Dürer was many things. He was vain, he was highly competitive and he was an astute businessman. But above all he was a versatile and genius artist as well as a prolific writer.
There is evidence for all of the above at the exhibition simply titled ‘Albrecht Dürer’ which is about to come to an end at the Albertina Museum in Vienna. The Albertina is in possession of the world's most important collection of Dürer's works. The collection has a reliable provenance that starts as what might be called the artist's workshop portfolio, curated by Dürer himself. The collection was never divided and changed hands only a couple of times before, in 1796, it ended up with Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, the founder of the Albertina museum. Impeccably preserved in a large leather-bound volume, these nearly 140 works by Dürer formed part of the Duke's impressive collection of graphic art.
Although in amazing condition, the works are delicate and very sensitive to light, and are therefore rarely shown. One has to be lucky (and willing to queue for hours) to catch a quick glimpse of ‘The Young Hare’ whenever it goes on display for a couple of hours every few years during an event like “Long Night of the Museums”.
Having only ever seen a facsimile, which is on display at the museum for the rest of the time, I couldn’t let this opportunity of a several months-long display of Dürer’s Young Hare and other masterpieces pass up. Added to the drawings, prints and written documents by Dürer that are held by the Albertina, loan works from the Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the Uffizi in Florence, Vienna’s own Kunsthistorisches Museum and a unique nude self-portrait that came from Weimar make for a spectacularly comprehensive retrospective.
I timed my visit to Vienna so I could take a curator-led tour of the exhibition. Unfortunately, Dürer scholar and chief curator Christof Metzger was indisposed on the day but we were competently led through the exhibition by knowledgeable co-curator Julia Zaunbauer. An exhibition that is not just encyclopedic in covering Dürer’s oeuvre but also reveals a lot about his life and throws up some interesting theories.
Let’s go back to my introductory paragraph and look at Dürer’s characteristics I mention there more closely. He was vain, which showed in the way he dressed and presented himself, including in his self-portraits. He loved clothes, he would even write in his letters things like “...and best regards from my French mantle...” His long locks and beard were not fashionable at the time, but then, he was not a follower of fashion, he was a leader, an innovator. He created his own “image” so to say.
He was competitive, especially with the masters of the Italian Renaissance. He wanted to be as good as, if not better than them. Having been criticised for not being a good colourist, he went on to produce oil paintings in the Venetian colour tradition. On one of his Italian journeys he discovered etchings that came from the studio of a certain Leonardo. Assuming that it was Leonardo da Vinci’s work, Dürer copied the intricate designs of endless interlacing knots and produced them as woodcuts, an amazing feat considering the delicate and minute wood carving involved in this kind of technique. The resulting prints, executed in Dürer’s famous intensely black ink, are testimony to the artist’s dexterity and virtuosity. In fact, his technical skill in woodcuts was unseen before his time; and the depth, three-dimensionality and near painterly gradation he was able to achieve has hardly ever been surpassed since.
As far as his business skills are concerned, Dürer knew how to market himself and successfully established what we would today call a “brand”. He developed his iconic monogram which became the trademark for all his works. In fact, works with the famous AD initials became so valuable that they were routinely being copied by other artists. And in what seems to have been the first copyright action in art history, Dürer took an Italian artist to court for using his monogram on one of these copied works.
Early on in his career he took business risks by producing series of prints in his workshop, financing the work himself, without the safety of a commissioning patron. The risks paid off, his prints sold well, and Dürer died a rich man; he would in fact have been a comfortable millionaire in today’s world.
Also contributing to his financial security was his arranged marriage to Agnes Frey, the wealthy daughter of a local trader. Contrary to some theories, the couple seemed to have had a happy, albeit childless, relationship, with Agnes running Albrecht’s workshop with astute business acumen and Albrecht producing loving little portraits of his wife.
One of these portraits is shown in the exhibition amongst other early work of Dürer, it is displayed next to his famous first self-portrait which he produced in silverpoint on prepared paper at the age of 13. Apart from showing the talent of the young artist, this work is also unique as it is the earliest preserved drawing by a child. Next to it we find the remarkable nude self-portrait which was most likely executed by using a small mirror, a fact that would account for the slight discrepancies in perspective.
After his first stay in Italy Dürer became even more interested in the human form, taking a special liking to the work of Andrea Mantegna. On his return he produced studies of nudes, both male and female. Interestingly he depicted them neither in classical settings, nor in idealized forms as Italian artists did at the time. His woodcut “The Men’s Bath” is a good example, showing a variety of anatomical shapes, in a casual setting, with musicians in attendance. The man standing against the water pipe is a self-portrait of Dürer, if you look closely at the tap you will notice that Dürer did not lack a sense of humour either.
Dürer travelled a lot, and not just to Italy. His hometown, Nuremberg, was an important economic centre, and it was easy for him to join groups of traders for safe passages, both North and South of the Alps. On crossing the Alps he produced what were at the time quite unique pure landscape studies in watercolour, with a view of Innsbruck castle being my favourite discovery in this exhibition.
One of his trips took him to Brussels where he was impressed with the Meso-American treasures brought back for King Charles V. He noted in his travel diary that he had ‘not seen anything in [his] whole life that delighted [his] heart as much as these… marvellously artistic things’. Around the same time Portuguese explorers brought back a rhinoceros from India, and Dürer, inspired by a written description and a sketch made by a German trader who had actually seen the animal, produced what is often considered one of the most iconic animals in art history. What makes it such a celebrated artwork is that it was created with rather unrestrained artistic liberty, with Dürer giving it skin folds that look like plated armour and adding parts, like a little horn on its back and scales on its legs.
A total contrast to the rhinoceros are his other animal and plant studies of which the exhibition showed a wonderful variety. Pride of place was taken by the famous trio: “Young Hare”, “The Great Piece of Turf” and “Wing of a Blue Roller”. They are botanically accurate and realistic depictions in watercolour and body colour (gouache), executed with attention to minute detail and in a colour palette looking as fresh as if the works had just come off an easel. In fact, what is rather amazing is that all these studies were done in a studio and not ‘en plein air’. Individually noteworthy are the reflection of a window he painted into the hare’s eye, the almost three-dimensionality of the bird’s wing and the fact that in the Great Piece of Turf he included the plants’ roots below ground. The exhibition contained several more such studies, my favourites being a “Muzzle of a bull” and a little bunch of “Violets”.
These last two are lesser known works but show equally well his total mastery of pencil and brush. Giving attention to the minutest details Dürer makes feathers, fur, hair and blades of grass appear in the most lifelike manner imaginable. There can be no better demonstration of his talent and skill than these works. Indeed, it makes the theory by Curator Christof Metzger very plausible that Dürer used them (as well as his chiaroscuro studies like ”Praying Hands”) not as preliminary sketches for paintings but actually made them as demonstration pieces of his artistic ability to be shown to prospective clients and patrons.
Dürer’s most famous patron was undoubtedly Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, whose ambition was to be recognised as a patron of the art and preserve his own memory for posterity. Astutely he realised that woodcuts were the ideal medium for these purposes. He commissioned Dürer to produce a so-called “Triumphal Arch”, a woodcut that visualizes the Emperor’s life and family tree in accordance with Roman architectural models. This monumental work of art, measuring 3.5 by 3 metres, printed on 36 large sheets of papers with 195 woodblocks, is one of the largest prints ever produced. Displayed here is one of the surviving original 700 prints with contemporary colouring, which together with 171 of the original woodblocks is held in the Albertina collection.
You have just a week left to experience these more than 500 year-old treasures in the Albertina in Vienna. The exhibition ends on January 6th; so hurry if you want to catch the Hare before it disappears into its hutch. It won’t be let out again for such an extended period of time in the near future.
Here is a short video clip about the exhibition by chief curator Christof Metzger
For opening hours and more information about the exhibition click here
As always enjoy clicking through the picture gallery below for a better view of the photographs and further information in the captions. Unless otherwise indicated the artworks are property of the Albertina Museum Vienna