Dürer’s Journeys: Travels Of A Renaissance Artist – National Gallery, London

A review of Dürer’s Journeys: Travels Of A Renaissance Artist at the National Gallery in London. A charming exhibition which underscores how artists have always learned from travel and the resulting exchange of ideas.

Travels Of A Renaissance Artist

Like Poussin And The Dance, which I saw recently at the National Gallery, Dürer’s Journeys: Travels Of A Renaissance Artist is a fairly learned exhibition. The title neatly explains its purpose – it looks at the various journeys of Albrecht Dürer away from his Nuremberg home. Through looking at these travels, we understand more about Dürer as an artist and a person, but also learn about different artistic centres in Europe, the practicalities of Renaissance travel, and artistic techniques and methods of dissemination.

That is a lot of ground to cover, geographically and in terms of subject matter. Dürer, however, is the perfect lens through which to access these themes. Firstly, and very importantly, he kept a travel journal. The original has not survived, but copies have. A fair bit of correspondence from his time away from home also still exists. We can thus trace exactly what Dürer was up to on his travels, and hear his own thoughts on what he saw and experienced.

Dürer was also a curious and inquisitive artist. He sought out artists who could teach him about newfangled theories, for example on human proportion. He was friends with other artists, exchanging drawings and going to their weddings. It paints a nice picture of an artistic community, rather than each Renaissance figure existing in isolation.

Dürer’s Journeys

You may be wondering by now where exactly it was that Dürer journeyed to. Well it was a relatively confined area, but he was away from home for long periods of time. Dürer’s first trip was from 1490-4, to Colmar, Basel and Strasbourg. In 1494 he set out over the Alps, likely as far as Venice. This was followed by a second Venetian trip from 1505-7, and then a trip to the Low Countries (Antwerp, Aachen, Brussels, Mechelen, Bruges, Ghent) in 1520-1.

So for the time, this was no mean feat. Dürer’s travels not only gave him access to different artistic traditions, but also to the known world. The exhibition features some of his drawings of exotic animals, and I was astonished to see drawings of objects from the Americas, scarcely a couple of decades after Columbus’s voyages. Dürer’s horizons were much broader than I would otherwise have given him credit for.

The exhibition (expertly curated by Susan Foister and Peter van den Brink) has a good selection of objects on view to expand on these points. There are works by Dürer and his contemporaries (including artists who inspired him and whom he inspired), letters and other archival documents, and many of Dürer’s sketches of what he saw on his travels. It’s fascinating to see artists reusing elements from each other’s compositions, and how quickly a new idea (eg. Dürer’s new take on depicting Saint Jerome) can spread.

Dürer’s Voice

What I particularly liked about Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist was hearing Dürer’s own voice. Through his letters and excerpts from his diaries we get to know a little more about him. And it’s quite entertaining. Dürer seems to have been someone very aware of his growing fame, and proud of it. The sort of person to write to his friends and brag about how he had so many commissions he was turning them down. And also get annoyed with the Venetians who thought he was just a printmaker and would be no good with colours. This is after all an artist who depicted himself in the style of a Salvator Mundi (Christ, Saviour of the World) so maybe this ego shouldn’t be surprising.

All in all I found this a very pleasing exhibition. I have a much better understanding of Dürer and of the life of a Renaissance artist. And it reminded me as well how much I personally value travel for the new perspectives and connections it brings.

Just a final note – if you do see Dürer’s Journeys, bring along some headphones. There is an interesting audioguide available using your own smartphone. I enjoyed focusing in on a couple of works per room as a way to further enjoy this excellent National Gallery exhibition

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist on until 27 February 2022