Albrecht Dürer facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Albrecht Dürer
Dürer's self-portrait at 26
Born	May 21, 1471 Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire
Died	April 6, 1528(1528-04-06) (aged 56) Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire
Nationality	German
Known for	Painting printmaking
Movement	High Renaissance

Albrecht Dürer (May 21, 1471 – April 6, 1528) was a German painter, engraver, and mathematician. He was born and died in Nuremberg, Germany, and is best known as a maker of old master prints.

Dürer's prints were often in a series, which is a group of different prints about one subject. His prints made him famous across Europe before he was 30, and many people say he is the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe.

Albrecht Dürer has been credited with inventing the basic principle of ray tracing, a technique used in modern computer graphics.

Early life
Biography
Interesting facts about Albrecht Dürer
Historical anecdotes
Related pages
Images for kids
See also

Early life

The earliest painted Self-Portrait (1493) by Albrecht Dürer, oil, originally on vellum Louvre, Paris

Dürer was the third child and second son of his parents, who had between fourteen and eighteen children. His father was a successful goldsmith from Ajtós, near Gyula in Hungary.

Though Dürer had started to learn goldsmithing and drawing from his father, he was so good at drawing that he started as an apprentice to Michael Wolgemut at the age of fifteen in 1486. Wolgemut was the leading artist in Nuremberg at the time and had a large workshop making different types of works of art, in particular woodcuts for books.

Biography

Dürer's own woodcut of his coat of arms

After completing his apprenticeship in 1489, Dürer traveled for four years through Germany, Switzerland, and probably the Netherlands. He hoped to meet the best engraver in Northern Europe, Martin Schongauer, but Schongauer died shortly before Dürer's arrival. He stayed at the house of Schongauer's brother and got some pictures that Schongauer owned.

Dürer painted his first self-portrait in Strasbourg, probably so that he could send it back to his fiancée in Nuremberg. Shortly afterward, he returned to Nuremberg to marry Agnes Frey, the daughter of a prominent brass worker (and amateur harpist) in the city on July 7, 1494. However, they had no children together and the Dürer name died out.

In August 1494, plague in Nuremberg broke out, giving the Dürers reason to leave. They traveled to Venice where artists were working in a more modern style. Dürer wrote that Giovanni Bellini was the oldest and still the best of the artists in Venice.

Famous works

Dürer returned to Nuremberg in 1495 and opened his own workshop, where he remained for ten years. He started to use what he learned in Italy more and more, so his work was quite different from the other artists in Nuremberg who used only the traditional German style. It was during this time that he completed one of his most famous series, the Apocalypse (1498), including woodcuts of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1497–1498).

Dürer made a second trip to Venice, where he stayed for two years, but he returned to Nuremberg by mid-1507. He continued work on two more series on on the passion of Christ, the Great Passion (1498–1510) and the Little Passion (1510–1511). He also completed his best known individual engravings during this time: Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514), and Melencolia I (1514). He painted many religious works and self-portraits in oils and made many brilliant watercolors and drawings. He was on friendly terms with most of the major artists of Europe, and exchanged drawings with Raphael. Dürer stayed in Germany until 1520.

Final travels

During 1520–1521, Dürer traveled to the Netherlands to be sure he would have enough money for the rest of his life. His patron, Maximilian I, who had hired him for many jobs, had died. He wanted to be sure the next emperor, Charles V, would continue to pay him for his works.

Back in Nuremberg, Dürer started work on a series of religious pictures. There are many practice sketches and studies (practice paintings for a bigger painting) but no big paintings from this time. This was partly because of his illness, but more because of the time he spent preparing to write books about geometry and perspective.

Theoretical works

In his final years, Dürer began writing books. His work on geometry is called the Four Books on Measurement. In 1527, Dürer also published Various Lessons on the Fortification of Cities, Castles, and Localities. His work on human proportions is called the Four Books on Human Proportion of 1528.

Title page of Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion showing the monogram signature of artist
Dürer often used multiview orthographic projections.
Dürer's study of human proportions

Albrecht Durer grave in Nuremberg

Death

Dürer died in Nuremberg at the age of 56. He left money and goods worth 6,874 florins - a large sum. His workshop was a part of his large house, and his widow lived there until her death in 1537. The house is now a museum.

Interesting facts about Albrecht Dürer

The German name "Dürer" is a translation from the Hungarian, "Ajtósi". Initially, it was "Türer," meaning doormaker. Albrecht Dürer later changed "Türer" to "Dürer" to adapt to the local Nuremberg dialect.
A door is featured in the family coat-of-arms.
Dürer left autobiographical writings and was widely known by his mid-twenties, so his life is well documented.
He was in contact with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Leonardo da Vinci.
From 1512, he was patronized by Emperor Maximilian I.
Dürer's cooperated with the court astronomer Johannes Stabius. In 1515, they created the first world map projected on a solid geometric sphere. Also in 1515, Stabius, Dürer, and the astronomer Konrad Heinfogel produced the first planispheres of both southern and northern hemispheres, as well as the first printed celestial maps.
One of Albrecht's brothers, Hans Dürer, was also a painter and trained under him.
The Lutheran Church commemorates Dürer annually on April 6, along with Michelangelo, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Hans Burgkmair.

Historical anecdotes

Dürer was very proud of his profession. One day, his patron Emperor Maximilian, trying to show Dürer an idea, tried to sketch with the charcoal himself, but always broke it. Dürer took the charcoal from Maximilian's hand, finished the drawing, and told him: "This is my scepter."

On another occasion, Maximilian noticed that the ladder Dürer used when painting a mural was too short and unstable. He 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.

Self portrait

Images for kids

Dürer's self-portrait at 28 (1500). Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
Self-portrait silverpoint drawing by the thirteen-year-old Dürer, 1484. Albertina, Vienna.
Dürer's sketch of his wife Agnes Frey (1494)
Melencolia I (1514), engraving
Portrait of Oswolt Krel, a merchant from Lindau (Lake Constance), participating in the South German medieval trade corporation Große Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft, 1499.
Praying Hands, pen-and-ink drawing (c. 1508)
Portrait of Maximilian I
The Northern Hemisphere of the Celestial Globe, created by Albrecht Dürer under the direction of Stabius and Konrad Heinfogel
Salvator Mundi, an unfinished oil painting on wood, full painting
Albrecht Dürer's House in Nuremberg
The Cannon, Dürer's largest etching, 1518
Adoration of the Trinity (Landauer Altar)
Feast of the Rosary (1506)
Adoration of the Magi (1504), oil on wood Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
St Jerome in the Wilderness, 1495, oil on panel, National Gallery, London
Detail, Haller Madonna, 1505, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Saint Jerome, 1521, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
Albrecht Dürer the Elder with a Rosary, 1490, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
Portrait of Bernhard von Reesen, 1521, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden
Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher, 1526, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Portrait of a Man, Prado Museum, Madrid
Innsbruck Castle Courtyard, 1494, Gouache and watercolour on paper
Castle Segonzano, 1502, gouache and watercolour on paper
Young Hare, (1502), Watercolour and bodycolour (Albertina, Vienna)
Great Piece of Turf, 1503
Tuft of Cowslips, 1526, National Gallery of Art