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.
Death of Orpheus
1494 Pen drawing, 289 x 225 mm Kunsthalle, Hamburg This drawing is probably derived from a painting by Andrea Mantegna, whose printed graphics D?rer copied. Mantegna in his turn was using Greco-Roman models. This landscape, the details of the drapery folds and the handling of the line in general are worked out in a quite independent fashion. The centre of the picture is the male nude in motion. According to the Metamorphoses by the classical author Ovid (43 B.C.-17/18 A.D.), Orpheus introduced homosexual love to Thrace and for that reason is beaten to death by two Thracian women during a bacchanal. The group of figures is placed before a central tree in which an open book with music is hanging. The classical singer's lyre is lying at his feet. In the tree a banderole with legends: "Orfeus der erst puseran" (Orpheus, the first pederast). The woman at the left and the boy were used by D?rer a few years later in the engraving known as "Jealousy" (more correctly "Chastity and Unchastity").Artist:D?RER, Albrecht Title: Death of Orpheus Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - graphics : mythological