Renaissance Masterworks
featuring works by Albrecht Dürer

June 3-September 7, 2003
Erie Art Museum Ground Floor Gallery

The Life of the Virgin Series by Albrecht Dürer, master artist of the Northern Renaissance, is a critically important body of work in the development of German art by a true revolutionary in the field of printmaking.

Dürer was unique among northern artists in his ability to combine Italian Renaissance ideals of geometry, measurement, themes from antiquity and mythology with the German traditions in medieval imagery, lush colors, and an attention to detail. This fusing of themes in Dürer’s work formed a pathway for the Italian Renaissance to come northward. Not only did he practice Renaissance themes in his work, but also published several treatises on art theory and practice. His own knowledge and technical mastery of printmaking techniques was unsurpassed in his time.

The Life of the Virgin, a book illustrated by Dürer, with text by theologian Benedictus Chelidonius, was originally published in 1511, during a time of great productivity in Dürer’s career. Dürer’s 22 Virgin woodcuts tell the story of the Holy Family. Life of the Virgin and a selection of other prints by the master, including Melancholia I, Eve, Erasmus and others are on loan from the Martin Art Gallery of Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA.

A selection of 16th, 17th, and 18th century etchings and engravings from the Museum’s Old Master Prints collection completes the exhibition. Artists include the revolutionary Jacques Callot, who invented new tools and techniques in the process of engraving; the well-known satirist, William Hogarth; and Salvatore Rosa, regarded as the last Italian artist to embody Renaissance ideals.