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Dear Friends,
I am afraid this might well be my last release of this forum, as
unfortunately I will not be able to post any new thread in a very long
time. I am very sorry about this.
For the time being, however, let me continue the
Renaissance series by featuring
the
German
Northern Renaissance painter and engraver
Albrecht Dürer,
by far the greatest
exponent of the Northern European Renaissance art. With this in
mind, I have selected for this presentation one of
his
less known but, in my opinion, best paintings: Pond
in the Woods, a magnificently coloured watercolour that depicts
pine trees around a pond or lake - most probably in the sandy
heathland near Nuremberg - whose
powerful atmosphere is a wonderful vision of primeval nature.
This masterpiece is thought to have been painted during
Dürer's second trip to Italy in 1505-6.
NOTE: To view a larger image of the painting, you may click
HERE
or directly on the picture below.
While
an important painter, in his own day Dürer was renowned foremost
for his graphic works. Artists across Europe admired and copied
Dürer's innovative and powerful prints, ranging from religious
and mythological scenes to maps and exotic animals, which in
addition are notable for their detail and
precision. The son of a goldsmith, Dürer was trained as a
metalworker at a young age. He applied the same meticulous,
exacting methods required in this delicate work to his woodcuts
and engravings, notably the
Four Horsemen of his Apocalypse series (1498), and his
Knight, Death and Devil (1513).
Dürer's training also involved travel and study abroad. He went
to Italy in 1494, and returned again in 1505-6. Contact with
Italian painters resonated deeply in his art. Influenced by
Venetian artists, who were renowned for the richness of their
palette, Dürer placed greater importance on colour in his
paintings. His
Feast of the Rose Garlands (1506) removed any doubt that, as
well as a master of prints, he was an accomplished painter. (Main Source:
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/northern-renaissance.html.)
He studied under
Matthias Grünewald (1470-1528) and was in turn the teacher
of
Hans Baldung (1484-1545).
Other favorite paintings and prints by Dürer include:
Paintings:
Self-Portrait at 26 (1498),
Portrait of Elsbeth Tucher (1498),
Portrait of Oswolt Krel (1499),
Self-Portrait in a Fur-Collared Robe (1500),
Lamentation for Christ (1500-03),
Adoration of the Magi (1504),
Adam
and Eve (1507),
The
Landauer Altar with
The
Adoration of The Trinity (1511),
The
Madonna of the Carnation (1516), Portrait of Johannes Kleberger (1526),
The
Four Holy Men (1526).
Watercolors:
Young
Hare (1502),
The
Large Turf (1503).
Engravings:
Adam and Eve (1504),
Crucifixion (1508),
Melencolia (1514).
As always, your good feedback will be treasured.
Thank you,
Luis Miguel Goitizolo
GREAT MASTERS OF
PAINTING
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Pond in the Woods
(1)
by
Albrecht Dürer
born May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nürnberg [Germany]
died April 6, 1528, Nürnberg
Profile
(2)
Painter and
printmaker generally regarded as the greatest German Renaissance
artist, his vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious
works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper
engravings. His woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498),
retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work.
Dürer was the second son
of the goldsmith Albrecht Dürer the Elder, who had left Hungary
to settle in Nürnberg in 1455, and of Barbara Holper, who had
been born there. Dürer began his training as a draughtsman in
the goldsmith's workshop of his father. His precocious skill is
evidenced by a remarkable self-portrait done in 1484, when he
was 13 years old (Albertina, Vienna), and by a “Madonna with
Musical Angels,” done in 1485, which is already a finished work
of art in the late Gothic style. In 1486, Dürer's father
arranged for his apprenticeship to the painter and woodcut
illustrator
Michael Wohlgemuth, whose portrait Dürer would paint in
1516. After three years in Wohlgemuth's workshop, he left for a
period of travel. In 1490 Dürer completed his earliest known
painting, a portrait of his father (Uffizi, Florence) that
heralds the familiar characteristic style of the mature master.
Dürer's years as a
journeyman probably took the young artist to the Netherlands, to
Alsace, and to Basel, Switz., where he completed his first
authenticated woodcut, a picture of “St. Jerome Curing the Lion”
(Kunstmuseum, Basel). During 1493 or 1494 Dürer was in
Strasbourg for a short time, returning again to Basel to design
several book illustrations. An early masterpiece from this
period is a self-portrait with a thistle painted on parchment in
1493 (Louvre, Paris).
His prints established his reputation across Europe when
he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally
regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern
Europe ever since. His work reflected the apocalyptic spirit of
his time, when famine, plague, and social and religious upheaval
were common. He was sympathetic to the reform work of
Martin Luther, who at Dürer's death wrote to a friend, "Affection
bids us mourn for one who was the best."
Technical data
(3)
Pond in the Woods
Watercolour and gouache on paper,
ca.1496
10.24
x
14.57
inches (26 x 37 cm)
British Museum, London
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(1) This
image is a courtesy of
The Artchive. (2)
Source:
Encyclopaedia
Britannica Online,
Wikipedia.
(3)
Source:
The Athenaeum. |
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