Minneapolis Institute of Art

Underweysung der Messung

Albrecht Dürer

Date

1525

Medium

Book in original vellum binding

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Near the end of his life, Albrecht Dürer produced this treatise on theoretical and applied geometry as an aid not only for painters, but also for goldsmiths, sculptors, stonemasons, carpenters, and all those for whom using measurement is useful. Dürer takes his reader through linear, planar, and solid geometry and their application. The text is interspersed with vivid woodcuts of geometrical diagrams and illustrative examples of the author's ideas on typography, architecture, time-telling, etc. The volume concludes with images of artists using contraptions to produce drawings in perfect perspective. Dürer freely admitted that the work is a compilation. The complete title may be translated as “Lessons in measurement, with the compass and ruler, into lines and whole bodies, drawn together by Albrecht Dürer, and for the benefit of all art lovers with the corresponding figures, brought into print, in the year 1525.” He had studied--perhaps with the help of learned friends--the work of ancient theoreticians and modern authors. Moreover, he had analyzed the art of masters such as Giovanni Bellini, whose convincing perspectival paintings continue to amaze visitors to Venice. Dürer filled this work with knowledge gleaned from a lifetime of study and experience and passed it on to a new generation. Germany, Europe

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