Albrecht Dürer and the Venetian Renaissance

Albrecht Dürer and the Venetian Renaissance examines twenty-five paintings by the German artist in an effort to reevaluate his relationship to contemporary Italian art and his status as a painter. Providing a technical analysis of these works, Katherine Crawford Luber explains how Dürer appropriated Venetian techniques and suggests that the artist was engaged in the exploration of an atmospheric, coloristic perspective. Luber also demonstrates how the Venetian alternative to 'scientific' perspective was integrated not only in Dürer's late paintings, but also in his later graphic oeuvre, which necessitates a reassessment of the critical partition of his painted and graphic work. Emphasizing Dürer's careful working methods, Luber argues that technique is an interpretable and critically important aspect of art works that should be integrated into mainstream art historical studies.