Albrecht Durer: Art in Transition August 2, 2008

Born in 1471 in Nuremberg, Germany, Albrecht Durer began his career immersed in a conventional naturalism found in the Low Countries. Although his artistic inheritance was rooted in Flemish late Gothic painting, he became profoundly influenced by the work of Italian contemporaries, and struggled to blend the Gothic traditions of the North with Italy's triumphs in mathematical perspective and color. Painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and art theorist, Durer was perhaps the only Northern artist to fully grasp the complex relationship between scientific theory and art in Italy. Drawing from the formidable collection of Durer graphics at the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany, 'Albrecht Durer: Art in Transition' is a chronological presentation of the artist's life and times and the advances he made to improve the popular perception of graphics as a higher art form.