Wednesday, June 18, 2014

About Durer Paintings

By Darren Hartley


The best known Durer paintings were 18 engravings of the Apocalypse cycle, the most interesting of which was The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, done in 1498. Albrecht Durer's early training was in drawing, woodcutting and printing, which remained his main and favourite media throughout his artistic career.

One of the 1496 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.

Other than his Durer paintings, Albrecht also wrote and published theoretical works such as Manual of Measurement and Various Instructions for the Fortification of Towns, Castles and other Localities. These manuscripts were written in 1525 and 1527, respectively.

Durer paintings consisted of over 350 woodcuts and engravings, which appeared with his famous AD monogram. At least 60 of Albrecht's oil paintings have survived. There are a thousand of his drawings and watercolours, saved on paper, sometimes inscribing them with his monogram, the year it was completed and a few words of explanation about the subject matter.




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