Albrecht Dürer and German Renaissance Art ................................

Lecture 23

Following our concentration on three of the great masters of the Italian

High Renaissance, we are going to turn our attention once again to

northern Europe. It is almost a relief to do so, to turn from the formal

idealism of the High Renaissance back to a culture that was rooted in

particularity, in descriptive naturalism.

I

n this lecture, we will study several German artists, particularly Albrecht
Dürer, a High Renaissance artist who absorbed Italian Renaissance art
and fused it with northern forms in an original manner. First, we will
look brieÀ y at an engraving by Martin Schongauer before focusing on
Albrecht Dürer’s art. In particular, we will look at Dürer’s inÀ uences and his
original blend of Renaissance and northern European artistic characteristics.
Throughout the lecture, we will discuss the development, process, and artistic
results of printmaking, principally woodcuts and engravings. Incunabula,
Latin for “cradle,” refers to the earliest prints made. This medium, whose
origins are closely associated with northern European art near the end of
the 14th century, also has a history in the East. Centuries earlier, the Chinese
invented paper and, later, began to print books and pictures from carved
wood blocks. When the techniques were introduced into the West, printing
technology in 15th-century Europe developed rapidly.

The earliest prints were often single images, such as playing cards or
representations of saints. When movable type was invented, woodblock
illustrations were incorporated into books. As printing methods were
improved and multiplied, the potential for the production and sale of artist-
designed prints became clear.

An older contemporary of Dürer, Martin Schongauer (1450–1491) worked
in Colmar in Germany. His paintings are rare, but he left 115 engravings that
inÀ uenced the development of northern printmaking. Schongauer started his
career as a goldsmith, and the engraving technique evolved from goldsmiths.
In engraving, a design is created in V-shaped grooves cut into a soft metal
plate, usually copper, with a steel tool called a burin. Ink was then spread over