Credentials
Specialization:
Northern European Art from the 1400s to 1700s
- Art from the Netherlands 1400s
- Art from Germany 1400s to early 1600s
Albrecht
Dürer
"Geometry is the right foundation of all painting."
"Melancholia I" 1514
Speaker:
Jeffrey Chipps Smith
http://www.americanacademy.de/home/person/jeffrey-chipps-smith
Undergraduate Studies:
- Duke University, Durham NC
- B.A. in Art History 1973
- Cum Laude with Special Honors
Graduate Studies:
- Colombia University, New York City, NY
- M.A. , M.Phil., Ph.D. in Art History 1979
- Joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 1979
- Professor of Art History
- Kay Fortson Chair in European Art
Interests and Background
- exposed to European art in high school
- Lived in Europe - Brussels Belgium
- First artistic interests: Pieter Bruegel, a Flemish Rennaisance painter and Netherlandish 15th-16th century art
- After many years he developed an interest in Durer
- Independent study on Durer during Graduate School at Colombia
Early Professional Career
- Major exhibition: "Nuremberg, A Renaissance City, 1500-1618"
- cemented interest in Durer and his contemporaries
Published Works
- Author of numerous articles and essays on various artistic subjects
- co-editor of a book on Dürer: “The Essential Dürer”
- Writer of a general text on Dürer entitled “Dürer”
- explores the artistic process of this amazing artist within the context of history and culture in Germany (late 1400s - early 1500s)
- chapters and sections devoted to explanations of Durer's Geometry and his theoretical treatises
http://webmuseum.meulie.net/wm/paint/auth/durer/self/self-28.jpg
Biographical Information
- born in 1471 in Nuremburg Germany
- City between two art capitals of the time (The Netherlands and Italy)
- Profound impact on his future
- Third child of eighteen
- Parents: Albrecht Durer Senior and Barbara Holfer
- Family emigrated from Hungary (Ajtos -> Turer -> Durer)
Education and Interests
- educated a Latin school in St Lorenz
- 1485: Goldsmith and jeweler apprenticeship
- Picked up painting when he was young
- Amazing self portrait at age 13
- 1486: Painting and Woodcutting apprentice under Michael Wolgemut
- After four years he exceeded the skill of his teacher
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/images/durer-self-portrait-at-the-age-of-thirteen.jpg
Influences and Travels
- Encouraged to travel and meet different artists for four years
Germany
- Germany: Nordlingen, Ulm, Constance, Basel, Colmar, and Strasbourg
- developed his own style while learning about other styles
- saw Dutch influences
- met with many artists
Italy
- 1st Trip to Italy
- -artistic center and center of mathematical revival
- main destination Venice:
- sketched, visited architectural sites, galleries, learned from Italian artists and mathematicians
- Jacopo de Barbari
- Luca Pacioli
- mathematics in art and beauty
- 1500: ideal beauty can be found through mathematics
“The new art must be based upon science – in particular, upon mathematics, as the most exact, logical, and graphically constructive of the sciences.”
- Durer-
Durer in Mathematics
- Began a serious study of mathematics
- He studied geometry, and mastered perspective and proportion
- Influences:
- Euclid-
- Vitruvius
- Mathematical concepts showed by 1500
- specifically proportion (seen in his series of wood carvings “Life of the Virgen” (1502-1505))
- body's ratios - how the different parts relate to each other -> construction of ideal bodies 7, 8, or 9 heads
- perspective
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/durer/engravings/birth-virgin.jpg
http://www.masterworksfineart.com/inventory/durer/original/durer2105.jpg
http://www.silesiancollections.eu/var/plain_site/storage/images/dziela/grafika/duerer-albrecht-zaslubiny-marii-z-jozefem/albrecht-duerer-zaslubiny-marii-z-jozefem/4646-1-pol-PL/Albrecht-Duerer-The-Betrothal-of-the-Virgin_width350.jpg
http://www.artclon.com/OtherFile/Durer_AlbrechtXXAdam_and_Eve.jpg
2nd trip to Italy
- to learn about math, not art
- Met with Barbari and Pacioli
- Realized that he must study mathematics even more to further his understanding in how it aided art Compiled research for a book on mathematics and applications in art
http://www.smu.edu/~/media/Site/Bridwell/Exhibitions/Durer%202011/DurerMelancholiaI.ashx?as=1&w=300
- Representative of an artistic genius of the Renaissance period that has all the tools of the trade, but lacks sufficient mathematical knowledge to realize "perfection".
- This casts him into a state of Melancholy, the title of the engraving
- Mathematics tools
- Represent geometry and underlying mathematical skills in art
- Irregular polyhedron stone
- Magic square
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Albrecht_Dürer_-_Melencolia_I_(detail).jpg/220px-Albrecht_Dürer_-_Melencolia_I_(detail).jpg
1520s
Treatise on Proportion published 1523
Required more math knowledge than most had
Wrote a more basic text in 4 books 1525 to explain the math
"Unterweisung der Messung mit dem Wirkel und Richtscheit" (Instruction in measuring with compass and Straightedge)
Significance in Mathematics
What it included:
- How to construct geometric curves
- Construction of regular polygons
- How to square a circle
- How to trisect and angle using a compass
- Study of pyramids,cylinders, conic sections
- Five platonic solids
- How to use tools to create perspective
- Light and shading (proportion)
How Durer impacted mathematics
First math text in German
use of his theories and studied mathematics in his art
Space curves
- projected them onto planes (spirals)
- how to construct them
Epicycloids
Orthogonal projections of curves on 2 and 3 perpendicular planes
Origins of descriptive Geometry
Perfect Topic for a Convocation
- not many people transcend art and math to this extent
- as famous in math as he is in art
Works Cited
Finnan, Vincent. "Albrecht Durer." Italian Renaissance Art. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2012. <http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Durer.html>.
McNeely, Michael. "Dürer's "Melancholia I": A 16th Century Tribute to Mathematics." Pi in the Sky 1.11 (2008): 10-11. Pi in the Sky 300 years of Euler. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
Nowlan, Robert. "Albrecht Durer." A chronicle of Mathematical People. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. <www.robertnowlan.com/pdfs/Durer,%20Albrecht.pdf>.
O'Connor, J.J., and E.F. Robertson. "Durer biography." MacTutor History of Mathematics. School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland, n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. <http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Durer.html>.
Silver, Daniel. "Slicing a Cone for Art and Science." American Scientist 100.5 (2012): 408-415. Print.
Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. Dürer. London: Phaidon, 2012. Print.