About the Book
In this extented version of the Durer Art & Life Book, Preface as thoroughly versed in all matters connected with Durer and his art, acting as the author's friend, and so to say his representative, has been kind enough to read through the proof-sheets of the translation, and make some very valuable suggestions and amendments.All the illustrations contained in the German edition, including the initial letters and tail-pieces, have been inserted, and a few others added. Especial care has been taken to render the Index worthy of so important a work. In addition to the General Index, a special one has been prepared in which, under separate headings, will be found lists of all Dürer's pictures, water-colours, drawings, engravings, woodcuts, writings, and miscellaneous productions described or referred to in the course of the following pages.No exhaustive and critical account of the life and works of Albert Durer has hitherto been placed before the English reading public.The works of Mr. W. B. Scott and Mrs. Heaton, the latter of whom has lately published a second edition of her book, afford, indeed, useful and popular summaries of the results attained by German research, but do not pretend to examine the career of the great artist from an independent point of view, or to add anything to the student's knowledge of the subject.Germany, as was only natural, has always taken the lead in rescuing from oblivion or obscurity all that could throw light on the life and career of one of her greatest sons, and in assigning to him his high and well-deserved position among the most famous masters of pictorial art. Notwithstanding, however, all that had been done by various students and writers, among whom should be especially mentioned Herr A. von Eye, who published his important work, Leben A. Durers, in 1860, it was reserved for Dr. Thausing to treat the subject in such a manner as practically to leave little more to be said about it, either in respect of fact or theory.Endowed with the " God-given diligence " of his hero, Dr. Thausing, whose position of Keeper of the Albertina at Vienna afforded him exceptional opportunities for the task, has not only carefully examined the valuable collection Durer's works immediately under his care, but also those contained in every known public and private collection, comparing and analysing them with profound care, and with the acutest critical insight, assigning to each its chronological order, its value as a work of art, and the meaning which its author intended it to express. He has further collated every existing original document bearing upon the history of Diirer, his family, his native place, his friends and companions, and his immediate cotemporaries.
About the Author: Albrecht Durer (21 May 1471 - 6 April 1528) was a German painter, engraver, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His high-quality woodcuts (nowadays often called Meisterstiche or "master prints") established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. His vast body of work includes altarpieces, religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. The woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known prints include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours also mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. Durer'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.
