We look at the pictures of the great early artists with admiration. We repeat their names with reverence, but we forget that they were human beings, glad and sorry, human and despairing, friends and lovers, just as we are.

One of the great German artists, Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg in 1471. He was the son of a Hungarian Master Goldsmith and at a very early age he was already showing himself as a prodigy.

The young Albrecht served his first apprenticeship with his father and became a master with the engraving tool, called the burin. He continued his apprenticeship with the painter Michael Wolgemut, in whose large workshop he learned the craft of woodcut book illustration.

Dürer developed a great mastery of line, whether he was drawing with pencil, silverpoint or brush. His style was based on a true observation of nature. Countless sketches of landscapes, animals and plants were incorporated in his designs. His famous drawing of a hare was an example of this.

In 1494 Dürer travelled to Venice, primarily to investigate an artist who was copying his style on engravings and signing them as originals. His fame as an engraver had preceded him and he was welcomed and accepted by the leading artists of the city.

After visiting their studios and observing their work he returned to his native land, enriched with the knowledge of the great advances made by the masters of the Italian Renaissance in treatment, colour and composition.

Dürer was the first north European artist to understand the basic aims of the Renaissance. Like Leonardo Da Vinci he wrote theoretical treatises on a variety of art and science subjects. He made it a life mission to bring the modern ideas of art to Germany and establish them there.

In 1520 he presented to his native city, as a memorial of himself, his unique depiction of the ‘Apostles’. With this work of art he he successfully combined the Italian Renaissance forms and ideas with the Gothic individualism prevalent in German art..

As a man, Albrecht Dürer was stately and sedate and he dressed immaculately. He was also intensely pious and devout. He regarded his talent as a gift from God. When he died in 1528, Martin Luther wrote of him: “Assuredly affection bids us mourn for one who was the best of men.”

His life’s work is very well represented in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle with their collection of over 120 engravings from Museums in Berlin and Bremen and runs until February 2006.

Above: Irish Soldiers and Peasants (1521) by Albrecht Dürer.