Albrecht Dürer: Wanderlust

German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was a versatile artist who was at once a printmaker, painter, theorist, and publisher. Born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1471, he began to travel to Italy and France in his 20s, and the Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands years later. These experiences would significantly shape his artistic education and worldview.

This focused exhibition of prints, books, and paintings draws from The Huntington’s collections and features 24 works created during and following his travels to Italy and beyond.

It examines Dürer’s mastery of perspective and integration of Italian artistic principles into German art, establishing him as a pioneering figure in the Northern Renaissance and earning him enduring international renown. The exhibition also presents paintings and prints by contemporaries whom he visited during his travels, including work by Raphael (1483–1520), Giovanni Bellini (1430–1516), and Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533), among others.

Dürer’s skills as a printmaker revolutionized the art of his time. His ability to create a variety of effects using only black lines proved unmatched. His contemporaries and followers copied his woodcuts and engravings or incorporated elements from them into their work. The exhibition shows examples of the dramatic effects created with thick, dense, curvilinear lines, as demonstrated in Samson and the Lion (ca. 1497–98), and delicate, compact cross-hatching, as shown in St. Jerome in His Study (1514). Dürer studied the writings of the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius to understand the “canon of human proportions.” Vitruvius’ theories and his knowledge of classical art inform the design of Dürer’s figures of Adam and Eve (1504), in an elegant contrapposto pose. In the piece, the wooded environment, cliffs, and various animals re-imagine paradise in a northern European landscape. In the engraving Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Dürer portrays a rider and his faithful dog unknowingly marching toward the figure of Death, who holds an hourglass to indicate the brevity of life on Earth. ; ; and (1514) form the trio of engravings known as Dürer’s (master engravings).