Albrecht Durer Giclée Fine Art Prints 4 of 4

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was initiated into the art of jewellery making by his father. This apprenticeship was extremely important for the future painter and engraver. He received his artistic training in the studio of Michael Wolgemut. In 1490 he undertook a four-year journey that took him to Colmar, where he hoped to meet the great engraver Martin Schongauer, and to the Netherlands. There he studied the art of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. He was introduced to Humanist circles and produced mainly prints and drawings. In 1493 he painted his first Self-Portrait, in which he expressed his awareness of his talent.

In 1494 he went to Italy and resided in Venice. The contact with Venetian Renaissance painting was a true source of the artist's revival and enrichment. He returned to Nuremberg and opened his own studio at the age of twenty-five. His technical skill and power of imagination are particularly evident in the impressive series of Apocalypse prints. In 1505, the plague struck Nuremberg and Dürer travelled once again to Venice. He received a commission for "Feast of the Rosary" (1506), a work significant for its remarkable unity of colour and clarity of composition.

After 1510 he devoted himself mostly to engraving, a sign of a new spiritual elevation (Melencolia). His prints were sold throughout Europe and influenced the artists of that era. At the end of his life he wrote treatises on painting that were used by generations of artists. With his genius and incredible openness of spirit, Dürer achieved a synthesis between the language of the Italian Renaissance and the expressive world of the late (blazing) Gothic to which he belonged.