Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg, the son of a Hungarian-born goldsmith. He learned goldsmithing from his father, then trained with the painter Michael Wolgemut, whose workshop made woodcuts for books. At thirteen he drew a self-portrait in silverpoint, one of many he made throughout his life. He traveled to Italy twice, learning from Venetian painters and studying perspective and proportion, and he became one of the first northern artists to absorb the Renaissance. In 1498 he published a series of large woodcuts of the Apocalypse that made him famous. His engravings, such as Knight, Death and the Devil and Melencolia I, both from 1513–1514, show astonishing detail. His Rhinoceros woodcut of 1515, made from a description without seeing the animal, became the standard image of a rhinoceros for centuries. He also painted watercolors of plants and animals, including the Young Hare. He worked for Emperor Maximilian I and wrote books on geometry, fortification and human proportion. An admirer of Martin Luther, he died in Nuremberg in 1528.

Faith: Catholic; his writings suggest sympathy for Martin Luther's ideas, but it is unclear whether he ever left the Catholic Church. Source: Wikipedia