The local audience will have a unique opportunity to see the prints of one of the most brilliant artists of the Renaissance, the German artist Albrecht Dürer, as well as the works of his disciples and contemporaries – the well-known names of the German and Italian graphic arts: Heinrich Aldegrever, Albrecht Altdorfer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Marcantonio Raimondi and others.
The exhibition presents 138 prints, divided into two segments. The highlights of the first segment include twenty works of Albrecht Dürer and 74 supreme prints by his contemporaries. The second segments of the exhibition, the Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I, presents 44 prints from the famous composition done at the order of the emperor, who wished to maintain the glory of the imperial House of Habsburg. The best artists of the time – Dürer, his disciples and contemporaries, were involved in the making of this work of art.
A special place among the exhibited works is occupied by Dürer’s prints Rhinoceros and Knight, Death and the Devil, done after his return from Italy. The depiction of Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon stands out among the prints from the series The Apocalypse of Saint John, The Life of the Virgin and The Great Passion. The central place in the Triumphal Procession is occupied by the depiction of the triumphal carriage, which shows the crucial event for Maximilian's life and his politics: the wedding with the daughter of Charles the Bold, the heiress of Burgundy.
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) is known as a painter, printmaker, draftsman and theoretician. His creative genius shifted the boundaries of art in the early 16th century and he was, and has remained, an artist who stood side by side with Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael. He played a key role in the development of European graphic arts and Renaissance art. As a master of drawing ‘microscopic details’, Dürer reached the supreme artistic expression using the black line and through his technique printmaking was elevated from an artisan trade to an art equal to painting.