Albrecht Dürer was one of the most influential artists of the Northern Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Germany, he trained as a goldsmith before apprenticing as a painter and printmaker. Dürer’s travels to Italy exposed him to the innovations of the Italian Renaissance, which he combined with Northern Europe’s love of fine detail to create a new, powerful artistic language.
Celebrated for his engravings and woodcuts—such as Melencolia I and The Apocalypse—Dürer elevated printmaking to a fine art form. His work explores themes of faith, humanism, and the natural world with unmatched technical precision. Dürer was also a pioneering theorist, publishing influential writings on proportion, perspective, and artistic practice.
Through his art and scholarship, Dürer transformed the role of the artist into that of an intellectual and innovator, leaving a legacy that shaped European art for centuries.
