Art of the Northern Renaissance

As a Northern European artist, Albrecht Dürer was aware that developments taking place in Renaissance Italy and especially in Venice were fundamentally changing the look of painting. Not satisfied with studying from prints, he set off to experience these developments for himself meeting great Italian painters such as Titian's first master, Giovanni Bellini, on his travels. One of the first international artists, he brought back to his native city of Nuremberg a number of innovations and changes. In doing so he not only secured his reputation as a printmaker but also as a great painter. He became one of the first German artists to write about the study of art so that future generations could learn from him.
Dürer was not the only great artist practising in Germany at this time - other painters’ distinctive styles were less derivative of Renaissance Italy, continuing a great tradition of Northern European Gothic painting and woodcarving against a background of the turbulence of the Protestant Reformation.
This course will look at the development of Dürer’s art and his influence on other great German painters of the time, such as Hans Holbein, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder.