A History of European Art

Lecture 23: Albrecht Dürer and German Renaissance Art

reÀ ected light. Jerome is writing, and his halo glows as a natural part of

him, radiating sanctity and intellect. Symbols abound among the household

objects: the skull, which represents the brevity and vanity of human life; the

lion, from whose paw Jerome removed a thorn; a cruci¿ x on the desk; an

hourglass in the corner; and Jerome’s papers and scissors in their wall rack

near the rosary. This space was created

with Renaissance perspective and control

of light, which allowed Dürer to subsume

the details into a comprehensive whole.

Our next work is one of Dürer’s paintings,

Self-Portrait (c. 1500). The date marks

the half-millennium. In this holy year,

Dürer painted himself in a frontal and

symmetrical pose, the vertical of the center

line emphasized by the balanced fall of his

long hair and ¿ xed gaze. The pose is in the attitude of Jesus Christ, inspired

by the devotional ideal of Imitatio Christi (“Imitation of Christ”) from a

book attributed to the 15th-century German monk Thomas á Kempis. Dürer’s

imitation extends to idealizing his own features and the placement of his right

hand in the position of the Salvator Mundi (“Savior of the World”). Because

this imitation of Christ was understood to mean more than simple imitation

of the good works and example of Christ’s life, it could be illustrated literally

without blasphemy. The Latin inscription at right is translated “Thus I painted

myself, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg, using lasting colors, at the age of 28.”

He signed it with his monogram and the date at left.

Another painting is the All Saints Altarpiece (Adoration of the Holy Trinity)

(c. 1511), which was acquired by Rudolf II in Prague in 1585. The Trinity is

at the top, with the dove of the Holy Spirit above the crowned head of God.

God’s arms are outstretched in a gesture that supports the cross from which

Christ’s body hangs. Christ is adored on the left by the Virgin Mary and other

female saints and, on the right, by St. John the Baptist, who is accompanied

by Old Testament ¿ gures, including Moses and David.

The lower-tier ¿ gures, despite being in the clouds, are not saints. Some

are contemporaries, including members of the Landauer family, who

Dürer was a Christian

Humanist, like his great

Italian contemporaries,

but he was also a

German affected by the

Protestant Reformation.