Thursday, September 2, 2010

Durer's House and Artist's Studio

These pictures are from our recent trip to Germany. We visited Nuremberg and toured Albrecht Durer's house. My favorite part, of course, was his studio. In those days, an artist couldn't run to Texas Art Supply for his acrylics, but had to mix his own paint. It was typical for him to grind his own pigments, mix them, and put them into little squares of pigs' bladder to preserve them. Durer's studio had an extensive display of pigments for this purpose. They also had on display a nice wood block depicting one of Durer's 'St. Jerome in his Study' blocks, along with someone demonstrating how the artist made his prints. Altogether it was a lovely experience. After that, we ate outdoors at a cafe in the Tiergartnertorplatz (I'm assuming this means the garden plaza, near his home.) In that same square, there's a tribute to Durer's masterful watercolor hare - 'Hommage a Durer,' which is a modern, ten foot rabbit. I'm ready to go back.

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