Humanism, status of the artist and Northern Renaissance · 1471 -1528

From the young man with the thistle to the frontal figure of 1500, Albrecht Dürer uses his own face to assert the intellectual, social and spiritual rank of the modern creator.

Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg in 1471 into a family of goldsmiths. Trained first by his father then in the studio of Michael Wolgemut, he acquired a precision of drawing which he developed through contact with engraving, portraiture and the sciences of proportion. His self-portraits mark an exceptional artistic rise. In 1493, the Self-Portrait with the Thistle associated the young figure with a plant full of possible meanings, between fidelity, Passion and personal affirmation. Five years later, the Self-Portrait with the Thistle associated the young figure with a plant loaded with possible meanings, between fidelity, Passion and personal affirmation. Five years later, the Self-Portrait with the Thistle associated the young figure with a plant loaded with possible meanings, between fidelity, Passion and personal affirmation. Five years later, the Self-Portrait with the Thistle associated the young figure with a plant loaded with possible meanings, between fidelity, Passion and personal affirmation. Five years later, the Self-Portrait with the Glove associated the young figure with a plant loaded with possible meanings, between fidelity, Passion and personal affirmation. Five years later, the Self-Portrait with Gloves shows in Venice or after the Italian trip an elegantly dressed man, aware of the new status of the adopts a strict frontality, symmetry and hand gesture reminiscent of the images of Christ Salvator. The inscription specifies that Dürer painted himself at twenty-eight: individualized face and iconic structure meet without confusion. The painter does not claim a divine identity; rather, it elevates the act of seeing and creating to a new dignity. Another more intimate self-portrait favors the bust, the hair and the gaze. Together, these works show how costume, inscription, hand and framing successively construct the apprentice, the cultured gentleman then the artist invested with almost sacred authority. They are also inseparable from the monogram AD, par which Dürer protects and disseminates an identity as an author on a European scale. The "Self-portraits of Albrecht Dürer" selection notably compares Self-portrait with thistle - Albrecht Dürer and Self-portrait with fur - Albrecht Dürer. His reading favors the material.

For Dürer, the self-portrait is not only resemblance: costume, inscription and frontality gradually invent the European figure of the artist-author.