An engraver. A painter. Contemporaries included Da Vinci, Bellini, Michelangelo. A renaissance man who also wrote on mathematics and human body proportions.
We first came across him when reading The Agony and the Ecstasy (an excellent, iconic biographical novel on Michelangelo) where their paths cross frequently as Dürer travels through Italy in the late 1400s and early 1500s.
Dan had to Google him (no shame in that) and found a debonair guy who looked like he could front a 80s rock band and would probably hit on your girlfriend right in front of you.
Intrigued were we.
(So much so, we included him in our Spain flashcards for the kids.)
We still know next to nothing about Northern Renaissance and the German humanists and hope to learn more (especially before taking the kids to Germany someday) and the more we learned about him the more we liked him.
More recently we caught his 1498 self-portrait in Madrid this past spring. It was high on our must-see list for the amazing Prado museum and did not disappoint.
This cocky artist-genius may not be your type of guy but we encourage you and the your family to take action and explore a topics or persons or work of art you come across that you think might be of interest. You never know how your tastes and interests evolve over time. (Open-mindedness and curiosity are also great things to model for the kids so be sure to include them in the exploring.)
Learning and appreciating can start in the smallest places (a barely mentioned character in a biographical novel before a return trip to Italy, for example) but you never know what gem might waiting for you.
Talk soon,
Dan & Betsy
Check out Smarhistory’s take on the portrait (2 min)