Patinir and
Tommaso Vincidor, though he did not, it seems, meet
Quentin Matsys. Having secured his pension, Dürer returned home in July 1521, having caught an undetermined illness, which afflicted him for the rest of his life, and greatly reduced his rate of work. This may have been due in part to his declining health, but perhaps also because of the time he gave to the preparation of his theoretical works on geometry and perspective, the proportions of men and horses, and
fortification. However, one consequence of this shift in emphasis was that during the last years of his life, Dürer produced comparatively little as an artist. In painting, there was only a portrait of
Hieronymus Holtzschuher, a
Madonna and Child (1526),
Salvator Mundi (1526), and two panels showing St. John with St. Peter and St. Paul with St. Mark beside him. This last great work,
The Four Apostles, was given by Dürer to the City of Nuremberg—although he was given 100 guilders in return. He also derived great satisfaction from his friendships and correspondence with Erasmus and other scholars. Dürer succeeded in producing two books during his lifetime.
The Four Books on Measurement were published at Nuremberg in 1525 and was the first book for adults on
mathematics in German, In a letter to
Nicholas Kratzer in 1524, Dürer wrote, "because of our Christian faith we have to stand in scorn and danger, for we are reviled and called heretics". Most tellingly, Pirckheimer wrote in a letter to Johann Tscherte in 1530: "I confess that in the beginning I believed in Luther, like our Albert of blessed memory ... but as anyone can see, the situation has become worse." Dürer may even have contributed to the Nuremberg City Council's mandating Lutheran sermons and services in March 1525. Notably, Dürer had contacts with various reformers, such as
Zwingli,
Andreas Karlstadt, Melanchthon, Erasmus and
Cornelius Grapheus from whom Dürer received Luther's
Babylonian Captivity in 1520. Yet Erasmus and C. Grapheus are better said to be Catholic change agents. Also, from 1525, "the year that saw the peak and collapse of the
Peasants' War, the artist can be seen to distance himself somewhat from the [Lutheran] movement..." However, Dürer's later works have also been claimed to show
Protestant sympathies. His 1523 woodcut of
The Last Supper has often been understood to have an
evangelical theme, focusing as it does on Christ espousing the
Gospel, as well as the inclusion of the
Eucharistic cup, perhaps alluding to tenets of Protestant
utraquism, although this interpretation has been questioned. The delaying of the engraving of
St. Philip, completed in 1523 but not distributed until 1526, may have been due to Dürer's uneasiness with images of saints; even if Dürer was not an
iconoclast, in his last years he evaluated and questioned the role of art in religion. ==Theoretical works==