Albrecht Dürer
Fundamental Paintings to Understand the History of Painting
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Self-portrait (1498) Albrecht Dürer
Oil on panel. 52 cm x 41 cm
Prado Museum. Madrid, Spain
We usually associate the word “renaissance” with Italy. However, there is a Renaissance that took place in the “north of the Alps”, mainly in Germany and Flanders, and which has different characteristics than those of the Italian Renaissance.
Generally speaking, the Italian Renaissance was more “concerned” with perspective, the illusion of space and proportions. The Renaissance that took place in the north was more obsessed with detailed, meticulous description.
Leonardo da Vinci is to the Italian Renaissance what Dürer is to the rest of Europe. And both were contemporaries.
When Durer travelled to Italy, he learnt many things from the Italians, and this was probably a great influence on his amazing work. He took the example of classical sculpture to experiment and learn about volume, proportions, and perspective. Of course, without ever leaving aside his northern obsession: his attention to details. (It is no coincidence that his father was a goldsmith.) And, as if that were not enough, he gave his figures such an expressiveness that makes them very human.
Dürer was also one of the greatest engravers in history. We have chosen a portrait from all his magnificent work for a special reason: it is not only a self-portrait, but the portrait of an artist.
Humanism is an optimistic movement that emphasizes the qualities of human beings’ nature (Humanism and the Renaissance have many things in common). Reason becomes a supreme value, and in the arts, the intellectual and analytical activity of knowledge is valued. Dürer, like Leonardo, was a defender of new ideas, and the social standing of artists was among his humanistic concerns. Humanism proposed the integral formation of the human being, and this led to the ennoblement of the arts and the vindication of the social consideration of the artist, who for the first time managed to overcome the importance given to the guilds of artisans.
That is why Dürer is the Renaissance artist, including the Italian one, who portrayed himself most often. It was common to portray powerful patrons; he portrayed himself. In this painting, we can observe the pride with which he “sees himself” in his figure as an artist.
An artist of uncommon beauty and dressed as a protagonist of the society of that time.
Recommended links:
Characteristic Elements of Renaissance Painting.
The Four Greatest Painters of the Italian Renaissance.
Artistic Movements from Classical Antiquity to Rococo.
The Stanze of Raphael and the High Renaissance.
Lady with an Ermine, Leonardo da Vinci.
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