The Pictorialization of Dürer's Drawings in Northern Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Book excerpt: This book examines the unique phenomenon of the pictorialization of Dürer's drawings. Representative Northern European painters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - such as Hans Schäufelein, Jacob Hoefnagel and Jan Brueghel the Elder - reproduced Dürer's drawings, from single motifs to whole compositions in brilliant colors. This publication discusses the character of Dürer's workshop, preferences for drawings in Renaissance Germany, questions about authorship and ownership around works of art and the reception and adaptation of the Northern Renaissance art in the Prague Mannerism. It also demonstrates how in the course of the sixteenth century the evaluation of Dürer's drawings in Northern Europe changed.