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Self-portrait of Albert Dürer by Albrecht Dürer –

10 Remarquable Facts about Albrecht Durer

Albrecht Dürer was born on May 21, 1471, in the Imperial Free City of Nürnberg in Germany and he died on April 6, 1528, in Nürnberg. He was a 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 flavor than the rest of his work.

Dürer established his reputation and influence across Europe in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in contact with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 was patronized by Emperor Maximilian. 

Dürer’s introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective, and ideal proportions. 

In this article, we feature 10 remarquable facts about Albrecht Durer.

1. Dürer came from a line of successful craftsmen

Both his maternal grandfather and his father had worked in Nuremberg as goldsmiths, and several of his 17 siblings followed in their footsteps. At least two of his brothers were known to have completed their training in their father’s workshop. 

One ended up taking over the family business. His godfather, Anton Koberger, had also been a goldsmith but left the trade and eventually became Germany’s most successful publisher. 

2. Dürer’s life is well documented in several sources as he left autobiographical writings

Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514 –

Because Dürer left autobiographical writings and was widely known by his mid-twenties, his life is well documented in several sources. After a few years of school, Dürer learned the basics of goldsmithing and drawing from his father. Though his father wanted him to continue his training as a goldsmith, he showed such a precocious talent in drawing that he started as an apprentice to Michael Wolgemut at the age of fifteen in 1486.

A self-portrait, a drawing in silverpoint, is dated 1484 (Albertina, Vienna) “when I was a child”, as his later inscription says. The drawing is one of the earliest surviving children’s drawings of any kind, and, as Dürer’s Opus One, has helped define his oeuvre as deriving from, and always linked to, himself.

3. Dürer was married to Agnes Frey following an arrangement made during his absence

Agnes was the daughter of a prominent brass worker (and amateur harpist) in the city. However, no children resulted from the marriage, and with Albrecht, the Dürer’s name died out. The marriage between Agnes and Albrecht was not a generally happy one, as indicated by the letters of Dürer in which he quipped to Willibald Pirckheimer in an extremely rough tone about his wife. 

He called her an “old crow” and made other vulgar remarks. Pirckheimer also made no secret of his antipathy towards Agnes, describing her as a miserly shrew with a bitter tongue, who helped cause Dürer’s death at a young age. One author speculates that Albrecht was bisexual, if not homosexual, due to several of his works containing themes of homosexual desire, as well as the intimate nature of his correspondence with certain very close male friends.

4. Dürer had learned how to make prints in drypoint and design woodcuts in the German style

The Syphilitic by Attributed to Albrecht Dürer –

In Italy, he went to Venice to study its more advanced artistic world. Through Wolgemut’s tutelage, Dürer had learned how to make prints in dry point and design woodcuts in the German style, based on the works of Schongauer and the Housebook Master. He also would have had access to some Italian works in Germany, but the two visits he made to Italy had an enormous influence on him. 

He wrote that Giovanni Bellini was the oldest and still the best of the artists in Venice. His drawings and engravings show the influence of others, notably Antonio del Pollaiuolo, with his interest in the proportions of the body; Lorenzo di Credi; and Andrea Mantegna, whose work he produced copies of while training.

5. On his return to Nuremberg in 1495, Dürer opened his own workshop

Over the next five years, his style increasingly integrated Italian influences into underlying Northern forms. Arguably his best works in the first years of the workshop were his woodcut prints, mostly religious, but including secular scenes such as The Men’s Bath House (ca. 1496). These were larger and more finely cut than the great majority of German woodcuts hitherto, and far more complex and balanced in composition.

It is now thought unlikely that Dürer cut any of the woodblocks himself; this task would have been performed by a specialist craftsman. However, his training in Wolgemut’s studio, which made many carved and painted altarpieces and both designed and cut woodblocks for woodcut, evidently gave him a great understanding of what the technique could be made to produce, and how to work with block cutters. 

6. Dürer Learned From The Italian Masters

Albrecht Dürer and others –

Dürer left Germany while still in his youth, crossing the Alps for Italy. The scenic landscapes that he witnessed on his journey would reappear in some of his later artwork. Even some of his watercolors that he made while traveling through the mountains survive. 

One of the most significant lessons Dürer learned in Italy was that of perspective and proportion. During the Renaissance, sculptures and painters had begun to take these principles more seriously in their endeavor to capture reality, and as a result, artists started to study geometry and mathematics in order to understand how to construct different forms and shapes.

7. Dürer’s engravings quickly achieved international success

Although he produced a number of impressive drawings and paintings during his early career, the work that catapulted Dürer into the spotlight was undoubtedly his engraving. During the first years of his workshop, he produced numerous successful woodcuts, prints made from blocks of wood engraved with an image or design.

He learned the art of woodcutting under Wolgemut, but Dürer’s prints were of a superior quality to any that had been seen in Germany before, with their illustrations far more precise and clear. 

8. Dürer was well equipped to create some of the most impressive paintings that would come out of sixteenth-century Germany

Albrecht Dürer –

Working in this medium, Dürer produced portraits, landscapes, and altarpieces which were met with high praise from his contemporaries. It was his devotional work that proved the most successful. The Adoration of the Magi, Adam and Eve, and Assumption of the Virgin were all immediately acknowledged as masterpieces. Dürer integrated the lessons he had learned from the Italian masters with the German traditions he was steeped in at home, resulting in a profound and realistic style that moved his audience. 

Despite the positive feedback his paintings received, Dürer was never as invested in them as in his engravings. Perhaps this was because prints could be reproduced and sold hundreds of times, making them far more profitable. 

9. Religion Played An Important Role In Dürer’s Life And Works

From both his art and his writings, it is easy to tell that faith was at the heart of Dürer’s life and work. His paintings and engravings show reverence for Jesus, knowledge of scripture, and a preoccupation with the religious upheaval of the time. It has often been observed that Dürer fashioned himself in the image of Christ in his famous self-portrait. Scholars and historians have debated for years over Dürer’s precise religious leanings, with some suggesting that he was sympathetic to the new ideas of Martin Luther, while others maintain that he was a strict and unwavering member of the Catholic Church. 

10. Dürer forged an interest in the exploration of space

This led to a relationship and cooperation with the court astronomer Johannes Stabius. Stabius also often acted as Dürer’s and Maximilian’s go-between for their financial problems.

In 1515 Dürer and Stabius created the first world map projected on a solid geometric sphere. Also in 1515, Stabius, Dürer, and the astronomer Konrad Heinfogel produced the first planispheres of both southern and northern hemispheres, as well as the first printed celestial maps, which prompted the revival of interest in the field of uranometry throughout Europe.