b.May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nernberg [Germany] d.April 6, 1528, Nernberg Albrecht Durer (May 21, 1471 ?C April 6, 1528) was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His still-famous works include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. D??rer introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since.
The Virgin with the Dragonfly
1495 Engraving, 240 x 186 mm Staatliche Museen, Berlin The first of D?rer's engravings bearing a monogram and the only one with this archaic version of it. The dragonfly has been variously identified as a grasshopper, a praying mantis and a butterfly. The composition is still primitive, although the severely foreshortened head of St Joseph - asleep and old to stress the notion of Mary's virginity - is in marked contrast to earlier still extant drawings by D?rer of this subject. The sheet is a direct successor to Martin Schongauer's work.Artist:D?RER, Albrecht Title: The Virgin with the Dragonfly Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - graphics : religious