Brief Biography-Albrecht Dürer was notably the most renowned Northern Renaissance artist. He worked with watercolours, woodcuts, and engravings and painted animals, plants, and religious scenes; Venetian art inspired him the most. Dürer was from Nuremberg and was the third of eighteen children. He first trained for three years as a goldsmith, his father’s profession; however, his heart was in art. His father reluctantly let him do three years of apprenticeship art with Michael Wolgemut in Nuremberg. He later spent time in Colmar in Alsace learning engraving techniques and went to Basel and Strasbourg doing woodcut illustrations. Dürer had a marriage arranged by his father in Nuremberg in 1494. After a few months, he left for Italy, doing watercolours of the Alps on his journey and, when in Venice, learned the skills of Venetian artists. The work of Andrea Mantegna strongly influenced him.
After a year, he returned to Nuremberg and made a living from his engravings and woodcuts. He received commissions from aristocrats and burghers within a few years, including the Elector of Saxony, Fredrick the Wise. Finally, in 1505, he returned to Venice; he had become well-established as an artist in Italy. He was most impressed by Giovanni Bellini, who visited him when Giovanni was eighty years old on this visit. Although he enjoyed Venice and was enticed with two hundred ducats a year to stay in Venice, he decided to go back to Nuremberg.
In 1512, Dürer received commissions from the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. He was made an honorary citizen of the Great Council of Nuremberg and bestowed an annuity of one hundred florins for life. However, he went through a dark period with his work when his mother died in 1514, and he was also unable to manage his finances well.
In 1517, Dürer became interested in Martin Luther’s writings, which somewhat lifted his spirits. He lost his annuity when Maximillian I died, and he undertook a long journey north to reinstate it. Dürer collected artefacts on his journey, which absorbed most of his budget; however, his annuity got renewed by the new Emperor, Charles V, in Koln. When he arrived back in Nuremberg, there was unrest and Luther was arrested. His friends and associates got banished for heresy, and the beginning of the Peasant War of 1535 was mounting. Durer spent his last years writing his family chronicles and works on subjects such as perspective. He died in 1528 from a fever he caught while travelling north.