Classroom use of the art print

Arts & Activities, April, 2005 by Guy Hubbard

Albrecht Durer (German; 1471.1528). Self-Portrait, 1498. Oil on wood, 20 1/2" x 16 1/2". Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

THINGS TO LEARN

* While Durer was on his travels, he painted a number of small watercolors of places he had visited. Very few landscapes were made 500 years ago of actual places, so these pictures are helpful in understanding what towns looked like at the end of the Middle Ages. Durer also made some very detailed watercolors of animals and plants that show another side of his artist talent.

* The artist was not only a painter, he was also a master of engraving in copper and wood. Engravings in art are made by cutting the lines of a design or a picture in a sheet of copper or wood (a plate) using a sharp tool called a "burin." The finished drawing on the plate is then covered with printing ink. The ink in then wiped from the surface of the plate leaving ink only in the cut-out lines that were cut in it. Soft paper is then squeezed on the plate using a printer's press so that the paper picks up the ink left in the engraved grooves. In this way, these grooves become the black lines of the printed picture. This kind of printing is called "intaglio."

* Albrecht Durer lived at a time of great calamities throughout Europe. Droughts caused harvests to fail, leading to famine and death. Gangs of homeless people wandered across the countryside. Disastrous epidemics spread through towns and cities and countries suffered from rebellions. Many of these disasters were thought to be caused by the wrath of God, and that angels armed with swords were about to exterminate all the people.

Durer's own religious feelings were affected by these events and resulted in themes he chose for numbers of his engravings, where he predicted the end of the world. Some of these grim horrors have such titles as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Seven-Headed Monster and Knight, Death and the Devil.

* Students may be interested to learn that Durer's life spanned the period when the Protestant Reformation occurred in northern Europe, where people rebelled against the Roman Catholic Church and organized new churches. During this time there were uprisings by peasants and monastaries were destroyed together with the many works of art in them.

In 1512 when Martin Luther challenged the Roman Catholic Church to reform itself Durer was in his forties. Durer sympathized with Luther and corresponded with him, although the two never met.

* Durer's art can be better understood if it is studied with what was happening during his life. It was the time when the Middle Ages were coming to a close and the modern world was just beginning to take shape. Great artists, writers and scientists were at work and important events were taking place, chief among them being the discovery of the Americas.

THINGS TO DO

* Numbers of artists in this year's Clip & Save Art Print series have dressed themselves up for their self-portraits. Students may enjoy doing this for a self-portrait of themselves. While they may not be able to wear fine clothing like Albrecht Durer did, they may be able to dress as characters found in stories they have read. Or, they may prefer to dress themselves in some kind of fancy dress of their own invention. An alternative might be for one student to dress up and pose while the rest of the class draws or paints.

* Students are often attracted by nightmarish images and want to include them in their artworks. Rather than relying on their own ideas or those to be seen in movies and on television, they may find good ideas in some of Albrech Durer's engravings portraying Biblical revelations that were interpreted by him for people living in Germany 500 years ago.

* In order to get a better idea of the changes to art that were occurring while Durer was a alive, students may like to study paintings of the two styles that were important at the time. One was the traditional German Gothic style of Martin Schongauer and Matthias Grunewald and the other, newer, style of the Italian Renaissance, as found in the work of Giovanni Belini, Andrea Mantegna and Raphael. Students could describe the two styles and compare them as well as talk about which style they preferred.

* In order for students to develop a better idea of Durer and his art, they may be asked to search books on his work for other self-portraits. Photocopies are a good way of keeping a record of what they find. Some self-portraits are drawings--one drawn when Durer was only 14 years old--while others are paintings. Some are simple portraits, while others are more complex pictures where he included a portrait of himself together with other people.

BUILDING A PICTURE FILE

This painting may be used to illustrate various art-teaching needs. Potentially useful picture-file categories include: "German Artists: Albrecht Durer"; "Self-Portraits"; "Wood Engravings: Albrecht Durer" and "Renaissance Artists."

For ideas about collecting and retrieving pictures to help in teaching art and other subjects, readers are invited to write to: Guy Hubbard c/o Arts & Activities, 12345 World Trade Drive, San Diego, CA 92128. E-mail: hubbard@indiana.edu.