The Evolution of Artistic Identity

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) who achieved fame throughout Europe for the power of his images. These range from his woodcut of a rhinoceros, to his watercolour of a young hare, to his drawing of praying hands and his stunning self-portraits such as that above (albeit here in a later monochrome reproduction) with his distinctive A D monogram. He was expected to follow his father and become a goldsmith, but found his own way to be a great artist, taking public commissions that built his reputation but did not pay, while creating a market for his prints, and he captured the timeless and the new in a world of great change.

With

Susan Foister Deputy Director and Curator of German Paintings at the National Gallery

Giulia Bartrum Freelance art historian and Former Curator of German Prints and Drawings at the British Museum

And

Ulinka Rublack Professor of Early Modern European History and Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge

Studio production: John Goudie