Albrecht Dürer’s Meisterstiche

Albrecht Dürer was a German Renaissance artist known for his prints, and books on proportion. For over a hundred years, Knight, Death and Devil,(cat. 1) Saint Jerome in His Study,(cat. 2) and Melencolia I, (cat. 3) have been considered Dürer’s Meisterstiche, or “master prints.”1 There are several different interpretations of these 3 engravings, the imagery with in them, and their relation to each other. These Master Prints are probably the most written about of Dürer’s work. In the year 2014, we are at the 500-year anniversary of the creation of Melencolia I, and Saint Jerome in His Study, they still remain provocative, and mysterious.

Albrecht Dürer was born in 1471 to Albrecht Dürer the Elder, a goldsmith in Nuremburg, Germany. He was an adept draftsman at a very young age; this is obvious when observing his Self Portrait at Thirteen. (cat 4) When he reached fifteen years old he started to apprentice as an artist under Michael Wolgemut. After three years as his apprentice he traveled around Europe and also trained in Venice.2 He melded the idealism of the Italians with the realism and symbolism of the Germans. While his paintings were remarkable, his real impression was left by his printmaking.3

Dürer used both woodcut, and engraving techniques to create art prints that were easily reproduced, and spread to the masses. Woodcuts consist of carving away the negative space on a wood block leaving a relief that will be inked and then pressed with damp paper. Gold and metal workers had been using engraving probably since the dawn of civilization to decorate jewelry and armor. Shortly before Dürer’s time it was developed as a method of printmaking. In this technique a burin is used to carve away the lines that the artist wants to...

... middle of paper ...

...eflections on archetypal images.

Cologne: Taschen, 2010. 132. Print.

Clark Institute. "DÜRER'S SYMBOLISM."The Strange World of Albrecht Dürer.

Sterling and Franchise Clark Institue, n.d. Web. 2 May 2014. .

U.S. National Library of Medicine. "Four Humors - And there's the humor of

it: Shakespeare and the four humors." U.S National Library of Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 19 Sept. 2013. Web. 1 May 2014. fourhumors.html> Hideko, Ishizu. "Another Solution to the Polyhedron in Dürer's Melencholia: A

Visual demonstration of the Delian Problem." Aesthetics No. 13 (2009): 179-194. Japanese Society for Aesthetics . Web. 1 May 2014.