This etext was produced by John Mamoun <mamounjo@UMDNJ.EDU>
Albrecht Dürer's Records [letters/memoirs] of Journeys to
Venice and the Low Countries
(See the end of this electronic text for information aboutthe edition)
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was probably the greatestgraphical artist of the Northern Renaissance. He is thefirst to have elevated the self-portrait to a high art form,and was known for his fascination with animals, which formthe subjects of many of his graphical works. He reveled inportraying men of learning and/or high stature as well aspeasants, believing that portraits of the latter could be asinstructive as those of the former. His marriage to hiswife Agnes was childless and banal, apparently because Dürerwas too preoccupied with intellectual matters to be muchinterested in romantic pursuits.
In the letters below, this unusually modern thinkerdemonstrates his noble, righteous utilitarian personalphilosophy, and meticulously records his personal and travelexpenses, while journeying throughout Venice and variousother European cities and divided German states. Numerouskings and laypeople sought to meet and host him, since hewas renowned and loved as a painter while still alive. Hecomments on Martin Luther, Erasmus of Rotterdam andpainting, and demonstrates his curious, inquiring nature. Healso describes his visit to Zeeland to see a beached whale,which washed away before he got there; but during thisvisit, Dürer may have caught the disease from which he mayhave died several years later. Like Rembrandt, he enjoyedcollecting things, and demonstrates this in his letters.
***********
Whatever one's final estimate of his art, Dürer'spersonality is at once so imposing and so attractive, andhas been so endeared to us by familiarity, that something ofthis personal attachment has been transferred to ouraesthetic judgment. The letters from Venice and the Diaryof his journey in the Netherlands, which form the contentsof this volume, are indeed the singularly fortunate meansfor this pleasant intercourse with the man himself. Theyreveal Dürer as one of the distinctively modern men of theRenaissance: intensely, but not arrogantly, conscious of hisown personality; accepting with a pleasant ease theuniversal admiration of his genius-a personal admiration,too, of an altogether modern kind; careful of his fame asone who foresaw its immortality. They show him as having,though in a far less degree, something of Leonardo daVinci's scientific interest, certainly as possessing aquick, though naive curiosity about the world and a quitemodern freedom from superstition. It is clear that hisdominating and yet kindly personality, no less than hisphysical beauty and distinction, made him the center ofinterest wherever he went. His easy and humorous good-fellowship, of which the letters to Pirkheimer are eloquent,won for him the admiring friendship of the best men of histime.
To all these characteristics we must add a deep and sincerereligious feel