"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

This illustrated study of Renaissance Nuremberg explores the city’s social and artistic history through the sixteenth century and beyond. The German city of Nuremberg reached the height of its artistic brilliance during the Renaissance, becoming one of the foremost cultural centers in all of Europe by 1500. Nuremberg was the home of painter Albrecht Dürer, whose creative genius inspired generations of German artists. However, Dürer was only one of a host of extraordinary painters, printmakers, sculptors, and goldsmiths working in the city. Following a map of the city’s principal landmarks, Guy Fitch Lytle provides a compact historical background for Jeffrey Chipps Smith's detailed discussions of the city’s social and artistic significance. Smith examines the religious function of art before and during the Reformation; the early manifestations of humanism in Nuremberg and its influence on the art of Dürer and his contemporaries; and the central role of Dürer’s pedagogical ideas and his workshop in the dissemination of Renaissance artistic concepts. Finally, Smith surveys the principal artists and stylistic trends in Nuremberg from 1500 to the outbreak of the Thirty Years War. Nuremberg: A Renaissance City, 1500-1618 contains biographical sketches of forty-five major artists of the period, plus more than three hundred illustrations depicting the city and its most magnificent artistic treasures.

Surveys the life of the artist and his works - Analyses the masterpieces - Explains the social and historical context of his paintings and his response to the challenges of the Italian Renaissance.