Art analysis of Albrecht Dürer s Self portrait from 1500

The first artwork we're going to look at is the self-portrait done by German artist Albert Dürer. This was painted in 1500. This is a small painting and it's painted with oil paint on a wooden panel. You can find this in Munich in the Alte Pinotek Museum. So much about understanding art comes from looking closely. Let's zoom in and look at this and look at the detail and the texture that this self-portrait is really showing off. Albert Dürer wanted to get every part of this artwork perfect and as realistic as possible. Notice that this is completely different than medieval art in Europe. Before the Renaissance, the only thing that was important was religious meaning. Realism wasn't necessary. But the world is changing and Albert Dürer is saying that everyday life in the material world is important again. As you move around the painting, you'll see that Albert Dürer is showing off not only his technical skills, but he's trying to show us how successful he is. If you look at his clothing, you'll see that it's lined with fur. And then on the shoulder of his arms, he's got the split leather sleeves that were extremely fashionable at the time. Albert Dürer is showing that he's making money from his craft. Now when this painting first came out, people were actually quite upset. And the first clue of why this was comes from how Albert Dürer is holding his hand. Now his hand is posed in a way that's actually quite awkward for me to do myself. And it turns out that this shape is very special. It's actually a religious blessing. And before this painting, the only person who was allowed to pose his hands like this was Jesus. And it wasn't just the hand that people had a problem with. Albert Dürer painted himself looking straight at us. And again, the only person who was allowed to be looking straight at us like this was Jesus himself. And just so you can see why people were upset, here's an example of a painting of Jesus that was done only 22 years earlier. Notice that the hands mumbling painting is less realistic. And it shows Jesus in the way that Jesus was normally painted at the time. Albert Dürer was criticized enormously for painting himself in a way that made him look like Jesus. And people thought that he was extremely arrogant for doing this. And yet Albert Dürer was incredibly proud of this painting and he signed it prominently. If you look at the middle left hand side of the painting, you'll see his monogram AD for Albert Dürer and the year it was made 1500. And on the right hand side of the painting, he goes even further. He writes a message to us in Latin and it says, I am Albert Dürer of Nuremberg. I depicted myself like this with paint at the age of 28. He's saying, look at me. I'm this young. I'm this successful. Look at my skills. And I did this when I was only 28 years old. And in this way, Albert Dürer's self-portrait shows the hybrid nature of the Renaissance. It's half religious and it's half in the everyday world. Dürer hasn't done incredibly detailed and physically realistic self-portrait, but he also has the newfound confidence and some people would arrogance to paint himself looking like a religious figure, looking like Jesus.