Dürer / Artist-Biographies

The biography traces the life and career of a Northern Renaissance artist from his childhood in Nuremberg through apprenticeship, itinerant study in Italy and the Low Countries, and establishment as a painter, engraver, and theorist. It describes his major prints and paintings, including celebrated engravings, woodcuts, and religious panels, and surveys his work for patrons and the imperial court. The book reproduces letters and travel journals, examines his technical writings on proportion and mensuration, discusses his domestic life and the controversy surrounding his wife, and situates his later years amid the religious and civic changes of his city, concluding with his final works and legacy.