Albrecht Dürer, the mega-pop star of painters in the Middle Ages, lived in Nuremberg and maintained close contact with the wealthy patricians. His father was a goldsmith. His mother Agnes gave birth to 18 children, of which only 3 boys reached adulthood. However, none of the three surviving sons could father a child, so the famous Dürer family died out.
Albrecht Dürer's father was a goldsmith and wanted this to be his son too. There were no so-called "artists" in the Middle Ages - there were good craftsmen.
Albrecht Dürer's house is on a busy street directly at the Tiergärtnertor. The cobblestones made it very noisy even then, so the painter complained to the city council several times about the noise pollution because it meant he couldn't work properly. On the one hand, Dürer made a living from portraying rich patricians, such as the banker Jakob Fugger. V
But Dürer was also an entrepreneur. He employed 4 agents. Each agent had up to 1,000 prints with him, which Dürer produced in his Nuremberg office and then sold throughout Europe. Dürer's works were often copied. He then had his copyright sign "AD" protected. The Italians then copied the copyright sign along with his picture. This led to one of the first art processes in the world, which Dürer incidentally won.
Dürer distinguished himself as an artistic genius in that he mastered all 3 areas ingeniously: painting, as well as wood engraving and the very difficult supreme discipline of copper engraving. During one of his trips, Dürer contracted a type of malaria and suffered from it until he died.
1471 – 1528, born and died in Nuremberg as the 3rd of 18 children.
The German painter, draftsman and engraver Albrecht Dürer is one of the most important and versatile personalities in art history. He was the first German artist to use printmaking in a targeted manner in order to broadcast his own artistic ideas widely and to generate income through free sale. Through the artistic quality of his works, but also through skilful marketing (e.g. with the concise monogram AD - he succeeded in establishing the "Albrecht Dürer brand" internationally. Artistic he led both the woodcut and the copperplate engraving to hitherto unknown perfection. He also worked for Emperor Maximilian I. Dürer was the "pop star" in the Middle Ages.