Art Appreciation – Albrecht Dürer

The new art must be based upon science — in particular, upon mathematics, as the most exact, logical, and graphically constructive of the sciences.

– Albrecht Dürer - (1471 – 1528)

When you think of the Renaissance, you probably think of da Vinci,   Michelangelo, or another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. You should also think of Albrecht Dürer, and not just because he was pretty face. He was also a theoretical mathematician who applied his findings to his art, making leaps and bounds in representing the scale and proportion of his subjects.

Ask any art student what the most difficult thing is to draw and 9 times out of 10 you will get “hands” as your answer. Dürer nailed them. And since figurative art apparently wasn’t challenging enough, he painted landscapes, religious iconography, plants, and architecture. He studied animal forms and reproduced them in previously unimagined detail. Not satisfied with simply painting, Dürer created woodcuts and copper engravings to make prints. He made a couple of astronomical maps, too. Oh, and he was a published author on geometry and human proportions in art.

So, yeah. Leonardo et al. were geniuses, but Dürer was geniuser.