The Pentecost
| Reference: | S42503 |
| Author | Albrecht DURER |
| Year: | 1510 ca. |
| Measures: | 95 x 125 mm |
| Reference: | S42503 |
| Author | Albrecht DURER |
| Year: | 1510 ca. |
| Measures: | 95 x 125 mm |
Description
Woodcut, 1510 circa, signed lower centre in the image with monogram.
From the series The Small Passion. Example from the first latin book edition of 1511.
Magnificent proof, printed with tone on contemporary laid paper, irreguralely trimmed to the borderline, very good condition.
The apostle in the foreground is reminiscent of the “Heller Altarpiece”, whereas the Virgin bears a close resemblance to Schäufelein’s in the correspondong sheet.
Conforming to Scripture, Christ’s followers are surmounted by “cloven tongues as of fire” (Acts 2:1-3) that symbolize the “outpourung of the Holy Spirit”. Contrary to Schäufelein, the event takes place in the open air, and there are many participans as there is no record that the scene was witnessed only by the disciples. However, a detailed study reveals the artist’s personal understanding. The most striking aspect of Dürer’s version of the Penecost is similarly that th inspiration of the Holy Ghost is not confined to Mary and disciples: fifteen flames issue forth from the crowns of Mary and Christ’s old and new followers, while in background three of the devout Jews mentioned in Acts are still seated, looking on and discussing the events before them. While Dürer's expansion of the common number of twelve to fifteen enlightened beings can be justified in terms of the description provided in Acts, it remains a license in pictorial terms. Local forerunners, including Dürer's teacher Wolgemut, principally show twelve blessed figures including the Virgin. Further, in his accompanying text for this image Chelidonius comments on the descent of the Holy Ghost in relation to the disciples only; this too is at odds with the visual evidence in Dürer’s image.
The original wood block is in the British Museum.
Around 1509, while still completing the Large Passion, Dürer commenced his most extensive series of the Passion of Christ, The Small Passion, which comprises thirty-seven woodcuts. The series was published as a book; each platesi s accompanied by a descritive narrative text composed by Dürer’s friend, the humanist cleric Benedictus Chelidonius, who had previously collaborated with the artist on the texts for the woodcut series of the Life of Virgin and the Large Passion. It was Friedrich Winkler who in 1941 suggested that Hans Schäufelein, one of Dürer’s students, provide the model for the Small Passion, but this proposal is not unanimously accepted by scholars. Angela Hass notes that given what we know of Dürer character and of the relative gifts of the two artists, the Master/pupil relationship alone speaks against it. So, too, does the fact that there is an altered emphasis in both the choice and interpretation of subject matter. Dürer includes nine themes that don't appear in Schäufelein's series , the title page and the four introductory scenes that precede Christ's Entry to Jerusalem, further four legendary scenes were added , they include Sts Veronica, Peter and Paul ; two scenes that feature in Schaufelein's series arc omitted by Dürer , the Disrobing of Christ and , more importantly , the Coronation of the Virgin . Another reason for questioning Winkler’s view arises from the fact that a substantial parte of the iconography which Dürer employs in the Small Passion series can be traced back to contemporary and prior works of art which were readily available to both artists.
Bibliografia
Hollstein, 160; Bartsch, 51; Panofsky, 271; Strauss, 135; TIB 1001.251; A. Hass, Two Devotional Manuals by Albrecht Dürer: The "Small Passion" and the "Engraved Passion." Iconography, Context and Spirituality, in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 63. Bd., H. 2 (2000), pp. 169-230 (62 pages)
Albrecht DURER (Norimberga 1471 - 1528)
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Dürer was a German painter, wood carver, engraver, and mathematician. He is best known for his woodcuts in series, including the Apocalypse (1498), two series on the crucifixion of Christ, the Great Passion (1498-1510) and the Little Passion (1510-11) as well as many of his individual prints, such as Knight, Death, and the Devil(1513) and Melancholia I (1514).
Dürer was born in the Imperial Free City of Nuremberg. His family came from the Kingdom of Hungary, germanizing the family name of Thürer when they settled in Nuremberg soon after the middle of the 15th century. His father, also called Albrecht, was a goldsmith and served as assistant to Hieronymus Helfer, marrying his daughter Barbara in 1468. They had eighteen children, Albrecht was the second. Albrecht's brother, Hans Dürer, also became a renowned artist.
As a youngster, Albrecht the younger apprenticed under his father, where he learned the fine art of goldsmithing, and to handle a burin. Then at the age of fifteen Dürer was apprenticed to the principal painter of the town, Michael Wolgemut, a prolific if undistinguished producer of small works in the late Gothic style. Dürer learned not only painting but also wood carving and elementary copper engraving under Wolgemut. At the end of his apprenticeship in 1490 he travelled (the so-called Wanderjahre). In 1492 he arrived in Colmar, intending to study under Martin Schöngauer, a well regarded painter-engraver of his time. He found that Schongauer had died the previous year, but he was received kindly by the family of the deceased master there and in Basel. Under them he evidently had some practice both in metal-engraving and in furnishing designs for the woodcutter. He left Basel some time in 1494 and travelled briefly in the Low Countries before he returned to Nuremberg. From this period, little of the work that can be attributed to him with certainty survives, though several of the illustrations of the Nuremberg Chronicle are sometimes attributed to him.
On July 9, 1494 Dürer was married, according to an arrangement made during his absence, to Agnes Frey, the daughter of a local merchant. His relationship with his wife is unclear and her reputation has suffered from a posthumous assault by Dürer's friends. He did not remain in Nuremberg long; in the autumn of 1494 he travelled to Italy, leaving his wife at Nuremberg. He went to Venice, evidence of his travels being derived from drawings and engravings that are closely linked to existing northern Italian works by Mantegna, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Lorenzo di Credi and others. Some time in 1495 Dürer must have returned to Nuremberg, where he seems to have lived and worked for possibly the next ten years, producing most of his notable prints.
During the first few years from 1495 onwards he worked in the established Germanic and northern forms but was open to the influences of the Renaissance. His best works in this period were for wood-block printing, typical scenes of popular devotion developed into his famous series of sixteen great designs for the Apocalypse, first carved in 1498. Counterpointed with the first seven of scenes of the Great Passion in the same year, and a little later a series of eleven on the Holy Family and of saints. Around 1504-1505 he carved the first seventeen prints of a set illustrating the life of the Virgin. Neither these nor the Great Passion were published till several years later.
Dürer trained himself in the more finely detailed and expensive copper-engraving. He attempted no subjects of the scale of his woodcuts, but produced a number of Madonnas, single figures from scripture or of the saints, some nude mythologies, and groups, sometimes satirical, of ordinary people. The Venetian artist Jacopo de Barbari, whom Dürer had met in Venice, came to Nuremberg for a while in 1500. He influenced Dürer with the new developments in perspective, anatomy and proportion, from which Dürer began his own studies. A series of extant drawings shows Dürer's experiments in human proportion, up to the famous engraving of Adam and Eve (1504) which showed his firm and detailed grasp of landscape had extended into the quality of flesh surfaces by the subtlest use of the graving-tool known to him. Two or three other technical masterpieces were produced up to 1505, when he made a second visit to Italy.
In Italy he turned his hand to painting, at first producing a series of works by tempera-painting on linen, including portraits and altarpieces, notably the Paumgartner altarpiece and the Adoration of the Magi. In early 1506 he returned to Venice, and stayed there until the spring of 1507. The occasion of this journey has been erroneously stated by Vasari. Dürer's engravings had by this time attained great popularity and had begun to be copied. In Venice he was given a valuable commission from the emigrant German community for the church of St. Bartholomew. The picture painted by Dürer was closer to the Italian style - the Adoration of the Virgin, also known as the Feast of Rose Garlands; it was subsequently acquired by the Emperor Rudolf II and taken to Prague. Other paintings Dürer produced in Venice include The Virgin and Child with the Goldfinch, a Christ disputing with the Doctors (apparently produced in a mere five days) and a number of smaller works.
Despite the regard in which he was held by the Venetians, Dürer was back in Nuremberg by mid-1507. He remained in Germany until 1520. His reputation spread all over Europe. He was on terms of friendship or friendly communication with all the masters of the age, and Raphael held himself honored in exchanging drawings with Dürer.
The years between his return from Venice and his journey to the Netherlands are commonly divided according to the type of work with which he was principally occupied. The first five years, 1507-1511, are pre-eminently the painting years of his life. In them, working with a vast number of preliminary drawings and studies, he produced what have been accounted his four best works in painting - Adam and Eve (1507), Virgin with the Iris (1508), the altarpiece the Assumption of the Virgin (1509), and the Adoration of the Trinity by all the Saints (1511). During this period he also completed the two woodcut series of the Great Passion and the Life of the Virgin, both published in 1511 together with a second edition of the Apocalypse series.
From 1511 to 1514, Dürer concentrated on engraving, both on wood and copper, but especially the latter. The major work he produced in this period was the thirty-seven subjects of the Little Passion on wood, published first in 1511, and a set of fifteen small copper-engravings on the same theme in 1512. In 1513 and 1514 appeared the three most famous of Dürer's works in copper-engraving, The Knight and Death (or simply The Knight, as he called it, 1513), Melancolia and St Jerome in his Study (both 1514).
In the years leading to 1520 he produced a wide range of works. Tempera on linen portraits in 1516. Engravings on many subjects, experiments in etching on plates of iron and zinc. A part of the Triumphal Gate and the Triumphal March for the Emperor Maximilian. He also did the marginal decorations for the Emperor's prayer-book and a portrait-drawing of the Emperor shortly before his death in 1519.
In the summer of 1520 the desire of Dürer to secure new patronage following the death of Maximilian and an outbreak of sickness in Nuremberg, gave occasion to his fourth and last journey. Together with his wife and her maid he set out in July for the Netherlands in order to be present at the coronation of the new Emperor Charles V. He journeyed by the Rhine, Cologne, and then to Antwerp, where he was well received and produced numerous drawings in silverpoint, chalk or charcoal. Besides going to Aachen for the coronation, he made excursions to Cologne, Nijmwegen, Hertogenbosch, Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Zeeland. He finally returned home in July 1521, having caught an undetermined illness which afflicted him for the rest of his life.
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Albrecht DURER (Norimberga 1471 - 1528)
|
Dürer was a German painter, wood carver, engraver, and mathematician. He is best known for his woodcuts in series, including the Apocalypse (1498), two series on the crucifixion of Christ, the Great Passion (1498-1510) and the Little Passion (1510-11) as well as many of his individual prints, such as Knight, Death, and the Devil(1513) and Melancholia I (1514).
Dürer was born in the Imperial Free City of Nuremberg. His family came from the Kingdom of Hungary, germanizing the family name of Thürer when they settled in Nuremberg soon after the middle of the 15th century. His father, also called Albrecht, was a goldsmith and served as assistant to Hieronymus Helfer, marrying his daughter Barbara in 1468. They had eighteen children, Albrecht was the second. Albrecht's brother, Hans Dürer, also became a renowned artist.
As a youngster, Albrecht the younger apprenticed under his father, where he learned the fine art of goldsmithing, and to handle a burin. Then at the age of fifteen Dürer was apprenticed to the principal painter of the town, Michael Wolgemut, a prolific if undistinguished producer of small works in the late Gothic style. Dürer learned not only painting but also wood carving and elementary copper engraving under Wolgemut. At the end of his apprenticeship in 1490 he travelled (the so-called Wanderjahre). In 1492 he arrived in Colmar, intending to study under Martin Schöngauer, a well regarded painter-engraver of his time. He found that Schongauer had died the previous year, but he was received kindly by the family of the deceased master there and in Basel. Under them he evidently had some practice both in metal-engraving and in furnishing designs for the woodcutter. He left Basel some time in 1494 and travelled briefly in the Low Countries before he returned to Nuremberg. From this period, little of the work that can be attributed to him with certainty survives, though several of the illustrations of the Nuremberg Chronicle are sometimes attributed to him.
On July 9, 1494 Dürer was married, according to an arrangement made during his absence, to Agnes Frey, the daughter of a local merchant. His relationship with his wife is unclear and her reputation has suffered from a posthumous assault by Dürer's friends. He did not remain in Nuremberg long; in the autumn of 1494 he travelled to Italy, leaving his wife at Nuremberg. He went to Venice, evidence of his travels being derived from drawings and engravings that are closely linked to existing northern Italian works by Mantegna, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Lorenzo di Credi and others. Some time in 1495 Dürer must have returned to Nuremberg, where he seems to have lived and worked for possibly the next ten years, producing most of his notable prints.
During the first few years from 1495 onwards he worked in the established Germanic and northern forms but was open to the influences of the Renaissance. His best works in this period were for wood-block printing, typical scenes of popular devotion developed into his famous series of sixteen great designs for the Apocalypse, first carved in 1498. Counterpointed with the first seven of scenes of the Great Passion in the same year, and a little later a series of eleven on the Holy Family and of saints. Around 1504-1505 he carved the first seventeen prints of a set illustrating the life of the Virgin. Neither these nor the Great Passion were published till several years later.
Dürer trained himself in the more finely detailed and expensive copper-engraving. He attempted no subjects of the scale of his woodcuts, but produced a number of Madonnas, single figures from scripture or of the saints, some nude mythologies, and groups, sometimes satirical, of ordinary people. The Venetian artist Jacopo de Barbari, whom Dürer had met in Venice, came to Nuremberg for a while in 1500. He influenced Dürer with the new developments in perspective, anatomy and proportion, from which Dürer began his own studies. A series of extant drawings shows Dürer's experiments in human proportion, up to the famous engraving of Adam and Eve (1504) which showed his firm and detailed grasp of landscape had extended into the quality of flesh surfaces by the subtlest use of the graving-tool known to him. Two or three other technical masterpieces were produced up to 1505, when he made a second visit to Italy.
In Italy he turned his hand to painting, at first producing a series of works by tempera-painting on linen, including portraits and altarpieces, notably the Paumgartner altarpiece and the Adoration of the Magi. In early 1506 he returned to Venice, and stayed there until the spring of 1507. The occasion of this journey has been erroneously stated by Vasari. Dürer's engravings had by this time attained great popularity and had begun to be copied. In Venice he was given a valuable commission from the emigrant German community for the church of St. Bartholomew. The picture painted by Dürer was closer to the Italian style - the Adoration of the Virgin, also known as the Feast of Rose Garlands; it was subsequently acquired by the Emperor Rudolf II and taken to Prague. Other paintings Dürer produced in Venice include The Virgin and Child with the Goldfinch, a Christ disputing with the Doctors (apparently produced in a mere five days) and a number of smaller works.
Despite the regard in which he was held by the Venetians, Dürer was back in Nuremberg by mid-1507. He remained in Germany until 1520. His reputation spread all over Europe. He was on terms of friendship or friendly communication with all the masters of the age, and Raphael held himself honored in exchanging drawings with Dürer.
The years between his return from Venice and his journey to the Netherlands are commonly divided according to the type of work with which he was principally occupied. The first five years, 1507-1511, are pre-eminently the painting years of his life. In them, working with a vast number of preliminary drawings and studies, he produced what have been accounted his four best works in painting - Adam and Eve (1507), Virgin with the Iris (1508), the altarpiece the Assumption of the Virgin (1509), and the Adoration of the Trinity by all the Saints (1511). During this period he also completed the two woodcut series of the Great Passion and the Life of the Virgin, both published in 1511 together with a second edition of the Apocalypse series.
From 1511 to 1514, Dürer concentrated on engraving, both on wood and copper, but especially the latter. The major work he produced in this period was the thirty-seven subjects of the Little Passion on wood, published first in 1511, and a set of fifteen small copper-engravings on the same theme in 1512. In 1513 and 1514 appeared the three most famous of Dürer's works in copper-engraving, The Knight and Death (or simply The Knight, as he called it, 1513), Melancolia and St Jerome in his Study (both 1514).
In the years leading to 1520 he produced a wide range of works. Tempera on linen portraits in 1516. Engravings on many subjects, experiments in etching on plates of iron and zinc. A part of the Triumphal Gate and the Triumphal March for the Emperor Maximilian. He also did the marginal decorations for the Emperor's prayer-book and a portrait-drawing of the Emperor shortly before his death in 1519.
In the summer of 1520 the desire of Dürer to secure new patronage following the death of Maximilian and an outbreak of sickness in Nuremberg, gave occasion to his fourth and last journey. Together with his wife and her maid he set out in July for the Netherlands in order to be present at the coronation of the new Emperor Charles V. He journeyed by the Rhine, Cologne, and then to Antwerp, where he was well received and produced numerous drawings in silverpoint, chalk or charcoal. Besides going to Aachen for the coronation, he made excursions to Cologne, Nijmwegen, Hertogenbosch, Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Zeeland. He finally returned home in July 1521, having caught an undetermined illness which afflicted him for the rest of his life.
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