Customer Reviews

Durer: Master Draftsman of the Renaissance--His Life in Paintings

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This book was a very pleasant addition to my art library. I never saw it in a bookstore, so I was hesitant to buy it when I saw how little it cost and how small it was. But, I didn't know anything about Durer and wanted to learn and I figured I'd take a chance on this book. Good decision! This book is well put together and a tremendous bargain to boot. The book starts off with about a 25 page, obviously brief, biography by Mr. Bailey of Durer. Then there are 48 full page color plates with descriptions and explanations of the paintings on the opposing pages. The reproductions are of good quality and the descriptions are well written and informative. Any of you out there who own a lot of art books know what 48 color plates usually does to the price of an art book, so "Durer" is really a steal. After you see this book you will realize what a great all-around artist Durer was. He wasn't only a painter of religious scenes but an equally talented landscape and portrait painter. (Some of the portraits are just fantastic!) He also did some beautiful nature studies. Included are 2 paintings he did of a hare and of the wings of a bird that will just knock your socks off (assuming you wear socks!). He worked well in all mediums. The watercolors are as beautiful as the oils. Phaidon has a whole series of these books in their "colour library" and this book makes me want to check out some of the other titles concerning other artists I haven't learned about yet. Definitely worth purchasing as an introduction to an extremely gifted artist!

This Phaidon Durer book is probably, for the price, by far the best comprehensive introduction to the life and works of Durer. It is also one of the best books on Durer in absolute terms. The photographic reproductions vividly bring out the color and sharpness of the dozens of key Durer paintings illustrated in the volume. The photographs show that there is simply no substitute for an up-to-date book utilizing modern photographic reproduction/printing techniques to reproduce paintings. I have looked at several older books in librarys with color reproductions of Durer works, and this newer Phaidon book has much better quality color reproductions. It also has examples of key Durer drawings, such as "Praying Hands," and "Architect," as well as good-quality reproductions of the three classic Durer engravings ("Melancolia I," "Knight, Death and the Devil," and "St. Germone in his Study") and beautiful, crisp and brilliantly colored reproductions of several key Durer watercolors, including the classics "Hare" and "Great Turf," as well as key landscape watercolors. Of particular interest are the reproductions of the 3 classic self-portraits, of which the one Durer did at age 28 was so fascinating that it alone made me buy this book and is alone worth the price of the book. Another fascinating painting is the one that Durer made of Wolgemut, who was his mentor and who taught him how to paint. It is startlingly brilliantly colored, and has amazing color depth for a photographic reproduction of a painting. This book shows how Durer may well have been the greatest graphical artist of the Western World, and one gets a sense of his amazingly modern personality from the selections in this book and the quality of their detail. It is hard to believe that a man as modern-thinking and scientific as Durer lived 500 years ago.