Durer at Home and Abroad

Marvellous online three week course from Paul Nuttall on Durer focusing on his travels in Italy and the Netherlands.

I do love Paula’s clear style and great illustrations. She paces the story well and picks key pieces to make her points. This course was in preparation for an exhibition at the National Gallery later in the year and I can’t wait to go.

Week one we looked at why Nuremberg was probably the only city that could have nurtured Durer at the time as it had no gild system to control the creativity of artists and which allowed him to experiment in different media. Being a centre of trade it was receptive to new ideas and it was easy for him to circulate his prints around Europe. We then talked about his travels over four years initially to meet the print maker Schongauer in Comar but sadly Schongauer died before he arrived. Durer did however learn from people who had worked with the master. He also visited the great book producing centre of Basel on his way back.

Week two looked at his two trips to Venice examining the evidence for the first trip in some detail as it is disputed. We also discussed the wonderful descriptions of his second trip as recorded in his letters to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer as well as taking a detailed look at “The Virgin of the Rose Garlands” painted for the German merchants. We then discussed how he was influenced by Italian artists and how they in turn were influenced by him.

The final week looked at his trip to the Netherlands from 1519-20 where he was feted as a celebrity. Basing himself in Antwerp he visited most of the main cities in the area. We looked at the artists, royalty and scholars that he met. We discussed how he found new entrepreneurial ways of working including a new form of presentation portrait drawings which were sold or given as thank you presents. I was fascinated by the diary and sketchbook he kept of this trip. The illustration used here is of a girl from Cologne to show her costume and his wife Agnes of the boat trip back.

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