Albrecht Durer

Melencolia I, self-portraits — Northern Renaissance master

The supreme artist of the Northern Renaissance — the Leonardo of Germany. His engravings and woodcuts set an unmatched standard of graphic virtuosity; his self-portraits invented the artist as self-conscious individual; his theoretical writings brought Italian Renaissance ideas north of the Alps. Melencolia I is the most intellectually dense print ever made.

Key works

• Melencolia I1514— The most analyzed engraving in art history
  Numerous impressions — Metropolitan Museum, New York; British Museum, London; others
• Self-Portrait at 281500— The artist as Christ — radical self-assertion
  Alte Pinakothek, Munich
• Apocalypse woodcuts1498— 15 woodcuts — Revelation as visual spectacle
  Numerous impressions — British Museum, London; Metropolitan Museum, New York

Connections

External