Simon Monneret: Dürer - The Man and His Paintings

"Albrecht Dürer, painter and engraver, is generally recognised as the greatest German artist and an equal of the masters of the Italian Renaissance. Indeed, his connections with such Italian artists as the Bellini brothers and with theoreticians like Leon Battista Alberti and Luca Pacioli, are carefully examined and elucidated in this book, as are the influences exercised upon him by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Baldung Grien and Grunewald.

Thanks to his innate curiosity and wide interests, as well as his abilities as a creative artist, his works give us a more intimate and rounded portrayal of the man and his times than can be gained from the work of most of his contemporaries. His remarkable povvers of expression in drawing give him a unique position not just in Germany but throughout Europe; he was forever recording people and places and hardly a day can have passed, even on his journeys, without his putting pen or chalk to paper. This factual, informative text examines first the figure of Dürer as it transpires from his works and as it has been interpreted through the centuries; we then see him in the context of his social and cultural environment, the Northern Renaissance and the Lutheran Reformation. And lastly, Dürer the humanist, the author of treatises on proportion, perspective, and even fortifications.

The sumptuous reproductions and the clear text which accompanies and explains them underline the stepping stones of Dürer's career and complete this lucid portrait of a man who was at the same time inspired artist and informed theoretician."

Ferndale Edition 1980. Kovakantinen. Englanninkielinen. 141 sivua.

Hyväkuntoinen; kansipaperissa hieman kulumaa.