Figure 1.-- Here Dürer demostrates that he was the equal of the great Italian Renasance masters who he studied. There is no evidence that Dürer ever met Leonardo, but he was certainly aware of his work. Dürer's work of "Christ among the doctors" follows Leonardo's principle of emphasizing a subject by picturing it among opposites. Here Jesus' youthful beauty and innocense is emphasized by picturing him surrounded by the withered faces and hands of old men. He painted it in 1506. A slop of paper sticking out of the book at the left tells us that he completed it in 5 days.

Dürer was a prolific artist. He is noted most for religious works, but he also did landscape and portraits as well of studies about proportions of the human body. He also worked on animals. His left an enorous body of work which includes altarpieces and other religious works, and numerous portraits and self-portraits. He did both copper engravings and woodcuts. Interestesingly, many of his woodcuts, like the Apocalypse series (1498), have a Medieval Gothic look while his copper engravings seem more in tune with the Renissance. His earliest known work is a self portrait he made in 1584 when he was 12-13 years old. Art historians believe that his masterpices were the copper engravings "the Knight", "St. Jerome in His Study", and "Melencolia I" done in 1513-14. While Dürer is perhaps best known for his prints, he was also an important painter. Perhaps his most famous drawing is "Praying hands" as it has been reproduced in so many religious publications and hung in so many Church buildings. Another important religious work was "Christ among the doctors" about the youthful Jesus (figure 1). Here Dürer demostrates that he was the equal of the great Italian Renasance masters who he studied.

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Created: 1:46 AM 7/6/2008
Last updated: 1:46 AM 7/6/2008