Albrecht Dürer
Germany, 1471-1528

Albrecht Dürer (ahl-brekt dur-er) was born in Nuremberg, Germany. When Dürer
was young, he showed unusual skill at drawing. At 15, he was sent to study with a
local painter. In his early 20s, he traveled to Italy and became the first artist from
the North to study Italian art and art theory, including ideas about perspective and
proportions. In Italy, the period known as the Renaissance was in full progress.
Dürer began to incorporate ideas from the Italian Renaissance into German art. Like
Leonardo da Vinci, he wrote extensively about his own ideas of art.

Dürer became best known as an engraver and printmaker. In 1498, his series of 14
woodblock prints illustrating the Apocalypse became very successful and helped to
establish his reputation as an artist. In these woodcuts, Dürer added subtle
variations of shading similar to those seen in engraving. This innovation soon
changed the way woodcuts were produced throughout Europe.

Dürer was a humanist as well as an artist, and his later art reflected his increasing
dedication to the ideas of Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther. The clearest
expression of the religious faith of Dürer's later years may be his oil-on-wood
painting The Four Apostles (1523-1526).

The range of Dürer's work attests to his intensity and creativity and demonstrates
the ways in which he changed Northern art forever.