Albrecht Durer
Published on Dec 16, 2016
A study on the carving The Knight, Death, and the Devil from three carvings known as the Meisterstiche. Shows how the carving was humanistic and how Albrecht himself was a humanist.
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Birth
- May 21, 1471
- Nuremberg Germany
- German painter, print maker, draftsman, theorist, and wood scarver.
One of his major wood carvings are the Meisterstiche
The Meisterstiche are three engravings that correspond to the three kinds of virtue in medieval scholasticism, theological, intellectual, and moral.
The Knight, Death, and The Devil
It is the largest of the three paintings portraying a Christian Knight.
Photo by Cea.
The Knight, Death, and the Devil embodies moral virtue and may have been based his depiction on his art from "Christian Knight" from Erasmus's instructions for the Christian soldier
"In order that you may not be deterred from the path of virtue because it seems rough and dreary ... and because you must constantly fight three unfair enemies—the flesh, the devil, and the world—this third rule shall be proposed to you: all of those spooks and phantoms which come upon you as if you were in the very gorges of Hades must be deemed for naught after the example of Virgil's Aeneas ... Look not behind thee."
How does this carving express humanism? The painting is the knight riding through a Nordic gorge riding past death on a pale horse who is holding an hourglass to be a reminder of life's brevity (Shortness of time) followed closely by a pig snouted devil.
Why did he create this artifact and where did he get some inspiration?
Photo by EvelynHill
The carvings were intended more for connoisseurs and collectors than for popular devotion.
The pose of the knight was inspired by equestrian statues in Italy, particularly the monument commemorating Bartolommeo Colleoni which he must have saw in Italy.
What were Durer's thoughts on humanism?
He had a desire to reform Christian society by imitating human figures
Photo by Jose Javier Martin Espartosa
Untitled Slide
Photo by Irish Dominican Photographers
