Albrecht Durer Biography Quotes 11 Report mistakes

Early Life and Training
Albrecht Durer was born on 21 May 1471 in Nuremberg, a thriving free imperial city in the German lands, and died there on 6 April 1528. He was the son of Albrecht Durer the Elder, a Hungarian-born goldsmith, and Barbara Holper. His godfather, Anton Koberger, became the leading printer and publisher in Nuremberg, shaping the city into a center of the book trade. Raised among craftsmen and printers, Durer absorbed both the precision of metalwork and the possibilities of printed images. He first trained in his father's goldsmith shop, acquiring the discipline and tool-handling that later underpinned his mastery of the burin in engraving.

As a teenager he apprenticed in the workshop of the painter Michael Wolgemut, where large cycles of woodcuts were prepared for Koberger's books and for other publishers. There he learned composition, painting, and the design of woodcuts at a scale and complexity equal to the demands of humanist readers and devotional audiences. After his apprenticeship he embarked on journeyman travels. He went to Basel and Strasbourg, working with printers and supplying designs for book illustration, including projects connected with Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools. He also visited Colmar, seeking the celebrated engraver Martin Schongauer, whose work profoundly influenced him; although Schongauer had already died, Durer met members of his circle and studied his prints.

Marriage, Workshop, and First Italian Journey
In 1494 Durer married Agnes Frey, the daughter of a well-known Nuremberg family. She would later help manage the sale and distribution of his prints, an essential part of his business. Soon after the wedding he crossed the Alps for his first encounter with Italy. In Venice and the northern Italian cities he studied the art of Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini, the new ideals of proportion, and the science of perspective. Returning to Nuremberg in 1495, he opened his own workshop. He began to develop an independent practice based on paintings, drawings, and above all prints, which could circulate across Europe through the networks of printers and merchants connected to Koberger and other publishers.

In the late 1490s he produced a landmark series of woodcuts, the Apocalypse (1498), whose dramatic cuts and visionary force announced a new standard for the medium. Around the same time he made self-portraits that asserted the dignity and intellect of the artist, culminating in the iconic 1500 frontal self-portrait. He also turned to close observation of nature, creating watercolors and drawings such as the Hare and the Great Piece of Turf, which combined empirical study with poetic sensitivity.

Humanist Circles and Theoretical Interests
Back in Nuremberg, Durer was welcomed into a circle of humanists and scholars. Willibald Pirckheimer, a close friend and frequent correspondent, proved important for his access to classical texts and for advocacy on behalf of the artist. The poet and scholar Conrad Celtis also encouraged Durer's interest in classical learning and the new philosophy of measure and proportion. Around 1500 the Venetian-trained artist and theoretician Jacopo de Barbari visited Nuremberg and discussed human proportion and perspective with Durer, sharpening his desire to formulate a systematic theory for artists. He studied the writings of antiquity and followed the investigations of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Leon Battista Alberti, even while forging an approach rooted in the German tradition.

Second Sojourn in Venice
From 1505 to 1507 Durer returned to Venice. He worked for the German merchants at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi and painted the Feast of the Rosary for their chapel, a grand altarpiece that blended northern detail with Venetian color and light. He cultivated relationships with Venetian artists, including Giovanni Bellini, whose openness and esteem he recorded with gratitude. During this period he also defended his artistic property against copyists, seeking protection from the Venetian authorities for his prints and the famous AD monogram. His Venetian experience deepened his understanding of color and classical harmony, which he brought back to Nuremberg along with a strengthened international reputation.

Engravings, Woodcuts, and Imperial Projects
Over the next decade Durer reached the height of his power as a printmaker. The engraving Adam and Eve (1504) displayed his command of idealized anatomy and line. In the celebrated trio of master engravings, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), St. Jerome in His Study (1514), and Melencolia I (1514), he united technical brilliance with dense symbolism, offering meditations on virtue, contemplation, and the melancholic temperament. His woodcuts and engravings were collected across Europe by scholars, princes, and merchants, ensuring his fame far beyond Nuremberg.

He also entered the orbit of the Habsburg court. Under Emperor Maximilian I, Durer contributed designs to monumental print projects such as the Triumphal Arch and elements of the Triumphal Procession, ambitious efforts to glorify the emperor through the new medium of print. He received an imperial pension for his services. At the same time he continued to paint major works, produce portraits, and manage a workshop that trained and employed younger masters, among them Hans Suss von Kulmbach and Hans Baldung Grien, who helped extend his influence.

Journey to the Netherlands
The death of Maximilian I in 1519 led Durer to travel to the Low Countries in 1520, 1521 to secure the continuation of his pension from the new ruler, Charles V. He kept a detailed journal of this journey, recording gifts, expenses, encounters, and artistic observations. In Antwerp, Brussels, and other cities he met leading figures of court and culture, including Margaret of Austria and other patrons, as well as scholars and artists. He studied the paintings of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden and reacted with wonder to exotic treasures brought from the New World. During the trip he fell seriously ill and never entirely recovered his former health. Nevertheless, he drew prolifically from life and secured official recognition for his stipend.

Reformation-Era Nuremberg and Late Works
Back in Nuremberg, Durer worked amid the currents of religious reform. He expressed sympathy for Martin Luther in his Netherlands journal and engaged with reform-minded thinkers while maintaining friendships across confessional divides, including his long-standing friendship with Pirckheimer. He portrayed humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and Philipp Melanchthon, creating incisive likenesses in print and drawing that carried their ideas to a wide audience. In 1526 he presented The Four Apostles to the Nuremberg city council, a monumental painting accompanied by inscriptions emphasizing the authority of scripture, reflecting the city's shifting spiritual landscape.

In these years Durer concentrated increasingly on theory and teaching. He published Underweysung der Messung (1525), a treatise on geometry and measurement that provided practical tools for artists and artisans. He followed with a work on fortifications in 1527, addressing the urgent matter of defense in an age of artillery, and posthumously his Four Books on Human Proportion (1528) set forth a comprehensive study of the human figure. These volumes distilled decades of study into a systematic, accessible form, uniting northern craft traditions with the scientific ambitions of the Renaissance.

Death and Legacy
Durer died in Nuremberg in 1528 and was buried in the Johannisfriedhof. His widow, Agnes Durer, oversaw the sale of his prints and drawings, ensuring the continued circulation of his work. Through his art and writings he established a new model of the artist as learned creator and public intellectual. His monogram AD became a mark of quality across Europe; his prints influenced contemporaries and successors from the German-speaking lands to Italy and the Low Countries. Exchanges with figures such as Giovanni Bellini, the example of Martin Schongauer, friendships with Willibald Pirckheimer and other humanists, service to Maximilian I, and contacts with leaders including Charles V and Margaret of Austria tied his career to the central currents of his age.

Durer's achievement rests on a rare synthesis: empirical study of nature, command of line and light, a probing imagination, and a drive to analyze and teach artistic principles. From the Apocalypse to Melencolia I, from the Feast of the Rosary to The Four Apostles, and from the workshop of Michael Wolgemut to the bookshops of Anton Koberger, he drew together the worlds of craft, print, humanism, and faith, shaping the visual culture of early modern Europe.

Our collection contains 11 quotes who is written by Albrecht, under the main topics: Wisdom - Art - Teaching - Prayer - Father.