Cranberry Juice
Artist and Humanist, Albrecht Durer is one of the most significant figures in the history f European art outside Italy during the Renaissance (Gowing 195). Portraying the questioning spirit of the Renaissance, Durer's conviction that he must examine and explore his own situation through capturing the very essence of his role as artist and creator, is reflected in the Self-portrait in a Fur Collared Robe (Strieder 10). With the portrait, Durer's highly self-conscious approach to his status as an artist coveys his exalted mission of art more clearly than in any other painting. He seems to be "less concerned with himself as a person than with himself as an artist, and less with the artist than with the origin and exalted mission of art itself." (Strieder 13). In this self-portrait Durer portrays himself in the guise of the Savior. Durer's natural resemblance to Christ has been reverently amplified (Hutchinson 67). His bearded face is grave, and fringed by lustrous shoulder-lenth hair painted in a dark, Christ-like brown (Russell 89. Scholars have called attention to the fact that, the portrait was intended to portray Durer as the "thinking" artist through emphasis on the enlarged eyes and the right hand. Duere's use of
Along with his qualities of mind and eye, the gracefully extended fingers in his self-portrait portrays his extraordinary "faculty of hand. governed and guided his hand and bade it trust to itself without any other aids. the full-face view and almost hypnotic gaze "emphasizes his belief that the sense of sight is the most noble of the five senses. He felt the artist's creative spirit was God-given, (Russell 89) and saw the ability to create as being innate, "a gift and labor linking man to God" (Gowing 56). There is no doubt that Durer's thought and art were affected by the powerful reforming spirit of the age (Hutchison 164). The contours of the face are molded by means of soft light and transparent shadows, almost in an attempt to fathom the inner depths of Durer's creative spirit (Strieder 147). Joachim Camerarius, a professor who published a Latin translation of two of Durer's books, wrote of Durer's "intelligent head, his flashing eyes, his nobly formed nose, his broad chest," and then noted: "But his fingers- you would vow you had never seen anything more elegant" (Russell 8). And he had painted his own image in everlasting colors, desiring the hand down an "undying image to posterity" (Strieder 14). His advice for the young painter was "that he be kept from women.
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Acceptance Essays
