Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, and theorist of the Northern Renaissance, active mainly in Nuremberg. Trained first as a goldsmith by his father and then as a painter under Michael Wolgemut, he traveled the Upper Rhine and twice to Venice, absorbing Italian ideas on proportion and perspective. He produced altarpieces, portraits, and celebrated engravings and woodcuts, including "Melencolia I," "Knight, Death and the Devil," and the "Apocalypse" series, and self-portraits. He wrote treatises on measurement, fortification, and human proportion. His workshop and widely circulated prints spread his imagery across Europe. He died in Nuremberg in 1528.