Dürer’s Artistic Journey

Today I went to visit the exhibition on the famous 15th-century German artist Albrecht Dürer’s journeys throughout Europe they were showing at the National Gallery. I was getting really excited to see all the many characters he managed to draw on his very populated canvases until I realized the famous miniaturist from around the same time was Bruegel and not Dürer! However, to give him credit, Dürer’s engravings are INCREDIBLY detailed. I have no idea how he managed to take good care of ever last minuscule line in his artwork.

Anyways, the exhibit was about his travels and the artwork he produced during that time. He travelled through the Alps, Italy and the Low Countries (or as we politely call it nowadays, The Netherlands), got inspired by loads of artists he met along the way, and sold his artwork to make a living.

I love that! To be able to travel, incorporate your sights into your artwork, and then sell them to fund your travels. That’s basically paying your way through a long gap yahhh. I loved the adventurous spirit of it all. I found it really inspiring, not least because I’ve been watching The Witcher series on Netflix, and all my fantasies of medieval life and magic came into the mix as I followed Dürer’s journey in the basement of the National Gallery.

In all fairness though, even though I’m sure he must’ve encountered difficulties along the way, his travelling life does sound pretty swell. I love how he would travel around Europe (carrying with him his reputation, of course, and sometimes bringing along his wife and a servant), stop at a town, get a commission to paint a mural for a church, sell a couple of prints, talk to the hottest artist in town, perhaps even collaborate in some of his friends’ art pieces (as he did with Joachim Patinir) to create some epic works, and then move on to the next place.

This is art made practical, or using art to craft a life for oneself. Dürer was very practical. He chose the medium of prints because he knew it would have a wider circulation than paintings, and therefore more money. But that doesn’t mean he tried to popularize himself. He takes his studies very seriously (the proportion of the naked man and woman must stand in accordance with Vitruvius), and I suppose just as Shakespeare snuck poetry into plays for peasants, so Dürer imbibed his prints with his genius and incredible skill. Even if you are a great artist, you must know how to sell yourself.

I think I find the idea that art can be a practical means of supporting oneself a very encouraging one. I’d love to be able to travel as a pianist, share ideas to different places, and also be inspired similarly as I travel, changing myself along the way. What I loved about Dürer from what I could see in the exhibition was that he was very flexible. It didn’t matter whether his medium was oak, panel, metal, or coloured paper; he would adapt and deliver good quality. Hell, even his light sketches are incredible. For him, art is literally everywhere, and I’d like to carry a similar attitude throughout my life.