ASK the question ‘Who was the Renaissance’s greatest Renaissance man’ and the most common responses are likely to be Leonardo, then Michelangelo and Raphael. So tightly is the Renaissance interwoven with its Italian heartlands that few would think to look beyond it. Yet, take a step back, and a realistic contender for the most talented and varied man of the age would not be Italian at all, but German: Albrecht Dürer.
This year marks the 550th anniversary of Dürer’s birth, so it is a fitting time to remember exactly what it was that made him great. Dürer (1471–1528) was a contemporary of the big three—indeed, he corresponded with both Leonardo and Raphael—and was their equal in accomplishments. He might not have been a visionary scientist in the style of Leonardo or a sculptor, architect and poet like Michelangelo, but he was, nevertheless, a painter of the highest skill, a printmaker of genius and the author of treatises on measurement and fortifications. He was more widely travelled than his Italian peers and was probably a religious reformer for good measure.
'The Emperor noted Dürer was “already a nobleman for the excellence of his art'
His achievements were all the more impressive because of the country and city of his birth. Nuremberg was prosperous and cultured but was no Florence or Urbino, so Dürer did not have exposure to the buildings, artworks and courtly taste of the earlier Renaissance generation to inspire him. Nor were Germany’s cultural and trading relationships with Italy as developed as those of the Low Countries. He was an artist from the fringes with no alternative but to forge his own way.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 24, 2021-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 24, 2021-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
