Lectures presented at the Dürer Festival held by the University of Manchester in collaboration with the Goethe Institute, 1971.

A deft reinterpretation of the most zealously interpreted picture in the Western canon as a therapeutic artifact. Albrecht Dürer's famous portrayal of creative effort in paralysis, the unsurpassed masterpiece of copperplate engraving titled Melencolia I, has stood for centuries as a pictorial summa of knowledge about the melancholic temperament, a dense allegory of the limits of earthbound arts and sciences and the impossibility of attaining perfection. Dubbed the “image of images” for being the most zealously interpreted picture in the Western canon, Melencolia I also presides over the origins of modern iconology, art history's own science of meaning. Yet we are left with a clutter of mutually contradictory theories, a historiographic ruin that confirms the mood of its object. In Perfection's Therapy, Mitchell Merback reopens the case file and argues for a hidden intentionality in Melencolia's opacity, its structural “chaos,” and its resistance to allegorical closure. That intentionality, he argues, points toward a fascinating possibility never before considered: that Dürer's masterpiece is not only an arresting diagnosis of melancholic distress, but an innovative instrument for its undoing. Merback deftly resituates Dürer's image within the long history of the therapeutic artifact. Placing Dürer's therapeutic project in dialogue with that of humanism's founder, Francesco Petrarch, Merback also unearths Dürer's ambition to act as a physician of the soul. Celebrated as the "Apelles of the black line" in his own day, and ever since as Germany's first Renaissance painter-theorist, the Dürer we encounter here is also the first modern Christian artist, addressing himself to the distress of souls, including his own. Melencolia thus emerges as a key reference point in a venture of spiritual-ethical therapy, a work designed to exercise the mind, restore the body's equilibrium, and help in getting on with the undertaking of perfection.

"Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was in a sense the first truly international artist. The collection of his work in the British Museum is one of the best in the world. This book shows how his sophisticated development of the techniques of woodcut and engraving introduced the idea of multiple images into fine art and thereby altered the history of printmaking. The chronology of his career is traced from his early work in the medieval tradition of Martin Schongauer, through the experience he acquired while living in Italy, to his major print projects for the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I." "The book also examines Durer's influence at later periods, from the obsessive interest in his work by collectors and artists during the late sixteenth century to the virtually iconic status he acquired amid the rise of German nationalism during the nineteenth century. The Nobel-winning German novelist Gunter Grass, himself a printmaker, contributes a subjective view of Durer's images from a twentieth-century standpoint, while other introductory essays by Guilia Bartrum, Joseph Koerner and Ute Kuhlemann consider aspects of Durer's legacy through history. The illustrations include all Durer's best-known prints as well as numerous drawings and watercolours."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Rediscover the drawings of Albrecht Dürer, one of the most prominent Renaissance artists, known as an incomparable painter and draughtsman with a keen eye for the natural world. During his lifetime, Dürer found tremendous success as a painter and printmaker, taking commissions from prominent figures such as Frederick the Wise and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. His drawings and studies reveal his interest in human proportions, anatomy, and perspective. Featured in this book are Dürer's drawings from the Albertina Museum's preeminent collection including family portraits, studies of animals and plants, and studies of the human body. This book showcases more than 100 of Dürer's drawings including Hare, Self Portrait at the Age of 13, and Melencolia I, along with paintings and prints. Featuring scholarly essays and beautifully reproduced works, this book shows the reader not only how important Dürer's drawings are to his own oeuvre, but also how he helped drawing become an appreciated medium in its own right.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), perhaps the most famous of all German artists, embodies the modern ideal of the Renaissance man—he was a remarkable painter, printmaker, draftsman, designer, theoretician, and even a poet. More is known about his thoughts and his life than about any other Northern European master of his time, since he wrote extensively about himself, his family's history, his travels, and his friends. His woodcuts and engravings were avidly collected and copied across Europe, and they quickly established his reputation as a master. Praised in life and elegized in death by such thinkers as Martin Luther and Erasmus, he served Emperor Maximilian and other leading church and secular princes in the Holy Roman Empire. Although there is a vast specialized literature on the Nuremberg master, The Essential Dürer fills the need for a foundational book that covers the major aspects of his career. The essays included in this book, written by leading scholars from the United States and Germany, provide an accessible, up-to-date examination of Dürer's art and person as well as his posthumous fame. The essays address an array of topics, from separate and detailed studies of his paintings, drawings, printmaking, and sculpture, to broader concerns such as his visits to and interactions with Venice and the Netherlands, his personal relationships, and his relationships with other artists. Collectively these stimulating essays explore the brilliance of Dürer's creativity and the impact he had on his world, exposing him as an artist fully engaged with the tumultuous intellectual and religious challenges of his time.

"A comprehensive catalogue covering all aspects of Albrecht Dürer’s extensive oeuvre has been published in conjunction with the exhibition. As a means of elucidating the suspenseful interplay between Dürer and his contemporaries, the catalogue places Dürer’s works in their historical context and deliberately juxtaposes them with works by artists of the same period. The reader thus gains very direct insight into the superior technical mastery as well as the intensity of Dürer’s art."--Publisher's description.

"Durer's drawings and watercolours show the artist at his most accessible, revealing his techniques and the masterly use of his media. No woodcut engravers, printers or apprentices come between Durer and the viewer. This contributes to the particular fascination of such sheets as The Large Piece of Turf or Hare. The introductory essay, portraying Durer as a passionate observer of his surroundings and an exceptionally gifted artist, is followed by thirty-five, high-quality reproductions of his most popular drawings and watercolours."--Jaquette