Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:37:22.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Alter Apelles: Dürer’s 1500 Self-Portrait

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Margaret A. Sullivan
Margaret A. Sullivan*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The persistence of interpretations that view Dürer’s 1500 Self-Portrait as a Christlike image in spite of the issue of blasphemy it raises is due in large part to the lack of a competing historical narrative, one that accounts for the unusual aspects of the painting without recourse to religious imagery. In this article, Dürer’s motivation in creating this unprecedented painting and the strategies he used in constructing it are analyzed from the perspective of his contemporaries. In this alternative view, the humanist context is crucial, with Dürer emulating the greatest artist of the ancient world by composing the 1500 Self-Portrait in ways that accord with Apelles’s art, practice, and reputation as it was transmitted through the literature of the ancient world.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , Winter 2015 , pp. 1161 - 1191
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anzelewsky, Fedja. Dürer-Studien: Untersuchungen zu den ikonographischen und geistesgeschichtenlichen Grundlagen seiner Werke zwichen den beide Italienreisen. Berlin, 1983.Google Scholar
Bialostocki, Jan. “Dürer’s Christ among the Doctors and Its Sources. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 22 (1959): 17–34.10.2307/750557CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialostocki, Jan. Dürer and His Critics, 1500–1971: Chapters in the History of Ideas Including a Collection of Texts. Baden-Baden, 1986.Google Scholar
Brann, Noel L. “Humanism in Germany.” In Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms and Legacies. ed. A. Rabil Jr., 2:123–55. Philadelphia, 1988.Google Scholar
Brant, Sebastian. Das Narrenschiff. Ed. Junghans, H. A.. Stuttgart, 1964.Google Scholar
Bruno, Vincent J. Form and Color in Greek Painting. New York, 1977.Google Scholar
Campbell, Lorne. Renaissance Portraits: Paintings in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. London, 1993.Google Scholar
Cast, David. The Calumny of Apelles: A Study in the Humanist Tradition. New Haven, 1981.Google Scholar
Conway, William Martin, ed. The Writings of Albrecht Dürer. New York, 1958.Google Scholar
Cuneo, Pia F. “The Artist, His Horse, a Print, and Its Audience: Producing and Viewing the Ideal in Dürer’s Knight, Death and the Devil (1513).” In The Essential Dürer (2010), 115–29.Google Scholar
Doody, Aude. Pliny’s Encyclopedia: The Reception of the Natural History. Cambridge, 2010.10.1017/CBO9780511676222CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dürer, Albrecht. The Painter’s Manual: A Manual of Measurement by Lines, Areas, and Solids by Means of Compass and Ruler Assembled by Albrecht Dürer for the Use of All Lovers of Art with Appropriate Illustrations to be Printed in the Year MDXXV by Albrecht Dürer. Trans. Walter Strauss. New York, 1977.Google Scholar
Dürer Master Printmaker. Greenwich, 1971. Exhibition Catalogue.Google Scholar
Erasmus, Desiderius. Adages Ii1–Iv100. Ed. R. A. B. Mynors. Trans. Margaret Mann Phillips. Vol. 31 of Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto, 1982.Google Scholar
Erasmus, Desiderius. Literary and Educational Writings, 3 and 4. Vols. 25 and 26 of Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto, 1985.Google Scholar
Erasmus, Desiderius. The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 1535–1657 (1525). Ed. Charles G. Nauert and Alexander Dalzell. Vol. 11 of Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto, 1994.10.3138/9781442680975CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Essential Dürer. Ed. Larry Silver and Jeffrey Chipps Smith. Philadelphia, 2010.Google Scholar
Geise, Rachel. “Erasmus and the Visual Arts.” Journal of Modern History 7 (1935): 257–79.10.1086/236232CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, Creighton. “A Preface to Signatures (with Some Cases in Venice).” In Fashioning Identities in Renaissance Art. ed. Rogers, Mary, 79–87. Farnham, 2000.Google Scholar
Goffen, Rona. “Crossing the Alps: Portraiture in Renaissance Venice.” In Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian. ed. Bernard Aikema and Beverly Louise Brown, 114–31. New York, 2000.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Gisela, Heimberg, Bruno, and Schawe, Martin. Albrecht Dürer: Die Gemälde der Alten Pinokothek. Heidelberg, 1998.Google Scholar
Gombrich, Ernst H. “Dark Varnishes: Variations on a Theme from Pliny.” Burlington Magazine 1.4 (1962): 51–55.Google Scholar
Gombrich, Ernst H. “Controversial Methods and Methods of Controversy.” Burlington Magazine 1.5 (1963): 90–93.Google Scholar
Gombrich, Ernst H. Symbolic Images: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance. Chicago, 1972.Google Scholar
Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg, 1300–1550. Munich, 1986. Exhibition Catalogue.Google Scholar
Grafton, Anthony. “The New Science and Traditions of Humanism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. ed. Kraye, Jill, 203–23. Cambridge, 1996.10.1017/CCOL0521430380.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Greek Anthology in Five Volumes. Trans. Paton, W. R.. London, 1918.Google Scholar
Holzberg, Niklas. “Lucian and the Germans.” In The Uses of Greek and Latin: Historical Essays. ed. A. C. Dionisotti, Anthony Grafton, and Jill Kraye, 199–209. London, 1988.Google Scholar
Horace, . Horace, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica. Trans. H. Ruston Fairclough. Cambridge, MA, 1978.Google Scholar
Hutchison, Jane Campbell. Albrecht Dürer: A Biography. Princeton, 1990.Google Scholar
Joachimsen, Paul. “Humanism and the Development of the German Mind.” In Pre-Reformation Germany (1972), 162–224.10.1007/978-1-349-01001-1_6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koerner, Joseph Leo. The Moment of Self-Portraiture in Renaissance Art. Chicago, 1993.Google Scholar
Koreny, Fritz. Albrecht Dürer and the Animal and Plant Studies of the Renaissance. Munich, 1985.Google Scholar
Kurth, Willi. The Complete Woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer. New York, 1963.Google Scholar
Land, Norman E. “Giotto as Apelles.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 24.3 (2005): 6–9.Google Scholar
Land, Norman E. “Apelles and Self-Portrayal.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 25/4 (2006a): 1–3.Google Scholar
Land, Norman E. “Leonardo da Vinci and Apelles.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 25/2 (2006b): 14–17.Google Scholar
Laurie, A. P. Greek and Roman Methods of Painting. Cambridge, 1910.Google Scholar
Mack, Peter. “Rudolph Agricola’s Reading of Literature.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985): 23–41.10.2307/751210CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthew, Louisa C. “The Painter’s Presence: Signatures in Venetian Renaissance Pictures.” Art Bulletin 80.4 (1998): 616–48.10.2307/3051316CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McHam, Sarah Blake. Pliny and the Artistic Culture of Renaissance Italy. New Haven, 2013.Google Scholar
Mende, Mathias. Dürer Heute. Ed. Willi Bongard and Mathias Mende. Munich, 1971.Google Scholar
Moxey, Keith. “Impossible Distance: Past and Present in the Study of Dürer and Grünwald.” In The Essential Dürer (2010), 206–26.Google Scholar
Münch, Paul. “Changing German Perceptions of the Historical Role of Albrecht Dürer.” In Dürer and his Culture. ed. Dagmar Eichberger and Charles Zika, 181–99. Cambridge, 1998.Google Scholar
Nauert, Charles Jr., “Caius Plinius Secundus.” In Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, Annotated Lists and Guides ed. F. Edward Cranz, 4:297–422. Washington, DC, 1980.Google Scholar
Panofsky, Erwin. The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer. 4th ed. Princeton, 1955.Google Scholar
Parshall, Peter W. “Camerarius on Dürer: Humanist Biography as Art Criticism.” In Joachim Camerarius (1500–1574): Beiträge zur Geschichte des Humanismus im Zeitalter der Reformation. ed. Frank Baron, 11–29. Munich, 1978.Google Scholar
Pfisterer, Ulrich. “Apelles im Norden.” In Apelles im Fürstenhof, Facetten der Hofkunst um 1500 im Alten Reich. ed. Matthias Müller, Klaus Weschenfelder, Beate Böckem, and Ruth Hansmann, 9–21. Berlin, 2010.Google Scholar
Pliny the Elder. Pliny: Natural History. vol. 9 of 10. Trans. Rackham, H.. London, 1968.Google Scholar
Pope-Hennessy, John. The Portrait in the Renaissance. Princeton, 1966.Google Scholar
Preimesberger, Rudolf. “Zu Jan van Eyck’s Diptychon der Sammlung Thyssen-Bornemisza.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 54 (1991): 459–89.10.2307/1482569CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pre-Reformation Germany. Ed. Strauss, Gerard. New York, 1972.10.1007/978-1-349-01001-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, David Hotchkiss. Albrecht Dürer’s Renaissance: Humanism, Reformation and the Art of Faith. Ann Arbor, 2003.10.3998/mpub.17733CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quintilian, . The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian. Trans. H. E. Butler. 4 vols. New York, 1921.Google Scholar
Rebel, Ernst. Albrecht Dürer, Maler und Humanist. Munich, 1996.Google Scholar
Reinach, Rudolf. Textes Grecs et Latins relatifs a l’histoire de la peinture ancienne. Chicago, 1981.Google Scholar
Rupprich, Hans. “Willibald Pirckheimer: A Study of His Personality as a Scholar.” In Pre-Reformation Germany (1972), 380–435.10.1007/978-1-349-01001-1_11CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. Nuremberg as a Renaissance City, 1500–1618. Austin, 1983.Google Scholar
Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. “Dürer and Sculpture.” In The Essential Dürer (2010), 74–98.Google Scholar
Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. Dürer. New York, 2012.Google Scholar
Smith, Julie A. “The Poet Laureate as University Master: John Skelton’s Woodcut Portrait.” In Renaissance Rereadings: Intertext and Context. ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Anne J. Cruz, and Wendy A. Furman, 165–78. Chicago, 1988.Google Scholar
Spitz, Lewis W. Conrad Celtis, the German Arch-Humanist. Cambridge, MA, 1957.10.4159/harvard.9780674435957CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spitz, Lewis W. “Humanism in Germany.” In The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe. ed. A. Goodman and A. MacKay, 202–19. London, 1990.Google Scholar
Strieder, Peter. Albrecht Dürer: Paintings, Prints, Drawings. New York, 1982.Google Scholar
Thompson, Craig R. The Latin Translations of Lucian by Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. Ithaca, 1940.Google Scholar
Ullman, B. L. The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script. Rome, 1960.Google Scholar
Varro, Marcus Terentius. On the Latin Language. Trans. R. G. Kent. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1993.Google Scholar
Wardrop, James. The Script of Humanism: Some Aspects of Humanistic Script 1460–1560. Oxford, 1963.Google Scholar
Wolf, Norbert. Dürer. Munich, 2010.Google Scholar
Woods-Marsden, Joanna. Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist. New Haven, 1998.Google Scholar
Wuttke, Dieter. “Unbekannte Celtis, Epigramme zum Lobe Dürers.” In Zeitschaft für Kunstgeschichte 30 (1967): 321–25.10.2307/1481692CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wuttke, Dieter. “Dürer und Celtes: Van der Beudeutung des Jahres 1500 für den deutschen Humanisme.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 10.1 (1980): 73–129.Google Scholar