The flourishing school which had its centre at Nuremberg is represented
at the Louvre by the master who marks its zenith and who, if his
craftsmanship was not always on a level with the perfection of
Holbein’s, shares with the Augsburg master the honour of uncontested
leadership of all German artists. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was born
at Nuremberg, of Hungarian descent. He studied his art under Michael
Wohlgemut, a very able Nuremberg painter, who was, however, led by his
popularity to factory-like production of pictures that passed under his
name, although they were largely executed by inferior pupils. Dürer,
who excelled equally as an engraver and as a painter, was, on the
other hand, one of the most sincere and personal artists of his time—a
profound thinker, a shrewd observer, a student of life in all its
phases, an idealist who was ever striving for beautiful expression,
even though the realistic tradition of his country did not allow him to
attain to the abstract ideal of beauty which had been reached by some
of the contemporary Italians. Indeed, Dürer may with justice be called
the Leonardo of the North. He studied Venetian art on a visit to Venice
in 1505, whither he had been preceded by his fame. He also travelled to
the Netherlands in 1520, the year in which he painted the signed and
dated _Head of an Old Man_ (No. 2709), his other picture at the Louvre
being the not very masterly _Head of a Child_ (No. 2709A).